She looked at him leaning unsteadily beside her as if he were the village drunk. She thought of a hero in a glittering captain's uniform, with a gold star and white gloves and shimmering epaulettes. Tears rose in her eyes, sudden and devastating. She turned away, tucking blindly at the bedding. "Yes," she whispered. "Hard to learn."
When she finally turned again, having blinked back the telltale weakness, he was still standing against the locker. His eyes were closed. He looked, she thought, strangely melancholy, where a man of any sensibility at all would have looked guilty or desperate or angry or afraid. The cloak hung from his shoulders, half falling, but he seemed not to care.
"Lie down," she said.
He opened his eyes. For a moment she thought he was going to say something, but then he obeyed her, moving onto the bunk as carefully as an old man. Olympia caught up the cloak and leaned over to lay it across him. He grasped her arm.
"You, too, Princess."
"What?" She tried to draw back.
"You can't stand…up all night."
"There's a chair. I'll sleep in it. I'm not the one who has to have his wits about him at daybreak."
He held her. "To keep me from taking a chill, then." He looked at her with an intensity she could not interpret. "We don't want to disappoint your…friend Buckhorse."
Olympia pulled away. She turned down the lamp and felt for the chair. It was hard and very cold.
"Princess," he said, a soft plea out of the dark.
She sighed and sat down on the edge of the berth. His hand found her, shaping her arm and pulling her steadily down. The berth was chilly and damp. She deliberately faced away from him as she lay down, holding herself to the far edge, as distant as possible from his body.
He gave a muffled cough and cleared his throat. With slow, shaky moves, he spread the cloak over her. Olympia felt the tears rise again, stinging her nose and eyelids.
He rested his hand against her hair.
"Princess," he said, "I meant for you to go home."
She made no answer. The warm moisture slid down her face and plopped onto the damp bed.
"So…" the rusty voice whispered behind her. "Why the hell didn't you go?"
Morning was gruesome. Sheridan awoke sharply from a dream of battle, of turning over a mangled body and finding a woman's face, her bloodied hand reaching for his throat—but as his bayonet plunged in defense, the face turned into his own face and he couldn't stop the weapon; it tore into his belly, shooting pain that jerked him into panting consciousness.
He lay still for a moment, holding his stomach, trying to find reality. As the muscle spasm passed, Her Royal Highness rolled over in Her Royal Sleep and bludgeoned him again in the stomach with Her Royal Elbow. It took him another full minute to get his breath back.
He worked his battered body out of the bunk, climbing over her by agonizing increments. He was ravenously hungry, but that was an ancient and familiar discomfort. Dressing in the late first officer's clothes was far worse torture. Sheridan's torso looked as if an elephant had been waltzing on his ribs.
He tried some experimental stretches. There was a fierce catch in his left side when he moved in one direction. His tongue was swollen and aching where he'd bitten it the night before.
He sighed, wincing even at that small motion, and lifted his arm with a violent grimace to drag the brass teskeri over his head. He pulled on a shirt and a pair of dry trousers by tiny progressions and stowed the Sultan's crescent-shaped brand in a safe pocket, concealing it with a familiar sense of release. He peered in the mirror. His face looked strange, almost frightening, faintly blue over both temples and down the side of his jaw, the rest darkened by beard shadow. The lightest touch made him cringe. He looked at the shaving equipment organized neatly below the mirror, almost turned away and then glanced toward the berth.
His princess lay curled, buried up to her nose, her hair a bright flood of sunlight in the chilly dawn. He looked back in the mirror at his spooky appearance, all black and pale and haggard. He decided to shave.
By halfway through the procedure, he had serious doubts about his sanity. It hurt like the devil, and the water was freezing. Viewing himself from both sides, he couldn't see that he looked any better. Possibly worse. But he finished, cursing under his breath, and managed to ease into the mate's peacoat. It was too tight across the shoulders, but he couldn't move without gasping anyway, so it suited his situation.
He slowly and systematically looted through the locker and cabin, filling his pockets with any small item he could carry: flint, needles, loose change, soap, traveling chess set, two tallow candles—anything that would fit. He had a bad feeling about his future, which always brought out the guttersnipe in him.
