Blackveil: Book Four of Green Rider

by Kristen Britain

  “Do you remember,” Amberhill asked, “where the island was?”

  “That was long ago, sir,” Yap said, “and I was no navigator, just a lowly hand. All I know is that it was in the Northern Sea archipelago.”

  Which contained hundreds of isles.

  “Do you think you’d recognize the island if you saw it again?”

  “I dunno. Maybe. But ...” The pirate shuddered. “I’d never want to see it again. Curses and bad luck.”

  “Hmm.”

  At that moment, a flicker of golden light illuminated the library. Amberhill whirled to find his manservant, Brigham, standing in the doorway with a lamp in hand. Even in his sleeping clothes and robe, the man was impeccable.

  “My lord? Is all well? I heard voices.” Then he sniffed and frowned with distaste, his gaze falling upon Yap. He blinked and his frown deepened.

  “Good morning, Brigham,” Amberhill said. “All is well.”

  “Then shall I rouse Mistress Landen to make breakfast for you and your ... companion?”

  Amberhill glanced at Yap, and the additional light revealed just how squalid the pirate appeared in his rags, with dirt imbedded in pores and wrinkles, and what looked like seaweed tangled in his hair. Something tiny scurried beneath the snarled mats. Something with little claws and antennae.

  “First I should like Mister Yap to have a very thorough scouring in a hot bath. We’ll burn his clothes and in the meantime he can don one of my robes.”

  Brigham, whom he’d known only to be efficient and unflappable, looked more than mildly horrified at the prospect of bathing Yap. Then he squared his shoulders. “Very well, my lord. As you wish. I shall heat up water for a bath.”

  “Good, and a basin for me, as well,” Amberhill said. It would be a relief to wash the remnant gore of Keeler from his hands.

  Brigham nodded, turned on his heel, and left the room, taking his light with him.

  “What’s that ya said about a bath, sir?” Yap asked, a note of anxiety in his voice.

  “You are going to take one.”

  Even in the dim light, Amberhill could make out the mortified expression on Yap’s face. “B-but I gave ya the story. You said it would be worth my while.”

  “And it will be. After your bath. I do not conduct business or eat breakfast with anyone who has not bathed in months.”

  “Years,” Yap corrected, with no small amount of pride.

  “Indeed,” Amberhill replied. He’d have to give Brigham a bonus when he was through with Yap. He wondered how much of the pirate would remain after the grime was scrubbed away.

  In any case, he did not think his business with Yap would be concluded even after the pirate bathed and ate a hearty breakfast.

  No, he did not. He had plans.

  CANDLESTICKS

  Amberhill rummaged through Morry’s wardrobe looking for anything that might fit Yap. He’d not had the heart to go through Morry’s things. Even now, it caught in his throat when he saw a familiar frock coat and remembered Morry in it, or a favorite waistcoat or shirt, and felt the texture of velvet, wool, and tweed, with a remnant of the musky scent of the old gentleman still hanging in the air.

  I should give all this away to people who can use it, Amberhill thought, but every time he considered doing so, the idea hit resistance. He felt as if giving away Morry’s clothing was like losing a piece of the man who had been like a father to him. It was difficult enough to think of clothing Yap in it.

  So he focused on pieces that might simply fit the pirate. Trouble was, Morry had been trim throughout his life, and Yap was rather round.

  He withdrew a pair of trousers that might do. A pair that might be worn at a country gentleman’s hunting estate. They were looser in style than the others, though it would still be a close thing as to whether or not they fit. He found a hearty broadcloth shirt, too, and a waistcoat to match the trousers. Finally, Amberhill took out an old gray cloak that was voluminous enough to fit Yap.

  As he removed the items from the wardrobe and placed them on Morry’s old bed, Brigham appeared in the doorway. The sun was well up, and in the light that flowed into the room, he saw how wan his manservant appeared. He looked as though he wanted to be ill. He stood there in his shirt sleeves and apron, with a scrub brush in one hand and something else in the other.

  “You are done with Mister Yap’s bath?” Amberhill asked.

