The Pirate's Lady

Chapter Ten



Rillen didn’t trust this message to any of his men so he headed down to the delta himself. He lost himself in the city, in the crowds, the heat and dust and noise. His city soon enough. He noticed everything, wondered whether it would look better when it was his. Would the searing night air seem less roasting, the dust not get into his nose and make him sneeze? Would the beggars irritate him less when he knew they belonged to him, to Estovan? In a fit of generosity he flipped a copper fish-head into a bowl and regretted it when he was instantly surrounded by a dozen more beggars, offering him water, cheap little toys made of raffia and worm-ridden wood, a bare outstretched hand, anything in the hope of a coin.

He pushed through with elbows and curses, through the Godsquare and out onto the plaza. Apart from his vigil at the ship when he’d been too occupied with his thoughts to notice much else, it had been some time since he’d been beyond the broad expanse of dressed stone, the confluence between the respectable and the irrepressible. Sailors, merchantmen crew and racks, were everywhere. The sound of Forn’s bells surrounded him, chiming in a curious offbeat harmony that had always been the music of a city that survived on trade from the water, a soothing sound that was at once known, comforting and exotic compared to the cool silence of the palace.

The merchant crews and the racks kept apart mostly, danced around each other, flung insults and, if things got heated, the occasional knife. As Rillen made his way through the throngs, away from Mucking Lane and Van Gast’s ships, down into the delta, he felt the prickle of danger between his shoulders. Alone this time, no men at his command, no pistols ready to cover his back.

Five bridges to the ship. The first two were strong, stone-built with parapets to protect the walker from water-raptors. As he edged farther into the delta, stone gave way to strong planks and then to driftwood tied off with bits of wire and string. Rickety bridges that swayed when you first set foot on them, swung to each step, made the unwary seasick and nervous. Rillen went over them without a qualm.

His mind was too busy, alive with thought, churning and churning, sifting the pearls from the meat. It was perfect, too perfect. A way to rob his father blind and then take over the Yelen too, become the most powerful trader within two hundred miles. Best of all, no suspicion that he was culpable, and revenge on the man who’d killed Arden. Those dastardly racks would sadly die in the attempt. Their spoils would never be found, except by Rillen himself.

Two men lay in the sandy mud, thrashing, punching, cursing up a storm. Rillen side-stepped round them, through the crowd that was betting a small fortune on the outcome, and found the rickety wharf. It curved with the small island, the stilts green and algae-ridden now the tide was out. Someone had planted a line of feather trees along the shore side next to the buildings, maybe hoping to give the wharf shade, or an air of respectability, but the trees had faded against the constant salt-ridden breeze, their delicate plumes yellow and wilted in the faint light from a setting moon. Dawn, and the heat that would drive many of the crush to their beds to sleep, wasn’t far off.

The Lone Queen lay tied up at the end in a blaze of torches against the night, a rare prize among the broken-down fishing smacks and dilapidated ships she rode beside. The wharf was a maze of flickering lights and dark shadows. Rillen found an unobtrusive doorway to watch from.

He watched until the sky lightened with approaching dawn, until a breeze sprang up to chill the sweat from him and the shopkeep shut and locked his door. Yet no Josie appeared, no big, brutal Gan. It didn’t matter now. He’d come here not for that, especially, but to crystallize his plan in his head. It was there, a diamond now, shining perfect and bright behind his eyes. Soon everything would be his.

A scrawny lad wandered down the gangplank, all bright clothes and brighter eyes, his bells a falsetto sound that echoed in the velvet darkness. Rillen approached, noticed the pinch of the boy’s eyes, the eternal distrust that marked a rack as surely as the clothes. He handed over a silver seal and his reply. “For Lord Brimeld, see he gets it.”

The sly, knowing grin was all the answer Rillen needed.

* * *

Van Gast slid in the window of his quarters as dawn was hitting the horizon, silent as a riptide, made sure the door was locked, and flopped on the bed. He wasn’t quite sure how he’d managed to give the guards the slip, but he had and his heart still thumped with the joyous breathlessness of it. He grinned up at the ceiling. Gods, he loved a chase, especially when he didn’t get caught. But he was going to have to be a lot more careful if he didn’t want to see the inside of the Yelen’s dungeons.

