by Julia Knight
It had taken a week after he’d given the news to the Master before he could walk without pain, before Ilsa dared to come too close. Even now, ten days after he’d been up and about again, his bones ached and his skin shivered in remembrance. Yet the Master hadn’t dismissed him from Van Gast’s capture. On the contrary, he’d insisted Holden carry on. The Master had a new plan. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. A new punishment too, should he fail. Death by bond, by twisting it so tight that it killed him.
It grew lighter and Holden could, if he worked at it, just make out the grey forms of his men scattered along the doorways and shadowed places in the street. A few lamps came on in the houses and lit squares of packed earth and patches of wall in the narrow street, but no one was about yet. This village was too small to ever be busy, but now it was deserted.
No, not deserted. Two figures came down the street holding hands, wary in the half light. One taller, one a small child, and the faint sound of Forn’s bells accompanied them. They moved past a patch of lamplight, and Holden caught a glimpse of blond hair. Enough, in this town where the inhabitants were dark-haired and brown-skinned, to know it was the woman he was after. Holden nodded to Skrymir over the street and they stepped forward together to meet her and the boy.
Before they could draw their swords, she’d scooped up the boy on one arm and drawn her cutlass with the other. Two steps back in a fluid fighter’s stance. It would do her no good—five more of Holden’s men came forward from their hiding places behind her.
The cutlass whipped out, took one of his men across the face and she darted into the sudden gap, heading for the narrow, winding alley his man had hidden in. Skrymir led the chase, his wide shoulders skimming the alley walls as he leaped rubbish and a drunk, a hair’s breadth after her.
Carrying the boy slowed her or they might never have caught her. Skrymir grabbed at her shoulder and spun her as the alley widened into the village’s single square. Even as she fell she lashed out with her blade and rolled into the fall, the boy tucked under her. Skrymir jerked back with a curse to avoid the sword and then he was on her, his great arms trying to pin her. It was like trying to corral a nest of snakes.
Holden grabbed for her flailing legs as she bit and cursed and kicked, caught him a crack on the cheek with the heel of her boot that made stars spin a moment. Then the rest of his men caught up. One held the wriggling boy above the ground by the scruff of his neck and Skrymir had the woman pinned with one knee on each shoulder, her cutlass in his off hand. Even his weight on her, his bulk dwarfing her, didn’t stop her struggles or her curses.
“Lamp,” Holden said, and one of his men ran to a corner of the square and brought one of the lights that kept it patchily bright even at night. Skrymir threw the cutlass out of her reach and reached for something in her hair, his breath hissing when she bit his hand hard enough to draw blood.
Holden brought his sword down to just touch her throat and she stilled, though she cursed him under her breath. His man held the lamp up so they could see her. Fair hair, all done in braids with trinkets, ribbons and shells woven in. A deadly cold coiled in Holden’s stomach and he let the sword’s point fall away from her throat. With the threat of that gone, she wriggled and strove to get free.
She spat on his blade and he saw her face clearly. Sharp cheekbones, pale skin that tended to burn in the sun, a stubborn, full mouth that would turn into a lopsided grin at the most inappropriate moments, and he knew if he looked closer he’d see that her eyes were the grey of the sea before a storm. Five years, back to a time that had all but been wiped from his mind by his tightened bond, by his newer, more direct servitude to the Master, but she’d barely changed from that youthful nineteen to now.
“Josie?” A new dawn that would change his life forever. The Master’s joke, making him abduct the woman he’d been in love with all those years ago, whose face he’d forgotten in the fog of the bond. The face that ghosted his dreams even after the bond was tightened to take his mind and will and made her just a vague memory, soon buried under a tide of grey duty.
The woman who’d ruined him for bonded girls, and he’d not even remembered.
