Pillars of Six

by St Clare, Kelly

  So, Kentro it was.

  She sighed, tightening her resolve, and on her butt, began to shuffle backward on the beam. She reached down to pat the mermaid figurehead on the way—fierce bad luck to neglect a figurehead.

  The cedar wood of the main deck gave a familiar thud when she jumped down off the bulwark. Pillage, the black ship cat, hissed at her.

  Ebba hissed back, and the cat slunk into the shadows of the closest barrel.

  “Mistress Fairisles?” called Cosmo. He sounded a scant bit harassed.

  Cosmo was engaged in a conversation with Locks, the carpenter and sometimes surgeon of their crew. That explained the look of desperation on the prince’s face.

  She crossed to where they stood under the mast, eavesdropping.

  “Her eyes were always too close together for my likin’,” Locks was saying. “Her body be ill-propor’tioned, and she gets an evil look sometimes—”

  Ebba snorted. Locks was talking about Verity—the soothsayer he ‘hated’ who rejected him eighteen years before.

  “Ye mean when her eyes go black and red lava cracks appear all over her face?” she asked her father.

  “Eh?” Locks asked, glancing at her. “Oh, that, too, I s’pose.” He took a deep breath to continue, and Cosmo closed his eyes.

  She’d save him. Leaning against a barrel, Ebba spoke. “Tell me o’ yer past, Locks.”

  His mouth shut with a click of his back teeth. “Huh?”

  “Ye heard me,” she said, glaring. “Ye said ye’d tell me everythin’ about the bad stuff ye did.”

  He gulped and took a nervous step back. “I ain’t rememberin’. . . .”

  No way was he getting out of this. Ebba rounded on him. “Ye promised, Locks. A promise be a promise.”

  Cosmo crossed to stand beside her, and Locks scowled his way. He darted his blazing emerald eye around the boat, but the rest of her fathers seemed to have made themselves scarce, either during his talk about how much he didn’t like Verity, or upon hearing her demand. Wiley buggers.

  The waves slapped against the ship in the heavy silence as Ebba stared at her father.

  He heaved a great sigh, hooking both hands in his belt. “I thought for sure ye’d start with Barrels.”

  She had planned to start with Barrels, but Locks didn’t need to know that. “Out with it. Tell me all the bad stuff.”

  Locks held out his hands, calloused from rope and tools. “It ain’t that easy, lass. I need some time to think o’ it all.”

  “Ye’re tryin’ to get out o’ it.” Ebba shook her head and made to turn away. She should’ve known better.

  Cosmo reached out and stopped her. “I believe what your father is trying to say is he would like some time to assemble his thoughts.”

  Locks nodded, watching her warily. “I’ve been avoidin’ thinkin’ o’ my past for a long while. I need a scant moment to dredge it up. I want to make sure I’m not missin’ anythin’ ye might wish to know.”

  Ebba’s anger deflated, but she kept up her glare nevertheless. Locks was a pirate, after all, and he hadn’t raised her to be dumb about using emotional blackmail to extort information. “Aye, ye can have until tonight then, but I’ll be hearin’ yer story afore bed.”

  His gaze turned inward, and he adjusted the sheets on the mast, unnecessarily. The sails above didn’t need any tinkering with, full and happy as they were. “Aye, lass. I hear ye. Tonight it is.” He stared at his hands, slowly exhaling, and walked away.

  “Thanks for yer help, Cosmo,” Ebba said as her father disappeared down into the bilge. “He was tryin’ to get out o’ it.”

  They ambled over to the side of the ship, and Cosmo pursed his lips, watching a pod of dolphins springing out of the water beside the ship.

  “I didn’t get that,” he answered her. “He might be afraid of what you’ll think of him. How would you feel if someone asked you to talk about everything bad in your past?”

  Ebba lifted her brows. “That be easy. Born, stolen, raised by six pirates who weren’t my real fathers. Spent most o’ my life trading fruit and veg for provisions, dropped at a brothel for a month when I was fifteen. Battled against Ladon, sailed through the siren’s nest, got the dynami off the selkies, met my family on Pleo, then here.”

  The prince’s lips lifted in a wry smile. “Have I ever told you you’re refreshingly straightforward?”

  “Ye’re callin’ me stupid,” Ebba shot back, arching a brow. “I ain’t afraid to hurt ye just because ye have one arm.”

