Memory of Morning
Woodpunk Alternate Universe Fantasy
Susan Sizemore
Dedication: For the best BetaReader, ever.
Copyright 2011 Susan Sizemore
Cover Art Kim Killion
Editor Marguerite Krause
Published by Smashwords.com
Chapter One
I think I shall start by telling you about the first time I was ever kissed. You might think that this is romantic, but actually - actually, it was romantic, for me - but it was just before the Battle of the Arum Sea and there was a great deal more going on. Yes, I was there at the great engagement when the Southern Fleet took on the pirates and broke the hold those marauders held over the southern islands. I was a surgeon's apprentice aboard the frigate Moonrunner. Mind you, apprentice wasn't the proper term anymore even if it was the official one. I had served my two-year contract already and was moving into the twenty-sixth month of service aboard the ship. I didn't mind one bit that the 'Runner was late returning to port, except for my need to pass the final exam to grant me the Surgeon Certificate. Not many woman hold the title surgeon and I was anxious to officially be among that small number. I was ambitious and anxious to grab onto our brave new meritocrat society and make my mark. Being Doctor Megere Cliff was not nearly enough for me. The Imperial Navy needed surgeons, so they took on female apprentices when the Imperial College of Surgeons had yet to bend to pressure to allow women in their ranks. Getting your hands bloody delivering a baby was one thing, taking a knife to cut through muscle was unladylike. I'd taken advantage of the military's need, not only for my own purposes, but from a growing sense of the rightness of serving my country, just as both my brothers had as well. Our generation wanted the war with Framin to end, so a new society would have a chance to grow in the Ang Empire.
While I was technically a civilian contractor, my heart and soul had been taken over by love of the sea - adventure, the fear and excitement of battle, the camaraderie - in some ways it was the captain I loved, the brash and famous Dane Copper, but more on that later. The point is, I was a well-trained, efficient surgeon by the time this battle came along. My apprentice master was Dr. Samel Swan, by the way. Fine teacher, brilliant man and I thought my heart belonged to him - though any liaison between us could never be! I was quite young at the time, in case you hadn't guessed, full of romantic longings I was smart enough to keep under control. And no, it wasn't Swan or Copper that kissed me. Most folk thought they were more likely to kiss each other, but I knew that wasn't quite true.
Back to the kiss, and the battle, too, I suppose, though I saw most of it inside the bowels of the ship and what I saw was what I always saw - blood, gore, screams, dying. I sawed off limbs and shut the eyes of the dead. I made choices of who had a chance to live and who was only waiting to die and acted on those choices. I knew well that battle is anything but glorious. Oh, it's exciting, at least the before and after parts can be, but the fight itself is nothing but gruesome necessity.
The early morning before the battle, just around dawn, I finished making preparations in the surgery and then made my way up to the main deck. I knew I'd be belowdecks for many hours to come and wanted some fresh air. I wanted to greet as many of the crew as I could and bid them the All's Protection for the day. I wanted to see what I could of the battle order, though I assumed the nearest Imperial ships might be beyond the horizon, or lost in a morning fog. The Moonrunner was set out as bait, after all. Of course, I also wanted to do my duty as part of that bait.
Civilian or not, I didn't often get to wear civilian clothing, and the skirt and bodice I wore now wasn't even my own. My own dresses - of which I had only two packed in my sea trunk - were modest and middle-class, the necklines high and proper. I'd had to borrow something more provocative from Ganna Broom, who supervised the laundry crew. Currently, the tight lacing showed off more cleavage than I thought I actually had. The bright scarlet skirt was full and swirling, but the material was thin.
The point, you see, was to appear to pirates as if we were a civilian ship. It should be easy enough for the pirates to believe that we were ripe pickings blown off course by the recent spate of bad storms. Anyone who had ridden out those storms, as the Moonrunner and the pirate fleet had, would not be surprised by any flotsam spied floating - helplessly - this far south of safe shipping lanes.
