“What?” she said roughly to Quill's coarse inquiry.
“We have work to do,” the Kelpie navigator reminded her. “The ship needs us.”
Chapter 6
“So now you have two tails?”
Violet was torn between a sigh and a grin. “Yes, Piper, now I have two tails.”
“Will you . . .” Piper hesitated and inclined his head at Bandit who was hanging above them in the stacks of cargo under the hold. His eyes caught the light of the glowstones. “Bandit . . . wishes to know . . . will you be getting more tails?”
“Bandit wishes to know?” Sharpe raised an eyebrow from his reclined pose amongst sacks of grain.
“Bandit is curious,” Piper asserted. “Neither of us have seen creatures with more than one tail and we have travelled to many places.”
“Met a lot of Kitsune, Piper?” Sharpe asked him.
“Not with so many tails, no.”
“Well, how would you know? When she wraps them up like that you can hardly tell there's two of them.”
“You are saying many foxes have many tails then?”
“Would you two stop talking about me like I'm not even here,” Violet said crossly.
“Sorry, you're right,” Sharpe apologised. “So how many more tails do you need before you go home?”
Violet scowled at him.
“That's why you don't see Kitsune with more than one tail, Piper,” Sharpe explained. “All the grown up ones go home.”
“We do not,” Violet told him, annoyed at the way Sharpe was lecturing her about her own people.
“So says the voice of age and experience?”
Violet aimed a kick at Sharpe's foot. He just laughed and pulled his legs out of the way.
Piper stopped moving cargo around. He was checking the caulked seams in the bottom of the hull. “If you are growing up then will you be leaving us soon?”
“Leaving?” Violet made a face. “Piper, it's not like that.”
“Course it's not,” Sharpe agreed. “She's not going anywhere. Not 'til she grows up and takes over being skipper of the Tantamount herself.”
“Oh, shut up,” Violet said. It was one tail. One! Back home there were decrepit elders with as many as nine. Nine tails and full of their own misguided self-importance. She was in no hurry to be like that, even less of a hurry to be back home. One day, maybe, but not now.
“Do you?” Piper asked, distracting her.
“Do I what? Piper, I'm not going anywhere. This ship is my home.”
Bandit chirped at her from up in his perch.
“Bandit says he wants to be the skipper next,” Sharpe translated.
“No,” Piper said, “he said he hopes Violet is not the next skipper.”
“Bandit!” Violet exclaimed. Bandit flinched and fled to Piper's shoulders as she jumped to the skipper's defence.
“The skipper is a good woman,” Piper said, reaching up to comfort Bandit. “A good woman but maybe not a good example. Not for you.”
“Interesting.” Sharpe sat up. “What makes you say that?”
“Yeah,” Violet said heatedly. “What makes you say that?”
“The skipper is a hard woman,” Piper said slowly, considering each word before he said it. “She does what needs to be done. She does what the ship needs to be done.”
“What's wrong with that?” Violet asked. The way Piper said it made it sound like there was something wrong with it.
“Ah.” Sharpe nodded. “I see.”
“See what?” Violet said.
Piper rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. “This is not a good topic,” he said, looking away.
“I've heard a name since I came aboard,” Sharpe said. “Thyme.”
Piper sighed, louder.
“Before me,” Violet said quietly. “People don't like to talk about it.”
“The skipper does not like to talk about it,” Pipe corrected her. “Quill will not talk about it. The captain . . .”
“What happened to him?” Sharpe asked. “Seems I've never heard that part of the story right.”
“I was not there,” Piper said.
“But you know, don't you, Piper?” Violet said. “If the skipper would tell anyone it would be you.”
“I do not,” Piper said firmly.
“Three people went into that bar,” Sharpe said. “Two came out. The two the ship needed most.”
“What are you saying?” Violet turned quickly on Sharpe. “The skipper wouldn't . . . she . . . she . . .”
“Is a hard woman.” Sharpe glanced at Piper.
“That wouldn't happen,” Violet said angrily. “The skipper wouldn't. She came back for me. She didn't leave me on Cauldron.”
