The Gentleman Bastard Series 3-Book Bundle: The Lies of Locke Lamora, Red Seas Under Red Skies, The Republic of Thieves (134 page)

Drakasha hurried forward once again, past small parties of crewfolk working or eating,
all of whom acknowledged her passing with respectful nods and waves. Ezri pushed Locke
and Jean along in her wake.

Near the chicken coops, Drakasha crossed paths with a rotund but sprightly Vadran
a few years older than herself. The man was wearing a dandified black jacket covered
in tarnished brass buckles, and his blond-gray hair was pulled into a billowing ponytail
that hung to the seat of his breeches. Drakasha grabbed him by the front of his tunic
with her left hand.

“Gwillem, what part of ‘watch the children for a few minutes’ did Ezri fail to make
clear?”

“I left them with Mum, Captain—”

“They were your problem, not his.”

“Well, you trust him to steer the ship, why not trust him to—”

“I do trust him with my loves, Gwillem. I just have a peculiar attachment to having
orders followed.”

“Captain,” said Gwillem in a low voice, “I had to drop some brown on the blue, eh?
I could’ve brought them to the craplines, but I doubt you would have approved of the
education they’d have received.”

“Hold it in, for Iono’s sake. I only took a few minutes. Now go pack your things.”

“My things?”

“Take the last boat over to the
Messenger
and join the prize crew.”

“Prize crew? Captain, you know I’m not much good—”

“I want that ship eyeballed and inventoried, bowsprit to taffrail. Account for everything.
When I haggle with the Shipbreaker over it, I want to know exactly how far the bastard
is trying to cheat me.”

“But—”

“I’ll expect your written tally when we rendezvous in Port Prodigal. We both know
there was hardly any loot to sling over and count today. Get over there and earn your
share.”

“Your will, Captain.”

“My quartermaster,” Zamira said when Gwillem had trudged away, swearing. “Not bad,
really. Just prefers to let work sort of
elude
him whenever possible.”

At the bow of the ship was the forecastle deck, raised perhaps four and a half feet
above the weather deck, with broad stairs on either side. In between
those stairs a wide, uncovered opening led to a dark area that was half compartment
and half crawlspace beneath the forecastle. It was seven or eight yards long by Locke’s
estimate.

The forecastle deck and stairs were crowded with most of the
Red Messenger
’s men, under the casual guard of half a dozen of Zamira’s armed crewfolk. Jabril,
sitting next to Aspel at the front of the crowd, seemed deeply amused to see Locke
and Jean again. The men behind him began to mutter.

“Shut up,” said Ezri, taking a position between Zamira and the newcomers. Locke, not
quite knowing what to do, stood off to one side with Jean and waited for instructions.
Drakasha cleared her throat.

“Some of us haven’t met. I’m Zamira Drakasha, captain of the
Poison Orchid
. Lend an ear. Jabril told me that you took ship in Tal Verrar thinking you were to
be pirates. Anyone having second thoughts?”

Most of the
Messenger
’s men shook their heads or quietly muttered denials.

“Good. I
am
what your friend Ravelle pretended to be,” Drakasha said, reaching over and putting
one of her arms around Locke’s shoulders. She smiled theatrically, and several of
the
Messenger
’s less-battered men chuckled. “I have no lords or masters. I fly the red flag when
I’m hungry and a false flag when I’m not. I have one port of call: Port Prodigal in
the Ghostwinds. Nowhere else will have me. Nowhere else is
safe
. You live on this deck, you share that peril. I know some of you don’t understand.
Think of the world. Think of
everywhere in the world
that isn’t this ship, save one rotten little speck of misery in the blackest asshole
of nowhere. That’s what you’re renouncing. Everything. Everyone. Everywhere.”

She released Locke, and seemed to note the somber expressions of the
Messenger
’s crew with approval. She pointed at Ezri.

“My first mate, Ezri Delmastro. We call her ‘lieutenant’ and so do you. She says it,
I back it. Never presume otherwise.

“You’ve met our ship’s physiker. Scholar Treganne tells me you could be worse and
you could be better. There’ll be rest for those that need it. I can’t use you if you’re
in no condition to work.”

“Are we being invited to join your crew, Captain Draksaha?” asked Jabril.

