The Captive Kingdom

by Jennifer A. Nielsen

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m aware of that.”

  “So you will release me and my friends, or —”

  “We are not at war, Jaron.” She threw out a hand. “Could we discuss this in a more private place? I feel like I’m shouting to the entire sea.”

  “None of us are going anywhere until we agree on terms. First, you will provide a lifeboat to Roden, Tobias, and Amarinda, well stocked with food, and get them safely off this ship.”

  Strick frowned. “The Shadow Tide has only one lifeboat, and I won’t give it up for three people whose lives do not concern me. But I will guarantee their lives here at least until we reach our destination. Under two conditions. First is they obey my every command. Second is that Roden will give the same vow of loyalty that Tobias and everyone else on this ship did.”

  Roden’s head turned sharply back toward her. “Only me, not Amarinda?”

  “Her vow will be willingly given.” Strick turned back to me. “Your threats mean nothing, Jaron. You won’t set fire to a ship with three of your friends on board, unless …” She pointed at Roden. “… unless winning means more to you than their lives. Because this boy will pledge loyalty to me, or he will die here.”

  I lowered the torch in my hands, calling back, “I will win before this is over, Captain. But Roden may do as he’d like now. He was never particularly loyal to me anyway.”

  Strick smiled and said to Roden, “Well?”

  Roden looked up at me for advice, and I subtly nodded back at him. What other choice did he have? Once he made his pledge, Lump untied Roden’s arms and he was ordered to sit with the rest of the men.

  “I’ve kept my promise thus far,” Strick said. “Now will you keep yours and come down?”

  I forced a smile to my face. “Absolutely. And since you have so kindly invited me and my friends to join this crew, I will do you a favor as well.” To the rest of those on deck, I said, “I am the Carthyan king, and with Erick’s death, the title of pirate king also returns to me. You will heed my orders now. If any of you were planning a mutiny, out of fears of this being a cursed ship, you will stop with your plans at once.”

  Wrinkles formed between the captain’s brows. “There is no curse.”

  “I agree. It was foolish of them to think so.” I turned back to the rows of assembled pirates. “Hear me now. You’ve given your loyalty oaths to Captain Strick, and now we all must trust her with our lives … or deaths, I suppose, in Erick’s case. This is especially important if you are one of the many pirates here who believe this is a cursed ship.” I gave just quick applause to the captain, the applause she had waited for earlier and not received. Unfortunately, she still didn’t receive it, and I felt foolish for applauding alone, so I stopped.

  “Did you say this is a cursed ship?” one man near the back called.

  Avoiding Strick’s glare, I replied, “No, I said that many of you believe it is a cursed ship, and although I’m sure you have good reasons for this belief, it can’t possibly be true. There simply is no evidence of it. Now, imagine that there was a scarlet-haired girl on this ship — that would be a sure sign of trouble, but none of us have seen anyone like that, which means there is nothing to fear.” I looked over at Strick, whose face was rapidly twisting into knots. “There, I have reassured them and I will come down.”

  I continued along the beam toward the nearest ladder, but one of the pirates stood and said, “There is a scarlet-haired girl on this ship! I saw her when we boarded.”

  “There is no curse on this ship!” Roden climbed onto one of the crates stored on the deck. “Do your oaths mean nothing to you? Sit down and maintain order!”

  Strick smiled down at him, even as she glared up at me, which couldn’t have been easy to do. I had started down the ladder myself, but before I got far, Lump grabbed me by one leg and yanked me down to the deck, quickly stepping on the torch to extinguish it. When I stood, he raised a fist, growling, “We never made any agreement about your safety!”

  “Stop!” Strick said. “We won’t deliver him covered in bruises.”

  “He’s no threat,” I said, eyeing Lump. “With a name like his, he probably can’t hit hard enough to leave any marks. What is your real name anyway? Pudding? Kitten?”

  Strick grabbed Lump’s fist as he raised it again. “I said no.”

  “You’ll let him get away with what he said up there, what he tried to do?”

