The Pirate's Lady

Chapter Twelve



Holden sat and stared at Tallia in the brig. He’d tried everything he could think of to get her to talk, short of hurting her or possibly kissing it out of her. He didn’t like to think of either those two options. All she would say is “It’s not me.”

The afternoon wore on to evening, humid and dark in the hold, but Holden kept trying. Van was too itchy to try, too dependent on his little-magics, too full of purpose now he had his time to meet Josie. He’d all but forgotten about Tallia, thinking her safe if she was brigged, that they could let her go, dump her on one of the far delta islands when they set sail.

Holden couldn’t forget her. He couldn’t do anything about his thoughts either, not now he’d broken through Ilsa’s ice. All he could do was try to work out, in his own way, who was the danger to them. Guld was scrying, talking to other mages, seeing what he could discover. Van Gast had gone ashore, careful and quiet, for him, to see what was what, dig up what he could.

Someone knew something, somewhere.

Holden had chosen Tallia. Yet she would say nothing, only look at him with something like regret. Finally he got up to go, back to his quarters and a hope that Ilsa was still as she had been, that he could forget Tallia and the way she looked at him, her smile and how easy she was to be with. As he stood, the door above him opened and someone came down in the dark in a swish of skirts.

Gilda, all dolled up in finery fit for a lady.

“Yes?” Holden asked when she merely stood and glared at Tallia.

“A wonder you haven’t thrown her off the ship yet,” Gilda said.

“Why should I?”

“I saw her going into Van’s cabin. It was her that left that note.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before? And what do you know about a note, Gilda?”

She huffed at him and flicked her hair over her shoulder with a toss of her head, as though he was simple. “All the crew are talking about it, about how it was a trap for Van Gast. When they told me, I knew it was her. I saw her going in. Didn’t I, Tallia?”

Tallia looked stricken, her hands twisting in her lap, her eyes wide with distress.

“Did you?” Holden asked. “Did you put a note in Van’s cabin?”

She blinked back tears and nodded. “But not—”

“See, I told you!” Gilda’s smug smile seemed branded on her face. “Her that’s trying to get Van killed.”

“All right, that’s enough. Thank you Gilda, you can go.”

Go she did, with a sneering swish of her skirt. The clump of her shoes sounded over the deck, changed pitch as she went down the gangplank. Leaving the ship, again. Probably off to find herself a tumble for the night. Damned racks. Never would do as they were told. Holden had begun to wonder just how Van Gast had managed any kind of order with his previous all-rack crew. Serve Gilda right if they sailed before she got back.

Holden looked back at Tallia. No jiggling, no bounce. Still as a millpond, with her hands jammed under her arms and her hair falling over her face. He crouched down in front of her and resisted the urge to reach out.

“Tallia, did you?”

“She told you so, didn’t she? Yes, I left a note. Yes, I was in the square. No, I’m not trying to get Van Gast killed. Why would I?”

“I don’t know. Why would anyone? Because he stole something from them, that’d be the usual reason, I should think. What did he steal from you, Tallia?”

She hunched further in on herself and spat out her words. “So you believe it then. Fine, believe it. Believe your wife has had a sudden change of heart for no reason. Believe Gilda has nothing to hide. It wasn’t me.”

After that she wouldn’t say another word to him, only looked at him with reproach so that he began to doubt himself. Finally, when it was clear she would say no more and wanted him gone, he went to his cabin.

Ilsa was still awake, lying in their bed. He slid in next to her, and she welcomed him with a smile. “Did you find anything out?”

He didn’t want to answer, didn’t want to talk to Ilsa about Tallia when he knew he shouldn’t be thinking of her as he did. Not with Ilsa next to him, not with her warm and welcoming now. But she asked again, so he said “Gilda says she saw Tallia go into Van’s cabin, and Tallia admits she left a note there. Only…”

“Only what?”

Holden shifted awkwardly. “Only I don’t think she’s the one trying to get Van killed.”

“But she’s admitted the note. Van says she makes him itch, and he knows trouble when it’s here. Poor Van.”

