Lock (41 page)

Weakness flooded her legs. She knew if she didn’t stop him then, within seconds she would no longer possess the strength to do so.

“Lock,” she pushed his shoulders, “I have to go back.”

He raised his head, his pale eyes brilliant with desire. Moonlight accentuated the white streaks in his kinky hair. The warm breeze tossed the unruly curls across his face. She brushed them away. He smiled and kissed her belly.

“I mean it.” She slipped from him and stood, her body tingling from his touch.

“I’ve missed you, Sparrow.”

“I’ve missed you, too, but we have to take this slow.”

He touched his fingertips to her chin, his thumb gently stroking her cheek. He nodded in understanding and kissed her forehead. “I’ll walk you back to your camp.”

“Where are you staying?”

“Just over the hill, on the edge of the forest.”

“Maybe you can stay with us? I’ll asked Prem.”

He shook his head. “No thanks. It’s better if I camp alone.”

Sparrow smiled. Lock seemed to have changed in so many ways, but in others, he was exactly as she remembered him. That’s what made saying goodnight so difficult, because she knew just how it would feel to spend the night in his arms.

* * * * *

“Whoa.” Lock tugged Sea Storm’s reins. The horse stopped the wagon. Lock hopped off the wooden seat, patted the stallion’s sleek rump, and stepped through the open door of the tanner’s cottage.

The sturdy, middle-aged man glanced up from the table, a faded cloth band tied over his forehead, keeping lank gray hair off his face. He pointed at Lock with the chicken leg he was eating. “Got them hides you promised?”

“In my wagon.”

The man tossed chicken bones out the small window behind him, wiped greasy hands on his trousers, and headed for the door. “Let’s see ‘em.”

Lock walked to his wagon and pointed to the skins.

The tanner examined the goods. “Not bad. Give you a hundred.”

“You said two.”

“Looks like you weren’t too careful when you were skinning. Have to take off for that.”

Lock narrowed his eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with those skins.”

“I ain’t paying two for the likes of those.”

“Well I ain’t handing them over to you for one.”

The tanner folded his arms across his chest and held Lock’s eyes. “One ten.”

“One ninety,” Lock said, and the tanner laughed. Lock tried again, “One seventy.”

“One thirty.”

“One sixty or I take them to the next town.”

“Next town’s a day’s ride.”

“I’m not pressed for time.”

The man picked through the skins and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “One sixty, then. Half now, half at the end of the week.”

Lock laughed, reached across the tanner, and covered the skins. “Do I look like the village idiot? Waste of my time…”

“All right. All right. Come in and I’ll pay you,” the man grumbled. Lock followed and watched him count out the coins on the table covered with old grime and flakes of stale bread.

Lock placed the money in the pouch at his waist and helped the tanner unload the skins. With the skins gone, his next stop was the market. Two villages back, he’d traded for bolts of silk and wanted to sell them. He drove the wagon to the village square and rented space for the day.

He was about to display the silks when he was distracted by the sound of shouting from the tavern across the road. Lock glanced over his shoulder and noticed a mob dragging a boy to the scaffold in the center of the marketplace.

The youth struggled, screaming, “I didn’t do nothing!”

“Rotten thief!”

“Keep your hands in your own pockets!”

“He ain’t gonna have to worry about that where he’s going!”

Lock narrowed his eyes as a man in a green tunic, apparently the local sheriff, walked up the scaffold steps and strung a noose.

“No!” The boy squirmed, but several arms held him hard. “I don’t want to die! I didn’t take nothing!”

Lock’s lip curled. He knew that boy! It was the same crewman who stole from his cargo on the Lady Fire! The one whose finger he’d chopped off.

“The little fool,” Lock muttered. “Still stealing even after I lopped off his finger. Some people never learn.”

The men dragged the boy up the scaffold. He stumbled, but the villagers made sure he stood straight as the noose dangled over his head. The boy’s face drained of color, and even from such a distance, Lock saw him trembling.

Lock turned to his wagon then glanced back at the scaffold. He tossed his hands in the air and strode across the village, thinking to himself,
You’re going to regret this, Lock. Maybe you are the village idiot after all
.

“Wait!” Lock bellowed at the crowd awaiting the execution. “Hold the hanging a minute!”

The men holding the boy, the sheriff, and the boy himself stared at Lock.

“What the hell do you want?” the sheriff demanded. “This thief picked the pocket of nearly every man in the tavern—all within five minutes.”

“I didn’t take nothing,” the boy whimpered.

“So you actually saw him take the belongings?” Lock asked.

The men on the scaffold exchanged glances.

“So which of you saw him steal?”

“His pockets are full of coins! All of ours are gone! That’s proof enough!” bellowed a ruddy-skinned man who held the boy’s arms behind his back.

“So you’re saying possession of coins makes a man a thief? In that case, most of us here should be hanged.”

“Where would a boy like this get so much coin?” the sheriff snapped. “He’s dressed in rags.”

“I once knew a king who traveled the countryside dressed as a peasant all in the name of fun,” Lock said.

“He’s already been charged. The sentence for theft in this kingdom is death, unless someone wants to pay his way out. You want to give up a chunk of your money for a no-good thief?”

“How much?” Lock spoke the words before he could stop himself.

“One fifty in silver.”

“One fifty?” Lock snorted. “How much did he steal?”

“Doesn’t matter. That’s the price.”

“All right,” Lock sighed. “I’ll pay the bloody one fifty.”

Disappointed that their entertainment wouldn’t come to pass, the crowd dispersed. The sheriff grasped the boy’s arm and dragged him down the steps. He said to Lock, “Come to the prison house and I’ll make a record of your payment, then you and the boy are free to go.”

