They floated in silence for many minutes. Locke also closed his eyes, breathed deep of the tangy air, and listened to the faint whisper of the waves. The sun was a warm and welcome pressure on the top of his head, and this above all conspired to lull him into a half-dozing state as he sat. He looked within for some hint of anguish and found only a hollow numbness; he seemed to have relaxed into relief at this final collapse of all his plans. Nobody else to fool, no more secrets to keep, no duties required of him or Jean as they drifted, merely drifted, waiting for the gods to make their next whim known.
Jean’s voice recalled him to the present after some unguessable interval had passed, and he blinked as he reopened his eyes to the bright gleam of sun on water.
“Locke,” said Jean, evidently repeating himself, “sail ho, three points off the starboard bow!”
“Ha-ha, Jean. That would be the Red Messenger, sailing away from us forever. Surely you remember her.”
“No,” said Jean, more insistent. “Fresh sail ho, three points off the starboard bow!”
Locke glanced over his right shoulder, squinting. The Red Messenger was still plainly visible, now about three-quarters of a mile distant. And there, off to the left of his former ship, hard to see at first against the bright fusion of sea and sky—yes, a dusty white square just cresting the horizon.
“I’ll be damned,” said Locke. “Looks like our lads are going to have their first chance at some plunder.”
“If only it’d had the courtesy to show up yesterday!”
“I’ll wager I would have screwed things up regardless. But…can you imagine those poor bastards grappling their prey, leaping over the rails, swords in hand, screaming, ‘Your cats! Give us all your gods-damned cats!’”
Jean laughed. “What a bloody mess we’ve unleashed. At least we’ll have some entertainment. This’ll be damn awkward with the Messenger in such a state. Maybe they’ll come back for us and beg us to lend a hand.”
“They’d beg you, maybe,” said Locke.
As Locke watched, the Messenger’s forecourse shuddered into existence, an unfolding square of white. Straining, he could just see tiny figures dashing to and fro on the deck and in the rigging. His former ship put her bow a touch to larboard, bringing the wind onto her larboard quarter.
“She’s limping like a horse with a broken ankle,” said Jean. “Look, they won’t trust the mainmast with any canvas. Can’t say I blame them.” Jean scrutinized the scene for a few moments more. “Their new friend’s coming up north-northwest, I think. If our lads sneak west and look harmless enough, maybe…otherwise, that new ship’s got plenty of room to run west or south. If she’s in any decent shape at all, Messenger’ll never catch her.”
“Jean…,” said Locke, very slowly, a bit hesitant to trust his own naval judgment. “I don’t…I don’t think escape is anywhere on their minds. Look, they’re straight on for the Messenger.”
The next few minutes confirmed this. Indeed, the newcomer’s sails soon doubled in size, and Locke could see the faintest line of the hull beneath them. Whatever she was, she was angled well north of west, fit to cut straight across the path of the Red Messenger.
“And she’s fast,” said Jean, clearly fascinated. “Look at her come on! I’d bet my own liver the Messenger’s not even making four knots. She’s doing twice that or more.”
“Maybe they just don’t give a whit for the Messenger,” said Locke. “Maybe they can see she’s wounded and they’re just going to fly right past.”
“A ‘kiss my ass and fare-thee-well,’” said Jean. “Pity.”
The newcomer grew steadily; blurry shapes became a sleek dark hull, billowing sails, the thin lines of masts.
“Two masts,” said Jean. “Brig, flying loads of canvas.”
Locke felt an unexpected urgency; he tried to restrain his excitement as the Messenger plodded feebly to the southwest while the newcomer steadily gained on her. Now the strange vessel showed her starboard side to them. As Jean had said, she had two masts, as well as a swift low profile and a hull so black she gleamed.
A dark speck appeared in midair above her stern. It moved upward, expanded, and burst apart into a huge fluttering flag—a banner of solid crimson, bright as fresh-spilled blood.
“Oh, gods,” cried Locke. “You have to be fucking kidding!”
The newcomer raced on, foam-capped water surging at her bow, closing the gap with the Red Messenger with every passing second. Low white shapes appeared from behind her—boats crammed with the dark specks of sailors. The new ship swung round to the Messenger’s lee like a hungry beast cutting off her prey’s escape; meanwhile, her boats knifed across the gleaming water to launch their attack from windward. Whatever Jabril and his crew did to try and foil their entrapment, it wasn’t enough; chorus after chorus of belligerent cheers echoed faintly across the water, and little black specks were soon swarming up the Messenger’s sides.
“No!” Locke was unaware that he’d leapt to his feet until Jean pulled him back down hastily. “Oh, you bastards! You rotten, miserable, skulking bastards! You can’t take my fucking ship—”
“Which was already taken,” said Jean.
“I come a thousand miles to shake your bloody hands,” Locke screamed, “and you show up two hours after they put us overboard!”
“Not even half that,” said Jean.
“Bloody fucking limp-cocked witless laggard pirates!”
“Thieves prosper,” said Jean, biting his knuckles as he snorted with laughter.
The battle, if it could be called that, didn’t last five minutes. Someone on the quarterdeck brought the Messenger around, luffing straight into the wind, killing what little speed she’d had. All her sails were taken in, and she soon drifted gently with one of the marauder’s boats tied up at her side. Another boat hurried back to the ship that had birthed it. That vessel, under a far lazier press of sail than it had set out to snatch up the Messenger, then came round on a starboard tack and began to bear down in the general direction of Locke and Jean—an ominous monster toying with its next tiny meal.
