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

Their prison was at the very bottom of the Poison Orchid, on what was ironically the tallest deck on the ship, a good ten feet from lower deck to ceiling. However, the pile of barrels and oilcloth sacks crammed into the compartment left nothing but a coffin-dark crawlspace above their uneven surface. Locke and Jean sat atop this uncomfortable mass of goods with their heads against the ceiling. The lightless room stank of muck-soaked orlop ropes, of mouldering canvas, of stale food and ineffective alchemical preservatives.

This was technically the forward cargo stowage; the bilge proper was sealed behind a bulkhead roughly ten feet to their left. Not twenty feet in the opposite direction, the curved black bow of the ship met wind and water. The soft waves they could hear were lapping against the ship’s sides three or four feet above their heads.

‘Nothing but the friendliest people and the finest accommodations on the Sea of Brass,’ said Locke.

‘At least I don’t feel too disadvantaged by the darkness,’ said Jean. ‘Lost my bloody optics when I took that tumble into the water.’

‘Thusfar today we’ve lost a ship, a small fortune, your hatchets, and now your optics.’

‘At least our setbacks are getting progressively smaller.’ Jean cracked his knuckles and the sound echoed strangely in the darkness. ‘How long do you suppose we’ve been down here?’

‘Hour, maybe?’ Locke sighed, pushed himself away from the starboard bulkhead and began the laborious process of finding a vaguely comfortable niche to slide into, amidst barrel-tops and sacks of hard, lumpy objects. If he was going to be bored, he might as well be bored lying down. ‘But I’d be surprised if they mean to keep us here for good. I think they’re just ... marinating us. For whatever comes next.’

‘You making yourself comfortable?’

‘I’m fighting the good fight.’ Locke shoved a sack out of the way and at last had enough space to rest in. ‘That’s better.’

A few seconds later, there came the creaking tread of many pairs of feet just overhead, followed by a scraping noise. The grating to the deck above (which had been wrapped in oilcloth to seal them in darkness) was being raised. A wan light intruded into the blackness, and Locke squinted.

‘Doesn’t that just figure,’ he muttered.

‘Cargo inspection,’ came a familiar voice from above. ‘We’re looking for anything out of place. You two qualify.’

Jean crawled over to the pale square of light and looked up. ‘Lieutenant Ezri?’

‘Delmastro,’ she said. ‘Ezri Delmastro, hence Lieutenant Delmastro. ’

‘My apologies. Lieutenant Delmastro.’

‘That’s the spirit. How do you like your cabin?’

‘Could smell worse,’ said Locke, ‘but I think I’d have to spend a few days pissing on everything to get there.’

‘Stay alive until our supplies start to run low,’ said Delmastro, ‘and you’ll drink some things that’ll make this stench a happy memory. Now, usually I’d drop a ladder, but it’s only three feet. I think you can manage. Come up slow; Captain Drakasha’s got a sudden eagerness to have a word with you.’

‘Does that offer include dinner?’

‘You’re lucky it includes clothes, Ravelle. Get up here. Smallest first.’

Locke crawled past Jean and heaved himself up through the hatch into the moderately less stifling air of the orlop deck. Lieutenant Delmastro waited with eight of her crewfolk, all armed and armoured. Locke was seized from behind by a burly woman as he stood up in the passageway. A moment later Jean was helped up and held by three sailors.

‘Right.’ Delmastro seized Jean’s wrists and snapped a pair of blackened-steel manacles around them. It was Locke’s turn next; she fitted the cold restraints and fastened them without gentleness. Locke gave the manacles a quick professional appraisal. They were oiled and rust-free, and too tight to wiggle out of even if he had time to make some painful adjustments to his thumbs.

‘Captain’s finally had a chance to talk to some of your old crew at length,’ said Delmastro. ‘Mighty curious, is what I’d call her.’

‘Ah, that’s wonderful,’ said Locke. ‘Another fine chance to explain myself to someone. How I do so love explaining myself.’

