“What be that retirement ye mentioned, Amy?” Mags asked suspiciously, turning the spit the meat was on. “This retirement—is it good?”
“Oh, absolutely. A good 401(k) plan is vital to your financial well-being and security in your old age. Don’t worry, I’ll explain it all once I have a fund set up. Now, to begin, perhaps I could start with a simple profit-and-loss prediction based on past—”
The front door of the house was thrown open with a shout of greeting. “Ahoy, the house! First Mate Pangloss is here! Come out, ye comely wenches.”
“Panny!” Sly Jez squealed, jumping up to open the door leading to the entry hall. A big, burly redheaded man swept into the room, not even staggering when Jez flung herself on him, cascading kisses all over his beard-roughened face as she wrapped her legs around his waist.
“Hoy, there, me beauty. ’Tis missin’ ye I’ve been, as well,” the man named Pangloss answered in between kisses of his own.
Behind him another man lurked in the doorway, finally resorting to a shove to get Pangloss and Jez out of the way. “Gangway, ye scurvy bilge rat. Let yer captain through. Hoy, Suky. How be yer charmin’ self today? And all ye lovely ladies . . . sink me, ye’ve a new recruit? Welcome, lass.” The man paused in front of me, jerking a maroon captain’s hat from his head as he swept low in an exaggerated bow. “And a lovely addition to the house ye are.”
“Oh, I’m not with them,” I said quickly, then realized how rude that sounded. “Not that there’s anything wrong with being a . . . er . . . that is, I’m just staying here. I was, for lack of a better word, stranded here, and until I can find my way home again, Renata has kindly offered to let me stay here. But I’m not a . . .” I glanced over to the corner, where the man named Pangloss stood, still lip-locked with Jez.
“This be Amy, Bart,” Suky said, offering the man a tankard of grog. He was a tall, wiry man with shoulder-length golden brown hair, a hard jaw, and eyes that didn’t seem to miss much. “She’s a newcomer hereabouts. Amy, so ye’re knowing . . . Captain Bart is by way of bein’ the governor of Turtle’s Back.”
“A governor? How fascinating. It’s a pleasure, Captain,” I said, offering my hand. Bart stared at it for a moment, then took it, turning it over and placing a kiss on the back.
“The pleasure, lass, is all mine. A newcomer to our fair parts, are ye? Well, then, ye’ll be lookin’ for some help to be gettin’ what ye want in life.”
“Well,” I said, pulling my hand from his, pleasure mingling with a faint sense of discomfort at the look of admiration in his eyes, “actually, I originally wanted to become an officer, but my goals have shifted since I discovered I was stuck here.”
“Ye’re lookin’ to be an officer, eh?” he asked, his gaze turned speculative. “What sort of experience do ye have?”
“Oh. Well, I have . . . er . . . I have a ship.”
“And she beat Black Corbin at swords,” Red Beth said, spreading the skirt of her petticoat and batting her lashes at the captain.
“Did ye, now?” Bart said, his look changing to one more calculating.
“It’s nothing, really,” I said modestly. “But I was alternate on my college fencing team for three years in a row.”
“Eh . . . nice. Well, there may be somethin’ I can do to help ye, lass,” he said. “I’m always lookin’ for good officers to help defend this lovely isle.”
“Oh, thank you, but officer isn’t really my primary goal now—”
“ ’Tis the way off this island,” Bart said smoothly, the blondish beard stubble on his cheeks catching the afternoon sunlight as it slanted in through the window.
Hope rose within me at his words. Maybe that was the way to bring up the virtual reality interface? Maybe I had to achieve the next level in order to quit the game? “Oh, well, then, consider me an officer!”
Bart laughed. Red Beth and Mags and Suky laughed. Sly Jez and Pangloss sucked each other’s tongues. “ ’Tis not quite so easy as all that,” Bart said. “But if ye meet our qualifications to join the crew, ye can go on the account.”
“Er . . .”
“It means become a pirate,” Suky explained, topping off Bart’s grog.
“Oh, become an officer in your crew? Okay. Sounds good to me. Only . . . what are the qualifications? I haven’t done too much sailing, although I did go to Catalina once. That was on a ship. Boat. Whichever.”
