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  Arramy inhaled, then shook his head.

  He stayed where he was as I made for the stairs again, and I felt that stare on my back until I was all the way down the quarterdeck stairs and crossing the main deck to the hatch. I didn't breathe again until I was safe in the shadows of the main hold stairwell.

  ~~~

  As I got ready for bed, I spent several minutes amused by the knowledge that captain Arramy was going to con his way into Wychending prison in order to save the same pirate he had spent the last two years chasing across two seas and an ocean.

  If I ever made it back to civilization, Aunt Sapphine was going to have a whopping good laugh.

  ~~~

  It took me all night, but I finally put my finger on something that had been bothering me since I took that soup to the map room. The only way Arramy could possibly have known my father was booked as a single passenger on the Galvania would have been if he saw the Port Authority copy of the Galvania's passenger manifest. The Galvania's copy was at the bottom of Endover Bay.

  If my math was right, that meant he must have been in Porte De Darre right around the same time we were, and he must have been looking for my father. Specifically. Either that, or by sheer coincidence, he wandered into the Ticket Office in the Porte De Darre Port Authority Bureau Building, where he just happened to ask for a passenger manifest... for the same ship my father just happened to be on... and then he must have memorized the entire thing for some strange reason, and picked my father out of a thousand other names.

  But that was a load of puzzlestumps.

  I was fairly sure that the captain would have had to fill out a Military Inquest Form 1459 in order to see the passenger manifest of a civilian ship. The same form was used for cargo manifests, and I had seen a few of them when Father was Head Guildsman of the Docks.

  From what I could remember, if the captain had a Military Inquest Form 1459, he would have had to know exactly who he was looking for, and he would have had to have reasonable cause for search, or the civil judiciary would never have allowed him to submit the request for the form in the first place. So, since he had to have seen the manifest, and therefore must have had a 1459 form, why was he looking for my father before he found out we were aboard the Galvania?

  More importantly, what else did he know? Did he know why my father was running? Or who he was running from?

  I wrote all that with a double-kick in my pulse. The more I thought about it, the more possible it seemed. I might very well have pieced together a chunk of the puzzle. I was blindfolded, though, so I didn't know where that chunk went in the rest of the puzzle, or how many other pieces there were, or even how much puzzle there was

  One thing was clear, however. This was the new normal. Strangers officially knew more about my life than I did.

  ~~~

  Puzzlestump: n. a dead tree infected with a type of burrowing fungus that makes the stump weigh significantly less than it looks like it should. The wood catches fire easily and burns away in seconds, rendering it useless. A 'load of puzzlestumps' refers to something that amounts to nothing.

  20. Rescuing the Pirate

  25th of Uirra

  From what I was told, the captain broke several codes of military conduct last night. First, he showed disdain for the sovereignty of the Altyran Coalition by altering the appearance of a navy warship with intent to deceive the enemy. Second, he sailed under the wrong port-of-call designation, and third, he allowed one of his subordinates to impersonate a high-ranking officer. At a court martial, those three things would have been the misdemeanors added to the capital charge of kidnapping a prisoner from his own government.

  This was all according to the Cook, who was in a decidedly good mood this morning, relating this news in a boyishly gleeful whisper while he loaded up a tray with biscuits for me to take up to the map room.

  I made my way to the main deck, where I was met with the sight of Raggan parading around in the pre-dawn gloom, dressed like a high admiral.

  Lorren, who had been a seamstress in Sant Yranne, had been up most of the night embroidering the Naval Shield of Valor on the cuffs of the captain's dress jacket, but she had obviously done much more than that. She had sized it down to fit Raggan's shorter frame. It also sported an admiral's crossed swords, shield, and chains on the left epaulet, which made it officially a crime for Raggan to wear it. Captain Arramy was never going to get back into it, either.

  The Stryka lay at anchor a few lengths off the port bow, and several crew men dangled precariously over the waves, perched on repair scaffolds that hung from the aft and fore railings. They lit mirrored lanterns and aimed them at the nameplates. Then all of them wielded paint and brushes, and a raunchy sea shanty drifted over the water as they followed orders to deface their own ship.

  None of the crew seemed to be bothered by what they were being asked to do. They didn't so much as bat an eyelash at the sight of Raggan walking the main deck by the light of a lantern, wearing an officer's double-pinned high-feathered hat, practicing Admiral Ghandier's exaggerated limp while leaning heavily on a cane. Raggan didn't seem to mind, either. They all went calmly about their duties, following orders that could get them hanged, almost as if this sort of unconventional behavior was standard under Arramy's command.

  I continued on, carrying the tray up to the quarterdeck, where Master Pierse politely relieved me of it and insisted on taking it into the map room himself. Mustn't have silly girls eavesdropping on the captain again.

  Someone had put up a blanket over the map room door, but as Pierse pushed it aside, I got a glimpse of the captain standing there by the table, dressed in a Coalition Marine's black and white uniform.

  Then, when I was on my way back down the stairs, what looked very much like a group of NaVarre's crew were climbing into one of the Stryka's longboats. They were lowered away by our own sailors, though, and there was no mistaking the commander's rust-red beard on one of the pirates, not even under the lampblack that obscured his face.

  The rowboat hit the water with a careful splash, the top of a short mast appeared, and a dark sail caught the wind, pulling the boat away into the pre-dawn gloom.

