Barefoot Pirate (13 page)

Mican turned very slowly, and walked out. Shor watched, and
Blackeye said, “If you think you can help him get her out and get back to us
the faster, Shor, go.”

Mican’s sister looked up blindly, tears bouncing off her
bodice, then she ran out of the room.

Blackeye got to her feet and followed more slowly. “Now
about that rope,” she said to Tarsen, as if nothing at all had happened.

Joe trailed behind, feeling stranger than ever. He didn’t
like Nan, but he could not forget seeing her grabbed and marched off. Mican had
been even harder to like—but Joe did not want to remember the look on his face
when Blackeye gave that last order.

At first he thought Blackeye had forgotten it all—that she
was as stone-hearted as Warron seemed. As the evening wore on Blackeye seldom
spoke, and never smiled, even when Tarsen tried cracking jokes, and Sarilda
sang some silly songs. They sat in a booth in the common room, and though they
ordered a mouth-watering array of food, Blackeye mostly picked at her share.

Still, no one brought up Mican’s name until Blackeye set
down her glass and said, “Mican’s grudges will get him killed if he doesn’t
learn to douse ’em.”

“He’s at his worst around nobles,” Tarsen said with a
grimace. “He just hates the idea of anyone born to wealth and power. Doesn’t
earn it.”

Joe grinned. “That’s called a Communist where I live.”

Everybody turned his way. He was going to make a joke about
Commies, but hesitated when he saw how serious everyone looked, even Tarsen. “Are
these Communists, then, the ones who deposed Nan?”

“Did what?”

“Her mother must have courted them, despite being a queen.”
Kevriac drew a finger in some spilled cider.

He never looks directly at me
, Joe thought. He shook
his head. “Her mother what? Who are you talking about?”

“Nan!” at least three voices exclaimed.

“A
queen
?” Joe burst out laughing. “What—” He
stopped, frowning. “Wait a minute. What did she tell you?”

“She said she is a princess. Chose exile to save her little
sister,” Blackeye said.

Joe whistled. “I knew she was weird, but I didn’t think...” He
frowned. “Well, come to think of it, I don’t know anything at all about her
background. I suppose it’s possible, but it sure is unlikely.”

“Why do you say that?” Sarilda spoke up, her blue eyes
intense.

“Well, because there aren’t any kings or queens in the
country where we live. No nobles, either—not like you have here. We have lots
of rich folks, but they don’t have any titles other than the same ‘Mister’ that
guys like me get. Anyway, there are some royalty left in a few countries, but I
can’t believe she’s one—they put their kids in fancy private schools, with a
lot of guards, or they get private tutors, and she was in a regular public
school just like me. Also she has an American accent. Uh, same accent I use. So
I don’t think she’s from a foreign country.”

He looked around, amazed at the grim faces he saw. Feeling a
little remorseful for bagging on a girl who’d just gotten dragged off to a
dungeon, he said, “Hey, lighten up! So she ran a little scam. I’m sure she
didn’t think it’d hurt anyone.”

“Just as Mican thought,” Tarsen put in.

Sarilda pinched her nose and made a face. “Oh, how I hate
irony. Mican—Nan—this is terrible.”

“It is worse than you think,” Blackeye said suddenly. “For I
entrusted to her the plan for freeing the prince.”

Nan sat in the corner of her cell with her knees drawn to
her chin and her arms tucked close. After a while her heart stopped slamming
against her ribs, and her eyes slowly got accustomed to the darkness.

It was impossible to know how long she sat like that, for
there was no way to judge the passage of time. The only light was dim and
flickering—the reflection of a torch from somewhere outside the cell through a
small grill in the door. It stayed steady, never changing.

From time to time she heard the terrifying klunk of the
soldiers’ boots outside the cell, and her heart would start its panic-race
again. She clasped her knees tightly, waiting for the worst, but the feet
always passed by again.

Then the pattern changed. The klunking boots would walk,
pause, and move on. Nan heard them come closer, always with that pause. Her
insides were knotted with fear when the heavy boots scraped the stone flooring
outside her cell. But then she heard a light scraping near the door—and the
boots passed on.

