The Gentleman Bastard Series (129 page)

“Mast,” said the girl.

“Masts. But close enough. And how many are there? How many
masts
does Mommy’s new little ship have? Count them for Mommy.”

“Two.”

“How clever you are! Mommy’s new ship has two masts, yes.” Zamira leaned close to her daughter’s face, so that they were touching noses, and Cosetta giggled. “Now,” said Zamira, “find me something else that comes in
two
.”

“Um …”

“Here in the cabin, Cosetta. Find Mommy
two
of something.”

“Um …”

The girl looked around, sticking most of her left hand into her mouth as she did so, before seizing upon the pair of sabers that rested, in their scabbards, against the wall just beneath the stern window.

“Sword,” said Cosetta.

“That’s right!” Zamira kissed her on the cheek. “Mommy has
two
swords. At least where you can see them, love. Now, will you be a good girl and go above with Ezri? Mommy needs to speak to this man alone for just a bit. Paolo will go, too.”

Ezri moved across the cabin to take Cosetta into her arms, and the little girl clung to her with obvious pleasure. Paolo followed Ezri like a shadow, keeping the lieutenant between himself and Locke, peeking out from behind her legs when he dared to look at all.

“You sure you want to be alone back here, Captain?”

“I’ll be fine, Del. Valora’s the one I’d be worried about.”

“He’s manacled, with eight hands standing by.”

“Good enough, I think. And the
Red Messenger
’s men?”

“All under the forecastle. Treganne’s giving them the eyeball.”

“Fine. I’ll be along soon enough. Take Paolo and Cosetta off to Gwillem and let them sit on the quarterdeck. Nowhere near the rails, mind.”

“Aye.”

“And tell Gwillem that if he tries to give them unwatered beer again I’ll cut his heart out and piss in the hole.”

“I’ll quote that in full, Captain.”

“Off with the lot of you. If you give Ezri and Gwillem any trouble, loves, Mommy will
not
be pleased.”

Lieutenant Delmastro withdrew from the cabin, taking the two children and closing the door behind her. Locke wondered how to approach this meeting. He knew next to nothing about Drakasha; no weak spots to exploit, no prejudices to twist. Coming clean about the various layers of deception he was working under was probably a mistake. Best to act fully as Ravelle, for the time being.

Captain Drakasha picked up her sheathed sabers and turned her full regard upon Locke for the first time. He decided to speak first, in a friendly fashion.

“Your children?”

“How
little
escapes the penetrating insight of the veteran intelligence officer.” She slid one of her sabers out of its scabbard with a soft metallic hiss and gestured toward Locke with it. “Sit.”

Locke complied. The only other chair in the cabin was next to the table, so he settled into it and folded his manacled hands in his lap. Zamira eased herself into her own chair, facing him, and set the drawn saber across her knees.

“Where I come from,” she said, “we have a custom concerning questions asked over a naked blade.” She had a distinct, harmonious accent, one that Locke couldn’t place. “Are you familiar with it?”

“No,” said Locke, “but I think the meaning is clear.”

“Good. Something is wrong with your story.”

“Nearly
everything
is wrong with my story, Captain Drakasha. I had a ship and a crew and a pile of money. Now I find myself hugging a sack of potatoes in a bilge hold that smells like the bottom of an unwashed ale cup.”

“Don’t hope for a lasting relationship with the potatoes. I just wanted you out of the way while I spoke to some of the
Messenger
’s crewmen.”

“Ah. And how is my crew?”

“We both know they’re not your crew, Ravelle.”

“How is
the
crew?”

“Tolerably well, little thanks to you. They lost the nerve for a fight as soon as they saw our numbers. Most of them seemed downright eager to surrender, so we took the
Messenger
with nothing more than a few bruises and some hurt feelings.”

“Thank you for that.”

“We weren’t kind for your sake, Ravelle. In fact, you’re damned fortunate we were even nearby. I like to cruise the wake of the summer’s-end storms. They tend to spit out juicy morsels in no condition to refuse our hospitality.”

Drakasha reached down into Locke’s sea chest, shuffled the contents, and withdrew a small packet of papers. “Now,” she said, “I want to know who Leocanto Kosta and Jerome de Ferra are.”

