Privateer (The Five Kingdoms #1)

by Robin Roseau

  I started to cry. "Commander," I said. "I didn't take it. But I can find it. I can prove it. I promise, I can prove it! I can prove I can find it without having hidden it!"

  Radha stepped up to the captain. "Sorri. Put her down. Give her a chance."

  Sorri's face was a grimace of pain, but slowly she lowered me to my feet. "Fine," she spat. "Prove how you could know where the sextant is if you aren't the one who stole it, and if your niece didn't."

  She looked defeated.

  "I need my satchel," I said. "And I would prefer to only tell you, Captain."

  "Hold her, Commander!" the captain ordered. Radha took me from the captain, holding me firmly. The captain stepped to her desk, then realized she had pulled every drawer out of the desk. The contents were spread all over the cabin.

  "It's over there," I said, pointing. "Under the fallen chair." It wasn't visible, but it was my satchel, and I knew where it was.

  Sorri glanced at me then dug through the clutter on the floor until she found my satchel. She held it in front of her and turned to me.

  "Captain," I said calmly. "I am forced to tell you something I did not want to tell you. Please don't make me tell your first mate as well."

  "She stays. I would tell her later, anyway. You know that."

  "Fine. Open the satchel. Find the folder of my correspondence with Melissa Roughridge."

  She wasn't gentle. She opened the satchel and dumped the contents on her table. She sorted through the folders until she found the one she wanted.

  "This will be faster if you let me show you, Captain."

  "Fine," she said, holding it out. Radha released me but guarded the door. I stepped to the captain, took the folder, then set it on the table and opened it. I sorted through the letters until I found the one I wanted.

  "Read it," I said, giving it to her.

  She read it through, then looked at me. "This is meaningless. The random babblings of a sweet scatterbrain."

  "You will notice she mentions her mother's jade pendant is missing, and she wonders if I can help her find it."

  "So?"

  I picked the next letter and traded with her. "Just read the second to last paragraph."

  Sorri read it. "A missing earring."

  "It had been her grandmother's." I traded letters again.

  "A missing button."

  "I didn't help her with that one," I said. I thrust the next letter at Sorri.

  "Another piece of jewelry is missing." Sorri looked at me. "You are wasting time."

  "There are four more letters here. I keep Melissa's letters because I enjoy reading them sometimes. But every single one mentions something she is missing. She never writes me except to ask me to help her find something."

  I pulled out invoices that matched the times I had found things for Melissa. I matched them to the letters. "Notice the dates. The invoices are typically several days to a few weeks after the letters. I might go six months or longer before Melissa loses something important enough to ask me to find it, but a week later, I have an invoice for her."

  "You find her jewelry?"

  "Yes." I put all of Melissa's papers back in the folder and picked another one.

  "This is Lady Gweegan," I said. "She had missing pieces of jewelry from her jewelry drawer. She suspected a maid. It was her daughter playing with them then leaving them places. I found the ones she could describe properly."

  I showed her several more.

  "So you are good at finding things. How does this explain that you know where the sextant is? And don't lie! It was all over your face."

  "I will not lie. But I have lied to you. My temper is not due to a curse. It is the price of my magic."

  She stared to me. Then Radha said clearly, "Bullshit."

  I sighed. "I can find things. Under very careful circumstances, I can find things. It's a trivial amount of magic, just a glimmer. I feel them; they draw me, and I can pull on them. I can make very, very, very light things move."

  "Bullshit!" Radha said. "If you were a wizard, you would have sunk us the first night we took you!"

  "Are you listening?" I yelled at her. "I have barely a glimmer of magic. The tiniest of glimmers. The only thing I can do with it is find things. And then only under careful circumstances." I hadn't been lying, but now I started offering lies. I didn't want them to know the full truth. "I must know who the item belongs to." That part was true. "I must either be very familiar with it myself, or they must think about it while I am touching them, and they describe it to me very, very carefully." That was all true. "If I am close enough, I get a vague sense of what direction it is." That was a half-truth. Distance didn't matter, and I got an exact sense of direction as well as distance. "Running water interferes with it." That was complete rubbish.

