The House of the Four Winds: Book One of One Dozen Daughters

by Mercedes Lackey

  I think you are the strongest man I have ever known, Clarice thought, marveling at his calm. In a deep part of her, something that pushed aside her fear vowed she would be worthy of that strength.

  * * *

  The day was quiet. Even boring. Shamal did not appear on deck. Gregale did not move from his place. Clarice spent the morning seeing the former captives, one by one, in the surgery. She wrote down each name on her clipboard, and of each man she asked the same questions:

  Your name? Your age? Where were you born? What ship were you on when you were taken? What is your trade?

  The crew had spoken with them freely already; Clarice added her own reassurances and, in some cases, corrected misinformation.

  We are not pirates. We are not mutineers. We overthrew our captain, Samuel Sprunt, who was in league with the House of the Four Winds. We have been commandeered to sail after treasure by Shamal, a sorceress.

  When the first six or seven had passed from the surgery to the deck, she could hear Kayin’s pipe, and the rhythmic boom of a drum as he began to turn landsmen into sailors. Most of the men had been going to New Hesperia as colonists. Many of them had left families behind on Dorado—or seen them slain.

  My wife—my daughter—my sister—my boy—what will happen to them?

  To those questions, Clarice gave the only answer she could:

  You must be strong. When Shamal has what she seeks, we will sail back to Dorado again.

  Clarice cleaned and bandaged minor injuries and gave each of them a dose of cod-liver oil, a dram of whiskey, and a piece of preserved lime.

  I know it is terribly bitter, but you must not spit it out. Chew it up and swallow it, for it will make you stronger.

  She could do little else.

  A fisherman, were you? That is good news for us. Tell Kayin when you go up.

  You were in service? What did you do there? You have skill in cookery? Tell Kayin so. Mr. Emerson, our cook, will need help.

  You were a lawyer? A schoolmaster? You are a seaman now.

  She hoped for a doctor, but wasn’t surprised not to find one. These were all young men, some barely more than boys. The youngest and strongest of Dorado’s human cattle.

  You are brothers? Be glad you are together.

  She was only halfway through her work when Jerrold came to summon her to lunch.

  Go and eat. I will see the rest of you afterward.

  * * *

  When she crossed the deck to the common room, she saw it was full of men resting from the morning’s drill. John Tiptree was moving among them with baskets, handing out bread and cheese. There was an open hogshead—the scuttlebutt—and as she passed it, she caught a strong whiff of whiskey.

  “And how was your morning, Clarence?” Dominick asked as she entered. The table was already set, and the meal laid out upon the table. There were only five places now.

  “Grim. And yours?”

  “Busy. It would be funny if our situation wasn’t so bad. Half those poor lubbers can’t tell port from starboard, and I don’t think they believed Kayin when he said he was going to make topmen out of them.”

  “Can he?” Clarice asked, remembering looking down from the yardarm at the sea so far below.

  “Probably not. But he can teach them enough that they’ll be some use. I am putting together a watch roster and spreading out our original crew among them. It should do well enough.”

  “I hope so. Some of them have family, still alive, on Dorado. I have told everyone Shamal means us to sail back there when she is done with us.”

  Geordie and Kayin entered then.

  “Which for all we know, she does,” Dominick said. “Where is Dickon?”

  “Said he’d as soon stay at the helm,” Kayin said. “I don’t think he wants to leave young Miles alone.”

  “Wise,” Dominick said. “Until we can be sure of the temper of our new hands. For now, we will go on as we are and hope for the best.” He took the lid off the soup tureen. “I hope Mr. Emerson is doing as well for our crew as he is for us.”

  “Better, so he swears,” Kayin said with a faint smile. “Says he means to fatten them like a pig for table.”

  “I cannot ask for better,” Dominick said.

  * * *

  Clarice’s work in the surgery continued through the afternoon, until at last she had seen every one of the prisoners. A dozen of them were still too ill to work; Clarice assured them that they would not be thrown overboard (she was by now more familiar with the behavior of pirates than she wanted to be) and made commonsense prescriptions: food, rest, gentle exercise, until she took them from the sick list.

