The Queen's Pardon (Alexis Carew Book 6)

by J. A. Sutherland

  Satisfied that the chaos and destruction were not out of hand, Alexis set her sights on the more private and exclusive gaming area where she’d found Wheeley before, only to spot an unexpected figure rushing toward her from that direction.

  Villar, her first officer on Mongoose who’d had to go off with the private ships, nearly got himself shot, coming out of that gaming area, freezing as he saw Alexis and then rushing toward her.

  “Belay that, Aiden!” Alexis said as the lad raised his weapon at Villar’s approach. “Oof!”

  The air for any more was knocked out of her as Villar wrapped her in an embrace that took her feet off the ground, then hurriedly releasing her and stepping back, his face red.

  “Sorry, sir, I couldn’t credit it when I saw you and —”

  “Never mind that — is Wheeley in there?”

  “Yes, sir, I went to ask him if there was any word of you, or back from New London, when news of ships in-system came and then —” He looked around, puzzled at the spacers turning the casino to ruin. “How are you here? What —"

  “Come on, then, I’ll explain on the way!” She started for where Wheeley was, filling Villar in as they went, but when they reached the more exclusive gaming area they found it empty.

  “He was here, the bastard,” Villar said. “I was here to speak with him every time a ship came in, asking if there was word from Penduli of a rescue fleet. Every time he told me, ‘No,’ and likely had a good laugh over it. Never sent word at all, if I’m any judge.”

  “He had us all fooled, but he’ll answer for it,” Alexis said. “Buying up the taken ships and the captured pirates and merchants off our hands — likely sent them on their way as soon as the private ships cleared the halo.” She looked around. “Where could he have got to?”

  There was a muffled cry from farther back in the gaming area, near the back wall draped in heavy fabric to deaden some of the sound from the main floor.

  “The drinks and food come out of there,” Villar said, “there must be passages.”

  Weaving around the tables, they made their way to the back wall and found an entry into the service corridor. They found Wheeley quickly, too, only a hundred or so meters along, but in no condition to answer further for any of his past actions.

  The heavy man lay on the floor, face down, the back of his head flattened to mush and a growing pool of blood beneath it.

  Beside him on her knees, heavy service tray still in her hands, was the dealer from Wheeley’s favorite table.

  Afet, Alexis thought, odd that I remember her name.

  The tray was bent and dented, but had been heavy enough for the job and its back was covered in Wheeley’s blood, which spattered the walls and the dealer, Alexis saw as she grew closer.

  Afet rocked back and forth, then, as they approached, slowly raised the heavy tray and brought it down on Wheeley’s head again.

  Alexis motioned for the others to stay back and stepped closer, going to her knees so as to be on the same level as the woman.

  “He’s done,” Alexis said softly.

  Afet dropped the tray to clatter to the floor and stared at Alexis as though she’d just then noticed the others were there, which she might well have, as focused on Wheeley’s body as she’d been. Her right hand went to her throat and Alexis noted the distinctive pattern of earrings, marking her as one of the slaves Wheeley had brought from Erzurum to work his casino.

  “He’s done,” Alexis repeated, “and we’ll have that out of you instanter. Nabb, would you escort her out to the medical station?”

  “Aye, sir.” Nabb knelt, the new lad, Aiden, recovered, or nearly so, from his wound in taking Ness’ frigate, beside him.

  “He said he was taking me with him,” Afet said. “On his ship.”

  “Come on now, miss,” Nabb held out his hand to assist her in standing, but not too close. Aiden took her other side. “Away from him and never see him again, eh?”

  She took Nabb’s hand, eyes still on Wheeley’s body. “I wouldn’t go.”

  “Right, miss,” Nabb said.

  “He was really in league with the pirates?” Villar asked when they’d gone.

