The Dagger's Path

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The Dagger's Path Page 22

by Glenda Larke


  Only one answer made sense. The captain wanted Piper and Sorrel dead.

  He stopped that thought before he could dwell on it. You have to hope. You always have to hope, at least until every vestige is snatched away from you. Sorrel. And Piper. No, he couldn’t think that. He wouldn’t think that. Not yet…

  Sorrel’s a fighter… and she’s clever.

  For a second time, then a third and a fourth, they submerged and swam on. The birds flew ahead and alighted on the water once more where and when he asked. From within the safety of the flock they looked back at the ship to see that both the Spice Winds’ longboat and its pinnace had been launched.

  “They haven’t seen us y—” he began, but before the rest of the sentence was out of his mouth, sailors lined along the rail started shouting, pointing them out to the two boats.

  “I think they realised that looking among the birds would be a good idea,” said Ardhi. “We might do better without them from now on.”

  “Better idea–we confuse the issue with lots of birds.” The next time they surfaced, there were separate floating rafts of birds in all directions.

  Let them try and work out just where we’ve gone, he thought as he looked around in satisfaction. When he glanced back at the ship again, no one was pointing at them, but his complacency vanished much faster than it had arisen. Spice Winds had opened up some of the gun ports and was running out the guns.

  “Pox on them!” he muttered, then asked with more optimism, “Can they hit us with cannonballs? Isn’t that a bit like hurling acorns at an ant floating in middle of a very large lake?”

  “It would be, yes, if they were about to use the cannon. But those are the carronade ports. They intend to pepper us with grapeshot, or maybe canister shot. Effective at short range. They spray musket balls in all directions.”

  “Can they hit us from there?”

  “Oh, yes. Let’s get out of here.” Ardhi didn’t wait; he dived and was gone.

  Saker lingered a moment. No more deaths. He sent a vague sense of unease to the birds and then snapped his connection to them, to all of them. And dived once more.

  When he broke the surface again it was to hear the explosion of gunpowder. Water twenty paces away dimpled as it was peppered with grapeshot. The birds had already disappeared.

  After that, it became a frantic race, one he didn’t think they could win. It was a matter of which happened first: being hit by the shot or found by Spice Winds’ boats.

  21

  Shipboard Reunion

  What the blistering pox was that?” Lord Juster, seated in the prow of Golden Petrel’s sloop, twisted around in his seat. A puff of smoke was still drifting in the air around the gunports of Spice Winds. “They are firing at us?”

  “Not at us, methinks, cap’n,” the able seaman at the tiller replied. “That were grapeshot, that were. Couldn’t hope to hit us with grapeshot, not from this distance.”

  Juster considered that. “No, you’re right. But I’d like to know just what they are firing at. Or whom.” He sighed in a mixture of hope and worry. “Look for someone in the water.”

  Rampion would have escaped, of course. The impudent witan had the sneakiness of a wharf rat and the luck of an alley cat on the prowl. “Head towards wherever that grapeshot is landing. Mister Cranald, what’s your assessment? Will these scurvy Lowmians risk hitting us, do you think?”

  “Doubt it, cap’n,” the mate replied as another cannonade was fired. “Karradar councilmen take a dim view of outside conflicts being brought into the Bay. Killing some of their own crew wouldn’t shiver the Karradar Council none, but hitting another ship’s boat? Deliberately?” He shook his head. “If the Lowmians want to come back again, they’ll behave themselves.”

  “My thought exactly.” Still, he was glad he’d left Finch in charge on board and brought Grig Cranald with him, rather than the other way around. If anything happened to him, Finch could take charge of Golden Petrel. Grig was a fine sailor, but he was only thirty. Finch was the one with a lifetime of experience of handling men.

  He stood up, holding on to the mast, as several more volleys of grapeshot scattered like hail into the waves, but after that, nothing. He laughed. “Ah, we’re safe. Their own boats have just joined in the search and they won’t risk hitting them.”

  The Spice Winds’ pinnace and longboat had separated, obviously looking for someone in the water. The birds clustering around earlier had all dispersed.

  “A Karradar gold guinea,” he said, “to the first person to see someone in the water!”

