The Gentleman Bastard Series 3-Book Bundle: The Lies of Locke Lamora, Red Seas Under Red Skies, The Republic of Thieves (128 page)

“Hmmm. Storm. Fine opportunity for one of us to misstep and look a fool in front of
the men. More likely to be me than you.”

“Quit brooding.” Jean grinned. “Caldris knows what he’s doing. He’ll haul us through
somehow.”

There was a sudden heavy impact on the cabin door. Locke and Jean jumped up from their
stools in unison, and Locke darted for his weapons. Jean shouted, “What passes?”

“Kosta,” came a faint voice, followed by a feeble rattling, as though someone was
trying and failing to work the latch.

Jean pulled the door open just as Locke finished buckling on his sword-belt. Caldris
stood at the bottom of the companionway, clutching the doorframe for support, swaying
on his feet. The amber glow of Locke’s cabin lamp revealed wretched details: Caldris’
eyes were bloodshot and rolling upward, his mouth hung open, and his waxy skin was
glazed with sweat.

“Help, Kosta,” he whispered, wheezing with a sound that was painful just to hear.

Jean grabbed him and held him up. “Damn,” he muttered. “He’s not just tired, Leo … Captain.
He needs a bloody physiker!”

“Help … Kosta,” moaned the sailing master. He clawed at his left upper arm with his
right hand, and then at his left breast. He squeezed his eyes shut and winced.

“Help me?” Locke put a hand beneath Caldris’ chin; the man’s pulse was wild and erratic.
“What do you mean, help me?”

“No.” Caldris grimaced with concentration, sucking in a harsh breath between each
word. “Help.
Me
. Kosta!”

“Lay him on the table,” said Jean, and together he and Locke pressed the old man down
onto his back.

“Sweet gods,” said Locke, “is it the poison? I don’t feel any different.”

“Nor I,” said Jean. “I think … I think his heart is seizing up. I’ve seen it before.
Shit. If we can calm him down, maybe get him to drink something—”

But Caldris moaned again, dug feebly at the left side of his chest with both hands,
and shuddered. His hands fell limp. One long, strangled exhalation escaped from his
throat, and Locke, in rising horror, felt frantically around the base of his neck
with the fingers of both hands.

“His pulse is gone,” Locke whispered.

A soft rattle on the cabin roof, gentle at first but quickly rising in tempo, told
them that the first drops of rain were beginning to fall on the ship. Caldris’ eyes,
fixed on the ceiling, were lifeless as glass.

“Oh,
shit
,” said Jean.

DARK WATER ACROSS THE BOW, water at the sides, water in the air, falling with the
weight of lead pellets against Locke’s oilcloak. The rain seemed to come first from
one side and then another, never content to fall straight down, as the
Red Messenger
rocked back and forth in the gray hands of the gale.

“Master Valora!” Locke held fast to the safety lines knotted around the mainmast (as
they were knotted all around the deck) and bellowed down the main-deck hatch. “How
much water in the well?”

Jean’s answer came up a few moments later. “Two feet!”

“Very good, Master Valora!”

Locke caught a glimpse of Bald Mazucca staring at him, and he suppressed a feeling
of unease. He knew that Caldris’ sudden death the day before had been taken by the
crew as an omen of the worst sort; they were openly muttering about women and cats,
and the focal point of all their unkind attention was one Orrin Ravelle, whose status
as captain and savior was steadily fraying. Locke turned toward the helmsman and found
him once again squinting ahead into the stinging rain, seemingly absorbed in his duty.

Two cloaked sailors stood at the second wheel behind Mazucca; in seas this strong
control of the rudder could easily fly free from the grip of a single man. Their faces
were dark shadows within their hoods; they had nothing friendly to say to Locke, either.

The wind screamed through the lines and yards overhead, where most
of the sails were tightly furled. They continued to push vaguely southwest under the
press of nothing but close-reefed topsails. They were heeled over so far to starboard
that Mazucca and his assistants were not merely standing in wait at their wheels.
The crashing sea demanded their constant, tedious concentration to keep the ship stable,
and still the sea was rising.

