by Alex Bledsoe
“I heard he disappeared in front of the whole crew just before they ran aground. Just rose up into the rigging and vanished.”
“A mate of mine once swore he saw the Bloody Angel off Blefuscola. Jet black she was now, with bloodred sails. A flock of red ravens followed her, cawing for the souls of drowned men.”
“I saw him once ashore. No, really, I did. He ran a tavern called Watchorn’s Folly. His hair was still jet black, but he’d throw you out if you mentioned the Bloody Angel. ”
“They say that he appears to the captain of a ship about to sink, warning him of what’s coming. But his curse is that no captain ever believes him.”
I wandered around looking for a spot to settle, and finally crawled into a sheltered corner on the pile of fake cargo crates. A man sat at the very top, strumming some stringed instrument, and it was actually relaxing. When he began to softly sing, I realized he was the same performer who’d sung during the play. His voice quickly had my eyelids gratefully drooping.
Until a voice I recognized, one that most definitely should not be here, began to curse not five feet from me.
I sat up, completely alert. The shadow of my little nook hid me from view. The voice came from a young sailor trying to untangle a coil of uncooperative rope. I waited until he spoke again, cursing the rope and kicking the tangle at his feet.
In an instant, I’d leaped from my hiding place and grabbed him by the back of his tunic. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Duncan Tew had grown a scraggly beard and somehow lightened his long jet-black hair. He glared at me with the same insolence he’d shown on our visit to his farm. How had I missed him this long on this tiny little ship? Instantly I knew the answer: I hadn’t been looking for him. I was getting old.
“I’m working, what are you doing?” he said defensively, and wrenched out of my grasp. “Get the fuck off me. I’m not bothering you.”
I pushed him toward the nearest rail. “Can you swim?” I said when I held him halfway over the water.
“No!” he shrieked, grabbing frantically at me.
Heads turned toward us and conversations fell silent.
“Then you better start talking.” I let him up, and he didn’t let go of my arms until his feet were flat on the deck.
A shadow fell over us. Suhonen stared down through narrowed eyes. “Problem here, Mr. LaCrosse?”
At first I wasn’t sure whose side he was on, but he fixed Duncan with a stare that might slay a man at twenty yards. I said, “No, just needed to impress on my friend here the importance of being honest.”
“It’s real important,” Suhonen said to Duncan.
“All right,” the boy said resentfully.
“I’ll be around,” Suhonen said, and drifted back into the darkness. For such a big man, he moved like a wisp of smoke. When did he and I become pals?
I returned my attention to Duncan. “So talk. What are you doing here? How did you get here?”
“I trailed you to the Mosinee Prison, and when you left, I followed that woman. She hired a boat, and when she wasn’t looking, I signed aboard.”
Part of me couldn’t wait to hold that little bit of obliviousness over Jane’s head. Pot/kettle, ex-Captain Argo? But then I’d have to admit my own obliviousness. “And why haven’t I seen you before now?”
“I fucking volunteered to work middle watch. The rest of the time I helped the cook.”
He got points for subtlety. Middle watch started at midnight, and of course the cook did all his work belowdecks. I bet I knew who asked Avencrole for those lemons now. “That doesn’t answer why.”
“Why do you think? You’re looking for my father, and I want to find him, too. I want to look the son of a bitch in the eye and tell him I’m his son.”
“He’s probably dead,” I said. “And if he’s not, he doesn’t even know you exist. Your mother never told him.”
“My mother’s dead, t-” He stopped. “Wait. Is she-?”
“She’s alive. She hired me.”
He paused, nervously straightened his clothes. Even in the dark, I saw the emotions warring in his expression. At last he asked, “What’s she like?”
“She’s just… a woman. I don’t think I should be any more specific.”
With a voice like a sad little boy, he said, “She’s my mom. ”
“She’s also my client,” I snapped, painfully aware of how cruel it sounded. This was something they didn’t teach you about in sword-jockey school. The anger had drained from Tew’s face and he looked only sad and lost. Annoyed, I said, “Tell you what, if we find your dad alive, and he wants to see her, you can tag along. That’s the best I can do right now.”
