Alexis squared her shoulders and walked on.
There was a group of pirates outside a building with a hanging sign, all watching her group as they came on. She couldn’t read the sign yet, but she assumed this was the Randy Whistler pub, confirmed by Blackbourne who nodded in that direction.
“Them’s the lads,” the old pirate said, “an’ yer officers’ll be inside.”
The way led between a block of New London spacers and a smaller mass of unsurrendered pirates. The former, perhaps three hundred strong in this group, were rising from where they sat in the dust to watch her approach. The latter watched her as well, but were fewer and didn’t rise.
Alexis kept her eyes front, intent on the coming meeting, and watching the pirates outside the pub. What she longed to do is break from her path to the block of French forces on the other side of the New Londoners and call out for Delaine or any word of him. That wouldn’t do, though. She was the senior Royal Navy officer in-system, here to treat with these pirates, and finalize the pardon and turnover of the prisoners and their fellows, not some lovestruck girl who couldn’t control herself.
She strode between the two groups, walking faster to take the lead from Kannstadt and Blackbourne.
The captive pirates to her left cat-called and offered up other insults, but it was the words from her right, from the New London spacers, that caught her ear.
“Look, that a proper captain?”
“Uniform’s not ragged, what’s this about?”
“Did the fleet come back fer us?”
“What’s t’happen now?”
“Thought we was bein’ led to slaughter, me.”
Sweet Dark, did their own commanders not tell them what we were about?
Alexis could well imagine the pirates not doing so for the common spacers, while the officers, better housed in the surrounding pubs and buildings, would have got the story, but did none of them tell their men? She looked around — no, there were no officers, not captains nor lieutenants nor even midshipmen amongst the masses of men. Not to keep order in the ranks or to tell the lads what to expect or would become of them. What must they have thought, herded from farms and plantations back to the spaceport? That question, what they must have thought, was answered by further comments.
“Thought we was t’be sold off-planet. What’s a proper officer doin’ here?”
“Cap’n — what’s the word, eh? We rescued or sold or they set to blow our bloody heads off?”
“Why’s t’Hannie here? We t’be prisoners?”
“Damn sight better’n here, a Hannie prison.”
Alexis slowed, Kannstadt and Blackbourne caught up to her and passed, then looked back. Alexis slowed more.
“Old Blackbourne’s lads’re waitin’, bitch-woman,” Blackbourne said. “They’re pumped up an’ full o’ themselves w’ pardons an’ bein’ treated with, so y’don’ want t’be takin’ ‘em down.”
“Kapitän Carew?”
“What’s t’happen to us, sir?” the spacer closest to her asked, in a voice so devoid of hope that it froze her in her tracks. “We prisoners of the Hannies now?”
Alexis turned to him, she couldn’t just pass them by, leaving them wondering at their fate. Properly, she should finish treating with the pirates, then report to the other New London officers, where she’d no longer be senior in-system, them being now freed. It should be to them to organize their crews and pass on what information they would.
She eyed the mass of men before her, ragged, dirty, and skinny from their time on Erzurum, all wide-eyed and fairly quivering with uncertainty, then stepped toward the last who’d spoken.
“Carew?” Kannstadt asked.
“Bitch-woman?” Blackbourne asked at the same time.
Alexis glanced their way, then at the waiting group of pirate leaders. Those were clearly irritated with the delay, crossing their arms and glaring at her. She narrowed her own eyes.
“You may tell your fellows, Mister Blackbourne, that a Queen’s Officer will attend them when she is bloody ready, and they may await my pleasure with respect or take their insolence there —” She jerked her head to the huddled groups of unsurrendered pirates. “— and turn in their bloody pardons, for I’ll not brook it, I tell you.”
Blackbourne opened his mouth to speak.
“And if you call me ‘bitch-woman’ just once more, Mister Blackbourne, I swear by the Dark I’ll leave you bleeding your life out in the Erzurum’s mud while you watch the last of your fellows lift to their new, pardoned lives.” She locked her eyes with him. “Are we clear, sir?”
