Pillars of Six

by St Clare, Kelly

  “Caspian says I learned to pretend from the six o’ ye.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Did he now?” Then he tipped his head back to look at the ceiling. “Probably right. He’s rather discerning about other people.”

  Other people, but not himself? “He be a book person, just like ye. But what did ye do after stealin’ me?”

  He glanced at her. “My heart yearned to see Exosia again, but I could not bear to leave you, and . . . I was not sure of my reception in Exosia after traveling at Cannon’s side for so long. I was more refined than any of my fellow crewmen, a fact that set me apart all those years on Eternal. However, I was not as I once had been. My appearance, for starters: tanned, weathered skin and the rough hands of a sailor. My own family would not know me, and if they did, they could only be deeply ashamed of such a relation.”

  Ebba studied the deep creases on his face. “Is that what yer worried about now?”

  “It is, my dear. Though most of my family will be dead and gone by now. Call me a silly old man, but after all this time, that is what I fear.”

  “Ye’re the smartest person I know, Barrels,” she said with a reassuring smile. “Ye survived the most fearsome pirate to ever sail the Caspian Sea. Plus, ye still wear cravats and buckles on yer shoes,” she added. “If yer family can’t see past yer old skin and slightly rough-like ways, they ain’t deservin’ ye.”

  Barrels reached back and gathered his salt-and-pepper hair, confining it with his tie. Then he set his attention to his cravat. “You’re right, my dear. Quite right. Besides, it is uncertain that we’ll happen upon them—if any still live. And unlikelier still that they should recognize me.”

  “That’s the spirit, m’hearty.”

  He dropped the ends of his cravat and sent her a thoughtful expression. “Thank you, Ebba-Viva. You’ve made me feel much better about returning to Exosia.”

  Ebba cocked one ear as the trill of a seagull sounded from outside.

  She hoped Barrels really did feel better. Because by the sound of it, they’d reached the mainland.

  Fourteen

  There was no sign of Verity as the crew of Felicity—and the watchful Jagger—were shuffled off the navy ship with their wrists bound in front of them, a manacle around their left ankles.

  The sun was bright after the dimness of the lower deck, and Ebba was forced to squint through watering eyes around the goliath wharf. They’d seen many a navy ship at Maltu over the years of steal-trading, but she’d never seen so many of the navy’s man-o-wars in one place. The section of the wharf they were shuffling through seemed dedicated to the navy, stretching as far as she could see down the coastline.

  Ebba tilted her chin up, and felt her jaw slacken.

  A hulking stone structure loomed far above, erected on the highest point of the only cliff. The king’s castle, where it lurched high above the village and wharf, had an ominous presence that Ebba assumed was purposeful—the place gave her the shivers anyhow. She’d never seen such a huge building in her life. How many people lived in there?

  “Impressed?” Jagger sneered.

  She watched the way his eyes followed the sailors at the front and the way his jaw tightened upon glancing up at the castle. “Ye talk while sleepin’, did ye know?”

  He swung to look at her, and Ebba sniggered before shuffling off ahead.

  The navy men directed them up the wharf, and they were shoved through the bustling fish market at the port. Exosians turned to look at them, and Ebba stared back at the strangely clad people. The women, even being peasants, or so she assumed, wore layers and layers of clothing. Weird open-rimmed hats sat upon their heads, framing their faces amidst tightly sprung curls that reminded her of piglet tails. The men appeared rather like Barrels, though they all wore hats too: caps, top hats, and a few wore Monmouth caps like Grubby.

  “After you, Lady Bethany,” a woman said demurely. She stood aside from a doorway of a fancy-looking shop for a woman with a larger dress hoop.

  “No, Lady Gertrude,” the second woman said, opening her fan with a snap. “After you.”

  Was everyone a lady here?

  The first woman curtsied low and simpered, “But I insist. Please do oblige.”

  “What’s wrong with them, Stubby?” she whispered. Why didn’t one of them just walk through the bloody door?

  Stubby sniffed in disgust. “They be over-polite, lass. There be pleasant manners, and then there be politeness like theirs. For folk like these, it’s all about face; what ye earn, how ye dress, and who yer friends be. Sometimes, rich landlubbers be so desperate-like to appear a certain way they’re forgettin’ who they really are.”

