The Nature of a Pirate

by A. M. Dellamonica

  It is possible the shopkeepers in one or the other establishment will have seen your agent with Coine. I hope you will acquit me of any obligation to you in this regard.

  Sophie couldn’t quite keep back a laugh.

  “What is it?” Sweet said.

  “Oh. The guy comes to me. He offers me a favor. And now he’s all huffy about having discharged it.”

  “It’s our way,” the messenger said, visibly offended.

  “Sorry,” Sophie said. The letter went on, rather at length. She turned the page.

  I approach as well with another point of business, one which would naut tout la cause for you to journey through the Stringent Sea and Northwater to Sylvanna. My people are prepared to make a generous purchase offer for the murderer, Kev Lidman.

  As I am sure you know, one of the ships sunk by Incannis was Golder. The families of the ship’s crew would be much comforted by material compensation, in the form of a guilty bonded man, for their loss.

  I suspect I comprenne the forces that have motivated you to accept the burden of responsibility for Lidman, and I am prepared to offer an ironwood surety that his life would not be endangered, should you accept. He would live, and I would not see him molested for all his days going forward; you have my word on it.

  This will be, I assure you, the only way to truly save him.

  I would consider it a favor if you would oblige me in this matter. The price, and other terms that may quiet your antislaver sensibilities, are negotiable, but I suggest a starting point here.

  “Sophie?” That was Sweet, who’d declined to leave her alone with the messenger.

  Sophie swallowed and showed her the number at the bottom of the sheet. “Is that a lot? I have the idea it’s a lot.”

  Sweet’s jaw dropped. “‘Bakoo shine o’ coin,’ as the Golders say. A fortune.”

  Sophie turned to the final page of the letter. Beneath Brawn’s signature was an agreement to negotiate—multiple choice: accept, decline, or amend—and a space for a signature.

  Sweet was still staring at the number.

  Sophie said, “Rustle up Mensalohm’s law clerk—his name’s Daimon—and have him check that, when I say no to this, I’m not breaking my oath or agreeing to anything else.”

  “Kir!” The messenger’s tone was sharp. “It’s unwise to deny a man like Brawn, especially as he’s shown you so much patience.”

  “How much would a killer usually go for?” Sophie said. “Does Isle of Gold routinely pay … bakoo shine, was it?… for condemned criminals?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Kir.”

  “Lidman has some value beyond mere revenge. Brawn wants him for a reason.”

  And I’m bringing him to Cly …

  No, I’m not. One way or another, I’m gonna wiggle out of it, if that luck spell Beatrice worked on me is good for anything.…

  “Sounds as though you might have something to discuss with His Honor after all.”

  “I’m not selling.”

  The girl wasn’t ready to give up. “There are ways, I am sure, to convert value here to currency … elsewhere. You are short of funds in a certain outland nation, are you not?”

  “That’s none of your business!”

  Daimon appeared, Krispos bustling in his wake, and took the pages, murmuring over the fine print. Sophie felt that bit of angst again. If she’d been able to learn the Fleet code of law, she wouldn’t need people to do all these things for her.

  Knowing it didn’t mean understanding it, she told herself. And I don’t want to be a lawyer.

  He handed each page, as he read it, to Krispos so that the memorician could absorb it.

  “You’re selling?” The clerk’s eyes widened. “Does this mean we’re not going to Sylvanna?”

  “I’m not selling,” she said. “Of course I’m not selling. You’re just reading it for—” The messenger pulled herself up, stiff, and Sophie bit back the word she’d meant to use: “traps.” “Anything I should know?”

  Daimon’s brow creased, making him look comically like a sad pre-Raphaelite lute player. Was he disappointed?

  Sophie tried to pull herself together. “You’re doing me a huge favor here, I know that—”

  “Kir, you should reconsider,” the courier interrupted. “The funds would free you to do whatever you wished. You could give up chasing after government work and simply explore the Nine Seas.”

  These people sure know a lot about me. “That would be so incredibly superfantastic, except for the part where I buy that freedom with someone else’s.”

  “He’s not free,” the girl said with contempt. Her accent got less extravagant when she was angry. “It would be bakoo grave error to even try to change that.”

