Bombardment with this new indignity—greased oakum, Locke quickly realized—was general and vigorous. Crewfolk had lined the rail and were flinging it down into the netted prisoners, a veritable rain of rags and rope fragments that had the familiar rancid stink of the stuff he’d spent several mornings painting the masts with. This assault continued for several minutes, until Locke had no idea where the grease ended and his clothes began, and the water in their little enclosure was topped with a sliding layer of foulness.
“Unbelievable,” shouted Delmastro. “Your Honor, they’re still there!”
“Not drowned?”
Zamira appeared at the rail once again and solemnly removed her wig. “Damnation. The sea refuses to claim them. We shall have to bring them back aboard.”
After a few moments, the lines above them drew taut and the little prison of net and canvas began to rise from the water. Not a moment too soon, it seemed—Locke shuddered as he felt something large and powerful brush against the barrier beneath his feet. In seconds they were mercifully above the tips of the waves and creaking steadily upward.
But their punishment was not yet over; they hung once more in the darkness when the net was hoisted above the rail, and were not brought back in above the deck.
“Free the spinning-tackle,” shouted Delmastro.
Locke caught sight of a small woman shimmying out onto the tangle of ropes overhead. She pulled a restraining pin from the large wooden tackle by which the net was suspended. Locke recognized the circular metal bearing within the tackle; heavily greased, it would allow even awkward and weighty cargoes to be spun with ease. Cargoes like them.
Crewfolk lined the rail and began to grab at the net and heave it along; in moments the prisoners were spinning at a nauseating rate, and the world around them flew by in glimpses—dark water…lamps on the deck…dark water…lamps on the deck…
“Oh, gods,” said someone, a moment before he noisily threw up. There was a sudden scramble away from the poor fellow, and Locke clung grimly to his place at the edge of the net, trying to ignore the kicking, shuddering, spinning mass of men.
“Clean ’em up,” shouted Delmastro. “Deck pumps away!”
The hard stream of salt water gushed into their midst once more, and they spun furiously. Locke intersected the spray every few seconds as each rotation of the net brought him around. His dizziness grew and grew as the minutes passed, and though it was becoming extremely fashionable, he focused every speck of dignity on simply not throwing up.
So intense was his dizziness and so swift was their deliverance that he didn’t even realize they’d been swung back onto the deck until the net he was clinging to collapsed into slackness. He toppled forward, onto netting and canvas above good, hard planks once again. The net had ceased spinning, but the world took its place, rotating in six or seven directions at once, all of them profoundly unpleasant. Locke closed his eyes, but that didn’t help. It merely made him blind as well as nauseous.
Men were crawling over him, moaning and swearing. A pair of crewfolk reached down and heaved Locke to his feet; his stomach nearly surrendered at that point and he coughed sharply to fight back his nausea. Captain Drakasha was approaching, her false wig and cloak discarded, and she was tilted at a funny angle.
“The sea won’t have you,” she said. “The water refuses to swallow you. It’s not yet your time to drown, praise Iono. Praise Ulcris!”
Ulcris was the Jereshti name for the god of the sea, not often heard in Therin lands or waters. There must be more eastern islanders aboard than I realized, thought Locke.
“Lord of the Grasping Waters shield us,” chanted the crew.
“So you’re here with us between all things,” said Drakasha. “The land won’t have you and the sea won’t claim you. You’ve fled, like us, to wood and canvas. This deck’s your firmament; these sails are your heavens. This is all the world you get. This is all the world you need.”
She stepped forward with a drawn dagger. “Will you lick my boots to claim a place on it?”
“No!” the ex-Messengers roared in unison. They’d been coached on this part of the ritual.
“Will you kneel and kiss my jeweled ring for mercy?”
“No!”
“Will you bend your knees to pretty titles on pieces of paper?”
“No!”
“Will you pine for land and laws and kings, and cling to them like a mother’s tit?”
“No!”
She stepped up to Locke and handed him the dagger.
“Then free yourself, brother.”
Still unsteady, and grateful for the aid of the crewfolk beside him, Locke used the blade to saw through the rope that bound his hands, and then bent over to cut the rope between his ankles. That accomplished, he turned and saw that all of the ex-Messengers were more or less upright, most of them held by one or two Orchids. Close at hand he could see several familiar faces—Streva, Jabril, a fellow called Alvaro…and just behind them, Jean, watching him uneasily.
Locke hesitated, then pointed to Jabril and held out the blade.
“Free yourself, brother.”
Jabril smiled, took the blade, and was finished with his bonds in a moment. Jean glared at him. Locke closed his eyes, not wanting to make further eye contact, and listened as the dagger made its passage through the group, from hand to hand. “Free yourself, brother,” they murmured, one after another. And then it was done.
“Unbound by your own hands, you are outlaw brethren of the Sea of Brass,” said Captain Drakasha, “and crewmen of the Poison Orchid.”
2
EVEN AN experienced thief will find occasion to learn new tricks if he lives long enough. That morning and afternoon, Locke had learned how to properly loot a captured ship.