  “No, he must be punished.” She frowned at me. “Get down on your knees.”

  I snorted. “Absolutely not.”

  This time, she eyed Lump, who clubbed me in the back, forcing the air from my lungs. I hunched over, trying to draw a breath in again, then stood up straight. “I will not kneel, Captain. That is not in me, no matter your threats.”

  “Why not? What terrible thing would happen if you simply bent the knee to me?” She stepped closer. “What are you afraid of, Jaron?”

  “Spice cake. Once I had this nightmare that one was chasing me —”

  She raised a hand against me, but from behind us, Roden said, “He’s afraid of heights.”

  Strick pointed to the beam where I had just stood. “He got up there.”

  “Up there is nothing.” Roden pointed higher, to the crow’s nest. “It’s great heights that he fears. It’s a cloudy night and will probably be a cold one. If you want to punish him, put him up there.”

  Strick turned to me. “I don’t think heights bother you a bit. But the cold will. Remove those Prozarian clothes. What you wore when we captured you should be enough.”

  “I’m relieved to be out of these,” I said, pulling off the coat first. “The stink was rubbing off on me.”

  With a tighter grimace, she turned to the crew. “Who will volunteer to take this prince up to the crow’s nest?”

  “King,” I muttered. I looked around, but apparently no one was eager to climb a rope ladder high above the ship and force me into a large bucket for the night.

  “Cowards, you disappoint me,” Strick said.

  “Agreed.” I clicked my tongue. “The last people who wanted my life showed far more courage.” Now I glanced over at her. “I defeated them too.”

  “I can do it.” Roden avoided my eyes as he spoke, which was no accident. “Let me prove my oath.”

  She considered his offer, then slowly smiled. “Very well. In that trunk behind you is a set of manacles. Take him up there and make sure he’s chained in. I want to be sure he feels his punishment for the entire night.”

  I pushed a hand through my hair. “Why go to so much trouble? After ten minutes of talking with you, believe me, I’ve been punished.”

  Roden returned with a set of manacles and directed the way he wanted me to walk. Prozarian crewmen stood and backed away to make room for me, though many of them spat on my boots as I walked.

  I reached the center post of the ship, with Prozarians on one side of me and pirates on the other. This was a relatively minor punishment for what had been a show of major dis-respect to the captain, and I knew I should have felt lucky that it was no worse.

  Yet I did not. The behavior of the Prozarians felt personal. Even now as they glared at me, I felt their hatred like fire on my flesh, and I could not understand that. There was nothing I’d done to them, nothing I could have done.

  I looked the other way, to the pirates, and saw in them disappointment, or defeat, as if they had expected something better to come from my speech. As if they were thinking I had won a major war six months ago, so why couldn’t I have found a way to free them now?

  I grabbed the first rung of the ladder, then stopped and turned back to the captain. “Have I wronged you in some way?”

  She frowned at me. “If you have, confess now and things may go better for you on this journey.”

  Tempting as her offer was, I replied, “You misunderstood me, Captain. I meant that if I have not wronged you yet, then I still have time to do it.”

  She pursed her lips and began to say something, but I
was already climbing, with Roden directly behind me.

  I rolled into the crow’s nest, then held out my hands for Roden. He fastened the first chain around my wrists and in a low voice said, “I know how you will fight this. I can help you.”

  “She will suspect your loyalties —”

  “She won’t know.”

  “You can’t take that chance. Whatever she orders, follow it the best that you can.”

  “And what if she orders me to come against you as hard as I can?”

  I sighed. “I’ll have to come back at you … as hard as I can.” The next words were difficult to say. “If you remain on her side, in the end, you will have to lose. There is no other way.”

  “I know.” When I held out my other hand for him to bind into the manacles, he said, “It begins here, Jaron. She may send someone to check on you, so I’ve got to do this right.” He took the second link of chains and fastened it to the rail of the crow’s nest itself, preventing me from climbing down later tonight.

