by Jaxon Reed
Stin smiled and thanked the man, and slipped two more coins off the pile when he wasn’t looking.
After lunch, the rising levels of expectation were palpable on the ship. Most of the men walked around with packs over their shoulders, their belongings all bundled up. Nervous energy seemed to pulse everywhere. Everyone seemed to be smiling and laughter broke out often, with boisterous horseplay often accompanying the mirth and bonhomie.
Stin wandered by Quent’s quarters, and found the ship’s healer busy packing books and bottles from his apothecary. Stin asked him what he knew about Corsairs Cove.
Quent said, “This marks the twenty-first piratical voyage I’ve been on. Each time, the captain brings us to about the same general area, or at least he heads in the same general direction: west. I’m no expert at nautical navigation, but I know we’re about 500 sea miles west of Refugio at the moment.”
“And only a captain can find the island?”
“Mm. Only a captain can get us to the island. I don’t understand much of that either. But I know for centuries the navies of Coral and the Ageless Isles have searched for Corsairs Cove in vain. Whatever magic hides it has held up well over time.”
“You would think they could have a few warships hang out in the general area and intercept anybody coming or going.”
“Mm. You would think. But that’s the funny thing. I’m not sure it matters where exactly the ship is before the captain opens the gate. And there are tales of Coralian vessels in hot pursuit, the pirate ship disappearing on them, and the gate closing too quickly for the hunters to follow.”
Quent pulled tight the straps on a rucksack filled with books, then looked up at Stin with a smile and said, “You’ll get to see it soon for yourself. If our little adventure with the Lightfish didn’t convince you to become a pirate, Corsairs Cove will.”
Stin said, “The island is that grand?”
Quent nodded. “You can obtain anything you want there, with enough gold. For me, I buy books with my share of the loot from each voyage. They have bookshops with titles one cannot find anywhere else. And that is why I have not seen my brother, lo these many years. Unfortunately, that’s something he will never appreciate.”
Stin caught a hint of sadness in the healer. He said, “A man can only buy so many books.”
“Mm. True. I keep telling myself that. Perhaps this will be my last voyage. I do need to catch up on my reading. On the other hand, there’s a certain shop in the back corner of the marketplace. It’s magical somehow, like the entire island. The proprietor always seems to have something you really need. Something that requires all your gold. For me, every time I visit, he has an extremely rare book. It’s always something I will never find anywhere else, or ever again. I have to buy it, each and every time.”
Quent smiled self-consciously. He said, “You’re probably not a book lover, but these are extraordinarily rare. Things like the first Oldstone’s diary, before he became Oldstone. Books that are one of a kind. Books that, if I don’t buy them, I almost certainly will never see them again.”
“So the shopkeeper takes your gold, and out you go on another run to earn more.”
Quent nodded and said, “Exactly. And the same thing happens to anyone who enters that shop. They’ll find something they can’t live without, and they give up all their gold for it.”
“That’s a nice setup. I wouldn’t mind having a share in it.”
Quent laughed. “There’s some kind of magic with the old man. I’ve heard old timers say he hasn’t aged a bit since they first entered his shop as young ’uns. He certainly doesn’t spend the gold on improving the appearance of the place. You’ll know it when you see it. Maybe I’ll take you there myself.”
Quent tightened the laces on another rucksack, then carried both of them to a pile of belongings near the door.
“What about you, Steck? What’s your passion? What are you most interested in obtaining on your first visit to Corsairs Cove?”
“Gold.”
Quent chuckled and said, “Still smarting from paying off the damages to Wavecrest?”
Stin nodded. “At least I got something out of all this. But, not nearly enough. I’d like to obtain a large amount of gold and see about finding passage home.”
“Mm. No one who experiences it ever truly leaves Corsairs Cove for very long. I think you’ll find everything your heart desires there. It’s a magical place. You’ll see.”
“If I find gold, then maybe I’ll stay. But from what you are saying, people find their gold through piracy and go back to Corsairs Cove to spend it all.”
