“My apologies,” Nel grinned.
“See, you could have just said you were sorry,” Stoker ribbed her. “Anyway, Java’s not one to drink, not grog anyway, but I hear she used to be a right horror without her coffee. The black kind.”
“Put her with Jack in the galley,” Nel told him.
“As you like. After that we’ve got Yarn, man with the beard. Likes to talk, too, introduce you later but have your excuses ready. Chit is the reedy fellow and a soft touch for a loan. Horse is—”
“The one with the face?”
“Wouldn’t be asking about that one, Skipper, not if you’re squeamish at all.”
“The face?”
“The name.”
Nel raised an eyebrow. “Won’t be asking then. Ignorance as they say.”
“A warm feeling in cold waters,” Stoker nodded.
Nel laughed. “Ain’t no one like you, Stoker. Wasn’t looking for crew but glad to have you here.”
“Aye, seems you went from drinking alone to a merry band in short order. Could show the pressers a thing or two, I’d wager. As for me, well, maybe that’s it. Not enough of me to be me, all being used up. Showing me age. Think I even saw a grey hair the other day. Hard to tell though, without the mirrors.”
“And people call me hard,” Nel said.
“And well they should, Skipper. Don’t worry about me; I don’t. Don’t feel a whole lot of anything, truth be told. Should be a bother but it ain’t.”
Oh lad. Stoker . . .
“I’m sorry,” Nel whispered.
Stoker shrugged. “It bother you, lass?”
Nel shook her head. “No, but . . . I know you. Most folk don’t. How do people look at you? I mean . . . do they realise? How do you live?”
Stoker reached up, scratching at the top of his head. “Feel like you’ve asked me some of this before. Fact is, don’t feel the need to talk to most folks, except for ones I know, like yourself. No reason to. Don’t need nothing from them. Don’t feel the cold, don’t get hungry. Don’t feel much of anything, really, like I said.”
“That sounds . . . horrible. Like not living, at all.”
“Aye, suppose it does. Except it doesn’t. Or isn’t. Just is. Might be a what-you-call-it, side effect, of not being alive. Talked about it with the lads and lasses. Talk to each other we do, great philosophical discussions. Last for days. Don’t need to sleep, either. Not a great deal of sense of self-preservation left to us, we feel. Which is nice.”
Sharpe came up to meet them. Stoker greeted him, clasping him by the arm and clapping him on the back. Sharpe did the same in return, his expression openly warm.
“Never thought I’d see you again, lad,” Stoker said. “Said that now more times than I can count. Figured you for the black or the inside of a brig for the rest of your days. And that were the happy endings.”
“Both, as it happened,” Sharpe told him. “You’re looking well. New shoes?”
“Aye, except I call ’em feet.”
“Suits you.”
“More than the foppish rags you had me wearing.”
“All the Skipper’s idea, Stoker.”
Nel raised an eyebrow at them both. “You two didn’t have time to bask in each other’s company before now? Is this for my benefit?”
“Had a job to do,” Sharpe said. “And I just do as I’m told. Speaking of which, still waiting on your friend, Nel.”
Nel scowled. “Maybe if you found something useful to do you’d have less waiting.”
“You’re not wrong. Quill wanted me to ask after the children, Stoker. Ask you himself but he’s too busy inventing new curse words.”
Nel felt a flush of guilt, remembering the children of Grange, the ones who hadn’t been affected like Stoker and most of the adults had. Made her look at Sharpe. Seemed it was one of those days where he was the better person. She didn’t buy the part about Quill wanting to know.
“Well, last I heard,” Stoker told them, “sent the ones we could off to what families they had, where they had. Apprenticed a few of the older ones.”
“But not all, I’d imagine.”
“No, not all.”
“What happened?” Nel asked.
“To the winds, mostly,” Stoker told her. “Off in small groups. Safer that way.”
“How do you mean, safer?” Nel asked quickly.
“Learnt that one quickly,” Stoker nodded. “Ain’t quite Draugr, us lot, but most folk can’t tell the difference. Safer to pretend to be but too many of us all together, well, draws the wrong kind of eye. Like what happened in Vice.”