“Cover identities,” said Locke. “False faces we used for our work back in Tal Verrar.”

“In the archon’s service?”

“Yes.”

“Nearly everything in here is signed ‘Kosta.’ Small letters of credit and reference … work order for some chairs … receipt for clothing in storage. The only document with the name Ravelle on it is this commission as a Verrari sea-officer. Should I be calling you Orrin or Leocanto? Which one’s the false face?”

“You might as well just call me Ravelle,” said Locke. “I’ve been on the officer’s list under that name for years. It’s how I drew my pay.”

“Are you Verrari-born?”

“Mainland. A village called Vo Sarmara.”

“What did you do before you served the archon?”

“I was what you’d call a patient man.”

“Is that a profession now?”

“I mean a master of scales and balances, for a merchant syndicate. I was the
patient man
because I did the
weighting
, you see?”

“Droll. A syndicate in Tal Verrar?”

“Yes.”

“So you surely worked for the Priori.”

“That was part of the, ah, original incentive for Stragos’ people to bring me into their fold. After my usefulness as an agent in the syndicate hit a wall, I was given new duties.”

“Hmm. I spoke at length with Jabril. Long enough to have no trouble believing that your naval commission really is a fake. Do you have
any
experience under arms?”

“No formal military training, if that’s what you mean.”

“Curious,” said Drakasha, “that you had the authority to lay claim to a ship of war, even a small one.”

“When we move slowly enough to avoid upsetting anyone, captains of intelligence have excessive powers of requisition. Or at least we
did
. I suspect my remaining peers will be shackled with a bit of unwanted oversight because of what I’ve done.”

“Tragic. Still … it’s curious again that when you were at my feet you had to ask my name. I’d have thought that my identity would be obvious to anyone in Stragos’ service. How long were you with him?”

“Five years.”

“So you came after the Free Armada was lost. Nonetheless, as a Verrari—”

“I had a vague description of you,” said Locke. “Little more than your
name and the name of your ship. I can assure you, had the archon ever thought to have your portrait painted for our benefit, no man in his service would stay ignorant of your looks.”

“Excellent form. But you would do well to consider me dead to flattery.”

“That’s a pity. I’m
so
good at it.”

“A third curious thing occurs to me. You seemed genuinely surprised to see my children aboard.”

“It’s, ah, merely that I found it strange you’d have them with you. Out here at sea. Company to the hazards of … all this.”

“Where else might I be expected to keep an eye on them?” Zamira fingered the hilt of her drawn saber. “Paolo’s four. Cosetta’s three. Is your intelligence
really
so out of date that you didn’t know about them?”

“Look, my job was in-city operations against the Priori and other dissenters. I didn’t pay much attention to naval affairs beyond drawing my official salary.”

“There’s a bounty of five thousand solari on my head. Mine, and every other captain that survived the War for Recognition. I know that accurate descriptions of myself and my family were circulated in Tal Verrar last year; I got my hands on some of the leaflets. Do you expect me to believe that someone in your position could be this ignorant?”

“I hate to sting your feelings, Captain Drakasha, but I told you. I was a landsman—”

“Are.”

“… am and was, and my eyes were on the city. I had little enough time to study the basics of survival when I started getting ready to steal the
Messenger
.”

“Why do that, though? Why steal a ship and go to sea? Something
completely
outside your confessed experience? If you had your eyes on the land and the city, why didn’t you
do
something involving the land or the city?”

Locke licked his lips, which had become uncomfortably dry. He’d pounded a dossier of background information on Orrin Ravelle into his head, but the character had never been designed for an interrogation from this perspective. “It might sound odd,” said Locke, “but it was the best I
could
do. As it turned out, my fake commission as a sea-officer gave me the most leverage to hurt the archon. Stealing a ship was a grander gesture than stealing, say, a carriage.”

“And what did Stragos do to earn this
grand gesture
?”

“I’ve sworn an oath never to speak of the matter.”

“Convenient.”

“Just the opposite,” said Locke. “As I wish I could put you at ease.”

“At ease? How could anything you’ve told me put me at ease? You lie, and add flourishes to old lies, and refuse to discuss your motives for embarking on an insane venture. If you won’t give me answers, I have to presume that you’re a danger to this vessel, and that I risk offending Maxilan Stragos by taking you in. I can’t afford the consequences. I think it’s time to put you back where I found you.”

