The Little Ships (Alexis Carew Book 3)

by J. A. Sutherland

  “As you wish, Mister Eades. I’ll have my man gather my things — it should take me no more than a bell.”

  Alexis suppressed a grin at the look on Eades’ face. He seemed to have not mastered the ship’s system of keeping time by the number of bells in a watch, and she could see him struggle with the desire to ask her just how long that might be. Finally Eades nodded and turned to Euell.

  “Captain, thank you for such a fast passage. I’m sure your crew will enjoy leave at the French naval stations, but I do request that you remain prepared to sail on the very shortest notice.”

  “Of course. Shrewsbury is … at your disposal, Mister Eades.”

  “Thank you, captain. I expect we’ll be here no more than a week, perhaps a fortnight at most.”

  Chapter 15

  “Eight bloody weeks!”

  Alexis threw her beret across the room and shrugged out of her uniform jacket.

  Isom retrieved the beret from where it had landed. “More of the same then, sir?”

  Alexis swung her jacket onto the bed with a resounding thump.

  “Meeting after meeting. Meetings with this ministry and that official. All just to arrange yet more meetings. I suspect we’ll meet with the Directorate for Bloody Thumb-twiddling on the morrow!” She paused and rubbed her forehead. “‘No more than a fortnight’, my arse.”

  “Well, least it’s evening now and you can enjoy yourself at those parties they have.”

  Alexis inhaled deeply and rounded on him, ready to let loose more of her frustrations, but forced herself to stop. None of this was Isom’s fault and he’d been patient to a fault with her expressing it.

  Be honest, he’s put up with my bloody tantrums for weeks now.

  She watched as he smoothed the fabric of her beret and set it carefully on the dresser.

  And repaired the damage.

  She knew it wasn’t fair to him, but there was no one else she could complain to. Eades merely smiled tolerantly and told her to remain patient, not even acknowledging that he, himself, had said they should be in-system no more than a fortnight, or that Courtemanche had assured them the French were primed to join the fight, primed to free their brethren in the Berry March.

  If that were truly the case, Alexis had yet to see signs of it in the daily meetings. Meetings where she sat at the back of the room waiting to be asked to speak to her experiences on Giron and with Commodore Balestra. Things Eades had assured her the French would want to hear, but of which, to date, she’d spoken not a word. Instead, Eades, Courtemanche, and whichever officials they were meeting with discussed everything from trade to the state of the succession in Hso-Hsi, far on the other side of Deutschsterne space.

  In some ways the evenings were worse, though.

  The French might not have been a monarchy for several hundred years, but they seemed to have made up for it with an elaborate, bureaucratic Court. The Ministries and Directorates of the government had replaced the aristocracy and there were nightly gatherings around the capital city, some with thousands of attendees and all the pomp and ceremony one would expect of a royal palace, complete with a majordomo announcing each new arrival’s place and distinction within the government.

  Eades swore that it was at these that the real business of government was conducted, but she’d been asked nothing about the worlds of the Berry March or Commodore Balestra at these either. She’d only either been asked to dance or had to smile politely at comments which were nothing more than thinly veiled expressions of contempt for New London.

  Even her delight with the wonders of a Core World was palling in the face of her frustration.

  With a sigh, Alexis retrieved her uniform coat from the bed and handed it to Isom. She went to the window and looked out, head swimming a bit as she looked down, barely able to see the ground far below. She and Eades had been given a suite of rooms in Courtemanche’s residence which had impressed even Eades. Apparently height in the towers was some sort of sign of status and Courtemanche’s rooms were very high indeed.

  Aircars streamed by outside and Alexis shook her head in wonder. It seemed everyone on this world either flew from place to place or took one of the ubiquitous capsules that ran through tubes crisscrossing the city. Both moved at speeds which made Alexis uneasy, though moreso the tubes, which Alexis found horrifying. No one seemed willing to walk so much as half a kilometer for themselves, and Alexis hadn’t seen a single horse since she’d arrived.

