Wake of the Bloody Angel

Chapter Ten

When I came on deck the next morning, the sky was cloudless, and the sunlight reflected off every ripple. The heat was already intense, and the ship’s distinctive odors felt renewed and strengthened. Even the breeze that filled the sails seemed muggy and rancid. As my eyes adjusted to the glare, I saw Quartermaster Seaton before me.

“Good morning, Captain,” he said with a jaunty salute.

“I’m not a captain,” I said in what had become our usual morning exchange.

“Any man who pays the bills is a captain,” Seaton replied with his standard half smile.

“Any ships pass our way?”

“A small galleon from Boscobel. Two Ilyrian warships going in for repairs.”

“Repairs? Is Ilyria at war again?”

“Didn’t stop to chat, so I don’t know. But it’s been six months, which is about all the peace they can stand.”

“No pirates or ghost ships?”

“Alas, no. But starting today, we’ll be following prime shipping routes. We could see action at any moment.” He gestured around him. “That’s why we’re putting on our best civilian frock.”

I’d wondered how such an obvious vessel could possibly catch an experienced pirate unawares. Now I saw: wooden boxes were strapped to the deck in a pile ten feet high, just as seen on the Mellow Wine. Since they were empty, though, they did little to slow us down and could be quickly cast overboard. Instead of the banner of the Anti-Freebootery Guild, we flew the flag of Klarbrunn, and beneath it the banner of the International Cargo Federation. Most significant, the deck ballistae were gone from their sockets, arranged in a neat row on the wooden deck. The ones below remained in place, though, and I knew the gunnery crew could have the deck crossbows remounted and ready to fire in minutes. I used disguises myself on occasion, and could appreciate the scale and effectiveness of this one.

Sweat trickled down my spine and forehead; I’d probably melted off ten pounds on this trip already. I excused myself, walked to the starboard bow rail, and looked down at the bow waves. The spray, at least, was cool on my face. Big fish leaped gracefully out of the ship’s path, only to circle back and repeat the move.

A man hung over the side, strapped in a harness, removing the brass letters that spelled the ship’s name. He saw me, smiled, and waved.

On one of my first days at sea, I’d asked Seaton the origin of the ship’s strange name. Far too loudly, he said, “Ah, so you be wanting to know why she’s called the Red Cow. She’s not always borne that moniker, though.”

He waited. So did every man on deck, grinning in anticipation. At last I played along. “What was she called before?”

“The Impatient Cow. Come on, lad, ask me why.”

“Why was she called the Impatie-?”

“Moo!” bellowed every sailor from the open hatchways to the foremast crosstrees.

I sighed and shook my head. I was on a ship crewed by twelve-year-olds.

The actual explanation was much more mundane. Originally she was known as the Red Crow, but a letter had fallen off during battle. The crew believed this to be a sign that the ship had chosen her own name, and so Red Cow it had remained ever since. Her reputation ensured that no one familiar with the sea laughed when she was mentioned.

“Morning to you, Mr. LaCrosse!” cried a voice from above, bringing me back to the moment. Celia Zandry, the boatswain- which of course came out “bos’n” whenever anyone referred to her by rank-hung from the mainmast shrouds and directed adjustments to the rigging. She was almost as tall as Suhonen, although she weighed considerably less. She reminded me of a stick insect; rumor said that when the wind was strong enough, she could raise one bare arm and it would whistle.

“Morning, Celia. How’s the wind today?”

“Strong and damp. Makes the canvas sluggish.”

“Does the same to me,” I said.

I greeted several other crewmen with whom I’d become friendly. They were, on the whole, a good- natured lot, content with their jobs and glad not to be in Queen Remy’s prison, or worse. Some diligently scrubbed the decks, while the crossbow crew, under the direction of Mr. Dancer, the gunnery master, disassembled and cleaned the ballistae before storing them below. With such a large crew, shifts were short and we had an adequate, if strictly controlled, supply of rum. Sometimes I got so bored, I almost volunteered to help, but I sensed that these professionals wouldn’t welcome a dilettante like me. Besides, they sang while they worked, and no one needed to hear me sing.

Then I saw something new. Three men emerged from the hold carrying barrels on their shoulders. They had to be empty, given the ease with which the men handled them. They went to the stern and handed them over the rail to waiting hands below, where more men evidently hung in harnesses.

“What’s in those barrels?” I asked Captain Clift when he joined me.

“Why, nothing at all.”

