A Riddle in Ruby (24 page)

Chaos is the Tinker's undoing.

—Oswald Portwallow
, A Young Boy's Tinkercraft Primer

A
trio of viola, gravichord, and cello played a jaunty tune.

Ruby could see the center of a long dining table, covered with fine china and crystal. The rest of the room was hidden, blocked by the doorframe. The far wall was peppered with a series of windows and alloyed glass doors, which let in the brilliant light of a bluebird winter sky. The seats Ruby could see were empty save one, whose
occupant was finishing off the last bites of an appetizer, what appeared to be a very succulent plate of pigeon wings.

A wing fell from the hands of Wayland Teach and landed on his plate with a soft clink. He was thinner and unarmed, and only had eyes for Ruby. When he did not leap over the table and rush to her and instead picked the pigeon wing back up and chewed at the last bits of flesh with the faintest of shakes of his head, she knew that he was not dining alone.

Athena and Cram were watching her, waiting for her play. So was Henry, his head stuck out from under the cart. Every last shred of her wanted to scamper into the room and throw her arms around her father, but Gwath Maxim Ten demanded another course: “You Must Never Lower the Mask.” Instead, she picked up a platter of pickled quail eggs and rounded the corner.

The table filled the room with only a narrow passage between the empty chairs and the walls. At its foot was the trio of musicians, an old man and two women. At its head sat a captain of the Royal Navy, clad from
head to toe in a midnight blue uniform, a scabbarded dueling sword in the chair next to him, red mutton chops marching down his jaw. A red iron gearbeast crouched at his feet, mad eyes staring. Two burly men, blond on the left, bald on the right, in stewards' whites, stood at attention behind him, cudgels hanging from their belts. She fixed her eyes straight ahead in what she hoped was a proper middy's deference.

“Where's Cotton?” the captain asked.

She kept her eyes on a merman carved into the wood paneling. He was floating in a flask upheld by the lion of England. “Sir?”

“Where is Steward Cotton, Mister . . .”

“Thatch, sir. Come down with a case of the rickets, sir. We had to make do.” Were the eggs slipping? She could not feel her hands.

“Very well, carry on.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Captain MacDevitt, how goes the search for my girl?” her father asked.

The officer made an uncomfortable sound. “You
know I can't tell you, Teach. I will say she is a wily one. You could help us, you know. She would have my protection.”

“Big Bill has repeatedly and impolitely asked for my cooperation. My response will be the same.”

“Alas.”

Another doorway led out into an ornate smoking lounge. A possible escape route? The table felt ten miles long, but she finally arrived next to the captain. She presented her wares. He took two.

“Thank you, Thatch. Our guest as well, please.”

“Sir.” The gearbeast was snuffling, and it let out a low, metallic whine as she passed behind the captain to the other side. The space between the doors and the table was equally narrow. There was a balcony beyond. She risked a glance up, and the light shone through the glass doors onto Wayland Teach. He seemed more interested in the eggs than in her.

“These are excellent, Teach! Eggs of the gods!” the captain exclaimed behind her. “Your first time at table, Thatch?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You're doing well.”

“Thank you, sir.” She could have touched her father if she wanted. He looked tired. There were bruises on his face. He leaned forward to choose two eggs with care from the platter, revealing to Ruby that his legs were clad in thick irons. Eggs served, she didn't know what else to do, so she stood at attention behind her father, staring straight ahead. Into the lift, where Athena and Cram were stationed, slack jawed, behind the food cart.

“Thatch,” the captain drawled.

She snapped to, chest tight. “Yes, sir?”

“Did Cookie have anything for us besides pickled eggs?”

“Yes, sir,” Ruby said. Athena, eyes wide, began whispering to Cram, who began shaking his head as if to throw it from his neck.

“Well?”

Then the cart began to move forward. By itself.

Athena somehow fell into stride behind it and rounded the corner, as if she had been pushing it all along.
She elbowed her sword hilt around into the small of her back. Henry Collins's head popped up above the line of the table. He had rolled out of the cart before it left the lift. Cram was still staring, shaking, churn clutched in a death grip across his chest.

The captain clapped his hands. “Aha! The feast appears. Mister?”

“Bayle, Captain.”

“Mister Bayle. A round of everything, please. Don't spare the pie.”

“Yes, sir.” The cart snagged on the thick Turkish rug.

“Your first time at table as well?”

“Yes, sir.” Athena wiggled the cart, but it would not unstick.

“Teach, I sometimes envy you the size of your
Thrift
,” the captain said.

“Do you, Captain?”

“Indeed.
Grail
is a majestic queen, but she is enormous. And that means I sometimes cannot offer my young officers my personal supervision or even acquaintance. Bayle?”

“Yes, sir?”

“How long have you been with us?”

“Since early summer, sir.”

MacDevitt nodded. “You came on at Portsmouth?”

Athena blinked. “Yes, sir.”

“Then surely you have been 'round the mast long enough to tell me why is there no covering on this cart?”

“Sir, we, Cotton—”

“Moreover, no one comes on my deck with boots in such a state. Mister Bayle, you are relieved.”

“Sir—”

MacDevitt gave a grim smile. “None of that. Shine those togs, and we'll have you back up here in no time. It's not as if this is your only chance. Gregor, call down to Big Bill. He can finish the service.”

The blond one reached behind him for a speaking tube.

They were done. He would call down for Big Bill, whoever Big Bill was, and Midshipman “Bayle” would not know his way out the door, or they would discover Henry and Cram in the lift, or Steward Cotton down below, or
even that sergeant in the brig, and then in no time at all they would all be fitted for leg irons she imagined were very similar to her father's. All the running, the hiding, the struggle, all burned up in a moment.

