by Sarah Remy
Chapter Three
SELKIRK’S MASTERHEALER FOUND Mal in the kitchens, breaking his fast under Cook’s watchful eye.
Mal abandoned his fish stew, brushed crumbs from his shirt, and rose.
“Brother,” Mal said. “Good morning to you.”
The Masterhealer was broad and squat, and looked nearly as old as Selkirk’s temple. He was completely bald but for a few short hairs around his ears, and he had the desert eyes of one who was born to the faith. The sleeves of his otherwise simple robes were embroidered with delicate vines. He wore the Rose on his breast.
“We haven’t met,” Mal extended a hand. “Brother Joseph, is it?”
The Masterhealer nodded. He ignored Mal’s hand, bowing briefly instead.
“Yes, my lord. No, my lord. We haven’t met. I replaced Brother John some fifteen years ago when he finally succumbed to the lurgi.”
“Sit,” Mal offered, and returned to his stew. Brother Joseph, after glancing at Cook for permission, settled at the boards. “I remember Brother John; he was very kind. He taught me my sailing knots and the quickest way to gut a fish.”
Brother Joseph nodded. “He was a man for the sea, always.” Cook slid a second bowl of stew beneath the Masterhealer’s elbow. He nodded absent thanks.
“My brothers in Wilhaiim send word that the Worm is not easing its poisonous grip,” Joseph said. “I admit I’m concerned, my lord. Surely you’re better off at the king’s side?”
Cook’s stew was spicy. Mal scraped the bowl clean, in no hurry. He took several swallows of sweet wine from the mug provided, then propped his elbows on the boards.
“Wilhaiim’s gates are closed. No messengers are riding out.”
Joseph met Mal’s stare, expression inscrutable.
“Nevertheless,” the priest said, “I understand things are not improving. Children are dying in the streets, an entire generation at risk.”
Mal crossed himself. Brother’s Joseph’s stern face relaxed. Mal schooled his own expression to sympathy.
“Your brothers would have told you His Majesty has taken every opportunity to contain the illness. It is a spring plague, albeit an especially cruel strain. The city defends itself as best it can, as the city has done every spring since long before your father’s father left the desert sands.”
Brother Joseph dipped his spoon into his bowl.
“You’re positive it’s nothing more? Nothing . . . sinister?” he asked his stew. “Even here on the coast, we’ve heard rumors of the barrowmen and war.”
“Aye,” Mal said simply. “It’s a natural affliction, not more.”
Brother Joseph nodded. He ate in silence, staring at Mal. Mal gazed back, unfazed, while Cook sang a mournful song of pirates wed at sea. When his bowl was empty, the priest pushed back his bench and stood, old bones audibly creaking.
“Best you return to Wilhaiim soon, then, aye?” he said. “The throne will be missing you; you shouldna have come at all.”
This time, Mal didn’t rise. He smiled, polite and distant.
“A son’s duty is always first to his mother. Lady Selkirk was in need, and His Majesty insisted.”
“You’ve a way with platitudes, I grant you that,” Brother Joseph replied. “I misdoubt you were thinking of Lady Selkirk when you forced Lord Rowan into your rightful place upon the sea.”
“Is that how it is, then?” Mal tapped his fingers on the board, yellow gem sparking. “I appreciate your honesty.”
“We’re an honest folk, here, and loyal to the dead lord,” Brother Joseph said. “You’ll find no welcome amongst us. Lord Vocent.”
“Masterhealer.”
Brother Joseph paced calmly from the kitchens. Mal watched him go, thinking. Cook, bent over a cauldron of boiling shellfish, continued to sing.
THE SELKIRK ROSES were open to the cool morning, their perfume mingling pleasantly with the salt air. Liam met Mal at the west gate, a garland crown of roses on his head.
“There’s a lass in the pantry made it for me.” The boy grinned, all cheek. “She says she don’t mind my scars, and I got a kiss in turn for the wearing of it.”
“Doesn’t,” Mal corrected, hiding a smile. “And stick to kisses, Liam. I’m not of a mind to explain to Avani how you got a babe on a maid your first time out.”
“Of course, my lord.” Liam bent the knee, then straightened his crooked flower crown, unembarrassed. “I’ll leave it, if you don’t mind, my lord. Else she’s as like to kick as smile, and she promised me seed cakes this evening.”