The boy stared at Lock, shock in his hazel eyes, as the three walked to the prison house.

Once he’d paid, he and the boy left under the wary eye of the sheriff.

“What the hell did you do that for, you bloody bastard?” the boy snarled, craning his scrawny neck to look up at Lock.

Lock raised an eyebrow. “Why did I save your life?”

“What do you want? My other fingers as payment? I can’t believe you’re still breathing after all the curses I heaped on you!”

“Oh, so you’re a warlock now as well as a thief? You’d think after I cut your finger off you’d have learned your lesson.”

“I said I didn’t steal nothing, especially not compared to you! You slime sucking, snake-toothed, stinking donkey’s arse! If I didn’t think you’d bury me, I’d chop out your gullet!”

Lock whistled. “Nice way to talk to a man who just saved your scrawny arse. Maybe I should have let you pay for your crime.”

“I said I didn’t steal—”

Lock grasped the boy and dragged him behind the blacksmith’s shop. Gripping him by the shoulders, he lifted him off the ground so they were eye to eye. “Just like you didn’t steal the cargo from the Lady Fire? You took their money, and we both know it!”

The boy kicked Lock between the legs. Cursing, Lock dropped him hard on the dirt and leaned forward, his hands braced against his knees. “Son-of-a-bitch!”

The boy scrambled to his feet and ran, but Lock caught him by the back of the neck. “Let me go!”

“Not until you shut up and listen to me!”

“What for?”

“You took the money, didn’t you? Didn’t you?” Lock shook the youth hard.

“I took it! So what? How else am I supposed to eat?”

“Did you ever try honest work?”

“What a joke coming from you, the worst pirate to ever sail out of the SothSeas!”

“Not anymore. There’s no future in piracy.”

“What do you mean? When you had the Lady Fire, you could have anything you wanted.”

“Not anything that mattered.”

“You have no business telling me what to do!”

“I’m not telling you anything. I’m offering advice.”

“I’ve been on my own since I was seven. Didn’t need no advice then and I don’t need it now.”

“No parents?”

“Dead mother. No father. Why do you care?”

“We’ve got something in common. Never had a father and my mother should have been dead, but that doesn’t mean I have to ruin my life because of them. Neither do you. Have you ever killed anybody?”

“No.”

Lock studied the boy. For the first time, he sensed he was telling the truth. “Good. Then maybe you won’t end up like me after all.”

“I can be better than you! If I was a captain, I wouldn’t give up my ship!”

“That wasn’t
my
ship. It belonged to anyone who killed for it.”

“Why should I stand here listening to you? You cut off me finger!” The boy held up his mutilated hand.

“And a lot of good it did either of us! You’re still a lying, thieving brat, and if you don’t do something about it, you’ll be a killer on top of it all, because it always comes down to murder in the circle we travel in. I’m sure a missing finger hurt like hell, but it won’t kill you. Not like that hangman’s noose. Want to see what can kill you?”

Lock tugged off his shirt and displayed what was left of his back. He glanced over his shoulder at the boy who stared silently at the mass of scars and valleys cut in and healed over on the broad bones and hard muscles.

“That only happened because you got caught,” the boy muttered.

“And so have you. Twice.”

The boy folded his arms across his chest and planted his feet wide apart. “So why aren’t you dead? That beating was meant to kill you.”

“Someone took pity on me.”

“That woman, Sparrow. If it hadn’t been for her, I’d be dead, too, remember?”

“Looks like we have something else in common. She saved us both. I have a business proposition for you.”

The boy’s lip curled. “I don’t want to deal with you. You cut me finger off.”

Lock continued, “You work for me, and I’ll give you a portion of the profits.”

“I’ll kill you in your sleep,” the youth snarled.

“No you won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because, you skinny little shit, you know I’d wake up before the blow landed and gut you like a fish.” Lock bent so that he was almost nose to nose with the boy. He straightened and shrugged. “Also because you’re no killer yet. Take a good look at me, boy. Look at what I was, what I did to you. I’m giving you the chance to change, or do you want me to turn you back over to the mob now that you’ve admitted you stole from the men in the tavern?”

The boy paled. “I’ll stay with you…for a while.”

“First things first. We go back to the market and sell the goods I have left. I’ve been hunting for the past few days and just spent nearly all my profit paying for your life.”

“Don’t throw that at me! I already gave you me finger.”

“You hold a hell of a grudge.”

The boy tossed Lock a furious look but followed him back to the market.

Sea Storm stood quietly in front of the wagon, munching from the feed bag Lock had given him. Everything seemed just as he’d left it. He thought someone would have tried to steal both the horse and the wagon. Not that Sea Storm would have gone, but he’d have put up a fight that would have caused even more trouble in the marketplace.

Lock tugged away the leather covering on the back of the wagon and clenched his teeth, smashing his fists against the wood and causing Sea Storm to snort.

“What?” the boy demanded.

Lock pointed to the empty wagon. “Someone stole everything. Goods. Food. Even my damn underpants!”

The boy clicked his tongue and laughed. “I said you should have minded your own business.”

Lock cast him a quelling look. “Shut up and get in. I have to go back to my camp.”

“You ain’t got nothing now? No money? No food?”

“What money I have is none of your business, just as long as you get paid for what we hunt and sell in the market. I’ll be getting more money tonight. I have work for the evening.”

“What kind of work?”

“Get that fire out of your eye. It’s all honest work. From now on, that’s all we do, you and me.”

“Right.” The boy hopped into the wagon.