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| A Following Sea
(A Pirate Story)
Chapters
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| Chapter 10 - EmbayedJack Pirigrim - Age 29
Jack looked up from the charts laid out on the table before him and out through the great cabin’s open windows. The aft windows of the cabin faced due east toward the heart of Solparisa, the capital of the kingdom of Birkala. The Phoenix rested at anchor in the city’s harbor, her hold filled with birkalan fire. This was the second time they had come south to Birkala since wintering in the Sunwaste Sea on the island Ian had named Eutopa.
The kindom of Birkala had turned a blind eye to the presence of the Phoenix despite the demands and pleas of Bornay’s ambassador. Jack was scrupulous to obey all of the kingdom’s laws within its waters and had poured his captured Bornay gold into the kingdom’s coffers in return for cargoes of their fire.
Still, Jack had done his best not to overstay his welcome. Unfortunately, the weather had been against him for the last eight days, a fresh breeze blowing from offshore bringing a little rain every few days. That fresh breeze, contrary to the prevailing winds he had expected, had kept the Phoenix embayed in Solparisa’s sheltering bay along with the rest of the ships that might otherwise have departed for other waters.
Jack had been waiting for a slackening of the breeze, but it was not a change in the wind that had drawn his attention from the charts before him, but a call from the tops. The topsman had called down to Janus Finn, the officer of the watch. He did not catch all their words, but he did catch “League” and “Bornay.”
He swiftly rolled and stowed the charts and made for the quarterdeck.
“What do we have, Mister Finn?” Jack asked as he came out onto the deck.
“Two brigs, sir.” Janus Finn pointed toward the mouth of the bay. “Annton says he saw the Bornay banner.”
Jack could see the two brigs, their colors flying in the wind, but with the wind from that quarter, he could not see the leopard rampant. The brigs were turning to enter the bay. Jack turned back toward Solparisa and looked up at the city’s hills that climbed so steeply toward high mountains behind.
Jack had been loathe to follow Ian’s mountain goat leadership up through Solparisa; the capital’s roads looked to be little more than mountain paths that haphazardously scaled the mountain’s overlooking cliffs, inviting the unlucky traveler to fall to his death. Ian was there – somewhere.
“Signal Return to Ship,” Jack said.
“Aye, Captain.”
* * *
The two brigs were well inside the mouth of the harbor and were approaching their anchorage north of the Phoenix. They looked to swarming with troops, enough to overrun the Phoenix’s crew if it came to a hand-to-hand battle, but they had made no immediate move to attack. Still, if Ian was not watching for the Phoenix’s flags, he would soon be surprised to find Bornay troops between him and the Phoenix.
The brigs dropped anchor and lowered boats filled with troops almost immediately.
“Isn’t that a violation of Birkalan sovereignty?” Janus asked.
“Oh, no, Mister Finn,” Jack replied grimly. “Those troops are on leave, no doubt; I am sure Bornay’s ambassador is busy smoothing that over as we speak. And when they attack our men, they’ll just note that sailors are apt to brawl. I’m sure they’ll be apologetic when it’s all over.”
Jack turned his gaze back the shore, looking for some sign of Ian and his men. “Where are you, Ian?”
The Phoenix had sailed into Solparisa’s harbor with a reduced crew. Sailing south from Eutopa, they overtaken a frigate flying Bornay colors and had taken her. Pip had taken a prize crew and had sailed back for Eutopa to join the small fleet of captured ships they were assembling there. Kaelinn knew the paths of the Sunwaste Sea intimately. She had shown them the narrow currents whereby they could navigate into the Sunwaste to Eutopa, and she had guided them out again, standing at the prow of the ship moving it seemingly by her will alone.
Pip was waiting for them now on Eutopa with his prize crew. Jack wished he was here, instead. Every man counted if it came to a boarding fight.
The troops from the Bornay brigs had reached the docks. They disembarked, formed up on the quay, and set off at a march. He could see their colors moving south along the harbor’s road toward the docks where the Phoenix’s boats were tied up.
Where was Ian?
“There, sir!” Janus exclaimed, pointing to the pier to which the Phoenix’s boats were lashed.
Ian appeared there with the other Phoenixes who had gone ashore. He stood at the foot of the pier, driving the others toward the boats and staring at the oncoming Bornay troops. He was the last to withdraw, running to the last boat, yelling at them to push off.
The troops drew up short at the end of the pier, staring at the growing gap of water between them and their prey.
Jack gave Ian his hand to pull him up onto the frigate’s deck. “You had me worried, there Ian.”
Ian nodded. “I had Everson on flag watch, so we saw your signal as soon as it went up, but it took me awhile to find all the boys.
“You know about the frigate?”
Jack shook his head.
Ian pointed out past the north point of the mouth of Solparisa’s harbor. “We saw it from up on the mountain. Looks like they hope to catch us between it and the brigs.”
Jack frowned. “I wonder if we have pushed Bornay far enough that they would be willing at attack us in sight of the king’s palace?” He looked back up the mountain slope to the gleaming white palace of the Birkalan emperor. They could surely see the frigate from that height.
He looked back toward the open sea. A slope-walled fortress of stone held the south point of the harbor’s entrance. Engines of war dominated its stocky towers.
Ian grunted. “The frigate doesn’t have to come in. If I had those troops,” he nodded toward the Bornay marines still visible on shore, now withdrawing toward the brigs once more, “I’d find me some boats and swarm the Phoenix tonight.”
Ian was right. Jack felt the breeze, still blowing onshore. They could not stay. The winds sealed them in the harbor unless he called on Kaelinn to move the ship. He was loath to reveal her abilities to the enemy, but if they cover her work enough…
New as of 7/18/07
“The tide will be shifting in the next hour,” Jack said. “We’re well loaded, so we’ll ride to windward. We’ll tow the Phoenix out of the harbor. Between the boats and our tiding it over, no one will suspect Kaelinn’s work.”
Ian frowned. “When they see us weigh anchor, the Bornay troops may decide not to wait for night.”
“Then load up the ballistae.”
Ian nodded, smiling grimly.
“Mister Finn!” Jack called. “We will be towing the Phoenix to open water on the turn of the tide. Make what preparations you can with alerting the Bornays of our intent.”
He turned to the midshipman on deck, “Mister Ammerman, find the lady Kaelinn and ask her to repair to the quarterdeck, please.”
“Aye, aye!” the boy answered and ran to find her.
With the turning of the tide, while the wind kept the Phoenix well leeward of her anchor in the slack tide, Jack ordered the sternboat and both quarterboats lowered. Tow lines were made fast at the bowsprit cap and the end of the jibboom, and while the wind still held Phoenix’s leeward of her anchor, Mister Finn’s voice range out over the deck, “Up anchor!”
The capstan was already rigged, the messenger ready. With shouts of “Heave round! Heave cheerily!” echoing over the deck, Jack turned his eye toward the Bornay brigs. Ian had not ceased watching them since Tomas had rigged the ballistae in full view of the enemy crews.
