Hope and Red (5 page)

All in all, Red decided that sex was pretty gross. Still, with all the noise and commotion, there was a good chance he could get in and out of there without being noticed.

He turned his head back. “Get ready to help me down in a minute.”

“How?” asked Filler.

“Just…be ready to do what I tell you,” said Red, because he had no idea yet how he would get down. Then he carefully eased open the window. He slipped into the room and crawled across the floor to the side of the bed where the captain's boots and hat had been dropped in a heap along with the rest of his clothes. The sex yells were getting even louder and the bed was starting to creak in protest as the captain's movements began to get more frantic. Red put the boots and hat in the coat, then rolled it up into an easy-to-carry bundle. Once he was ready to escape, he chanced one look up at the bed. Now he could see the woman's face, round-cheeked and flushed. But she stared up at the ceiling with a look of absolute indifference even as she moaned and yelled, like she was an actress bored with her part. His father had always talked about the passion and tenderness in sex. Had he lied? Red had noticed adults did that in an effort to protect him. Or they did until he got to Paradise Circle. Maybe that's why he liked it here so much. It was hard and mean, but nobody treated him like he was made of glass.

Then the woman's bored gaze shifted from the ceiling down to Red. He had waited too long. Her eyes went wide and she yelled, this time with genuine feeling. “A kid! There's a pissing kid in the room!”

Red leapt for the window, the bundle cradled against his chest. If the captain had been more alert, he could have easily caught Red by the leg or even the back of his shirt, and that would have been the end of it. But the man was right in the middle of orgasm and seemed oblivious to just about everything. Until the woman smacked him in the side of the head and yelled, “He's stealing your pissing clothes, you bludgeon!”

Red was halfway out the window by then. The captain's face crumpled up in rage as he lunged for Red, but his legs got tangled up in the blankets and he fell to the floor, naked and cursing.

“Catch me!” yelled Red as he launched himself out the window.

“What?” Filler instinctively held out his arms, and watched dumbfounded as Red came hurtling down and slammed into him. They fell to the cobblestones in a heap and both of them lay there, stunned, until the captain, his hairy chest heaving, started cursing at them from the window.

Red struggled to his feet. He held his bundle under one arm while he helped Filler up.

“Anything broke?” he demanded.

Filler shook his head, still looking dazed.

“Then pissing
run
!”

The two boys took off down the alley, leaving the sounds of the raving captain behind them. They ran for several blocks before they stopped at a corner, panting and grinning at each other like mad people.

“You.” Filler shook his finger in Red's face. “Are completely slippy.”

Red decided he liked Filler calling him slippy, so his grin only grew broader. “That may be, but the prize is mine!” He held up the bundle proudly.

“What do you even need that for?”

“It's for Sadie. We're leaving Paradise Circle.”

“Leaving the Circle?” Filler stared at him uncomprehendingly.

“Sadie's got herself a ship and we're going to be pirates!”

“Pirates? Like Dire Bane?”

“Of course like Dire Bane,” said Red, looking very pleased with himself. He shook Filler's hand. “Well, my wag. You've been a great help, and I'll be sure to tell Sadie. See you around sometime.” Then he took off toward the docks, the bundle tucked under his arm.

When he got to the
Savage Wind
, he saw that the rigging was set and the sails were fastened to the mast, ready to be unfurled.

“'Bout time you showed up,” Sadie said as she helped him aboard. “I was starting to wonder if the job I gave you was too hard.”

Red presented Sadie with the bundle. “Look, I got you a hat, boots,
and
a coat!”

“Well, now.” Sadie unrolled the bundle and examined the contents. “These are mighty fine and worth the wait. You done good, Red. I guess I had you right after all.”

Red beamed with pleasure.

“Any trouble in it?”

Red's face fell and he blushed. “Oh, uh…”

Sadie frowned. “There better not be a squad of imps about to come down on us.”

“No, nothing like that,” Red said quickly. “It's just…when I was stealing this stuff, the captain was having sex with some lady. It weren't anything like my dad said it was. It was loud, and ugly, and not even friendly.”