A rush of gray-green water ran over Locke’s bare toes and he sucked in breath; he’d
abandoned his boots for the more certain footing of unprotected feet. Locke watched
that water roll across the deck, unwelcome but constant guest, before it poured away
down the scuppers and leaked past the edges of the storm-canvas laid beneath the hatch
gratings. In truth the water was warm, but here in the sunless heart of the storm,
with the wind like knives in the air, his imagination made it seem cold.

“Captain Ravelle!”

Jabril was approaching along the larboard rail, storm lantern in one night-black hand.
“It might’ve been advisable to take down the fuckin’ topgallant masts a few hours
ago,” he shouted.

Since Locke had risen that morning, Jabril had offered at least half a dozen rebukes
and reminders without prompting. Locke stared upward at the very tips of the main
and foremasts, nearly lost in the swirling haze overhead. “I gave it some thought,
Jabril, but it didn’t seem necessary.” According to some of what Locke had read, even
without sails flying from their yards, the topgallant masts might give unwanted leverage
to deadly storm winds, or even be lost over the side as the vessel bucked and heaved.
He’d been too busy to think of striking them down.

“It’ll seem pretty gods-damned necessary if they come down and take more of the rigging
with them!”

“I might have them struck down in a while, Jabril, if I think it proper.”

“If you think it proper?” Jabril gaped at him. “Are you bereft of your bloody senses,
Ravelle? The time to strike the bastards was hours ago; now the hands we have are
in sore need elsewhere, and the fuckin’ weather’s up! We might try it only were the
ship in peril … but damn me, she might soon be! Have you not been out this far on
the Sea of Brass before, Captain?”

“Aye, of course I have.” Locke sweated within his oilcloak. Had he known the real
extent of Jabril’s sea-wisdom, he might have tasked the man with minding such details,
but now it was too late, and some of his incompetence was laid bare. “Forgive me,
Jabril. Caldris was a good friend. His loss has left me a bit off-kilter!”

“Indeed! As the loss of the fuckin’ ship might leave us all more than a touch
off-kilter
, sir.” Jabril turned and began making his way forward along the larboard rail, then
after a few seconds whirled back to Locke. “You and
I both know for a damn truth there’s not a single bloody cat on board, Ravelle!”

Locke hung his head and clung to the mizzen. It was too much to hope that Mazucca
and the hands standing behind him hadn’t heard that. But of course, at his glance,
they said nothing and betrayed nothing, staring fixedly ahead into the storm, as though
trying to imagine he were not there at all.

BELOWDECKS WAS a nightmare. At least on deck one had masts and crashing seas to offer
some perspective on one’s place. Down here, in the enveloping fug of sweat, urine,
and vomit, the shuddering walls themselves seemed to tilt and lurch at malicious whim.
Streams of water poured down from hatchways and gratings, despite the weather precautions
the crew had taken. The main deck echoed with the muffled howling of the wind, and
the clanking sound of the pumps rose from the orlop below.

Those pumps were fine Verrari gearwork, capable of heaving water up and dashing it
over the side at some speed, but they demanded eight-man shifts in seas like this,
and the labor was backbreaking. Even a crew in good health would have found the job
onerous; it was just plain bad luck for this bunch that so few of them had come out
of prison at anything near their full strength.

“The water gains, Captain,” said a sailor Locke couldn’t recognize in the near darkness.
He’d popped his head up the hatchway from the orlop. “Three feet in the well. Aspel
says we busted a seam somewhere; says he needs men for a repair party.”

Aspel was their approximation of a ship’s carpenter. “He’ll have them,” Locke said,
though from where, he knew not. Ten doing important work on deck, eight at the pumps … damn
near their time to be relieved, too. Six or seven still too bloody weak to be of any
use save as ballast. A squad in the orlop hold with Jean, resecuring casks of food
and water after three had come loose and broken open. Eight sleeping fitfully on the
main deck just a few feet away, having been up all night. Two with broken bones, trying
to dull the pain with an unauthorized ration of wine. Their rudimentary scheme of
watches was unraveling in the face of the storm’s demands, and Locke struggled to
subsume a sharp pang of panic.

“Fetch Master Valora from the orlop,” he said at last. “Tell him he and his men can
look to the stores again once they’ve given Aspel a hand.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Captain Ravelle!”

Another shout rose from below as the first sailor disappeared, and Locke stood over
the hatchway to answer. “What passes?”