The commanders of both brigs stirred up their crews at the first signs of the Phoenix’s intent to weigh anchor. However, instead of sending troops over by boat, they seemed more intent on following the Phoenix’s example, filling their boats with oarsmen to tow their vessels.
Suddenly, a spike of cloud struck up into the sky from the nearest brig, and exploded with a crack high overhead.
“What was that?” Mister Finn exclaimed.
Jack squinted up into the bright sky. “A Sinoan rocket, I think,” Jack replied. “They use them for celebrations.”
“What makes them fly?” Tomas asked.
“Something like the birkalan fire, I would guess. I don’t know,” Jack answered. “The first time I
“I’ll bet that was high enough for the frigate to see,” Ian said.
With the anchor catted and fished, the crews in the boats began their work. Inobtrusively, Kaelinn took her place in the bow, and the Phoenix trembled, moving gently, adding her own motion to the rowers’ efforts.
The rowers strained in their hot work under Solparisa’s afternoon sun, pulling the Phoenix toward the open sea. The time wore away, and the Phoenix drew near the mouth of the bay. Behind them, at an every growing distance, the Bornay boats labored to pull the brigs after the Phoenix.
Looking back, Jack smiled at the brigs’ ineffectual pursuit. A shout from the tops brought him about. The topsman had sighted the Bornay frigate. It was coming to meet them in the strait. Ian scrambled up the ratlines to the tops to get his own view, and within a few minutes, Jack himself could see the Iremon as it rounding the northern point and turning to enter the bay.
The wind began to shift as they neared the mouth of the bay, becoming a fresh breeze out of the southeast.
“Stand by to make sail!” Jack bellowed. “Mister Finn, get our boats back in!”
to be continued... | | |
| Chapter 9 - MaelstromJack Pirigrim - Age 28
Pip’s shout saved Jack. He ducked beneath the head of the boarding axe; it buried itself in the wood of the merchantman’s mizzenmast behind him. Pip, saber in hand, hurled himself on the man who thrown the axe. Still, it stole Jack’s advantage against the merchantman’s captain; and though Jack was the better swordsman, that did not keep the captain from nearly sweeping Jack’s head from his shoulders the moment the axe distracted him. He struck at Jack again and again with his cutlass, and Jack parried the angry blows.
Ian fought his way past Jack, his sword flashing in the noonday sun as he reigned a flurry of blows down on the second-in-command’s cudgel. In that moment, Jack caught sight of the main deck below; it was a seething mass of men in combat. Six months before, when the Phoenix had taken to pirating Bornay ships, Jack’s crew would have easily overwhelmed the merchantman’s small crew; however, Erastus Bornay had been forced to add marines to his ships’ complements in attempt to stop his losses. Those marines were now locked in deadly combat with the Phoenix’s crew.
Jack ducked under another of the captain’s great swings and brought his sword’s tip up under the captain’s chin; he drove the man back against the quarterdeck’s railing. “Drop your sword,” Jack shouted, “and surrender your ship, or I will kill you this instant!”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Ian drive his opponent to the deck.
The captain’s eyes flickered from side to side, and Jack prepared to cut his throat. The captain’s cutlass clattered to the deck. “I surrender,” he spat, “to your mercy.”
“Order your men to stand down,” Jack said. “Now!”
The captain nodded curtly, and turning his head toward the main deck, he bellowed, “Penshaws! Stand down!” His voice carried to the foredeck. The noise of battle slackened. “Penshaws! Stand down!” he shouted once more. In mid swing, men paused in uncertainty.
“The ship is taken!” Jack shouted. “Surrender, on your lives!”
Cutlasses, cudgels, and axes began to fall. The Phoenix’s crew herded their prisoners together until the Penshaw’s remaining crew and marines stood in a sorry mass, the Phoenix’s swords surrounding them.
“Penshaws,” Jack spoke. “I am Jack Pirigrim. You have lost your ship, but each of you need not lose his life. If this is the first day you have met the Phoenix in anger, we will show you mercy. You need but sign compact never again to sail under Bornay flag nor in Bornay service, and your life is yours. If you will not sign compact or if we have met before and you have broken that compact, your life is forfeit.”
Jack turned to the Penshaw’s captain. “I place the additional requirement upon you that you must open to me your ship’s books, charts, and the list of your complement.”
Slowly, bitterly, the captain nodded.
Ian came forward, dragging the ship’s first officer by his collar. “Jack,” he said. Jack turned to him, and Ian let his prisoner fall to the deck. “We fought this one before. About two months ago, he was on the Simone.”
The man blanched when Ian spoke the name of the ship.
“Right,” Jack said. “Kill him.”
“You can’t do that!” the captain protested.
Jack turned and stepped face to face with the captain. “Yes, I can, Captain…”
“Tamis.”
“Well, Captain Tamis, if I meet you again serving on a Bornay ship, I will kill you, too.”
Ian raised his sword, and the first officer raised his hand to Jack imploringly. “Please, no! There are things I can tell you! The silk shipment!”
Ian paused, looking to Jack. Jack glanced at him and raised an eyebrow.
Seeing hope, the man babbled, “She has a king’s ransom of silk in her belly that she’s brought back from Sinor! It’s Bornay’s! You can still catch her!”
“Shut up, Alin,” the captain said.
“Where?” Jack asked.
“For my life!” Alin pleaded.
Jack looked at Ian, who shrugged. “If you speak truth, for your life.”
The man pointed southward to where the masts of the Penshaw’s companion were still visible. “She’s there! The Charon sailed with us! She’s loaded with Bornay silk.”
Jack looked southward toward the fleeing merchantman. The Phoenix had overtaken the two of them coming off the Western Deep down from the Angelines, following much the same course that the Phoenix had followed six months before. The first officer’s story was believable.
“Chain him,” Jack, nodding to Alin, “and put him aboard the Phoenix.” He turned Ian, “I thought you were going to stay on our ship and do your deadly work from there.”
“I ran out of arrows and had to come fetch some. Plus you needed the help.”
Jack grunted and turned his attention back to the matter at hand. “Now, Captain Tamis, your books.”
In the Penshaw’s grand cabin, they found Captain Tamis’ books in good order, and Jack took them, along with the charts. Ian reviewed the crew list quickly, casting his eyes over the names; Jack had soon learned that Ian’s attention to detail extended beyond choosing targets. His recollection of names and faces was vastly superior to Jack’s, and so the job of reviewing prisoners had naturally fallen to him. At last, Ian said, “The only name I recognize is the first officer’s.”
“Good enough then,” Jack said.
Biru and Pip entered the cabin. “Captain,” Pip said.
“What news, Mister Kamen?”
“The ship’s hold has the cargo they described, but it’s rather light.”
Jack turned to Captain Tamis, “Could you explain that?”
Tamis’s lips thinned. “We have the cargo Lord Bornay ordered us to acquire.”
“Indeed,” Jack frowned. “Of all things, I never imagined Erastus Bornay as inefficient with his resources.”
Tamis did not reply.
“Huh,” Jack said. “Anything else, Mister Kamen?”