  Sophie said: “You want to worry about something, ask yourself what happens when I figure out why Lidman’s so damned important to you.”

  The girl appeared to realize she had overstepped. “I’m just the messenger.”

  “Yeah, tell me that again.”

  “I’m—”

  “You’re not!” Now Sophie was the one losing her temper, and she couldn’t even have said why. This was just another minor functionary, dispatched by a government official, and why it was that all of these high-ranking Fleet people had made it their hobby to jerk Sophie around was beyond her. “I can see the family resemblance.”

  The girl sucked wind through clenched teeth. She might almost have been afraid.

  “You and Brawn have the same earlobes, and your jaw … Plus, your nails may be short now, but they have the same crosshatched fingernail polish. That’s like a clan tartan, isn’t it?”

  The messenger relaxed. “You’ve been studying Golder customs.”

  “What are you, Brawn’s granddaughter? His niece?”

  “The curious come to no good end, Kir,” she said.

  “I’m not selling Lidman. Not to the Golders or Ualtar or anyone else, for that matter. And I’m not going to take him back to Sylvanna and chain him to a plow. And, let’s see, what else am I not going to do?”

  “Behead him?” she suggested.

  “No! And I’m definitely not turning him over to His Honor the duelist bleeping adjudicator—”

  “If you think the Sylvanners are going to permit you to loose a murderer in the Autumn District like some kind of wild stoat—”

  “I thought you were just the messenger.”

  “Are you accusing me of dishonesty?”

  “Sophie. Kir.” Sweet put a hand on her arm and whispered, “This verges on blood feud.”

  Sophie turned to the rail, unfisting her hands, making herself breathe. “Daimon, can I sign that form?”

  He had been waiting, watchful and silent. Now he nodded. “Do you have a pen?”

  Right. Stop arguing with the pirate king’s fourth cousin twice removed, get her off the ship, and deal with what actually mattered. Sophie put an X in the No box, in duplicate, wrote her name with shaking hands, and handed it back. “Are we done? Can the nice and exceedingly honorable courier who’s in no way offended by me leave now?”

  “Oui, I’ll go,” the girl said.

  “Fantastic.” Sophie handed over a copy of the signed pages. “Thank the convenor for the information he sent, and tell him, you know … no to the rest.”

  “Give Lidman a message from Crew Brawn: there’s nothing ahead for him but sorrow and torment unless he cedes himself to us.” The girl raised her voice, addressing everyone on deck. “Anyone who tries to intervene in this doom will sup woe with the murderer.”

  “Okay, now your welcome’s totally worn out,” Sophie said.

  “Let me see you to your ship,” Daimon said, all politeness, whisking the messenger aft and handing her up to the rails so she could scamper down a rope ladder to a waiting taxi.

  Teeth, teeth, teeth! Sophie opened her notebook, jotting a few quick lines about the encounter.

  “Are you all right?” Sweet said.

  “Brawn’s people know I’m broke,” Sophie s
aid. “At home, I mean. You heard her say that, right?”

  “About converting their gold to outland money? I heard. So?”

  “It’s evidence. That they’re involved in some break-ins back at my parents’. Evidence, as opposed to supposition, see? And you witnessed it.”

  “I’ll log my having overheard it.” Sweet nodded. “There’s the captain.”

  Garland was perched in a skiff from Docket, a black-clad speedboat propelled by something dark and squidlike below the surface. Across from him was Lidman, whose hands were encased in their red carapaces.

  They pulled up alongside Nightjar, and Tonio directed a crew to lower a boat, the better to raise them to the rail without Lidman having to climb.

  Garland assisted him, expression unreadable.

  He thinks I’m a terrible person for taking this on, and he doesn’t even know the worst of it.

  “Captain Parrish,” she said, voice raised and a little formal, as he stepped onto the main deck, taking in the crowd.

  She searched his face. Was he repelled? Proud? Angry?

  “There are rather a lot of people aboard.”

  “Yes, and we so have to talk about that.” Privately, Sophie tried thinking, So come with me, will you?

  Maybe Beatrice’s final spell had made her telepathic.