Sadie laughed. “Don't worry too much about that, my wag. There's as many ways to stretch a cunt as there is to pick a pocket. I'll explain it to you properly when you're a bit older. Now get some sleep. We set sail at first light.”

While the red light of dawn still lingered on the water, the
Savage Wind
set sail up the coast of New Laven. Missing Finn was at the wheel and Sadie the Pirate Queen strode across the deck in her captain's finery. Her boots had to be tightened at the ankle with leather thongs to keep them from sliding off, the feather of the wide-brimmed hat had been bent during its liberation, and the coat was much too large. But none of the crew said a word.

“You look pat as paws, Captain,” said Missing Finn when she came strutting over to him at the helm.

“Don't I, though,” she agreed. “How soon do I get to show it off?”

“We're coming up soon on Joiner's Bay in Silverback. Between there and Hollow Falls we'll find a lot of lacies in little pleasure boats out for an afternoon cruise.”

“Keystown's also in between there,” said Sadie.

“True, but the military garrison at Keystown is mostly land-based. They have a few ships out looking for smugglers, but nothing we can't outrun.”

“Then let's catch us some lacies!”

It was shortly after midday when they spotted their first victim, a yacht gliding parallel to the coast.

“Get ready, wags!” called Sadie as they bore down on the small boat. She pulled out her spyglass and saw three men in fine white shirts and artfully embroidered coats, their hair carefully curled, their fine clear faces looking utterly bewildered as they stared at the
Savage Wind
.

Missing Finn turned the wheel so that they came about in a wide arc until they were side by side with the yacht.

“Cast the grapples!” called Sadie.

Avery Birdhouse at the bow and Spinner at the stern each threw a hook with a line tied to it. The hooks sank into the soft wood of the yacht's deck.

“Reel 'em in!” called Sadie.

Avery Birdhouse and Spinner pulled in their lines until the yacht's port side hit the
Savage Wind
's starboard with a hard crack.

“We'll need to get some fenders,” muttered Missing Finn.

“Bull Mackey and Wergishaw, with me,” said Sadie as she drew her cutlass and stepped onto the yacht.

“I say, fronzies,” said one lacy to another. “I think we've been boarded by pirates.”

“Took you long enough,” said Sadie as she leveled the point of her cutlass at the man's throat. “Thought I'd have to explain it to you myself.”

“Miss, you can't just come aboard a man's ship like this!” said the lacy.

“I reckon you don't seem to have a grasp of the situation after all.” Sadie snapped her blade down, cutting open his shirt and leaving a thin red line that quickly began to seep blood. The man's face went from petulance to terror. “I'm Captain Sadie the Pirate Queen. These are
my
waters and I'll go where I please and take what I like. Keen?”

“You didn't have to
hurt
me,” whined the lacy as he clutched at his bleeding chest.

“Somebody shut this cock-dribble up before I lose my generous spirit,” said Sadie.

Wergishaw calmly hit the lacy on the head with his club. The lacy's eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the deck.

“Any other complaints?” Sadie asked the other two lacies.

It wasn't long before they had stripped the yacht of valuables and were under way. Red had been told to stay back on the ship during the boarding. But after, Sadie let him help sort through their loot. He sat on the floor of her tiny captain's cabin and sorted the silver from the gold, the stuff that could easily be bartered from the stuff of questionable value that might need to be appraised.

“I didn't know men wore jewelry,” he said as he held a gold ring with a glistening opal up to the sunlight that streamed through the portal.

“Lacy men.” Sadie lounged on her bunk, not bothering to take off her coat or boots.

“They seem pretty useless,” said Red.

“You should see the women. Don't even work. Just sit at home all day idle. Makes me sick just to think about.”

“Why do you know so much about lacies?” asked Red.

“Back when I was a girl, they used to come down to Paradise Circle all the time. You could roll one every day for coins and never run out of the fools.”

