Beggar's Flip

by Benny Lawrence

  Lynn

  I THINK THAT Milo’s messenger expected me to cry, or something. Joke was on him. I never did that in front of men.

  I stared down at Regon’s body where it lay on the Banshee’s deck, taking in the details, one by one. The body was still dressed in shirt and breeches, but it was barefoot, so someone must have stolen his boots. The stump of his neck was ragged, as if his head had been hacked off, rather than sliced. His head lay alongside the body, its skin the colour of week-old biscuits, tinged with olive green.

  Flies were buzzing around the nostrils. I knelt to brush them away. The deck of the Banshee rocked beneath us: a strong wind, what would have been a good running wind, if we had the option of running away.

  I breathed in, breathed out, and read Milo’s letter again.

  Dear Lynn:

  I can already tell that the two of us have much in common.

  That being the case, I feel like I should begin with some kind of pleasantry, something like “I wish we’d met under different circumstances.” But neither of us is the type to beat around the bush. So. Here’s what I have to say, in the bluntest words possible.

  I need money. You have money. I have your sister and your lover. You don’t want them dead.

  You are going to pay me ten thousand gold royals. You will do this fast, because until you do it, Darren won’t eat. She’ll last a little while—I hear that she has some practice when it comes to going hungry—but it would be inadvisable to dawdle.

  You will bring the gold straight to the lighthouse at the southernmost tip of the Isle. You will not approach any other part of the island, including the main dock. If I see a red sail within ten miles of the harbour, then your sister will die screaming.

  Once you have delivered the money, we will discuss terms for the release of your people.

  I trust that you will govern yourself accordingly.

  Yours faithfully,

  Milo

  Master of the Free Isle

  I crumpled the letter in one fist and looked up at the messenger. He was starting to look nervous, which meant that he wasn’t entirely stupid. He’d been smirking when he first clambered onto the Banshee’s deck. No longer. Maybe he’d seen murder in my face. Maybe he’d seen it in Spinner’s.

  Spinner. He was beside me, staring at Regon’s body, his eyes stone, his face stone. I didn’t touch his hand, or show any other sign of gentleness. Better to focus on the banal aftermath of a murder: the cleaning up.

  “We need to sew him into his hammock before the funeral,” I said. “Can you cope, or should I ask someone else to handle it?”

  “Piss off.”

  Roughly translated, that meant, “If you think I am going to let anyone other than me do this one last thing for Regon, you are batshit crazy, and if anyone else tries to touch him, I will break their fingers like breadsticks.”

  So I stepped out of his way, and he headed for the forecastle to fetch Regon’s hammock. Once he’d sewed the body into its shroud, we’d give Regon to the ocean, where his parents and twin brother and at least eleven cousins were already at rest. I hoped that Spinner, at least, would find some comfort in that thought, even if I couldn’t.

  Everyone has a well of strength right down in the deepest part of their soul, a place too deep for doubt or confusion to reach. It’s raw, that strength, and it’s harsh and it’s elemental, and it’s what sustains you when everything else is ripped away. Some people, like Darren, have fire down there, but people like me have ice, and the more desperate we are, the colder and harder we turn.

  As I returned my attention to Milo’s messenger, I felt the change happening, a rime of frost settling all over my skin.

  “Start again,” I said. “Tell me again exactly what Milo wants from me. And while you’re doing that, a word to the wise? There are a whole lot of people on this ship who want to hurt you. If you can’t wipe that smile off your face, I might let them. Hell, I might help them heat up the irons and find the hungriest rats. I’m hardly an angel to begin with, and you’ve caught me on a very bad day.”

  ABOUT TWELVE HOURS went by between the moment when Ariadne choked me senseless on the shore, and the moment when Milo’s messenger arrived at the Banshee with Regon’s body. I can’t claim that they were the worst twelve hours of my life, but still, I’d rather douche with lye than relive them.

  Here’s how that twelve hours went.

  First five minutes: Still unconscious. The only good part of the night.

  Next five minutes: Splinters of awareness, shreds of the world coming back. Rushing wind, creaking oars; hard drops of briny spray hitting my tongue and teeth. I must have known, even in my stupor, that something had just gone terribly wrong, because disconnected words kept tumbling through my brain: Ariadne. Idiot. Stupid damn nobles. Oh shit.

  Next half hour: Woke up, wished I hadn’t. Head not just pounding but pulsing with pain, the ache a thick sticky liquid that throbbed in my veins and coated my eyes. Sat on a thwart, gripping my head in both hands, in the middle of a mob of small children. Tried not to notice the children crying, whining, puking, or pissing. Failed, miserably.

  Tried equally hard not to notice that Latoya was talking to me. I managed this for a while, because her remarks weren’t all that interesting—pretty much just Lynn do you hear me Lynn talk to me Lynn snap the hell out of it Lynn, over and over and over. But she kept getting louder and louder and then she sent one of the kids over to poke me in the ribs. I did a quick calculation and decided that it would take more effort to keep ignoring her than it would to answer.

