Act of Will

by A. J. Hartley

  Orgos beamed and heaved it into my arms saying, “Something to keep you busy, Will. See what it has to say about Shale.”

  “Thanks a lot, Orgos,” I muttered.

  Mithos turned to Lisha and said, “I forgot to mention that Will has an ear for accents. Since Thrusian is the basic language of the Shale region, that may prove a useful skill.”

  So I did have a role. A genuine useful function for humble Will Hawthorne? Will the linguist. Bill the talker. Will Hawthorne, leading authority on the world’s most boring two-foot-thick book. This was the literary equivalent of metal polishing. Still, it sounded a damned sight safer than swinging swords about, so I figured I’d go with it. I clasped the book to my chest, as if I couldn’t wait to curl up with it.

  Lisha’s black eyes glittered at me and I felt my irritation and resentment shining through like torchlight.

  “We’ll find something more exciting for you later,” she said.

  “What?” I murmured, unconvincingly. “No, this is fine. Great. Right up my street, is this. Dialect books. Brilliant.”

  She just nodded and I felt stupid again.

  “Perhaps you can research those old tales of the lands we are visiting,” she said.

  “All that magic and sorcery bollocks?” I said. “Sure. If you like.”

  Keep me safe and fed and I’ll read whatever rubbish you like, I thought.

  The next room was a gym, hewn out of the stone and running below the foundations of the houses above. As Orgos was to demonstrate over the next hour, you could tone and strengthen every major muscle in the body with the stuff they had in there, a pretty depressing prospect for a man like me, as was the announcement that I was to “eat more healthily” from here on. No more bacon, in other words. Probably leaves, and the odd handful of seeds.

  “After lunch,” said Orgos, apparently unironically, “we’ll see if we can get you up on a horse for a while. Bring your crossbow and you can practice that too. If we have time, we could go for a quick swim in the harbor and then have one more workout before bed.”

  Great. All my life I had avoided weapons, exercise, a sensible diet, horses, and water. Now they were all I had.

  My book on dialects was dry as a Hrof well and turgid as . . . well, something very, very turgid that I can’t think of at the moment. One particularly riveting chapter was “Major Inflectional Features and Word Usage Common to Shale and Its Environs.” A real corker.

  It was tough to believe, but I started to prefer the prospect of perching on the back of a horse to reading. At least up in the saddle I had the challenge of controlling my bowels as the beast started to move, and as the days went by and I continued to avoid some horrible, limb-mangling accident, it became, if not actually enjoyable, then at least less nauseating. A week wasn’t going to turn me into a rider (nor would it make me a weapon master) but I began to feel fractionally less terrified up there and that, Orgos assured me, was half the battle.

  The swimming was a very different story. Only once in the whole week did I get out of my depth, and then I was so convinced that I was going to drown that I almost did. By the fourth day I had made no progress whatsoever and it seemed that my fear of water was actually increasing. I told Orgos that my body didn’t float. I wasn’t sure what the problem was but I just wasn’t a buoyant kind of person.

  “Right,” he said unhelpfully, and pushed me off the dock. I yelled and gargled quite a bit, but when he showed no sign of coming in after me, I floated. Sort of. By the end of the week I still couldn’t swim a stroke but I didn’t automatically equate any body of water larger than a bath with certain death.

  As for the Empire, things had been quiet. I was even getting used to seeing their casual patrols, which frequented the markets and dockyards. Down by the water there were always crowds of people hawking and trading their wares or their favors, and you could easily lose yourself in the crowds if panic set in. A pair of soldiers leaned on a fishing boat one day and laughed as I flailed about in the water. In Cresdon I might be a notorious rebel; in Stavis I was just some kid who couldn’t swim.

  On Monday evening we had a meeting which began with Lisha checking off a list to see if they had missed anything. They hadn’t. Naturally. The boxes and crates and bags had been packed, transported to the harbor, and loaded aboard a light trading vessel with a cargo of mahogany. It was bound for shores east of Greycoast but would, for a fee already settled, deposit us in a serviceable port in southern Shale. We were to leave at seven the next morning, and should arrive by the end of the week, weather permitting.