  At supper Kayin reported the crew, new and old, was quiet: everyone had worked hard today.

  Clarice made her own report: “The rest of our crew have no more useful skills than the others, save that Elijah Sisko is a tailor, and Robert Kinsey is a deacon in the New Church. He was to take his vows when he reached Manna-hattan, he told me.”

  “Let’s hope he won’t be as much trouble as Dobbs was,” Dominick said.

  “I think he is a good man,” Clarice said. “He will be on the sick list for a fortnight at least; he was badly beaten while he was in the stockade. By another prisoner, I think, though he will not say. I did ask if the man was part of our company; he says he is not.”

  “Small mercies,” Dickon said. “I cannot imagine what we’d do if we had to call a captain’s mast to hear the case.”

  Clarice looked at Dominick. His face was bleak. She knew what he was thinking: it would be Shamal’s will, not his, that would be done if that happened.

  “We shall pray it does not come to that,” Clarice said firmly.

  * * *

  The long day, and the night before it without sleep, had left her exhausted enough to retire to her bed immediately. She fell into her bunk with a weary sigh. Each day survived was a victory.

  Somewhere in the night, a sound roused her from her exhausted slumber. It was so faint Clarice wasn’t sure whether she truly heard it. Someone was singing. A lilting, wordless tune that seemed to echo the surge of the ocean over which they sailed. She strained after the sound, telling herself that in a moment, a moment more, she would get out of bed and go in search of the singer.

  But the next time she opened her eyes, the light of morning was shining in through the open porthole.

  * * *

  The day began quietly enough, but the halcyon interlude was not to last.

  Clarice was on deck. The men were at their drills. Dominick had said they would turn north sometime tomorrow. She knew that the longer they went without danger, the more likely it was the original crew would object to sailing into unfamiliar waters.

  Then a musket shot sounded.

  She looked first to Dominick—at the helm, speaking to Dickon—and then about the deck.

  After another shot, and another, Robert Kinsey burst out of the door to the common room. He was brandishing a pistol. Two more were tucked through the waistband of his breeches.

  “It’s a duppy, men! It can’t be killed! This ship is cursed!”

  Clarice began to run toward him. From the corner of her eye, she could see Dominick doing the same.

  Gregale loomed behind Kinsey in the doorway—with powder burns across his ribs and marks where Kinsey’s shots had struck. But there was no blood.

  Kinsey turned, sensing Gregale behind him, and backed away, raising the pistol in his shaking hands. The shot missed, and then it was too late. Gregale reached out and seized Kinsey. Instead of choking him, or battering him, Gregale simply pulled. Clarice heard the grating popping sound as Kinsey’s arms were pulled from their sockets, dislocating both of them. Kinsey screamed, a high, anguished sound.

  It shocked Clarice from her immobility. She ran forward, drawing her blade. When she reached Gregale, she struck with all her strength. The blade bit deep, with no more effect than the bullets had had. Gregale ignored her.

  Kinsey had stopped screaming. His arms were horr
ibly disjointed, the skin turning black with blood, and still Gregale pulled, with inhuman patience and absolute concentration. She raised her sword to strike again—surely Gregale, whatever he was, must die if she could cut off his head?

  Kayin grabbed her from behind, dragging her backward to safety as she kicked and struggled.

  “Don’t—don’t—let me go!” she shouted.

  Dominick rushed past them, a belaying pin in his hand. He struck Shamal’s monstrous, mute servant with it over and over until Gregale released one of Kinsey’s arms to catch the pin and toss it aside. Clarice expected Gregale to strike Dominick next, but he simply shoved him out of the way, almost gently, and set his foot on Kinsey’s leg. He pulled again, and the arm in his hand came away with a ripping sound. Dominick drew his knife, leaping onto Gregale’s back, one arm around Gregale’s throat. He stabbed, again and again, into Gregale’s ribs—with no effect. Clarice kicked back, freeing herself, and lunged for her dropped sword.

  “He can’t take all of us!”

  Clarice didn’t know who’d shouted. But what would have become a rushing mob in the next moment was quelled by the arrival of Shamal.

