“Walsingham doesn’t need the book for all his spells. It wasn’t just the invisibility spell. He’s got some of the other spells memorized.”
I felt as though my gut was about to rise up through my throat. I’d had the bastard Walsingham at my mercy and I’d let him go, thinking him harmless without his sight and without his book.
33
Dockside Ghost
I RELAYED ALL I’d learned from Jim to Corwen, Hookey, and Mr. Rafiq, back in the depths of Hookey’s cabin.
“So what do you want us to do next, gal?” Hookey sucked on his teeth and gave nothing away by his expression. “This book is important, right?”
I nodded. “We certainly don’t want Walsingham to get it, but if Old Nick learns how to use it, no one is safe from him, including his own crew.”
Hookey frowned. “We need to think on this. We can hardly sail right into Ravenscraig under Old Nick’s guns, can we? And if we put into any other part of Auvienne, his lookouts will take news back to him within the hour.”
Hookey was right, Ravenscraig sat on the southern tip of Auvienne and was as heavily defended as any of His Majesty’s Cinque Ports.
If we drew him out onto the ocean, he outgunned and outmanned us. We had only half the crew the Heart used to carry in her privateering days, and some of them were new enough that they’d never seen action against another ship. Our eight guns were not enough to go up against any ship Old Nick might send against us. His flagship, the Flamingo was equal to a first-rate man o’ war. The Heart was faster, but broadside for broadside she couldn’t compete.
“We have to do this by stealth,” I said. “And I think we’re going to need Jim to do it, though I’m not sure he’s the man he was. He’s weak. He needs time to recover properly, but we don’t have time.”
“You leave Gentleman James Mayo to me,” Hookey said. “Give me a couple of days. He hates my guts. I’ll put him through his paces—sober him up. There’s no way he’ll show any weakness if I’m in charge.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. Billy can feed him up on the way to Auvienne. We can figure out a plan as we go.”
“He said Tarpot Robbie captains his own ship now.”
“I’ll send Billy to ask around on the dock.”
“Robbie might be persuaded to get us into Ravenscraig if we can meet up with him. He sailed with Jim for years. He saved Jim’s life.”
“Yes, but that was before Old Nick gave Robbie his own ship. His loyalties may have changed.”
“It’s worth a try if Robbie’s anywhere close.”
* * *
“You must be madder than the English king,” James Mayo stared at me in horror and then looked around the cabin to Corwen, Mr. Rafiq, and finally Hookey. “What about you, Garrity? You were never so reckless when you worked for me.”
Hookey shrugged. “Reckless? Ha! I never thought I’d hear you call someone else reckless. The Gentleman Jim I used to know would have braved anything to get back what was rightly his.”
“It has to be you, Jim,” I said. “Your people won’t rally to me, but they will rally to you. Old Nick has them in his grip now, but you can’t tell me they’re loyal to him. They go along with him because they’re scared of being the next one he flays alive. Individually, not one of them will stand against him, but collectively, if they have someone to lead them, someone they trust—”
“That’s it. They won’t trust me anymore. What am I? A dockside ghost, telling his sad story to anyone who’ll buy a tot of rum or a jug of ale. Someone who used to be someone but isn’t anymore.”
“You’re still someone, Jim, you’ve simply forgotten who.”
“Maybe that’s the best way.”
“Then why did you come charging onto the Heart yelling for me two nights ago? What did you want?”
“I was drunk. I’m stone-cold sober now, and my head is fit to burst. I go to sleep each night aching for a tot of rum. I wake each morning with my hands shaking and a powerful thirst only spirits will quench. When I’m drunk, I harbor dreams of how it might be in a different world.”
“If you leave Old Nick in charge of that book, everything you built on Auvienne will perish. Nick doesn’t care about your ships, your men, your whores, or the ordinary folk who make a living from the land or from fishing, carpentry, or growing the crops you eat, or farming enough cattle to make the island self-sufficient. You had a sweet setup. Ravenscraig was a good little community, and it was yours. You cared what happened to it, ran it fairly, kept bastards like Old Nick from doing too much damage.”
