“We’re not supposed to waste sailors these days. They’re in short supply, or something like that. We’re supposed to conserve them during fights. It makes things horribly boring. But now I’d like to know—”
There was a flash of that viper-fast movement again, and then she was holding my chin tightly between finger and thumb. “Just why exactly are you interested, little girl?”
I closed my eyes for a whisper of a moment, summoned up all the hatred and fury I’d ever felt in my first seventeen years of life, and forced it all into my voice. “I want them dead. I want them all dead. Especially her.”
She patted my cheek. It felt like getting slapped. “Be careful what you wish for, now. I’m going to kill her, yes, but you may end up looking back fondly on your time here. There are worse jobs in Kila these days than being chained to Darren’s bed. Such as being chained to mine. And that’s one of the few careers open to you at the moment.”
I let a trickle of injured hauteur enter my tone. “But Lady Mara, you don’t understand, you can’t do that!”
She grabbed me by my injured ear this time, and I couldn’t stop myself from crying out as she yanked it upwards. “What makes you think you can tell me what to do, scum?”
“But . . . that’s . . . just . . . it,” I pleaded, blinking the tears out of my eyes. “I’m not scum, I’m not a commoner . . . I’m . . . I’m like you . . .”
She let go of my ear. I hit the boards with a bump, my hands hovering protectively near my face.
“Talk fast,” she said.
“I’ve been here almost four months,” I said quickly. “She kidnapped me. That horrible woman kidnapped me.” The tears were coming more freely now. Under the circumstances, it wasn’t hard for me to make myself cry. My voice came out in a blubbering bawl. “She took me from my father on the northern isle. From Bero.”
Mara’s hands slapped down on my shoulders; her fingers dug in; she drew me close. “The House of Bain rules Bero,” she rasped. “Are you trying to make me laugh? Everyone knows that the lord of Bain only has one child.”
“That’s me,” I said, through rattling teeth. “I’m Ariadne. I’m his daughter.”
THERE WAS SILENCE. I wondered whether she was going to laugh in my face. But then her legs straightened as though they had springs.
“Captain?” came the voice of Mara’s crewman, from outside the cabin. “Everything all right?”
“Fine,” Mara said, her eyes not moving from me.
“The pervert’s moving around a bit here, you want me to finish her?”
“No!” I cut in hastily. “No, please, you can’t.”
Mara’s hand twitched, and I flinched back, but she controlled herself. Even if she wasn’t convinced, she couldn’t risk inflicting any more damage on the heir to the powerful House of Bain. She had to content herself with saying, “I thought I pointed out that I dislike being told what to do. Besides, you want her dead.”
“My father has to execute her,” I said desperately. “Don’t you realize what that pirate has done to me? I’ve been . . . I’ve been sullied, I’ve been taken. My father has to execute her himself to take the stain away. Please, he’ll pay anything if you bring me back to him. But I won’t be worth much unless you deliver her alive.”
She studied me. “I have a contract to get rid of Darren. She’s embarrassing her daddy. Now what do you think will happen to my reputation if I don’t make good, hmm?”
“My father will get rid of her. He will get rid of her very, very completely. You must have heard of the dungeons on Bero. Nobody leaves that place unless they’re wrapped in a burlap shroud.”
Mara looked more thoughtful. “I took a deposit from Darren’s father, though.”
“Darren is of the house of Torasan,” I said, with more than a little disgust. “Stribos is a miser and the bulk of his wealth comes from salmon fishing. My father Iason of Bain will take any fee you name, and triple it, and fill your ship with silver besides. Please,” I said, gathering strength for the last appeal. “I am his only child. Without me, he’s half a corpse.”
There was a faint smile on Mara’s lips. Her hand moved, and I flinched again, but she just ruffled my hair lightly.
“You stay put, now,” she said. “Don’t move a muscle.”
She moved outside the cabin, and her steps creaked up the stairs, followed an instant later by the heavier step of the other sailor. I closed my eyes, slowed my breathing, and listened as hard as I could.
“If that girl is telling the truth,” came Mara’s oily tone, “then she’s worth her weight in diamonds.”
“Yes, but . . .” The man’s voice hesitated. “Do you believe her, captain?”
“I’m not sure,” Mara admitted. “Maybe I should check and see whether she can play koro.”
THE VOICES MOVED further up the stairs, and away. Gingerly, I touched my ear—it really hurt, though I’d had worse—and then edged across the floor to Darren. Stretching the chain to its full limit, I just managed to reach her. Most of her injuries looked worse than they were. The only dangerous one was the bump on her head. It was fever-hot, and sticky with blood, but she’d live.
“Ow,” she muttered.
My fingers froze. “Were you listening?”
“Yes.”
“So this is your insane bounty hunter cousin?”
“That would be my insane bounty hunter cousin. She used to make family dinners total hell. Is it true, what you told her? About you and the House of Bain?”
I sighed. “No. And . . . yes. And no. It’s complicated. Can we go with ‘no’ for now?”
