The Gentleman Bastard Series (139 page)

“Her Resplendent Majesty’s Sea Forces of Syrune Eternal.” Drakasha’s smile was a crescent of white against darkness, faint as the foam topping the waves. “The captain could have had us whipped, or reduced in rank, or even chained up for formal trial on land. Instead she had us strike down the royal yard from the mainmast. We had a spare, of course. But she made us scrape the varnish off the one we’d taken down.… This is a spar of oak, you know, ten feet long and thick as a leg. The captain took our swords and said they’d be restored if and only if we ate the royal yard. Tip to tip, every last splinter.”

“
Ate
it?”

“A foot and a quarter of sturdy oak for each of us,” said Drakasha. “How we did it was our business. It took a month. We tried everything. Shaving it,
scraping it, boiling it, pulping it. We had a hundred tricks to make it palatable, and we forced it down, a few spoonfuls or chips a day. Most of us got sick, but we ate the yard.”

“Gods.”

“When it was over, the captain said she’d wanted us to understand that lies between shipmates tear the ship apart, bit by bit, gnawing at it just as we’d gnawed the royal yard down to nothing.”

“Ah.” Locke sighed and at last took a sip of his warm, excellent wine. “I take it this means I’m due for a bit more dissection, then?”

“Come join me at the taffrail.”

Locke rose, knowing it wasn’t a request.

4

“I NEVER knew that dispensing justice could be so tiring,” said Ezri, appearing at Jean’s right elbow as he stood staring out over the
Orchid
’s larboard rail. One of the moons was just starting to rise in the south, half a silver-white coin peeking above the night horizon, as though lazily considering whether it was worth rising at all.

“You’ve had a long day, Lieutenant.” Jean smiled.

“Jerome,” she said, reaching out to set a hand upon his right forearm, “if you call me ‘lieutenant’ again tonight, I’ll kill you.”

“As you wish, Lieu … La … something-other-than-’Lieutenant’-that-starts-with-’Lieu,’ honest.… Besides, you already tried to execute me once this evening. Look how that turned out.”

“Best way possible,” she said, now leaning against the rail beside him. She wasn’t wearing her armor, just a thin tunic and a pair of calf-length breeches without hose or shoes. Her hair was free, waves of dark curls rustling in the breeze. Jean realized that she was putting most of her weight against the rail and trying hard not to show it.

“Uh, you got a little too close to a few blades today,” he said.

“I’ve been closer. But you, now … you’re … you’re a very good fighter, do you know that?”

“It’s been s—”

“Gods, how wretched was that? Of
course
you’re a good fighter. I meant to say something much wittier, honest.”

“Then consider it said.” Jean scratched his beard and felt a warm, welcome sort of nervousness fluttering in his stomach. “We can both pretend. All of the, um, effortlessly witty nonsense I’ve been practicing on the barrels in the hold for days has taken flight, too.”

“Practicing, hmmm?”

“Yeah, well.… That Jabril, he’s a sophisticated fellow, isn’t he? Need a bit of conversation to catch his attention, won’t I?”

“What?”

“Didn’t you know I only fancied men?
Tall
men?”

“Oooh, I kicked you to the deck once, Valora, and I’m about to—”

“Ha! In your condition?”

“My
condition
is the only thing saving your life at the moment.”

“You wouldn’t dare heap abuse on me in front of half the crew—”

“Of course I would.”

“Well, yes. True.”

“Look at this lovely, noisy mess. I don’t think anyone would even notice if I set you on fire. Hell, down in the main-deck hold there’s couples going at it packed tighter than spears in the arms lockers. You want real peace and quiet any time tonight, closest place you might find it is two or three hundred yards off one of the bows.”

“No, thanks. I don’t know how to say ‘stop eating me’ in shark.”

“Well then, you’re stuck here with us. And we’ve been waiting for you lot to get off the scrub watch for long enough.” She grinned up at him. “Tonight everyone gets to know everyone else.”

Jean stared at her, eyes wide, not knowing what to say or do next. Her grin became a frown.

“Jerome, am I … doing something wrong?”

“Wrong?”

