Red Seas Under Red Skies: The Gentleman Bastard Sequence, Book Two (Gentleman Bastards 2)

A soft, warm rain was falling, not a proper squall from the Sea of Brass but an annoyance blowing in from the mainland. Caldris waited on the stone plaza in a light oilcloak, with rivulets of water streaming from his unprotected hair and beard. He grinned when the boat delivered Locke and Jean, lightly clad and bootless.

‘Look you both,’ Caldris yelled. ‘Here she is in person. The ship we’re damn likely to die on!’ He clapped Locke on the back and laughed. ‘She’s styled the Red Messenger.’

‘Is she now?’ The vessel was quiet and still, sails furled, lamps unlit. There was something unfathomably melancholy about a ship in such a condition, Locke thought. ‘One of the Archon’s, I presume?’

‘No. It seems the gods have favoured the Protector with a chance to be bloody economical with this mission. You know what stiletto wasps are?’

‘Only too well.’

‘Some idiot tried to put into port with a hive in his hold, not too long ago. Gods know what he was planning with it. That got him executed, and the ship was ruled droits of the Archonate. That nest of little monsters got burned.’

‘Oh,’ said Locke, sniggering. ‘I’m very sure it was. Thorough and incorruptible, the fine customs officers of Tal Verrar.’

‘Archon had it careened,’ continued Caldris. ‘Needed new sails, some shoring-up, fresh lines, bit of caulking. All the insides got smoked with brimstone, and she’s been renamed and rechristened. Still plenty cheap, compared to offering up one of his own.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Twenty years, near as I can tell. Hard years, likely, but she’ll hold for a few more. Assuming we bring her back. Now show me what you’ve learned. What do you think she is?’

Locke studied the vessel, which had two masts, a very slightly raised stern deck and a single boat stored upside-down at its waist. ‘Is she a caulotte?’

‘No,’ said Caldris, ‘she’s more properly a vestrel, what you’d also call a brig, a very wee one. I can see why you’d say caulotte. But let me tell you why you’re off on the particulars . . .’

Caldris launched into a number of highly technical explanations, pointing out things about leeward main braces and cross-jacks, which Locke only half-understood in the manner of a visitor to a foreign city listening to eager directions from a fast native talker.

‘. . . She’s eighty-eight feet stem to stern, not counting the bowsprit, of course,’ finished Caldris.

‘I hadn’t truly realized before now,’ said Locke. ‘Gods, I’m actually to command this ship.’

‘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. Now hurry aboard.’

Caldris led them up a ramp and onto the deck of the Red Messenger, and while Locke gazed around, absorbing 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 bed-ridden) 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 sometime, 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 greyness 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 arses 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. ‘Further 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 further 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 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.’