Ship of Destiny

5 PARAGON AND PIRACY

‘I DON’T MIN’ A beatin’ when I’m due one. But this’un wasn’t tha. I dint do ennerthin wrong.’

‘Most beatings I’ve had in my life came from just that. Not doing anything wrong, but not doing anything right either,’ Althea observed impartially. She put two fingers under Clef’s chin and turned his face up towards the fading daylight. ‘It’s not much, boy. A split lip and a bruised cheek. It will be gone in less than a week. It’s not like he broke your nose.’

Clef pulled sullenly away from her touch. ‘He woulda if I hadenna seen it comen.’

Althea clapped the ship’s boy on the shoulder. ‘But you did. Because you’re quick and tough. And that’s what makes a good sailor.’

‘S’you think it was right, what he done t’me?’ Clef demanded angrily.

Althea took a breath. She hardened her heart and her voice to reply coolly. ‘I think Lavoy’s the mate, and you’re the ship’s boy and I’m the second. Right and wrong don’t come into it, Clef. Next time, be a bit livelier. And be smart enough to stay out of the mate’s path if he’s in a temper.’

‘He’s allus en a temper,’ Clef observed sullenly. Althea let the remark pass. Every sailor had the right to moan about the mate but she could not allow Clef to think that she would take sides on this. She hadn’t witnessed the incident; but she had heard Amber’s outraged account of it. Amber had been up in the rigging. By the time she had regained the deck, Lavoy had stalked away. Althea was glad there had not been an encounter between the first mate and the ship’s carpenter. Nevertheless, it had intensified the enmity Amber and Lavoy felt for one another. The clout Lavoy had given Clef had sent the lad flying, and all because the line he had been coiling hadn’t lain as flat as the mate thought it should. Privately, Althea thought Lavoy was a brute and a fool. Clef was a good-natured lad whose best efforts were bought with praise, not brutality.

They stood on the stern, looking out over the ship’s wake. In the distance, small islands were green hummocks. The water was calm but there was a light evening breeze and Paragon was making the most of it. Of late, the ship had seemed not only willing but almost eager to speed them on their way to the Pirate Isles. He had dropped all his talk of serpents and even his metaphysical musings on whether a person was what other people thought of him or what he thought of himself. Althea shook her head to herself as she watched some gulls diving on a shallow school of fish. She was glad he had stopped waxing philosophical. Amber had seemed to enjoy those long conversations, but Althea was unsettled by them. Now Amber complained that Paragon seemed withdrawn and abrupt, but to Althea he seemed healthier and more focused on the task at hand. It could not be good for a man or a liveship to ponder endlessly on the nature of himself. She glanced back at Clef. The ship’s boy was cautiously tonguing the split in his lip. His blue eyes were far away. She nudged him gently.

‘Best go get some sleep, boy. Your watch will roll around again soon enough.’

‘I spose,’ he agreed lackadaisically. He gazed at her absently for a moment; then seemed to focus on her. ‘I know I gotter take it from hem. I learnt that when I was a slave. Sometimes yer just got ter take it from someone and kip yer head down.’

Althea smiled mirthlessly. ‘Sometimes it seems to me there’s not much difference between being a sailor and being a slave.’

‘Mebbe,’ the boy agreed truculently. ‘Night, ma’am,’ he added before he turned and made his way forwards.

For a short time longer, she watched their wake widening behind them. They had left Bingtown far behind. She thought of her mother and sister snugly at home, and envied them. Then she reminded herself of how boring she had found shoreside life, and how the endless waiting had chafed on her. They were probably sitting in her father’s study right now, sipping tea and wondering how to bring Malta into Bingtown society on such a reduced budget. They’d have to scrimp and make do through the rest of the summer. To be fair, she decided they probably felt a great deal of anxiety for her, and for the fate of the family ship and Keffria’s husband and son. They would have to endure it. She doubted she would return, for good or ill, before spring.

For herself, she’d rather worry about the bigger problem; how was she to find her family liveship and return Vivacia safely to Bingtown? When Brashen had last seen the liveship, Vivacia had been in the hands of the pirate Kennit, anchored in a pirate stronghold. It was not much to go on. The Pirate Isles were not only uncharted and infested with pirates, they were also an uncertain place to visit, for storms and inland floods often changed the contours of the islands, river mouths and waterways. So she had heard. In her trading trips south with her father, he had always avoided the Pirate Isles, precisely because of the dangers that she now directly dared. What would her father think of that? She decided that he would approve of her trying to recover the family ship, but not on her choice of rescue vessel. He had always said that Paragon was not only mad, but also a bad-luck ship. When she was a girl, he had forbidden her to have anything to do with him.

