Privateer

by Margaret Weis

  Kate then inspected the ship, making a mental list of what they needed to do to sail down into the Deep Breath. They had to haul the balloons out of storage and check the silk for rents and tears, then secure the balloons to the masts and inflate them. They then had to connect the control cables from the helm to each balloon, and finally, to grease the gears of the airscrews, and go over every inch of every cable to make certain the magic was still working.

  She had hoped to make the descent today, before darkness fell. She soon had to admit that this goal was impossible to achieve. They had too much work to do, only three people to do it, and she was the sole crafter. Olaf and Akiel and the others would have to spend one more night in the Deep Breath.

  Kate set Thomas and Phillip to work on the balloons while she inspected and repaired the ship’s magic. Magical constructs were used in every part of the ship. Magic reinforced the hull, prevented the lift tanks from rusting, and turned the airscrews.

  Olaf was a ship’s crafter and had always kept the magic on the old Rose in good repair, even when she was no longer in use. Kate remembered chiding him for working on the old boat when he should have been working on Victorie.

  “Someday you might find you need the old girl, Katydid,” Olaf had said. “When you do, she’ll be ready.”

  He had been prescient. She had reason to be grateful. All magic wears over time. Kate was relieved to see that the constructs had not broken down as much as she had feared. Still, she had work to do to repair it.

  The sun sank down behind the trees to the west, and darkness crept through the jungle and onto the Rose. In the waning light, Kate couldn’t tell one sigil from another and reluctantly had to admit it was time to quit.

  She straightened from a stooping position and stretched to ease her aching muscles, then looked around at her “crew.” She had assigned Thomas the task of checking every strand of braided leather cable for breaks that might impede the flow of magic. She had told Phillip to inflate the balloons, and he was currently wrestling with the heavy folds of the chambered silk, trying to stretch it out flat on the deck.

  Kate had to give them credit. He and Thomas had worked hard, without complaint, doing whatever she asked of them. Both were filthy and suffering in the heat. They had long ago shed their shirts. Phillip was red in the face, his shock of blond hair standing up straight on his head. Thomas had tied back his hair with a length of rope and appeared completely unaware that his face was covered with grime.

  As she watched, Phillip lost his grip on the balloon and tumbled over. The silk slithered to the deck and he sat down on his backside. Thomas laughed at him and Phillip made a rude gesture.

  “You can both stop working,” Kate told them, smiling. “We will finish in the morning.”

  “Are you sure?” Phillip asked.

  “We can’t sail the Deep Breath after dark,” Kate said regretfully. “Besides, we’re all exhausted.”

  Phillip gave a thankful sigh and flopped down flat on the deck, too tired to move.

  Thomas continued to peer down at a length of leather braid, trying to see. Kate walked over to him.

  “You are a hard worker for a prince,” she said. “If you ever need an honest way to make a living, I might consider hiring you.”

  Thomas smiled. “I think you should look at this section of the braid.”

  The magical constructs were damaged. One of the strands had broken, and others were starting to unravel. Olaf had warned her the leather needed to be replaced.

  “Magic and spit can do only so much to hold it together,” he had grumbled.

  At the time, Kate had ignored his warning. She couldn’t afford to spend money on Rose; she had needed the money to repair Victorie.

  “Can we fix it?” he asked.

  “Ideally we should remove the entire length of leather braid, replace the leather, braid it again and then reattach it,” Kate said, sighing. “But I don’t have time or materials. I’ll have to fuse it with magic. It won’t work as well, but it will work.

  “I need your help. Pull this strand tight, like this,” she instructed, demonstrating. “Keep hold and don’t let go while I cast the magic.”

  Thomas did as she ordered. Kate traced constructs on the leather braid, then murmured beneath her breath. The constructs glowed blue, and smoke and the smell of cooked meat filled the air.

  “Hold still!” she scolded Thomas. “I won’t burn you.”

  “I beg your pardon, Captain,” he said.

