Corsair

by Chris Bunch

  He sat down in a hand-carved chair, put his feet up on his chart table, and stretched mightily.

  “Now, with any luck, things will go easily, at least until we reach Freebooter’s Island.”

  “That I’m looking forward to,” N’b’ry said. “There was that small woman with the boldest eye. Perhaps she’s no longer with that one-eyed scoundrel who’s half again bigger than me. I think — ”

  There was a hard rap at the door. Gareth swung his feet down to the deck.

  “Enter.”

  It was Galf. “Sir, we’ve got problems.”

  Gareth sighed. “Of what sort?”

  “We’ve found a stowaway — or rather, the stowaway’s come out of hiding up forward.”

  “I don’t see any problem requiring me,” Gareth said.

  “Anyone who wants to be a corsair badly enough to stow away should just be signed on the Articles.”

  “Sir, it’s not a he. It’s a she.”

  Gareth made a sound in his throat.

  “And she refuses to be put ashore, sir, but demands a hearing under our Articles.”

  “Now there’s a bold wench,” N’b’ry said. “And as I recall, we don’t have anything in the Articles forbidding women in the crew. Nobody ever thought that would be a problem.”

  “Do not be absurd, Knoll N’b’ry,” Gareth said, buckling on his sword belt. “Come on, and let’s deal masterfully with the situation — although I don’t have a damned clue what we should do.

  “Thank the gods for the Articles and the crew having the vote in the matter. I suppose, after it goes against her, we can turn back and put her aboard one of those fishing boats we passed. It’s most unlikely she would have heard of our change of plans, nor would a single unknown be believed back in Ticao.”

  Gareth thought he’d developed a bit of command presence, the ability to handle any situation, no matter how deadly, how bizarre, without showing his real emotions.

  But seeing Lady Cosyra of the Mount standing defiantly on his main deck shook him to the core, and he was later sure he’d turned pale, or green, or something.

  Even though she was more than a bit travel-worn and in need of a bath, she was still striking, wearing close-tied kneeboots, dark blue pants, and a deerskin tunic, laced at the neck.

  She also wore a sword belt with a thin-bladed rapier and, just behind it, a narrow, single-edged dagger.

  “Good morrow, Captain,” Cosyra said in a merry voice. “I’m thankful to be aboard your vessel.”

  Some of the crewmen, who’d recognized Cosyra and knew the relationship between the two, snickered.

  “I wish I could say the same, Cosyra,” and Gareth was disturbed enough to swear, “What the hells are you doing here?”

  “I stowed away in Lyrawise,” she said, “intending to serve with your fleet, Captain.”

  “You can’t do that!” Gareth said.

  “Why not? I’ve read your Articles, and there’s nothing forbidding women to join your crew.”

  “’Tain’t reasonable,” a beefy sailor, Shenshi, Gareth remembered, growled. “If th’ cap’n’s whore can git aboard, so can mine.”

  Cosyra’s half smile vanished, and she turned to the sailor.

  “That is once,” she said coldly. The man, about to say something else, saw the look in her eyes, and stepped back. Cosyra turned back to Gareth.

  He still felt numb-witted.

  “How did you get to Juterbog ahead of us?” was the best he could manage.

  “Easily. I hired a ship.”

  Gareth remembered the yacht that had distanced them days before.

  A sailor — Kuldja — was on a barrel head.

  “Why can’t she sign?” he shouted. “If there ain’t rules against it, she should be able to join us if she can hold her own wi’ a cutlass or a halyard.”

  “An’ where’d she sleep? She’d be welcome in my hammock,” a crewman said. “But folks might talk.”

  There was laughter.

  “She can sleep where she damned pleases,” another crewman said. “Same as the rest of us.”

  “Damned woman’ll do nothing but make trouble,” another said.

  “The hells I will,” Cosyra said. “Tell me there’s none among you who’ve gone into another’s hammock aboard ship for comfort. Does anyone spit on them the next morning?”

  There was an uneasy shifting. Sailors far from land and women traditionally found comfort with one another or by themselves, but it wasn’t something that was talked about.