  Brigham nodded. “My lord, it was most unspeakable. The filth!” He shuddered. “I took this from his hair. Among other things.” He exhibited a hermit crab, antennae twitching, on his palm—it still had some of Yap’s gray hairs clinging to it. “The tub, when we finished—no! I cannot speak of it.”

  Brigham paled so much Amberhill feared he might faint. “Where is Mister Yap now?”

  “At breakfast.”

  “You’ve done well,” Amberhill said. “Take the rest of the day for yourself.”

  Brigham whimpered and now Amberhill thought he might cry. “Thank you, my lord.” With that, Brigham turned slowly away, as though dazed, and walked down the corridor with his scrub brush and hermit crab. Amberhill hoped he wouldn’t have to find another new manservant after this.

  After pulling out pairs of stockings and shoes that might fit Yap, he went downstairs to the dining room. It took moments for him to realize that the man he observed sitting there sawing into a ham steak was the same man he’d brought home. Gone was Yap’s straggly, matted hair. It was cropped close to his scalp, and gleamed more white than gray. Without the dirt and rags, and freshly shaved, wearing one of Amberhill’s old bathing robes, he appeared more a gentleman than a pirate sitting there amid the oak paneling of the dining room.

  Yap paused and said, with his mouth full, “Will ya be joining me, sir?”

  “Chew and swallow before you speak, Mister Yap.” Amberhill was suddenly reminded of his old nursemaid teaching him manners.

  His cook, Mistress Landen, evidently had not witnessed Yap in his more odoriferous condition, and flittered and flustered to bring him fresh helpings of eggs and ham and fried potatoes. She slathered his toasted bread with butter and jam and placed it before him. She preened when he requested fresh cups of kauv, and blushed and giggled when he winked at her. Amberhill had never seen such behavior from his matronly cook before. Just as well he gave Brigham the rest of the day off. The man would be appalled.

  Amberhill sat at the head of the table and Mistress Landen was back with another plate filled for him.

  “Eat up, my lord,” she said. “You should follow Mister Yap’s example. He has a fine appetite.”

  Yap grinned as he chewed, and Amberhill thought he might lose his appetite altogether.

  “These here ...” Yap paused, remembering to gulp down his food first, and started again. “These here vittles are very good, sir. Land flesh! How I missed it all those long years at sea.” He pushed another chunk of ham into his mouth and chewed with vigor.

  Amberhill picked at his own breakfast, amazed at Yap’s capacity for food and kauv. Time after time Mistress Landen bustled out of the kitchen with more food and refills.

  “I feel fresh as a new baby,” Yap said. He passed his hand over what remained of his hair. “Thought yer man Brigham was gonna scrape my hide right off my bones. I wouldn’t wanna be on his bad side.”

  “No, indeed,” Amberhill murmured, sipping his kauv. Usually he took it with sugar and cream, but somehow he required it rather stronger this morning. “I have set aside some clothes for you to try on.”

  “That is most generous, sir. This has been a most wonderful morning. Keeler wouldn’t believe it.”

  Amberhill raised his eyebrows. Certainly Keeler would not consider it a wonderful morning considering his bones now rested in the Egg Street ossuary, but Yap appeared entirely undismayed by the absence of his former companion.

  Once Yap filled himself to capacity, leaving both Amberhill and Mistress Landen in awe, Amberhill took him up to Morry’s room and helped him change into the clothes he�
�d picked out. Before Yap pulled on the shirt, Amberhill espied old lash marks on the pirate’s back; so many that there were more scars than unmarred flesh. Yap might be a cheerful fellow now, but it did not mean his life as a seaman had been easy or lighthearted. Pirates could be particularly merciless in the punishments they doled out.

  The clothes were close to bursting and too long in both sleeve and pant, but Yap was undismayed. “These are very fine, sir,” he said. “I’ve worn none finer.” He gazed at himself in Morry’s mirror from all angles.

  Amberhill rubbed his chin. He could get this ensemble, and Morry’s other clothes, let out and hemmed, and have Yap measured for new pieces.