“Ah, and there’s the truth of it. Not the kisses, but the cakes.”
“Aye, my lord.” Liam dismissed the subject and turned toward the gate. “Are we to visit the tall ships, my lord? I’ve been watching them from the battlements, my lord, and they’re big as houses. Floating houses.”
“They need to be, to carry trade goods. Look as you like, Liam, but keep your hands to yourself. I’ll not have you lose a hand to accidental thievery.”
“Yes, my lord.” Liam promised, subdued.
SELKIRK PERCHED UPON a natural stack of rock. The peninsula jutted in crags and cliffs over the water. The first Lady Selkirk had ordered steps cut in the rock, an onerous and time-consuming task; twelve strong men and women were lost to the stair, the rock made slippery by fog and sea spray. A more enterprising descendant had added thick rope, cables bolted into the stone for ease of climb, and later a system of lifts and pulleys for the transfer of dry goods.
The wind whistled against the rocky shelf, and even Liam clutched at the guide ropes with both hands as he descended, carefully testing one wet step at a time.
“Leastways the Downs have a proper path,” the boy complained, nose scrunched against sea spray, roses fluttering in his hair. “Smooth and slow-like.” He considered the lift as it was winched past, open barrels of silver fish suspended midair, swaying. “Safer riding up and down in that, I think.”
“I’ll stick to the stairs, thank you,” Mal said. “And so will you.”
For the first time in a long while Mal’s poisoned lungs didn’t fail him. He was warm but not short of breath when they finally reached the shore. He took a deep, hungry breath, and was pleased and surprised by the comfort of salt and wet behind his ribs.
Liam dropped to his knees on the beach, sifting handfuls of sand between his fingers.
“Feels like sugar,” the boy decided, entranced. “Smells like fish.” He touched the tip of a sandy finger to his tongue, making a face. “Tastes like fish, too.”
“Mayhap you have it backwards,” Mal suggested, amused. “Keep an eye out for shell; Biaz pays a silver penny for white oyster.”
Liam grunted, sharp gaze noting the tall, cold torches, then skimming the long pier and anchored ships.
“Only two left, my lord. I saw one go out after dawn. They used oars.”
Mal said, “The water’s very deep very fast here, but the wind isn’t strong enough for use until farther out. A good oars crew is near as powerful as bluster.”
Liam straightened, sand sticking to the knees of his trousers. He laughed and pointed. “I’d been wondering where he’d got to. Likes the fish, doesn’t he?”
Mal caught a glimpse of ebony feathers among a throng of white gulls circling the pier. He hadn’t had time to miss the raven, and felt a surprising pang of guilt.
“Well,” he said. “Best see he’s not gotten himself into any trouble.”
“That one, my lord?” Liam laughed. “He’s cannier than the lot of us put together.” He followed Mal across the beach, twice almost loosing his rose crown to the wind.
THE PIER GROANED and shivered beneath their step, tortured by ship and sea. The planks stank of tar; both pier and tall ship were regularly painted in the thick substance. More open barrels waited in groups of three for the lift: silver fish and clams and sea crawlers a
nd oysters tossed together in a welter of fresh catch.
“The real coin is there,” Mal said, nodding down the pier at a pyramid of stacked square crates. “Spice, chai, and kahve. Spice and chai from the north, and kahve from the Black Coast. Wilhaiim pays dearly for all three, the merchants and islanders are rich, all.”
Liam studied the crates. Blue and green sigils labeled their contents, dye faded after a long, hot voyage.
“Avani’s an islander,” the boy mused. “And not rich.”
“No.” Mal frowned, watching as Jacob chased a fat gull away from a dropped, flopping fish. The raven pinned the fish between sharp claws and plunged his beak into the glassy, dead eye. “Although once her family might have been. Before the eight islands sank, they were known for a rare fabric woven from the silk of orange butterflies.” He whistled, sharp, between two fingers. “The butterflies were lost with the islands and the islanders.”
Merchants and seaman froze at Mal’s whistle. The raven did not. Jacob swallowed down the fish’s eye, and went to work on its gills. Mal cursed.