“So you just dump your empties over the side?”

“Oh, no. They have a very specific function.”

When he said nothing else, I prompted, “And?”

He laughed. “Should we need them… Well, you’ll see.”

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Jane called. Today she wore an even skimpier outfit; I never knew she had a tattoo below her navel. She leaned on the rail between Clift and me, looked out at the sea, and said, “We’re in the shipping lanes, if I’m reading it right.”

The ocean looked the same to me as it had every day before this, but Clift nodded. “Aye. And we’re now the totally defenseless merchant vessel Crimson Heifer. ” He looked at her while she gazed over the water, and again I saw that little shift in his demeanor. “If you’ll both excuse me, I’m sure there’s something more productive I can be doing.” He touched his knuckles to his forehead in a casual salute.

When he was out of earshot, I said to Jane, “Are you deliberately trying to torture that poor guy?”

She looked blank. “What?”

“What?” I repeated, imitating her. “I’ve seen less skin on a Selian bride.” Selian women wore only ankle bells during the ceremony; the men wore bells in a much less discreet location.

“Hey, this is just how I dress at sea. When I was a captain, I wore the same sort of thing. And you know what?” She winked. “I never had to give an order twice.”

“I bet. What about when you went into battle? A getup like that seems to leave a lot of things… unsupported.”

“Maybe, but half the bad guys surrendered with a smile before the first blow was even struck.”

She laughed, and it was so wide open and joyous that I smiled, too. I’d seen Jane in action on land, of course, her cape aswirl and her fur-edged boots sliding into a battle stance, but I realized that this was actually her element. It wasn’t just her lack of self-consciousness; it was clear that she felt so at home here that she knew she could always turn any situation to her advantage. I envied that, especially since I couldn’t imagine ever feeling that way. For her to give that up for Miles Argo must have taken an awful lot of willpower.

I noticed that the sailors scrubbing the nearby deck watched her very closely, hoping the wind would blow her blouse tight against her body. I’m sure she noticed it, too; she just didn’t care.

The first time I saw her dressed like this, I commented, “Where’s your cape?”

“Cape’s aren’t real practical at sea.”

I nodded at her ensemble. “And this is?”

“Were you looking at my sword arm?” When I didn’t reply, she said with a grin, “I rest my case.”

Now I said, “So why are they putting empty barrels on the stern?”

“You’ll see.”

“I’m paying for this trip. I don’t think it’s polite to keep secrets.”

“It’s not a secret; it’s a surprise. Trust me, you’ll love it.” She mussed my hair again, and I remembered my earlier promise, but punching a woman so gleefully flashing her boobs to a bunch of sailors seemed both ill-advised and rude. Still, I promised one day to even the score.

I opened my cabin door. The boy Dorsal stood beside my bunk. He jumped and backed up to the far wall, eyes down, clearly guilty of something. “What are you doing in here?” I asked.

He scuffed one bare foot against the floor. “Nothin’.” He wore the same often-patched shirt and pants that were too big. I wondered if he even had a change of clothes. His hair was cut raggedly short, the mark of a knife instead of scissors. I noticed his rope belt had a series of loops tied into it at regular intervals. I grunted in disapproval and said, “Whatever it was, it ain’t as bad as lying. Let’s try that again. What are you doing in here?”

He chewed his lower lip, then nodded at my bunk. “Lookin’.” “At what?”

“Your sword.”

It didn’t appear that he’d moved it; it was still in the scabbard, on the floor beneath my bunk. I closed the door and said, “I appreciate you telling me the truth.”

He rolled his shoulders.

“Is your name really Dorsal?”

“No, it’s Finn. Finn Calder. But that’s what they call me.”

Dorsal Finn: more pirate humor. “Do you have a job, or are you someone’s son?”

“I have a job,” he said almost defiantly. “I’m a bolt runner when we’re fighting.”

That explained the loops on his rope belt. He carried crossbow bolts from the ship’s carpenter to the men during battle. “Important job.”

He nodded, and his little chest puffed up. “Yes, sir, indeed.”

I sat on the bunk. He quickly scooted around me toward the door. “You don’t have to run off,” I said. I pulled the sword from its scabbard and held it so the light from the porthole shone on the blade. It needed cleaning, especially in this salt air, but it was in good enough shape to impress a barefoot cabin boy: His eyes widened in delight, and light from the blade sparkled in them.

“What kind is it?” he asked reverently.

