Red Seas Under Red Skies (46 page)

“I think this might be one of those ‘good news, bad news,' situations,” said Jean, cracking his knuckles. “We may need to ready ourselves to repel boarders.”

“With what? One stiletto and hurtful insinuations about their mothers?” Locke clenched his fists; his anger had become excitement. “Jean, if we get aboard that ship and talk our way into her crew, we're back in the game, by the gods!”

“They might just mean to kill us and take the boat.”

“We'll see,” said Locke. “We'll see. First we'll exchange courtesies. Have ourselves some diplomatic interaction.”

The pirate vessel came on slowly as the sun sank toward the west and the color of sky and water alike seemed to deepen by a shade. She was indeed black-hulled, witchwood, and larger than the
Red Messenger
even at a glance. Sailors crowded her yardarms and deck railings; Locke felt a pang of envy to see such a large and active crew. She sliced majestically through the water, then luffed up as orders were shouted from the quarterdeck. Sails were reefed with precise and rapid movements; she slowed to a crawl, blocked their view of the
Red Messenger
, and presented her larboard side at a distance of about twenty yards.

“Ahoy the boat,” cried a woman at the rail. She was rather short, Locke could see—dark-haired, partially armored, backed up by at least a dozen armed and keenly interested sailors. Locke felt his skin crawl under their scrutiny, and he donned a cheerful mask.

“Ahoy the brig,” he shouted. “Fine weather, isn't it?”

“What do you two have to say for yourselves?”

Locke rapidly considered the potential advantages of the pleading, cautious, and cocky approaches, and decided that cocky was the best chance they had of making a memorable impression. “Avast,” he cried, standing up and hoisting his stiletto over his head, “you must perceive we hold the weather gauge, and you are luffed up with no hope of escape! Your ship is ours, and you are all our prisoners! We are prepared to be gracious, but don't test us.”

There was an outbreak of laughter on the deck of the ship, and Locke felt his hopes rise. Laughter was good; laughter like that rarely preceded bloody slaughter, at least in his experience.

“You're Captain Ravelle,” shouted the woman, “aren't you?”

“I, ah, see my reputation precedes me!”

“Previous crew of your previous ship might have mentioned you.”

“Shit,” Locke muttered.

“Would you two care to be rescued?”

“Yes, actually,” said Locke. “That would be a damn polite thing for you to do.”

“Right, then. Have your friend stand up. Both of you get all your clothes off.”

“What?”

An arrow hissed through the air, several feet above their heads, and Locke flinched.

“Clothes off! You want charity, you entertain us first! Get your big friend up and get naked, both of you!”

“I don't believe this,” said Jean, rising to his feet.

“Look,” shouted Locke as he began to slip out of his tunic, “can we just drop them in the bottom of the boat? You don't want us to throw them overboard, right?”

“No,” said the woman. “We'll keep 'em plus the boat, even if we don't keep you. Breeches off, gentlemen! That's the way!”

Moments later Locke and Jean stood, precariously balanced in the wobbling boat, stark naked with the rising evening breeze plainly felt against their backsides.

“Gentlemen,” yelled the woman. “What's this? I expect to see some sabers, and instead you bring out your stilettos!”

The crew behind her roared with laughter. Crooked Warden! Locke realized others had come up along the larboard rail. There were more sailors just standing there pointing and howling at him and Jean than there were in the entire crew of the
Red Messenger
.

“What's the matter, boys? Thoughts of rescue not enticing enough? What's it take to get a rise out of you down there?”

Locke responded with a two-handed gesture he'd learned as a boy, one guaranteed to start fights in any city-state in the Therin world. The crowd of pirates returned it, with many creative variations.

“Right, then,” cried the woman. “Stand on one leg. Both of you! Up on one!”

“What?”
Locke put his hands on his hips. “Which one?”

“Just pick one of two, like your friend's doing,” she replied.

Locke lifted his left foot just above the rowing bench, putting his arms out for balance, which was becoming steadily harder to keep. Jean did the same thing beside him, and Locke was absolutely sure that from any distance they looked a perfect pair of idiots.

“Higher,” said the woman, “that's sad. You can do better than that!”

