“Crew?” she asked Thorgest. He nodded. Over the thud of relief in her ears she asked the question that she knew from past experience was at the forefront of every rower’s mind, “How on earth are we paying them, Ref?” She ran distracted fingers over his muddy and torn tunic sleeve. “Did you keep something from trading?” She could see he had a sack with him, but she very much doubted he’d been able to get away with much of value if people had been trying to kill them.
“Now, that’s a question.” Thorgest grinned. He put an arm round her waist and cupped her chin on his other hand. “When I found you, Sewenna—”
She opened her mouth to yelp “Found?!” but the sparkle in his eyes was too sweet.
“We weren’t sure we would all make it back home, and we’d gotten a lot of stuff from those monks. So we hid it, and hoped that we could come back later for it.”
“Ah.” That was Makarios. He shuffled into the hug and they naturally let him in. He said sarcastically, “So, we’re going in a raiding boat to find buried treasure. I can’t wait.”
Sewenna rolled her eyes but pecked him on his non-injured cheek anyway. She pulled away from the comfort of the hug, turned her face towards the grey blur of the sea, and took the first step towards the waiting Serpent.
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
By Megan Arkenberg
* * *
I wasn’t liking the look of her—that smoky dark skin, those full hard lips, those big eyes as bright and hot as coals—but she was a lady, and the gents and me, we know how to treat ladies.
“Name’s Sham,” I said, and I even let her shake my hand, which I generally don’t on account of some broken fingers that never healed right. I had Crow and Anny Pryce to thank for that, just like I did for a lot of things. “Short for Shamrock,” I added, “in case you’re wondering.” I knew she was, of course, but it’d be rude to make a lady admit it.
She nodded, with a little smile that said I wasn’t making her feel any better but thanks for trying. “You can call me Golden,” she said. “Is your ship for hire, Miss Sham?”
First of all, I ain’t “miss” nobody, and second, the Ruby Prince ain’t mine strictly speaking. But I was taking the lady’s name for a good omen and figured Captain Cat would do the same. “She sure is, Miss Golden. Where do you want to take her?”
She glanced at the dock over her shoulder. There wasn’t nobody there I’d be worried about, just two old fishermen hauling in their catch and a pretty whore hauling hers, but Golden was twitching like a mouse in a cat’s shadow. “Can I come on board?”
“What, you being followed?”
“Something like that.”
I called over my shoulder to Cook’s hand, a scrawny little kid we all called Cornflower on account of his eyes. “Hey, fling me a ladder for the lady on the dock!”
It took a little while—sometimes I think Cornflower’s missing a knot or two in his rigging—but finally we got Golden up on deck and all the gents, including Captain Cat, gathered ‘round for hearing.
“So what’s the trouble, Miss Golden?” Cat asked. His birthing name is Thomas, but we called him Tomcat ‘cause he’s always on the prowl. He can be intimidating—over six feet tall, with wild red hair and eyes to match—but he was being real careful with Golden. Probably figured she was spooked enough already.
Golden looked down at her feet. Apparently she’d decided to get all the mud out in one spit, because her words came in a rush. “I was Duke Desmond of Glasshill’s lover, up until two weeks ago.”
“What happened two weeks ago?”
“He died.”
I looked at Cat; his eyebrows were raised almost to the hem of his head-scarf. Golden blushed and spilled the rest even faster. “He was murdered. His nephew strangled him in his own bed and poisoned all five of his daughters.”
“Sounds like his nephew wants to be Duke,” Fairweather said. He may have a lucky name, but he’s also got a maddening habit of stating the obvious. “What’s this got to do with you?”
“I’m pregnant with Desmond’s child.”
Cat’s response was exactly what you’d expect from a man who calls himself a Perfect Gentleman of Fortune; he pulled up a crate for her to sit on and sent Cornflower to grab a bottle of rum.
“Let me guess,” I said as Golden tentatively licked the mouth of the bottle. Back in Coldcliff, where I’d grown up, Anny Pryce was Queen of the Sea and she’d taught us how politics worked themselves out. “Desmond’s little ass of a nephew is trying to kill the baby.”