She turned aside suddenly and walked forwards as if she could walk away from her uneasiness. It was a pleasant evening, she told herself, and the ship had been unusually stable and sailing well for the past two days. Lavoy, the first mate, had recently embarked on a storm of discipline and cleanliness, but that was not unusual. Brashen as captain had told him to break down the restraint between the sailors they had hired and those who had been smuggled aboard to escape from slavery. Any mate knew that the way to unite a crew was to keep them all on the ragged edge for a few days.

The crew as a whole could do with a bit more discipline and a lot more cleanliness. In addition to sharpening up their sailing skills, the crew had to learn to fight. And, she added morosely, not just to defend their ship, but to master the skills of attacking another vessel. Suddenly it all seemed too much. How could they hope to locate the Vivacia, let alone win her back with such a patchwork crew and an unpredictable vessel?

‘Good evening, Althea,’ Paragon greeted her. Without even thinking about it, she had come to the foredeck near the figurehead. Paragon turned his maimed face towards her as if he could see her.

‘Good evening to you, Paragon,’ she returned. She tried to put a pleasant note in her voice, but the ship knew her too well.

‘So. Which of our troubles torments you most this evening?’

Althea surrendered. ‘They all nip at my heels like a pack of yapping feists, ship. In truth, I don’t know which to worry about first.’

The figurehead gave a snort of disdain. ‘Then kick them away as if they were truly a pack of curs and fix your gaze instead on our destiny.’ He swivelled his bearded face away from her, to stare sightlessly towards the horizon. ‘Kennit,’ he said in a low and fateful voice. ‘We go to face down the pirate, and take back from him all that is rightfully ours. Let nothing stand between us and that end.’

Althea was stunned into silence. She had never heard the ship speak so. Initially, he had been reluctant even to venture out on the water again. He had spent so many years as a beached and blinded derelict that he had balked at the idea of sailing, let alone setting out on a rescue mission. Now he spoke as if he not only accepted the idea, but relished the chance for vengeance against the man who had seized Vivacia. He crossed his muscular arms on his broad chest. His hands were knotted into fists. Had he truly made her cause his own?

‘Don’t think of the obstacles that lie between now and the moment when we confront him.’ The ship spoke in a low, soft voice. ‘Long or short, if you worry about every step of a journey, you will divide it endlessly into pieces, any one of which may defeat you. Look only to the end.’

‘I think that we will only succeed if we prepare ourselves,’ Althea objected.

Paragon shook his head. ‘Teach yourself to believe you will succeed. If you say, when we find Kennit, we must be good fighters, then you have put it off until then. Be good fighters now. Be now what you must be to succeed at the end of your journey, and when the end comes, you will find it is just another beginning.’

Althea sighed. ‘Now you sound like Amber,’ she complained.

‘No.’ He contradicted her flatly. ‘Now I sound like myself. The self I put aside and hid, the self I intended to be again someday, when I was ready. I have stopped intending. I am, now.’

Wordlessly, Althea shook her head to herself. It had been easier to deal with Paragon when he was sulky. She loved him, but it was not like her bond with Vivacia. Being with Paragon was often like caring for a beloved but ill-mannered and difficult child. Sometimes it was simply too much trouble to deal with him. Even now, when he seemed to have allied himself with her, his intensity could be frightening. An uncomfortable silence fell.

She pushed such thoughts aside and tried to relax into the gentle movement of the ship and the soothing night sounds. The peace didn’t last long.

‘You can say you told me so if you wish.’ Amber’s voice behind her was weary and bitter.

Althea waited for the ship’s carpenter to join her at the railing before she hazarded her guess. ‘You spoke to the captain about Lavoy and Clef?’

‘I did.’ Amber drew a kerchief from her pocket and wiped her brow. ‘It did me no good. Brashen said only that Lavoy is the mate, Clef is the ship’s boy, and that he would not interfere. I don’t understand it.’

A slight smile curved Althea’s mouth. ‘Stop thinking of him as Brashen. If Brashen were on the street and saw Lavoy knock a young boy down, he’d jump right in. But we’re not on the street. We’re on a ship and he’s the captain. He can’t stand between the first mate and the crew. If he did it even once, the whole crew would lose respect for Lavoy. They’d have an endless string of complaints about him, and every one of them would wind up at the captain’s feet. He’d be so busy nurse-maiding, he’d have no time to be captain. I’ll wager that Brashen does not admire Lavoy’s action any more than you do. But the captain knows that ship’s discipline must come before a few bruises to a boy’s pride.’

‘How far will he let Lavoy go?’ Amber growled.