Bart smiled. “ ’Tis more of an indoctrination than qualifications, really . . .”
“Ah?” I asked, starting to get worried as his smile grew larger and amusement danced in his pale blue eyes.
“Aye, lass, and a simple one for someone as fierce as yerself. All we ask is that ye take care of a pest that’s been plaguin’ our fair paradise.”
“A pest?” I asked suspiciously. “It’s not a rodent, is it? Because I have a thing about rats—”
“That’s as good a name as any.” Bart laughed. “The rat’s name be Black Corbin, and all ye have to do to join me crew is to kill him.”
Chapter 5
You may go, for you’re at liberty, our pirate rules
protect you,
And honorary members of our band we do elect you!
—Ibid, Act I
“It’s not happening,” I told Bart as I stumbled behind him up the patchily cobblestoned main street that led from the town up to where the governor’s house sat on a bluff overlooking the harbor.
“It wouldn’t be hard for ye, lass. Not if ye’ve beaten Corbin already. The next time, ye just slide yer blade into his neck rather than lightenin’ him of a sloop.”
“It is not happening,” I repeated, glancing a bit nervously at the four men following us. The big guy named Pangloss had remained at Renata’s house, having disappeared into a back room with Jez, but the rest of Bart’s men, so hastily introduced that I didn’t catch any of their names, were a tough-looking lot. They looked like pirates, all sneers and scars and unshaved beards and patched clothing, and a virtual arsenal of swords and firearms strapped to their persons.
“ ’Twould be a simple act,” Bart argued, pausing a moment to grab my arm as I stumbled over a loose cobblestone.
“No.”
“Just a wee slip of yer sword—”
“No! I am not killing anyone!” Bart and the men all stopped and stared at me. I realized that I had made a major gaffe in a game whose entire social structure was built upon bloodthirsty pirates. Not only that, but I may well have blown my chance to join their crew and advance to the point where I could get the hell out of Dodge. So to speak. “That is, I’m not killing anyone tonight. Arr!”
“Yarr!” Bart’s men answered in a snarling cheer.
I grinned at them and tried to look murderous before hurrying to catch up to Bart, where I could speak to him without his men overhearing. “Look, Bart, it’s not that I don’t want to be part of your crew, but murder is wrong. Morally and ethically wrong. Even in a game it’s wrong. I was never one for shoot-’em-up-type games.”
“This be not murder, lass. It be eradication of a pest. Black Corbin and his scurvy lot of lubbers want to destroy Turtle’s Back. They swore to fire the town and run out every last soul as resides here. He’s like a plague, wantin’ to wipe out every livin’ thing so he can take over as governor.”
My mouth opened and closed a couple of times as I tried to think of something to say. “Are you sure?” was what finally emerged. “That doesn’t sound like the guy I met. He was a bit arrogant, sure, but all the men here are arrogant. I think the programmer wrote them that way on purpose.”
Bart paused before the main entrance to a big house that loomed up in the darkness. The flames from torches on either side of the doors flickered and danced wildly in the steady breeze that swept up the cliff from the ocean. “I’m not mistaken about Black Corbin, lass. He’s as murderous a rogue as ever ye’ve clapped eyes on. Someday I’ll tell ye the full list of our grievances against him, but until then ye’ll just have to trust that he’s the devil??
?s own son.”
“Hmm.” I entered the house when he waved me in, mulling over the conflicting opinions about Corbin. Granted I had only just met the man, but was my judgment of people really so off that I could be fooled that easily?
“Go into me library and we’ll get ye into the crew,” Bart said, gesturing toward a room that led off a large, dark hall. “In a probationary capacity only, ye ken,” he added when I looked hopeful.
“Ah. Yes.” I went into a small, cozy room lit by a dozen beeswax candles and a small fire in the fireplace, and spent a moment in admiration of the game’s artistic qualities. Everything from the polished mahogany desk that lurked in the corner to the brightly shining brass candelabrum on the mantelpiece, the long, linen curtains that gently swayed in the breeze from the open windows, right down to the coal scuttle and twisted spills used to light the fire were authentic. As ran my hand along the spines of books in a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, I realized with a start just how comfortable I was in this world.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” I told myself, glancing out the opened door to where Bart stood in the hall giving orders to his men. “You are not getting used to this place! It’s not real. You have a daughter and a home and a real life. Think, Amy, think—there’s got to be a way out of here other than killing someone.”