Their wary escort herded them along, and soon they were on deck in the very last light of dusk. The sun was just passing beneath the western horizon, a blood-red eye closing lazily under lids of faintly red cloud. Locke gulped the fresh air gratefully, and was again struck by the impression of population that hung about the Poison Orchid. She was crammed with crew, men and women alike, bustling about below or working on deck by the light of an increasing number of alchemical lanterns.

They had come up amidships. Something clucked and fluttered in a dark box just forward of the mainmast. A chicken coop - at least one bird was pecking the mesh of its cage in agitation.

‘I sympathize,’ whispered Locke.

The Orchid crewfolk led him to the stern a few steps ahead of Jean. On the quarterdeck, just above the companionway leading down to the stern cabins, a group of sailors once again restrained Jean at some signal from Delmastro.

‘This invitation’s for Ravelle only,’ she said. ‘Master Valora can wait up here until we see how this is to go.’

‘Ah,’ said Locke. ‘Will you be comfortable up here, Jerome?’

‘“Cold walls do not a prison make,”’ recited Jean with a smile, ‘“nor iron bands a bondsman.”’

Lieutenant Delmastro looked at him strangely, and after a few seconds replied, ‘“Bold words from the tongues of the newly chained will fly - like sparks from flint, with as much real heat, and as long a life.”’

‘You know The Ten Honest Turncoats,’ said Jean.

‘As do you. Very interesting. And ... completely beside the point.’ She gave Locke a gentle push toward the companionway. ‘Stay here, Valora. Lift a finger in an unfriendly fashion and you’ll die where you stand.’

‘My fingers will be on their best behaviour.’

Down the companionway Locke stumbled, into a dark space nearly the twin of that on the Red Messenger, though larger. If Locke’s quick estimate was correct, the Poison Orchid was half as long again as his former ship. There were little canvas-door cabins, two to a side, and a sturdy witchwood door to the stern cabin, currently closed tight. Ezri pushed Locke firmly aside and knocked on this door three times.

‘It’s Ezri, with the question mark,’ she shouted.

A moment later the door was unbolted from within and Delmastro motioned for Locke to precede her.

Captain Drakasha’s cabin, in contrast to ‘Ravelle’s’, showed every evidence of long, comfortable habitation. Richly lit by faceted alchemical jewel-lamps in gold frames, the space was piled with layers of tapestries and silk pillows. Several sea-chests supported a lacquered tabletop covered with empty dishes, folded maps and navigation instruments of obvious quality. Locke felt a pang when he saw his own chest, wide open on the floor beside Drakasha’s chair.

The shutters had been drawn away from the stern windows. Drakasha sat before them, her coat and armour discarded, holding a girl of three or four on her knees. Through the windows, Locke could see the Red Messenger, shadowed in the growing darkness, crawling with the bobbing lights of what must be repair parties.

Locke glanced to his left to see who’d opened the door, then looked down and found himself meeting the gaze of a curly-haired boy who looked barely older than the girl held by Zamira. Both children had her coal-black hair, and something of her features, but their skin was somewhat lighter, like desert sand in shadow. Ezri tousled the boy’s hair affectionately as she nudged Locke further into the cabin, and the boy stepped away shyly.

‘There,’ said Zamira, ignoring the newcomers for the moment and pointing out through the stern windows. ‘Can you see that, Cosetta? Do you know what that is?’

‘Ship,’ said the little girl.

‘That’s right.’ Zamira smiled ... no, Locke corrected himself, she positively smirked. ‘Mummy’s new ship. From which Mummy has taken a lovely little pile of gold.’

‘Gold,’ said the little girl, clapping.

‘Indeed. But look at the ship, love. Look at the ship. Can you tell Mummy what those tall things are? Those tall things that reach for the sky?’

‘They ... um ... ha! No.’

‘No, you don’t know, or no, you are being mutinous?’

‘Moot nust!’