‘That’s the captain’s concern, not mine,’ Althea replied. With a wry smile she added, ‘I’m just the second mate, you know.’ As Amber wiped her brow again and then the back of her neck, Althea asked, ‘Are you well?’

‘No,’ Amber replied succinctly. She did not look at Althea, but Althea stared frankly at the carpenter’s profile. Even in the fading light, her skin looked papery and taut, making her features sharper. Amber’s colouring was always so odd that Althea could tell little from it, but tonight it reminded her of ageing parchment. She had bound her light brown hair back and covered it with a kerchief.

Althea let the silence stretch out between them, until Amber added reluctantly, ‘But neither am I sick. I suffer a malady from time to time. Fever and weariness are all it brings. I shall be fine.’ At Althea’s horrified look, Amber hastily added, ‘It is not a spreading disease. It will affect only me.’

‘Nevertheless, you should tell the captain of your problem. And probably confine yourself to our quarters until it passes.’

They both startled when Paragon added quietly, ‘Even the rumour of fever and plague aboard a ship can cause a crew to become jittery.’

‘I can keep it to myself,’ Amber assured her. ‘I doubt that any besides you and Jek will notice my illness. Jek has seen it before; it will not bother her.’ She turned suddenly to face Althea and demanded, ‘How about you? Do you fear to sleep near me?’

Althea met her gaze through the gathering darkness. ‘I think I will take your word that there is nothing to fear. But you should still tell the captain. He may be able to arrange your duties so that you have more time to rest.’ She did not add that he probably would find ways to isolate Amber to keep her illness secret.

‘The captain?’ A small smile bent Amber’s lips. ‘You truly think of him that way all the time?’

‘It is who he is,’ Althea replied stiffly. At nights, in her narrow bunk, she certainly didn’t think of Brashen as the captain. By days, she had to. She wouldn’t tell Amber just how hard it was for her to keep that distinction clear. Talking about it wouldn’t make it any easier. It was better kept to herself. She suspected uncomfortably that Paragon knew her true feelings for Brashen. She waited for him to say something horrible and revealing, but the figurehead kept silent.

‘It is part of who he is,’ Amber agreed easily. ‘In some ways, it is his best part. I think he has lived many years, planning and dreaming about how he would be if he were the captain. I think he has suffered under poor captains, and learned well under good ones, and he brings all that to what he does now. He is more fortunate than he knows, to be able to live his dream. So few men do.’

‘So few men do what?’ Jek demanded as she strolled up and joined them. She grinned at Althea and gave Amber an affectionate nudge. She leaned on the railing, picking her teeth. Althea stared up at her enviously. Jek radiated vitality and health. The deckhand was long-boned, well muscled, and completely unselfconscious about her body. She did not bind her breasts at all, nor worry that her sailor’s trousers reached no farther than her knee. Her long blonde braid was tattering to straw from the wind and saltwater, but she cared not at all. She is, Althea thought uneasily, what I pretend to be: a woman who does not let her sex deter her from living as she pleases. It wasn’t fair. Jek had grown up in the Six Duchies, and claimed this equality as her birthright. Consequently, men usually ceded it to her. Althea still sometimes felt she needed someone’s permission simply to be herself. Men seemed to sense that in her. Nothing came easily. She felt the struggle was as constant as her breathing.

Jek leaned over the railing. ‘Good evening to you, Paragon!’ Over her shoulder, she asked Amber, ‘Can I borrow a fine needle from you? I’ve some mending to do, and I can’t find mine anywhere.’

‘I suppose so. I’ll come in a bit and get it out for you.’

Jek shifted restlessly. ‘Just tell me where it is and I’ll get it,’ she offered.

‘Use mine,’ Althea interjected. ‘They’re in my small duffel, pushed through a piece of canvas. There’s thread in there, too.’ Althea knew that Amber’s exaggerated need for privacy extended to her personal belongings.

‘Thanks. Now, what was this talk of what few men do?’ Jek allowed her lip to curl and a speculative look came into her eyes.

‘Not what you’re thinking,’ Amber told her tolerantly. ‘We were speaking of people living their dreams, and I said that few do, and even fewer enjoy the experience. For too many, when they get their dream, they discover it is not what they wanted. Or the dream is bigger than their abilities, and all ends in bitterness. But, for Brashen, it seems to be turning out well. He is doing what he always wished to do, and doing it well. He is a fine captain.’

‘He is that,’ Jek observed speculatively. She leaned back along the railing with catlike grace and stared up at the early stars speculatively. ‘And I’ll bet he does a fine job elsewhere also.’

