“Alexis!”
She winced at Julia’s tone, flushing, as she had to admit that particular curse wasn’t at all proper in the family kitchen.
“I’m sorry, Julia, too much time around bosuns, I’m afraid — and no care at all for what Mister Eades might want.”
“Well,” Julia said firmly, “as it’s clear you two have a thing or more to speak about — and there’s no one in any particularly immediate need of killing —” She pointedly placed a large carving knife on the table before her, causing Dansby’s brow to raise. Alexis realized the housekeeper’s reach for the teapot had been a feint, but where she’d produced the blade from remained a mystery. “— I’ll refresh the tea, then leave you alone to your discussions.”
She set about doing that and, with a fresh pot of tea on the table along with a full plate of pastry, she ushered Marie from the kitchen.
Nabb opened the door to excuse himself as well.
“I’ll be just outside, sir,” he said, never taking his eyes from Dansby.
“Thank you, Nabb.” Alexis would have liked to tell him to go and return to his home and bed for the night, but she did feel more comfortable with him nearby.
Once they were alone, Alexis seated herself and poured a cup of tea.
“You do surround yourself with the most interesting fellows,” Dansby said, then grinned. “I count myself chief amongst them, of course.”
“Eades’ message, Mister Dansby?” Alexis asked. “That I might refuse him with alacrity and we may both be about other business?”
Dansby reached down to the floor and came up with the mongoose. He placed the creature on the table and fed it a bit of pastry. The creature chewed, swallowed, then looked at Alexis and licked its lips, though she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was actually sticking its bloody tongue out at her in some sort of taunt.
“‘Boots?’” Dansby asked.
“Nightingale’s crew named it for some … proclivities. You’re welcome to it back.”
Dansby fed it another bit of pastry.
“No, Ricki, I think he’s quite happy here with you.”
“I do wish you’d not call me that.”
Dansby’s nickname for her, Ricki, had come when they’d first met. Her intense dislike for the man on first seeing him had prompted Eades to remark that it was natural for a Naval officer and pirate to dislike and distrust one another — rather like a mongoose and cobra. Alexis had been quick to name Dansby the serpent, and he’d been quick to name her the “cute, cuddly one,” and thereafter “Ricki” after some obscure literary work he insisted she read and she refused on principle.
Dansby shrugged. “Come now, Ricki, our times haven’t been all bad, have they?”
Alexis sighed. He did have a point. Her objection to the man was more due to his enterprises than the man himself. She regarded him for a moment … and he was a charming bastard, come to that.
“Very well, Mister Dansby,” she said finally. “Pass along your message.”
“More of an invitation, really.”
“Invitation? I have no intention of traveling anywhere on Eades’ word. In fact, I may be on Dalthus for some time — we’ve just amended the inheritance laws and I can finally look forward to simply running my family holdings, rather than rushing about the galaxy to Eades’ tune.”
“Or the Navy’s,” Dansby said. “Yes, I can see you looking forward to that. A peaceful life in-atmosphere — just the thing for you, I’m certain.”
Alexis flushed, wondering if she was truly so transparent or if Dansby had simply made a guess and confirmed it with her reaction.
“In any case,” he went on, “you’ve no need for much traveling at all. Just a quick jaunt up to the station. You may find it worth your while.”
Alexis frowned. “The station?” Her eyes narrowed at the implication. “Eades is here?”
Dansby nodded.
That did change things. Malcome Eades here? The orchestrator of the plot to free the Berry March worlds from Hanover — the plot which had ended so very badly. Ended in a rushed evacuation, thousands of civilians, Marie and Ferrau amongst them, displaced as refugees, Alexis’ lover, Delaine Theibaud, missing for more than a year now with the fleet haring off into Hanoverese space at the end — moreover, the it was the plot which had resulted in Alexis’ ship, Belial, being pounded to ruin by a Hanoverese frigate while defending the hundreds of little ships evacuating Giron. Her ship, most of her crew, and the true hero of that action, Midshipman Sterlyn Artley, dead and gone in Malcome Eades’ tangled web.
