The Nature of a Pirate

by A. M. Dellamonica

  The slick of amniotic by-products and detritus on the surface of the water swirled and disappeared, drawn down by a vortex of water. The net from Nightjar was suddenly pristine, no longer entangled with vine and flower.

  Wood chips flew out of the ocean and reassembled themselves on the outer hull of the pirate ship. A splinter in Sophie’s hand ripped itself free, likewise making for the hull, managing to hurt without leaving a mark on her skin.

  “The hell?” She felt sore, winded, as if someone had punched her in the diaphragm. Her nose was bleeding again.

  “Reversion,” Garland said. “They tore up the inscription to keep the fright from damaging the ship too badly.”

  “Why?”

  “Sawtooth. She’s almost in cannon range. Come, we have to get to Kev.”

  The lifeboat with Kev in it had been puttering along, getting steadily—if none too subtly—away from the scene of the fight. Now, though, it was dead in the water, adrift in a puddle of blood.

  They swam hard to catch it, ducking up under the lifeboat. Kev was beneath, his hands still bound in white ribbon. His fingers, crabbed together, were wound into Selwig’s collar, holding his head above water.

  The Watch officer was gasping up little sprays of blood.

  “Sophie, your light.”

  Sophie fumbled with the switch as Garland unbuttoned the young officer’s coat. Crimson diffused into the seawater from two wounds in his abdomen: one in the left side, just under his ribs, the other a little lower down and closer to the center of his belly.

  “He’s hit his head,” she said. Bruising was spreading from his left eye to his ear. “Kev, what happened?”

  “There was an oddity,” Kev gasped. Keeping Selwig afloat had exhausted him. “Big, black, reptilian.”

  “Where’s Daimon?”

  “Oddity bit him,” he huffed. “Dragged him down.”

  “Daimon’s dead?” She remembered the reptile oddity she had encountered on a previous dive. It had tried to twist her leg off.

  “They wanted you?” Garland demanded, in the same instant. He pressed a handful of white fabric to the higher of the two wounds.

  “Neht,” groaned Selwig, opening his eyes.

  Did that mean no? “Daimon’s not dead?” Sophie asked. “Or they didn’t want Kev?”

  Of course they wanted Kev. What else could they want?

  In the lambent blue light cast by her LED lamp, Selwig looked gray-green. He fish-gasped a few times, letting out intermittent nonsense words—in Cardeshi, she assumed.

  “Wait. Was that ‘fingerprint’?” she asked. “Print who?”

  “Battoh,” he rasped. “Daimon gref sareen—latents, yeh battoh.”

  “Daimon? Is Daimon dead?”

  “Kev, Kev senna—”

  “Kev’s fine,” Sophie said. “And Sawtooth’s here. You can tell us everything once we get you to the infirmary.”

  She tried to ignore the look on Garland’s face, the one that hinted that Selwig wasn’t going to make it that far, even if a reptilian oddity didn’t show up to Jaws them into snack food.

  The big Watchman’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You should behead him now. For everyone’s sake.”

  Sophie felt a rush of relief. If he was speaking Fleet again, maybe he wasn’t so badly hurt. “Come on,” she said, trying to keep her tone light. “If you believed that, why not let them take Kev?”

  “Same oath. As you.” With that, Selwig’s eyes rolled back and he lost consciousness.

  Garland had been about to tear off one of his shirtsleeves to make a compress for the second stab wound, but now he pressed two fingers to Selwig’s throat, checking his pulse. “I’m sorry. He’s died.”

  I was responsible for him, Sophie thought. I taught him dactyloscopy and treated him badly and left him sleeping in the corridor outside Kev’s cabin.

  After a minute, Kev asked, meekly, “Did you sink the immolator?”

  “Sinking a ship is no small thing,” Garland said, tone sharp. With his hair wet and slicked against his head, he had an uncharacteristically vulnerable appearance. He was treading water in an armored, focused way that spoke of great fatigue or pain.

  Grief. For Nightjar. Selwig dead and the ship sunk.

  “Do you know our position?” she said. “I mean, do you know where the ship went down?”

  “Yes.” If there was a spark of hope in Garland, she couldn’t see it. He unfolded Selwig’s massive hand, untangling the white spellscrip-marked ribbon from his grasp, and passed Sophie the makeshift leash.

