“Maybe.” Jules went back to the chair facing Shin and sat down. “Thank you. I will take your words to heart.”
He smiled. “I can ask for nothing more.”
A sudden thought came to her. Startled, she weighed it, not happy with the idea. But… “Shin, one of the things I’m worried about is the future of Western Port. They don’t have any leaders except for the Imperials we’re sending home. I can’t stay, because my presence would be such a danger to the town. But they need someone who can give them confidence and leadership. Someone who won’t demand absolute power, but will help them rule this town the way pirate ships are governed. By voting.”
“It is difficult to find such a leader,” Shin said.
“I think I have found one,” Jules said, looking at him. “The problem is, I don’t want to ask him to leave my ship. I’m happy to have him around. But I think the people here, this town, need someone like him.”
Shin gazed at her in surprise. “Me? Jules, I have only been a simple legionary.”
“I’ve been watching you, especially since we took this town. You jumped in and got things done before I even thought of some of them. Why weren’t you a centurion?”
He shook his head. “As a centurion I would’ve been responsible for enforcing Imperial discipline.”
“And you didn’t want that. I don’t want Imperial discipline here, either,” Jules said. “But we still need rules and laws. As was emphasized to me in person tonight.”
“You want me to leave the ship and undertake this task?” Shin asked.
“No! I don’t want you to.” Jules smiled at him. “I’ve really liked having you around. But…I need someone to do this. Someone the other captains would also trust. And I think you could that be person.” Should she mention the fifth share of the gold that could make Shin’s job much easier? No. Not yet. She didn’t think Shin could be swayed by greed, but it might sound too much like an offered bribe.
Shin sat quiet for a while, clearly thinking. Finally, he made an uncertain gesture with one hand. “I must consider this for a while. That is all right?”
“Of course it is,” Jules said.
He nodded again. “I must also speak with Marta.”
“Marta? Why?” She read the answer on his face before he could speak. “Really? You’re that serious about her?”
“We have enjoyed each other’s company,” Shin said.
“Shin, as your sister, I think you should know that Marta is one of those women who got her heart burned badly when she was young, and has kept it locked tight ever since. I don’t doubt that you’re enjoying your time with her, but—”
“I know of Marta’s past,” Shin said. “And I was a legionary for some time. I know all about those who seek to exploit men for their own amusement or profit. I do not think Marta is such a woman.”
“That’s your call to make,” Jules said, resolving to have her own private talk with Marta. “And if you decide to stay here for a while, and Marta wants to stay with you, I won’t try to hold her to the ship.”
“For a while?” Shin looked startled. “So you do not want me to stay the leader here for a long time?”
“No! Just long enough for them to get their legs under them. They lack other leaders now, but there’ll be more men and women coming here. People who can take on such responsibilities. And Captain Hachi says he plans to make this his ship’s homeport. He knows all about administrative things, so even though he won’t be here all the time, he can help get that set up.” Jules smiled at him. “And when you’re comfortable that you’ve done what you should, I want you back with me.”
* * *
Two days later, Captain Erin and the Storm Runner departed, carrying extra “passengers” in the form of Imperials who wanted to go home. “I’ll drop them off north of Sandurin,” she’d told Jules. “What with the time it’ll take us to get there, and the time it’ll take them to walk to the nearest town, it’ll be a little while yet before the Emperor finds out what’s happened here.”
“Fair winds,” Jules wished her.
“You, too. That Shin is a good choice to keep an eye on things here. It must’ve been hard to lose him, but no one else would’ve been accepted by Lars.” Erin had eyed Jules before she left. “Your seas seem a bit calmer the last couple of days, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“After listening to some good advice, I had to decide what course I’d steer,” Jules told her.
“Good. I’ll scour Marida’s and Kelsi’s for some sailors in search of berths and bring them back to help crew our new sloop gifted us by the Emperor. Make sure Hachi doesn’t run off with it before then.” Erin ran her eyes over the new ship. “I’m thinking of making that little beauty into a new Storm Runner, and turning my current ship into an honest trading vessel and occasional smuggler. A girl has to cover all the angles, doesn’t she?”
