Black & Mist

by Thomas J. Radford

  “Captain,” she called.

  “You had us all worried, my dear,” Horatio said as he came over. The skipper looked down, her face clouded as she fussed over Violet’s arm.

  “I saw something, Captain,” Violet said. “Up in the nest, before I fell.”

  “Yes? Well, go on, Violet, tell us.”

  “It was a ship, least I think it was a ship, but it had no lights on it. And it were different to every other ship I’ve ever seen.”

  “No lights, you say? Different?” Horatio mused.

  “No good reason a ship would run without lights, Captain,” the skipper said. “Whatever else Violet thinks she saw that ought to strike us as odd.”

  “Thinks I saw!” Violet objected.

  “Easy, lass,” the skipper hushed her. “You weren’t right up there.”

  “Just tired, is all. Bad sleep.”

  “Bad sleep and worse grog.”

  “Don’t drink,” Violet muttered.

  “Not intentionally,” the skipper sighed.

  “No,” the captain agreed firmly. “Tell me about the ship, Violet.”

  “Shiny,” Violet said.

  “Shiny?” The captain repeated the word several more times, like it was some exotic animal he’d only just encountered.

  “Aye, sir, like metal. Caught the light.”

  “New brightwork, maybe,” the skipper shrugged. “Or a crew with too much polishing time on their hands.”

  Violet shook her head. “More than just that. Didn’t have no sails neither.”

  “No sails?” The skipper leaned back on her heels, looking concerned. “No lights and no sails means trouble, but not for us.”

  “Yes,” the captain agreed. “Perhaps we should turn and investigate if they require aid.”

  “You’re not forgetting the fiasco that landed us in last time,” the skipper said.

  “No, Nel, I am not. Nor should you—”

  “She weren’t adrift, Captain,” Violet interrupted. Both turned to stare at her. “I mean she was moving, on a course like. But she had no sails. No sails and no masts to hang them from.”

  A pause, then a long look between Skipper and Captain.

  “We have a delivery to make,” the skipper said. “Best course is a fast course.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course, Nel,” the captain said. “Have the crew make full sail. And set proper watch in the nest. Just to be safe.”

  “Aye, Captain,” the skipper nodded.

  “We’ll talk more later, Nel. Violet, do get that arm looked at it. The last thing you need is an infection.”

  “NO,” VIOLET SAID firmly, pulling her arm out of the reach of Korrigan Jack.

  “It’ll fester,” Jack warned her.

  “Will not. Just a scratch. Don’t need you pawing at it.”

  “Ought to shave it. Can’t even see what’s wrong. You always been that hairy?”

  “Ain’t hair, it’s—”

  “Shove off, Jack, you ain’t one to talk.” Gabbi pushed him aside, none too gently. The woman’s eyes were sunken and red veined, pulled out of bed before her usual bell on account of Violet. It wasn’t a good thought. “Here, show us.”

  Violet held out her arm, making sure Jack kept his distance.

  Gabbi clucked her lips together. “Looks nasty but it’s not too deep. Got some boiled rags we can wrap it in to stop you making it worse, and that’ll be that.”

  “See?” Violet said to Jack. “Ain’t bad at all.”

  Jack just grunted in her general direction. “Where’s Bandit?”

  “Why?”

  “Cause you got his bite marks on your arm.”

  “Yeah.” Violet acknowledged the red indentations on her forearm, just below where Mantid had gouged her.

  “Never seen him bite you. What’d you do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Must have done something.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t!”

  “Calm down, Vi.” Gabbi looked worried. “You ain’t acting right.”

  “Women’s stuff,” Jack pronounced.

  A flick of Gabbi’s wrist and a flying saucepan almost took Jack’s head off from behind. He ducked, at the last second, but Violet didn’t think Gabbi had been trying that hard.

  “You asked for that,” the cook said to him, starting to wrap Violet’s arm tight in still-hot, boiled bandages.

  “Be looking for Bandit,” Jack said, as close to an apology as anything he ever said.

  Gabbi sighed and pulled a knot tight. “How’s that?” she asked.

  “Sore.”