“Alliance?” Nel asked.
“Sort of. Pressers more, scavenger types. Still a demand for Draugr labour back in the High. Worth an enterprising man’s time to round up any strays and ship them in.”
“Folk are struggling and starving,” Nel said. “Common folk, can’t get a job for love or money and they’re pulling in Draugr as a workforce.”
“Because they can do three times the work for none of the pay,” Sharpe reminded her. “Not a hard thought for anyone of means. Rich get richer and the poor get poorer.”
“Hells,” Nel sighed. Hells, but . . . not my problem. Not why we’re here.
“Truth is, there’s not much purpose left to us,” Stoker waved towards where his fellow Draugr were tending lines. “Told ourselves it was all for the children but once we saw to them there wasn’t much of a connection left. No reason.”
“There were more than just you,” Nel said. “You on this ship, I mean.”
“Connections,” Stoker said. “Those that had them, well, they had them. We didn’t. More than a few of us. When Sharpe rolled through, desperate and begging for help—”
“I wouldn’t have said desperate,” Sharpe objected. “Nor begging.”
“Hush you,” Nel told him.
“He helped us, more than less,” Stoker continued. “Remember your girl. Sounded like a good thing, a rescue. Seemed a fitting end to it all.”
“An end?” Nel repeated, sombre. “Is that how you see this going?”
“Alliance ambushes waiting?” Sharpe pointed out. “Struggling Grange families and starving children? Perhaps another jail break? Another ballad of daring escapes, liberating grey-skinned sailors from the Draugr pens? All so we can be off to rescue our fair princess?”
Nel scowled at him.
“Spent a long time drinking in those tavern dives, didn’t you, Vaughn?” Sharpe grinned. “Heard so many fireside drinking stories you started to think this was one.”
Nel scowled harder. “Tell me how this story ends, Sharpe. When we sail into the mist of a cold sun with our crew of undying sailors to rescue a lost shipmate.”
Not a damned princess. Hells.
“Badly, I’m expecting,” Stoker suggested. “But I’d have no regrets. Makes for a better tale that way.”
Sharpe winked. “With a heroic rescue, to be retold by firelight. Joyful reunions and a passionate kiss for our hero.”
Nel snorted. “A kiss?”
“Aye, for Quill. But don’t tell him, I want it to be a surprise.”
At that, she laughed.
Chapter 15
IT WASN’T OFTEN now that Violet found herself escorted by both Kaspar and Gravel. Such days had mostly been confined to when she’d first come aboard and had needed help moving around. But it had been happening more and more now.
The order of the day was polishing. Her special status aboard the ship still didn’t exclude her from mundane duties. Everybody worked. But that was fine, polishing and greasing the Fata Morgana’s battery of wands was a familiar task, and preferable to polishing the outside of the ship. The mundane task let her mind drift off into other places.
Are they watching you or is Ensign Niko Kaspar watching you both? Hard to say. But how ever are you going to get back to Sharpe with pretty eyes like that on you?
Pretty eyes. Pretty lips too.
As it turned out, that place had no filters bet
ween her mind and her mouth.
“I’m sorry we kissed, Niko,” she said. Both boys dropped their tools, Kaspar a belaying pin and Gravel a bag full of lard. Jaws fell too. Gravel spoke first.
“I hear that right?” he said. “There was kissing going on?”
“No,” Kaspar replied quickly.
“Oh, right now, because kissing is something normal folk do.”
“What’s that mean?” Kaspar turned his glare on his friend.
“That you ain’t normal, Kas,” Gravel told him. “Look at you, been at this for an hour and not a sweat stain or a wrinkle on your pretty face. Tell me that ain’t unnatural.”
“That wasn’t what you meant,” Kaspar retorted.
“Aye, no? What’d I mean then, sir?”
“I didn’t kiss her,” Kaspar said sullenly. “She kissed me.”
“You let her kiss you then?” Gravel exclaimed. “Why’d you go and do that?”
“I didn’t let her do anything!”
Gravel retrieved his lard, shaking the mess in Kaspar’s direction. “You shoulda told her. Sir.” There was reprobation in his voice.
