Sky Song: Overture

by Meg Merriet

  “Can you fix this?” Baker tossed a gold pocket watch at me. I caught it midair. It had the initials T.M.B. engraved on the back. “Pierce nabbed it off a waistcoat on the cruiser. Said he couldn’t leave empty-handed from such a calamity.”

  “For shame, Bakes. Withholding a prize.”

  “Tch,” Baker scoffed. “Like you never broke the rules.”

  “It’s a nice trinket is all, nice enough to get the both of you windhauled.”

  “It has my initials, so Pierce let me have it for only twenty coppers.”

  “TMB? I thought your name was Thomas Quinn Baker.”

  “It’s close enough.”

  I motioned for my kit and Baker brought it over. “Watches are easy,” I said, popping it open with a lock pick. I’d have asked for pay from any other man, but I never minded helping Baker. Besides, I preferred work to dwelling on my captain prince and his sister’s curse.

  Rain and wind pounded the ship, rocking the gondola and rattling the hooks and chains that dangled upon the walls. The electric bulbs kept flickering, thwarting my attempts to see into the watch.

  “Wouldn’t you rather melt it down?” I asked.

  “I always wanted myself a proper watch.”

  “Something to measure your short life?” I teased. As I laughed, my ribs ached and I winced.

  Baker sobered at the sight of my discomfort. “Clikk… Maybe you should let Cook take a look at you.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Just a bit bruised.” I used my pick to wobble the balance wheel for him. “There it is. Broken balance staff. I can fix it when we get to port.” I closed the watch up and returned it to his hand.

  He put it away in his knapsack and returned with a head of cabbage. “Here,” he said, peeling away the leaves and tucking them under my shirt. “My mum taught me that cabbage heals a bruise up quick. And here.” He removed a steel ring from his finger. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was a twisted nail. “It’s good luck,” he said.

  It was a strong piece of jewelry, a ring for a man. I didn’t dare put it on. It would draw attention to the fact my fingers were so much narrower than his. I stashed it in my pocket. “Thank you, friend. I’ve never been lucky.”

  “I’d pay you if Pierce hadn’t cleaned me out.”

  “You still owe me two silver.” I closed my eyes and let the cool oils of the cabbage seep into my skin. “That watch is 24 karat gold. You could fence it for much more than twenty coppers, even broken.”

  “You know that just by looking at it?”

  “Gold appraisal was the first thing Mr. Greyson ever taught me.”

  “From pawning to piracy, legend of the Falcon,” he said as if it were an epic to be recited.

  “I’ll thank you not to call me Falcon.”

  “You need a woman to call you such; that will change your tune.” Baker reclined into his hammock beneath mine and I heard his boots hit the floor. “Are you a virgin, Clikk?”

  “No, you glock.”

  “I’ve noticed you never visit the brothels when we hit the port…”

  “I have standards. Women are like locks. If they give too easy, they aren’t worth the trouble. The ones that require precision, effort and clever maneuvering, are those that hold the greatest treasures.”

  “True, true,” he said, “And women are also like light. Go long enough without them and you start to go mad, to the point you contrive disturbing metaphors about women and locks.”

  “I had someone long ago, Baker, an angel so pure she’d make your cock fall off for longing.”

  “What was she like?”

  “She was a village girl.”

  “Ah. You dog.” Baker kicked my backside from below. “Tell me about her. I like a story in a storm.”

  “I’m not your bard.”

  “Did she have good tits?”

  “They were all right. She was poor. Very skinny. But she had hair that shone like wheat in the sun. And she did all these nice things that village girls do, like picking larkspur on the cusp of May.”

  Baker yawned. “What was her name?”

  “Ramona… You think I’m a pansy, don’t you?”

  “You are a pansy,” he said. “But I hope you get back to your Ramona someday.”

  Pirates were interesting fellows. Baker could say things about women that made me want to break his nose, but then he would out of nowhere show a glimmer of compassion. I leaned over the edge of my hammock. “Baker? Do you think the rebels have a cause?”

  “No,” he said, and snorted a gob of spit into a bucket.

  “What would you say if I told you the Luftberg princess was still alive?”

