Adriano. Not once had she expected to encounter him during their little coup, hoping he’d be at home mourning her, too grief stricken to resume any of his duties.
Wishful thinking maybe.
“Don’t fire! Everyone down!” Rosalia cried. Her hood flew off as she thrust Jabari to the deck beneath her and crouched above him, protecting the boy from the volley of arrows falling all around them. One pierced one of their captives in the arm, but at first glance it appeared superficial. Another struck a fellow thief in the thigh. He stumbled and collapsed.
With an anguished cry, Pachenzo raised his bow and aimed. The arrow could have been destined for anyone—a sailor, a watchman, or her best childhood friend.
“No!” Rosalia lunged at Pachenzo and tackled him to the deck. The shot went wide, missing Adriano by a mile.
Blessed Light of Arcadian. That had been meant for her friend after all, and had she been a split second later, the fletching would be protruding from his chest.
“The hell you go and do that for? Ain’t nothing but a fucking pig in white.”
“Enough lives have been lost.”
When she glanced at the pier, Adriano stood at the end of it, staring at the ship with wide eyes.
Damn. Had he recognized her? Could he recognize her at this distance? If anyone knew her preferred garb while on the job, it would be him.
“Get off me!”
Pachenzo shoved her off and swept the bow from the deck again. He was determined, a fury in him that nocked the arrow a second time until she ejected the blade from her bracer and slashed the string.
“No! We won’t harm them. It isn’t necessary to spill anymore blood than what’s already stained this deck. We’ve taken the ship, and that’s what matters most when it comes to my plan.”
Luca had his heel on the neck of a sailor. He glanced at her and raised one dark brow. “What do you say we do with them then?”
“We’ll toss them into the longboat and let them paddle back to Enimura once we’ve gained distance. Perhaps the beach guard will find them first, all the better to distract them from coming after us.”
Pachenzo growled. “What reason we got for listening to you? You ain’t did shit but open a door. Hell, given some time, one of us may have managed that ourselves.”
Jabari charged forward across the wooden deck on bare feet with both fists clenched at his sides. Resentment and anger contorted his youthful but swollen face. “Hey! You can’t speak to Rosalia that way! She did more than just free us. She saved our lives, and you owe her an apology.”
“No one asked you, kid. Beat it while grown folk are talking.”
The ship drifted farther from the harbor, moving from the mouth of the bay and approaching the open sea with increasing speed. They had a head start and the night in their favor, none of the other ships prepared or manned to suddenly withdraw from dock and pursue them.
Rosalia’s heart pounded in her chest. The others had gone silent, but Soraya’s fingers tightened over her sword hilt. Luca stepped closer to her. A brief, curt nod exchanged between them as the two appeared to communicate in body language.
They were either on her side or plotting to throw her overboard.
“This is our chance to raise the black flag and go off to do whatever we want. We have a naval ship stocked for a voyage, armed with guns, and loaded with ammo.” Pachenzo slammed a fist into his palm. “We have everything we need to take the seas, and we may never have this kind of opportunity again. Imagine the power below us in that gun berth. Look at the weapons we’ve taken from the armory. Outfitted and equipped like this, nothing can stop us.”
Luca stared at Pachenzo a moment. Then he cracked an uneven grin and turned away to laugh.
Soraya gave a throaty chuckle. “That’s your big plan? You don’t even know what she plans to do, and you’re already dismissing her idea in favor of yours?”
“It can’t be as good as getting rich looting ships. Thievin’ is what we know,” a former prisoner said. “Let’s hear him out. He’s been on a pirate ship before.”
A low murmur of agreement spread over the group.
Sergio tossed back his head, his thunderous laughter echoing across the midnight sky. “So have I, and I can tell you it’s nothing great. A lot of difficult work and struggle, hungry days when there are no ships in sight, and loss of lives when you encounter the wrong one. They don’t all wear their protection where you can see them either. It’s a difficult job discerning the weak from the strong, but you make one fuck up and everyone’s a goner.”
