by Amy Braun
“The bitch shot me!” Jansen whined.
“‘Cause you had your gun out!” the woman retorted. “I thought you were those, those... brigands come back for us!”
“Who are you?” Vanson asked.
“I’m Gweneth Doyle, daughter of the Earl of Meath,” she said with raised chin. Then, indicating the boy in the corner, “that’s Davey. Are you Royal Navy?”
“Yes, we are, Lady Doyle,” said Vanson. A noble! The rescue had been worth the risk after all.
“So we’re safe? Oh my god, they attacked! We got lost, heading back to Peshawar after a diplomatic conference in Simla. My father is—was—territorial governor...we...oh, god. Thank god.” She started to weep, crumbing into a ball on the bed. Davey crept over and cuddled with her.
Just then Olly returned, lantern in hand.
Vanson went over to Gweneth and sat down. “How long have you been here?”
“On the Lotus? A week. There’s a hidden compartment behind the bed, food and water in the galley. I was below decks when we were attacked. My father told me to stay here. He gave me his pistol. I’m a damn good shot.” She inclined her head at Jansen. “Sorry about your man.”
“What happened to the rest of the crew?”
“Killed. They were only a small crew, a pilot and five airshipmen. None of them soldiers, really. Also my father and our maid...oh, poor Sally. I heard her scream when they threw her over. After they had their way with...ah, poor Sally!”
She wept, leaning into Vanson’s chest. He held her, unsure what else to do. She was warm and soft, and he was surprised how nice she felt next to him, especially on this cold airship.
“You’re safe now. Let’s get everyone back to our ship, especially my wounded marine. We have food. Warm stoves. We’ll take you back down to Delhi with your yacht.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, squeezing his arm. She took the small boy’s hand and followed Vanson up onto the deck.
#
Gweneth sat in front of the stove in Vanson’s cabin, wrapped in thick blankets. She had been given a basin of warm water and clean, if oversized, clothes, and then left alone to wash up.
She was clutching a tumbler of Vanson’s whiskey when he walked in. In the golden glow of the ceiling’s swinging lantern he noticed she was draining her drink with a most unfeminine rapidity.
“What?” she giggled, seeing his raised eyebrows. “I am Irish, you know.”
“Of course,” Vanson smiled, adding, “Help yourself.”
She really was beautiful. For propriety’s sake he stood behind his desk, keeping both furniture and distance between them. She was gorgeous, but she was also an Earl’s daughter. Even if that Earl was deceased.
“Davey’s asleep in the room next door. He was my maid’s little boy. Adopted, actually. An orphan, a dead soldier’s son we think. Found him living on the streets of Calcutta, wearing an oversized coat of the Ninth Dragoons. Helped Sally with her chores. He’s odd, but clever. I hid him with me during the attack. Thank you again for rescuing us,” she said.
“Only doing our duty, Lady Doyle.”
“Lady Doyle!” Her laugh was magical. “Please, it’s Gwen. If I’m to be your passenger for the next few days, too much formality will just make us both uncomfortable.”
“Ok, Miss....um, Gwen.”
“As to duty, I know for a fact how little the Navy pays you and the rest of the Royal Air Fleet. It would have been far less dangerous to simply ignore our ship and sail on. So,” she murmured, staring at him over the cut-glass tumbler, “ thank you, Captain.”
She told him of her childhood in County Wicklow, how her father, second-in-line to his family’s title, chose to make his fortune in India rather than wait to see if his older brother simply died off. In a twist of fate, that brother did die young, making her father Earl. He went back to Ireland and married Gwen’s mother; they had Gwen. But the Earl’s heart remained in India, and so he returned to govern the northwestern frontier for the Empire. Gwen’s mother stayed in Ireland, but Gwen eventually joined her father. She loved adventure.
She also explained how they got lost on their way out of Simla seven days ago. A storm blew them far off course and eventually into the side of a mountain. Pirates found them before they could make repairs. Gwen and Davey hid, and two days later—today—they were rescued by Vanson and the Maiden.
