by Geoff Rodkey
It was well past dark, our sails were struck, and Millicent was waving the lantern over her head in the direction of a three-masted galleon, closing fast on us from less than a hundred yards ahead.
“She would have gone right past, but I signaled her, and she turned!” she said excitedly.
I stared at the ship, close enough now that I could make out the carved wooden figurehead on its bowsprit. On the Blue Sea, nearly every ship’s figurehead is the same—a winged Goddess of the Sea, who’s supposed to guarantee the crew divine protection. It’s such a common superstition, and sailors take it so seriously, that I’ve heard of crews who refused to sail without one, or returned to port just to fix a broken goddess figurehead.
This figurehead wasn’t a goddess. It was a skeleton, grotesque and distorted, the jaw of its skull wrenched open in a terrible shriek.
There was only one ship on the Blue Sea with a figurehead like that, and a captain and crew cocky enough to defy the superstition and sail behind it.
I opened my mouth to speak, but Guts beat me to it.
“Fool!” he yelled at Millicent. “It’s Burn Healy!”
ON THE GRIFT
There was no mistaking the Grift, Burn Healy’s flagship. And not just because of the skeleton figurehead, but because no one else on the Blue Sea commanded that kind of sleek, saddlebacked galleon. Only the Cartager Navy had the skills and the money to build such a ship, and only Burn Healy had the guts and the muscle to take it from them.
There was no point in trying to escape—not only was the ship almost on top of us, but I knew the only victims who survived an encounter with Healy were the ones who surrendered instantly and offered up everything they had as plunder.
What scared me most right then was that the only thing we had worth taking was Millicent.
I turned toward her, my brain churning to think of where on the little sailboat we might hide her away from a crew of rough men all but certain to treat her with unspeakable horror—and I couldn’t believe my eyes. She was smiling.
More than smiling. She looked thrilled.
“Burn Healy? That’s brilliant! He works for my father!”
Like it usually does when it gets a piece of news it can’t handle, my brain shut down completely.
Guts was quicker to react. “Nuts to that! Healy don’t work fer nobody!”
“My father’s hardly nobody. And Healy owes him. He was supposed to guarantee the Earthly Pleasure safe passage, and he completely botched it! Daddy was only just meeting with him last night, and he was very cross before he left, so I’m sure Healy’s gotten an earful, and he’ll be desperate to get back in Daddy’s good graces. All I’ve got to do is tell him who I am, and he’ll fall all over himself—”
“MILLICENT!” I screamed. There were so many things wrong with what she was saying that little explosions kept going off in my head with every sentence, and I had to make her stop long enough to let the smoke clear.
“Savior’s sake, Egg, there’s no need to yell. I’m right here.”
“Yer out of yer tiny little mind! They’ll tear ye apart!” barked Guts, pointing his finger at the ship looming over us.
Millicent sighed and rolled her eyes. “I don’t think you understand how the world works.”
“I know ’ow it works with a crew o’ pirates an’ a pretty girl.”
Millicent’s jaw dropped. She looked genuinely shocked.
“Pardon me!? No one is going to lay a hand—”
CHUUUNK! A grappling hook landed on the foredeck, sending up splinters of wood as it dug its teeth into our boat. A rope ladder snaked from the hook up onto the deck of the Grift.
“Evenin’ to ye,” called a mocking voice from somewhere above us. “Whyn’t ye climb on up and say ’ello?”
Millicent took a step toward the rope ladder. “Just you watch—”
I grabbed her by the arm, stopping her in her tracks. My brain had settled enough by now to sort out exactly what I needed to warn her about.
“These are bad men,” I said urgently. “They do awful things. And if they really do work for your father, they’ll kill me.”
“Not if I tell them—”
“You’re not your father! You can’t control them! They’ll do what they want!”
She stared at me, her eyes slowly widening. For maybe the first time in her life, she looked unsure of herself.
“Come on, up the ladder with ye.” The voice above us was getting impatient.