  I asked, “What the hell is it, Latoya?”

  Silence. I squinted at her through the haze of wan moonlight and mist.

  She was . . . well, no, she wasn’t crying, not exactly. She was taking short gulpy breaths and hissing the air out through her teeth. For a normal human being, that would have been a sign of extreme exhaustion. But Latoya was a person who considered a ten mile run to be just a warm-up for a fifty mile run, and who thought a fifty mile run was a warm-up for another fifty mile run, this time uphill while carrying a sandbag on each shoulder.

  She was off her game, and that meant the situation was seven steps beyond bad.

  Imagine being out for a swim and feeling a sharp tug on your leg, just below the knee. Then the water begins to turn warm and red all around you, and a dark shape is moving in the depths beneath, as you realize that you can’t feel your right foot anymore. That’s the kind of fear and panic that sluiced through me that second as I remembered what had happened that night. We’d already lost so much, and it had only just begun.

  FOR THE HOUR after that, I was no use at all. I spent the time dwelling on a few obvious and unhelpful thoughts, like how my head hurt like hell, and how Darren might already be dead, and how maybe it had been a mistake to take just about everyone that I loved in the world and assemble them all on one pirate ship.

  At last, Latoya told me to take the rudder. Or, more accurately, she told me for the thousandth time to take the rudder, and I was too tired to keep on ignoring her. My head throbbed worse than ever when I opened my eyes to the streaky dawn light, so I steered blind, jerking the tiller whenever Latoya yelled a direction.

  But Latoya was rowing, so her back was to the boat’s bow, so she couldn’t see where we were headed unless she twisted right around. So she kept telling me to open my eyes, and I kept growling at her in answer. She lost patience for maybe the first time ever and reached over to shake my arm, and I bit her. And then there was a certain amount of swearing on both sides.

  “Pull yourself together, Lynn,” Latoya said, once we ran out of curses. “I do not have time to babysit you while you fall apart. If you get in my way when I’m trying to fix this, I will get you out of the way, fast.”

  She was so tightly wound, just an anguished knot of pain and terror. Maybe, I thought, that meant I shouldn’t take her threats seriously. Maybe, I thought, it meant that I really, really should.

  AFTER A FEW t
housand years on the cramped longboat, we found the Banshee, or the Banshee found us. One or the other. I wasn’t coherent enough to care about little details like that. There was a lot of shouting back and forth, and a lot of ropes being thrown around. Somehow, I ended up on deck, with Spinner leaning over me, sponging the salt from my mouth with a wet rag.

  The first word out of his mouth was, “Regon?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, sitting up gingerly and wincing at the sunlight. “Ariadne had herself a good binge on stupid juice and decided it would be fun to get us all killed. Then she thought she might as well double down on the stupid, so she took Latoya and me out of play.”

  “Latoya told me. Do you know what happened to Regon?”

  “All I know is that as of right now, Regon’s the only one on Isle who has a working brain.”

  “The captain’s there too.”

  “I stand by my assessment. Darren’s playing hero right now. You know how she gets. Where’s Latoya? We need to huddle and think of a way to unfuck this turd of a situation.”

  “Latoya’s arming up. There are sails heading our way from the southwest. Could be coming from the Isle.” He pointed to two square white blots sitting on the horizon. “Latoya wants to be ready for violence when they get here, in case they have plans other than giving us all great big hugs. I think she’s missing the obvious explanation, though . . . it could be the captain and Regon, couldn’t it?”

  The hope in his voice was painful to hear. I pressed his shoulder, and we waited together for bad news.

  “ONCE AGAIN,” I said to Milo’s messenger. “The fuckwit you call your leader—”

  “The Master of the Free Isle—”

  “Whatever. He wants me to bring him ten thousand gold royals . . . and then what happens?”

  “Then he releases your people. He explained all this in his letter. I thought you could read.”

  “He didn’t say he’d release them. He said that he would think about it. He’s not going to give me any kind of guarantee?”

  “If you don’t like it, you can always piss off in the other direction. Go spend some time getting hammered at the Freemarket. Buy a monkey. But you’re not going to, are you?”

  I was tempted to bluff, to say something along the lines of, You know what? That’s a splendid idea. Tell Darren goodbye for me; I’m off to the monkey store. But there on the deck beside me was Regon’s corpse, proof that Milo was the sort of man it wasn’t safe to test.

  “Oh, you’re not leaving?” The messenger smirked. “Well, then, you have your orders. Go on, little girl. Fetch.”

  It’s pathetic when some stupid amateur pretends to be in control of a situation, not realizing that he’s in far over his head.

  “Can I ask a quick question before I scamper off?” I said. “Why does Milo want you dead?”

  His smirk didn’t go away, not exactly, but it wavered. “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, come on. He sent you here to deliver the body of a murdered man to a bunch of people who loved him. You really think he expected you to come back?”

