“Ye only like me when Barrels has locked ye out o’ his office,” she told him.
The cat slinked off into the hold, his tail bolt upright.
Their sleeping quarters in the bilge consisted of eight hammocks. All the others slept in pairs, in burlap hammocks strung high and low between two poles. Ebba didn’t share a sleep space, probably because she had two trunks of belongings instead of one. An empty hammock swung above her, a guest hammock that had never been slept in and usually acted as her wardrobe. Each of her trunks was latched to one of the posts, not leaving room for anyone else to move in.
The bone supports of Maybell’s corset dug into her flesh, and Ebba grimaced. She must’ve fallen asleep dress and all.
First things first. Ebba jumped from the hammock and kicked open one of her trunks. She grabbed her dagger and cut through the corset, casting the cursed garment over her head to be forgotten. The boots followed.
She pulled on a tunic and moaned as she tugged up her slops; she didn’t care that they were on the yellow side of white or tattered around the ankles—Ebba hoped to be with her trousers forever. She tied a brown bandana around her head and tightly laced her leather jerkin over her billowing tunic. Then she remembered they had a guest onboard which had never happened before and wrapped a long strand of beads three times around her neck, arranging them to hang in layers. She drew out a length of brown linen and tied it over her belt, knotting it at the side and letting the ends hang.
Ebba placed her hands on her hips and swayed side to side, pleased with the result.
She bounded to the ladder and danced up the rungs to fling the bilge door open.
One squint at the blaring sun told her it was mid-day already. She’d lost hours of their adventure. Why didn’t someone wake her?
Everyone was in his usual spot; Stubby was at the helm, which meant Locks was around doing the constant repairs that life at sea demanded.
Plank had swung the foresail wide and hoisted the square topsail for extra speed. Grubby ducked as the boom swung across deck. Probably a good thing. None of them were sure what another blow to the head would do to the happy pirate.
“Ahoy, Ebba-Viva,” Stubby shouted. “Yer breakfast be below deck.”
Breakfast was the least of her worries.
“How goes Felicity?” she hollered back.
Stubby looked after the maintenance of the boat. He forced them to careen the ship several times a year to get rid of the barnacle buildup, and directed Locks on where to make repairs, helping out with the larger jobs. Nothing stressed Stubby more than when something on Felicity wasn’t in working order, so Ebba, like the rest of her fathers, always made a point of only asking when everything was fine.
Sure enough, Stubby gave a self-satisfied smile and tight nod. “She’ll do the job,” he said, his tone implying that Felicity could climb a mountain in her current condition.
Ebba listened to his reply with half an ear, scanning the deck. She was rewarded when her eyes fell upon a hunched form bound to the mast with his wrists behind his back. That had to be their guide. With the way the Malice pirate sat against the main mast, it was difficult to make out any detail—aside from the pirate’s height which she’d label as oversized.
Still, he’d be the only sign of their adventure for the next week until they got to Neos, and she planned to extract every possible detail on the plunder out of him.
She snorted suddenly, calling back to Stubby, “I can’t believe ye took someone hostage.” She’d have given a baby albatross to see them fight the tall Malice pirate. A tiny part of her even wished the rest of Pockmark’s crew had seen it—though the much larger part was relieved they hadn’t.
“In the bilge with ye for breakfast, Ebba-Viva,” Stubby called again. “There be a whole deck to swab.”
She scowled. Her punishment. They hadn’t forgotten.
Turning back the way she’d come, Ebba threw open the bilge door and hooked her arches around the smoothed outside of the ladder, sliding to the bottom. She spun away from the creaking hammocks and strode down the hall instead, passing by the small office where Barrels would be muttering to himself, pouring over his numbers as resident quartermaster.
Ebba jumped over Pillage’s extended paw as he lingered in the shadows closer to the hold. “Get a new trick,” she told him, smiling at his hiss. Spiteful bloody cat.
Peg-leg was in the small kitchen shoved in the front corner in the hold where they kept their supplies and grog.
