'Damn.' Drakasha smiled tightly. 'I should have drawn the curtains over the stern windows.'
'Yes. I can see your people swarming over the Messenger as we speak. I presume your prize crew is un-fucking the rigging so she can make more than a toddler's crawl, right? If you gave one speck of rat shit for offending the Archon, you'd be sinking that ship, not refurbishing it for sale.'
'True,' said Drakasha.
'Which means?
'Which means that I'm still asking questions, Ravelle. Tell me about your accomplice, Master Valora. A particular friend?'
'An old associate. He helped me in Tal Verrar with ... objectionable work.'
'Just an associate?'
'I pay him well and trust him with my business, yes.'
'Curiously educated.' Zamira pointed up at the cabin ceiling; a narrow skylight had vents slightly cracked to let in air from the quarterdeck. 'I heard him and Ezri quoting Lucarno to one another a few minutes ago.'
'The Tragedy of the Ten Honest Turncoats,' said Locke. 'Jerome is ... fond of it.'
i
'He can read. According to Jabril he's not a seaman, but he can do complex sums. He speaks Vadran. He uses trader's terms and knows his way around cargo. So I'd guess that he comes from prosperous merchant stock.'
Locke said nothing.
'He was with you before you worked for the Archon, wasn't he?'
'He was a servant of the Priori, yes.' Apparently, fitting Jean into Drakasha's presumptions wouldn't be as difficult as Locke had feared. 'I brought him with me when I joined the Archon's cause.'
'But not as a friend.'
'Just a very good agent.'
'My appropriately amoral spy,' said Drakasha. She stood up, moved beneath the skylight and raised her voice. 'On deck, there!'
'Aye, Captain?' Ezri's voice.
'Del, bring Valora down here.'
A few moments later, the door to the cabin swung open and Jean entered, followed by Lieutenant Delmastro. Captain Drakasha suddenly unsheathed her second sabre. The empty scabbards clattered to the deck and she pointed one blade at Locke.
'The instant you rise from that chair,' she said, 'you die.'
'What's going?
'Quiet. Ezri, I want Valora dealt with.''
'Your will, Captain.'
Before Jean could do anything, Ezri gave him a sharp lack to the back of his right knee, so fast and well placed that Locke winced. She followed this up with a hard shove, and Jean fell to his hands and knees.
'I might still have a use for you, Ravelle. But I can't let you keep your agent.' Drakasha took a step toward Jean, raising her right-hand sabre.
Locke was out of the chair before he could help himself, throwing himself at her, trying to tangle her arms in his manacle chain.
'NO!' he screamed. The cabin spun wildly around him, and then he was on the floor with a dull ache coursing through his jaw. His mind, working a second or two behind the pace of events, gradually concluded that Drakasha had bashed his chin with the hilt of one of her sabres. He was now on his back, with that sabre hovering just above his neck. Drakasha looked ten feet tall.
'Please,' Locke sputtered. 'Not Jerome. It's not necessary.'
'I know,' said Drakasha. 'Ezri?'
'Looks like I owe you ten solari, Captain.'
'You should've known better,' said Drakasha, grinning. 'You heard what Jabril had to say about these two.'
'I did, I did.' Ezri knelt over Jean, a look of genuine concern on her face. 'I just didn't think Ravelle had it in him.'
'This sort of thing rarely goes just one way.'
'Should've known that, too.'
Locke raised his hands and pushed Drakasha's blade aside. She yielded. He rolled over, stumbled to his knees and grabbed Jean by one arm, ignoring his throbbing jaw. He knew it wasn't broken, at least.
'Are you okay, Jerome?'
'Fine,' said Jean. 'Scraped my hands a bit.'
'I'm sorry,' Ezri said.
'No worries,' said Jean. 'That was a good hit. Not much else you could have done to knock down someone my size.' He stumbled to his feet with Locke and Ezri's help. 'A kidney punch, maybe.'
Ezri showed off the set of iron knuckles around the fingers of her right hand. 'That was the contingency plan.'
'Damn, am I glad you didn't do that. But you could've ... I might have fallen backwards if you hadn't shoved fast enough. Hooking one foot around my shin from behind?