  Alexis nodded. She’d much preferred to have taken Wheeley alive. With Ness dead and all the other pirates, pardoned or not, claiming no knowledge of the deal, it would have been beneficial to have one backing up Skanes’ story of the Marchant Company’s involvement. She shrugged. There was nothing for it now, and she couldn’t very well blame Afet for acting as she had.

  “But … I told him everything, sir … I did, Malcomson did, all the private ship captains … thinking he’d send word to New London for a larger force, an official one.” Villar looked stricken.

  “You had no way of knowing,” Alexis assured him. “None of us did.”

  Mongoose waited at Enclave, and Alexis with her, for the other ships to return to Erzurum and return with the next load of rescued spacers. Three ships were sent on to New London, requesting escort and better transport for the men.

  That left Alexis with weeks of idleness, during which she hoped, in vain, for a return of the privateers who’d abandoned her on Erzurum.

  She didn’t blame them, but she did wish to have a word or two of goodbye with Malcomson, for she was fond of the huge Scot, and more than a word with Spensley, if only to see the scars she’d left him and determine if that were enough.

  “Most of the lads signed on with the other private ships,” Villar told her. “Some with merchants, wanting nothing more to do with adventures, they said.”

  “I don’t blame them,” Alexis agreed, accepting a glass of wine from Isom.

  One benefit of having just raided Wheeley’s casino was the ability to restock her pantry aboard Mongoose properly from the man’s stores.

  “Parrill is sailing with Malcomson,” Villar went on.

  Alexis raised an eyebrow at that. The woman she’d taken on as an officer aboard Mongoose had been aboard merchantmen before that, and she’d seemed ill-suited to the privateering life.

  “There was talk of them being a couple,” Villar added.

  Alexis’ brows raised further and there was a sniff of disdain from Isom.

  “And Hackett?” Alexis asked. Her haughty officer had not taken well to life aboard a private ship, but neither did she think he’d take a position aboard some merchant — the man’s disdain for such had been vocal.

  “Took passage back to New London,” Villar said. “Said he’d set up shop in Admiralty’s Waiting Room and await a commission, rather than any more of this, er, ‘nonsense’.”

  Alexis nodded. He’d be much happier there, ship or no, she thought.

  Of the crew who’d fled Erzurum with Villar and the other private ships, only those who’d come with her from Dalthus, and before that Nightingale, had stayed, though even a few of those had taken berths on other ships and moved on.

  More time passed and the last of the round-trips back to Erzurum to retrieve the freed slaves was finished.

  Mattingly came with the last of them, leaving behind Kannstadt and the other Hanoverese to see about setting Erzurum to rights and returning those slaves taken from other Barbary worlds to their homes.

  Alexis had some qualms about that still. She remembered Kannstadt’s treatment of Isikli and his family, wondered which influence might now play out in Kannstadt’s management of that sad planet — Hanover’s or Lieutenant Deckard’s.

  That thought brought another.

  Her leave-taking with the Hanoverese captain back on Erzurum had been, if not emotional, at least fraught with such.

  They’d, neither of them, made mention of their own disagreements directly, but Kannstadt had seemed to respond to Alexis near-worried glance from Erzurum’s landing field to the town beyond with a frown and nod.

  “Have no fear for Erzurum’s people. I have much to think on still, but they will be safe,” he’d said, then, “I fear I must ask a thing of you, Kapitän Carew. For Ian.”

  Alexis knew w
ithout him going further what the request would be — and wondered what Admiralty would think of her delivering such a message to a senior captain and for an officer of a foreign, enemy power.

  She sighed.

  Bugger them and they shouldn’t have joined if they can’t take a joke.

  “Should I find myself near Captain Ellender, sir, I shall deliver your message and make what arrangements I may for your meeting.”

  Kannstadt jerked his head in a nod and held out his hand. Alexis took it.

  “Danke.”

  Ferry work done and Mattingly arrived at Enclave with the last of the New London and Berry March spacers, Alexis could finally see the final totals and she nearly wept with rage at how very nearly so many been left to rot there.