Golden nodded. “I need to get away. There’s a hiding place I know of, but it’ll take a skilled crew to get there.”
“And you can’t hire a straight ship because…?”
She blushed again. “I’m dead broke.”
Silence landed lead-heavy on the deck. Fairweather’s thin lips twisted like he had something nippy to say, but old Mayborn shut him up with a glare.
It looked for a moment like nobody was going to talk. I drew myself up, big as I could muster, before somebody whipped out a knife. “We ain’t taking on charity cases, Miss Golden.”
“I didn’t say I couldn’t pay.” She set the rum down hard on the deck by her knee. “That hiding place I’m headed to, it’s the best you’ll ever find. Unapproachable without a guide, and damn hard to reach even then. Straight ships wouldn’t have any business with it, but for you gentlemen…” She looked up at Cat, her face set as stone. “I’m willing to share.”
The silence came back, only now it was like a pot about to boil; smooth on the surface, bubbling underneath. The gents and me looked at each other, we all looked at Cat, and Cat looked like he’d just been served a brimming bowl of cream.
“Miss Golden,” he said, bowing over her hand like she was Anny Pryce herself, “you have yourself a deal.”
We hadn’t been planning to leave Flintfield for another week or so, but Golden was sure as anything that she had the Duke’s dogs on her tail and we needed to sail now. So I spent what was left of the day helping Mayborn mend the flying jib and tying down Cook’s barrels with Cornflower and generally getting the Prince ready to jump. That ain’t my usual job, of course—Cat signed me on as a cannon-master—but we needed all the hands we could get, wherever we could get ‘em. Figured we wouldn’t need the cannons on this jaunt, anyway.
Sometimes, I’m stupid as a ball of wet twine.
I was rubbing the knot-cramps out of my crooked knuckles, ready for a hot dinner and the gentle swing of my hammock, when Cat leapt down on the deck next to me and pointed at something on the docks.
“See that?”
I rolled my eyes. It was new-moon dark, and my sight ain’t nearly as sharp as Cat’s in the best of times. “What’re you looking at?”
“That monster down at the edge of the docks. Look at her. She’s like a mountain, and that’s just what we can see above the water.”
“Hush, you.” I hit him across the shoulder. “She’s a galleon, that’s all. ‘Sides, what’re you worried about? You plan on taking her?”
“I’m afraid she might plan on taking us.” Cat folded his arms on the rail and leaned out, the sea-wind blowing his hair across his face like ribbons of blood. I didn’t like the way his eyes looked. “Sham, that’s Crow’s ship. And where Crow is, you know Anny Pryce is close behind.”
“Damn.” I knew it was just my imagination, but my hands seemed to ache worse just knowing Crow was nearby. “You think she’s still out for me?”
“That’s the same as asking if I think she’s still breathing. Anny Pryce don’t quit, not ‘til she’s got your skull as a hat-stand.”
“Thanks for that lovely picture,” I said. And all at once I felt like a length of rope someone’s stretched too far to tie. My stomach was doing fancy little flips, and my knees were nothing but water. “Crow knows I’m on the Prince, Cat. He saw you pull me out of the water last time.”
Cat pressed his hand against the small of my back, warm and steady. “They w
on’t get you again, Shamrock. I won’t let them.”
I shook my head. There’s no “let” when you’re dealing with Anny Pryce.
“Anyway.” Cat lifted his hand away and rolled his shoulders. “Just thought you should see. We’ll be out by sun-up. They won’t even know we were here.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I ain’t worried.”
But all that night I dreamed of Anny Pryce and her lead chains, and I woke up with my hands aching like blue-hot fire.
Like Cat promised, we were gone before sun-up, and Flintfield was just a brown smudge on the horizon when Golden finally crawled out of her cabin, walked up to the railing, and emptied her gut into the sea.
“Not liking the waves?” I asked. Making conversation with a sea-sick lady ain’t exactly good manners, but it’s not like I could ignore her when she was fluttering around in front of me.