  “And what’s that?” she asked.

  “Human, lass. They need to eat, drink, breathe, and shite just like the rest o’ us. When it comes to survival, we’re all the same. People go too long without strugglin’, and they’re forgettin’ that. Then their minds move to useless things like ye just saw.”

  That made sense to her, but also didn’t. She had liked the thought of a fierce pirate reputation, but had only ever contemplated that it could be gained through dangerous quests, witty escapes, a sleek ship, and glorious deeds. Maybe the important things for a landlubber were dress hoops and connections with other fancy people. Except Ebba couldn’t imagine forgetting who she was in pursuit of her dreams. Then again, she didn’t have a fierce reputation, so maybe if she became a swashbuckling pirate, she’d turn into a sod.

  Ebba wrinkled her nose, scanning the oddly dressed Exosians again.

  “No talking, miscreant,” a sailor snarled.

  These navy men sure had a lot of words for lowlifes.

  They exited the fish market and were led through double-story stone buildings. She’d never seen so many tall buildings not made of wood. Only the governor’s mansion, really. Tilting her head back, she stared beyond the high buildings again to the castle up on the cliff. Caspian was all the way up there, and they were all the way down here. How would they ever get up there so he could free them?

  She had an idea.

  Ebba cleared her throat. “I would like to talk to Prince Caspian.”

  Jagger groaned, and Barrels threw her a warning look. She ignored it. How else were they meant to see him? “I be wantin’ to talk with your leader’s son, miscreants!”

  One of the sailors rounded on her, and Barrels edged between them.

  “What my crewmate is unsuccessfully trying to enquire is whether you would allow us to seek an audience with the esteemed King Montcroix and Prince Caspian,” Barrels said, executing a bow.

  The captain had turned to see what the ruckus was about. “You don’t speak like a pirate. You speak like an Exosian.” His features settled into disdain. “I suppose anyone can be lured into a life of debauchery.”

  Another sailor stepped forward. “Not this one, Captain. Not lured. I heard him talking in the lockup. He was the royal quartermaster’s apprentice and got caught by pirates and forced into servitude.”

  Ebba took a closer look at the man and saw it was the sailor who’d guarded them—not as asleep as he’d seemed, apparently. “Ye’d make a decent pirate,” she told him.

  His face flushed pink. He appeared chuffed at the thought.

  The captain circled Barrels, eyes narrowed. “Forced to serve, you say? A noble-born Exosian. This is . . . unprecedented.”

  Plank slid nearer, dropping his voice to the ominous one he used for storytelling. “If I may? We were droppin’ Barrels here at Kentro when ye came across us. He’d met the Prince Caspian in Maltu recent-like, and the prince had assured him o’ a pardon after hearin’ o’ his trials and sufferin’.”

  Ebba cut in. “That’s why we need to see Caspian.” If that didn’t work, they still had Sally as a backup.

  The captain whirled on her. “Prince Caspian to you, scoundrel.” His face trembled with rage. He broke away and resumed his place at the front of the procession, muttering, “Wrongdoers, reprrrobates, malefactors.”

&nbs
p; “Where to, Captain?” their guard called after him.

  “To the castle,” Tinkleman snapped.

  They resumed their march through the high buildings.

  “I don’t think he likes us,” she remarked to Barrels, who shuffled in front of her.

  “No, I rather think not, my dear.” He reached up his bound hands to pat his hair.

  Ebba ran her eyes over his elderly yet straight frame. “Yer hair is all back in the coil, and yer cravat be straight.”

  Barrels’ shoulders relaxed. “Thank you, Ebba-Viva.”

  Soon, a burning in her calves told her the ground sloped upward. She lifted her chin and leaned to peer down the side of their single-file procession. They were scaling the hill to the castle.

  “Easy now,” Plank warned her from behind. “Let’s not celebrate just yet. Caspian may not be able to do anythin’. Don’t be gettin’ yer hopes up.”

