Authors: Scott Lynch
“Ha! No. You are to
feign
command of this ship. Don’t get blurry-eyed on me, now. All you do is tell the crew
what
my
proper orders are. Hurry aboard.”
Caldris led them up a ramp and onto the deck of the
Red Messenger
, and while Locke gazed around, absorbed in every visible detail, a gnawing unease
was growing in his stomach. He’d taken all the minutiae of shipboard life for granted
on his single previous (and bedridden) voyage, but now every knot and ring-bolt, every
block and tackle, every shroud and line and pin and mechanism might hold the key to
saving his life … or foiling his impersonation utterly.
“Damn,” he muttered to Jean. “Maybe ten years ago, I might have been dumb enough to
think this was going to be easy.”
“It’s not getting any easier,” said Jean, squeezing Locke on his uninjured shoulder.
“But we’re not yet out of time to learn.”
They paced the full length of the ship in the warm drizzle, with Caldris alternately
pointing things out and demanding answers to difficult questions. They finished their
tour at the
Red Messenger
’s waist, and Caldris leaned back against the ship’s boat to rest.
“Well,” he said, “you do learn fast, for lubbers. I can give you that much. Notwithstanding,
I’ve taken shits with more sea wisdom than the pair of you combined.”
“Come ashore and let us try to teach you
our
profession some time, goat-face.”
“Ha! Master de Ferra, you’ll fit in just fine in that wise. Maybe you’ll never truly
know shit from staysails, but you’ve got the manner of a grand first mate. Now, up
the ropes. We’re visiting the maintop this morning while this fine weather holds.”
“The maintop?” Locke stared up the mainmast, dwindling into the grayness above, and
squinted as rain fell directly into his face. “It’s bloody raining!”
“It has been known to rain at sea. Ain’t nobody passed you the word?” Caldris stepped
over to the starboard main shrouds; they passed down just the opposite side of the
deck railing, and were secured by deadeyes to the outer hull itself. Grunting, the
sailing master hoisted himself up onto the rail and beckoned for Locke and Jean to
follow. “The poor bastards on your crew will be up there in all weather. I’m not taking
you out to sea as virgins to the ropes, so get your asses up after me!”
They followed Caldris up into the rain, carefully stepping into the ratlines that
crossed the shrouds to provide footholds. Locke had to admit that nearly two weeks
of steady hard exercise had given him more wind for a task like this, and begun to
mitigate the pain of his old wounds. Still, the strange and faintly yielding sensation
of the rope ladder was like nothing familiar to him, and he was only too happy when
a dark yardarm loomed out of the drizzle just above them. A few moments later, he
scampered up to join Jean and Caldris on a circular platform that was blessedly firm.
“We’re two-thirds up, maybe,” said Caldris. “This yard carries the main course.” Locke
knew by now that he was referring to the ship’s primary square sail, not a navigational
plan. “Farther up, you got your topsails and t’gallants. But this is fine enough for
now. Gods, you think you got it bad today, can you imagine climbing up here with the
ship bucking side to side like a bull making babies? Ha!”
“Can’t be as bad,” Jean whispered to Locke, “as some fucking idiot toppling off and
landing on one of us.”
“Will I be expected,” said Locke, “to come up here frequently?”
“You got unusually sharp eyes?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Hell with it, then. Nobody’ll expect it. Captain’s place is on deck. You want to
see things from a distance, use a glass. You’ll have top-eyes hugging the mast farther
up to do your spotting.”
They took in the view for a few more minutes, and then thunder rumbled in the near
distance, and the rain stiffened.
“Down we go, I think.” Caldris rose to his knees and prepared to slide over the side.
“There’s tempting the gods, and then there’s tempting the gods.”
Locke and Jean reached the deck again with no trouble, but when Caldris jumped down
from the shrouds he was breathing raggedly. He groaned and massaged his upper left
arm. “Damn. I’m too old for the tops. Thank the gods the master’s place is on the
decks, too.” Thunder punctuated his words. “Come on, then. We’ll use the main cabin.
No sailing today; just books and charts. I know how much you love those.”
