by Julia Knight
The way Cattan was looking at her made Holden’s skin itch. Like he owned her. His hand ran up from her stomach and over one breast, along to her neck, where he stopped to stroke it. Soft, gentle caresses like a lover. Josie tried to pull away, tried to twist herself from his touch, but she was held fast.
“Shhh, now. See, now I have your bonds so tight, I need no magic, I’ve time to wait for it to grow again. But it’s been such a long time since I’ve seen my skin, I hanker to use the time until it’s covered again wisely. And with just a word, I can make you want that too, Josie. Can’t I?”
Josie’s eyes went very wide, but though she struggled to say something, no words came, only angry, frightened tears. Holden had never thought to see her cry.
“It’s as well that I won’t risk the reforming of my magic on someone like you, isn’t it? Though I may, if you give me trouble. I will, however, keep you with me where you can’t influence Holden any more. Provided you do as I say, you’ll be harmed no more than the bond is doing already. That should be more than enough to keep you from interfering.”
Cattan stood and held out his hand to her. “Stand up, Josie.”
She stood jerkily, as though her limbs obeyed something other than her mind, and Holden supposed they did. They obeyed Cattan’s voice now, the bonds on both of them so tight that to move without permission was unthinkable.
Cattan smiled at her, ripped the green-gold cover from the bed and wrapped it round her quivering shoulders. He didn’t look at Holden as he spoke. “Holden, go to bed. Don’t leave till I tell you. Josie, come with me. The healer does a tincture to draw the poison. It’ll keep you alive for long enough.”
No matter that he knew it was a battle he couldn’t win, Holden tried. Tried not to walk to the bed and get in. Tried to grab for Josie. And couldn’t.
It was long gone midnight by the time Van Gast sailed into Ruisden, but the noise of carousing floated out over the water to greet him like an old friend.
He didn’t wait for the gangplank, but leaped to the dock as his crew were still tying up. This couldn’t wait. He strode along the jetty, flung some coin at the harbormaster and all but ran into the warren of streets that surrounded him. Even at this late hour, crowds buffeted him, but he ploughed on through, pushing and shoving and earning more than a few dark looks. If it weren’t for the fact that he kept his hand on his sword, and more than a few people recognized him in this racketeer haven, he’d never have made it to the end of the street without a knife in his back.
The light was on in Quint’s window. Always open for business. Van Gast wrenched the door open, ignored the girl who tried to stop him, take his weapons and boots, and dived into the open taproom. His itch was driving him insane, too strong to ignore, but he couldn’t make any sense of it and maybe Quint could. He needed something, some reassurance, because if the burn in his chest carried on much longer, it was going to tip him over the edge.
The smoky air fell quiet, but he didn’t care, barely even noticed. Quint was at the far end of the room surrounded by a drove of admirers and he strode toward her. She got up and for once there was no elegance in her movements, only jerky nervousness at his face perhaps, or the pistol and sword that still hung at his hips.
“Madam, I tried to—”
Van Gast didn’t let the girl finish but grabbed Quint’s arm and pulled her, protesting, into her back room. He slammed the door shut behind him.
“Van, what in Kyr’s name—”
He pushed her into a chair. She sprawled into it, all her composure gone. Van Gast went to the drinks and messily poured two, slammed one down his throat and poured himself another. He handed one to Quint and she took it with a shaking hand, her eyes wide.
“What is it? The price on your head in Estovan that’s enough to tempt even me? When has a little local trouble ever bothered Van Gast?”
He slumped into a lounger and licked at some spirit he’d managed to slosh on his hand. The price wasn’t a surprise. It barely even registered. His other hand traveled aimlessly through his hair and tried not to scratch at the burn in his chest. “What do you know about Commander Holden?”
Quint sat up and tried to regain some poise. She sipped at her drink thoughtfully. “This is about Josie then?”
How did she do that? “It might be.”
Quint laughed, a sweet little sound that made Van Gast smile despite himself, despite his worry. “Van, you’re such a child. I’ve known for a long time about you and her. Don’t worry, I’d never tell. Your ‘hatred’ of each other makes things so very interesting.”