A small kitchen bench sat against the hull, its two cupboards and three drawers stuffed with a mixture of cooking tools, carpentry tools, and any tiny knick-knacks that needed a home. Next to the bench was a sand box. A fire smoldered in the middle, underneath a heavy cauldron. Stubby had carved a small circle out of the deck overhead years ago and placed a chute over the fire, so smoke could escape the hold. He and Peg-leg got on for a whole week after the chute was installed.
“Yer breakfast be cold,” Peg-leg said with a sniff, not looking at her.
Peg-leg didn’t like his food to be eaten cold when he’d gone to the trouble of lighting a fire. Even with the chute, cooked meals were a treat—it wasn’t always safe to light a fire onboard, especially in the wet season.
She took the plate from him without a word, holding it with the reverence her father expected. Turned out it was deserved this time: corned beef and bread, with scalloped potatoes. She beamed at the cook, and he turned away with a small smile. Even if the goopy fiutch had been on the plate, Ebba would’ve shown the same appreciation. If there was one thing Felicity’s cook wouldn’t tolerate, it was negative feedback on his cooking. Every single one of them had learned that lesson the hard way.
“Lunch ain’t far away,” he added in a mollified voice.
A half-chewed chunk of bread lodged in her throat. She swiped up a goblet and walked to the closest grog barrel. Throwing back the top, she scooped her goblet into the dark fluid, and took several large gulps of the rum, water, and nutmeg mix.
“I won’t be needin’ lunch,” she said. “I’m to swab the decks.”
Peg-leg’s belly shook as he laughed. Most likely at the bitterness in her voice.
Ebba peeked at him. “I might climb the shrouds first. Just quick-like.”
His blue eyes softened. He’d been a rigger in his time, too, before losing his leg to cannon splinter. Ebba knew he missed the thrill of Felicity’s ropes more than he let on.
“Aye, I reckon you can go to the crow’s nest afore ye start. But—”
Ebba finished for him. “I know. I’ll be tellin’ ye what I see.” She shoved the last of the corned beef in her mouth and dusted her hands on her slops. “Were any o’ ye hurt takin’ the guide hostage last night?”
A curious look came over Peg-leg’s eyes. “Nay, lass. He came with us as easy as a babe.”
“Of course, there were five o’ ye,” she said.
“He be a head taller than Plank, and used to workin’ by the look of him. A deal younger than us, too. He could’ve done some damage if he’d wished.”
Ebba tilted her head, a frown on her high-boned face. “Was he drunk?”
Peg-leg winked at her, though a shadow lingered in the back of his eyes. “Ye likely be right. Now run along with ye. I be busy. Davy knows, this lunch won’t cook itself.”
She necked the rest of her grog and threw the goblet in the wash bucket. Up the ladder once more, Pillage successfully dodged, Ebba stared at the hunched guide tied to the mast.
“Swabbin’, little nymph,” Plank reminded her.
She turned to see him perched in his usual spot on the bulwark, eyes distant as he watched the sails in a semi-dream state. But he wasn’t humming. When Plank hummed his old tune, they all knew he was really daydreaming and no amount of shouting would bring him out of it.
“Peg-leg said I can climb the shrouds first,” she countered.
Plank glared in the direction of Peg-leg below deck. “Did he now?”
She tuck
ed away a triumphant smile and returned her attention to the man tied to the mast. Circling in from a distance, she approached.
. . . Jagger, the two pirates had called him.
His head slumped forward in sleep, or so it appeared. He swayed with the motion of the sloop, shoulders relaxed. Flaxen hair hung in a straggly curtain to his shoulders, an odd color that sat somewhere between brown and gold. His forehead was high and, Ebba noted, the muscles she glimpsed were lean and defined from regular use. He wore the full black uniform of Pockmark’s ship, the same as Swindles and Riot, with the red-brown sash slung low around his hips. The dark shirt stretched across his shoulders, and the sleeves were rolled back just below his elbow. Where the uniform had seemed to wear Swindles and Riot, for this pirate, the opposite was true.
Peg-leg was right. This man was tall and strongly built, maybe late teens or early twenties. Yet there wasn’t a scratch on him or her fathers. He could have hurt one of her fathers if he wished. . . Why hadn’t he?
Had he wanted to be taken? That seemed just as unlikely.
