by Jon Skovron
Red hadn’t fallen yet. He hadn’t failed yet. But the specter of doubt continued to press down on him. He needed to think about something else. His fingers were on fire, throbbing with so much pain he was near tears. Then a new image came to his mind. Sadie grinning at him, her face streaked with the blood of dead sailors. I knew there was something under all that artsy softness. Artsy softness like hells. He’d watched one parent die, then the other. He’d survived on the streets of Silverback, then New Laven. He would show her there was not an inch of softness in him. He clenched his teeth and pulled himself up slowly to the window ledge.
“You did it, Rix—I mean Red!” said Filler.
“Shut it or you’ll give me away,” hissed Red, covering his own shaky exuberance with a confidence he didn’t feel. Then he looked through the window and saw a new problem. When the window had gone dark, he’d assumed the captain had gone to sleep. But now that he was able to see into the room by the faint rays of moonlight, he realized that the captain was in bed, but still awake. There was also a woman with him, and the two were bouncing against each other.
Red knew about sex, of course. The son of a whore doesn’t go long in life before learning that bit of truth. He’d asked why the neighborhood alley cat had gotten so fat, and his father had casually explained that she was pregnant. Red was an inquisitive child, firing a battery of questions at his father until they arrived at the human act of sex. The way his father had explained it led Red to believe it was a quiet, gentle act that involved a great deal of affectionately whispered words. But that wasn’t at all what Red was seeing through the window now.
The captain held himself up by his arms, his bald head gleaming with sweat and the skin of his hairy shoulders leached of color in the moonlight. He was facing the window, but his eyes were squeezed shut, like he was in pain. He rocked his lower body against the woman beneath him. Because of the angle, Red could only see the back of her head, one large, pillowy breast, and her arm, which dangled listlessly at the side of the bed. For a moment, he wondered if she was even conscious. But when he pressed his ear to the window, he could hear, along with the harsh grunts of the captain, a thin, screechy female voice saying, “Oh yeah, tommy, gimme that big, fat cock!”
All in all, Red decided that sex was pretty gross. Still, with all the noise and commotion, there was a good chance he could get in and out of there without being noticed.
He turned his head back. “Get ready to help me down in a minute.”
“How?” asked Filler.
“Just…be ready to do what I tell you,” said Red, because he had no idea yet how he would get down. Then he carefully eased open the window. He slipped into the room and crawled across the floor to the side of the bed where the captain’s boots and hat had been dropped in a heap along with the rest of his clothes. The sex yells were getting even louder and the bed was starting to creak in protest as the captain’s movements began to get more frantic. Red put the boots and hat in the coat, then rolled it up into an easy-to-carry bundle. Once he was ready to escape, he chanced one look up at the bed. Now he could see the woman’s face, round-cheeked and flushed. But she stared up at the ceiling with a look of absolute indifference even as she moaned and yelled, like she was an actress bored with her part. His father had always talked about the passion and tenderness in sex. Had he lied? Red had noticed adults did that in an effort to protect him. Or they did until he got to Paradise Circle. Maybe that’s why he liked it here so much. It was hard and mean, but nobody treated him like he was made of glass.
Then the woman’s bored gaze shifted from the ceiling down to Red. He had waited too long. Her eyes went wide and she yelled, this time with genuine feeling. “A kid! There’s a pissing kid in the room!”
Red leapt for the window, the bundle cradled against his chest. If the captain had been more alert, he could have easily caught Red by the leg or even the back of his shirt, and that would have been the end of it. But the man was right in the middle of orgasm and seemed oblivious to just about everything. Until the woman smacked him in the side of the head and yelled, “He’s stealing your pissing clothes, you bludgeon!”
Red was halfway out the window by then. The captain’s face crumpled up in rage as he lunged for Red, but his legs got tangled up in the blankets and he fell to the floor, naked and cursing.
“Catch me!” yelled Red as he launched himself out the window.
“What?” Filler instinctively held out his arms, and watched dumbfounded as Red came hurtling down and slammed into him. They fell to the cobblestones in a heap and both of them lay there, stunned, until the captain, his hairy chest heaving, started cursing at them from the window.
Red struggled to his feet. He held his bundle under one arm while he helped Filler up.
“Anything broke?” he demanded.
Filler shook his head, still looking dazed.
“Then pissing run!”
The two boys took off down the alley, leaving the sounds of the raving captain behind them. They ran for several blocks before they stopped at a corner, panting and grinning at each other like mad people.
“You.” Filler shook his finger in Red’s face. “Are completely slippy.”
Red decided he liked Filler calling him slippy, so his grin only grew broader. “That may be, but the prize is mine!” He held up the bundle proudly.
“What do you even need that for?”
“It’s for Sadie. We’re leaving Paradise Circle.”
“Leaving the Circle?” Filler stared at him uncomprehendingly.
“Sadie’s got herself a ship and we’re going to be pirates!”
“Pirates? Like Dire Bane?”
“Of course like Dire Bane,” said Red, looking very pleased with himself. He shook Filler’s hand. “Well, my wag. You’ve been a great help, and I’ll be sure to tell Sadie. See you around sometime.” Then he took off toward the docks, the bundle tucked under his arm.