  The able seaman in the prow spotted the swimmer before the Lowmians did, but when the man pointed him out, Juster was disappointed. It wasn’t Saker.

  That’s a Pashali, surely. Or maybe the lascar Mistress Marten mentioned. No, not Marten. Redpoll? Redwing. Confound it, I want to get to the bottom of that story, too.

  When the man saw the Golden Petrel’s sloop approaching, he swam towards them using an unusual swimming stroke that involved keeping his face down and bringing his arms up out of the water one at a time to drive himself forward with powerful strokes, occasionally breathing by turning his head to the side. Juster had never seen anything like it before. Weird, but effective.

  And fast. Fascinating. I must try that sometime.

  Unfortunately, the Lowmian pinnace was faster. A strong breeze had filled the sails and the boat was scudding after the swimmer like a shark after a meal.

  “Give those Lowmian lowlifes something to think about,” he told his crew. “Steal their wind. Show them how Ardronese sail!” Golden Petrel was a disciplined ship, where drills were a part of every day, on the voyage and in port, and it paid off in a situation like this one. He nodded to Cranald. “You take the tiller.”

  He sat back to watch Grig’s skills unfold with seamless precision. The race between the pinnace and the sloop culminated in a clever manoeuvre that robbed the pinnace’s sail of the wind at the crucial moment, followed by another that stopped the more manageable sloop dead in the water alongside the swimming man just long enough for the two crewmen to heave him in. The pinnace, trying to make up for the earlier mistake, now shot past them too fast.

  The master of the Lowmian boat yelled as they raced by. “That there tar is a deserting scut! A no-good grog-blossom of a lascar! I demand you return him.”

  I know that fellow. They’d met in Karradar years before. Juster stood again. “Overly fond of the demon drink, is he, Tolbun? In that case, I imagine you’d be glad to get rid of him.”

  “You know the law, Dornbeck! You tell him he’s ours until he is released from his contract.”

  He turned to Ardhi. “Did you sign a contract, my good man?”

  “No. They think I not read or write. They never bother ask me sign paper.” His lips were twitching as if he was trying not to laugh.

  And you can read and write? Now that’s interesting…

  He turned back to the Lowmians with a bland expression on his face, shouting across to the other boat as they drew apart, “No contract. Sounds like he was a passenger, not a crewman. Tell your captain that Lord Juster Dornbeck says if the contract is produced, signed and sealed with the Ustgrind company seal, then he’ll get his man returned, forthwith!”

  There was no reply from the other boat as it sailed away.

  “Picaroons,” Juster muttered and grinned at the lascar. “Now tell me, where is that dammed witan?”

  The man grinned back, pulled his dagger out of its sheath and flung it into the sea.

  “Best follow that,” he said, “if Factor Reed Heron is man you mean.”

  The only time Sorrel had heard the sound of cannon fire was to celebrate the birth of the Lowmian heir, but she knew exactly what she was hearing when Spice Winds fired its carronade. The sound carried over the sea like thunder and she leapt out of the tin bath, careless of dripping water, to kneel on the bed and peer out of the windows of Juster’s cabin. All she could see was the shore.

  She glanced a
t Piper. The baby had been bathed and wrapped in some of the fine linens in the trunk delivered to the cabin, and was now asleep on Dornbeck’s bed. She wasn’t stirring. Grabbing up a towel, Sorrel dried herself and began to dress, flinging on clothing as quickly as she could. The trunk had contained a selection of women’s attire, all of it of a quality she’d never dreamed of wearing. Even the most modest was more akin to something worn at the Ardronese court by a noblewoman’s wife, not by a humble handmaiden, while the immodesty and flamboyance of several other gowns made her eyes widen and wonder just what type of woman would ever clad herself in something so daring.

  Donning one of the more modest gowns, she glanced in the mirror and halted, astonished at the image before her. Her hair was wildly disordered, out of keeping with the rest of her appearance, but it was the soft curve of her breasts that caught her eye. Dear Va, she couldn’t walk out on the deck of a privateer with a bodice that displayed more than it hid! Nor could she cover her shoulders with a wrap, not in this warmth which was already causing perspiration to sheen her skin.