  ~~~

  By the time the sun cleared the horizon, everything was ready. Captain Arramy and his marines swung over to the Stryka, leaving only Cook, Pierse, and a complement of sailors behind on the Ang.

  Then the Ang held back several miles beyond the scope of the Wychending long glasses, while the Stryka kept going, sailing right into the small manmade harbor bold as you please, the fresh yellow script still drying on her nameplates proclaiming her to be the Arapossa, High Admiral Ghandier's flagship.

  According to Cook, the whole plan hinged on the assumption that the Warden of Wychend Prison had never met the high admiral personally. That was the weakest link. If he had met the admiral, there was no way Raggan would fool him, and the entire charade would fall apart.

  If, however, the Warden hadn't met the high admiral – which was very likely – then Raggan would hand over the forged extradition papers remanding NaVarre to the Lodesian Maritime Court. Then, when the Edonian Court Royale officers came for NaVarre, the only description the Warden would be able to give of the man who took him would be of a short, stoutly built dark-haired fellow who walked with a limp and spoke with a Lowlander accent – which also happened to describe Admiral Ghandier. The ensuing rat's-nest of bureaucratic paperwork would hopefully keep the High Council busy long enough for Arramy to get us well-lost before they pieced together what had happened.

  Assuming that NaVarre was even alive, and no one recognized the captain himself. He had been to Wychend many times escorting prisoners, and he was, to quote the Cook, "A most renoiz'ible fellow, e'en in that marine get-up 'e' wearin'."

  I listened to Cook ramble on about what could possibly go wrong with 'reskooing that damnible poyrat,' and I had to be glad he wasn't the one I told about Father's binder. The man's tongue was looser than a cooked noodle.

  For the rest
of the day I stirred a pot of fish stew, peeled several pounds of root vegetables, and generally tried to keep myself occupied with feeding the survivors and the crew.

  Anything but sit down. Or hold still. Or sleep. I was determined that sleep would only happen if it was absolutely unavoidable. Sleep was far too dangerous. Sleep was fire and death and being eaten by invisible teeth. No, thank you.

  21. A Side of Mutton

  25th of Uirra, Continued

  The sun was quite warm for winter, with an almost pleasant southern breeze carrying a hint that spring was in the offing. It was as good a day to hang out laundry as we were likely to get, and there were mounds of laundry. After much begging and an agreement to wash his clothes too, Cook strung a clothesline between the quarterdeck railing and the main mast for us. Lorren and I were up on the deck, trying to rinse the bloodstains out of a bunch of blankets when the man at the long glass shouted that the Stryka was rounding the Wychend breakwater.

