“Yes, well, I don’t think they mean it as a name—”
“Suits ye right well, it does,” Bart said, clapping his hand on the boy’s uninhabited shoulder, quickly withdrawing it to wipe it on his pants. “Bastard be yer name, lad.”
“No, it’s not,” I said firmly.
Bart shrugged. “Bas, then. Good enough. Off with the two of ye. The rest of the men’ll join ye in the mornin’, lass.”
“No, wait; I can pick a more fitting name—”
“Me bird’s got a name,” the boy announced as Bart made shooing motions toward the door.
“I wouldn’t rightly be callin’ that mangy collection of feathers and lice a bird,” Bart said, picking up the fire tongs and using them to prod the boy toward the door.
“His name is Bran. Me ma said it means raven in Welch.”
“Welsh,” I corrected, giving in and following Bart and the filthy boy out to the hallway.
“Me ma said a raven on yer doorstep meant death to everyone who lived there. Me ma saw a raven and she died the next day,” the boy added with grim relish.
Bart stopped for a moment to have a few words with one of his men.
“How horrible. You poor thing; when did she die?”
Bas’s shoulders twitched in what I assumed was a shrug of ignorance. Bran the raven fluttered his scraggly feathers in mute protest of the action. “Don’t remember. She drowned, though.”
“I’m so sorry. Was she out sailing?” I asked, aware of the morbid tint to the conversation, but unable to stop myself from encouraging the lad to talk.
“Nay. She drowned in a vat of ale.” Bas scratched his ear with the tip of his crude hook, examined the results closely, then wiped the hook on the ragged remains of a pair of woolen breeches. “Fell in trying to skim a bit off, and stayed there to drink her fill. The night watchman found her dead, floatin’ on the top, all bloaty and puffed up and swollen.”
“Good God!” I stared at the boy in horror. He didn’t look the least bit disturbed by the retelling of his mother’s appalling death. “How very tragic.”
He made the odd half-shrugging motion again. “Don’t know about that. The watchman said she was smilin’.”
I opened my mouth to respond with some sort of sympathetic platitude but couldn’t think of a damn thing to say to that. So I allowed Bart to give me details about meeting up with his first mate for sailing instructions and guidance, thanked him for his help, and finally headed down the hill with a new provisional crew, a foil strapped to my hip, and a cabin boy who would make Eeyore seem like the life of the party.
“Have ye ever seen a corpse what’s been in the water for a few days?” Bas asked in a conversational tone of voice.
I flinched. “No, nor do I want to discuss it.”
“They be all pasty white and green and sometimes fishes eats bits of them—”
“Right, I think it’s time for a few house rules, Bas.”
The boy looked around as we trod the path from the governor’s house down to the town proper. “We be outside now.”
“Yes, I know; it’s just a figure of speech.”
“Look, a death’s head. He who sees that with an unclean soul will be dead afore dawn,” the boy said, pointing to a cloud that passed over the newly risen moon.
“Er . . . yes. Now, as to our rules. I don’t know what the going rate for cabin boys is, but I will find out and give that to you, as well as making sure you have food, regular baths, and some decent clothes. How does that sound?”
Bas stopped next to a small house, his head tipped as he listened intently, interest lighting his dark eyes. “Hear that tappin’? Deathwatch beetle. Someone be dyin’ in that house.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” I muttered under my breath. “Rule number one: No discussions of what bodies look like when they’ve been drowned.”
“I saw a man what had been partially eaten by a shark,” Bas said as I hurried him down the irregular cobblestones. “Both his legs was gone, and half of his head—”
“That includes bodies that have been partially eaten. In fact, I think we need a moratorium on bodies altogether.”
Bas didn’t look too happy about that, but I didn’t care. Obviously his early years had tainted him with an unusually morbid obsession with death and dying. He just needed someone to turn his mind to more healthy subjects. “You’ll like Renata and the ladies. They are very . . . uh . . . popular women, so don’t pay any attention to the gentlemen you see visiting them at night. And . . . er . . . during the day, too. Probably a few in the morning, if I know Suky.”
“Be they tarts?” Bas asked.