  “I’ll check Sawtooth’s position,” he said, ducking under the boat, leaving them in suffocating silence with the corpse. He was only gone a minute. “It’s all right. The immolator is in retreat. His Honor’s crew is picking up our lifeboats.”

  They swam clear of the wooden lifeboat and Sophie yanked the painter cord that triggered the inflatable raft Garland had packed. Two gas canisters triggered with a loud hiss, and Kev shrieked.

  Poor guy. His nerves must be shot. “It’s okay, Kev. It’s just a balloon. You can climb in in a second.”

  They helped Kev into the inflatable first. Garland winced as he climbed in.

  “Are you hurt?” she asked.

  “Hawkwasp had magical countermeasures on her main deck,” he said. “My feet are burnt, through my boots. It’s why I jumped so quickly.”

  “Oh, Garland. I’m so sorry. Is it bad?” Her stash of antibiotics was … She wasn’t sure what had happened to her things.

  It was probably all underwater. Her cameras. Her clothes. Bram’s equipment. The enormity of it hit her again. It wasn’t just the ship, or even the stuff within. Nightjar had been home to two dozen people.

  “There’s Blue,” Garland said. The ship’s half-snake, half-ferret oddity floated past in a mixing bowl.

  “Stay,” she ordered, skinning off her tanks, handing over Kev’s leash, and diving into the ocean. It felt good to save something.

  She pushed the bowl back to the inflatable.

  Garland took the transformed ferret in his arms, stroking both of its heads at once.

  Treading water, Sophie took a look around. The wooden lifeboat was drifting away. She dove out again, towed it to the inflatable, and had Garland fix a line to it. Then the three of them wrestled Selwig’s massive body onto the life raft. It was slow work; he was a blocky guy, and the sea seemed determined to suck him down.

  “I don’t think there’s anything else to save,” Garland said, offering her a hand into the boat.

  “No.”

  It would be a while before Sawtooth rescued them. She turned her attention to the body.

  “What are you doing?” Kev said.

  “External exam.” She had Selwig’s left hand spread in front of her. There were three cuts: one that had cleft the pad of his middle finger, another in the web between thumb and index finger, and a third on the side, about where hand became wrist. “Tell me about this lizard, Kev.”

  A long pause as his mouth worked open and shut. “Big. Black.”

  “Teeth?”

  He looked down at Selwig’s hand. Swallowed. “It had a knife.”

  “What is it?” Garland said.

  She’d thought she might catch Kev in a lie there. She’d have to double check, but the cuts were, she was pretty sure, defensive wounds, more fitting a blade than a mouthful of teeth.

  “Knife cuts,” she said.

  Garland nodded, indicating the bloodied jacket, now shut but not rebuttoned, over Selwig’s stab wounds. “Those too, I think.”

  “He kept me behind him as he fought,” Kev said before curling up like a kid, arms wrapped loosely around knees, in an apparent sulk.

  Same oath as you, Selwig had said.

  An open boat was no place to perform an autopsy, even if she’d been qualified. She and Garland sat alongside the body, with Kev as far from them as he could get. They all waited in a silent funk of their own thoughts until Sawtooth came to haul them out of the water.<
br />
  Last time Sophie had been aboard her father’s sailing vessel, it had been crewed by cadets—tenners and niners still learning to sail, some as young as fourteen. Now the people who came to load them aboard were adults—duelists, presumably—muscled, fit, and serious. They lashed the inflatable to the side of their wooden rescue craft and transferred Sophie, with Kev. She barely managed to grab her tanks in time.

  It was perhaps two hours since Nightjar had sunk.

  They came aboard without fanfare, brought up on deck, where the rest of the crew, and the canola crow, Uhura, were waiting.

  She turned a slow circle, switching Kev’s ribbon from hand to hand as she looked around the deck. Where was Cly?

  They had been running flat out for sixteen hours, maybe more, scrambling first to save the ship and then to scuttle her. Sending messages, moving loads …

  … Getting Bram back to civilization. Losing Selwig. And …

  She looked, without much hope, in case Daimon had been found, brought aboard.

  No. So much for avoiding misfortune.

  Beatrice only protected me against casual misfortune.

