The Highest Tide

by Marian Perera

  The Green Man, Lera thought, though what loomed over them was faceless and featureless. Even through stunned shock, she knew in a cold corner of her mind that the Sea’s guardian had behaved intelligently, keeping them like a shield between it and Nemesis.

  She fumbled the lantern open. Fronds burst out from the Green Man, threshing the air. Not daring to look away from him, she slid shaking fingers over the powder keg until she felt the fuse.

  She shoved it into the flame, ignoring the scorching heat on her fingers. The fuse caught at once. Twenty seconds. Twenty seconds to get underwater before—

  Jason grabbed the lantern and flung it at the Green Man.

  Glass shattered and burning oil splashed over the weeds, but it was so little compared to the bulk of the Green Man that it only seemed to make him angry. He rose farther out of the water, huge and towering over them, an old, old god with roots that went all the way down to the bottom of the Sea. The flames hissed out, drowned and stifled. His arms, more of them than she could count, reached out for her.

  “Now,” she said, and thrust the regulator past her teeth. Jason’s ballast tank lay across the thwarts, too heavy to wear. With all her strength, she heaved it overboard, wrapping the strap around her wrist at the same moment. Her other hand caught Jason’s arm and they went over the side together.

  Viscous water closed over her head. The weeds swarmed her, a thousand bristling leeches trying to wriggle into every gap in the rebreather. She had expected to be dragged under by the weight of the ballast tank, but she hadn’t realized the weeds would pull her farther down.

  Blind in the water, she forced herself to breathe through her mouth, only too aware Jason didn’t even have that slight advantage. She twisted her hand, struggling to work the strap of the ballast tank loose before they sank into the colder, sludgelike depths.

  Thunder roared far overhead, a muffled whoom. A shudder drove though the water. Abruptly the weeds went limp, and Lera felt the ballast tank slip away as well. She kicked hard and rose, though she didn’t need to haul Jason with her. Even in water darker than ink, she could tell he was clawing his way up, fighting to reach the air.

  Her head broke the surface and she heard him do the same. He coughed, choking out water and sucking in breath after shaking breath. Any longer below, and she knew he would have drowned.

  She looked around. Plants draped themselves over her shoulders, but they were like dead snakes, no longer under the Green Man’s sway. The great mass of kelp was shredded, and a few fragments of burned wood floated on the wash.

  The air smelled thick and acrid, of scorched green and hot smoke, but she was too relieved to care. She spat out the regulator and treaded water as a low rumble sounded. Nemesis’s engines were starting up, and the hull began to rise slowly from the water, though she guessed it would be a little while before the ship could move freely.

  Jason was no longer gasping for breath, so she knew he could speak. “Are you hurt?” she said.

  “No.” He glanced around at the Sea as though he was bracing for the remains of the Green Man to erupt from its surface. The water was undisturbed on all sides, soundless except for the steady growl from Nemesis in the distance. There was no sign of the shark, but she supposed it was needed to clear the propellers of weeds.

  “Thank the Benevolent Ones it’s gone,” Jason said finally. “And thank you, too. For believing me.”

  In the near-darkness, she couldn’t see his face but the gratitude in his quiet voice seemed genuine enough. That made her uncomfortable, because it wasn’t something she expected or wanted.

  “I’ll try not to make a habit of it,” she said. He laughed, though Lera knew the only reason she’d been willing to act right away was because Charlotte, who was as neutral in the matter as possible, had found his idea believable. That, and anything was better than sitting on her hands.

  The wet chop of axes into the remaining weeds went on and on, inching Nemesis out of the water. Lera began to feel cold now that the rush of battle had ebbed out of her blood, and a small fish kept nibbling at her ankle. She didn’t think it was actively trying to eat her, but it made her kick out sharply every now and then. The ship took its own sweet time to build up the head of steam it needed to move, but finally its prow turned in their direction, smoke billowing from its funnels.