So, I walked around the deck, hips swaying with the roll of the waves, my bosoms preceding me, and tried to look like a woman waiting to be ravished. The other women on deck, officers and able seaman alike, did the same. There are never that many females on board a warship, but we did our best to pretend to be simple passengers rather than, say, capable merchants. The appearance of the whole ship was supposed to plant a sense of vulnerability in the pirates’ minds. We women had decided to flaunt our femininity.
Of course there'd be women among the pirates, but they'd be armed and dangerous. The point of this exercise was for those aboard our ship to appear lightly armed at most and far from dangerous.
It wasn't only we women dressed in civilian clothes. I spotted Captain Copper lounging by the wheel, dressed in an emerald green swallowtail coat and black trousers so tight it was evident why the fashion circulars referred to this current male style as Masculine Unmentionables. I know it was wrong to stare at the ship's commander the way I did - no doubt my mouth hung open - but how could one help it? Captain Copper runs a tight ship and he'd normally be the last one of his crew to be seen in anything but the knee-length blue coat, red vest, buff trousers, black boots, and tricorn hat of a proper officer. Well, he wasn't wearing a hat now. His dark blond hair was loose around his shoulders, and instead of a starched cravat, he wore his shirt unbuttoned down half his chest. The sight was enough to send a hot rush through me, and likely most of the women and some of the men who caught a glimpse of our captain this morning.
If the pirate admiral was a woman, I knew what booty she'd be claiming.
I didn't notice the man who'd come up behind me until he put an arm around my waist and swung me to face him. I had no idea who he was. Which is certainly an odd thing to say since I've already mentioned I'd been on the Moonrunner for over two years. There were one hundred and ninety-four crew members aboard the second-class frigate and I knew them all well. This man was a stranger. Which was one of the reasons my mouth continued to hang open as he smiled at me.
Not a handsome stranger, either, but very much a virile man. He was a long-faced, hooked-nosed fellow with a beard that made his face seem even longer. Dimples showed through the scruffy hair on his face. He had blue eyes and brown hair, worn long like all sailors, and loose around his face, as we all wore our hair this morning. He pulled me close to a body that was long and lean, the muscles hard as rocks beneath the layers of cloth. And the bulge at his crotch gave evidence of hardness as well. And he was tall. I'm not all that short a woman, but this man towered over me. And the hands holding me were big. Hard, strong, callused sailor's hands. I couldn't have broken his hold even if I'd been able to recall the self-defense lessons Lieutenant Breeze had drilled us civilians in so many times.
From the way I instantly melted against him, I guess I didn't want to break that hold to begin with. The male-wants-female recognition shot through me, shaking me from my head to my toes and heating my insides far more than staring at the captain had done. Maybe it was proximity. Maybe it was the natural tension before a battle reverberating between us.
It was - devastating.
You might have guessed I was still a virgin when I mentioned a first kiss. Certainly not for lack of opportunity, but definitely for my own reasons, I was indeed a virgin. Neither ignorant or innocent though - please recall that I am a doctor.
"Good girl!" h
e said when I sank into his embrace.
His accent was distinctly not that of Ang. The words had a lilt to them, but not the same as the rich tones of Welis. The Empire is made up of thousands of islands, large and small, and I'm hardly familiar with the accents of all of them, even if I had run into people from all over while serving on the Moonrunner.
"From the north, are you?" I asked.
"As far north as can be," he told me.
I knew that this man did not serve on board my ship. Who was he? What was he doing here? Holding me. My hands were on his shoulders, so I suppose it can be said I was holding him back. His coat was of fine brown wool, my sensitive fingers all too aware of heated skin and muscle beneath the cloth.
"Who?"
"A servant of the Empire," he answered.
I'd never seen anyone's eyes twinkle with so much mischief. I couldn't help but laugh.