“As did Quill,” Piper reminded her.
Violet hesitated. That . . . had surprised her.
“So who made a decision, back in that tavern?” Sharpe said aloud. “Quill or the skipper?”
“It does not matter,” Piper told them both, with a sense of finality. He rose, further indicating the discussion was over.
“You,” Piper placed a firm hand on her shoulder, “are part of the ship. The skipper's crew. She does whatever she needs to do for her crew. The skipper is a good woman, Violet. But she is not someone you should try and be like.”
“I thought you were her friend, Piper,” Violet said, not believing what she was hearing.
Piper sighed. “I am. And sometimes she is my friend. But the rest of the time she is the skipper just as the captain is the captain.”
“What about the captain?” Violet said.
“All of us,” Piper pointed to Sharpe as well, “are here because of the captain. Even the skipper is here because of the captain. But the captain is a better captain when the skipper is around.”
“And that's the moral of this otherwise depressing story,” Sharpe said brightly to her. “Have you grown another tail yet from all this wisdom?”
High tea. Nel had thought the captain was simply being grandiose to show off in front of Scarlett. It turned out he had every intention of following through on his words. Gabbi had muttered dark things under her breath about the extra work, enough that Nel had taken her aside for a quiet word of her own, not wanting a repeat of whatever had happened with Quill. She was relieved she had done so after the captain insisted she attend. Quill was tasked with running the ship, a situation he was only too happy with once he learned that Scarlett would be out of the way—the Kelpie navigator was still irritable about having another thaumatic aboard who could fly the ship.
Not as irritable as one Korrigan Jack, who had been drafted to serve the courses. Or even as much as Nel, who found herself seated alongside Sharpe and opposite Scarlett, with Horatio taking the head of the table. Four was seemingly the minimum for High Tea. The captain was dressed in his official best and Sharpe seemed to have begged, borrowed, or scrounged a clean shirt from someone more or less his size. Nel still wore her work clothes, her form of silent protest against being included in the affair and having come straight from her watch.
Awkward conversation also appeared optional. It was left to the captain to fill in the long silences.
“We'll be passing through the Caleuche Lane on our way to Grange,” the captain commented, swirling his drink in idle thought. “The stretch is notorious for ghost ship sightings. More than the rest of the surrounding sector put together.”
Nel groaned as she reached for her drink. “Not with the ghost ships again, Captain.”
“They're not uncommon,” Sharpe leaned over to say. “Plenty of ships keep drifting even after their crew abandons them. Some places do it deliberately, set ships out on the long voyage as part of a festival or funeral.”
“I don't like the term,” Nel muttered after a mouthful of liquor. “Gives the wrong impression.”
“Hid out on a ghost ship once,” Jack rumbled as he deposited a platter of cheese and breads, most not even mouldy yet. “Air gets stale on them after a while. Was stuck there 'til this salv
age group came by.”
“Then what happened?” Sharpe asked.
Jack stared at him. “What do ya think happened?”
“We appear to be missing the soup, Jack,” Horatio pointed out.
“Soup's coming, Captain,” Jack said. “I only got the two arms.”
“No soup for me,” Sharpe said quickly.
Jack gave him another look before going to fetch the soup.
“You don't like soup?” Horatio asked.
“Heard some things, Captain, and your man Jack worries me some,” Sharpe admitted.
“Jack?” the captain repeated. “Jack is harmless. Anyway, as I was saying, the Caleuche Lane, marvellous place. Most interesting stories come out of it. I'd think you'd be quite interested, Castor, seeing as how we came about you yourself.”
Sharpe craned his neck the way Jack had gone. “Maybe I will have some soup,” he declared.
“Found adrift on an Alliance frigate,” Scarlett spoke for the first time, looking up from pushing a morsel around with her fork. “Seems to me I haven't quite heard the whole of that story.”
“Not much to tell,” Sharpe said. “Missed most of it myself, truth be told. Asleep in my bed at the time, next thing I'm being rescued by our gallant skipper here.”