‘Not on Mummy’s ship, Cosetta. Look again. Mummy’s told you what they are before, hasn’t she? They reach for the sky, and they carry the sails, and they are the ...’

‘Mast,’ said the girl.

‘Masts. But close enough. And how many are there? How many masts does Mummy’s new little ship have? Count them for Mummy.’

‘Two.’

‘How clever you are! Mummy’s new ship has two masts, yes.’ Zamira leaned close to her daughter’s face, so that they were touching noses, and Cosetta giggled. ‘Now,’ said Zamira, ‘find me something else that comes in two.’

‘Um ...’

‘Here in the cabin, Cosetta. Find Mummy two of something’

‘Um ...’

The girl looked around, sticking most of her left hand into her mouth as she did so, before seizing upon the pair of sabres that rested, in their scabbards, against the wall just beneath the stern window.

‘Sword,’ said Cosetta.

‘That’s right!’ Zamira kissed her on the cheek. ‘Mummy has two swords. At least where you can see them, love. Now, will you be a good girl and go above with Ezri? Mummy needs to speak to this man alone for just a bit. Paolo will go, too.’

Ezri moved across the cabin to take Cosetta into her arms, and the little girl clung to her with obvious pleasure. Paolo followed Ezri like a shadow, keeping the lieutenant between himself and Locke, peeking out from behind her legs when he dared to look at all.

‘You sure you want to be alone back here, Captain?’

‘I’ll be fine, Del. Valora’s the one I’d be worried about.’

‘He’s manacled, with eight hands standing by.’

‘Good enough, I think. And the Red Messenger’s men?’

‘All under the forecastle. Treganne’s giving them the eyeball.’

‘Fine. I’ll be along soon enough. Take Paolo and Cosetta off to Gwillem and let them sit on the quarterdeck. Nowhere near the rails, mind.’

‘Aye.’

‘And tell Gwillem that if he tries to give them unwatered beer again I’ll cut his heart out and piss in the hole.’

‘I’ll quote that in full, Captain.’

‘Off with the lot of you. If you give Ezri and Gwillem any trouble, loves, Mummy will not be pleased.’

Lieutenant Delmastro withdrew from the cabin, taking the two children and closing the door behind her. Locke wondered how to approach this meeting. He knew next to nothing about Drakasha; no weak spots to exploit, no prejudices to twist. Coming clean about the various layers of deception he was working under would probably be a mistake. Best to act fully as Ravelle, for the time being.

Captain Drakasha picked up her sheathed sabres and turned her full regard upon Locke for the first time. He decided to speak first, in a friendly fashion:

‘Your children?’

‘How little escapes the penetrating insight of the veteran intelligence officer.’ She slid one of her sabres out of its scabbard with a soft metallic hiss and gestured toward Locke with it. ‘Sit.’

Locke complied. The only other chair in the cabin was next to the table, so he settled into it and folded his manacled hands in his lap. Zamira eased herself into her own chair, facing him, and set the drawn sabre across her knees.

‘Where I come from,’ she said, ‘we have a custom concerning questions asked over a naked blade.’ She had a distinct, harmonious accent, one that Locke couldn’t place. ‘Are you familiar with it?’

‘No,’ said Locke, ‘but I think the meaning is clear.’

‘Good. Something is wrong with your story.’

‘Nearly everything is wrong with my story, Captain Drakasha. I had a ship and a crew and a pile of money. Now I find myself hugging a sack of potatoes in a bilge hold that smells like the bottom of an unwashed ale-cup.’

‘Don’t hope for a lasting relationship with the potatoes. I just wanted you out of the way while I spoke to some of the Messenger’s crewmen.’

‘Ah. And how is my crew?’

‘We both know they’re not your crew, Ravelle.’

‘How is the crew, then?’

‘Tolerably well, little thanks to you. They lost the nerve for a fight as soon as they saw our numbers. Most of them seemed downright eager to surrender, so we took the Messenger with nothing more than a few bruises and some hurt feelings.’

‘Thank you for that.’

