Mearsies Heili Bounces Back

by Sherwood Smith

  “That I can help with,” Dhana said cheerfully, and so that’s what happened.

  They waited until full dark. There were still a million guards around, but the fellows were super quiet and quick, and we would find out later that Shnit had spells on his guards to make certain they didn’t do any thinking on their own. As long as the routine was uninterrupted, they didn’t pay much attention on their dreary rounds.

  So the next thing I knew, my door opened, a voice I didn’t know said, “Run with the others!”

  I was so out of it I just did what I was told. Seshe and Puddlenose ran on either side of me, and when I staggered or swayed, they were there to give me a shove in the right direction. We bucketed back through all the dark halls, someone behind us making muffled, furtive clinks and clicks—locking all the doors again.

  We splashed into the castle stream, and I nearly drowned until I figured out how to just lie in the water and let it carry me. But then someone yelled something, a hand shoved my head, and I gasped in a tiny bit of air before I went under, down, down, under the cement wall, then came up in the river flowing down to the sea.

  We didn’t see much—the land was flat, marshy. I thought I spotted Puddlenose fighting with someone, but he was being pulled from sucking mud, and then we were splashing through small, rippling waves out to a dark-sided boat.

  “Get in,” a Mearsiean voice said. “You aren’t a fish—don’t breathe in the water!”

  Some of us were panting at the run, after so many days in the dank with little to eat. I had just enough brain left to look about me and count that everybody was present.

  Then I saw the sailing ship, a black silhouette against the gray gloom of a cloudy night. It was impressive, the body long and graceful, its masts leaning a little back, as if it was going fast but it was still, only one small sail filled with the breeze. At the very front was a figurehead of a laughing mer-girl, hair blowing back, arms upraised as though she was casting a spell on the sea.

  We reached the side, and someone extended down a rope ladder. Grownup hands reached for us to help, but I didn’t want any grownups throwing me about any more. Finally someone just hauled the ladder in, with us clinging to it like a bunch of mice.

  We clambered over the rail to the deck, and stood there swaying more than the ship was moving.

  Someone handed me something—and my hand closed on my crown! I was vaguely aware of Dhana as she handed Id and Klutz their mayor necklaces.

  The deck seemed to lift under my feet and my knees almost buckled. The fresh air was cold, the wind driving against me and I was taken by a violent yawn.

  A man loomed over me. “I gather from Etc. that you are the leader of the troupe.”

  I tried to curtsey, my hands flailing, and fell with a splat. Again I yawned.

  “Never mind,” the man said, chuckling. “We can continue after you all get some rest.”

  Rest! Someone showed me down a hatchway, along a narrow sort of hall, and into a tiny room. A bunk had been built against the inward curving hull of the ship. I flopped down ... and didn’t wake up until much later, when the little room flooded with light. Shifting light, with slow, writhing ropes of light moving up the opposite wall.

  I looked overhead. A round air hole, like a window, was open, letting in air and light. The cabin was tiny, not much more than the bunk, a stand with water and a basin, and above on a wall dividing my cabin off from the next one, a railed shelf with a couple of books. On the inward curving wall, someone had affixed an old chart.

  I got up, washed in the basin, which glittered with magic. Magic!

  I remembered that sense of magic in Shnit’s throne room. Cautiously I tried my magic—just an illusion spell—and it worked! Shnit had removed all the magic on me, which was pretty much limited to Kwenz’s nasty ward. As yet Shnit hadn’t discovered that the magic on my necklace and ring must have interfered with whatever horrible spells he’d tried to stick on me. And he hadn’t had time to try anything new before we’d escaped, so ... ha!

  I gulped down a good drink of water, and then went out, running my fingers through my hair. My cabin opened into a bigger sort of room, oddly shaped, with cabins fore and aft, and a door to what had to lead to the galley, from the smell of baking biscuits.

  Opposite the galley end was a ladder going up, with a hole cut into the ceiling. I climbed up that, and found myself in the sun and air of the upper deck.

