Beggar's Flip

by Benny Lawrence

  The clapping was more scattered that time, but Spinner joined in it. “Do you have any idea what they’re up to?” he asked.

  There was no time to answer, because Darren cleared her throat. “All hail Latoya of the House of Elain!” And she started the applause when no one else would.

  “Well, it’s official,” Spinner said. “They’re all cracked in the head.”

  I rubbed my chest. I was aching there for some reason that made no sense at all. Now was a silly time to get emotional.

  Spinner sighed and gave my arm a squeeze. “Your romantic life is entirely too complicated. I’m going to stick to hairy men with sexy paunches. Now—the captain’s coming, so I’d better go look busy.”

  He slipped into the milling crowd just as Darren reached me. She was looking entirely too pleased with herself, so I had to smack her a few times.

  “What exactly was that?” I flicked her nose. “What was that meant to accomplish?”

  She rubbed her nose, but the smugness didn’t dim. “Had to send a message, didn’t we? A sign of a new beginning.”

  “A new house?”

  “A new kind of house. A house made up of people who choose it, rather than being born to it. Is that such a terrible idea?”

  “No.” I smacked her again anyway, just because. “I should have been consulted about the name, though. Sod Off would have been a brilliant house name. It rolls from the tongue.”

  “Too bad you blew it on a ship, then.”

  “But seriously, why name the house after my mother?”

  “Who else? This is really your mother’s victory. Isn’t this what she planned?”

  “ . . . how do you know what she planned?”

  “I know her daughter. And I recognize the tactics.” Darren linked her arm in mine, which I’m almost sure was a chivalrous gesture and not an attempt to forestall further smacking. “Your mother spent every moment she could with a lonely princess, teaching her about love and guilt and abuse and devotion. You’re going to tell me that there wasn’t a plan behind that? Your mother couldn’t protect you on your own, so she set out to create a person who could. She always planned for Ariadne to grow up into someone who would change the world for you.”

  My eyeballs got a bit hot, and I quickly squinted off into the distance—which, strangely enough, had gone misty. Somehow or other, we’d left the castle, Darren’s arm in mine as she guided me down the path. “Where are we going?”

  “Back to the Banshee. It’s all settled. Ariadne and Latoya and the rest will join us there tonight for dinner—Jess said she’d cook. But after dinner, I think we should get underway. I don’t want to sleep on this damn rock another night, and we shouldn’t waste the full moon.”

  What she didn’t say, what we both knew, was that the nightmares would matter less once we were at sea. Back on the Banshee, where we alone decided the limits of what was possible, we could run from our demons and stay at home together, fight for the old world and invent a new one, all at the same time.

  Dream a world with me, build a world with me, change the world with me, rule the world with me. It’s much the same thing, in the end.

  “Wind from the west,” said the pirate queen. “If it keeps up like this, I bet we can outrun the rain.”

  EPILOGUE

  FIVE YEARS LATER

  THE GALE OVER the Stormrock was whipping its way to a howling crescendo when the Banshee made port halfway through the night. Spinner, keeping vigil at the castle gatehouse, put another log on the fire while he waited. Twenty minutes later came the expected knock at the gatehouse door, and Darren staggered inside with Lynn on her back.

  Spinner inspected them gravely. “Should I ask?”

  “I lost a bet,” Darren said, bouncing on her toes to adjust her grip. “Lynn, you’re going to get off when we reach the stairs, right?”

  “And deprive you of the opportunity to grunt and strain and look sweaty and muscular in public?” Lynn clucked her tongue. “Come on, Mistress. I’m not that cruel.”

  “If I’d won—”

  “Against me? At koro? Please.”

  “Just out of curiosity, captain, what did you stand to win?” Spinner asked. “There must have been something pretty special on the table for you to go up against Lynn at koro, of all things.”

  Darren glowered. Lynn smirked. “You know her birthday’s coming up in three weeks?”

  “Of course.”

  “Let’s just say that there’s something she really doesn’t want to wait three weeks for. Where’s your boss?”

  At that moment, Ariadne came bursting into the gatehouse at full speed, barefoot, clad in a violet silk bathrobe. The thin folds of the robe fluttered as she ran, exposing a dangerous amount of thigh when she took the corners. At one point, she tripped on a flagstone and fell headlong, but she bounced up again without seeming to notice her skinned knees. Her eyes were wide and panicky, and, for no apparent reason, she was clutching a sandwich.

  “I told you we’d make it,” Lynn said. “How’s Latoya holding up?”

  Ariadne nodded frantically. “I THINK SHE’S FINE?”

  Lynn winced. “Does there need to be screaming?”

  “I’M SORRY!” Ariadne yelled. “I’M A LITTLE BIT EMOTIONAL!”