  When they were downstairs in the entry hall once more, Yap whirled this way and that to see how the cloak flowed around him. Amberhill narrowed his eyes. There was more beneath the cloak than just Yap.

  “Well, I’ll be thanking ya for yer kindness, sir, but I ’spect you’ve had enough of old Yap for now. I will take my payment and leave.”

  “Where will you go?” Amberhill asked, playing along with Yap’s intent for the moment.

  Yap shrugged. “Where there be ships. I’m a seaman. I don’ know nothing else, sir.”

  Amberhill dropped four silvers into Yap’s hand, and the pirate gasped. “That ... that is very generous, sir. I thank ya. And now, good-bye.”

  When Yap turned for the door, there was a metallic flash from beneath his cloak that was not the coins. Amberhill grabbed Yap’s arm, spinning him around.

  “Mister Yap, I have been exceedingly generous with you, as you have noted more than once. But now you insult me.”

  “Eh?”

  “What are you concealing beneath the cloak?”

  “What? Why... why nothing, sir!” But Yap’s blush showed otherwise.

  Amberhill struck viper-fast, grabbing a pair of silver candlesticks from Yap’s hands.

  “These are nothing?” Amberhill demanded. “Empty your pockets.” When Yap just gaped at him, he said in a low threatening voice, “Empty your pockets.”

  Yap gulped, then started turning out his pockets, producing a spoon, an ornate letter opener, and a pair of Morry’s gold cufflinks.

  Amberhill swiped the cufflinks from him. Anger grew in him like a fever. The candlesticks and other trinkets were negligible, but the cufflinks, that was a different matter. “You do not deserve the clothes you now wear. They belonged to a good, honest man. A father he was to me. You dishonor him.”

  Yap backed away, visibly trembling.

  Amberhill paused, breathing hard. The heat of anger turned to a sharp, cold razor. “And if you are stupid enough to steal from a master thief, then maybe I should turn you out in only the skin you were born in.”

  Yap’s eyes went wide and were made grotesque by the cracked lenses of his specs.

  Amberhill suddenly felt terribly exhausted. Exhausted and a hundred years old. Seeing Yap in Morry’s old things had chafed a much too recent wound, rubbed it raw and bleeding. He licked his lips. Forced himself to calm. He straightened and passed his hand over his eyes. “You will not be stealing from me again, will you Mister Yap.”

  “You won’ kill me, sir, will ya?” came the plaintive question.

  Amberhill frowned. By all the gods, the pirate was close to weeping. He’d been broken at some point in his life. Amberhill almost pitied him. Almost, but not enough to prevent him from taking advantage of the pirate’s shattered spirit.

  When Amberhill failed to immediately provide an answer, Yap backed away, holding out the items he had stolen, as well as the four silvers that were his payment. “Please, sir, take ’em back. Please don’ kill me. I’ll leave yer things and leave ya be.”

  “The silvers are yours,” Amberhill said. “Unlike the other items, I gave them to you. You will assure me, however, they will not be spent on liquor. I don’t need men in my employ to be drunk.”

  “I don’ ... I don’ follow, sir. You won’ kill me?”

  “You said you were bound to go back to sea.”

  “Aye, but—”

  “I, too, am going to sea. On a voyage, Mister Yap. I need someone with your ... expertise to go with me.”

  Yap stood a little straighter, then gazed down. Amberhill followed his gaze to his own hand, to where the dragon ring resided on his finger. Was it his imagination, or did the ruby pulse for just a moment? He thought he felt the breath of the sea against his face.

  “I don’ know, sir,” Yap said.

  “If you agree to work for me, I certainly won’t kill you.”

  Yap blanched at the implication that if he walked out, Amberhill would indeed kill him.

  “You’ll be very comfortable in my employ. Regular meals and good accommodations. There will be a monthly payment, of course, so long as I am pleased with your service.”

  “Meals?” Yap asked, brightening.

  Amberhill nodded.

  “Land flesh?”

  Amberhill nodded again.

  “Well, sir, that is worth a thought or two.”

  Yap, Amberhill reflected, had no choice in the matter, whether he realized it or not. Nor did Amberhill. He could almost hear the breaking of waves, the call of the gulls.