Locke hitched his knee up half a foot more, staring defiantly up at her. He could feel the vibrations of fatigue and the unstable boat alike in his right leg; he and Jean were seconds away from capping embarrassment with embarrassment.

“Fine work,” the woman shouted. “Make 'em dance!”

Locke saw the dark blurs of the arrows flash across his vision before he heard the flat snaps of their release. He dove to his right as they thudded into the middle of the boat, realizing half a second too late that they'd not been aimed at flesh and blood. The sea swallowed him in an instant; he hit unprepared and upside down, and when he kicked back to the surface he gasped and sputtered at the unpleasant sensation of salt water up his nose.

Locke heard rather than saw Jean spit a gout of water as he came up on the other side of the boat. The pirates were roaring now, falling over themselves, holding their sides. The short woman kicked something, and a knotted rope fell through an entry port in the ship's rail.

“Swim over,” she yelled, “and pull the boat with you.”

By clinging to the gunwales and paddling awkwardly, Locke and Jean managed to push the little boat over to the ship, where they fell into shadow beneath her side. The end of the knotted rope floated there, and Jean gave Locke a firm shove toward it, as though afraid they might yank it up at any second.

Locke hauled himself up against the fine-grained black wood of the hull, wet and naked and fuming. Rough hands grasped him at the rail and heaved him aboard. He found himself looking at a pair of weathered leather boots, and he sat up.

“I hope that was amusing,” he said, “because I'm going to—”

One of those boots struck him in the chest and shoved him back down to the deck. Wincing, he thought better of standing and instead studied the boot's owner. The woman was not merely short—she was petite, even from the perspective of someone literally beneath her heel. She wore a frayed sky-blue tunic over a loose black leather vest decorated with slashes that had more to do with near misses than high fashion. Her dark hair, which piled curl upon curl, was tightly bound behind her neck, and the belt at her waist carried a minor arsenal of fighting knives and sabers. There was obvious muscle on her shoulders and arms, an impression of strength that made Locke quickly stifle his anger.

“Going to
what
?”

“Lie here on the deck,” he said, “and enjoy the fine afternoon sun.”

The woman laughed; a second later Jean was pulled up over the side and thrown down beside Locke. His black hair was plastered to his skull, and water streamed from the bristles of his beard.

“Oh my,” said the woman. “Big one and a little one. Big one looks like he can handle himself a bit. You must be Master Valora.”

“If you say so, madam, I suppose I must be.”

“Madam? Madam's a shore word. Out here to the likes of you, it's
lieutenant
.”

“You're not the captain of this ship, then?”

The woman eased her boot off Locke's chest and allowed him to sit. “Not even hardly,” she said.

“Ezri's my first,” said a voice behind Locke. He turned, slowly and carefully, to regard the speaker.

This woman was taller than the one called Ezri, and broader across her shoulders. She was dark, with skin just a few shades lighter than the hull of her ship, and she was striking, but not young. There were lines about her eyes and mouth that proclaimed her somewhere near forty. Those eyes were cold and that mouth was hard—clearly, she didn't share Ezri's sense of mischief about the two unclothed prisoners dripping water on her deck.

Her night-colored braids, threaded with red and silver ribbons, hung in a mane beneath a wide four-cornered cap, and despite the heat she wore a weather-stained brown frock coat, lined along the insides with brilliant gold silk. Most astonishingly, an Elderglass mosaic vest hung unbuckled beneath her coat. That sort of armor was rarely seen outside of royal hands—each little slat of Elderglass had to be joined by a latticework of metal, since humans knew no arts to meld the glass to itself. The vest glittered with reflected sunlight, more intricate than a stained-glass window—a thousand fingernail-sized chips of gleaming glory outlined in silver.

“Orrin Ravelle,” she said. “I've never heard of you.”

“Nor should you have,” said Locke. “May we have the pleasure of your acquaintance?”

“Del,” she said, turning away from Locke and Jean to look at Ezri, “get that boat in. Give their clothes the eye, take anything interesting, and get them dressed again.”

“Your will, Captain.” Ezri turned and began giving instructions to the sailors around her.