Locke finished his last circuit belowdecks, reasonably certain there were no more Kingfisher crewfolk to round up, and stomped up the companionway to the quarterdeck. The bodies of the Redeemers there had been moved aside and stacked at the taffrail; the bodies of those from the Poison Orchid had been carried down to the waist. Locke could see several of Zamira’s crewfolk respectfully covering them with sail canvas.
He quickly surveyed the ship. Thirty or forty Orchids had come aboard, and were taking control of the vessel everywhere. They were up the ratlines, with Jean and Delmastro at the wheel, tending the anchors, and guarding the thirty or so surviving Kingfisher crewfolk atop the forecastle deck. Under Utgar’s supervision, the wounded Kingfishers and Orchids had been carried down to the waist near the starboard entry port, where Captain Drakasha and Scholar Treganne were just coming aboard. Locke hurried toward them.
“It’s my arm, Scholar. Hurts something awful.” Streva used his good arm to support his injured limb as he winced and held it out for Treganne’s inspection. “I think it’s broken.”
“Of course it’s broken, you cretinous turd,” she said, brushing past him to kneel beside a Kingfisher whose tunic was completely soaked in blood. “Keep waving it like that and it’ll snap right off. Sit down.”
“But—”
“I work from worst chance to best,” Treganne muttered. She knelt on the deck beside the injured Kingfisher, using her cane to brace herself until she was on both knees. Then she gave the cane a twist. The handle separated from the cane’s full length, revealing a dagger-sized blade that Treganne used to slice the sailor’s tunic open. “I can move you up on my list by kicking your head a couple times. Still want prompt attention?”
“Um…no.”
“You’ll keep. Piss off.”
“There you are, Ravelle.” Captain Drakasha stepped past Treganne and the injured and grabbed Locke by the shoulder. “You’ve done well for yourself.”
“Have I?”
“You’re as useless as an ass without a hole when it comes to running a ship, but I’ve heard the damnedest things about how you fought just now.”
“Your sources exaggerate.”
“Well, the ship’s ours and you gave us her master. Now that we’ve plucked our flower, we need to sip the nectar before bad weather or another ship comes along.”
“Will you be taking the Kingfisher as a prize?”
“No. I don’t like having more than one prize crew out at a time. We’ll shake her down for valuables and useful cargo.”
“Then burn her or something?”
“Of course not. We’ll leave the crew stores enough to make port and watch them scamper for the horizon. You look confused.”
“No objections, Captain, it’s just…not as downright bastardly as I was expecting.”
“You don’t think we respect surrenders because we’re kindly people, do you, Ravelle?” Drakasha grinned. “I don’t have much time to explain, but it’s like this. If not for those gods-damned Redeemers, these people”—she waved a hand at the injured Kingfishers waiting for Treganne’s attention—“wouldn’t have given or taken a scratch. Four out of five ships we take, I’d say, if they can’t rig razornets and get bows ready, they just roll right over for it. They know we’ll let ’em slip off with their lives once we’re done. And the common sailors don’t own one centira of the cargo, so why should they swallow a blade or a crossbow bolt for it?”
“I guess it does make sense.”
“To more people than us. Look at this shambles. Redeemers for security? If those maniacs hadn’t been available for free, this ship wouldn’t have any real guards. I guarantee it. No sense in it for the owners. These long voyages, four or five months from the far east back to Tal Verrar with spices, rare metals, wood—an owner can lose two ships out of three, and the one that arrives will pay for the two that don’t. With profit to spare. And if they get the actual ship back, even sans cargo, so much the better. That’s why we don’t sink and burn like mad. As long as we show some restraint, and don’t get too close to civilization, the folks holding the purse strings think of us as a natural hazard, like the weather.”
“So with the, ah, plucking and sipping the nectar bit, where do we start?”
“Most worthwhile thing at hand is the ship’s purse,” said Drakasha. “Master keeps it for expenses. Bribes and so forth. Finding it’s always a pain in the ass. Some throw it overboard; others hide it somewhere dank and unlikely. We’ll probably have to slap this Nera around for a few hours before he spits truth.”
“Damnation.” Behind them, Treganne let her patient slump to the deck and began wiping her bloody hands on his breeches. “No good on this one, Captain. I can see straight through to his lungs behind the wound.”
“He’s dead for sure?” said Locke.
“Well, heavens, I wouldn’t know, I’m just the fucking physiker. But I heard in a bar once that dead is the accepted thing to be when your lungs are open to daylight,” said Treganne.
“Uh…yes. I heard the same thing. Look, will anyone else here die without your immediate full attention?”
“Not likely.”
“Captain Drakasha,” said Locke, “Master Nera has something of a soft heart. Might I take the liberty of suggesting a plan…?”
A few moments later, Locke returned to the waist, holding Antoro Nera by one arm. The man’s hands had been bound behind his back. Locke gave him a good shove toward Zamira, who stood with one saber unsheathed. Behind her, Treganne worked feverishly over the corpse of the newly deceased sailor. The slashed and bloody tunic had been disposed of, and a clean one drawn over the corpse’s chest. Only a small red spot now marked the lethal wound, and Treganne gave every impression that the unmoving form was still within her power to save.