  I hadn't realized how tense the crew was until that moment, or how quiet the other civilians were. That shout went up, and within seconds the ship was humming with excitement. Everywhere, people began talking, laughing, even joking.

  None of the crew had ever bothered to question why the captain had gone back to get the very man he had spent months chasing about the sea. Not even after he was gone, and it was just the skeleton crew he had left behind. It was apparently an elemental fact; water was wet, and Captain Arramy never did anything without a great, whopping good reason. If you needed to know that whopping reason, he would tell you what it was. If he didn't tell you, apparently you had to accept that you didn't need to know.

  That didn't keep the civilians from wondering, but the only person who was verbally against bringing NaVarre back was Orrul. Everyone else seemed to agree with the crew: if Captain Arramy thought it was necessary, then it must be. What would one pirate be able to do against all those marines, anyway? Besides. Arramy would surely get answers out of that bilge rat.

  The need for answers was perhaps the largest connecting theme behind the widespread acceptance of Arramy's plan. Dr. Turragan especially wanted to know why the Erristos opened fire on us, and as the oldest and most respected man among the survivors, his opinion held more weight than any of Orrul's bluster.

  The knowledge of the binder – and the real reason Arramy wanted to rescue NaVarre – weighed on me. I kept to myself, scrubbing while most of the passengers came up to stand at the rail, all of them waiting for those far-distant sails to draw close enough to see with the naked eye. It was a bit like listening to a five-mile race. The lookout called down that the Stryka had passed this or that mile, there was an anticipatory murmur from the spectators, then more waiting until again the lookout announced that the Stryka had progressed to the next mile. When the Stryka finally cleared the natural horizon, a huge cheer went up, as if the Stryka had accomplished some invisible goal out there on the waves.

  Nearly an hour later, she came alongside the Ang, but the captain didn't bring NaVarre over.

  The instant Midshipman Pierse stepped onto the deck, I knew he was searching for me. He came aboard and immediately stopped to ask Vinna a question. Vinna pointed, and Pierse's attention zeroed in on my face. Then he headed in my direction.

  I could guess what he was going to say, but I didn't stop what I was doing. I kept working, making him cross the entire deck and come to a halt on the other side of the clothesline.

  With a politely formal bow in greeting, Pierse doffed his hat. "Miss Westerby, the captain requests that you join him on the Stryka as soon as possible."

  I shot a glance at him over the soaked quilt I was pinning to the line. "Did he say why?"

  Pierse looked genuinely surprised, as if no one had ever questioned an order from the captain. "Ah... Well... No, he didn't divulge that particular information." He smiled, then stood waiting expectantly, hands clasped behind his back.

  I finished pinning up that blanket and dragged another from the pile on the deck, shaking it out in two quick, deliberate snaps and draping it alongside the first one.

  Pierse's brows began to pucker into a perplexed frown. "He did, however, suggest that you bring your belongings..." His words trailed off when I bent and grabbed a few clothespins from the bag Cook had given me, blatantly ignoring him. I clamped two peg-pins between my lips the way I had seen our maids do at home and began pinning up the second blanket.

  "Begging your pardon miss, but I was told to fetch you as soon as possible," Pierse said, his tone a little firmer.

  How cute. The little Arramy in Training was learning to be an overbearing, demanding barbarian. He was almost there. He would just have to practice leaving off the 'begging,' and the 'pardon' bits, and he'd sound just like Captain Clamface.

  I raised an eyebrow and took a pin from between my lips, carefully fixing the middle of the blanket to the line.

  Pierse observed my lack of interest, his incredulity growing.

  Stepping to the left, I pinned up the other end of the blanket before looking at him again. He obviously didn't understand my reluctance. To be fair, it wasn't his fault that I didn't want to go with him. He had probably never met Bloody NaVarre. Whether I liked it or not, though, this had become my lot. As much as I hated the idea of being stuck in a room with Bloody NaVarre again, much less with both NaVarre and Arramy at the same time, there wasn't any point in running.

  "Did the captain say whether or not I should bring anything else?" I asked, drying my hands in my apron.