“No, certainly not! They are businesswomen who have made their own choices, and taken charge of their lives, which is always a good thing. Just remember that we are not here to judge. And besides, if I get an investment scheme going, they might just be able to retire early.” I got a whiff of the boy’s foul odor as the breeze whipped through the narrow alleyway between Tara’s weavery (which I’d stopped in briefly earlier) and a blacksmith’s shop. “Phew. You need a bath. I’ll see that you get one when we get to Renata’s.”
“Tarts get the pox,” he said blithely, walking right through a pile of donkey manure. “Me ma said they do. The pox eats away at ye until ye’re nothin’ but bloody pustules and scabby sores and boils that erupt all over yer—”
“Rule number two: You are to make no references to tarts, the pox, or pustules, oozing or otherwise. Sores and boils are also verboten.”
Bas fell silent as we marched along. I began to mentally compose a plan of action for the boy, so that when I did find my way out of this world, he’d be in a better place than where I found him.
“Old lady Jenkins, she had a bath last year,” Bas said suddenly, distracting me from my thoughts.
Warm yellow light from oil lamps spilled out the open windows of Renata’s house, creating dappled pools on the cobblestones outside. Laughter, the sounds of a fiddle, and several delighted shrieks of the female variety accompanied the light, giving proof to Renata’s claim that the house did very good business. I debated taking the boy around the back way, so he would be spared the sight of the ladies flirting with their prospective customers, but trusted that he wouldn’t see anything he hadn’t seen a hundred times before. “Did she? Good for her.”
“Aye.” Bas waited for the count of five, then added with morose glee, “She died a se’ennight later.”
Chapter 6
Although we live by strife,
We’re always sorry to begin it. . . .
—Ibid, Act I
The next two days were hell. If I thought I’d gone through bad patches in my life before, I was mistaken—nothing could compare to the nightmare I found myself in.
“This be a yar ship,” Pangloss, Bart’s first mate, told me as he emerged from a tiny captain’s quarters in the aft—back—part of the ship. “She’ll do well in beatin’ to windward and close-hauled sailin’.”
“Well, of course she will,” I said, wondering whether I could possibly pull off pretending I knew what the hell he was talking about.
“I’ve always had an eye for a good ship design, and this one be the best,” Pangloss told me. “She’s got a bluff bow and a fine run aft, and the mast is set forward in the hull. See those oak leeboards? They be hung well forward amidships for balance, ye see.”
Then again, it never hurt to learn something new. “Er . . . actually, I don’t see. I’m afraid this is my first time on a ship like this.”
“Yer first time in a sloop?” Pangloss asked, running a hand down the polished side rail. “Never say it is! Well, then, ye’ll be wantin’ a bit of explanation about her so ye can appreciate just how fine a beauty she is. Ye see the mast?”
“Yes,” I said, looking up at the tall mast, which was about a third of the way from the front of the ship. “It’s big.”
“Aye. Sloops have only a single mast, and fore-and-aft rig.”
“You’ve lost me,”
I said, frowning up at the mast. The sails, kind of a yellowy white in color, were bound tightly around the poked-out bits, which Pangloss said were called spars.
“Ye have a boom-and-gaff mainsail there,” Pangloss said, pointing up to the mast. “Then ye have a forward triangular staysail which we call a jib. And aft ye have a mainsail that be controlled by yer boom. Do ye see that?”
“Yeah,” I said, wishing I had a nautical dictionary. “What’s that pointy bit on the front of the ship?”
“That be the bowsprit, lass. It’s what makes yer ship one of the fastest vessels to sail. If the wind be favorable, ye can make eleven knots.”
“Ah.”
“Ye’ve got fourteen cannons aboard, as well. That with yer speed will let ye hunt all but the biggest of prizes.”
“Fourteen, eh? Cool.” I looked around the deck of the ship, a warm glow of ownership filling me. It may not be real, and heaven knew I didn’t want to stay here, but for the moment, at least, I had a fast, deadly ship, and the sudden desire to pillage and plunder and fire off all fourteen cannons in a dashing display of might and power.