In the midst of his quiet plunder, he reached across Olympia's sleeping form to lift a magnifying glass from a hook on the bulkhead. One lock of shining hair spilled over the side of the berth. He paused, looking down at her, and ran his fingers carefully over the strands.
So soft. He wondered what had happened to the little satin boots with pearl buttons that he'd bought.
Thrown overboard, more than likely. She seemed just a bit aggravated with him.
Lesson One, Princess. The hardest one to learn.
He turned away. With his eyes closed, he leaned against the locker and listened to the ship, putting together the sounds and motions that had been drifting at the edge of his awareness all night. The brig had a sharp chop to her while lying at anchor, which might be her natural action or might be several other things, all of them worrisome. He tried the door handle. It was open.
So much for imprisonment. Sheridan peeked out and found Cal snoring in the dawn shadows at his feet. Stepping gently over the prone body, Sheridan located his knife where it had been thrown aside the night before, wrapped it in a rag, stuck it through his belt beneath his coat and headed up the companionway ladder.
There was no watch, as he'd reckoned there wouldn't be. He stepped on deck, the wind catching his hair with gale force. The tide was up. He saw instantly that they were in trouble; the ship had broken her sheer and drifted over the chain cable, now riding the anchor on far too short a scope. Every wave brought up her bow, jerking the chain taut against the hawsehole and bitts with a sinister smash.
"Buck—" Sheridan bellowed down into the cabin, then clutched at his ribs, instantly chastened. "—horse," he finished in a far less enthusiastic tone, adding, "I'm turning out all hands!"
He left it at that. They could come if they pleased; he'd warned them, at least, so maybe they wouldn't shoot him where he stood as soon as they got on deck.
Holding his belly, he limped toward the forecastle, stepping over the stiff body of the chief mate still lying in an ugly black stain of frozen blood. Sheridan took an extra moment to bend painfully and seize the late hero's woolen cap. He crammed it over his ears.
In the forecastle, he managed to rouse some of the crew, who appeared to have found their way into the liquor stores—the besetting weakness of sailors in every crisis. He'd warned Buckhorse, but Buckhorse wasn't the listening kind. Before Sheridan had them organized, the convict leader and Cal came pelting up the companionway.
"Stand!" Buckhorse aimed his pistol. "You! Stop 'er right there!"
"The tide's in," Sheridan said, with as much calm as he could muster when faced with a loaded gun. "She's riding far too short. We'll drag or break loose if we don't do something about it."
Buckhorse pointed his weapon at the nearest seaman. "What's 'e mean, then, hey? That true?"
The youngster looked anxious. "I dunno, sir."
"What d'ye mean, y' don' know? You a navvy 'r not?" Buckhorse fired the pistol at the youth's feet. The deck splintered and the crewman leapt aside with a screech.
"I don't know!" he cried. "I don't! This is my first time out."
"Well, I guess that makes you pretty damned useless, don' it? You'd best make certain I don' take ye in dislike." Buckhorse waved the pistol at the others. "What about i
t? This bastard right? He's a liar, mind ye; a rum 'un and a liar, and that's a fact. What d'ye think?"
A big African crossed his arms, shifting from one foot to the other. "He lyin' agin, then, sir. Captain Webster, he were a thorough-goin' seaman. He never did do nothin' wrong like dat."
"Look at the chain, for Christ's sake," Sheridan said. "The tide's come up."
Buckhorse pointed his gun at another man. "What's yer guess, then? You reckon this 'ere gennelman toff's plannin' mischief an' trying t' hoodwink honest folks?"
An excited discussion erupted among the sailors. Sheridan waited, feeling the ship haul and tug at her short cable. Something gripped his arm. He looked down to find Olympia blinking in the wind.
"What's wrong?" she hissed.
"Democracy at work," he said sourly. "We're voting on whether or not to break off our anchor and drift onto those rocks."
She turned an appalled glance in the direction he indicated. Downwind of them, the surf smashed in white explosions against the barren shore. She stared back up at him. "Is that a joke?"
He ignored her, watching the argument keenly. A few spoke up in favor of Sheridan's assessment, but no one held onto that opinion for long in the face of Buckhorse's reloaded pistol. In a few moments, it was unanimous: Sheridan was wrong.
