The Queen's Pardon (Alexis Carew Book 6)

by J. A. Sutherland

  With Ellender’s departure it was as though all of the tension in the office left with him, and the occupants sat in silence for a moment.

  “You’ve brought me a mess, Carew,” Acton said, finally.

  “I am sorry, sir,” Alexis said.

  “No doubt. Captain Ellender’s report painted the situation back there in the Barbary in quite a different light — made it sound as though there must be only a few men left on the planet, irretrievable, and fleeing with those he had the best course.”

  “Of course, sir,” Alexis said.

  “A mess.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “So you said.” Acton scrubbed at his face. “All right, then. We’ll form a board of inquiry for this matter —” He nodded to one of his captains. “Sealworth, set it for a week from now, will you? We’ll hear from you and your officers first, Carew — and Captain Ellender and his. By the time we’re done with that we should have the first of the ship’s I’ll send to Enclave back here and hear from those officers.” He sighed. “In the meantime, Carew, your ship is to stay where it is. You and your officers may make use of quarters on station if you wish, but —” He held up a warning finger. “—you stay away from Captain Ellender, hear?”

  “Aye, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  Alexis thought of Skanes aboard Mongoose and the word she brought that the Marchant Company, one of the largest in the kingdom, with more than a few political ties had been in league with the pirates.

  “Ah, sir, there is another person you may wish to hear testimony from.”

  Acton stared at her for a moment, then narrowed his eyes. “Has the mess grown larger, Carew?”

  “I am sorry, sir.”

  Sixty-One

  Alexis came awake peacefully and easily, but without opening her eyes. She was curled up against Delaine’s side — a delight of being housed in Penduli Station’s officers’ quarters, rather than aboard Mongoose — arm and leg thrown over him in certainly not any sort of way that would indicate fear of him disappearing while she slept, no matter how it might appear. The little stings of terror whenever he was out of sight were easing, she was sure.

  She pressed her cheek more tightly against him, his chest hair ticking her nose, so she twitched it and …

  Delaine did not, she recalled, have so very much in the way of that.

  Alexis opened her eyes to find the bloody Creature curled on Delaine’s chest, tail toward her face, and her nose mere centimeters from the thing’s —

  “Shoo,” she whispered.

  It ignored her, much as it always did, but began kneading Delaine’s chest with its little forepaws.

  How was it even here? She’d sent it off with Isom to her own quarters, Delaine’s being larger with him being a captain and from a foreign service. The thing would have had to make its way along two hundred meters of corridor and three hatches.

  “Shoo!”

  “Your friend is most comforting, ma petite,” Delaine whispered. “I do not mind.”

  “It’s not my —”

  A buzzing from both their tablets, jumbled with some other items on a nearby table, interrupted them.

  “Bugger,” Alexis muttered. “I’d hoped to have more time this morning.”

  Delaine grunted as the Creature rose and hopped to the floor.

  “Are you concerned?”

  “It’s only a board of inquiry, not a court martial — yet.” Alexis shrugged. “I did what I did, and I’ll not gainsay it. If they don’t like how I got our lads home, then they’ll make that clear to me, I suppose.”

  “I am unfamiliar with your Admiralty still,” Delaine said. “And La Baie Marche under Hanover is nothing to compare. What might they do — if they are to make this displeasure clear?”

  Alexis didn’t wish to think on that any longer, much less discuss it with Delaine. There was no sense in him worrying along with her about whether there was a noose in her future for usurping the Queen’s authority.

  Perhaps, at best, I can hope to be cashiered and sent back home to Dalthus.

  “Whatever they wish, I suppose,” she said with a sigh. “It’s best we rise and face them, though.”

  They rose from the bed. Alexis gathered up her boots from the floor where the Creature was gnawing on one heel, and slid the hatch open to shoo it out with a foot.

  “Find your own way back to Isom or don’t, you bloody great vermin. If you found your way here, you can — oh!”

  A captain in the uniform of the French Republic, was just sliding his own hatch shut across the corridor.

  He looked first at Alexis’ face, peeping around her hatch as she’d not yet dressed, then down to where her bare leg wrapped around the edge, toes pointed to poke the Creature, which sat to stare up at the French captain with its head cocked to one side.

  “Bon … jour … mademoiselle?” he said, drawing it out a bit doubtfully as the Creature bared teeth at him in a way that had him press his back to his hatch and fumble a bit for the latch to return inside.

  “Bonjour, capitaine,” Alexis said, prodding the Creature with her toe again in hopes it would dash off to find Isom … or find Penduli Station more to its liking and take up residence in some curry shop.

  “Qu'est-ce que c'est?”

  “Oh.” Alexis prodded the thing again, but it made to nip at her toe, so she withdrew her foot. “Ah … le rat?”

  “C'est gros,” the captain said.

  “Yes, it is,” Alexis agreed.

  Isom chose that moment to enter the corridor and cry out.

  “Boots!”

  Alexis’ clerk rushed down the corridor, scooped the Creature up into his arms and began alternating excuses to Alexis while coddling and petting the thing.

  “Sorry, sir, I don’t see how he got out … thought the crate was latched double before I turned in and … how he found you, I couldn’t say, either.” Isom edged away. “I’ll just see him safe, shall I?”

