The Pirate's Wish (13 page)

Besides which, I didn’t keep the manticore in the brig.

“They’re scared of you,” Marjani told me one morning, the sun warm and lemony, the wind pushing us toward the south, toward the Island of the Sun. We were up at the helm, the crew sitting in little clumps down on deck, not working so hard cause they didn’t have to. The manticore was sunning herself over at the stern, her tail thwapping against the deck as she slept.

“They are?”

“Sure. It’s a good thing, though.” She leaned against the ship’s wheel, squinted into the sun. “Because you’re a woman. If they’re scared of you, they’ll listen to you.”

“That’s how it works with men too.”

Marjani shook her head and laughed. “Not always. Men have the option of earning respect.”

The wind picked up, billowing out the sails. The boat picked up speed. One of the crewmen hollered up in the ropes. Probably Naji’s doing, that wind. There was something unnatural about it.

“I always wanted to captain a ship,” I said after a while. “When I was a little kid.” I didn’t mention that I’d still wanted it when I was seventeen years old and about to be married off to Tarrin of the
Hariri
. “Used to fancy I could dress up like a boy and everyone would listen to me. I never thought about getting some man to stand in as a proxy.”

Marjani squinted out at the horizon. “Dressing up as a man can get you in trouble.”

“What do you mean? Always figured it’d be nice. I could never pull it off proper, cause of my chest.”

Normally Marjani might’ve laughed at that, but today she just ran her hand over the wheel and said, “I used to dress as a man to visit someone I loved. It was a sort of game. I met her when my father sent me to university, since I split my time between my studies and court, like a half-proper lady.” Marjani laughed. “When she came of age she’d complain about suitors constantly – this one was too skinny, this one was too old, this one talked too much about politics.” Marjani kinda smiled, but mostly she just looked sad. “And so I decided to surprise her, and show up as a suitor.”

“Did it work?”

“For a little while. I didn’t fool
her
, of course, and she loved it, but I fooled her parents. One of the noblewomen figured it out, though, and I spent some time in prison for lying about my identity.”

“Is that why you left Jokja?” I asked. “Why you took to piracy?”

All the emotion left Marjani’s face. “Yes.”

We stood in silence, the unnatural warm wind blowing us toward the Island of the Sun. I knew she’d told me something important, something secret. And I felt even worse about keeping the Hariri clan from her.

I tried to tell her. I did. I started forming the words in my head. But then one of the crew called up to her about trouble in the galley over some sugar-wine rations, and she leapt over the railing to deal with it, and the moment was lost.

A few days passed, and we got closer and closer to the Island of the Sun. One afternoon I went down to the galley to get some food for myself and some scraps of meat for the manticore. There wasn’t a whole lot there, though. Fish parts and some dried sheep meat. I kept the sheep meat for myself, started dropping the fish into a rucksack.

“Still wearing my captain’s old uniform, I see.”

At the sound of Jeric yi Niru’s voice I almost dropped the sack of fish. I whirled around. He lounged against the doorway, a trio of seabirds hanging on a rope from his belt.

“What do you want?” I narrowed my eyes at the seabirds. “And where the hell did you get those?”

“Shot ’em down.” He slung the birds over the table. “I trained in archery before I was a sailor. We must be nearing land. The manticore’s island, I hope?”

“You hope?” I shoved another fish head in the sack. “What do you care? She ain’t bothering nobody on this boat.”

“She’s hungry.”

I scowled. “You don’t think I haven’t noticed?”

“I appreciate you not feeding any of us to her.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Here.” He slid one of the birds off the rope and handed it to me. I stared at it, at the black empty beads of its eyes, the orange triangle of its beak. “For the manticore,” he said.

I lifted my head enough to meet his eye. He gave me another one of his easy smiles.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Always willing to help the first mate.”

I froze. “You mean navigator.”

He winked at me. “No,” he said. “I don’t.”

I yanked out my knife and lunged toward him, but he was faster, and he grabbed my arm and twisted me around so he had my back up against his chest. I struggled against him but couldn’t break free, and my heart started pounding and I was scared, but I knew I couldn’t let him know.

“I wouldn’t do that,” he whispered into my ear. He plucked the knife out of my hand. “You’re going to need me.”

“Need you?” He dropped my arm and I stumbled away from him. When I turned around, he was examining my knife. Hell and sea salt.

“Yes,” he said. “To find the starstones. That is what we’re looking for, isn’t it? After we leave the Island of the Sun?”

My whole body went cold. I didn’t even bother to lie. “How do you know that?”

Jeric tapped his ear. “I pay attention. Even when I’m held prisoner aboard a pirate ship, I pay attention. You do realize starstones aren’t the sort of treasure the crew is expecting, don’t you? Even the more educated among them has never heard of a starstone – they’ll think you’re chasing after magician’s treasure.” A slow grin. “Fool’s treasure, is how you pirates would put it, yes?”

I did my best Mama impression. I kept my face blank and my eyes mean. It didn’t seem to work.

“You’ll have a difficult time keeping the crew,” he said, “once you tell them what you’re after.” Jeric tilted his head. “And you’ll have an even more difficult time if I were to let slip what I discovered about the captain and
her
first mate–”

I snarled and leapt forward and grabbed the knife from him. He let me have it without a fight.

“What’s to stop me from killing you?” I said, shoving the knife up at his throat. “Got a hungry manticore and–” I almost said
Jadorr’a
, but stopped myself in time. “I could feed you to her right now.”

Beneath the mask of his smirk, Jeric’s face went pale.

“Or I could wait,” I said. “And feed you to her on the Island of the Sun. Her whole family could feast on you.” I smiled.