  “I’d say you’d been putting Skye up your arse.”

  “Well, let’s just say she is alive, and let’s also say, she’s been taken hostage by our captain.”

  Baker jumped up out of his hammock. “There’s a woman on board?” He went to the window. Just outside the beveled glass, lightning veined across the sky. Thunder boomed and shook the very framework of the Wastrel. “We need to get off this bird.”

  I couldn’t believe that was his first concern. “You don’t really believe those old wives tales, do you?”

  “Where is he keeping her?”

  “Baker, shh!” I hopped down from my hammock, surveying the room to make sure nobody was around. “Baker. I saved your life today.”

  “You did.”

  “Now I need to call in a favor.”

  “Already?” he said. “Well, what is it?”

  I glanced about once more. The sleeping quarters were empty. The men were still getting blitzed above us, singing rowdy songs to drown out the storm. I lowered my voice all the same. “I need your help rescuing the princess and restoring her to the throne.”

  Baker leaned in until he was only an inch from my face. “You’re talking about mutiny,” he whispered.

  “This is important.”

  “Dirk will hunt us and he will kill us.”

  “Our queen would protect us. We would be the men who put her into power.”

  “Two blokes from the Wastrel?” Baker was torn. He chewed his lip with his silver tooth and scratched his matted head. “One hell of a favor, Clikk …”

  “It’s not a favor. It’s a cause.” His hesitation was beginning to aggravate me. “You would be dead right now if I hadn’t helped you! And you promised to help me find the maggot who killed my parents, to help me avenge their deaths. Well, trust me when I say that this is more important to me. This is more important than vengeance. This is more important than you or me. This is a chance to change the world.”

  “Will our queen see us compensated for our services?” Baker asked.

  “Are you kidding? We would be the nation’s saviors. We could retire, live in the palace and eat all the cricket fudge you could ever want.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. Behind his posturing, I could tell he was mulling it over.

  “We’ll be made men of the queen’s guard, showered in riches, celebrated in epic poems. You’ll have more women than the sultan of Nazar.”

  “I’ll help you, Clikk. I owe you a debt. But when we’re done, we are getting blitzed, and you’re buying the Skye.”

  I shook his hand. “Agreed.”

  VI. Ehrendame

  As morning broke, Baker and I observed the imperial ship through the window in the sleeping quarters. It floated just outside with gold-rimmed propellers that dwarfed those of the Wastrel. For lift, it used a multitude of golden balloons tethered all around the circumference. The engines bore the emperor’s crest, a crescent moon descending on a crown. The ship had to have escape vessels.

  “This is that score we’ve dreamed of all our lives,” I whispered. “We’ll steal a rescue bird and be off before anyone has time to react.”

  “You’re both lunatics,” said Fitz. I looked over my shoulder to see him grinning behind us. “Which puts me in good company!”

  “Hope you don’t mind, but I brought Fitz in
on this,” said Baker.

  I scoffed, exasperated. “We never agreed on that!”

  “I know, but if we’re flying off in someone else’s ship, we’ll need an engineer in case something goes wrong. Nobody’s better than Fitz.”

  “I think we should kill everyone and take the big boat,” said Fitz, “Quite a prize that.”

  Baker and I just stared at him and I shook my head.

  “We stick to the plan,” I said.

  Emperor Perceval Claude had a ship that could rival the sun itself. The notion of hijacking her was preposterous. Known as the Crescendo, this vessel was rumored to carry enough guns to ward off two ships on each flank. As she swerved on the wind, we got a look at her carriage from behind. Just as I had expected, smaller sky vessels were docked on perches, and amongst them, was Maive’s bird-faced globe copter.

  “Look!” I squawked. “That’s the witch’s ship.”

  “Phenomenal firepower,” whispered Fitz. “Look at those guns. Oh, gods.” He made an automatic weapon noise while pantomiming the act of self-manipulation. “Pop pop pop pop pop! Ahhh, spent!”