  He threw his head back and laughed.

  She hadn’t heard him laugh in so long; the sound made her smile, too.

  “No, Mistress Fairisles, I wasn’t calling you stupid. But I thank you for not using kid gloves around me.”

  “. . . Why would ye make gloves out o’ children? Is their skin strong-like?”

  Cosmo laughed again. “They’re made from goat babies, I believe.”

  Ebba wrinkled her nose and adjusted the black hose tied over her belt. As was habit, she felt to make sure the purgium was in place there. The Earth Mother said the healing tube would hurt her fathers really bad if it touched them, or else she’d tie the cylinder to the ship cat, Pillage, for safekeeping. Actually, maybe she should do that with the dynami. Grubby had probably stashed it in the kitchen drawer.

  “We both know there’s far more to your story than that,” the prince said.

  Well, aye. If she were inclined to speak of her mistakes and regrets, sure. She’d started the whole battle with Malice, and she regretted healing Cosmo every time she saw sadness in his amber eyes. There wasn’t anything else she could think of.

  Ebba looked up to find the prince was watching where her hand rested over the purgium. Guilt stabbed her hard and fast. She quickly released it.

  “What about ye?” she asked. “Tell me o’ yer past.”

  His expression faltered, and he glanced around, likely checking for her fathers. “Not as uncomplicated as yours, I’m afraid.” He glanced at her. “My father doesn’t appreciate my fondness for learning and seeing new things. To my memory, we’ve never really seen eye to eye. And that worsened after my mother’s death when my youngest sister was born.”

  “I’m sorry about yer mother,” she said softly.

  He threw her a wan smile. “It happens to a lot of people, I’m afraid. Royals aren’t exempt from the dangers of childbirth. But thank you.”

  “He doesn’t like to be told he’s wrong then?” she asked.

  A curious smile ghosted his face. “I gather most kings don’t, but no, not that. More that he doesn’t desire to look at the truth anymore. There are many criminal things happening that he has no urge to fix—like the corruption I’ve seen in Governor Da Ville’s mansion on Maltu. My father doesn’t seem to care about keeping the realm safe at all now. When I mention such problems, he tells me I’m too kind-hearted to rule. Not decisive enough.”

  Clearing up that corruption would be bad for pirate business.

  “Well,” Ebba said reasonably, “ye know I think ye’re a mite soft, but ye’ve toughened smart-like in the last while. Ye even have some muscles on ye. Plus, everyone from the mainland be soft. So, ye’d be rulin’ people who wouldn’t know the di’ference.”

  Cosmo fixed his amber eyes on her. “I don’t feel stronger. I feel like I’ve learned how dark the world can be, and the truth shook me apart so forcefully I don’t know how to assemble the pieces of myself. I feel like half the person I was before—not bodily whole and not mentally whole.”

  His words shocked her. Ebba swallowed hard, hoping to conceal the tremor in her voice. “I don’t know what to say to ye, Caspian. Except ye ain’t half a person to me.” She blinked quickly and turned to face the ocean. Peg-leg had said she could never cry about Cosmo’s arm in front of him. “Ye be hurtin’, and I s’pose it wouldn’t make sense if ye weren’t. Truthfully, I can’t imagine what ye’re goin’ through. But don’t let this overrun ye. Ye’re stronger than that, and ye’ll get st
ronger each day until ye’re even stronger than ye were.”

  He didn’t answer, and Ebba caught sight of his shaking shoulders. Her heart squeezed with the urge to give him comfort, but she hesitated. She hated people making a fuss when she got upset.

  . . . But Cosmo wasn’t like her.

  Ebba took a breath and moved to him. Stepping close to his side, she wrapped her arms around his waist, leaning her head on his firm chest. His tears dripped onto the shoulder of her yellowed tunic, and he rested his chin atop her head, the breath catching in his throat as he sobbed. She held on to him until he calmed, and then stayed still despite hearing her fathers return to the main deck.

  “I can’t even hold you with two arms,” Caspian finally said.

  Ebba dropped one arm to her side and hugged him tightly with her right one. “Then I won’t either. Things will always be equal with us.”