  A tremor in his voice made her look up at him. They were standing shoulder to shoulder, their bodies pressed close together, arms and hands touching.

  Kate wished she could escape his touch, for his nearness was having an unsettling effect on her. She didn’t dare move, however, for fear of disrupting the magic. Gritting her teeth, she concentrated on the spell. The blue glow strengthened, fusing the leather braid together.

  “Hopefully that will work, at least for a little while,” Kate said, taking several steps back away from him. “The patch will slow the flow of the magic, but as long as some reaches the lift tank we should be fine.”

  “Your use of the words ‘hopefully’ and ‘should be’ do not fill me with confidence,” said Phillip, coming over to join them.

  “I can nurse the magic along by hand, if I have to,” said Kate. “Let’s see what Gert packed for dinner.”

  Phillip brought out the food: a cold collation of smoked meats, plantains, and hardtack. The three ate supper by lantern light, sitting on the deck to take advantage of the evening breeze.

  “I’m sorry we didn’t finish our work today,” said Thomas. “Your friends will have to spend another night down there.”

  “They will be starting to think I abandoned them,” Kate said.

  “I know Olaf,” said Phillip. “He would never think that.”

  “You are right,” Kate admitted. “Olaf always believes in me, even when I don’t deserve it.”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask about Olaf,” said Thomas. “You seem very close to him. Is he some relation to you?”

  “Olaf was my father’s friend, probably Morgan’s only friend,” Kate answered. “They were shipmates before the navy court-martialed my father. Olaf stood by Morgan when he didn’t deserve it and he’s done the same for me.”

  “You said you lived on this ship,” Thomas said. “Seems an odd place to raise a child.”

  He seemed to realize what he was asking, for he flushed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry.”

  Kate shrugged. “I don’t mind talking about it. My mother died when I was six. She had no family and no money, and the bank seized the family estate. Morgan’s family had disowned him, so he had no one to look after me. He didn’t know what else to do with me, and he took me to live with him on board the Rose.”

  Kate smiled, thinking back. “It was a wonderful life for a child. My father was charming and handsome. He was good at lying, smuggling, and swindling people out of their money. He was bad at cards and at raising a daughter. He let me run wild on board ship. I spent my days climbing the rigging and running along the yardarms. We were rarely in the same place two days in a row and so by the time I was ten I had seen the world.”

  “Sounds wonderful,” said Thomas. “My parents shipped me off to boarding school when I was six. I spent my days cooped up in classrooms that smelled of cabbage, conjugating verbs, while the other boys made me wear gilt paper crowns and called me ‘His Minus.’”

  He laughed, and Kate was going to make some cutting remark about the “poor little rich boy” until she saw the shadow of pain darken his eyes. Her father had loved her, kept her with him, given her a family of sorts. Thomas’s parents had shipped him away from home to live among strangers.

  “You should have known Kate when we first met her,” Phillip was saying. “She was wild as a catamount. She could drink any man under the table and knew more swear words than any pirate in the Aligoes.”

  Kate laughed. “My poor father tried to t
urn me into a lady. When I was sixteen, he bought me a green silk dress and a book on deportment. I think he hoped they would magically transform me from hoyden to gracious gentlewoman.”

  “I’m glad he didn’t,” said Thomas. “I like you the way you are.”

  Phillip cleared his throat and shot his friend a warning glance from beneath lowered brows.

  Thomas frowned. His brow darkened and he looked away.

  Kate realized that she must have been the subject of conversation between these two, perhaps even of contention. She wondered if Thomas had expressed his admiration for her to his friend.

  I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, he had told her.

  Phillip would have probably told Thomas what Kate had already told him. That she was a convict, formerly a pirate, and that he was engaged to a princess.

  She began to pack away the uneaten food, and snatched a piece of hardtack from Phillip just as he was starting to eat it.

  “Hey!” he protested. “I’m not finished.”

  “Yes you are. We need to save some for Olaf and the others,” said Kate. “It’s time to go to bed. I plan to be up at first light.”