Jek was a woman of appetites; it was not the first time Althea had heard her express interest in a man. Shipboard life and rules had pushed her into a period of abstinence that was at odds with her nature. Although she could not indulge her body, she let her mind run wild, and often insisted on sharing her ruminations with Althea and Amber. It was her most common topic of conversation on the rare nights when they were all in their bunks. Jek had a wry humour about her observations, and her tales of past liaisons gone awry often left the other two women helpless with laughter. Usually Althea found her ribald speculations about the male sailors amusing, but not, she discovered, when the man in question was Brashen. She felt as if she couldn’t take a full breath.

Jek didn’t appear to notice her stiff silence. ‘Ever notice the captain’s hands?’ Jek asked them rhetorically. ‘He’s got the hands of a man that can work…and we’ve all seen him work, back there on the beach. But now that he’s the captain and not in the tar and slush, he keeps his hands as clean as a gentleman’s. When a man touches me, I hate to have to wonder where his hands last were, and if he’s washed them since. I like a man with clean hands.’ She let the thought trail away as she smiled softly to herself.

‘He’s the captain,’ Althea objected. ‘We shouldn’t talk about him like that.’

She saw Amber wince for her at her prim little words. She expected Jek to turn her sharp wits and sharper tongue against her, and feared even more that Paragon would ask a question, but the woman only stretched and observed, ‘He won’t always be the captain. Or maybe I won’t always be a deckhand on his ship. Either way, I expect a time will come when I won’t have to call him “sir”. And when it does…’ She sat up abruptly, grinning with a flash of white teeth. ‘Well.’ She lifted an eyebrow. ‘I think it would go well between us. I’ve seen him watching me. Several times he has praised me for working smartly.’ More to herself than the others, she added, ‘We’re just of a height. I like that. It makes so many things more…comfortable.’

Althea could not hold the words back. ‘Just because he praised you doesn’t mean he’s staring at you. The captain is like that. He recognizes a good job when he sees it. When he does, he speaks up, just as he would if he saw a bad bit of work.’

‘Of course,’ Jek conceded easily. ‘But he had to be watching me to know that I work smart. If you take my drift.’ She leaned over the railing again. ‘What do you think, ship? You and Captain Trell go back a ways. I imagine you two have shared many a tale. What does he like in his women?’

In the brief silence that followed this question, Althea died. Her heart stilled, her breath caught in her chest. Just how much had Brashen shared with Paragon, and how much would the ship blurt out now?

Paragon had shifted his mood again. He spoke in a boyish voice, obviously flattered by the woman’s attention. He sounded almost flirtatious as he replied, ‘Brashen? Do you truly think he would speak freely of such things to me?’

Jek rolled her eyes. ‘Is there any man who does not speak far too freely when he is around other men?’

‘Perhaps he has dropped a story or two with me, from time to time.’ The ship’s voice took on a salacious tone.

‘Ah. I thought that perhaps he had. So. What does our captain prefer, ship? No. Let me speculate.’ She stretched in a leisurely manner. ‘Perhaps, as he always praises his crew for “working smart and lively”, that is what he prefers in a woman? One who is quick to run up his rigging and lower his canvas –’

‘Jek!’ Althea could not keep her offence from her tone, but Paragon broke in.

‘In truth, Jek, what he has told me he prefers is a woman who is quiet more often than she speaks.’

Jek laughed easily at his remark. ‘But while these women are being so quiet, what does he hope they’ll be doing?’

‘Jek.’ All Amber’s rebuke was in the single, quietly spoken word. Jek turned back to them with a laugh while Paragon demanded, ‘What?’

‘Sorry to interrupt the hen party, but the captain wishes to see the second mate.’ Lavoy had approached quietly. Jek straightened up, her smile gone. Amber glowered silently at him. Althea wondered how much he had heard, and chided herself. She should not be loitering on the foredeck, talking so casually with crewmembers, especially on such topics. She resolved to imitate Brashen more in how he separated himself from the general crew. A little distance helped maintain respect. Yet the prospect of severing her friendship with Amber daunted her. Then she would truly be alone.

Just as Brashen was alone.

‘I’ll report right away,’ she replied quietly to Lavoy. She ignored the belittlement of the ‘hen party’ remark. He was the first mate. He could rebuke, chide and mock her, and part of her duty was to take it. That he had done so in front of crewmembers rankled, but to reply to it would only make it worse.

‘And when you’re done there, see to Lop, will you? Seems our lad needs a bit of doctoring, it does.’ Lavoy cracked his knuckles slowly as he let a smile spread across his face.

That remark was intended to bait Amber, Althea knew. The doctoring that Lop required was a direct result of Lavoy’s fists. Lavoy had discovered Amber’s distaste for violence. He had not yet found any excuse to direct his temper at Jek or the ship’s carpenter, but he seemed to relish her reactions to the beatings he meted out to other crewmembers. With a sinking heart, Althea wished that Amber were not so proud. If she would just lower her head a bit to the first mate, Lavoy would be content. Althea feared what might come of the simmering situation.