“The hold?”

“The open sea.”

“Ah.” Locke frowned, then bit the inside of his right cheek to contain a laugh. “Ah, Captain Drakasha, that was
very
well done. Amateurish, but creative. Someone without my history might have fallen for it.”

“Damn.” Drakasha smiled tightly. “I should have drawn the curtains over the stern windows.”

“Yes. I can see your people swarming over the
Messenger
as we speak. I presume your prize crew is unfucking the rigging so she can make more than a toddler’s crawl, right? If you gave one speck of rat shit for offending the archon, you’d be sinking that ship, not refurbishing it for sale.”

“True,” said Drakasha.

“Which means—”

“Which
means
that I’m still asking questions, Ravelle. Tell me about your accomplice, Master Valora. A particular friend?”

“An old associate. He helped me in Tal Verrar with … objectionable work.”

“Just an associate?”

“I pay him well and trust him with my business, yes.”

“Curiously educated.” Zamira pointed up at the cabin ceiling; a narrow skylight had vents slightly cracked to let in air from the quarterdeck. “I heard him and Ezri quoting Lucarno to one another a few minutes ago.”

“The Tragedy of the Ten Honest Turncoats,”
said Locke. “Jerome is … fond of it.”

“He can read. According to Jabril, he’s not a seaman, but he can do complex sums. He speaks Vadran. He uses trader’s terms and knows his way around cargo. So I’d guess that he comes from prosperous merchant stock.”

Locke said nothing.

“He was with you before you worked for the archon, wasn’t he?”

“He was a servant of the Priori, yes.” It seemed that fitting Jean into Drakasha’s presumptions wouldn’t be as hard as Locke had feared. “I brought him with me when I joined the archon’s cause.”

“But not as a friend.”

“Just a very good agent.”

“My appropriately amoral spy,” said Drakasha. She stood up, moved beneath the skylight, and raised her voice. “On deck, there!”

“Aye, Captain?” Ezri’s voice.

“Del, bring Valora down here.”

A few moments later, the door to the cabin swung open and Jean entered, followed by Lieutenant Delmastro. Captain Drakasha suddenly unsheathed her second saber. The empty scabbards clattered to the deck, and she pointed one blade at Locke.

“The instant you rise from that chair,” she said, “you die.”

“What’s going—”

“Quiet. Ezri, I want Valora
dealt with
.”

“Your will, Captain.”

Before Jean could do anything, Ezri gave him a sharp kick to the back of his right knee, so fast and well placed that Locke winced. She followed this up with a hard shove, and Jean fell to his hands and knees.

“I might still have a use for you, Ravelle. But I can’t let you keep your agent.” Drakasha took a step toward Jean, raising her right-hand saber.

Locke was out of the chair before he could help himself, throwing himself at her, trying to tangle her arms in his manacle chain.

“No!”
he screamed. The cabin spun wildly around him, and then he was on the floor with a dull ache coursing through his jaw. His mind, working a second or two behind the pace of events, gradually concluded that Drakasha had bashed his chin with the hilt of one of her sabers. He was now on his back, with that saber hovering just above his neck. Drakasha seemed ten feet tall.

“Please,” Locke sputtered. “Not Jerome. It’s not necessary.”

“I know,” said Drakasha. “Ezri?”

“Looks like I owe you ten solari, Captain.”

“You should’ve known better,” said Drakasha, grinning. “You heard what Jabril had to say about these two.”

“I did, I did.” Ezri knelt over Jean, a look of genuine concern on her face. “I just didn’t think Ravelle had it in him.”

“This sort of thing rarely goes just one way.”

“Should’ve known that, too.”

Locke raised his hands and pushed Drakasha’s blade aside. She yielded. He rolled over, stumbled to his knees, and grabbed Jean by one arm, ignoring his throbbing jaw. He knew it wasn’t broken, at least.

“Are you okay, Jerome?”

“Fine,” said Jean. “Scraped my hands a bit.”

“I’m sorry,” Ezri said.

“No worries,” said Jean. “That was a good hit. Not much else you could have done to knock down someone my size.” He stumbled to his feet with Locke and Ezri’s help. “A kidney punch, maybe.”