Voyager of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  “It’s moving fast for a merchant vessel.”

  “There’s a storm coming in,” Proctor said. “We’ve laid on more sail ourselves—that is, we’ll try to make as much progress as we can before the storm catches us. Probably the ship will come alongside of us and we’ll trade news.”

  Laying on more sail before a storm was foolish. Even Zara knew that. “Then it’s a Tremontanan ship.”

  Proctor hesitated slightly. “Of course. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  Zara thought about pressing the issue, decided Proctor wouldn’t be more forthcoming than that, and nodded at him politely before turning away. The sun was sinking below the horizon, far to starboard, and the fading light caught the mystery ship’s sails, turning them pale peach. She covertly observed the captain. He did not look like a man free of care.

  So. That ship was almost certainly a danger to them. Was the captain hiding something about the nature of this voyage? Or was there something about the cargo someone wanted? Though they might simply be opportunists—but in any case, if that ship intended to board and pillage them, it wouldn’t matter the reason.

  She moved to the stern rail and looked northward, where masses of clouds blocked the starry sky. A fork of lightning shot through the air, the merest flash of light, then another, larger one streaked across the charcoal background. Even she knew it was time for the Emma Covington to furl her sails, but the vast swaths of canvas, dim gray in the fading light, billowed in the rising wind as if welcoming it.

  The ship rocked, throwing Zara into the rail, and she clung to it momentarily before making her way back across the deck to the companionway. There was nothing left to do but wait, and pray, though she wasn’t sure what to pray for—escape from their pursuers, or a safe journey through the storm? Either way, this would be a dangerous night.

  She had trouble focusing on her cards and smiled weakly at Gaston and Belinda’s teasing when she lost hand after hand, listening mainly to the sound of the wind from above. As the storm picked up, and the ship’s movement became more noticeable, the game petered out, and eventually the four sat, not speaking, as the storm raged. The lantern above the table swayed with the ship, casting bleak shadows across their faces.

  “This is a bad one,” Alfred Richfield said. He hooked his thumbs through his suspenders and slid them up and down, the way he did when he was uncertain of something. “The captain would’ve said if there was any real danger, wouldn’t he?”

  Gaston shrugged. “Not much any of us could do about it if he did, right?”

  “I’m going to check on Eglantine,” Zara said.

  She had to keep one hand on the bulkhead to avoid falling over as she went down the corridor. Distantly, thunder boomed, once, twice, and she listened for the sound of rain striking the deck, but heard only the bellowing of the wind. She knocked on Eglantine’s door, then entered without an invitation. “Is your stomach still bothering you?” she said.

  “Not much—isn’t that strange?” Eglantine sat up on her bed. “I actually feel much better even though the storm is bad.”

  Another crack of thunder, low-pitched, then a nearer rumbling, and Zara stepped out of Eglantine’s room in time to see a man falling down the companionway stairs to land heavily in an unmoving heap at the bottom. “What happened?” she began, taking a few swift steps in his direction, but before she could reach him, she heard shouting, and more sharp thunder, and she realized the noise was actually the sound of cannon fire and rifles.

  She dropped to the floor beside the fallen sailor and tried to help him up, but saw dark blood spreading across his back and released his body. Behind her, Eglantine screamed. “Shut up!” Zara said, leaping at the woman and clapping a hand over her mouth.

  “What’s going on?” Gaston said, emerging from the mess room. “Sweet holy heaven, is that man dead?”

  “Get back inside,” Zara ordered. “Eglantine, don’t scream or I’ll have Gaston knock you unconscious, do you hear?”

  Eglantine nodded, her eyes wide and terrified. Gaston gave her a confused look. “I can’t—” he began.

  “Just get inside.” Zara did some pushing until she’d gotten all five of them into the dubious safety of the mess room. “The ship’s under attack,” she said. “Help me barricade the door.”

  “Under attack by who?” Alfred said.

  “I don’t know. Pirates, maybe. That ship, probably.” She was aware what they were doing was pointless, that the pirates had all the time in the world to flush them out, that being safe from rifle balls didn’t protect them from drowning if the pirates decided to sink the ship, but it was all she could think of. Cannons roared again, and the ship lurched. “Maybe—”

  Someone pounded on the door. “You in there! What do you think you’re doing? Come out now!” The man’s Eskandelic was rough, guttural and difficult for Zara to understand.