“Yes.”
Jack turned to look at him when he did not continue. Biru spoke, “Dao warriors have been on this ship.”
“What did they leave?” Jack asked.
“Dust,” was Biru’s reply.
Jack frowned. He had given up challenging Biru when he offered such statements with what seemed like weak evidence. If Biru saw dust and declared it to be the corrupt remnants of dao warriors, it was good enough for Jack.
“When were Bornay’s dog warriors on this ship and why?”
Captain Tamis replied, “I hardly have to report to y—”
Jack’s sword tip at his throat cut him off. “You will answer our questions or you’ll be reporting to God. Dong ma?”
Tamis nodded stiffly.
“When were Bornay’s dog warriors on this ship and why?”
“Before we left Son Somayne, they came aboard. We were ordered to carry them to Appis, which we did. Then we sailed for Sinor.”
Jack said, “Why were they needed in Appis?”
“I don’t know. The Bornays did not tell me.”
“With which Bornays did you speak?”
“Lord Bornay and the Bornay heir.”
Jack fell silent, and Ian took the opportunity to ask, “Did the warriors need food or water?”
“No. They stayed in the hold; we stayed away from them. They asked nothing from us.”
“Did you speak with them?” Jack asked.
Tamis shuddered for a moment, “No.”
Jack looked at Ian, Pip, and Biru. No one suggested any further questions.
“Biru, take Captain Tamis up to the deck and have them lower the Penshaw’s boats. Once he and his crew have signed compact, let them go to the boats.”
“I’m not—” Tamis began, his temper breaking again.
“Those that sign the compact,” Jack ground on over him, “will be free to leave in the Penshaw’s boats; if there is one sailor among them, they should be able to reach Salamon by the day after tomorrow. As for the rest, the Penshaw will make a fine coffin when we burn her.”
Biru took Tamis by the arm and led him out of the cabin. The moment he was gone, Ian, Jack, and Pip began ripping the grand cabin apart, looking for Tamis’ hiding places. A sailing ship offered few, and if one was willing to destroy the furniture, they usually could be found rather quickly. Ian seemed to take particular pleasure in ripping the paneling from the walls. Jack turned his attention to the captain’s quarters. The search turned up nothing except the ashes of papers recently burned in the cabin’s brazier.
By the time they came back up on deck, the signing of the compact was all but complete. Tamis remained the last to sign. Some of the Penshaws did not know how to write their names; in that case, their name was written carefully for them and they applied their mark. In the end, when all others had signed, Captain Tamis signed his name and climbed down into the last boat.
“It’s a pity we could not man it with a prize crew,” Pip commented.
“I know,” Jack sighed. “But we have no port to take her to. Not yet.” Jack looked over the merchantman. “Torch it.”
* * *
Putting on her whole press of canvas, including her studdingsails, the Phoenix sailed west in pursuit of the Charon. Behind her a black pillar of smoke marked the place where the Penshaw blazed.
The Phoenix’s officers sat around the captain’s table in the ship’s grand cabin. The table settings, gold and silver cups and utensils, and food all were courtesy of Lord Erastus Bornay and his merchant fleet, as were the several new articles of furniture added in the last six months, including a cabinet of curious design that offered a number of hidden drawers within its finely crafted cherry wood exterior.
Jack cast a glance over the wealth scattered about the room. It looked palatial compared to the simple provision with which it had been appointed half a year before. The Phoenix’s hold was filled with wealth and supplies taken from Bornay ships, yet it was only a tithe of the cargo that Jack’s crew had burned and sunk. Yet Jack took little pleasure in it. They had hurt Bornay, but they were only one ship, and Bornay had outmaneuvered them in the political realm, denying them the comfort of friendly ports within and without the League. No doubt, that had hurt Erastus Bornay almost as much as the Phoenix’s predations, for he was forced to buy his alliances at high cost.
Nevertheless, winter was coming fast, and the Phoenix could not continue forever without a port. The crew knew that, and the topic had arisen to dominate the dinner conversation.
“Are you certain the Imperial Isles will refuse us?” Biru asked.
“Their ambassadors have vocally come out against piracy,” Ian replied, “and we are pirates by general acceptation.”
“I’m certain there are plenty of consuls who, once they set their eyes on the treasure, would turn a blind eye to its piratical source,” Biru observed. “In the time I spent in the Isles, I cannot remember any consul that was known for his integrity.”
“Perhaps,” Tomas said, “but Bornay has been building alliances in the Imperial Isles for years. If they were west of the League, instead of east, that might be more workable. As it is, the Bornays have been marrying their daughters off to Imperial consuls for generations.”
“We could fall back to Sinor or Birkala,” Daniel Raymes, the youngest officer at the table, suggested.
“Or even Kaelinn’s Island,” Pip offered.
“We could,” Jack admitted, “but we aren’t pirates. We’re at war. As long as we continue to challenge Bornay in League waters, his victory isn’t complete.” He looked at the others and tried to keep the feeling of bleakness he felt from showing. “Realistically, our one ship isn’t a real threat to his power; but we are more than that. The full brunt of Bornay’s schemes fell on the Pirigrim House, and we’re still here. We were supposed to be the example of the power of his inescapable sword, and yet we’ve escaped. We are the living reminder to the League that Bornay is not all powerful, that he has not won.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that we need a friendly port,” Ian said. “God knows we do.”
“I know.” Jack said.
“Have you considered one of the Phantom Isles?” Kaelinn asked.
The young woman had sat silently through the conversation dinner, and her words brought the discussion to a stop. Jack looked at her; her expression gave every impression that she was quite serious.
“The Phantom Isles are not real,” Jack replied. He paused uncomfortably; the events surrounding the ark had shaken his certainty concerning the fallacy of old tales, “well, I mean they’re legendary.”
“Last night you said that Bornay wanted to rule them,” she countered.
“That’s because Bornay wants to rule everything,” Jack answered. “I was speaking…” he searched for the word he wanted.
“Metaphorically?” Ian offered.
“Metaphorically,” Jack said.
“So?” Kaelinn asked. “They’re on the eastern edge of the Sunwaste Sea.”
“Nobody knows where they are,” Jack corrected. “People only say they are in the Sunwaste because no one sails there.”
“You could ride the currents,” she offered.
“The Sunwaste doesn’t have currents,” Pip countered.
“How do you know that if no one sails there?” Kaelinn asked.
Jack opened his mouth, and then closed it. He sighed. “This isn’t finding us a port. In any case, we won’t need one until after we’ve caught the Charon. Anyone know her captain?”
Everyone around the table shook their heads.
“We could get his name from the prisoner,” Pip offered.
“Anyone else bothered by the Charon running west?” Jack asked.
Pip nodded.
“We ran west,” Ian pointed out, “last year when Bornay’s ships were after us.”
“We were running before a hurricane.”
“Not then,” Ian corrected him, “when we first set out for Karkur.”
“True,” Jack conceded. “But west was on our way; for the Charon it’s not. He’s fleeing into the Devil’s Teeth.”