  Garland seemed to get the idea … or perhaps he read her not-too-subtle expression. “Beal, show Kir Lidman to the guest cabin.”

  Kev held up his goo-encased hands. “Might someone break me out of these?”

  Garland winced, and looked to Sophie. “It is, of course, your decision. But Kir Lidman should, perhaps, remain cuffed.”

  Oh, this was going to be a nightmare, wasn’t it?

  She said, “I’m not that comfortable with, you know, keeping some guy in chains in the hold.”

  “The accident of your contractual relationship aside,” Garland said, “Kir Lidman is a convicted murderer. You’re doing him a kindness, but we oughtn’t to take unnecessary risks.”

  His tone was gentle.

  He doesn’t! He doesn’t think I’m a terrible person, oh thank the Seas.…

  “I killed slave smugglers,” Lidman said. “Terrible people. And I’m standing right here.”

  His voice was a little strangled, and he was sweating. Sophie frowned. He looked afraid. Had he believed she might sell him?

  “Okay, rule one: we won’t talk about you as if you aren’t present. But the captain is right,” Sophie said. “You’re not exactly some helpless bunny. You cut the heart out of one of those corpses to do that spell against Sawtooth. It was only luck the salt frights didn’t kill any of the cadets aboard—and they weren’t finished with puberty, let alone smuggling anything.”

  “The crew of a Sylvanner ship—” he said.

  “Fleet cadets,” she corrected.

  “And you attacked Kir Sophie,” Garland said softly.

  The vibe on deck changed in that instant. She could feel Sweet, Beal, and the others reassessing the tubby, ill-shaven spellscribe.

  “You will be treated gently and with respect,” Garland said. “But make no mistake—you’re not among friends here.”

  Frights, she thought. Salt frights at sea. Wood frights sinking ships in the Fleet. The trial minutes from the salt fright cases, stolen from the exhibits locker …

  Kev hung his head. “The carapaces come to hurt, after a while. As they harden—I think one of my fingers might be dislocated.”

  “What?” Sophie said. “Garland, if his hand’s broken—”

  Garland put a hand on Sophie’s arm. “Tonio, find Watts and ask him to have a look at the prisoner, will you?”

  She tried to draw him farther away from Lidman, toward the bow. It wouldn’t do to get Kev’s hopes up … Even if it were possible to free him, should she?

  How can I not? I can’t just own him.

  Her teeth came together in a click. She would find her way through this, she would. At core it was just another snarl of red tape; all she needed was the patience to detangle it.

  Garland followed her willingly enough, but their path took them past Krispos, who took the opportunity to wiggle in with a bow. “Pleasure to see you again, Captain.”

  Garland nodded gravely.

  They were just about out of earshot. Watts had sat Lidman down on a low bench and was bent over his hands, the two of them conversing in low voices.

  Just tell him.

  “You remember when we were on Sylvanna before … it was the end of summer?”

  “Of course,” Garland said.

  “I had that sash and papers that said I was a foreign adult.”

  “Yes.”

  “Thanks to Cly, I’m not a foreigner anymore, and—”

  “Watch your heads, Kirs!” A taxikite swooped overhead. Folding its immense wings with a practiced jerk, the kite’s pilot dropped down onto the deck about a yard from the two of them. She bowed. “Captain!”

  … And opened the passenger basket to let out Bram.

  Okay, this was good—it meant she’d only have to explain herself once. Sophie gestured urgently. Come here, come here! But Bram turned to pay the taxikite pilot, and his gaze was traveling down Nightjar’s main deck, where something Watts was doing had elicited an indignant “Ouch!” from Lidman.

  “Bram! Over here!”

  Bram shook Tonio’s hand and exchanged hugs with Beal. His eye lit on Daimon, with his glorious red-gold hair and tight breeches. Standing straighter, Bram smoothed his shirt. “New crewman?”

  “Bram—”

  “Oh. He’s not the guy you own, is he?”

  “What?”

  “That individual would be the prisoner,” Garland said, pointing at Kev and using his prissy voice. “The one who threatened your sister.”

  “Oh.” Slight deflation in Bram. “Have you figured out what you’re going to do with him?”