Holden’s sharp glance caught the dreamy look in her eyes when she said that last. “Yes, poor Van.”

Her lips twitched into a smile he didn’t recognize as hers. Something else behind it, someone else. The real Ilsa coming through perhaps. He wasn’t sure he liked it.

“You don’t want to think it was her because you like her,” she said.

Was he that obvious? He might like Tallia too much for his own good, but he was going to squash that. Maybe Ilsa was right, maybe that was the only reason he wanted to believe her. “No, that’s not it. I do like her, maybe it is her that gave him away, but—she reminds me of someone, I just can’t think who.”

“Oh, I think so.” The ice between them was back, but Holden wasn’t sure why or how, until Ilsa spoke again. “She reminds you of Josie.”

With that, she turned her back on him, her shoulder cold again. He’d taken great pains to make sure she didn’t find out, that his foolishness not hurt her. Josie…that one night had been utter stupidity on his part, hoping his dreams might come to life, believing her when all she wanted was for him to not kill Van.

He turned on his side to watch Ilsa as she pretended to sleep. Ilsa couldn’t know of that guilt of his, but maybe she was right and it was Josie who Tallia reminded him of. He wasn’t sure how—in looks they were opposites, with Josie pale and fair and Tallia with her nut-brown skin, her dark hair and black eyes full of life. Yet there was something and maybe it was that reminder that made him hesitate.

That reminder too that made him want, ever harder, to make it up to Ilsa, even if she never knew why. He fell asleep watching her, wishing he knew what to do, what he’d done to make the ice come back. Afraid he knew the answer.

When he woke up, Ilsa was gone.

* * *

Van Gast came out of the sixth inn knowing no more than when he’d started. He didn’t think anyone had recognized him—he doubted his mother would recognize him as he was, in rags, barefoot, his hair a tangled mess and with a day’s growth of beard where usually he was meticulously clean shaven.

No, no one had recognized him, but no one seemed to know anything either. Guld hadn’t managed to find Josie or Skrymir either aboard the Queen or anywhere in the city. If they were in disguise, then maybe they were staying in an inn, which had led to this evening’s fruitless work. He hadn’t found them, or any word of them. A few rumors of a Gan ambassador, which Van Gast could only assume was why Skrymir had been wearing mail and Josie was in the prim dress. Even those rumors were shadow thin.

A waste of a night, perhaps. Perhaps not. His little-magics were burning a hole in his chest, and the distraction from that, from everything, was welcome. He didn’t want to be on his ship, watch Holden agonize over whatever it was that was eating him up, have Ilsa following him around like a lovesick parrot and making Holden scowl with it. Didn’t want to wonder why Tallia wanted him dead, and what plans were afoot to get him that way.

A traitor on the ship. That was the real reason he was out here. A ship was home, but one he didn’t feel safe in anymore, a home that made his little-magics itch even worse.

Here he could enjoy himself, while away the hours before he saw Josie in the best way possible—by stealing everything he could find. That always cheered him up. Already he’d managed to gain three full purses, a necklace and, oddly, some women’s underwear that had been lurking in some merchanter’s pocket.

He was idly trawling the plaza for more handy pockets to pick when he saw her. Gilda, all dolled up and in a dress that only just managed to contain all her extravagant charms. What was it with rack women taking to wearing dresses all of a sudden? Not to mention what the f*ck was she doing off the ship when all the crew were confined aboard. He slipped through the human tide and left no trace of his passing—although another man would soon find all his money gone.

All he could think of as he followed her through the crowds was a familiar feminine voice saying “The man in the green shirt.” The sound of bones rattled around his head. Find the lady, win a prize. The itch had started when the new crew had come on board, and he’d thought it was Tallia. It was Tallia, some of it, he was sure, and he was glad she was safe in his brig. Something about her made him itch, but Gilda moving through these crowds, dressed to impress…that made his little-magics burn. He tried to remember her voice, what she sounded like, but he’d not spoken to her since she’d joined his crew, and it had been months since he’d so much as passed the time of day with her.