Blackbourne closed his mouth and nodded.
“Very well.” Alexis turned back to the New London spacers. She took a breath to speak, but realized that she was facing a wall of chests, her own bare meter and a half not quite being up to the task of addressing such a crowd from the same ground.
“What’s your name?” she asked the last man who’d spoken.
“Tinner,” he said weakly, then straightened when Alexis narrowed her eyes and cocked her head at him. They might be down, but damn them, these men were Navy and needed stiffening. He cleared his throat. “Tinner, sir. Estcot Tinner — quarter-gunner off’n Ghurka, forty guns, out’n Strathmore.”
Alexis laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. She could feel the bones through less flesh and muscle than a quarter-gunner should have to heave the carriages about against their mass and the magnets holding them to the deck.
He was no worse off, really, than Kannstadt, Ellender, or their men had been when Alexis first encountered them, but his state affected her more. Perhaps it was that he was at the front of a group that stretched back behind him to number three times those with Kannstadt and Ellender. Perhaps it was the knowledge of further groups, the Hanoverese, the French, then more of each, off behind them. The sheer scope — the number of men abandoned to the mercies of the Dark, then the pirates, then the farms of Erzurum — astounded her. How could Chipley’s hatred of the Hanoverese drive him to this? Force him to follow his foe and leave those who couldn’t behind to whatever fate came without even a single ship to attempt rescue?
Her eyes burned and she narrowed them to keep back tears.
“All right, Tinner, I’ll tell you what this is about.” She scanned her eyes over the men around him. “You lot pass the word, right, as my voice won’t pass your chests and I’ve no platform to speak of here.” She gave them a look of caution as they nodded. “Handsomely, now, mind. So the meaning’s not changed.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Right, Tinner, so here’s the state of things.” She paused while those far enough back to just hear her repeated what she said, and those back from them did the same, her words rippling through the crowd of spacers as from a pebble tossed in a quiet pond.
“First, the war’s over — or paused, at least, with a cease-fire. There’s a force in orbit, Royal Navy and Hanover —” She gave a nod to Kannstadt who stood nearby. “— holding all the ships in-system. You’re here on this field, lads, because you’ve not been forgotten. We’re here to get you up to those ships, as many of you as will fit, and then blast the remnants of this bloody pirate force to atoms when they return. There’ll not be a spacer-man left on Erzurum against his will when we’re done. I’ve just to finalize things with the pirates and tell your officers, then we’ll be about it and you’ll, some of you, have a proper deck under your feet and a proper bulkhead overhead, and no more of Erzurum’s bloody dry, wet, or whatever else this planet has in store for folk.”
Alexis was a little surprised she’d made it through all that without any interruptions, neither from those near her nor from those who couldn’t see and were listening to their fellows. Not a murmur went through the crowd save for her words — nor the cheers she’d have expected at the news of the war’s end or the chance for revenge against the pirates or the prospect of being inside a proper ship once more.
She cleared her throat. “So that’s it, lads. You’ve just to be
patient a bit more and you’ll be on your way home.”
More silence greeted that, then a man behind Tinner spoke.
“What fleet did they send, sir, t’bring us home? Who’s commanding?”
Alexis cleared her throat again. Perhaps engaging the men had been a mistake — they’d want to know, of course, what size force, what ships had come to their rescue.
“Captain Kannstadt and I are senior in-system,” she said. “Until we’ve met with your own officers and freed them, of course.”
The spacer glanced at Kannstadt and then at Alexis’ sleeves, which showed her rank clearly, no matter the gold band of command around her beret.
“But yer a lieutenant and he’s a …” The man broke off and fingered the rings in his ear, clearly meaning the ragged edge of Kannstadt’s, denoting his status of former slave.
“It’s no matter,” Alexis said. “Just wait a bit and you’ll —”
“Ain’t no fleet, is there?” the man said. He glared at Kannstadt over Alexis’ head. “Stupid Hannie went an’ took a ship or two somehows.” He fingered his neck. “Now we’ll alls get our heads blowed off.” He glanced down at Alexis and shrugged. “Don’t know who you are, but we’re dead men now, lads.”