  This was usually the point where she started bawling, wasn’t it? She didn’t feel like crying. She felt burned and tired, shakily furious at Kev and, most of all, terribly in the wrong. Tainted.

  She was a calamity. A charming, magically prettified calamity who destroyed everything in her path.

  “No sign of Daimon?” Garland said. He was perched on a deck stool, sliding off his burned boots under Watts’s eye. The bottoms of his wool socks were stained with red and wet with fluid, presumably from broken blisters.

  Behind him, Krispos had already found himself a book and was turning its pages as he shivered in a blanket. He had his body half turned, avoiding the sight of three Sawtooth deckhands as they hefted Selwig aboard, wrapped in a bloody shroud.

  “Hawkwasp is making herself scarce, I see.”

  Cly’s voice made her startle. He’d come right up behind Kev.

  Garland would have stood, if Watts hadn’t right then all but grabbed his foot.

  “Your Honor. We’re in your debt.”

  “Yes,” Cly agreed. He was looking at Sophie.

  Okay, what do you do now? She pulled herself upright and saw him take in her wetsuit with a frown. “Cly,” she said.

  “The proper form of address in these cases would be ‘Father.’”

  Great. He’s determined to make this difficult. “Propriety’s not my strong suit.”

  “True. Quarters, what are you doing? Help Captain Garland and the other wounded down to the infirmary.”

  There was a flurry of activity as Watts established his credentials and directed the sailors, who transferred Garland into an improvised sling made of sail.

  Sophie used the time to try to pull herself together. She’d messed up, before, by failing to fully listen to Cly. By attending to the wrong things. The whole of Nightjar’s crew could be in trouble if she dropped her guard now.

  Calamity, she thought again. She tightened her grip on the ribbon—the symbolic leash—that bound Kev’s hands.

  Cly was waiting, patiently, no doubt reading every flicker of emotion on her too-open face.

  Start with gratitude. “We appreciate the assistance.”

  “Do you?” He broke into a smile. “You’ll have an opportunity to enjoy our hospitality. Where are you bound?”

  “Sylvanna,” she said. “As you know.”

  He affected mock surprise. “I’ve not been made privy to your plans, child. Unless some letter of yours has gone astray—”

  “Don’t call me child.” She didn’t have energy for cat and mouse right now.

  “I think having our relationship on a traditional parent-child footing for a time might be for the best,” he said. “All the customs and proprieties. Speaking of which…” He turned, taking a close look at Kev, who scooched back to the rail. “I’ll be taking custody of—”

  “Oh, you will not! He’s…” She shuddered and made herself say it: “Mine.”

  “This is a Sylvanner ship, Sophie, and you are a dependent minor of Sylvanna, Sophie. Our law is clear.”

  “I’m not a dependent anything,” she snapped. “I’m…”

  “Yes?”

  Daimon the fake fiancé was gone. Dragged under by the knife-wielding monster, Kev had said. She’d gotten him killed, just like Selwig. And Bram had liked him.

  “Yes?” Cly repeated. He had Kev’s symbolic leash between two of his fingers. His expression was thoroughly predatory.

  She didn’t owe Kev anything. He’d gone into terrorism on his own. He was hiding something.

  Behead him now, Selwig had said.

  “It’s all right,” Kev said. “You did the best you could. There was never any—”

  To stall, she said to Cly, “You wanted this all along, didn’t you? You engineered this situation so you could maneuver Kev back to Low Bann, I guess, and compel him to tell you all his secrets.…”

  “You are what, daughter?” He tugged the ribbon—a light tug, like someone teasing a cat.

  Can’t free Kev without a fiancé handy. Two engaged kids make one adult. Nothing else I can do, just have to hope. Can I claim the pirates have Daimon, but we’re still …

  “Engaged,” she said. “I’m engaged.”

  “Indeed? Congratulations. To whom, pray?”

  She swallowed. “To Captain Parrish.”

  CHAPTER 27

  SOFE,

  MADE IT HOME. SWINGING BY THE PARENTS’ HOUSE TO CHECK SECURITY CAMERAS, SEE HOW IT’S GOING WITH THE NEW PUPPY, AND ATTEMPT HOME PROTECTION INSCRIPTION. THEN VERENA AND I ARE MEETING THIS VERDANII COP/SPY/WHATEVER, FEDONA. LET ME KNOW YOU’RE NOT DEAD OR I’M COMING RIGHT BACK. CAN’T BELIEVE I LEFT YOU ON A SINKING SHIP. WHAT WAS I THINKING? WORRIED.