Except Athena Boyle had drawn her sword.

Except Athena Boyle had leaped onto the table and was sprinting full tilt down its length, extending her blade in a perfect lunge over the captain's shoulder, and pinning blond Gregor's meaty hand to the intricately carved paneling, just shy of the speaking tube.

Gregor howled. Athena's blade flicked down to hamstring him for good measure, but then she pulled back lightning quick to parry a series of swift strikes from the captain's blade. Gregor reached for her but tripped and knocked his head hard on the table.

Ruby ducked down next to the chair and slipped the locks on her father's irons. He leaped up, brandishing the chain, and caught the bald steward's club just in time to stop it from slamming into Ruby's skull. The steward lashed out with his other elbow and caught Teach a wicked blow across the face. He kicked out at
Ruby, and she threw herself down.

The red iron gearbeast was there, its claws tearing up strips of rug. She pushed herself backward on her elbows, but the beast was gaining, and then a shape smashed into it. The snapping, cursing mass rolled over and over until Cram flew out of it, slamming onto his back. The thing lay atop him on its back, his churn wedged between its jaws. It writhed like a snake, trying to twist and get its claws into him.

The venison platter lay on the floor in the ruin of the feast. She grabbed it and hurled herself, platter first, onto the flailing mass, trying to block the claws. The beast scrabbled its legs as if it were swimming, and the silver shredded like paper. Blood blossomed on her jacket.

The musicians were falling over one another on their way to a door at the foot of the table, and Ruby would have been pleased to sally off with them but instead barely dodged another deadly claw and somersaulted back from under the table.

She banged into the balcony door just in time as a blade whistled in front of her eyes. Both Athena and the
captain were on the table now, spinning a web of steel. The captain was stronger, but Athena was faster. He rained down an overhand slash at her, and she barely managed a wincing parry, but before he could capitalize, she dealt out a stop thrust. She was on him in an instant, face unreadable, dealing cuts and thrusts that drove him back down the table, both of them mincing and dancing between the china plates and candelabra.

Henry Collins had somehow pushed his cart over so he could guard the other steward, knocked senseless by the table.

Her father had gotten behind the bald one and had the chain across his chest. The man had his hands up underneath the links, and Wayland Teach's thick arms quivered as the shackles inched away from the steward's throat.

The
Grail'
s
captain parried a slash wide and then roared and drove his shoulder into Athena's chest. She stumbled back across the table, struggling to keep her balance, free hand stretched out behind her. Muttonchops quivering, her opponent drove on, extending into his
own lunge, straight at Athena's heart. But she contorted underneath the thrust, and her hand shot up, flourishing a loop of white. It was a napkin, and the captain's blade shot through the hole in the center. Quick as a mongoose, the napkin snapped, she twisted her wrist
just so
, and the sword flew out of the captain's hands, jangling hilt first into the gravichord.

Athena placed her point on the captain's chest.

“I do miss my cloak,” she said, to no one in particular.

Silence followed, with only the snapping and grunting between the gearbeast and Cram punctuating the quiet.

“Orthros, heel,” the captain said, and the thing instantly stopped struggling. Cram did not let go.

Ruby turned to her father. “You were dining with the enemy?”

His face split into a grin. “You'd rather I starve? He's an honorable man and keeps a fine table.”

Ruby wanted to run to him and bury herself in his arms, but considering the chain he still had wrapped around the dangerous burly man, she made do with a peck on his cheek.

“You came for me,” he whispered, and all she could do was nod.

Athena dabbed the sweat from her forehead with the napkin in her free hand. “Your orders, milady?”

It took Ruby a moment to realize Athena was speaking to her.

“Is dessert out of the question?” said a familiar voice.

It was Wisdom Rool, striding in from the door to the smoking lounge.

As if by instinct, Ruby and her band disengaged, backing through the glass door onto the balcony's far corner, while the dining room flooded with sailors, marines, and reeves. There must have been twenty of them, and Captain MacDevitt ordered them to all corners of the room. The fall from the balcony to the deck below was at least as high as the crow's nest on the
Thrift
. They were trapped. All the while Rool stood just inside the doorway, taking a long pull from a cobalt tankard and staring right at her until everyone was still. He handed the mug to a marine as he passed and poked his head out the balcony door.

“Permission to come aboard?” He was waving a lacy white napkin, a tiny parley flag in his great fist.

All the rest, even her father, were looking at her. She nodded.

“Thank you.” Rool dabbed at the flecks of foam on his mouth. “I have been turning Philadelphi upside down searching for you, you know.” He rolled his shoulders.

“Stay back.” Athena pointed her blade at him. “You shall find me more prepared than when last we met, sir.”

Rool's eyebrows crawled up his forehead, “Of that I have no doubt. Sir.” And he sketched the faintest of bows. “However, I must tell you that your outlook is bleak. The lift is now locked, the door only leads to a legion of foes, and that assumes you pass through me and my companions, which I think unlikely at best. Surely a student of the masters can recognize a hopeless position. You have no choice here. Put down your weapons and live, or hold on to them and die.”

The words cut into Ruby. “A moment? To come to an agreement?”

“Of course.” He smiled. “You have made a brave
showing here, and I am not so dishonorable that I would not allow you your good-byes.” He backed across the threshold into the dining room.

They were a pitiful huddle. Athena bled from several nicks on her arms and legs. Ruby's father's nose was a broken mess, and he wouldn't stop blinking. Cram pressed a second napkin to his thigh, over an already crimson one. Henry sat against Cram's churn. It might have been the only thing holding him up.