“We came on the Charon and Penshaw from the southeast,” Tomas pointed out. “To reach the League squadron in the Angelines, they would have to turn back north and beat upwind before us.”
“And he’s not going to keep running east,” Pip added. “He’s liable to do what we did a year ago, wait for night and then turn south to run before wind and the current.”
Jack nodded. “Unless we can catch him before nightfall.”
“Do you think it is carrying all the silk that Alin says?” Daniel asked.
“A king’s ransom of silk?” Jack echoed. “Perhaps. For Alin’s sake, it had better. By this time tomorrow, please God, we will know.”
* * *
The sun set just before they rang seven bells in the last Dog watch. The Phoenix had closed to within two miles of the Charon, and both ships had stretched every yard of canvas they could. The Phoenix was faster, but the race was to darkness, and for that the Charon’s lead was too great for her to be overtaken. By the second bell of the first watch, the horizon had become uncertain. There was no moon, and high clouds masked many of the stars. They were within a mile of the Charon and could catch the sound of her captain’s orders carrying over the waves.
Both ships were working west with a scant wind from starboard, and neither had lanterns set. Ian, in the foretop, strained his eyes toward the prey, but soon darkness had wholly swallowed the Charon.
Jack had prepared the crew for the southward turn; each man knew his assigned tasked. Everyone strained his senses to catch some hint of the Charon’s location. They pressed westward, and at the turning of the glass, Jack had them strike three bells.
“Think they’ve changed course?” Pip whispered.
“Aye,” Jack said. “At least, I would have by now. The moon will rise in just over an hour. They will want to be as far south of us as possible before then. Bring us about, Mister Kamen, to south-south-west.”
“Aye, Captain,” Pip answered, “South-south-west.”
Jack’s orders moved quietly forward, and confirmation found its way back to the quarterdeck. The Phoenix came about, the crew bending the sails to the new tack; the ship began running southward with a large wind.
In the darkness, Ian made his way slowly, carefully down from the foretop and found his way to the quarterdeck. “What now?” he asked.
“We wait,” Jack replied softly. “No more bells till daylight.”
Though no bells were rung, Jack awoke at the sound of feet moving quickly on the deck above. He rose from his bunk and stepped into the great cabin. Dim light filtered in through the windows. The sun had not yet risen, but dawn was perhaps no more than a half an hour off. He made his way up on deck and found that Pip was bringing the Phoenix about to the north-northwest. Soon, the wind was off the starboard beam.
Looking into the wind, Jack could see the Charon’s sails in the distance.
“We overshot her in the night,” Jack said.
“Yes,” Pip agreed, “but not by much. We have a day to catch her.”
Throughout the morning the wind shifted westward, and Jack ordered the sails shifted and raised with each change of the wind. The Phoenix now was given wholly over to the chase. By noon they were flying west with studdingsails and topgallants filled. The lines sang with tension, and Jack ordered halliards shifted to serve as additional braces (it was ugly, yet nonetheless effective), as the wind rose. With two expert men on the wheel, they used every maneuver possible to eat up the wind of the chase.
The captain of the Charon sailed her with remarkable skill. Through his glass, Jack watched her crew performed every evolution cleanly and precisely. Jack’s crew would have been hard pressed to do better. The captain knew his business, and his ship flew west under a cloud of sails and kites. Still, slowly, inexorably, the Phoenix consumed the distance between herself and the merchantman.
Recognizing his adversary’s skill, Jack waited for him to turn north, to make back toward the Angelines and the League squadron there. But each turn of the glass carried them only westward away from the League toward the last archipelago before the edge of the Sunwaste Sea. Already the easternmost islands of the chain were visible as purple smudges to the northwest.
At the beginning of the afternoon watch, Pip came near to Jack and observed, “He’s heading into the Devil’s Teeth.”
Jack frowned in response. “Yes, he is.” The rocky archipelago of barren and unforgiving islands rose out of the ocean looking for all the world like the broken and rotted teeth of some great giant. They were scattered in a great V with their northern and southern arms opening eastward. Shoals between the islands make any passage between them all but impossible.
The only navigable strait lay at the archipelago’s westernmost end, the point of its V, where strong currents and the ocean tides conspired to create a navigator’s nightmare that under the influence of the moon became the Maelstrom, a great whirlpool of such terrible power that it would drag both whale, ship, and leviathan down never to rise again. The Maelstrom’s action carried some mysterious attraction to storms and squalls, for oft it was covered by dark clouds and veiled by rain. Zephyrs played over its waters, and waterspouts formed in their wake and danced over the great maw of the deep. So the legends said.
It was for that passage the merchantman was making, and perhaps her captain hoped to find the window when the moon’s influence had waned and an uncertain peace held in the Devil’s Strait, when a ship might hope to sail through in some safety.
“Yes, he is,” Jack said again. “So we had better catch him before he gets there.”
Each turn of the glass brought the Charon closer and both ships deeper into the arms of the Devil’s Teeth. Ahead, a narrow veil of clouds darkened the horizon. Though the wind carried both ships west, the clouds ahead seemed little moved by its breath.
Still the merchantman sailed unswervingly onward until the islands advanced close enough for Jack to clearly see the birds that rested on the barren, guano covered rocks. Less than two cable’s lengths separated the ships.
“Captain!” Ian shouted.
Jack looked up. Ian was pointing behind them and away south. Jack followed his hand out to one of the Devil’s Teeth. From the shadowed lee of one of the largest islands, a ship now sailed into view. Three-masted, she clearly out-massed the Phoenix. Jack knew her lines. It was the Beleferon, the finest warship in the League’s navy.
“Now it makes sense,” Jack said. “I hate other people’s traps.”
“Looks like Alin wasn’t so trustworthy.”
Jack nodded resignedly. “Go get him.”
The Beleferon had the weather gauge the Phoenix. Jack would have to beat to windward to escape the Devil’s Teeth, and the Beleferon could fall upon him at its leisure. He did not want to think how many men might be on that ship ready to kill his crew. Another vessel appeared behind the Beleferon, sailing out from behind the island’s cover. The odds were looking a little tight. A third ship appeared.
“Tomas,” Jack said, glancing at the two ballistae. “Tell me we have more fire than I remember.”
Tomas shook his head. “One canister, and it’s cracked. We didn’t use it before, as it is as likely to burn us as anyone else.
“We can try slipping by them,” he offered.
Jack shook his head. “That’s Santiago’s Beleferon; it’s his son we burned on the Mimas. He’ll not let us pass without action. He’s mad enough to rip this ship apart with his own hands and smart enough not to let his anger run the battle. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a weather witch aboard. We can’t win this one.”
He turned to face the merchantman. It was beginning to change sail, to turn away from the Maelstrom now that the Pheonix had other concerns.
“Ian!” Jack shouted.
“Aye?”
“The sailors on the Charon are trying to change sail!”
“Aye?”
“Stop them!”
“Aye!” Ian called back, a fierce joy clear in his voice.