“What were they doing in Paradise Circle?”

“This was back when Yorey Satin ran the Circle. He had all these dance halls and theaters. Real pat places that the lacies just loved.”

“What happened to them all?”

“Yorey got himself murdered. Jix the Lift took over, and he wouldn't know a pat dance hall if it pissed in his mouth. He and his boots turned the Circle into what it is today. He'll get himself murdered one day, too, and someone else will take over. All we can do is hope that whoever it is, they're better and not worse.”

“Why don't
you
take over, Sadie?” asked Red.

Sadie laughed. “Maybe I will. First the coast, then the Circle.”

Red looked at her solemnly. “Will I still be your best wag?”

“Here now.” She leaned over and flicked his nose hard.

“Ow!” He rubbed at it.

“Don't talk bludgeon,” said Sadie. “You're my best wag till death.”

5

T
he library at Galemoor was one of the greatest in the empire. But that was of little use until Bleak Hope learned to read.

“Do you think I'll be able to learn this skill, Grandteacher?” asked Hope as the two stood in the library. The room was no larger than Hurlo's sleeping quarters, but it was packed from floor to ceiling with scrolls, books, and stacks of parchment.

“Why wouldn't you?” asked Hurlo as he pulled down a thick bound volume.

“No one in my village could read. Not even Shamka, our elder. And I'm only a girl.”

Hurlo looked at her sharply. “You will not utter the phrase ‘only a girl' ever again. You are my student. You will do as I say and learn what I teach you. No excuses. Do you understand?”

Hope dropped her gaze to the floor. “Yes, Grandteacher.”

He smiled. “Excellent. Then we will begin with this.” He held up the book. “
The History of Selk the Brave, Founder of the Vinchen Order
, volume one.”

It was slow going at first. Hurlo found it was lack of confidence rather than lack of intelligence that made reading a struggle for Hope. But once she crossed that threshold and no longer had to labor over individual words, her appetite for knowledge proved boundless. She consumed the five-volume history of Selk the Brave, followed quickly by the three-volume set of Manay the True. She finished the entire ten-volume
A Brief History of the Empire
in less than a month.

Once Hurlo was satisfied that she had a sense of history, he assigned her books on geography and biology. It was this last field of study that really seemed to spark her passion.

“Grandteacher!” She burst into his room one afternoon holding a ragged book, the binding nearly undone. Her eyes were wide.

Hurlo had been meditating. Rather than break from it, startled and off balance, he simply allowed her into his meditation. He closed his eyes again, and said softly, “Yes, child?”

“Did you know,” she said, “that
no one
knows how snakes move?”

“Yes, child.”

“It can't be magic, can it?”

“It's unlikely.”

“Then there must be a
reason
. It just hasn't been discovered yet.”

“Yes, child.”

“Do we have any snakes on the island, Grandteacher? Maybe
I
could be the one to discover it!”

Hurlo smiled faintly, his eyes still closed. “You are welcome to try.” Because what good was book knowledge without practical application? And when she did finally catch a snake and study it, she may not have discovered how it moved, but she did learn how to treat a snakebite.

The other monks did not understand Hurlo's sudden interest in educating the girl. By this time, they had accepted her as a part of their lives, but only in a servant capacity. Nearly all Vinchen came from upper-class families who employed servants, so it wasn't a difficult stretch for them. But the idea of educating a servant was baffling. Some thought him kind, some thought him indulgent, some thought him slipping into senility, and others suspected him of ulterior motives, such as lechery. None of them actually expected him to succeed. So it was with quite a bit of shock when old Brother Wentu discovered her on a cold winter afternoon curled up next to the oven with a copy of
The History of Economic Trade During the Reign of Emperor Bastelinus
.

Hurlo did not mind their shock, speculation, or gossip. While it did create a little unrest in the monastery, it also distracted them from the much graver crime he was committing. Not even his authority extended to sanctioning the training of a female in the ways of the Vinchen warrior. So while he openly trained her mind during the day, it was at night, while the rest of the order were in their beds, that he trained her body.