  She dug into her own bundle of clothing and brought out an item she’d carried with her everywhere: a grey kerchief with an oakleaf-patterned trimming of lace. Tucking the ends into the cleft between her breasts, she arranged it to make up for the deficiencies of the gown.

  Pickle it, that would have to do. Ignoring the paints and powders she’d also found in the trunk, she found a hairbrush and dragged it through her sorely neglected tresses full of salt-encrusted tangles. Surveying the result, she sighed. Vex you, Lord Juster, I think I’m not in the least like your usual onboard female company!

  In truth, the whole cabin was a witness to Dornbeck’s extravagant lifestyle. Silk sheets and a feather mattress on the bed, paintings on the wall, lush carpets on the floor, a chamber pot of finest porcelain… She had never thought to see anything like this on board a ship.

  Leaving Piper asleep, with pillows arranged to make sure she couldn’t roll off the bed, Sorrel propped open the cabin door and hurried up on deck.

  The rumbling of gunfire in the distance had ceased.

  Saker was tiring.

  They hadn’t swum in a straight line to the shore. Once they’d been seen, they’d had to dodge by diving and changing direction, even doubling back. They’d split up too, Saker heading north-west, Ardhi north-east, so the further they went, the further they were apart.

  A stiff breeze had patterned the surface of the water so they’d become harder to locate, but it also made the swim more difficult. Spice Winds had stopped firing at them in order to allow their boats to search, but each time he surfaced Saker was wearier. Those weeks of sailing from Ustgrind to Karradar had taken a toll on his fitness. Still, he wasn’t going to give up. He took another deep breath and dived beneath the waves yet again.

  Next time he surfaced, he turned on to his back and floated. He needed the rest. When the swell of a wave raised him up, he saw there were now three small boats, all uncomfortably close. At first he assumed another boat from the fleet had been launched, but then he recognised the flag at the masthead: a yellow seabird in flight on a blue background.

  Va-damn. How the foaming oceans had Juster known he needed help?

  There was a sudden shout from the Spice Winds’ longboat. An extended arm pointed towards him and left no doubt that he’d been seen. Wearily he dived yet again. A fish darted in front of him, long and silver, with odd shaped gills and fins behind the head. He followed it as it turned, not knowing why. When he rose again all the boats were closer, with the Lowmian pinnace almost on top of him. He trod water, wondering just how far Juster would go to save him.

  The silver fish swam up and slipped in between his fingers. His hand closed around hard, inflexible metal. The kris. He stayed where he was, wondering what it intended, not sure how best he could use it.

  The pinnace glided up, and someone seized him by the hair. Tolbun, the mate. Pox on it, I’m going to wear my hair short in future.

  Tolbun said, snidely triumphant, “That keel-raking is still scheduled for today. All your swimming was for naught, Factor Heron.”

  “That remains to be seen,” he replied.

  He had concealed the dagger in his hand, holding it under the water, pressed against his thigh. He could easily have reached up and stabbed the man, but he felt no inclination to do so. Instead, he raised his free hand and shoved the heel of his palm hard against Tolbun’s nose. The man jerked back and let go of his hair.

  Saker dived under the boat and jabbed the dagger point into the hull. No blade should have been able to penetrate a well-made boat, and he had no idea why he’d attempted it, but the kris always did have a mind of its own. It slid in as if the wood was riddled with ships’ worm. Saker twisted it to make the hole larger, withdrew the blade and then swam on under the boat and out on the other side as far as he could go. When he popped up, he was close enough to the Ardronese sloop to recognise Lord Juster sitting forward of the mast. He waved a hand, then turned back towards the Lowmians. “Watch out, Tolbun,” he called out, “I think your boat is going to sink any time now.”

  “You should have seen those Lowmian hornswagglers then, Mistress Redwing,” Lord Juster said. “Sad sight, really. The officers sitting in the pinnace, one moment all so proper with their starched collars and hats; the next minute realising more than the soles of their buckled shoes were getting wet. The boat steadily filled to the gunwales until they were up to their thighs in water, as panicked as cats in the rain and fearfully reluctant to abandon ship…” He shook his head sadly at Sorrel, while giving her a sidelong look that was pure mischief. “I fear my men jeered them in the most ungenerous way.”