His arrows reached from the Phoenix to the Charon. Men fell from the yards. Others hastily took cover. Ian turned his attention to the men on the wheel next. The Charon staggered away from her new course, and the wind turned her back toward her first path into the teeth of the Maelstrom.
Pip returned with Alin in tow.
“You left out some rather important information, Mister Alin.”
The Penshaw’s first mate stared back defiantly.
Jack turned his back on him.
The Charon’s sailors tried to answer Ian with crossbows as Charon’s captain urged them back to the yards with threats and curses. Ian’s arguments proved the more compelling. The Charon’s sailors started trying to get the ship’s boat over far side.
Jack could see the movement of the water ahead. Soon the current would have the Charon in its iron grip. The ship would disappear into the squall that stood over the Devil’s Strait, and the zephyrs would play in its doomed sails until it plunged into the black heart of the sea. So the songs said. Then the Phoenix would follow her if she did not turn back into Santiago’s teeth.
Songs could be wrong.
“We’ll sail the Maelstrom,” Jack said.
“That’s suicide,” Alin spat.
Jack turned back to him. “You are free to go.”
“What?” he said incredulously.
“Tomas. Get him off my ship.”
Tomas seized the man and hurled him over the side. With a yell, Alin disappeared beneath the water before coming up spluttering a few moments later.
“I could have killed him. It would have been quicker,” he said.
“I’m not feeling particularly merciful at the moment, Tomas,” Jack replied.
“He was right, though,” Pip noted in a low voice, “it being suicide.”
“I’ll sooner entrust myself to God than to Santiago,” Jack replied. “We’ll go through the strait.”
Pip looked at him incredulously, but when he realized Jack was serious, shook his head and set his shoulders.
Jack raised his voice so that it carried to the foc’sle and the tops. “We’re going through the Maelstrom! If Captain Santiago hopes to meet us today, he’ll have to do it on the other side!”
Doubt and uncertainty shone clear on the faces of the sailors. They exchanged glances, and Jack could feel their fear.
“Those that will not follow me may take to the boats and trust themselves to Santiago’s mercy,” Jack said, steel in his voice. “We are not finished. I sware to you, we are not finished. As I would never take this ship into the Dead Current unless I believed we would come through again to the living sea. Even so, I am passing through the Maelstrom today and I am taking the Phoenix with me to the other side.”
No one moved toward the boats.
The sails stuttered as the winds changed into gasps and gusts. The airs of the Maelstrom swallowed the east wind, and the Phoenix shuddered with uncertainty.
“Shorten sail, Mister Kamen, strike all but the forestays’l , fore and maintopsail,” Jack said softly. “Then get the men out of the rigging and secure the hatches.”
“Aye, Captain,” Kamen turned to face the crew and bellowed the captain’s orders. The crew leapt into action, swiftly climbing the ratlines to the yards above.
Jack whistled tunelessly through his teeth for several seconds, as he felt the first touches of the Maelstrom’s grip on the ship. Then he raised his voice in a plainchant, “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of the LORD, and His wonders in the deep, for He commands and raises the stormy wind that lifts up the waves thereof. They mount up to heaven, they go down again to the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man and are at their wits’ end. Then they cry to the LORD in their trouble, and He brings them out of their distresses. He makes the storm a calm so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they are quiet, so he brings them to their desired haven.”
The Beleferon and the ships with her pressed cautiously after the Phoenix. Jack knew it was not for fear of the outnumbered and outmassed Phoenix, but because Santiago was certain of his advantage and had no desire to lose it.
Onward the Phoenix pushed into the full current of the Maelstrom. Jack cast one glance back toward the Beleferon and saw Alin waving toward the warships; Santiago’s ships made no move to rescue their man, and already Jack could see that he was caught in the same current that now held the Phoenix.
The Charon had now passed through the throat of the Devil’s Teeth. The veil of cloud ahead parted, and from the darkness beyond came zephyrs drawing arms of mist behind them. The sails of the Charon endured their rough play for several long moments before the main topsail tore asunder. The current swung the ship suddenly to starboard and swept it into the swirling wall of cloud where it disappeared out of Jack’s sight.
“Mister Kamen, to the wheel, if you please,” Jack ordered. Pip joined Mister Hallen at the wheel.
“Oh, God,” Jack said, “unless You save us, we are lost.” Jack knew the Phoenix could endure the zephyrs’ assault no better than the Charon, and if they stripped her of her sails, the Phoenix was certainly doomed. “Oh, God,” Jack said again, fear twisting in his belly, “save us, for we are Thine!”
Then the Phoenix herself passed between the narrow strait of the Devil’s Teeth and plunged into the Maelstrom. To Jack’s dismay, he saw Kaelinn on deck even as the hatches were being secured. Jack frowned and started to shout to her to return below deck, but Maelstrom did not leave him time. The current turned the head of Phoenix to starboard like the Charon before her. The sea hissed passed the hull from stern to bow, accelerating the ship.
“She’s sluggish to answer the helm, sir!” Mister Kamen called out.
Zephyrs came howling out of the circling storm cloud, and the sea turned to froth in their wakes. The gray mist and darkening cloud was less than a cable length away. Beneath it the sea rushed counter to the wind.
“Keep the ship as close as possible to the wind, Mister Kamen!” Jack called over the shriek of the wind. Despite her shortened sails, the winds struck the Phoenix with brutal forces, working to turn her on beam ends. Jack braced himself as the ship lurched and heeled.
Overhead the zephyrs spun and danced around the masts and yards, reaching to tear away the few sails still set.
The cloud struck the Phoenix a moment later, sweeping the ship with rain and hail. It turned the day to darkness and roaring confusion. Jack could feel the wind having its way with the ship, forcing it to fall off from his desired course. He knew that if they did, they would certainly be swept into the heart of the Maelstrom. Pip and Hallen fought to keep the ship true, but despite their swift passage, with respect to the current, they were almost at standstill.
For long minutes the storm raged around the Phoenix. The current was sweeping the ship around the center of the Maelstrom. Jack looked down to the compass in its binnacle beside the wheel. When the current first turned the ship, it had swung them eight points to starboard; now, as they were borne about the Maelstrom's circumference, the compass was swinging back to port, four points, eight points, twelve points. At the same time, though Jack could not be certain, it seemed they were being pulled deeper into the storm, the rate of their turn increasing.
The clouds parted, and Jack realized that they had come to the inside of an outer ring of clouds. To port another, darker, faster moving ring swirled with terrible force. In the open gap between the storm walls, two waterspouts towered and twisted, tearing at the sea with elemental fury, roaring with deep voices like rolling thunder that made the air tremble.
Beyond the waterspouts, twisting on the edge of the inner storm wall, the Charon swept into view, her sails torn to shreds, her topmasts broke at the heel and her main yard sprung. Men clung to her broken form, and above the shriek of the zephyrs and the roar of the winds, Jack heard screams of terror, of damned souls before whom the mouth of Hell had opened. Then the Charon was pulled into the Maelstrom’s heart and the black clouds closed over her.