  I glanced at Roden, who shrugged and mouthed an apology again. I mouthed something back at him too, though it was hardly an apology.

  He said, “Stay alive up here. It will be a rough night.” He started down once more, then paused for the last time to say, “You are my king, Jaron. You are always my king.”

  The rough night ahead didn’t worry me. It was the rough few days ahead that were making my stomach churn.

  “You are always my friend,” I echoed, though he was no longer around to hear me.

  No one was around. I was completely on my own now.

  It was time to get to work.

  It only took the first three minutes after Roden had left to free myself of the manacles. The most challenging part had been to slide a thin metal pin from my belt into my fingers without dropping it through the gaps in the wood. I had been placed in manacles a few times before and had determined never to be controlled by them again, so Mott had designed this pin, to be hidden within the liner of my belt. No one but he and I knew it existed, and that was how I intended for it to remain. I stuck the pin into the lock of the manacles and wiggled it until I felt something turn. Within seconds I was free.

  Below, the captain had begun shouting orders, assigning one Prozarian to every pirate, with the understanding that one partner would pay for any violation committed by the other. Most were assigned to go belowdecks, where new bunks were supposed to be placed, but Roden was the exception. He would return to the officer’s quarters where we had been locked earlier. I assumed he would be locked in at least for the rest of the night.

  Very quickly, the deck was cleared, except for two vigils who would take the remaining shift of the night watch. Before long, I was thoroughly irritated with them.

  They stayed exactly opposite each other as they rotated in a slow circle, keeping their eyes sharp and focused on their responsibilities. I cursed under my breath. My life was already complicated enough without them doing their jobs properly.

  That didn’t mean I was helpless, however. There were a great number of ropes and pulleys, and sails, each with a specific function. I’d spent much of my time on the Red Serpent learning each of their purposes and how the draw on one rope affected another. Some were vital to keeping the ship on course and in line with the winds. Some were vital to me.

  If I moved slowly enough, the dark night allowed me to pull in some of those ropes without being noticed. While I redid the knots, I listened to the men conversing below, and hoped to hear something useful. Most of it was the inane chatter of half-brained slugs, saying whatever filtered into their mouths to keep themselves awake. I cared for none of it, not the shifting direction of the wind, nor the fishing boat spotted in the distance, nor their assessment of the beautiful, scarlet-haired girl just revealed to be on board.

  When they finally moved to a topic that might have caught my attention — the specific mission of the Shadow Tide — it turned out to be equally useless. Not even the Prozarians knew why the captain had brought them all this way, other than that I had always been the target. They didn’t even mention Amarinda.

  In fact, there was only one thing they both agreed on: that I had little chance of making it to our destination alive. They were surprised I’d even lasted the first night on this ship.

  So was I.

  But the night wasn’t over yet.

  * * *

  By the time the next shift began, I was shivering with cold. The instant I heard the replacement crew members come onto the deck, I began descending the rope ladder. I was blocked by the sail, furled for the night, so I didn’t have to be invisible, just fast. It wouldn’t take them long to exchange their report of this evening’s nonevents.

  I was only halfway down the ladder when one of the replacements made his first round up on the castle deck, far below me. As I had done earlier that evening, I rotated to the opposite side of the post, clinging to the ropes and trying to not sway with the ship.

  “So the captain put Jaron up in the crow’s nest?” the pirate asked his companion. “That’s a mistake.” I recognized his voice. His name was Teagut, and in true pirate fashion, he’d steal the last coin from his widowed mother’s purse. Aside from that character flaw, he seemed like a decent fellow.

  “Why was it a mistake?”

  “What do you know about Jaron?”

  I crouched lower, eager to hear the Prozarian’s answer.

  “I know he deserves everything that is coming to him. Captain Strick is doing the four continents a favor by ridding us of him.”

  Teagut chuckled. “If she can catch him. I wager ten gold coins that the crow’s nest is empty.”

  I closed my eyes and groaned. If it were possible, I’d pay Teagut tenfold in coins to keep him from making that wager.