  “Good, means your hand is still there and working. Try and leave it some before you overdo it. Give those cuts a chance to close up. For goodness’ sake, girl, can you not go a day, just one day, without getting into some sort of trouble? Be nothing left of you by the time we make Vice.”

  “Yeah, ok, Gabbi. Sorry.” Violet looked from her hand and its wriggling fingers to the pot Gabbi was floating back to its hook.

  “Gabbi, how can you tell if someone is . . .” Violet broke off, unsure how to ask what was on her mind.

  “Is what?”

  “All wizard-like.”

  “It’s kitchen pots and pans, very wizard-like, Violet.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Thaumatic-like.”

  “Yeah. That.”

  “Then why not say that?”

  “Annoys Quill when I say wizard,” Violet shrugged. “Reminds me of Piper too.”

  “Ah,” Gabbi smiled wistfully. “Two good reasons then.”

  “So can you tell? Could you tell, Gabbi, if someone was like that?”

  “Why you asking?”

  “Want to hit Jack with a fry pan from across the way next time he runs his mouth at me.”

  “Aha.” Gabbi floated her frying pan back into hand and pointed it at Violet. “Too early in the day for you to be making me think, girl. Why you really asking?”

  “Quill,” Violet admitted. “Said some things, showed me some. Said what happened when he showed me meant I might be. In a Quill way.”

  “In a Quill way meaning he didn’t say much of anything,” Gabbi summarised. “Violet, sweets, if you was going all wizard on us folk would notice.”

  “How?”

  “How? Gods, lass, you’ve been around myself and Loveland long enough to know the signs.” Gabbi held up her hand, faint blue sparks running around the outline of her fingers. The jolts were much smaller and finer than what Quill normally conjured. “Crew would be getting shocked from mast to mainsail around you, not to mention the toys you’d be throwing. You’ve seen Quill in a temper. Me too. Can’t hide a wizard who don’t know their up from their down.”

  “So . . . I’m not then.”

  Gabbi stepped back, hands on her hips, looking Violet up and down. “I don’t think so, lass, and I think I’d know. Think we’d all know. Afraid to say I think Loveland is just messing with you, tan his scaly hide.”

  “Yeah,” Violet nodded, “that’s what I thought.”

  “Thinking will get you trouble, lass,” Gabbi said. “Look at the skipper. Woman’s too clever by half, always over-thinking everything.”

  “Ain’t that her job?” Violet felt obliged to say.

  “Of course, it is, but it’s what makes her such a harridan too.”

  “Harri-what?”

  “Bitch,” Gabbi said. “She’s the one you want at your back in the bar fight, not the one you want to wake up next to. Woman snores. Why you think she gets her own cabin? It ain’t her false sense of modesty, that much is plain.”

  “Thought you’d be wanting Jack in a fight,” Violet said. “You being so sweet on him.”

  “Oh, there is nothing sweet about Jack, Vi,” Gabbi laughed. “And he’s sweet on me because I feed his sorry behind. Not the other way around. And what are we talking about Jack for? Boy ain’t even here and we’re mincing words about him. Make his head fat if he hears. Don’t need that, don’t need it at all.”r />
  “You been together a long while, since before signing on even?”

  “Now what gave you that idea? You see those scars on Jack’s wrists? When he was done doing his time, the captain was the only one who’d take him on. Skipper didn’t like it, but then she don’t like anything. Got used to him eventually. Didn’t talk when he first came aboard. She liked that about him.”

  “Why didn’t he talk? What was his time for? Why did the captain—”

  “Black and mist, Vi,” Gabbi stopped her. “You don’t want for questions, do you? You want to know, ask him yourself. All I recall is the first words that did come out of his sauce box was him moaning about turnips and leeks. And that ain’t stopped since.”

  “But . . .”

  Gabbi hefted her saucepan. “Don’t make me.”

  “Ease off the lass,” Hounds called from the doorway, announcing herself with boisterous good humour. “Girl’s filling up the infirmary all on her own, don’t need any help from us, and if you dent that pan the skipper will take it out of your share.”

  Gabbi snorted. “Fine, the girl is all patched up anyhow. Take her away before she starts talking.”