  I miss horses.

  She turned from the window and found Isom readying a change of clothes for her. He’d laid everything out on the bed and was brushing her jacket. Fresh trousers and tunic, the dress sword that went along with a lieutenant’s uniform, even clean underthings — that last still gave Alexis pause, but Isom seemed to be not the least bothered by it. He treated her like any other officer. Alexis couldn’t help but smile — she’d never have suspected it of herself, but she found his assistance immeasurably helpful.

  “Thank you, Isom. I’ll just wash up and then off to more parties. Perhaps tonight someone will give me cause to speak about what I came here to say in the first place.”

  Isom left and Alexis proceeded to the one thing on Nouvelle Paris that still managed to delight her even after eight weeks. Her room’s bath, with unlimited hot water and a tub she could fairly swim in, was the one bright spot to the time she’d been on the planet.

  I may never adjust to shipboard life again after this, she thought as the hot water cascaded over her.

  Alexis dressed and then called Isom in to give her uniform his approval. She shrugged her shoulders to settle her uniform jacket in place. Isom moved from behind her to tug on the jacket’s hem and eye it critically. He brushed a few imaginary pieces of lint away and nodded in satisfaction.

  “Masts square and rigging tight, sir,” he said.

  She laughed. “You’re too long a’space, Isom. You’re starting to sound like a seasoned tar.”

  Isom shrugged. “Have to make the best of what we can’t change, sir.”

  Alexis nodded, smile fading. “Indeed.”

  She knew Isom was referring to the fact that he was in the Navy only because he’d been falsely gathered up by the Impressment Service, their officers even going so far as to mark him with a spacer’s tattoo while he was still unconscious from their stun rods. He’d been a legal clerk with no connection at all to space or ships, but there was little he could do about it now. Perhaps if he’d managed to stay with a ship near Penduli where there was a solicitor working on the issue for him he might have had a chance, but he’d chosen to follow Alexis. He seemed to have accepted what he couldn’t change and determined to make the best of things with her.

  So should she make the best of what she couldn’t change. The days and now weeks of sitting idle while the French talked and pondered and … well, generally drank themselves into oblivion before starting afresh the next day. She was so bloody tired of the wait. She’d rehearsed and rehearsed what she’d say until the words were rote, but she wanted her chance to be perfect — if the Republic might really join the war for the chance to free the worlds of the Berry March, she owed Delaine and Commodore Balestra her best efforts to convince them.

  But after the talking, and lasting far longer each night, were the parties, and these were what the French seemed to prefer. Hours and hours each evening, full of drinking, dancing, and dining … and the endless “Mais non, mademoiselle, no talk of war … tonight we dance, oui?”

  Alexis was sick to death of it and ready to scream — not least because the damned French would not allow her to decline when asked to dance. They pressed the issue with an insistence that bordered on rude, then gave her quite wounded looks when the dance was done.

  It’s not as though I don’t warn them. It’s their own fault if they have to limp away.

  She had never in her life felt so utterly useless as she did here. While other officers were leading their men in the war, she was reduced to smiling prettily at the most foppish
courtiers she could ever imagine. She clenched her jaw and raised a hand to adjust her rank insignia, squaring it properly with her collar as regulations required.

  They’re complacent. Need something to spur them to action … short of a flechette to the arse, perhaps, but not far off.

  She regarded herself in the mirror, though Isom would have ensured she was presentable. The French were even more concerned about a proper uniform than the Royal Navy’s regulations — anything out of place would be noticed and remarked on, probably as further proof that the New Londoners were vulgar and uncivilized. She suspected the common folk of the Republic were more serious and less judgmental than those at Court — Probably much like the people of Giron, and Delaine himself — but the attendants at Court were … a chore.

  She eyed her uniform again, eyes falling on her rank insignia, and her lips curled upward.

  Perhaps a flechette to the arse is what they need after all. Her eyes strayed to her baggage. Something to spark a conversation, at least.