My exultation was short-lived. The rest of the day was spent learning how to sail my fast, deadly ship. Or rather, trying to sail her. Pangloss rounded up three motley-looking crewmates to help me sail her, introducing them as the bosun’s boys. One was a wrinkled, hunchbacked man who’d evidently come in far too close contact with a sword, while the other two were spotty teens with greasy hair, unkempt, ragged, and filthy clothes, and feet almost black with things I didn’t want to think about.
“That’s Tar—he be the one without the nose—and the twins there go by the name of Prudence and Impulsive.”
“Prudence?” I asked, smiling at the three men clustered around the front part of the ship. Forward, I corrected myself. The front was the fore, the rear the aft, and I was going to go mad trying to learn everything in the day I’d allotted to getting up to speed. “Isn’t that a girl’s name?”
The twin named Prudence snarled something inaudible as Pangloss laughed. “Aye, it is, but in this instance it refers to the fact that Pru always be jumpin’ into things afore he looks.”
“Ah. And Impulsive?”
“He be the opposite of his brother.”
“Excellent. Nice to meet you all. This is Bas, my cabin boy, and Bran, his raven. Ignore their respective pouts. They had a bit of an issue with the baths I made them both take last night.”
“We almost drowned, she were that mean,” Bas muttered. “I’m thinkin’ I have the consumption from it.”
I glared him into silence.
“This lot be good lads,” Pangloss said in an undertone to me, “although they may need the taste of the captain’s daughter now and again.”
“I don’t care who they date on their own time, but I intend on running a tight ship,” I said, giving the twins a quelling look.
Pangloss laughed. “Nay, lass, the captain’s daughter be another name for the cat.”
“There’s a ship cat?” I asked, looking around the main deck.
“Cat-o’-nine-tails,” Pangloss corrected me.
“Ergh. You expect me to beat them?” I asked in a whisper through my teeth, sending my new crew of three plus Bas what I hoped was a reassuring “I wouldn’t dream of physically assaulting you” smile. “I couldn’t do that!”
“Sure, ye could,” he responded with a humorous twinkle in his eye. “Ye’ll be changin’ yer mind quick enough when ye’re becalmed because the lads are three sheets to the wind. Smartly, ye sprogs! Put yer weight onto the halyards! Hoist the sails!”
The actual training part of the trip wasn’t too awful, although I got horribly mixed up with all the nautical terms Pangloss was throwing at me. After getting rigging confused with the spars (spars are the poles used to support sails and rigging), mistakenly referring to the main deck as the poop deck (I just liked saying poop deck), and repeatedly confusing starboard (right) with port (left), I thought things couldn’t get much worse, but then we left the calm waters of the harbor and hit the open sea.
“Ye all right now that ye’ve chucked yer breakfast?” Pangloss asked as I lay crumpled over the railing of the deck, my head hanging over the blue-green water that slid past us with insidious ease.
“No. Dramamine. Please, if you have any mercy in your soul, get me some Dramamine,” I croaked, my voice hoarse from my seemingly endless bouts with seasickness.
“I’m thinkin’ we’re not havin’ that aboard ship,” Pangloss said, looking around like he expected a giant box of Dramamine to tap-dance its way toward him. “What ye need is a wee bit of grog until ye’ve got yer pins under ye.”
I turned my head enough to eye the metal tankard of grog he offered me. “I’ll die if I drink that.”
“Nay, ye won’t. It’ll settle yer gut, see if it don’t.”
For one moment I contemplated just throwing myself overboard and ending my misery, but my pride got the better of me. I was a strong woman, capable, respected, and in control of every situation. Was I going to let a little thing like seasickness get the best of me?”
“Hell, no,” I snarled, snatching the mug of grog from Pangloss and drinking the whole thing down in one gulp. Maybe Pangloss was right. Maybe a touch of rum would settle my stomach and allow me to survive the hell into which I’d found myself thrust.
“Ye be a right pretty shade of green,” Tar the sailor said as five hours later we pulled back into port. “I had me a hat just such a shade when I was a lad.”
I slumped to the deck and wondered whether I could pay someone to scoop me up and cart me to Renata’s house.