“She’s not answering the helm!” Pip shouted, and Jack could feel the Phoenix falling off their course, turning uncertainly but with growing speed toward the inner storm. The current was sweeping her inward toward the certain destruction of the waterspouts and the storm beyond.
Jack looked forward, looking for any hope, and saw to his consternation, Kaelinn stumbling to reach the ship’s bow. She took hold of the gunwale, her feet braced and her face forward. The next instant, the Phoenix shuddered, and as if shaking herself awake from a nightmare, she surged forward faster than the current about her.
“She’s answering the helm!” Pip shouted, relief clear in his voice.
“Death is to port, Mister Kamen!” Jack called back. “Make to starboard!”
The Phoenix bore back into the Maelstrom’s outer ring, but before storm closed over her, Jack heard the zephyrs overhead howl in rage. They turned from their assault on the Phoenix’s sails to plunge toward Kaelinn. Then the storm clouds’ tearing rain and roar blotted out Jack’s vision. Yet beneath his feet, the Phoenix spoke to him, the trembling of her deck and uncertainty returning as if she were stumbling from her newfound purpose.
Kaelinn! Jack ran forward as best as he was able amidst the confusion of the storm, descending to the main deck and pulling himself along the gunwale and lifelines, he felt the ship once more begin to fall off, to be turned inward toward the center of the Maelstrom. He clawed his way up to the bow, and found Kaelinn there encircled by three zephyrs. They had seized her hair and clothing and were pulling her cruelly back from the bow.
Jack fell in amongst them, seizing them where he could, drawing his sword and striking when they drew back. No human hand or weapon could harm them, yet to do their evil work, they had to take some solid form, and it was against this that Jack struck with fist and sword. The zephyrs loosed Kaelinn for a moment and turned on him, but he cared not, for when Kaelinn regained her place, gripping the gunwales once more, he felt the Phoenix respond -- he was certain -- to her. The Phoenix was turning away from the Maelstrom’s heart once more, and that was all that mattered.
The few of his crew that were near the bow saw the zephyrs’ onslaught and came to Jack and Kaelinn’s aid. For long minutes the zephyrs battered at him and at Kaelinn in turn, but were unable to pull her away from the bow while Jack and his fellow Phoenixes answered their attacks.
Then the zephyrs pulled away and threw their strength against the ship’s sails, not to tear them, but to turn the ship back. The fore and maintopsails backed against the yards and mast, and Jack felt the ship slow, slow, and stop, gripped once more by the current.
Jack bellowed at the top of his voice, “Loose the topsail sheets!”
The sheets of the upper sails were let go, and the sails blew free into disorder. The zephyrs lost their grip upon the Phoenix, and she, carried as it were on her own current, plunged forward through darkness, rain, and mist.
Then the ship burst through the veil of cloud that marked the outward edge of the Maelstrom’s storm.
Jack blinked against the brilliance of the sun and cloudless sky. The current of the Maelstrom had swung the Phoenix, all told, through twenty points of the compass. Kaelinn stood shaking in front of him, seemingly bathed in perspiration, her hair and skin glistening with an unbroken sheen of water. Still she did not loose her white-knuckled grip of the gunwale, and still the ship bore forward and across the Maelstrom’s current, turning until the Phoenix was once more heading west and the Maelstrom was behind her.
When at last all discernable current was gone, she released her hold and nearly fell. Jack caught her and lifted her, surprised at how light she felt. She looked up at him and smiled wanly.
He turned to carry her to her cabin, and saw that southward, to windward (for the wind no longer blew west here beyond the Giant’s Teeth on the very eastern edge of the Sunwaste Sea), two more battle frigates of the League were waiting for them. The Phoenix had escaped the jaws of Santiago’s first trap, but not the second.
“Safety is not far away, Jack,” Kaelinn spoke weakly. “The Phantom Isles are not far into the Sunwaste.”
“We can’t sail into the Sunwaste,” Jack reminded her.
“Neither can they,” she nodded toward the waiting frigates. Kaelinn’s eyes wandered over the Phoenix, “She’s taken a part of me, but with a bit of rest, I will be able to move her again.”
“Again,” Jack echoed. “Are you a weather witch?”
Kaelinn shook her head. “No, Jack. I am a friend, and I am weary.”
Jack nodded, and carried her back to her cabin. Setting her upon her bed, he said, “The Phantom Isles are real?”
She nodded, smiling faintly. “You will find that I know more of the sea than you had surmised.”
Jack stepped back. “We will sail westward until the wind fails us.”
“Call me then,” she murmured.
He nodded, cast a quick glance over her tiny room and the water casks that it held. Then he withdrew and closed her door.
| | |
| Chapter Eight – A Modest Proposal
Jack Pirigrim – Age 28
Pip leapt from the Phoenix’s stern boat the moment it had reached the surf and rushed to greet Jack. They met and embraced in the shallows.
“God be praised! We feared you dead,” Pip exclaimed.
“I feared myself dead,” Jack replied. “How did the ship fare after my… departure.”
“We lost no one else,” Pip said. “The fore topyard went by the board, as you know. We lay to after that, hoping to find you in the storm. The storm pushed us here, and we took shelter in the lee of the island.
“The carpenter is going over her, mast and yard, now.
“Who is she?” Pip asked, looking over Jack’s shelter to the water’s edge where Kaelinn stood.
“Her name,” Jack replied, “is Kaelinn. From what I can tell, she’s was shipwrecked on this island a good while ago… years maybe. Probably. In any case, she’s coming with us.”
Pip nodded but added, “It’s frightful bad luck to bring woman aboard, sir.”
“It’d be far worse not to have her,” Jack replied, “And I’ve never been one to trust to luck.”
“Aye.”
The men pulled the boat up onto the beach as Jack and Pip forged their way through the water onto dry sand.
Jack looked up at the sky. “Where are we? The storm carried us well south and west.”
“Twenty degrees thirty-five minutes north, thirty-one degrees eight minutes west of Porthamon,” Pip answered. “We’re on the southern edge of the Sunwaste Sea.”
Jack frowned. Great currents commanded the deeps of the world. The great equatorial currents rushed westward through the tropics. The Equatorial Counter-current and, in the higher latitudes, the Northern and Southern currents countered, flowing east. Lesser currents, no less inexorable, made great circuits between them. Islands, archipelagoes, shallows, reefs, and mysteries of the deeps yet untold shaped those powerful rivers of the ocean in ways beyond the comprehension of the natural philosophers of the age.
The Sunwaste Sea lay in the heart of the Western Deep; it was bounded by some of the strongest currents in the world: the Northern Equatorial, the Karkuri, the Angeline, the Martin, and the Portullean currents. Those currents interlocked to separate that sea from the rest of the Western Deep, rendering its native currents largely entropic. Which meant that whatever entered the Sunwaste stayed. Its warm, salty, exceptionally clear waters covered a deep apparently barren of life, and the few winds that moved upon its face were light and failing. So the tales told, for few mariners ventured into the edge of the Sunwaste Sea, and none had explored its becalmed heart.