“I met Lord Iason once,” she murmured. “Didn’t like him. He smiled too much.” Her breath went in and out with a painful rattle. “I remember though . . . his hair. Very pale. Like wheat.”
“Darren,” I said firmly, “focus.”
I hauled her into a sitting position and checked quickly for broken bones, then did my best to comb blood-stiffened hair away from her forehead. “You’re a mess. Never mind. Are you listening?”
“Gah,” she said, with a shake of the head. I decided to take that as a “yes.”
“Darren, that barrel has oil in it . . . no, not that one, that one . . . the one I’m pointing at . . . would you look up, please? . . . thank you . . . yes, that barrel there. I need it. Get the bung out for me.”
She blinked.
Oh, well. Sometimes pirate queens need a bit of extra encouragement, and don’t we all? I took her face between my hands, carefully, and kissed both of her eyes. The sound she made was something like a squeak.
Then I turned her head to the side, careful not to touch the lump again, and spoke right in her ear. “Get on with it, Mistress.”
Grey-blue eyes, wide and staring in the dark. Then, without warning, they narrowed. Focused.
Her boot-heel lashed out and struck the bung of the barrel. The bung shot back into the barrel’s depths, leaving the bunghole open, and oil began to spill over the floor in long, slow gloops. I scooted over to the puddle, took a handful of the stuff, and carefully rubbed it over my ankle and foot. I took another handful and dribbled it into the space between the shackle and my skin.
Darren had the idea, now. “Flex your foot. Straighten it as far as you can.”
I flexed and she took the shackle. “This might hurt,” she warned.
“I know. Do it fast.”
She yanked. There was a single wrenching second when I thought my tendons would all snap and the flesh rip, but then my greasy foot shot out of the cuff. Darren flew backwards, just managing to catch herself on her elbows.
We both froze, listening. There was a creak creak on the planks near the stairs, as though someone was hovering there indecisively. Mara was still dithering. We had a little time.
I helped Darren up again. She moved jerkily, wincing once she was on her feet. “I don’t know how much use I’ll be in a fight,” she warned.
“You don’t have to fight,” I told her. “Just come
here a second.”
I plunged a hand in her pocket (she squeaked again) and pulled out the garrote. As I’d hoped, Mara hadn’t noticed the thin coil of sinew when she disarmed Darren. I tied a careful slip-knot in it, as Darren had taught me, and then pulled the loop over my head.
I handed the end of the leather strip to Darren and watched her eyes widen as she realized what I was asking her to do. I hastily held up a finger. “Don’t argue. Just try not to faint when we go up there.”
Her hands were shaking. “Lynn, oh hell and damnation, this is such a bad idea.”
“It’ll be a brilliant idea if it works, and if it doesn’t work then we won’t be around to regret it. Besides, we don’t really have a choice, do we?”
“I guess not,” she said, and then she licked her lips. “You know . . . you remember that day, back in your village? When you told me that I didn’t have the right to make the choice for you? Have you been getting your revenge on me ever since?”
“Nooooo,” I said doubtfully, drawing out the word. “Or maybe I was in the beginning . . . but . . . choices are overrated, and I’ve always known that. Back when I was living in that godforsaken village, I had to make choices all the time. Where to look for food. Where to hide when the raiders came through. That sort of thing. But none of it mattered. Nothing I could choose to do would improve things, or save anyone, or change anything. I had plenty of choices, but I had no control. It’s been like that all my life.”
“And after I took you?” Her face was bare and inscrutable in the darkness.
“After you took me, it was exactly the opposite. Can’t you see that?”
“I think so,” she said slowly. “I think I do. So you don’t want a choice about . . . well . . . whether to stay with me?”
“Let’s say that I don’t need one.” I did my best to smile at her, though my throbbing ear was sending hot jolts through my head. “How about we get this over with?”
Painfully, she straightened her back. “Once we start with this, we can’t stop for a break. It might get kind of intense.”
“I can handle it,” I promised.
She looked me over. “Yeah, you can, can’t you? Her shaking hand brushed a loose hair from my cheek. “Guess I just need to worry about myself, then. Let’s get on with it.”
She wound the free end of the garrote around her left hand, and took my shoulder in her right. Then we headed up the stairs, Darren striding, and me stumbling on ahead.
THE SUNLIGHT WAS blinding—could it be much later than noon? At first, I saw nothing but a white glare and misty shapes moving up and down on the bobbing deck. Then things came into focus. Darren’s crew, disarmed and bound, were kneeling next to the rails. Teek had lost half an ear, and Regon was bent over a stomach wound, but those were the worst injuries. Mara’s crew was grouped around them. Mara herself leaned casually on the tiller . . . deep in thought, it seemed. Kash’s body—huge, sprawled, leaking, horrible—lay propped against the mast. The rigging of the war galley lashed to the Badger’s starboard side threw a spider work of shadows over the scene.