“You keep sort of moving away. Not just with your body, but with your neck. You keep …”

“Oh, hell.” Jean laughed, reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, and felt himself burst into an uncontrollable twit-grin when she reached up to hold it there. “Ezri, I lost my optics when you … made us swim, the day we came aboard. I’m what they call near-blind. I guess I didn’t realize it, but I’ve been fidgeting to keep you in focus.”

“Oh, gods,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Keeping you in focus is worth the trouble.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know.” Jean felt the anxious pressure in his stomach migrating upward to fill his chest, and he took a deep breath. “Look, we almost got killed today. Fuck these games. Do you want to have a drink with me?”

5

“WATCH,” SAID Drakasha.

Locke stood at the taffrail, looking down into the ship’s phosphorescent wake between the glow of two stern lanterns. Those lanterns were glowing glass orchids the size of his head, transparent petals drooping delicately toward the water.

“Gods,” said Locke, shuddering.

Between the wake and the lanterns, there was just enough light for him to spot it—a long black shadow sliding beneath the
Poison Orchid
’s trail of disturbed water. Forty or fifty feet of something sinuous and sinister, using the ship’s wake to conceal itself. Captain Drakasha had one boot up on the taffrail and an expression of casual pleasure on her face.

“What the hell is it?”

“Five or six possibilities,” said Drakasha. “Might be a whaleworm or a giant devilfish.”

“Is it
following
us?”

“Yes.”

“Is it … um, dangerous?”

“Well, if you drop your drink over the rail, don’t jump in after it.”

“Don’t you think you should maybe let it have a few arrows?”

“I might, if only I were sure that this was the fastest it could swim.”

“Good point.”

“Fling arrows at all the strange things you see out here, Ravelle, and all you do is run out of arrows.” She sighed and glanced around to ensure that they were more or less alone. The closest crewman was at the wheel, eight or nine yards forward. “You made yourself very useful today.”

“Well, the alternative just didn’t suit.”

“I thought I was abetting a suicide when I agreed to let you lead the boats.”

“You nearly were, Captain. It was … Look, it was inches from disaster the whole way, that fight. I don’t even remember half of it. The gods blessed me by allowing me to avoid soiling my breeches. Surely you know what it’s like.”

“I do. I also know that sometimes these things aren’t accidents. You and Master Valora have … excited a great deal of comment for what you did in that battle. Your skills are unusual for a former master of weights and measures.”

“Weighing and measuring is a
boring
occupation,” said Locke. “A man needs a hobby.”

“The archon’s people didn’t hire you by accident, did they?”

“What?”

“I said I’d peel this strange fruit you call a story, Ravelle, and I have been. My initial impression of you wasn’t favorable. But you’ve … done better. And I think I can understand how you kept your old crew in thrall despite your ignorance. You seem to have a real talent for improvised dishonesty.”

“Weighing and measuring is a very,
very
boring—”

“So you’re a master of a sedentary occupation who just
happened
to have a talent for espionage? And disguise? And command? Not to mention your skill at arms, or that of your close and unusually educated friend Jerome?”

“Our mothers were so very proud of us.”

“You weren’t hired away from the Priori by the archon,” said Drakasha. “You were double agents. Planted provocateurs,
intended
to enter the archon’s service. You didn’t steal that ship because of some insult you won’t speak of; you stole it because your orders were to damage the archon’s credibility. To do something big.”

“Uh …”

“Please, Ravelle. As if there could be any other reasonable explanation.”

Gods, what a temptation, Locke thought. A mark actually inviting me to step into her own misconception, free and clear. He stared at the phosphorescent wake, at the mysterious something swimming beneath it. What to do? Take the opening, cement the Ravelle and Valora identities in Drakasha’s mind, work from there? Or … his cheeks burned as the sting of Jean’s rebuke rose again in his memory. Jean hadn’t just criticized him on theological grounds, or because of Delmastro. It was a matter of approaches. Which would be more effective?

Treat this woman as a mark, or treat her as an ally?

Time was running out. This conversation was the point of decision; follow his instincts and play her, or follow Jean’s advice and … attempt to trust her. He thought furiously. His own instincts—were they always impeccable? Jean’s instincts—arguments aside, had Jean ever done anything but try to protect him?

“Tell me something,” he said very slowly, “while I weigh a response.”

“Perhaps.”