Her wriggles and curses stopped and she glared at him. “Holden? What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Holden pulled Josie along by her arm, all too aware of the long-buried thoughts she stirred in his brain. Josie dug in her heels, tried to bite and scratch, but he kept her at arm’s length and, besides, Skrymir had the boy. He dangled from the Gan’s hand like a trapped rabbit, and Josie’s eyes were never far from him. Something to use, to lever her with. Only…
They reached the wharf and her ship, the Jesting Queen. The deck was empty and Josie frowned up at it. Getting the idea at last. Holden dragged her up the gangplank.
The ship was silent, still, when it should be full of noise and crew-hands.
“My crew,” Josie said in a murmur, her voice suddenly unsteady, unsure. “Where’s my crew? What have you—please tell me you haven’t bonded them. Holden?”
“Being held against your good behavior.” Holden’s men, two ships’ worth, had taken her men and confined them in the brig while he’d got hold of Josie. Only a few had been bonded, as yet. Only enough for Cattan to discover where she was, that the Master’s scrying had been true.
One of Holden’s men came up from belowdecks. “All secured, sir.”
“Good, let’s make sail before anyone finds out what we’ve done. The Master’s waiting.”
Skrymir took the boy below to the brig and Holden tried to ignore the hot glare that seemed to burn between his shoulders. He’d taken her ship. Taken who she was. It was the Master’s will.
“Holden—”
“I don’t care,” he said to the unasked question. “I have my orders, I follow them. That’s all. That’s all there ever was.”
He avoided her gaze, the puzzled look as though she couldn’t believe it was he who said such words. And the anger that followed, twisting her mouth and making trenches of the lines on her forehead.
Only it wasn’t all there ever was. Now he remembered. One of his crew took Josie away still talking to him, still trying to understand where he’d gone wrong, why he wasn’t the person he had been.
Because he’d seen, that was why, the thing he could never express, especially not to her. He’d seen the order, the peace, he’d seen how it should be. The Master had shown him, and he knew it was right. The bond was good, and she’d come to see it in time, the rightness of it. The way it leveled everyone, smoothed away all fears, made everything easy, everyone equal.
A small, small voice wondered if she’d join him, but another, just as small, just as whispering, told him no. That she was precisely who she was, who he’d once loved, because of the way she was. That he’d loathe it if she was bonded to him. It would take away everything they’d had, that she had been with him because she wanted to be, not because she was told to.
She was the reason for the far horizon in his window’s reach. Hers was the name he shouted when he dreamed of running naked and laughing through the town. The last came up through his mind, like a dead body coming to the surface of a still pond, stinking and green from neglect. She was the one who’d found his laughter, made him think there were worlds beyond the bond. Josie, who had loved him anyway, despite his bond, despite his Remorian blood, had shown him the possibilities the world had to offer.
And there she was belowdecks, in his chains. Ready for the Master. He had no choice and it shriveled a part of him, the part that dreamed forgotten dreams. He stared at the deck, at the straight lines and patterns of the wood. Straight lines, patterns, order, constants, comfort. It was good, it was necessary.
It hurt him to the quick.
Van Gast took a swig of beer, kept back his best hand and threw the remaining bones. “Double kraken.”
“So five kraken over four sharks? Again?” Captain Brandick snorted and shoved a handful of coins across the table. “Are you sure you aren’t
cheating?”
A few of the other players muttered and two of the more nervous disappeared into the smoky fog of the taproom. Accusations like that rarely went well, one reason the game was called Dead Man’s Hand. Nine bones with nine sides. Three rolls to see what kind of hand you could make. Nine kraken the best you could roll, but so unlikely to be rolled naturally on the first try that any time it happened, the man who rolled generally ended up with a bullet somewhere nasty. If he was lucky.
Van Gast stretched his mouth in a grin and spread his hands wide. His little-magics weren’t itching, had been still and silent since Quint had allayed his fears, he was more than a little drunk and the world was a good and happy place. “How can I be cheating? They’re your bones.”
Brandick picked up the bones thoughtfully and rattled them in his hand. “Yes, and I paid good money for them to only roll well when I roll them. Fucking mages, bastard twisted me. Bah!” With a shout of rueful laughter he threw the bones across the floor and let them get lost in the tangle of drunken feet and spills of ale and food among the rushes.