  Both Alexis and the French captain watched him go out of sight, then shared a look.

  She opened her mouth to say something, what she wasn’t quite sure, but he spoke first.

  “Fou Bifteck,” he said with a shake of his head as he walked way.

  Alexis almost huffed after him, but slid Delaine’s hatch shut instead. She could hear the shower running in the room’s small bath compartment.

  “Your neighbor thinks I’m crazy,” she called to him.

  “You are a New Londoner,” Delaine said simply.

  They showered — each receiving somewhat more assistance from the other than was strictly efficient — and dressed, then left for the board of inquiry. Alexis was nervous, but tried not to show it so as not to worry Delaine.

  In the small lobby of the visiting officers’ quarters, a clerk stopped them.

  “Lieutenant Carew! There’s a merchant captain just there — been waiting for you,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  Alexis looked where he pointed and found Commodore Skanes — well, properly Captain Skanes — approaching. She was dressed in her full Marchant Company uniform.

  “Lieutenant,” she said.

  “Captain Skanes.” Alexis thought the woman looked as nervous as she herself felt.

  “I’d heard your testimony was today,” Skanes said, “as is my own. Would you mind terribly if I walked with you?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Thank you.”

  Skanes fell in with them as they left, heading for the busier, more public corridors of the Naval section. The board of inquiry had been set a compartment on very nearly the opposite side from where all those who might be called as witnesses were being housed.

  They stopped for tea and buns from a vendor’s stall, setup in the main corridor just outside the visiting officer’s quarters and a few steps outside the range of odors from the nearby Naval mess. Alexis didn’t think she could stomach anything more and Delaine typically ate only some sort of pastry and a bit of coffee for breakfast.
/>   The vendor had coffee, but not a very good one, if Delaine’s expression was to be trusted.

  “Not to your liking?” Alexis asked.

  “It is as weak as your teas,” Delaine said.

  “Perhaps some milk and sugar then?” Alexis teased.

  Delaine shuddered, and Alexis grinned. She stepped close to him as they walked, their hands occupied with breakfast, but able to press close at least.

  Skanes remained silent as they walked, staring ahead, the bun and cup in her hands apparently forgotten, for she’d taken neither bite nor sip of either.

  Alexis eyed her with some sympathy. She was, after all, about to destroy her career with the Marchants, and likely her career a’space all entire, for what merchant house would hire a captain who’d said such damning things about an employer?

  “You’re not eating?” Alexis observed, thinking to prompt the woman into speaking. She’d sought them out for some reason, after all.

  “It seems odd to be wearing this uniform on my way to do this, but I couldn’t think what else to wear,” Skanes said.

  It was an odd comment, but Alexis knew what strange places the mind went under stress.

  “I mean,” Skanes went on. “I’m certainly released from the Company, though they’ve not said so formally yet — and I’d not sail for them again, in any case — so am I even entitled to wear it? Do you think the captains on the board will think it disingenuous at all? I looked for something else, but couldn’t find better, I thought — do you suppose I should mention that?”

  “You’ll have a fair time just answering their questions, if it’s anything like my last court martial,” Alexis said, then her face went hot as she realized how that sounded. “Not that I’m any sort of old hand at —”

  “I mean,” Skanes went on as though Alexis hadn’t spoken, “I used to wear this uniform quite proudly, you know? Being a Marchant captain meant something — they’d only take the best, after all, so what did that make me? And now —”

  Alexis realized the woman was simply venting her nerves, which, oddly, made Alexis feel a bit better about her own upcoming testimony. She pressed closer to Delaine, chewed the last of her bun, and took a sip of tea with one ear cocked to Skanes in case a comment of support became necessary.

  The knowledge she need not pay too close attention to Skanes left Alexis free to think of other things.

  The quay corridor alternated between crowded and nearly empty as they moved along, depending on whether a ship or its boats were docked at each lock they passed. Where there was a crowd, it was a steady stream of men and crates from the warehouses and chandleries to the airlocks. More vendor stalls were set up here and there, catering to those crews whose officers would give them a bit of a break during their efforts — or disconsolately moving on to greener pastures when they finally determined they’d chosen poorly and found a crew run by Tartars.

  It appeared that was the decision a vendor ahead of them had made, as he took down his sign offering brekkie pies for as little as tuppence for a thin slice.

  It seemed an odd choice, though, to close up shop, for she could see the work crew’s midshipmen eyeing the stall eagerly. There were three of those supervising the men and midshipmen were legendarily hungry, so she’d have thought the man would stand a decent chance of some business once a few of the crates were shuffled about.

  Odder still was that the vendor didn’t fully load his cart before moving it, just unlocked the wheels and pushed, leaving a few boxes he’d normally stack aboard in place. Perhaps he was simply moving the cart to a better location to serve the men.

  “I suppose I might find a place with one of the very small lines,” Skanes went on, and Alexis returned her attention to her. “There’s no future in it, of course, save sailing all my days — but it would keep a hull around me and there’re worse fates, I suppose.”

  I could speak to Avrel Dansby for you, she didn’t say. Assuming he survives our next meeting.