He wanted to make more of it, to go all tough-guy and intimidate me into telling him about Angelina. I could see his muscles tense, but his head at least knew better. “All right. But you better be straight with me.”
“Understood. By the way, did you use your real name when you signed up?” Having a Tew on board might lead to difficulty.
He shook his head. “The name’s Duncan Smith.”
I nodded. “Probably a good idea.”
At that moment, Seaton emerged from the hold and gazed at us with a slow, measuring eye. “Heard a storm was brewing on deck. Everything all right here, lads?”
“Yes, sir,” Tew said, ducking his head and scuttling around me to return to his work. I didn’t try to stop him.
Seaton nodded. I tried to nonchalantly walk away, but Seaton said, “A word, Mr. LaCrosse. Would you join me on the foredeck?”
I followed him, aware that everyone but Duncan Tew watched us. Ahead, the horizon was just visible, a line between the deep black of the sea and the starry mass of the sky. Here the noise of the ship’s passage through the water made sure we wouldn’t be overheard.
“What can I do for you?” I said, expecting to be chewed out for picking a fight with a crewman.
Instead he gazed out at the night and said, “Tell me, do ye know about the history between Captains Clift and Argo?”
“Just bits and pieces. I know it’s why she picked this ship. Why?”
“Captain Clift was Captain Argo’s quartermaster for seven years on both sides of the law, before she left the sea to pursue other interests. In case you don’t know the chain of command, the quartermaster’s main job is to keep the captain honest. Clift did a good job. He would’ve covered himself in sorghum and crawled through a hell of ants had she asked him.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen how he looks at her when he thinks no one’s watching.”
“Aye, I could tell you were a perceptive gentleman. Alas, she did not return his affection, or at least refused to act on it. He very nearly ended himself after she left. At my suggestion, he took the pledge, and stayed cold sober until the day she again appeared before him.”
I waited while he turned his back to the wind, lit his pipe, and took a few deep puffs. “He’s drunk in his cabin right now, Mr. LaCrosse.”
“Good. Not long ago, he was drunk in my cabin.”
“He’s at the edge of the whirlpool and about to spiral down to the monster at the bottom. He’ll be useless to the ship in a week at this rate.”
“I wish I could help.”
Seaton smiled. “Do ye know how pirates choose their captains? It’s by a vote. Every man has a voice, and the captain can be replaced at any time. Usually by the quartermaster.”
“Too bad you’re on the other side now.”
“That’s true. But as I’m sure you’ve sussed out, we’re all still pirates inside. We just channel it in a different way. We get to make our own rules, fight our own battles, live how we like. We just don’t have to fear ending up as a warning dangling from a gibbet at the tide line.”
“That’s how I ended up in my line of work, too.”
Seaton laughed. “Then I can ask you a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Convince Captain Jane to at least treat him kindly, not with that mockery she presents to e
veryone else.”
I didn’t mention my little chat with Jane. “I don’t think I should get in the middle of things.”
“Aye, that’s a sensible course. But as the man who’s paying for this voyage, you have more than the usual interest in its outcome. If we don’t find Wendell Marteen soon, I fear the captain won’t be up to leading the fight to capture him. And while the crew might follow Captain Argo, there’s a fair number here who know nothing of her, and see only a woman out of her place.”
He had a sure grasp of his crew’s psychology. “I’ll say something to her if I can figure out a way to do it gracefully. How’s that?”
He nodded in appreciation. Then he looked back out at the water. “It’s been a quiet voyage so far, hasn’t it, Mr. LaCrosse?”
“I don’t have many to compare it to, but it has been pretty uneventful.”
“We’ve sighted hardly a ship. Not that you’d know, but we’ve been crossing shipping lanes for a day and a night, and we’ve encountered no one. That’s odd.” He paused. “I think I’ll suggest to the captain that we put in at Blefuscola tomorrow.”