They heard a commotion outside the door. Stin stepped out to find several men running toward the bow. He saw Plinny lumbering by, a big smile plastered on the giant’s face.
He said, “What’s going on, Plinny?”
“The Cap’n’s come out to open the way home!”
A crowd quickly formed near the prow. Stin stepped in behind Plinny, who moved people out of the way effortlessly. Cessic stood behind the Wavecrest’s figurehead, a woman with arms to her sides, hands out flat, appearing to fly over the water.
Cessic stood waiting, watching. Stin poked his head around Plinny’s side and stared off in the distance, too. All he could see was water, an uninterrupted horizon of ocean all around.
The men quieted down in expectation. A minute passed, then two.
Cessic straightened, turned his head slightly as if looking at the water from another angle. Then he nodded to himself. He thrust his right hand up in the air and a tiny ball of light flew out over the water ahead of the ship. It exploded into a much larger globe of bright white light, which rapidly expanded until it grew wide enough for Wavecrest and Lightfish to sail through side by side with room to spare.
A cheer went up among the men, and Stin imagined he could hear distant jubilation from the Lightfish, too.
Through the doorway over the water he could see land.
-+-
Somebody rang a bell from a hilltop church facing the bay. It seemed the entire town came rushing down to the docks to greet the arriving ships.
Stin felt surprised at the size of the town, which appeared to hold a few thousand people. Warehouses lined the docks, where half a dozen other large ships were berthed along with scores of smaller ones. White stone streets were lined with red-tiled houses snaking up the hillsides, and on distant mountaintops he could make out fine manors with sunlight glinting off windows and looking glasses evidently aimed in their direction.
People streamed out of homes and buildings to swarm the docks. Several men jumped into tugboats, manned the oars, and set out to meet the ships in the middle of the bay. When they got close enough they shouted cheerful greetings to those onboard, and caught ropes thrown to them. A few tossed bottles of rum back to the pirates, who cheered in approval. Then they paddled furiously for the docks, towing the two big ships into port.
The crowd erupted in cheers as Wavecrest tied up to the docks, then again as Lightfish pulled up nearby.
Somebody threw down a wide plank connecting the ship and dock, and men began to disembark. A crowd of women Stin took for ladies of the night, based on their scanty dresses and bold behavior, lasciviously greeted each man as he made his way down the plank. Somebody brought a horn and began cheerfully tooting it as each pirate stepped onto the dock.
Ta-tah! Ta-tahhh!
Quent slapped Stin on the back and said, “Mm. Strumpets and trumpets. Come along, Steck. Let’s get you a room.”
-+-
Quent headed straight for Widow Raynora’s house. On the way, Quent explained her husband had been a captain who had the misfortune of being captured and hung by Keel himself, back when the King of Coral was still a prince. In order to make ends meet, Raynora began letting out rooms in her house to officers needing a place to stay.
“Raynora loves to talk to us about the sea and our voyages. I think she misses her husband, and we help make up for his loss somewhat. But she’ll do most of the talking. You’l
l see.”
Quent led Stin into the nicer part of town, and the houses appeared to grow larger. Many had courtyards behind their high walls, Quent explained. All were made from the same off-white stone, as opposed to the plain wooden buildings closer to the docks.
Stin made a curious inquiry about the stone.
“Mm. Comes from mountains in the middle of the island,” Quent said.
Raynora herself opened the stout wooden door at Quent’s knock. Stin found himself greeting a petite woman in her late sixties or early seventies, with a bun of gray hair on top and bright, cheerful eyes.
“Why, land alive! Quent are you back again? It’s so good to see you. I left your room alone, it is exactly the same. Nobody has been in it and nobody has touched your books. And who did you bring with you? Why, aren’t you the pleasant sort? Come in! Come in! I’ll have supper on soon, and now I know to have an extra plate out on the table. Well, there’s plenty of food. Plenty of it! And we will be so delighted to have a new person to talk to and hear all about your voyage. How did you get to be onboard the Wavecrest? You didn’t start out with her when she left here, did you? Oh dear, did some poor sailors die on this voyage? You boys will have to tell me all about it.”