“You don’t know what you’re dealing with,” Jeric said softly. “Chasing after starstones.”

I shrugged. “Don’t screw with me. Or my captain. And maybe you won’t wake with a manticore’s spine in your belly.” I grabbed the seabird off the table. “Maybe.”

I stalked out of the galley angry and shaking. I didn’t know anything about starstones. I’d never even heard of them before the Wizard Eirnin had rattled them off as part of Naji’s cure, and as far as I knew Marjani and Naji hadn’t talked about them in detail. But I guess I was wrong, if Jeric yi Niru had managed to pick up on it. Ship walls leak secrets.

I went back up on deck. Marjani wasn’t nowhere to be seen – some old Confederation pirate was handling the helm. She was probably in the captain’s quarters. Maybe she could find some excuse to toss Jeric in the brig and I wouldn’t have to worry about it no more.

The manticore was stretched out over on the starboard side, her head lying on top of her paws. I stopped by to drop off her food.

“Hello, girl-human,” she said. “We are close to the Island of the Sun, yes? I can smell their sands on the air.”

“Yeah, we’re close.” I dumped out the fish and the seabird. She sniffed at ’em, didn’t say nothing. No surprise there.

“You’ll get to eat all the humans you want soon,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, sounding glum. “I had hoped the Jadorr’a’s curse would have been broken–”

“You want to stay on the boat?” I said. “You can stay. Munch him all you want once we’ve cured him.”

The manticore looked at me with horror. “No more boat.”

I smiled. “I figured.”

She leaned forward and swallowed a fish head with one gulp. “You wouldn’t bring him back to the island?” She looked at me, fish scales glittering on her lips. “Even after he soul-hurt you?”

“That’s not a good reason to kill a man.”

“You aren’t killing him,” she said. “You’re feeding me. His energy would live on.” Her eyes were clear and golden, like water filled with sunlight. “For us to eat a man, it is a great gift.”

“Dead’s dead,” I told her. “Sorry.”

She blinked like she didn’t understand, and I ran my fingers through her mane and left her to her meal.

I walked over to the captain’s quarters and banged on the door.

“Open up!” I shouted. “It’s me.”

Naji answered, his face still covered. I don’t know why he bothered when he locked himself away in his quarters all the time.

“Hello, Ananna,” he said, and the fact that he hadn’t come down to the galley when Jeric was threatening me lingered on the air.

“Marjani in there?”

Naji held the door open wider and stepped back. Marjani was leaning over the navigation maps.

“Oh good,” she said when she saw me. “My navigator.”

“We need to talk,” I said.

She thrust the sexton at me. “Check our course,” she said. “You needed to do that this morning.”

I looked down at the map. An emerald brooch was stuck in the Island of the Sun, a lady’s hairpin stuck in the southern coast of Jokja. Shouldn’t it be Lisirra? But I didn’t say nothing about it; I had bigger concerns at the moment.

“You know that Empire soldier we signed up?” I said.

“Not Empire anymore,” Marjani said.

“He threatened me.”

That got her attention. She lifted her head, eyes concerned. “What?”

And so I told her what had happened in the galley, about him being onto our ruse with Naji, and knowing we were chasing after the starstones, all of it. Marjani listened to me and the lines in her brow grew deeper and deeper the longer I talked.

“We should be able to hold him off until we arrive at the manticore’s island,” she said when I finished. “We may have to leave him there.” Though I could tell that didn’t sit right with her at all.

Naji had slipped over beside us while I spoke, and he looked at her above his mask, and he said, “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Leave him with the manticores.” Naji hesitated. “We may need… he may prove useful.”

There was this long stifling silence.

“Oh?” Marjani asked. “You’ve decided to play captain now?”

I’ll give him credit; Naji didn’t even flinch. “Marjani,” he said. “Have you ever
seen
a starstone?”

Marjani glared at him.

“Neither have I,” he said. “But when I asked the Order about them…” his voice trailed off. “If the man has knowledge, it may come in useful.”

“Absolutely not. He’ll stir up a mutiny if we leave him on board.”

“She’s right,” I said. “An Empire soldier learns how to be a weasel from boyhood. He wants something from us–”

“Then give it to him.”

Marjani and me both looked at Naji in surprise, but he didn’t seem to notice. He pulled the mask away from his face, and even though I didn’t want it to, my breath caught in my throat.

“I want rid of this curse, and I’m not taking any chances,” he said. “Keep him alive, this Empire soldier. Keep an eye on him, and keep Ongraygeeomryn near you, but don’t kill him.”

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “What’s his name? This soldier? Do you know it?”

“Jeric.” I hesitated. “Uh, yi Niru.”

“Oh,” said Naji, frowning. “He’s a noble.”

“Yeah, which means he’s doubly untrustworthy.”

“Just keep him alive,” Naji said.

Marjani shot him another dark look, but he pulled the mask back over his face and turned away. I leaned back over the navigation map and set up the divider.

Then the warning bells rang.

CHAPTER SEVEN

We ran out on deck, swords and pistols drawn. The crew were lined up against the starboard side, their voices a low murmur.

“The hell are you doing!” Marjani screamed at them. “Get your asses to work!”

They turned around, and when they saw Naji with his sword and his mask, they took off scrambling across the deck. Something glinted out on the horizon. Smoke trickled into the air. Fear clenched in my belly.

Marjani grabbed the spyglass off the helmsman and peered through it.

“Holy hell,” she said. “They’re Confederation.” She laughed.

Naji slunk up behind me and put a hand on my arm. I didn’t try to shake him off.

“What clan?” I whispered.

“Dunno.” She peered through the spyglass again. “Red background, black skull–”