  She clutched her throat and shook her head, as if adjusting, then continued in a hoarse whisper. “Latoya’s contractions are about ten minutes apart. It’ll be a while before she’s ready to start pushing. I mean, I think? I haven’t done this in years, so what do I know, really? Maybe she’ll get sick of waiting and she’ll sort of clench, and the baby’ll pop out and go flying. Is that a thing that happens? Can babies survive being flung across the room? Maybe I should close the window. Put down some pillows?” She stared blankly at the sandwich in her hand. “How long have I been holding this?”

  “Let me take that, princess,” Darren said. She freed a hand and reached over. “Drop it. Drop it, I said. Ariadne, let go.”

  It took a bit of grappling and a slap or two, but Darren managed to pry the wadded clump of cheese and bread out of Ariadne’s clenched fist. “Has someone been trying to get you to eat?”

  Ariadne scrubbed at her face. “I suppose so. People keep telling me things. You have to go to bed, my lady. You have to get dressed, my lady. You have to get out of Latoya’s face before she goes into a howling rage, my lady. Everyone is so bossy this week.”

  “When did you last eat?” Darren asked patiently.

  “Um. I’m fairly sure I had lunch yesterday. When was yesterday?”

  “I’m so glad that the High Lady of Kila is facing this challenge with her usual equipoise.” Lynn slid down from Darren’s back. “I’ll make you dinner.”

  “THE MOTHER OF MY CHILD IS IN LABOUR—”

  “Volume, Ariadne.”

  “The mother of my child is in labour,” Ariadne whispered, starting again. “And you want me to go suck down soup?”

  “The mother of your child won’t thank you if you faint from malnutrition the identical second that she needs you to change a diaper. Darren . . . ?”

  “I’m on it. Come on, princess—let’s keep Latoya company while Lynn raids the kitchen. You can teach me how to destroy Lynn at koro, the next time I challenge her.”

  “For the last time, Darren, I may be a miracle worker, but even I have my limits.”

  Lynn waited until their bickering voices disappeared down the hall before she flicked a glance at Spinner. “Walk with me?”

  “Of course.”

  “We should make it quick. I promised Darren I wouldn’t work today.”

  “Just as well. There’s not much to report. That splinter group of the Sons of Heaven is still making noise in the north, but Monmain’s keeping an eye on things. Someone finally knocked out that slaving operation in the Bay of Souls—”

  “I know. We were there.”

  “I figured. The last time I heard ‘Red-Handed Darren’, there were six new verses.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard t
hose. Or, well, bits of them. Darren screeches and hides under the nearest tablecloth whenever anyone starts up that song, so I miss things. I don’t know what she’s complaining about. I thought it was kind of clever of them to rhyme ‘bosom fun’ and ‘chosen one.’ Any letters?”

  “One from Hark. He’ll finish his apprenticeship with that pastry cook next month, and he wants to take out the captain and get her drunker than drunk. And, uh, one more. Jada wrote.”

  Lynn quickened her pace. “Did she really.”

  “Say the word, and both her letter and the faint perfume of bitch that hangs around it will disappear down a hole in the universe.”

  She hesitated, but barely. “It’s not my business to keep Darren from hoping. Even if I sometimes wish that she’d do it a little less. After all, that’s why I picked her in the first place.”

  The kitchens were still warm from the last baking of bread the day before. Lynn busied herself slicing pears into a pie dish while Spinner wrestled a sleepy cat onto his lap.

  “ ‘Red-Handed Darren’ isn’t the only thing they’re singing in the taverns these days,” he said, tickling the cat under its ginger-furred chin. “Twice this week, or maybe more, I’ve heard a song about a little black bird that flies before the storm. She never tires and she never makes landfall, and she can turn cowards into warriors and queens with the touch of her wing.”

  “Ariadne,” Lynn muttered. “She always thinks she’s being so bloody subtle when she’s writing poetry. Just tell me she’s not planning to name her kid Gwyneth, or I’ll go ahead and commit regicide by pie.”

  “Latoya chose the name. It’s going to be Nico. I can’t speak much Tavarene, but, apparently, it means—”

  “Sort of ‘suddenly’ and ‘wonderful’ at the same time.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I heard it once and it stuck in my mind—it reminded me of when I met Darren, so I guess that’s why. Hey. No. Don’t get emotional on me now. There’s going to be more than enough of that today. Let me tell you what my mistress and I have planned for the Bay of Souls. It’s going to change everything.”

  Benny Lawrence lives in Toronto, Canada, where she works as a lawyer while wondering just when in hell she grew up. Occasionally, she dons elaborate hats and sallies out after dark to solve crimes. There being no crimes lying around for her to solve, she mooches off home and eats cookies instead. She enjoys dead languages, not-dead cats, fizzy drinks, preparing for the apocalypse, and board games. She has been told that she takes her board games much too seriously. On a literature front, she is obsessed with mysteries, science fiction, and fantasy books, as long as they involve snappy dialogue and females who can deliver it.