“Tell me what happened,” he said.
“What happened when?” I asked wearily.
“What happened three years ago. When you left us.”
Left us—that was one way to put it, I supposed. I should have tried to placate him, but my maverick side bobbed to the surface without any warning. “What’s there to tell? I thumped Ariadne on the head, tied her up with her own petticoats, dressed in her clothes, and walked out of the castle. Stole her horse, sold it, used the money to pay for passage off the island. Since then, I’ve mostly been fishing. How the hell have you been?”
“You see?” Ariadne said, breaking into the conversation for the first time. “This is exactly what I’ve been telling you, Father. That little peon laid hands on me, she assaulted me. She just admitted it.”
“Yes, Ariadne, I know.” Helpless-nice-bloke was giving way to highly-important-and-overstressed-man. “It won’t happen again. Your mother will make sure of that.”
I had been braced for it, but there are some impulses that I can’t control. The mention of Melitta made my heart pummel the walls of my chest so hard that I thought it would burst through. Automatically, just as I used to, I pinched the soft skin inside my elbow as hard as I could. The pain helped ground me.
“My mother will do nothing of the kind,” Ariadne was saying. “She obviously can’t control the girl. If you insist on keeping her here at all, then you’d better let me deal with her. It doesn’t seem like anyone else is able to cope.”
“Gwyneth was your mother’s handmaid for something like ten years.” Now he was using his pained-patience voice. “I assure you, Melitta can cope.”
I found my tongue. “Father—”
“Gwyneth, please.”
“My lord,” I corrected myself grimly. “If you’re going to keep me here, then, for the love of all the gods, stick me in the dungeon or something. Or the stables. Or the pigeon cote. Really, I’m not fussy. But if you send me back to Melitta . . .”
He waved a weary hand. “No hysterics, please. Melitta’s strict, that I’ll grant, but she’s fond of you, in her way.”
“She hates my guts and you know it.” There was a tight knot in my throat. “You have always bloody known it.”
His glance was tired, nothing more. “Don’t swear.”
Ariadne jumped in again. “The problem is that Mother spends too much time hating and too little laying down the law. Now, if you let me handle Gwyneth—”
“Darling,” my father interrupted. “I appreciate the input, but this is outside your area of expertise.”
“But I . . .”
“Darling,” he repeated, “go to your room.”
Ariadne looked ready to launch an all-out tantrum, but Iason’s eyes were hooded and she knew, as well as I did, that it was no use trying to cross him for the present. She flounced to her feet and headed out, her skirts bouncing around her.
“I’ll see you soon,” she said in warning as she passed me. “Very soon.”
“Can’t wait,” I muttered.
The door shut behind her with a bang. My father stared at his sand table. The parts that represented water were bare blue plaster. I looked at them and thought of waves, and typhoons, and sea spray, the clean cool world of the ocean. A week earlier, that whole world belonged to me.
“My lord, please,” I said. “If you’re not going to let me go, please. Just don’t send me back to her.”
I rarely asked my father for anything. There were two reasons for that—first, it made me sound pathetic, and second, it didn’t work. On this occasion, he gave a pained grimace, as if it embarrassed him even to hear me asking. “You might try provoking her less often.”
“I can’t. I’ve tried.” I could have howled. Nearly four years of running, of fighting and scheming, only to end up back here. “You know that. You know damn well why I ran.”
“And you,” he said, with rare honesty, “you know damn well why I can’t let you leave.” He spread his dainty hands, palms up. A nobleman’s version of a shrug. “So we’re at an impasse, aren’t we? Except that one of us is lord of the house of Bain, and one of us is a runaway servant. So one of us is slightly more likely to get his way.” He flicked over one of the brass soldiers on his sand table, watched it wobble and fall. “I believe that we’re done here. You may go on up to Melitta’s room.”
I wouldn’t, I told myself. I would run, fight, break apart, fly—
“She’s waiting for you,” he said more quietly. “And I don’t think she’ll be happy if she has to collect you herself.”
SOMEHOW, I MADE it back to the stairway. My feet seemed to have acquired a mind of their own. I certainly wasn’t the one telling them to head up, step by step, around and around the central pillar.
Two turns up the flight of stairs, there was another door, this one of rosewood—the entrance to Ariadne’s bower. Two more turns, another door—Iason’s bedchamber. He and Melitta had slept in different rooms for years, further back than I could remember. Maybe Melitta moved out when she learned about my father’s fling with a palace servant, the one that resulted in my birth. But maybe it happened even earlier. The two of them couldn’t stand each other. Were it not for one very vital detail, Iason would have cast her out years ago. As things were, all they could do was stay out of each other’s way as much as possible.
Two more turns. The topmost floor of the tower. Another door. The bronze handle was shaped like a wolf’s head. To the right of the door, a narrow alcove. I was determined not to look at it, but of course I did and my jaw locked tight. Lying there on the alcove floor, as always, was a narrow pallet of straw and a wadded blanket. Had someone else been sleeping there while I was gone? Or had Melitta kept it exactly as it was, waiting for me?