“I have some of my father’s papers. Diplomatic documents concerning treaties with Russia against the pirates.” She patted the coat she was wearing when they found her, now folded up next to her on the floor. “I tossed the rest of my clothes into your stove,” she smiled. “Hope you don’t mind. They smelled awful! Thank you for letting me wash up.”
Vanson just smiled, secretly wondering how she smelled now.
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” Vanson said.
It was Olly. “The starboard balloon on the Lotus is repaired, Captain. A smaller rip than we expected. It’ll hold for now, but it’ll need a new balloon before it’s truly airworthy again. The rudder is beyond repair—at least the sort of repairs we could do while airborne. That’ll require a good shipwright. All told, she won’t steer, but she’ll float, long enough for us to tow her down to Delhi. Shall we set course?”
“Aye,” said Vanson, and Olly turned on his heels, shutting the door behind him.
“We’ve been up here too long,” Vanson said, as much to himself as Gwen. “It’ll be night soon, and I want to put some distance between us and the Zanskar. The Crow was coming after us pretty hot. Who knows what they might attempt under cover of darkness.”
“The Crow?” Gwen asked, alarmed. “I heard one of our crew mention a Jade Crow. He said they were the worst pirates north of British India.”
“He was right,” said Vanson. “And you can thank the stars we got to you first. Your yacht was drifting into the Crow’s territory, and they spotted you soon after we did. Another ten minutes, and they would have had you.”
Gwen shuddered. “I do owe you my life.”
The Burma Maiden, which had been bobbing gently on cold Himalayan currents, began to move.
“Really, as I said, it was the very least—” He stopped when she stood up, facing him, with a look he was pretty sure he knew the meaning of.
She dropped the blanket from around her shoulders, revealing milky skin dotted with the freckles that Irish girls were famous for. She wasn’t wearing the clothes she had been given after all.
Almost involuntarily, his eyes went to her two perfectly-shaped breasts. They were framed by cascades of red hair that spilled down from her head.
That hair. It draped around her high cheekbones, one or two curls stopping to point out her soft lips and dainty chin, while the rest tumbled over her shoulders and on down...to where his hands suddenly wanted to be.
But she was an Earl’s daughter.
“Lady Doyle, I...I really can’t. You’re...I’m only...”
She moved casually around his desk, blanket still around her waist, her eyes holding his. When she reached his side of the table she hopped up on it—pushing aside some of the maps and charts as she did so—then she was sitting before him, reaching out and grabbing the lapels of his coat.
“I’m a big girl now, Captain. You saved me. I’ve been quite cold and lonely hiding on the Lotus. Hell, I’ve been lonely anyway lately, living in that miserable frontier fort at Peshawar.” She tilted her mouth upward.
“Um...” Vanson said. But he knew he couldn’t come up with an excuse that either of them would accept.
“Please, Captain. Let me thank you properly.”
She pulled him closer, spread her legs, and shrugged the blanket completely off her body. In the flickering glow from the lamp above, he saw the soft skin of her inner thigh and groaned, a noise she matched as she reached one hand around the back of his neck, lips parted. His tongue found hers while her other hand began to work its way down his chest, unbuttoning his coat.
Now he kn
ew how she smelled. Of jasmine and balsam, vanilla and cinnamon—the most exotic scents of the Himalayas and the rest of Empire, made into perfume.
Intoxicating.
She grinned. “I keep a small bottle of it in my coat. A girl never knows...”
He grabbed her hips and pulled her across the desk toward him.
Just then, there was a frantic knock on the door.
“Damn.” He pulled away. Gwen’s mouth moved to his neck while her hands continued to work at his buttons.
“What?” Vanson yelled toward the door—more harshly than he intended.
“Captain!” shouted Olly. “We need you on deck immediately. We have visitors.”
“What! Who?”
“It’s dark, sir. We can only see their deck lights. A big ship, and some smaller ones. We’re pretty sure it’s the Crow again, back with her fleet. They must have waited for nightfall.”
“But we aren’t anywhere near their territory anymore! They must really want the Lotus.”
He swore. “Gwen—”
“I know,” she said, pulling the blanket back up around her shoulders.
“I will be back. Stay here.” Then a thought occurred to him. “We may have to cut your ship free if we want to outrun them. I’m sorry, I know the Lotus of Albion is your family’s yacht.”