Hope learned that it was in the east side of the monastery that the Vinchen warrior monks trained. It had an armory, a smithy, and a small tannery. But the largest building was a long, rectangular sparring hall. The walls of the hall were sliding canvas doors that could be opened in the warm months. The floor was a smooth pine, much softer than the hard black stone that comprised most of the floors in the monastery.

At night, when the other monks were asleep, Hurlo took Hope to the sparring hall, where he put her through a battery of exercises to increase her strength, stamina, and agility. For several months, that was all they did, because by the end of it, she was too exhausted to do anything else.

Once she could perform the exercises to Hurlo's satisfaction and still have energy left to move, he began to teach her close combat. At first, this involved mostly punching and kicking a padded wooden dummy. But as her technique grew more assured, he began to spar with her directly. She was amazed at how nimble the old man was. She sparred with him every night for hours, and it was almost a month before he even needed to block one of her strikes.

As valuable as she knew this training was, there was something else she hungered for even more. So one night, when they had finished sparring and Hope was mopping the sweat from her body with a thick rag, she said, “Grandteacher, when will I be able to use a sword?”

He stood looking through a window at the night sky. Not once in their months of sparring had he broken a sweat. “Why do you ask?”

“I don't know.” She opened and closed her hand, unable to put into words her longing to feel a weapon in her grasp. “I just…think about it a lot.”

He turned from the window to regard her for a moment. “Come with me.”

She followed him from the sparring hall into the courtyard. The night air quickly dried her sweat and sent a chill straight down her spine. He led her into the temple. The lamps were not kept burning at night, but the candles on the altar continued their flickering dance. By this light, she saw him gesture to the meditation mat in front of the altar. She knelt silently on the mat while he continued behind the altar and opened the same cabinet that Racklock had taken the cane from. Hope felt a ripple of fear when she saw that, but quickly admonished herself. Grandteacher Hurlo would never beat her simply for asking a question.

Instead of a cane, Hurlo took a sheathed sword from the cabinet. He held it reverently in two hands, parallel to the ground, as he brought it to the front of the altar and knelt in front of Hope. The sheath was black lacquered wood carved with inlaid gold designs. The handle was intercrossed with black-and-white fabric, while the hilt and pommel were gold.

He slowly pulled the sword from its sheath. As he did, the blade hummed softly.

“This sword is called the Song of Sorrows. It is one of the greatest swords ever made.” He moved the sword slowly through the air, and again the blade hummed.

Hope's eyes were wide as she took in the cold, beautiful gleam of the blade. “Why does it make that sound?”

“It was forged by the biomancer Xunera Ray for Manay the True, back when biomancers and Vinchen still worked together for the good of the empire. The method of its creation has been lost, but it is said that the Song of Sorrows remembers every life it takes, and the sound you hear…” He swept the blade through the air again, faster this time, and the hum came louder, with a solemn, mournful air. “It is the loss it feels at every death.”

“Can a sword truly remember and feel?” asked Hope.

“I don't know,” said Hurlo. “My teacher, Shilgo the Wise, believed so, although he also admitted to me, when I asked him, that he had no proof. All we know for certain is that there is no logical reason for it to make such a sound.” He sheathed the blade, and the hum abruptly cut off. “Now, you asked when you would learn to use a sword.” He held out the Song of Sorrows to Hope.

“I…can touch it?”

“Take it in your hands.”

She took the sword from him. It was much heavier than she expected.

“Hold it by the handle,” instructed Hurlo.

Hope shifted her hands to the black-and-white grip. The tip of the sword immediately sank to the ground.

“When you can hold this sword upright, we will begin your training with it.”

It seemed impossibly heavy, and Hope's heart sank as low as the sword. “Yes, Grandteacher.”

“You doubt this is possible?”

She looked away, embarrassed. Vinchen warriors did not doubt themselves or their teacher. “It is very heavy, Grandteacher.”