Jim sank his face into his cupped hands. “It’s impossible.”
“No, it’s not. What if we find Tarpot Robbie? If we can convince him, will you admit the plan might work?”
“And how do you propose to do that? Robbie could be anywhere.”
I put my hand up to Jim’s ear. He flinched away, and then steadied himself. “That ear stud. Didn’t Robbie give it to you?”
“A long time ago. I gave him a matching one.”
“I might be able to use it to find him.”
Jim scowled in puzzlement.
“I’m a summoner, Jim. This is only one aspect of it. Of course, if he’s not in these immediate waters, it might not work, but if he is, I do believe I can find him.”
I could see something akin to hope behind Jim’s eyes. Very slowly and deliberately, he removed the ear stud and handed it over. “Find him, and if he’s with us, you’ve got yourself a revolution.”
* * *
We didn’t have much time. Whether we found the book or not, we’d have to sail for England by the twenty-seventh of May. Otherwise the king’s deadline would go past, and the Fae would take punitive action. That gave us two weeks to find Tarpot Robbie and help Jim oust Old Nick from Ravenscraig, and preferably from life itself. Essentially, we’d be fomenting a minor revolution. If it succeeded, Nicholas Thompson, Old Nick, was too dangerous to leave alive, especially if he’d learned to make use of some of Walsingham’s spells.
I thought about the atrocities Old Nick had committed, and I could live with myself even if I was the one to pull the trigger or run him through with a blade.
While Hookey devoted himself to getting Jim shipshape and hangover-free, I climbed the mast, barefoot, and took Nick Padder’s usual place as lookout. I had the ear stud curled in the palm of my hand and everything I remembered about Tarpot Robbie in my mind. We set a course for the Dark Islands.
Corwen was anxious to see me so far above the deck, but I promised him I’d tie on a line, and, indeed I did. Thankfully, now I was past the first three months of my pregnancy, the occasional bouts of morning sickness had abated, and I felt fit and energetic as though I could manage six armed revolutions before breakfast. When I told Corwen, he made a kind of choking sound and said he would try not to be overprotective. I wasn’t sure he’d manage it, but I was grateful that he tried.
When I clutched the ear stud tightly in my hand, I thought I felt a slight pull, but as it was more-or-less in the direction we were traveling, I didn’t make a big thing out of it. However, as we neared the Dark Islands, I felt a definite tug on my senses. I shouted down a new course to Hookey, climbed down to the deck, and willed a little more wind into our sails.
“You’ve located him,” Corwen said as he came up behind me.
“I believe so, but I can’t tell how far away he is or what course he’s on.”
“Is that you?” Jim looked to where the wind was filling our sails.
I shrugged.
“No wonder we could never catch you unless we had a bit of magical help.”
“It’s not something for everyday use, Jim. The reason the Heart is so fast is because she’s a good ship, well sailed.”
For two days we followed my seeking sense until, at last, there was a sail on the horizon. Jim climb
ed the mast after me, and we both sat up aloft, sharing my magic-enhanced spyglass.
“How do you feel now?” I asked.
“Better,” he said. “Better than I did a week ago, anyway, but I could murder a tot of rum. Not sure I could stop at one, though, so I’d better not.”
We stared out over the ocean in companionable silence.
“I should thank you, Ross. Whatever happens, I don’t feel lost anymore.”
“You were never lost, Jim, merely a little off course.”
“You don’t need to be kind. I would gladly have drunk myself to death if I could have found enough coin for it. You saved me.”
“Then we’re even.”
“How can that be?”
“I blew up your ship, I nearly got you killed.”
He shook his head. “No, I contacted Walsingham of my own accord. I brought the viper on board. It was my own fault if he bit me. By the time you blew up the Black Hawk, I’d lost her anyway. I don’t blame you, Ross.” He put out his hand and covered mine. “You know how I feel.”