“Belay that!” Alexis hissed at him. Damn her for a fool, but she should have gone and spoken to the officers first. They’d understand the precariousness of the situation and want to believe, just as the pirates who’d accepted a pardon did, that there was a way out. That belief was half, perhaps more, of what Alexis needed to pull this off — the desire for a plan with so many spindly legs to be possible.
If the common spacers became restless, talked too much, came up with rumors, as they would, then the pirates might become suspicious and the whole thing might fall apart.
Alexis took a deep breath. “There are risks, lads, but we’ll get you out of this. I swear it.”
“An’ we’re t’believe you? Some whiff of a lieutenant an’ a girl? We fought at Giron, lass, an’ followed Chipley on his mad dash t’ Hell. Ye’ll not blind us so.”
Alexis bristled at that. “I was at Giron as well, so watch your tongue, man.”
Alexis noted that those repeating the words for their fellows had trailed off, paying more attention to the action, and there were mutters growing from further back in the crowd as those who couldn’t hear demanded answers.
“It’s Clarance Patience, lieutenant, sir,” he said with some scorn. “An’ what ship brought you there? One of Cammack’s fresh out of the Core? Spent the action polishin’ yer captain’s brass?”
“I saw enough of the action, Patience,” Alexis said, jaw tight and resisting the urge to call Dockett over to shut the man up. Even her bosun wouldn’t be able to keep order as Patience’s doubts spread through the men.
“What ship?” Patience insisted.
Alexis turned her gaze toward the waiting pirates at the door of the Randy Whistler. She hoped the guise of a haughty officer, impatient to be about her business, would hide the pain she knew covered her face at the need to think about that action. She also thrust down her own anger that Chipley’s fleet, the ships these men had served on, had been so fixated on the Hanoverese that they’d not bothered to see Alexis and her ship’s state — noticing that desperate action against an enemy frigate to protect the fleeing transports only when it was done and her ship had been pounded to a hulk and all but a handful of the crew dead.
“Belial,” she said, “commanding.”
Patience made a rude noise. “My arse.”
“Belay that, Patience,” Tinner said. “There’s no Core Fleet fop’d try to steal that.”
Alexis turned back to find him looking at her oddly and she flushed. There was too much of that action that seemed to attach itself to her, and not nearly enough to her ship or the crew who’d manned her.
“Ain’t no fleet come, is there, sir?” Tinner asked.
Alexis flushed again and wished, not for the first time, that she could control that particular reaction as well as, say, her expression.
“We have ships,” she said, “and you to man them once the pirates release you to it. My word on it, Tinner. We need just a bit of …” She glanced at his fellow who was still glaring at her and quirked her mouth. “Patience.”
Tinner frowned. “Why’d the pirates do this? They’ve a big enough force.”
“A pardon,” Alexis said. “The Queen’s Pardon, offered from a Royal Navy officer, senior in-system.”
Tinner stared at her a moment, and she could very nearly see his mind working on her words as he put together the whole of it. Finally, he raised his eyes and looked around the field, taking in the sheer number of pirates not captive and working on retrieving their fellows. Alexis herself was no little appalled at the number of pardons Isom had drawn up in the Queen’s name for Alexis signature.
“Pardoned all them? On your word?”
Alexis nodded. “Aye.”
“They’ll hang you,” he whispered.
“Thank you, Tinner,” Alexis said with a wry grin. “I’d rather been afraid I might forget that outcome. So good of you to point it out.”
“But —”
“The hangman must have me in hand to do it, Tinner, and that means I’ll have got you home — so no need to worry yourself on it, is there?”
Tinner frowned and shook his head. “No, sir — I imagine we’ve no need to worry ourselves now.” He took a deep breath. “I’d know your name, sir, if I might.”
“Carew.”
“Thank you, Captain Carew.”