  The well-worn path turned to light gray cobblestones. Sturdy shoulder-high stone walls appeared either side, which served to shelter them somewhat from the rising wind at the increasing height. The wind not held back lifted her dreadlocks, and Sally squeaked in complaint, leaving her place at Ebba’s neck to crawl under the hem of her tunic. She curled into a ball over Ebba’s heart.

  Ebba peered down to the village and saw the fish market they’d passed through was just a distant blur from here. She stumbled slightly and faced forward, focusing on the path.

  The castle loomed larger and larger, casting their procession into shadow. If she’d wondered how they made a double-story house of stone before, Ebba had no idea how they made this gigantic thing. The castle was as tall as fifty pirates stacked on top of each other. From her position at the bottom, she couldn’t even see the top.

  She stopped, and Jagger called from behind Plank, “Are ye seriously stoppin’ to look at the castle o’ a man who’s about to sentence us to death?” he muttered.

  “Aye, never seen a castle afore,” she replied. Pausing a few beats more to annoy him, she continued forward.

  There was a parapet ahead. An armored row of the king’s soldiers lined the gangway above.

  Ebba quietened as they marched beneath the opened portcullis, a dozen soldiers scowling at them from overhead. Two dozen more gathered to flank their crew and Jagger the instant they passed underneath. They were now outnumbered by navy men and guards four to one.

  Locks whistled low from ahead as he exited the other side. Her lips formed an O as she followed in his wake, the same amazement echoing in her mind. They stood in a cobbled, rectangular courtyard longer than two frigates set end to end. Grains of sand scattered over the cobblestone, but piles hadn’t been allowed to accumulate despite the castle’s proximity to the sea. Ebba spotted a woman sweeping in the far corner. Poor slave. At the far end sat two heavy wooden doors that appeared as though they’d need a whole crew to get them open. Everything was so oversized.

  “On your knees, ruffians!” Captain Tinkleman shouted once they were halfway down the stone courtyard. The captain whispered furiously at another sailor. The sailor ran off in the direction of the heavy doors.

  Peg-leg sighed. “My only knee be bung, do we have to kneel?” He jerked his head at his right limb, which Ebba knew hurt him something fierce in the cold, or when the rain was coming in.

  The captain drew himself tall, puffing his chest out.

  “Do ye think that be an aye?” Stubby whispered to Barrels.

  Barrels cleared his throat. “Yes, I believe so.”

  The captain shot him a look and deflated slightly, just enough that his chest didn’t jut out farther than the rest of his body.

  Ebba sat down cross-legged on the ground, the chains clanking. The sooner Caspian got here, the better. She listened to the moans and grumbles as her fathers lowered themselves to their knees. They were putting on a bit of a show, really, considering not a day went by when they didn’t have to get on their hands and knees to work on the ship.

  Her fathers had just finished grumbling when the heavy doors were drawn inward with a booming crack, and a small party of men ambled out.

  “Montcroix,” Jagger hissed on the other side of Plank.

  Ebba squinted at the man in the middle of the party of men. She assumed that was the king. His purple cape looked heavy and fur-lined. About his head was a light crown that glinted in the sun. He was bald, possessing a stark-white beard and a set of rusty eyes that gave Ebba the sense they’d snap into serrated pieces and cut her if she made the error of trusting them.

  Unfortunately, the eyes, though hard, were an all-too-familiar color.

  Shifting her focus to the young man on the king’s right, Ebba whispered, “Caspian.”

  “Easy now, Ebba. We can’t drop him in it,” Locks said from her left.

  Aye. If she acted too familiar, the king would grow suspicious. From his hawked appearance, suspicious seemed to be his middle name. Ebba bit her lip. The king had power to spare, and they were in his clutches. He was known for his hatred of pirates. There weren’t many people who gave her the willies, but the way the king surveyed each of them as he approached sent a cold shiver up her spine.

  But they weren’t just any pirates, she reminded herself. Maybe he’d see that, like his son.

  Sally shifted beneath her tunic. “Keep still, Sal,” Ebba muttered. “We may still be needin’ ye to free us later.”

  The king and his men stopped ten feet from where she sat. The rest of the men with the king seemed like elevated slaves. Their clothing was better than that of the woman sweeping, but they possessed the same subservient look about them.

  Ebba stole a peek at the prince, but didn’t know what to make of the rapid darting of his eyes.