  No one spoke. The same person pounded again and shouted, “We aren’t going to hurt anyone so long as we get what we come for!”

  “We don’t understand! What do you want?” Eglantine cried out, ignoring the others’ attempts to shush her.

  There was a pause, then a new voice said in Tremontanese, “Something this ship is carrying. Nothing you need to worry about, darlin’. But if you don’t come out, we’re going to start shooting your friends. You don’t want that, do you?”

  Eglantine was crying. “Rowena, we have to go out there,” she pleaded.

  Some distance away came the fainter sound of a pistol being discharged, and a scream. “That was just an injury,” the man said. “It could be worse.”

  “Rowena,” Belinda said.

  “We don’t have a choice,” Zara said. They shoved the table out of the way, and Zara opened the door. Immediately, rough hands grabbed her and passed her from one pirate to another, pushing her up the stairs to stumble onto the deck. A few bodies, including that of Captain Proctor, lay limp where they’d been shot, but most of the crew and passengers stood silently under guard by men and women dressed in ordinary clothing, not uniforms but not tattered or ragged either. They were of many nationalities, mostly Eskandelic, and all bore the grim look of people for whom violence was just another part of life.

  The Emma Covington shuddered as the pirate ship, knocked about by the waves, grazed it; the two were dangerously close. Zara staggered as another blow nearly sent her to her knees. Only the grip of her pirate captor kept her from falling.

  A pair of women climbed out of the cargo hold. “It isn’t there,” one of them shouted in Eskandelic, and a third woman looked up from where she stood near the wheel. She was tall, with reddish-brown skin and ruddy hair to match it, and wore an ornate coat and several expensive-looking rings and bracelets. In her left hand she held a boxy Device of brass and shining dark wood about the size of her palm and extended fingers. She’d tied her hair loosely back from her face, but a few tendrils floated free, and as Zara watched, the woman drew an enormous knife, tucked the Device under her arm, and hacked one of the strands off at the roots. She thrust the knife roughly into her belt and crossed the deck to where the two women waited, brandishing the Device like a weapon.

  “It’s somewhere on this ship,” she said, tapping the Device on its glass top. “You’re not looking in the right place.”

  “We looked everywhere,” the pirate replied.

  “If that was true, you’d have found it,” the woman said, and whipped her knife out of her belt and slashed the pirate’s face so quickly the knife was back in her belt before the pirate could even scream. She clapped her hands to her face and took a step backward. “Get out of my sight.”

  “Captain Ghazarian, ma’am,” the woman said, weeping, and scuttled away to crouch near the rail. No one moved to help her.

  Ghazarian turned her glare on the second pirate. “Well?” she said, this time speaking Tremontanese.

  “It’s not obvious, ma’am,” the woman said, to her credit standing erect and fearless in front of the pirate captain
. “We might have to unpack all the crates.”

  “Or we can try something else,” Ghazarian said. She gestured, and two of her men dragged Lyton toward her. Lyton was holding her arm gingerly, as if it were broken, and she looked at the pirate captain dully. “You,” Ghazarian said, “tell us where the Device is.”

  “Go to hell,” Lyton said.

  Ghazarian shrugged. “I will see you there,” she said, drew a pistol from her belt, and shot Lyton in the face.

  Eglantine screamed and fainted. Someone behind Zara vomited. Zara had trouble keeping the contents of her stomach down herself. The pirates dropped Lyton’s body to lie at Ghazarian’s feet. “Does anyone else want me to defy?” she shouted. “You have the Device. I want it. I will spare you when I have what I want.”

  Zara didn’t need Telaine’s ability to hear lies to know that was a whopper. Either they could refuse to talk—not that they knew anything about whatever Device this woman wanted—and be killed one at a time, or they could help her find the Device and be killed all together. Zara cast her eye on the ship’s boat. There were two of them, but this one was in a position to be lowered. Someone had clearly suspected trouble from the enemy ship. If they could start enough of a melee, possibly the passengers could be saved. It amused her briefly that she didn’t think herself in need of saving. But where was Watson? Had he, too, been killed? The sailors would respond better to one of their own giving orders than a mere passenger.

