“Me?”
“Aye, while you’re trying to explain to some pirate that you were just being polite, she’ll slip a knife between your ribs.” I touched his arm. “These are my people, Eld. They don’t see politeness as civil behavior, only as weakness.”
“Is that why you always act the arsehole?” he asked, bending over to grab his pack. It was stuffed full of our clothes and a few supplies as well as Salina’s coin.
“Tough to say,” I murmured as we began walking down the dock. I tried to walk straight and tall despite my stomach protesting against the movement. Eld’s eyes tightened and I knew I hadn’t fooled him. “Was I born this way or did my environment turn me into an arsehole?” I grinned. “Maybe both?”
“Maybe,” Eld said. He adjusted the straps of his pack and let his hand caress the hilt of his sword to make sure it hung where he liked it. “What’s the plan?”
“Information,” I said. “We’ll head up yonder hill until I get a feel for where we need to drop anchor. Knowledge is the root of power, but with less than a week before our deadline, it’s going to be tight. Good thing that Company bitch gave us plenty of money.”
“Aye,” Eld said, disapproval loud in his voice.
“It’d have been nice if she’d given us more of a lay of the land,” I said by way of explanation, though it did little to improve Eld’s expression. “That’s all I’m saying. Some knowledge of what the world’s been up to may tie into whatever we learn here.”
“Well, as to that, there’re some pages in this paper,” he said a moment later, digging into his dark blue, nearly black jacket. He shook the newspaper out and offered it to me. “Two days old before we sailed, but it’s something.”
“Bah, it was dross,” I said, waving it away.
“You read it?”
“Crown Prince of some Normain province murdered in the streets!” I said, pitching my voice like one of the paper lasses standing on a street corner. A dockworker packing empty glass flagons into a crate glanced at me, shook her braids, and returned to her work. “Twenty-five times removed and piping kan into his veins. Some would-be historian who styles herself as an archaeologist, first in her field, claims she found a shipwreck from two centuries past or more—from when explorers braved hurricanes to discover the Shattered Coast. Seeking a sponsor to finance the expedition and split the treasure. And, of course, rampant speculation about kan futures given the wet spring.” I snorted. “Dross, like I said.”
“When did you read it?” Eld asked.
“The first night, before I thought I was going to die. I’d try to read a whole page before running up to the deck to puke.”
“So that’s why you had the lantern lit in your room?”
“Of course,” I said.
“But you said you didn’t remember lighting it,” Eld said.
“Really?” I frowned. My memory after that first night was hidden by a thick fog. “When did I say that?”
“After it caught your bed on fire and half the crew fought to keep it from taking the ship with it. It took hours before the embers were done. Meanwhile, you were raving on deck as if it were you burning and not the bed. The captain had to give you his own cabin, Buc!”
“Hmm.” I shrugged. “Well, I don’t remember that, but then again, severe dehydration will do that.” Cold ran down my back. Fire. Sister. I hate fire. I suppressed a shudder and clapped him on the shoulder. “They put it out, right? No harm done.” Eld sputtered, but before he could get wound up we reached the end of the docks and joined the swirling crowd milling about.
“Hush, Eld, you’ll disrupt these hard workers. Have some respect.” I didn’t hear his response, but when I turned around, his face was dark and I don’t think it was from the sun. Even so, he looked away quickly and I could tell he was embarrassed by his outburst. Manners are a terrible affliction. Thank the Gods I’m immune.
9
The air was heavy with water and together with the heat, I felt like the sweat that poured down my skin was about to ignite. I was tempted to strip to my shift, save that Eld would die of shame—and everyone would see my knives. The crowds were a singularly un-uniformed lot: tattoo-covered sailors who looked more like buccaneers that I’d heard of in taverns since I was a lass than like honest Servenzan deckhands, festooned with all manner of blades; dirt-covered beggars; merchants bedecked in suits of fine, thin silks and dresses that would have been considered scandalous in Servenza. At least my dress won’t stand out here. If anything, I blended in perfectly, as most of the women seemed to be clothed in gilt … or dirt. The women were easy to pick out amongst the throng of men of every type and nature, each yelling louder than the next, striving to make themselves heard over the maelstrom.