When he got to the Savage Wind, he saw that the rigging was set and the sails were fastened to the mast, ready to be unfurled.
“’Bout time you showed up,” Sadie said as she helped him aboard. “I was starting to wonder if the job I gave you was too hard.”
Red presented Sadie with the bundle. “Look, I got you a hat, boots, and a coat!”
“Well, now.” Sadie unrolled the bundle and examined the contents. “These are mighty fine and worth the wait. You done good, Red. I guess I had you right after all.”
Red beamed with pleasure.
“Any trouble in it?”
Red’s face fell and he blushed. “Oh, uh…”
Sadie frowned. “There better not be a squad of imps about to come down on us.”
“No, nothing like that,” Red said quickly. “It’s just…when I was stealing this stuff, the captain was having sex with some lady. It weren’t anything like my dad said it was. It was loud, and ugly, and not even friendly.”
Sadie laughed. “Don’t worry too much about that, my wag. There’s as many ways to stretch a cunt as there is to pick a pocket. I’ll explain it to you properly when you’re a bit older. Now get some sleep. We set sail at first light.”
* * *
While the red light of dawn still lingered on the water, the Savage Wind set sail up the coast of New Laven. Missing Finn was at the wheel and Sadie the Pirate Queen strode across the deck in her captain’s finery. Her boots had to be tightened at the ankle with leather thongs to keep them from sliding off, the feather of the wide-brimmed hat had been bent during its liberation, and the coat was much too large. But none of the crew said a word.
“You look pat as paws, Captain,” said Missing Finn when she came strutting over to him at the helm.
“Don’t I, though,” she agreed. “How soon do I get to show it off?”
“We’re coming up soon on Joiner’s Bay in Silverback. Between there and Hollow Falls we’ll find a lot of lacies in little pleasure boats out for an afternoon cruise.”
“Keystown’s also in
between there,” said Sadie.
“True, but the military garrison at Keystown is mostly land-based. They have a few ships out looking for smugglers, but nothing we can’t outrun.”
“Then let’s catch us some lacies!”
It was shortly after midday when they spotted their first victim, a yacht gliding parallel to the coast.
“Get ready, wags!” called Sadie as they bore down on the small boat. She pulled out her spyglass and saw three men in fine white shirts and artfully embroidered coats, their hair carefully curled, their fine clear faces looking utterly bewildered as they stared at the Savage Wind.
Missing Finn turned the wheel so that they came about in a wide arc until they were side by side with the yacht.
“Cast the grapples!” called Sadie.
Avery Birdhouse at the bow and Spinner at the stern each threw a hook with a line tied to it. The hooks sank into the soft wood of the yacht’s deck.
“Reel ’em in!” called Sadie.
Avery Birdhouse and Spinner pulled in their lines until the yacht’s port side hit the Savage Wind’s starboard with a hard crack.
“We’ll need to get some fenders,” muttered Missing Finn.
“Bull Mackey and Wergishaw, with me,” said Sadie as she drew her cutlass and stepped onto the yacht.
“I say, fronzies,” said one lacy to another. “I think we’ve been boarded by pirates.”
“Took you long enough,” said Sadie as she leveled the point of her cutlass at the man’s throat. “Thought I’d have to explain it to you myself.”
“Miss, you can’t just come aboard a man’s ship like this!” said the lacy.
“I reckon you don’t seem to have a grasp of the situation after all.” Sadie snapped her blade down, cutting open his shirt and leaving a thin red line that quickly began to seep blood. The man’s face went from petulance to terror. “I’m Captain Sadie the Pirate Queen. These are my waters and I’ll go where I please and take what I like. Keen?”
“You didn’t have to hurt me,” whined the lacy as he clutched at his bleeding chest.
“Somebody shut this cock-dribble up before I lose my generous spirit,” said Sadie.
Wergishaw calmly hit the lacy on the head with his club. The lacy’s eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the deck.
“Any other complaints?” Sadie asked the other two lacies.
It wasn’t long before they had stripped the yacht of valuables and were under way. Red had been told to stay back on the ship during the boarding. But after, Sadie let him help sort through their loot. He sat on the floor of her tiny captain’s cabin and sorted the silver from the gold, the stuff that could easily be bartered from the stuff of questionable value that might need to be appraised.
“I didn’t know men wore jewelry,” he said as he held a gold ring with a glistening opal up to the sunlight that streamed through the portal.
“Lacy men.” Sadie lounged on her bunk, not bothering to take off her coat or boots.
“They seem pretty useless,” said Red.
“You should see the women. Don’t even work. Just sit at home all day idle. Makes me sick just to think about.”
“Why do you know so much about lacies?” asked Red.
“Back when I was a girl, they used to come down to Paradise Circle all the time. You could roll one every day for coins and never run out of the fools.”
“What were they doing in Paradise Circle?”
“This was back when Yorey Satin ran the Circle. He had all these dance halls and theaters. Real pat places that the lacies just loved.”