  “I could sleep for days,” said Thomas, yawning. Catching Kate’s baleful eye, he added hurriedly, “But I won’t. Should one of us stand watch?”

  “I vote no,” said Phillip. “If some monster is going to crawl out of the jungle to devour me, I am willing to let it, so long as it doesn’t wake me first.”

  “I agree,” said Kate. She slapped at a mosquito. “Cabins are below.”

  They each took a lantern and she led the way below deck.

  “You and Thomas can sleep here,” said Kate.

  She opened the door to the cabin Marco and Akiel had shared. Two hammocks hung suspended from hooks in the overhead. Phillip climbed into one and flung his arm over his eyes.

  “Good night,” he mumbled.

  Kate dimmed the lantern light, so as not to disturb him, and waited for Thomas to join him. Instead he continued to stand in the corridor.

  “Where do you sleep?” he asked.

  “In the captain’s cabin,” said Kate. “It’s down the hall, in the stern. Now go to bed, sailor.” She smiled at him. “Thank you for helping me. I could never have done this work alone.”

  “So long as I am alive, you will never be alone,” said Thomas.

  He took hold of her in his arms, drew her close, and kissed her.

  “Good night, Kate,” he whispered, and before she could draw breath or push him or slap him, he had slipped into the cabin and shut the door.

  Kate stood in the corridor, glaring at the door. She had a good mind to go in there and tell him what she thought of him.

  Except that right now, her thoughts were of his kiss.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance. A gentle rain began to fall, pattering on the deck above. Kate stalked off down the corridor to the stern.

  She opened the door to her cabin, and stood looking about in dismay. The cabin was empty. She had moved all the furniture, the desk and the chairs, her books and maps and charts, onto the Victorie.

  The only stick of furniture was the bed, which had been built into the bulwark. She had no mattress, only a blanket. She would have to sleep on the bare wood, but she was so exhausted that didn’t matter. She lay down and listened to the rain. Thunder growled, far away.

  She could still feel Thomas’s arms around her.

  “Bloody hell!” Kate muttered. She pulled the blanket up over her head.

  NINE

  Kate woke from a deep sleep to find bright sunlight streaming in through the small porthole in her cabin. Swearing, she flung off the blanket and sat up on the edge of the bed. She had not meant to sleep so late. She had told Thomas and Phillip she would be up before dawn.

  She stretched and stifled a groan. She had spent the night without pillow or mattress and her neck was stiff, her back sore. She thought of Olaf and how he must have spent the night, freezing in the darkness of the Deep Breath, wondering why she hadn’t come to rescue him. Remorseful, she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

  “Today,” Kate promised him. “I’m coming today.”

  She had fallen asleep in her clothes, so there was no need to dress. She checked the cut on her foot and found it was still healing well, now hardly noticeable. She couldn’t believe Thomas had made such a huge fuss over a small wound, though she also had to give credit to Little Dimitri’s healing salve.

  She left her cabin and walked barefoot down the corridor, moving quietly. She heard no sounds on the ship except the stirring of rodents and water dripping from the rigging and the yardarms. Pausing outside the cabin where Phillip and Thomas were sleeping, Kate quietly opened the door a crack and peeped inside.

  A ray of sunlight crept in through a chink in the planks of the hull. Both men were still in their hammocks, still fast asleep. Phillip lay on his stomach, one arm dangling over the edge of the hammock. Thomas slept on his back, his arms at his sides. He slightly smiled, as though he was enjoying a pleasant dream.

  He was probably thinking about kissing her.

  “It would serve you right if I tipped you out of the hammock,” she muttered.

  Thomas stirred in his sleep as though he had heard her. He shifted with a sigh. Kate flushed, afraid he would catch her watching him, and hurriedly closed the door.

  She considered waking them, but decided she wanted to be alone for a little while. A lot had happened; she needed to sort out her thoughts.

