Red Seas Under Red Skies

  “Some this, some that? Clerk of the court, we cannot abide untidiness. Simply charge everyone with everything.”

  “Understood. The mutineers are now incompetent and the incompetent are also mutineers.”

  “Excellent. Very excellent, and so very magisterial. No doubt I shall be quoted in books.”

  “Important books too, ma’am.”

  “What else do these wretches have to answer for?”

  “Assault and larceny beneath the red flag, Your Honor. Armed piracy on the Sea of Brass on the twenty-first instant of the month of Festal, this very year.”

  “Vile, grotesque, and contemptible,” shouted Drakasha. “Let the record show that I feel as though I may swoon. Tell me, are there any who would speak in defense of the prisoners?”

  “None, ma’am, as the prisoners are penniless.”

  “Ah. Then under whose laws do they claim any rights or protections?”

  “None, ma’am. No power on land will claim or aid them.”

  “Pathetic, and not unexpected. Yet without firm guidance from their betters, perhaps it’s only natural that these rodents have shunned virtue like a contagious disease. Perhaps some small chance of clemency may be forthcoming.”

  “Unlikely, ma’am.”

  “One small matter remains, which may attest to their true character. Clerk of the court, can you describe the nature of their associates and consorts?”

  “Only too vividly, Your Honor. They willfully consort with the officers and crew of the Poison Orchid.”

  “Gods above,” cried Drakasha, “did you say Poison Orchid?”

  “I did indeed, ma’am.”

  “They are guilty! Guilty on every count! Guilty in every particular, guilty to the utmost and final extremity of all possible human culpability!” Drakasha tore at her wig, then flung it to the deck and jumped up and down upon it.

  “An excellent verdict, ma’am.”

  “It is the judgment of this court,” said Drakasha, “solemn in its authority and unwavering in its resolution, that for crimes upon the sea the sea shall have them. Put them over the side! And may the gods not be too hasty in conferring mercy upon their souls.”

  Cheering, the crew surged forth from every direction and surrounded the prisoners. Locke was alternately pushed and pulled along with the crowd to the larboard entry port, where a cargo net lay upon the deck with a sail beneath it. The two were lashed together at the edges. The ex-Messengers were shoved onto the netting and held there while several dozen sailors under Delmastro’s direction moved to the capstan.

  “Make ready to execute sentence,” said Drakasha.

  “Heave up,” cried Delmastro.

  A complex network of pulleys and tackles had been rigged between the lower yards of the foremast and mainmast; as the sailors worked the capstan, the edges of the net drew upward and the Orchids holding the prisoners stepped back. In a few seconds the ex-Messengers were off the deck, squeezed together like animals in a trap. Locke clung to the rough netting to avoid slipping into the center of the tangled mass of limbs and bodies. There was a generally useless bout of shoving and swearing as the net swung out over the rail and swayed gently in the darkness fifteen feet above the water.

  “Clerk of the court, execute the prisoners,” said Drakasha.

  “Give ’em a drop, aye!”

  They wouldn’t, thought Locke, at the very same moment they did.

  The net full of prisoners plunged, drawing unwilling yelps and screams from the throats of men who’d done murderous battle on the Kingfisher in relative silence. The pull on the edges of the net slackened as it fell, so at least they had more room to tumble and bounce when they hit the surface of the water—or, more accurately, the strangely yielding barrier of net and sail canvas with the water beneath it like a cushion.

  They rolled around in a jumbled, shouting mass for a second or two while the edges of their trap settled down into the waves, and then the warm dark water was pouring in around them. Locke felt a brief moment of genuine panic—hard not to when the knots binding hands and feet were very real—but after a few moments the edges of the net-backed sail began to draw upward again, until they were just above the surface of the ocean. The water still trapped with the prisoners was about waist-deep to Locke, and now the sail canvas formed a sort of shielded pool for them to stand and flounder about in.

  “Everyone all right?” That was Jean; Locke saw that he’d claimed the edge of the net directly across from him. There were half a dozen shoving, splashing men between them. Locke scowled at the realization that Jean was quite content to stay where he was.

