by V. Briceland
Macaque crowed at the sight of the two cards Nic had managed to hide the entire time. “A low pair!” When he realized what the pair was, however, he froze. Behind Nic, Darcy gasped.
“A pair of threes—staves and cups,” said Nic, allowing the slightest of smiles to cross his lips. “I believe they match the threes upon the table, making four of a kind.” Nic rose from his seat, letting his chair scrape back. “My two pairs beat yours, Macaque. Am I right?”
Macaque’s ruddy complexion turned pale. With his tiny eyes he stared at the cards as if he couldn’t believe what he saw. He mumbled something indistinct.
“I beg your pardon?” asked Nic, tilting his head as if he hadn’t been able to hear.
Through clenched teeth, Macaque growled, “Yes.”
“Yes, what?’
“Yes, you’re right.” Macaque’s lips curved into a snarl. When he looked at Nic and saw his raised eyebrows, though, he realized what Nic was demanding. “Yes … Captain,” he finally spat.
When Nic turned to Urso, the giant nodded. “Si. Kapitan.”
“See to it that you clear the cabin of your … things,” Nic told Macaque, leaving the vivid impression that any such things Macaque might have would surely be reeking and ridden with lice. “I’ll tell my crew to move in.” And with that, Nic ducked under the cabin door and back out into the relatively cool night air.
Maxl couldn’t wait to speak. “Master Nic—I mean, Master Drake,” he said, anxious as any puppy whose owner had just come home.
Beside him, Jacopo looked worn with worry. “What happened?” he asked his daughter.
“We won,” she said simply. “Nic won.”
It was difficult to tell, but Nic thought she sounded glad about it. “Maxl,” said Nic, addressing him with a clap on his shoulder. “You know the men here. Tell them I have defeated Macaque in fair combat and that they answer to me now. Furthermore, in secret, tell them Macaque attempted to best me using a deck of marked cards. If any would like to see the cards in question, I will show them how they were marked.” The man looked shocked at that information. It even quieted him for a moment. “That should keep him from making any claims that I was the one who cheated.” When Maxl opened his mouth again to speak, Nic interrupted him. “That should be your first priority.”
“But Master Drake,” Maxl repeated, grabbing Nic’s arm. “Down below. There is something you must see.” He began tugging him in the direction of the hatch, which lay open. Maxl scampered down the ladder with grace, still pulling Nic after.
“Yes, we won,” Nic assured Jacopo, as he descended the ladder. “We’ll set course for Gallina as soon as we can, and then home to Cassaforte after.”
“Good gods,” said the old man. Tears were in his eyes. “I can’t believe you’ve done it.”
The hold below was smellier than that of the average small ship. The scents of mold, dry rot, and the stink of unwashed skin were strong, and almost overwhelming. The pirates appeared to live in squalor, however, with bundles of clothing and weapons strewn everywhere. Crusts of bread littered the galley table, where a bold rat perched to fill its belly. It was obvious that nothing had been washed, cleaned, or cleared, for days. “Have the crew attend to this mess first thing,” he told Maxl, who rapidly seemed to be assuming the role of first mate.
“Yes, yes, of course,” said Maxl, still tugging him in the direction of the aft. “But you must come to see.”
“What in the world is so important that you have to show me immediately?” Nic asked him. “Is it some kind of stolen goods?”
“Stolen in a way, yes,” Maxl agreed.
“Unless it aids us in returning to Cassaforte, I don’t really care what it is,” Nic sighed as Maxl opened a door far back beyond the crew’s sleeping area. Buoyed as he was by his recent victory, the lateness of the hour and the sheer weariness of his body were beginning to take their toll. All he wanted to do was sit down, and perhaps have a bite to eat.
“You will care.” Maxl propelled him through the open door, holding his new captain’s head down so that it wouldn’t collide with the low opening.
When Nic stood up on the other side, he found himself confronted not by gold galleons or piles of pirate booty, but by six bodies, all packed into an impossibly tight space. Their hands had been tied behind their backs, though the kerchiefs that had been gagging their mouths had been loosened and hung around their necks. Startled at the sight of the captives, Nic instinctively drew his blade, letting it slice through the air as he leapt back.
The oldest woman among the captives let loose with a shriek. It was operatic in scope and volume, almost forcing Nic to cover his ears. And yet, it was familiar enough to arrest any movement. His jaw dropped with astonishment. “Signora Arturo?” he asked.
“Niccolo?” answered the Signora. She seemed as equally astounded to see him. “Our little Niccolo?”
“Oh gods,” said Nic. From somewhere, Maxl had produced a lantern and joined him. Nic looked from face to face. All his weariness was forgotten once more. “Infant Prodigy. Knave. Pulcinella! Ingenue! Signor Arturo! You’re all alive!”
“Nic? By the gods, is it really our Nic?” The theatrical troupe’s leader appeared to be stricken with utter disbelief. Whether it was at his liberation, or the costume in which his rescuer appeared, Nic couldn’t tell.
It was difficult for Nic to breathe. He felt as if his throat were closing, from the emotion of it. “Untie them,” he commanded Maxl. “Untie them all. But keep them away from me. Far, far away.”