“It’s called a Point Major. It’s made in Estepia by a family of swordsmiths named Tomatt. They do a special kind of metal folding that makes the blade stronger than it looks. The downside is, it doesn’t hold a razor edge like some other swords, so you have to stab instead of slice after you’ve used it for a while.”

“Is it heavy?”

“Not so bad. Want to hold it?”

He shook his head.

“You sure? It’s all right.”

He shook his head again.

“Okay. I don’t mind you asking to see it, but I don’t want to catch you going through my stuff again. Am I going to find anything missing?”

He shook his head once more.

“Thanks. I hope I can trust you. By the way, do you like being called Dorsal? I don’t want to use a nickname you don’t like.”

“I don’t mind. Could be worse.”

“That’s true.” I took my eyes off him momentarily to put away my sword, and when I looked back he was gone. I hadn’t even heard the door open.

I went through my bags just to be sure. Nothing was missing. It appeared that “Dorsal” Finn Calder was a man of his word.

When the sun was high enough it didn’t shine directly in anyone’s eyes, I took my sword on deck. The Red Cow now looked like any other cargo-carrying vessel, with no visible sign of her true identity. Even the men on deck wore the drab clothing of sailors used to numbing drudgery, not the bright colors of pirates, current or ex-.

A different sailor hung over the side, painting the name Crimson Heifer where the brass letters had proclaimed Red Cow.

“That’s not much of a disguise,” I pointed out to Seaton.

“Aye, perhaps. But it’s bad luck to change a ship’s name in mid-voyage. And you’re assuming that most pirates can read.”

“Everyone here seems to be able to.”

“Aye, it’s part of their pardoning. They have to learn to read to ensure they understand the consequences of returning to the Brotherhood of the Surf.”

“Queen Remy’s idea?”

He nodded. “She’s a tough old buzzard, but she plays fair.”

“Could you read before you were pardoned?”

He laughed. “Yes, Captain Argo required it as well. Said she wouldn’t command a bunch of ignorant lampreys.” He nodded at my sword. “And where might you be off to?”

“Teaching the lampreys,” I said, and indicated the pile of phony cargo crates. A half-dozen men lounged on them, looking at me with decidedly skeptical expressions.

After hearing Jane’s embroidered tales of my exploits (“I swear, you’d think he’d been trained by some royal fighting master,” she’d said, not realizing she was exactly right), Captain Clift had asked me to show the members of his boarding crew some advanced sword-fighting tactics; to combat the ennui, and because Clift made sure I’d had plenty to drink first, I agreed. I understood his concern: his men were tough, brave, and eager, but their skills were the result of chance and experience rather than any actual training. They were certainly the equal of any pirate crew they faced, but he wanted them to be better. He picked six of his best for my first class, intending for them to subsequently instruct the others. If I was able to teach them anything.

I’d suggested having the ship’s carpenter turn out wooden practice swords, but Jane assured me the men would not take them seriously. So we were practicing with live blades on a constantly shifting surface, something that went against all my common sense.

Jane and Clift watched discreetly from the stern. If I saw Jane laugh, I might toss her over the side, so I did my best to ignore them. “Hello, gentlemen,” I said. “Who have we got there?”

They lined up, faced me, and tersely introduced themselves. There were six of them, but only one registered: Suhonen. He folded his arms across his chest, but just barely, and his whole demeanor said, Impress me.

By now, the crewmen not engaged in actual work had also gathered to watch, some hanging from the shrouds or sitting on the spars. It would be tricky not to embarrass the men who’d been volunteered for this; it might also be tricky to avoid getting skewered myself. I said, “I’m not here to change how you fight. You’re all pros, and the fact that you’re alive means you’re already pretty good. But I’ve been a soldier and a mercenary all over the world, and I’ve learned some stuff you might find useful.”

I drew my sword and pointed it, not at Suhonen, but at a smaller man named Hansing. “Show me how you attack someone.”

He had a huge mustache that covered the lower part of his face down past his chin. “What, for real?”

“Close to real. I’d rather you didn’t actually kill me. Come on, show me.”

He shrugged, stepped forward, and raised his sword. He shook it menacingly, then swung down at my head. I had no trouble dodging it.

He took a deep breath, tried a side slash that was no better. Our blades clanged together, and his bounced aside to stick point-first in one of the empty crates.

The watchers laughed.

