The door opened, and a pirate in a fancily embroidered coat stepped out. “You are most welcome, dear mateys, at the Salty Biscuit,” he said, bowing low and swirling his hand in the air. Then he stood up rather suddenly and gave Hilary a haughty look. “Who’s this?”
“’Tis a little girl with whom the captain wants to have a word,” said Mr. Twigget.
“Oh, be quiet,” said Hilary, causing Mr. Twigget to look remarkably abashed. “I’m a pirate, of course,” she told the fellow in the fancy coat. “Pirate Hilary Westfield, Terror of the Southlands. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.”
The fancy pirate smoothed his sleeves. “Perhaps,” he allowed. “In any case, do come in, both of you. You’ll find Captain Blacktooth at his usual table.”
Although it was just past midday, the groggery was as dark as a ship’s hold. Thick glass lanterns flickered along the walls, illuminating the scarred and weatherworn faces of the pirates who sat chortling around wooden tables. The Salty Biscuit was clearly a sophisticated sort of groggery—a whole crew of fancily dressed buccaneers circulated from table to table with flagons of grog and plates piled high with fresh bread and cheese—but it smelled quite distinctly of pirate all the same, and Hilary couldn’t help noticing the cutlass gashes in the walls.
Without a word, Mr. Twigget led Hilary to a long table in the farthest, darkest corner of the groggery, where Captain Blacktooth and his mates were playing at cards. Then Mr. Twigget cleared his throat. “Hilary Westfield to see you, sir,” he said, tugging Hilary in front of him.
Captain Blacktooth set down his playing cards and skewered them with a dagger. “Thank you, Twigget,” he said. “Please have a seat, Pirate Westfield.”
Hilary sat. She settled her canvas bag on her lap, resting her hands on the gargoyle’s head to keep him from climbing out. She kicked her heels against the chair legs and hoped Captain Blacktooth couldn’t hear how loudly her heart was pounding. For a long, unbearable moment, he was silent. Then he took a sip from his flagon and dabbed the grog from his whiskers.
“I don’t suppose,” Blacktooth said at last, “that you’ve got the head of a sea monster in that bag of yours? Or perhaps a white flag of surrender from a pirate king?”
Hilary looked down at the tabletop, which was scarred and scratched from hundreds of buccaneers’ hooks. “You know perfectly well that I don’t.”
“Then you’ve failed once again to follow my orders,” said Blacktooth. “But, of course, you already explained as much in your correspondence.” He pulled out a damp and wrinkled paper filled with Hilary’s own handwriting and smoothed it out on the table in front of him. “I must say that I admire your bravery. Most scallywags wouldn’t dare to instruct the president of the pirate league on the true nature of piracy.”
Hilary met his gaze. “Well, sir,” she said, “you did tell me to be bold and daring.”
Captain Blacktooth laughed, but the sound was hardly comforting. “I also told you to impress me,” he said, “not to challenge me at every turn. It is not up to you to determine what is piratical and what is not.” He took another sip of grog. “However, Pirate Westfield, I am not a tyrant. I see now that if I forbid you to do something, you’ll only become more eager to do it, so I am willing to consider your argument. In your particular circumstances, rescuing the Enchantress might indeed be piratical.”
“It might?” Hilary leaned forward. “Oh, thank you, sir—”
“I’m not finished, pirate. While saving the Enchantress in a suitably swashbuckling manner might earn you the respect of a handful of rogues, failing to save the Enchantress is not piratical in the slightest. I can’t imagine your reputation could survive such a blow—nor, of course, could your membership in the League. Are you absolutely certain you can take that risk?”
“Of course!” said Hilary. If she sounded confident enough, perhaps Captain Blacktooth wouldn’t question her further. “In fact, my mates and I are already well on our way to finding Miss Pimm.”
“Really!” Captain Blacktooth crossed his arms. “You’re certain of her whereabouts?”
“Well, no,” said Hilary, “but—”
“Ah. Then perhaps you know who’s captured her? You’re confident you can defeat them?”
The skulls printed on the backs of Captain Blacktooth’s playing cards leered up at Hilary, and she didn’t care one bit for their mocking expressions. “The villains are called the Mutineers, sir,” she said. “Once I track them down, it should be no trouble at all to locate the Enchantress.”