  “Scum,” the king greeted them.

  Sally squeaked indignantly. The king’s eyes shot to Ebba, who quickly cleared her throat. Her cheeks warmed under the utter loathing she detected in his rusty glare.

  Mostly, when Ebba was hurt, her grudge toward whomever had caused the hurt lessened over time until one day it was gone. Other grudges, like the one she held against Pockmark and Malice, she’d harbor until the day she died. Ebba suspected that the king’s grudge against pirates for killing his father fell into the latter pile.

  King Montcroix shifted his attention to the navy captain, and Ebba sagged, catching a sympathetic glance from Caspian. He could save them anytime now. She shot him a scowl.

  “Why are you wasting my time, Captain?” the king asked coolly. Not a fleck of emotion softened his face. Ebba cast a worried look at Barrels, whose tight smile did nothing to reassure her.

  The navy captain appeared to need more reassurance than Ebba. He wilted under King Montcroix’s attention and stuttered as he scrambled for an answer. “One of the men is from Exosia, Your Majesty. The pirates say the man recently met Prince Caspian and that t-the prince g-granted. . . .”

  The king’s voice could’ve frozen the whole mainland. “Granted what?”

  Ebba caught Caspian’s wide-eyed glance and mouthed ‘pardon.’

  “You,” the king said sharply, making her jump. “You just moved.”

  “I did never,” she blurted.

  His face didn’t change color. He didn’t make any angry gestures or shout, but the entire courtyard vibrated with unreleased tension in such a way that left Ebba in no doubt that the monarch was coiled to strike. Jagger fidgeted, and the king diverted his focus to the flaxen-haired pirate.

  The king’s eyes flickered, widening slightly.

  “The captain is correct, Father,” Caspian said, stepping forward. “I met this man in Maltu while staying with the governor.”

  The tension didn’t dissipate. Ebba didn’t dare look at any of her fathers, or Jagger, who was breathing as though he’d run a race.

  “You met a pirate. In Maltu,” the king said, voice leaden. He shifted his gaze from Jagger to Caspian.

  The prince did not wilt visibly as the captain had, but Ebba knew him well enough to catch the flicker
in his amber eyes. “Yes, I did. The soldiers there apprehended this man, Barrels, and I caught sight of them dragging him to the gallows. I recognized his accent.”

  For the umpteenth time in their friendship, Ebba was glad the prince was so smart.

  “Which of you is the pirate Barrels?” the king said. His bored tone belied the flash of contempt in his eyes.

  Barrels answered, “I am, Your Majesty. I was apprentice to the royal quartermaster under your father’s rule many years ago. A pirate took me hostage while I was traveling around the Caspian Sea, auditing the governor’s records.”

  The ruler paused at what Ebba assumed was Barrels’ accent. Plank had told her once that was what know-it-alls sounded like.

  “My name was Jonathan Schnikelwood.”

  Sally choked under her jerkin. Ebba froze, but the king didn’t look her way again.

  “Schnikelwood,” another of the king’s comrades mused.

  “Jonathan Schnikelwood,” Barrels replied. “Second son of Baron Schnikelwood.”

  Sally snorted a laugh, and Ebba jerked up a hand over her mouth to cover the sprite’s none-too-quiet amusement over her father’s name. Sink her, Barrels had definitely traded up when he became a pirate. Schnikelwood. If they didn’t die, Ebba would never let him hear the end of it.

  “The baron and his eldest son helped me a great deal in the Battle for the Seas,” the king said, eyes fixed on her oldest father.

  Barrels slumped. “They are dead then, Your Majesty?”

  The king waved a hand, turning to his son. “You would vouch for this pirate?”

  Caspian looked like he didn’t dare believe his ears. “Yes, Father. I spoke to the man at length.”

  “How came you to be with these pirates, Barrels?” The king didn’t remove his eyes from Caspian’s face as he spoke.

  Barrels replied smoothly, “They saved me from the governor’s soldiers and agreed to bring me to Kentro so I could buy passage to Exosia.”

  “Out of the goodness of their hearts, I suppose,” the king said, tilting his head.

  Ebba stiffened, sensing a trap. Stubby also tensed on her right.