Sky Song: Overture (4 page)

IV. Dynasty

W
e drank every cask of Skye we had left. Captain Dirk encouraged us to indulge our thirst. He would ask the emperor to reload our ship with supplies for the journey home.

The bitter drink went down like jet fuel. Fitz was climbing the cables, hanging off backward and tasting the mist. Baker stirred up a game of Mercy and the men took turns making a muscle and taking as many punches as they could stand. He invited me to participate, but I declined, as I always did since those first few times when I had to tap out before anyone else.

I drank to forget the wasted raid, and leaned against the center mast, tuning my fiddle. I needed to get blitzed, needed to play music and lose my soul to song.

“What was the tune Johnnie liked?” asked William, the mandolin player.

I shrugged and ran my bow hair over a chunk of rosin. I never really knew Johnnie, but I was sorry to have lost him and all the Hawks who perished.

“‘Copper Monkey’ I think it was,” said William.

“That one’s fast,” I said.

“It is…You probably couldn’t keep up.”

I smirked and swept my bow over my strings to test the pull. “My pace would make your fingers bleed, friend.”

“That sounds like a challenge.” William strummed the first chord. “Come on then, Falcon. For Johnnie.” He played the first phrase and tapped his foot. I bounced my bow and quickened the tempo.

The speed duel began. I fiddled like a demon to keep up with William. The men clapped and encouraged our Skye-frenzied jam. I’d never been a spotlight musician before. Normally the men treated me like background noise, but on this night, they knew my name, which was now Falcon. At the end of our song, they applauded.

“Hey, Falcon! Play The Wench of Amaranthia!” Even Baker was calling me Falcon now, and grinning at me with a glow in his cheeks. I nodded and eased my bow into the first note of the evocative melody. Baker began to sing and Fitz joined in, hanging from his knees as he took the tenor harmony.

She lived in a most mysterious port,

The pirate town Amaranthia,

She liked to sing songs of the lustiest sort

She drank like a man, and she laughed with a snort,

The Wench of Amaranthia!

Amaranthia! Amaranthia!

Ah-ha-ha-ma-ra-ra-ra-ranthia. Ha ha!

The other men joined in on the chorus, drinking at the end of each verse. By the fifth reiteration of Amaranthias, they were spitting out random syllables.

They kept rehashing the story of the day. I secretly hoped they might all forget me by the next. I didn’t want to be Falcon. Falcon was highly visible. How long would it be before one of them teased me for having no facial hair or challenged me to wrestle? I wanted to go back to being their taciturn minstrel who didn’t like to be touched.

Captain Dirk came through the crowd and held out his mug. Ned filled it with Skye and Dirk polished it off. He almost never drank with the men.

“Get down from there, Fitz!” he snarled. “A storm’s coming through that will send you flailing in the cloudswell!”

Fitz pulled himself upright on the cable and dropped to the deck. “Yes, Captain! Sorry, sir!”

The deck was no longer alive with laughter or rowdy, excited stories of Falcon. Thunder bellowed in the distance. I could hear the wind reeling, and my heartbeat did the same. Captain Dirk gestured for me to go with him. I obeyed without hesitation.

He took me to his quarters and we went through an adjacent room into a small library. I appraised his collection out of habit. It was worth a hefty fortune. The sets of leather-bound encyclopedias and thick tomes of rare variety were all in fine condition.

Dirk plopped down on a pile of cushions and furs in the middle of the floor. He kicked off his boots, crunching and cracking his toes. I wasn’t sure if I should join him. My conduct had to be different with him. He knew my secret.

“Sit. Drink,” he said. He uncorked a bottle with his teeth and took a swig before passing it to me.

“Yes, Captain.” I knelt on the edge of the furs.

“Wine from the valley of Shale. That’s where you’re from, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Who better to share it with then? Drink with me!” I took a sip of his wine to avoid insulting him and handed it back. “Quite an impressive stunt you pulled today. I guess we both know I can’t give my sister away without you.”