  He had no choice but to go to sea.

  SUMMONED

  Karigan leaned against the fence rail, Elgin beside her, watching the newest batch of green Greenies circling the riding ring on horseback at a trot under the hawklike scrutiny of their instructor, Horsemaster Riggs.

  Karigan had come outside to rest her eyes after trying to untangle Rider accounts and payroll. They were an even bigger mess than she originally thought. After too many hours crouched over tiny notations, she’d grown restless. Days had passed and she hadn’t received a single message errand, while Tegan had been out twice, and Garth disappeared during the night.

  Maybe it was the bright sunlight and the smell of damp earth as the snow melted that made her twitchy. Birds returned from the south in chittering flocks, and the horses ran and kicked in their pastures with renewed vigor. The world was coming alive, but Karigan was stuck in the damp, dark deeps of the castle with her dim lamp and ledgers. Maybe she ought to tack up Condor and take him around the ring a time or two herself.

  Some of the new Riders were clearly more acquainted with the finer points of horsemanship than others. Horsemaster Riggs did not demand perfect form. She did train her students to be capable riders able to sit a saddle for long hours, to keep their seat in difficult situations, even during battle, and how to pace a cross-country journey. The care of a horse and its equipment were also among her important lessons.

  Currently they rode retired cavalry horses. New messenger horses would arrive later in the spring, brought by the trader whose family had supplied the Green Riders with their mounts for generations. The horses came from the wild and were very intelligent, even uncannily knowing. When they chose to be.

  Pretty soon each of these new Riders would have a horse that was his or her own to ride and care for, forming a special partnership and friendship that would last as long as both lived.

  “Reverse trot,” Master Riggs called out.

  The Riders obeyed, or attempted to obey, the command. One girl flailed her legs against the sides of her horse, who merely halted and dropped his head to graze. A boy could not stop his horse from circling. Others failed to switch diagonals as technique required for the posting trot. Master Riggs sorted them out one by one.

  “They seem to be coming along,” Karigan said.

  “Got a ways to go,” Elgin replied.

  “At least it’s not more etiquette training. Did you ever talk to Mara about Ty?”

  Elgin made a snorting laugh.

  “That would be a ‘yes’?” Karigan inquired.

  Elgin nodded. “I must give Mara credit for a creative solution.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yep. Instead of confronting Ty directly, she simply sent him on an errand to Penburn. He’ll be gone a good bit and I can see that t
hese wee chicks are turned into real Riders.”

  Karigan had to admit it was a clever move on Mara’s part. Sending Ty away would not ruffle his feathers the way correcting him on his training methods would, and he could not argue with a direct order to head out on a message errand.

  “Heh, when Ty suggested she send you instead,” Elgin said, “Mara told him that if he wanted his pay on time that you be left here to continue working on payroll. That sealed it.”

  And it explained why Karigan hadn’t been sent on any errands. She sighed. The sooner she fixed the ledgers, the sooner she could be out riding.

  They watched the lesson in silence for a while more. The sun felt good on Karigan’s back, and she was not inclined to return to the darkness of the castle. Master Riggs called on her students to canter. Again, some made the transition more easily than others. Some sat the gait nicely, others lurched around on their saddles.

  “That Merla,” Elgin said, “is coming along fine.”

  Karigan spotted the girl, a gawky sixteen-year-old who sat her horse competently enough, even though her elbows stuck out and her posture was slouched.

  “From Adolind,” Elgin said. “Her folks are tenant farmers. Real poor. No horses for them. She’d never been on one before she came here. Look at her now—a natural. See the extension on Baron? He’s liking it. Now Sophina on the other hand ...”

  Karigan glanced at the young woman who rode her horse very erectly, heels down and toes up, shoulders thrown back, hands steady. Here was someone who had been taught proper equitation, but who appeared stiff and uncomfortable. It did not help she had her chin pointed up and a scowl of disdain on her face at having, Karigan assumed, to endure lessons at such a rudimentary level.

  “She’s a bit of a priss,” Elgin said.

  Karigan raised an eyebrow at his bluntness.