  They smiled and clinked their rare celebratory beer mugs with anticipation. They were excited. I was hungry and aching and dreading the journey, but when they grinned and drank, I joined them, as if I was one of them.

  SCENE XV

  The Cormorant

  The ship in which we were about to sail round 240 miles of coastline was called the Cormorant and was, as I should have guessed, a leaky old crate that didn’t look like it would make it out of the harbor. I told Garnet that there was no way I was getting on that beat-up piece of driftwood, but he just gave a knowing smile and lugged his bag up the gangplank.

  I watched him get on board and was suddenly struck by the sense of being on the threshold of a life-changing decision. I had stuck with them this long because I needed them to get me out of Cresdon and because they were useful allies in an unfamiliar and hostile world in which I knew nobody. But get on that boat, and everything would change, even if it didn’t sink as soon as we hit open sea. This was the point of no return.

  I turned and looked across the dockyard into the gaze of an Empire trooper, one whom I had seen in a local tavern three nights before. He was with another soldier and they were both looking at me and muttering to each other.

  They couldn’t have recognized me. Surely. Not now. I dropped my eyes to my bag and tried to look busy, fumbling with panic.

  The boat was ready to go, but a glance told me that the guards were still watching. By the time I picked up my bag and turned to the ship, they were coming over, slowly, uncertainly, each seeming to follow the other.

  “Garnet!” I called, trying to sound unconcerned. He paused in the midst of passing a crate up onto the ship and peered from me to the two soldiers, who had picked up their pace significantly. He called to Renthrette and then stooped to pick something up: a bow. I turned to the soldiers quickly.

  “Everything all right, Officer?” I said, smiling blandly.

  “I saw you the other night,” said one of them. “I thought you looked familiar.”

  “Really?” I said, my heart fluttering. “Just one of those faces, I suppose.”

  “No,” said the other, taking a step towards me. “I know you. I recognized you when I saw you the other night, but I couldn’t place you.”

  I smiled and shrugged. “Oh?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Till two months ago, I was stationed in Cresdon.”

  Oh, hell.

  For a moment I could think of nothing to say.

  “You’re Rufus Ramsbottom, aren’t you,” he said, thrusting his hand into mine. “The actor.”

  He was smiling, his eyes bright, his cheeks flushed.

  I blinked.

  “Yes,” I said, taking his hand and shaking it. “Yes, I am.”

  I scribbled my name—or, rather, Rufus’s—on whatever they put in front of me and then sort of glided over to the Cormorant to find Renthrette and Garnet warily unstringing their bows, their eyes fixed on me. I wasn’t sure whom they would have shot first, the soldiers or me.

  I watched the soldiers from the rail, my heart still thumping. Any minute I expected them to realize that I was not the actor—and I use that term in its loosest and most degraded sense—Rufus Ramsbottom, but the actor, rebel, and fugitive for whom new torturous means of execution were being devised, Will Hawthorne. We were out of port before I relaxed enough to realize that if this had indeed been the point of no return, I had just made a career choice.r />
  The captain had his eye on Renthrette from the outset. I saw the drunken half-wit leering at her as she watched Stavis fall behind us, and knew then that there would be trouble.

  I passed my time fencing with Orgos on what little area of free deck there was. It wasn’t easy, and I spent as much time dodging spars and deck fittings as I did his sword. Still, it kept my body moving and my mind off the amount of water under our ancient keel.

  The gulls swooped infuriatingly at us for miles, convinced we were trawling. At first I felt ill, but it was more trepidation than actual seasickness, and it passed, mercifully, within a couple of hours. Oddly enough, it was Garnet who suffered most. He was greenish before the dock was out of sight and, as we cleared the sandbars that flanked the port, he began hanging over the rail with a desolate look on his face. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the poor swine.