  Three

  Ebba watched as Peg-leg limped across the main deck in the steadily dimming light, plates balanced all over his arms. He stopped by Grubby, who took a plate, and then side-stepped Pillage’s deliberately extended paw. Spotting the evil bastard of a cat was easier since Ebba tied the dynami to his back. The magical cylinder caught at the light, making the feline visible in the shadows—a great hiding spot for the cylinder and an alarm system. Two fish in one net, if she did say so herself.

  Grubby was the only one who agreed that her idea had merit.

  Peg-leg crossed to her, holding out a plate. Fish and baked potato with white sauce.

  She beamed. “Thanks, Peg-leg. Hey, do ye know where Sal be?”

  “Yer sprite be passed out on one o’ the barrels in the hold.” His eyes slid to Locks. “I thought ye might like yer fav’rite.”

  Her fathers were trying to butter her up on Locks’ behalf. Fish and baked potatoes with white sauce was her favorite. . . .

  . . . She accepted.

  Ebba took an extra plate for Caspian, who sat beside her in silence. He’d been that way for most of the afternoon. She balanced the plate on her knees and cut up the potato, passing it to him. He stared at the bite-sized bits of potato for a long moment and sighed, throwing her a small smile, and tucked in.

  “Oi, Stubby,” Ebba called to the helm. “Where are we stoppin’ on Kentro?”

  His deep voice carried over the light breeze and hiss of sea spray. “We be headin’ to the west end o’ Kentro, the bay closest to Selkie’s Cove. Grubby said his kin can guard the entrance while we be in there. They’ll warn us if Malice be about.”

  Plank carried his dinner and sat next to them on the deck. “We’ll hike into the village and find Cosmo passage back to Exosia. I’m assumin’ he’ll be safe once he gets there.”

  Caspian snorted in response. “Yes, I’ll be fine once on Exosia.”

  No pirate ventured into the strip of sea between the mainland and Kentro or Maltu. If harm came to Cosmo there, it wouldn’t be from Malice.

  Ebba shoved a mouthful of fish, potato, and sauce in her gob, smiling widely at Grubby as he sat down and again when Barrels came up from the bilge.

  “How long until Kentro?” Caspian asked.

  Stubby strolled over. “About eight days in this wind, lad.”

  Eight days. Ebba felt like Cosmo had made real progress today. It was the first time the prince had cried since losing his arm, unless he’d been hiding his tears before now. Still, Ebba felt like he’d moved forward. Now the order of grief dictated that he blamed someone else, yelled a bit, and then he’d be happy. The nightmares and darkness he’d referred to would become a bad memory and then flitter away. It always worked for her.

  Locks joined them, with Peg-leg at his side. They sat in a circle in front of the mast, Stubby the only one standing, so he could keep an eye on Felicity’s path.

  He cleared his throat. “Ebba, ye said ye wanted to hear o’ my past.”

  “Aye,” she replied.

  “Well, then. I’ll tell ye. A promise be a promise as ye said. Though—” He scowled around the circle of her fathers. “I’m not sure why the rest o’ ye be here.”

  No one budged.

  “I need to know how much ye say, so I can say the same amount,” Stubby said. The rest of her fathers chorused, “Aye.”

  Ebba licked her plate clean, saying, “There ain’t to be any cheatin’. Ye need to tell me as much as I want and answer my questions. Right, Caspian?”

  There was silence.

  “What did ye just say, little nymph?” Plank said.

  Ebba frowned at her plate and licked it again. “I said there ain’t to be no cheatin’.”

  Stubby shifted closer. “Nay, the other part. Ye just called Cosmo ‘Caspian.’”

  Her eyes widened, and she froze, plate held in the air. “Nay.”

  “Aye,” Peg-leg said, getting to his feet.

  Grubby rose also, wringing his hands. “I heard Cosmo, mateys. Let’s everyone get along and be happy.”

  She didn’t dare look at Cosmo, who had stiffened beside her. Shite; she’d known calling him Caspian in her head would lead to trouble. “It was just a slip o’ the tongue,” Ebba blurted. “I was thinkin’ o’ the strip o’ the Caspian Sea he’d need to get across. Cosmo across the Caspian Sea. Caspian across the Cosmo Sea. Caspian. . . . See?”

  Her six fathers surveyed her with varying degrees of doubt. Barrels and Stubby appeared highly doubtful, the others somewhere between, and Grubby looked to fully believe her lie.