  Pierse's dark eyes widened as he realized he had forgotten a rather pertinent detail. "Ah. Yes. You're supposed to retrieve something from NaVarre's desk" He flashed tiny grin of encouragement. "Captain said you would know what that meant."

  I sighed. Then I nodded and turned to go down into the hold to get my things.

  ~~~

  Pierse had the crew hook up the passenger sling – an evil contraption of wood and rope attached to a loading pulley on the mainsail yardarm – and helped me sit on the plank seat and adjust the straps that would keep me from falling out. He then told me to hang on tight, offered a smile, and gave the signal to the men to hoist me aloft. They pulled the swing back, then released it, and over I went, my insides trailing somewhere behind me, swooping across the gap between the ships exactly like the sides of mutton they had sent over earlier at Cook's request.

  Two men on the Stryka reached out with cargo hooks, snagging the leader line on the bottom of the chair as the swing reached the end of its arc. There was a swift yank, and then the team on the Ang let out more line, allowing the chair to be pulled down to the Stryka's main deck. I could honestly say it was about the least dignified way to arrive anywhere.

  As soon as they started pulling the chair in, it began tilting at an increasingly severe angle until I wound up descending bottom first, reclining on my back, my skirts and petticoat flopping up around my stocking clad knees in full view of a ship-full of sailors.

  I was then unstrapped, as was my little bundle of clothing, and the swing was returned to the Ang, leaving me and my upside-down stomach on the Stryka.

  Glancing around as I smoothed my skirt, I saw only men. Hundreds of men, and all of them were gawking at me. At least aboard the Ang some of the strangers had been women. It was a little daunting, finding myself the lone focus of that much male attention. I was much more relieved than I wanted to admit when Raggan barked "Cap'n on deck!" and the men all stopped ogling me, stepped out of the way, and began saluting.

  I spun around to find the captain approaching from the quarterdeck stairs, the collar of his greatcoat raised against the wind.

  I dipped into a curtsy, with a quiet, "Captain," when he came to a stop in front of me.

  He stared as I straightened, long enough that I began to wonder if I had something on my face. A normal man would have offered his hand, or at least given me a polite bow. Captain Arramy did neither of those things, and the moment stretched awkwardly thin. Finally, for lack of anything be
tter to do, I slung Father's satchel from my shoulder and held it out.

  The captain's jaw tightened, but he took the bag. Then he offered his hand. "Allow me to show you to your quarters," he said. Curtly. It was an order, not a polite request.

  I hesitated, balking at being told what to do, but I couldn't very well live there by the mainmast just to spite the man. Reluctantly I placed my bare palm in his much larger one, falling into step beside him as he wheeled around to go back the way he had come.

  Neither of us said anything. He simply escorted me up the stairs to the quarterdeck, then through a door to a common room not unlike the map room on the Ang. This one was called a Bridge, though, and it was bigger. Where the Ang had a map table, this room had a large, lux-glass desk backlit by tiny lamps. Its surface was littered with maps and almanacs and compasses and sextants. There were more doors opening off of this room, too, one of which revealed the cabin I was supposed to occupy.

  The captain held the door open and I stepped inside, taking in the clean bolster bed in its berth box, the little shaving sink and mirror atop a bureau built into the wall, and a small desk beneath a porthole that let sunlight in. "This belongs to one of your officers." I glanced at the captain. "You don't have to disrupt someone's comfort to accommodate mine. I don't mind sleeping in general quarters —”

  He inclined his head and interrupted me. "Mr. Penweather is currently aboard the Angpixen." He paused, one sandy-blond eyebrow raised, "I believe it would be far more disruptive if you were to sleep in general quarters."

  Because the Stryka was not a civilian vessel. The sailors slept in the general quarters. I would only have gotten in the way, and judging from the crew out on the deck, I would most likely have been the only woman. I felt like an idiot.

  Just then, a boy of about twelve came bumbling in with my little parcel of clothes.

  "Thank you, Evers," the captain said.

  Evers turned to go, but the captain's quiet, "Evers..." had him facing back around.