“But you don’t know who these Mutineers might be.”
Hilary stared at him, but she couldn’t say a word.
“Precisely,” said Captain Blacktooth. “You’ve been looking for the Enchantress for quite a while now, and it seems to me that you haven’t turned up a single bit of useful information.”
“Then I’ll just have to keep looking,” said Hilary. “If the League is so eager to assist me, perhaps I can ask your mates if they’ve heard of a group of villains—”
But Captain Blacktooth held up his hand. “I’m afraid we can be of no help to you there,” he said. “The Enchantress disappeared on the very night of our Midsummer’s Eve picnic on Gunpowder Island, and the entire League had its attention turned in that direction. We were all quite caught up in the excitement of the swimming relay.” He gave Hilary a meaningful look. “But you would know that, of course, if you had attended.”
Hilary sighed. “I wasn’t aware that attending a picnic was a particularly bold or daring thing to do.”
Captain Blacktooth ignored this. “I’ve given you three warnings already, Pirate Westfield, and that’s all you’ll get. But there is still time to reconsider. If you abandon your quest and set out on a League-approved mission, every scallywag in the kingdom will cheer your name. The finest treasures in Augusta will be yours for the plundering. And I,” he said, “will not look like a fool for trusting you. If you insist on pursuing the Enchantress, however, I feel quite sure you will fail. I can’t imagine how you’ll ever hold your head up on the High Seas again—assuming, of course, that you’re not lying at the bottom of them.”
Hilary pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. “Perhaps you’re forgetting that I’m the Terror of the Southlands,” she said. “I don’t abandon my quests, and I don’t abandon my friends.”
“It seems to me,” said Captain Blacktooth, “that if she wants to keep her title, the Terror of the Southlands should be wise enough to know when she doesn’t have a hope of succeeding.”
Hilary picked up Blacktooth’s flagon and slammed it down on the table, sloshing grog all over the playing cards. “If I didn’t know better,” she said more loudly than she’d intended, “I’d think you didn’t want me to find the Enchantress at all.”
For a moment, the Salty Biscuit fell silent. All the pirates turned to look at Hilary. Then a hiss ran through the groggery as each and every pirate unsheathed his sword. The spilled grog dripped stickily onto Hilary’s boots, and she realized that the swords were all pointed at her.
“Captain Blacktooth,” one pirate called, “who’s this rapscallion who’s speakin’ mutinous words against ye?”
“Shall we defend yer honor?” asked another.
“Aye!” cried several more pirates in chorus.
“Steady now, mates! That won’t be necessary,” Captain Blacktooth said, but several of the nearest pirates were already advancing toward Hilary, and the captain’s words were lost in the hubbub. She reached for her cutlass and was horrified to discover that her legs were trembling as though she were a landlubber on her first day at sea. Charlie had taught her as much swordplay as he could, but she didn’t believe that even he would be able to take on a groggery full of angry pirates and emerge with a full set of limbs.
The gargoyle pulled himself partway out of the canvas bag and studied the advancing pirates. “Um, Hilary,” he said, “I might be wrong, but I think those scallywags want to run us through.”
&nbs
p; “Yes,” said Hilary, “I believe you’re right.”
The gargoyle gave her a nervous sort of look. “You don’t need to use me, do you? For protection, I mean?” He hesitated. “It might not hurt me too badly.”
“I’m sure it won’t come to that,” Hilary said, “and I don’t break my promises to my friends as easily as Captain Blacktooth would like me to.” She raised her cutlass as a pirate with a parrot on his shoulder stepped in front of her. Neither the pirate nor the parrot looked particularly pleased to make her acquaintance. “If you touch me,” Hilary said to the pirate, “I’ll fly your breeches from the flagpole in front of the queen’s palace, and the same goes for your friend’s tail feathers.” She pointed her blade toward the parrot. “Now, back away at once!”
But the pirate didn’t back away. Instead he swung his sword toward Hilary, clipping the end of her braid and knocking her cutlass to the floor, where it landed in a puddle of grog. “Ye don’t scare me, ye small scallywag,” he said. “If ye weren’t still a member of the League, I’d have sliced ye to pieces already.”
