The Queen's Pardon (Alexis Carew Book 6)

by J. A. Sutherland

  She edged her hand toward her pocket and the aliens tensed, as though knowing humans kept weapons in such places.

  One of them called out again.

  “I don’t understand,” Alexis called back. “My device will help us!”

  Suddenly more figures appeared out of the mist, on all the hummocks surrounding them. Alexis tensed along with her crew. Her thirty were suddenly facing three times that number and were surrounded.

  “Sir —”

  “Stand easy, Mister Dockett, but be ready. We don’t know their intentions and I want no misunderstandings.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  She heard the whispered orders circulate and could sense the men’s desire to raise their weapons and take aim.

  “We mean no harm!” Alexis shouted, hoping to keep her tone calm and still be heard.

  One of the aliens handed its spear off to another and stepped toward them, nearly into the water on its side. It raised hands to its mouth, hidden by the hood, which Alexis could see now was deeper than it was flat, not much like a cobra’s at all, but more like a monk’s cowl. There was something odd about the hands, as well — they didn’t glint in the dim light like the scales covering the rest of the thing. No, the hands were pale, and the scales covering the arms hung loose, almost like —

  The creature called out.

  “Englisch? Neuer Londoner? Warst du sklave? Warum bist du hier?”

  Alexis dropped her hands and shook her head.

  “Stand the men down, Mister Dockett.”

  “Why, sir?”

  “Because, while I’ve granted the possibility of alien lizard-men, Mister Dockett, alien lizard-men who speak German like a native of Hanover are right out.”

  Nine

  O’, wince me hearties, cry me mates,

  Gnash your teeth and bloody gums,

  For sure as shite you'd have to know

  That admiral sailed on.

  Lieutenant Ian Deckard, Royal Navy, was an odd man, Alexis thought.

  Odd looking, odd of speech, oddly dressed, and odd to find in the company of the mostly Hanoverese group gathered about in the “lizard-men’s” cave.

  Like all the group, he wore the scaled skins of several snakipedes, or perhaps some other scaled creatures. Baggy scaled trousers above what amounted to scaled slippers, a similarly baggy and scaled shirt, and a hood with a short cloak that hid his features amongst the spread scales when it wasn’t thrown back, as it was now, to expose his odd face.

  Large ears standing nearly straight out from his head, one of them ragged around the edges as though it had been gnawed on by some beast, and a long, narrow nose above a pronounced underbite. The man looked more like a rat than any purser or chandler Alexis had ever encountered — and those were breeds known for their rat-like ways.

  “That’s a remarkable tale,” Deckard said, “remarkable, I say, what! Yes?”

  “No more than your own, I’m sure,” Alexis said, hoping to prompt him into revealing how he, as a lieutenant off of HMS Rye, a thirty-two out of Admiral Chipley’s fleet, came to be settled into an Erzurum swamp with nearly a hundred Hanoverese and a few other New Londoners, and no apparent animosity between them at all, despite no one knowing until Alexis arrived that the war wasn’t still on.

  She, Dockett, Nabb, and Isom were settled around a fire with Deckard and some others — those being Hanoverese officers, and Alexis lost their names nearly as soon as she was told. The shock of having accepted alien lizard-men only to find they were the very men, or at least close to the very men, she was seeking still had her befuddled.

  “Oh, that, easy,” Deckard said with a shrug. “A battle with ships damaged and driven onto the shoals, what? Yes! Breaking up, thought we were done for? Indeed! Set about the boats — I wasn’t on Rye. No? I was acting as liaison to Bouledogue, a Berry frigate. Went to pieces with them? Absolutely. Bloody pirate gunboats come along and what? Pick us all up and make for Erzurum. Bugger it!”

  “So I assumed,” Alexis said, “in general, at least. But how did you all come to escape from the pirates and make your way here?”

  Deckard fingered his ear, then a large, ragged scar on his neck, and translated for the surrounding Hanoverese.