“How in the world—”
She smiled secretively. “Not long after your Tilly died, wasn’t it?”
Van Gast stared at her. How could she know? How could she know that in a half-drunk stupor, almost wanting to be caught, he’d burgled Forn’s Bells? That he’d slipped into a room and there she’d been. Josie, lying on the green-and-gold bed, a hand stroking the pillow next to her as though expecting someone to be there. She’d looked as desperately lonely as he’d been, until she’d seen him and sat up, become all bright sparks and cutting words. She’d never let him see that look on her face again.
He’d seen her before, of course, but he’d had Tilly, and Josie had just been a pretty face in the crowd. He’d heard of her too. Sharp as a cutlass and twice as dangerous. Only then, when he’d seen her like that, she hadn’t seemed dangerous. She’d seemed…hurt, like he was. It’d been slow, what they had. He hadn’t pushed, and neither had she, but when finally he’d come to know her, that was it for him. Josie, well, whatever Josie’s hurt had been, she’d never said, and she’d never quite got over it. It’d left her wary and mistrustful. Van Gast often thought if he knew her a hundred years, he’d still never know the half of her.
“Knew she’d found someone,” Quint said. “Never shy to tumble was Josie, not when she didn’t have a lover. But when she did…when she did, she didn’t tumble, not anyone else. Holden was gone, and she wasn’t tumbling, so I knew. And then you, you were different too. Don’t come to see my girls so often now, do you? You half lived in here when Tilly died, drank me dry more than once. And the girls, well, the girls all liked you. Know why?”
Van Gast shook his head dumbly. He’d never realized, never thought that Josie wasn’t out there when she wasn’t with him, that she didn’t take the chance for a quick bit of comfort where she could. Any racketeer would. Any of them. Only he hadn’t either, had he? It wouldn’t have mattered to him if she had, as long as she didn’t love them. Not like he wanted her to love him.
“Because they can’t know you, but yet when you love someone, you really love them.” Quint smiled fondly in remembrance. “Sometimes too well.”
Van Gast cleared his throat and ducked his head. This was all very well, but it wasn’t what he’d come for. “Commander Holden.”
“Ah yes, Holden. Not a bad one, for a Remorian. Or he didn’t used to be, not when him and Josie were lovers. You know about that? Yes, I see you do now, but I’d bet a week’s takings she didn’t tell you. Wouldn’t tell anyone the color of her eyes if she didn’t need to, not anymore, not after Holden left her. Changed her, that did, when he just stopped coming. So, then the Remorian Master chose him to be their little hound dog, bound him up good and tight. Didn’t see him for a long time, and when I did, he was…” Quint trailed off, considering. “He was hard in his heart, the hunting hound they’d turned him into. He’d lost a piece of himself to his bond. And he was looking for someone.”
“What?” So it wasn’t her scamming him, or it was—Holden had been looking for Josie, had to be. Holden looking for someone, Josie goes missing then turns up with him. Had to be. “He found Josie.”
“Did he? I didn’t know that. But no one’s seen her in weeks, nor talked to her mage, that I do know.”
Van Gast couldn’t sit still, leaped up from the lounger and paced up and down the thick rug. He picked up a little carved wooden trinket, tossed it, caught it and put it
down, only to pick it up again. “I saw her. With him, running a scam on him. If they were—well, like I heard, then he betrayed her when he left her and she won’t forget it. She wants her revenge, I know her. She wants me to help too, but it’s all wrong. She’s all wrong, Quint. It’s all so wrong it makes me itch.”
He ran his hands through his hair and paced. He couldn’t work it out. Didn’t know what to trust, his instincts which told him that this was all wrong, that he should quit, sail away, far away and stay there for a time. Plenty of places he could go, but that meant betraying Josie, being just another man who’d let her down. Or he could trust the other instinct, that she was scamming a Remorian Commander and either she wanted his help or she was in trouble, bad trouble, and trying to tell him. Trust her, like she’d asked.