  BRAM

  Sophie was saved from an immediate, awkward interrogation when Sweet interposed herself between them. “Actually, Your Honor, our doctor has asked for Sophie to join Parrish in the infirmary.”

  “The man’s a little scorched. He hardly requires a bedside vigil.”

  “We’re sentimental aboard Nightjar,” the bosun insisted. “Cap’n just lost his ship. Kir Sophie would be a definite comfort.”

  A narrowing of eyes, and then Cly conceded the point. “Let’s all go, shall we?”

  “Not all,” Sophie said, gesturing madly at Krispos and handing over the white ribbon, along with temporary responsibility for Kev. “Don’t let anyone … you know … clap him in irons.”

  The memorician gave her a pat that was probably meant to be reassuring.

  “Coming, child?”

  She swallowed. Why had she lied? What if Garland didn’t play along?

  “Sophie?”

  “Coming.” She had been aboard Sawtooth before. Now, with Cly right behind her, she headed down to the infirmary, following the same route through the ship that she’d taken just after she rescued Kev, so many months earlier. The infirmary was a cramped box, three beds and little in the way of floor space. The air was dense with a nostril-tingling mixture of herbs and poultices. An extraordinary array of interlocking boxes was fixed to the walls, repository for remedies for everything from infectious cuts to whooping cough. Cly’s doctor managed to give her a bow as he looked over Garland’s feet, clucking. The socks were off; his soles were raw and seeping.

  “How bad is it?” Sophie asked.

  “Superficial,” Watts said. “Looks worse than it is.”

  “No magic required,” the ship’s doctor agreed. He began spreading a yellowish goo that looked like mustard over the blisters.

  “We’re making more fuss than is required, I’m sure,” Garland said. His voice was distant. He was almost certainly feeling the loss of Nightjar more keenly than anything that was happening to his body.

  Sophie hunched next to him, on a low stool, guilt cascading from of every pore, wondering if she dared look him in the face.

  “Will Sawto
oth go after Hawkwasp?” she asked, trying to buy time. How could she tell Garland what was up?

  Garland shook his head. “We’re on course for Sylvanna, I believe. Your Honor?”

  “Indeed we are,” Cly said. “Sophie needs a new name, and quickly.”

  One of his aides had turned up, carrying a folded bundle of clothes that Sophie recognized as a sports suit for women—the Sylvanner equivalent of jeans and a shirt.

  Cly continued, “My captain, Beck, has messaged the South Sylvan navy. They’ll catch your immolator, if they can.”

  Garland nodded.

  “I suppose congratulations are in order,” Cly added.

  “Congratulations?” Garland said.

  “I told him we’re engaged!” Sophie blurted, in a completely upbeat, perky, not-at-all-a-calamity voice.

  Teeth, I sound like I’m on a reality show.

  She had picked the one person on Stormwrack who was crappier at lying than she was.

  Garland held her gaze for what seemed like twenty years. Her face heated—her whole body heated, the embarrassment so intense that she might have dried off through her wetsuit.

  Finally, Garland inclined his head in an approximation of the Fleet bow. “Your Honor. This wasn’t quite how I imagined … But. We would be grateful for your blessing.”

  “Seas! You’re asking his permission?”

  “I should be glad you chose someone who’ll take the trouble to be polite, given your significant deficits in this area,” Cly said.

  “Thanks very much, Cly.” She was weak with relief.

  “Sadly, I must decline to approve of your choice.” Cly held the clothing out. “Would you kindly go change? That … thing … is indecent.” He gestured at her wetsuit, and then a hatch.

  “You should’ve seen the wood fright,” she muttered. But what the hell. The room was a broom closet for medical stuff. She’d be able to hear them.

  Of course, Cly knew that. He said something in a low voice to Garland in … was it Sylvanner? Did Garland speak Sylvanner?

  No, she decided, as Garland replied in kind. It’s Verdanii. Of course Cly speaks Verdanii; he married one. Why couldn’t I end up in Narnia? Or some other nice, Eurocentric world where even the animals speak English?