“I don’t care, do what you have to do. Just keep us safe.” She put her mouth to his and gave him one last jasmine-scented kiss.
Vanson ran up onto the deck, calling for all hands to follow.
#
The last of the sun’s rays illuminated a large dark airship, its red-silk balloon envelope floating above it like another setting sun. It was still a ways out, but it was the Crow, he was sure of it. Other airships, smaller but similarly decorated, sailed alongside it.
They were about five nautical miles to port, flying at top speed, closing fast.
“They must have swung around that far ridge after we outran them earlier,” Olly said, handing Vanson his spyglass.
He looked through the eyepiece.
“A clever ambush,” Vanson said, the wind blowing the collar of his now-unbuttoned deck coat.
“Get us out of here. Full speed,” he said. Below decks he heard the engines throb heavily as the noise from the propellers rose from a steady thrum to an angry whine.
“Captain,” said Olly, “I don’t know if we can stay ahead if we’re towing the Lotus.”
“I know. I already spoke to Gwen...I mean, Lady Doyle.”
“But for now,” Olly continued, diplomatically ignoring his Captain’s sudden familiarity toward their female passenger, “We may be able to keep ahead of them. We’re a faster ship.”
“No,” said Vanson, “The Crow is too close. I don’t want to risk it. Let’s cut the Lotus loose.”
“Aye,” said Olly. Then he yelled across the deck, “Prepare to cut the—”
Olly was interrupted by a great crack! from below decks and the Burma Maiden suddenly slowed, forcing its crew to grab madly at ropes and railings to steady themselves. The whine of the propellers was already diminishing.
“The engines!” Olly yelled. “Where’s Dawes?”
Dawes, the engineer, didn’t sound off.
“I’ll check it out,” Vanson said. “Olly, ready the cannon. Turn the Maiden broadside and let them see our guns.” Then he leapt two levels down the main staircase to the engine room.
Bursting through the door, he saw a small figure hunched over the propeller shaft, its back to him. Vanson aimed his pistol.
“Stop what you are doing! Stand up!”
The figure stood and turned around, arms raised. In one hand was a wrench, in the other a handful of bolts. Important ones, Vanson saw immediately. The ones that kept the rapidly-rotating driveshaft in its housing.
It was the boy, Davey.
Now the shaft was spinning chaotically, free from the confines of its metal clamps, its power no longer transferring to the propellers but instead shredding the transmission to which it had recently been attached.
The uncontrolled force of the loose shaft was dangerous—it would tear the engine room apart. Indeed, Vanson already saw jagged pieces of metal and a thick cog embedded in the wooden ceiling of the chamber.
That explained the loud noises. The boy was lucky he hadn’t been killed.
“What the hell are you doing?” Vanson yelled. “You’ve stalled my ship! Just as we’re being pursued by pirates who’ll not think twice about tossing us all overboard!”
Davey just stood there, expressionless. Gwen had said the boy was odd, but Vanson didn’t have time to be sympathetic, especially after the damage he had done.
“What were you thinking?” He yelled again, running over and grabbing the bolts from Davey’s hand. He bent down, careful to avoid the spinning shaft. There was nothing he could do. Both steam engines would have to be shut down before they could make any repairs.
Where was Dawes? Without his engineer, Vanson had to find and yank the lever that disengaged the engines from the driveshaft himself.
That’s when he saw Dawes’s legs, unmoving, sticking out from behind one of the giant cylindrical steam engines. Vanson turned and stared with growing unease at the boy called Davey.
The boy stood quietly, just staring up at him.
Vanson heard his men yelling. The Crow must be getting closer.
“Gwen!” he yelled, hoping she would hear him through the wooden floor of the ship. “I need you to come get this boy! And get Olly down here too—Dawes is hurt!”
He heard the soft click of a revolver’s hammer behind his ear, and smelled jasmine and balsam, vanilla and cinnamon.
“I’m right here,” she said from behind him, pressing the barrel of the gun into the base of his skull. “I told you Davey was a clever boy.”
“Gwen, what are you doing?” Vanson turned his head just enough to see that she was fully dressed now, in the clothes he had given her, her tattered deck coat—and not the blanket—over her shoulders.