She entered the dark tunnel that led to the Godsquare, casting a furtive look over her shoulder that had Van Gast ducking behind a stall, before she disappeared into the gloom. He shouldn’t follow her. There were Yelen guards in there, and at least some of them knew what he looked like now. All of them were likely keen to make ten thousand sharks, along with every other person in the city. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He grinned to himself and followed her in.

The Godsquare was full to bursting in the cooler night. Throngs of people moved erratically, from stall to troupe of jugglers to temple. Van Gast just about managed to keep Gilda in sight as she crossed the square, still looking over her shoulder every now and then. Definitely up to no good. Well, she was a rack. Maybe even more up to no good than usual.

Van Gast’s itch grew as she left the square, heading toward the more upmarket end of the city, into broader streets with proper shops rather than stalls, shaded by trees and cooled by fountains. His disguise wouldn’t get him much there—he’d as like be grabbed by a guard for making the place look messy if he went too far. Still, the crowds here were enough that he could still follow without her seeing him, and without attracting too much notice, if he was careful.

The streets opened out into broad avenues lined with feather trees and rich merchants’ shops, quality enough that each had at least one bodyguard on the door. Van Gast could feel them watching him as he passed. What was Gilda doing here? Nothing she should be, that was certain. He risked getting closer as this last avenue widened again into a small square. A fountain in the center, Kyr’s Palace to one side, and ahead, right where Gilda was headed, the entrance to the licensed docks.

No getting in that way without a stamp, or the personal invitation of the Yelen. No way in for a rack of any description. Van Gast had tried it once, when he’d been younger and stupider, before he’d met Josie and found the joys of a good con, a distraction and a twisty plan to go with it. He still had a small scar where the bullet had grazed him as he dove round the corner.

He loitered near the entrance to Kyr’s Palace, close enough he could hear Gilda when she spoke. Close enough he knew the voice that had given him away in the square, and hear her say, “I’m here to see Rillen.”

* * *

Rillen waited impatiently for his Lady Laceflower in his rooms, watching over the avenue as the night waned to a pale, pearly gray. One more day, that was all. One more day and he’d have Josie at the least, hopefully Van Gast too. Then Old Toady would be dead, and so would be the two worst racks along the coast.

Lady Laceflower came along the boulevard, elegant, graceful and so very devious under the watery morning sun that was just now rising to burn off the mist over the river. Almost as devious as he was, and he was starting to think this time it wouldn’t be a battle but an unexpected alliance.

Something different about her now, he thought as he opened the door for her. A confidence that intrigued him, a sly look that brought his smile. He ushered her to a seat and poured hot mint tea, his heart lurching. No, he hadn’t expected this, but he welcomed it.

He sat next to her, close enough to touch, close enough to startle her. She soon settled and cast him a gaze from under her eyelashes, one that made his heart lurch even further. Made him wonder who had the upper hand in this war.

“It went well then?” she asked.

“Very well. Josie and Skrymir will be at the reception this evening, along with their associate, a Mr. Ibsen. Van Gast, I assume?”

She set her tea down. “Van Gast, indeed. Josie was aboard last night. He—well, he thinks she’s after something big. Like the Yelen perhaps?”

“But he doesn’t know?”

She shrugged, a smooth movement that showed off just how snug her dress was. Rillen reached out and traced a finger along her bare shoulder. So different from the others, who seemed to die at my touch, to wither away from it, to scorn it. Instead, her smile softened as his hand reached the tender nape of her neck.

“No, not truly. He’s trusting in her, because he has to if he wants her back. And he wants her back. Fool—he can never trust her. Besides, he doesn’t know who it is that’s against him. He’s got some girl called Tallia in his brig, thinks it’s her who betrayed him in the square. Was it?”

Rillen pushed away the sweep of her hair, watched the faint breeze waft the little tendrils that curled around her neck. Again she didn’t shy away or cringe. “I know Tallia. Best place for her, the little witch. Maybe Van Gast will get Josie,” he said. “But not for long. Then we’ll have what we want.”