  We slept in hammocks, two to a berth, and it wasn’t exactly idyllic, but the rocking of the ship actually helped me doze off. Orgos lay large and completely silent beside me. I don’t think Mithos closed his eyes much, since Garnet, his berthmate, spent half the night running up to the deck to throw up. Mithos’s sleeplessness turned out to be for the best when he caught one of the ratty, toothless crew pawing through our belongings. From then on, one of us kept watch.

  On the morning of the second day we saw dolphins leaping off the starboard bow, apparently racing us. They flashed silver-grey into the foam of our wake like curving arrows. The sky was cloudless and we were making good time, but if there had been more to occupy the captain, things would probably have worked out better.

  He was a big clumsy man with a black beard, a mouthful of gold teeth, a natty little scarlet jacket, and a penchant for heavy earrings. His voice was permanently slurred, even when he wasn’t on the rum, and his tongue clicked and gurgled when he spoke. He didn’t have an accent as such; you just couldn’t tell what he was saying. I would just nod, laugh loudly, and say “Yes mate, exactly” a few times, until he left me alone. He spat through his beard as he talked and his eyes wandered around sparkling mischievously, so that more than once I wondered with a start of panic what it was I was agreeing to. Garnet said he looked like he had been a pirate once, and I could see his point. His face was red and leathery from the sun and salt wind, and his arms were tattooed with voluptuous women coiled around snakes and daggers. He would sidle up to you and make crude, unintelligible jokes and then slap you on the back and laugh to himself while you wondered what the hell he was going on about. He wore a short, heavy-looking cutlass with a bowl-shaped hand guard. Maybe he still was a pirate.

  Renthrette was on deck waiting for the sun to go down when he made his move. I don’t suppose she understood most of what he suggested, but she got enough idea to detach herself from him and head for the cabins. He’d had a skinful, however, and wasn’t to be dealt with so easily. He caught her from behind, but she shrugged him off and slapped his hands away. Since Renthrette was angry but controlled, things might have been left at that had I not decided to “rescue” her.

  For a moment there, it was close to perfect. I took two quick steps and caught him off balance with a punch to the jaw. He never saw it coming, and though it wasn’t really much more than a slap, he slumped to the ground. Feeling pleased with myself, I turned to minister to Renthrette, who was staring at me in disbelief. I was just realizing that what I had assumed was admiration was actually outrage when I heard the captain stagger to his feet behind me, scraping his cutlass out of its rusty scabbard.

  His eyes were small and full of malice, and he started to advance on me, spitting meaningless curses. I had no weapon to hand, but he was in no mood to be sporting. Renthrette closed as if to part us, making conciliatory noises, but he swung the sword at her like a club and she stepped back, giving a single unhurried shout for Orgos. The first mate appeared, ushering her out of the way, then stood there laughing. I was beginning to regret a lot of things.

  On the deck, discarded from our last training session, was a blunted épée. I seized it and turned back to face the captain, who was drooling and laying about himself pointlessly with the squat and murderous-looking cutlass, his eyes locked on me.

  “Perhaps we could discuss this. . . . ” I ventured. He swashed wildly at me with his sword.

  I instinctively raised my blunted “blade,” and it almost kicked out of my hand as he made contact. He came at me again and I parried wildly, following up with a crazed lunge that didn’t come close. I knew that I just had to keep him at bay until help arrived, but I couldn’t manage that kind of composure. I swung like a berserker and fled from his hacking attacks, leaping rope coils and clambering over the huge racks of bound timber. He came lumbering after me, barking wordless insults and bellowing like a rabid bear. I poked at him with my (now bent) épée and hopped away again.

  Orgos took him from behind, catching his sword arm and raising a dagger to his throat until he became still. As the crew roared with laughter, I scrambled to my feet and looked for somewhere to hide my embarrassment.

  “My hero,” said Renthrette dryly.

  I tried to think of a crushing riposte that would salvage some dignity from the moment. But nothing came to mind, so I just started shouting, as one is wont to do in such situations. “Look, I was trying to help you out, right? You might show a little gratitude, for God’s sake!”