  Chapter 16

  “Lieutenant Ca…” The majordomo at the Great Hall’s doorway broke off, eyes widening then narrowing as he took in her uniform collar.

  Alexis had never heard him pause or hesitate before. He seemed to know at a glance everyone who might attend the night’s festivities — their rank, their lineage.

  Probably knows their bloody ancestors to the fourth generation.

  He looked her over again, shrugged, and slammed the butt of his staff into the marble floor forcefully — more forcefully than she’d heard him do so any night before and four times in rapid succession. The sharp crack of the impacts echoed through the room, cutting across conversation and drawing eyes to the entrance.

  “Lieutenant d'Honneur Carew!” he announced loudly.

  Alexis blinked. That wasn’t at all what she’d expected and she wasn’t sure what to think of it. She’d hoped that by exchanging her own rank insignia for those given to her by Delaine — an archaic set of gold lieutenant’s bars, similar to New London’s, but crossed with the fleur de lys instead of a fouled anchor, that she might start some sort of conversation. A question or two about their source that might give her the opportunity to tell these people about Delaine, about Commodore Balestra, and the people of a dozen systems who still thought of themselves as French, no matter how long they’d been occupied by the Hanoverese. Surely if they were aware, they’d want to help? Do something to free them and bring them back to the Republic?

  What she had not expected was such a change in the announcement of her arrival, nor to be greeted with blank, silent faces and narrow, almost menacing, looks.

  Alexis made her way into the hall, trying to remain calm. She met the dark looks with a nod and a pleasant smile, all the while wondering just what she’d done.

  I thought they were just outdated.

  “Can you use that sword at all, Miss Carew?”

  Alexis jumped, gasping as Eades appeared at her shoulder. The man had the infuriating ability to appear as if from nowhere, no matter how alert she thought she was.

  “Sir?”

  “Your sword?” Eades nodded to the blade. “Is it ornamental only?”

  “I … I am not unskilled, Mister Eades.” To herself, though, she began to curse her decision to accept the ornamental sword that came as part of the uniform and to have put off finding one that would make a more serviceable weapon. She’d been so rushed since her promotion, what with being shipped off first to meet Shrewsbury and then the trip to Nouvelle Paris that she’d had little time to think about such things.

  Now, looking around at the glares of those in the crowd, she could wish that New London’s formal dress called for officers to wear sidearms, as she’d heard Hanover’s did. She’d feel far more comfortable with a rapid-fire flechette pistol at her side.

  Eades grunted. “Good, then I’ll not lose future entertainments from you.” He retrieved two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter and handed one to her. “The French have a slightly less liberal code duello than New London, but they are willing to settle differences with the blade. Most of these fops are unskilled, though, so do try not to kill anyone important when the firestorm you’ve just invited arrives, eh?”

  “Sir,” Alexis whispered, “what exactly have I done?”

  Eades eyebrows rose. “You don’t know?” At her shaken head he threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, you are a treat, Carew! Well, imagine your reception in the wardroom if you’d just wiped your arse with the battle ensign while farting God Save the Queen … off-key. That will give you an idea of what you’re in for.” He took a sip of champagne and backed away from her, raising one finger in admonition. “No one important, remember … and not too many bodies on the floor, please.”

  “Sir?”

  Eades turned and walked away, still laughing.

  Alexis took a gulp of the champagne, wishing it were something quite a bit stronger.

  Perhaps I should leave …

  “Do you mock us, anglaise?”

  One of the courtiers had stepped forward into the empty space that surrounded her. Others watched from nearby as he placed a hand on his sword hilt and tilted his head back to look at her down the length of his nose.

  “Pardon me?” she asked.

  The man’s nostrils flared and he tossed his head, sending long, curly hair flying over his shoulder.

  “Ah, now it is pardon.” He shook his head. “Do. You. Mock,” he repeated, slowly and distinctly, nodding at her collar and the offending insignia.

  Alexis inclined her head, choosing to ignore his attitude. She truly hadn’t expected to anger or offend anyone.