I was still desperately trying to come up with another solution when Bart entered the room, followed by one of his men. He thrust a foil and scabbard at me.
“Oh, thank you. I like foils.” I strapped the leather belt around my waist, adjusting the scabbard until I could withdraw the foil easily.
“Wear this. It’ll mark ye as one of me crew,” he said, shoving a green and white striped bandana in my hands. “As I’ve told ye, to be a full member of me crew, blood must be spilled. Yers in addition to Corbin’s.”
“What?” I shrieked, jumping back when his cohort moved toward me, a wicked-looking curved-blade knife glinting in his hand. I pulled my foil and took a self-defensive stance.
Bart cocked an eyebrow at me, but his eyes laughed at my outraged indignation. “ ’Tis just a little nick Maggot is wantin’ to make. Just a little bloodlettin’ to act as yer bond.”
“Well, my word is going to have to suffice as a bond, because there’s no way I’m letting him stab me with that thing. It looks positively riddled with tetanus.”
“Aye, well . . . I suppose we can hold off with this part of the crew initiation until ye’ve completed yer appointed task,” Bart said graciously, waving his crewmate out.
I waited until the door closed behind him before turning to Bart and saying, “There’s not going to be any completion of my appointed task, Bart. As I’ve said at least a half dozen times before, I’m not going to kill Corbin.”
“He’s a murderin’ thief,” Bart answered, leaning his hip against the desk, his arms crossed over his chest. Bart was clad in a dark blue captain’s jacket, thigh-high boots, black pants, and a shiny gold earring. He looked like a pirate off the top of a Disney float, perfect in every way. I had the worst urge to muss him up a bit. I wasn’t a big history expert, but I knew enough about the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to know this sanitized version of pirateness wasn’t strictly kosher. To be honest, I much preferred Corbin’s scruffiness to this dandified version.
“Look, I’m not going to do it, okay? So let’s talk compromise. I want to be an officer in your crew. Aside from killing a man who may or may not be innocent, what else can I do to achieve that?”
“Nothin’. Ye kill him, or ye don’t join the crew.”
“What is it about ‘I’m not killing anyone’ that you don’t understand?” I asked, annoyed with the shrill tone my voice had taken, but losing my patience. Honestly, were death and mayhem all these people thought about?
“What is it about ‘ye must’ that ye don’t ken?” Bart countered.
“I’m not doing it,” I said abruptly, crossing my own arms over my chest.
“Ye won’t be joinin’ me crew, then.”
“I’m crying in my beer over that,” I said, admittedly flip, but I wasn’t in the mood to censor myself.
“Ye won’t be makin’ officer, either,” Bart said, picking up a dagger and fingering the tip of it.
“Big deal. I’m not one hundred percent sure that will help me, anyway.”
“And ye won’t be goin’ home,” he said, completely ignoring my comments.
That stopped me just as I was about to tell him where he could stick the dagger. “Er . . . just how dead do you need Corbin?”
He tossed the dagger up and snatched it out of the air while it was still a spinning blur. “I want him removed from the Seventh Sea. Does that answer your question?”
“Yes, it does,” I answered, my mind chewing over the loophole I’d been hoping to find. Maybe there was a way I could contact the game’s creator and ask to have the character of Corbin deleted from the game. What I needed was a piratey version of e-mail, some way I could get a message out to the real world.
“There’s no other way, lass,” he said, giving me a surprisingly knowing look.
“So you say,” I said slowly, racking my brain for any tidbits of knowledge about how computer games worked. Didn’t people always write something in called a back door, a secret way for the programmers to get in and access things? Maybe if I could find it, I could get out of the game . . . or at least contact the programmer. “But how do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“How do ye know I’m not?”
“Good point.” Dammit.
“If it’s out of Turtle’s Back ye want, ye’re going to have to play the game.”