Patience snorted in disgust. “If you —”
“Belay that, Patience,” Tinner said, “or I’ll bloody gag you.” He fingered his ratty, dirty loincloth — the only thing he possessed to do such a thing. “An’ you’ll not want that, I promise.” He nodded to Alexis. “You be about yer business, sir. I’ll handle this lot. I were master’s mate and had a good bosun to learn from, may his soul rest in the Dark where he fell.”
Alexis started to ask how he meant to do that, but he’d already turned.
“Make a place for me to stand, lads,” Tinner said, then nodded at Patience. “He’ll do.”
“What —”
Patience broke off as those to either side of him grasped his arms and drove him to hands and knees so that Tinner could climb up to stand on his back and face the crowd of spacers.
“Y’hear this, lads!” Tinner yelled, his voice surprisingly strong for his emaciated frame. “The Queen herself’s sent for us!”
“That’s not —” Alexis protested, but Tinner was already going on.
“Pardoned all these rotting, scurvy bastards t’get us back safe, lads! Forgivin’ all their crimes t’get us home, so y’see our worth to her!” Tinner yelled. “An’ sent the captain o’bloody Belial t’bring us, so y’know there’ll be no givin’ up, no matter what these bloody pirates think!”
Tinner looked down at Alexis and made a shooing gesture toward the pub before resuming his call.
“Three cheers for Queen Annalise, lads, who’d not leave Her loyal spacers behind!”
Alexis sighed and rejoined Kannstadt and Blackbourne as Tinner’s first call of “Hip-hip!” rang out.
Kannstadt said something, but Alexis lost it in the resounding “Hooray!” that followed.
“What?”
“Your officers will not like this, I think,” Kannstadt said.
They continued their walk towards the pub as the second cheer filled the air above Erzurum’s field, growing to include the groups of Hanoverese and French who, perhaps, didn’t even know what they were cheering about. Even the pirates, those who’d accepted pardons, at least, joined in, while their sullen fellows sat in the dust and hunched over even more.
Alexis shrugged. “It’s not as though they were going to like how I’ve got them free to begin with.” Ellender was a fine example of some officers and Alexis had no delusion that more than a handful of those awaiting her in the pub would agree wit
h her methods. “A bit more will hardly change that.”
Behind them, Tinner had finished his cheers and called out again.
“And three cheers for Captain Carew, lads! Her Belial saw those sloggers safe at Giron and she’s on to do the same for us! Hip-hip!”
Alexis flushed and winced as the spacers bellowed a “Hooray!” that nearly drowned out the engines of an incoming boat loaded with more of their freed fellows. Tinner seemed to take that as a challenge and waved his hands upward. “Hip-hip!”
She caught Blackbourne staring at her and glared until he looked away.
“What?” she asked when the next cheer subsided.
“Nothing,” the pardoned pirate muttered, looking from her back to the mass of men on the landing field. He shook his head, slid his eyes quickly over her again, then looked back to the pub with a muttered, “Witch-woman.”
Forty-Three
Now, Alexis, Annalise did send
To fetch her errant spacers.
Little did she think they'd end up
In the Randy Whistler.
The Randy Whistler bore a hanging sign with what looked like the image of a woman playing a tune. As they grew closer, Alexis looked away quickly.
That is not a whistle, she thought. She glanced back, then away again. Nor a flute.
Well, that explained the pub’s name, and likely its primary offering under the pirates’ management.
The pirates waiting outside the entryway were grinning now, where they’d seemed annoyed when Alexis first stopped to speak to Tinner — perhaps the spacers’ cheers were infectious.
There were more men at the pub’s windows, looking out at the commotion. These she assumed were captive officers, for they bore the same signs of deprivation as the men and were equally dressed in rags, though some still clung to their berets or the strangely folded caps of the Hanoverese service — Alexis supposed as some remnant of their command or authority. At first glance that might have seemed odd, but Alexis thought it might have provided some comfort and familiarity to the men wherever those had been held captive.
The Queen's Pardon (Alexis Carew Book 6) Page 28