  “Stop,” Shamal said. Dominick froze. “Come here,” she said, and Dominick moved to her side. She flicked her fingers at Gregale, who picked up Kinsey’s mutilated body and moved toward the rail.

  There was silence behind Clarice. She did not dare to turn and look. It had all happened so fast.

  “I am displeased,” Shamal said calmly. “Are you not also displeased, my darling?”

  There was a splash as Kinsey’s body was thrown overboard.

  “Yes,” Dominick said dully. “I am displeased, Lady Shamal.”

  “Bespelled…,” someone behind Clarice whispered.

  “Gregale has done nothing, yet you allow your men to attack him.”

  “He didn’t know!” Clarice cried. “He was here on deck!”

  “The man who attacked your servant is dead,” Dominick said desperately. “Lady, have mercy. I beg you.”

  “There will be an end to this,” Shamal said.

  Gregale had crossed the deck again to stand at her back. The wounds on his body were plain to see. They would have killed any normal man. Gregale did not even seem to have noticed them. That, as much as Shamal’s hyperreal presence, held the sailors at Clarice’s back motionless with horror.

  “You will punish your crew, Dominick,” Shamal said. “You will make your displeasure known. And you will remove all weapons from this ship.”

  “Yes, Lady Shamal. As you wish,” Dominick said hoarsely.

  “Begin,” she said, and walked back inside.

  Gregale followed.

  Clarice took a step toward Dominick.

  “Clarence,” he said, “throw your sword over the side.”

  “Rush him!” someone shouted. “Throw him over side! Throw them both over!”

  “Belay that!” Kayin’s bellow could have stunned a charging bull.

  Clarice turned to look back. The deck was crowded. Asesino’s crew and the former prisoners—the latter easy to spot because of their pale skin and starved condition—were mixed together. Some looked frightened. Some angry.

  “You all know me.” Kayin held a belaying pin in his hand. “And you know Dominick. Bespelled, aye. I don’t like it either. But put him over side, and we lose the only man who can sail us home.”

  “It won’t change anything!” Clarice said, adding her voice to Kayin’s. She lifted her sword and tossed it into the sea. “You’ll only make her mad! And one of you—”

  “I won’t sail on a cursed ship!”

  Clarice saw someone at the back of the mob scramble to the rail and fling himself into the sea with a shriek. Terrible as it was, the act broke the tension. Several of the crew rushed to the rail to look.

  “Any of you want to join him?” Kayin bellowed. “Do it now!”

  Clarice went to Dominick’s side. He gripped her arm tightly, as if to steady himself. The moment was balanced on a knife’s edge.

  “No?” Kayin demanded. “Then back to your stations—lively now!”

  Slowly the mob broke apart into knots of men. Kayin did not move, still watching.

  “You must punish them,” Clarice said in a low voice. “What will you do?”

  Dominick shook his head as if he were fighting some urging. “Rogerio Vasquez!” he said, releasing Clarice and taking a few steps toward Kayin. “Stand forward!”

  After a wait that seemed too long, Rogerio Vasquez disengaged himself from a knot of men and walked the length of the deck. Some of the sailors reached out to him as he passed, but he kept his eyes fixed on Dominick’s face.

  “You are the armsmaster for this vessel, are you not?” Dominick said.

  “You know I am.” Rogerio’s face had a gray sheen beneath the bronze, and his skin was beaded with fear sweat.

  “Then it was by your carelessness that Kinsey was able to arm himself. I am very displeased,” Dominick said as mechanically as if he were reciting from a book. “I will make my displeasure known.”

  “Dominick?” Rogerio whispered. “Spirits and Powers—”

  “Take every musket and pistol, every saber and cutlass, every weapon, and throw them over the side. The powder and shot as well. Unship the cannon and throw them overboard as well.”

  “Dominick?”

  “You must!” Dominick said urgently. “She has ordered it done, and if you won’t do it by my order, you must do it at her will.”

  Rogerio swallowed hard, the terror on his face mixed now with pity, and said, “I’ll see to it immediately, Captain,” then turned away.

  “If you have not made the surgery fast, now is a good time,” Dominick said to Clarice. “Though I’m not sure I’d mind being poisoned.”