“Our time at the bloody pumps, sir! We can’t keep up this gods-damned pace forever.
We need relief. And we need food!”

“You shall have them both,” said Locke, “in but ten minutes.” Though from where, again,
he knew not; all his choices were sick, injured, exhausted, or otherwise engaged.
He turned to make his way back up to the deck. He could swap the deck-watch and the
men at the pumps; it would bring joy to neither group, but it might serve to nudge
the ship ahead of total disaster for a few more precious hours.

“WHAT DO you mean, you haven’t been turning the glasses?”

“Captain Ravelle, sir, beggin’ your double-fuckin’ pardon, but we ain’t had no time
to turn the glasses nor mind the log since … hell, I suppose I can’t say. A while
now.”

Bald Mazucca and his mate looked more like they were clinging to his wheel for dear
life than steering the ship with it. Two teams of two had the wheels; the air was
a frenzy of howling wind and stinging rain. The sea, cresting twenty feet or more,
slammed past the bow again and again, washing the deck white and sluicing past Locke’s
ankles. At long last they’d been forced to abandon a southerly course, and now they
were dead west before the wind, pulled by one lonely storm forecourse. They scudded
again and again through waves high as houses.

A bolt of yellow flitting past in the periphery of Locke’s vision was a storm-lantern
flying free and vanishing over the side, soon to be a curiosity for the fish far below.

Locke hauled himself over to the binnacle and flipped through the damp pages of the
master’s log; the last hasty entry read:

Locke couldn’t remember when it had last felt like the third hour of the afternoon.
The storm turned high noon dark as the insides of a shark’s gullet, and the crackle
of lightning gave uncanny illumination to what might have been deep evening. They
were as unfixed in time as they were in place.

“At least we know we’re somewhere on the Sea of Brass,” he shouted above the din.
“We’ll be through this mess soon enough, and then we’ll take sightings to fix our
latitude.”

If only that was as easily done as said. Fear and exhaustion had set Locke’s senses
reeling; the world was gray and whirling in every direction, and he’d thrown up his
last cold meal at the taffrail … gods knew when. Hours before, probably. If Bondsmage
of Karthain had appeared on deck at that moment and offered to use magic to steer
the ship to safety, Locke might have kissed their boots.

There was a sudden terrible sound overhead; an explosive crack followed by the warbling
hiss of a broken line lashing the air. Seconds later came a louder crash, and then
a
snap-snap-snap
like the noise of a whip biting flesh.

“ ’Ware above,” cried Jabril from somewhere forward; Locke and the ship seemed to
lurch at once from another hammering wave. It was this loss of footing that saved
Locke’s life. A shadow swooped past his left shoulder as he slipped to the wet deck,
sputtering. There was a splintering crash, screams, and sudden blackness as something
slick and yielding enshrouded him.

Sail canvas! Locke shoved at it, working his way out from beneath it. Strong hands
grabbed his forearms and hauled him to his feet. They belonged to Jean, who was braced
against the starboard quarterdeck rail. Locke had slid a few feet to his right with
the fall. Muttering thanks, he turned to see exactly what he feared.

The main topgallant mast had torn away. Its stays must have been snapped by some trick
of wind or the ship’s tumult. It had plunged forward and down, unfurling and trailing
sail from its yard as it went, before a mess of tangled rigging had snapped it backward
like a pendulum just above the deck. It covered the wheels, and the four men previously
manning them were nowhere to be seen. Locke and Jean moved in unison, fighting across
wet canvas and torn rope while smaller pieces of debris continued to rain down around
them. Already Locke could feel the ship moving in an unhealthy fashion beneath them.
The wheels must be seized, the rudder put right instantly.

“All hands,” Locke cried with every ounce of conviction he possessed. “All hands on
deck! All hands to save the ship!”

Jean heaved against the fallen topgallant spar, bracing himself against the mainmast,
letting loose a howl of sheer exertion. Wood and canvas shifted, then crashed to the
deck. Some of the handles of the two wheels
had been reduced to splinters, but the wheels themselves were substantially intact.
Locke could now see Bald Mazucca crawling slowly to his feet behind them; another
man lay on deck with the top of his head plainly smashed in.