Here and there a street urchin darted about, clad in only torn shorts regardless of sex, but they were few and far between, which made sense: Who would bring a child to this Godsforsaken corner of the world? It reminded me of Servenza on Market Day. Or any day, really.
The crowds thinned as we stepped off the cobbled plaza surrounding the docks and headed up the hill. The dirt streets were surprisingly calm; most people walked to the sides, finding refuge in the shady overhangs of the sometimes ramshackle wooden buildings that leapt up on either side of the road, all in varying degrees of falling apart. Here and there a parasol or umbrella made an appearance, but if someone had the forethought to sell any, they’d have made a killing. Farther away from the docks there was less of salt and fish in the air and more of body odor and sweat that even the sharp tang of foreign spices mixed with dust couldn’t mask.
A shot rang out and I put an overweight merchant between me and the sound while Eld reached for the pistole in his sash. Another shot came a moment later, followed by laughter. None of the people around us so much as paused and Eld and I exchanged looks before resuming our climb. I made sure the fat bastard sweating through his silks was close enough to use for cover just in case. A dozen paces on we reached a crossroads and saw the source of the gunfire.
Two men faced each other across a dueling green, but as there was no grass, I suppose it was a dueling dust bowl.
“Having both missed, is Your Honor satisfied?” a thin, reedy gentleman cried.
“You’d have to have honor for it to be satisfied, whore,” said the closer man. He spat into the dirt. “Mine is not.”
“Mine is,” the farther man said—when he spoke, I realized he was actually a woman wearing men’s clothing. I ground to a halt and Eld grunted as he bumped into me, but I ignored him. As soon as I stopped seeing a man, her features became plain. She would have been pretty in a dress, but in trousers and a loose jacket there was something about her that elevated her beyond merely pretty.
“Then again,” the woman said in an even voice.
“Come on,” Eld spoke in my ear to be heard over the crowd. “There’s no need to see this.”
“She’s wearing trousers,” I said.
“Aye, well, who’s to say she can’t? Out here there are no laws, no rules, barely any guidelines. She can do as she pleases, but I’d bet a copper that if she were in a dress, she wouldn’t be on that green right now.”
“That’s sexist of you, Eld.” I clicked my tongue. “And it’s not green.”
“You know what I mean,” Eld said. “Now come on. Either she’ll kill him or he’ll kill her or they’ll kill each other. Only fools fight duels and this isn’t getting us the information we need.”
I nodded reluctantly and began moving again, now mimicking the locals, ducking into the shade of nearby buildings instead of walking up the middle of the street. The shade didn’t do much, but it removed enough of the sun’s harshness that my skin stopped steaming. The fat merchant had picked up a companion in an equally fine suit, his face pinpricked with scars. The fat man leaned toward him, resting his hands on a rich gilded cane carved with sugar leaves; I stepped up my pace until I was close enough to hear.
“The route’s cursed, I tell you.”
&nbs
p; “It hasn’t been the last seven years, man.”
“Yes, but the last seven months it has been. I’ve started instructing my ships to eschew the sugar route and make farther north, where the kan ships sail.”
“You can afford that kind of delay?” the scarred man asked.
“More than I can afford ships disappearing. I have to think of the fleet.” The man’s cheeks shook. “Not that you can call three ships a fleet.”
“You’ve lost that many?”
“Don’t pretend you haven’t either,” the fat merchant growled. “We both know—”
Another gunshot rang out and I glanced over my shoulder in time to see the man who’d called the woman a whore lying flat on his back, his plumed bicorne several paces away. The dust was growing dark around him. The woman appeared, standing over him, a smoking pistole in her hand. Good on you, sister. I turned back around, but the merchants were gone. I spun to look for them and spotted them ducking into a tavern, the scarred merchant arguing with the fat one.