He turned red beneath his tan, and when he blew out a sharp breath, his mustache billowed like a curtain. He wrenched his weapon free, stood with his shoulders hunched in defeat, then said, “Can I yell?”

“What?” I said.

“Yell. Shout. Do you mind?”

“No.”

With a bloodcurdling shriek that startled everyone on deck, Hansing sprang at me. I didn’t exactly parry his blow so much as turn it slightly off course at the last moment, and his backhand slash could’ve disemboweled me if I’d been a hair slower dodging it.

But he was so sure that this last blow would end the fight that he left himself wide open. I slapped him across the neck with the flat of my own blade, then kicked him in the knee. He sprawled back into two of the other would-be students, and when they pushed him back to his feet, he came up swinging. But I put the tip of my sword against the center of his chest and said, “Whoa, remember, this is just practice.”

For an instant the rage remained; then it faded. He nodded and sheathed his sword. I kept mine out. No one was laughing.

“I thought I had you,” he said, shaking his head.

“The only mistake you made was assuming that,” I said. “In most cases you’d be right, but the minute you get someone with a cool head and fast reflexes, you’ve left yourself wide open. How many of you have killed a man with the first blow when he saw you coming?”

One raised his hand, then added sheepishly, “He still managed to stab me, though.”

“Exactly. You have to disconnect your emotions from your brain. It’s okay to scream or yell or do anything to try to startle the other guy. But it’s got to be an act, and you’ve got to be above it watching.”

They looked grudgingly impressed. Or rather, most of them did. I said, “Now, who wants to try me next?” I pointed my sword at Suhonen. No sense putting off the inevitable any longer. “You?”

The big man stepped away from the group and drew his huge, curved cutlass. His bare muscular body gleamed like a well-polished wooden idol. Only the sound of the ship creaking broke the silence.

I had little experience with cutlasses, either wielding or avoiding, but a sword was a sword and a man was a man. If I couldn’t take him, I had no business in this job. Or so I told myself as he towered over me.

“It’s practice, Suhonen,” Clift warned from the stern.

“I won’t hurt him much,” Suhonen said. He smiled as if taking me down wouldn’t make him muss his hair. When he flexed, the skeletons around his neck seemed to dance.

I didn’t even raise my sword. I just waited. It was one of my best talents. I could outwait a rock until it turned to gravel.

Suhonen couldn’t. He suddenly slashed at me, which was the only real way to use a cutlass. He did it all with his arm, which was bad because it was weak and left him off balance. I knocked the stroke aside, impressed with the casual strength behind it, and put everything I had into a blow that would’ve decapitated him had we been fighting for real. As it was, my sword flat rang his bell and he dropped at my feet, his blade skittering across the deck until it knocked over a bucket of soapy water. He didn’t go all the way out, but it was a near thing.

I belatedly felt the sheer force of the blow I’d blocked in my arm, shoulder, and back. Fuck me-if he’d been really trying, I’d have been in trouble.

“He had reach and size on me,” I said to the others, “but he-”

Suhonen, dizzy and pissed off, tried to tackle me when he thought I wasn’t looking. I tossed my sword to Jane, who’d appeared at the front of the crowd; then I stepped aside and snatched Suhonen’s wrist as he stumbled across the spot I’d just occupied. I bent it back hard and he fell to his knees, his superior size and strength useless. “Ow, stop, I give!” he cried.

I wasn’t quite ready to believe him. “He’s younger, bigger, and stronger, yet he hasn’t laid a hand on me,” I said, and wrenched his arm so that he cried out again. “That’s because he’s angry and embarrassed, and I’m not emotionally involved in this. Now I’m going to let him go, and if he tries anything else, I’ll put him down just as easily.”

That was the kind of thing I had to say. Truthfully, I had no idea if I could catch him off guard again.

I released him and he jumped to his feet, eyes blazing, cradling his wrist against his chest. I stood with my hands at my sides and kept my gaze locked on his. I saw the rage fade, replaced by uncertainty, fear, then respect. He rubbed his temple where my sword had smacked him. At last he said, “This is stupid. I know how to fight. I’m outta here.”

He stomped down into the hold. The other five watched him go, then looked back at me.

I glanced over at Jane, who just smiled and shook her head. Clift watched as if he’d seen it all before. And Dorsal the cabin boy perched atop a barrel, knees drawn up to his chin and his little brow furrowed in concentration.

Jane tossed my sword back to me. I caught it, twirled it end over end, and said, “Next?”