Horatio nodded. “He speaks the truth. A meek merchant vessel may appear to be a kitten until her claws come out and you realize you’ve caught a tiger. You haven’t faced a struggle until you watch a pair of battlemages emerge from below deck with their spell books armed and ready. You thought those city watchmen kicked your asses before slinging you in a cell? Battlemages are merciless.” He shook his head.
A few voices quieted. “Battlemages?” someone asked.
“Aye. Battlemages raining lightning and fire down on your sails like there’s no tomorrow. And somehow, I’m here to tell the tale and warn you about it. Barely got out of that scrape by the skin of our fucking teeth. They’ll incinerate you and sweep your cinders off the deck without thinking twice.”
“Still, they can’t all afford to hire magicians,” a younger thief spoke up. “Right, Pachenzo?”
“Right. Those odds are small, only the wealthiest merchants can afford that kind of aid. I say we take our chance as pirates with odds no different than if we were to continue a life of theft. She ain’t told us nothing that convinces me we should be followin’ her orders.”
“We want to take our chances as pirates. There are fat merchant ships out there on the waves. I’ve seen them!” another thief shouted.
Pachenzo puffed his chest out. “Y’see? No one cares about her plan. She’s just a child, and she ain’t no boss of me.”
“I say she’s the boss.” Moving stiffly on his damaged leg, Alberto descended the steps from the quarterdeck and strode up to them, clutching a broomstick for a cane. “Who knows how to sail? They say you’ve been on a ship, but do you know how to sail? You learn anything about that while you was out there on the sea?”
Pachenzo said nothing.
“I expected as much. The two of us”—Alberto pointed at him and Durum—“are all you have capable of operating this ship. The way I see it, you need us, otherwise you’ve got a pretty piece of wood and steel as likely to capsize as it is to deliver you to a life of piracy.”
Durum grunted.
“Rosalia went through a lot of trouble, at great personal peril to herself, and I ain’t about to let you chuckleheads fuck it up for all of us. Now I say we hear her out.”
Luca nodded. “As do I. She’s earned our loyalty until she proves it’s undeserved. Anyone disagree with me—”
“Or me,” Soraya said.
“—can swim back ashore.”
The dissenters quieted.
Luca grinned. “Excellent. Glad we are able to all see eye to eye here.”
“As am I,” Sergio said, while Horatio nodded alongside him. “It would have been quite unfortunate for anyone to tumble overboard with their manacles restored in place.”
Alberto crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “We have no need for the longboats, and since we’ve already acquired a free naval ship, we can toss ’em in with a single oar and leave them to their luck. Listen to the woman. She got us this far, and she deserves our respect. We’re thieves, not assholes.”
“Speak for yourself,” Horatio said.
A couple of the them chuckled.
As a low murmur of discussion went over the crowd of former prisoners, her gaze darted to the group, and she only relaxed when their heads began to nod.
Pachenzo’s shoulders dropped. “I hope you’re right about this.”
An hour later, enough distance spanned between the Sword and port that Alberto permitted
them to load the longboats and set them down on the waves. As promised, the sailors received a single oar, though most of them were still unconscious, their drowsy heads lolling left and right.
That was one less responsibility on Rosalia’s plate. Now she just had to hope her motley crew were up for the task of sailing to Ilyria.
19
DESTINY
IT TOOK Rosalia most of the night and the next morning before the crew drove her to wondering if execution would have been better. Of the twenty-six former prisoners, nine had been beaten too cruelly to provide help, and almost half of the remaining thieves resented taking orders from her. Alberto tried to help, but it wasn’t until Luca and Soraya stepped forward and doubled down on their vow to throw any dissenters into the sea, that there was finally peace.
Between her and the seasoned smuggler, they managed to assign jobs and somehow keep the ship afloat on the turbulent seas. The injured were given simple tasks to complete below deck, making meals in the galley, or sitting on stools and crates while chopping vegetables to rest their battered or broken limbs.