'Thought about it. Or a good stiff jab to the sensitive spot in your armpit?
'And an arm twist, yeah. That would've?
'But I don't trust that against someone so big; the leverage is wrong unless?
Drakasha cleared her throat loudly, and Jean and Ezri fell silent, almost sheepishly.
'You lied to me about Jerome, Ravelle.' She retrieved her sword-belt and slid her sabres into their scabbards with a pair of sharp clacks. 'He's no hired agent. He's a friend. The sort who'd refuse to let you get thrown off a ship by yourself. The sort you'd try to protect, even though I told you it would mean your death.'
'Clever,' said Locke, feeling a faint warmth rising on his cheeks. 'So that's what this was all about.'
'More or less. I needed to know what sort of man you were before I decided what to do with you.'
'And what have you decided?'
'You're reckless, vain and too clever by half,' she said. 'You suffer
from the delusion that your prevarications are charming. And you're just as willing as Jerome is to die stupidly on behalf of a friend.'
'Yeah,' he said, 'well ... perhaps I've grown fond of the ugly lump over the years. Does that mean we're going back to the hold, or to the open sea?'
'Neither,' said Drakasha. 'You're going to the forecastle, where you'll eat and sleep with all the other crewmen from the Red Messenger. I'll peel your other lies apart at leisure. For the time being, I'm satisfied that if you've got Jerome to look after, you'll be sensible.'
'And so we're what? Slaves?'
'No one aboard this ship takes slaves,' said Drakasha with a dangerous edge in her voice. 'We do execute our fair share of smart-arses, however.'
'I thought I was a charming prevaricator.'
'Grasp this,' said Drakasha. 'Your whole world consists of the few inches of empty deck I allow you, and you're gods-damned lucky to have them. Ezri and I will explain the situation to all of you at the forecastle.'
'And our things? The papers, I mean? The personal documents? Keep the gold, but?
'Keep it? You really mean that? What a sweetheart this man is, Ezri.' Drakasha used her right boot to tip the cover of Locke's sea-chest closed. 'Let's call your papers a hostage to your good behaviour. I have a shortage of blank parchment and two children who've recently discovered the joys of ink.'
'Point thoroughly taken.'
'Ezri, haul them up on deck and remove their manacles. Let's get back to acting as though we have somewhere important to be.'
2
On the quarterdeck they were met by a harried-looking woman of middle years, short and broad, with a finger-length halo of white hair above the lines of a face that had obviously contributed many years of scowls to the world. Her wide, predatory eyes were in constant motion, like an owl unable to decide whether it was bored or hungry.
'You might have caught a less wretched bunch had you looked nearly anywhere,' she said without preamble.
'And you might have noticed it hasn't exactly been a buyer's market
for prizes recently.' Zamira bore the woman's manner with the ease of what must have been a very old familiarity.
'Well, if you want to use frayed hemp to weave a line, don't blame the ropemaker when it snaps.'
'I know better than to blame you for anything, Scholar. It leads to weeks of misery for everyone. How many?'
'Twenty-eight at the forecastle,' she said. 'Eight had to be left aboard the prize. Broken bones in every case. Not safe to move them.'
'Will they last to Port Prodigal?'
'Assuming their ship does. Assuming they do as I told them, which is a bold?
'That's the best we can do for them, I'm sure. Condition of the twenty-eight?'
'I'm sure you heard me say "wretched", which derives from a state of wretchedness, which is in turn caused by their being wretches. I could use a number of other highly technical terms, only some of them completely imaginary?
'Treganne, my patience is as long-vanished as your good looks.'
'Most of them are still suffering from long enclosure. Poor sustenance, little exercise and nervous malaise. They've been eating better since leaving Tal Verrar, but they're exhausted and battered. A handful are in what I'd call decent health. An equal number are not fit for any work at all until I say otherwise. I won't bend on that... Captain.'
'I won't ask you to. Disease?'
'Miraculously absent, if you mean fevers and contagions. Also little byway of sexual consequences. They've been locked away from women for months, and most of them are Eastern Therin. Very little inclination to lay with one another, you know.'