  From the ships which fought and died around Erzurum, over fifty thousand men had been taken by the pirates. A staggering number, nearly impossible to believe until one remembered that they’d been taken from crowded, ill-gunned boats after days and weeks of deprivation in the deepest of darkspace.

  Of those, a bit over five thousand were of the Berry March fleet, and over twenty thousand of New London. The remaining Hanoverese were left behind to await their own rescue fleet, while close to thirty thousand men swelled Enclaves New London settlement to bursting — crammed into icy corridors and rooms intended for a population a third that size, and those already present.

  The body heat alone had Enclave’s citizens worried the whole place would melt, and the constant dripping made it a not inconceivable concern.

  “You’ll need to go, Carew,” Mattingly said. “There’s nothing else for it. Hate to send you off alone, but there’s barely enough food here, no matter we’re buying every bit that comes in system as it is, and we’re seeing little help from the Hannie and French settlements.”

  The Hanoverese, in fact, had requested that the New London spacers clear the system as quickly as possible, and sent for instructions from their own more populated worlds. The French, as in the attempt to free the Berry Worlds themselves that had started the whole mess, seemed less than eager to take on their erstwhile countrymen from the Berry March fleet. It was as though no one wanted to acknowledge the folly of either Chipley or the Hanoverese admiral involved in this debacle.

  They were in some rooms on Enclave’s surface where Mattingly had set up offices while overseeing the men there, but Alexis couldn’t quite attribute the chill she felt to the places icy walls.

  “Your Mongoose is the fastest — maybe faster than those we sent on before,” Mattingly finished.

  Alexis had to agree with that. Neither the captured merchantmen nor pirates were particularly fast sailors and it was possible Mongoose might still overreach them and arrive at Penduli before they did.

  “Aye, sir,” she said. “Who will sail with me?”

  “The wounded, I think,” Mattingly said. “Those most in need of a proper station’s medical care.”

  There were enough of those to fill Mongoose’s spare spaces — the wounded and the Isikli family, who Alexis insisted on carrying on. She’d promised them a home on Dalthus and she’d see to that. She might put them aboard a merchantman at Penduli, but she wanted to see them safely to a place where there were not so many men who’d come to hate the natives of Erzurum.

  “Will, ah, you be —” Alexis started, but Mattingly cut her off.

  “No. The conflicts between the men and Enclave’s citizens are too frequent — and there’s the Hanoverese here. They’re less inclined to believe word from one of their formerly captive captains and the Dark knows what they’ll get up to or what word will come from Hanover proper.” He shook his head and Alexis could tell he was as weary as she was. “I know I said it was best for you to come in with all of us in tow, but —” He shrugged. “We need relief here. Supplies. Ships to bring the men home. And no time.”

  “Some of the other captains, then?” Alexis asked.

  Mattingly rubbed his eyes.

  “Need them to help keep the men in line …” He paused for a long moment. “To be frank, Carew, I’m not sure who I might send that would be of help to you. There’s a great deal of talk.”

  “Talk?”

  “Concerns,” Mattingly said. “Some of the captains have been talking and the subject of Hermione came up. That was a bad bit of business. More than one fellow with Chipley’s fleet knew Captain Neals.”

  Alexis felt her jaw tighten at the mention of the abusive captain she’d served under aboard the ill-fated Hermione, that his friends might be coming to the fore now, and after she’d risked so much to free them.

  “Yes, sir, but —”

  “They’re grateful to be free,” Mattingly cut her off again, “but they, most of them, think you overstep yourself. Take on too much.”

  “I see, sir.” She swallowed hard. “And you?”

  Mattingly looked away. “You were, so far as one can tell, senior at the time. I’ll not second-guess your actions.”

  Alexis nodded. She felt a growing anger, but kept her voice level. “But you’ll not support me, either.”

  Mattingly cleared his throat, rose from his seat and went to a cupboard set into the ice to pull a bottle of wine and pour himself a glass. Alexis noted that she was offered none.

