Voyager of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  The others were silent. Far above, the ha-ha bird let out its raucous cry and was echoed by two others. Then Ransom groaned and got slowly to his knees. “You should consider a career in piracy,” he said, peeling away the bandage to reveal bloody, scarred, unwounded skin. “Or at least as a professional blackmailer.”

  “It’s a fair offer.”

  “And one you know we won’t take. All right. You make good points. Let me clean myself up and find a new shirt, and we can be on our way.”

  Zara sat down. “It wasn’t blackmail,” she muttered.

  “No, just a really effective reminder,” Belinda said. “Whatever that Device does, it can’t be safe to let that Ghazarian woman have it. And we’re the only ones who can do something about it.” She sat down beside Zara. “I wish my head didn’t hurt so much.”

  “You should have Ransom look at that.”

  “I don’t like bothering him when he was hurt worse. Maybe later.”

  “Sooner rather than later,” Ransom said. He’d taken his boots off and was rolling up his trouser legs. His back beneath the blood wasn’t as pale as Zara would have guessed, though still not as suntanned as his face and forearms, and his chest was lean and muscular. He waded into the river and began scooping up water to splash over the streaks of blood, making the small pouch he wore around his neck bounce as if it were mostly empty. “Thank heaven my spare clothes are back behind the medicines. I don’t relish being food for insects.”

  Zara realized she was staring and turned away, feeling embarrassed in a way she hadn’t back at the village. Those were strangers, and Ransom…He’s worth looking at, she thought, and felt even more embarrassed. She was old enough to be his grandmother, which was an unsettling thought all by itself.

  Soon he came back, dressed in a relatively clean shirt and tucking it into his trousers. “We’ll eat first, then see how far we can travel this afternoon,” he said, “if that’s all right with you, captain.”

  “You’re hilarious,” Zara snapped, but without malice. “I think we should eat as we go.”

  “I agree,” said Arjan. “Let us go quickly.”

  Ransom shrugged. “I’ve no objections. But you’ll sit up front again. No handling the Device for you.”

  “Why not?” Zara exclaimed.

  “Because your hands are shaking and you’re at the edge of your reserves.” Ransom took both her hands in his, still damp from the river. “Sit down, Rowena.”

  Zara settled herself in the bow and accepted a piece of fruit. Mango. She was sick of tropical food. What she wouldn’t give for a nice steak, or a bowl of chicken soup with big chunks of meat, or even a fresh apple. She bit into the mango and pretended it was a pear. At the stern, Ransom had his hand on Belinda’s forehead, and Belinda’s lips were taut as if she were in pain. How odd that making someone better meant inflicting pain first, with healing.

  Arjan pushed the boat off and clambered aboard, and they started back down the river. Zara fell into a fugue state, watching the water pass the prow of the boat. Maybe Ransom was right about her physical condition. She certainly felt exhausted, even though all she’d done was creep around the bushes…and knock a man unconscious with a branch nearly as long as she was…and hold off a pirate captain with a gun she didn’t know how to use…and dig a bullet out of a man’s body…if you lined all those things up together, she’d had a very busy morning. She curled up in the bow, put her head on the forward seat, and fell asleep.

  The next she knew, the boat was bumping up onto the shore, it was nearly full dark, and she felt more rested than she had in days, even counting the night she’d slept in Ransom’s hut. “We’re stopping?” she said.

  “We can no longer see to avoid dangers,” Arjan said, extending a hand to help her out of the boat. “And the next stretch rocky is. We will need to go carefully.”

  “But for now, we’re going to sleep,” Ransom said. “Though I think, as I know you’re going to insist on taking a watch, you should go first, since you’ve already done enough sleeping for three people.”

  “You could have woken me,” Zara said, irritated by his amusement.

  “We tried,” Belinda said, and she sounded amused too. “You said something about coffee and ‘not before six-thirty’ and we decided not to risk you hitting one of us.”

  Zara’s face was hot. How far back had her sleeping brain roamed? Thank heaven she hadn’t said anything incriminating. Not that any of them suspected her deepest secret. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ll take the first watch.”

  They didn’t build a fire, so Zara had only the light of the waxing moon to watch by. They’d made camp in a natural clearing under three trees whose branches were low enough to the ground to feel like they were inside a giant black tent, silver moonlight limning the leaves and making strange patterns on the ground. Zara saw a huge spider climbing into the branches and thanked heaven Belinda wasn’t awake to see it. She made a wide circle around the camp, outside the sheltering branches, and listened to the night noises, the insects and the hooting of nocturnal birds. Something big passed nearby, but didn’t stop to investigate, so Zara just stood straining to hear it until everything was silent again.

  She fingered the Device in her pocket. How stupid was she, to have made that speech? If she was wrong, if the pirates could return to their ship before they reached the ocean, they were all dead, and it would be her fault. She went to sit in the center of the circle of sleeping bodies. She couldn’t be wrong, that was all.

  She woke Ransom with no more than a few words of warning about the large shadow, then curled up in the warm spot he’d left and slept.