  Alexis edged closer to the fire, welcoming its warmth after so much time in the chill water and rain outside. No matter the efficiency of their blankets, there was something to be said about warmed air — and dry clothes, as hers were starting to become. The drying and that they were finally clean — having sluiced the mud off in a pouring waterfall outside the cave entrance, as the residents did — showed her just what a state her vacsuit liner, and the clothing of the others, was in.

  “You’ll be in skins soon, too? Yes, you will,” Deckard had noted right after they were introduced. “The water and mud mixed here, do you see? You do now. Something eats away at materials.” He patted his scale covered leg. “Skins are the only thing for it. Yes?”

  Alexis was not so very enamored of that idea, but neither would she run around Erzurum’s swamp in her all-together once the last bit of liner split or frayed. Especially as Deckard told them the same combination ate away at uncovered human skin, which also explained the chafing and raw patches she and all her men had.

  “And how is it that you stopped fighting each other?” she asked after he’d finished translating her last words.

  Deckard rubbed his ear harder, bringing Alexis’ attention to it. It was mangled, she’d thought at first it must have been in the battle, but then each of the men here had their own ears in a similar state. All around the edge the cartilage was ripped — not cut cleanly, but torn toward the edge and left in ragged strips.

  Deckard translated her words and the Hanoverese beside him snorted.

  “Es gibt keinen Krieg auf der Erzurum.”

  “‘There is no war on Erzurum,’” Deckard translated. “We have other enemies here, don’t we? Oh, yes we do.”

  Alexis listened as Deckard told his group’s tale — which she thought took twice as long as it ought, what with half his words being to question or confirm what he’d already said once.

  He started with the fleets’ running battle from Giron.

  A perilous, grinding, months-long chase, with Admiral Chipley never giving up on the chance to catch the Hanoverese fleet and utterly destroy it — possibly in the hopes of redeeming himself for the debacle of Giron.

  The darkspace winds Deckard described were capricious and almost malicious, never quite allowing the two fleets to fully engage, always allowing the Hanoverese Admiral some point of sail with which to escape, yet never, quite, allowing Chipley to honestly say he could not catch them and disengage for a return to New London.

  Alexis was nearly prepared to believe in Creasy's spirits of the Dark by the time the tale was half done.

  The chase reached the Barbary, where the sparsity of systems opened up the winds and let the fleets travel farther and faster, yet never one enough more so than the other to end it — merely to engage and pick at one another, bleeding ships and men, leaving both to be abandoned behind and broken up by the winds.

  Then came Erzurum and its shoals.

  Chipley managed to get a screening wall of frigates out to windward of the Hanoverese and Erzurum, forcing the enemy into edging ever closer to the system. They could have engaged the screen, and Chipley would have lost those frigates to the larger liners of the Hanoverese, but the action would have slowed them and allowed Chipley’s own liners to catch up and engage.

  It was a sound tactical decision, Alexis thought, no matter the potential sacrifice of those frigates, but she couldn’t help curse Chipley for doing it — had he but stayed at Giron, kept his fleet with the arriving force of Admiral Cammack, then so many men would be alive and home with their families even now, what with the cease-fire only months away from when the action at Erzurum must have occurred.

  The Hanoverese admiral did not take the bait. Instead he fell to leeward, ever closer to Erzurum’s dark ma
tter shoals, and skirted the system up and over its halo, escaping with most of his fleet again and leaving Chipley to follow along.

  Most of his fleet.

  Chipley saw the way of it and ordered his screen of frigates to close, chipping away at the trailing Hanoverese. They weren’t enough to destroy any of the big liners, but they were enough to damage the sails and rigging of a few, cutting their ability to maneuver and leaving them to drift or be driven to leeward onto Erzurum’s shoals.

  Not all of Chipley’s ships came out of the engagement unscathed, either.

  Deckard’s Bouledogue and dozens of others were damaged by return fire and left unable to maneuver as well.

  Chipley, driven himself by whatever unknown obsession had set him off after the Hanoverese in the first place, left his damaged ships behind, as the Hanoverese admiral was forced to by Chipley’s pursuit, to repair and follow — or to be driven helplessly onto Erzurum’s shoals and to be picked up by the system’s pirate-crewed gunboats.

