Blue Sea Burning

by Geoff Rodkey

  “No!” The sudden fury in my uncle’s voice made my heart race. The Governor shrank back in his chair as Healy leaned in over the table, looking like he might leap from his seat and attack at any second.

  “I keep my promises,” Healy spat. “Even to people who don’t deserve it. My men are here by circumstance, not design. And do you know why? Because your golden boy Pembroke was hanging children in the public square down in Pella, and the price of my stopping it was banishment. I’ve spent the days since then cleaning up the mess you all left with your greed and stupidity.”

  “What mess?”

  Healy shook his head. “I warned you not to invade.”

  “Nonsense!” blurted the Governor. “You sat in that council and told us you could do it!”

  “I said I could. I didn’t say it was wise. In fact, I told you the opposite: that Pella was easier to take than it was to keep, that the Ripper needed to be dealt with first, and that it was anyone’s guess where those Cartager men-of-war might be when the attack came. But you didn’t listen. Because Pembroke had whispered a sweet story in your ear about taking Pella before the gold trains came in, and gorging yourselves on riches by year’s end. Now it’s blown up in your face.”

  The Governor snorted. He sat up straight in his chair, squaring his shoulders and puffing his chest out. “Nothing’s blown up in anyone’s face, other than you. Pembroke got the job done. Pella’s ours with minimal casualties. And the gold trains will come in soon enough.”

  Healy stared at the Governor for a moment, searching the man’s haughty scowl.

  “Oh, my.” Healy gave a dry chuckle and shook his head. “You’re completely in the dark, aren’t you?”

  “About what?”

  “The reason we couldn’t find Ripper Jones before the invasion was because he’d gone to Pella. To cut a deal with Li Homaya for my head. When the attack came, they were already out to sea with two Cartager men-of-war.”

  The Governor’s haughty look vanished. “Where are they now?”

  “We sank both men-of-war on the Fangs. But Li Homaya and the six hundred Short-Ears with him made it to shore. Right now, they’re marching down the coast to retake Pella by land. My guess is they’ll be there by tomorrow. Pembroke won’t know it until the guns start firing—and when they do, he’ll find out in a hurry just whose side the people of Pella are on. It won’t be yours.”

  The Governor’s shoulders were sagging. His mouth hung open in a look of shock.

  “There’s more,” said Healy. “The Ripper’s still out there. I couldn’t control him, and I couldn’t kill him. He’s a wounded animal at the moment, but I’d bet my last coin he’ll go all in and launch the raid he’s been itching to pull for years. That means either Edgartown or Sunrise. And unlike my men, when he shows up, he won’t just be looking for a hot bath and a drink.”

  The Governor was fully deflated by now, like a sail that had gone slack in the wind. “Oh, my Savior . . . ,” he whispered to himself, his hand over his mouth. When he raised his eyes to meet Healy’s, they were anguished and pleading.

  “You’ve got to do something. Get your men back on the water. You’ve got to stop him!”

  “My ship barely floats. And my men need to get paid. We left Pella before they saw a copper for their troubles. I promised them that ten million to make up for it. If I don’t put it in their hands before I ask them to lift another finger, they’ll vote me right out. All I can promise you by way of help is that if Ripper Jones comes knocking at Edgartown’s door, they’ll answer it. But if you haven’t treated them square, they might just decide he’s a more profitable ally than you are.”

  The Governor was reduced to helpless stuttering. “I-I-I . . . can’t believe this.”

  “Nor can I. But here we are.”

  Healy let him sit there for a bit, staring at his hands. Then my uncle nodded in the direction of the door.

  “On your way out, please tell the waiter I’d like another drink.”

  It took the Governor a moment to realize he was supposed to leave. He somehow managed to get to his feet and stagger out.

  “Shame about that one,” said Healy after he’d left. “Had a nice little thing going until he got too greedy. But then they always do.”