‘We weren’t kind for your sake, Ravelle. In fact, you’re damned fortunate we were even nearby. I like to cruise the wake of the summer’send storms. They tend to spit out juicy morsels in no condition to refuse our hospitality.’

Drakasha reached down into Locke’s chest, shuffled the contents and withdrew a small packet of papers. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘I want to know who Leocanto Kosta and Jerome de Ferra are.’

‘Cover identities,’ said Locke. ‘False faces we used for our work back in Tal Verrar.’

‘In the Archon’s service?’

‘Yes.’

‘Nearly everything in here is signed “Kosta”. Small letters of credit and reference ... work order for some chairs ... receipt for clothing in storage. The only document with the name Ravelle on it is this commission as a Verrari sea officer. Should I be calling you Orrin or Leocanto? Which one’s the false face?’

‘You might as well just call me Ravelle,’ said Locke. ‘I’ve been on the officer’s list under that name for years. It’s how I drew my pay.’

‘Are you Verrari-born?’

‘Mainland. A village called Vo Sarmara.’

‘What did you do before you served the Archon?’

‘I was what you’d call a patient man.’

‘Is that a profession now?’

‘I mean a master of scales and balances, for a merchant syndicate. I was the patient man because I did the weighting, you see?’

‘Droll. A syndicate in Tal Verrar?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you surely worked for the Priori.’

‘That was part of the, ah, original incentive for Stragos’s people to bring me into their fold. After my usefulness as an agent in the syndicate hit a wall, I was given new duties.’

‘Hmm. I spoke at length with Jabril. Long enough to have no trouble believing that your naval commission really is a fake. Do you have any experience under arms?’

‘No formal military training, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Curious,’ said Drakasha, ‘that you had the authority to lay claim to a ship of war, even a small one.’

‘When we move slowly enough to avoid upsetting anyone, captains of intelligence have excessive powers of requisition. Or at least we did. I suspect my remaining peers will be shackled with a bit of unwanted oversight because of what I’ve done.’

‘Tragic. Still ... it’s curious again that when you were at my feet you had to ask my name. I’d have thought that my identity would be obvious to anyone in Stragos’s service. How long were you with him?’

‘Five years.’

‘So you came after the Free Armada was lost. Nonetheless, as a Verrari—’

‘I had a vague description of you,’ said Locke. ‘Little more than your name and the name of your ship. I can assure you, had the Archon ever thought to have your portrait painted for our benefit, no man in his service would stay ignorant of your looks.’

‘Excellent form. But you would do well to consider me dead to flattery.’

‘That’s a pity. I’m so good at it.’

‘A third curious thing occurs to me: you looked genuinely surprised to see my children aboard.’

‘It’s, ah, merely that I found it strange you’d have them with you. Out here at sea. Company to the hazards of ... all this.’

‘Where else might I be expected to keep an eye on them?’ Zamira fingered the hilt of her drawn sabre. ‘Paolo’s four. Cosetta’s three. Is your intelligence really so out of date that you didn’t know about them?’

‘Look, my job was in-city operations against the Priori and other dissenters. I didn’t pay much attention to naval affairs beyond drawing my official salary.’

‘There’s a bounty of five thousand solari on my head. Mine, and every other captain that survived the War for Recognition. I know that accurate descriptions of myself and my family were circulated in Tal Verrar last year - I got my hands on some of the leaflets. Do you expect me to believe that someone in your position could be this ignorant?’

‘I hate to sting your feelings, Captain Drakasha, but I told you: I was a landsman—’

‘Are.’

‘. . . am and was, and my eyes were on the city. I had little enough time to study the basics of survival when I started getting ready to steal the Messenger.’

‘Why do that, though? Why steal a ship and go to sea? Something completely outside your confessed experience? If you had your eyes on the land and the city, why didn’t you do something involving the land or the city?’