Then the Salty Biscuit’s heavy door banged open, and an explosion of piratical noises rose up from the men closest to the entrance.
“Move aside, please,” said a very proper voice, “and don’t wave that dagger at me, young man. You’ll take your own eye out if you’re not careful—ah, and I see you haven’t been.”
The pirate with the parrot on his shoulder wheeled around to watch the commotion, and Captain Blacktooth furrowed his brow. “Who in the world could that be?” he murmured.
Hilary let out the breath she’d been holding for the better part of a minute. “A friend,” she said as she retrieved her cutlass from the floor, “though I’m afraid it’s one of whom you don’t approve.”
The sea of pirates began to part, and Miss Greyson walked briskly through the middle of it. “There’s no need to ‘Arr!’ at me, dear fellow,” she said to a short and stout pirate. “I assure you I’ve met schoolgirls more fearsome than that.”
The short and stout pirate sank back and stared at Miss Greyson. So did everyone else. She was dressed in her best traveling clothes and holding her magic crochet hook—for protection against the pirates, Hilary supposed, although she certainly didn’t seem to need it. A few steps behind her were Charlie and Claire; Charlie had drawn his sword, and Claire was waving a hairpin at any pirate who dared to lift a weapon in her direction. At the end of the procession was the fancy pirate who’d answered the door, looking half as haughty as before and twice as spineless. Hilary wondered exactly what Miss Greyson had said to him.
“Excuse me,” said Miss Greyson, pushing past the pirate with the parrot on his shoulder. Then she caught sight of Hilary and swept her up in a tight embrace. “Are you all right?” Miss Greyson asked. “And the gargoyle, is he all right as well?”
Hilary couldn’t decide whether to be relieved or mortified. Soon enough, all the scourges and scallywags on the High Seas would be laughing about how the Terror of the Southlands had been rescued by her governess. It was a wonder Captain Blacktooth didn’t expel her from the League on the spot. “We’re perfectly fine,” said Hilary into the folds of Miss Greyson’s traveling jacket, “but would you mind letting me go? I believe you’re crushing my fearsomeness.”
“Of course. My apologies.” Miss Greyson drew back. “And this, I presume, is Captain Blacktooth.” She looked the captain up and down. “You don’t look much like a sea cucumber to me.”
Before Captain Blacktooth could respond, however, Miss Greyson had taken Hilary by the hand and guided her toward the doorway, where Charlie and Claire were waiting. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you all,” she said to the assembled pirates, “but I’m afraid the Terror and I must leave at once. We have a great deal to catch up on.”
“And I,” said Hilary, “have an Enchantress to rescue.” She nodded to Captain Blacktooth, but he simply stared after her as Miss Greyson bustled her out of the Salty Biscuit and into the street.
“Well,” said Miss Greyson, dusting off her white kid gloves, “I can’t say I care for that establishment. That fellow who answered the door was dressed quite nicely, but he didn’t have the manners to match.”
Hilary stared at her. “Please don’t tell me you traveled all the way to Queensport to complain about pirate etiquette,” she said. “Whatever are you doing here? And why aren’t you on the Pigeon?”
Miss Greyson pressed her lips together. She was usually starched and spotless, but today, in the crisp afternoon light, she looked entirely disheveled: the collar of her jacket was stained, she’d neglected to iron her dress, and when she took a step forward, Hilary could see that one of her bootlaces had come loose.
“We must talk,” said Miss Greyson at last, “but I won’t do it here with those questionable persons standing nearby.” She looked over at the Salty Biscuit, where a small group of rough-shaven pirates was gathering by the entrance.
“Our ship’s docked in Queensport Harbor,” Charlie offered. “We could go there.”
Miss Greyson nodded rather more emphatically than usual. “Yes,” she said, “I believe that would suffice.” Then, without another word of explanation, she gathered up her skirts and began to hurry toward the harbor. Her bootlace trailed behind her, and Hilary had no choice but to follow.
MISS GREYSON NAVIGATED the winding streets so briskly that the others had trouble keeping up with her. “How did you find her?” Hilary asked Charlie as they made their way over the cobblestones.
“Blind luck,” he said. “Claire and I sailed the Squeaker into Queensport Harbor, just like you asked, and we set about searching for a place called the Salty Biscuit, since that Twigget fellow said that’s where you’d be. But we couldn’t find it, and we ended up outside the train station in the center of town.”