  “The problem, young woman,” a bearded pirate said, “is that you must be able to carry your weight, both literally and figuratively, with the rest of us. Have you experience as a sailor?”

  “No,” Cosyra admitted. “But I’m agile, and have no fear of heights. Aren’t there men — boys, even — signed on this ship who think the bow is called the ‘pointy end’?”

  There were chuckles.

  “Aye,” the bearded man admitted. “We train men for the trade. But what about fighting? I see you’re armed. Is that for show?”

  “I’ve been trained,” Cosyra said. “And blooded.”

  Gareth remembered the fight with Anthon’s bullies, and nodded involuntarily.

  The deck was now filled with men, some in agreement, others shaking their heads vehemently, others, undecided, arguing back and forth.

  “I still say the cap’n’s lady should be allowed on,” Kuldja returned. “And if she chooses to share his cabin, what of it? Aren’t officers given some gravy?”

  “Gravy ain’t what we’re talkin’ about,” Shenshi said. “At least, gravy’s not what I leave in my doxy.”

  Amid the laughter, Cosyra walked deliberately to Shenshi.

  “That was twice,” she said clearly, and the laughter died. “There is no third time.”

  Her hand whipped, hard, across his face twice. He lifted a fist, and Cosyra jumped back, very fast, and her blade was in her hand.

  “Now,” she said. “You’ve been challenged. Make what you want of it.”

  A sailor shouted:

  “There’s no fightin’ aboard ship! Grounds for marooning!”

  Another: “But she ain’t a crewman. Let ‘em fight! Never seen a woman ‘gainst a man. I’ll give … two, naw, three to one for Shenshi.”

  “Done an’ done,” another shouted. “I saw her leap, an’ Shenshi’s ‘bout as quick as a stalled ox.”

  Gareth turned to Tehidy.

  “In my cabin. Get two pistols.”

  Thom nodded, slid away.

  Gareth saw Labala move unobtrusively to the foredeck railing overlooking the waist, a belaying pin ready.

  “Wait,” the bearded sailor said, holding up both hands. “Maybe this solves our problem. And gives some amusement.

  “Let these two fight. If she wins — or even shows herself handily — then perhaps we ought to admit her to the Company. If not … well, then, the problem is solved, is it not?”

  There was a roar of approval.

  Gareth started forward.

  “Captain,” Nomios said. “Stay your course. This one’s beyond you.”

  Gareth looked around helplessly. A sailor was already coiling a long length of rope into a circle on the deck below.

  “Yer steps outside this, drop yer guard and get back inside,” he said. “No fightin’ beyond the round. Keeps things from gettin’ compelcated, an’ dancin’ around on steps an’ such like in th’ romances.”

  Cosyra nodded understanding.

  Shenshi had a large cutlass in one hand, testing its edge with his thumb.

  “Won’t be much of a fight, boys,” he called. “Get your silver on me, an’ watch me smash that titty blade of hers, then it’ll be interestin’. Real interestin’.”

  He pulled off his shirt.

  “You goin’ do the same?” he called, and winked to the applause. Sailors were calling bets back and forth.

  Tehidy was beside Gareth.

  “I’ve got the pistols. You want m
e to shoot him?”

  Gareth shook his head helplessly.

  “Let them engage, or we’ll have a mutiny on our hands,” he decided. “If Cosyra doesn’t go down the first time he hits her, I’ll try to break it up then.”

  There were two sailors standing in front of him. Both had sheath knives drawn.

  “Captain, we’s sorry. But th’ Articles apply, an’ you’ll have to stand by and let what happens happen.”

  Gareth, lips in a thin line, didn’t reply. Tehidy moved to one side, one hand casually under his shirt — on, Gareth knew, a pistol butt.

  “Very well,” the bearded sailor called.

  “Are both of you ready?”

  Cosyra, rapier in her hand, nodded.

  “Ready-ready,” Shenshi said. “More’n ready.”

  Cosyra was in a half crouch, moving, careful steps, to Shenshi’s offside. The big man’s blade came up, and he slashed at her, going low. Cosyra jumped back, almost to the rope’s edge, then jump-lunged.