  “If you tell us what you want, we might be better able to help,” Gaston said, and Zara’s heart sank. He was going to try charm on Ghazarian, and he was going to get himself killed, probably get other people killed as well. “There’s a lot of cargo on board. Or you could just take it all, let us go.”

  “I could, maybe,” Ghazarian said. “It a Tremontanan Device is. Which cargo comes from there?”

  Zara kept a neutral expression, though her heart beat faster. Mistress Falken had seen her cargo aboard the Emma Covington at Kingsport, and there were Devices in it—but household items, surely nothing a pirate would want? Then she heard Belinda, who stood just behind her, draw in a sharp, incautious breath. Instantly, Ghazarian’s attention was on her. “You know something,” she said.

  “I…I don’t,” Belinda said, sounding so guilty no one could have believed her ignorant.

  “Her cargo is Tremontanan!” Eglantine shrieked. “Take it and let us go!”

  Zara groaned inwardly. First Gaston, then Belinda, then Eglantine—could none of them simply keep their mouths shut?

  Ghazarian grabbed Belinda by the neck of her jacket and twisted, choking her. “Where?” she said in a low voice. “Where is?”

  Belinda scrabbled at her throat, her mouth opening and closing desperately in search of air. “Let her go! She can’t tell you anything like that!” Alfred shouted.

  Gaston took two steps and rammed hard into the pirate captain’s side, snatching her pistol as he did so. Ghazarian stumbled, taking Belinda with her. Then the loud retorts of pistol and rifle fire rang out over the wind, sailors were turning on their captors, and Zara grabbed Eglantine and shoved her ahead and toward the ship’s longboat.

  Ghazarian turned on Gaston, drawing her knife and slashing at him so he couldn’t bring her pistol to bear. Zara took advantage of the confusion to pull Belinda to her feet and help her stagger toward the longboat, coughing hard the whole way. “Help Eglantine!” she shouted in Belinda’s ear, and stepped back out of the confusion, hoping to see someone else she might save.

  It was chaos. More bodies, some of them not quite dead, cluttered the deck; sailors and pirates battled each other closely for possession of guns or knives. Zara saw Theodore Jenkins go down under the weight of a sailor twice his size, pushed into him by a pirate who’d thrust her knife deep into the sailor’s stomach. The Zakharis were nowhere to be seen, and neither was Alfred.

  She turned toward the pirate captain in time to see Gaston slump lifeless to the deck, blood covering his shattered chest, as Ghazarian thrust her recovered pistol into her belt. The pirate captain shouted orders that were lost in the noise of battle and the roar of the oncoming storm.

  Zara raced for the longboat and shouted at the sailors nearby. All of them ignored her. Furious at the stupidity of it all, she climbed into the boat and worked at the ropes that would lower it into the dubious safety of the ocean. At the other end, Belinda did the same. It was awkward, and she was sure she was doing it wrong, but she had no other choice left.

  Suddenly Eglantine stood up in the boat and screamed, “They’re going to kill us! We have to go back or they’ll kill us!” The boat rocked wildly, Zara lost her grip on the ropes, and one end of the boat lurched violently, throwing Eglantine over the side and into the steely gray waters below.

  “Eglantine!” Zara shouted, craning to see over her shoulder where the woman had gone, fumbling desperately at the ropes to right the longboat. Slowly, too slowly, she and Belinda managed to lower it into the water. Eglantine had vanished. Zara clung to the side of the boat, searching the waves desperately for a sight of her, but there were nothing but foaming, choppy waves in all directions and the sound of rain hissing across the surface of the ocean toward them.

  A shot cracked high above. “Rowena, we have to move,” Belinda said, taking up one of the oars. Zara reached for the other, then shied away as something large and dark plummeted from the deck above to land half-in, half-out of the boat. It was Alfred Richfield. Zara grabbed hold of his suspenders and hauled him fully into the boat. Dark blood spread across the front of his shirt, but he moved when Zara felt his throat for a pulse.

  “Not dead yet,” he whispered. “Not dead yet.”

