The Buccaneer's Apprentice (17 page)

Though his heart jumped, Nic refused to let fear show upon his face. “Were I a guilty man, I might inquire by what authority you do so, as Gallina is neither a principality of Pays d’Azur, nor does it answer to any authority but its own.”

“We have every authority—!” squawked one of the officers, with a heavy accent.

“But I am not a guilty man,” Nic had continued smoothly, as if he hadn’t heard, “and therefore my ship is yours to inspect. Come aboard if you wish. Rummage through my hold, though you’ll find it sadly empty, thanks to Captain Xi’s mismanagement. There may even be a few spare strips of dried fish for us all to enjoy.”

By the look on Comte Dumond’s face, Nic feared that he had erred on the side of arrogance. He had pushed too far with that comment about Azurite authority, he knew. Yet the Drake had felt it right to make that comment, and what the Drake wanted to do, Nic had so far allowed. The very last thing that Nic wanted was for the comte or any of his men to set foot on the
Tears of Korfu
.

The comte struggled to make a decision. Nic knew everything hinged upon this very moment—his freedom, his future, and the future of everyone aboard the ship. If caught harboring the Colombos, they could all be impounded in dungeons in Côte Nazze for the rest of their lives. They would be separated and tortured, never again to see their homeland. Jacopo would disappear for whatever he’d done. And as for Darcy … Nic had to swallow hard and try not to think about it. He needed to do something. “Maxl,” he said, forcing himself to speak. “Lower the ladders so that we might receive visitors.”

The boatmen prepared their oars, ready to row closer. The three officers nodded, convinced that Nic had responded correctly. “Yes sir,” said Maxl, turning so that he could order the crew.

“No.” Suddenly the comte held up his hand. “Such a thing won’t be necessary.” Nic and Maxl both faced him again. Nic raised his eyebrows, seeming bemused. “We are done here. Take us back to the
Faucon.
I trust you and your crew will enjoy your brief stay in Gallina, Drake,” said Comte Dumond, inclining his head ever so slightly. His oarsmen began slowly turning his small craft around. “But may I advise, as someone who despises dealing with the likes of pirates such as yourselves …”

“Ah. Adventurers, I believe you mean,” Nic smiled slightly.

The comte’s tone grew so steely that Nic almost worried he might change his mind about inspecting the holds. Now that his boat had reversed direction, he had to stand, turn, and raise his voice to make a final address. “Let me advise that in the future you take your
adventures
elsewhere. There are too many lawless outfits in these waters. One never knows when one might have to begin to purge the sea of its impurities. No?”

Nic let him have the last word. He raised a hand in farewell, and then waited until the comte and his men were a respectable distance away before moving again. When he nodded at Maxl, his first mate barked out, “Back to work, all of you!”

“Maxl? Signor Arturo?” Nic said their names low. “Please follow me below.”

Nic’s heart was beating fast as he lowered himself down the hatch ladder and sprinted through the enclosures of the lower hold. No one was in the galley, or in the crew’s sleeping quarters, or in the forward storage rooms. But when Nic heard noises in the smaller area that the women had been using for their own quarters, he burst through the door.

“Lah!” A high soprano assaulted his eardrums. “What brute has invaded this sanctity of maidenhood, this temple of femininity? Can I not rest in repose to cleanse my skin and soul?”

Nic blinked. Somewhere Signora Arturo had found an enormous iron hip-bath and filled it with foamy bubbles. She reclined within, visible only by her fluttering long lashes and her wig of red curls floating above the foam. Her face was fully painted. She had even applied several beauty spots in strategic places. “It is the Captain, madam!” Pulcinella stood beside the bath holding one of the Signora’s large costumes, a flowing shepherdess gown with an enormous cone-shaped farthingale that covered most of the floor. It appeared as if she were waiting for her mistress to leave her bath and climb into the outfit.

“Come to ravish me again, have you, blackguard? You
men
!” shrieked the Signora. “And you have brought others to witness my degradations! You vile, brutish—!”

