Burning Bright (29 page)

“Our fleet has established a system of confidential agents in cities throughout the islands that we believe harbor pirates,” Crawford went on. “Each of these Speakers has a direct connection to Admiralty House to report the arrival of any pirate ship, along with any information he can gather about its crew, weaponry, and with luck, weaknesses. Those reports will be passed on to this ship so we can pursue whatever targets are most desirable. You four will be prepared to unleash destruction upon the foe under the direction of Fortescue, here.” He waved a hand in the jowly man’s direction, and Elinor’s heart pounded more fiercely. “I expect you to follow his instructions and not waste my time looking to me or my officers for help. Any questions?”

He did not sound as if he actually welcomed questions, but the orange-haired man put up a timid hand and said, “Captain, are we to destroy all the ships?”

“Do you have a problem with that, Thatcher?”

Thatcher gulped and shook his head. “It’s only that my previous captain, he wanted prizes, and…”

Crawford said, “I’ll tell Fortescue when you’re to take a ship, but Admiral Durrant has decided it’s time to send a stronger message to these vermin, so more often than not we’ll be burning the ships to the waterline. Any
other
questions?” No one spoke. “Very well. Fortescue, take your men to the gunroom and explain your tactics to them. We’re sailing with the tide in two hours.”

Two hours. It was still enough time for Ramsay to extricate her. Orange-haired Thatcher stood back to let Elinor pass, though the old man shouldered past her with a heavy tread as if she weren’t there. She followed him and Fortescue back to the gunroom and took a seat at the table when the others did, crossing her hands neatly in her lap and sitting with her back straight and her chin high. She might be forced to dress like a man, but she could still behave with the manners of a lady.

“I hope you all realize I am sensible of the honor done me by being appointed our leader,” Fortescue said, smiling with pretended humility. “I’m certain any one of us might do as well. But things are what they are, and I appreciate your deference to my instruction.”

“Stop haverin’ an’ get to the point,” the old man said, his Scottish accent thick enough that Elinor had trouble understanding him. “Ye’re in charge, we ken, so get to tellin’ us what to do already.”

“If you want to put it that way, Ross, but I’d prefer to think of us as a coalition of equals.”

Ross snorted and scowled at the surface of the table. Fortescue’s smile didn’t falter. “Since none of us have worked together before, I suggest we begin by sharing our various strengths. My ignition range is fifteen hundred feet, I can burn an area of three hundred square feet, and I can maintain my talent for half an hour before becoming exhausted. Ross?”

Ross scowled again and removed his glasses. He pulled out the tail of his shirt and began polishing them. “Twelve hundred feet, area five hundred square, twenty minutes.”

Elinor and Thatcher exchanged glances. “I—” Thatcher ducked his head. “I can reach two thousand feet, and I think my area is about five hundred. I usually get exhausted before an hour is up.”

Elinor took a deep breath. This was rather exciting, actually, discussing her talent with…colleagues, they must be. “I am afraid I cannot oblige you gentlemen,” she said. “I am not certain of the extent of my talent. I know my range is at least two-thirds of a mile and I have never yet become exhausted from wielding fire. And the area I can set alight… what is the area of a main topgallant sail?”

Fortescue’s expression had gone so blank his face might have been frozen. Thatcher said, “That’s about eleven hundred square feet,” in a faint voice.

“Then it is at least that much. Again, I apologize, gentlemen, but I have fought in only four battles to date. I hope I will not be too much of a burden.”
I hope I will not fight beside you at all.

“We will…make allowances for your inexperience, Pembroke,” Fortescue said. He cleared his throat. Ross snorted, sounding amused. “I think we’ll depend more on your extinguishing fires than starting them, at any rate. Our tactics are simple: direct fires at the deck and sailors to cause confusion, burn the sails if they haven’t been treated—”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Fortescue—”

“Fortescue, Pembroke. Let’s have some comradeship here.”

“Very well…Fortescue…I apologize if this is foolish, but can you not burn the treated sails?”

Fortescue gave her a patronizing smile that almost made her recoil, it looked so much like her father’s. “The purpose of treating the sails is to prevent us from burning them, Pembroke. We do have our limits, you know. Even you.”

Elinor waged a brief battle within herself, weighed the pro of making their tactics as strong as possible versus the con of looking offensively conceited, and said, “Actually, I have burned treated sails. It takes some effort, but the result is quite gratifying.”

“Not possible,” Fortescue said.

Elinor smiled sweetly at him. “I would hardly make such a claim were I not able to prove it, would I? If you can procure us a length of canvas and some of the retardant compound, I can demonstrate.”

Fortescue looked as if he’d eaten something bitter with too many legs. “I would like to see you do this,” he said. “I am not doubting you, of course, but it seems unlikely. And I have been in many more battles than you, my dear.”

Hah. That “coalition of equals” is more a convenient fiction for you, is it not?
“Of course. And if I can teach you the secret, that will give us one more weapon they cannot defend against, correct?”

The bitter thing with too many legs was trying to climb back out of Fortescue’s stomach. “Indeed. But I expect you, Pembroke, to focus on extinguishing fires and protecting the ship. Burning sails is secondary. Your…unique talent will be our secret weapon.”

“I understand, Fortescue.” So. Thatcher was nervous, Ross was surly, and Fortescue was arrogant. Elinor sent up a silent prayer that Ramsay would rescue her quickly.

Glorious
left the dock on schedule with no word nor appearance from anyone connected with
Athena
. Elinor stood at the stern, where she could barely see her beloved ship past all the other ones in the harbor, and prayed that a miracle would occur, that Stratford would appear on the horizon and snatch her up or Ramsay would step onto the deck and demand her return.

Nothing happened.