I took my hand away gently. “Can I ask you not to feel it?”
“I don’t think you can, but I won’t let it complicate matters. Your husband is a fine man, as was Will, but I can’t help wishing—”
“I think of you as a very dear friend, Jim. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?”
“Of course. If you say so.”
“I do.” I handed him the spyglass. “Is that the Lady Emma?”
“It looks like her to me.”
She was a three-masted, ship-rigged frigate carrying twenty-eight long guns on her deck and four carronades on her quarterdeck and fo’c’sle.
“She’s a handsome vessel,” I said.
“French built. I knew her when Albert Smith had the captaining of her. She could make fourteen knots and fight in the kind of rough weather that would make a ship of the line close gun ports on the lower deck. I wonder what happened to Smith. Death by Old Nick, I shouldn’t wonder.”
Jim handed me the glass, and as I focused on her, the Lady Emma came about and piled on sail.
“She’s coming after us, like any pirate would.”
“Better raise the parlez flag before she gets us within range of her guns.”
“Good idea.”
We raised our parlez flag. When she was almost within range, the Lady Emma raised hers.
We reefed the mains’l, keeping only enough canvas to hold the Heart steady. There was no such thing as still on the ocean. Robbie brought the Lady Emma around, and with barely a kiss between the two ships, we moored them together and tied a plank in place with nothing but a line for a steadying rail. There would normally be a bit of jockeying for position between two ships with a stated intent to parlez, but Jim showed himself on the Heart’s deck and Tarpot Robbie strode across the planks without so much as a by-your-leave. He gave a cry of joy, and there was some manly hugging and some mutual backslapping before the two men pushed back from each other’s embrace and drew breath to ask what had befallen them in the intervening eighteen months.
“It’s a long story.”
“Not much to tell.”
Then they both laughed and backslapped again.
I’d known Tarpot Robbie as long as I’d known Gentleman Jim though I’d never known him as well. We’d never had long, revealing conversations, but his was a familiar face. Now it was dressed up differently. Instead of a tarry pigtail and loose slops, he had light brown hair curling around his ears, and he wore long trousers in the pink of fashion, topped by a peacock-blue waistcoat, snowy linen shirt, and a jacket cut to reveal broad shoulders and narrow hips. His mustache had gone to reveal a clean-shaven face, deeply tanned—not handsome but distinctive.
“Gentlemen.” I grabbed their attention. “Much as I hate to cut short this joyous reunion, may we talk below?”
“Of course.” Robbie bowed over my hand—something he would never have done before getting his own ship—and followed me down to Hookey’s cabin which had been cleared to allow room for enough chairs.
“Robbie, this is Corwen Silverwolf.” I didn’t use Corwen’s real name. “You know Captain Garrity and Mr. Rafiq.”
“Cap’n Tremayne, it’s good to see you. There’s at least two ghosts here today I never expected to see again. I go by Captain Robert Tarr, these days, since good fortune gave me my own ship.”
“Your own ship!” Jim said. “How came you by such fortune?”
“Cap’n Thompson—”
“That would be Old Nick,” Jim said, rolling the words around his mouth as if they tasted bad.
“Old Nick, aye. He was the only one to benefit from that terrible day. When we saw the smoke coming from the powder magazine, it was every man for himself. Lucky you insisted on us all being able to swim, ’cause we were swimming for our lives. The Rhodes picked up survivors, and we headed back to Auvienne, but the weather was boxy. You can’t mess with nature without consequences. The witch, Walsingham, had caused that terrible calm, and I reckon the sea and the winds were rebelling. We were blown off course not once, but three times. By the time we reached Ravenscraig, Old Nick had beaten us there by three days. He’d announced your death and had set himself up in your place. No one much liked it, but no one was willing to challenge him over it.”
He shrugged. “There was one naysayer who turned up two weeks later. Remember John Jackson, captain of the Bitter Bird?”
I’d had a run-in with Jackson once. He was a tough nut.
Jim nodded.