“No-oo,” said Nic, once he overcame his surprise enough to speak. “It’s just Nic. I’ve brought Maxl. And your husband.” When he looked over his shoulder, he discovered both men had caught up in time to witness the scene. Maxl looked particularly wide-eyed.

“Oh,” said the Signora in her normal voice. She peeked up over the masses of bubbles. “Hello. Are we out of danger, then?”

“Yes, my dear,” said Armand, shaking his head. “We are, for the moment. Though you may not be.”

“Where are Darcy and Jacopo?” Nic asked.

Nic heard a splashing sound as the Signora poked at something within the water. The bubbles heaved up into the air. From out of the depths of the hip-bath stood Darcy. She was wet from head to toe, her hair and clothing both soaked and clinging as the bath-water streamed down into the tub. In one hand she clutched a breathing tube. At the same time, Jacopo poked his head out from beneath one side of the billowing farthingale, the lace of the skirt hanging like a bonnet to his head.

“My dear,” said Armand Arturo. He wrung his hands as if squeezing oranges for a bowl of wine punch. “Out of curiosity for how much you throw yourself into a role, are you entirely disrobed under there?”

“Armand!” gasped the Signora, aghast. “I am wearing a bathing shift!”

Darcy sputtered moisture from her lips and spoke. “Not much of one.”

Nic shook his head at them both. “The first thing we’re going to do,” he announced, “is to shut the door. And get you something to dry off with,” he added to Darcy. She tried to clear the wet hair from around her eyes. Sternly, he added, “and then it’s time you told me everything. And I mean
everything
.”

Of all the countries upon this continent, Pays d’Azur is perhaps the most civilized, and certainly the most sophisticated. No one would ever question that it is the most charming. The people of its capital, Côte Nazze, are well-mannered to a fault, and fall over themselves to offer every courtesy imaginable to the weary traveler.

—Celestine du Barbaray,
Traditions & Vagaries of the
Azure Coast: A Guide for the Hardy Traveler

N
ic had been busy. By the time all of Darcy was dry save for her hair, he had, much to the distress of the Signora, folded what few hair-curling papers the women were able to salvage from the bottom of the costume trunk. From the yellowing squares he’d fashioned a swan, a pair of paper boxes, and an entire fleet of angular miniature boats. It was one of these that Darcy picked up from the wooden bench where she slid next to her father. The expression upon her face was contrite. “We didn’t lie to you completely.”

She had told him that before, on the beach of their deserted island. “Are you really Nuncio to Pays d’Azur?” Nic asked Jacopo, wanting to hear it from his lips. From the Arturos, Nic heard a gasp. He thought it only fair to let them sit in on this session, given that their troupe was sacrificing so much for the pair.

“I assure you I am,” said the old man. In his oversized shirt and breeches from the costume vaults of the Arturos, Jacopo looked vaguely ridiculous as a would-be pirate. He still retained some of the pomp and posture of a statesman.

Nic nodded, not doubting him at all. It was obviously the role to which the elder Colombo had been bred. “And she’s your daughter?”

Darcy sighed. “Of course I’m his daughter, fool.” At Nic’s impassive expression, she sighed, and ran her fingers through her damp curls. She turned the paper boat over in her hands, examining it half-heartedly. “I’m sorry. I’m an ungrateful brat for speaking so, after all you’ve done.”

“You can hardly blame me for asking,” said Nic, crossing his arms. “In the first version of your story, you told me you left Pays d’Azur because of a debt collector, collecting a debt with which you had nothing to do. You told me that Comte Dumond was no one you knew. Yet from his lips, I hear that he is your sworn enemy and that you are both criminals in the eyes of Pays d’Azur—murderers, no less—to be executed on sight. In other words,” he continued, staring at them both, “there’s a bit of a discrepancy.”

Perhaps there was enough of the Drake in Nic’s voice to make both the father and daughter stare guiltily at the floor. “I told you that there were incidents after I assumed the position of nuncio,” Jacopo said, measuring every word.

“A waxed stair, a snake. An assassin.”

“Yes. All of that was true. They were sent by the court of Pays d’Azur.”

