Act of Will

SCENE XV The Cormorant

The ship in which we were about to sail round 240 miles of coastline was called the Cormorant and was, as I should have guessed, a leaky old crate that didn’t look like it would make it out of the harbor. I told Garnet that there was no way I was getting on that beat-up piece of driftwood, but he just gave a knowing smile and lugged his bag up the gangplank.

I watched him get on board and was suddenly struck by the sense of being on the threshold of a life-changing decision. I had stuck with them this long because I needed them to get me out of Cresdon and because they were useful allies in an unfamiliar and hostile world in which I knew nobody. But get on that boat, and everything would change, even if it didn’t sink as soon as we hit open sea. This was the point of no return.

I turned and looked across the dockyard into the gaze of an Empire trooper, one whom I had seen in a local tavern three nights before. He was with another soldier and they were both looking at me and muttering to each other.

They couldn’t have recognized me. Surely. Not now. I dropped my eyes to my bag and tried to look busy, fumbling with panic.

The boat was ready to go, but a glance told me that the guards were still watching. By the time I picked up my bag and turned to the ship, they were coming over, slowly, uncertainly, each seeming to follow the other.

“Garnet!” I called, trying to sound unconcerned. He paused in the midst of passing a crate up onto the ship and peered from me to the two soldiers, who had picked up their pace significantly. He called to Renthrette and then stooped to pick something up: a bow. I turned to the soldiers quickly.

“Everything all right, Officer?” I said, smiling blandly.

“I saw you the other night,” said one of them. “I thought you looked familiar.”

“Really?” I said, my heart fluttering. “Just one of those faces, I suppose.”

“No,” said the other, taking a step towards me. “I know you. I recognized you when I saw you the other night, but I couldn’t place you.”

I smiled and shrugged. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Till two months ago, I was stationed in Cresdon.”

Oh, hell.

For a moment I could think of nothing to say.

“You’re Rufus Ramsbottom, aren’t you,” he said, thrusting his hand into mine. “The actor.”

He was smiling, his eyes bright, his cheeks flushed.

I blinked.

“Yes,” I said, taking his hand and shaking it. “Yes, I am.”

I scribbled my name-or, rather, Rufus’s-on whatever they put in front of me and then sort of glided over to the Cormorant to find Renthrette and Garnet warily unstringing their bows, their eyes fixed on me. I wasn’t sure whom they would have shot first, the soldiers or me.

I watched the soldiers from the rail, my heart still thumping. Any minute I expected them to realize that I was not the actor-and I use that term in its loosest and most degraded sense-Rufus Ramsbottom, but the actor, rebel, and fugitive for whom new torturous means of execution were being devised, Will Hawthorne. We were out of port before I relaxed enough to realize that if this had indeed been the point of no return, I had just made a career choice.

The captain had his eye on Renthrette from the outset. I saw the drunken half-wit leering at her as she watched Stavis fall behind us, and knew then that there would be trouble.

I passed my time fencing with Orgos on what little area of free deck there was. It wasn’t easy, and I spent as much time dodging spars and deck fittings as I did his sword. Still, it kept my body moving and my mind off the amount of water under our ancient keel.

The gulls swooped infuriatingly at us for miles, convinced we were trawling. At first I felt ill, but it was more trepidation than actual seasickness, and it passed, mercifully, within a couple of hours. Oddly enough, it was Garnet who suffered most. He was greenish before the dock was out of sight and, as we cleared the sandbars that flanked the port, he began hanging over the rail with a desolate look on his face. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the poor swine.

We slept in hammocks, two to a berth, and it wasn’t exactly idyllic, but the rocking of the ship actually helped me doze off. Orgos lay large and completely silent beside me. I don’t think Mithos closed his eyes much, since Garnet, his berthmate, spent half the night running up to the deck to throw up. Mithos’s sleeplessness turned out to be for the best when he caught one of the ratty, toothless crew pawing through our belongings. From then on, one of us kept watch.

On the morning of the second day we saw dolphins leaping off the starboard bow, apparently racing us. They flashed silver-grey into the foam of our wake like curving arrows. The sky was cloudless and we were making good time, but if there had been more to occupy the captain, things would probably have worked out better.