Lavoy took Althea’s place on the railing. Amber withdrew slightly. Jek wished Paragon a subdued, ‘Good night, ship,’ before sauntering quietly away. Althea knew she should hasten to Brashen’s summons, but she did not like to leave Amber and Lavoy alone in such proximity. If something happened, it would be Amber’s word against his. And when a mate declared something was so, the word of a common sailor meant nothing at all.

Althea firmed her voice. ‘Carpenter. I want the latch on my cabin door repaired tonight. Little jobs should be seen to in calm weather and quiet times, lest they become big jobs during a storm.’

Amber shot her a look. In reality, Amber had been the one to point out that the door rattled against the catch instead of shutting tightly. Althea had greeted the news with a shrug. ‘I’ll see to it, then,’ Amber promised her gravely. Althea lingered a second longer, wishing the carpenter would take the excuse to get away from Lavoy. But she didn’t, and there was no way Althea could force her without igniting the smouldering tension. She reluctantly left them together.

The captain’s quarters were in the stern of the ship. Althea knocked smartly, and waited for his quiet invitation to enter. The Paragon had been built with the assumption that the captain would also be the owner, or at least a family member. Most of the common sailors made do with hammocks strung belowdecks wherever they could find room. Brashen, however, had a chamber with a door, a fixed bed, a table and chart table, and windows that looked out over the ship’s wake. Warm yellow lamplight and the rich smells and warm tones of polished wood greeted her.

Brashen looked up at her from the chart table. Spread before him were his original sketches on canvas scraps as well as Althea’s efforts to formalize his charts on parchment. He looked tired, and much older than his years. His scalded face had peeled after he was burnt by the serpent venom. Now the lines on his forehead and cheeks and beside his nose showed even more clearly. The venom burn had taken some of his eyebrows as well. The gaps in his heavy brows made him look somewhat surprised. She was grateful that the spray of scalding poison had not harmed his dark eyes.

‘Well?’ Brashen suddenly demanded, and she realized she had been staring at him.

‘You summoned me,’ she pointed out, the words coming out almost sharply in her discomfiture.

He touched his hair, as if he suspected something amiss there. He seemed rattled by her directness. ‘Summoned you. Yes, I did. I had a bit of a talk with Lavoy. He shared some ideas with me. Some of them seem valuable, yet I fear he may be luring me to a course of action I may regret later. I ask myself, how well do I know the man? Is he capable of deception, even…’ He straightened in his chair, as if he had abruptly decided he was speaking too freely. ‘I’d like your opinion on how the ship is being run of late.’

‘Since the serpent attack?’ she asked needlessly. There had been a subtle shift in power since she and Brashen had stood together to drive the serpent away. The men had more respect for her abilities now, and it seemed to her that Lavoy did not approve of that. She tried to find a way to phrase it without sounding as if she criticized the mate. She took a breath. ‘Since the serpent attack, I have found my share of the command easier to manage. The sailors obey me swiftly and well. I feel that I have won their hearts as well as their allegiance.’ She drew another breath and crossed a line. ‘However, since the attack, the first mate has chosen to tighten discipline. Some of it is understandable. The men did not react well during the attack. Some did not obey; few jumped in to assist us.’

Brashen scowled as he spoke. ‘I myself noted that Lavoy did not assist us. His watch was well begun and he was on the deck, yet he did not aid us at all.’ Althea felt her stomach jump nervously. She should have noticed that. Lavoy had stood it out while she and Brashen fought the serpent. At the time, it had seemed oddly natural that they two would be the ones to stand before the serpent. She wondered if Lavoy’s absence had any significance, beyond his being afraid. Had Lavoy hoped that she, Brashen, or even both of them might be killed? Did he hope to inherit command of the ship? If he did, what would become of their original quest? Brashen was silent again, obviously letting her think.

She took a breath. ‘Since the serpent attack, the first mate has tightened discipline, but not evenly. Some of the men appear to be targeted unfairly. Lop, for one. Clef for another.’

Brashen watched her carefully as he observed, ‘I would not have expected you to have much sympathy for Lop. He did nothing to aid you when Artu attacked you.’

Althea shook her head almost angrily. ‘No one should have expected him to,’ she declared. ‘The man is a half-wit in some ways. Give him direction, tell him what to do, and he performs well enough. He was agitated when Artu … when I was fighting Artu off, Lop was leaping about, hitting himself in the chest and berating himself. He genuinely had no idea what to do. Artu was a shipmate, I was the second mate, and he did not know who to choose. But on the deck, when the serpent attacked, I remember that he was the one with the guts to fling a bucket at the creature and then drag Haff to safety. But for Lop’s action, we’d be short a hand. He’s not smart. Far from it. But he’s a good sailor, if he’s not pushed past his abilities.’