“What happens to me once you do give her away?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet. I had to make the men love you to explain not killing you, which complicates things… Falcon,” he said with a sneer, taking another gulp of wine. He knocked on his chest and belched.

I veered the conversation in another direction. “Why did the witch curse you, Captain?”

“Oof,” he sighed. “Maive has been my paramour for many, many years, but recently we quarreled. Bah! It’s amusing in retrospect. I was in Amaranthia when a couple of female bards offered me a night I couldn’t refuse. The next day, I learned that it was my dearie sorceress in disguise.”

“So Maive was one of them?”

“She was both of them. Of course, she called me a cheat, though I argued there was no foul as technically it had been her.”

“Oh my,” I said, smiling in spite of myself.

“The woman is twisted,” he scoffed. He tilted the bottle back my way, but I shook my head.

“Thank you, Captain, but I’m already—”

“Drink,” he commanded.

I drank. I had a liver for wine from Shale, but I could already tell my captain did not. I took this chance to offer counsel. “You should swallow your pride and apologize to her. She might undo Molly’s curse.”

“Unnecessary. We need only trick the prince until the marriage is consummated.” He reached for the wine again and I let him have it. He chugged it down to the last drop, the sod.

“Your sister is suffering. Don’t you care at all about her happiness?”

“Has she ever cared for mine?” he asked. “Her housing and schooling have been tremendously expensive. I’ve not turned a profit in years. The Wastrel needs repairs, and I need a holiday, so the day Molly turned thirteen, I proposed the marriage to the emperor’s advisors.”

“And they agreed to the prince marrying a pirate’s sister?”

“They agreed to his marrying a princess.” Dirk looked as if he wanted to suck those words back in, but it was too late. He was drunk on my countrymen’s wine. “Oh, Clikk,” he groaned. “You ask so many questions. Now I truly will have to kill you.”

“If your sister is a princess, then you must be—”

“I might have said sister, but in truth, Molly is my ward, whom I am selling to the highest bidder.” He stumbled over his words.

There was a short time after my exodus from Shale when I thrived on the promise of royalist rebellion. The Luftberg royal family was imprisoned in the black spire, and people spoke of a siege to liberate them and crush the Blue Dusk while they were still vulnerable. They gave me such hope back then. It never happened, and I was in the ancient city square when Prince Derek Luftberg laid his neck on the chopping block. I saw the axe fall. I saw the executioner lift the disembodied head as the eyes twitched. He was dead. I saw it. And seeing him now resurrected was nothing short of a miracle.

“You’re him,” I whispered. “Anyone could see it. Captain Alexander Dirk. Prince Derek Alexander Luftberg, rightful heir to the Elsatian throne.”

“Careful. Those are dangerous words to put in that order,” he said.

“Your people need you.”

Dirk made a sour laugh. “The people who after the famine, murdered any person with a drop of blue blood in his veins.”

“You could restore your family’s dynasty.”

“Prince Derek was publicly executed, Clikk!” Dirk stood and wobbled over to take a fresh bottle of wine from a cabinet. He opened the cork with a knife.

“No. The man who died that day must have been a royalist. He knew as well as you that it is your destiny to retake the throne.”

“Why is it my destiny? I never wanted it. I always looked to the sky.”

“So you’re just going to hand your kingdom over to the Blue Dusk? You really don’t care what they stole from you? What they did to your family?”

Dirk cracked his neck as he rolled his shoulders. He tumbled into the cushions, curling up like a cat around his new bottle. “Ever notice that everyone you know is less than thirty? I am thirty-one this year. You know how I did it? I didn’t start a war. I hold no grudge for what cannot be undone. It’s a nasty world out there. We need coin, and our girl Molly, everything she touches is made pure. She will heal the leadership from within.”

“Unless they kill her when they realize she’s enchanted.”

Captain Dirk reclined his head all the way back and closed his eyes. “How old are you, Clikk? Seventeen? Eighteen?”