Van Gast bent down to retrieve them. Maybe not magic, but he’d known they were weighted as soon as he picked them up and he’d got the feel for them now. Nothing like a set of bones ready to fall in your favor. He sat up, shuffled the bones and cast them across the table. Five sharks, a kraken, a mermaid and two wrecks. Not a bad first hand and not so flashy as it looked like he’d known before he rolled what he’d be getting. “I thought as much. Takes a cheat to know one.”
Brandick swigged at his ale and smoothed the spillage down his dark beard shot through with grey. He smiled to himself, as though he’d just hatched a plan. That was Brandick’s trouble—he’d not got the face for a bluff.
“You’re absolutely correct. Ah, take them, they’re yours. Just make sure you don’t roll Dead Man’s Hand. I had something special put in for that, in case I met someone could cheat better than me. Speaking of which, the little cheat I was due to meet hasn’t showed. She was supposed to be here days ago. Women! Never on time. But it’s the first time she’s not showed at all. I got to sail, and I’ve got a cargo sitting there with no buyer now.”
Van Gast sipped at his beer. The itch had started, just behind his breastbone, but faint, very faint. Almost the ghost of one. “Who’s not turned up then?”
Brandick sat back and smoothed his beard again, as though debating whether to tell him. Van Gast said no more. They’d known each other a long time, and the older racketeer wouldn’t say until he was sure it was to his profit, or at least that he wouldn’t lose any profit. Finally he leaned forward with a little smile, as though he was imparting a secret that would set the sharks among the seals. “Josie, she was supposed to be my buyer. Now, Van, don’t look at me like that, I can’t stop trading because you don’t like who I’m dealing with. Besides, when I’m haggling I prefer to see a pretty face, not your ugly mug.”
Only it wasn’t that, his supposed hatred of her, which made Van Gast scowl. He’d all but forgotten he was supposed to keep up the act. The mention of her, that she’d not shown, made the itch grow. Still small, like a cat’s claw scratching delicately behind his ribs, but it was there. Trouble, on its way. But trouble for her or him? No, Josie could take care of herself. A few days was nothing. Him then, trouble for him. Yet why would Josie not showing be trouble for him?
“What’s your cargo?” Van Gast spoke more to keep up appearances than because he wanted to know. “I might be able to help you out.”
Brandick’s eyes narrowed under brows that looked as though they’d been dusted with snow. Smelling a way out of an unsold cargo and a lost profit. He grinned in what he probably thought was a nonchalant manner, but in reality looked more like a fox that had just smelled chickens and found a gap in the fence. “You might want some of it, I suppose, if you think you can shift it. Why not come and see?”
They stumbled out of the inn and down to the harbor. The moon was nearing full and hung fat and heavy over the roofs, lighting their way. The cooler air sobered Van Gast up a little, but that only made him fret about the itch more. Brandick staggered on a pothole and grabbed at Van Gast’s arm. Way drunker, and that would be good when it came time to deal. They might have known each other a long time, might even be what you’d call friends. That wouldn’t stop Van Gast using Brandick’s drunkenness against him. Brandick would no doubt do the same. They were racketeers after all. No loyalties except to their own crew, and most of all to money.
“Heard you had some trouble in Estovan.” Brandick took his hand off Van Gast’s arm and squinted as he tried to negotiate the holes in the street. “Got away, as usual though. How’d you do it?”
“Luck, just luck and an itchy trouble bone.”
“Ah yes, you and your famous trouble bone. A handy little-magic for a rack. Trouble in Estovan, though. That’s not good. It’s a fine place to turn a twist. So many people with too much money and too little sense.”
They made it to the wharf and Brandick was still upright. An achievement.
“I think I upset their Yelen.” A handy lie to cover for the fact he still didn’t know who it’d been. A racketeer never admitted what he didn’t know—first rule of trade.
Brandick stared at him in alarm. “You did what? Oh, you idiot boy.”
Van Gast laughed. “Stole the wrong ship, didn’t realize till too late whose it was. Made me a shitload of money though, so can’t complain.”