Two possibilities here. One was that Josie was trying to get him killed. Not a notion he wished to entertain, but still, all things considered, it was possible. Capricious was her middle name, and he’d pissed her off bad. The other, more likely perhaps—

A creak of the window brought him instantly upright, pistol at the ready. He slipped over to the bank of windows at the rear of his cabin and waited to one side. There, one window sneaking open, inch by careful inch.

Not careful enough. Van Gast yanked at the handle, pulled it all the way open and shoved his pistol in the gap. “Yes?”

The smoky voice almost made him lose his grip on the gun. “Now, that’s no way to greet a lady.”

Van Gast stepped back and let the pistol fall away. He held it ready just in case. “If there was a lady here, I’d greet her nicer. All I can see is someone trying to get me killed.”

Josie dropped through the gap, landed lightly on the deck and sauntered over. Not in a dress now, in a silk shirt that clung everywhere, snug breeches that showed off her litheness, quickness of movement. Van Gast tightened his grip on the gun, but she looked up at him with that Joshing Josie grin, all lopsided devilry, and his resolve wavered. It hadn’t been her, it couldn’t have been.

“Of course, I’ve never really been a fan of ladies, as such. And I’m still alive. So far.”

“I’ve noticed both those things about you.” The tone was light, but her gun was cocked and ready, her grin the public one, the risky one that had a one-in-three chance of seeing him dead. “Where were you?”

The sensible thing might be to stay calm, sweet talk her. Sod that—he’d almost been shot. Twice! “Where was I? Where you told me to be—right up till the guards turned up. Where were you?”

She stepped round him warily, the gun still pointing his way. “Waiting for you. Almost blew the twist when you didn’t show. Skrymir said…” She shook her head, and her plait, dyed a pale brown now, flopped over her shoulder.

“Skrymir said what?”

“It doesn’t matter. Why weren’t you at Kyr’s Palace?” She watched him carefully, her eyes gray as steel and as ruthless.

This wasn’t going anything like he planned. He’d planned to get her alone, persuade her into bed, into loving him again. But tonight had rattled him. His little-magics were telling him trouble all over, had barely warned him in time. He’d only just escaped, by the best margin—the narrowest. Now she wasn’t making any sense.

He ran his spare hand through his hair. “Josie, stop pointing that gun at me. Why the f*ck would I be at Kyr’s Palace when you told me to meet you at Herjan’s temple? Or is this your idea of revenge, have me chased halfway round the city—and shot at to add to the deal? Any more you’d like to put me through?”

Gods, she was too close now, close enough he just wanted to grab her and kiss her until she agreed to stop all this sodding nonsense. Her grin slipped and the sharpness went from her eyes, the hardness from her lips. She was Josienne again, as capricious as the sea, and as hard to pin down. She might be trying to kill him, but f*ck it, he was going to take his chance. Stupid-but-exciting. He never did anything else.

He threw the gun without a thought to where it landed, and made a grab for her. She laughed suddenly, danced out of his way—the old game, the one where she would never be caught, never be pinned, not till the last second. He was sick of the game.

She had her back to one of the bedposts, and she was still laughing. Waiting for him to try to catch her, so she could run again no doubt. But this time, when he made his move she stayed, let him take her by the arms, run his hands down to hers and twine them together.

Her eyes were dark as they searched his, looking for something, anything perhaps. She was tense against him, as though one wrong word would be all it took before she ran. He wanted to kiss it all away. Everything, all the hurt between them, all the bad memories, kiss away the bad so they could remember the good, the great. There’d been a lot of great.

He started to, but something stopped him—a slight quiver of her lips, a look in her eyes, the hurt there, the wariness as though he might betray her, hurt her again. He couldn’t kiss that away.

In the blink of an eye the grin was back, evil and tempting. Her laugh sent a breath across his throat, followed by a taunting lick, then she was out of his grip again. Running, too slippery to be pinned like that. This time, he had to pin her with words. Only he’d never been very good with those, not when it came to her. Lies were easy, it was the truth he always found hard.

“Kyr’s mercy, Josie, you make me crazy. First you try to get me killed, twice, then you dance in here, all—all—f*ck it, you’re driving me insane.”

That made her laugh and she twirled away from him to sit on the bed. How very inviting. “Try to get you killed? How did I manage that? Because you know if I wanted you dead, I’d just shoot you in the face.”