  Her blade flicked out once, twice, a third time.

  Shenshi yelped, then looked down at his chest, as blood oozed out. There was another wound lower down, just below the first, below his lungs, and a third in the biceps of his sword arm.

  Shenshi’s eyes widened, his mouth fell open, and the cutlass clattered down.

  “I … she …” and he stumbled forward and fell to the deck, facedown.

  There was utter silence on the deck.

  Gareth looked at Cosyra, who managed a weak smile. He suddenly and strangely thought he’d never loved her more than at that moment.

  The bearded man walked to Shenshi’s sprawled body, looked down at the twin wounds in his back, he knelt, then stood.

  “He’s still breathing,” the man announced. “Mayhap he’ll live. Perhaps, magician, you’ll tend to him? He’s not the brightest man we have aboard, but he’ll do in a melee.”

  Labala tossed the belaying pin aside, came down the ladder, bent over Shenshi.

  The bearded man inclined his head to Cosyra.

  “Congratulations, milady. That was as pretty a piece of work as I’ve seen in years.”

  He turned, looked up at Gareth.

  “Captain, I think we’ve added another corsair to the Company. Perhaps you’ll have her sign the Articles?”

  And so Lady Cosyra of the Mount became a pirate.

  Seventeen

  The paradise of Freebooter’s Island was shattered. The twin forts guarding the channel were blackened ruins, and sunk in the lagoon were half a dozen ships the pirates had left behind on their massive raid. The houses looked as if a giant had trampled them in a rage.

  Gareth thought he could smell smoke, but that wasn’t possible. The Linyati had come and gone time past.

  “They must’ve used their wizards to track where we sailed from,” N’b’ry said. His expression was stricken, and Gareth remembered what he’d said about the small woman with the boldest eye.

  Without waiting for orders the pirates had manned the guns, and the lookouts were scanning the land, looking for attackers, or just a sign of life.

  But there was none, until a parrot burst, squawking, from a tree, and everyone jumped.

  “Nomios,” Gareth said. “Two boats with a landing party.”

  “Sir.”

  “And signal to the others to stand by, without entering the passage. Have their guns manned and run out.”

  “Sir.”

  “Labala,” Gareth said. “I want you with us as well, smelling for any magic.”

  The big man nodded.

  The plash of the oars was very loud as the boats moved toward shore. The water was still crystalline, the wind still soft, the sands gleaming white.

  But the island was dead.

  Gareth jumped into the shallows, waded ashore, hand near a pistol in his sling.

  Nothing moved except tattered vegetation in the cool breeze.

  Here, where the pirate’s market had been, was nothing but waste, the buildings ripped apart or fired. Even the handful of stone buildings above it had been smashed by cannon fire … or magic.

  “Hallooo,” Gareth shouted. “We’re friends.”

  Echoes came back without reply.

  Gareth called again.

  “Knoll … Thom … search around the settlement in the bush. Maybe someone’s still alive, still here, and too frightened to come out.”

  Tehidy and N’b’ry pointed to men they wanted. Other pirates got out of the boats, pulled them higher on the sand, their keels scraping loudly.

  The search parties were about to start up what had been the main “avenue” when an amused laugh came, seeming from nowhere, from everywhere.

  Gareth found he was having trouble breathing; he had his pistol cocked and his sword was in his hand.

  The laugh grew louder, and the wizard Dafflemere came from behind a tumbled wall of coconut logs.

  He was barefoot, and wore tattered pants and, incongruously, an iron breastplate with no shirt under it. He had a cutlass thrust through a rope belt, and, hanging from it, a hunting knife. His beard was longer than ever, but now was a dirty white, boiling in ignored tangles over the armor plate to his belly.

  He had an easy smile on his face.

  “Greetings, Gareth Radnor.”

  “Uh … good day to you, Dafflemere.”

  Gareth shot a quick glance at Labala, who was looking troubled.

  “No, I’m hardly a ghost,” Dafflemere said. “In the flesh, though it’s been hard keeping it together the last year, or month, or however long it’s been since the bastards took the Thruster and put me to the torture.”