Ebba crept closer until she was a pace away from him, studying the high-boned plains and golden skin of his face. Three coils of rope held him to the mast from shoulder to hip. Would her fathers leave him sitting here until Neos? A whole week?
The guide lifted his head and her heart leaped into her throat as his eyes met hers. The orbs were the color of cold pistol metal. A shiver bolted up her spine—as though cold pistol metal had actually been pressed against her lower back.
In her seventeen years, she’d never had a peer on Felicity. For the most part, she tended to spend only a few hours at a time in the company of anyone other than her crew. Usually, it was with Sherry or one of Locks’ girlfriends, or Stubby’s sisters. Ebba found herself at a loss of how to proceed. On one hand, the guide was on her ship. On the other, he was a scumbag Malice pirate. Was he going to talk? Or should she say something? The pewter eyes were calculating and cold, and lit with much more awareness than she’d seen in Swindles’ and Riot’s eyes. The guide gave the impression he was entirely capable of treating her as the other Malice pirates had in the alley, but what it would take to make him act that way, she couldn’t immediately tell, and that gave her the floundering feeling of sailing through unchartered waters. Where it was safe assuming Pockmark and most other pirates would get angry when insulted or challenged, Ebba suspected it would take something much different to bring this man to the same point.
“Little nymph, climb the shrouds and then get to yer swabbin’,” Plank said softly.
Ebba was grateful to have a reason to turn away from the flaxen-haired pirate with the calculating silver eyes.
She took a steadying breath and crossed to the base of the rigging, tipping her face to the sky. With the sun directly overhead, it looked like she’d climb right into the sun itself. Her lips curved for no particular reason as she swung herself onto the ship’s side and started up the rope squares. The smell of damp wood was left behind as she climbed, and the undiluted smell of sea salt took its place. The thin ropes of the rigging cut into her feet, and her arms burned, but her smile only grew at the fluttering sound of the mainsail—a happy noise, one of her favorites. She climbed higher.
Ebba would never tell anyone, but when she was younger she thought climbing through the sails took her to another place, one filled with the magical creatures in Plank’s stories. At one end, she was on the ship; at the other, she sat among the stars—flying as high as a bird.
She gripped the top edge of the crow’s nest and vaulted inside with ease.
. . . Then looked out over the bright blue expanse of the Free Seas.
King Montcroix reigned over Exosia, the Caspian Sea, and the islands therein. Since the end of the twenty-year Battle for the Seas in her fathers’ time, the king’s hold over the outer parts of the Caspian Sea had loosened, and the pirates now referred to this less-controlled part of the realm as the Free Seas.
Nowadays, the navy men only governed the waters closest to the mainland, north of Kentro and Maltu. Pirates had quickly learned that if they stopped killing the governors of the islands and instead corrupted them, the governors would report favorably to the king, and the king would leave the pirates be.
Ebba glanced back the way they’d come and her shoulders relaxed. Maltu was just a tiny dot in the distance. The shackles about her ankles and the governor’s gaudy mansion could become bad memories now.
Her fathers must’ve pulled anchor at least five hours ago to get so far. With this head start, they would stay well ahead of Malice. Felicity may be smaller than the schooner Pockmark had killed his father to possess, but their old cedar sloop would win any race against the larger ship. Felicity could pick up speed four times faster, and she could anchor in bays too shallow for Malice to enter.
Ebba spun around to look over the bow, pushing her bandana back into position over her hairline. Below, the sea sprayed, splitting across their figurehead, a bare-chested mermaid carved by Stubby. If she took the pains to, she’d be able to spot any number of fish and ocean critters in the cobalt waters. Even at a glance Ebba could spot a huge sea turtle fifty paces from the starboard side.
But something much different occupied her mind. Neos. A thrill ran through her. Yesterday was terrible, nearly having her tongue cut out and all the rest. It had shown Ebba how lost she’d be without her fathers. But now that they were on the other side of it, away from alleys and the gaol and Malice, Ebba decided their current adventure might have been worth a smidgen of strife.
Her first quest.
Her fathers planned to get to Neos and take revenge on Pockmark for hurting her. But what if there was a magic fruit tree? What if the fruit could actually tell them where the treasure was? Her mind was tumultuous with the possibilities of the coming weeks. She couldn’t wait to get to Neos. Ebba gripped the edge of the nest and swung her legs over, her feet finding the crosstree platform the crow’s nest sat upon and then the rigging.