  I glared at Baker, irked by his habit of adopting all the misfits of the Wastrel. He was always rescuing people. Twice in the last year, he came back from leave and beat someone bloody simply for hazing the newest fledgling. That paired with his knowledge of bruises led me to believe that someone back home beat on his mum, and for whatever reason, he was powerless to stop it.

  “Let’s do this!” squealed Fitz, patting our shoulders.

  I shrugged him off. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Or at least wash your hands first,” said Baker.

  The plan was simple. Baker and Fitz would hijack the globe copter and I would kidnap the princess and bring her to the back of the ship at Baker’s signal. Easy as pie, right? Baker sounded confident he could pilot the globe copter, and Fitz vouched for him. Our foolhardy plan could go wrong at any time and we would all be killed if we were caught. No matter. I had my lucky nail around my thumb and I wasn’t about to give up our trueborn princess without a fight.

  Circular, ornamental and fenced in with cables tethered to those massive golden orbs, the sunny deck of the Crescendo was like a castle courtyard. Duskmen lined the higher platform around the helm. In their double-breasted uniforms with rows of shimmering buttons, they embodied the pristine, militant aesthetic of the new empire. Not one of them was smiling. Seeing them reminded me of our many differences. While they had their coiffed mustachios and elegant customs, we had reverted back to a darker age when a comb and cologne would satisfy the grooming standard.

  They only allowed a few escorts to board with Dirk. We jumped the rails dividing our mighty sky vessels, taking the quartermaster, two Hawks and our cloaked princess. Nobody understood my purpose there, but Captain Dirk being the eccentric man that he was often had a flair for the dramatic and having a minstrel accompany him to a hostage exchange was not entirely unanticipated.

  I spied the emperor and his son Prince Torren. Somehow the lean, ghoulish Perceval had sired a chubby dumpling boy with the pouty mouth of a flat-faced cat. Maive stood beside them, arms folded. Her skin glowed pearlescent with the faintest hint of lavender in her lips and her eyes.

  I found myself quite taken with her attire, a structured dress of silver cogs and clockwork. A system of gears turned along her corset’s metal boning, compelling her brooch to keep time.

  I played my fiddle and Dirk removed Molly’s cloak. Our Hawks gasped. Only Mr. Bentley, our quartermaster, had already known about the young lady stowed in the captain’s quarters. She stood before Torren in her best pink satin, her eyes glowing with adoration. She was composed upon hearing my mother’s melody. Part of me wanted to throw down my instrument and strangle the emperor with my bow, but I couldn’t compromise the plan. I was to wait for Baker’s signal.

  Molly curtsied and presented her hand to the prince. He kissed it and smiled up at her with cheeks like apples.

  “Miss Luftberg,” he said.

  “My prince.”

  “You are truly she?”

  “I am,” she said with a modest smile.

  Maive scowled and stepped forwards. She spoke in a loud, clear voice as she said, “How can we be certain, Magnificence?”

  “I remember her mother,” said Emperor Perceval. “She is the mirror image of her.” Prince Torren smiled and patted Molly’s hand. I continued to play my little tune. “The ceremony shall commence at three o’clock, followed by a reception. As a member of the former dynasty joins our great house, a civil war is prevented!” The company of Duskmen applauded.

  I hoped the wedding would be a short ceremony; I was having the most vivid homicidal fantasies about the emperor’s family and Molly looked like she was going barmy from hearing the same musical phrase repeated over and over on the fiddle.

  “And who is this?” asked the prince, gesturing to me.

  “This is my minstrel,” said Molly. “She plays beautifully, doesn’t she?”

  “She?”

  The blood went cold in my face. I heard some confused whispering from our Hawks Pierce and Caleb, but Mr. Bentley shushed them.

  “Oh yes! She dresses like the men, but she is a lovely young woman,” prattled Molly, fidgeting with the lace ruffles at her wrists.

  Caleb laughed and Pierce elbowed him in the ribs.

  The prince came towards me and stared intensely at my face. To my amazement, he smiled wide, his little teeth glistening. “Indeed she is,” he said. “She will be the ehrendame.”

  Captain Dirk stepped forwards, murmuring, “My prince, this woman is but a lowly peasant, a minstrel no less.”