“Gods, they sure took their pleasure in beating inmates bound for the slave port. How were you all to work when they’ve laid you up in your cells?” Rosalia asked, popping into the room where the ship kept its small number of livestock.
The young thief milking one of the ship’s three goats grimaced. Even the youngest thief taken alive hadn’t been exempt from physical abuse. Enrikos had a bruised face and a busted lip, his right arm in a makeshift sling. He couldn’t have been more than seven or eight and had been one of her favorite urchins to contract when she needed a little surveillance on a mark. He was also a lieutenant among the Sewer Rats, a gang run almost entirely by kids. “They’d have found other ways to make use of us, just as you have. Uh, not that I mind. Milking goats and getting pecked by chickens ain’t as bad as slave labor or staying in the workhouses, and all that. You don’t listen to the ones bitching and moaning, Rosalia.”
She smiled at him. “I didn’t intend to listen to them. Though I suspect Luca is tired of their complaints and may make good on his threat to throw someone overboard.”
“That wasn’t a threat. That was a promise. I’ve seen him in action before for Aleppo.”
“Yeah?”
“He nearly gutted a man once. Wasn’t supposed to see it, I don’t think. He’d brought the poor asshole down into the sewers for a bit of private hide-the-knife time, you know? And I was down there minding my own business when he came down with Soraya and two other guys who worked for the big boss. Next thing I know, there’s blood everywhere. The other two quieted up nice and proper, said they’d make good on their overdue payments to Aleppo and give no more problems.”
“So he made an example of one?”
Enrikos nodded. “That’s how those types get everybody to mind the big bosses. I don’t think he died either, cause his two friends picked him up and carried him off after that. He was still groaning.”
“Yeah. A dead thief can’t pay his taxes to the boss. And if he’s undercut the boss, he sure can’t repay that with interest if he’s fish food.”
Murder was out of the question when it came to the Thieves Guild, but the leaders like Hadrian and Aleppo had their ways of gaining obedience, otherwise they wouldn’t be the boss and disorganization would corrupt the complicated infrastructure that kept the guild running like a well-oiled clockwork machine.
At least it had been running like one until King Gregarus decided to say to bash it all to hell.
“Hey, Rosalia?”
“Hm?”
“Thanks. For rescuing us. We appreciate it, you know.”
She smiled down at the kid and mussed his curly hair. “No need to thank me.”
“I know. Some of the others won’t say it ’cause they’re too busy acting like jackasses, but I figure the rest of us can at least show we’re grateful.”
Rosalia scooped a bucket from a barrel of grain and wandered around the livestock quarters, scattering handfuls over the ground for the clucking chickens.
“What’s going to happen to all of us now? Alberto says we’re heading to Ilyria. I thought all elves hated Saudonians.”
“We are, and they don’t. The elves despise our kingdom’s leadership and our allies, with good reason as we’ve recently learned.”
“True.”
“Anyway, we haven’t many other places to go. An acquaintance told me to get us sailing to Ilyria, and that he’d put word in with their coastguard announcing us as refugees.”
“Do you trust him?”
She pursed her lips and considered it. Xavier had saved her from certain death, sheltered her, and given her all the tools required to rescue two dozen more lives. Trust was putting it mildly, even if there were times she wanted to physically correct his arrogance with a sharp punch to the nose.
“Yes. He’s a good man. I’d trust him with my life. He’ll do right by us.”
The child’s dark eyes shone with hope.
“I’ll take these up to the galley for you.”
After delivering a few dozen eggs to the galley, she spent the rest of the day assisting with other menial tasks around the ship, clueless about sailing but capable of taking orders from Alberto and Sergio. Then she slept on a hammock in the berth. There were only three officers’ cabins on the naval ship—captain’s, lieutenant’s, and physician’s quarters—and they’d given those beds to the thieves with assorted serious injuries, a couple folk with internal injuries, and a guy with shattered knees.
