Their plan was simple: sneak into the captain’s cabin and rescue Miss Cammy, taking the captain hostage if necessary. Tim had wondered how his father could be so certain that she’d be with the captain, but Emil had just said, “She is a rare prize, son. The captain will claim her for himself. Trust me.” Tim hoped he was right.
Their plan for escape was even simpler; grab the catboat tied to the
Cutthroat’s
stern, and hope they could get far enough fast enough to not be killed by a shot from the pirates’ ballista. Secretly, Tim estimated that their chances of survival were about the same as filling an inside run in Five-Card Mango. He didn’t tell his father that, either.
They ghosted along with the current to the stern of the ship, directly beneath the great cabin. This would be the most difficult and dangerous part of their plan. Climbing up the corsair’s stern would be hard enough with wet hands and feet on slick wood; doing it silently would truly test Emil’s newly found skills. If one of them fell, or if the night watch heard the water dripping from their sodden clothing and took the initiative to look over the ship’s taffrail, they were dead. Tim gripped the rudder and waited for his father to arrive. It was so dark in the ship’s shadow—the lights in the great cabin had been extinguished more than an hour ago—that he only knew Emil was there when he felt a hand close on his shoulder and heard quiet breathing in his ear. Tim tapped his father’s hand twice, and received the same signal back. All was well.
They braced their feet on the rudder straps, thick iron bands bolted through the vessel’s rudder to give it strength, and lifted themselves slowly from the water. Tim’s fingers found purchase on the thick wooden placard with the name
Cutthroat
carved into it, and he pulled himself up until he stood upon the rudder. Then he reached down to help his father. They stood there for a few moments, pressing their bodies against the ship so that the water draining from their clothes would run silently down the hull, and listened. There was no sound from the deck, but that gave Tim no ease. He knew that the pirates often went barefoot at night, letting their boots air while they slept or patrolled the deck.
After a few minutes, Tim tapped his father twice on the shoulder, and again received the same in reply. They were ready for the next step. Tim drew his dagger, carefully placing the blade between his teeth. He and his father had argued long and hard about this part of the plan; it was dangerous, but it also required great stealth, and Emil had eventually relented, acknowledging Tim’s far greater skill.
So don’t make a mistake
, Tim reminded himself as he pulled himself up and peered into one of the stern windows of the great cabin.
Even with his dark-attuned eyes, he could pick out few details within—faint starlight through the skylight glinting off of a bronze lamp and a satin-upholstered settee—but that was to be expected. It was his ears that served Tim well here. From the shadows on the port side of the cabin, he heard the deep breaths of someone sleeping. It was not quite a snore, and it was definitely a man: the pirate captain. He cocked his head and remained stone-still, listening for the faintest change in rhythm; there was none. It disquieted him that he didn’t hear a second person breathing—Miss Cammy—but then, she was a lady, and perhaps ladies didn’t breathe as heavily as men. He pulled himself up and through the window.
Tim lay across the lintel and reached down until his fingers found a cabinet; he hoped it was strong enough to support his weight. As he eased forward, the wood creaked faintly, and he froze. He listened for several long moments, but the pirate’s steady breathing continued unchanged. He heaved a silent breath of relief, and inched up and inside, his damp feet finding easy purchase first on the lintel, then on the cabinet. He lowered himself to the cabin sole, ears straining, amazed that the entire crew couldn’t hear his pounding heartbeat.
Tim removed the dagger from his teeth and inched forward, his free hand held low before him, feeling his way across the cabin. His hand brushed a large sea chest and he stepped around it, slowly sliding his feet over the cool wood of the deck. The pirate’s breathing was louder now, and Tim stopped, remembering a trick an old pirate had taught him for seeing in the dark. It took all his nerve to do it, but he closed his eyes for a slow count of twenty, then opened them wide to stare in the direction of the sound. The faint glow of white sheets and the dark silhouette of a man’s head and shoulders resolved out of the blackness.
He crouched and moved to the side of the bunk, knowing what he would have to do if the man struggled or tried to cry out. Tim didn’t relish the thought of cutting a man’s throat, but the memory of what had befallen his friends at Plume Isle steadied his hand; he would do it if he had to. He lowered the blade of his dagger to within an inch of the sleeping man’s throat, then laid the flat of the blade onto the warm skin.
When the man’s eyes flashed open, Tim clapped his hand over the pirate’s mouth and whispered, “One sound and I’ll slit your throat.”
His whisper sounded like a shout in his own ears, but no alarm sounded from the deck above. Behind him, he heard the creak of wood as his father climbed through the window, then the hiss of a blade being drawn. Emil crept up beside him, and rested the tip of his cutlass against the pirate’s chest.