“Van, Van, Van, what are we going to do with you?” Brandick shook his head. The movement unbalanced him but he managed to get upright again with a hand on a wall. “A boy after my own heart.”
“Come on, what’s this cargo? It’s getting late and I want to sail with the tide.”
“Cargo? Oh, yes.” Brandick led the way to his ship. Van Gast’s own ship, Gast’s Ghost, wasn’t far along the wharf, tucked up nicely in the corner being unobtrusive, out of the way. A couple of his crew were just staggering up the gangplank, ready for the tide and time to leave. The sober men among the crew—those left to guard the ship—cursed them aboard.
Brandick led Van Gast along the wharf to where his ship was tied. Sails flickered dolefully in the fitful breeze that wafted the sour smell of the estuary among the pilings. The deck was littered with half-open barrels, tangles of rope, overturned buckets. Brandick had never been one for making his crew work too hard at keeping everything squared away.
They went down into the musty hold. Brandick kicked at a rat that skittered past and rifled through the haphazard piles of crates, barrels and bales. After a lot of swearing, he found what he was looking for. “Only a little thing. Gods alone know what she wanted with it. I can probably shift the rest myself, but this? What rack, or anyone else even, would buy this off me?”
He levered open a crate, held up the lantern from the doorway and they peered inside.
To begin with Van Gast couldn’t make sense of what he saw. He was expecting silver maybe, silk perhaps, jewelry, something small yet valuable. Just Josie’s style. Brandick held the lamp higher and then he could see properly. Only it still didn’t make sense. What the fuck would Josie want with a crate of toy men?
He reached in and took one out. A carved man all tricked out like a racketeer. Brightly colored breeches, loose shirt, boots to the knee, long hair left free, pistol, sword. Van Gast took another out. A mainlander merchant. Hair greased back but left long over the ears, heavy frock coat in a muted, tasteful color, lots of ruffles, shoes with buckles. Van Gast had a merchantman rig stashed in his trunk, came in very handy at times for a certain type of twist. Greasing the hair back was always a pig of a job and nigh on impossible to get rid of, so he only used it when he had to. Next to the merchant toy was a merchantman crew-hand, dressed much like a rack crew-hand, only less bright and gaudy.
This last one was a Remorian, no mistake. Captain by the look of the clothes. Short hair, almost shaved, loose silken trousers to stave off the heat of the islands, a fitted silken overtunic with bil
lowing sleeves, all in drab greys and browns. The skin had been painted that distinctive copper tone and the man’s face was somehow menacing, though Van Gast couldn’t have said how. There, on the wrist, they’d even carved a bond-scar and painted a delicate red line in the groove. Van Gast shuddered at the detail.
“See? Can’t think what she wanted with them,” Brandick said. “Who the fuck am I going to sell a bunch of toys to?”
Van Gast stared down at the Remorian face. The itch was worse now, but still too faint to know why or who or what. What was Josie playing at? More to the point, why was a crate of toys making him itch worse than before?
“I’ll take them,” he said faintly. “How much?”
Brandick slapped him on the shoulder. “Not much. Two fish-heads a piece, they ain’t worth more. Knew you would. Anything to piss her off, right?”
“That’s right.”
Van Gast couldn’t stop staring at the Remorian, at all the carved men. Trouble was coming.
Chapter Eight
Holden slid out of bed without disturbing Ilsa and padded over to the window. He remembered now why he’d picked this view, why the far horizon. Josie. She’d shown him the possibilities that life had to offer, ones he might never know while he was bonded. What the rest of the world was like, where people decided everything for themselves rather than being told like children. Where people were free in their minds. The swoops and swirls of life, exciting but unpredictable, not his straight, comforting lines.
The moon was setting over the sea, casting silver spinners into his eye, and he recalled an evening of love and laughter, when Josie had said she always wanted to be the moon, because then no one could catch her. How could he have forgotten that, or the way she’d kissed him? As though she’d wanted to be part of him.