  He paused. I could almost hear the phrase Oh crap rolling around his mind, like a marble in an empty bowl. “He trusts me—”

  “He sent you to near-certain death to deliver a letter. Someone who does that to you is probably not your best friend in the whole wide world. If you want to get anywhere in politics, you have to learn to pick up on these subtle social cues.” I raised my voice. “Bind this man and take him below.”

  At least ten pirates perked up—they’d been waiting for a chance to do something violent—and tramped forwards.

  “No, wait!” the messenger blurted, sweaty palms upraised. “I’m an emissary, you can’t harm me—”

  “Says who?”

  “You’re breaking parlay!”

  “Yes, I suppose I am. And you’re a commoner who took up arms against your liege. Go ahead and tell some lord’s court what I did. See which of us gets whipped to death first.” I snapped my fingers. “Get him out of my sight.”

  “Should we kill him now?” one helpful sailor asked.

  “No. I’ll need to talk to him again. But feel free to make him extremely uncomfortable. Drop him on his head a few times. Insert spiky things into places where spiky things should not be. Get inventive.”

  They dragged him off, with a fair degree of enthusiasm. That meant that I didn’t have to look at his stupid sneering face anymore, which was nice, but it also meant I had no excuse to keep avoiding Latoya.

  She was up on the quarterdeck, doing a pretty fair impression of a volcano about to explode. You know that point when there’s no visible lava, but the earth swells and cracks and strains, and steam hisses up through the fissures.

  I headed for the steps up to the quarterdeck, because apparently I’d turned into one of those idiots who walk towards volcanic eruptions. Before I reached the stairs, a pudgy hand gripped my shoulder.

  The next thing I knew, I had a boy in a wristlock, twisting his arm until he yelped. It was the kid called Hark, tears standing in his eyes as he teetered there on tiptoe. I checked for weapons, found none, and let him go.

  “Why did you do that?” Hark said, hurt. He retrieved his hand and cradled it.

  “Do you make a habit of touching highly strung, heavily armed people? If so, maybe rethink. It’s going to get you into trouble one day.”

  “I need to ask you something.”

  “This is not the time to ask me for favours. My love of humankind is at an all-time low, and believe me, that is saying something.”

  “But this is important.” He was bright-eyed and flushed, like a healthy baby. “I’m Alek’s oldest son. If my lord uncle Konrad is dead, and Karel is dead . . . well, Konrad’s other sons haven’t come of age yet. Don’t you see?”

  “Don’t see, don’t care.”

  “I’m next in the line of succession.” He was leaning towards me in his eagerness, and his breath smelt of wet bread. “I am the lord of Torasan!”

  “Oh, like tits you are.”

  He gaped. “Aren’t you listening? I’m the rightful heir. You want to rescue my aunt Darren, don’t you? If you help me retake the Isle, then I can—”

  “You can . . . what? You can eat pie while we do all the actual work?”

  “I’m the true lord of the Isle,” he repeated, slower this time. “Without me, you can’t—”

  “Bollocks on toast. You’re not very good at reading the room, are you? Listen, Hark: you think you’re lord of Torasan. The shitgibbons who took over the Isle think you’re demon spawn. And me? I think you’re a kid on a boat.”

  The deck beneath us rolled as we crested over a wave. I barely noticed the gentle sloping, but Hark went staggering sideways, first to starboard, and then to port as we righted. His eyebrows furrowed, his shoulders hunched, and a shudder went through his whole body, knees to shoulders.

  I sighed, grabbed him by the back of his shirt, and ran him over to the leeward side of the ship. It was self-interest, not kindness. If he made a mess on the deck, I would have to clean it up and I was not. In. The. Mood.

  I got him draped over the side just before he was disastrously sick, then left him to it. For at least a few hours, he’d have better things to worry about than the line of succession.

  “SO,” I SAID to Latoya, as I stepped up to the quarterdeck. “Probably time to come up with a brilliant plan.”

  “You think?” She let go of the railing to wipe her face, and it left a crimson handprint behind. Both her hands were a mess of tattered skin and bloody bruises, after the long night of rowing. “You sure you don’t want to have another nap first? Maybe a snack?”

  Oh, fucknuts. “You want an apology? I’m sorry that I wasn’t at my best after my sister strangled me until I passed out.”

  “She did it to save you.”

  “I know that.”

  “As if you were the one who needed saving.” She stared off at some fixed point on the horizon, the way
Darren did when she was trying very hard not to explosively lose her shit. “If Ariadne’s still alive, she’s hanging by a thread.”

  “I know. So’s Darren. I doubt they’ll set her free even if we pay the ransom. She’s too valuable—”

  Latoya smashed her fist down on the rail with a shattering crack, and wood splinters flew.

  I jumped. I challenge you not to jump when someone of Latoya’s size starts breaking things near your head. It was her voice that scared me most, though—the rawness of it, every nerve exposed, just like her flayed and bloody hands.

  “Darren, Darren, Darren,” she said. “How about we talk about your sister? Can we do that for half a minute before we talk about the woman they’re not going to kill?”