  “Aye.” Hounds sauntered over, clapping Violet on the shoulder. “That’s why I’m here. Skipper and the captain have locked themselves away, and I’m for bed. Soon as I make sure the girl is too.”

  “The girl can still hear you both,” Violet complained.

  “Good,” Hounds said. “Then the girl is coming with me.”

  “Don’t let her ask questions,” Gabbi advised. “Not if you’ve a mind to sleep any.”

  Hounds waved her off, draping an arm around Violet’s shoulders and steering her out the door.

  “Could have had a lucrative career in the Alliance navy, little miss tails,” Hounds told her as they walked. “Pay by the stitch and the scar they do. Lose an eye or a hand and it’s worth half a year’s wages. Lose the whole limb and they double it.”

  Violet didn’t answer, tucking her hands under her arms. The tips of her fingers were tingling. She squeezed her arm tight against her chest, trying to get the blood flowing proper.

  “Don’t know what the payoff for a tail is but you’ve at least one to spare.”

  Again with the tails. Violet pulled away from Hounds angrily, sick of it all, stopping halfway across the deck. The older woman stopped too.

  “Didn’t mean nothing by it, lass,” she said quietly.

  Violet refused to look at her. “No one ever does.”

  A sigh. “Aye, true, don’t make us right. Ain’t done much right by you of late, it seems. Always falling on account of me, you are. And for that I’m sorry.”

  Violet shuffled. “Not your fault,” she said at last, grudgingly.

  “Generous of you, lass.”

  “Why do you go on?” The question burst out of Violet. “If the Alliance was so grand, why aren’t you sailing her colours?”

  “Wasn’t grand at all, lass,” Hounds said quietly. “If I’ve given you that notion, then I ain’t been speaking right.”

  “No?”

  “Lass, come below, we’ll sit and talk. Too cold to be standing about deck like this.” The woman turned, huddled up in her wrap, and descended the stairs to below decks where the rest of the crew swung in their hammocks. After a moment, Violet followed her. It was that or stay above deck playing at being a statue. Hounds settled in the hammock opposite hers and motioned for Violet to take hers.

  “That one ain’t yours,” Violet said, keeping her feet planted while Hounds pulled hers off the cold floor.

  “Didn’t plan on sleeping, just going to talk for a spell. Or maybe I will spend the night or what’s left of it and then whoever’s it is can surprise me when I wake.”

  Violet opened her mouth to inform Hounds whose hammock it was, then decided not to. The woman watched her suspiciously, likely guessing the way of her thoughts.

  “Face for cards, you have, lass.” She shook her head. “Any of my motley crew made the small talk about how we came to be in the Free?”

  Violet shook her head. “Just that time was you were Alliance and now you ain’t.”

  “Aye, except we spent a lot more of that time not being starchies than we ever did in those colours. All sorts of folk in the High, lass, same as in the Free. And the Central Band is one big mess, six dozen worlds and most of them with folk on. Most of them folks are squatting on rocks the size of your average moon but they all think the High Lanes revolves around that very same rock.”

  “Aye, but that’s what you got the Alliance for,” Violet said. “To make sense of it all.”

  Hounds shook her head. “Only one way to make sense of folk like that, Violet. You got to have a bigger rock. In the High Lanes that rock is the fleet. The navy, air corps, whatever folks call them in whatever parts they live. Wooden ships and iron men. There’s a thousand ships in that fleet, Vi. A thousand ships flying Alliance colours, all to stop folk tearing themselves apart with their petty wants and needs.”

  Hounds leaned in towards her. “Thing of it is though, never enough iron men to go around.” She winked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “A thousand ships, lass. That’s a lot of ships and that means a whole lot more crew, and that’s just the fleet. Don’t count folk like us, the merchants and the traders, folk just trying to get by. Never enough warm bodies to go around, not by half. And in the High Lanes, the fleet comes first. First and foremost. They can’t find enough bodies to sign on, then they’ll take them where they can find them.”

  “Find them where?”