True enough, she would, he should know her well enough for that, and her next words, soft and chilling, nonetheless took a weight from round his heart.

“All right, maybe the once. ‘That man’s following me.’” Her laugh made his shoulder blades twitch, among other things. “But that was just because you didn’t show, and because I knew you’d enjoy it, knew you’d never be caught. I didn’t ask you to meet me at the temple. Kyr’s Palace. You were supposed to meet me at Kyr’s Palace. I thought you could read. I had someone leave a message on your desk. Figured you’d see it by the brandy.”

Kyr’s Palace? If she hadn’t sent the note he’d read, who had? And what had happened to the note she had sent?

Her puzzled frown was real, he was sure of it, or maybe it had just been a game, a test. To see if he meant it, what he’d said at the drift-inn. Whichever, the sudden relief was enough to make him laugh, enough to forget temples, guards, wrong messages and whizzing bullets, and help him find the words. The real ones, the ones he could have tripped off his tongue without thought if he hadn’t meant them. Trouble was, he did mean them, and that made them harder to come by.

He took a deep breath, thought f*ck it, let’s do it. “You know I love you, I’d do anything to pay you back for the hurt I’ve caused you. Please, Josie, enough of the games. Just name it, and I’ll do it. Hearts, flowers, poetry. Anything.”

A twist of her lips at the mention of the hurt—an understatement the size of Skrymir. She looked up at him from under her brows, a twitch of a grin there, but none of the softness. “Van, I’ll be sick if you carry on with that.”

Yet she still sat on the bed, her hand tracing a pattern over the sheet. She didn’t laugh or run. Only waited. For what? Then he knew it. All of it was what she wanted. Not halfhearted attempts, everything. The real words. Shit. This was worse than being shot.

He took a deep breath and just came out with it. “All right. I love you most when you’re smiling at me like that, when I don’t know if you’re going to kiss me, rob me or kill me. I love that I never quite know what you’re thinking, or if I’ve finally caught you. Mostly I love that you make me a little crazy. A lot crazy.”

She was weakening. He could see it in the curve of her mouth, the softening of the set of her shoulders. The teasing tone in her voice. “What would you do if you caught me? You wouldn’t know what to do with me.”

“I’d give a sodding good try.” He strode to the bed, sat down and took her by the elbows. “I love crazy a whole lot, too, but not as much I love you. Please, Josie love. I just want it to be how it was. I want it like before—only to know that you love me and you know I love you, and we can play the game, scam the f*ck out of everyone in our way.”

She turned away from him, her eyes shut and her mouth twisted again. It would never be the same. Never. He didn’t care. He didn’t care how it was as long as he could mend it somehow. He’d take all he could get.

“I’m sick of games, too, but I don’t know how else—”

A hammering on the door made them both start. Van Gast ignored it and used the distraction to kiss her. Not one of their hungry kisses, not the ones that made them both breathless with it, but a soft, slow, almost-not-there kiss. It took a moment, but then she was kissing him back, softening into him, the way she used to.

“Van? Van!” The hammering on the door again. Van Gast wished they’d bugger off, whoever they were. “Van, open up.”

The kiss stopped but neither moved to pull away. “Not fair, Van,” Josie breathed. “That’s not fair.”

“Of course. That’s why you love me, right?”

The hammering got louder and the handle rattled as someone tried the lock. “Van, are you all right? Holden, I think you might need to break down the door. He’s not, um, saying anything. Are you sure the lookout saw him coming in?”

Josie was smiling at him, her soft one, just for him. “You need to answer that.”

“I do, you’re right.” Van Gast raised his voice to a shout. “Please f*ck off!”

Josie laughed, her breath warm against him, and that was good, both the laugh and the warmth.

He went to kiss her again, but the hammering came back louder than ever. “Van, hurry up.”

Shit. “Just stay here, all right? It’ll only take a moment, I’ll be right back.”

Van Gast strode to the door, unlocked it and yanked it open hard enough the hinges creaked. Before anyone could say a word, he grabbed Guld by the front of his robes and pulled him close, so they were nose to nose. “Guld, remind me to kill you later. What the f*ck is so important?”

Guld was so excited, even Van Gast lifting him off the ground couldn’t stop his grin. “We’ve found her. We know where Josie is.”