  “It’s unclear how Admiralty will view the situation. I think —” He drank. “Best perhaps, for everyone, if none of the other captains are put in a position of having to express an opinion. You go, give the admiral at Penduli your report, and then, well, you’ve had the first and strongest word, yes?”

  “Aye, sir,” Alexis said, there being no other real response. She rose to leave.

  Mattingly’s eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened. “Oh, and should our good friend Captain Ellender happen to still be at Penduli, Carew?”

  “Sir?”

  “Do pass on that there’s a fellow captain or six who wishes to have a word with him, will you?”

  “Connard,” Delaine muttered.

  “If that means a right bastard, I agree,” Villar said.

  “Means worse,” Isom added, “and not near enough, if you ask me.”

  “Gentlemen,” Alexis admonished. They were three days out of Enclave and well on their way to Penduli. Mattingly had been nearly the whole talk of every meal and she was tired off it. “Enough. Delaine, please — Villar will return home to his Mary with very nearly more words in French that he cannot speak to her than what he may.”

  Skanes, who was aboard more because Mattingly had not known what to do with her than for any other reason, looked up from her plate.

  “He’s a coward,” she said. “As I was.”

  “Captain Skanes —” Alexis began, but the woman was looking back down at her plate as she had at every meal, and Alexis knew she’d not be drawn out again. Her only words now seemed to be to admonish herself or state her intentions of crying the perfidy of the Marchant Company from every vantage possible upon her return to New London space.

  Alexis, despite her own anger, again found herself in the position of, if not defending Mattingly’s decision, at least explaining it.

  “While I’d like to have a fleet of other captains behind me in support, I’ve had enough time to think alone is, at least, better than a fleet not in support.” She sighed. “I always did know that Captain Neals had his friends and they’d come back to haunt me one day, I suppose.”

  “Ain’t right,” Isom said, clearing plates in readiness for dessert.

  “This Neals could not have had so many friends, could he?” Villar asked.

  “It doesn’t take many,” Alexis said. “I suppose none of the captains were particularly happy with my actions — especially not with Lieutenant Deckard effectively mutinying against Ellender and forcing him away as he did.”

  “But you had nothing to do with that, sir,” Villar said. “It was Deckard’s own decision.”

  “Yes, but some will wonder. And, wondering, they’ll listen to others.” She shook her head. “No, much as he’s prot
ecting himself and his own position, I do believe Captain Mattingly has done me as much a favor as he felt himself able in sending us home ahead of anyone else.”

  Fifty-Eight

  And so, we sailed off, me mates,

  And left that Hell behind.

  Came home to Queen and Country,

  For both we’d so long pined.

  Darkness and shadows swirled around Alexis, growing ever nearer and more defined with each moment.

  She groaned and tried to look away, knowing this for what it was, but even knowledge couldn’t defend her from these things — they grew out of something deeper than knowledge and mere facts.

  Dark figures rose from the shadows, formed of the very stuff that swirled around her, seeming to be formed of the Dark itself.

  Alexis forced herself to face them, as Poulter, the surgeon on Nightingale who’d first helped her to deal with these dreams — at least in some way other than drinking to insensibility — had advised.

  “A pirate!” she yelled at the first, always the first, stout figure. “Took my ship and held my lads! Killed one of them, and how many others in your roving?” She took a step toward it. “I’ve no shame in your death! None! Or if I do, I’ll carry it willingly for those saved from you!”

  She turned to others, not waiting for the first to fade or step back. At those she recognized, and there were all too many, she yelled specific defiance — more general for those she didn’t recognize, but she’d weigh herself down with shame for them too.

  Hardest were those who hadn’t been enemies, the men aboard her own ships who’d fallen under her orders. Those she couldn’t scream defiance at, she could only call them to their duty and remind them of their mates who still lived due to their sacrifice. Tears, not anger, drove these words, and she could only hope that voicing her true regret might give these spirits some comfort.