by Geoff Rodkey
A gray drizzle was falling when I reached it myself, and it didn’t take more than a few seconds for me to understand what kedge meant.
The lifeboat that had launched a while back was a few hundred yards ahead of us, at a point where the Fangs gave way to the open water of a bay. The ship’s anchor she was carrying had been sunk to the seafloor, the anchor cable rising from the water on a taut line that threaded a hawsehole into the Grift’s bow.
Amidships on the weather deck was the upper end of the capstan—the giant, five-foot-high spool that winched the anchor cable in and out. A dozen long, thick poles had been inserted into her slots, and every spare man on the ship was pushing against them, trying to reel in the anchor line and physically drag the Grift over the shallows that had beached us.
That was a kedge: a hundred men trying to heave a ship forward through brute force.
My uncle was in the middle of the group, a fat vein on his neck throbbing as he threw his whole weight against the pole in front of him. The men were inching forward, barely making any progress.
I was on my way to join them when the first cannonball struck the poop, throwing up a shower of splinters as it crashed through the ceiling of my uncle’s cabin.
The man-of-war was in range. If she’d been sideways to us and able to fire a broadside, we’d have already been dead.
I took my place between two pirates on one of the capstan poles and pushed with everything I had. My wrist, which had settled into a dull throb when I was running messages, woke up and started screaming again.
There was a loud crash from somewhere below, and at first I thought we’d been hit again. Then I realized it was the sound of a cannon falling into the sea. A moment later, six more men vaulted up the companionway steps and joined the kedge.
The capstan was turning, but only by inches. Every few seconds, I took a stutter-step forward.
The next round hit. Two cannonballs shot through the sails overhead, and a third crashed into the quarterdeck next to the wheel.
We kept pushing, inching our way forward. The rain was getting worse, turning the deck slick under our feet. Someone scattered a bucket of sand to sop it up.
There were grunts and groans and roars of fury from the men around me, straining against the capstan poles.
Another cannon crashed into the sea. Six more men came up from below to join the line.
We were at a slow walk now. The rain came down harder. My feet kept slipping. The pain in my wrist was awful.
But not as awful as dying would be.
Another round hammered the ship, blasting away a section of deck rail so close that splinters hit my face. One of the mainsails broke loose from its spars and billowed to the deck. It was on fire.
There was a second fire burning on the side of the deck near the capstan.
The Cartagers were firing incendiaries, the rounds flaming as they came in.
The fires flickered in the rain, then fizzled out.
Thank the Savior for the rain.
Another cannon went overboard. Six more men joined us.
We were at a fast walk now.
A round hit the forecastle. Something was on fire, but I was turning away with the capstan and couldn’t see what.
I prayed the rain would put it out like the others.
Then something broke loose, and the capstan lurched forward so suddenly I almost fell. A cheer went up from the pirates, and we were moving at a trot . . . and then faster still, all one hundred of us running in mad frantic circles around the capstan.
The next round of Cartager incendiaries fizzled into the sea behind us.
The ship was free.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, I was standing in the rain on the poop deck next to Healy, watching the Fangs recede in our wake. The Cartager man-of-war had run aground itself, stuck helpless a mile and a half behind us, its massive bulk nearly out of sight in the downpour.
The smile was back on my uncle’s face.
“You know the difference between us and them?” he asked me.
“What’s that?”
“Li Homaya’s too fat to kedge.”
CHAPTER 14
No Mercy
HEALY’S PLAN WAS to intercept Ripper Jones at the mouth of the bay and finish him off, then turn around and come back to sink the beached man-of-war.
But it didn’t work out that way. When we came around the far side of Finger Island, there was no sign of the Red Throat. We sailed south, through rain that had slowed to an occasional drizzle, until the lookout cried out just before sunset:
“Red Throat to the southwest! Turning tail!”
She must have been pretty far off, because even through his spyglass, my uncle couldn’t see her.
“You sure it’s her?” he called back.
“Got a cockeyed foremast!”
Healy handed me his spyglass. “I’m going to check this out.”
To my surprise, my uncle went to the mainmast and clambered up the rigging to the crow’s nest.
A minute later, he called down an order.
“Full around!”
By the time he returned to the deck, the Grift had reversed course and was heading back into the bay.
Spiggs and Pike were shaking their heads as my uncle approached them.
“Wouldn’ta figgered that.”
“Thought he had more fight in him.”
“Reckon he’s headed to Turtle Bay?” Healy asked them.
The others nodded.
“Or someplace like it. Put up and lick his wounds.”
“Try an’ fix that foremast.”
“We’ll deal with him soon enough,” said Healy. “First, let’s finish off the Short-Ears.”
But as we sailed back into the bay, not only did the sun go down, but a fog rolled in so thick it choked off the moonlight.
Healy quickly realized that not only was it impossible to aim his remaining cannon in such a heavy fog, but if we kept sailing, there was a good chance we’d wander back into the Fangs and break up on the rocks. So he anchored the Grift to wait for sunrise and a break in the weather.