  “Of course,” Clarice said, fighting tears. “I’ll go see to it. Right now.”

  * * *

  Shamal had left it to Dominick to choose what punishment to exact from the crew. Clarice doubted that a week of bread and water was what she’d had in mind, but she’d left him a loophole, and he’d taken it.

  That night, by unspoken agreement, the officers joined the crew in the common mess.

  Clarice expected attack, or at least abuse—Dominick’s secret was out, and the crew would be within their rights to blame him—and his officers—for this hellish disaster. But instead, the atmosphere was as hushed and mournful as a wake. Some of the men wept. Others prayed. Most sat staring silently at the plates of biscuit before them or ate with mechanical indifference.

  “Where is Dominick?” Clarice asked in a whisper. Everyone was seated, and she could not see Dominick anywhere.

  “His cabin,” Dickon answered. “He thought … He thought it would be best.”

  After the meager meal, Kayin called the roll of the ship’s company. Ninety-three people had been aboard when they had sailed from Dorado. There were eighty-eight now. Two more souls, both former prisoners, had joined Lemuel Kane (the man who had jumped), Robert Kinsey, and Dr. Chapman in death.

  “We will remember them in life as they remember us in death,” Kayin said solemnly. “And we will pray for our deliverance. Clarence, will you lead us in a prayer?”

  Clarice got to her feet. For a moment her mind was blank, then the words of a psalm came to her unbidden: “‘How long will the enemy mock you, God? Will the foe revile your name forever? Why do you hold back your hand? It was you who split open the sea by your power; you broke the heads of the dragons in the sea—’”

  Clarice had never been devout, and the words of entreaty seemed a cruel mockery. But as she spoke, they seemed suddenly meaningful. They were still alive, no matter how terrible their situation. And that meant they still had hope.

  Afterward, some of the crew gathered in a corner to sing hymns. Geordie went to his cabin and came back with a Psalter and read aloud to any who wanted to listen.

  After a while, Clarice got up and went to her cabin.

  * * *
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  Two more days.

  Dominick did not join them for meals, grim as those meals were. He’d cut the four watches to three: from midnight to dawn, Asesino sailed with no hand to guide her, and the crew was forbidden to go on deck.

  The night belonged to Shamal. Sometimes, lying in her bunk at night, Clarice could hear her singing.

  She was afraid of Shamal as she had never been afraid of anyone or anything before. It had been hard to admit at first, but it got easier. What use were steel and gunpowder against magic? What use were kindness and cleverness and even bravery against malice backed by immeasurable power?

  Each morning Kayin called the roll. Each morning it was a few names shorter.

  * * *

  “Tonight at seven bells.” Kayin spoke quietly, for her ears alone.

  Clarice gazed out at the ocean. It was hard to believe the Hispalides were anywhere within a thousand miles, let alone close enough to reach by boat. But Kayin knew where they were. And if he knew, Dominick must know as well. Tonight Dominick would do all he could to distract Shamal so that some of the crew might escape. Kayin had timed the attempt for the last hour in which the deck would be theirs.

  And not hers.

  “What must I do?” she asked.

  “Go to your cabin and lock your door” was the grim reply.

  * * *

  She paced. Three steps one way. Three steps the other.

  There must be something I can do to save us! The single thought was a counterpoint to her steps. Something—something—something—

  What?

  Challenge Shamal to a duel? Her sword was at the bottom of the ocean. There were still knives aboard, for they were vital to the thousand tasks of keeping a ship afloat. Clarice could easily get her hands on a blade.

  Would stabbing Shamal work any better than shooting Gregale had?

  If only Kayin can get away. Perhaps … perhaps she’ll run back to somewhere she’s safe then.

  Even though the safety of Dorado was safety only for Shamal, not for them.

  The ship was more silent than usual. Dominick had ordered the sails reefed at sunset, for the glass was falling and he did not wish to sail into a storm with an untrained crew. It must be true—he would not dare a lie that could so easily be exposed—but it was a stroke of luck, for to lower a boat into the sea while Asesino was under full sail would have been nearly impossible.