Then I remembered that the Fleet Admiral's flagship had been seriously damaged in the most recent storm. For a while it was thought that the ship was lost, but it had limped close enough to the rest of the fleet for crew members to be transferred to other ships before it was scuttled. A boatload of officers had been dropped off the night before. I'd been scrubbing the surgery at the time and had retired to my hammock before meeting any of the newcomers. What an interesting way to make a staff officer's acquaintance, I thought now. I assumed no one but an officer would dare behave as boldly as he did. Unless he was an able seaman who mistook me for one as well. No, no working-class man would have such a bold and assured way about him.
I managed to find my voice. "Sir, I trust your - our - behavior is meant to be spied by the enemy."
"That too," he said.
Then he kissed me.
It was obviously a memorable, watershed moment or I wouldn't be mentioning it. Well, I didn't know it was watershed at the time, but it was certainly - wonderful.
His lips were demanding and gentle all at once, his tongue teased my lips open and his tongue and mine twined and danced and I quite simply caught fire - brain, body, soul. I loved the taste of him, the feel of our bodies pressed together, the scent of him.
At first I didn't realize the explosive roar in my ears was actually the sound of cannon fire. And considering how often I had heard cannon fire in the last two years, my mistaking it for the roar of my heart says quite a lot about my state at the time.
But the man kissing me was not so dazzled by the moment. He realized what was happening and let me go.
He was still smiling as he patted my behind. "Battle stations, gel," he said, and ran toward the bridge, long legs striding in that assured way sailors acquired during a lifetime at sea.
I watched him for only a moment before turning down to my own station belowdecks.
It was a long, bitter, bloody day. You know how it was a great victory for the Empire, and the All knows we needed a victory. Those of us who were there know that it was no certain victory at the beginning. The pirate fleet was large, well led, and well equipped. These marauders had owned the Southern Sea for a long time and weren't giving it up easily. The punishment for piracy is execution, no appeal, no exceptions, so yielding for prize capture was not one of their options.
Cannon fire went on and on, shaking the Moonrunner as we fired and were fired on. Less loud and regular, but a continuous undertone, was the firing of the marines' muskets and pistols up in the ship's rigging. Every bullet was precious and our marksmen were careful in seeking targets. Eventually even the clash of blades could be heard as the fighting above us came down to man to man, sword to sword, a deadly clatter of bronze, flint, steel, obsidian, jade.
I paused between patients long enough to exchange grim looks with Dr. Swan and the rest of the surgery staff. The Moonrunner had been boarded.
You must understand how rare this is. It is all very romantic to read about such hand-to-hand combat in adventure stories, but most naval conflicts are generally fought at some distance. It's a matter of maneuvers and gunnery, of strategy and weather wisdom. The best player in the game of war is usually the winner. If a battle comes down to enemies coming face to face with swords and pistols, then mistakes have been made.
Dane Copper is not a man known for making mistakes.
He had told his crew in a rousing speech the day before that the battle might come down to this. But hearing the scuffling and shouts overhead sent me into a cold sweat of fear. I had too much to do to allow myself more than a shiver of apprehension.
"Does he ever lose?" Dr. Swan asked reassuringly. His cool confidence steadied everyone in the room.
I returned my attention to the man on my table. He needed stitching up now that I'd taken a splintered ebony bullet from him and made sure his insides were clear of debris. A doctor would rather deal with lead shot any time than face the far more infectious danger of wooden bullets. But the pirates were not only vicious criminals, they also lacked the greater access to stores of metal than the Imperial Navy.
Truly, the last thing in the world I expected was for the battle to come tumbling riotously through the surgery door.
But that is what happened.
Suddenly there were bodies everywhere. I recall the stink of sweat and gunpowder, and the room filled with smoke as weapons were raised and fired. Some damned fool was waving a torch. He dropped it on my work table as he was stabbed, and I had to scramble to keep my patient's clothes from catching fire. Bodies shoved against me. Shouts - of anger, of orders, of warning - buffeted my ears. I grabbed up my longest surgical knife, finely tempered meteorite steel, or perhaps I already had it in my hand - all I know is that suddenly I was using it as a weapon rather than an aid to healing. Spend two years on a ship of the line and you learn how to fight. Believe me, how I reacted had been drilled into me. I needed to forget my patients and defend my own life, and that is what I did.