Golden didn’t seem to mind, anyway. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand—and it looked strange, her face all apple-green and her palm pale as clover honey—and gave me a watery smile. “The baby’s not liking the waves,” she said. “Or mornings, for that matter.”
I laughed a little. I knew how that worked. “Yeah. My sister had five sons. She carried easy, but...mornings.”
Golden’s big eyes narrowed. Then she shook herself like a dog. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s just hard for me to picture you with...I’m sorry.”
“Ain’t your fault.” I clapped her on the shoulder, like she was one of the gents. “So how far along are you? You ain’t showing yet.”
And so we spent most of the morning talking about babies and growing bellies and letting out shirt hems, and then she ran some baby names by me that all sounded slimy and pretentious, though I didn’t say so to her face. I knew Cat would laugh himself sick if I told him, but it was nice to have a lady on board, even one who looked so pretty it was sinister. I love the gents, but they ain’t learned to make conversation—and especially not about babies.
Around noon, Cat sent me up to the ‘nest with a spyglass and told me to look to the north. Now, Flintfield was straight west of us, and I figured if Crow was following, he’d be coming from that direction. There’s nothing big north of Flintfield, nothing but Coldcliff, and if we had Crow and Anny Pryce on us at once, I was going to throw myself overboard now and save us all the trouble.
Then I saw the ship Cat was thinking about—little thing with a single mast—not Anny Pryce, not unless she’d gotten in some serious trouble since we last met, and I knew I wasn’t that lucky. Which meant this ship wasn’t chasing us.
Or if it was chasing us, it wasn’t because of me.
“Fairweather!” I called. He scrambled and met me halfway down the ‘nest ladder. “Where’s Glasshill, anyway?”
He shrugged. “Can’t say for certain. Why?”
“If it’s anywhere north of here, I think Desmond’s nephew is on our tail.”
Fairweather squinted in the direction of the tiny ship. “That little thing? Ain’t a match for the Prince. In fact...” He took the spyglass from me and held it up to my eye, nearly tipping us off the ladder in the process. “She’s not even headed for us. Either he don’t know how to set his sails, or he’s going west on purpose.”
“Oh,” I said. “Good.”
And if Fairweather believed me, he was even dumber than I give him credit for.
“Cat,” I said that night, “I think the Duke’s nephew is matching up with Crow.”
We were alone by the wheel, each of us with a hand on it, though our course was straight through until dawn. Cat was looking up at the sky above us like a diamond-studded scarf, and I couldn’t see his expression.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “that makes a lot of sense. If that dinghy we saw today really belongs to the Duke, it’d be good for him to catch up with someone who knows the seas—someone who knows how to hunt.”
“Someone like Crow.” I rolled my shoulders, but it didn’t make me any less tense. “I know I should be glad it’s not me he’s after, but somehow, I can’t get up the gumption.” I glanced at Cat out of the corner of my eye, but his face was still turned away from me. “What’d Golden tell you about her hiding place?”
“Nothin’ more than how to get there. And that it takes a skilled crew.”
“Crow’s sure got one of those. Cat?” Finally, he looked at me. I swallowed hard. “You still so sure you ain’t gonna let him catch me?”
“I’m sure.” He nibbled his bottom lip, looked back up at the stars. “Besides, Sham, you killed Anny’s best lieutenant once before. What makes you think you ain’t able to do it again?”
So that night, I dreamed about Dragonfly.
People don’t believe me when I say she made Crow look like a kitten, but it’s true. In the beginning, Anny Pryce just kept Crow around for his pretty face; but Dragonfly started and ended as a weapon. She was tall and skinny and pale, not gray-white like Anny but a pale that was almost blue, and when she was a kid her daddy beat her and that’s why her face never moved right. And she was scary. When you saw the bodies of the people Dragonfly killed, you weren’t always sure they’d been people.
All that would have been fine, but around the time I turned seventeen—a year or two after I joined up with Cat—Dragonfly decided to go after my sister.
I still don’t know why. Maybe Moirrey had done something to cross Anny Pryce, or maybe Dragonfly was just in a mood. I just know what Dragonfly did to my sister, and if I told you, it’d take me all day and then some. I got sick when I first heard about it, and then I got mad. Real mad, the kind of mad you have to wake up from.