But Gwen, if that was her name, just laughed. She squeezed his behind with her free hand and purred into his ear. “Such a shame my ship arrived so quickly. I was looking forward to a little more time alone with you, Captain Vanson. Alas, some things aren’t meant to be.”
She pushed his head back around with the point of her gun.
“Now, back up on deck, please.”
#
Night had fallen when Vanson stepped back onto the deck of the Burma Maiden, Gwen close behind. The sky was clear, its stars brilliant. The air tasted of ice and numbed the tongue.
His crew, manning the ship’s half-dozen cannon, were tense, anticipating battle.
“Captain!” Olly turned to him, spyglass in hand. “It’s the Jade Crow all right, and a half-dozen smaller ships. They’re staying just out of range of our guns. Did you find Dawes? What the bloody hell’s wrong with the engines?”
Before Vanson could reply, Gwen spoke. She still had her gun against the back of his head and her other hand on his shoulder, keeping him where she wanted him. The boy stayed at her side like an impassive puppy.
“If I can have your attention please! I am assuming control of your airship. Anyone tries anything untoward, and your Captain gets a bullet through his skull.”
The crew turned, and in the glow of the deck lanterns, Vanson thought they might laugh at what they thought was a joke, until they saw Gwen with her pistol.
“You ungrateful bitch!” yelled Olly. He rushed toward them, knife drawn. “We rescue you and this is how you repay—”
Her gun fired and Olly fell, his hot blood bouncing in droplets across the icy deck.
Vanson’s ears rang, and inwardly he recoiled from the sight of Olly sprawled before him. But he did not budge. What a fool he had been! She wasn’t hiding any diplomatic papers in her coat. Just her pistol. And a plan.
“As I said,” she continued to the stunned crew, “I’ll be taking this ship. Everyone move away from the cannon and dr
op your weapons.”
The crew hesitated but Vanson, not wanted to see any more of them dead, said, “Do as she says.”
They moved to the center of the deck, tossing pistols and knives away from them in a sad litany of thuds and clanks.
“Ok, Dahid,” Gwen said to the boy she had been calling Davey, “Now.”
The boy ran to the deck railing, where he took one of their lanterns and began signaling the large airship that had been circling them like a shark. Minutes later it pulled alongside the Maiden, its green eyes glinting in the low light of their deck lamps.
Those eyes—bright green and beautifully sinister—looked just like those of the woman holding the gun to his head.
Vanson noticed the Crow was nearly twice as long as the Maiden. And then, even though it was dark, he realized it was a repainted Royal Air Fleet frigate. No doubt one of the ones gone missing over the past few years, presumed lost or destroyed.
“Who are you?” Vanson growled.
“My name’s Gwen alright, but not Doyle. I have no idea what my last name is. I grew up in a Dublin orphanage. My father was a soldier and my mother—who knows? A maid? A whore? Both? Either way, a girl has to fend for herself if she doesn’t want to end up the same way. I found work in the household of a debauched Earl’s son and moved with him when he became Territorial Governor in Kabul. He was a man of certain...appetites. Disgusting ones.
“Well, even I have my limits, you know. Dahid here was our errand boy. I took him with me once my little rebellion got going. And now, I’ve developed quite a following as you can see.”
Figures on the deck of the Crow moved swiftly: hooks were flung over, biting into the deck of the Maiden with a series of thuds. A rope bridge followed, and suddenly they were surrounded by pirates of all sizes and races: Asians, Africans, Europeans, others he could not place.
Vanson looked at his own crew, shivering in their too-thin Air Fleet coats. They didn’t get paid nearly enough for this sort of thing. And now they were terrified. He could see it on their faces.
“Let them go, Gwen. They’re just doing their jobs.”
“I don’t kill wantonly, despite what you may have heard. That ‘tarred and feathered, set alight and tossed overboard’ stuff—that’s all rubbish. Useful rubbish, I’ll grant you. But your first mate there, he attacked me. I only want your ship. Let us have it, and we’ll let you go in that old yacht you’re towing. Lucky you didn’t cut it loose. We spent a long time rigging that one just so.”