  ***

  It took most of the next day for them to navigate past the rocky shoals and into calmer water. The current flowed more slowly the wider the river got, and the noise of the water diminished, sounding less like a gale-force wind rushing through trees and more like a quiet reception with fifty people all talking at once. Zara insisted on taking a turn at the boat’s propulsion Device and sat next to Ransom, trying to keep the boat moving in a straight line. Neither of them spoke. All the questions Zara wanted to ask him seemed too personal to air in public, so to speak.

  She remembered sitting next to him by the fire two nights before, how it had been such a relief not to be sniping at each other anymore. Are we friends, she wondered, or is this just propinquity? It had been a long time since she’d known anyone who’d matched her wit for wit. And he’s handsome, a tiny voice whispered, and she steered too sharply to the right before calming herself and correcting her course. Handsome had nothing to do with it. They’d be friends no matter what he looked like.

  She shifted position, and the butt of Ghazarian’s pistol dug into her side. “I forgot I had it,” she said aloud, startled.

  “Had what?” Ransom said.

  “Ghazarian’s pistol. Too bad we have no bullets. I’d love some of that wild pig.”

  “You’ve been in the jungle too long if you can speak of wild pig with longing.” Ransom glanced down at the pistol. “I don’t know much about firearms, but it looks nice.”

  “May I?” Belinda said, taking the pistol and sighting along the barrel.

  “I thought you used a rifle,” Zara said.

  “It’s my preferred weapon, but I’m an expert with several kinds of gun Devices.” She turned it over in her hands. “It’s a fine weapon. She’ll regret losing it.”

  “Well, I don’t know what I’ll do with it. Do you want it, Belinda?”

  “You have it by right of conquest, I think.” Belinda tucked it neatly back into Zara’s waistband. “Though I think she’ll want it back.”

  “She already wants the Device. She can hardly hunt us down twice over.” Zara wiped sweat from her forehead and wished she had a way to tie her hair more securely.

  In the bow, Cantara sat up, making the boat rock. “That is the ocean,” she said. “We are here!”

  “Don’t get too excited,” Ransom said. “We still have to reach Tamme
rek, and this boat isn’t exactly stable. We’ll be slower out in the ocean, even if we stay close to the shore. And if those pirates followed us…”

  “We must have outrun them,” Belinda said.

  “I imagine we have about a day’s lead on them. Once they get back to their ship…” His words trailed off again.

  “If we stay in the shallows, they will not follow us well,” Cantara said. “I have sailed all my life and I know where safe water is.”

  “I’m relieved to know someone knows what she’s doing. I’ve never taken one of these things out into open water before.” Ransom nudged Zara. “Let me take a turn. We’ll go until sunset, then find a place to camp.”

  “We might want to consider traveling longer than that,” Zara said. She leaned forward, pointing at an object that looked like a large fly with skeletal wings settled on the skin of the ocean. “That’s Ghazarian’s ship. A day’s head start might not be enough.”

  Ransom handed the Device’s tiller back to her. “Hold the boat steady,” he said, and leaned over the side to make some adjustments. “I don’t like the way the motive force is flickering. It’s supposed to do that to show when the source is running low, but I know they put in a fully imbued one and those are supposed to last for weeks.”

  “You could have said something,” Zara said.

  “I just did. This is the first I noticed it.” He took the tiller from her hand and adjusted the wheel that controlled the speed. The boat moved fractionally faster. “Let’s see how far we can get before dark.”

  Even with the wheel turned to full, the boat slowed more as it approached the mouth of the Kulnius, where the river’s current warred with the ocean waves. Zara glanced at Ransom occasionally; his mouth was grim, and he kept his eyes as often on the distant ship as on the water before them. Sunset was on them by the time they reached open water and turned left to follow the coast. “Do you see a longboat?” Ransom asked Zara.

  “I don’t.” She scanned the shoreline. “That’s bad.”

  “Why is it bad?” Theo asked.

  “Because it could mean they’ve already returned and are on their way to their ship. And if Ghazarian can track the Device, she’ll know to come after us.” Zara recalled the brass and dark wood of the Device the pirate captain had had on the Emma Covington. It couldn’t track Alfred’s Device perfectly, or they’d have found it then, but it was good enough to get Ghazarian close, and then…cannon fire, rifles, and they’d all be trapped in this stupid boat and killed.

  “I think we’ll go a little farther,” Ransom said. “Cantara, I think you should steer. How well can you find your way in the darkness?”

  “Well enough, but we should not linger,” Cantara said, changing places awkwardly with him. “Seeing better than feeling is, in these waters.”

  Zara moved forward to the bow and peered into the growing darkness, though it was unlikely she’d be able to see any reefs or rocks or other marine dangers. Beside her, Belinda stared across the sea toward the pirate ship, anchored several hundred yards off shore. “It’s not coming nearer,” she said.

  “Do you really think those pirates made it back to their ship already?” Theo said.

  “They might have hidden the longboat well.” Belinda turned away from her watch to look at Theo. “I hope they’ve just hidden it well.”

  “We need to stop,” Cantara said. “I will find a place.”

  “They have to have seen us. Why aren’t they following?” said Theo.