  I looked around at the netting, the people practicing cutlass drill at the narrow, front end of the ship, others up in the tops practicing doing things fast with sails. When I spotted Puddlenose at the wheel at the back end, I said, “Is this a pirate ship?”

  Puddlenose grinned. “Chwahir think so. But they’re privateers.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Legal piracy.” A tall man with a weather-browned face appeared. He smiled suddenly. “Legal to one side, anyway. We operate out of Danai, near the Chwahir border, but we trade in all the harbors of the Elgar Strait. When the Chwahir and their allies try to expand by sea, we attack ’em. If we take the ship, we sell it, can live like kings for a month, or like a person for a year.”

  “What happens to the clods?” I asked, as wind tangled all the hair I’d finger-combed. But it felt so good after all that moldy, dank air, I didn’t care.

  “Over the side.” He made a motion like rowing.

  “The smart ones go away and actually have lives,” Puddlenose said. “Because anyone loses a battle in Chwahirsland, Shnit has them killed as an example.”

  “Yeeech.” I looked around more slowly.

  Puddlenose was actually steering the big wheel, which was amazing. A couple of young men stood behind a kind of bureau thingie that I later found out was the binnacle, where they kept the timer, the rope to the ship’s bell, the watch’s log book (different from the ship’s log which the captain kept), some charts, and lanterns, all trimmed and ready for use. Some other seagoing stuff, too.

  Everybody was working.

  The man swept a bow and said, “Welcome to Tzasilia, o Princess.”

  I gave him a fish eye, not trusting any adult who acts courtly.

  “Despite appearances I do have manners.” He grinned. “I am Captain Heraford.”

  “Great. Then you can drop ’em and act normal,” I crabbed. “Where is everybody?”

  “Told you.” Puddlenose laughed and the captain kept smiling.

  “I am glad your exalted position has not denied you the opportunity to disport with those of lowlier degree,” the captain said. “Your friends are in various places about the ship. One above—”

  “Dhana, hoping for rain,” Puddlenose put in.

  “—and three at the sides, alas. I’m trying to get them to drink ginger-steep. It really does work, but they seem to be averse to swallowing.”

  “Seasick,” I translated. “Ick!”

  Puddlenose said, “You wanna take a turn steering?”

  I rubbed my hands. “I’d love to!” Then I looked up at the tall masts, and down the gently sloping deck, and said, “Uh, how long does it take to learn?”

  “About ten breaths.”

  I hopped over to the wheel, which was as tall as I was. I took hold of the spokes, and felt the strength of water against wood.

  Puddlenose looked the captain’s way. Captain Heraford just lifted a hand, as if to say, go on.

  “Okay. If the mate of the watch, which is the boss of the ship right now, or the captain, tell you different, you do it. But right now just keep the wind on this side of you.” Puddlenose tapped the side of his head.

  “I can’t really see ahead, though, with all those sails blowing,” I said nervously. “What if I bump into something?”

  “That’s what the lookout is for, high up,” Captain Heraford said. “In these light airs, we need all sail abroad. We’re running as fast as we can, which isn’t very. But the Chwahir can’t run very fast either, if they are in search.”

  I took over the wheel, and Puddlenos
e stretched. “Now for some grub.”

  “Wait! What happened? How’d we get rescued, anyway?”

  “Here’s the easy part. Dhana turned into water, or whatever she does,” Puddlenose explained. “She got to the river right about the time Captain Heraford and some of his fellows reached the wall and were trying to find a way in that wouldn’t get them seen. That is the weird part—how they knew to come.”

  Captain Heraford had been doing something with an instrument and the sun, and bending over a chart and the binnacle log book with a couple of the other sailors.

  He straightened up, then said, “There are a number of us privateers, but ... for some reason, someone seems to have noticed me.” He looked around as if he expected a giant squid to leap up from the sea, or a comet to fall. “A magic-sent message, that the boy the Chwahir nicknamed ‘Etc’ had been recaptured and needed rescuing.”

  “Okay, that’s truly weird.” I made a face.