Robbie continued. “He challenged Nick. It didn’t go well. His skin’s still nailed to the mast of the Flamingo.”
I shuddered.
“So you’d be happy to see Old Nick gone?” Jim asked.
Robbie nodded. “It’s not like the old days. Everyone’s watching their back all the time. Old Nick might give you a ship one week and flay the skin off you the week after.”
“How many can we count on, do you think?”
“After Jackson, there’s no one will stand against him, but I reckon there’d be few mourners at his graveside if he were to meet with an accident. He has his own guard, thugs all of them and well paid. Some of them were on the Flamingo with him. He’s set them up, and he rewards them well. Gold and girls—more than they ever want or need. They’re loyal to him while he’s paying them, but I don’t reckon it goes any deeper than that.”
“How many?”
“He’s got four land-captains each with twenty or thirty men, and then there’s the crew of the Flamingo when she’s in port.”
“Is she in port now?”
“She was when we left, but she was getting ready to sail. He’s named Haggerty as captain. He hasn’t sailed himself for many a month. I think he’s afraid of losing his grip on Ravenscraig while he’s at sea.”
“It’s a kind of madness,” Corwen said. “The more you have, the more afraid you are someone will take it away from you.”
“Aye, he’s mad all right,” Robbie said, “but he’s not stupid.”
I put my hand on Jim’s arm. “Remember, if we help you with this, Ravenscraig’s yours, but we want Walsingham’s book.”
“It’s a deal.”
34
Ravenscraig
HOOKEY WANTED TO come with us, of course, but I couldn’t allow it. The Heart and her crew had to stay safe and out of sight. I could call her to me when I needed to.
The smaller our landing party, the less chance we had of being spotted.
Hookey argued that the trio of Jim, Corwen, and me wasn’t enough, and though I agreed with him, I had to balance stealth against firepower. In the end we took Lazy Billy, Windward, and the Greek as well. That made six.
Hookey tried to argue me out of going in the advance party, but as I was the only one who could counter any magic Old Nick might have glean
ed from Walsingham’s book, I had to go. I wasn’t looking forward to it. I was horribly seasick on any vessel other than the Heart. The splice of ensorcelled winterwood in the Heart’s keel meant that she felt like a floating forest to me.
The six of us crossed to the Lady Emma. To balance things out, Robbie ordered six of his crewmen to the Heart. It made sense. If Robbie’s ship sailed in overmanned, the harbormaster might ask questions and news would quickly get to Old Nick.
Three of the Lady Emma’s crewmen crossed over without a murmur, but one sailor hesitated.
“I’d rather stay with the Emma, Cap’n, if it’s all the same to you.”
“It isn’t, Iverson. You’ve got your orders.”
“But, Cap’n—”
That was as far as he got. Robbie pulled a long-bladed knife from his sash and stuck the unfortunate Iverson in the gut with it.
I gasped and stepped back.
So sudden. So swift. So final.
There were ways to ensure obedience in a crew. Casually murdering them was not one of the ones that generally proved effective.
Robbie stooped forward over his victim, who was gasping like a flounder on the deck. He pulled out the knife with an accompanying sucking sound and then casually swiped it across Iverson’s throat, opening a death-smile from ear to ear. The deck ran red with blood. Robbie wiped the knife clean on Iverson’s sleeve and then looked up.
“Always suspected he was Old Nick’s spy. Anyone else doesn’t want to wait it out on board the Heart?”
“Cap’n.” A fresh-faced young sailor volunteered. “I’d like to go aboard the Heart, sir, if I could avoid your knife. You was right about Jackie, there. And . . . ” He gulped. “And me, too, but I can’t tell anyone anything if I’m not there, an’ Old Nick can hardly hold my family to account. I doesn’t do it for the money, y’see, but my sister’s one o’ the girls at the Compass, an’ I gotta see her safe.”
Robbie jerked his head toward the gangplank. “Off you go, Donny. When this is over, there’ll either be Jim or Nick to answer to, but you earned a right to stay out of it with your honesty.”
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