“They wouldn’t dare,” she whispered.
“They would,” I assured her. “And worse.”
“Wot’s this?” called out the voice. “’Ave we got us a gimp?”
Guts was working his way up the ladder, and they’d noticed his missing hand. I saw him twitch at the insult, but he kept his mouth shut.
I looked back at Millicent. “Let me do the talking for us. Please. I’ve got an idea.”
She nodded. I went up the ladder behind Guts. Waiting on deck for us was a pair of scruffy-looking men. The larger one was built like a brick. His companion had the narrow face and beady eyes of a weasel. Neither one had the flame tattoo of a Healy pirate on his neck, which made me wonder if I could have been wrong about the ship.
They smirked with amusement at Guts and me, but when Millicent came over the side in her nightgown, the smirks disappeared as their eyes locked onto her.
“’Ello, love. Wot a pleasure,” croaked the brick.
I stepped in front of her, but he shoved me out of the way. “Mind yourself, boy.”
“Sorry, it’s just, my sister’s very sick, and I wouldn’t want it to spread.”
“Sick ’ow?”
“She’s got the jack.” I didn’t know what the jack was, but I’d heard pirates on Deadweather complain bitterly about getting it.
It worked, for a moment, anyway. The men drew back, and the weasel wrinkled his nose.
But then the brick grinned. “See about that.” He was raising his hand to shove me out of the way again when a voice from behind stopped him.
“Who’s this?”
A third pirate was approaching. This one had a flame tattoo, and it was clear from the way the others stepped aside at the sight of him that he was in charge.
“Dunno. Only just hauled ’em in,” said the brick.
The new man stared at us with cold, unblinking eyes like a hawk’s. Unlike his mates, he didn’t look twice at Millicent.
“What d’you carry, and where you bound?”
Guts and Millicent both looked at me for an answer.
“Just ourselves,” I said. “Bound for Deadweather, but we’re lost.” My throat was so dry that my voice cracked.
“What business have three whelps got on Deadweather?”
“Our father lives there,” I said.
“Wot, in the Scratch? Ye sure ’e wants to be found?” asked the weasel, who’d been silent until now. The others laughed.
“Brothers and sister, are you?” the hawk asked.
We nodded, a little too eagerly.
“Don’t look like it.”
“Mummy had lots of friends, I’d say.” The weasel cackled at his own joke.
“We don’t want any trouble,” I said. “There’s not much on board, but it’s yours.”
“That goes without saying,” said the hawk matter-of-factly. “Got any provisions?”
“Bit of food,” I said. “Been out of water awhile now.”
“Search the boat,” the hawk told the weasel. Then he turned to the brick. “Give ’em water if they need it. Then watch ’em till the captain wakes.”
The brick nodded. “Why don’t I take ’em back down to—”
“Stay on the deck,” said the hawk firmly. “Plain sight.”
“C’mon, Spiggs—”
“Mind the Code.”
The hawk turned and strode off. The brick and the weasel scowled at his back. Then the weasel went over the side, disappearing down the rope ladder to our boat.
The b
rick jerked his head toward the foredeck.
“This way, kiddies.”
There was a barrel of water near the foremast, and the brick gave us a wooden cup to share. While we drank our thirst away, he disappeared for a few minutes, returning with three biscuits. They were hard as rocks, but they weren’t mold-crusted or wormy, and even Millicent ate hers gratefully.
“Be mornin’ soon,” he said when we were finished. “Lie down. Get some sleep.”
“That’s all right,” I said.
“I said lie down, boy.” It wasn’t a suggestion.
The three of us curled up on the deck, huddling together against the chill. No one slept, or even tried to. The brick kept his eyes fixed on Millicent, and I kept my eyes on him.
The weasel returned and lit a pipe. They passed it back and forth while they kept up a hushed conversation. When the pipe was finished, the weasel went to the deck rail and knocked out the ashes while the brick raised his head and addressed the rigging over our heads.
