Where Loyalties Lie

Chapter 41 - The Phoenix

Her hands were raw and red with blisters that sported their own blisters, and hurt more than childbirth, which, Aimi had been assured many a time, was about as painful as torture. Years of working as a serving girl had made Aimi’s hands tough and leathery, but the calluses were long gone and needed to be earned all over again. She didn’t mind though. She was once again out on the ocean and sailing the world. It was a glorious feeling to see new sights, experience new things, and meet new people. Aimi had been born at sea, and she was more than a little certain that the sea was where she belonged.

The sea ranged from crystal blue to emerald green, and was usually clear enough that Aimi could see down beneath the waves. There, she might spot any number of animals and monsters that called the water their home. Some of those creatures were fairly dangerous, and many were large enough to pose a real threat to a person’s life, but they were also beautiful.

Aimi let out a contented sigh, which quickly turned into a curse as the rope she was desalting popped another blister and deposited a stinging build-up in the wound all at the same time. She clenched her teeth and blinked away the tears of pain, biting her lip to stop herself shouting out a whole myriad of curses. She failed.

“Maggoty cock-swallowing fuck-monkey!” A couple of nearby pirates laughed, and one even applauded her.

“There’s a trick to it,” Captain Stillwater said from above. Aimi looked up to see him hanging from the rigging, looking down at her with a smile. He was nothing if not clumsy in his obvious advances, but Aimi didn’t truly mind. The captain was easy on the eyes and charming despite himself.

“Really? Oh, master of sailing, please enlighten me.” Aimi grinned up at the captain and turned her attention back to the devious length of rope.

“You don’t think much of me as a sailor, do you?” Aimi thought she detected a note of disappointment in the captain’s voice. He’d likely come down in an attempt to impress her.

“I don’t think much of any captain as a sailor,” she said. “Most are good at giving orders and sounding like they know a cleat from a grommet, but…” She paused and rolled her eyes at him. “Ask ’em to actually haul up a mizzen and tack the yard, and they’ll probably just end up dropping the anchor.”

The captain shook his head. “I didn’t catch a word of that.” He dropped from the rigging and landed easily on his feet, before leaning against the railing and staring out across the sea.

Aimi was young, not even twenty years, and the captain was older, but at that moment she reckoned him younger than he looked. Life at sea had a habit of ageing people before their time. Too much wind and sun and salt was the most likely cause of it.

The captain glanced Aimi’s way and caught her staring. She curled her lip at him and went back to the task of scraping the damned salt off the rope.

“I was a sailor long before a captain,” he said.

“Uh huh.” Aimi may have been interested, but it was much more fun to let the man think he had no chance.

“I spent a good few years as ship’s boy aboard The Black Death.”

Aimi had heard of Captain Black, and she’d heard a great many horror stories about his ship and her crew as well as the captain himself. If even half those tales were true – and she knew it was likely a good half of them weren’t – being a young boy aboard The Black Death must have been a harrowing experience.

“Sounds jolly,” Aimi said, digging her knife into the rope and narrowly missing cutting her own finger open. Trouble was, she was paying far too much attention to the captain and the attention he was paying her.

“Anything but, actually.” Aimi sneaked a glance to see the captain once again staring out over the ocean.

“Captain Black ruled his ship by terror and pain. The crew had to fight for the best jobs, for the best bunk, for the first servings at meal time, and to keep that food once we had it. I can’t tell you the number of times I took a beating and had my cut stolen from me just as we made port. And by men I was supposed to rely on during a fight.”

“Well, I certainly can’t think of a worse life,” Aimi said with a grin. “Tell me, have you ever tried imagining what it’s like to be a young girl of fucking age in a town full of pirates?”

The captain looked at her then, with eyes wider than a whale’s. “Uh… no. I haven’t.”

In truth, Aimi had never fucked a man she didn’t want to. There had been a few and then some more that had tried it on, but she was smart enough to stay away from the ones that looked like they might get a bit rapey, and quick enough to outrun the more persistent bastards. Still, it hadn’t been fun, living with the fear of it hanging over her head for three years. Some pirates had morals, that much was true, but when a man killed folk and stole their goods for a living, there weren’t that many that were above taking what they wanted.

“I just meant to say,” the captain said, “I do know how to sail and how to do a sailor’s job.”

Aimi grinned at Stillwater and gave him a wink. “I was only messing with you, Captain. So what is this grand trick to not fucking up my hands on the rope?”