'Their loss. If I have further need of you?
'I'll be in my cabin, obviously. And mind your children. They appear to be steering the ship.'
Locke stared at the woman as she stamped away. One of her feet had the hollow, heavy sound of wood, and she walked with the aid of a strange cane made of stacked white cylinders. Ivory? No - the spine of some unfortunate creature, fused together with shining seams of metal.
Drakasha and Delmastro turned toward the ship's wheel, a doubled affair like the one aboard the Messenger, currently tended by an unusually tall young man who was all sharp, gangling angles. At either
side stood Paolo and Cosetta, not actually touching the wheel but mimicking his movements and giggling.
'Mumchance,' said Drakasha as she stepped over and pulled Cosetta away from the wheel, 'where's Gwillem?'
'Craplines.'
'I told him he was on sprat duty,' said Ezri.
'I'll have his rucking eyes,' said Drakasha.
Mumchance seemed unruffled. 'Man's gotta piss, Captain.'
'Gotta piss,' mumbled Cosetta.
'Hush.' Zamira reached around Mumchance and snatched Paolo back from the wheel as well. 'Mum, you know full well they're not to touch the wheel or the rails.'
'They wasn't touching the wheel, Captain.'
'Nor are they to dance at your side, cling to your legs or in any other way assist you in navigating the vessel. Clear?'
'Savvy.'
'Paolo,' said Drakasha, 'take your sister back to the cabin and wait for me there.'
'Yes,' said the boy, his voice as faint as the sound of two pieces of paper sliding together. He took Cosetta's hand and began to lead her aft.
Drakasha hurried forward once again, past small parties of crewfolk working or eating, all of whom acknowledged her passing with respectful nods and waves. Ezri pushed Locke and Jean along in her wake.
Near the chicken coops, Drakasha crossed paths with a rotund but sprightly Vadran a few years older than herself. The man was wearing a dandified black jacket covered in tarnished brass buckles, and his blond-grey hair was pulled into a billowing ponytail that hung to the seat of his breeches. Drakasha grabbed him by the front of his tunic with her left hand.
'Gwillem, what part of "watch the children for a Few minutes" did Ezri fail to make clear?'
'I left them with Mum, Captain?
'They were your problem, not his.'
'Well, you trust him to steer the ship, why not trust him to?
'I do trust him with my loves, Gwillem. I just have a peculiar attachment to having orders followed.'
'Captain,' said Gwillem in a low voice, 'I had to drop some brown on the blue, eh? I could've brought them to the craplines, but I doubt
you would have approved of the education they'd have received?
'Hold it in, for Iono's sake. I only took a few minutes. Now go and pack your things.'
'My things?'
'Take the last boat over to the Messenger and join the prize crew.'
'Prize crew? Captain, you know I'm not much good?
'I want that ship eyeballed and inventoried, bowsprit to taffrail. Account for everything. When I haggle with the Shipbreaker over it, I want to know exactly how far the bastard is trying to cheat me.'
'But?
'I'll expect your written tally when we rendezvous in Port Prodigal. We both know there was hardly any loot to sling over and count today. Get over there and earn your share.'
'Your will, Captain.'
'My quartermaster,' Zamira said when Gwillem had trudged away, swearing. 'Not bad, really. Just prefers to let work sort of elude him whenever possible.'
At the bow of the ship was the forecastle deck, raised perhaps four and a half feet above the weather deck, with broad stairs on either side. In between those stairs a wide, uncovered opening led to a dark area that was half-compartment and half-crawlspace beneath the forecastle. It was seven or eight yards long by Locke's estimate.
The forecastle deck and stairs were crowded with most of the Red Messenger's men, under the casual guard of half a dozen of Zamira's armed crewfolk. Jabril, sitting next to Aspel at the front of the crowd, looked deeply amused to see Locke and Jean again. The men behind him began to mutter.
'Shut up,' said Ezri, taking a position between Zamira and the newcomers. Locke, not quite knowing what to do, stood off to one side with Jean and waited for instructions. Drakasha cleared her throat.