  I got the sense that a lot of things had just been explained, if only I was clever enough to understand them. But I wasn’t. My head was swimming from trying to get a handle on all of it.

  “What was your agreement with the Governor?” I asked Healy.

  “It’s a bit complicated,” he said. “But in a nutshell . . . when I started out, years ago, I plundered everything I could get my hands on. Rovian, Cartager, Gualo, Ildian . . . Didn’t matter what flag a ship was under. If it was worth taking, I took it.

  “The other pirate crews were the same. There were a handful of us, all based out of Deadweather. Mostly working alone. None of us too choosy about who we attacked.

  “The trouble with that was, if you plunder the ships of four different countries, eventually you’ve got four different navies out gunning for you. And when it came down to it, stealing from Rovians never did put the spring in my step that stealing from Cartagers did.

  “So I went to the Rovian Governor-General—not this one, but the man who had his job before him—and offered him a deal. Rather than my stealing all his silver every chance I got, he could simply pay me a fraction of it, on a regular basis, and I’d let him keep the rest. He was willing, but only if I could hold all the other pirates to the same deal. So I brought them in, and it worked out quite well for everybody.

  “Then the Barker War came. Rovia and Cartage went at it, which at first looked like grim news for Rovia, since the Short-Ears had a much better navy. But we pirates realized it’d be awfully bad for business if Cartage won—so when the Short-Ears sent their navy to take Edgartown and Sunrise, it was the pirates who turned them back.”

  “I think I saw that battle,” I said. “From the cliffs by my house.”

  Healy smiled. “That was it,” he said. “Right off Deadweather. It was a fine day. And afterward, the Rovian government and I were thick as thieves. Privately, of course—if word ever got out that they were in league with the likes of me, the whole arrangement would have blown up in their faces.

  “We had a good thing going—until two very different men came along and botched the whole thing.

  “First, Roger Pembroke decided Sunrise Island wasn’t big enough to hold his ego and his true destiny was to rule a whole continent. About the same time, Ripper Jones started questioning the arrangement from the pirates’ side. He was a Short-Ear himself, and he never could abide the rule against sacking Rovians. It got to the point where I had to personally escort every ship that left Sunrise so he wouldn’t pinch it. A couple months back, a ship full of Rovian noblemen coming back from some island holiday turned off course in a fog—and by the time I caught up with them, the Ripper’d had his way with her.”

  I’d been on that ship, the Earthly Pleasure, when the Ripper attacked it. In fact, it was me, not the fog, that was the whole reason it had turned off course—because its wicked cruise director had decided to maroon me on a deserted island as a kind of entertainment for the Earthly Pleasure’s rich and cruel passengers.

  For a fleeting second, I thought about mentioning this to my uncle. But he was still talking, and it took all my concentration to follow his story.

  “I did my best to smooth things over,” Healy continued, “but since the Ripper was a Cartager, Pembroke latched on to his attack as a pretext for launching his grand plan and invading Pella Nonna. He persuaded the Governor to go along with it—on the theory that Cartage was weak enough in the New Lands that if we knocked out their big military ships, they’d be finished.

  “But when we got to Pella, the men-of-war weren’t there. Pembroke thought they’d sailed back to the Continent. But he miscalculat
ed. Now—thanks to you—Li Homaya’s about to give him a nasty surprise. And the Rovians are in a right awful mess.”

  My head was still swimming from trying to understand the situation. There was a knock at the door. It was a waiter, bringing Healy another drink. He tipped the man a gold coin, and we were left alone again.

  Healy took a long drink and shrugged. “I think I’ll sit the rest of this one out. I’ve had just about enough of trying to rescue men from their own stupidity. Now—what’s that favor you wanted?”

  I’d gotten so distracted trying to understand the tangled mess of Rovians, Cartagers, pirates, soldiers, governors, and businessmen smacking each other all over the Blue Sea that I’d nearly forgotten why I’d come to see my uncle in the first place.