  “How many ships in all? Too many, I think,” Deckard said. “Yes, too many? Between both fleets. Frigates, sloops, more. All beat to pieces. Bloody pieces, though I think the bastards here salvaged a bit off them. Maybe. Perhaps. You faced two frigates with the pirates? You said. At least that, then. More doomed, more destroyed. Dozens? A hundred? Thousands of men, what? Oh, yes, thousands and more here on Erzurum, at least.”

  Alexis nodded, appalled at the destruction and loss of life. A hundred ships or more lost, and only the two pirate frigates salvaged? If thousands of men had been taken up by the pirates, how many more met their fates in darkspace amongst those shoals?

  Despite her joy at having found these men and the thought that she might now get them home to New London and Hanover with the help of the other privateers, the scope of the destruction and loss made her wonder at the odds for her other, more personal, search.

  “Do you know which ships?” Alexis asked. “There are … some, I’d like to know the fate of more than others. The Berry March flagship, it was still with Chipley’s fleet?”

  Delaine Theibaud, the man who’d drawn her to privateering in the Barbary for the chance to learn his fate, had moved to that ship to assist Commodore Balestra during the operations at Giron. She couldn’t be sure he hadn’t been moved to another ship, but knowing Balestra was still in the fight would give her some hope.

  “La Mûre?” Deckard shrugged. “Yes, still with Chipley. Cranky? Oh, yes, that Balestra wasn’t happy with the whole lot and made no bones, did she? No. Not at all. Would’ve left Chipley to his bloody insanity — shouldn’t say that, should I? Never mind. Balestra would have left him before the Barbary if her honor’d allow it, I think. Would she really? Oh, yes.”

  Alexis’ shoulders relaxed. That was something, at least. The ship Delaine was on had passed Erzurum safely, so far as Deckard knew.

  “Captain Theibaud had a thing or two to say about Chipley, too. Didn’t he? Oh, yes, he did. Not the sort of thing I was meant to liaise on, you know? Not at all, but after dinner and wine? Oh, yes, a whinge or two can be shared.”

  Alexis chilled from more than Erzurum’s rain and the fire’s warmth was no help for it.

  “Who did you say?” she asked.

  “Who? What? Captain Theibaud of Bouledogue?” Deckard said. “That’s what I said? It was, yes.”

  “Theibaud? Delaine Theibaud?” It probably was not — she must not get her hopes up. There must be many Theibaud’s in the Berry March fleet, and Delaine was lieutenant not a frigate captain. “Captain not lieutenant?”

  “Delaine, yes? I think.” Deckard frowned, then nodded. “Called him Captain Theibaud, so only the time or two to know his given name, but Delaine?” He shrugged. “Lieutenant on La Mûre — why he knew Balestra’s mind to whinge on it. Yes, knew her well. She appointed him captain into Bouledogue when Captain Liou was injured — when was that? Six months out of Giron? Maybe. Maybe not. Could be. Eight? Perhaps, I don’t —”

  Alexis pulled her tablet from her pocket, ripping the last of the pocket’s seam in the process and not caring. She brought up an image of Delaine and thrust the tablet at Deckard.

  “Is this him?”

  “Well hold it still, will you?” Deckard said, peering close. “How’m I suppose to tell with you shaking it about like that? Can’t, I say. No. Yes.”

  “Damn your eyes, man, is it him or not?”

  Deckard blinked at her while the Hanoverese captain beside him half raised a hand and scowled at her. “No need to shout, is there? No. Yes, it’s him.”

  “I’m sorry I shouted, Lieutenant Deckard, but … you’re certain?”

  “Dine with a man for months I know his face — oh, yes — even if your hand’s waving like a landsman first time out on the yards. Settle down, will you? No? What’s the matter there?”

  Alexis couldn’t stop the shaking. Couldn’t even lower her tablet, she could only stare at it and Delaine’s image, wondering, now she was so close, what the answer would be.

  Captain of Bouledogue, driven onto Erzurum’s shoals and left behind by the rest.

  “What happened to him?”

  Ten

  He sailed on and left us lads,

  Packed a hundred to a boat,

  Like bloodied, ship-less, nomads

  He valued not a groat.