  “It’s happened before,” Captain Heraford admitted. “Only those times, the prisoner was someone important outside of Chwahirsland, and we gained a handsome reward. This time ... the message was more specific. No reward attached.” He hesitated, his gaze just touching my little crown, then moving away. “But aimed at me.”

  Puddlenose had been frowning. “I was too foggy to ask. But when you left—”

  “Locked all the doors behind us. Made it look as if magic did the deed,” Captain Heraford said. “Then Shnit Sonscarna can only blame himself.”

  Puddlenose sighed. “I know some of those grunts. They’d do what they could to make my life easier, some of ’em. My uncle sure didn’t. They can’t help that miserable life. I don’t want ’em killed on my behalf.”

  “That’s why the care with the locks,” Captain Heraford said.

  The weather slowly clouded over. That’s what Dhana had been waiting for. The wind rose, and one of the grownups took over the wheel, which was starting to get tough for me to hold. The crew was made up of men and women, no kids, though. All ages. One thing we all noticed: most spoke Mearsiean. And a few of them our Mearsiean.

  But we didn’t ask any questions—we girls had gotten used to that when we joined Clair’s gang. If people wanted to tell you about their background, they would. Oh, maybe if there’d been a pirate kid I would have asked, but not grownups, even the young grownups, like Fradrici, one of the watch mates (bosses of different deck crews) who kept cracking jokes almost as much as Faline. In fact he was a kind of grown-up Faline—always kidding—though he was brown instead of colorful.

  The sickees finally consented to try the ginger tea, and when they did, they felt better enough to join us for breakfast.

  We all sat together, crowded arm to arm at a roundish table, where we were served on wooden tray-dishes, with square, squat cups. When the table is heaving all around with the deck, it makes sense to have these kinds of dishes. You also learn not to pour a full cup.

  “Okay,” I said, when we were alone. “I think we’re all right with these guys, but one thing for sure. When we get home we are going to practice untying ropes.”

  “Check,” Id said. “Us, too.”

  “And we’re going to get Diana to teach us about locks.”

  “Check,” everybody said.

  “And we’re gonna have to learn at least something about maps.”

  Sherry sighed.

  o0o

  The captain told us that they did not carry passengers, and that everybody had to work. He acted kind of like he was kidding, but I had that feeling it was kind of a test. Maybe he thought I was going to act like a snobby princess, or maybe he just wasn’t sure if having kids would be trouble, but anyway, everybody cheered.

  Since we agreed to work, that made us part of the crew, so the captain invited us to sign our names in his own log book. And that was an excuse for a party, with food, singing, dancing, and music, our first night.

  The second day, we each got assigned to a crew member to learn something. So we learned the parts of a ship, and what all the ropes are called. We got in the halyard line and hauled sails up, we each took turns at the wheel, and Sherry and Seshe, who both love cooking, helped in the galley. That was a tiny space, amazingly put together like a puzzle box, so not many more than the cook, his cook mate, and one kid could be in there.

  The rest of us had to set out dishes and then dunk them in the magic bucket, which was boring but familiar work. There was other stuff to learn that you couldn’t do in a day, like mending sail (you really had to be strong—sailcloth feels as stiff as a board, and about as heavy, when you touch it) and honing weapons and fletching arrows.

  Captain Heraford stopped being so prickly-formal around me. I couldn’t quite figure out why he’d been that way as soon as he heard I was the princess of Mearsies Heili, but I finally decided whatever had caused it had nothing to do with me. It was partly something from his past (which he didn’t talk about) and partly grownup weirdness.

  He liked our words, though, even English ones like ‘kids.’

  o0o

  Puddlenose swung down from the hatch and dropped onto the companionway, then dashed into the wardroom, where most of us kids were having some hot chocolate. It was raining hard out on the sea—nothing visible but gray in sky, air, and ocean—and the only one who wanted to be out was Guess Who.

  “We’re going on a raid!” Puddlenose said, rubbing his hands.

  “A real pirate raid?” Id asked. “Yow!”

  “Yes. Captain Heraford says that the Chwahir spies in Danai Harbor need to hear Tzasilia’s name mentioned with this raid. So they won’t be thinking of us if Shnit of the Chwahir decides on some kind of magic search, or whatever.”