He wondered how it would be to kiss her, whether she was as deadly as a laceflower to taste.

“He’ll die first, while she watches, knows it was her fault.”

“If you like.”

Her smile changed from sly to coquettish and she looked up at him from beneath feathery eyelashes in a way that made him want to kiss her forever. He drifted his hand up her neck, around to a soft cheek and leaned in. “And then what do you want?”

That did startle her, made her jump under his hand, the naive look back, making him want her even more. “I—I’m not sure.”

“Maybe I could give you an idea?” he murmured. Her lips were soft and warm when he kissed them, only briefly, a taste to show her. “You could have everything.”

“I shouldn’t, Rillen. I mustn’t—”

He kissed her again, harder this time, relishing the way she didn’t cringe from him as all the rest did. He kissed her down onto the lounger, felt the warmth of her through her dress, the softness of her, the slight tremble as he pulled away. “I don’t care about shouldn’t,” he said in her ear. “I don’t care about mustn’t either.”

Again the soft tremble of her, the sly hate disappearing before round-eyed naiveté, as though she’d never kissed a man before, never felt want or need or desire. An intoxicating mix, for someone like him. He kissed her again, let himself get swept away by it, by her. One hand trailed up her leg, bringing the hem of her dress with it, letting him in to clear, smooth skin.

She pulled away, breathless, with an “I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t,” but didn’t move from the lounger, didn’t stop his hand as it crept up her leg.

His fingers reached her thigh, slipped in between shivering muscles and still she didn’t stop him. Another inch, a stroke as light as air, a shuddering gasp from her…

“Do you want everything?”

Another shift of his hand, a gust of her breath across his lips. “Yes,” she said, and kissed him.

* * *

Holden was on deck when Van Gast came back near to dawn, swearing under his breath, glaring at everyone and slamming shut the door to his quarters. It slammed open again a minute later, for Van Gast to shout, “Someone bring me some brandy, for f*ck’s sake!”

Holden waved away the crewman who ran to find the brandy, and took it himself. He had a lot to talk to Van Gast about.

Van grabbed the bottle out of his hand without a word and sloshed a good measure in his glass. “Gilda, f*cking Gilda!”

Holden said nothing, let the brandy and the swearing calm Van Gast down enough he could actually talk properly. Van flopped onto his back on the bed and Holden took the chair.

“Gilda, all along,” Van said when the glass was empty and he’d poured another. “I knew I knew the voice!”

“Gilda set you up in the square?”

“Sure as I’m a rack. Saw her going into the licensed docks, saying she was there to see Rillen.”

“So it wasn’t Tallia then.” Holden couldn’t help the smile. He poured himself some brandy. He wasn’t a drinker, as a rule, but for this he felt in need of a toast, though he’d feel better if he knew where Ilsa was. Gone to the all-night market was all the crew could tell him. This city seemed one that never slept. Maybe she’d be back soon, cheerful again as she had been the last time, having bought something for herself, something pretty. “Who’s Rillen?”

“Good question. Someone people don’t like to talk about much, or at least not to someone who looks like I currently do.” Van Gast leaped off the bed and set about cleaning himself up with the ewer of water in the corner. “Pass me the blue shirt, would you? Thanks. All I could get was that he’s not a very nice person, a lot of people are afraid of him, and if he’s inside the licensed docks—I don’t think a merchanter, people are too wary of talking about him for that. Spends his evenings in Kyr’s Palace, often as not. Kyr’s Palace again. Keeps cropping up. I wonder…anyway, if he’s not a merchanter, he’s still from inside the palace. Which means very definitely not a nice man, not if you’re a rack. What did Tallia say?”

The sudden change of tack startled Holden so he spilled brandy on his hand. “What? Oh. Gilda came down, said she’d seen Tallia come in here. Tallia admits she left a note. She wouldn’t say much else. But if it was Gilda…Tallia did show me where Josie’s ship was. She did get us the crew.”