"Goddamned terrific," he said under his breath.
"What's 'at, Drake?" Buckhorse demanded. "You got a word for the rest of us t' hear?"
Sheridan smiled gloomily. "Just voicing a small personal aversion to shipwreck twice in one voyage. Since we all seem entitled to an opinion."
"O-pinion, says 'e. I ain't all that worrit 'bout yer o-pinion. Makes me suspicious, then, that ye got a maggot fer messin' wiv this 'ere ship so prompt-like an' all." He waved the gun. "T' rest o' ye—get that boat back in t' water. Mr. Gennelman Drake's got somethin' important to show us that I reckon 'e ain't all that anxious t' show."
It took three times as long to lower the pinnace as it should have. Sheridan sat down on a hatch cover and kept his mouth shut concerning the various blunders, partly out of bad temper but mostly out of self-preservation. When the boat was riding empty and reckless on the heavy sea, pounding into the hull with every wave, Buckhorse stepped back and gestured toward the ladder.
"You first, Drake. Then yer sister."
Sheridan glanced at him in consternation. Bringing Olympia along, and all the reasons for it, was an ominous sign indeed. But Cal shoved him in the back, sending a shaft of pain through Sheridan's ribs. He nodded and went while Buckhorse was busy arming Cal and himself with ammunition and three extra pistols apiece—enough firepower to kill a round dozen of inconvenient comrades.
Climbing down the Jacob's ladder and into the wildly sawing boat was no casual effort. With spray splattering his face and green water washing past, Sheridan gauged his moment and leapt, landing with a jolt that paralyzed him for an instant of sharp misery before he caught his balance against the gunwale and glanced up.
Olympia was leaning over the rail, looking terrified. Cal and Buckhorse didn't appear much happier about the prospect of going over the side on a hemp ladder into a boat that was swaying outward a full man's height with every rise and fall. But Buckhorse was prodding at Olympia. With one petrified glance at him, she gathered her cloak around her and scrambled out over the rail as Sheridan had done, clinging to the comforting web of shrouds that descended from the mast above. His heart rose in his throat as he saw her tilt backward when the ship rolled. Buckhorse was covering his own apprehension by yelling at her, reaching as if to push her hands off the safety of the shrouds.
"Avaaast there!" Sheridan's roar of command could have carried from stem to bow of a triple-decked ship of the line. It sent Buckhorse flinching back. "Don't you touch her!" Sheridan's ribs protested with piercing agony as he bellowed, but he had no time to think of that. He began working to ship the rudder, lashing it to one side. "You frigging bastard," he muttered. "You bloody damn bastard." He looked up and cupped his hand around his mouth. "Olympia.! Listen to me! Listen!"
She gave no sign in reply, only clung there riding the slick platform of the shroud channel, with her cloak whipping in the wind.
"Nod!" He kept his voice strong and steady, absolutely confident—the only way to deal with white-faced midshipmen and panicked princesses. "Nod your head twice."
She made two quick jerks, her hair straggling in spray-darkened strands around her.
"What d'ye think—"
"Silence!" The command cut across Buckhorse's objection, as cocksure as if there'd been a bos'n with a rattan cane standing behind the convict to back it up with painful clarity. "Olympia," Sheridan barked. He was working frantically to lengthen the painter and hoist the lagsail. "When I say step," he shouted over the flapping of the sail, "you take one. Down. Not one instant before or one second late. Understand?"
She didn't move.
"Understand, mister?" he roared.
She made a quick nod.
"Step!"
She put one foot gingerly on the first rung. Sheridan threw himself into the stem sheets, pulling the tiller free with one hand and handling the line from the madly cracking sail with the other. The boat fell back, canvas filling.
"Step!"
She obeyed him. Sheridan gauged the pinnace's roll, which was considerably stabilized by the sail.
"Step!"
She did it, low enough now that foam splashed her feet when the ship wallowed down in a wave. He sent the helm hard over, took a fast turn to lash it and stood up as the pinnace's stern worked in toward the hull.