BY THE end of their third week with Caldris, Locke and Jean had begun to nurture guarded
hopes that their brush with the two dockside assassins would not be repeated. Merrain
continued to escort them each morning, but they were given some freedom at night provided
they went armed and ventured no farther than the interior waterfront of the Arsenale
District. The taverns there were thick with the archon’s soldiers and sailors, and
it would be a difficult place for someone to lurk unnoticed in ambush.
At the tenth hour of the evening on Duke’s Day (which of course, Jean corrected himself,
the Verrari called Council’s Day), Jean found Locke staring down a bottle of fortified
wine at a back table in the Sign of the Thousand Days. The place was spacious and
cheerfully lit, noisy with the bustle of healthy business. It was a naval bar—all
the best tables, under hanging reproductions of old Verrari battle pennants, were
filled with officers whose social status was clear whether or not they were wearing
their colors. Common sailors drank and gamed at the penumbra of tables surrounding
them, and the few outsiders congregated at the little tables around Locke.
“I thought I might find you here,” said Jean, taking the seat across from Locke. “What
do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m working. Isn’t it obvious?” Locke seized the wine bottle by its neck and gestured
toward Jean. “This is my hammer.” He then rapped his
knuckles against the wooden tabletop. “And this is my anvil. I am beating my brains
into a more pleasant shape.”
“What’s the occasion?”
“I just wanted half a night to be something other than the captain of a phantom fucking
sailing expedition.” He spoke in a controlled whisper, and it was plain to Jean that
he was not yet drunk, but more possessed of an earnest desire to be so. “My head is
full of little ships, all going round and round gleefully making up new names for
the things on their decks!” He paused to take a sip, then offered the bottle to Jean,
who shook his head. “I suppose you’ve been diligently studying your
Lexicon
.”
“Partly.” Jean turned himself and his chair a bit toward the wall, to allow him to
keep an unobtrusive eye on most of the tavern. “I’ve also penned some polite little
lies to Durenna and Corvaleur; they’ve been sending notes to the Villa Candessa, asking
when we’ll come back to the gaming tables so they can have another go at butchering
us.”
“I do so hate to disappoint the ladies,” said Locke, “but tonight I’m on leave from
everything. No ’Spire, no archon, no Durenna, no
Lexicon
, no navigational tables. Just simple arithmetic. Drink plus drinker equals drunk.
Join me. Just for an hour or two. You know you could use it.”
“I do. But Caldris grows more demanding with every passing day; I fear we’ll need
clear heads on the morrow more than we’ll need clouded ones tonight.”
“Caldris’ lessons aren’t clearing our heads. Quite the opposite. We’re taking five
years of teaching in a month. It’s all jumbling up inside me. You know, before I stepped
in here tonight I bought half a peppered melon. The stall woman asked which of her
melons I wished cut, the one on the left or the right. I replied, ‘The larboard!’
My own throat has turned traitorously nautical on me.”
“It is something like a madman’s private language, isn’t it?” Jean slipped his optics
out of his coat pocket and onto the end of his nose so he could examine the faint
etching on Locke’s wine bottle. An indifferent Anscalani vintage, a blunt instrument
among wines. “So intricate in its convolutions. Say you have a rope lying on the deck.
On Penance Day it’s just a rope lying on the deck; after the third hour of the afternoon
on Idler’s Day it’s a half-stroke babble-gibbet, and then at midnight on Throne’s
Day it becomes a rope again, unless it’s raining.”
“Unless it’s raining, yes, in which case you take your clothes off and dance naked
round the mizzenmast. Gods, yes. I swear, Je … Jerome, the next person who tells me
something like, ‘Squiggle-fuck the rightwise cock-swatter
with a starboard jib’ is going to get a knife in the throat. Even if it’s Caldris.
No more nautical terms tonight.”
“You seem to be three sheets to the wind.”
“Oh, that’s your death warrant signed, then, four-eyes.” Locke peered down into the
depths of his bottle, like a hawk eyeing a mouse in a field far below. “There’s altogether
too much of this stuff not yet in me. Get a glass and join in. I want to be a barking
public embarrassment as soon as possible.”
There was a commotion at the door, followed by a general stilling of conversation
and a rise in murmuring that Jean recognized from long experience as very, very dangerous.