The door was open. I could see motion—an arm in a green sleeve moving rhythmically up and down, up and down, as Melitta brushed her hair.
My brain said, run. But somehow my feet took me forwards instead.
I didn’t bother to knock. She knew I was coming. Her back was to me, her face to the mirror. She didn’t turn around, but I could see her eyes flicking over my reflection, taking me in.
Her hair was more speckled with grey than it had been when I escaped. Salt and pepper.
She set her brush down gently on her vanity table, but she didn’t bother to turn before she spoke to me. “So. You’re back.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Darren, formerly of the House of Torasan (Pirate Queen)
Late Afternoon, Day III
ONCE AGAIN, WE crowded into the cabin for a council of war. But this time, no one tried to sit on the lid of the sea chest, or even rest a mug of ale on top of it. I think they all knew that I would slap their heads off their necks if they tried. That was Lynn’s spot, and gods help me, I was going to bring her back there.
Little Spinner, his face still badged blue and purple from the hits he had taken on the Hind, poured out the ale. Mine had a sharp, funny aftertaste, but I put that down to exhaustion.
“All right,” I said, sticking my thumbs in my pockets. “The Goat-Testicled, Slave-Stealing Sack of Shit took Lynn. We all have a problem with that, yes? So we need to go after her.”
I unfurled the map, and they all leaned around me to see it. “We are here. About a day from Bero, as the gull flies. But there’s a whole damn navy between us and the harbour. So that’s a thing. Also, we know that Goat-Boy is taking Lynn to Iason. That means she’ll be in the fortress on the cliff, here. Even if we can get to the lower city, we’ll have to get past five or six enormous walls, manned by enormous numbers of archers, and enough swordsmen to choke the gates of hell. This is going to be just a little bit tricky, is what I’m trying to get at.”
Regon scratched his chin. “I don’t know, captain. Maybe we need to assemble the fleet. All twelve ships together, we could make a good stand of it—”
“Before we all died,” Jess said flatly. “All your ships and men put together couldn’t make a dent in the forces of Be
ro.”
“Exactly.” I took another gulp of ale. “We can’t bash our way through the defences, so we’re going to have to sneak. Land a shore party—a small one—and pussyfoot up to the fortress.”
Jess looked deeply dubious. “And how are you going to get back off the island?”
“That?” I said. “I do not know. I cannot tell. But if we can reach Lynn, then she ought to be able to think of something. She knows Bero, after all. If we can’t reach Lynn . . . well, then, I’m not leaving. Sorry, and all that, but I won’t.”
They digested this.
“How many? And who?” Latoya asked.
“In the shore party? I’m thinking three. Any more than that and we’ll be too conspicuous. Me and two volunteers. I won’t take anyone who’s unwilling to go. But you, Regon, and you, Latoya, you’re the ones I want.” I glanced at the bruise that wrapped halfway around Latoya’s sinewy neck. “As long as you’re up for it. I’ll understand if you’re feeling a bit below par.”
“How about if I break your face?” she offered. “Then who’ll be below par?”
“A convincing argument. Regon? You in?”
“Oh, sure,” he said, from behind his ale mug. “Land on an island crawling with soldiers, with no idea how to get off again. Who would want to miss that experience?”
“Glad to hear it. Any questions?”
“Aye.” Teek poked a stubby finger at the map. “You still haven’t explained how you’ll get on the damned island.”
“Ah. Right. That. That’s where you come in, Teek. Obviously, we can’t charge straight for the coast, flags a-waving and swords a-bristling. So instead, we’ll do this. East of Bero, there are reefs.”
That was an understatement. There are reefs, and then there are reefs, and the rocks east of Bero fall into the latter camp. They’re the gouging, jagged, ship-killing kind that can rip the bottom off a boat like the peel from an orange.
Teek knew all this, of course, and his face changed. “You’re not serious, captain.”
“I’m dead serious, captain. We’re going through the reefs. It’s the only part of the waters near Bero that they can’t patrol. We won’t be taking the Banshee, of course. It’ll be the four of us—me, Latoya, Regon, and you—in the Badger. She’s small enough to make it, as long as she has a master helmsman steering her.” I traced a path on the map with my finger. “That’ll get us within a few miles of the shore.”
“But they’ll have seen us from the watchtowers. What then?”
I told them.
There was silence for a few minutes afterwards.
“Did someone drop you on your head a bunch of times when you were a child?” Jess asked quite seriously. “I really don’t think I can imagine a plan in which so many things could go wrong. What plans did you reject because they were inferior to that one?”
“It’s all I can think of,” I said. “And doing nothingis not an option. I have to get her back. You know I do.”
Or at least, that’s what I tried to say. It came out as a sort of burble. Strange. My tongue felt kind of thick, and my mouth dry. I shook my head, trying to clear it.
Spinner measured me with a narrowed eye. “Looks like the stuff finally kicked in.”
“About damn time,” Regon said.