Something on the ground? She waited until the noisy boots
had passed down the row and disappeared, then she crawled forward, feeling over
the mossy floor until her fingers bumped into a couple of wooden bowls.

She cautiously slid a finger inside each. One felt like
water, the other a cold, lumpy mass. Food?

She lifted the water bowl first. The edge was rough with
splinters, so she rested her lip lightly against it and took a sip of the water.
It was stale, but didn’t taste like poison or anything, and she was horribly
thirsty, so she drank it all down as fast as she could.

Then she sat back, wondering if she’d get sick, but nothing
happened, so she picked up the second bowl, wiped her fingers down her dress,
then felt the food. It was cold, greasy, and slick—like over-boiled vegetables
soaked in half-solidified lard. She sniffed her fingers. The stuff on them
smelled like sour cabbage.

She’d been too scared to get hungry, but one thing she’d
learned the hard way when she’d had to live with the Wheelwrights—if food was
offered, you ate. Even if you didn’t like it.

She popped a fingerful into her mouth. Something gritted in
her teeth, but she kept on chewing. It’s just sand, she told herself,
remembering the time she accidentally dropped her sandwich at Mr. Wheelwright’s
company picnic, and how the Wheelwrights had made her eat it anyway, to teach
her not to be careless.

The food was largely tasteless, except for a faint tang of
slightly spoiled vegetables—like Brussels sprouts and beets. She ate most of
it, until the vegetables were gone and what remained was just grease. Then she
put the bowl down by the door and retreated to her corner.

After a time her back hurt too much to continue sitting up
so she curled up on her side and closed her eyes against the fitful reddish
light beating unsteadily on the opposite wall.

Then she fell into a jumble of weird, threatening dreams.

o0o

When Joe woke up in the morning, at first he couldn’t
remember where he was. The sound of whispering voices had wormed into his
dreams. He almost dove out of bed, remembered the hammock—then remembered he
wasn’t in a hammock.

I’m at that inn—and Nan got grabbed by the warts
. Now
it was all back. Joe sat up and swung his feet to the floor to steady himself.

“Hungry?” a voice said behind his head.

Tarsen was waiting, his eyebrows quirked in question.

Somehow just seeing Tarsen’s homely, big-eared face made Joe
feel better. “Sure. Um, where is everyone else?”

“Spying. Getting supplies. Blackeye’s gonna meet with Noss—”

“Who’s that?” Joe asked.

“Speaks for most of the city groups,” Tarsen said. “Anyway,
she thinks you ought to be there.”

“How come?” Joe asked as they ran downstairs.

Tarsen peered in all directions, then said behind his hand,”
Might have to prove you’re from another world. No one’s gonna believe it at
first.”

Joe nodded. He had no problem with that. Picturing the
reactions of people like teachers and police and politicians at home on Earth
if someone showed up claiming to be from another world made him grin.

“We’ll eat first, though,” Tarsen said.

Joe had no problem with this plan, either. As they entered
the common room and he smelled fresh bread, cinnamon, chocolate, and some kind
of braised meat, his mood lightened even more.

o0o

Boots tromped by Nan’s cell once, twice, then several times.

Though there was no more light than before, she heard a lot
more noise, and wondered if it was morning. The first few times those boots
klumped by her heart started to race. Surely they were coming for her.

But then they moved on past. She heaved a sigh of relief,
then moved fretfully in the cell, trying to find a more comfortable way to sit.
Her clothing felt damp and gritty, her face was sticky from that rotten fruit,
and the air was just cold enough to make her uncomfortable, but not enough (she
hoped with a kind of fierce misery) to make her freeze to death.

Stomp! Stomp! Stomp! Another squad was coming. She counted
the steps, as she had the last two times. Both of those groups had taken
exactly thirty-five steps to reach what she thought was the point just outside
her cell, because after that the sound slowly started to diminish.

Thirty three steps, and they stopped. A clanking at her door
made her back against the wall, her heart thumping sickeningly.

The door graunched open.

No one spoke; someone held a torch, which sent fitful red
light flickering over the grim, scowling faces of six soldiers—four men and two
women.