And I didn’t wake up from it, not ‘til I left a bag on Anny Pryce’s doorstep with Dragonfly’s head in it.
That’s the reason Anny hates me, the reason she and Crow picked me up in a Crossgallow tavern and dragged me onto her ship so she could break all my fingers and burn her sign on my shoulder and throw me overboard to drown. You think that’d be enough to give a body nightmares, and you’d be right.
But my dream, it was worse than that, because Dragonfly was there chasing me along with Crow and Anny and the Duke’s nephew, and Dragonfly was angrier than all the others because I’d killed her, and she wasn’t afraid of nothing because she was already dead. I woke up before she caught me, and I was so damn grateful I cried until dawn.
Days passed—slowly, the way they do when you’re out at sea with no clear idea of where you’re going and a damn clear idea of what’s coming behind you.
Golden wasn’t giving the location of her hiding spot to no one but Cat, and his orders seemed designed to mess over any of the crew who was trying to guess where we were headed. That was fine by me; I just wanted to get Golden safe and have done with it. Every time I looked, there were sails on the horizon behind us, and I wouldn’t’ve placed a bet on whether they were the Duke’s or Crow’s.
But I’ll tell you something else that was shocking the smoke out of me; I was getting fond of Golden. Don’t get me wrong, she was still too pretty by half. But there was brains beneath that beauty, and she knew something about making quick in a conversation.
Only problem with getting fond of people—that’s when you start worrying about them. Soon, it wasn’t just the thought of Crow that was keeping me up nights.
“What’re you going to do if we get caught?” I asked Cat one morning. We had been working the wheel all night, and our faces matched the grayish-green of the eastern sky.
Cat gave me the most dashing smile he could manage. “We ain’t going to get caught.”
“Save the bragging for your whores.”
He sighed, leaned forward and rested his chin on the rail. “How’s our cannon compared to Crow’s?”
It had been years since I was up close and personal with Crow’s ship, but there’s some things that stick in your memory like tar. “They’ll make matchwood out of us before we reach the stations.”
“Then we hand the lady over to the Duke-ling.”
&n
bsp; “Cat!”
He rolled his eyes up at me. “You got a better suggestion?”
“No.” I swallowed hard. “Just don’t get us caught, sweetheart.”
Two days later, Fairweather jumped down from the ‘nest with a look on his face like he’d seen his dead grandmother. “Captain!” he shouted. “Up ahead!”
So of course the whole crew dropped whatever they were doing and scrambled for the bow, even Golden, though she didn’t scramble often on account of her seasickness. There were rocks up ahead, big and jagged and black, crinkled and shiny like burnt sugar. But it wasn’t the rocks Fairweather was leaping crazy over; it was the whirlpool next to them.
We all stood still and silent for a moment. Then Golden let out a sigh like a gust of wind.
“Thank goodness!” she said. “Captain, it’s a straight throw now.”
“Straight between the Devil and the deep blue sea.” Cat whistled through his teeth. “You don’t lie when you call that the best hiding place we’ll ever find.”
“But you can do it?” It wasn’t Golden who asked, but Cornflower, his bright eyes round as a pair of coins.
“Of course I can do it.” Cat ruffled his hair absently. “Let’s just hope our pursuit doesn’t catch up to us before we get through.”
And I tell you, that man should get a job with an acting troupe, ‘cause his sense of timing is just peachy wonderful.
I said a word my aunties would’ve washed my mouth out with lye for, and when that didn’t take, I added some things about Crow’s mother and a rabid cow. His ship was bloody huge, and it had come out of nowhere, right up on our tail. Golden took one look at it and fainted right into Cornflower’s scrawny arms.
The short, crooked man on Crow’s deck must have been the Duke’s nephew. He had that look, like Power’s second cousin, and a griminess about him like a kid reaching for someone else’s toy. Crow was there, too, tall and dark and lovely, his black hair loose and whipping in the wind.
Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space) Page 9