“I’m twenty. I know I’m not as learned as you, but you must listen. Only you can heal our country. The Blue Dusk will never change. They have been holding our people hostage since the revolution. They force us to either steal or starve. If you made a claim, thousands across all the provinces would rally behind you. Because you’re different. You’re the first man with a claim who knows what it’s like to be one of us. You understand suffering, and it makes you a fine captain, and it would make you the finest king who ever ruled.”

“Lishen,” Dirk slurred. “The old bird’s full of mold. It’s not even safe to breathe the air in here.” The wine bottle fell from his fingertips and rolled, spilling a streak. I chased it across the floor and plugged the neck with my handkerchief. “Damn. What was in that wine?” he asked.

“The berries in Shale carry a toxin that knocks foreigners off their feet.”

“How about that?” he said, his laughter skidding. “A woman drank me under. I’m through, Clikk. One sign of weakness is all it takes to be thrown.”

“No shame in it,” I told him. “I’ve been drinking this piss since I was thirteen. Think about what I’ve said. Goodnight, Captain.”

I closed the doors on my way out. The men cheered, “Falcon!” when they saw me again, but I passed them without a hint of recognition. I went to the sleeping quarters to lie down. I needed to be alone.

V. The Pact

S
ilver light crackled as a storm seethed outside. With every maneuver of the ship, my hammock swayed. The sleeping quarters were deep in the hull. It was a wide-open room with little round windows all around and hammocks suspended from a low-hanging ceiling. All the men slept here in a cabin that creaked and moaned as the wood settled upon the air. I liked it here. It was quiet. Nobody talked to me, except Baker, who always needed something.

“Can you fix this?” Baker tossed a gold pocket watch at me. I caught it midair. It had the initials T.M.B. engraved on the back. “Pierce nabbed it off a waistcoat on the cruiser. Said he couldn’t leave empty-handed from such a calamity.”

“For shame, Bakes. Withholding a prize.”

“Tch,” Baker scoffed. “Like you never broke the rules.”

“It’s a nice trinket is all, nice enough to get the both of you windhauled.”

“It has my initials, so Pierce let me have it for only twenty coppers.”

“TMB? I thought your name was Thomas Quinn Baker.”

“It’s close enough.”

I motioned for my kit and Baker brought it over. “Watches are easy,” I said, popping it open with a lock pick. I’d have asked for pay from any other man, but I never minded helping Baker. Besides, I preferred work to dwelling on my captain prince and his sister’s curse.

Rain and wind pounded the ship, rocking the gondola and rattling the hooks and chains that dangled upon the walls. The electric bulbs kept flickering, thwarting my attempts to see into the watch.

“Wouldn’t you rather melt it down?” I asked.

“I always wanted myself a proper watch.”

“Something to measure your short life?” I teased. As I laughed, my ribs ached and I winced.

Baker sobered at the sight of my discomfort. “Clikk… Maybe you should let Cook take a look at you.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Just a bit bruised.” I used my pick to wobble the balance wheel for him. “There it is. Broken balance staff. I can fix it when we get to port.” I closed the watch up and returned it to his hand.

He put it away in his knapsack and returned with a head of cabbage. “Here,” he said, peeling away the leaves and tucking them under my shirt. “My mum taught me that cabbage heals a bruise up quick. And here.” He removed a steel ring from his finger. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was a twisted nail. “It’s good luck,” he said.

It was a strong piece of jewelry, a ring for a man. I didn’t dare put it on. It would draw attention to the fact my fingers were so much narrower than his. I stashed it in my pocket. “Thank you, friend. I’ve never been lucky.”

“I’d pay you if Pierce hadn’t cleaned me out.”

“You still owe me two silver.” I closed my eyes and let the cool oils of the cabbage seep into my skin. “That watch is 24 karat gold. You could fence it for much more than twenty coppers, even broken.”

“You know that just by looking at it?”