He was staring at something out in the ocean, a wild grin on his face. “Oh, it’s simple really. Give the job to the lowest-ranked sailor on the boat.”

Before Aimi could think of a retort, the captain rushed away, calling for a course change. She couldn’t believe she’d let him suck her in like that. As she started to come up with ways to get her own back, she glanced over the railing and saw a sail in the distance.

The ship turned out to be a merchant carrack, and it was carrying a complement of guards as well as sailors. It was a nice prize for any pirate, and likely to contain quite a few treasures. The chase was long and a forgone conclusion, The Phoenix both sleeker and faster in the wind. The fight to take the carrack was vicious and bloody; at least, it certainly sounded vicious from below decks, and afterwards the deck of the carrack was certainly bloody. Aimi was no slouch with a knife in close quarters when the poor fool on the pointy end wasn’t expecting it, but she wouldn’t know where to begin in a battle with a sword or axe, so she kept well and truly out of the fight and sent a prayer to Rin for it to go well and for the captain to remain unscathed.

Once the cheering started she knew the crew of The Phoenix were victorious. Nobody cheered quite like a group of ecstatic pirates. Emerging onto the deck, Aimi was surprised to see the sky had darkened considerably, the daylight almost over. The deck of The Phoenix was all but empty, but the captured carrack was swarming.

Aimi could see the crew of The Phoenix, weapons still in hand, were moving about with a purpose. Some were descending below decks while others were securing the ship and keeping the prisoners under guard.

As she mounted one of the makeshift bridges between the two ships, Aimi felt her stomach lurch, and she counted herself lucky that she was over water because a moment later her most-recent meal evacuated her body in a torrent of foul-tasting vomit. She wasn’t certain what sickened her more – the bodies, the blood, the scale of carnage, or the men standing over it all admiring and celebrating their gruesome work. It didn’t take her long to decide. It was the smell. Blood and shit and sweat and fear and death all mingled together to form a nauseating miasma. In that moment of realisation, Aimi feared she’d made a horrible choice in signing on with Stillwater’s crew.

After finishing throwing up and wiping her mouth with her hand, Aimi continued on to the carrack. She found the whole scene sickening, but she’d be damned before she ran away and hid from it all. Looking down onto the ship’s deck, there seemed no safe place to step; it was awash with blood as it mingled with the water from the sea. Though her determination to join her crew on the carrack drove her to the ship of death, she was not yet ready to wash her bare feet in the blood of their victims, so she leapt onto the nearby rigging and scurried up a few feet before slotting her legs through a couple of loops where she could watch the scene on the deck below. By force of will she managed to stop counting the bodies and focusing on those still writhing in pain as The Phoenix’s crew finished off any unlikely to survive.

Captain Stillwater presided over the brutal scene, standing on the sterncastle deck while he cleaned his twin swords on a strip of cloth. Of all the pirates swarming across the decks, only the captain retained his usual demeanour. His hair was tousled and his jacket was speckled with blood, but his suit remained neat and his attitude calm. Aimi had to admit he cut quite the handsome figure, even amidst the carnage.

She saw one pirate emerge from the hatch that led below decks and run towards the captain, while Feather, sword in hand and a wild grin on his face, burst out of the navigation cabin with a couple of prisoners in tow. Neither the man nor the woman Feather had found looked like they had any fight in them. Both were short and leaning towards overly fed, and the woman was clearly heavily pregnant.

Feather led them towards the rest of the prisoners. Aimi had spoken to the boy just a couple of hours earlier to find out how the captain usually handled taking ships, and he’d assured her that Captain Stillwater preferred bloodless encounters. This one was anything but. Aimi had also learned that Feather had yet to kill a man. Judging by the blood on the boy’s blade, he could no longer claim such a thing.

The pirate who had emerged from below decks wore an insane grin as he approached the captain and whispered in his ear. Stillwater nodded solemnly and pointed towards the ship’s quartermaster, Smithe, and the pirate eagerly went to spread the news.

Aimi glanced back towards The Phoenix. Morley, the first mate, had stayed behind to man the ship, along with a number of other crew including Kebble Salt, who sat up in the nest casting his watchful eye over the surrounding sea.

Kebble was a mystery to Aimi. The man took no part in the sailing of the ship and bunked with the other pirates, yet all of the crew showed him great respect. She’d seen Kebble shoot and knew just how deadly he was with his rifle, but Aimi knew full well how disrespectful pirates tended to be to any who didn’t know how to sail.