“I guess she had honor after all,” Eld said; he, too, had glanced back at the sound of the gunshot. He sighed. “You know why they call this place Port au’ Sheen?”
“Assume I don’t,” I said.
“Because they say blood or gold, both shine in the sunlight,” Eld said.
“Damn. Come on.” I tapped his elbow. “I want to get a better feel for this place.”
“You haven’t seen enough?”
“Maybe, but I haven’t heard enough. I need to understand the people, what motivates them. Beyond blood and gold, I mean,” I added.
“Still think this is like your streets?” he asked.
“No.” I shook my head. “It’s more honest.”
* * *
An hour later we were both sweating like gondoliers on the Feast of Lights despite the shade offered by the tattered awning of what served as an open-air tavern. Eld’s cheeks glistened no matter how hard he fanned himself with that old newspaper and every time he took a sip of his wine punch, drops of sweat trickled into the cup. Pretty soon he’d be drinking his own salt water. I drained my mug three times—well watered, per Eld’s whispered instructions to the bartender, so my mind was clear, but Gods, I still had a thirst that a hundred glasses wouldn’t slake.
“I’ll never complain about Servenza’s heat again,” I said.
“Don’t go to the Burning Lands then,” Eld said. “Less water in the air, but the heat is so intense, it feels like a furnace in your lungs every time you draw breath.”
“Burning Lands?” I motioned for the bartender a fourth time. “You mentioned that before. When were you in the Burning Lands?”
“I did travel before we met,” Eld said, but his lips were pressed together in a way that told me he didn’t want to talk about it. Usually that would be my cue to pry, but my mind was boiling over with what I’d heard in the last hour and I wasn’t yet well enough to hold both objectives clearly in mind. The bartender placed another clay mug on the table and took away my empty one along with Eld’s doubloon, making the coin disappear so quickly into her bodice that she looked like a street performer demonstrating sleight of hand.
“We need a map.”
“A map?” He took another sip. “Of what?”
“The Shattered Coast and the trade routes. Specifically, the shipping lanes.”
“Turn around, then.” Eld pointed behind me. “Assuming it’s accurate, of course.”
I glanced over my shoulder and saw, above the tavern’s door, a faded map of the area drawn in dark lines that looked like charcoal. I blinked to dispel the haze in my eyes and the map grew clearer. Gods, I am tired. I’d put all the pieces together by my second cup, but between trying to decide if I could stand the heat and wondering where we could find a good map, I’d wasted the better part of an hour, when all along it’d been staring me in the back.
“You’re still off-kilter, aren’t you?” Eld asked. “You’d never miss that.”
“I’m perfectly…” I sighed and drained my wine punch in one long swallow. “Fine, I’m not feeling great, but I can’t afford weakness.”
“Yes, you can…” Eld began.
“No, I can’t.” I shook my head. “You’re going to give me another headache. We need to find some pirates.”
Eld’s mouth moved wordlessly for a few moments. “Pirates?” he asked finally.
“Aye.”
“And why do we need to find pirates?”
“Because of the map.”
Eld leaned forward, peering into my eyes. “Buc, are you okay? Truly?”
“Very well,” I muttered, leaning forward too, more to keep anyone from hearing what I was saying than from needing the table to support my weight. Aye, maybe that, too, but start admitting your own weaknesses and pretty soon you start accepting them. And I won’t do that. “I’ll explain.”
“That would be nice.”
“Remember the two merchants we followed up here? The fat one and the scarred one?”
“Vaguely,” Eld said.
“Aye. The scarred one’s face was marked with old burns. The kind you get from working in a sugar refinery. The other one’s cane was embossed with sugarcane leaves.”
“So they own sugarcane plantations.”
“Or oversee them, aye. The sugarcane plantations lie leagues to our south and the kan plantations a few leagues to the north, but the trade winds offer several potential courses. The important thing is that they said their ships were disappearing when they followed the sugar route, but if they went farther north, along the kan route, their ships made the journey unmolested.”