  We’d been close to the rocky coast for a couple of days, while that storm moved overhead and blew out to the eastern seas. Most of the shore along Chwahirsland was super high cliffs with a lot of stripes of different colors of rock, covered with birds’ nests and not much else. Then the land dropped away westward into Danara, the country with all those troublemakers—Captain Heraford said most of the people causing the most trouble were involved with the Chwahir, who were constantly trying to expand their borders.

  Between the harbor and the border (Danara being a tiny country) there was a headland with a very new and imposing mansion on it.

  Captain Heraford said, “You kids can come on the raid if you like. I’ll assign you to sack the rooms of the family, while we take care of the customs end of things. But if you do, you have to dress like us. We don’t want reports of you Mearsieans going out. You need to be pirate kids. If you know Sartoran, good, but if not, don’t talk.”

  “How about nonsense talk?” Sherry asked. “We’ve done that to PJ before.” She turned to me. “Gibble-gabble snackle-bag?” She pointed out the scuttle.

  I spread my hands. “Forblsnerg gribblspitstik.”

  Captain Heraford laughed. “That’s fine. Take all their treasure you like. Snord’s kids are even worse than he is.”

  Seshe looked troubled. She didn’t say anything in front of Captain Heraford, but the rest of us noticed.

  As soon as the Captain left to go plan with his grownups, Puddlenose said impatiently so Seshe, “You can always stay here.”

  “I know.” She continued to cut her biscuit into small pieces, the way she always did. She never chomped and tore at bread with her teeth, like us.

  Puddlenose sighed. “What’s your problem? He said they’re rotters.”

  “Even rotters have a right to their stuff.” Seshe’s cheeks reddened. “I don’t mean to be sounding like I’m judging.”

  “But you are.” Puddlenose scratched his head.

  “My thoughts are my own. I did not say anything until you asked.”

  Puddlenose left, still scratching his head.

  Dhana leaned forward. “He wants you to be in favor.”

  Seshe said, “What if PJ says that because you are nasty to him, he has a right to raid the Junky?”

  I tried not to
groan. I really wanted to go on a raid, and I was ready to believe that the Snord family was evil because I liked Captain Heraford. Then I remembered what Clair had said about scruples—and I could tell that Seshe hated to be left behind. But she wasn’t going to go if she didn’t feel right about it.

  Puddlenose ran back in, and thumped his hand on the table. “That’s why these cuttlefish are the target! This Snord geezer is a robber, all in the name of custom! He takes extra shares, and he has the newest government behind him. He lets his kids pick what they want off people’s ships, and the ship owners can’t do anything about it, if they want to do custom in the harbor!”

  Seshe crossed her arms. “You should have told me that in the first place. Where’s the box of pirate outfits?”

  Klutz adopted a striped shirt from a really, really big pirate. It was like a tent on her, and the yellow and green colors looked terrible with her red hair. Naturally she was thrilled. The rest of us got bright-colored outfits and tied them on with silk sashes.

  The grownups were going to do the boring part—capture the guards, and steal all the customs official’s papers, to show to the government someday, if there was ever an honest government.

  We rowed over at night. The house was huge, three stories, with a lot of windows in sort of smoothed, rounded towers. Not really a castle, or it was what the captain called a fortified palace, if that makes any sense—spires and tower rooms and so forth, but with big picture windows, and gardens instead of moats and spiked walls.

  There were guards, but they weren’t very good, or maybe they’d gotten lazy. The privateers tackled and tied them all up, and we kids were sent up to the rooms where the family lived.

  We found Lady Snord by the sound of her voice. She’d just finished having a party, and was shrieking orders at the servants, and complaining through closed double doors about their guests, as she got out of her party duds. I guess she thought his lordship (they were celebrating their rise in rank) was listening. She didn’t know he was tied up, gagged, and lying in the middle of his floor as pirates looted his office.

  We looked at one another, unsure what to do. Lady Snord sounded like Fobo, but nobody particularly wanted to tackle and tie her up.