And, to the astonishment of all, he stumbled out of the tiny enclosure and escaped as quickly as he could back to the main deck and the privacy of the captain’s quarters, so he could be alone.
Just between you and me, I find the little comical theatrical troupes so much more entertaining than their stuffy counterparts. Leave the Via Dioro theaters to the Thirty and their snobbery. Let us take our clove balls and candied ginger and have a few laughs from the dockside players!
—Angelina Buonochio,
in a note to her sister Giulia, Cazarra of Divetri
Nic! Lad!” Signor Arturo had beaten at the cabin door so many times now that Nic was surprised it hadn’t been battered down. “You’re being silly. I’m fine. We’re perfectly all right.”
“That’s why you’ve got to go away,” Nic called. It was surprising, how hollow and full of echoes the captain’s quarters sounded once he’d all but barricaded himself in. He’d entered seeking some kind of comfort through solitude. Although the space offered enough of the latter, of the former it afforded very little. After seeing the captain’s stained mattress, he’d discarded any notion of curling up on it until it had been washed and fumigated. “If you don’t, bad things will happen,” he called from where he’d sat down on the floor, under a map of the Azure Sea.
“That’s nonsense.”
“That’s my curse,” Nic told him through the closed door. “I should have told you when you took me on, and I didn’t. I hoped it would go away. And look what happened.”
“Nothing happened!” The exasperation in his master’s voice wasn’t the result of his stage training. It was perfectly real.
“Nothing happened? You were all kidnapped by pirates and nearly sold into slavery!”
“Well, yes.” Armand’s gift for extemporaneous speech failed him, as he tried to bluster his way through that one. “But …”
“But it didn’t happen.” Signora Arturo’s voice replaced her husband. She used the soothing tones for which she imagined she was famous. “Niccolo. Little love. Have your man open the door for us. Let us show you our gratitude.”
“Don’t you do it, Maxl,” Nic rasped out. He’d entrusted his friend with the key that Macaque had left for him on the captain’s table. “Just leave me alone, all of you. We’ll be leaving for Gallina at dawn, and you can
buy passage back to Cassaforte from there.” He tried to ignore the squawks of outrage and surprise audible through the door’s heavy planks. “I’ve told you, it’s not safe for you to be near me, with my curse.”
“What can I say to make you change your mind, my boy? There’s no such thing as curses. Everyone knows that.”
To his master’s pleas, Nic had to turn a cold heart. “You believe in curses. It’s true. Isn’t there a curse in The Infernal Mysteries of the Bloody Banquet, which you wrote yourself?”
“The Bloody Banquet is a work of theatrical fiction! There’s also a demon who tries to marry Ingenue in it, but that doesn’t mean I believe the denizens of the underworld are truly on a matrimonial spree.”
“I’ve seen you murmur a prayer to the gods whenever you spill the table salt,” Nic supplied as further evidence. “Why would you do that if you didn’t believe?”
“Good gods. This is ridiculous.” A disgusted voice from outside the door cut through the babble. “Maxl, give me that key.”
Nic heard a muted protest, followed by the sounds of a brief scuffle. Moments later, the mechanism of the door was turning as Darcy Colombo admitted herself to the room. Maxl followed, rubbing his hand on the back of his head as he shut the door behind him. “She is bonking me on head,” he complained, perplexed at how to handle the girl.
She tossed the key back to him as she made her way across the room, then came to a stop in front of Nic. Arms crossed, she announced, “Are we done with our little tantrum?”
Nic didn’t appreciate the scorn in her tone. “I endangered myself for you and for your father,” he announced. “I deserve a little more respect than that.”
“The fig doesn’t fall very far from the tree.” Darcy stared down at where Nic was folded upon himself by the wall. “I meant, I was wondering how much of ‘the Drake’ was put on, and how much of it was you. Apparently he’s more like you than I thought.” When Nic glared at her, hurt, she nodded. “There he is again.”
His retort was short and simple. “That’s unfair.”
“What’s unfair is how you pretend it was only your own self you endangered over that card game. You endangered all of us. Yes, I know,” she interrupted when he began to protest. “We would have found a way out of it. Fine. You’re clever enough to have figured something out.”
Nic couldn’t help but be surprised how her scolding had turned, no matter how begrudgingly, into a compliment. “You—you think I’m clever?”
Her lips worked without words for a moment before she explained. “You’ve lived such a curious life that it’s left you, I think, with a talent for thinking on your feet. And for self-preservation.” Without warning, she sank down to the ground and joined him on the floor. Nic had a mental image of her doing just that in the gowns she likely wore in her everyday life, and had no doubt that it would be a ravishing sight, with her skirts richly arrayed around her and her golden hair tumbling down her back. Now, though, in her makeshift pirate outfit and with her hair tucked beneath her cap, she looked like any other boy—or more honestly, like Ingenue dressed as a boy in one of Signor Arturo’s outlandish dramas. “I suppose I should learn to trust your instincts more.”
It was as handsome an apology as he was likely ever to receive from her lips. He nodded. “Thank you.”