“He’ll not come till he’s ready, my lord,” Liam said, wise beyond his years. Then, “Look, there, that fellow with the ring in his ear. He’s waving, my lord, do you know him? He looks like a pirate, but he ain’t, I mean, isn’t he? Can we go and say hello?”
“Pirates sighted near Selkirk are quickly keelhauled,” Mal replied, shaking his head over Liam’s tangled grammar. “The feather means he’s first mate. And the ring in his ear belongs to the ship. But I do believe I recognize those freckles. Come, lad, and let’s see if my suspicions are correct.”
Merchants and seamen dodged discreetly out of the way as Mal and Liam walked the pier. The man with the feather in his cap and the ring in his ear stood on the planks midway between sand and water, foot propped on a square crate, hands now full of net and blue glass. His dark, freckled face creased into pleased, sun-worn lines as Mal approached. He grinned, revealing tobacco-blackened teeth and a single true-gold incisor.
It was the tooth that convinced Mal.
“Cousin.” The sailor winked, turned and spat, then winked again, this time at Liam. “You’ve lost me twenty pieces of silver.”
“Have I?” Mal couldn’t help but smile back. “Still not learned from past mistakes, Seb?”
“It was a sure bet. Even Biaz misdoubted you’d bother show your face, Malachi Serrano.”
“Doyle,” Mal corrected. “Malachi Doyle, now, cousin.”
“More fool you, taking a flatlander name.” Sebastian Serrano spat again, then dropped the tangle of rope and blown glass globes into Liam’s arms. He held out a brown hand. “It won’t stick.”
Malachi clasped the offered hand, felt the scars and calluses.
“It has, and will,” he said, gently. “Seb, this is my lad, Liam. Liam, my cousin Sebastian, first mate,” Mal glanced at the ship rocking behind his cousin, “On The Laughing Queen?”
“Aye,” Sebastian said, taking his hand back, chest expanding with obvious pride. “Three years now, it’s been. She’s a good ship, outruns the best of them.”
“Fair way up from novice lineman,” Mal said. “Liam, Seb and my brother Rowan used to work the rigging together.”
Liam appeared deeply engrossed in a blue glass buoy. The stare he turned on Sebastian was calculating.
“I don’t like boats,” he said, quietly dismissive. “And neither does my lord.”
Surprised, Mal opened his mouth to protest, but Sebastian beat him to it.
“Your master had the makings of a great sea captain,” he corrected on a laugh. “Would have been, too, if not for the magic.” He carefully didn’t look at the ring on Mal’s hand. “Magic and the sea don’t mix, lad, because the sea is jealous of any power but its own.” He gathered net and glass back from the boy. “Ships are like songs, Liam. Some men can carry the tune, and some can’t. Now, Queenie here, she’s sweeter than the sweetest ballad, because she’s not just a merchant marine, she’s also part of the King’s Navy, best known for the pirates she’s brought to heel.”
“Aye?” Liam considered The Laughing Queen’s barnacled starboard. “Real pirates?”
“Are there any other sort? We’ve a collection of confiscated cutlass and chivs pinned to the dodger, some yet brown with old blood. Also a Black Coast flintlock, off the last corsair we drug beneath the keel.” Sebastian cupped his chin. “Mayhap you’d like to see?”
Liam was near quivering with excitement and curiosity. Mal saw the reluctant denial on his furrowing brow and spoke first.
“Go up, lad,” he said. “It’s fine. I’ll wait here.”
“But, my lord!” Liam looked horrified. “I don’t know—”
Sebastian interrupted, putting fingers to lips and splitting the air with a piercing whistle to match Mal’s earlier attempt. Immediately a man popped head and shoulders over the deck rail.
“Oi?” the man shouted over the wind. “Whatzit?”
“Visitor, Fiennes!” Sebastian called. “Come and show him up.”
“My lord!” Liam tried again, but Mal cut him off with a wave of his hand.
“Hold tight to the ropes,” he said, watching as Fiennes shimmied his way to the deck. “And don’t touch the cutlasses. I’ll be here when you’ve looked your fill.”
“Here to see the cutlasses, are you, lad?” Fiennes had even fewer teeth than Sebastian. “Well, don’t stand about with your tongue hanging. Come on, then.”
Liam gave in. He plucked the rose crown from his brow, set it on the planks, and jumped after Fiennes without further protest, scurrying up the rope ladder with an unnatural ease that might have made a more observant man pause. Sebastian only shook his head, pinched a fresh twist of tobacco from a pouch at his belt, and popped it between his lips.