“Ho there, little one,” someone said from above.

Aimi looked up to see Jojo Hyrene sitting in the rigging above her. Jojo was from the southern wilds and a true veteran of the seas, with more years on the ocean, and more exciting stories from those years, than most sailors were ever likely to see. Jojo was also one of the most likeable and friendly folk Aimi had ever met, despite being a pirate.

“Come to see how we do things?” Jojo said in his deep, raspy voice. He held out a small clay flask, which Aimi took gratefully. She swallowed a mouthful of burning rum before answering.

“Figured I best get to know the ropes.” She grinned, shaking the rigging as she handed back the flask.

Jojo laughed. “Well, the real work’s done already. After the killing comes the looting, then the captain will send the bastards lucky enough to survive on their merry way. You look a little pale – need another hit?” He offered the flask again, and Aimi shook her head.

“Just not used to the blood yet.”

Jojo nodded, his pale eyes full of understanding. “Pray you never are, little one.”

“Keelin?”

Aimi turned back to the scene on the carrack to see one of the prisoners on his feet. The man was short and bald with a hook-like nose and the dark grey robes of a priest. Judging by the blood soaking into the man’s robes, he had, until just now, been kneeling with all the other prisoners. Aimi realised he was the man Feather had escorted from the cabin, and she saw the woman he’d been with shaking her head and trying to pull the man back down onto the deck.

The captain glanced at the man once and then went back to what looked like a frustrating conversation with the quartermaster.

“Keelin Fowl?” the man in the grey robe said again, louder this time. “I’m not imagining this, it is you. I’d recognise you anywhere, boy. I watched you grow up, taught you your numbers and letters.”

Again the captain looked at the captive, and this time, after a moment, he crossed to the ladder and descended to the main deck, approaching him with a menacing step.

“Your father was convinced you were dead,” the man continued.

“Listen, mate.” The captain’s accent was more heavily tinged with the Pirate Isles than usual. “Reckon ya got me mistaken for some other bastard. So sit back down before I put ya back down.”

Again the pregnant woman pulled on the robed man’s hand, but he shook her away.

Aimi looked up at Jojo. Jojo shrugged down at Aimi, and they both returned their attention to the main deck of the carrack.

“No mistake,” the robed man said. “Don’t you remember me? Orin Syú, your father’s steward.”

Captain Stillwater was a few inches taller and broader than Syú, but he seemed to tower over him. Aimi realised that both the crew of The Phoenix and those who remained of the carrack were deathly silent; only the sound of the waves lapping against the hull and the creak of the rigging breaking the stillness.

“Last chance, mate,” Stillwater said in a voice as cold as his grey eyes. “Ya obviously got me mixed up with someone else. So how about ya stop trying to save ya worthless skin and sit back down with the rest of these smart folk.”

The captain turned and started back towards the sterncastle. Both crews relaxed.

“Your brother is still alive,” the robed man said.

Captain Stillwater let out a long sigh and shook his head. He turned back to the captive.

“They call him the Sword of…” Syú said before the captain’s fist collided with his face.

A couple of pirates cheered; most just watched in silence, and Aimi was no different.

The captain grabbed hold of the robed man by the neck before he could fall, and started dragging him towards the starboard railing. The pregnant woman was crying and begging for his forgiveness. The man seemed to regain his lucidity just as the captain drew his dagger and stabbed the poor fellow in the gut, then hauled him overboard. Aimi didn’t even hear the splash as the man’s body hit the water, and there were no screams other than the pregnant woman’s.

Captain Stillwater spent a minute looking over the starboard railing before turning back to the prisoners gathered on the main deck.

“Anyone else reckon they taught me to read?” he said, to a chorus of silence. Without another word the captain mounted the ladder to the sterncastle deck and resumed his conversation with the quartermaster.

Aimi looked up at Jojo, who appeared unconcerned by the murder. “Sometimes there’s a bit more killing to be done,” he said with a shrug, and again offered her the clay flask.

With night quickly approaching, lanterns were lit on both ships and, while The Phoenix floated leisurely nearby, the captured carrack was cleared of bodies and made ready to sail. It appeared the ship was to be taken back to New Sev’relain, where its goods could be offloaded and the ship itself could be repurposed into the pirate fleet. The prisoners – those that were in a healthy enough condition to serve – were quickly press-ganged into service, split between the two ships. The quartermaster was tasked with keeping all the men so busy they’d have no time to think about an ill-thought-out mutiny.