  Cosmo rested his hand on her arm. “It’s okay, Mistress Fairisles.”

  She spoke low from the corner of her mouth. “Shut yer gob. I got this.”

  He shook his head, and her heart fell as he got to his feet and faced her fathers, every one of them now standing.

  “Cosmo, don’t,” Ebba hissed in warning, standing too. Her fathers would hurt him. They hated the king with the fiery passion of Davy Jones, and the prince knew where their secret sanctuary was.

  He ignored her, meeting the heavy gazes of her fathers. “Months ago, my father sent me on a tour of Maltu in his stead. My first official duty as heir to the throne of Exosia.”

  Grubby’s jaw dropped.

  “For safety reasons, my father and his advisors decided that while there, I would masquerade as my servant, Cosmo, and he would take my place.”

  Stubby took a menacing step closer, and Caspian hurried on. “We left Maltu unharmed, but I. . . .” He glanced at his feet. “I wasn’t ready to go back to being a prince. I’d never ventured out of Exosia before that moment, and I wanted to see more. So, I ordered the captain of our ship to sail around the other islands.” He closed his eyes. “I thought we would be safe, sailing under my father’s name. He’d raised me on stories of how he’d conquered pirates and how they trembled in fear of him.”

  Peg-leg snorted, and Caspian nodded tightly, saying, “I found out when Malice attacked our vessel how incorrect I’d been in my assumptions. This part of the sea is not tightly governed at all. Malice killed most of the crew, and left the rest to burn with the ship. If not for the foresight of the captain of Fortitude, who demanded I vacate to Neos with my servant for the duration of battle, I would not be here. I don’t deserve to be here,” he admitted. “It was I who ordered them into pirate-ridden waters.”

  That made pirates sound a bit like lice. And she supposed Malice were, but Felicity mostly weren’t. Ebba heard what he was saying though; that choice to veer off route was the prince’s mistake and regret.

  Caspian lifted his head again. “Cosmo was hit with a bullet as we went overboard, but he never said anything. He just rowed me around the island where we found Barrels on Felicity. I was desperate for help, and at first, seeing how tidy Barrels looked, I mistook Felicity for a merchant ship.”

  Stubby gasped. “Take it back.”

  “Cosmo died soon after, and I quickly discovered my error in assuming Felicity was a merchant ship. However,” he said, glancing to where Ebba hovered nearby, still ready to push him overboard in case her fathers a
ttacked, “there was one among you whom I recognized. It was the first pirate I ever met at the governor’s dinner. The young tribal woman who laughed all the way through the governor’s speech and didn’t give a care in the world who knew she was a pirate. She hadn’t seemed like a bad person, nothing like the pirates in my father’s stories. Her presence gave me hope.”

  Ebba tilted her head. That was what he’d first thought of her all those months ago? She supposed, compared to now, she had felt joyful. Or at least confident about her place in the world, even after being beaten up in the alley.

  “So, what?” Locks demanded. “Ye lied to us for months on end about who ye were, like a stinkin’ coward.”

  That was rich, coming from them.

  Grubby’s eyes filled with tears, and Ebba forced down her irony and stepped over to take his hand, squeezing it.

  “I did.” Caspian tilted his chin. “I wanted to tell you many times, particularly since Pleo.” His eyes slid to Peg-leg. “But do you blame me for staying quiet, knowing all pirates detest my father, and that most would use me to their own gain?”

  Barrels absently bent to pick up Pillage, stroking the purring cat. He frowned. “No, Prince Caspian, it probably was the smartest course.”

  “O’ course,” Plank said, drawing his cutlass, “that doesn’t help ye now. A pirate must do what a pirate must do.”

  His eyes widened, but Caspian held his ground. “I will accept any treatment you deem fit. I’ve betrayed your trust.”

  “Nay,” Ebba cried out as her fathers closed in around him. “Just maroon him. Ye can’t kill him. I’ll never forgive ye.”

  Stubby snickered.

  She paused where she’d been about to shove Plank away.

  Peg-leg wheezed and thumped his chest.

  In seconds, her fathers were falling about the deck in torrents of laughter, tears streaming down their cheeks as they howled and slapped each other’s backs. The only one who didn’t join in was Grubby, who stood beside her and Caspian with a toothy smile.