“Told me what?” Violet asked quickly. “What’s to tell?”
“You gonna tell her, sir?” Gravel asked pointedly.
“Seems like there’s a lot we could all be telling each other,” Kaspar said. “Anything you want to volunteer?”
“Yeah, aye, that there are days when I wonder why I went back for you,” Gravel told him. “Could have left you out there, make a fine frozen statue you would have. Except I didn’t because when you’re not wedging yourself proper on that stick up your wheelhouse you’re a decent sort and officers like that shouldn’t be left all alone in the black. And you,” he turned to Violet, causing her to take half a step back as he levelled a finger. “There are days when I don’t half like you either, Miss Violet. Not that you aren’t a fine figure of a woman, lass, won’t deny I’ve had thoughts about how our babies might look, adorable furry illegitimate mongrels they would be, no doubt. But sometimes you’ve a mean streak that feels like it ought to belong to someone else and when you’re like that, like now, with what you said right there just to try and be hurtful, I don’t much like you, not like you deserve.
“And that’s all I have to say about that,” Gravel told them both with a shrug.
“Furry babies?” Kaspar repeated.
“Wheelhouse?” Violet added.
“Aye, to both,” Gravel folded his arms. “And is there anything either of you would have to say for yourselves?”
Violet and Kaspar exchanged a look. “I didn’t say it to be hurtful,” she said.
“No?” Gravel said. “Then why’d you say it at all? Been drinking again? You’re mean when you drink.”
“What? No! Because . . .” Violet struggled. Why had she said it? Seemed she couldn’t even recall her own reasoning now.
“Maybe Gravel’s right, do have a mean streak. Not sure I like that,” she admitted.
“Besides, not like a kiss from Mister Wheelhouse himself means all that much. He’s kissed me the once too, so don’t feel so special.”
“Oh for . . .” Kaspar buried his face in one hand. “That again?”
Violet pointed at Gravel, feeling her eyes about to pop. “Him?”
“It was stupid,” Kaspar muttered. “There was grog. Lots of grog.”
“Aye,” Gravel grinned wickedly. “Though not much grog left after.”
“Must you?” Kaspar sighed.
“Aye, I think so, sir. Apologies on account of my poor recounting, unless you’d prefer to take over the telling of it?”
Kaspar slumped down against the bracket he’d been polishing, waving a hand for Gravel to go ahead. For the first time Violet saw grease smear the whites of his uniform.
Gravel took to his telling with gusto. “Was after I pulled himself in after his trip into the black. Figured we’d earned ourselves a ration of rum, helps warm the blood too. Medicinal. Poor Niko, though, was all shook and trembling from his ordeal. Drank the rum straight without mixing it with the water first. Went straight to his head.”
“You gave it to me,” Kaspar complained.
“Aye, and I’ve never again made such a mistake, now have I? A bell later the young ensign was pouring it out, his heart and his eyes and every breath in his lungs. Learnt all about his family and how hard it was growing up him. About his pretty sweetheart . . .”
“Pretty?” Violet repeated.
“I never said pretty,” Kaspar interrupted, making a face.
“Can’t call them ugly now though, can we, sir?” Gravel put his hand to his chest in mock horror. “Wouldn’t be right without them having a chance to defend themselves. As I was saying, Miss Violet, our friend here is distraught we’ll never make it back, he’ll never tell them how he feels and declare his true and undying love. Next thing is he’s bawling his eyes out. Probably crying tears of purest rum, if I’m any judge. Try to console the lad and next thing I know he’s making a sodden mess of my shirt and planted a fierce one on me. I tell you,” he said to Violet, “fellow could get drunk just off the fumes of the ensign’s breath this day.”
Kaspar just glared at him. “You done now?”
“Aye, sir, done as done. And ain’t I been a good friend to you since? Got us back in that creaking tub—”
“I got us back,” Kaspar said.
“Pointed the way,” Gravel said, with a sidelong glance at Violet. “Not a secret we had to resort to more traditional methods of navigation to make our return voyage. Must have figured that out. But I ain’t said a word about it since, now have I?”
“Until . . . you just . . .”