  “Then you’d better go check.”

  Teagut began to climb the ladder, getting closer to me with each rung he ascended. I crouched low on the rear side of the post until he passed me, then I reached around and pulled the knife from the sheath at his waist. He felt me take it and froze on the ladder. I said, “Report that I’m in the crow’s nest, then find a reason to get your companion off the deck.”

  “I’ll lose the wager.”

  “Better than losing your life.”

  He gulped and climbed the rest of the way up to the crow’s nest, peeked in, then returned to where I was and shouted down to his friend, “He’s curled up tight and asleep. Right where he belongs.”

  Once he was back on deck, he directed his companion toward the steps to the lower compartments. “I, er, did happen to notice while I was up there that the ship seems to be off balance. We brought on all those heavy crates. Perhaps we should go check the cargo hold.”

  Two minutes later I landed on an empty deck, then hurried to the forecastle, where a chest for tools or spare weapons lay. I had hoped to find my sword inside, or any sword for that matter, but instead I found only carpenter’s tools. I grabbed those with hooks or holes and carried them back to a rope dangling from the crow’s nest overhead. I tied the tools to it, then used the rope’s pulley to raise the tools up high. I waited for the next angling of the ship upon the water for the tools to tilt directly over the crow’s nest, then I carefully lowered them into the basket. I finished the job by tying off the end of the rope and hoped everyone had good enough sense to leave that rope alone.

  Or better sense than I’d had. During all my studying and experiments with the sails on the Red Serpent, I’d caused hours of work for the pirate crew, who’d had to rig their sails again, and once or twice I’d confused their systems entirely. While traveling to Bymar, I’d begun to understand the intricacies of the ship’s riggings. How every beam and post had to be tied with the proper knots and lengths of rope to allow the wind to catch the sails. A carelessly placed rope might bind the entire system.

  In fact, that was how I’d spent my evening thus far in the crow’s nest — carelessly placing ropes, developing a system I very much hoped I wouldn’t have
to test, because I wasn’t certain of whether it would work.

  The manacles that had been around my wrists were now dangling from my belt. Careful to make no more sound than was necessary, I placed them at the base of the capstan, tucking them beneath the wheel where they wouldn’t be seen and fastening one end around a large eye hook attached to the deck. The other end of the manacles was left open, ready for someone’s wrist.

  Hopefully, the captain’s wrist, or maybe Lump’s, if his wrist would fit within the clasp. I might have to settle for a finger.

  With that task finished, I wanted to search Captain Strick’s office, but to get her out of her room, I’d need a distraction. Fire would certainly accomplish that, but it had a terrible side effect of sinking ships, so I dismissed that idea. Stopping the ship would get her attention, but I couldn’t drop the anchor on my own. It took twelve men to rotate the capstan, or I figured, it’d take one Mott.

  Mott. My heart clenched.

  Instinctively, I looked out over the sea and hoped he was somewhere upon it, alive. I felt certain Imogen was on the lifeboat, and surely, she would have made Fink get in there with her. But I was increasingly worried about Mott.

  Worried enough that when I allowed my mind to wander into the possibilities of his death, I understood how bleak my life would be without him.

  I needed his strength, and even more, I needed his counsel. If he were asked to advise me right now, I already knew what he would say. Mott would suggest something cautious, something safe. I would listen to his advice, then do what I always did: the very opposite.

  With that in mind, my plan became clear. Mott would tell me to go inside the wardroom next to the captain’s quarters. That was where she and those in her close circle would take their meals, but extra cloaks were always stored there in case of sudden rain. Mott would want me to bring one back up to the crow’s nest, hunker down, and stay safe until we reached our destination.

  “A brilliant suggestion, Mott,” I whispered. I started toward the wardroom, then froze at the sound of someone climbing the stairs from belowdecks; they seemed to be avoiding making any noise. Still, out of a sense of caution, I backed into the shadows, cramming myself between the posts and bulkhead as tight as possible.