The architect of all that pain and horror here in Dalthus?
Alexis’ jaw clenched.
“You’re quite correct, Mister Dansby, I find myself quite willing to accept that invitation.”
Seven
Alexis had Nabb retrieve her boat crew, apologizing for taking them away from their dinners and reveries, but promising some time aboard the station to do as they will. She could have ridden in Dansby’s boat, but didn’t like being so much in the man’s power. Curiously, she noted that Dansby had no boat crew of his own, he’d piloted his own craft down. That was something Alexis thought she might like, but hadn’t the opportunity to do in the Navy — officers were passengers, not pilots.
Perhaps she could change that if her suggestion that Dalthus buy Nightingale into local service was successful. They’d be establishing their own Service in that case, local and small it might be, and if she were to be the one to first command it, then she could establish any traditions she liked. That might, in fact, be both satisfying and enjoyable — there were things about the Navy she’d change if she could, after all.
Port Arthur and the Carew farmstead might be in night, but orbital stations never were. Construction was still ongoing, and would be for months to come, but three of the main ring’s levels were operational, and much of the quay was in use.
Merchant ships, those carrying goods and others with construction materials, were docked around the outer edge, with the inner side of the ring reserved for the smaller boats.
Alexis caught a distant glimpse of Nightingale trailing behind the station in orbit. Close enough for supplies to be transferred as needed, but not so close as to interfere with traffic. Her ship — no, not hers now, but she couldn’t turn off her feelings of possession for the vessel — looked forlorn and sad to her eye. Masts unstepped, rigging all put away inside — only the barest of navigation lights visible on her hull. She’d sit there, mostly dark and silent, until put to some future use.
She wondered which of the ships was Dansby’s Elizabeth, but didn’t bother to query the console to identify her. Gutis brought the boat alongside the quay and eased it into contact with the docking tube. Dansby was at the tube just ahead of them.
“Lock the hatch,” Alexis ordered Nabb as they waited for the docking tube to air and seal against the boat’s hatch. “Then you and the lads find some entertainments. I’m not sure how long I’ll be, so keep your tablets handy for my call.”
“Aye, sir,” Nabb said. “Will you want an escort to your meeting?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’ll be fine, I’m sure.”
In truth, she wasn’t so certain as that, but she did know that she wanted none of her lads coming too very close to Malcome Eades.
Nabb looked doubtful, but acknowledged her order.
Dansby met them on the quay and led the way for her. Alexis glanced behind a few times to assure herself that Nabb hadn’t taken it into his head to follow her anyway, but saw none of her lads in the corridor. The crowd consisted more of those working on constructing the station than spacers at the moment, but she knew that would change with time. In fact, the corridor itself seemed still unfinished, with men working here and there to install fixtures and trim up final details. It would make a fine addition to Dalthus when it was finished, she thought.
“So … Elizabeth and not Marylin?” she asked.
Marylin was the ship of Dansby’s she’d las
t sailed on.
“Anya has Marylin on some jaunt to Hissie space,” Dansby said without looking at her.
Alexis breathed a bit of a sigh of relief at that. She’d not been looking forward to another meeting with Anya Mynatt, one of Dansby’s captains. She’d never got on very well with the woman, and things had gone downhill after Alexis shot Mynatt in the foot during an altercation … and the knee … and threatened to do the same to a few other places before the situation settled into an uneasy peace. At least, though, Dansby had made good on his promise to finally give Mynatt the captaincy of Marylin.
“Small favors I’ll not have to deal with her,” Alexis muttered.
Dansby winced.
“What?”
Dansby stopped and faced her. “Well, Ricki, I know you never got on well with Anya, but …”
He scratched his neck with his left hand and Alexis caught a glint of gold there.
“Is that …”
“Aye, you’re speaking about my wife, now, Ricki, so I’ll ask bit of civility.”