The Signora, though she had promised to keep quiet, could not hold her tongue. “How horrid.”

Jacopo inclined his head in her direction. “Why?” Nic asked.

“Because it would have been convenient for Pays d’Azur to have no ambassador from Cassaforte,” said Darcy.

Jacopo agreed. “The first two times they cared not whether I lived or died. Scaring us home with our tails between our legs would have been enough. But then I discovered what they hoped I wouldn’t, and the third time …”

“The Vicomte San Marquis,” Nic guessed.

“He was sent to kill me.” Jacopo’s voice had grown very soft as he spoke, so soft that he could scarcely be heard above the sounds of the ship’s passage through the waters and the cawing of the harbor gulls. “They thought an elderly gentleman would be no match against a young, strong courtier anxious to prove his worth to a corrupt king. And they were right, except …”

Darcy laid her hands atop her father’s, stilling him. She made a soothing, shushing noise. He nodded gratefully. Nic watched the two for a moment and finally caught Darcy’s glance. “You,” he said. He should have seen it before. She bore that look in her eyes of haunted reserve he imagined he now wore in his own. “You killed him.”

“I took no pleasure in it,” she snarled. Nic recognized the reaction. It was his very own, to having to kill Captain Xi and his men. “I don’t even remember much about it. It simply happened. I had to protect my father.”

Nic wished he could comfort her in turn, but father and daughter seemed to seek solace from each other. He remained motionless, merely saying, “I cannot blame you for that.”

“Those days before were terrible.” Darcy’s voice was barely a whisper itself, but the ferocity of it cut through the quiet like a blade. She looked from Nic to the Arturos to Maxl. “We knew we had to leave for Cassaforte as soon as possible, but we couldn’t give any indication of our plans. We had to pretend that everything was normal, to make it seem as if nothing was amiss. Yet every moment of the day we had to keep watch for false servants, for threats in every shadow. You cannot imagine it.”

“I believe that Niccolo can imagine it, my dear.” Jacopo had composed himself somewhat. Enough, anyway, to cut into his daughter’s narrative. “One night, the Vicomte San Marquis bribed his way into the household and concealed himself behind a tapestry in my chambers. If my daughter had not accompanied me after dinner that night … if she hadn’t seen …”

“We’d both be dead,” Darcy said flatly. The paper boat in her lap had grown slightly damp from handling, but she picked it up by the ends and studied it.

“Of course, we knew we couldn’t stay,” Jacopo said, easing past the difficult memories. “It was imperative that we made as speedy an escape as possible. Luckily, with the help of friends, we managed it that very night.”

“Not all of Pays d’Azur is corrupt.” Darcy’s defensive words, and the lilting accent in which she spoke them, reminded Nic that she was half of that country.

“No,” agreed Jacopo. “There are still many who do not support the current court. But they have no voice as strong as the Comte Dumond.”

“Who has the king’s ear in all matters,” Darcy finished. She stared at Nic and at the others as if she dared any of them to judge her. “The rest of what we told you is the truth. A member of the court whom we trusted offered us a very small craft and a man to sail us from Côte Nazze to Gallina. We escaped by dead of night with nothing to our name, and only the provisions already laden on the small boat, only to be met by more treachery.”

“The servant who was to guide us to Gallina demanded payment to keep us out of the hands of the Comte Dumond.” Darcy sounded bitter again. “Payment to follow his master’s wishes.” Nic began to feel vaguely uncomfortable. He remembered the conversation he’d had with Darcy on the beach, in which she’d offered him a reward in exchange for helping them and he’d accepted. Did she think the less of him for that?

“And you killed him?” Nic asked.

“Are you getting all this, my dear?” the Signora murmured to her husband. “It’s good stuff.” He nodded with vigor.

From above deck, someone called down the hatch. Maxl rose. “We are arriving in Gallina. I need to be above.”

“Go do what you must,” said Nic, motioning him away. He intended to stay until all his questions were answered.

Darcy did not reply until Maxl had left the tiny room. “I did not kill him. Nor did my father,” she said. “Though we should have.”