  Hounds sighed. “Not everyone can sail, lass. Truth is, most folk aren’t cut from the right cloth for it. So the Alliance gangs, they press you. Take you out of the waterfront dives when you’re sleeping. Board your ship when you come into port. Denzel and I were lucky, lucky in that we got took together. Were on a trader making a run from Red Waters into the Queen’s Shilling. A milk-run, easy as you please. Some ships keep secret crawl holes to hide their best from the gangs if they run the High a lot, but we didn’t have that. Denz and I and a score more, all good hands, we got took. Got ourselves a brand-new ship we never did ask for. See, they tie you to the ship when they press you, you and her until she don’t sail no more. And they scratch her name on you, so if you run, they’ll know. You don’t want them to know.”

  “You ran though,” Violet said. “To the Free Lanes.”

  Hounds held out her arm, the one with the burning windrose. “Didn’t have no more ties, lass. They got cut, made sure of it. Denzel and I, we got out. Not everyone else did. Most of those from before, who got pressed with us . . .”

  The woman sighed. “Think we’ve talked enough for one night, lass. You should sleep. We both should.”

  “You should find your own hammock,” Violet said. “You don’t want Quill to find you in his.”

  Hounds stared at her, then broke out laughing. There were groans from nearby sleepers at the sudden outburst.

  “Worse things than fire and ice and press gangs, lass.” Hounds grinned at her, returning to her normal humour. “And you having to listen to that Kelpie snore, now that do beat all.”

  Chapter 11

  THE MIST WAS thicker here than what Nel was used to. Like fog on a cold river against a cloudy sky, hard to see where one ended and the other two began. Their cargo was starting to sweat. Looking down the deck from atop the bridge gave the impression the Tantamount herself was breathing. Or maybe smoking. Not a pleasant thought; the old girl didn’t have the best history with smoke and fire. The vapour was so much coin running through their fingers, being paid by the pound as they were. Normally the miasma wouldn’t come within spitting distance of the main deck but it was billowing up from below like it was some wanton geyser. Made navigating both above and below arduous. Nel had gotten herself so turned around she’d mistaken the foremast for the main until she bashed her shins into the forecastle deck.

  Could have sworn I saw lights atop th
ough. That’s what being sober does to you.

  If she felt miserable then most of the crew looked it. Two-thirds were above deck when half ought to be sleeping, except they were all coughing and hacking from breathing in the ice fumes. Have hoarfrost on the inside of their lungs if they hadn’t been about to make port.

  On that note . . .

  “You ever been to Vice, Vi?” Nel asked.

  “I dunno, have I?” The girl was listless of late, a state that concerned Nel. Slow to rise, quiet, subdued. Hadn’t taken to being on light duties well. Even worse she was being kept out of the rigging, forbidden to climb until her injuries healed. For all that she could be an annoyance, Nel found she missed the girl’s usual exuberance.

  “That was the question, lass.”

  “You know everywhere I’ve been, Skipper. You’re the one who takes me there.” The girl sat with her legs dangling over the forecastle, head resting against the brightwork. Personally Nel chose to stand. The decking had taken a chill that wouldn’t go away, often sweating icy condensation. Exposed skin would stick to metal if one weren’t careful. She’d be glad when they were done with this run.

  They were on approach to Vice now, just waiting to sight their destination through the roiling mists. Violet had come off watch with Quill a bell ago and the Kelpie navigator was fuming about it. It hadn’t been deliberate but with the shift falling under Mantid’s watch, it would be him and not Quill who brought the Tantamount into dock at the trading hub.

  Quill’s complaints had fallen on deaf ears. It amused Nel that Quill’s reaction had been to sulk in the nest. True, he would likely be the first to sight Vice and have the best vantage point to observe if things went wrong but as far as protests went it was a pleasant out of sight and out of mind reaction. It was also the first time Nel could ever recall seeing Quill take a turn in the nest. She suspected it would be the last.

  “That’s not true,” Nel said. “Wasn’t me that dropped you on Warren. Someone hadn’t done that then you’d never have stowed away, meaning we wouldn’t be having this deep and meaningful here.”

  Violet turned so that her cheek was resting on her arm, still bandaged, the barest hint of a smile on her lips. She was playing with something, Nel saw. Glass ball. Little ship inside. Captain had one just like it—when had Violet inherited that?