  She climbed the stairs and walked out onto the deck, blinking in the sunlight. The rain had ended, leaving the world clean and fresh scrubbed. Kate picked up the waterskin, discovered it was empty, and went to fill it in a stream that flowed down the mountainside.

  Every ship’s captain’s first concern was fresh water and she and Olaf had chosen this cove to work on Victorie because of the proximity of the stream, which provided a plentiful supply.

  Olaf had rigged up what he termed a “cyclical” pump operated by the swift flow of the water. She reminded herself to check on the pump, make certain it was working, for they would have to fill the Rose’s water barrels before they descended to the Deep Breath.

  The rain had caused the stream to swell. The water bubbled and gurgled over the rocks before vanishing into the jungle.

  Kate cupped her hands and drank, then filled the waterskin and went to check the pump. Because it ran off the power of the water, Olaf had said it could work forever, long after the two of them were gone.

  Thinking how close that pump recently had come to outliving her, she shivered in the cool morning air.

  When she had worked on Victorie, she had found a place where an offshoot of the stream lost itself among the mangroves, forming a pool beneath the roots. She had often come here to rest and dangle her feet in the placid water, watch the fish and dream of how she would find her fortune.

  She sat down on the bank and sighed. She had no more dreams left in her.

  Remembering that the day was wasting, she removed the red kerchief from her head, preparing to use it to scrub her face. She reached down into the pool and, seeing her reflection, she stared, overcome by shock.

  She had known she must look different. She had not known how different. She would not have recognized herself. Her face was bronze from the sun, her shaved scalp, by contrast, white as a fish’s belly. The jagged wound on her head was clearly visible, a purple streak held together by black, zigzag stitches. The bruises on her face were purple and puce. At least the swelling was going down on her lip.

  Her large eyes were her one beauty: hazel with golden flecks. The curls that had framed her face had often fallen over her eyes. Now, without them, her eyes seemed huge.

  “Good God!” Kate whispered.

  She dunked the kerchief into the water, ruthlessly destroying her reflection.

  She carried the waterskin back to the Rose, thinking about Thomas and his kiss. Having seen her reflection, she decided he must be toying
with her for his own amusement. He couldn’t truly be serious. Kate decided to make it clear to him that she didn’t like his advances. He needed to stop.

  She was disappointed on her return to discover that both men were still fast asleep. She supposed she should go down to wake them, but where was the fun in that?

  She began the process of inflating the balloon, making as much noise as she could.

  Since Phillip had spread out the balloon on deck, all she had to do was attach the first set of guylines that ran from the hull to each balloon, then connect the hoses from the reserve tank to the balloons and fill them with just enough lift gas to cause the balloons to float up into the air. That enabled her to then maneuver the balloon into position between the foremast and mizzenmast. She would fully inflate them when they were ready to sail.

  As she worked, she stomped about the deck, dragged the hose, and banged on the lift tank a couple of times for good measure. Soon a rumpled-looking Phillip came up on deck. He cast her a bleary-eyed glance.

  “I take the hint,” he grumbled, and disappeared into the jungle.

  Thomas appeared moments later. The stubble of a day’s growth of beard was dark on his jaw and chin, and his black curly hair straggled about his face. He was carrying his shirt, and she could see that his bare chest and arms were red from the sun.

  “Good morning,” Kate said, nonchalant. “There’s water if you’re thirsty and food from yesterday. Oh, and don’t ever kiss me again. I didn’t like it.”

  Thomas smiled. “I was merely returning the favor. After all, you kissed me first.”

  “I did not!” Kate protested, thinking he meant last night.

  Then she remembered, and blushed red. He was talking about the time she had kissed him in Braffa.

  “That wasn’t a kiss,” said Kate, annoyed. “That was my way of letting you know that I had outsmarted you.”

  Thomas raised his eyebrows. “Your lips touching mine. Certainly seemed like a kiss to me.”

  He walked away, leaving the ship before she had time to think of a flattening rejoinder.