  “Fuckin’ jolly,” muttered Streva, holding himself upright by one arm. The other had been lashed to the front of his chest in a crude sling. Several of the ex-Messengers were nursing broken bones, and nearly all of them had cuts and bruises, but not one had been excused from this ritual by his injuries.

  “Your Honor!” Locke glanced up at the sound of Delmastro’s voice. The lieutenant was peering down at them from the larboard entry port with a lantern in one hand; their net was resting in the water three or four feet from the Orchid ’s dark hull. “Your Honor, they’re not drowning!”

  “What?” Drakasha appeared next to Delmastro with her false wig back on her head, now more wildly askew than ever. “You rude little bastards! How dare you waste this court’s time with this ridiculous refusal to be executed! Clerk, help them drown!”

  “Aye, ma’am, immediate drowning assistance. Deck pumps at the ready! Deck pumps away!”

  A pair of sailors appeared at the rail with the aperture of a canvas hose held between them. Locke turned away just as the gush of warm salt water started pounding down on them all. Not so bad, he thought, just seconds before something more substantial than water struck the back of his head with a wet, stinging smack.

  Bombardment with this new indignity—greased oakum, Locke quickly realized—was general and vigorous. Crewfolk had lined the rail and were flinging it down into the netted prisoners, a veritable rain of rags and rope fragments that had the familiar rancid stink of the stuff he’d spent several mornings painting the masts with. This assault continued for several minutes, until Locke had no idea where the grease ended and his clothes began, and the water in their little enclosure was topped with a sliding layer of foulness.

  “Unbelievable,” shouted Delmastro. “Your Honor, they’re still there!”

  “Not drowned?”

  Zamira appeared at the rail once again and solemnly removed her wig. “Damnation. The sea refuses to claim them. We shall have to bring them back aboard.”

  After a few moments, the lines above them drew taut and the little prison of net and canvas began to rise from the water. Not a moment too soon, it seemed—Locke shuddered as he felt something large and powerful brush against the barrier beneath his feet. In seconds they were mercifully above the tips of the waves and creaking steadily upward.

  But their punishment was not yet over; they hung once more in the darkness when the net was hoisted above the rail, and were not brought back in above the deck.

  “Free the spinning-tackle,” shouted Delmastro.

  Locke caught sight of a small woman shimmying out onto the tangle of ropes overhead. She pulled a restraining pin from the large wooden tackle by which the net was suspended. Locke recognized the circular metal bearing within the tackle; heavily greased, it would allow even awkward and weighty cargoes to be spun with ease. Cargoes like them.

  Crewfolk lined the rail and began to grab at the net and heave it along; in moments the prisoners were spinning at a nauseating rate, and the world around them flew by in glimpses—dark water…lamps on the deck…dark water…lamps on the deck…

  “Oh, gods,” said someone, a moment before he noisily threw up. There was a sudden scramble away from the poor fellow, and Locke clung grimly to his place at the edge of the net, trying to ignore the kicking, shuddering, spinning mass of men.

  “Clean ’em up,” shouted Delmastro. ?
??Deck pumps away!”

  The hard stream of salt water gushed into their midst once more, and they spun furiously. Locke intersected the spray every few seconds as each rotation of the net brought him around. His dizziness grew and grew as the minutes passed, and though it was becoming extremely fashionable, he focused every speck of dignity on simply not throwing up.

  So intense was his dizziness and so swift was their deliverance that he didn’t even realize they’d been swung back onto the deck until the net he was clinging to collapsed into slackness. He toppled forward, onto netting and canvas above good, hard planks once again. The net had ceased spinning, but the world took its place, rotating in six or seven directions at once, all of them profoundly unpleasant. Locke closed his eyes, but that didn’t help. It merely made him blind as well as nauseous.

  Men were crawling over him, moaning and swearing. A pair of crewfolk reached down and heaved Locke to his feet; his stomach nearly surrendered at that point and he coughed sharply to fight back his nausea. Captain Drakasha was approaching, her false wig and cloak discarded, and she was tilted at a funny angle.