  “No matter,” said the prince. “Any woman whom both bride and groom fancy may fill the role.” He turned to address me. “You, girl, put down that fiddle and go with the servants. They shall make you presentable.”

  I didn’t know what an ehrendame was, but if it involved being made presentable, I did not want to comply. I kept playing right up until a servant girl snatched my instrument away.

  Molly shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. “Thank you, my sweet, sweet prince!” she said. “I am overcome with joy.” She could barely stand. I caught her by the arms and supported her weight.

  I felt the ship rising. More of those golden orbs inflated and surrounded the deck like a bubbly fence. Visibility from the Wastrel was blocked.

  “What is this?” Dirk said. “You must remain level with my ship.”

  Emperor Perceval laughed, and at first, I thought it was to suggest that all was well. Then the guards seized my captain and twisted his arms behind his back. Emperor Perceval backhanded him with a force that cracked his jaw like a whip. Dirk spit a gob of blood.

  “Stop!” Molly cried, exploding into a wild tantrum. The maids ripped her from my arms. There were four of them, all in white gowns, white aprons and lace headdresses. Their faces were monotone and severe, hard and sharp like broken glass. I froze where I stood.

  Mr. Bentley drew his pistol, but could not bring it up before the Duskmen brought knives to his and his Caleb’s throats, thrashing them open in one violent motion. Their blood cascaded down their fronts and they fell to their knees. Pierce remained at knifepoint, and the emperor addressed him.

  “You will return to the Wastrel, and tell the men that your captain wishes to remain for the ceremony. Any sign of retaliation from your decrepit vessel, and we will execute Dirk and destroy your ship. Understood?”

  Pierce nodded. Blue Dusk escorted him to a rope ladder.

  “I thought we had an agreement,” Dirk growled.

  Emperor Perceval clutched him by the jaw. “You think I don’t know who sank my cruiser? That ship had wedding guests on board, friends of the order. You villains will no longer be tolerated in the skies. Once the insurgency is crushed, our military will focus on eradicating sky piracy from our airspace.

  “Besides,” he added. “I know how you pirates can get on your long and lonely voyages. My
son will confirm that Miss Luftberg is still a virgin before I determine whether we kill you swiftly or draw it out over the next few weeks.” He delivered a swift kick into Dirk’s ribs.

  The maidservants pulled me down below deck along with Molly.

  “A bath of milk and roses,” whispered a crone in white lace. She was a wiry old thing with a weak jaw that hung wrinkled about her throat.

  “Where is the dress?” asked a frantic young woman, wringing Molly’s arm.

  “In the blue room. Clear out the bathhouse and take Miss Luftberg there,” the crone dictated.

  “What of the peasant?”

  “Take her to the kitchens and have her scrubbed. Then send her to the red room.” The staff dragged me down into the belly of the ship. Two of the maids had nervous round eyes. All the stress and strain of preparing a wedding at sky had fallen on their shoulders, and it oozed out of them.

  “Out of the way!” one of them snapped at a kitchen boy, shoving him by the head. Another kicked over a scullery wench. Sweltering heat raged in the kitchen. It was noisy with the clink of crockery and the hiss of boil and steam. The staff here dressed in beige stripes. Their clothing bore stains of animal blood and yellowed sweat. Judging by their haggard and starved appearances, I could tell they were a mistreated bunch.

  The maids stripped me of my clothes, starting with my flight cap. As they pulled my grease-ridden shirt away, they gasped when they saw my bruising and the scars on my neck, shoulders and back. As they peeled away the bindings around my chest and removed the rest of my clothing, they saw more scars, and recoiled in disgust.

  “Who would do this to a woman?” one of them whispered. I ignored her. She knew nothing of the life I’d lived, and my scars could speak for themselves. I’d been shot in the shoulder, and the mark there was from the barber who cut out the bullet. I’d earned the lashes on my back mouthing off to a knight. On my ribcage I had three brands from a hot poker. That was a test of toughness I passed to join my first gang in Amaranthia. And maybe they could see it, and maybe they couldn’t, but I also had a faint white mark under my lip from when I was robbed. I had many scars, and I was proud of every last one.