  As it moved slowly towards them, she let herself relax, because for what felt like the first time in an hour, she didn’t need to keep monitoring their surroundings and trying to drive away the damned fish. But the respite made her start thinking instead, and something odd plucked at her memory, something to do with Charlotte.

  “Three women,” she said.

  “What?”

  “When we were in Charlotte’s cabin, you said there were three women on board. Who’s the third one?”

  She wasn’t deeply curious about it—officers had wives, after all, so it was probably one of those ladies whom she hadn’t seen yet. But Jason said nothing, and she didn’t need to see him to know his expression would have gone fixed and closed, settling into the polite mask she’d seen before. She could almost hear his thoughts as he tried to come up with a convincing lie, so she beat him to it.

  “Why is that a secret?” From the corner of her eye, she saw Nemesis approaching, but she might only have this moment to find out, because as soon as they were on board, he could avoid her. She wanted to be patient and diplomatic, but something about his manner—or maybe it was everything they’d gone through since entering the Sea of Weeds—snapped her restraint. “Can’t you ever tell me the truth?”

  A rope was flung out from the warship, and Jason caught it, tossing her the end. “Ask your friend Captain Garser,” was all he said before Nemesis hauled them in.

  Chapter Six

  Mermaid’s Kiss

  Dr. Strant examined Lera closely. She hadn’t been hurt, but from the way he recorded her pulse and lifted her eyelids to peer under them, she could tell he wasn’t sure about potential side effects of what had happened, and was fully prepared for seaweed to sprout out of her mouth.

  Finally he cleared her to leave the infirmary. Exhausted as well as soaked to the skin, she went to her cabin and forced herself to hang up her clothes instead of leaving them in a pile on the floor. The cabin stank of cut seaweed, a smell she knew she would loathe for the rest of her life, but the whole damn ship probably reeked of that, and she was tired enough to sleep anyway. She went over to her hammock.

  Something about its shape made her stop when she was still a few feet away. Candle in hand, wearing only her drawers and a loose undershirt because the nights were so warm, she stared at the hammock. It curved as though it was already carrying a weight, and the floorboards were dark and sodden below.

  Lera drew her saber and approached, only to leap back as she saw a cluster of weeds where she would normally have curled up for the night. Her heart pounded, and she swallowed through a dry throat, glancing at the window to make sure it was closed. Though once she prodded the mass with the tip of her saber, she realized the weeds weren’t moving. They had all been lopped off and carried there.

  Her temper flared so high she forgot weariness and fear alike. Someone detailed to cut away the plants from the ship had dumped them in her hammock—perhaps in retaliation for her reply to Paul when he’d asked about her face, perhaps because she was a foreigner and a woman and they resented the fact that she had saved their ship. She shoved the blade back into its scabbard and went for her dry clothes.

  Then stopped with her hands fisted in the clean linen of her shirt. What was she planning to do? Complain to Garser? What could he do, without knowing who’d played that nasty little trick—punish his whole crew? No, he’d make a meaningless apology while thinking of her as the kind of person who couldn’t take a prank. Sailors could be rough to both new recruits and to those who didn’t fit in, she’d seen that for herself. She just hadn’t
been the target of it for…well, for a long time.

  The spark of anger flickered out, leaving her more tired than before—and worse, lonely. Homesick for her lost ship, for her crew, for a home she’d never really had. She bent her head, biting her lip and willing herself not to give in to that.

  Footsteps outside made her start. They passed by her door, but it could easily have been Kovir, and she wanted to get the place back in order before he came in. He had enough to deal with already.

  She pushed open the window and, teeth set, threw armfuls of plants out. There were spare hammocks in an iron-banded chest, and she strung one up after she had scrubbed the last residue of the oozing weeds off herself. When she finished, her skin was pink and aching.

  Wrapped in an old sheet darned in places, she climbed into the hammock. She was so tired she slept immediately and didn’t dream, which was something to be thankful for, and by morning they were almost out of the Sea of Weeds. When she went topside, she took one final look behind, at the long fronds that stirred in their wake and sifted the water.