  She smiled, but she was having trouble feeling at ease. She and Juster Dornbeck were sitting at the table in the officers’ wardroom with Ardhi, Saker, the weather-beaten first mate who had the Shenat name Finch Aspen, and the attractive third mate, Grig Cranald. It was strange not to have Piper in her arms, or at least nearby, and she kept turning around to look for her even though she knew the child was safe on the deck below. Lord Juster’s men had found a woman ashore who, with a six-month-old baby of her own, was happy to feed another for coin.

  “Of course, the Lowmian longboat rowed up to their rescue,” Juster continued, “so none of them had time to care about us or Saker any more. We hauled a very sorry-looking witan up out of the water and scurried back here as fast as the wind would take us.”

  Sorrel pushed her concern for Piper away and said quietly, “You’re a fool if you think Captain Lustgrader will take any of this calmly. His temper festers, and he will want his revenge. Especially if he ever finds out I’m on board your ship as well.”

  “Which he will soon know,” Finch Aspen said, rubbing a hand through grizzled hair. “It’ll be all over the port that a ship of privateers was looking for a wet nurse.”

  “True,” Juster remarked thoughtfully. The look he gave her was far from dismissive. “You appear to have observed Lustgrader closely.”

  “A woman using a glamour is overlooked and hears much that was not meant for her ears.”

  He smiled faintly. “I shall take that as a warning. But Lustgrader won’t be wanting to upset the Karradar Council. A council who, in spite of their respectable-sounding name, are the biggest gathering of Pashali rogues, Lowmian outcasts and Ardronese pirates in either hemisphere, united only by their unlimited capacity to commit fraud and semi-legal thievery. Not the kind of fellows any ship’s captain wants to cross.”

  Sorrel dabbed at the sweat on her forehead. The room was hot, in spite of having all the windows propped open to let in the sea breeze. Ardhi, now clad in dry garments belonging to a common seaman, was the only person who looked at home in the heat. He’d tied his long hair back with a band of plaited leather and his eyes brightened when his gaze met hers. He had the loveliest smile, she decided, and wondered how he stayed cheerful in a world so foreign to him.

  She glanced at Saker. He was wearing a soft linen
shirt borrowed from Juster, together with a fancy waistcoat that was too large for his smaller frame and more appropriate for both a royal court and a colder climate. He was uncomfortable, glancing at her, then looking away as if he really didn’t want to meet her eye. Several times she saw him eyeing her neckline. Or perhaps it was the kerchief that caught his attention.

  I wonder if he remembers that he once gave it to me? Probably not.

  “Right now,” Juster was saying, “I think we should be frank with one another. There are far too many holes in the stories I’ve been hearing.” He turned to Finch, saying, “Would you and Mister Cranald leave us now, Mister Finch? I’d rather you were both up on deck, keeping an eye on our Lowmian friends.”

  The old man wryly inclined his head and both men rose to their feet.

  “My thanks for your help,” Sorrel said.

  “Ours too,” Saker added.

  Once the two men had left, Lord Juster gave Ardhi a shrewd look. “And you… seaman? Is it appropriate that a lowly ill-educated youth such as yourself should be present at a captain’s table when secrets are discussed?”

  The gleam in Juster’s eye told her he already knew Ardhi was not a simple seaman, and the way Ardhi’s eyes crinkled at the corners said that he knew he was being teased, not insulted. He said something in Pashali, a language Sorrel did not speak. Juster smiled and, when Ardhi had finished, Saker laughed.

  Sorrel wanted to ask what he’d said, but knew this was not the time.

  “Your educational pedigree aside, Ardhi,” Juster said, “there are some questions to which I would like to have the answers, if you would all be gracious enough to indulge me. No one has given me an exp lanation that makes any sense at all of why Mistress Celandine-Sorrel Marten-Redwing was on Spice Winds in the first place, with–what’s more–a baby that is apparently not her own, and why Captain Lustgrader wanted to kill you all. Suppose you start from the beginning and give me the entire story?”

 

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