  Zara didn’t think he’d be able to say that much longer, but she tore a swath of fabric from his ruined shirt, balled it up and helped him press it against his chest. “Hang on, and we’ll get help,” she lied, and she and Belinda began rowing away from the Emma Covington.

  Chapter Three

  After only a few minutes, the full fury of the storm was on them. Zara and Belinda had to ship oars and lie down, protecting Alfred as best they could, while the rain and the waves and the wind tossed them in every direction. Zara curled up against her friend’s body and prayed she wasn’t about to find out if she could die by drowning. Would she just lie at the bottom for decades, or centuries, until someone pulled her out? She thought of Eglantine, who would never see her husband again, of Gaston dead on the deck of the Emma Covington, and found herself incapable of worrying about her own fate.

  She had no idea how long it was they lay there, but eventually the waves calmed, and the rain turned from a pounding torrent into a quiet pattering. Zara and Belinda lapped at the water that had accumulated in the bottom of the boat, which tasted salty but was mostly rainwater. They tried to get Alfred to drink some of it, but he was barely conscious. It was a miracle he was even still alive—or could you call it a miracle when it really only prolonged his suffering?

  When the sun came up, Zara pointed the bow of the boat southward. They had no idea where the storm had driven them, but Dineh-Karit was to the south no matter where they were now, and Zara knew from talking to Captain Proctor that the currents ran roughly southwest, so it was likely they weren’t very far from the mainland. Zara told herself those were reasonable thoughts and not unjustified optimism in the face of certain death.

  They rowed until they were tired, then rested as best they could. Zara tried not to think of the men and women they’d left behind. She should have made more of an effort to force some of them into the boat—but they’d had the look of sailors determined to retake their ship. Maybe she was the foolish one, running away before the battle was decided. She leaned back and closed her eyes against the tropical sun. No. The sailors of the Emma Covington were outnumbered and poorly armed, and she’d done the only thing she could.

  “…Rowena…”

  She sat up. Alfred had his eyes open and was looking, not at her, but at something far distant in the sky�
�or possibly at nothing at all. “Rowena,” he repeated. His voice was barely louder than a whisper.

  “I’m here, Alfred,” she said, moving to take his hand. Farther astern, Belinda lay sleeping with her mouth open, her breath whistling in and out of her nostrils.

  Alfred squeezed her hand, the faintest pressure. “…dying…” he said.

  Zara didn’t believe in the comforting lie. “Yes.”

  “…need your help…”

  “What is it?”

  “…pocket…”

  Alfred wasn’t wearing a coat, and his shirt had no pockets. Zara felt along the outside seams of his trousers until she found a pocket slit with something hard and round inside. She reached in and pulled out an oversized pocket watch cased in bright brass, incised with a pattern of leaves around the outside edge. “Is this what you wanted?”

  Alfred nodded, then coughed deep in his chest. “…not watch…Device,” he said. “Agent…of the Crown…”

  “You’re an agent?” Zara lowered her voice instinctively.

  He nodded again. “…what they wanted…Device…” He coughed less painfully. “…need you…to take it…Calliope Blackwood…on Goudge’s Folly.”

  “This is the Device that pirate was looking for?” She’d thought it was hidden in Belinda’s crates, whatever it was. It didn’t look like anything worth killing over.

  “Yes. Urgent…Blackwood needs it…it cannot be taken by…anyone else…promise me…”

  “I promise.” Immediately she wondered if she’d made a mistake, making such a promise to a dying man. It seemed unlikely she and Belinda would survive much longer than Alfred. But he sounded so urgent she found she couldn’t deny him. “Calliope Blackwood on Goudge’s Folly. I promise. Just lie still now.”

  Alfred smiled. “Can’t lie…much stiller than this,” he said, and let out one final breath. Zara held onto his lifeless hand for a few moments, then laid it gently across his chest.

  She looked more closely at the pocket watch, or whatever the Device actually was. It didn’t look like a watch, once she examined it; it had no visible seam around the edge where a real watch would open, and the crown that ought to move freely to change the time was a solid part of the case. She pressed down on it and felt something shift inside. So it wasn’t just a hunk of brass.