  “A friend of mine’s in jail,” I said.

  “Already? What did Guts do?”

  “It isn’t Guts.”

  His eyebrows jumped. “Not Kira?”

  “No.”

  “Who am I missing?”

  I gulped. “Millicent Pembroke.”

  “Savior’s sake!” He got a look on his face like he’d just bitten into a bad piece of meat. “How on earth did that happen?”

  “She went to the Governor-General and told him she had evidence they were using slaves in the silver mine—”

  “Oh, for —’s sake!” It was only the second time I’d ever heard my uncle curse. “You’re not opening that can of worms, are you?”

  “What can of worms?”

  “The silver mine.”

  “I have to,” I said. “It’s wrong.”

  “So are a million things in this world. You can’t right them all. I thought you just wanted to get rid of Pembroke.”

  “It’s his silver mine—it’s him doing the slaving.”

  Healy slumped back in his seat with an exasperated look. “Haven’t you done enough? Li Homaya’s marching on Pella as we speak. That was your doing! And if Pembroke loses that city, even if he gets out alive, he’ll be bust. The Governor and the rest of them will never listen to him again. They might even manage to take the silver mine out of his hands.”

  “Would that fix it?” I asked.

  “Fix what?”

  “If Pembroke loses the silver mine, will they stop using slaves in it?”

  My uncle grimaced, like I’d just told a bad joke. “Not remotely, son. Pembroke or not, there’s far too many people making far too much money on that mine for anything to change.”

  I thought about that. The rottenness of it made my stomach turn.

  “Don’t you think we’ve got to do something about it?” I asked.

  “No. I don’t. You’ve done enough. Let it go. Sit back and eat some chocolate.”

  I tried to imagine doing just that. I couldn’t.

  Watching me, my uncle sighed. “Do you even like chocolate?”

  “It’s okay. But . . . we can’t just let it go. We’ve got to do something.”

  “Why? Pembroke’s on a knife edge now. Why do you have to do anything else?”

  “Because I want to be worth ten million gold,” I said.

  He winced. But as he kept staring at me, a smile slowly spread across his face.

  “Joke’s on me, then, isn’t it? What can one say?” He raised his hands, palms up, like he was admitting defeat. “I admire your nobility. And best of luck.”

  “So you’ll help me?”

  “Oh, heavens, no.”

  “Please! I just need you to go down to the jail and—”

  “Son, the last thing I’m going to do is bail Roger Pembroke’s fool daughter out of jail. You’re on your own with that one.”

  CHAPTER 20

  The Map

  I WOULD’VE HEADED straight back up the hill to Mr. Dalrymple’s house, but my uncle insisted I have a bath and eat lunch first. He set me up in a big room at the hotel with three beds in it, and while I was soaking in what I had to admit was a delightful warm bath, a frazzled-looking man in a hotel employee’s uniform dropped off two sets of new cotton shirts and trousers for me and Guts, along with a pretty red dress for Kira.

  The hotel man collected my old clothes for washing, encouraged me to call the front desk for fresh bathwater once “the other lord and lady” arrived, and bowed to me when he left. I dried off with a big, fluffy towel and put on the new clothes, which were so comfortable that wearing them made me want to take a nap.

  Then I went to the dining room, where I ate a ham sandwich as big as my head.

  It was all very pleasant, although I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t spent the entire time brooding over how Millicent had ripped my guts out, and racking my useless brain for ways to get her and that Cyril ape out of jail.

  Bribing the guards was the best I could come up with. Second best was hiring a few of the Healy pirates to storm the jail, although I was pretty sure my uncle wouldn’t stand for that. Neither idea seemed like a winner, but they were all I had.

  I trudged up the hill toward Mr. Dalrymple’s, hoping my friends would have better ideas and trying to cheer myself up with the thought that even if they didn’t, they’d like the warm baths, clean clothes, and cannonball-sized ham sandwiches waiting for them back at the hotel.