“Where is that?”
“She’s an open safe harbor for all shipping. Neutral ground. We can sniff around, see what pirates are working in the area, and maybe hear some scuttlebutt about Wendell Marteen.”
I grinned at him. “How come you’re not a captain, Mr. Seaton?”
He gestured modestly with his pipe. “It’s not in my nature to carry so much worry.”
The boy Dorsal was asleep in front of the door to Clift’s dayroom. I started to wake him up, but he looked so peaceful, I left him alone.
I looked at Jane’s closed door as well. Seaton was right: Jane was driving Clift incrementally mad, and since this whole trip was on my money bag, I did have an interest in stopping things before they got out of hand. But what could I say? It wasn’t her fault he was lovesick. No one implied she’d led him on dishonestly. And Seaton was also right that she treated Clift the same way she did everyone else.
I slipped quietly into my cabin and shut the door. It still reeked of Clift’s ale, so I opened the porthole. It didn’t help much.
I stretched out on the bunk and stared at the unlit lamp dangling from its ceiling chain. It swayed with the ship’s movement. I felt that weird tightness that comes from impatience and isolation, and spent a few moments taking deep breaths to calm myself. If something didn’t happen soon to break this monotony, I’d go crazy.
The next day, I got my wish.
Chapter Fourteen
Blefuscola rose from the horizon long before we reached it, thanks to a towering dead volcano located in the center of the island. From a distance it looked lush and tropical, but it was deceptive: the green clinging to the volcano’s slopes was mostly moss. It was uninhabited except for the allegedly neutral port on its northern side.
The Red Cow had doffed her disguise and was now back to her old identity. The false cargo crates collapsed into thin flat piles that could easily be stacked below, and the ship’s real name replaced her alias Crimson Heifer. The empty barrels stayed lashed to the stern, though. I still didn’t know what purpose they served.
If Captain Clift was the worse for wear after the previous night, it didn’t show. He was on deck before me, calmly issuing orders for Mr. Seaton to then repeat very loudly. Jane stayed below; I don’t know if it was from boredom, sleepiness, or our confrontation. I also saw no sign of Duncan Tew, but if he worked the night watch, he was probably sleeping as well.
The Red Cow circled Blefuscola until we reached the north side. The coastline seemed to be all high rock cliffs, with no apparent entrance. I wondered where this supposedly safe harbor was, until suddenly Seaton called for more canvas and the Cow began to pick up speed directly toward those same high cliffs.
I stood at the bow, trying to stay out of the way and trusting that Clift, Seaton, and the rest of the crew knew what the hell they were doing. We shot toward the island; waves crashed into the base of the rocks, sending up great white plumes. I began to get a little nervous.
Seaton, standing at the ship’s wheel, continued bellowing Clift’s orders to the crew. They were all in nautical-ese, and none of them seemed to be Slow down. I gripped the nearest rail and tried to look nonchalant. They had to know what they were doing, didn’t they?
Then, at the last minute, the ship’s undulation separated one rock wall from the other. There was an opening, but you could see it only from an angle because the ends of the two rock walls overlapped. I also saw the reason for the straight approach: rocks just under the surface on either side of the ship’s course.
“A bit flabbergasting at first, isn’t it?” Mr. Greaves said beside me.
“It does make you question the navigator’s sanity,” I admitted.
He gestured at the rocks on either side of us. “Steeple rocks. If the tide’s right, they’re hidden just below the waterline, and they’ll gut a ship the way Avencrole does a pig. Only safe course through them is straight in.”
“How many ships did it take to figure that out?”
He laughed. “I’m sure the bones of quite a few rest at the bases of those things, impaled like a knight on a lance. But I’ve not known any sailor who didn’t know about them, so the word’s well and truly out by now.”
“But you don’t tell the passengers.”
He clapped me on the shoulder. “Ah, Mr. LaCrosse, a seaman’s life is filled with so few moments of delight, it’d be a shame to deprive them of the look on your face.”