The captain had disappeared into his cabin soon after the capture of the carrack and had yet to emerge. Aimi was on the verge of going to see him when Morley caught her and put her to work scrubbing the deck of the carrack. Despite her wish to remain bloodless, Aimi found her hands and knees stained red. Never before had her decision to turn pirate and join The Phoenix’s crew seemed so real.

Now, with her shift over a good hour ago, every bone in her body aching, a weariness that would put the restless dead out of sorts, and the knowledge that her next shift was only a few hours away, Aimi wanted nothing so much as to crawl into her bunk and forget the world existed. She stopped halfway across the deck of The Phoenix and glanced towards the captain’s cabin.

Aimi’s better judgement screamed at her to keep walking, to drop down the hatch to the crew quarters and reward herself with some much earned sleep. Aimi had made a habit out of ignoring her better judgement. Her knock on the captain’s door was not well received. After a moment’s silence, Captain Stillwater barked out a couple of words, and though Aimi couldn’t entirely understand them through the wooden slab, she was fairly certain they weren’t an invitation to enter. She tried the handle and found the door unlocked.

“My mistake,” the captain said, glancing up from the bucket he was hunched over. “I didn’t realise where you’re from, ‘fuck off’ means ‘please come and interrupt me’. I’ll remedy the situation immediately. Unless the ship is on fire, there’s a mutiny in progress, or Reowyn himself has appeared on my ship to reap his fill of souls – go. Away.”

Aimi shut the door behind her and leaned against it. Captain Stillwater stared at her and sighed. “Part of the agreement of you serving aboard this ship is that you follow orders. My orders.”

Aimi nodded. “I thought you might need to talk.”

“I don’t.”

“I think you do.”

The captain lifted his hands from the bucket and dripped red-tinged water onto the deck of his cabin. “Do you even… I mean, you are actually the most… argh!”

“Good.” Aimi forced a cheerful smile onto her face despite her exhaustion. “Now we’re past the denial. You shouldn’t wash your clothes in salt water.”

The captain nodded. “I don’t exactly have spare fresh water to hand. What we do have is for drinking, not for washing.”

“Well, you’d be better off using spit than salt water.”

“Oh, really? Well, as you’re obviously the expert, would you like to come over here and wash the blood out of my jacket?”

Aimi held up her hands to show the blisters she’d earned scrubbing the deck for hours. “Not really.”

“You’re the one wanted to join the crew. Don’t go complaining just because Morley actually puts you to work.”

Aimi raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t complain.”

Captain Stillwater went back to washing his jacket.

“You know you murdered that man today?” Aimi knew she shouldn’t have mentioned it, but she needed to know why it had happened. The rest of the crew may be content to shrug off the murder, but she wasn’t.

“I murdered a lot of men today,” the captain said distantly. Aimi realised she was tense, gripping the door handle behind her with both hands. “We all did. You too. You might not have dealt the killing blow, but you helped us catch up to them, and that puts you as responsible as the rest of us. Congratulations, you’re a pirate and a killer.”

Aimi didn’t like to think of herself as a murderer. She’d dealt out a few cuts and bruises in her days, but nobody had ever died from those wounds. The idea that she might be responsible for another person’s death sat leaden in her gut.

“When I was young,” Stillwater continued, “I used to think I could be a real heroic rogue. Stealing from those that deserved it and giving to those that needed it, and no one would get hurt. Doesn’t work quite like that.

“We may steal from merchants, kings, and noble folk, aye, but they can afford the losses. The people that get hurt, they’re the sailors hired to transport and protect the cargo. I steal from those that deserve it by killing those that need it, and don’t have a single bit left over to give away to anyone. And I’m still no closer to Prin.”

Aimi bit her lip, but her curiosity won out. “What’s Prin?”

The captain fixed her with a cold grey stare so intense Aimi had to look away. “He’s a man I need to find,” he said eventually.

“How mysterious.” Aimi grinned.

“Have you any idea how frustrating you are?”

“Yes,” Aimi said, nodding. “Have you any idea how conflicted you sound?”

“Yes.”

They stared at each other in silence for a long while. Aimi found it hard to tell what the captain was thinking behind his steely eyes, but he didn’t look like he was about to try to throw her out again.

“I used to know exactly what I was doing,” he said quietly. “Where I was going. Now I feel like a ship without a course. I’m just following Drake Morrass blindly. Honestly, I’m still not convinced I’m not following a demon right into a watery Hell.”