  Deckard shrugged.

  “Same as all of us, wasn’t it? Indeed.” His hand went to his ragged ear. “Taken up by Erzurum’s pirates and sold off as bloody slaves.”

  “But he’s alive?” Alexis asked. “He made it through the battle? What do you mean by slaves? Sold off how? To who? Where is he? Where did you last see him?”

  Deckard was silent for a moment, seeming to sink back into his baggy, scaled garb. He studied her.

  “So many questions, what? What was your name again? What was it?”

  “It’s Carew,” Alexis said, biting off the demand he answer her bloody questions without more of his own.

  “You were in the Navy? Yes. Were you?”

  “I am still, though a half-pay lieutenant. Look, will you please —”

  Deckard squinted at her in the firelight.

  “And you know Theibaud, do you? Must. I suppose. If you’re asking about him, right, and have his picture? Only explanation, that.”

  “I do, so if you’ll please —”

  “Bloody Theibaud and his bloody dinners and all the bloody whinging, what? Yes. So much of it. If it wasn’t whinging about Admiral Chipley it was bloody going on and on about some bloody Carew.”

  Alexis flushed. “Well, yes, I suppose that would —”

  “Straight through the cheese, he goes on — ‘great beauty’ this and ‘smart as a whip’ that. Over and bloody over he does, right? Oh, right, yes. ‘Be an admiral one day,’ he says, ‘and there’ll be no bloody haring after fleets like stupid Chipley.’ Oh, right. But he said it French, so not ‘bloody,’ but something worse, I think? Don’t remember. Make it up yourself. Yes, do. ‘Stupid’ isn’t right either. No? French have better insults. Take your pick.”

  Alexis’ skin went far hotter than the fire could account for. It was all well and good for Delaine to think such things, but telling others, especially to annoyance, just wasn’t done. On the other hand … he was French, so she supposed that should excuse quite a lot of such behavior.

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant Deckard, if you felt Captain Theibaud went on too much. But will you please tell me where —”

  Deckard cleared his throat and leaned nearly over the fire to squint at her.

  “So you’re a Carew looking for Theibaud?” He frowned and shook his head. “For your sister, right? Must.”

  “Why you soddin’, snake-skinned, little —”

  “Belay that, Mister Dockett,” Alexis said. “And you, too, Nabb.”

  Both men had half risen at Deckard’s words and Alexis herself had to push a bit of anger aside.

  She had no delusions about her ability to live up to whatever descri
ption of her Delaine might have subjected Deckard to. And Delaine was French, as she’d just noted. He seemed to have a cultural imperative to exaggerate such things.

  Dockett and Nabb eased back into their seats, but continued to glare at the man across the fire.

  “I have no sisters, Lieutenant Deckard.”

  She thought there might be a glint of frost on the fire’s top as her words crossed it.

  Deckard grunted. “Huh. Cousin?”

  Alexis threw her hand out to catch Nabb by the ear as he made to rise and held him in place.

  “Sweet Dark, man, I’m the one he talked about — now where is he?”

  “What? Oh! All right. I suppose.” He shrugged as if perplexed by something. “Sold off like the rest of us. Yes? Right. Haven’t seen him since.”

  Alexis’ heart fell. She was so close — she’d even entertained, for a moment, that Delaine would be right here in this cave with the rest of them and suddenly appear out of the shadows to take her up in his arms. Until the thought occurred to her, she’d not realized how much she longed for it — or any sort of human touch. She’d not had a hug since saying goodbye to her grandfather and leaving Dalthus with Mongoose — nor, before her time at home, since last seeing Delaine in orbit around Giron before the fleet action with Hanover. That was … a very long time to do without such things. And others, but mostly the simple bit of human contact.

  The crew could take their ease at a house each time they were given liberty, and no doubt the casino on Enclave had such places and had seen a great deal of their coin, but that wasn’t really to Alexis’ taste — and she felt she owed it to Delaine not to, in any case. And even the crew could clap one another on the back after a hard time on the sails or if saddening news came from a fellow’s home. One’s mates could always be counted on for an arm about the shoulders at such times.