  "We are over running water," Radha pointed out.

  "There is wood, that once was alive, between us and the water. If you hung the sextant from the derrick out over the water, I wouldn't be able to feel it. I can feel it. That means it's on the ship."

  "Bull. Shit." Said Sorri.

  "It has to be something fairly unique. If you ask me to find your boots, that would be hard, because you have two pair, and they are very similar in appearance. If you are able to describe one of them exceedingly well, then I can find it. If they are all together, then I can maybe find them, but they feel fuzzy. If they are separated, I just turn in circles, not able to find them at all." That was all true.

  "Something like a button, unless it is exceedingly unique, I can never find. I can't find a plain tunic unless it's the only one you have."

  Sorri stared at me. "The ribbons on the gags..."

  "I gave Minori the ribbon we tied around the gag she has. You gave me the ribbon I tied around the one I have. Both ribbons are thus unique. She doesn't have any other ribbons like that one, and I don't have any ribbons like the one you gave me. If we lost the gags, I couldn't find them, because they aren't unique to you. But I could find the ribbons. And thus find the gags."

  Sorri was starting to believe me.

  "You can't be a wizard," Radha said.

  "I can prove it." I looked around the room. "Nothing is where it belongs. Blindfold me."

  I closed my eyes, and a moment later, Sorri was wrapping cloth over my eyes. She pulled it much tighter than necessary.

  "Turn me around several times, but please don't make me dizzy." She put her hands on my shoulders and spun me in a circle a few times. When she was done, I had little idea which way I was facing.

  "Pick something. It must be unique. I must have my hands touching your face or head. It should be in this room, it should be unique, and you must think about it very clearly and describe it just as clearly."

  Sorri didn't let me touch her. Instead she asked, "Where is the pouch with your love letters?"

  I felt. "There," I said, pointing. "Wait, it's moving." I kept pointing at it.

  "She's peeking!" Radha said.

  "For crying out loud. Put one of those hoods over my head if you need to."

  "She's not peeking, Radha," Sorri said. She took my hands and placed them on her shoulders. I moved them where I needed them. "I have exactly one necklace. I do not wear it very often." She began describing it. She wasn't good at it, but I started to get a sense for it.

  "You're bad at this. Is it silver?"

  "Gold," she said.

  "White or yellow?"

  "Yellow."

  "Is it tight about your throat or loose?"

  "It hangs to here," she said touching me at the base of the throat.

  And suddenly I could feel it. "There," I said, pointing to my left. "If you keep me from tripping, I can find it. Without looking."

  Sorri pulled me to the side, and I continued to point towards the necklace.

  "There is a clear path between you and the necklace. It is in plain view."

  I squared off to it, took three steps, then knelt down and felt around until I picked up the necklace.

  "She's pee
king!" Radha said. "Or she has perfect memory and remembered where it was."

  "Right, and I was faking the work it took to remember everything you've been teaching me," I said sarcastically.

  "You could have been."

  I heard Radha cross the room. Her hands went to my arms, and she turned me around several times. Then she roughly grabbed my hands and put them in place against her face. I moved one to the back of her neck.

  "I took my belt off and set it down." She began describing it. It was simple to describe, and I had seen it, so I got a lock.

  "Directly behind me," I said. "Walk me backwards but please do not make me trip. I'll tell you when it's one step behind me."

  She steered me around the room, and I pointed towards the belt the entire time.

  "Stop." I pulled away, turned around, and picked up the belt, holding it out to her.

  "We can keep doing this," I said. "Or I can go find the sextant."

  "I think she's lying."

  "For crying out loud. Radha, go hide your belt and come back."

  "Captain?"

  "Do it. Hide it anywhere but the gun deck."

  Then I felt Sorri's hand on my arm, and Radha left, taking the belt with her. I paid attention to the location of the belt, and thus could track where Radha was. She stayed on the main deck but walked over to the port railing. A minute later, the belt was hanging about ten feet outside the ship, swinging slowly back and forth.