  “They probably have orders not to sail without their captain.” Ransom was a dim shape now amidships. “We can’t afford to stop. Ghazarian might return soon.”

  “We will go beyond their sight and hide. If the pirates come, they come, and we will fight. But it safe to continue is not.”

  “Strong words,” Ransom said, but he sounded approving. “No fire tonight. Just in case.”

  They pulled the boat up on the shore and handed out the last of the food. Zara nibbled her dried meat and settled in more comfortably on the mound of dried grass she’d made for herself. They’d have to hunt for food in the morning, which would slow them further, and Ransom was right, the boat was traveling more slowly now. She should have insisted the villagers give them an extra imbued motive force—but, then, she hadn’t had any idea how the Device worked or what made it run, so how could she have known to do that? You should have made it your business to learn, she chastised herself, and bit off another mouthful with ferocity. No sense dwelling on what was past. Time to plan for the future.

  The pirate ship was a blotch on the ocean in the moonlight. She wished she understood more about sailing, whether the ship’s behavior meant something good for them. Maybe the currents nearer the shore were too strong. Maybe their ship was too large to come in close to the shallows. Zara swallowed the last of her food and lay back. There was no point dwelling on possibilities either. They had to move as quickly as possible, and pray heaven was on their side.

  There was something digging into her back. She moved the grass aside and dug through the sand, found nothing. She smoothed it back over and tried to settle down again, but the moon was too bright, the ground too lumpy, and she couldn’t stop seeing Ghazarian’s furious face as she stared her down. She’d made an enemy, not that it mattered, but the idea propelled her off the ground to pace the edge of the jungle where it met the strip of land barely worth calling a beach. She wasn’t afraid of the pirate captain, but she also wasn’t stupid enough to think she wasn’t dangerous. Zara wished she knew just how much the pirate’s honor, if you could call it that, was bound up in finding and destroying her. Having to keep one eye constantly looking over her shoulder would be exhausting.

  “Rowena,” Ransom called in a low voice. She went to join him where he stood near the water’s edge. “Stop pacing and go to sleep. Your watch will come soon enough.”

  “I’m too restless. I just need to walk around a bit.”

  “Well, you’re making me nervous.”

  “I am not.”

  “True. But when I catch sight of you moving out of the corner of my eye, I twitch because I think you’re a predator. Stay put.”

  Zara sighed and looked out over the ocean at the dark blotch, lit by a few specks of light. She could only tell what it was because she knew what to look for. “Sorry.”

  “You can stand here and talk to me, if you can’t sleep.”

  “And that’s not a distraction?”

  He chuckled. “You hear that? The insects and the monkeys and the snuffling of pigs? When that noise stops, you’ll know we’re in danger. You talking isn’t going to distract me from that.”

  “Oh.” Zara glanced at him; he was watching the ship. “And I suppose you have more impertinences for me?”

  “I want to know who you are. Who you were, all those years.”

  “I told you. I was a weaver.”

  “That can’t have been everything.”

  A flash of a memory, of sitting on the marble throne of Tremontane facing down the Magistrix of the Scholia, came and went so swiftly it stunned her. “It wasn’t,” she said, “but you don’t need to know the rest.”

  Ransom turned to face her. “No weaver moves like a predator,” he said. “You’re used to taking charge.”

  “I am. But, to use your favorite phrase, that’s none of your business.”

  He shrugged. “You’re right. It’s not.” He went back to looking out across the waves. “How old were you when you found out?”

  “That I wasn’t aging?” She turned that question over in her mind. “I was thirty-one.”

  “That’s a long time to look younger than you are.”

  “Nobody thought to question it.” Who was going to challenge the Queen on not looking her age?

  “So how did you end up living near your grandniece?”

  “Why does this feel like a one-sided conversation?”

  That made him laugh. “I’m not nearly as interesting as you are,” he said.

 
It made her feel uncomfortable, though she didn’t know why. “I’ve lived the last fifty-odd years quietly,” she said. “That’s not very interesting. Besides, you’re not telling me anything about yourself, Dr. Ransom.”

  “It’s just Ransom,” he said. “My surname is De Witt.”

  “Oh.” It sounded familiar. “Should I know the name?”

  “Possibly. It’s an old, well-to-do family in Aurilien. I don’t trade on it.”

  “But you said you wouldn’t tell me your given name.”

  “I have two given names. In addition to my detested first name, my parents named me after my maternal uncle Ransom—my mother was a Ransom before she adopted into my father’s family. They hoped it would induce him to leave his fortune to me.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Now who’s prying?”

  “I answered your questions.”

  “Some of them. Answer for answer, Rowena.”

  Zara sighed. “All right. What’s your question?”

  “How did you come to live with family? Did they all know your secret?”

  “No. My grandniece…came to live in my home town and figured out the truth. Gave out that I was her father’s half-sister so we didn’t have to hide our relationship, at least as far as that was possible. Now, your turn.”

  “My Uncle Ransom is the only one of my relatives I can stand. He’s not infected by that Resurgence nonsense, for one. I lived with him while I was in medical school. He’s never held my name against me.”

  “I apologize if this is too personal for even our newfound understanding, but couldn’t you adopt into his family?”