  “I do not mock, sir, I assure you.”

  “You wear le Fleur,” he said. “By what right?”

  Alexis raised a hand to touch the insignia gently, drawing gasps and looks of astonishment from those watching.

  Oh, bloody … are you not even allowed to touch the thing?

  “Sir,” she said, keeping her voice level and calm. The crowd around them was growing as more and more people came to watch the confrontation. “I was given these by a friend upon my promotion. I did not know their import to you —” And still don’t. “— and did not mean to offend you.”

  “Ah, I understand now” the man said, nodding. Alexis had a moment to think that the whole thing might be settled before he continued. “You are stupid.”

  “Sir!”

  “You wear those here? Without knowing the meaning?” He snorted. “Stupid.” There was a twitter of laughter from the crowd. “And some friend gives? Très stupide!”

  That was too far, too much. It was one thing to call her stupid for not thinking or bothering to find out the full meaning of the insignia before wearing them, but how dare this popinjay speak so of Delaine!

  “You go too far, sir,” she said, voice low.

  “Moi? Le Fleur is for le héros, the Hero of the Republic! Leave to wear it is granted not these last seventy years! To no one! But you … you Bloody, you Bifteck, you wear it here among us? I go too far?”

  “Seventy years, sir?” Alexis snapped, her temper flaring.

  He had a point, she supposed, and perhaps she shouldn’t have worn the insignia, but, damn him, they’d been eight weeks in the Republic and no closer to an agreement.

  All the while men were dying. New London men, Hanoverese, and men of the Berry March, possibly even Delaine.

  All while this dandy and his like drank their champagne and prattled on.

  “That’s quite a long time, isn’t it?” She took a step toward him. “Produced no heroes in seventy years, you haven’t?” She looked him up and down. “I can see why.”

  The man made to speak, but Alexis cut him off.

  “This insignia was given to me by a good and decent man on Giron in La Baie Marche,” Alexis said.

  “Le Hanovre!” the man spat. “Those worlds are no more Français!”

  “You utter fool,” Alexis said. She knew she should probably
shut her mouth and back away. Eades had told her repeatedly how important it was for her to impress these people, but she was simply fed up with their inaction. “The men and women of those worlds are more French than you, you strutting, little peacock!”

  She advanced on him, fuming.

  “Three bloody generations under Hanover and they still think they’re French and long to come home — though what they’d make of you lot I shudder to think on.

  “The man who gave me these, sir? They came from his many-times great-grandfather, who fought le Hanovre! To his grand-père who fought le Hanovre! He would fight le Hanovre himself, if given the least bit of support from you lot! And I, sir, I, and the rest of us Bifteck, will fight le Hanovre!” She looked him up and down, putting as much contempt as she could manage into her stare and voice. “You, sir, will drink champagne.”

  The man stared at her, eyes wide. He’d alternately flushed, then paled as she spoke. His lips curled in a snarl and his hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. “Merde!”

  Alexis steadied herself in case he drew, but she wouldn’t back down now. She looked him over again and wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Indeed.”

  The man seemed to stop breathing entirely, staring at her. In fact, she noticed, the entire hall was deadly quiet and the crowd around her had grown to include, she suspected, everyone in attendance. All of whom were equally still and staring at her. She flexed her fingers, making no move toward her sword’s hilt, but prepared to draw if he did.

  There was a sharp tap from somewhere in the crowd, then another, followed by the rustle of cloth as people began to move and slide aside. The tapping grew closer and Alexis saw an old man coming forward. He walked with a cane, something rarely seen, and wore a French naval uniform, chest as gaudily covered as any of the French officers she’d seen. As he reached the edge of the crowd she ran her eye automatically over his rank insignia, letting out a gasp of astonishment. Not just one, but three admiral’s rosettes adorned his collar, indicating that he had, at least once, for he was certainly retired at his age, commanded not just a fleet but the entire French navy. And each rosette bore the fleur de lys that crossed her own lieutenant’s bars.