“Hssst! Hssst!”
A moment later, a man dropped down in front of us—he must have been on watch in a crow’s nest somewhere above. He was long and skinny, with an odd wattle under his chin that made him look like a pelican. His eyebrows rose at the sight of Millicent.
The brick put a hand on the pelican’s back and whispered in his ear. The pelican nodded and smiled.
My stomach started to churn. They were planning something.
The brick squatted in front of us and addressed Millicent.
“Got the jack, eh?” he asked her.
“Yes,” she said in a halting voice.
“See ’bout that,” he snorted.
He reached out to grab her hands. I moved to get between them, but someone pulled me back and shoved me down onto the deck from behind, trapping me on my side with my left arm pinned under my body and the full weight of my attacker on top of me.
I tried to squirm free, but there was a cold tickle at my throat, and I heard the raspy voice of the weasel in my ear.
“Feel the knife? Make a noise, and I’ll kill you.” I couldn’t see him, but I could feel his breath on my face, rotten with the stink of decay.
The brick had both Millicent’s wrists clamped together with a single massive hand. With his other hand, he pulled a rag from his pocket.
“Stop! My father’s Roger Pembroke! He’ll have you killed!”
The brick stuffed a rag into her mouth. She tried to scream, but it came out muffled and tiny.
“I’m yer father now, dearie,” he said with an evil grin as he pulled a length of rope from his pocket.
As Millicent struggled, I caught a glimpse of Guts lying helplessly beyond them, wrapped up by the pelican with a knife to his own throat.
Millicent was desperate to get free, but the brick easily held her as he tied her hands together.
“’Urry up, Mike,” growled the weasel. “Don’t take all day.”
I had to stop them. And I couldn’t do it by myself. They had knives, I wasn’t strong enough, it was impossible.
But they had to be keeping quiet for a reason. The hawk, or someone, would step in if he knew what was happening. I just had to figure out how to raise an alarm.
I let my body go slack. “I’ve got gold,” I whispered to the weasel. “I’ll pay you if you make it stop.”
He snorted. “Where is it?”
“In my pocket.”
“Pull it out, then.”
“I can’t get it. My arm’s pinned.”
“Which pocket?”
“The left.”
He must have brought his leg up, because I felt the iron hardness of his shin bone press down on my side. Then I heard a low, hollow thock near my ear—the sound of him setting his knife down on the deck.
As he started to roll me forward onto my stomach, I screamed at the top of my lungs and lashed out with every muscle in my body, twisting away from the weasel and heaving myself toward Millicent.
I got a hand on the brick’s arm and tried to pull him off, but the weasel grabbed me and yanked me backward, driving me to the deck and landing hard on top of my back.
That knocked the wind out of me, and I couldn’t scream anymore. The weasel flipped me over and pinned my arms with his knees, searching the deck for his knife as he snarled “I’ll kill you, you——!”
There were feet pounding on the deck, coming toward us.
The weasel found his knife and drew himself up over me, raising the blade over his head to plunge it into my chest.
Then a boot kicked him in the side of the head, knocking him cold. His upper body fell away from me, and I squirmed out from under his legs. I was about to scramble to my feet when I felt another body on me.
It was Millicent, burrowing into my chest like a frightened child. As I put my arms around her, I saw Guts. His neck and collar were red with blood, and I realized he must have had his own struggle with the pelican.
The weasel was still unconscious a couple of feet from us, but the brick and the pelican were standing now, faced off against two other men: the hawk who’d quizzed us earlier and a big bear of a man with a Healy mark on his neck. They were shouting at each other, filling the air with an angry swirl of accusations, and the pelican was gesturing with his knife in a way that said he might use it.
Then there was a gunshot, and they all went quiet.
Everyone turned to see a man striding slowly toward us out of the predawn gloom. He was wide-shouldered and handsome, with a tangled thatch of curly hair. Even dressed as he was, in a heavy black greatcoat hanging open over a knee-length white nightshirt, bare calves rising out of a pair of weathered boots, he gave off an aura of commanding self-confidence. He could have walked up to us naked, holding a baby’s rattle, and there would have been no question he was in charge.