The next day wasn’t any better, although she spent her time alternating between learning the cast nets and loading the guns. Alberto wanted any of the able-bodied crew to know how to arm the cannons if the Saudonian King’s Navy caught them.
Despite all their preparation, her greatest hope was that the training wouldn’t be needed at all, and that the goddess of the sea safely swept her newfound gang into the welcoming arms of the elves.
Please, Nindar, guide us to where we belong.
ROSALIA HAD BEEN in the crow’s nest as the lookout since sunrise, distrusting anyone else to watch for naval ships on the horizon. It was the evening of their third day at sea, and the sun had already made her miserable, seeming hotter when it reflected off the white-capped waves than it had been in the desert.
Jabari climbed up beside her. “Take a break, Rosalia. I’ve got this for a while. Which way am I looking?”
“West. Actually no, they’ll be sailing from south, south west. Alberto says there’s a great current coming in, and he thinks they’ll be sailing on it if they want any chance of attempting to overtake us.”
“Okay. What else do I need to know?”
She passed the telescope into his hands. “That’s it. Just keep an eye on the horizon for ships from Saudonia. It’s very, very important for us to know right away if they’ve discovered us. All right?”
Wearing a stern expression on his youthful face, lips pressed thin and brow squished close, the young boy nodded. “All right. You and Alberto can count on me.”
True to his word, Alberto’s knowledge of the sea had put enough distance between them and Enimura’s port that the likelihood of discovery was small indeed, especially now that the crew had entered contested waters. She’d listened to Adriano bitch and moan enough about harmless skirmishes between the two kingdoms.
Please, let Xavier be right about the elves. There were still some days ahead before they even encountered land, the elven shores hundreds of miles from Saudonia’s coastline.
After leaving Jabari in the crow’s nest as their lookout, she made a pit stop on the quarter deck to check in with Alberto.
He gave her a dubious glance when she approached. “Are you sure you want us to head to Ilyria? I might have a couple contacts or two willing to shelter some of us, but I doubt the elves will be willing to take in an entire boatload of thieves. Hell, I never come this way unless we’re picking up silks and a few casks of their floral red.”
Alberto grinned, a twinkle in his gray eyes. “Speaking of good drink, you look as if you could use some. Fetch something from that barrel of rainwater over yonder before you pass out on my deck.”
Too many hours in the crow’s nest beneath the sweltering sun had tightened her skin and left her feeling off kilter. Woozy. She took his advice and scooped a cool cup of water from the barrel before soaking it up with a rag from her belt. Draping it over the back of her neck felt amazing, even if water dripped freely down her spine.
“Positive. It’s where my cohort requested for me to lead you all to safety. Ilyria and Saudonia aren’t on the best of terms right now, and my friend swore they’d accept us as refugees once he delivered a message.”
“And who’s this cohort? One of us who ain’t been hauled in on phony charges or murdered? Who else escaped the Purge? Is it Mira?”
Her heart hurt. She shook her head and forced a wan smile. “No one you’d recognize. He isn’t a thief, Alberto.”
The old man scratched the white scruff on his chin. “Can he be trusted?”
“Absolutely.”
“Hey, Rosalia!” Jabari leaned down and shouted from the crow’s nest. “I see elven canvas up ahead! I thought you said we weren’t going to cross them until tomorrow evening?”
Panic stiffened her spine. Could these elves be unaware of their intention to declare themselves refugees, a patrol ship prepared to punish the foreign presence daring to trespass within a few hundred miles of Ilyrian shores?
“What? Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. I see an elven ship approaching. Wait, scratch that. Three elven ships!”
She hurried up the mast again and grabbed the scope from Jabari’s hands.
True to his promise to help her, Xavier stood on the distant ship’s deck. Her heart did a little flip in her chest. He’d done more than keep his promise. He’d brought the elves to them instead.
But how in the world had he done it when she’d left him behind in Saudonia and he was unable to fly?
All That Glitters: a Fantasy Romance (Daughter of Fortune Book 1) Page 16