“Asleep. That's interesting,” Scarlett commented, studying Sharpe.
“Fact is I'm a bit of a layabout,” Sharpe admitted. “Lazy and unproductive, that's me.”
“That's what the crew say,” Nel agreed. “Never around when duties are handed out.”
Sharpe gave her an injured look, but didn't try to argue. He did have a reputation for being scarce when there was work to be done, though so far his reputation from Cauldron was holding him up. Nel didn't expect that to last much longer if he kept shirking his turn at duties.
“I heard a rumour once.” Scarlett leaned back as Jack returned with the soup, allowing him to deposit the steaming bowls amidst the diners. “About a ghost ship.”
“Silly things, rumours,” Sharpe said. “Never trust them myself.”
“Depends how they get started,” Nel said. “Please, go on.”
“It was about a ghost ship, the likes of which the captain mentioned. It may even have been from this area, but I remember it wasn't like others. Unlike other ships that drift forever through the void this one would twist and turn, it would shy away from other ships like it had a mind of its own.”
“So it was a living ship?” Sharpe asked. “That's different.” He took up a spoon, looking suspiciously at his soup. Once Jack had left, he whispered to Nel, “Is this safe to eat?”
“You don't eat soup, you drink it,” she said dryly.
“Funny. Swap bowls with me?”
“No.”
“I remember hearing about a ship like that,” Horatio mused. “A ship with a mind of its own. Very difficult to steer it was.”
“Not quite like that, Captain,” Scarlett dismissed his fancy. “This ship had a crew, as ghostly as the ship itself. A crew that seemed to want desperately to avoid all others. But every once in a while another ship would get close enough to see across her lines.”
“And what did they see?” Sharpe took a cautious sip from a spoonful of soup.
“They saw the crew,” Scarlett said. “And they were all dead.”
“Dead?” Nel repeated.
“As in ghosts?” the captain asked.
Scarlett shrugged. “Something like that.”
“Wouldn't that be something.” Horatio sighed, glancing out through the open doorway. Nel found herself following that look, seeing the miasma and stars surrounding the Tantamount. “I can think of worse things than spending forever out here.”
“Can you?” Sharpe's eyes came up. “Like what?”
Jack stuck his head through the doorway, holding a kettle in his meaty hand. He looked sternly round at the patrons of the High Tea.
“Who wants coffee?” he asked.
Sharpe covered his cup with his hand reflexively. He had the decency to look abashed when Nel shook her head at his reaction, but he kept it there all the same.
“No coffee,” he said. “Not for me.”
“I'll take some, Jack.” Nel held out her mug, grinning at Sharpe as Jack poured and steam rose from the vessel. She raised the hot drink to her lips as Sharpe cringed.
One down, Nel thought. She turned her attention to her other passenger. Something she'd intended to ask since the woman came aboard. “That friend of yours in our hold is one of a kind, Scarlett. Never seen the like before.”
Scarlett sipped at her drink, not responding. Nel leaned forward over the table, planting one elbow. “Something that pretty must have cost a bit. Where'd you find it?”
“Maybe,” Scarlett took a moment to polish her glasses, “he found me.”
“I'd be interested in hearing that story some time,” Horatio said. “Surely a fascinating tale, don't you think, Nel?”
Nel didn't answer, considering Scarlett. The woman stared right back at her, replacing her glasses with delicate attention. Scarlett and Sharpe, both reminded Nel of the other, both had that damned annoying habit of avoiding personal questions in wild chases that led nowhere. Nel wasn't prepared to bite this time. They had secrets, fine, neither could have anything that could do any harm to the ship or its crew out here. And once they reached Grange both of them would be off her ship. Until then she'd watch them.
A noise to her side distracted her. Sharpe poked at his food with a fork, pushing it around on his plate. Nel shook her head ruefully. At least she'd found Sharpe's weakness—she'd never seen a pickier eater.