Van Gast finished getting changed and flopped back on the bed. “Including Gilda. Maybe that was the plan, to blame each other when really they’re working together. Gods damn it all to buggery, why do women have to be so f*cking twisty?”

“Because all the women you know are racks? Not all women are like that. Anyway, I thought that’s what you loved about Josie.”

Van Gast threw him an evil look. “Yes, well, there’s twisty and twisty. All right? Do you think Tallia knows who this Rillen is? I mean, she’s probably Estovanian, right? She worked in that inn, she must have heard a fair bit. Maybe we should have another chat with her, because she makes me itch about something.”

With that, he was off the bed and halfway out of the door before Holden got out of the chair. The sheer vitality of him made Holden tired.

Van Gast slowed as they got onto the deck, checking the sky, tasting the wind, noting the rigging and ropes were all as they should be. “Your men aren’t bad sailors, I’ll give them that.” Then a crafty look. “How’s Ilsa?”

Holden glared at him and moved past to the steps. “Fine.”

Even with his back to Van Gast, Holden could hear the grin in his voice. “Really? Bet her and Tallia are getting on famously.”

“Van—”

In the blink of an eye, Van Gast was blocking his way, his face dark and intense with something. “Look, Holden. You and Ilsa…you don’t have to. Not anymore, not if you don’t want to. You’re a free man now, free to think and feel whatever you want. She’s free, too, and you’re both just now finding out who you really are. And for a start, you’re a rack now. You don’t have to do anything. Rack rules, remember?”

Holden found he couldn’t look at Van Gast. “That means I don’t have to keep Tallia in the brig, or have to do what you say, or…but I do have to, on this. Ilsa doesn’t know anything but Remoria, anyone but me. And I want to make everything right for her.” He managed to raise his head, look Van in the eyes. Say what he’d been struggling with in silence all these weeks. “I already risked her, with Josie. I can’t, not again. She never knew about that, but I don’t want to hurt her. I have to do this, Van. I do, for me. For her. Do you see? I have to know that the person I’m finding out I am is a good man. The man I was under the bond—I wasn’t a good man, though I tried. But I brought Josie to breaking, made Skrymir cut off his braid and honor, made Ilsa…I don’t know. I wasn’t a good man then, but I want to be now. So I’m going to try, whatever it takes. I want to make her happy. I just don’t know how.”

Van Gast sighed enough it seemed it might lift him out of his boots, and glanced around at the crew on watch. Looked at all their bond scars, their newly open faces. “You poor bastards. You most of all, Holden. No man truly knows how to make a woman happy. Didn’t you know that? All you can do is love them, hard as you can, and hope like f*ck it works out.” He flashed a grin. “Come on, we’ve got a game of Find the Lady to finish off. Lady number one is with this Rillen. Lady number two is down in the hold, just waiting for a nice chat with us.”

“And lady number three?”

“I have no idea.” He ran a distracted hand through his hair, and Holden could almost see him reject the first thought. Josie. “Let’s concentrate on one and two now, I think.”

Darkness seemed to breed down in the area of the hold where the brig sat. Dank, humid, airless. Van Gast lit a lamp, and the flame stuttered and popped, but held.

Tallia glared at them through the bars, and again Holden had the urge to open the brig, let her out. Too long chained himself, he couldn’t bear that she was locked away, a free thing trapped.

Her lip curled as she considered them. “Ah, the infamous Van Gast. Come to gloat? Or to do the stupid thing and leave me here?” She turned reproachful eyes on Holden. “And what about you? How’s Ilsa today?”

Van Gast didn’t give Holden a chance to reply, but strode to the brig and crouched so he was at eye level with Tallia as she sat on the bench. He raised the lamp so they could see each other clearly. “It’s you we’ve come to talk about, Tallia. You make me itch, make my little-magics burn. You’ve heard of them, I’m sure.”

Tallia shrugged, offhand, as though she wasn’t in a brig, as though she had the upper hand or a gun aimed at Van’s heart.

Van’s grin flashed out. “Why is that? Why is it you ask me if I’ll do the stupid thing? What do you know about stupid-but-exciting?”