  "She's cheating," I said. "She just threw it overboard."

  "How do you know that?"

  "Because I just lost it." I hadn't, but I wasn't going to admit that. "I was paying attention to where it was. She walked to the port railing, stood there a while, and then suddenly it was gone. She threw it in the sea."

  Radha returned. "Find the belt."

  "You threw it overboard," I said. I repeated my evidence.

  "Damn it," she said. "I didn't throw it overboard. I hung it from the derrick."

  "Are you two convinced?" I asked.

  Sorri removed my blindfold. I blinked at her and rubbed my eyes.

  "I admit you could find the sextant without having been the one to steal it," she said. "But that doesn't prove it wasn't you."

  "It wasn't." It was down below somewhere. I got a lock on it again. It was near Minori's cabin, but it wasn't in her cabin. I couldn't be more specific than that. I also wasn't entirely sure which deck it was on, but I could find it. It might take a few minutes.

  "The most important thing is finding the sextant," Sorri said. "After that, we need to determine how it got wherever it is. The evidence currently suggests it was either you or Minori. Rani, it had better not have been either of you. If it is, confess now, and I'll try to be gentle. But I won't have any choice. This is sabotage."

  "It wasn't either of us," I promised. "Shall we go find it? Captain, I have a rough idea where it is, but it is rough. I do not know if it is somewhere I am not allowed to go. It is forward and below our current position." I pointed, waving my hand around to indicate some lack of accuracy. I could have told her exactly what direction and how many feet, give or take a foot or so.

  "Do you get elevation?"

  "I get approximately direction. For my own items, it is very precise. For something I have never seen, then it matters how well it is described and how unique it is. I get an idea of distance, but it's basically very close, close, not too far, kind of far, or really far." That last part was pure hogwash. "Or I don't get anything at all. I might know that I have a good enough description to find it, but I might have to look around a bit before I find it." I let my clients believe that, too. I didn't want them to know too much.

  "Elevation?"

  "Angle. It's below us. I couldn't tell you better than that." Lies and more lies.

  "Lead us," Sorri said. "If you are lying, you and your niece will both suffer."

  I turned at her. "Leave her out of this! She didn't do it. Neither did I, but I understand why you think so. I will find it. It might take as long as an hour, but I will find it, no matter how well it is hidden. If someone hid it between bulkheads, I will eventually tell you, 'It is right on the other side of this wall.' But I will find it." I turned to the door and meant to step through it, but Sorri grabbed one arm, Radha the other, and they marched me out of the cabin.

  "This is going to get awkward in the passageways."

  "Radha will be in front of you and I will be behind you. You will not be allowed to run."

  "Whatever." I paused. "I am billing you for this. I have no choice but to find this for you, but when I find it and you admit I had nothing to do with it, I will be issuing an invoice."

  "Fine," she said. "If it is somewhere you can put it, I may not be able to prove you did it, but you can't prove you didn't, either."

  I had ways to discover who had taken it, but I wasn't going to expose Minori's real magic unless my life or hers was at stake. If I got put in the brig for this, so be it.

  We crossed the deck. I stopped at the door to the forecastle. "It's further forward than this door," I said. I pointed in the approximate direction, careful not to be too precise."

  "Keep going," Sorri ordered. Radha entered the passageway. "Go down," I said. We descended one floor and were outside the door to the gun deck. "Keep going down," I said. The next level held the remaining cabins. Below that were the quarters for the seamen, and below that the storage holds.

  "Here," I said. "It's on this deck."

  We exited the stairs. "That way," I said. I kept giving directions to Radha, and I breathed a sigh of relief when we went past Minori's cabin and the sextant wasn't there. I led us around a little, but we weren't in the right place. And then I suddenly knew exactly where it was.

  "Radha, please lead us to wherever you are sleeping. I'm lost."

  Radha turned us around and quickly led us to her quarters.

  "Who are you sharing with?" I asked.

  "Krissa." The quartermaster.