“As for you two,” the captain said, returning her gaze to the two drenched thieves, “my name is Zamira Drakasha. My ship's the
Poison Orchid
. And once you're dressed, someone will be along to haul you below and throw you in the bilge hold.”

CHAPTER NINE

THE
POISON ORCHID

1

THEIR PRISON
was at the very bottom of the
Poison Orchid
, on what was ironically the tallest deck on the ship, a good ten feet from lower deck to ceiling. However, the pile of barrels and oilcloth sacks crammed into the compartment left nothing but a coffin-dark crawlspace above their uneven surface. Locke and Jean sat atop this uncomfortable mass of goods with their heads against the ceiling. The lightless room stank of muck-soaked orlop ropes, of moldering canvas, of stale food and ineffective alchemical preservatives.

This was technically the forward cargo stowage; the bilge proper was sealed behind a bulkhead roughly ten feet to their left. Not twenty feet in the opposite direction the curved black bow of the ship met wind and water. The soft waves they could hear were lapping against the ship's sides three or four feet above their heads.

“Nothing but the friendliest people and the finest accommodations on the Sea of Brass,” said Locke.

“At least I don't feel too disadvantaged by the darkness,” said Jean. “Lost my bloody optics when I took that tumble into the water.”

“Thusfar today, we've lost a ship, a small fortune, your hatchets, and now your optics.”

“At least our setbacks are getting progressively smaller.” Jean cracked his knuckles, and the sound echoed strangely in the darkness. “How long do you suppose we've been down here?”

“Hour, maybe.” Locke sighed, pushed himself away from the starboard bulkhead, and began the laborious process of finding a vaguely comfortable niche to slide into, amidst barrel-tops and sacks of hard, lumpy objects. If he was going to be bored, he might as well be bored lying down. “But I'd be surprised if they mean to keep us here for good. I think they're just…marinating us. For whatever comes next.”

“You making yourself comfortable?”

“I'm fighting the good fight.” Locke shoved a sack out of the way, and at last had enough space to rest in. “That's better.”

A few seconds later, there came the creaking tread of many pairs of feet just overhead, followed by a scraping noise. The grating to the deck above (which had been wrapped in oilcloth to seal them in darkness) was being pulled. A wan light intruded into the blackness, and Locke squinted.

“Doesn't that just figure,” he muttered.

“Cargo inspection,” came a familiar voice from above. “We're looking for anything out of place. You two qualify.”

Jean crawled over to the pale square of light and looked up. “Lieutenant Ezri?”

“Delmastro,” she said. “Ezri Delmastro, hence Lieutenant Delmastro.”

“My apologies. Lieutenant
Delmastro
.”

“That's the spirit. How do you like your cabin?”

“Could smell worse,” said Locke, “but I think I'd have to spend a few days pissing on everything to get there.”

“Stay alive until our supplies start to run low,” said Delmastro, “and you'll drink some things that'll make this stench a happy memory. Now, usually I'd drop a ladder, but it's only three feet. I think you can manage. Come up slow; Captain Drakasha's got a sudden eagerness to have a word with you.”

“Does that offer include dinner?”

“You're lucky it includes clothes, Ravelle. Get up here. Smallest first.”

Locke crawled past Jean and heaved himself up through the hatch, into the moderately less stifling air of the orlop deck. Lieutenant Delmastro waited with eight of her crewfolk, all armed and armored. Locke was seized from behind by a burly woman as he stood up in the passageway. A moment later Jean was helped up and held by three sailors.

“Right.” Delmastro seized Jean's wrists and snapped a pair of blackened-steel manacles around them. It was Locke's turn next; she fit the cold restraints and fastened them without gentleness. Locke gave the manacles a quick professional appraisal. They were oiled and rust-free, and too tight to wiggle out of even if he had time to make some painful adjustments to his thumbs.

“Captain's finally had a chance to talk to some of your old crew at length,” said Delmastro. “Mighty curious, is what I'd call her.”

“Ah, that's wonderful,” said Locke. “Another fine chance to explain myself to someone. How I do so love
explaining
myself.”