He was a big clumsy man with a black beard, a mouthful of gold teeth, a natty little scarlet jacket, and a penchant for heavy earrings. His voice was permanently slurred, even when he wasn’t on the rum, and his tongue clicked and gurgled when he spoke. He didn’t have an accent as such; you just couldn’t tell what he was saying. I would just nod, laugh loudly, and say “Yes mate, exactly” a few times, until he left me alone. He spat through his beard as he talked and his eyes wandered around sparkling mischievously, so that more than once I wondered with a start of panic what it was I was agreeing to. Garnet said he looked like he had been a pirate once, and I could see his point. His face was red and leathery from the sun and salt wind, and his arms were tattooed with voluptuous women coiled around snakes and daggers. He would sidle up to you and make crude, unintelligible jokes and then slap you on the back and laugh to himself while you wondered what the hell he was going on about. He wore a short, heavy-looking cutlass with a bowl-shaped hand guard. Maybe he still was a pirate.

Renthrette was on deck waiting for the sun to go down when he made his move. I don’t suppose she understood most of what he suggested, but she got enough idea to detach herself from him and head for the cabins. He’d had a skinful, however, and wasn’t to be dealt with so easily. He caught her from behind, but she shrugged him off and slapped his hands away. Since Renthrette was angry but controlled, things might have been left at that had I not decided to “rescue” her.

For a moment there, it was close to perfect. I took two quick steps and caught him off balance with a punch to the jaw. He never saw it coming, and though it wasn’t really much more than a slap, he slumped to the ground. Feeling pleased with myself, I turned to minister to Renthrette, who was staring at me in disbelief. I was just realizing that what I had assumed was admiration was actually outrage when I heard the captain stagger to his feet behind me, scraping his cutlass out of its rusty scabbard.

His eyes were small and full of malice, and he started to advance on me, spitting meaningless curses. I had no weapon to hand, but he was in no mood to be sporting. Renthrette closed as if to part us, making conciliatory noises, but he swung the sword at her like a club and she stepped back, giving a single unhurried shout for Orgos. The first mate appeared, ushering her out of the way, then stood there laughing. I was beginning to regret a lot of things.

On the deck, discarded from our last training session, was a blunted épée. I seized it and turned back to face the captain, who was drooling and laying about himself pointlessly with the squat and murderous-looking cutlass, his eyes locked on me.

“Perhaps we could discuss this. ” I ventured. He swashed wildly at me with his sword.

I instinctively raised my blunted “blade,” and it almost kicked out of my hand as he made contact. He came at me again and I parried wildly, following up with a crazed lunge that didn’t come close. I knew that I just had to keep him at bay until help arrived, but I couldn’t manage that kind of composure. I swung like a berserker and fled from his hacking attacks, leaping rope coils and clambering over the huge racks of bound timber. He came lumbering after me, barking wordless insults and bellowing like a rabid bear. I poked at him with my (now bent) épée and hopped away again.

Orgos took him from behind, catching his sword arm and raising a dagger to his throat until he became still. As the crew roared with laughter, I scrambled to my feet and looked for somewhere to hide my embarrassment.

“My hero,” said Renthrette dryly.

I tried to think of a crushing riposte that would salvage some dignity from the moment. But nothing came to mind, so I just started shouting, as one is wont to do in such situations. “Look, I was trying to help you out, right? You might show a little gratitude, for God’s sake!”

“Gratitude?” she sneered. “For what? For starting, and almost losing, an unnecessary fight? Let me fight my own battles, Will.”

“Right, I will,” I spluttered, “And next time-”

I was interrupted by Orgos calling me from the foot of the mainmast. Lisha was with him and they looked thoroughly disenchanted.

“Oh bugger,” I muttered, and went over to them, staring at the decking all the way. When I stood before them I could barely look them in the face.

“Sorry,” I said in a small voice. “I just. ”

“I know,” said Orgos. His tone was soft but not without reprimand. “Renthrette can look after herself, Will. And did you forget everything we have learned together? You looked drunker than him.”

“It’s different when you’re fighting someone with a real sword who wants to hurt you,” I replied bitterly.

“In a real fight you have to be even more composed than when you fence, because the hits are more crucial.”

“Don’t lecture me, all right?” I said. “I’m not a child.”

“Will,” said Lisha quietly.

“What?”

“There won’t always be someone on hand to pull you out of trouble when you get in over your head. If only for that reason, be more cautious.”

They left me to myself, and I stared over the side at the water for a while, feeling the slight sting of the salt spray on my arms and face.