Alexis stared at him, shocked to her core. Avrel Dansby married was one thing — a shocking thing that might make one question the very order of the universe. Dansby married to Anya Mynatt, when Alexis had seen the two squabble and nearly come to not only blows, but blades and firearms, was simply unfathomable.
“But … you just said she’s off to Hso-Hsi … that’s a year’s trip at the best of times …”
Dansby flushed, something she didn’t know him to do very often.
“Well, you’re young, Ricki. In time you’ll learn, perhaps … there are some marriages as work best do the principles not spend too very much time in each other’s company.”
Dansby led Alexis through the station as though he’d lived there all his life and knew its every turn. Alexis was left to ponder the novel idea of anyone catching Avrel Dansby into marriage paired with the equally unlikely idea of anyone being willing to marry Anya Mynatt at all — that the two things should come together as one pairing bewildered her.
“So, really, you and Mynatt?”
“Enough, Ricki.”
“I mean, I know you used the promise of a ship to bed her, but marriage?”
Dansby winced. “It wasn’t like that.”
“I’m fairly certain she said it was. I remember her wanting to shoot you over it — that should stick in a man’s memory, I think.”
“Can we not do this?”
“I’m only asking.”
“Well, don’t.” He stopped at a nondescript pub, doing quite good business despite the lack of installed signage in the corridor. “We’re here.”
Alexis braced herself and followed Dansby in. They entered, ignored by patrons and staff both, who were intent on the serious businesses of drinking and facilitating, and then up a set of stairs to the upper level. There were a series of hatches off a corridor which Alexis presumed to be private meeting rooms — something Eades had a penchant for finding.
Dansby keyed a hatch and motioned Alexis to proceed him, which she did, then froze in place two steps into the room as she saw him.
Malcome Bloody Eades, she thought.
The man stood to greet her and Alexis was in motion, crossing the space between them, hand raised to strike.
Even as she swung her arm, though, she knew it wouldn’t connect — that she had made a horrible mistake, in fact, for Eades’ bland smile of welcome, his whole demeanor, changed in an instant. No longer the plain, nondescript functionary no one would give a second glance, his eyes hardened, his face set, and his posture changed from one of bureaucratic indifference to the lithe grace of a cat.
His own arm came up to block hers so quickly that she could swear she hadn’t seen it move.
Then, just as suddenly, Eades’ arm lowered and her own swept through the suddenly open space, her palm connecting with the man’s face in a loud crack that filled the compartment.
Alexis glared at Eades, caught between her anger and her astonishment at how quickly Eades had moved — he’d readied himself to block her, apparently decided not to, and lowered his arm again all as she swung her own She was quite certain that she would never, no matter how much she trained with her shipboard marines, quite match the man’s speed.
“I shall allow you that one blow, Miss Carew,” Eades said, “out of respect for your pain and loss.” He gestured to the table and accompanying chairs. “Will you sit and listen now?”
Alexis sat. Dansby set a glass before her and poured. She raised and gulped, letting the fire of the liquor settle in her belly. She took a deep breath and relaxed her shoulders, finding that the blow, symbolic as it might be, had released a great deal of her anger as well. She felt ready now to, perhaps, hear Eades out, though she didn’t know what he might say to excuse his role in the debacle of Giron.
Dansby set the bottle next to her glass and she noted that it was a fine Scotch — which Eades must have felt truly guilty, or need her help very badly, to have provided. True Scotch was hard to come by and dear, especially as far fringeward as Dalthus.
She refilled her glass, happy to swill the man’s guineas given the opportunity.
Dansby sat and took a glass of his own — wine, she noted. As did Eades himself.
Alexis pointedly set her own glass down again, wanting her wits about her for this meeting.
Though I’ll leave here with that bottle in hand, she vowed.
“I suppose I must start with an explanation,” Eades said.
“Please do,” Alexis said. “Should you have one, at all.”
“I assure you, Miss Carew, that I am as …” He paused and pursed his lips as though tasting something unpleasant. “No. No, I won’t make that claim — your own involvement was far more personal than my own.