Their wary escort herded them along, and soon they were on deck in the very last light of dusk. The sun was just passing beneath the western horizon, a bloodred eye closing lazily under lids of faintly red cloud. Locke gulped the fresh air gratefully, and was again struck by the impression of population that hung about the
Poison Orchid
. She was crammed with crew, men and women alike, bustling about below or working on deck by the light of an increasing number of alchemical lanterns.

They had come up amidships. Something clucked and fluttered in a dark box—a chicken coop, Locke realized—just forward of the mainmast. At least one bird was pecking the mesh of its cage in agitation.

“I sympathize,” whispered Locke.

The
Orchid
crewfolk led him to the stern a few steps ahead of Jean. On the quarterdeck, just above the companionway leading down to the stern cabins, a group of sailors once again restrained Jean at some signal from Delmastro.

“This invitation's for Ravelle only,” she said. “Master Valora can wait up here until we see how this is to go.”

“Ah,” said Locke. “Will you be comfortable up here, Jerome?”

“‘Cold walls do not a prison make,'” recited Jean with a smile, “‘nor iron bands a bondsman.'”

Lieutenant Delmastro looked at him strangely, and after a few seconds replied, “‘Bold words from the tongues of the newly chained will fly—like sparks from flint, with as much real heat, and as long a life.'”

“You know
The Ten Honest Turncoats
,” said Jean.

“As do you.
Very
interesting. And…completely beside the point.” She gave Locke a gentle push toward the companionway. “Stay here, Valora. Lift a finger in an unfriendly fashion and you'll die where you stand.”

“My fingers will be on their best behavior.”

Down the companionway Locke stumbled, into a dark space nearly the twin of that on the
Red Messenger
, though larger. If Locke's quick estimate was correct, the
Poison Orchid
was half again as long as his former ship. There were little canvas-door cabins, two to a side, and a sturdy witchwood door to the stern cabin, currently closed tight. Ezri pushed Locke firmly aside and knocked on this door three times.

“It's Ezri, with the question mark,” she shouted.

A moment later the door was unbolted from within, and Delmastro motioned for Locke to precede her.

Captain Drakasha's cabin, in contrast to “Ravelle's,” showed every evidence of long, comfortable habitation. Richly lit by faceted alchemical jewel-lamps in gold frames, the space was piled with layers of tapestries and silk pillows. Several sea chests supported a lacquered tabletop covered with empty dishes, folded maps, and navigational instruments of obvious quality. Locke felt a pang when he saw his own chest, wide open on the floor beside Drakasha's chair.

The shutters had been drawn away from the stern windows. Drakasha sat before them, her coat and armor discarded, holding a girl of three or four on her knees. Through the windows, Locke could see the
Red Messenger
, shadowed in the growing darkness, crawling with the bobbing lights of what must be repair parties.

Locke glanced to his left to see who'd opened the door, looked down, and found himself meeting the gaze of a curly-haired boy who looked barely older than the girl held by Zamira. Both children had her coal-black hair, and something of her features, but their skin was somewhat lighter, like desert sand in shadow. Ezri tousled the boy's hair affectionately as she nudged Locke farther into the cabin, and the boy stepped away shyly.

“There,” said Zamira, ignoring the newcomers for the moment and pointing out the stern windows. “Can you see that, Cosetta? Do you know what that is?”

“Ship,” said the little girl.

“That's right.” Zamira smiled…. No, Locke corrected himself, she positively smirked. “Mommy's
new
ship. From which Mommy has taken a lovely little pile of
gold
.”

“Gold,” said the little girl, clapping.

“Indeed. But look at the ship, love. Look at the ship. Can you tell mommy what those tall things are? Those tall things that reach for the sky?”

“They…um…ha! No.”

“No, you don't know, or no, you are being mutinous?”

“Moot nust!”

“Not on Mommy's ship, Cosetta. Look again. Mommy's told you what they are before, hasn't she? They reach for the sky, and they carry the sails, and they are the…”

“Mast,” said the girl.

“Masts. But close enough. And how many are there? How many
masts
does Mommy's new little ship have? Count them for Mommy.”

“Two.”

“How clever you are! Mommy's new ship has two masts, yes.” Zamira leaned close to her daughter's face, so that they were touching noses, and Cosetta giggled. “Now,” said Zamira, “find me something else that comes in
two
.”