“Something half the size of this ship is probably staring at us as we speak.”

“Yes.”

“How do you
stand
it?”

“You see things like this often enough, you get used—”

“Not just that. Everything. I’ve been at sea a grand total of six or seven weeks in my life. How long have
you
been out here?”

She stared at him, saying nothing.

“Some things about myself,” said Locke, “I won’t tell you just because you’re the captain of this ship, even if you throw me back in the hold or pitch me over the side. Some things … I want to know who I’m
talking to
first. I want to talk to Zamira, not to Captain Drakasha.”

Still she remained silent.

“Is that asking so very much?”

“I’m nine and thirty,” she said at last, very quietly. “I first sailed when I was eleven.”

“Nearly thirty years, then. Well, like I said, I’ve been out here a few
weeks
. And in that time—storms, mutiny, seasickness, battles, flit-wraiths … hungry damn
things
lurking all over the place, waiting for someone to dip a toe in the water. It’s not that I haven’t enjoyed myself at times; I have. I’ve learned things. But … thirty years? And children as well? Don’t you find it all … chancy?”

“Do you have children, Orrin?”

“No.”

“The instant I decide that you are presuming to lecture me on their behalf, this conversation
will
end with you going over this rail to make the acquaintance of whatever’s down there.”

“That’s not at
all
what I meant. It’s just—”

“Have people on land acquired the secret of living forever? Have they abolished accidents? Have they ceased to have
weather
in my absence?”

“Of course not.”

“How much more danger are my children
truly
in than some poor bastard conscripted to fight in his duke’s wars? Or some penniless family dying of a plague with their neighborhood quarantined, or burnt to the ground? Wars, disease, taxes. Bowing heads and kissing boots. There’s plenty of hungry damn
things
prowling on land, Orrin. It’s just that the ones at sea tend not to wear crowns.”

“Ah—”

“Was
your
life a paradise before you sailed the Sea of Brass?”

“No.”

“Of course not. Listen well. I thought that I’d grown up in a hierarchy where
mere
competence and loyalty were enough to maintain one’s station in life,” she whispered. “I gave an oath of service and imagined that oath was binding in both directions. I was a
fool
. And I had to kill an awful lot of
men and women to escape the consequences of that foolishness. Would you really ask me to place my trust, and my hopes for Paolo and Cosetta, in the same bullshit that nearly killed me before? Which system of laws should I bend to, Orrin? Which king or duke or empress should I trust like a mother? Which of them is a better judge of my life’s worth than I am? Can you point them out to me, write a letter of introduction?”

“Zamira,” said Locke, “
please
don’t make me out to be some sort of advocate for things that I’m not; it seems to me that my whole life has been spent in the willful disdain of what you’re talking about. Do I strike you as a law-and-order sort of fellow?”

“Admittedly not.”

“I’m just curious, is all. I do appreciate this. Tell me now—what about the Free Armada? Your so-called War for Recognition? Why profess such hatred for … laws and taxes and all those strictures, if that was essentially what you were fighting to emplace down here?”

“Ah.” Zamira sighed, removed her four-cornered hat, and ran her fingers through her breeze-tossed hair. “Our infamous Lost Cause. Our personal contribution to the glorious history of Tal Verrar.”

“Why did you start it?”

“Bad judgment. We all hoped … Well, Captain Bonaire was persuasive. We had a leader, a plan. Open mines on new islands, tap some of the safe forests for wood and resin. Pillage as we liked until the other powers on the Sea of Brass came wringing their hands to the bargaining table, and then beat the shit out of them with authorized trade. We imagined a realm without tariffs. Montierre and Port Prodigal swelling up with merchants and their imported fortunes.”

“Ambitious.”

“Idiotic. I was newly escaped from one sour allegiance and I leapt right into another. We believed Bonaire when she said that Stragos didn’t have the clout to come down and mount a serious fight.”

“Oh. Hell.”

“They met us at sea. Biggest action I ever saw, and the soonest lost. Stragos put hundreds of Verrari soldiers on his ships to back the sailors; we never stood a chance in close action. Once they had the
Basilisk
they stopped taking prisoners. They’d board a ship, scuttle it, and move on to the next. Their archers put shafts into anyone in the water, at least until the devilfish came.