“What do you know about anything other than getting drunk and being a bastard?” The tone was sharp, but a flush crept up Tallia’s neck. Caught out saying something she shouldn’t, but Holden couldn’t see what.

“Not much, admittedly. But I’m out here and you’re in there. Holden says you left a note. What did it say?”

Tallia glared at him but said nothing.

“How about I tell you what it said, and then you tell me what the f*ck you’re up to? The note you left said for me to meet Josie at Kyr’s Palace. Right?”

“Yes.” The word came grudgingly.

“But you didn’t want me knowing it was Josie that sent you. Or that you had anything to do with her. Or are you going to try to tell me some random person just gave you the note and you decided to deliver on a whim of goodhearted charity?”

Tallia’s lips twisted and for a moment Holden thought she’d lash out, but she gripped her hands together. “I thought she was going to get you back, going to make you pay for what you did. You hurt her like nothing else, and if I could I’d f*cking stab you myself right now.”

“But she hurt Van too.” Holden surprised himself by speaking. “He thought—she told me she loved me. Everything I made her do pointed to her betraying him.” He couldn’t watch her as he said it, ashamed that he’d been that man once. Clipped Josie’s wings, tried to tame her. No one could, and he’d almost killed her by trying. He wasn’t going to do it again with Tallia.

“He didn’t trust her. Why should she trust him now? Ever? What makes him any different to all the other racks just trying to get in her breeches and prepared to say anything to do it? I told her, told her again and again, that Van was nothing but trouble for her, that she couldn’t trust him, but she wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t hear a word against him. Until now, now maybe she will, because he’s proved himself an untrustworthy rack through and through, who thinks of no one but himself.”

“Enough!” Van’s voice was rough and cracked. “Please, enough. I know what I did. I know what I have to make up. Why did she get you to send the note?”

“Didn’t say. I just brought the note and hoped she’d get you good. Or that I’d get a crack at you with my gun.”

“Why does it matter to you?” Holden asked, and again, when he looked at her he was reminded somehow of Josie, despite their different looks.

It was the air of confidence, the way they appeared to have control of any situation, even when that situation should mean they were at the disadvantage. Josie facing up to Skrymir while she was in shackles, looking up at him, insulting him as though she was free, as though she had a knife to his groin and every kind of jump on him. Tallia wasn’t so obvious, not so wild or brittley sharp, but it was there, a subtle riptide lurking under the surface, waiting to drown the unwary.

The way she was glaring at Van Gast, insulting him as though she was free… It wasn’t much, but something, something in her reminded him of his dreams when he was young. Of freedom, of the uncatchable moon and wild winds, of far horizons and no ambition but to see what lay beyond.

Holden asked a question he thought he might know the answer to. “How do you know Josie?”

Van Gast had been pacing in the small space but now he stopped and rattled the bars of the brig. “Does it matter? We came down here for one thing, and one thing only. What do you know about a man called Rillen?”

“Nothing I’m going to tell you. Except…except Josie’s been friendly with him. Very friendly.” She smiled at Van Gast, all smug as a well-fed cat.

Van Gast twitched at that, but his voice came measured enough. “Fine. Be stupid. Stay in the brig. Don’t help me find whoever’s f*cking me over, and maybe f*cking Josie over too.” He leaned in, so that only the bars and a few inches of air separated them. “I don’t know who you really are, and it probably doesn’t matter, but I am going to prove to her that she can trust me. I’m going to have her say it, just once, that she loves me, even if it kills me. If she kills me. It’ll be worth it. And I’m going to find out who’s the traitor round here, who’s playing us both around, and then I’m going to kill them.”

With that he dumped the lamp, turned on his heel and stalked up the steps. Tallia watched him go, her head cocked as though she’d seen something she didn’t expect.

“Rillen’s one of the Yelen’s sons,” she said to the empty air. “A cruel bastard, the cruelest, and one to beware of. He keeps the dungeons, and what’s kept there. And he hates Van Gast with a passion. He’s not the only one.”