  “The sea won’t have you,” she said. “The water refuses to swallow you. It’s not yet your time to drown, praise Iono. Praise Ulcris!”

  Ulcris was the Jereshti name for the god of the sea, not often heard in Therin lands or waters. There must be more eastern islanders aboard than I realized, thought Locke.

  “Lord of the Grasping Waters shield us,” chanted the crew.

  “So you’re here with us between all things,” said Drakasha. “The land won’t have you and the sea won’t claim you. You’ve fled, like us, to wood and canvas. This deck’s your firmament; these sails are your heavens. This is all the world you get. This is all the world you need.”

  She stepped forward with a drawn dagger. “Will you lick my boots to claim a place on it?”

  “No!” the ex-Messengers roared in unison. They’d been coached on this part of the ritual.

  “Will you kneel and kiss my jeweled ring for mercy?”

  “No!”

  “Will you bend your knees to pretty titles on pieces of paper?”

  “No!”

  “Will you pine for land and laws and kings, and cling to them like a mother’s tit?”

  “No!”

  She stepped up to Locke and handed him the dagger.

  “Then free yourself, brother.”

  Still unsteady, and grateful for the aid of the crewfolk beside him, Locke used the blade to saw through the rope that bound his hands, and then bent over to cut the rope between his ankles. That accomplished, he turned and saw that all of the ex-Messengers were more or less upright, most of them held by one or two Orchids. Close at hand he could see several familiar faces—Streva, Jabril, a fellow called Alvaro…and just behind them, Jean, watching him uneasily.

  Locke hesitated, then pointed to Jabril and held out the blade.

  “Free yourself, brother.”

  Jabril smiled, took the blade, and was finished with his bonds in a moment. Jean glared at him. Locke closed his eyes, not wanting to make further eye contact, and listened as the dagger made its passage through the group, from hand to hand. “Free yourself, brother,” they murmured, one after another. And then it was done.

  “Unbound by your own hands, you are outlaw brethren of the Sea of Brass,” said Captain Drakasha, “and crewmen of the Poison Orchid.”

  2

  EVEN AN experienced thief will find occasion to learn new tricks if he lives long enough. That morning and afternoon, Locke had learned how to properly loot a captured ship.

  Locke finished his last circuit belowdecks, reasonably certain there were no more Kingfisher crewfolk to round up, and stomped up the companionway to the quarterdeck. The bodies of the Redeemers there had been moved aside and stacked at the taffrail; the bodies of those from the Poison Orchid had been carried down to the waist. Locke could see several of Zamira’s crewfolk respectfully covering them with sail canvas.

  He quickly surveyed the ship. Thirty or forty Orchids had come aboard, and were taking control of the vessel everywhere. They were up the ratlines, with Jean and Delmastro at the wheel, tending the anchors, and guarding the thirty or so surviving Kingfisher crewfolk atop the forecastle deck. Under Utgar’s supervision, the wounded Kingfishers and Orchids had been carried down to the waist near the starboard entry port, where Captain Drakasha and Scholar Treganne were just coming aboard. Locke hurried toward them.

  “It’s my arm, Scholar. Hurts something awful.” Streva used his good arm to support his injured limb as he winced and held it out for Treganne’s inspection. “I think it’s broken.”

  “Of course it’s broken, you cretinous turd,” she said, brushing past him to kneel beside a Kingfisher whose tunic was completely soaked in blood. “Keep waving it like that and it’ll snap right off. Sit down.”

  “But—”

  “I work from worst chance to best,” Treganne muttered. She knelt on the deck beside the injured Kingfisher, using her cane to brace herself until she was on both knees. Then she gave the cane a twist. The handle separated from the cane’s full length, revealing a dagger-sized blade that Treganne used to slice the sailor’s tunic open. “I can move you up on my list by kicking your head a couple times. Still want prompt attention?”

  “Um…no.”

  “You’ll keep. Piss off.”

  “There you are, Ravelle.” Captain Drakasha stepped past Treganne and the injured and grabbed Locke by the shoulder. “You’ve done well for yourself.”