Locke licked his lips, which had become uncomfortably dry. He’d pounded a dossier of background information on Orrin Ravelle into his head, but the character had never been designed for an interrogation from this perspective. ‘It might sound odd,’ said Locke, ‘but it was the best I could do. As it turned out, my fake commission as a sea-officer gave me the most leverage to hurt the Archon. Stealing a ship was a grander gesture than stealing, say, a carriage.’

‘And what did Stragos do to earn this grand gesture?’

‘I’ve sworn an oath never to speak of the matter.’

‘Convenient.’

‘Just the opposite,’ said Locke, ‘as I wish I could put you at ease.’

‘At ease? How could anything you’ve told me put me at ease? You lie, and add flourishes to old lies, and refuse to discuss your motives for embarking on an insane venture. If you won’t give me answers, I have to presume that you’re a danger to this vessel, and that I risk offending Maxilan Stragos by taking you in. I can’t afford the consequences. I think it’s time to put you back where I found you.’

‘The hold?’

‘The open sea.’

‘Ah.’ Locke frowned, then bit the inside of his right cheek to contain a laugh. ‘Ah, Captain Drakasha, that was very well done. Amateurish, but creative. Someone without my history might have fallen for it.’

‘Damn.’ Drakasha smiled tightly. ‘I should have drawn the curtains over the stern windows.’

‘Yes. I can see your people swarming over the Messenger as we speak. I presume your prize crew is un-fucking the rigging so she can make more than a toddler’s crawl, right? If you gave one speck of rat shit for offending the Archon, you’d be sinking that ship, not refurbishing it for sale.’

‘True,’ said Drakasha.

‘Which means—’

‘Which means that I’m still asking questions, Ravelle. Tell me about your accomplice, Master Valora. A particular friend?’

‘An old associate. He helped me in Tal Verrar with ... objectionable work.’

‘Just an associate?’

‘I pay him well and trust him with my business, yes.’

‘Curiously educated.’ Zamira pointed up at the cabin ceiling; a narrow skylight had vents slightly cracked to let in air from the quarterdeck. ‘I heard him and Ezri quoting Lucarno to one another a few minutes ago.’

‘The Tragedy of the Ten Honest Turncoats,’ said Locke. ‘Jerome is ... fond of it.’

‘He can read. According to Jabril he’s not a seaman, but he can do complex sums. He speaks Vadran. He uses trader’s terms and knows his way around cargo. So I’d guess that he comes from prosperous merchant stock.’

Locke said nothing.

‘He was with you before you worked for the Archon, wasn’t he?’

‘He was a servant of the Priori, yes.’ Apparently, fitting Jean into Drakasha’s presumptions wouldn’t be as difficult as Locke had feared. ‘I brought him with me when I joined the Archon’s cause.’

‘But not as a friend.’

‘Just a very good agent.’

‘My appropriately amoral spy,’ said Drakasha. She stood up, moved beneath the skylight and raised her voice. ‘On deck, there!’

‘Aye, Captain?’ Ezri’s voice.

‘Del, bring Valora down here.’

A few moments later, the door to the cabin swung open and Jean entered, followed by Lieutenant Delmastro. Captain Drakasha suddenly unsheathed her second sabre. The empty scabbards clattered to the deck and she pointed one blade at Locke.

 

‘The instant you rise from that chair,’ she said, ‘you die.’

‘What’s going—’

‘Quiet. Ezri, I want Valora dealt with.’

‘Your will, Captain.’

Before Jean could do anything, Ezri gave him a sharp kick to the back of his right knee, so fast and well placed that Locke winced. She followed this up with a hard shove, and Jean fell to his hands and knees.

‘I might still have a use for you, Ravelle. But I can’t let you keep your agent.’ Drakasha took a step toward Jean, raising her right-hand sabre.

Locke was out of the chair before he could help himself, throwing himself at her, trying to tangle her arms in his manacle chain.