The smallest sound behind him. The snick of a window shutting. Butterfly Josie, slipping out of his grasp again, too wary, too hurt to be pinned. “So did I. Until you came blundering at the door, she was in my f*cking quarters. On my bed, Guld.”

“Oh, um. Sorry?”

“Sorry? Oh, well that’s all right then.” Van Gast heaved a sigh, stood back and let Guld in. Holden followed, looking sheepish, with the new girl behind, what was her name? Tallia. Yes, the one who made him itch. Why was that?

“Well? Anything else important?” Van Gast rattled around with the bottle of brandy and a glass, but he didn’t offer any to the others. Gods damn it all to buggery, he’d had her right here, laughing and kissing him. He needed this brandy. It was that or throttle someone. The message was still there, open on the desk. He hadn’t misread it. Herjan’s temple, plain as plain. He hadn’t misread her either. He was fairly sure, anyway. As sure as things got with Josie.

“I thought you might like to talk to Tallia.” Holden, sounding nervous, pensive.

“Not really.” Van Gast was staring at the desk, at another piece of paper folded neatly and left by the brandy bottle. A new one. Holden kept on talking, but Van Gast didn’t hear it. No bold script here. Instead of his name on the front, a wobbly representation of a V and a J intertwined. Van Gast slid a hand inside his shirt, to the little scrap of cloth he kept there. The same V and J. The same hand. The only two letters she could make.

The writing inside wasn’t hers, but it wasn’t the same script as the earlier message either. Rough, wavering, a typical rack’s script.

Andor,

Day after tomorrow, sunset, Kyr’s Palace. Bring Mr. Ibsen. Be there this time.

Josienne

It had to be her. Only five people alive knew his secret name—about four too many for Van Gast’s liking—and the same number knew hers. Three of them were on her ship. Someone else had found out his name, had shouted it at Herjan’s temple. But he doubted anyone but her knew Mr. Ibsen’s real identity—Van Gast in his merchanter disguise. This was from her, no doubt, no doubt at all. He folded it carefully back into fours, wondering why she’d brought the message rather than tell him. Wondering what had happened to her earlier message, or who had sent the one he’d read.

Someone trying to make it look like her perhaps, by using his name, using her. Someone who knew the game for what it was. He slid the new message into his shirt, next to the scrap of cloth and the wedding dagger, and looked over his shoulder.

Holden’s voice was a low drone, something about Tallia watching him when the guards found him at the temple. Van Gast thought of the voice that had said “In the green shirt.” A voice that he knew, he’d thought then, but too soft to say whose. A woman’s voice. One who knew his secret name, and there was only one of those—Josie.

Only, only…only he wasn’t sailing that tide, not again. A woman, stick with that. Someone else had found out his real name. But who? Find the Lady, find the traitor. Watch for the distraction, then loop around it. Roll up, roll up, find the lady, win a prize. Like getting to stay alive.

Tallia stood pensive and odd, her hands twisting in front of her, all her bounce gone, her eyes wide and fearful. Something about her made him itch, not an itch that made him want to run, but trouble nonetheless. He thought of how she’d known Holden’s name when she had no right to. The way she’d cozied up to him, to the crew. Maybe one of them had heard his name, let it slip. Gossiping sailors, worse than fishwives. “Put her in the brig.”

“What? But she’s the one who—” Holden took a step forward.

“Put her in the brig. Who’s captain here, you or me?”

Holden pulled up short, his eyes confused.

“I said, put her in the f*cking brig!”

Holden’s lips thinned, but he took hold of Tallia by the elbow and pushed her out of the door.

“Guld, did you get me those things, the merchant gear?”

“Yes, Van, I—”

“Good, go get them.” Van Gast shut the door quietly before he let Guld go. “I trusted you once, Guld, and you didn’t let me down. There’s a traitor about somewhere. Someone who wants the Yelen to catch me. She’s on this ship, I’m thinking. I’m hoping she’s in the brig now. But maybe not.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know yet.” Or he did, but he wasn’t admitting it to Guld.

Guld scurried out and Van Gast was left to his own stew of juice. A traitor, yes. Someone had told the guards who he was, someone had made sure he’d be there for them to find. Just another game of Find the Lady, only this time it might be fatal if he got it wrong. Just another time when stupid and exciting won out over sensible but dull, because he was going to make this next meeting with Josie, going to show her, make her trust him.