“So, Van Gast, what are you going to do?” Quint was smiling at him, like he was a small child who’d just learned to add two and two together. She’d worked it all out long ago, he was sure. “The sensible-but-boring thing, or the stupid-but-exciting thing?”
It wasn’t really a question. Only one thing he could do. He had to trust that Josie knew what she was doing. That she was on his side. “Fuck it, let’s do it.”
Chapter Seventeen
Cattan left Holden there all that night and part of the next day. He couldn’t move, his whole body seemed tied to the bed. His throat was hot and blistered, his arms and legs aching. Every time he tried to move, it only brought a fresh wash of pain so intense, his brain spun and his stomach heaved. He was left with nothing but his own thoughts.
When dawn came chill and drear through the windows, he was bathed in his own sweat of fear and pain and shame, and the bed was soaked with his waste. A last effort, one that sent black waves through his head, got him off the bed and on to all fours. That effort was too much and he passed out to drown in dreams of fire at his wrist and Josie staring at him, her eyes full of pain of his making, and Ilsa beside her the same.
A new pain roused him—Cattan pulling him up by his hair. Holden struggled to gain his feet and grabbed at the bedpost when Cattan let him go. His left hand refused to grip the wood. His wrist was swollen, red and puffy with little black lines leading from his bond, snaking their insidious way up to his elbow.
“You should take your own advice,” Cattan said. “Accept it, truly, as you once did, and all the pain will fade. You will have comfort again, and blankness, and sweet forgetfulness. It’s too late for Josie, you know that. Don’t let it take you too. You’re too valuable a servant to the Master to be allowed to die. Accept it or you will die like her, and what about your other bond, Ilsa? What will she do then, with no bond to help her? The Master will find her a new man to bond to, I’m sure. Maybe me. Or you can accept it and your pain will go, and Ilsa will be safe. You know that better than any.”
Holden bent over his hands. He had no more fight, he’d expended whatever little there had been in him. The tiles on the floor called to him, their patterns, their straight lines. Cattan’s voice was soft, soothing, and he let it hypnotize him, let the clouds take the pain away. He had no other way. He only had the bond, his only future.
Cattan led him away in a blur of sounds and colors where the only thing that was solid and real were the patterns he let soothe him, the only protection his mind had. The floor moved under him and he became vaguely aware that he was on a ship. Josie’s ship, must be. Cattan let him lie on a bed and he slept again, a dark hole of absence which he hoped he’d never leave.
Hope was not rewarded. Shouts above and around him as the ship made ready to sail revived him and he opened his eyes into almost-dark, his whole body throbbing with the effort not to think or move. A faint pool of light from a tallow lamp made the rest of the cabin darker. He wasn’t alone. The boy sat on the bunk above him, swinging his legs disconsolately in time to the swell. When he realized that Holden was awake, he poked his head over the edge and regarded him, his thumb wedged in his mouth.
Slowly, deliberately, the boy took his thumb out, leaned farther into the room and spat on Holden before the thumb went back in with a satisfied nod. Holden raised a palsied hand to wipe the spit away.
“Andor?” His voice sounded like someone else’s, an old man’s, cracked and weak.
The feet withdrew up onto the top bed and the light went out with a hiss. Holden’s first thought was to get up. This was his ship to command, but his legs, and his will, were weak.
He stared into the dark, tried to remember the face that was trying to break into his thoughts, sometimes with fair hair, sometimes with a swing of chestnut hair. With a pang of guilt he realized he’d not thought of her in days. Ilsa who waited at home for him, her pretty, blank face and…and what was it? He struggled to think, to break whatever hold was on him. Lions. She wanted to see lions.
He worked his way through it, through the whole sorry mess and the bands on his memory, a piece at a time. Not all of it would come, some was lost beyond recall, but the patches he could find were enough. With each image came a feeling, a pang of guilt, a wash of want, a glut of shame, even if he couldn’t always connect the feeling to the image. He was lost in himself, each remembrance a new twist in the maze that his mind had become.
Only one thing was clear, one thought that throbbed over every other, one that no matter how he tried, he couldn’t banish. Serve the Master. Yet it was the Master who had done this to him, to the women he saw, to all of them. He’d gone without fighting it all his life, but the memory of fair hair and salty sweat and a face just beyond his vision taunted him.