Just now, though, he was holding a smoking pistol.
Burn Healy—I’d seen him before, back in Port Scratch, but never up close—came to a stop in front of us. As he looked over the group, he raised the barrel of the gun to his face, using it to give a thoughtful scratch to a spot on his stubbled cheek.
“So I’ve just been woken up,” he said. “And I’m wondering why.”
No one answered.
He looked down at us—Millicent, Guts, and me, all sitting on the deck. A few feet away from us, the weasel was moaning softly and clutching his head.
“Spiggs, who are these children?”
“They were adrift in a small boat,” said the hawk-eyed man. “It’s under tow off port. Told Mike to keep an eye on them till morning.”
“Seems simple enough.” Healy looked at the brick, who was hanging his head like an angry schoolboy.
“Nothin’ ’appened, Cap,” he muttered.
Healy pocketed his pistol and crouched down in front of me and Millicent, who was still trembling in my arms.
“Are you all right, young lady?” She raised her head from my chest to meet his eyes, staring at her with concern.
“I am now, sir,” said Millicent in a shaky voice.
“What happened?”
“He attacked me.” She nodded her head in the direction of the brick.
Healy straightened up. “What do you say to that, Mike?”
“Weren’t going to hurt her none, Cap.” The brick managed to smile, but it wasn’t a laughing smile. It was a nervous one.
Healy took a few steps toward him. The brick stepped backward, trying to keep his distance.
“How long you been with us? Three weeks? A month?”
“’Bout that.” Healy kept backing him up until the brick ran into the deck rail and had to stop.
“Long enough to know the Code. What’s it say?” Healy closed the distance, leaving their faces just half a foot apart. The brick had two inches of height and at least fifty pounds on Healy, but he seemed to be shrinking under the captain’s steady stare.
“Every man his master.” The brick’s voice was so quiet I could barely hear him.
; “Not the relevant part, unfortunately.”
Without taking his eyes off the brick, Healy called over his shoulder. “Spiggs! What’s the Code say about children?”
“Treated with mercy in every respect,” Spiggs answered.
“In every respect,” Healy echoed.
“Hardly kids, these—look at ’em! The whelps may be ’alf grown, but the girl’s nearly—”
“Spiggs?” Healy called out again, interrupting the brick. “Are these children?”
“Certainly seem to be, sir.”
“I’m forced to agree.” Healy’s voice was mild, and I couldn’t see his face from where I was sitting. But there must have been something terrifying in his look, because the brick was turning pale, and his voice was pleading.
“Just a bit o’ fun, Cap’n. That’s all.”
Healy nodded. “I’m certainly sympathetic to that. I mean, the days are long, the work is hard. And fun is fun…”
“Yeh!” The brick was nodding, too, a little hope creeping into his fearful look.
“But rules are rules.”
In one quick, violent motion, Healy lifted the larger man off his feet and threw him over the side of the ship.
Then he turned on his heel, so quickly he was two steps back to us by the time we heard the splash.
The weasel had staggered to his feet by now, and he and the pelican were both white with fear. Healy barely glanced at them.
“Go below and mop the decks until you’re told to stop.”
They were off and running before he’d even finished the sentence.
Then he turned to us. “Please, children, stand up.”
We stood. He looked at each of us in turn, his eyes grim with concern.
“I apologize for your treatment. It won’t happen again.”
His eyes met mine last, started to move on, then went back to me, his eyebrows bunching together slightly, as if he’d just recognized my face.
“What’s your destination?”
Fear started to creep through me, and for a moment I wondered if I should lie to him.
“Deadweather Island,” I said.
He turned to Spiggs.
“Chart a course for Deadweather. Need to replace those three, anyway. Fire the other two without share. If they complain, shoot them in the head.”