Was he speaking of the game itself, or metaphorically? Hmm.
He set the dagger down and went to a mahogany glass-fronted hutch to pour himself what looked like brandy. “I’ll have one of the men show ye the way about a ship tomorrow. Ye’ll be needin’ to sail to Mongoose to find Corbin.”
“Mongoose?”
“ ’Tis the island where he puts into port. Ye’ll either find him there, or skulking around its shores. Until ye’ve got yer sea legs, ye’re welcome to stay here with me.”
“Eh.” I accepted the small tumbler of brandy he gave me without comment, absently sipping at it, enjoying the burn it made going down my throat. What was I going to do? I couldn’t kill anyone, not even in a game, but on the other hand, if doing so was the only way I’d get back to reality and my own life, how awful could it be? It wasn’t like Corbin was a real person, after all.
My stomach turned over a couple of times at the thought. Quickly I set down the brandy and squared my shoulders. The situation couldn’t be as bleak as it appeared. I just needed to examine the circumstances fully, and another solution would be sure to come to me. “Thank you, but I’m staying at Renata’s. I would appreciate your help with the ship thing, though. As I said, I’m not much of a sailor.”
Bart’s eyes smiled at me over the rim of the tumbler. “Ye will be, lass. Ye will be. To get ye started, I’ll loan ye a few men to help ye sail yer ship. Ye should be fine with three able-bodied seamen and a cabin boy, I think. Maggot!”
I jumped at Bart’s sudden bellow, taking the chair he absently gestured to while he talked to his man. “Round up three seamen for the lass. And be that half-witted little mongrel still clamorin’ to be a cabin boy?”
“Aye. Maltwise Sam threw him in the drink yester eve, but the bilge rat didn’t drown. He’s hangin’ around the gates, beggin’.”
“Fetch him in. He’ll do for the lass, as well.”
“Er . . . thank you. I think.”
“Ye’ll note that I be bendin’ the rules for ye, m’dear,” Bart said as he poured himself another drink. “Maggot’ll be thinkin’ I’ve gone soft in the head, but I’ve an idea that ye’re worth the trouble.”
“Oh. Thank you. I’m sure I am. That is, I appreciate everything you’re doing for me. Almost everything. That death order I could do without, but we’ve been over that—”
The door opened to admit a small boy of about seven or eight, dark-haired, dark-skinned, covered from head to toe in filthy rags, mud, dirt, what smelled like manure, and no doubt a host of other things that I really didn’t want to identify. His right arm ended in a crudely fashioned metal hook. Perched on his scrawny shoulder was an equally dirty ratty black bird, wearing the same air of abandonment and squalor as was settled around the boy.
“Scupper me,” Bart said, a look of profound distaste flickering across his face. “He be even worse than I remember. What’s yer name, lad?”
The boy stood impassive, his face a dirt-encrusted mask of indifference. “Don’t got one,” he finally squawked when Maggot gave him a none-too-gentle shove of encouragement. The bird squawked as well, fluffing out his feathers enough for me to see that, like the boy, he was missing part of a limb—in the bird’s case, one of his wings was stunted, no doubt unusable.
“No name, eh?” Bart glanced at me. “Seems a bit light in the wits, but if ye use the strap on him often enough, he’ll train up right smartly, I’m thinkin’.”
I glanced at the boy, about to refuse the offer—the last thing I needed was a child to watch over while trying to get out of the game—but the look in the dirty little urchin’s eyes stopped me. They weren’t full of horror or pity; they weren’t even pleading with me to help him. They were flat, cold, and empty. No child’s eyes should look like that.
“Thank you. I’m sure we’ll work out well together. Do you live anywhere in particular?” I asked the boy. He stared at me as if he couldn’t understand what I was saying. Poor little disabled mite. Obviously he’d had a cruel upbringing so far, not to mention having the handicap of just one arm. He would be toast if I didn’t do something to help. “No? Well, I’m sure Renata will be able to find a bed for you, too. We’ll have to find a nice name for you. Does no one call you anything?”
The boy thought for a moment, then said simply, “Bastard.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“They call me bastard. They’re always sayin’, ‘Get outta me way, ye scurvy little bastard.’ ”