He must have slept again then because when he opened his eyes, a grey light was filtering in through the tiny porthole. Every muscle ached, and yet he couldn’t quite seem to remember why. He sat up with a grimace, hitting his head a glancing blow on the bunk above. A pair of small feet dangled at the far corner and Holden stood up.
“Andor?”
The boy glared at him from behind his ragged dark fringe, his thumb again wedged in his mouth. Holden took a step toward him, thinking maybe to reassure him, though he wasn’t sure what about. The boy lashed out with a foot and caught him a weak blow before he could jump back.
A key scraped in the lock behind and the door swung open, letting in fresher air, the scent of deep water that cleared Holden’s mind.
“Commander, if you’re ready now?” Cattan’s voice, oily and smug.
Holden turned. Cattan stood before him, pathetic without his magic but with more than enough power over Holden. The mage stepped forward and placed his hand to the side of Holden’s head, his fingers wrinkled and cold. More than fingers—Cattan’s hold on the bond flowed through his head in icy rivers, probing and pulling, turning over every conscious thought like a man prospecting for gold.
“Very good, Commander.” Cattan withdrew his hand with a satisfied look. “Very good. You may take your place on the deck but remember, if any thoughts should come to you, don’t act on them. You are mine now, until the Master comes. Don’t forget it. Plot a course for Tarana, and let’s get off.”
He had the crew-hands beside him shut and lock the door behind Holden and they made for the quarterdeck. The hatch to belowdecks opened and Skrymir ducked through. Cattan carried on up the steps but Holden was held by the snarl on Skrymir’s face, one that lingered on Cattan’s back but slid away to him. Then Skrymir turned away and opened the door to the captain’s quarters.
Before the door shut he saw her on the bed, and for all Cattan’s magic he remembered. Josie, her leg black to the knee where the bond was taking her, held in her quarters, apart from Holden so she couldn’t cause more trouble. Then Skrymir bent over her and she was lost to view, if not to mind.
Van Gast leaned back in his chair, feet up on the desk, and watched Guld, the play of nerves and a quiet satisfaction that took turns on his face.
“Van, I er, um…”
Oku’s Oath, Guld’s hesitancy grated on Van Gast’s nerves, already strung out like rigging. “Come on, man, out with it. I hav
en’t got all day.”
“It’s Josie,” Guld whispered.
Van Gast fumbled his glass of brandy, the mage’s tone sending a twist of extra worry through him. He slid his feet off the desk and sat on the edge of his chair. “Is she all right? She’s not—”
“She’s fine. Actually she’s more than fine, or she was.”
“Then what the fuck are you giving me palpitations about?”
Guld didn’t say anything, maybe he couldn’t past the way his larynx bobbed up and down. He held out his hands so Van Gast could see into the scrying spell he held there. Finally he managed to force some words out. “I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
The way the silver sheen roiled over the surface of the spell made his stomach turn, but Van Gast looked past that, into lamp-lit darkness. The image was faint and grainy, but he could just about make out Josie and that Remorian, Holden. Josie was sitting on his lap and—no, not his Josie. Not with a Remorian.
“This isn’t now,” Guld said. “I thought, see, I thought maybe best to try and see what’s going on under the surface. Trace them back. I couldn’t find much, his mage is too powerful and he screened them mostly, but it wears off after a while so I can see ghosts of what went on. I only found this. It’s about five or six days ago.”
Van Gast couldn’t speak. Oh, he’d known there were other men for her sometimes, Quint was surely wrong about that. They were at sea so much, apart for long stretches at times, and when they were running a scam, more often than not she’d at least hint at the promise of a quick tumble, just to get the mark onside. But a Remorian…“Can we hear what they’re saying?”
“I, er—are you sure you want to?”
Van Gast glared at him and Guld did something complicated with his hands. The sphere swirled in front of Van Gast’s eyes till he had to look away, and then came the voice, faint and kind of blurred, but it was Josie’s voice.