“Aye, but Miss Violet here deserved to know. Didn’t tell your pretty sweetheart now though, did I?” He gave Violet a meaningful look. “Met the fellow when we made it back. Wasn’t lying before, for a man, all bearded and manly, very pretty fellow.”
Kaspar sighed.
“I didn’t know,” Violet said, sinking down onto the deck on folded legs.
“Know what?” Kaspar said wearily. He eyed her expectantly.
“All . . . ,” Violet waved a hand, searching for the right word. “Manly. That who wrote you all those letters?”
There was a snicker. Kaspar threw a balled-up grease rag in Gravel’s direction. “Oh, shut up.”
“Shutting up, sir.”
RAINES PUSHED THE tea aside, a wisp of steam still rising from the drinking vessel. Wooden, durable, sturdy. There were leaves in the bottom of Violet’s mug, shrivelled and liquid. The dregs, she supposed. Some people made a living divining tea leaves. Violet couldn’t think how—to her it was just a damp mess.
Not that she was having any more success divining what it was Raines wanted with her. He sat across from her in his private cabin. A cabin that unlike most aboard the Tantamount was in fact private, due in no small fact to still having a door that both closed and locked.
Raines had sought out her company, or more accurately, summoned her. Kaspar had escorted her to his quarters and now stood watch outside the door.
As always, her eyes were drawn to the fan of tails spread out like plumage behind the elder. One couldn’t tell from his appearance, Raines persisted in a somewhat indeterminate age, but his bearing was slow and measured. Very different to the manic eccentricity he had displayed before. She didn’t know what to make of it entirely. All the elders at home were just that, elder. Venerable and considered. There was something about Raines that refused to be placed into that aged category.
Seven tails though. She hadn’t seen the like since she left home.
Home. Where a seven-tailed fox should have long since returned.
“Tell me again of your time aboard the Tantamount, child.”
“I didn’t spend as much time aboard her as you seem to think.”
“Did you not?” Raines brought his drinking vessel up, face momentarily hidden by the steam. He smiled as he set it down. “Perhaps you are forgetti
ng who it was that suggested you spin such a tale.”
“No.”
“Do you believe that the first mate believes such tales?”
“I believe the first mate is not entirely forthcoming with what she believes,” Violet said carefully.
“A sensible attitude. Belief is a precious and powerful thing. Wars have been fought over it. Wars have been fought over much less. Lives lost . . . worlds, well . . .”
“Are we at war, elder?”
“Perhaps.”
Perhaps.
“I would like to speak of Draugr and golems, child.”
There was a Draugr on the work bench next to them. The body was cold, stiff, like all Draugr. But this one didn’t move. Dead and discarded, if it were ever truly alive.
Laid out in neat little rows. Bodies wrapped in sailcloth. Waiting to drift into the black.
Except him there is all kinds of naked. Right down to his bones.
The Draugr had been cut open. Examined. Maybe experimented on. By Raines. Violet had watched him do it.
The strangest part was . . . it hadn’t affected her any. No blood, no pain, no squeamish rising of her belly. It wasn’t so different to helping . . . Jack . . . aboard the Tantamount.
Violet winced, holding a hand to her temple. Her migraine was back. A side effect, Raines had said about her constant headaches. Stemming from her time in the cold black. Surely they should be getting better though? If anything it was worse.
“This ship has many unique qualities,” Raines said. “But also its own challenges. I believe you took part in, what do they call it? Void walking.”
“Treading the black,” Violet nodded.
“Ah, curious. The black. Anyway, maintaining the condition of the exterior of this ship has become more of an arduous task than either the first mate or I am content with. Skilled crew members, such as we have aboard, should not be wasting their time on such mundane tasks. Unfortunately, they are essential. But also detrimental. Ships such as this would not be practical under widespread use unless we can address such issues.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” Violet asked.
Raines nodded at the Draugr. “This ship itself is an experiment. The labour shortage is nothing new. We have tried to address it several times. Golems, Draugr. The Mandragora,” he pointed to the creatures who were bundling the eviscerated Draugr away, “were like this ship. First. A proof of concept. But not very practical.
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