“You’re being offered a chance,” said Ezri. “That’s all. After this, you’re not prisoners,
but you’re not free men. You’re what we call the scrub watch. You sleep here, in what
we call the undercastle. Worst place on the ship, more or less. If there’s a filthy
shit job to be had, you’ll do it. If we’re short blankets or clothes, you’ll go without.
You’re last for meals and drinks.”

“Every member of my crew can give you an order,” said Drakasha, picking up as Ezri
finished. Locke had a notion that they’d honed this routine together over time. “And
every one of them will expect to be obeyed. We’ve no formal defaults; cop wise or
slack off and someone will just beat the hell out of you. Raise enough fuss that I
have to notice and I’ll throw you over the side. Think I’m kidding? Ask someone who’s
been here a while.”

“How long do we have to be on the scrub watch?” asked one of the younger men near
the back of the crowd.

“Until you prove yourselves,” said Drakasha. “We raise anchor in a few minutes and
sail for Port Prodigal. Anyone who wants to leave when we get there, be gone. You
won’t be sold; this isn’t a slaving ship. But you’ll get no pay save drink and rations.
You’ll walk away with empty pockets, and in Prodigal, slavery might be kinder. At
least someone would give a shit that you lived or died.

“If we cross paths with another sail on the way down,” she continued, “I’ll give thought
to taking her. And if we fly a red flag, that’s your chance. You’ll go in first; you’ll
board the prize before any of us. If there’s fire or bows or razor nets or gods-know-what,
you’ll taste it first and bleed first. If you survive, grand. You’re crew. If you
refuse, we dump you in Port Prodigal. I only keep a scrub watch on hand as long as
I have to.”

She nodded to Ezri.

“As of now,” said Delmastro, “you can have the forecastle and the weather deck far
back as the mainmast. Don’t go below or touch a tool without instructions. Touch a
weapon, or try to take one from one of the crew, and I guarantee you’ll die on the
instant. We’re touchy about that.

“You want to get cozy with a member of the crew, or they offer to get cozy with you,
do what you will as long as you’re off duty and you stay off the bloody weather deck.
Out here, what’s given is given. You try to take something by force, you’d better
pray you die in the attempt, because we’re touchy about that, too.”

Zamira took over again and pointed at Locke and Jean. “Ravelle and Valora will be
rejoining you.” A few of the men grumbled, and Zamira rested her hands on her saber
hilts. “Mind your fucking manners. You put them over the side and vowed to let Iono
be their judge. I showed up about an hour later. That settles that; anyone who thinks
they know better than the Lord of the Grasping Waters can jump over the rail and take
it up with Him in person.”

“They’re scrub watch like the rest of you,” said Ezri.

Still, the men didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic, and Zamira cleared her throat.
“This is an equal-shares ship.”

That
got their attention.

“Ship’s quartermaster goes by the name of Gwillem. He counts the take. Thirty percent
goes to the ship so we don’t slink about with rotting canvas and cordage. Rest gets
split evenly, one share per beating heart.

“You don’t touch a centira from what we already took out of your old ship. No apologies
there. But if you get your chance on the way to Port Prodigal, and you’re crew when
we sell the
Messenger
off to the Shipbreaker, you’ll get a share of that, and that’ll set you up nicely.
If
you’re crew.”

Locke had to admire her for that; it was a sensible policy, and she’d brought it into
the lecture at a moment calculated to deflect dissension and worry. Now the
Red Messenger
wouldn’t just be an unhappy memory vanishing over the horizon in the hands of a prize
crew; it might be a waiting pile of silver.

Zamira turned and headed aft, leaving Delmastro to finish the show. As murmurs of
conversation began to rise, the petite lieutenant yelled, “Shut up! That’s the business,
then. There’ll be food in a while and a half-ration of beer to settle you down some.
Tomorrow I’ll start sorting those of you with particular skills and introducing you
to some work.

“There’s
one
last thing the captain didn’t mention.” Ezri paused for several seconds and made
sure that everyone was listening attentively. “The younger Drakashas. Captain has
a boy and a girl. Mostly they’re in her cabin, but sometimes they’ve got the run of
the ship. What they are to you is
sacred
. I mean this, more than I mean anything else I’ve said tonight. Say so much as an
unkind word
to them and I’ll nail your cock to the foremast and leave you there to die of thirst.
The crew thinks of them as family. If you have to break your neck to keep them safe,
then it’s in your best interest to break your bloody neck.”