A loaf of bread tucked inside her shirt, Violet found herself scaling the rigging again to the heights of the Tantamount. There were no sailors to wriggle past this time. The sails were set to Quill's exacting specifications and were unlikely to need much adjusting any time soon. The Tantamount had a long run to Grange, but they were fortunate that it didn't require a lot of deviation around obstacles or through highly trafficked lanes.
None of which comforted Violet as she climbed the last few feet and rolled herself into the crow's nest, landing in an ungraceful tangle inside. Looking up, she found Sharpe huddled against the nest railing, looking miserable.
“I feel awful,” he told her, just to confirm it.
Violet gave him an equally miserable look. She hated being in the nest. “I brought you some bread.” She pulled the loaf out and tossed it half-heartedly towards him. It landed next to him and Sharpe rolled his head to stare at it.
“I'm not hungry anymore.”
Violet made a face. “You made me climb all the way down and all the way back up.”
“It's not my fault the skipper stuck us here,” he protested.
“It's not my fault you won't eat anything Jack's had a hand in,” Violet said.
“I don't want to get poisoned,” Sharpe said groggily. “That would be bad.”
“And this is better?”
“Poisoning is . . . less better?”
“I hate you,” Violet said. She crawled to the edge of the nest, throwing her arms over the side. It was harder to breathe up here. The air was thinner and didn't pull you down as strongly, all of which combined to make her feel queasy. She barely noticed when Sharpe joined her.
“There's Jack there.” He pointed. “Why do you lot call him Korrigan Jack, anyway?”
Violet gave Sharpe what she hoped was a withering look.
“It's like saying Kitsune Violet or Kelpie Quill.”
“That sounds stupid.”
“My point exactly.”
Violet groaned. “If I get sick, I'm blaming you,” she said.
“If I get sick, I'm going to aim for Jack,” Sharpe confided.
“You'd hit Gabbi too.” Violet pointed at the two of them walking across the deck. “You don't want to do that. You really don't.”
Sharpe turned his head to follow them. “Ever notice how everyone on this ship is paired up? Gabbi and Jack, the
skipper and the captain. Bandit and Piper.”
“That should be Piper and Bandit.”
“I wonder if Piper really thinks he can talk to Bandit,” Sharpe mused.
“Of course he can't really talk to him,” Violet said.
“But do you think he knows that? It's the same with the skipper and the captain. They can both pretend, but it's just for show.”
“Pretend?” Violet asked.
“About who's in charge.” Sharpe smiled.
Violet thought about it. “Which one of them is Bandit?” she asked.
Sharpe chuckled. “There's Scarlett,” he pointed.
Violet laid her head down on her arms. “Which one of them is in charge?”
“Well, she wouldn't get on the ship without the big rock, what does that tell you?”
“I don't know,” Violet said, her stomach heaving as the ship listed to one side. She put a hand to her mouth and willed herself not to throw up.
“Think about it then,” Sharpe said. “Take your time.”
The last thing Violet wanted to do was think about it. She was sick of thinking, thinking made her feel sick and she just wanted her stomach to stay put.
“That leaves you and Quill,” she said when she felt it was safe to talk again.
“Hardly,” Sharpe said. “Quill and the ship from what the skipper tells me, but not Quill and me.”
“You and who then?”
“You and me, obviously, little princess.”
Violet covered her mouth, her stomach rising again.
“And after I rescued you,” Sharpe grumbled, misinterpreting her response. “I hope you and your tails are very happy together then. Just remember who sat up with you and held your hair back when you were at your worst.”
“I am going to be sick,” Violet moaned. Leaning further out over the nest she felt a hand by her head, holding her hair back. And below her she saw Jack making his way back along the deck.
“Two ships pass each other in the night sky, faceless and blind to each other, unawares of the other voyager in the midnight miasma.”
“That, Piper,” Nel said, “is why we have signallers.” She hefted the main forecastle signaller atop the bow mounting, grunting with the effort. The contraption was heavy but too awkward for more than one person to heft. The muscles in her arms, one heavily tattooed, the other bare skin, shook with the effort. Once the signaller was in place Violet reached in and hit the striker, trying to light the gas flame inside.
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