  She dunked a piece of ship’s biscuit—no one called it hardtack in Dagre—in her cup of tea, both to soften the biscuit and to drown any weevils in it, then ate her breakfast before she went to the prow to watch the ocean. Two crags on the horizon were grey and humped as the backs of whales, but when Garser offered her a spyglass she saw another tiny island thickly clustered with blue-leaved trees.

  “Uninhabited,” he said when she mentioned it to him. “Well, as far as we know—there could always be someone marooned or turned pirate. But those islands are all too far from the mainland, you see.”

  Lera thought of how many times she’d sailed her ship Wrack into the archipelago to fight pirates—and those islands were much farther away from Denalay. It seemed a waste to have islands simply lying there, all their resources untouched, but different lands had different priorities.

  Now that they were past the Sea of Weeds, Garser and his lookouts kept constant watch for any sign of other ships, but routines on Nemesis were still unchanged, so that afternoon the ship’s laundry was done. All garments were dumped into a barrel with some sailors’ soap, and the barrel trailed behind the ship so the jostling cleaned the clothes.

  In her cabin, Lera took off the coat of her spare uniform and rolled up the sleeves of her shirt. Her trousers and shirt were in the barrel, but a pail would do for her underclothes, because she had no intention of allowing those anywhere near a pack of animals so pathetic they resorted to vile tricks behind her back. Kneeling on the cabin floor in a pool of sunlight from the window, she plunged her hands into the suds.

  Productive work always made her feel better, but more importantly, it helped her think what to do. Not about the little gift in her hammock, but about what Jason had told her the night before. He’d clearly let slip that information without intending to do so, as if there was some mystery about it.

  She took her irritation out on her clothes, rubbing them together until her knuckles ached. Unity, but she hated the secrets and lies in Dagre. In Denalay that was the only secret—the Unity—and everyone was in the dark about that, so it wasn’t as though she was the only person who didn’t know. Though she had her own idea about the Unity and felt sure that when everyone eventually found out, there would be nothing surprising about the revelation.

  For now, though, she had to find out about the third woman on board.

  Much as she didn’t want to do anything Jason had suggested, especially given his sarcastic tone when he’d spoken to her, she had to admit going to Garser was the only option. Besides, she wouldn’t have wanted any visitors on her ship questioning her crew if there was a problem. So she wrung out her linens, hung them on pegs in the wall and wiped her hands on the sides of her trousers before she went to knock on Garser’s door.

  He was writing in his logbook, but when she said she preferred to speak to him alone, he flashed her an easy smile and dismissed his steward. Pushing the book aside, he leaned back in his chair, clearly waiting for her to continue.

  Lera hadn’t taken a seat, although he’d offered her one as soon as she had entered. Behind her back, she clasped her hands, and only realized a moment later that she’d assumed the at-ease position, her back straight and her feet slightly apart.

  “Captain,” she said, “is there another woman on board besides myself and Charlotte?”

  The smile faded. “Where did you hear that?”

  “So there is one.” If there had been someone secretly traveling on a ship of hers, Lera would have assumed it was an agent of the Admiralty sent to report on her crew’s obedience and loyalty, but on a foreign vessel she couldn’t be sure. One thing was for certain, though: if the woman had been stationed to watch her and Kovir, she’d make an end to that.

  Garser’s eyes became blue slivers. “Remerley told you.”

  Although she had no liking for Jason, Lera didn’t want to get him into trouble. “Not intentionally.” Get back to the point. “Who is she?”

  Garser adjusted the logbook’s position so it lined up with the edge of his table. “She was promised in marriage to Richard Alth.”

  Lera remembered what the Minister of Defense had told them about the rebels using some descendant of the last king of Dagre as their figurehead. Though he’d said nothing about the woman being sent with them.

  “Does Alth know she’s on board?” she asked.