  “Have I?”

  “You’re as useless as an ass without a hole when it comes to running a ship, but I’ve heard the damnedest things about how you fought just now.”

  “Your sources exaggerate.”

  “Well, the ship’s ours and you gave us her master. Now that we’ve plucked our flower, we need to sip the nectar before bad weather or another ship comes along.”

  “Will you be taking the Kingfisher as a prize?”

  “No. I don’t like having more than one prize crew out at a time. We’ll shake her down for valuables and useful cargo.”

  “Then burn her or something?”

  “Of course not. We’ll leave the crew stores enough to make port and watch them scamper for the horizon. You look confused.”

  “No objections, Captain, it’s just…not as downright bastardly as I was expecting.”

  “You don’t think we respect surrenders because we’re kindly people, do you, Ravelle?” Drakasha grinned. “I don’t have much time to explain, but it’s like this. If not for those gods-damned Redeemers, these people”—she waved a hand at the injured Kingfishers waiting for Treganne’s attention—“wouldn’t have given or taken a scratch. Four out of five ships we take, I’d say, if they can’t rig razornets and get bows ready, they just roll right over for it. They know we’ll let ’em slip off with their lives once we’re done. And the common sailors don’t own one centira of the cargo, so why should they swallow a blade or a crossbow bolt for it?”

  “I guess it does make sense.”

  “To more people than us. Look at this shambles. Redeemers for security? If those maniacs hadn’t been available for free, this ship wouldn’t have any real guards. I guarantee it. No sense in it for the owners. These long voyages, four or five months from the far east back to Tal Verrar with spices, rare metals, wood—an owner can lose two ships out of three, and the one that arrives will pay for the two that don’t. With profit to spare. And if they get the actual ship back, even sans cargo, so much the better. That’s why we don’t sink and burn like mad. As long as we show some restraint, and don’t get too close to civilization, the folks holding the purse strings think of us as a natural hazard, like the weather.”

  “So with the, ah, plucking and sipping the nectar bit, where do we start?”

  “Most worthwhile thing at hand is the ship’s purse,” said Drakasha. “Master keeps it for expenses. Bribes and so forth. Finding it’s always a pain in t
he ass. Some throw it overboard; others hide it somewhere dank and unlikely. We’ll probably have to slap this Nera around for a few hours before he spits truth.”

  “Damnation.” Behind them, Treganne let her patient slump to the deck and began wiping her bloody hands on his breeches. “No good on this one, Captain. I can see straight through to his lungs behind the wound.”

  “He’s dead for sure?” said Locke.

  “Well, heavens, I wouldn’t know, I’m just the fucking physiker. But I heard in a bar once that dead is the accepted thing to be when your lungs are open to daylight,” said Treganne.

  “Uh…yes. I heard the same thing. Look, will anyone else here die without your immediate full attention?”

  “Not likely.”

  “Captain Drakasha,” said Locke, “Master Nera has something of a soft heart. Might I take the liberty of suggesting a plan…?”

  A few moments later, Locke returned to the waist, holding Antoro Nera by one arm. The man’s hands had been bound behind his back. Locke gave him a good shove toward Zamira, who stood with one saber unsheathed. Behind her, Treganne worked feverishly over the corpse of the newly deceased sailor. The slashed and bloody tunic had been disposed of, and a clean one drawn over the corpse’s chest. Only a small red spot now marked the lethal wound, and Treganne gave every impression that the unmoving form was still within her power to save.

  Drakasha caught Nera and set her blade against his upper chest.

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” she said, sliding the curved edge of her weapon toward Nera’s unprotected neck. He whimpered. “Your ship’s badly out of trim. Too much weight of gold. We need to find and remove the master’s purse as quick as we can.”

  “I, uh, don’t know exactly where it is,” said Nera.

  “Right. And I can teach fish to fart fire,” said Drakasha. “You get one more chance, and then I start throwing your injured overboard.”

  “But…please, I was told—”

  “Whoever told you anything wasn’t me.”