It had been a while since he’d played Mr. Ibsen, and never inside the city walls of Estovan. Utterly stupid, entirely thrilling, naturally. And naturally, the thought of not going never even crossed his mind. She was going to twist the Yelen, he could feel it, and he was going to go with her, wipe that hurt from her eyes and heart.

Van Gast in the Yelen palace. Now that was a thought to keep him warm.

* * *

Holden took Tallia down belowdecks, his hand on her arm. She shook like a leaf in the wind, kept trying to start sentences but seemed unable to finish them.

He got her inside the brig and turned the key in the lock. She didn’t protest, didn’t say anything, but the sparse tears on her cheeks were enough to prick at his conscience.

“Tallia—” he began, but he didn’t know what it was he wanted to say. He should be on an upper deck, with his newly happy wife, but found he wanted to stay here. He held on to the bars of the brig, took comfort in the cool smoothness, the straight lines, the order of them.

“I was trying to help. I was, I promise.” Her voice seemed small down here.

He left her there but stopped at the top step to look back down. That bright energy was gone, flowed away like a tide. Instead he saw only listlessness. Not bonded, at least. Not that. Van will let her out when this is all over, or when he’s made sure of her. It’s sensible, to keep her in here. Yet his steps were heavy.

He opened the door to his quarters, expecting a cold Ilsa, more icy barriers. The scar on his wrist burned as he thought on it, as it always did. Tempting him with the thought of knowing always what to say or do, because he was bonded. He shoved the thought away. Freedom had cost too much for him to wish the bond back. Too late for that, too late maybe for him and Ilsa.

For a heartbeat he thought he had the wrong cabin. The drapes were closed against the coming dawn, the room was softly lit and a smiling woman stood by the bed. Smiling at him, coming to take his hand in hers. Ilsa, and he barely recognized her. Had known her too long as either blank-eyed from the bond or chilled and confused by freedom from it. Yet now she smiled, her eyes looking at him with warmth.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have—”

Holden felt a smile pull at his own lips. He’d waited long weeks for a thaw in the chill, a crack in their barriers, a sign that he wasn’t the only one trying. He put a soft finger over her lips. “No. No, you’ve nothing to be sorry for. For feeling when you’ve not known how to. It’s hard, I know.”

She kissed his finger and then blushed at her own forwardness. Everything else was forgotten, and Holden kissed her, they kissed each other, husband and wife again. Not just bonded together, but wanting together. She was smooth and soft beneath his hand, beneath the silky dress, and he pulled her closer, pulled all her softness to him. She sighed under his lips, and that was all he’d wanted, for her to be happy in their new freedom. He pulled away a little, let his fingers trace around her familiar face, along her smooth neck to make her shiver.

“Are you sure?” He couldn’t make his voice above a whisper, couldn’t seem to explain what was in his heart. That all he’d wanted was for her to be happy, even if that meant she left.

She seemed to know, anyway. “We were bonded, but I still loved you, still do love you. I was lucky, and was bonded to a good and kind man.”

Holden hesitated, his lips by her ear so that he need not see her face as he gave her a chance, a way out if she wanted it. “We aren’t bonded now. I won’t hold you to it, if—”

She wriggled free so she could see him and he could see the darkness of her eyes as she held his face. “Don’t. Don’t push me away again. Be with me Holden, in your head. Forget…forget all that before. Let me in.”

Forget all that before—forget the way his dreams had swirled in his head and come alive, forget finding Josie again, the woman he’d loved long ago before the bond had swallowed his memory of her. Forget one night with her, thinking she still loved him when she was just trying to save Van Gast.

Forget that he’d killed the Master, freed everyone, because of how she’d loved Van Gast and he’d wanted to give her that.

The ice between him and Ilsa had been guilt on his part, guilt mixed up with wanting Ilsa to be happy, having a heavy duty to, and not knowing how to make it happen. Something had happened to her, because she was happy now, had smiled to greet him, kissed him, loved him. His heart could deny her nothing if it made her happy.

So he forgot everything that wasn’t her, everything that wasn’t part of keeping her happy. He kissed her and remembered them, who they’d once been, what they’d once meant. She was soft and warm, and he sank into her, let her envelop him in warmth, wrapped her in heat of his own.

Later, when they lay in their bed, rimed with sweat, her head on his shoulder, it was the closest he could recall to being happy himself.