Shell Game
Page 34
“So,” I said to Lynn, “I’ve been thinking.”
She peeked around the sail. Definitely concerned, if not panicked. “Have you?”
I clucked my tongue. “Ye of little faith. I’ve been thinking that we should revise our long-term plan.”
“Revise what part of it?”
“The part that involves me becoming the High Lady of Kila after we’re done with this whole civil war thing. I fret and panic enough when I’m in charge of twelve ships. I don’t need an excuse to take all of the sins of the nation on my back.”
She thought about that as she tied off a rope. “Hmm. You might have a point . . . and frankly, the whole ‘ruling the world’ business seems sort of labour intensive. I’m not interested in having you work twenty-two hours a day.”
“Exactly. Besides, there’s a better person for the job now.”
She looked confused, and then her face cleared. “Ariadne?”
“That’s the one.”
“She wants to be a healer, you know. A mother too, gods help her.”
“If she wants to be a healer, there’s a whole damn country that needs healing. As for the mothering thing, we shove a few orphans in her direction and run away. Problem solved.”
“So what about us? What’ll we do after the war?”
For the time being, I let myself believe that the war would have an end, and that both Lynn and I would see the end of it. It wasn’t even hard to believe on a day like today. I angled my head back and felt the sun on my face. “I thought that we could just keep doing this. Forever. Unless we get sick of it and decide to do something different.”
Lynn studied me. “You know something? I think that is a well-conceived plan.”
“Glad you agree. Now go and use your superhuman powers of persuasion on my lazy bosun. Get her to come over here and handle the sails. Because you and I are going down to the hold and we are not coming up until both of us are good and ready.”
“You’re going to ravish me now? Honestly?”
“Actually, I was thinking that we could both use a nap. But I’m open to other options, if you insist.”
“We don’t have a cabin down there.”
“I’ll build you one. Did it before. This one will be better. It may even have a pool.”
“Because the ship’s leaking.”
“Because, as you say, the ship is leaking. But we don’t need to dwell on little details like that, do we?”
“What if I refuse to go with you?”
“Well then, girl, I have my own powers of persuasion.”
“Watch it, babe.”
“Don’t you mean ‘Mistress’?”
“Don’t push your luck. Now are you going to get your bony pirate arse below, or do I have to kick it down the stairs?”
I grinned. “Whatever you say, Lynn. As always, whatever you say.”
EPILOGUE: SIX YEARS LATER
PEOPLE TALK ABOUT a time that seems as distant as a dream,
When the stars all spiralled backwards, and the rivers ran upstream,
In the middle of the war that brought our nation to the brink,
Back when nothing ever worked out in the way that you would think.
For they say there was a girl, back in the whirlwind of the war,
Who was whipped and shamed and tortured for the royal blood she bore—
Yet as a nameless slave girl on a wild and wicked sea,
Bound and branded, lost and helpless, she found pride and dignity.
And her captor was an exile who had known a bitter time:
An unrepentant criminal, a kiss her only crime,
Who always stood the steadiest when tossing on the foam,
Who, had she not been banished, would have never found her home.
And they say a shining princess in a castle high above
Kissed her father out of hatred; killed her mother out of love.
And from that bloody murder, a new hope began to spring,
And a pirate and her slave girl were the source of everything.
You see, even murder heals sometimes, and even love can bleed;
A fruitful womb may bear no fruit; a barren one can breed.
What you see as devastation could be rescue in disguise,
If you let your blinkers fall away and open up your eyes.
Now I’m not much of a scholar, but it’s clear to even fools
That sometimes there’s no fairness ’til you start breaking the rules—
And it isn’t really justice to treat everyone the same—
And if you’ve got no way to win, it’s time to change the game.
And so we’ve come to twist the rules like bits of linen thread:
We’ll bend each law all back to front, turn ethics on its head.
We’ll be wiser than our parents, question everything they knew,
Hoping only that our children will be wiser than us, too.
For no matter what the jurists and philosophers assert
There is just one human duty: it’s to help more than you hurt.
And the world must turn and change, whatever gloomy prophets say—
And if you can’t accept that? Get the hell out of my way.
“Are you ever going to put out the lamp?”
Ariadne, formerly of the House of Bain, High Lady of Kila, laid her pen down on top of the completed poem and glanced out the window. White electric threads of lightning whipped across the purple sky, like cracks in a dark stone. “I’m worried about them.”
“Don’t be,” Latoya said, propping herself up on one elbow in the canopied bed. “It’d take more than a summer thunderstorm to sink the Banshee.”
“I know, oh I know,” Ariadne said. “But it might slow them down, and I’m going to have the biggest tantrum in the history of time if they’re not here for the birth. Seriously, it’ll be epic. You’ll be able to sell tickets.”
Latoya yawned and settled her head back down. “Is it raining like a bitch?”
“Yes.”
“Are the waves whitecapped and horrible?”
“Yes.”
“Does the whole sea look like a scene from a nightmare?”
“Yes.”
“They’ll be here tomorrow morning,” Latoya predicted sleepily. “Doing the impossible is kind of what they do.”
There was no denying that one. Ariadne stared at the frothing sea. Somewhere out there was a pirate ship, its red sails streaming water, and a storm-petrel flag streaking out against the sky. Darren would be on deck, bawling orders, and Lynn would be at her side, blonde hair plastered back with rain, eyes alive with delight. Or maybe they weren’t on deck at all. Maybe Lynn’s arms were aching in the damp weather, so they were down in their cabin, and Darren was rubbing the soreness out. Or maybe—
“Ariadne,” Latoya groaned from behind the curtains.
After a last glance at the ocean, Ariadne blew out the lamp, kicked off her slippers, pulled off her robe, and slipped into bed. The coverlets were mounded over Latoya’s bulging stomach. Ariadne touched the top of it gently. Right on cue, she felt a kick.
There’s always another way, Ariadne thought, with drowsy happiness, and settled her head on Latoya’s shoulder, her arm around the pregnant belly. Ten seconds later, they were both asleep.
About the Author
Benny Lawrence lives in Toronto, Canada, where she works as a lawyer while wondering just when in hell she grew up. Occasionally, she dons elaborate hats and sallies out after dark to solve crimes. There being no crimes lying around for her to solve, she mooches off home and eats cookies instead. She enjoys dead languages, not-dead cats, fizzy drinks, preparing for the apocalypse, and board games. She has been told that she takes her board games much too seriously. On a literature front, she is obsessed with mysteries, science fiction, and fantasy books, as long as they involve snappy dialogue and females who can deliver it.
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