  “Oh yes. He wanted her as well as the gold. So we brought her, not that I have any intention of handing her over.”

  “Because once we’re within the blast radius, she’s the only real shield you’ll have.”

  His eyes were still narrowed, but the look in them was more speculative than annoyed, and his mouth curved faintly as though he liked what he saw. “Which is why she’s kept under lock and guard.”

  Lera could only hope Alth would consider his ladylove’s safety more important than the destruction of Dagre’s flagship. One woman in a land as male-ruled as Dagre wasn’t much of a defense at all, especially if Alth somehow held thousands more hostages on his side. But it wasn’t her place to point any of that out to Garser, so she only nodded.

  “Thank you, Captain.” She turned to leave.

  “You don’t disapprove?” Garser said.

  Surprised, Lera stopped. “Why should I? It makes sense.”

  Garser got up from his chair and went to stare out of the window, his back to her. “That I’m holding a young woman against her will, because she didn’t want to come with us.”

  He was no longer looking at her, and that should have put her at ease, but it didn’t. There was something a little calculated about his question and his stance, and she didn’t think any Dagran captain would give a toss about a foreign woman’s opinion regarding his orders. Besides, if he really had been disturbed about what he was doing, there would have been more tension in the set of his broad shoulders and the line of his back.

  Still, maybe she was being cynical. Her few friends had sometimes told her that, so she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. “You’re following orders and trying to save lives,” she said. “We do what’s best for the majority, even if individuals pay a price for it.”

  Garser said nothing for a moment—he might have been watching the waves beyond the glass—but then he turned. The slight smile was more noticeable now.

  “Worked on ships all your life, Lera?” he said.

  She didn’t miss the fact that they were apparently on a first-name basis. “Since I was fifteen.”

  His gaze left her face, and before she could tell what he was looking at, he had crossed the floor to her. She held her ground, but he stopped a safe distance away, reached for her wrist and lifted it as if to examine her fingers.

  “Your hands are chafed.” Releasing her, he went to the cabinet below the china washstand and knelt to open it. “I have an ointment that
might—”

  “What do you want?” Lera said.

  Still on his knees, he turned around. “I thought it was obvious, but since you like to get to the point—you.” When he straightened up in one fluid movement, she couldn’t help thinking he was quite graceful for such a large man. “Would you like to take supper tonight in my quarters? We’ll have pigeon pie, and strawberries afterwards if the mess boys haven’t eaten them all.”

  “I don’t think so.” Speaking flatly wasn’t difficult, because she was only too aware it would be a mistake to get involved with him. He placed his orders first—as well he should—and might not hesitate to sacrifice her and Kovir if Dagre’s safety hung in the balance. She needed to keep enough of a distance to be aware of any indications he might do so.

  Besides, she wasn’t interested. Garser was a good-looking man, but he didn’t arouse her at all. She tried to imagine him naked in her bed, leaning over to nibble at a strawberry placed artfully between her breasts, but she thought she would rather just eat the strawberry by herself.

  He raised a brow. “Because I’m Dagran?”

  “Because I can’t see any reason why you’re doing this, unless you’re trying to win the pot.”

  “The…oh, Benevolent Ones.” The slight frown disappeared as he shook his head. “I’m not sure which I find more insulting—that you think I’m paid so little I need to win ridiculous bets, or that you don’t think you’re attractive enough for a man to want you.”

  Nice try, Lera thought, and joined her hands behind her again, deliberately pulling her shoulders back. Her spine arched, her full breasts pushing against her coat, and Garser’s gaze went down as she had known it would.

  “Oh, I think I’m pretty enough for a lot of men.” Her tone was light and mocking. “The question is, what makes you believe you appeal to me?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  Three quick strides took him across the room, and this time he didn’t stop when he was an arm’s length away from her. Because her hands were behind her, she couldn’t bring them up fast enough before he gathered her in his arms, and his body pressed warm against hers.