  “Gratitude?” she sneered. “For what? For starting, and almost losing, an unnecessary fight? Let me fight my own battles, Will.”

  “Right, I will,” I spluttered, “And next time—”

  I was interrupted by Orgos calling me from the foot of the mainmast. Lisha was with him and they looked thoroughly disenchanted.

  “Oh bugger,” I muttered, and went over to them, staring at the decking all the way. When I stood before them I could barely look them in the face.

  “Sorry,” I said in a small voice. “I just . . .”

  “I know,” said Orgos. His tone was soft but not without reprimand. “Renthrette can look after herself, Will. And did you forget everything we have learned together? You looked drunker than him.”

  “It’s different when you’re fighting someone with a real sword who wants to hurt you,” I replied bitterly.

  “In a real fight you have to be even more composed than when you fence, because the hits are more crucial.”

  “Don’t lecture me, all right?” I said. “I’m not a child.”

  “Will,” said Lisha quietly.

  “What?”

  “There won’t always be someone on hand to pull you out of trouble when you get in over your head. If only for that reason, be more cautious.”

  They left me to myself, and I stared over the side at the water for a while, feeling the slight sting of the salt spray on my arms and face.

  SCENE XVI

  Consequences

  You’ve got guts, Will, I’ll give you that,” said Garnet obliquely as we sat down to a supper of dry biscuits and steamed mussels. He gave me a half-smile of encouragement, and then moved to where the smell of the food didn’t remind him of how awful he felt. Renthrette behaved as if the matter simply hadn’t happened, which was actually a pleasant surprise. She even passed me the salt as we ate. As if we didn’t have enough salt.

  I saw the captain lurching around the galley in the evening and sort of smiled at him. He muttered something spiteful and gestured with his fist. I was not the Cormorant’s most popular person.

  That night it transpired that there were two meetings. The party meeting consisted of Lisha reminding us that we should “keep our heads” (directed at me) and that when we docked tomorrow we should conduct ourselves with caution and dignity (also directed at me). Mithos sat out of the lamplight, almost lost in shadow. Once he nodded solemnly, but he said nothing. Garnet ground the bit of his ax, tracing small perfect circles with a flat stone. Renthrette was rebinding her sword hilt in the same tortuous manner. Her eyes would flash from Lisha back to the weapon in her hand as she wound
the thin leather thong round and round the handle, spiraling slowly and immaculately up to the pommel.

  The second meeting was held in the captain’s quarters, but we didn’t learn of that one until the morning.

  Southern Shale was in sight shortly after dawn. Though it was a lengthy stretch of coastline, there was only one convenient harbor close by, and we steered towards it under the same prevailing wind that had made our trip so swift and easy. Trouble, however, has many guises. In this case, it had a scarlet jacket and a black beard full of muffled curses.

  “The captain is up to something,” said Lisha as we finished breakfast. “He looks furtive.”

  “He always looks furtive,” I said.

  “But he also looks pleased with himself, and I fear he is planning to revenge himself on us for yesterday’s incident.”

  I tried not to look guilty, but Renthrette met my eyes mercilessly. Then Garnet looked up and whispered, “Did you feel that? We’re changing course. He’s steering us out to sea.”

  He was right. A long, anxious pause followed.

  “I wouldn’t put it past the captain to just take us where the sharks can get us,” said Mithos darkly, “and toss us overboard. Or find somewhere he could sell us.”

  “We’ll give him a fight,” added Orgos, feeling the edge of his shaving dagger.

  “Could we not just grab the lifeboat and go?” Garnet suggested.

  “We’re too far from shore,” Mithos sighed. “He could bring the ship about and plow us under.”

  “Then we must take the wheel,” said Orgos, “and steer it in ourselves.”

  “There are twenty-five crewmen,” said Garnet, “we couldn’t hold them all off.”

  “Not if they were organized, we couldn’t,” agreed Lisha, “but we might be able to if we could somehow keep them in pockets of five or six.”

  She fell silently thoughtful for a moment, and then carefully, pausing between sentences, laid out a course of action.