A week passed, and Elinor heard nothing from
Athena
. Of course, how could she? Stratford likely didn’t know the signature for
Glorious’
Bounding chamber, and she didn’t even know who Crawford’s Speaker was or if Beaumont knew him well enough to Speak to him. Crawford was certainly not interested in including her in his plans; she was just the Scorcher whose talent would advance his career and make Ramsay look weak. She had forgotten to bring any books, and Crawford was no reader. The other officers showed no interest in making friends, and her fellow Scorchers, when they assembled, talked mainly of their talents and practiced setting fires Elinor extinguished.

She divided her time between her narrow, stifling cube and the deck, trying to find places where she would be out of the way of the sailors. Eventually she drifted into an empty spot on the forecastle near the bow, between the main stay rigging and the fore shrouds, and this became her accustomed place; the sailors never seemed to mind her presence, though they did walk wide of her, and she stood for hours looking out over the sea, thinking of nothing in particular. There were no mirrors on board, or at least none the officers were inclined to share with her, but she could see her hands growing brown and was certain her face, despite the shading brim of her hat, was doing the same.

She told herself she was not watching for
Athena
to come sailing over the horizon. After five days, it was true.

On the tenth day they had their first battle, a tepid affair in which she did nothing but swat fireballs out of the air. They burned and shattered the pirate ship and let it sink into the ocean, but it was not until Fortescue began recounting the events of the battle and making suggestions for improvement that Elinor felt her conscience wake up. She had no regrets for the deaths of those pirates—she had by now heard some of the stories Ramsay had alluded to, and they terrified and sickened her—but she thought she should at least feel
something
, some acknowledgement that she had taken lives, even indirectly. She wished desperately that she could talk to Ramsay about it.
You will probably never see him again,
she realized, and the thought left an aching, gnawing pain in the middle of her chest.

They fought two more battles during the third week, the first of which took over three hours and forced Elinor to take an active role when her colleagues reached the end of their endurance. When
Glorious
finally managed to smash the pirate’s mainmast and board the ship to slaughter the crew—Durrant’s orders were that they take no prisoners except any of the Brethren leaders they might find—Elinor was still fresh and invigorated, her blood pulsing with fire and the urge to turn the captured ship into a funeral pyre.

Then she met Fortescue’s eye and felt as if he’d extinguished her. He was angry, he was jealous, and he was embarrassed all at once, and although he tried not to show it, Elinor had too much experience reading her father’s expressions not to know what was going on inside her putative commander’s head. She pretended not to see anything amiss and behaved matter-of-factly when they discussed the battle and how they might improve their strategy.

“I think, um, Pembroke ought to attack more often,” Thatcher said as they gathered around the gunroom table, all of them with their allotted mugs of grog or rum, though Elinor never drank hers. “We might end our battles more quickly.”

“Pembroke did excellent work today, but I think she’s still better suited to defending the ship,” Fortescue said, raising his cup to Elinor but not bothering to disguise the animosity in his eyes. “Unless you’ve discovered an Extraordinary talent, Thatcher?”

Thatcher ducked his head, rubbed his hands on his trousers, and said, “You’re right.”

Ross drank down his rum in a couple of quick gulps, blinked hard, and said, “I dinnae think we should all be attackin’ at once. We cannae depend on Pembroke to press the attack if we’re spent before the battle’s won.”

“I agree. We will spread out our attacks, take turns and perhaps extend our endurance that way. And possibly Pembroke can take a turn to give us all a breather, eh?”

Elinor nodded her agreement, but Fortescue’s seeming concession did not fool her at all. He had no intention of allowing her to take the glory, as he saw it, of burning a ship to the waterline. She was ashamed of resenting their victories because they made Crawford look successful. It should not matter who defeated the pirates, because a victory for Crawford was a victory for the fleet. But she could not convince herself of that.

Four weeks, and they were running short on supplies, particularly fresh water. Crawford ordered them to set sail for Port Royal, which prodded Elinor out of the dull apathy she found herself in most days. She had heard so many stories about the former pirate haven and about the earthquake that had devastated the town in 1692 and turned it into a series of islands. The Royal Navy had built docks there, where they could observe any ship coming into Kingston, and it was at Port Royal that the Navy hanged pirates and left them in chains, dangling high where passing ships, many of them pirates, could see the fate of anyone who raised the black flag against Britain. It would be pleasant to go into Kingston, see the sights for an hour or two, anything to get her off
Glorious
and, possibly, back into a gown for even a little while.

“—until further notice,” Crawford was saying as she came up the companionway and passed near the wheel, where he was having a low-voiced conversation with the helmsman. They both paused and looked at her, their faces blank and unwelcoming, but Elinor forged ahead anyway.

“Captain, if I may ask, will we be allowed to go ashore at Port Royal?”

Crawford smiled, a nasty expression. “There’s not much to do at the docks, Pembroke.”

“Then Kingston. I would enjoy taking an hour’s walk on land.”

“I think not.”

His dismissal was so abrupt Elinor was goaded into forgetting he held her future in his hands. “Why not, Captain? I have no doubt you will allow the men some short time ashore. At least you know I will not become drunk or consort with loose women.”

“I can’t protect you ashore. And I’m not going to tell off one of my officers to do so.”

“Then I will go with the other Scorchers.”

“They won’t want to be responsible for you either. You can stay on the ship and play lookout like you always do. What do you expect to see, on the horizon? Ramsay sailing in to snatch you away?”

Elinor gaped. “I beg your pardon, Captain?”

Crawford turned and stumped up to the quarterdeck, forcing Elinor to follow him. “He’d do it if he thought he could get away with it,” he said. “He’d do almost anything if it would bring him glory. Selfish of him, really, trying to keep you on his poky little ship.”