“Okay…”
“And then when we first sat down here, recall the naval lieutenant at the table behind me?”
“The one talking to the physiker?”
“Aye, the ship’s physiker. Both wore green sashes indicating they patrol the Southern Expanse, which means they also patrol the sugar route. The officer was complaining about the plethora of sugar, but the absolute lack of limes, pirates, or other ships.”
Eld’s eyes narrowed. “Now, what is that about?”
“I’d assume his ship has a problem with scurvy.”
“Not the limes!”
“Oh, well, simply this: If there are no pirates and no ships in the southern shipping lanes, then what is causing the disappearances?”
“It can’t be so simple as to be about sugar profits and that’s why the ships are disappearing?”
“Perhaps, but I’m less interested in motivation at the moment and more in the physical cause.”
“Doesn’t the first lead you to the second?”
“Usually, but we don’t have that kind of time,” I said. “Besides, why would anyone want to draw attention to that area if they are poaching ships? That’s shortsighted.”
“You have to be a bit daft to take up piracy in the first place,” Eld said. “Once you hoist the black flag, your life expectancy drops exponentially.”
I pointed at the newspaper in his hand. “The next to last page, eight, I believe, mentions the exploits of a certain pirate, a woman with black hair filled with fire.” I sniffed. “Whatever that means. Anyway, she certainly captured the reporter’s imagination, but I’m less interested in her hair and more in what the reporter says her territory is: the Southern Expanse.” I turned to the map behind us and nodded. “Right where the ships are disappearing, right where the navy has found nothing.”
“So,” Eld said, pushing himself to his feet. “Pirates?”
10
It turned out that Port au’ Sheen was lousy with pirates. A few doubloons slipped to an appropriately disheveled ruffian covered in tattoos and more hair than I had known was possible pointed us toward an abandoned tannery lurking on the outskirts of the town. The man had appeared confused that we wanted to pay to find a recruiting meeting, but gold has a way of silencing questions, and his directions to the dusty side alley and the overgrown yard were easily followed. Eld and I were dressed a l
ittle too fine compared to the rest of our compatriots, but we arrived early enough to secure a spot next to one of the old tanning vats. The lingering aromas from the factory’s working years still burnt our eyes, but kept everyone away from us.
“A right proper turnout!” A large woman wearing what looked like a blacksmith’s thick leather apron over her dress stood up from the stump she’d been resting on. “First off, let me save any Imperial agents the trouble—we’re all here as free privateers, looking to sign and sail and plunde—that is to say, appropriate, under proper authorities, aye?”
“Aye,” twenty voices chorused.
“Not pirates.”
“Not pirates!”
“Well then, now that we’ve established our bona fides,” the woman said, “let’s get down to business. There’s ships what need bodies to sail them south. The northern routes are filled with peace-loving merchants of our Imperial brethren.”
“Filled with man o’ wars, too!” a voice cried out.
The woman laughed with the rest. “Aye, them, too. It’s been too long since we sailed south and Mama Hammer”—she tapped her considerable chest—“wants to change that. If that don’t sound interesting to you, then you’re welcome to leave. Now. Those that stay, we can discuss the specificities of our arrangement and—What the bloody mizzen top do you want?”
A young man in a loose jerkin and even looser trousers stepped around the man in front of him. “Are you really sailing south?” His voice suggested he was used to more respect than his disheveled appearance warranted.
“That’s what I just said, isn’t it?” she asked, spreading her arms wide. Everyone laughed. “You think Mama Hammer is a liar?” The laughter died at that.
He shook dark hair out of his eyes and leaned forward. “I think you should sail north.”
“Listen, milksop, I don’t know where you left your brains today, but you’d best sit down or I’ll bury you a fathom deep with one stroke.” The woman pulled a blacksmith’s hammer from within her apron and shook it.
The Sin in the Steel Page 6