‘And you feel Lavoy pushes Lop past his abilities?’

‘The men make Lop the butt of their jokes. That is to be expected, and as long as they don’t take it too far, Lop seems to enjoy the attention. But when Lavoy joins in, the game becomes crueller. And more dangerous. Lavoy told me to go doctor Lop when you were finished speaking to me. That’s the second time in as many days that he has been banged up. They bait him into doing dangerous or foolish things. When something is amiss and Lavoy targets Lop for it, not one of his shipmates owns up to part of the blame. That’s not good for the crew. It divides their unity just when we most need to build it.’

Brashen was nodding gravely. ‘Have you observed Lavoy with the slaves we liberated from Bingtown?’ he asked quietly.

The question jolted her. She stood silent a moment, running over the past few days in her mind. ‘He treats them well,’ she said at last. ‘I’ve never seen him turn his temper on them. He does not mingle them with the rest of the crew as much as he might. Some seem to have great potential. Harg and Kitl deny it, but I believe they’ve worked a deck before this. Some of the others have the scars and manners of men who are familiar with weapons. Our two best archers have tattooed faces. Yet every one of them swears he is the son of a tradesman or merchant, an innocent inhabitant of the Pirate Isles captured by slave raiders. They are valuable additions to our crew, but they keep to themselves. I think, in the long run, we must get the other sailors to accept them as ordinary shipmates in order to…’

‘And you perceive that he not only allows them to keep to themselves, but seems to encourage it by how he metes out the work?’

She wondered what Brashen was getting at. ‘It could be so.’ She took a breath. ‘Lavoy seems to use Harg and Kitl almost as a captain would use a first and second mate to run his watch. Sometimes it seems that the former slaves are an independent second crew on the ship.’ Uncomfortably, she observed, ‘The lack of acceptance seems to go both ways. It is not just that our dock-scrapings don’t accept the former slaves. The tattooed ones are just as inclined to keep to themselves.’

Brashen leaned back in his chair. ‘They were slaves in Bingtown. Most came to that fate because they were originally captured in Pirate Isles towns. They were willing to risk all and steal away from Bingtown aboard the Paragon because we represented a chance to return home. I was willing to trade that to them, in exchange for their labour aboard the ship when we were preparing for departure. Now I am not so sure that was a wise bargain. A man captured in the Pirate Isles to be sold as a slave is more like to be a pirate than not. Or at least to have a good sympathy for the pirates.’

‘Perhaps,’ she conceded unwillingly. ‘Yet they must feel some loyalty to us for helping them escape a life of slavery.’

The captain shrugged. ‘Perhaps. It is difficult to tell. I suspect the loyalty they feel just now is to Lavoy rather than to you and me. Or to Paragon.’ He shifted in his chair. ‘This is Lavoy’s suggestion. He says that as we enter the waters of the Pirate Isles, we stand a better chance of getting in close if we pretend to be pirates ourselves. He says his tattooed sailors could lend us credibility, and teach us pirate ways. He hints that some may even have a good knowledge of the islands. So. We could go on as a pirate vessel.’

‘What?’ Althea was incredulous. ‘How?’

‘Devise a flag. Take a ship or two, for the practice of battle, as Lavoy puts it. Then we put into one of the smaller pirate towns, with some loot and trophies and generous hands, and put out the word that we’d like to follow Kennit. For some time, this Kennit has been touting himself as King of the Pirates. The last I heard, he was gathering a following for himself. If we pretended we wanted to be a part of that following, we might be able to get close to him and determine Vivacia’s situation before we acted.’

Althea pushed her outrage aside and forced herself to consider the idea. The greatest benefit it offered was that, if they could get close to Kennit, they could find out how many of Vivacia’s crewmen still lived. If any. ‘But we could as easily be drawn into a stronghold, where even if we overcame Kennit and his crew, there would be no possibility of escape. There are two other immense barriers to such an idea. The first is that Paragon is a liveship. How does Lavoy think we could hide that? The other is that we would have to kill, simply for battle practice. We’d have to attack some little merchant vessel, kill the crew, steal their cargo…how can he even think of such a thing?’

‘We could attack a slaver.’

That jolted her into silence. She studied his face. He was serious. He met her astonished silence with a weary look. ‘We have no other strategy. I keep trying to devise ways for us to locate Vivacia surreptitiously, then follow her and attack when Kennit least expects it. I come up with nothing. And I suspect that if Kennit does hold any of the original crew hostage, he would execute them rather than let us rescue them.’