“What happened to them all?”
“Yorey got himself murdered. Jix the Lift took over, and he wouldn’t know a pat dance hall if it pissed in his mouth. He and his boots turned the Circle into what it is today. He’ll get himself murdered one day, too, and someone else will take over. All we can do is hope that whoever it is, they’re better and not worse.”
“Why don’t you take over, Sadie?” asked Red.
Sadie laughed. “Maybe I will. First the coast, then the Circle.”
Red looked at her solemnly. “Will I still be your best wag?”
“Here now.” She leaned over and flicked his nose hard.
“Ow!” He rubbed at it.
“Don’t talk bludgeon,” said Sadie. “You’re my best wag till death.”
5
The library at Galemoor was one of the greatest in the empire. But that was of little use until Bleak Hope learned to read.
“Do you think I’ll be able to learn this skill, Grandteacher?” asked Hope as the two stood in the library. The room was no larger than Hurlo’s sleeping quarters, but it was packed from floor to ceiling with scrolls, books, and stacks of parchment.
“Why wouldn’t you?” asked Hurlo as he pulled down a thick bound volume.
“No one in my village could read. Not even Shamka, our elder. And I’m only a girl.”
Hurlo looked at her sharply. “You will not utter the phrase ‘only a girl’ ever again. You are my student. You will do as I say and learn what I teach you. No excuses. Do you understand?”
Hope dropped her gaze to the floor. “Yes, Grandteacher.”
He smiled. “Excellent. Then we will begin with this.” He held up the book. “The History of Selk the Brave, Founder of the Vinchen Order, volume one.”
It was slow going at first. Hurlo found it was lack of confidence rather than lack of intelligence that made reading a struggle for Hope. But once she crossed that threshold and no longer had to labor over individual words, her appetite for knowledge proved boundless. She consumed the five-volume history of Selk the Brave, followed quickly by the three-volume set of Manay the True. She finished the entire ten-volume A Brief History of the Empire in less than a month.
Once Hurlo was satisfied that she had a sense of history, he assigned her books on geography and biology. It was this last field of study that really seemed to spark her passion.
“Grandteacher!” She burst into his room one afternoon holding a ragged book, the binding nearly undone. Her eyes were wide.
Hurlo had been meditating. Rather than break from it, startled and off balance, he simply allowed her into his meditation. He closed his eyes again, and said softly, “Yes, child?”
“Did you know,” she said, “that no one knows how snakes move?”
“Yes, child.”
“It can’t be magic, can it?”
“It’s unlikely.”
“Then there must be a reason. It just hasn’t been discovered yet.”
“Yes, child.”
“Do we have any snakes on the island, Grandteacher? Maybe I could be the one to discover it!”
Hurlo smiled faintly, his eyes still closed. “You are welcome to try.” Because what good was book knowledge without practical application? And when she did finally catch a snake and study it, she may not have discovered how it moved, but she did learn how to treat a snakebite.
The other monks did not understand Hurlo’s sudden interest in educating the girl. By this time, they had accepted her as a part of their lives, but only in a servant capacity. Nearly all Vinchen came from upper-class families who employed servants, so it wasn’t a difficult stretch for them. But the idea of educating a servant was baffling. Some thought him kind, some thought him indulgent, some thought him slipping into senility, and others suspected him of ulterior motives, such as lechery. None of them actually expected him to succeed. So it was with quite a bit of shock when old Brother Wentu discovered her on a cold winter afternoon curled up next to the oven with a copy of The History of Economic Trade During the Reign of Emperor Bastelinus.
Hurlo did not mind their shock, speculation, or gossip. While it did create a little unrest in the monastery, it also distracted them from the much graver crime he was committing. Not even his authority extended to sanctioning the training of a female in the ways of the Vinchen warrior. So while he openly trained her mind during the day, it was at night, while the rest
of the order were in their beds, that he trained her body.
* * *
Hope learned that it was in the east side of the monastery that the Vinchen warrior monks trained. It had an armory, a smithy, and a small tannery. But the largest building was a long, rectangular sparring hall. The walls of the hall were sliding canvas doors that could be opened in the warm months. The floor was a smooth pine, much softer than the hard black stone that comprised most of the floors in the monastery.
At night, when the other monks were asleep, Hurlo took Hope to the sparring hall, where he put her through a battery of exercises to increase her strength, stamina, and agility. For several months, that was all they did, because by the end of it, she was too exhausted to do anything else.
Once she could perform the exercises to Hurlo’s satisfaction and still have energy left to move, he began to teach her close combat. At first, this involved mostly punching and kicking a padded wooden dummy. But as her technique grew more assured, he began to spar with her directly. She was amazed at how nimble the old man was. She sparred with him every night for hours, and it was almost a month before he even needed to block one of her strikes.
As valuable as she knew this training was, there was something else she hungered for even more. So one night, when they had finished sparring and Hope was mopping the sweat from her body with a thick rag, she said, “Grandteacher, when will I be able to use a sword?”
He stood looking through a window at the night sky. Not once in their months of sparring had he broken a sweat. “Why do you ask?”