“We’re here for one reason,” Emil said, his voice pitched so low that it barely reached even Tim’s ears. “We want Camilla. If you hand her over to us, you have a chance, a
slim
chance, of survival. If you refuse or try to summon help, you die.”
Tim was proud; there was enough malice in his father’s voice to send shivers down
his
spine, and he could feel tremors of terror coursing through the man beneath him. Tim felt Emil tap his back twice with his free hand, the signal for their next move.
“My friend will remove his hand from your mouth,” Emil whispered, “and you will tell us where Camilla is. Remember my warning. If you shout, you will not live to hear the echo.”
Tim eased his hand from the man’s mouth, but kept the dagger in place at his throat. He had no doubt that he could silence a scream before it went far.
“Camilla’s not here.” The pirate captain’s voice was low, but louder than theirs. Tim pressed the blade of his dagger harder as warning.
“Keep your voice down,” he hissed in the man’s ear, “and don’t lie to us.”
“I’m not lying,” the man said, his voice quieter this time. “She’s on Plume Isle.”
“
We
were on Plume Isle,” Emil said through clenched teeth. He pressed the tip of his cutlass down hard enough to prick the man’s skin, and Tim felt him twitch. “No one was left alive, and you would
not
have left her there.”
“I didn’t
leave
her there. She tricked me.” Though there was still fear in the man’s voice, Tim detected something else, too, the low, harsh tones of anger and bitterness. Tim didn’t like the sound of it. “She said she wanted to come with me, that she wanted to share Bloodwind’s treasure, but she lied. She locked herself in the damned dungeon, and I had no time to break the door down before the imperials got there.”
“The dungeon?” Tim heard the uncertainty in his father’s voice, the faltering of his tone. Apparently the pirate captain had, too, and he tensed. Tim felt the man’s bridled fury, and twitched his blade hard enough to draw a thin line of blood.
“Don’t think for a moment that I won’t cut your throat, Captain,” he hissed, and was relieved to feel the man stiffen. To his father, he said, “There is a dungeon, but it’s always kept locked. I didn’t even know there
was
a key.”
“
She
had a key,” the man said, unprompted. “She barred the door from inside, so I locked her in and took the key. It’s in the pocket of my trousers, over the back of the settee. Look for yourself.”
Tim tapped his father’s leg twice, hoping he’d understand. He did. From the corner of his eye, he saw the sword lift from the pirate’s chest, then heard the whisper of his father’s feet as Emil crossed the cabin. A moment later, he returned.
“There is a key. I have it.”
“Do you think he’s telling the truth?” Tim asked, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer. He felt cold. If Miss Cammy had been trapped down there, the chance that she was still alive was not good.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Emil said, “and that’s to return to Plume Isle.”
“But if he’s lying…”
Silence reigned for several beats of the pirate captain’s heart; Tim felt each one pulse under the edge of his dagger. He was not so young that he was ignorant of what this man must have done to Miss Cammy, the woman who had been more like a mother to him than his real mother had been. And he knew how his father felt about her. For a moment, he considered drawing his dagger across the pirate’s throat just to feel the warm gush of blood, listen to the gurgle of the man’s last scream, still that beating pulse…
“We cannot murder him, Tim,” Emil said, as if he had read his son’s thoughts. Tim felt the pirate captain relax, and the thought that the man would get away with his deeds, was perhaps
laughing
at him, at them both, suddenly made him furious.
“After what he did?” he whispered harshly, gripping the man’s hair with his free hand. “You
know
what he did, Father.” The pirate captain tensed again.
Good
! Tim thought.
I
want
him to be afraid
.
“No, Tim. It wouldn’t be right.” Emil Norris’ voice was calm, though it carried an undercurrent of loathing and regret. “We’re not pirates, and we won’t stoop so low as to act like them. We’ll leave him bound and gagged, and let him explain his condition to his crew.”
Tim clenched his jaw. His hand trembled, and he knew the blade drew blood, but he wanted more; he wanted to end this bastard’s life.
It would be a service to Miss Cammy
, he thought,
or…or her spirit
... He looked toward his father, but his face was merely a shadow in shadow. He looked back at his dagger, and it blurred as hot tears of anger filled his eyes. Then he felt the weight of his father’s hand on his shoulder, the sympathetic grip, and Tim knew that Emil was right. He was not a pirate.
He was his father’s son.
They cut the sheet into strips, and bound and gagged the pirate captain with hard knots. Before they left, however, Tim leaned close and whispered into the man’s ear.