A wave lifted the boat. "Step!" Sheridan reached for her. "Now! All the way!" His shoulder seams ripped as he flung his arm around her. He stumbled back, hauling her with him, a killing crack in the ribs as they collapsed together on the thwart. "Good girl!" he shouted, and buried his face in her neck. "You did it, you did it—you're a hell of a princess." He kept the last words between his teeth, with her wet hair whipping in his face, her body shaking and trembling in his lap. He gave her an instant's elated squeeze and pushed her off.
Buckhorse had gotten himself over the rail and halfway down the oscillating ladder. Sheridan looked up and felt a sudden devil take hold of his soul.
With a vicious grin, he freed the tiller and deliberately sent the boat swaying out away from the ladder. Buckhorse was fumbling at the next rung, looking over his shoulder. He yelled angrily and Cal pointed a pistol at them over the rail.
Sheridan reconsidered, having done it out of nothing but sheer malice and the tumult of the moment—but in the instant the pinnace began to swing inward, a bloodcurdling report cracked through the air as anchor cable three inches thick fractured under intolerable strain. The ship lurched. The ladder snapped sideways. Buckhorse grappled wildly, lost his footing and hung screeching and twisting from the rope.
"Cast off!" Sheridan shouted. He sprang past Olympia and threw off the painter. The pinnace slewed, fell away from the massive hull that bore down on them, then steadied and plunged ahead under his hand while Phaedra slid rapidly astern. Sheridan looked back to see Buckhorse still twisting frantically, with Cal hauling at the ladder and the rest of the crew scattering to man the yards as the ship drifted backward with the sundered end of her anchor chain dangling a foot out of the hawsehole.
There was one faint pop above the wind and waves: a pistol report, but the bullet never came near them.
"I knew it!" Sheridan howled. "God, I knew she'd break loose. Serves 'em right." He pulled a bucket from beneath his feet, where three inches of frigid water sloshed briskly as they rode the waves, and tossed the thing toward Olympia. "Here's to anarchy, Princess. Bail!"
Thirteen
* * *
Where are we going?" Olympia cried. "Aren't we going back?"
"To those hellhounds?" Sheridan leaned out over the side of the boat, weighting it down against the wind. "Get up on this side. Bail, damn it."
She splashed water overboard with the bucket. Her fingers
were numb already, her arms shaking with fear and cold. It was one more terror on top of all the others, to be suddenly down at the level of the waves where the crests rose like living things and broke at a height with her head, splattering her cloak with foam.
"Are we going to land?" she called desperately. "What are you doing?"
He glanced back at Phaedra. The wind plastered his hair against his woolen cap. When he turned forward again he seemed to Olympia like some mad sea devil, laughing amid this chaos, his eyes the color of the sliding shadow in each wave trough. "God knows," he yelled. "But at least we won't be shot in cold blood by the likes of Mr. Buckhorse."
Olympia bailed, looking over her shoulder at the ship's tall form. Only her tall masts were clearly visible now from the boat's perspective down among the tossing waves. Some of the sails had broken free, pale blossoms against the gray sky. "But Phaedra! Will she go on the rocks?"
"How should I know? They're probably still voting on it."
Olympia pressed her lips together. The spray-laden wind stung her cheeks. Between buckets, she kept straining to look over her shoulder. More sail came free, clothing Phaedra's masts. "What if she does? What about Mustafa?"
He only tilted back his head to check the sail, wiping water from his face with one arm without answering.
"Are you just going to abandon him?" she cried.
"Certainly. But I daresay it won't work."
"We have to go back! We can fight Buckhorse."
"Are you crazy?" He ducked spray from a wave. It splattered onto his trousers and boots. "Just who do you propose to fight him?"
Olympia glared at him. "Not you, of course—you cowardly blackguard!"
"Right-ho. If I could get a good, clear shot at his back, I might have a go, but there's not much chance of that."
"You can't leave Mustafa," she wailed.
"I won't go back!" he shouted. "They were going to kill us, blast you! We'll drown anyway if you don't move that bucket with some sign of enthusiasm."
"He's your friend! Your comrade! If you were any kind of a man—" Olympia broke off and bailed water madly. "What if the ship wrecks?"