  “The last we saw of you,” Gareth said, “was hard off the coast of Kashi, sore assailed.”

  “Sore, indeed,” Dafflemere said, still sounding amused. “It took three of them to clear our decks, and every one of us was wounded.

  “But in the end, they took us.

  “And that night, after they’d sailed about, finishing off any of our ships that were still afloat, picking up those of us who weren’t smart enough to breathe water and go to an untroubled doom, then they gave themselves pleasure.

  “They rafted their ships, and then vied to see who could give their prisoners the slowest death. They started with the boys, then the men, then the officers.

  “It was then I saw the horror that rules them.” Dafflemere shuddered. “Like lizards scuttling about, but huge, reeking of musk and evil.

  “They loved, even more than the men or half-men they rule, seeing our pain and death.”

  “I saw them, too,” Gareth said.

  “One of the Linyati wizards — at least that’s what I suppose he was — bent over me,” Dafflemere went on, “as I lay in chains, and said he knew that I organized the sally against their treasure fleet.

  “Myself and you. They wanted to know what I knew of you, and where you were, and I answered honestly nothing, that I’d been busy with my own troubles when the battle was joined.

  “But they didn’t believe me, and so they heated their pinchers and prods, and made sure they had their heaviest ropes ready.

  “But I fooled them.”

  Again, Dafflemere’s laughter rang.

  “I escaped.”

  “How?”

  Dafflemere’s smile vanished, and he looked troubled.

  “I do not know. I tell you true, I do not know. All that grows dim, as if I’m viewing myself through a mist, a seafog.

  “Someone … something … must have saved me. I don’t know what, or who.

  “But when I recollect clear, I was back here, on this island. Time must have passed, for the Slavers had come and gone, taking all who didn’t fight to the death with them.

  “I gathered bodies, burned them here on the beach. There was food, and game to be hunted, and all I had to do was wait, for I knew someone, and I guessed it would be you, would return.

  “Or else another generation of freebooters would come, for as long as kings and noblemen keep m
en in chains, there’ll be men to run to sea to find freedom and revenge, and I would help them, as I propose to help you, for my powers are even greater than they were.”

  “How did they grow?” Labala said.

  “Again, that is something I don’t know. But I can feel the strength within me, biding its time for the moment to strike, in terrible ways the Linyati cannot dream of.”

  “I scent you,” Labala said. “But I smell no evil. If you are a demon now, or a spirit in thrall with the Linyati, I think I would be able to sense that.”

  “You would,” Dafflemere agreed. “For you’ve always had power, even though it was latent, half-buried; power enough to scent if I was a puppet.”

  “But who took you from the decks of that Linyati ship?” Gareth persisted. “Who rescued you?”

  “As I said, I do not know,” Dafflemere said, untroubled by Gareth’s prodding. “Perhaps one of my friends?”

  He waved a hand at the lagoon, and, suddenly, tentacles came up, thrashing the calm water into white foam and as rapidly vanished.

  “Oh yes. I still have my friends,” he said. “And my magic, as I said.

  “Now, I would appreciate some food such as I’ve not had for months, food I thought I’d never long for. I want ship’s biscuit, salt beef, wine or beer. Preserved fruit of the north, if there is any.

  “I think that was all that kept me from going mad while I waited, dreaming of what I did not have.

  “Or perhaps it didn’t stop me from madness. But that doesn’t matter, so long as I am allowed to sail with you, sail with you against the Linyati.

  “Perhaps they have stolen my soul, for I sense something lacking within me.

  “Or perhaps not.

  “Perhaps I am simply mad, and perhaps the Slavers let me live, brought me here and left me marooned, thinking that amusing.

  “Perhaps, perhaps.

  “But may I sail with you, Gareth Radnor? You owe me a promised favor from times past.

  “I can provide my magic … and those creatures I showed you before.”

  Dafflemere smiled, but his smile was harsh, showing teeth that might have been those of a shark.

  “Yes, Dafflemere,” Gareth said, ignoring the alarmed looks from N’b’ry and Tehidy, as Labala nodded in approval.

  “You can sail with us … against the Slavers.”