“It is indeed. And it will take a long time for you to get strong enough. Years, I expect. But I promise you, Bleak Hope. When you are finally able to wield a blade such as this, you will be a fearsome warrior indeed.”

A fearsome warrior. Hope hardly thought it possible, but as she stared down at the sword in her hands, she knew that was exactly what she needed to become. No matter how long it took, or how difficult the journey.

After a few months, Hurlo realized that Bleak Hope was beginning to show signs of training, particularly in strength and muscle tone. To allay suspicion, he assigned her a strenuous regimen of morning chores that included as much manual labor as he could find. She moved ale barrels and repaired furniture. She stretched hides for the tanner, and even assisted the brother responsible for the smithy. Some days, when there was nothing else to be done, he would have her move a pile of rocks from one side of a building to the other.

Many of the brothers saw Hope's increased task load as a sign that Hurlo had begun to dislike her as much as they did. He allowed them to think that. But not all the brothers were so easily fooled.

Hurlo was in the sparring hall alone one afternoon. The sunlight streamed in through the open sliding doors, casting the grandteacher in silhouette as he moved slowly and steadily with a heavy wooden sword, his breath perfectly in time with the motion. Hurlo saw no difference between sword training and meditation.

“May I spar with you, Grandteacher?” Racklock stood with his thick shoulders filling the doorway. He held a wooden sword in his hand.

“You may,” said Hurlo as he finished his final form. He came to stillness, his sword held upright before him, and allowed himself one last peaceful breath. Then he angled his body to face Racklock. “Come.”

Racklock moved in swiftly with an overhead blow, but Hurlo knocked it aside, the wooden swords giving a sharp
clack
as they met.

Hurlo smiled. “Always trying to catch me off guard with that first blow.”

“One day it will work, Grandteacher,” said Racklock. “That is when I will know that my time has come to lead the order.” He swung again.

Hurlo parried again. “And what will you do, that you are so eager to lead the order?”

Racklock executed a series of attacks, all of which Hurlo blocked or dodged. “I will take us out of exile on this cold rock. I will make us once again a respected and feared order in the empire.”

“If respect and fear is what you desire, you have that already from your own brothers,” said Hurlo.

Racklock attacked again, striking as he said, “I also want power. And renown.”

“Power, I can understand,” said Hurlo, blocking each strike. “All men crave power, if only to protect what they cherish. But renown? That will bring you nothing but unhappiness.”

“That is easy for
you
to say, Hurlo the Cunning. Your place among the great stories is assured. I wonder, though, do you keep us all here so that none of us have the opportunity to eclipse you?”

Hurlo's gaze hardened and he switched to the offensive, delivering a succession of blows that Racklock was barely able to counter. “You know why it is we remain here. As long as we are at cross-purpose with the emperor, our only options are self-exile or insurrection. Would you have us clash directly with the emperor and his biomancers? That would tear the empire apart.”

Racklock struck back harder. “Or we could join them. The world has changed, old man. We must change as well, or perish.”

Hurlo smiled mischievously. “You do not think we are changing?”

They traded a few more blows without speaking. The crack of wood on wood echoed through the training hall.

“You have been punishing the girl hard with work lately,” said Racklock. “The others think it is because you dislike her. But I know different, Grandteacher.”

“A heavy load in the hands forgets a heavy load in the heart,” said Hurlo. “I believe she finds peace in the work.”

“You have grown soft in your old age.”

“I have grown kind,” said Hurlo. “There is a difference.”

Racklock stepped back from Hurlo and lowered his sword. “You have some other plan at work, Hurlo the Cunning. And it has something to do with that girl.”

“You are right,” said Hurlo. “That plan is the rehabilitation of my soul.”

Hurlo had always been one to speak from the heart. Many times, he would say things and not know that they were true until he said them. His famous cunning came in part from his ability to surprise even himself. So when he told Racklock that Bleak Hope was the rehabilitation of his soul, he had not considered it at all before then. And yet, the moment he spoke it, he knew it to be true.