  It took me a while to find the place—the twisty, hilly streets were confusing, and I hadn’t taken the time to get decent directions from Kira. By the time I stumbled on the right house, I’d gotten so turned around that I was heading downhill. And I would have walked right past Mr. Dalrymple’s house if Guts hadn’t called out to me from the porch.

  “Oy! Egg!”

  He was sitting on the front steps with a glum look on his face. “Where ye comin’ from?”

  “The hotel. I got lost.”

  “Got a bath, too, looks like. New clothes.”

  “My uncle made me. There’s plenty for you and Kira, too. Where is she?”

  He jerked his head toward the closed door behind him. Then he twitched and scowled.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Got the map translated.”

  “Really?” My stomach started to flutter. “What does it say?”

  “Nothin’ good.”

  I went inside, my head buzzing. Ever since Roger Pembroke had declared it worthless, I’d mostly stopped thinking about the Fire King’s map.

  But it was the whole reason for everything.

  If it weren’t for that map, I’d still be living with my family back on Deadweather. My fool sister would be there, too, instead of lounging atop an Okalu temple in the New Lands, preening in a six-foot headdress while a bunch of Moku fed her chocolate and schemed to make her a human sacrifice.

  Burn Healy wouldn’t be anything more to me than the name of a ruthless pirate I’d heard stories about.

  I wouldn’t even have heard of Roger Pembroke, or laid eyes on his daughter.

  And my father would still be alive.

  Now, finally, I was going to find out what all the trouble was for.

  KIRA WAS SITTING at the kitchen table, her eyes red and swollen from tears. Mr. Dalrymple was refilling her teacup from a pot with a knitted holder, his lips pressed together in a sad look.

  A man I’d never seen before sat next to Kira. He was Okalu, with the same broad nose and full lips that she had. His skin was wrinkled and spotty with age, and his Continental-style clothes hung loose over a bony frame.

  All three of them looked up at me when I entered, and I felt like I’d barged in on a funeral.

  The old man asked Kira a question in Okalu. She answered him. Then she wiped her nose with a handkerchief and introduced us as he stood up from the table, using a wooden cane to support his weight.

  “Egg Masterson, Makaro Uza.”

  “Hello,” I said. He held his free hand out, and I shook it. It wasn’t like that Cyril fellow’s hand
shake—Makaro gave me a good grip, and he held it firmly but not too tight.

  “Greetings,” he said. His accent was so thick it was hard to understand him. “I thank you for your service to my people.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said. Although judging by how sad they were, I didn’t think I’d done anybody much of a service.

  Makaro sat back down next to Kira, leaning his cane against the table. The copy of the map that I’d made for her back on the Grift was sitting on the table next to the teapot.

  “So you know what it says?” I asked.

  Kira began to cry. Makaro put a fatherly hand on her back to comfort her, and she buried her head in his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  Guts had come in behind me. Mr. Dalrymple gestured for us to sit down.

  “Please, please,” he said. “Sit.” There were only four seats at the table, but Mr. Dalrymple insisted we take the last two while he fetched a high stool from the other room.

  Kira was still crying into Makaro’s shoulder. He whispered something in her ear. She nodded, straightening up as Mr. Dalrymple returned with the stool and took a seat just behind Makaro.

  “I’m sorry I was so rude earlier,” I said to Mr. Dalrymple.

  “Oh, quite all right,” he said. “Rather extraordinary day, I think. Puts us all at sixes and sevens.”

  Kira wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “You want to know what it says?” she asked me.

  I nodded.

  She exchanged a few words in Okalu with Makaro. He pulled the map toward him and lifted a finger, shaky with age, to hover over the first line of hieroglyphs. Then he began to speak Okalu in a low voice, his finger moving across the lines as he spoke.

  Kira took a deep breath and started to translate the century-old words—the ones I’d copied down from the tomb wall and carried with me, over weeks and miles and endless trouble, without knowing until now what they meant.