When I staggered and caught at the cord around my own neck, I wasn’t acting. The swaying deck, the spray, the bright splashes of blood over the boards, made everything seem more than a little unreal—a dream of a dream, the memory of a memory.
Darren, fortunately, was on top of things. “Get back!” she roared, and the sound made every hair on my head stand erect. “I can cut her throat any second I choose. Get back! Drop your weapons!”
At least five men lunged forwards instead. Mara clearly hadn’t briefed them on the situation. Just in time, her voice rang out, “Stand down!”
Her men were still instantly, recoiling. Mara walked forward herself, using the tail of her shirt to wipe blood from her cutlass.
“Well, well, Darren,” she said. “This is unusual behaviour for you.”
“I’ll do it,” Darren grated, and her hand twitched. “One pull, and your big payout is in two pieces on the floor.”
“When you were a child, Darren, you wouldn’t even hit your dog. When did you grow up and find your big-girl voice?”
Darren gave the garrote a vicious yank. Actually, she didn’t put any extra tension at all on the cord around my neck. She had tied the sinew to her wrist, and she yanked at the slack dangling end. But I gave a strangled gasp at the right moment and it must have seemed convincing enough, because the mocking look fell from Mara’s face.
“You piece of trash,” Darren said. “You think you know anything about me? How have you been spending your time since the war began? Chasing down petty criminals for a copper a head? Begging my father for odd jobs and table scraps? You were a bitch when you were a child, Mara—nothing’s changed, has it?”
For the first time, the smugness in Mara’s eyes was gone. There was a tiny flame licking there.
“Big words,” Mara said, “for someone whose only ship is an eight-man trader.”
Darren laughed. “I don’t have to prove anything to you, Mara. But you might want to bear something in mind. I made it past Iason of Bain’s defences, made it past his whole navy, landed in his territory, and got out again with his daughter in my bed. Let’s say that I have . . . resources.”
“You expect me to believe—” Mara faltered, and that falter said everything. The story was, of course, ludicrous. The House of Bain, at the time, had the best coastal defences of any state in Kila. It still does, as a matter of fact. But every word from Darren’s mouth carried conviction. It was her stance, her swagger, her . . . everything.
Darren laughed again. “You think I’m frightened of Iason? I don’t do anyone’s dirty work these days, Mara. You spend your time licking my father’s feet. I am the pirate queen. And you’ve taken on more than you can handle.”
Darren was doing so well that it was all I could do to not burst out cheering. Then she gave the cord another yank, and not cheering became easier.
“Now. Are you prepared to lose a windfall like this?” Darren patted my head again. “Because if you want her, you can have her. I can get a new one. You just need to let me and my men go on our way.”
Mara barked a startled laugh. “I have to admit, Darren. Somewhere along the line, you developed balls of pure iron.”
Darren shrugged. “I think it’s a fair enough trade. She’s worth a king’s ransom, of course, but I took her for more personal reasons. And let me say, she doesn’t disappoint. You might want to try her out a few times at first before you take her home. I’m sure you can convince her not to blab to her father.”
This was getting a bit excessive. I was all for dramatic realism, but Darren was starting to enjoy herself too much. Pretending to flail against the tight cord, I found Darren’s hand and gave it a hard pinch. She started to yelp, and had to turn it into a sort of evil laugh. “That’s the deal, Mara. Are you interested? If so, you’ve got ten seconds.” She raised her hand, holding the end of the garrote, to show what she meant, but she didn’t apply pressure again.
The seconds ticked by. I could hear my own heartbeat.
“Very well,” Mara said at last. “How do you plan on doing this?”
“First step’s easy. Release my men.”
Mara gave a short nod to her sailors, and several of them stooped down by Darren’s crew. Sailors never cut ropes when they can untie them, so it was several minutes, as sweat-beads prickled on my forehead, before Darren’s six surviving crewmen stood up. Regon was still hunched over his wound. He gave me a shaky smile, while a red ooze seeped between his fingers.
“Now back up,” Darren ordered. “All of you. Back onto your ship. Mara, you’ll be last, and you can have the girl as soon as you cross over.”
One by one, they moved. Even Mara was headed obediently backwards. The plan was working, so far as it went . . . the problem was, as I was beginning to realize, that it went no further. If Darren didn’t let go of me, then Mara wouldn’t back off. If Darren did let go of me, she would instantly lose her bargain
ing chip. There would be nothing to stop Mara and her men from swarming back over the Badger. None of oursailors had the strength to put up more than a token resistance. Darren herself was already swaying on her feet.
This plan wouldn’t accomplish anything. Mara, her hands raised, shuffling slowly back towards her war galley, knew that. Darren knew that too. I could tell when her hands suddenly sagged, as if all her remaining strength had left her, all at once.
Which meant—I swallowed twice, and my head felt light and dizzy and heavy all at once—which meant that it was time for something drastic.
“Darren,” I whispered, my breath barely stirring the air, “can you hear me?”
“Yeah. Look, this is—”
Shell Game Page 8