“Six hours’ rest for everyone,” he told Spiggs. “Savior knows they’ve earned it.” Then he turned to me. The bloody bandage over his head and eye was soiled and drooping.
“Find the surgeon. Tell him I wouldn’t mind a look at my eye if he’s not too busy. Then get yourself a meal and some sleep. Did your friend come through all right?”
“I think so,” I said.
“Glad to hear it.”
I’d been walking with him toward his cabin, and just then he opened the door.
The table in the middle of the room was in splinters, a victim of the cannonball that had punched a hole in his ceiling and was now embedded in a crater on the floor.
Healy sighed. “I liked that table. I really did.”
I found the surgeon and delivered Healy’s message. Then I went to the purser’s cabin, where I’d last seen Guts. I opened the door to find Kira with him.
And not just with him, but kissing him.
And not just a peck on the cheek, but a full, passionate—
“Egg!”
“— knock, ye porsamora!”
They both glared at me, their faces bright red from embarrassment.
“Sorry!” I sputtered. “Sorry! Just . . . I’ll be . . . dinner . . . Bye!”
I shut the door in a hurry, feeling my own face flush as well.
I’d suspected for a while that their relationship was changing into something more than just friends. And I was glad for them both.
But seeing them in a clinch like that made me ache, too—because it reminded me of Millicent.
I tracked down Quint in the hold. The patch was stable now that we were at anchor, and he was happy to join me for dinner. We got ratio
ns from Stick, then took them up to the weather deck. There was a good-sized crowd up there, eating in the dim light of a few hooded lanterns. By the time we found a spot with enough room to sit, Guts and Kira had caught up with us.
It was too dark to tell if they were still blushing. But I could make out enough of the men around us to see that the crew was as battered as their ship. There was a lot of dried blood and bandages, including some that covered newly missing limbs.
The four of us ate in silence, letting the tension seep away as we filled our bellies. My head was nodding as I chewed. I couldn’t wait to finish so I could curl up and fall asleep.
“Do you hear that?” murmured Kira.
“Wot?” asked Guts.
“Voices,” she said.
We listened. Over the sound of water lapping at the hull and the low mutter of the pirates’ conversations around us, I heard distant voices.
They were yelling, in urgent tones. The few words I could make out weren’t Rovian.
“It’s the Cartagers,” Kira said. “They are trying to free their ship.”
“Healy says Li Homaya’s too fat to kedge,” I said.
“True enough,” grunted Quint. “Nothin’ gonna free a ship that big. Even at high tide.”
“If I know Li Homaya, he will not stop trying,” said Kira. “And he will never abandon ship. He has too much pride.” She sighed. “He is foolish. They are close to land. He could save his men, if only their lives were more important than his honor.”
An idea tumbled into my head, knocking me wide-awake.
“What about his city?”
“What?”
“What’s more important to him—dying with honor, or getting Pella Nonna back?”
“He doesn’t know he’s lost it,” Kira said. “They sailed before the invasion.”
“What if we told him?”
“Can’t get there nohow. Ship’s stuck,” said Guts.
“He could go overland,” I said. “There must be three hundred men on that ship. And the second one sank slowly enough that most of its crew probably got off. That’s six hundred men—with those numbers, they could take Pella Nonna back from Pembroke.”
I was up and moving before I’d even finished the sentence. I had to talk to my uncle.
He was in his cabin, a cup of wine in his hand and a fresh bandage covering his upper head down to the left eye. Spiggs, Pike, and Mackie the gunner were all drinking with him. Mackie was still black with soot from head to toe.
“Put in, fix up, and give the boys their due,” Healy was saying as I entered.
“Take at least four days,” said Spiggs. “More if they get to spendin’ it.”
“Jones will be longer than that fixing a busted fore with no shipyard to call on,” replied Healy. “And full strength, we can take him regardless.” Then he turned to me. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
“I’m not tired,” I said. Which was true. A minute ago, I’d been ready to drop, but now I was buzzing.
“And you’re here because . . . ?”
He smiled when he said it, but I got the idea I wasn’t all that welcome at the moment. I would’ve turned and left right then if what I needed to ask him hadn’t been so urgent.
But I didn’t have the courage to just blurt it out. So I wound up stuttering like a fool.
“I j-just . . . um . . . ah . . .”
“Question? Observation? Request? Unsolicited advice?”
“Ah . . . request?”
Healy glanced at Spiggs, who immediately started for the door. “Think I’d better check on the . . . thing.”
Pike and Mackie were right on his heels.
“Yes! The thing. Me too.”
“Back in five, Cap.”
The door closed, and I was alone with my uncle. He sank into his desk chair and gave me a weary look with his one good eye.
“What is it this time?”
I couldn’t tell if he was annoyed or amused. I sat across from him on one of the unbroken table chairs.
“I was just thinking . . . if you could . . . somehow . . . get a message to Li Homaya that Pembroke took Pella—”
“Why on earth would I do that?”