She quickly led them inside, and informed Stin she had a vacant room for him if he wished to stay. She informed Stin about quite a few things. She would not stop talking.
After some discussion about rates, Stin paid her a gold doublet. He would get some meals from Raynora’s kitchen, but not all of them. He felt a little unsure as to which meals were not included, but ultimately he decided he could ask Quent about it later.
He also felt uncertain as to how many nights were covered by the doublet. The little old lady hardly let him get a word in edgewise. Ultimately he gave up and let her keep talking uninterrupted.
At last someone else knocked on her front door and she broke off the conversation to go answer it. He placed what few belongings he had on the bed of his modest room and promptly left to find Quent again, who had somehow sneaked away from the discussion when nobody was looking.
Quent opened the door to his room at Stin’s knock, letting him in. Stin found the place filled with books. Literally. He wandered through a narrow passageway among piles and piles of books stacked on the floor. Some of them went, precariously balanced, all the way up to the ceiling.
In the back, near a window facing the courtyard, enough floor space had been cleared for Quent’s bed, a small table, and a chair. Stin took a seat in the chair while Quent settled on the bed, and leafed through what appeared to be a very old and worn journal.
Stin said, “I’m no expert on books, Quent, but I imagine you have a small fortune here. If you ever made it back to the mainland, I’m sure you could exchange these musty old piles of parchment for a bucket of gold. There are people who buy these things, you know.”
Quent peeked over the top of the journal and gave Stin a sharp look.
Stin grinned and said, “Well, never mind. I guess you are one of those people.”
-+-
Following supper with the Widow Raynora and four other officers from a different ship, Stin said he wanted to explore the city. Quent wished to return to his books. So Stin set out alone, and wandered through the neighborhood aimlessly.
Most of the shutters were closed, and few people were out on the streets at this hour. He kept walking, and gradually the buildings grew less fine, and wood structures soon outnumbered stone ones. The sun sank lower, and night took over day. The closer Stin came to the docks, the worse the neighborhood grew along with the fading light. He found himself heading sharply downhill toward the water, and sounds of merriment came drifting up from public houses lining the docks.
In the distance he heard Plinny’s gruff laughter boom up the hillside.
“Bahhaha! Bwahahaha!”
Stin smiled. The giant must be winning at bone cards, he thought.
“I say, good fellow!”
Stin stopped and stared into the shadows of an alley nearby, from which he had been hailed. Three men approached, all dressed in blue frocks and pants. They held their hands clasped behind their backs. Each wore a curious tall blue hat, at least a step high, giving their heads an elongated appearance in the dim light.
The three of them spread out and looked him up and down. Stin stood relaxed, but mentally he planned an escape route should things turn for the worse.
“You’re new here, are ye not?”
Stin nodded and said. “I am. I, uh, don’t have the pleasure of knowing you, nor how to properly address you.”
The leader smiled broadly. Stin’s comments seemed to please him greatly. He turned to the man on his right and said, “Y’ see? The officers know how to behave. Even if they don’t know how to respond correctly, they respond appropriately. Can’t say that about th’ common seadogs, though, can we?”
The other man said, “Aye, Gant. The officers are a finer lot, no doubt.”
He turned back to Stin and said, “I am Gant, head o’ th’ Constabulary.”
“Constabulary? How does a constable occupy his time in a town full of pirates, may I ask?”
Gant smiled and said, “The officers don’t associate with th’ riff-raff, and we make sure th’ dogs don’t wander into th’ nicer parts of town. The sea lords pay us to keep th’ peace precisely because it is a town full of pirates.”
At the mention of the sea lords, Gant nodded his head in the general direction of the great houses on the mountaintops outside town, his tall hat making a pronounced thrust in their direction.
Stin nodded, suddenly understanding some of the political dynamics in play within Corsairs Cove.