“I think this might be one of those ‘good news, bad news,’ situations,” said Jean, cracking his knuckles. “We may need to ready ourselves to repel boarders.”
“With what? One stiletto and hurtful insinuations about their mothers?” Locke clenched his fists; his anger had become excitement. “Jean, if we get aboard that ship and talk our way into her crew, we’re back in the game, by the gods!”
“They might just mean to kill us and take the boat.”
“We’ll see,” said Locke. “We’ll see. First we’ll exchange courtesies. Have ourselves some diplomatic interaction.”
The pirate vessel came on slowly as the sun sank toward the west and the color of sky and water alike seemed to deepen by a shade. She was indeed black-hulled, witchwood, and larger than the Red Messenger even at a glance. Sailors crowded her yardarms and deck railings; Locke felt a pang of envy to see such a large and active crew. She sliced majestically through the water, then luffed up as orders were shouted from the quarterdeck. Sails were reefed with precise and rapid movements; she slowed to a crawl, blocked their view of the Red Messenger, and presented her larboard side at a distance of about twenty yards.
“Ahoy the boat,” cried a woman at the rail. She was rather short, Locke could see—dark-haired, partially armored, backed up by at least a dozen armed and keenly interested sailors. Locke felt his skin crawl under their scrutiny, and he donned a cheerful mask.
“Ahoy the brig,” he shouted. “Fine weather, isn’t it?”
“What do you two have to say for yourselves?”
Locke rapidly considered the potential advantages of the pleading, cautious, and cocky approaches, and decided that cocky was the best chance they had of making a memorable impression. “Avast,” he cried, standing up and hoisting his stiletto over his head, “you must perceive we hold the weather gauge, and you are luffed up with no hope of escape! Your ship is ours, and you are all our prisoners! We are prepared to be gracious, but don’t test us.”
There was an outbreak of laughter on the deck of the ship, and Locke felt his hopes rise. Laughter was good; laughter like that rarely preceded bloody slaughter, at least in his experience.
“You’re Captain Ravelle,” shouted the woman, “aren’t you?”
“I, ah, see my reputation precedes me!”
“Previous crew of your previous ship might have mentioned you.”
“Shit,” Locke muttered.
“Would you two care to be rescued?”
“Yes, actually,” said Locke. “That would be a damn polite thing for you to do.”
“Right, then. Have your friend stand up. Both of you get all your clothes off.”
“What?”
An arrow hissed through the air, several feet above their heads, and Locke flinched.
“Clothes off! You want charity, you entertain us first! Get your big friend up and get naked, both of you!”
“I don’t believe this,” said Jean, rising to his feet.
“Look,” shouted Locke as he began to slip out of his tunic, “can we just drop them in the bottom of the boat? You don’t want us to throw them overboard, right?”
“No,” said the woman. “We’ll keep ’em plus the boat, even if we don’t keep you. Breeches off, gentlemen! That’s the way!”
Moments later Locke and Jean stood, precariously balanced in the wobbling boat, stark naked with the rising evening breeze plainly felt against their backsides.
“Gentlemen,” yelled the woman. “What’s this? I expect to see some sabers, and instead you bring out your stilettos!”
The crew behind her roared with laughter. Crooked Warden! Locke realized others had come up along the larboard rail. There were more sailors just standing there pointing and howling at him and Jean than there were in the entire crew of the Red Messenger.
“What’s the matter, boys? Thoughts of rescue not enticing enough? What’s it take to get a rise out of you down there?”
Locke responded with a two-handed gesture he’d learned as a boy, one guaranteed to start fights in any city-state in the Therin world. The crowd of pirates returned it, with many creative variations.
“Right, then,” cried the woman. “Stand on one leg. Both of you! Up on one!”
“What?” Locke put his hands on his hips. “Which one?”
“Just pick one of two, like your friend’s doing,” she replied.
Locke lifted his left foot just above the rowing bench, putting his arms out for balance, which was becoming steadily harder to keep. Jean did the same thing beside him, and Locke was absolutely sure that from any distance they looked a perfect pair of idiots.
“Higher,” said the woman, “that’s sad. You can do better than that!”
Locke hitched his knee up half a foot more, staring defiantly up at her. He could feel the vibrations of fatigue and the unstable boat alike in his right leg; he and Jean were seconds away from capping embarrassment with embarrassment.
“Fine work,” the woman shouted. “Make ’em dance!”
Locke saw the dark blurs of the arrows flash across his vision before he heard the flat snaps of their release. He dove to his right as they thudded into the middle of the boat, realizing half a second too late that they’d not been aimed at flesh and blood. The sea swallowed him in an instant; he hit unprepared and upside down, and when he kicked back to the surface he gasped and sputtered at the unpleasant sensation of salt water up his nose.
Locke heard rather than saw Jean spit a gout of water as he came up on the other side of the boat. The pirates were roaring now, falling over themselves, holding their sides. The short woman kicked something, and a knotted rope fell through an entry port in the ship’s rail.
“Swim over,” she yelled, “and pull the boat with you.”
By clinging to the gunwales and paddling awkwardly, Locke and Jean managed to push the little boat over to the ship, where they fell into shadow beneath her side. The end of the knotted rope floated there, and Jean gave Locke a firm shove toward it, as though afraid they might yank it up at any second.