“Darcy showed the man mercy and forced him off the boat, allowing him a small crate of biscuits for flotation,” said Jacopo.

“It was a cork float,” Darcy corrected. “I thought we might need the biscuits.”

“You had a sailboat?” Nic asked, muscles still aching as he thought back to that long night in which they had rowed for hours to reach the
Tears of Korfu
.

“Had, in the sense that we lost it. Neither of us could sail, you see,” said Jacopo. He was beginning to sound evasive again. On the main deck, sounds of heavy footsteps and shifting crates began to creak the wood above their head. Nic heard a cry as Maxl ordered the anchor lowered.

His daughter was more blunt. “I wrecked us, after we came too close to a reef, off of the island.” Apology was in her eyes when she looked at her father. “By the time you came, it was beneath twenty feet of water, in two pieces.”

Nic had distrusted the pair’s tale before, and he’d been correct to do so. Though the skeleton of their story had been factual enough in spots, the fleshing out had been too sketchily done, too hasty to swallow. Now that there were more details, he believed them. One essential element still hadn’t been explained, however.

Nic opened his mouth to ask a final question, but Armand Arturo beat him to it. “But what’s the
motivation
?” he exploded. Heretofore he’d done an admirable job of remaining in the background during the interview, but the actor could contain himself no longer. “I’m sorry, lad, but while it’s a gripping tale of skullduggery and treachery and all the elements that sell out the upper stalls, it’s lacking that
thing
, that essential element that ties it all together.”

Nic nodded, agreeing with the man. He returned his attention to the Colombos. “What was it you found out that made you such a threat?”

Here again the pair began to look uneasy. “The court of Pays d’Azur has always regarded Cassaforte in the way an older brother might regard a sister ten years his junior. That is, pretty enough and sometimes an asset, but never an equal. They think of Cassaforte as a tiny principality worth acknowledging. However, our independence and general unwillingness to do the things Pays d’Azur wishes, simply because Pays d’Azur wishes them, has long irritated them. If they seized Cassaforte, they would be one step closer to controlling all the nations bordering the Azure Sea.”

Again, Darcy cut to the point. “They intend to invade Cassaforte. The Comte Dumond is to lead a fleet of warships upon the city and lay siege to it, as Pays d’Azur did during the Azurite Invasion.”

Behind Nic, the Arturos gasped. Neither were old enough to have lived through the Azurite Invasion, but the collective memory of it had lain like a shadow across the interceding decades. Half a generation of young men had been lost during the two years when Cassaforte had been cut off from the rest of the world. “I’m afraid my daughter is correct,” said Jacopo. A thud from the deck above caused them all to jump, so great was the tension in the room. He settled himself again. “I fear the results would be worse, this time. Pays d’Azur has learned from its prime tactical mistake of beginning the invasion when Cassaforte was at its strongest. Our people were unified then, and we had a strong monarch and military force. Now, we have a king they regard as enfeebled.”

“Ridiculous!”

When Nic and the Arturos began to protest, he held up a hand. “I know. King Alessandro has been much improved by the Olive Crown and the Scepter of Thorn. Even an old man such as I regard him as a very old man indeed. Cassaforte’s guards were weakened after many of its ranks were expelled for following Prince Berto during his coup. When Pays d’Azur heard that Alessandro had named Milo Sorranto, a commoner, as his heir, they assumed he was mad. That he was weak.”

“But it was thanks to Milo Sorranto and Risa the Enchantress that Cassaforte stands,” said Nic.

“Yes, but there are whispers that many among the Thirty would rather see a bastard child son of Prince Berto assume the throne than a mere commoner. Please, take no offense,” said Jacopo, looking at his audience. They all murmured politely. “Pays d’Azur sees Cassaforte as a weak country made even weaker by internal dissent, and ripe for the plucking. And believe you me, they intend to pluck it and make it their own. Which is why, Niccolo, we still need to return home with all possible speed. The warships are still here, as is the Comte Dumond. If we arrive in Cassaforte before them, perhaps we will have enough time to summon the good will of Vereinigtelände to aid us in the resistance.”