“I see. Well tell me, my good man, where might a fresh young officer find a drink around here, and mayhap a game of chance?”
“Ah! You want Berti’s Pub. Yes indeed. I tell you what, I need to check on my men in that quarter of town anyways. Why don’t I show ye th’ way and ye can tell me all about your voyage?”
-+-
For someone used to anonymity, Stin began to realize no such thing existed in Corsairs Cove. Everybody seemed to know everybody. And because they didn’t know him, they quickly deduced his identity: the newest officer who had found the gold hidden on the Lightfish.
So it came to pass everyone in Berti’s knew who he was shortly after Gant brought him in. And since the gold was being spread around town quite liberally by Wavecrest’s crew, Stin found himself a very popular fellow indeed.
Berti’s proved to be a fine establishment. It seemed clean and relatively quiet; not nearly as boisterous as the public houses down by the docks. At this, Stin sighed in mild disappointment.
A young, attractive couple performed in the corner, the fellow on a lute while the lady sang in a beautiful contralto. Several men stood around the couple listening, snifters in hand.
Stin decided these must be men of a higher caliber than the “riff-raff,” as Constable Gant called them. They were dressed nicer, spoke finer words, and drank more expensive alcohol.
Forced to mingle, Stin found himself caring little for their company. He preferred the hustle and bustle and press of humanity that he imagined the dockside taverns offered. Places where no one would see him pick pockets during a game of bone cards.
He spent time in idle conversation with other officers while dreaming of ways to get down to the seedier parts of town. The constables would not pose too much difficulty, he decided. Simply crossing over by rooftop should avoid them. However, as he reflected on the dilemma, he realized he would likely be recognized by his fellow mates from Wavecrest. He wondered how they would respond if they saw him in the wrong part of town.
There was the matter of clothing, too. He was dressed too fine for a dock worker. He could change into a mendicant’s outfit perhaps, but to return to Widow Raynora’s house he would need to don his current attire once more. It would do no good to show up at her door dressed inappropriately.
Stin was shaken fro
m his reveries by the clinking of gold from tables in the back. He excused himself from conversing with the group, and wandered toward the sound of somebody pulling coins across a table.
The table in question was surrounded by smart-looking men and finely dressed women. Stin suspected some of the ladies must be rather expensive prostitutes, based on the quality and flesh-revealing style of their clothing.
The table itself held four men playing a game of cards. The winner of the most recent round stacked his coins and Stin caught his breath. The man had won at least a dozen gold coins, and a couple dozen silver ones, adding to his already considerable pile.
The other three men also had substantial piles of gold and silver. He quickly scanned the back of the room. Two more tables held games, one with six players and the other with four. Three of the players at the other tables were women. Coins stood stacked in front of each player.
“Not surprised to see you here. Sound of gold drew you in, I suppose. Like a moth to a flame.”
Stin turned to find Melton standing next to him, holding a snifter of brandy in one hand, the other clasped behind his back. The wooden leg had a fine leather shoe strapped to it, matching the one on Melton’s good foot. Stin had not heard him walk up.
“Hello, Melton. You clean up well.”
Melton guffawed, and Stin realized this marked the first time he had seen the surly first mate smile.
“You know rotten well I stay clean aboard ship. It’s on land I let me hair down. Iffen I had any.”
He pointed to his receding hairline. Stin smiled and said, “You have a sense of humor, too. Will wonders never cease?”
Melton looked back with a hint of merriment in his eyes, and Stin suspected the brandy might be helping to lighten his mood.
“You can’t let the men get too close, Steck. You have to keep your distance. Make sure they respect you. Nice job finding that gold bunk, by the way. You made all of us much richer this trip. When you first came aboard I had little hope for you. But I pegged you wrong.”
He stamped his peg leg down on the floor, emphasizing the pun. Stin smiled in acknowledgment of the wordplay, then turned his attention back to the table. Melton followed with his eyes and said, “You know Primero?”