‘I thought we intended to negotiate first. To offer ransom for survivors and the ship.’

Even to herself, the words sounded childish and naïve. The cash that her family had managed to raise prior to Paragon’s departure would not be enough to ransom an ordinary ship, let alone a liveship. Althea had pushed that problem to the back of her mind, telling herself they would negotiate with Kennit and promise him a second, larger payment once Vivacia was returned intact to Bingtown. Ransom was what most pirates wanted; it was the underlying reason for piracy.

Except that Kennit was not like most pirates. All had heard the tales of him. He captured slavers, killed the crews, and freed the cargo. The captured ships became pirate vessels, often crewed by the very men who had been cargo aboard them. Those ships in turn preyed on slavers. In truth, if the Vivacia had not been involved, Althea would have cheered Kennit’s efforts to rid the Cursed Shores of slavery. She would have been pleased to see Chalced’s slave trade choked off in the Pirate Isles. But her sister’s husband had turned their family liveship into a slaver, and Kennit had seized her. Althea wanted Vivacia back so intensely that it was like a constant pain in her heart.

‘You see,’ Brashen confirmed quietly. He had been watching her face. She lowered her eyes from his gaze, suddenly embarrassed that he could read her thoughts so easily. ‘Sooner or later, it must come down to blood. We could take down a small slaver. We don’t have to kill the crew. If they surrendered, we could put them adrift in the ship’s boats. Then we could take the ship into a pirate town and free her cargo, just as Kennit does. It might win us the confidence of the folk in the Pirate Isles. It might buy us the knowledge we need to go after the Vivacia.’ He sounded suddenly uncertain. The dark eyes that regarded her were almost tormented.

She was puzzled. ‘Are you asking my permission?’

He frowned. It was a moment before he spoke. ‘It’s awkward,’ he admitted softly. ‘I am the captain of the Paragon. But Vivacia is your family ship. Your family financed this expedition. I feel that, in some decisions, you have the right to be heard as more than the second mate.’ He sat back in his chair and gnawed at his knuckle for a moment. Then he looked up at her again. ‘So, Althea. What do you think?’

The way he spoke her first name suddenly changed the whole tenor of the conversation. He gestured to a chair and she sat down in it slowly. He himself rose and crossed the room. When he returned to the table, he carried a bottle of rum and two glasses. He poured a short jot into each glass. He looked across at her and smiled as he took his chair. He set a glass before her. As she watched his clean hands, she tried to keep her mind on the conversation. What did she think? She answered slowly.

‘I don’t know what I think. I suppose I’ve been trusting it all to you. You are the captain, you know, not me.’ She tried to make the remark lightly, but it came out almost an accusation. She took a sip of her rum.

He crossed his arms on his chest and leaned back slightly in his chair. ‘Oh, how very well I know that,’ he murmured. He lifted his glass.

She turned the conversation. ‘And there’s Paragon to consider. We know his aversion to pirates. How would he feel about it?’

Brashen made a low noise in his throat and abruptly set down his rum. ‘That’s the strangest twist of all. Lavoy claims the ship would welcome it.’

Althea was incredulous. ‘How could he know that? Has he already spoken to Paragon about this?’ Anger flared in her. ‘How dare he? The last thing we need is him planting such ideas in Paragon’s head.’

He leaned across the table towards her. ‘His claim was that Paragon spoke to him about it. He says he was having a pipe up on the bow one evening, and that the figurehead spoke to him, asking him if he’d ever considered turning pirate. From there, the idea came up that to be a pirate vessel would be the safest way to get into a pirate harbour. And Paragon bragged that he knew many secret ways of the Pirate Isles. Or so Lavoy says.’

‘Have you asked Paragon about it?’

Brashen shook his head. ‘I was afraid to bring it up with him; he might think that meant I approved it. Then he would fix all his energy on it. Or that I didn’t approve of it, in which case he might decide to insist on it just to prove he could. You know how he can be. I didn’t want to present the idea unless we were all behind it. Any mention of it from me, and he might set his mind on piracy as the only correct course of action.’

‘I wonder if that damage isn’t already done,’ Althea speculated. The rum was making a small warm spot in her belly. ‘Paragon has been very strange of late.’

‘And when has that not been true of him?’ Brashen asked wryly.

‘This is different. He is strange in an ominous way. He speaks of us encountering Kennit as our destiny. And says nothing must keep us from that end.’

‘And you don’t agree with that?’ Brashen probed.