“What happened?”
Mal arched his brows. “I became vocent, Sebastian. It’s been a while; I assumed you’d hear.”
“Most powerful man in the kingdom,” his cousin quoted, less than impressed. “I wiped your tears the day word of Rowan’s loss made Selkirk, or have you forgotten? No.” He swiveled and spat. “I meant the lad. What happened to his face and hands? More of your magic?”
“No.”
Sebastian waited a beat, then shrugged. “Come to pass on the title, have you? You’ll not be wanting it, I imagine.”
“You imagine correctly,” Mal said. “It was never mine to begin with.”
“Nay, it was Rowan’s.” Seb pursed his lips in thought. “Your mam still believes he’d have done well by it, but I’m not so sure.”
“Oh?” Gulls were diving the pier, shrieking. Mal caught a glimpse of black wings, and winced.
“Nay. Rowan never shed a tear in his life. Even as the tide dragged him down, he didn’t so much as squeak. Loved him like a brother, I did, but nothing ever roused him to passion, do you understand?”
Mal frowned.
“Music,” he said after a moment of thought. “Dancing. Good drink. Pretty lasses.”
“You remember differently than the rest of us.” Sebastian rolled his shoulders. The hem of his faded tunic flapped in the rising winds. “No matter. It’s been a long time, h’ain’t it? Come aboard?” It was a challenge.
“Nay,” Mal replied. “The pirates don’t look friendly.”
Sebastian stiffened. “Pirates?” His bare, cracked feet scratched on the planks as he turned to stare up at his ship. “We haven’t any pirates aboard.”
“You’ve plenty of them,” Mal said, mildly, showing his teeth. “Or did you think the rogues wouldn’t haunt the ship drowned them beneath her keel? Your afterdeck’s cluttered with vengeful spirits, cousin.”
Sebastian’s wrinkled face slackened. “Nay, not truly?” He shuddered. “Don’t you go spreading rumors, now, Mal. No good seaman will willingly sail a ghost-ridden ship. Word gets
out she’s haunted, The Laughing Queen’s dead in the water.
Mal fixed his smile in place as Liam popped over the rails.
“I’ve no patience for rumors,” he said, watching as Liam half clamored, half jumped from ladder to pier. “I’ll see you tonight, Seb, at the dedication?”
“Aye,” his cousin muttered, distracted. “I’ll be there.”
“Good.” Mal put his arm around Liam’s sweaty neck, steering the lad away.
They walked the rest of the pier in silence, ignored by merchant and seaman both. Liam goggled over the remaining ships, but showed no inclination to visit another deck.
“You’re thoughtful,” Mal said as they turned about again, faces to Selkirk, wind against their backs. “Not cut out for adventure on the high seas?”
Liam shrugged, not quite dislodging Mal’s arm.
“It ain’t—isn’t—that, my lord,” he said. “The swords were fine, and the flintlock puzzling. It shoots a lead ball, my lord, like a canon, Fiennes said. With enough force to pass clean through a man, and kill him dead.”
They stepped off the pier and onto uneven sand. Morning was just giving way to afternoon, but already small boys and girls were using long, thin Selkirk matches to light the torches on the beach. Clouds raced overhead, and the young attendants had to shelter the flickering match-heads with their hands.
“That’s what’s bothering you, the flintlock? You likely won’t see another in your lifetime, lad. They’re extremely rare and by all accounts both difficult to manufacture and dangerously unreliable.”
“Not that, my lord.”
“Then what?”
“They’ve no respect, here, my lord. For you, or for the crown. They whisper behind your back, and spit. And I heard ’em call His Majesty a cheat and dishonest.”
“Ah.” Malachi urged Liam north along the beach, away from Selkirk and her pier, away from the torches. It didn’t escape his notice when Jacob left his game with the gulls and followed after, wheeling lazily overhead. “Most of the people on the coast have never had cause to make the trip into Wilhaiim, lad. To them, the king is only an idea, or an image. They watch their coin go to taxes, and see little in return. They’ve more local concerns; the tides, the weather, the catch. Even pirates are a rare threat these days; spooky stories used to scare infants in the cradle.”