‘NO!’ he screamed. The cabin spun wildly around him, and then he was on the floor with a dull ache coursing through his jaw. His mind, working a second or two behind the pace of events, gradually concluded that Drakasha had bashed his chin with the hilt of one of her sabres. He was now on his back, with that sabre hovering just above his neck. Drakasha looked ten feet tall.

‘Please,’ Locke sputtered. ‘Not Jerome. It’s not necessary.’

‘I know,’ said Drakasha. ‘Ezri?’

‘Looks like I owe you ten solari, Captain.’

‘You should’ve known better,’ said Drakasha, grinning. ‘You heard what Jabril had to say about these two.’

‘I did, I did.’ Ezri knelt over Jean, a look of genuine concern on her face. ‘I just didn’t think Ravelle had it in him.’

‘This sort of thing rarely goes just one way.’

‘Should’ve known that, too.’

Locke raised his hands and pushed Drakasha’s blade aside. She yielded. He rolled over, stumbled to his knees and grabbed Jean by one arm, ignoring his throbbing jaw. He knew it wasn’t broken, at least.

‘Are you okay, Jerome?’

‘Fine,’ said Jean. ‘Scraped my hands a bit.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Ezri said.

‘No worries,’ said Jean. ‘That was a good hit. Not much else you could have done to knock down someone my size.’ He stumbled to his feet with Locke and Ezri’s help. ‘A kidney punch, maybe.’

Ezri showed off the set of iron knuckles around the fingers of her right hand. ‘That was the contingency plan.’

‘Damn, am I glad you didn’t do that. But you could’ve ... I might have fallen backwards if you hadn’t shoved fast enough. Hooking one foot around my shin from behind—’

‘Thought about it. Or a good stiff jab to the sensitive spot in your armpit—’

‘And an arm twist, yeah. That would’ve—’

‘But I don’t trust that against someone so big; the leverage is wrong unless—’

Drakasha cleared her throat loudly, and Jean and Ezri fell silent, almost sheepishly.

‘You lied to me about Jerome, Ravelle.’ She retrieved her sword-belt and slid her sabres into their scabbards with a pair of sharp clacks. ‘He’s no hired agent. He’s a friend. The sort who’d refuse to let you get thrown off a ship by yourself. The sort you’d try to protect, even though I told you it would mean your death.’

‘Clever,’ said Locke, feeling a faint warmth rising on his cheeks. ‘So that’s what this was all about.’

‘More or less. I needed to know what sort of man you were before I decided what to do with you.’

‘And what have you decided?’

‘You’re reckless, vain and too clever by half,’ she said. ‘You suffer from the delusion that your prevarications are charming. And you’re just as willing as Jerome is to die stupidly on behalf of a friend.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘well ... perhaps I’ve grown fond of the ugly lump over the years. Does that mean we’re going back to the hold, or to the open sea?’

‘Neither,’ said Drakasha. ‘You’re going to the forecastle, where you’ll eat and sleep with all the other crewmen from the Red Messenger. I’ll peel your other lies apart at leisure. For the time being, I’m satisfied that if you’ve got Jerome to look after, you’ll be sensible.’

‘And so we’re what? Slaves?’

‘No one aboard this ship takes slaves,’ said Drakasha with a dangerous edge in her voice. ‘We do execute our fair share of smart-arses, however. ’

‘I thought I was a charming prevaricator.’

‘Grasp this,’ said Drakasha. ‘Your whole world consists of the few inches of empty deck I allow you, and you’re gods-damned lucky to have them. Ezri and I will explain the situation to all of you at the forecastle.’

‘And our things? The papers, I mean? The personal documents? Keep the gold, but—’

‘Keep it? You really mean that? What a sweetheart this man is, Ezri.’ Drakasha used her right boot to tip the cover of Locke’s sea-chest closed. ‘Let’s call your papers a hostage to your good behaviour. I have a shortage of blank parchment and two children who’ve recently discovered the joys of ink.’

‘Point thoroughly taken.’

‘Ezri, haul them up on deck and remove their manacles. Let’s get back to acting as though we have somewhere important to be.’