“Um…”

“Here in the cabin, Cosetta. Find Mommy
two
of something.”

“Um…”

The girl looked around, sticking most of her left hand into her mouth as she did so, before seizing upon the pair of sabers that rested, in their scabbards, against the wall just beneath the stern window.

“Sword,” said Cosetta.

“That's right!” Zamira kissed her on the cheek. “Mommy has
two
swords. At least where you can see them, love. Now, will you be a good girl and go above with Ezri? Mommy needs to speak to this man alone for just a bit. Paolo will go, too.”

Ezri moved across the cabin to take Cosetta into her arms, and the little girl clung to her with obvious pleasure. Paolo followed Ezri like a shadow, keeping the lieutenant between himself and Locke, peeking out from behind her legs when he dared to look at all.

“You sure you want to be alone back here, Captain?”

“I'll be fine, Del. Valora's the one I'd be worried about.”

“He's manacled, with eight hands standing by.”

“Good enough, I think. And the
Red Messenger
's men?”

“All under the forecastle. Treganne's giving them the eyeball.”

“Fine. I'll be along soon enough. Take Paolo and Cosetta off to Gwillem and let them sit on the quarterdeck. Nowhere near the rails, mind.”

“Aye.”

“And tell Gwillem that if he tries to give them unwatered beer again I'll cut his heart out and piss in the hole.”

“I'll quote that in full, Captain.”

“Off with the lot of you. If you give Ezri and Gwillem any trouble, loves, Mommy will
not
be pleased.”

Lieutenant Delmastro withdrew from the cabin, taking the two children and closing the door behind her. Locke wondered how to approach this meeting. He knew next to nothing about Drakasha; no weak spots to exploit, no prejudices to twist. Coming clean about the various layers of deception he was working under was probably a mistake. Best to act fully as Ravelle, for the time being.

Captain Drakasha picked up her sheathed sabers and turned her full regard upon Locke for the first time. He decided to speak first, in a friendly fashion.

“Your children?”

“How
little
escapes the penetrating insight of the veteran intelligence officer.” She slid one of her sabers out of its scabbard with a soft metallic hiss and gestured toward Locke with it. “Sit.”

Locke complied. The only other chair in the cabin was next to the table, so he settled into it and folded his manacled hands in his lap. Zamira eased herself into her own chair, facing him, and set the drawn saber across her knees.

“Where I come from,” she said, “we have a custom concerning questions asked over a naked blade.” She had a distinct, harmonious accent, one that Locke couldn't place. “Are you familiar with it?”

“No,” said Locke, “but I think the meaning is clear.”

“Good. Something is wrong with your story.”

“Nearly
everything
is wrong with my story, Captain Drakasha. I had a ship and a crew and a pile of money. Now I find myself hugging a sack of potatoes in a bilge hold that smells like the bottom of an unwashed ale cup.”

“Don't hope for a lasting relationship with the potatoes. I just wanted you out of the way while I spoke to some of the
Messenger
's crewmen.”

“Ah. And how is my crew?”

“We both know they're not your crew, Ravelle.”

“How is
the
crew?”

“Tolerably well, little thanks to you. They lost the nerve for a fight as soon as they saw our numbers. Most of them seemed downright eager to surrender, so we took the
Messenger
with nothing more than a few bruises and some hurt feelings.”

“Thank you for that.”

“We weren't kind for your sake, Ravelle. In fact, you're damned fortunate we were even nearby. I like to cruise the wake of the summer's-end storms. They tend to spit out juicy morsels in no condition to refuse our hospitality.”

Drakasha reached down into Locke's sea chest, shuffled the contents, and withdrew a small packet of papers. “Now,” she said, “I want to know who Leocanto Kosta and Jerome de Ferra are.”

“Cover identities,” said Locke. “False faces we used for our work back in Tal Verrar.”

“In the archon's service?”

“Yes.”

“Nearly everything in here is signed ‘Kosta.' Small letters of credit and reference…work order for some chairs…receipt for clothing in storage. The only document with the name Ravelle on it is this commission as a Verrari sea-officer. Should I be calling you Orrin or Leocanto? Which one's the false face?”