  She might, even, if Dansby and Eades could explain how they’d not bothered to warn her about Wheeley and Ness and their pirate band, despite Dansby’s being so well-known to them.

  It would serve Dansby right to have to take Skanes on as a favor to me for this mess, and him have to deal with her haughtiness.

  Yes, she might very well do that. Perhaps write Skanes a letter of recommendation and send her in search of the man.

  They paused as a group of spacers crossed the corridor in front of them, pushing a floating pallet loaded with crates of new shot canisters.

  The vendor was pushing his cart nearly as hard, then, oddly, let it go to roll forward on its own toward the line of Navy men and their own burdens.

  Well, that’s —

  Even as her mind was wondering at it, Alexis’ body was in motion. She couldn’t say why — only that the vendor had such an odd look to him. Not nervous, but determined — a far more determined look than selling brekkie pies would call for in even the most difficult environment. But even that was likely some attempt to put a reason to an action she simply took.

  Creasy’s later claim that she’d actually heard a sharp, angry chitter of warning in the corridor was right out.

  “Cover, lads!” she yelled.

  Alexis took Delaine to the deck with her, and none too gently.

  Her left arm flung out to strike his chest, her left knee into the back of his, and then she twisted to drive him down and fall atop him, remnants of tea and coffee splashing them both.

  Older hands among the work crew, whether sensing something odd themselves and taking the excuse of her call or simply responding to what could only be an officer’s voice, flung themselves down, arms about their heads. One had the sense to slap the controls of the antigrav pallet he hauled and duck behind it as it crashed to the floor.

  “What —” Skanes had time to say.

  “Belay that!” a startled midshipman called.

  But over them all was the vendor’s cry of, “Tiocfaidh ár lá!”

  Then the world disappeared in a fiery roar.

  Sixty-Two

  Alexis groaned and realized she was waking with somewhat more reluctance than she could ever remember having in the past. Her head ached and her stomach was none too happy with her either. She didn’t remember drinking any great deal the night before — but, then, she likely wouldn’t if she was feeling this bad of a morning.

  She made to scratch at something tickling her face — and, more, to shove the damn Creature away, for it was surely the cause — but her right arm wouldn’t seem to work.

  Numb — perhaps Delaine was laying on it, if he were in the same condition she was, they’d not have made it to their more normal positions of her throwing an arm and leg over him while they slept.

  She tried with her left, but that was brought up short, twisted in some way in the bedclothes.

  She groaned again. Isom would certainly have words for her after she’d left this sort of drinking behind.

  “She’s waking.”

  That brought her more fully awake and cut through much of the fuzziness in her head, for the voice hadn’t been Delaine’s or Isom’s and none but those two should be in her rooms.

  White light, painfully bright, cut through her vision — at least her left eye’s, for the right was stuck closed with whatever gunk had coated it in her sleep. She’d rub that away if she could only raise her arms.

  Which she tried again, finding that it was neither Delaine nor bedclothes which had her entangled.

  The painful brightness was due to the lights, as well the white ceiling, drapes around the bed, bedclothes, and nearly everything else in what could only be a hospital room — the incessant beeping of some devices making her head throb in time as she noticed them. Her left arm, she could at least identify now, was immobile from a soft cuff around her wrist, though she still couldn’t feel her right.

  “What?” Her voice croaked and her lips failed to part fully, stuck together and dry.

  “H
ere,” the voice said and a face swam into her vision.

  “Dansby?”

  A cup pressed against her lips and she sipped gratefully at the icy water, even as she wondered at his presence. What was he doing here? What was she doing here? The last she remembered was —

  Alexis frowned. Dining with Delaine the night before she was to testify before the board — had she been in some sort of accident? Where was Delaine?

  “Delaine?” she croaked.

  “Your young frog’s better off than you,” Dansby said. “He’s resting nearby. The nurse will go and get him.”

  “I oughtn’t,” a man’s voice she didn’t recognize said. “Oughtn’t to have woke her up for you. Doctor said two more days under.”

  “Go,” yet a third voice said, “and don’t return until I’ve gone.”

  Alexis squinted against the brightness and blurriness until she placed face with name.

  “Malcombe Bloody Eades and Avrel Buggering Dansby at my bedside? Who’d I bollox up to deserve this? Where’s Delaine?”

  “I just told you, Rikki, he’s nearby and well.”

  That was a relief — just the moment’s fear that they’d been in some sort of accident and he’d been hurt, that she might have lost him, must have set her blood and heart to racing. Her head throbbed more to the increased beeping in the room.

  “Do you see?” the unknown voice asked.

  “My good man,” Eades said, “you know who I work for, now out. And not a word of this or it will go poorly for you.”

  There was the sound of a hatch working, but Alexis’ thoughts returned to Delaine. He was all right, if Dansby was to be believed — which did focus her on the bit about Dansby being there.

  Alexis shook her left arm.

  “Arm,” she said, weakly.

  “Aye, Rikki,” he said, setting the cup on a bedside table. “They tied your wing to keep you from pulling at things.” His fingers worked at the cuff. “Now you’re awake and sensible, there’s no call to — urk!”