I glanced around in time to catch several men quickly look away. How could I not laugh, too? “Glad to help the morale.”
Greaves saluted me. “You’re a good sport, Mr. LaCrosse.”
The ship sailed gracefully through the opening. For a moment, the huge cliffs blocked any view of the sea behind us or the harbor ahead. Birds nested in crevices, and in places strange nautical images and hieroglyphs were carved into the rock. This passage had been used for quite some time, maybe hundreds of years. I’d have to ask how it was established as a neutral port, since a neutral anything was, in my experience, a rarity.
Then we reached the end of the inner wall, turned to port, and entered the harbor itself.
It was quite a sight. The harbor was an almost perfect circle, and the dark blue water hinted at extreme depth. Directly across from the entrance, a small city stood along the beach, with that tangled, warrenlike appearance of places that grew haphazardly over time. And except for the beach where this city stood, there were only rock walls going straight down into the water.
And suddenly we knew where all the other ships were.
The harbor was a jungle of masts, spars, and shrouds. The packed docks of Watchorn were nothing compared to this. It looked like every type of vessel in the whole Southern Ocean had decided to hide here.
But why?
Once inside the harbor, the wind died to a whisper, and the water was so still that the cliff walls reflected as clearly as they would in a mirror. Clift ordered, “Ease your helm, Mr. Seaton.”
“Aye, sir,” came the quartermaster’s reply from the wheel.
Our momentum carried us forward. We slowed so that by the time we got close enough to anchor near the back of this ad hoc fleet, we were barely moving.
“Bloody golden starfish,” Clift muttered as he surveyed the ships. All had their sails furled away, and many had gangways crossing from one vessel to another, forming a complex web. “Looks like they’ve settled in for good.”
“It’ll take us a day just to get to shore from here,” Seaton grumbled.
“What the hell?” Jane said from behind me. I turned, and was surprised to see she was dressed more demurely than before; a vest covered her, ahem, points of interest, and she’d procured knee-high boots from somewhere.
If Clift noticed, he gave no sign. Instead he said, “This must be why we haven’t seen any ships in the cargo lanes.”
“No kidding,” Jane agreed. “There
’s no weather in the sky, and it’s the wrong time of year for the big storms, anyway. What could have driven them here?”
“We’ll never know till we ask,” Clift said. “Mr. Seaton, ready the wherry. We’re going ashore.”
“The wherry, sir? Will you not be taking a few men for security?”
“This is a friendly port, and with our two guests along, I’m sure I’ll be safe.”
“I’ll pack you a picnic,” Seaton muttered, then began shouting orders.
“I take it this is unusual,” I said to Jane when we were alone.
“Yeah, I didn’t even know the ship had a wherry. I thought all the boats were launches.”
“I meant about this,” I said, and gestured at the harbor.
“Oh. Yeah, this is absolutely nuts,” she agreed. “Look at all the flags, too. This isn’t just one kingdom’s fleet; this is everyone. It’s a total shutdown of trade. Nobody’s getting anything.”
Clift, Jane, and I boarded the wherry, rowed by two young sailors. Navigating among the big ships was a bit like canoeing down a canyon, with only a narrow band of sky visible above us. Although the vessels were anchored, there was still plenty of slow movement, and we had to push ourselves away from shifting hulls more than once. It was a sunny day, but the shadows between ships felt isolated and spooky.
As we passed one ship, Clift said, “I know this ship’s captain.” He stood, cupped his hands around his mouth, and called, “Ahoy, sloop Raccoon! Is Captain Freisner aboard?”
A face appeared over the rail. “And who might you be?”
“Clift, of the Red Cow. ”
“Well, Clift of the Red Cow, that coward Freisner went ashore three days ago and we haven’t seen him since! If you run across him, tell him his crew no longer requires his presence!” The face withdrew without waiting for a reply.
Clift sat back down. Jane said, “Do you suppose all these vessels are captainless?”
“I don’t know what the fuck they are,” Clift snapped. “Any insights from the great investigators?”