I recall slashing my blade across the face of an invader who aimed a blow at one of my helpless patients. I recall Dr. Swan pulling a pistol from his belt and firing into someone's chest. Clean through the heart, knowing Dr. Swan's skills. I saw a sword slashing toward a broad back in a green coat and realized that Captain Copper was in danger. I was close enough to ram a shoulder into the enemy swordsman. Then I caught the flash of another blade coming toward me. I parried as best I could, but knife against sword doesn't make for the best of odds.
There was a loud shout in my ear. A shove. Horrible pain and hot spurt of blood. Then my head hit the deck. My sight filled with explosions of light, and then the world went dark.
Chapter Two
I lost a lot of blood, more from cutting my head on the corner of my operating table as I fell than from the sword cut that bit deeply into my right arm.
I lost about as much time as I did blood, and there were lives I could have saved instead of being a casualty myself. The knock on my head kept me unconscious for a long time, then semi-conscious with head pain for which I refused poppy extract. They mixed some into the water they gave me anyway - which is exactly what I would have done with a stupidly stubborn patient - which didn't stop me from being angry at such high-handed treatment. It is an indisputable fact that doctors make the worst patients. I didn't lose my arm. Dr. Swan did a very good job of sewing me up and fighting off infection - I'd won him over to the use of honeyherb - and I ended up with a scar and the use of it. Thank the All and Dr. Swan. A one-armed surgeon is a retired surgeon. There was stiffness that I was sure plenty of exercise would work out, and, thankfully, I'm left-handed anyway.
I missed the official celebrations of the great victory.
I suppose I should formally state that the invading pirates were defeated. Not just those who boarded the 'Runner, but all the ships that came against the fleet at this Battle of the Arum Sea, as it came to be called. Most were killed during the battle, but the rest were hanged or flung into the sea. I am glad I missed seeing any of the necessary and deserved executions. Many of the pirate ships were sunk, burned down to the waterline. The five v
essels declared as prizes were claimed by the Fleet Admiral for his own disposition, but the captains had no cause to complain of lost prizes, as there was plenty of seized property to share out as lawful booty.
Serving with Captain Copper was a prosperous berth, even for us civilian contractors. The Moonrunner had taken many prize ships during my time onboard. Until now I had taken my civilian shares as written markers to be claimed for crowns, plumes, and pins when we at last returned to the homeport of Seyemouth. But as the ship finally approached Seyemouth during my twenty-seventh month on board, Captain Copper invited all officers and contractors to a dinner party. Of course, we frequently shared meals in the captain's dining room, which was also the war room and his personal quarters depending on the need of the moment, but this was an occasion for formality. I gratefully unpacked the silver-gray evening dress I wore so infrequently, and shook out the lavender sprinkled in the folds to keep it fresh. No doubt it was now hopelessly out of fashion back on Ang, but I was still delighted to have a chance to dress-up. I am vain about clothes, I admit it. I was so glad the dress has long sleeves, since I didn't want to show off the fresh scar all red and tender on my upper right arm. As I told you, vain. But, also, I felt wrong putting myself in the company of heroes, such as Second Officer Gate, who'd lost an eye to a bullet in the conflict with the Framin - The Damned Fram as he always called them. Or Lieutenant Eel - I'd removed two fingers of her smashed left hand myself. The loss was the result of her saving her gun crew from a cannon explosion. At any rate, I was able to hide my scar and enjoy the evening in company of people I had become fond of. I knew I would soon be missing them.
Not that I loved everyone on board, of course. Nor did everyone love me. But we all managed to live in relative harmony, as we had no choice. Captain Copper ran a disciplined ship and constantly stressed our working as a team. If he noticed tension between any two people he made sure they served hard drills together until the personality kinks were worked out. I'd never had to submit to this sort of discipline, but I came from a huge, close family and already knew how to get on the good side or keep out of the way of anyone I had no say in spending time with. I pity only children, I really do.
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