As she made her way down, she spied Locks crossing the deck below. His eye patch was closest to her. He wouldn’t see her coming. Easy prey. She moved around the rigging so she was clinging to the inside, and hooked her knee through a rope square. Waiting.
Waiting.
With a grin, she threw herself backward. “Show a leg!” she yelled, swinging upside down in front of Locks’ face.
He jumped violently, clutching at his chest. “Blow me down, Ebba-Viva! Ye scurvy wee codfish. Will ye stop doing that!”
Ebba let her arms dangle over her head, her stomach cramping with laughter as tears squeezed from her eyes. Locks had said the same thing for about a decade. Scaring her fathers only got funnier as the years went on. They just never learned.
Wiping her eyes, she found the guide staring directly up at her. Glaring, more specifically.
Taming her laughter, Ebba curled up and extracted her leg, dropping to the deck on quiet feet. She ignored the Malice guide but couldn’t shake the feeling he judged her every move with those cold, hard eyes. Heat crept up her neck and she felt uncomfortably aware of her actions, in a way she never had before. Maybe that rigging trick was a little . . . young.
“Do ye need a change o’ slops, Locks?” Plank called.
Grubby let out an uneasy laugh from where he swabbed the deck, darting a look between Plank and Locks. “Now, now,” he hushed, though who he hushed wasn’t clear.
Locks’ gaze snapped to Grubby. “I thought Ebba be our swabbie for the next three moons.” He glanced around the deck. “Did we change our mind?”
Plank stormed over. “Grubby! That be Ebba’s job. Blimey, can’t a single one o’ ye stick to disciplinin’ her?”
“Get off yer seahorse,” Locks said. “Ye ain’t the only one—”
“Peg-leg let her climb the shroud. . . .”
Ebba tuned out their bickering, careful not to show her glee upon seeing Grubby had nearly swabbed the whole deck. “I’ll take over, Grubs,” she said.
&nbs
p; Grubby gave her a toothy smile and a consoling pat on the shoulder, and Ebba took the stiff broom from him. There was only a couple of paces left to do. Grinning right now wouldn’t help her cause. . . .
“Hardly worth it,” came Plank’s muttered reply behind her.
Barrels emerged from below deck. “Did you already give her the beads we got her?”
Ebba froze. “Beads?” she asked them. “As in—more than one? Ye didn’t get me two, did ye?” She beamed at them.
“What’s the bloody point?” Plank shouted, throwing his hands in the air. He stalked away.
“What’s in his grog?” Stubby called out.
Locks’ emerald eye gleamed. “Ah, just the usual dis’iplinary concerns.”
Barrels gave the ghost of a smile, and seeing Grubby working himself into a nervous frenzy of twisting hands and wide eyes, her fathers let the matter settle. Poor Grubs. Ebba decided to put extra effort into washing the rest of the deck for his sake. And maybe because they’d gotten her a present. If she knew Plank, he would’ve chosen well. Two beads. Where to put them? She’d really have to think about it. Eventually, she’d have a headful, but until then, it mattered where they went.
It wasn’t long before Grubby, deprived of his usual job, and still fretting about Plank’s state of mind, took out his blackwood flute and began to play. Music was a regular occurrence aboard the Felicity. Weeks spent at sea deadened to dullness very quickly, and all pirates did what they could to change the scene. There was no one she would rather be at sea with, and the sea itself was beautiful, but the sameness of it could make you feel closed in after too long.
Ebba appreciated Grubby’s music twofold this day, considering the occurrences of yesterday were turning to bad memories but were yet to fade. Right at this moment, her fathers might have been en route to Exosia. Ebba shuddered, recalling the fearful realization she’d made last night: Without her fathers she had no one in the world. And no one to depend upon.
Her fathers clearly felt the fear of their near miss, too. Barrels went back to his office to retrieve his fiddle, and Peg-leg sat on a crate and bent his wooden leg to the deck, ready to add percussion.
Ebba-Viva Fairisles: Immortal Plunder (Pirates of Felicity Book 1) Page 7