“He could take his men overland. To win it back. You can still destroy his ship—”
He gave a dry laugh. “Sorry, boy. Not going to happen.”
“But without a ship, he’s not a threat to you anymore. And just think of all those people whose lives would be better if Pembroke wasn’t ruling the New Lands! That’s got to be worth—”
“Do you really believe”—he interrupted me, with just enough of an edge in his voice to set my stomach fluttering—“I mean, sincerely believe, that Pella Nonna’s better off under the Cartagers? That Li Homaya’s a more just ruler than Roger Pembroke?”
“I know he is,” I said. “I’ve lived in Pella. I’ve seen what it’s like under the Cartagers—”
“Have you, now?” He stood up, towering over me. “Think you can vouch for the Short-Ears as rulers?”
He began to unbutton his shirt.
“Because I’ve lived under them myself,” he said. “And I’ve formed my own opinion.”
He pulled his shirt off and turned around. Just inside the left shoulder blade of his broad, thickly muscled back was a four-inch welt in the shape of a C, made of the kind of unnaturally smooth, pink skin left by a severe burn.
“The Cartager who bought me burned that into my flesh. So the world would know I was his property.”
My uncle turned to face me again. “I was ten years old. Your mother was eleven. They gave her one, too. It took us five years to escape. And if you knew what those five years were like, you wouldn’t bother asking me to show mercy to a Short-Ear.”
He put his shirt back on and sat down again.
It was quiet for a while. My head was swimming.
My mother . . .
I knew next to nothing about her. I definitely hadn’t known this.
“You . . . and my mother . . . were . . .”
“Slaves. Of the Short-Ears. You might do well to remember that next time you go splitting the world into good and evil.”
He went to pour himself another drink. I stared at the floor and tried to understand.
“How did . . . ?”
“There was a raid on the island in the Barkers where we grew up. Cartager brigands. The women and children were sent to hide in the woods. After they killed all the men, the Short-Ears found us hiding there and gathered us up. Sold us on the mainland to a planter with a big spread down on the Southern Plains.
“He hanged any slave who tried to escape. That’s why it took us so long. We knew we had to get it right the first time.”
I tried to imagine it. I couldn’t. My brain just couldn’t conjure up Burn Healy as a boy, let alone a slave. And I didn’t even know what my mother looked like.
What’s more, it didn’t make sense. Not the story itself—there was no denying that awful C burned into my uncle’s back. And it definitely answered the question of why he hated Cartagers so much.
But the connection to what was happening now, to Pembroke and Li Homaya . . . It didn’t fit. It was all sideways. The Cartagers in Pella Nonna had been the friendliest, most easygoing people I’d ever met. They wouldn’t keep slaves any more than I would.
And Li Homaya, from what I knew of him, was a swaggering bully with a big head and a heavy hand. But he was no slaver.
The only slaver I knew was Roger Pembroke.
What my uncle was saying—not the words, but the thinking behind them—was all wrong. I knew it in my bones. I just had to figure out how to make him see it.
He was sitting down again. “Have you gotten enough to eat?” he asked in a gentler voice. “I think the cook’s got some chocolate squirreled away.”
“You were in the south?” I asked. “You and my mother?”
He nodded. “Idolu Masa. On the Southern Plains.”
“How far is that from Pella Nonna?”
“Quite a ways. Fifteen hundred miles.”
“And this was . . . twenty years ago?”
“Closer to thirty.”
“And the men who made you slaves—they were brigands? Not soldiers? And Li Homaya wasn’t one of them? Or anyone else who—”
“They were Cartagers, son.”
“I know. But . . . I mean, we’re Rovians. And so’s Roger Pembroke. Just because we live under the same king, or have the same kind of ears—”
He cut me off. “It doesn’t matter.”
I could feel his anger rising. I didn’t want to make him angry.
But he was wrong.
I took a deep, shaky breath.
“Pembroke is a slaver. Li Homaya isn’t—”
“Enough.” The tone of his voice made me squeeze my eyes shut in fear.
I heard him take a deep breath of his own. I opened my eyes. His good eye was narrowed and dark.
“The simple fact is this, boy: when the fog clears and the sun rises, Li Homaya and his men are going to die by my hand. If you want to send him a message, you’ll have to swim it out to him.”
He drained his glass of wine and stood up. “Now, why don’t you get some rest, and eat some chocolate, and be glad you’re alive? Because if Li Homaya had gotten his wish today, you’d be a corpse right now.”
I stood up, nodding.
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry. And thank you. And . . . congratulations on winning the battle.”
“Thanks to you, too,” he said. “You did good work today. Your mother’d be proud. Although none too happy with me for dragging you into it.” He walked me to the door and gave me a pat on the back. “And don’t fret over Roger Pembroke. Life is long—someday, he’ll get his.”
I nodded. “I know. You’re right. I won’t fret.”
“Good. Get some sleep. And thank your friends for me.”
“I will. Good night.”
“Pleasant dreams.” He winked as he shut the door behind me.