Now blackish pools were swirling in the centre of my vision. Bollocks. Just bollocks.I ran my finger along the side of my ale cup, and felt a damp, gritty residue. Dried herbs.
“Oh, you rotters,” I managed, as I dropped. Dimly, I felt Latoya catch me before I could hit the floor.
“You need your sleep, captain,” I heard Regon saying, as someone pulled off my boots. “Got to be well-rested if you’re going to do the impossible.” And then, crisply, to the rest of them, “We’ve got our orders. Look alive.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Lynn
Evening, Day III
MY PALLET SMELLED the same as always—stale straw, must, and mould. Different blanket though. Brown, not grey.
The stone floor was cold (there are always drafts in castles) and my lady Melitta was down at dinner. So, just like I always used to on cold nights, I crept inside her room and sat by the hearth, huddled in my blanket. The warmth lulled me to a doze. I hadn’t realized until then how tired I was. The frightening thing was that in my drowsy state, it was all too easy to believe that the past four years had been a dream, and I had never really been gone.
My name is Lynn now, I kept telling myself. I have a life, I have a pirate; I can sail a ship and throw the long knife and throttle a man three times my weight. Sailors hop to attention when I clear my throat. I left this place; it’s not who I am anymore.
But it was hard to hang on to all that. Everything here was the same. The smell of the pine logs as they crackled in the coals; the reddish spot on the largest hearthstone; the way that violet curtains of Melitta’s bed swayed in the draft through the door. And the sour dread, deep in my stomach, that Melitta would come back all of a sudden, and find me stealing her fire. I pinched the inside of my arm every few minutes so I wouldn’t fall all the way into sleep.
But the next sound I heard roused me completely.
Footsteps, soft slippered footsteps, were heading up the spiral staircase. That was familiar too. Those footsteps had headed here once or twice weekly from the time I was eight. A giant lump rose to my throat.
The footsteps grew faster as they came closer—a dark shape ghosted through the door—and then, all at once, she flung herself down by the hearth and her hands were on me. “Gwyneth!”
“It’s all right, Ariadne,” I said, gripping her forearms. “I’m all right.”
“Like hell you’re all right.” She was already inspecting me, tilting my head gently towards the fire to check for bruises. “What did that bitch do to you this time?”
“Shhhh. Nothing. She gave me a fishy stare for a while, then told me to fill her washbasin, then she just sent me to bed . . . How long do we have?”
“The banquet will go on for at least another hour, and both of them are dead drunk, so you can relax for a while. Let me see your lip. Who bust it?”
I touched it gingerly. For some reason, it wasn’t scabbing over. “Timor. We had some differences of opinion on the way back here.”
“Timor,” Ariadne growled, as she shook rags and vials out of her reticule. “That slimy, arrogant son of a bitch. Of all the people Father hired to go after you, he’s one of the worst. And that’s saying something. Here, take this.”
I pressed the damp cloth against my lip. It smelled acid and strong, and stung where it touched raw flesh. “How many did he hire?”
She was still sorting out her vials, and didn’t answer for a few seconds. At some point since we met in the map room, she had washed off the powder and rouge. With her face bare, and her hair simply braided, she looked older, infinitely shrewder. This was her real face, the one that she never let her parents see.
“At least twenty,” she said at last. “It’s been badsince you escaped. I mean, we knew it would be, but . . . Every time they spoke about you, their eyes would glitter. As if they were rabid. Or mad.” She stared blankly at a tiny bottle of lavender oil. “I’m so sorry, Gwyn, I’m so, so sorry. I did everything I could think of to put them off the scent.”
“I know you did your best, Ariadne,” I said weakly. “Please don’t.” It was selfish, I guess, but I couldn’t deal with one of her fits of guilt. Not right that minute.
There was silence for a few seconds, as she daubed at one of my bruises with a rag dipped in some kind of sharp-smelling infusion. Arnica, probably. Then she went on, more quietly. “The way they looked when they heard that Timor was bringing you up . . . Mother’s eyes went all hard, and Father paced around and around the room, with this smirk . . . Gods, I hate them. I swear I’m going to strangle them one day.”
“Could you strangle them today? Does today work?”
To my relief, she laughed, the soft snuffling laugh that meant she was crying at the sa
me time. “I’ve missed you so much. It’s so strange. I hoped they’d never find you, but it’s so good to see you again.”
“Me, too. I mean, you.” I propped myself up (which hurt) so I could look at her face. “You’ve mastered the stone-cold-bitch act since I left. For a moment down in the map room, you almost had me worried.”
She laugh-hiccupped. “You like it?”
“What’s not to like?” A thought struck me, and I sat up straighter. “Hell . . . you got married, didn’t you? I can’t believe I forgot. What was it like? What happened to Gerard?”
She waved that off. “Nothing much to tell. It was fine, I guess. Gerard was clean, at least, even if he had fewer brains than the average pudding. But he took a header from his horse a couple of years ago and broke his neck. So I’m back on the market. Father’s still trying to negotiate a marriage deal with someone who has an equally good pedigree.”
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