“We were hoping to ask someone for directions,” Claire cut in, “but then a train pulled in, and the first person to step out of the carriage was Miss Greyson! We ran up to greet her, of course. She seemed terribly surprised to see us.”
“When we told her you’d gone off to meet with Captain Blacktooth,” Charlie said, “she got all stern and governess-like and said she needed to speak with you at once. Then she pulled out that crochet hook of hers and had it take her to the Salty Biscuit—it was lucky the place was close by.”
“Something must be terribly wrong,” Hilary whispered. “I’ve never seen her so distraught—not even when I put a tadpole in her teacup during a history lesson.”
They rounded a corner and emerged into the harbor, where Miss Greyson was waiting for them with her arms crossed. Charlie guided them to the place where he’d moored the Squeaker, and they all clambered onto the deck. With Miss Greyson on board and the gargoyle refusing to leave Hilary’s side for the comfort of his Nest, it was rather a cramped fit.
Hilary dug a bottle of ginger beer from the Squeaker’s hatch and poured a bit into the chipped yellow teacup she’d borrowed from Jasper’s bungalow. “Now,” she said, handing the cup to Miss Greyson, “please tell us what’s happened.”
Miss Greyson closed her hands around her teacup. “It’s Jasper,” she said at last. “I believe he’s in very grave danger.”
“But he’s at his freelance pirates’ convention!” said Hilary. “Isn’t he?”
Miss Greyson took a hesitant sip of ginger beer. “I don’t have the slightest idea where he is. He promised to write me a letter as soon as he arrived at the convention, but I never heard from him. At first I thought he’d forgotten, or that the postal courier had lost the letter, so I wrote him several notes to make sure he’d had a safe journey.” Miss Greyson set down her teacup. “I thought it was the prudent thing to do.”
“But you didn’t get a response?” Hilary asked.
“Actually,” said Miss Greyson, “I did—but it wasn’t from Jasper. I suppose I’d better show you the wretched thing.” From her carpetbag she retrieved an envelope addressed in a familiar, elegant hand, stamped with a
cracked blue seal.
A great rush of strength left Hilary’s body, and the gargoyle went heavy in her arms. “The Mutineers,” she said.
Miss Greyson passed the letter to Hilary. “They say they’ve got Jasper in their grasp, and if I try to write to him or search for him, they’ll”—she hesitated—“well, I can’t bear to think about it, but they’ll treat him in a most improper fashion.”
Hilary tried to focus on the Mutineers’ letter, but the words swam before her eyes like small and vicious fish. It hardly mattered, though, for she could imagine their threats all too well.
“What about the other freelance pirates?” Charlie asked. His voice wobbled a bit, and he cleared his throat. “Have they been captured too?”
“There are no other pirates,” Miss Greyson said briskly. “Jasper’s old crewmates have been assisting me on the Pigeon, and they contacted all the freelance pirates of their acquaintance. Not a single one of them knew anything about any sort of convention.” She polished off the rest of her ginger beer. “I’m afraid the entire event was nothing more than a trap.”
Claire shivered. “How awful!”
“I quite agree,” said Miss Greyson. “Thanks to your letter, Hilary, I knew that these particular villains were the same ones who’d run off with Miss Pimm, so we sailed the Pigeon to Pemberton at once. I’d hoped to ask for help from the queen’s inspectors, and I brought the letter along as evidence. But a horrid little man named Hastings told me that he’d never heard of any Mutineers, and he couldn’t waste his men’s time on such frivolous matters as searching for pirates.”
“Hilary spilled tea on him,” the gargoyle told Miss Greyson, “and I’m glad.”
“I’d do it again if I could,” said Hilary fiercely. “He truly wouldn’t raise a finger to help Jasper?”
“He wouldn’t even permit me to stay in his office long enough to scold him,” said Miss Greyson. “I was furious, of course. I asked Jasper’s mates to watch over the Pigeon, and I traveled here to Queensport to see if I could convince Mr. Hastings’s superiors to take my case—but now that I’ve found you all, perhaps that won’t be necessary.”
The Terror of the Southlands Page 12