Delmastro seemed to take everyone’s silence as a sign that they were duly impressed,
and she nodded. A moment later, Drakasha’s voice sounded from the quarterdeck, magnified
by a speaking trumpet: “Up anchor!”

Delmastro lifted a whistle that hung around her neck on a leather cord and blew it
three times. “At the waist,” she hollered in an impossibly loud voice, “ship capstan
bars! Stand by to raise anchor! Scrub watch to the waist, as able!”

At her urging, most of the
Messenger
’s former crew rose and began shuffling toward the
Orchid
’s waist. A large work party was already gathering there, between the foremast and
the chicken coops, fitting long capstan bars in their places by lantern light. A woman
was scattering sand on the deck from a bucket. Locke and Jean fell in with Jabril,
who smiled wryly.

“Evening, Ravelle. You look a bit … demoted.”

“I’m happy enough,” said Locke. “But honestly, Jabril, I leave the
Messenger
in your hands for what, an hour? And look what happens.”

“It’s a bloody improvement,” said someone behind Locke.

“Oh, I agree,” said Locke, deciding that the next few days might be infinitely more
pleasant for everyone if Ravelle were to swallow anything resembling pride over his
brief career as a captain. “I agree with all my gods-damned heart.”

Ezri shoved her way through the gathering crowd and vaulted atop the capstan barrel;
it was wide enough that she could sit cross-legged upon it, which she did. She blew
her whistle twice more and yelled, “Rigged below?”

“Rigged below,” rose an answering cry from one of the hatches.

“Take your places,” said Ezri. Locke squeezed in next to Jean and leaned against one
of the long wooden bars; this capstan was wider than the one aboard the
Messenger
, and an extra twenty or so sailors could easily crowd in to work it. Every place
was filled in seconds.

“Right,” said Ezri, “heave! Slow to start! Heave! Slow to start! Feet and shoulders!
Faster, now—make the little bitch spin round and round! You know you want to!”

Locke heaved at his bar, feeling the grit shift and crunch beneath him, poking uncomfortably
at the sensitive spots between his toes and the balls of his bare feet. But nobody
else seemed to be complaining, so he bit his lip and bore it. Ezri was indeed spinning
round and round; clank by clank, the anchor cable was coming in. A party formed at
the larboard bow to secure it. After several minutes of shoving, Ezri brought the
capstan party to a halt with one short blast on her whistle.

“ ’Vast heaving,” she cried. “Secure larboard anchor!”

“Cast to the larboard tack,” came Drakasha’s amplified voice; “fore and main topsails!”

More running, more whistles, more commotion. Ezri hopped to her feet atop the capstan
and bellowed a quick succession of orders: “Hands aloft to loose fore and aft topsails!
Brace mainyards round for the larboard tack! Foreyards braced abox!” There was more,
but Locke stopped listening as he tried to make sense of what was happening. The
Poison Orchid
had been drifting by a single anchor in a calm sea, with a light breeze out of the
northeast, and she’d drifted down so that the wind was dead ahead. What little he
understood of Ezri’s orders told him that the ship would be slipping a bit aback,
then turning east and bringing the wind over her larboard bow.

“Fore and aft watches, at the rails! Top-eyes, wide awake, now!” Ezri
leapt down onto the deck. Dark shapes were surging up the ratlines handover-hand;
blocks and tackles creaked in the growing darkness, and still more crew were coming
up through the hatches to join the tumult. “Scrub watch! Scrub watch, get to the undercastle
and stay out of the bloody way!
Not
you two.” Ezri grabbed Locke and Jean as they moved with the
Messenger
’s men, and she pointed them aft. “Tool locker, under the starboard stairs abaft the
mainmast. Get brooms and sweep all this sand back into its bucket. After you unship
the capstan bars.”

They did just that, tedious work by wavering alchemical light, frequently interrupted
by busy or discourteous crewfolk. Locke worked with a scowl until Ezri stepped up
between him and Jean and whispered, “Don’t mind this. It’ll make things a hell of
a lot easier with your old crew.”

Damned if she wasn’t right, Locke thought; a little extra humiliation heaped on Ravelle
and Valora might be just the thing to stifle the old crew’s resentment.

“My compliments,” he whispered.

“I know my business,” she said brusquely. “See everything back to where you found
it, then go to the undercastle and stay there.”