  I smiled. "Who has this door?" I said, pointing to the opposite door.

  "That's the cook."

  "Who else?"

  "Oh hell," said Sorri. "Mara is bunking with the cooks. Oh Rani, I am so sorry. I am so sorry."

  "After you, Captain," I said coldly. "Nice of you to accuse me before you check with your navigator whether she has your main navigation tool."

  "She has her own. She shouldn't need mine."

  "Yes, well. It's on the other side of this door and to the left."

  Sorri knocked at the door and then immediately opened it. I waited in the hallway with Radha.

  "Captain?" I heard Mara say. "Is something wrong?"

  "Is that your sextant or mine?" Sorri asked her.

  "Mine," she said.

  Radha turned to me, glaring. "Nice try."

  "Yours is in the drawer," Mara added. "It was out of adjustment, so I kept it the other night and fixed it. I'm sorry, I kept forgetting to return it."

  "I don't try, Commander. I do," I said hotly. "If the captain wants assistance cleaning the mess she made of the cabin, she can come grovel to me. I expect both of you to kiss my ass. Literally."

  I turned my back and stormed away, looking for Glora. She and the girls were in her room.

  "What happened?" Glora asked the moment she saw me.

  "May I come in?" I asked in a small voice.

  Accepted

  Captain Sorri Westmere

  Glora blocked the doorway to her room. "Ever heard of a trial, Captain?" she asked me coldly. "You dug a deep hole this time."

  "I know," I told her. "May I see her?"

  "No."

  "Glora, is the commander with her?" I heard Rani said.

  "They're both here," Glora said. "But I don't see flowers. Or expensive dresses. Or any jewelry."

  "Let them in, Glora."

  Glora paused, then stepped backwards, letting the door swing free. I stepped into the small room, Radha waiting in the doorway. There wasn't room for all of us unless more of us joined
Rani and Minori on the bed.

  Rani had been crying. I felt like shit.

  I hadn't figured out what to say.

  It was clear they had been playing a game of cards.

  "Do you want us to step out?" Glora asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "No," Rani said. "If this conversation needs to be private, we will leave. Unless we're making you uncomfortable."

  "No, no," Glora said. "I can't wait to see how this turns out."

  "Did you tell them everything?" I asked Rani.

  "I told them you accused me of stealing your sextant. I explained where it was." She paused. "Lindora didn't know about my magic, but I trust her. I told them that you would have to punish me very severely if I couldn't convince you I hadn't taken it."

  In other words, they didn't know the entire truth. She hadn't told them everything.

  "I'm sorry, Rani. I jumped to conclusions. I was deeply wrong."

  She watched me, perhaps waiting, then she said, "That's it? That's your apology? Glora, what do you think?"

  "That was the worst apology I have heard in a long time," Glora said.

  "Not only was that a lame apology, but I don't hear any groveling," Rani said. "And my ass has not been kissed. Did you think I was bluffing?"

  I stepped further into the room and lowered myself to my knees in front of Rani. "Get in here, Radha," I growled. Radha sank to the floor next to me.

  "I am deeply sorry, Rani," I said. "I jumped to conclusions, and then I was so blinded by disappointment and fear, I didn't even apply the most basic of logic. I should have remembered I hadn't put it away, that the navigator had it. There is no excuse. I hope you can forgive me."

  Rani looked away, staring at the wall, then she asked in a small voice, "What is going to happen when you tell your negotiator I have magic? It is just a glimmer, nearly worthless, and you have seen what people pay me to use it, but everyone assumes wizards are high-powered. Even the weakest of wizards must be worth far, far more than ten crowns. Who are you going to sell me to, Captain?"

  "Oh god. Rani. No. That isn't going to happen. Tell her, Radha."

  "Yes, it will," Radha said. "If we tell anyone, anyone at all. Captain, no one can know!"

  "Half of Norida knows," I said.

  "They don't," Glora said. "You disguise it very well. Some suspect. Most don't even think about it. They just know you find things and no one cares how."