“I’ll keep an eye on Hachi to make sure he doesn’t steal the sloop before you can. You keep an eye on that Imperial captain.”
“Kathrin? Aye. She’s a scary one. She’ll stay in irons until we off-load her on the Imperial coast.”
Hachi stood beside Jules on the pier as the masts of the Storm Runner slowly vanished to the east. “Star Seeker will leave tomorrow.”
“You’re not planning on taking that sloop with you, are you?”
He pretended to be affronted. “How could you ask such a thing?”
“I notice you’re not saying no.” Jules shook her head at him. “Whatever happens with that sloop has to be negotiated between you and Erin. Lars doesn’t want it since he’s already got one, and I can’t spare the people to crew it.”
“Oh, all right.” Hachi glanced sidelong at her. “I spoke with Shin earlier. For what my opinion is worth, I think you’ve made a good choice in him. He has ability, and humility. That combination is too rarely found.”
Jules nodded. “I’ve more commonly found people whose lack of ability is paired with lack of humility.”
“That is often the case.” Hachi frowned out to sea. “Is that a low-lying cloud?”
Jules looked, feeling tension rise inside. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s one of the Mechanic ships.”
It didn’t take long for the answer to become obvious as the gray shape of a Mechanic ship rose over the horizon, the cloud issuing from its chimney growing in size as the ship drew closer. “We’ve got visitors!” Jules called. “Everyone get ready!”
Chapter Eleven
“I’ll meet them,” Jules told Hachi, Lars, and Shin. “Whatever their reason for coming, it must be about our seizing control of this town.”
“If they’re unhappy,” Lars said, “you don’t have to fall on your sword for us. We all participated in the decisions that brought us to this point, though maybe Mechanics won’t understand that any more than Imperial citizens do.”
“I’ve gained the impression that there’s some kind of voting in their Guild,” Jules said. “Though there also seems to be a rigid hierarchy of some kind. I’m not sure how it works.”
“Another mysterious Mechanic device,” Hachi said. He paused. “That was a joke.”
The Mechanic ship approached steadily, far faster than a sailing ship could have tacked north with the winds as they were. It slowed as it neared the area where the wide river met the sea, approaching cautiously closer until a large metal anchor on its bow rattled down into the water with an impressive splash. The chain attached to the anchor paid out with a smoothness that impressed Jules.
After a while, perhaps to ensure the anchor was holding, the ship lowered a boat. Mechanics went down a ladder into the boat, but no oars came out. Instead, the boat began moving steadily toward the pier.
“What the blazes?” Lars wondered. “How are they moving that?”
“There isn’t any smoke as there is from the ship,” Hachi said. “One Mechanic in the back is steering. The others don’t seem to be doing anything.”
“I’ll go to the top of the ladder to greet th
em,” Jules said. “You guys wait here.”
“Hold on,” Lars said. “They’ll want this.” He held out the Mechanic revolver in its holster.
“Yeah, they probably will,” Jules said. She stuffed both revolver and holster into the back of her pants inside her shirt. “But if they don’t, there’s no need to remind them of it. If they ask for it, I’ll bring it out.”
As the boat neared the pier, Jules could see turbulent water at its stern. Something down there was driving the boat, perhaps related to the oddly large, boxy seat occupied by the Mechanic at the tiller. He had some other device on a stand before him that had at least one lever on it.
Jules switched her attention to the Mechanics getting out of the boat. In the lead was a female Mechanic whose gaze searched her surroundings as she climbed the short ladder to the pier but ignored Jules and the other commons. Other Mechanics got out of the boat behind her, also climbing up to the pier. The woman who had gotten out first turned to speak with the others in a low voice, the resulting conversation seeming more like her giving orders than requesting information.