To return to the League, the Phoenix would have to either press even further south across the North Equatorial Current to catch the counter-current and thus return east against the wind, or ride the circle of the currents around the Sunwaste Sea and come back to isles of the League from the north.
Either option would take time, time that would leave Lord Bornay free to tighten his grip on Hamon Isle and on the whole of the Conclave.
“Ai ya!” Jack cursed. “It’s going to take us a good two months to get home.”
“Aye,” Pip responded. “We’ll need to stock up on water and what food can be found.”
“Aye,” Jack replied. He sighed and looked around. “Aye.”
* * *
The crew’s rejoicing over Jack’s survival took second place to the labors of repairing the Phoenix and laying up stores. The sailors manning the cutter’s oars were more than glad to give room to Kaelinn as they rowed the largest of the fresh water casks, newly refilled, back to the ship.
Jack ordered quarters to be set aside for her and what provision as she required and could be found. She brought with her only what she wore, and asked nothing but a small cask to hold her own water from the island. That did not prevent the offering of a new dress, thanks to the swift labors of the sailmaker and his crew.
In the late afternoon, the Phoenix prepared to raise anchor. In the lee of the island’s cliffs, only the lightest of breezes stirred through the ship’s highest spars. The flood tide had brought the ship about with her bow facing west with the wind behind her.
Jack looked over the Phoenix, repaired and restocked. Satisfied with what he saw, he turned to Pip. “Mister Kamen, raise the anchor and set topgallants and topsails.”
“Aye, Captain. Set the topgallants and raise anchor,” Pip replied.
He then turned and bellowed, “All hands, stand by to make sail! Up anchor!”
“Rig the capstan! Bring the messenger! Man the bars!”
Jack looked to the sky. The skies had been clear since the passage of the storm, but it was the season for storms, and the momentary clarity was no promise of fair weather. The Phoenix had already demonstrated her ability to ride out a hurricane, but she could not make headway in the face of one. So Jack had decided to sail around the Sunwaste Sea and approach the League from the northwest.
As the wind caught in the topmost sails, the crew weighed anchor. With the smooth grace that had won Jack’s heart to her, the Phoenix gathered her speed against the flood tide and sailed westward out from between the arms of the island and into the Western Deep.
Kaelinn, wearing the sailmaker’s dress, stood at the bow, looking like a second figurehead staring fixedly forward at the Western Deep.
* * *
“Princes, Lords, and Landholders,” Jack said, “I come before you in a day of travail for our League, a time of trial the like of which as not been seen in two hundred years. One of our own number, dissatisfied with lordship and principality, has raised himself to strike at the heart of the League, to make himself a king.
“Defying our common law and the will of this Conclave, he has contravened the orders of this Conclave, which sent me to secure and return the Ark of Karkur, by stealing it for his own uses. And as if striking against the Conclave were a light thing, he has breathed out murders and rebellion, attacking the Pirigrim Dominion and murdering its rightful Lord. He has poured out the coals of rebellion and breathed them into the fires of civil war.”
Jack took a breath, and Ian began clapping slowly. Jack turned to look at the doorway of the Phoenix’s great cabin where Ian stood.
“If obvious logic has failed the Conclave, do you think flowery prose will convince them to our side?” Ian asked.
“I suppose you would prefer me to stand up before the assembly and shout, ‘Kill bad Bornay!’?” Jack asked.
Ian shrugged. “That would have the advantage of simplicity. I fear the result any vote will be determined before you ever get up to speak.”
Jack looked out the cabin’s windows at the lead gray waters of the Sea of Fallos. Forty-one days had passed Kaelinn’s isle had disappeared below the horizon. The most recent storm had blown out two days before, and the Phoenix was bearing down into waters claimed by the Sindican League. He expected come within sight of the isles of the Angelines before sunset.
Biru entered the cabin, squeezing past Ian. “Talking politics again?”
“Practicing his oratory, more like,” Ian answered.
“Seven more days to reach your Conclave?” Biru growled.
“Aye,” Jack said. “Tomorrow we’ll be in the Angelines. We’ll restock and get word as to what has happened in our absence.”
Biru grunted and sat down at the table.
“Then your Conclave will help us fight the Dao Kahn.”
Ian gave a humorless smile.
“We hope,” Jack replied. “Precedent dictates that no matter how successful Bornay has been in his attacks, I will get my say before the whole of the Conclave. Bornay has had his cronies for years, and his attack on Porthamon will probably have frightened some of the lesser lords into toeing whatever line he’s thrown down. However, the Pirigrim allies are more numerous and richer than Bornay’s. Once I make my claim….”
“What good does all your politics do for defeating the Dao Khan?” Biru asked.
“Bornay has started a civil war. The Conclave and I will finish it. We’ll see what your Dao can do when he has no allies and no ships.”
* * *
The steep island of Fallos, like all the islands of the archipelago of the Angelines, sprang up sharply out of the cold waters of the Angeline Sea. Except on the sheerest stone cliffs, cedars, firs, and pines covered the island. Snow and the winter sky painted it in somber hues of blacks, whites, and blues.
The Phoenix lay at anchor in an inlet overshadowed by the cliffs of the massive Mount Iscap. At the mountain’s foot, the town of Inikut’s wooden buildings, walks, stairs, landings, and jetties clung to the narrow gravel strand between the dark water and the first shear wall of granite. The town looked like it could be swept away at any moment with the smallest shrug of the Iscap’s shoulders. Everything above the mountains knees was wholly lost in heavy clouds that hung low in the gray sky. Cold mist drifted down, caught in indecision somewhere between snow and rain.
Eight other ocean going vessels, one a Bornay brig being loaded with timber, floated at anchor around the Phoenix and tens of smaller boats and skiffs were moored to piers or drawn up out of the water.
Biru stood staring up at where the mountain’s flanks disappeared into the gray clouds. “It is much like Karkur,” he observed.
“There’s more trees,” Ian noted.
Biru grunted in agreement.
“Mister Kamen,” Jack said when he had surveyed the town, “take a boat ashore and buy what timber and supplies as we need. I will be going ashore with Mister Callaghan and Mister Biru to meet with the Pirigrim factor.”
“Aye, captain,” Pip acknowledged.
Two boats were soon prepared, and eight men rowed Jack, Ian, and Biru to shore in the first.
The boat reached the first public dock. Jack, Ian, and Biru climbed up onto the landing.
“Whose your factor here?” Ian asked.
“A man named Ingram. He’s a grim fellow, tough as nails.”
“Fit’s the climate, I suppose.”
The town certainly did. An overarching gloom seemed to dominate the spirit of the place; the sounds of commerce were dull and muffled, and no song or music carried over the water from the town’s public houses. On the dock they were welcomed with a grunt and a dark look from the keeper of the docks.
“Who are you? It’s a penny to dock here,” he growled, “and five to tie up for the night.”
Jack dug a silver penny out of the bag at his belt, “I’m Jack Pirigrim, captain of the Phoenix. We’ll not be staying more than an hour, I expect.”
The man glowered at the penny distrustfully, but took it nonetheless. “See you don’t.” He turned and, hunching his shoulders, moved off swiftly along the landing.