“The plan for Giron and the Berry March was sound,” Eades said. “I still believe so, even after what happened. What it lacked was proper execution. In that I relied on the expertise of others — military others who, apparently, fatally underestimated the forces necessary to carry out that plan.”
“So you’ll blame others for it,” Alexis said. “I might have known.”
“There’s enough blame to fall in many laps, Miss Carew. My own included, I’ll admit. I should have asked others and not rely solely on those I did. They should have seen the need for more forces than they recommended.”
“General Malicoat told you there were not enough. He wanted more of his own forces, and not uniforms for French you hoped would rise to join us. In the planning sessions — I was there.”
Eades nodded. “By that time the execution of the plan had been turned over to the forces involved — I could not have influenced things then to any great degree.” He sighed. “In the end, it might not have mattered if those voices had been heeded — might, even, have made things far worse.”
“How could it possibly have been worse?”
“Have you ever wondered, Miss Carew, how the Hanoverese were able to bring to bear the forces to outnumber General Malicoat as they did? They might just have easily shown up with far too few, you know, but they arrived with enough right at the first. And why, have you ever questioned, were they so very harsh with the civilians of that world? Leaving aside those who openly rebelled and joined with our forces, the Hanoverese reprisals against Giron’s towns and villages was brutal even for a people known for their harshness.”
Alexis frowned, wondering at what Eades was getting at.
“We were betrayed, Miss Carew, from the very start. The Hanoverese were told our plan and the composition of our forces — they knew where we would strike and with how many troops. Oh, not Commodore Balestra’s fleet — I think that came as quite a surprise to them — but Giron itself.” He sipped his wine. “They allowed us to land, allowed the people to rebel, and then came in with the force necessary to wipe out General Malicoat’s forces and that entire world.
“It was only through the miracle of that ragtag fleet you put together that our forces escaped, and e
ven so Giron is now an example rivaling Abentheren in the litany of reasons not to resist Hanover. It will be generations before the other worlds in the Berry March think of freedom without shuddering at Giron’s fate.”
Eades rose and began pacing.
“This peace with Hanover will not last, Miss Carew — it never does — but while it lasts, there are other issues, other enemies of the Crown, which bear addressing.”
“I’m no longer an active Naval officer, Mister Eades,” Alexis reminded him. “I’m a half-pay lieutenant, in-atmosphere, and soon to be quite occupied with other endeavors. I fear you must look elsewhere to address your schemes.”
Eades smiled.
“Your recent political victory notwithstanding, Miss Carew, will you not at least hear me out? Will that fine bottle of Scotch, and the second I have to gift you on your departure from this room, not buy me that, at least?”
Alexis grunted. Two bottles of Scotch, and this was a fine label, indeed, were dear at any time, but more so on half-pay. True, as her grandfather’s heir now, she could draw on the family funds, but she’d never think to do so for something so frivolous. She had a healthy cache of prize money, still, but even with that it was an extravagance she couldn’t feel comfortable with — taking it off Eades, though, would be a pleasure, even at the cost of listening to his schemes.
She nodded and settled back into her chair.
“Are you at all familiar with the Barbary?” Eades asked.
“Some space between New London and Hso-Hsi, isn’t it? I’ve heard a spacer or two curse the dangers of transiting it.”
“The dangers,” Dansby said, “and the nature of the ports. They’re lawless worlds, and the areas around their ports even more so. Full of graft, corruption, and wickedness.”
“So the sort of place you’re quite at home?” Alexis asked.
Dansby grinned. “Upon a time, quite.”
Eades nodded. “Named by spacers for that very reason, and for the sorts of spacers’ haunts in-system where a man will find a blade in his belly as easily as a pint of ale. The Barbary teems with such, with the natives being quick to separate crews from their purse — or life, barring that. I believe many of the inhabitants may trace their ancestry back to some ancient shore of the same name, but it’s spacers’ slang which stuck.”
Privateer (Alexis Carew Book 5) Page 5