Drakasha caught Nera and set her blade against his upper chest.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” she said, sliding the curved edge of her weapon toward Nera’s unprotected neck. He whimpered. “Your ship’s badly out of trim. Too much weight of gold. We need to find and remove the master’s purse as quick as we can.”
“I, uh, don’t know exactly where it is,” said Nera.
“Right. And I can teach fish to fart fire,” said Drakasha. “You get one more chance, and then I start throwing your injured overboard.”
“But…please, I was told—”
“Whoever told you anything wasn’t me.”
“I…I don’t—”
“Scholar,” said Drakasha, “can you do anything for the man you’re working on?”
“He won’t be dancing anytime soon,” said Treganne, “but yes, he’ll pull through.”
Drakasha shifted her grip on Nera and held him by his tunic collar with her free hand. She took two steps to her right and, barely looking, drove her saber down into the dead sailor’s neck. Treganne flinched backward and gave the corpse’s legs a little push to make it look as though they’d kicked. Nera gasped.
“Medicine is such an uncertain business,” said Drakasha.
“In my cabin,” said Nera. “A hidden compartment by the compass above my bed. Please…please don’t kill any more of—”
“I didn’t, actually,” said Drakasha. She withdrew her saber from the corpse’s throat, wiped it on Nera’s breeches, and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Your man died a few minutes ago. My leech says she can save the rest of your injured without trouble.”
She spun Nera around, slashed the rope that bound his hands, and shoved him toward Locke with a grin. “Return him to his people, Ravelle, and then kindly relieve his secret compartment of its burden.”
“Your will, Captain.”
After that, they began taking the Kingfisher apart more eagerly than newlyweds tearing off layers of formal clothing in their first moment of privacy. Locke felt his fatigue vanishing as he became absorbed in what was essentially one vast robbery, for more physical material than he’d ever stolen before in his life. He was passed from duty to duty among Orchids who laughed and clowned with real spirit, but worked with haste and precision for all that.
First they snatched up anything portable and reasonably valuable—bottles of wine, Master Nera’s formal wardrobe, bags of coffee and tea from the galley, and several crossbows from the Kingfisher’s tiny armory. Drakasha herself appraised the ship’s collection of navigational instruments and hourglasses, leaving Nera the bare minimum required to safely work his vessel back to port.
Next, Utgar and the boatswain scoured the flute from stem to stern, using the surviving scrub watch as mules to haul off stores and equipment of nautical use: alchemical caulk, good sail canvas, carpenter’s tools, barrels of pitch, and loop after loop of new rope.
“Good shit, hey,” said Utgar, as he weighed Locke down with about fifty pounds of rope and a box of metal files. “Much too expensive in Port Prodigal. Always best to get it at what we call the broadside discount.”
Last but not least came the Kingfisher’s cargo. All the main-deck hatch gratings were pulled, and a nearly incomprehensible network of ropes and pulleys was rigged on and between the two ships. By noon, crates and casks and oilcoth-wrapped bundles were being lighted along to the Poison Orchid. It was everything Nera had promised and more—turpentine, oiled witchwood, silks, crates of fine yellow wine padded with sheepskins, and barrel after barrel of bulk spices. The smell of cloves, nutmeg, and ginger filled the air; after an hour or two of work at the hoists Locke was brown with a sludge that was half sweat and half powdered cinnamon.
At the fifth hour of the afternoon Drakasha called a halt to the forcible transfusion of wealth. The Poison Orchid rode lower in the gleaming water and the lightened flute rolled freely, hollowed out like an insect husk about to fall from a spider’s jaws. Drakasha’s crew hadn’t stripped her clean, of course. They left the Kingfishers their casks of water, salted meat, cheap ale, and pink-piss ration wine. They even left a few crates and parcels of valuables that were too deeply or inconveniently stowed for Drakasha’s taste—nonetheless, the sack was thorough. Any land-bound merchant would have been well pleased to have a ship unloaded at the dock with such haste.
A brief ceremony was held at the taffrail of the Kingfisher; Zamira blessed the dead of the two vessels in her capacity as a lay priestess of Iono. Then the corpses went over the side, sewn into old canvas with Redeemer weapons weighing them down. The Redeemers themselves were then thrown overboard without a word.
“Ain’t disrespectful,” said Utgar when Locke whispered to him about this. “Far as they believe, they get consecrated and blessed and all that fine stuff by their own gods the moment they die. No hard feelings if you just tip the heathens over the side afterward. Helpful thing to know if you ever have to kill a bunch of ’em again, hey?”
At last, the day’s long business was truly concluded; Master Nera and his crew were released to tend to their own fortunes once again. While Drakasha’s archers kept watch from their perches on the yardarms, the network of lines and fend-offs between the two ships was pulled apart. The Poison Orchid hauled up her boats and loosed her sails. In minutes, she was making seven or eight knots to the southwest, leaving the Kingfisher adrift in disarray behind her.
Locke had seen little of Jean all day, and both of them had seemed to work to studiously preserve their separation. Just as Locke had thrown himself into manual labor, Jean had remained with Delmastro on the quarterdeck. They didn’t come close enough to speak again until the sun fell beneath the horizon, and the scrub watch was herded together and bound for their initiation.