“Cheerful fellow,” Ian remarked. “You’d think the people here would want to encourage trade.”
Jack frowned, “Follow me.”
Jack had only been to Inikut twice, yet he still recalled the way through the town to the office of the Pirigrim’s factor. The people that moved along the walkways, stairs, and landings of Inikut seemed intent upon their individual purposes to the exclusion of anyone else. Those that spared glances for Jack and his friends seemed to view them with a mixture of distrust and fear.
“Has this place always been so…?” Ian began.
“No.” Jack replied. “It’s been three years since I’ve been here. It’s changed.”
Ingram’s house and business stood on the edge of an open square. Built of mountain stone and thick timbered walls, it had been a welcoming place when last he had seen it, warm, yellow light shining through the front door out into the cold morning darkness.
Now the doorway was open; the remains of the door hung from its hinges. No shutters covered the windows, and only dead blackness was visible within. Jack stopped in the doorway; he inhaled, tasting the aromas of smoke and ash. He could hear water dripping within before his eyes adjusted to the dim light that filtered down past the fire scarred ceiling beams.
“It is recent,” Biru said softly.
“Aye,” Jack agreed. He stepped inside when his eyes caught site of white against the dominating black of ash. A single sheet of parchment was nailed to one of the scarred beams, clearly an addition after the fire was long over. Jack took the sheet in his hand and walked back out to the dim daylight.
He read:
“The House Pirigrim is found guilty of treason against the Sindican League and against the ruling Conclave, having colluded with spies of the Imperial Isles and waged acts of Piracy against free members of the League. For this, the House Pirigrim is stricken from Conclave and stripped of all its authority in the League, its possessions forfeit to the Conclave. All members of the family Pirigrim are to be bound under law and held in ward for officers of the Conclave. ”
Ian stared in disbelief, and then plucked the paper out of Jack’s hand to read it for himself. “We’re pirates,” he observed.
Jack nodded silently. “We’ve been so for the last month,” he replied, indicating the date on the paper.
“Huh.” Ian added, still staring at the paper.
“Jack,” Biru said. “We have drawn attention.”
A company of men armed with clubs and chains were coming across the open square over which the ruined house looked. A heavy-built man in front carried a sword unsheathed in his hand, and a club in his other hand.
“My bow would be real handy right about now,” Ian observed.
“Your sword will have to do,” Jack growled, unsheathing his own blade. Ian and Biru followed suit.
The heavy-built man in front of the crowd drew up short at the sight of steel. “Jack Pirigrim!” he shouted, “You are bound by law….”
“What law burns a man in his house?” Jack shouted back. “If you did no harm to my factor Ingram, I have no argument with you, and you had best be on your way. But if this is your work,” he nodded toward the burnt house, “that’s another matter.”
“You are bound by law for piracy,” the man continued doggedly. “Put down your swords or….”
“Or what?” Jack cut him off. “You don’t even know how to properly use that sword. If you stand against us we will kill you. We are leaving Inikut. If that means killing every one you first, that’s your choice, but we are still leaving. But before we do, I want to know if you murdered Ingram.”
Men in the crowd began to murmur nervously. The man looked over his shoulder, “Steady, we’ve got them five to one.”
“Who are you?” Jack demanded.
“I’m the constable of this town.”
“Then I’ll be clear on this, Constable. These charges,” he took the paper from Ian and raised it, “are shit. Pure and simple.” Fury rose inside him, and with effort he contained it. “We will not be bound by law for them for there is no law in them.
“Now I need to know if you killed Harry Ingram.”
The constable eyed Jack, Ian, and Biru with uncertainty. “Harry Ingram died in the fire,” he said at last, “but we did not set it, and we fought it as best we could.”
Jack bowed his head. It was obvious to Jack that the constable spoke the truth, yet another servant of the Pirigrims was dead. He looked the constable in the eye. “I believe you. We’ll leave you as we found you. But know this, Constable, Lord Bornay has started a war by murdering my family and those in our protection; he killed them without warning, without provocation. If I truly thought that you,” and here Jack’s eyes flashed over the company of men before him, “had murdered Harry Ingram, that you had joined Lord Bornay, I would kill you now and burn Inikut to the ground. My patience is at an end.
“We are leaving now,” Jack concluded. “You decide how much blood we spill first.”
Jack pressed forward toward the group and toward the most direct descent back to the harbor. The constable stood firm for a few moments, but seeing the iron intent of all three men, he nodded and stepped aside, and those with him followed his example.
Once they were past, Ian whispered to Jack, “Feeling a bit combative, aren’t we?”
Jack snorted. “I wasn’t planning on fighting them, myself. I would have left them to you,” he said without humor. “To be sure, I intended to give you encouragement.”
“Thanks,” Ian replied dryly.
“The Conclave has chosen to follow Bornay,” Biru observed.
“Yes,” Ian said.
“And your League follows the Conclave.”
“Yes.”
“Then the Dao Khan rules your League.”
Neither Ian nor Jack answered him, and the three men continued their descent to the harbor in silence for several minutes. The cold, gray day was rapidly failing toward an early night.
“If,” Jack said, “you're waiting to say, ‘So I told you,’ this is the time. You were right when you said that the ark was cursed, that if I took it from Karkur a curse would fall on me and my family. You were right.”
Biru said, “I said the curse would fall upon all who opened the ark. You never opened it.”
“Well, it doesn’t seem to be minding that particular detail.”
Looking to the Phoenix, Jack could see no activity of stores or supplies being moved aboard. “I fear Mister Kamen has had no more success than us.”
“Wonderful,” Ian said.
* * *
“They would sell us nothing,” Pip said.
The officers of the Phoenix sat around the captain’s table. Ian stood at the back of the room, staring out the glass windows at the darkening night.
“We need timber,” Ben observed. “The last storm used up the last of our reserves. And food, for that matter.”
Jack looked at the record of the stores before him. They needed timber, sail cloth, cordage, food, and water. The Phoenix was a living creature; she could not go long without supplies any more than Jack could go without food. Each man at the table knew that, and a grim silence hung in the room.
Ian broke it. “I have a proposal. I think I know where we can get whatever timber or probably anything else we need for that matter.”
Everyone at the table turned to him. “You have our attention,” Jack replied.
“You said yourself that Bornay has started a war. Through the Conclave he has declared us pirates. Well.” Ian pointed out through the windows. “There’s a Bornay brig out there that is setting sail, if their lights are any measure. I think,” he gave a predator’s smile, “that it is high time for a bit of piracy.”
| | |
| Updates and changes are on the way. Yes, I've been to Redding and got to talk to Jason at length. The Phoenix, formerly a two-masted brig, has grown to a three-masted frigate. There's a few other surprises as well, but they'll come out in the story. So anyway, I have a bit of hasty rewriting to do....
Oh, and Chapter Seven, "Water" is finished. Now it's time for me to get writing on "A Little Bit of Piracy." Or something like that. I.e., Chapter Eight. | | |
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