“I thought you cared about these people,” she said. “It’s obvious they adore you.”
“I do care.” His protest was soft, as suited the mood. “I’m just worried—I’m worried that because of me, no good will come to them. I couldn’t live with that.”
A moment of silence passed in which she said nothing. “My mother went to the gods nine years ago, when I was eight. She started to appear in my dreams after that. Sometimes she still does. There’s nothing mystical about it. I’ll dream that I’ve gone down to breakfast and there she is, sitting at the table, eating fish and olives as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. In my dream I’ll tell her that I had another dream she died, and she’ll laugh and pat my head.” Darcy sighed. Her blue eyes looked into some far-off, imaginary distance. “When I wake up and find she’s gone again, never to come back, it makes for the worst morning in the world.”
The sadness in her voice made Nic want to reach out and take her hand, but he refrained, not certain how welcome she’d find the gesture. “I’m sorry.”
Perhaps he had betrayed himself with the slightest of motions, however, or perhaps she sensed his kindness and wished to reciprocate, because without any hesitation she reached out and put her own fingers around his. “You, Niccolo, are living the dream. You’ve found your friends alive and largely unharmed. Though,” she admitted, “the one dressed like a baby seems to have cried herself hoarse.” She squeezed. “Lena and Muro have given you a gift. To turn away your friends would be dishonoring the gods.”
The warmth of her hand alone almost made him give in. He was so unused to this kind side of Darcy that witnessing
it made him feel as if he’d done something truly awful to bring it about. “I am so worried, though,” he said slowly, trying to measure out every word, “that my curse may cause something worse to happen to them.”
Darcy shrugged. “So what?” That was more like what Nic was used to from her. Then suddenly, she smiled again. “You’ll think of a way out of it, for all of us. Right?” She withdrew her hand and pulled in her feet. “So shall I let them in, or do you want to continue your tantrum?”
“I’m not having a tantrum!” he protested, laughing weakly. “A tantrum is not something any of my masters would have tolerated, so I’ve never thrown one.”
“It shows,” Darcy commented. With a brisk motion, she pulled herself to her knees, and then her feet, so that she could brush dust from her breeches. “When you want a real lesson in tantrum-throwing, come to me. I’ll show you how to stomp and pout and shrill like a professional. Don’t laugh. My servants could tell you stories that would make your hair stand on end. Oh, come here, you.” As Nic finally stood on his feet, she moved in close so that she could reach out toward his head.
“I … um …” Nic dodged, much embarrassed.
“Your hair is a little … on the sides,” she explained, awkwardly trying to smooth down some fly-away locks before thinking the better of it and retracting her hands. Finally she let him attempt to fix it himself. “There,” she said, once he was more presentable. “You look handsome.”
They stood close, face-to-face, at a proximity Nic had never before been with a girl, much less a young lady of means. He couldn’t have moved if he’d wanted to, so fraught with tension was the moment. Was he supposed to say something? Do something? If so, it lay beyond his realm of experience. She, too, seemed transfixed, unwilling to look directly into his eyes, but unable to look away from them. For the longest time they seemed to stand there, motionless.
Then Maxl let out a cough to remind them that he was still there, and the tension diffused. They stood away from each other, relaxing. “Handsome for your ugly face, anyway,” Darcy said. Immediately after the words came out, she colored.
“Ah … you can open the door, Maxl,” Nic said, coughing furiously as his friend obeyed. Darcy retreated, vanishing among the bodies that, without invitation, began to invade the captain’s quarters. But even with all the noise and the talk and the boisterous cheers that soon began to fill the tiny quarters, she wasn’t in the least forgotten. Not by Nic.
The reunion produced more weeping among the troupe than Nic ever would have imagined possible. Of course, any actor worth his salt could cry at the drop of a cap, as the Arturos were fond of saying. But Nic was almost convinced there was enough salt water coursing from tear ducts to form a sea rivaling the one upon which they sailed. Signor Arturo had ruffled his hair and called him a good lad for saving them, while the Signora had enveloped him in her massive bosom and hugged him as if she might never let go. P
ulcinella sat at his feet and immediately set to re-sewing the broken jet in his cap, while Knave inspected the cupboards for wine and called for a celebration to end all celebrations. Ingenue, while hanging on to every word of Nic’s abbreviated tale, managed both to wring her handkerchief with anxiety and flutter her eyelashes prettily in Maxl’s direction, though twice he mistook her flirtation and offered to fetch spoonfuls of mint vinegar for her stomach pains. Infant Prodigy, while all the talking was going on, tumbled prettily and entertained them all with her splits. As Darcy had pointed out, Infant Prodigy had lost her voice from crying, and thus (perhaps not sadly) was unable to sing.
Second only in enthusiasm to Nic’s own reception was the troupe’s reaction to learning that the chest containing most of their costumes and many props had escaped unscathed from the disaster. They had lost all their scenery rolls, most of the paint they used on their faces, and any personal effects they might have carried in their own valises. However, the notion that something as venerable as the Legnoli chest might have survived only served to cheer them all.