“Gold appraisal was the first thing Mr. Greyson ever taught me.”

“From pawning to piracy, legend of the Falcon,” he said as if it were an epic to be recited.

“I’ll thank you not to call me Falcon.”

“You need a woman to call you such; that will change your tune.” Baker reclined into his hammock beneath mine and I heard his boots hit the floor. “Are you a virgin, Clikk?”

“No, you glock.”

“I’ve noticed you never visit the brothels when we hit the port…”

“I have standards. Women are like locks. If they give too easy, they aren’t worth the trouble. The ones that require precision, effort and clever maneuvering, are those that hold the greatest treasures.”

“True, true,” he said, “And women are also like light. Go long enough without them and you start to go mad, to the point you contrive disturbing metaphors about women and locks.”

“I had someone long ago, Baker, an angel so pure she’d make your cock fall off for longing.”

“What was she like?”

“She was a village girl.”

“Ah. You dog.” Baker kicked my backside from below. “Tell me about her. I like a story in a storm.”

“I’m not your bard.”

“Did she have good tits?”

“They were all right. She was poor. Very skinny. But she had hair that shone like wheat in the sun. And she did all these nice things that village girls do, like picking larkspur on the cusp of May.”

Baker yawned. “What was her name?”

“Ramona… You think I’m a pansy, don’t you?”

“You are a pansy,” he said. “But I hope you get back to your Ramona someday.”

Pirates were interesting fellows. Baker could say things about women that made me want to break his nose, but then he would out of nowhere show a glimmer of compassion. I leaned over the edge of my hammock. “Baker? Do you think the rebels have a cause?”

“No,” he said, and snorted a gob of spit into a bucket.

“What would you say if I told you the Luftberg princess was still alive?”

“I’d say you’d been putting Skye up your arse.”

“Well, let’s just say she is alive, and let’s also say, she’s been taken hostage by our captain.”

Baker jumped up out of his hammock. “There’s a woman on board?” He went to the window. Just outside the beveled glass, lightning veined across the sky. Thunder boomed and shook the very framework of the Wastrel. “We need to get off this bird.”

I couldn’t believe that was his first concern. “You don’t really believe those old wives tales, do you?”

“Where is he keeping her?”

“Baker, shh!” I hopped down from my hammock, surveying the room to make sure nobody was around. “Baker. I saved your life today.”

“You did.”

“Now I need to call in a favor.”

“Already?” he said. “Well, what is it?”

I glanced about once more. The sleeping quarters were empty. The men were still getting blitzed above us, singing rowdy songs to drown out the storm. I lowered my voice all the same. “I need your help rescuing the princess and restoring her to the throne.”

Baker leaned in until he was only an inch from my face. “You’re talking about mutiny,” he whispered.

“This is important.”

“Dirk will hunt us and he will kill us.”

“Our queen would protect us. We would be the men who put her into power.”

“Two blokes from the Wastrel?” Baker was torn. He chewed his lip with his silver tooth and scratched his matted head. “One hell of a favor, Clikk …”

“It’s not a favor. It’s a cause.” His hesitation was beginning to aggravate me. “You would be dead right now if I hadn’t helped you! And you promised to help me find the maggot who killed my parents, to help me avenge their deaths. Well, trust me when I say that this is more important to me. This is more important than vengeance. This is more important than you or me. This is a chance to change the world.”

“Will our queen see us compensated for our services?” Baker asked.

“Are you kidding? We would be the nation’s saviors. We could retire, live in the palace and eat all the cricket fudge you could ever want.”

“I don’t know,” he said. Behind his posturing, I could tell he was mulling it over.

“We’ll be made men of the queen’s guard, showered in riches, celebrated in epic poems. You’ll have more women than the sultan of Nazar.”

“I’ll help you, Clikk. I owe you a debt. But when we’re done, we are getting blitzed, and you’re buying the Skye.”

I shook his hand. “Agreed.”