“Eh . . . lass?” Pangloss, that evil personification of everything sailorish, loomed overhead giving me a meaningful look. I stifled the urge to vomit on his feet and tried to get my still spinning mind to focus on what he wanted.
“Oh. Right. Sorry. I forgot you put me in charge of the trip. Uh, guys? Can you do the belaying thing? With the running lines? Make them fast and all that stuff.”
Grudgingly my pitiful crew, who evidently didn’t much like a woman being in charge of them, secured the ship to the rickety dock.
“Thanks, guys.”
“Mates,” Pangloss hissed.
“Er . . . thanks, mates. Yarr ’n’ stuff. Could one of you get a wheelbarrow and pour me into it? I don’t think I’m going to be able to stand up.”
Pangloss rolled his eyes and dismissed the men, hauling me to my feet with assurances that by tomorrow, I’d have my sea legs.
“Oh, I have sea legs already,” I told him the following day. “My legs feel like they’re made up of seawater, thank you very much.”
“I once knew a man what chucked so much, he started spewin’ up blood,” Bas said helpfully as I lunged for the railing. “He died two days later, covered in cankers. Oozin’ cankers.”
Pangloss shooed Bas off to a maintenance task within the boy’s one-handed abilities, and waited until I was done heaving over the side of the ship before answering. “Some takes a bit longer to get their legs. Here ye be—have a wee sip of grog to settle yer belly.”
I knew from experience that the grog wouldn’t do anything of the kind, but I took it nonetheless, swishing a mouthful of it around to rid myself of the unpleasant taste my seasickness had left.
Pangloss flinched as I spat it out.
I eyed him malevolently as I handed him back the tankard of grog. “Don’t give me another lecture about the sins of wasting rum. Do something to distract me from this horrible up-and-down thing the ship is doing.”
“It’s called sailin’, lass.”
“Whatever. It’s evil. Distract me.”
He stood in front of me, hands on his hips as he frowned down at me. “What would ye be likin’ me to do, then?”
I waved a vague hand around. “I don’t know. Talk to me. Tell me about Turtle’s Back. Tell me what it is that Corbin has done that has put a price on his head.”
His frown deepened as he s
ettled on the deck, pausing to call out an order to the twins, who were engaged in whittling obscene shapes in wood. “Now, that be a good idea. ’Tis only right ye know about the man ye’ll be goin’ up against.”
I lurched off the railing and slid down the curved side of the ship until I was slumped next to him.
“Ye know that he be the most feared pirate in the Seventh Sea,” Pangloss said by way of an opening. I nodded, trying to ignore the roiling of my stomach that seemed oddly out of synch with the ship’s movements on the swells. “No one knows where he came from—one day he just appeared on the horizon, sailin’ into the harbor as bold as brass and twice as shiny, just as if he owned the island. Naturally, the captain had a thing or two to say about that.”
“Naturally,” I agreed, so far not finding anything that disagreed with my impression of Corbin. Arrogance he had in abundance. But it was the other claims that didn’t mesh.
Pangloss scratched his bristly chin. “From what I’ve been told, the cap’n went down to meet Corbin at the docks and welcome him to Turtle’s Back.”
“From what you’ve been told? You weren’t there?”
“Nay,” he shook his head. “I was off with a crew foragin’ the Box for game.”
After three days on the island I’d learned that game was pretty much nonexistent here, so Bart’s men made frequent runs to the rocky shores of Pandora’s Box, a nearby island uninhabitable by all but the heartiest breeds of goats, deer, and boar.
“The cap’n, he be a pirate from long ago, and he knows how to talk to our kind. So he was all friendly-like, offerin’ Black Corbin his finest rum and wenches, but that black-hearted devil turned up his nose at ’em, sayin’ without so much as a by-yer-leave that he’d be havin’ the island instead.”
“That seems rather pushy of him.”
“Aye. Cap’n Bart, he just laughed and told Black Corbin he was welcome to try, but he had a strong crew who’d be givin’ him no quarter if Corbin attacked the town.”
“Hmm. So what did Corbin do then?”
Pangloss shrugged. “He left.”