“My name is Timothy Norris. Perhaps you know my sister, Samantha.” He felt the man nod. “If I find out that you lied to me, I want you to remember something: of the two of us, Mother always said that Sam was the
nice
one.”
Tim joined his father at the window, and they slipped out as silently as they’d entered. They boarded the catboat undetected, and Tim used his dagger to sever the tether that bound it to
Cutthroat
. They lay low in the cockpit of the little boat and drifted down current, invisible in the darkness.
Chapter 28
Rescue
“By all the fires in the Nine Hells, I’ll
kill
you if I ever…” Parek cursed through the taste of blood in his mouth and the pain in his wrists. He’d been cursing nonstop since freeing the gag from his mouth, and chewing at the bloody linen that bound his wrists to the bunk frame wasn’t improving his mood. The thought of yelling for help never entered his mind. He knew his crew was loyal and would never attempt mutiny; it defied their oath. But if he was found bound and helpless, that would be considered a failure on his part. And the punishment for failure among pirates was death.
Blood is a poor lubricant, but eventually he managed to loosen the knots enough to free his hands. Grabbing the dagger he kept at his bedside, he sliced the bonds on his ankles and lurched from his bunk. It took him some time to dress—his feet had gone numb with the tightness of his bonds—but he was just buckling the golden-hilted cutlass to his hip when Kori knocked urgently at his door, then opened it.
“Captain! The catboat’s gone miss—” Kori gaped at the bloody linen, the livid marks on his captain’s wrists and the crusted blood from the cut the boy’s dagger had left on his neck.
Parek stared the man down with a glare as dark as death itself, grabbed a bottle from the drawer of his chart table and gulped down a deep draught of rum. “Wake everyone! We’ve important matters to discuss.” He pushed past his stunned mate and strode up to the deck.
Less than five minutes later, the crew was assembled, still blinking away sleep and muttering at being rousted so early. A few eyed him speculatively, but before anyone could question him, Parek seized the initiative.
“We’ve a discipline problem,” he said, then thrust his arms forward. The white lace cuffs of his shirt emphasized the raw skin on his wrists. “We had visitors last night, lads, during the midwatch.” He let his statement sink in, watched them murmur amongst themselves for a moment. He saw Kori whispering, and the news of the missing catboat swept through them like fire. Finally, the man who had been on the midwatch, Toffin, was dragged forward. Parek drew Bloodwind’s sword and leveled it at the man’s chest.
“I’d have your head on a pike, Mister Toffin, if I didn’t need every man jack aboard this ship just to sail her.” He lowered the sword, resisting the urge to run it right through the man’s quivering belly. “You’re lucky they weren’t here to steal back the sea witch’s treasure. If they had been, I’m sure your crew mates would have been less forgiving than me.” Angry shouts and accusations rose, but he raised his hand for quiet. “As it turns out, they were looking for that red-haired trollop who locked herself in the dungeon back on Plume Isle. When they didn’t find her, they were kind enough to leave me—and the rest of you—alive. The important thing is, they’re headed back to Plume as I speak, so in a matter of hours, the Imperial Navy will know exactly where we are. We’ve been found out, lads, and we’ve got no choice but to flee.”
Murmurs and questions started quietly, and increased in volume until Kori, his temporary first mate, stepped forward.
“What about Farin and
King Gull
, sir?” Kori asked, silencing the others with a curt chop of his hand. “Don’t we need
King Gull
ta make port and not be recognized?”
“There’s nothing for it, Kori. If Farin’s still alive and
King Gull’s
still afloat, mayhap we’ll meet up with them later. If we stay here and wait for them, we’re dead men.”
He waited, again letting his statement sink in. At first some of the crew looked angry at the thought of deserting their mates—share and share alike was a tenant that Bloodwind had instilled deeply in them all—and annoyed by having to assume the extra risk by going ashore with
Cutthroat
. But one by one, they realized that this also meant larger shares of Bloodwind’s treasure for themselves. It wasn’t their fault that they couldn’t wait for
King Gull
and her crew, making it a totally different situation from being disloyal and running off with all the loot from the start. Soon they were all murmuring and nodding with approval. Parek smiled grimly.
“All right then! We’ll sail north along the coast and look for a little harbor where we can duck in. Someplace where we can buy silence and disguise our ship as something other than a corsair. That’ll mean stripping off the ballistae, new paint, and new rigging. She was a merchantman once, and we’ve got to make her look like one again if we’re going to sail her into Tsing Harbor.”
Wide smiles were breaking out among the men. They were a small crew, and Bloodwind’s cache was substantial. With a little hard work, they could win free and be rich men. Once ashore in a city like Tsing, they could vanish among the populace and live like kings for the rest of their days.