‘I don’t know about the destiny part. Brashen, if we could come upon Vivacia when she had only an anchor watch aboard her and steal her back, I would be content. All I want is my ship, and her crew if any have survived. I have no desire for any more battle or blood than there must be.’

‘Nor have I,’ Brashen said quietly. He added another jot of rum to each glass. ‘But I do not think we will recover Vivacia without both. We must harden ourselves to that now.’

‘I know,’ she conceded reluctantly. But she wondered if she did. She had never been in any kind of battle. A couple of tavern scuffles were the extent of her brawling experience. She could not picture herself with a sword in her hand, fighting to free the Vivacia. If someone attacked her, she could fight back. She knew that about herself. But could she leap onto another deck, blade swinging, killing men she had never even seen before? Sitting here with Brashen in a warm and comfortable cabin, she doubted it. It wasn’t the Trader way. She had been raised to negotiate for whatever she wanted. However, she did know one thing. She wanted Vivacia back. She wanted that savagely. Perhaps when she saw her beloved ship in foreign hands, anger and fury would wake in her. Perhaps she could kill then.

‘Well?’ Brashen asked her, and she realized she had been staring past him, out the stern window, at their lace-edged wake. She brought her eyes back to his. Her fingers toyed with her glass as she asked, ‘Well what?’

‘Do we become pirates? Or at least put on the countenances of pirates?’

Her mind raced in hopeless circles. ‘You’re the captain,’ she said at last. ‘I think you must decide.’

He was silent for a moment. Then, he grinned. ‘I confess, on some level, it appeals to me. I’ve given it some thought. For our flag, how about a scarlet sea serpent on a blue background?’

Althea grimaced. ‘Sounds unlucky. But frightening.’

‘Frightening is what we want to be. And that was the scariest emblem I could think of, straight from my worst nightmares. As to the luck, I’m afraid we’ll have to make that for ourselves.’

‘As we always have. We’d go after slavers only?’

His face grew grave for a moment. Then a touch of his old grin lightened his eyes. ‘Maybe we wouldn’t have to go after anything. Maybe we could just make it look like we had … or that we intend to. How about a bit of play-acting? I think I’d have to be a dissatisfied younger son from Bingtown, something of a fop, perhaps. A gentleman come south to dabble in piracy and politics. What do you think?’

Althea laughed aloud. The rum was uncoiling in her belly, sending tendrils of warmth throughout her body. ‘I think you could come to enjoy this too much, Brashen. But what about me? How would you explain female crew aboard a Bingtown vessel?’

‘You could be my lovely captive, like in a minstrel’s tale. The daughter of a Trader, taken hostage and held for ransom.’ He gave her a sideways glance. ‘That might help establish my reputation as a daring pirate. We could say the Paragon was your family ship, to explain away the liveship.’

‘That’s a bit overly dramatic,’ she demurred softly. There was a brighter spark in his eyes. The rum was reaching them both, she decided. Just as she feared that her heart would overpower her head, his face turned suddenly grim. ‘Would that we could play-act such a romantic farce and win Vivacia back. The reality of playing pirate would be far more bloody and ruthless. My fear is that I won’t enjoy it nearly as much as Lavoy. Or Paragon.’ He shook his head. ‘Both of them have a streak of – what shall I call it? Just plain meanness, I sometimes think. If either one were allowed complete indulgence of it, I suspect they would sink to a savagery that you or I would find unthinkable.’

‘Paragon?’ Althea asked. There was scepticism in her voice, but a little shiver of certainty ran up her spine.

‘Paragon,’ Brashen confirmed. ‘He and Lavoy may be a very bad mix. I’d like to keep them from becoming close, if such a thing is possible.’

A sudden knock at the door made them both jump. ‘Who is it?’ Brashen demanded roughly.

‘Lavoy, sir.’

‘Come in.’

Althea jumped to her feet as the first mate entered. His quick glance took in the rum bottle and the glasses on the table. Althea tried not to look startled or guilty, but the look he gave her expressed his suspicions plainly. His sarcasm was little short of insubordinate as he addressed Brashen. ‘Sorry to interrupt you both, but there’s ship’s business to attend. The carpenter is unconscious on the forward deck. Thought you’d like to know.’

‘What happened?’ Althea demanded without thinking.

Lavoy’s lip curled disdainfully. ‘I’m reporting to the captain, sailor.’

‘Exactly.’ Brashen’s voice was cold. ‘So get on with it. Althea, go see to the carpenter. Lavoy, what happened?’

‘Damn me if I know.’ The burly mate shrugged elaborately. ‘I just found her there and thought you’d like to know.’

There was no time to contradict him, nor was it the right time to let Brashen know she had left them alone together. Her heart in her mouth, she raced off to see what Lavoy had done to Amber.