Jules waited, trying to keep her temper in check. This was, after all, how Mechanics usually treated common people.
The female Mechanic finally took notice of Jules, frowning in her direction and beckoning with one imperious hand gesture.
Taking long, slow breaths to maintain her composure, Jules walked up to her. Her unadorned black jacket, the same one every Mechanic wore, gave no hint of rank or seniority, but Jules thought she had begun to recognize certain behaviors. “Yes, Lady Senior Mechanic?”
The Mechanic began to speak, then paused to give Jules an appraising look. “Have we met?”
“No, Lady Senior Mechanic.”
“How do you know I’m a Senior Mechanic?”
Jules wanted to say it was because she was acting like an even bigger jerk than other Mechanics, but remembering the consequences the last time she spoke her mind, instead gave a polite answer. “You have the air of greater authority, Lady Senior Mechanic.”
“Unusually insightful,” the Senior Mechanic replied, eyeing Jules the way someone would look at a horse that had suddenly spoken. She didn’t bother with greetings, though. “Here are your orders. We’re going to lay out a location for a future Guild Hall and the plaza around it. The location will be marked. Nothing is to be constructed in that area and nothing is to be built that will impair access to it. It doesn’t matter how long it is before the Guild returns to build that hall. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Lady Senior Mechanic,” Jules said.
“They’re already building on the riverside,” one of the other Mechanics complained.
“They need piers on the river,” a third Mechanic said.
The female Mechanic ignored them, too, concentrating a glare on the newly-constructed wall that went around the town and was anchored at both ends on the river itself. “Are you planning any defenses in or on the river?”
“No, Lady Senior Mechanic,” Jules said.
“Good. Make sure any future walls don’t hinder access to our site, either,” she told Jules. “Nothing is to be built upstream of the location we choose that would pollute the water. That includes any discharge of sewage or animal waste or industrial chemicals into the water, no matter how small. Is that clear?”
Jules hesitated. Simply saying yes was the safest course, but she had to know what she was agreeing to. “Indus-trial chem.…?”
“Oh.” The Senior Mechanic turned to her companions. “What do the commons call them?”
“Agents,” another Mechanic said. “Tanning agents, smelting agents, dying agents. They just use that one word.”
“Of course.” She frowned at Jules. “No agents used in any production of anything. Hides, metal, clothing. Anything.”
“Yes, Lady Senior Mechanic,” Jules said, having difficulty hiding her resentment.
“Are there any other settlements upriver?”
Jules tried to sound like she was being as cooperative as possible. “We don’t know, Lady Senior Mechanic. None that are close. There may be an earlier settlement much farther up the river, established last year by people who came overland through a pass in the Northern Ramparts.”
The Mechanic sighed as if Jules had singled her out for aggravation. “Typical. Brad! Can we get a recon flight?”
“All three Guild Masters would have to agree,” a male Mechanic responded. “There hasn’t been an approved flight for decades. Reliability problems with aging equipment, and worries about the commons seeing.”
The female Mechanic turned her annoyance back onto Jules. “I want an expedition up that river. All the way to its origin. Fully mapped, all human settlements identified.”
Jules glanced quickly at the other Mechanics, who had the look of people who were used to casually being given difficult tasks and somehow trying to deal with them. Instead of trying to negotiate a compromise, Jules simply nodded. “Yes, Lady Senior Mechanic.”
“Get to work,” the female Senior Mechanic told her minions, turning away from Jules as if she no longer existed. “Somewhere up there,” she said with a wave up the river. “I’ll be on the ship.”
The Mechanics all went back down the ladder into their boat. Jules saw the Mechanic in the stern move a lever on the stand before him, and the boat moved away from the pier, a slight humming noise barely apparent over the sound of the water and the wind.
Jules watched the boat drop off the Senior Mechanic at the ship, then proceed up the river, passing the anchored Storm Queen and the current boundaries of the town. Walking back to Hachi, Lars, and Shin, Jules shrugged. “I guess they’re planning on setting up shop here someday.”