He looked up warily and saw that a party of half a dozen men had just set foot inside
the tavern. Two of them wore the partial uniforms of constables, under cloaks, without
their usual armor or weapons. Their companions were dressed in plain clothing, but
their bulk and manner told Jean that they were all prime examples of that creature
commonly known as the city watchman.
One of them, either fearless or possessed of the sensibilities of a dull stone, stepped
up to the bar and called for service. His companions, wiser and therefore more nervous,
began to whisper back and forth. Every eye in the tavern was upon them.
There was a scraping sound as a tough-looking woman at one of the officers’ tables
pushed her chair back and slowly stood up. Within seconds, all of her companions,
uniformed or otherwise, were standing beside her. The motion spread across the bar
in a wave; first the other officers, and then the common sailors, once they saw that
the weight of numbers would be eight-to-one in their favor. Soon enough, four dozen
men and women were on their feet, saying nothing, simply staring at the six men by
the door. The tiny knot of folk around Locke and Jean stayed planted in their seats;
at the very least, if they remained where they were, they would be far out of the
main line of trouble.
“Sirs,” said the oldest barkeeper on duty as his two younger associates reached surreptitiously
beneath the counter for what had to be weapons. “You’ve come a long way now, haven’t
you?”
“What do you mean?” If the constable at the bar wasn’t feigning puzzlement, thought
Jean, he was dimmer than a snuffed candle. “Came from the Golden Steps, is all. Fresh
off duty. Got a thirst and a fair bit of coin to fill it.”
“Perhaps,” said the barkeep, “another tavern would be more to your taste this evening.”
“What?” The man seemed at last to become aware of the fact that he was the focal point
of a waiting mob’s attention. As always, thought Jean, there were two sorts in a city
watch—the ones that had eyes for trouble in the backs of their heads, and the ones
that used their skulls to store sawdust.
“I said …,” the barkeep began, clearly losing patience.
“Hold,” said the constable. He put both hands up toward the patrons of the tavern.
“I see what’s what. I already had a few tonight. You got to forgive me; I don’t mean
nothing. Aren’t we all Verrari here? We just want a drink, is all.”
“Lots of places have drinks,” said the barkeep. “Lots of more suitable places.”
“We don’t want no trouble for anyone.”
“Wouldn’t be any trouble for
us
,” said a burly man in naval tunic and breeches. His table-mates shared an evil chuckle.
“Find the fucking door.”
“Council dogs,” muttered another officer. “Oathless gold-sniffers.”
“Hold on,” said the constable, shaking off the grasp of a friend who was trying to
pull him to the door. “Hold on, I said we didn’t mean nothing. Dammit, I meant it!
Peace. We’ll be on our way. Have a round on me, all of you. Everyone!” He shook out
his purse with trembling hands. Copper and silver coins rattled onto the wooden bar.
“Barkeep, a round of good Verrari dark for anyone who wants it, and keep what’s left.”
The barkeeper flicked his gaze from the unfortunate constable to the burly naval officer
who’d spoken earlier. Jean guessed the man was one of the senior officers present,
and the barkeep was looking to him for a judgment.
“Groveling suits you,” the officer said with a crooked grin. “We won’t touch a drink
with you, but we’ll be happy to spend your money once you’re out that door for good.”
“Of course. Peace, friends, we didn’t mean nothing.” The man looked as though he might
babble on, but two of his comrades grabbed him by the arms and dragged him out the
door. There was a general outburst of laughter and applause when the last of the constables
had vanished into the night.
“Now that’s how the navy adds money to its budget,” yelled the burly officer. His
table-mates laughed, and he grabbed his glass and held it up toward the rest of the
tavern. “The archon! Confusion to his enemies at home and abroad.”
“The archon,” chorused the other officers and sailors. Soon enough, they were all
settling down into good humor once again, and the eldest
barkeep was counting the constable’s money while his assistants set out rows of wooden
cups beside a tapped cask of dark ale. Jean frowned, calculating in his head. Drinks
for roughly fifty people, even plain dark ale, would set the constable back at least
a quarter of his monthly pay. He’d known many men who’d have chanced a chase and a
beating before parting with that much hard-earned coin.
“Poor drunk idiot,” he sighed, glancing at Locke. “Still want to make yourself a barking
public embarrassment? Seems they’ve already got one in these parts.”