  “Yes. Maybe.” Bram’s voice had carried—she could see Lidman’s posture change. He was straining to listen. “Look, we three should talk about it in the galley or something. Can we go down?”

  Lidman leaped to his feet. “I’d like to hear this. I think I have—”

  “A right?” Sweet’s voice had a razor edge.

  Kev kept his gaze locked on Sophie’s. “This is how it’ll be, is it? Whispered conferences about what to do with the slave?”

  “We’re using the word ‘murderer,’” she said. “Or ‘prisoner.’ I like ‘prisoner.’ All in favor of ‘prisoner,’ say…” She foundered; they didn’t say “Aye” here.

  “Lock me up, bind my hands, use me to bait the butterfish nets—”

  “Don’t you even try to guilt trip her,” Bram said. “She’s saving your life, remember?”

  “Attempting to manipulate Kir Sophie’s abhorrence for the Sylvanner custom of bondage…” Garland agreed.

  “Guys, I can stick up for myself here. And don’t pile on him. It makes me…”

  “Feel guilty?” Tonio said. “Sophie, you mustn’t let this man manipulate you.”

  “Seas! Don’t pile on me either, okay?”

  “If he’s this much trouble, perhaps you should sell him after all,” Daimon said.

  “Sell?” Bram said.

  Daimon said, “Isle of Gold offered—”

  “I’m sorry, Kir,” Garland interrupted. “And you are…?”

  “Wait,” Sophie said. “Everybody wait.”

  But it was too late. Daimon had drawn himself up and said, in his smooth-as-Scotch manly tenor, “I’m Kir Sophie’s fiancé.”

  CHAPTER 16

  The legal issue was simple enough. Sophie wasn’t an adult, on Sylvanna, unless she was married. And she couldn’t free Lidman if she was legally a child.

  “Being engaged is a transitional state,” she explained. “Two engaged ‘kids’ make one adult. As long as Daimon and I both sign off on the paperwork, we can, between us, let Lidman go.”

  To her vast relief, Bram didn’t look as though he thought she w
as in need of an MRI or a room filled with soft objects and pastel-clad caregivers. “So you’re not actually going to—”

  Daimon interrupted. “If either Kir Sophie or I said we didn’t mean to marry, we’d be publicly stating intent to commit fraud. Any of you could be called into court to say the engagement was…”

  “A sham?”

  “We’re definitely not saying we won’t get married,” Sophie said. “That’s our story. Nudge nudge, wink wink.”

  “Gee, congratulations,” said Bram.

  Garland hadn’t come out with a word since Daimon introduced himself. He stood, rooted to the deck, looking as if someone had belted him one across the face.

  “Parrish? Garland…”

  She must have looked like she was going to reach for him; he drew back a hair. “We can’t go to Sylvanna without a citizen adult,” he said. “You’re skirting the edge of oath breaking, but it is a feasible plan.”

  She bit her lip. “I’d meant to tell you—”

  “Feasible, yes.” He walked past her to the captive spellscribe, Lidman. “How are his hands, Watts?”

  “No broken bones here, Captain.”

  Lidman, obviously, had heard the whole exchange. He gave her a dazzled-looking smile. “Kir Sophie, your generosity of spirit—”

  “Don’t thank me,” she said. “You’ve put me in a rotten position, and getting us out of it will require strings. Big, sticky ones.”

  “I understand.”

  “Watts, can you take those things off him?” Sophie said.

  The doctor glanced at the captain, confirming that it was okay.

  Garland nodded.

  Humbrey, the elder of the two Watch guards, coughed. “Where will he be kept?”

  It was a chance to get out of everyone’s sight, however briefly. Sophie led Humbrey aft and then down a ladder. The smaller guest cabins were at the rear of the ship, nestled behind the crew quarters and galley, opposite Garland’s and Verena’s larger cabins, up at the fore.

  The guest cabin had been stripped of every possible amenity—writing materials, artwork. Nothing but bare walls, a few blankets, and a wooden bowl of water. It was the only cabin in which the bulkheads couldn’t be shifted, the only one that could be locked from outside. It therefore did double duty as a brig, when need arose.