Hachi nodded as if unsurprised. “Nothing else would so surely warn off the Emperor from trying to retake this town. Simply making clear their intentions will serve as a strong deterrent.”
“Will we really send an expedition all the way up the river?” Shin asked.
“Someday.” Jules smiled. “Remember, we’re just commons. Stupid, inferior commons.”
“You’re an unusually insightful common,” Hachi said.
“Yeah, you could see how impressed she was,” Jules said in a dry voice. “We need to follow their demands when it comes to that area for their Hall. And we do want them here, as you said, to keep the Emperor from thinking he can move in again. But she neglected to say when we should send that expedition upriver. Which means there’s no rush.”
“It will take a long while to prepare properly,” Shin agreed. “But what if she returns soon to demand our findings?”
“I don’t think she will. You heard her. Giving orders and not worrying about how hard they are. People like that rarely remember to follow up, because they don’t really care that much about the tasks they toss off for other people to do.”
Hachi sighed. “Like Imperial princes. Do this, no matter how difficult, because it’s my whim. And most likely he never cares once it’s done.”
“Someone should go up the river when it can be arranged,” Lars said. “If that other settlement is there, we need to know, and they’d be happy to find out they have a connection to the sea and trade with other places.”
“That’s so,” Hachi said.
“Here’s your weapon back,” Jules said to Lars, reaching back to pull the revolver and holster out from under her shirt.
“No,” Lars said. “That will attract too much attention to me. Since we’ve done our work here, and I don’t have Mages singling me out to kill, maybe I should let you keep it.”
“It’s incredibly valuable,” Jules said.
“And incredibly high-visibility,” Lars said. “Besides, when the Mechanics do come looking for it, they’ll come to the person they gave that weapon to. Which is you. Better for you if you have it to give to them.”
“I guess you’re right about that. You shot it three times? So it only has two cartridges left anyway.” She looked down at the weapon, remembering something else.
“Did you hear what she said about a flight? Can Mechanics fly? Do they have devices that can do that?”
“I’ve heard some stories,” Lars said. “But old ones. No one believes them, and I’ve never heard of anyone seeing such a thing.”
“Like the Mara the Undying stories,” Shin suggested. “Something fantastic to entertain others.”
“Mages can fly,” Hachi said. “I saw one near Centin. I think it is something they recently learned to do, because no stories mention it.”
“They can fly?” Jules asked, alarmed. “Mages can fly? How can they fly?”
“It was a giant bird. Huge. A Mage rode on its back. I saw it,” Hachi added as he saw the skepticism on the faces of the others.
“Where could you hide a huge bird?” Lars said. “Wouldn’t people have seen them before now?”
Jules wanted to dismiss the story for her own comfort, but shook her head. “How many people have seen dragons except when they attack? Somehow the Mages hide them. You saw the one that chased me. They can’t keep something like that in their Guild Halls. If anyone saw a herd of those dragons strolling across the land they’d make note of it. But I’ve never heard of such a sighting.”
“That’s true,” Lars said, looking worried. “And now giant birds. Do you think they’d be dangerous? I mean, aside from the Mage riding one?”
“A mouse thinks a hawk is dangerous,” Hachi said. “Would we be mice to such birds? That’s not a far-off comparison to the size of the Mage bird I saw.”
“And that daughter of my line is supposed to beat people who can handle such creatures,” Jules said. “I hope she’s smarter than I am, because I don’t have a clue how that would be done.”
“Are Mages people?” Shin asked. “They often seem not human.”
“Yes, they’re people,” Jules said. “Somehow they get turned into Mages. It seems to require a lot of punishment, but that’s just a guess. And, speaking of Mages, if the Mechanics know we’ve captured this town, the Mages might soon be learning of it as well. The Sun Queen should probably sail soon.”
Explorer of the Endless Sea Page 21