The foremost man motioned for Nan to come out. His other
hand rested on his sword-hilt.

Trembling with fear, Nan walked out of the cell. The
soldiers closed in around her. She had to skip to keep up with their pace—when
she was slow, someone prodded her hard in the back.

Up some narrow stairs, the flickering light of the torches
making the stone steps seem to be moving. Nan hugged her arms close, feeling
that awful food churning inside her. She kept swallowing against the urge to
barf.

Down a long hall to a huge wooden door bolted with iron. With
a shriek of metal it opened, and again the heavy hand shoved Nan through.

She stumbled into a large stone room. A narrow window set
into one wall drew her attention first. Outside was light, and noise—mostly the
rhythmic step of drilling soldiers.

“Come here.”

Nan jumped, whirled around, saw a bulky figure sitting
behind a big desk. He had to be Commander Nitre. Fear made her mouth go dry as
she took a small step toward the big desk.

The man had a harsh face and narrow, mean-looking eyes—the
expression in them reminded her of Mr. Wheelwright, who had only noticed her
when she was in trouble.

“Understand this,” the commander said. “You are mine, now. As
far as the city is concerned, you’re already dead. No one has any interest
whatever in you, except to cheer when they see you hang, for to them you are
just another worthless, lawless rat taken off the streets to make room for
decent, law-abiding people.”

Nan was still terrified, so much her mouth had gone
completely dry, but beneath that anger stirred.

“The merchants you robbed have been paid out of tax money,”
he went on. “Tax money paid by good people, meant for repairing roads or
building new buildings. So now you are worse than worthless, because you owe
the taxpayers. What have you to say to that?”

The anger spiked. Mr. Wheelwright had been just the same,
and Mrs. Evans, and just about every other adult in Nan’s life. They seemed to
love dragging out this kind of conversation, making her act humble and say
things she didn’t mean.

“I’m sorry I stole.” She forced the words out.

And of course they weren’t good enough—just like on Earth.

“‘I’m sorry I stole,’” the huge man mimicked. “That doesn’t
pay the tax money back, or the food we had to give you.”

From long experience Nan knew that whatever she said would
be turned against her, but if she just stood like a lump he’d get to the point.
So she stayed silent.

Nitre glared at her for a long, painful pause, then said,
“The penalty for theft is death. We can hang you in the morning. There’s
another choice, which is to pay the taxpayers back through labor.”

“I’ll do that,” Nan said. “I’m not afraid of work.”

“Shut up,” Nitre snarled. “You’ve just added a year onto
your rehabilitation sentence by speaking out of turn—that’s if they don’t have
too many workers, in which case you simply hang. Ten years it would take, and
during that time we expect you to learn good habits of obedience and diligence.
You will work hard at whatever we tell you from the moment the sun comes up
until it is dark, without cease, without complaint or malingering. Every
infraction adds another year, thus guaranteeing that when the sentence is
complete, you will have learned to be a proper citizen—even if it takes your
entire lifetime.”

He paused, glaring at her.

“There is an alternate choice,” Nitre said, and his voice
lessened in its harshness, though his thin lips still sneered. “We know that
all you brats are connected in some way to one of the lawless gangs of young
criminals plaguing our city. Our goal is to make our city safe once again, and
to this end we offer you this bargain, only once. You will not have the offer
again, if we decide to let you live and work off your sentence, for whatever
news you would have that still might hold would be suspect. So you can’t change
your mind after a month of hard labor.”

He paused, glaring at Nan, who still did not speak. “The
bargain is this. You simply tell us where to locate your gang-leader, the
wretch who calls himself Noss, or something of his route so that we may lay him
by the heels, or some other information that helps us to arrest one of the
gangs, and you will go free. Free,” he repeated, “and with a purse of gold in
your hands to help you get a start elsewhere. You will have a day and night to
think about it, and you will make your choice before dawn tomorrow, when we get
the condemned ready for hanging. All we need is information, and no one will
ever know where it came from. And remember,” he said, waving a hand toward the
window. “Noss doesn’t care about you anymore. You were stupid enough to get
caught. You’re less to him now than you are to the good citizens of Fortanya. Dismissed.”