Blaggard's Moon (47 page)

Lye started to turn around to look, then caught Damrick's scowl. “You mean them cutthroats been watching us this whole time?”

“Relax. They don't know us from the Crown Prince and his brother.” Now Damrick's eyes drifted back to Jenta. She approached the slouching man. The two spoke briefly, and the man cut his eyes to Damrick. Damrick did not look away, and the man glanced back down to his dinner. Jenta left him, and worked her way back to the bar. The slouching man made no further moves.

“Finish your ale,” Damrick said to Lye. “I've got some business to take care of. But be ready.”

“What business…Wait, be ready for what?”

Damrick stood.

“Ye cain't!” Lye whispered.

But Damrick took his mug with him and walked to the bar. He nodded at the man he'd just identified as Conch's spy, then settled in four places away, putting his mug on the polished mahogany.

Lye Mogene stood, grim-faced, and took Damrick's place on the far side of the table. From this seat in the corner, he could see the whole pub. He put a foot up on the chair across from him. Under the white linen
tablecloth he pulled his pistol and rested it in his lap. He took a long drink, thinking about the meat pie he hadn't ordered, wishing he'd ordered it.

Damrick faced toward the bar, his eyes never leaving Jenta as she pulled on the spigot of a barrel of ale, pulling mug after mug. Eventually she set the tray on the bar for the other barmaids, and came to wait on him.

“How did you hurt your hand?” she asked, sliding a leather coaster under his mug of ale.

He looked down at the stitched gash, Talon's handiwork. “Oh, the usual. Pirates.”

“They'll do that, I hear. Did you decide you wanted the meat-and-potato pie after all?”

“No. But there is something I want.”

Her eyes caught his fire. She looked away, toward Conch's spy. She shook her head just slightly, signaling that this customer wasn't any trouble—no need to intervene.

“I've come to find you, Jenta. As I promised.”

“So you've found me.” Her look was distant, waiting. “This is what you've found.”

“I asked you about Wentworth,” Damrick said softly. “But I don't believe you've answered me yet.”

“I did, though. I told you that my business is my business, and none of yours.”

He saw no way in. “Jenta. There must be some of your business that could yet be some of mine.”

Now she laughed. “I run a public house.” She put one hand on a hip. “You want some of this business? If so, I've got dishes you can wash.”

Damrick glanced at the big spy, who was eyeing him carefully. “I have no fear of dishes.” He looked back at Jenta. “Seems to me you could use some help.” He said it urgently.

“Really? Do I appear helpless to you?”

“How do you move that ale from your storeroom to the bar?” He gestured at the rows of oaken barrels behind her. “I'm guessing the Conch doesn't haul it for you.”

She took the towel from her shoulder and began wiping the top of the bar in front of him. After a moment she said, “You think I can't get a man to roll a barrel for me?”

“I think you could get a man to do pretty well what you please.”

“Any man?”

“Not just any man.”

She watched his eyes, said nothing.

He watched hers. “You know who I am, Jenta.” His voice was barely a whisper, but his eyes flamed.

“Yes,” she said in rhythm, too low to be overheard. “You guard the gates of hell. Protecting men from pirates.” He did not miss the slight emphasis she placed on the word
men
.

“I can protect anyone from pirates.”

“Can you?”

“Yes. Even from Conch Imbry.”

Her look grew distant. “If you're paid to.”

“If I've a mind to.”

She stopped wiping, straightened up. “What is it you want from me? Tell me. I'll answer, and you can go your way.”

Now his eyes were hard as diamonds. “I want to know where your heart lies.”

She shook her head. “That's just it. My heart lies. I don't trust it, and neither should you.”

“But I will trust it. If you will let me.”

Her lower lip trembled once. She set her jaw. “You don't know me.”

“I know you have many secrets. I don't know them all. But I know some.”

“Do you?”

“I know the cellar where you grew up.” She said nothing. “I know the bargain you made with Runsford Ryland. I know about Wentworth. I know about Conch.”

She shrugged. “You still don't know me.”

“I know you've been waiting for an answer from the Church of Nearing Vast.”

Now her face dropped. “You'd better go.”

The man four stools down saw Jenta's eyes flash, heard her tone change. He stood.

Across the pub Lye Mogene grew alarmed, and also stood.

“I know what the Church's answer is,” Damrick told her.

“Problem here, ma'am?” Conch's man was much bigger than Damrick, several years older, with blunted features pocked and lined with the scars of multiple fights.

“This one is getting a bit personal. Perhaps you could see him out.”

“Looks like you got a habit a' gettin' in trouble,” he said, noting
Damrick's wounded hand. “Let's not have any of it in here, son, and they won't be stitchin' you anywheres else.” The big man's demeanor was surprisingly gentle as he raised his left hand to clamp it down on Damrick's shoulder.

Damrick caught the big hand at the wrist and spun its owner around, pinning him against the bar so that his arm was bent up behind him like a turkey trussed for cooking. Pressing up with one hand, Damrick drew the man's pistol and pushed the barrel of it against the back of his skull.

Across the room, Conch's slouching spy now stood and drew, wiping his mouth as he rushed the bar. But Lye Mogene was already standing in the center of the room. He put his foot out, and the slouching man went sprawling between the tables, his pistol clattering away. As his head came up, Lye's pistol butt came down. The pirate's spy lay still, fully slouched now, and Lye picked up the weapon.

“Nobody move!” he shouted, now brandishing two pistols. When no one did, he said, “I don't wanna hurt nobody, but I will, if ye make one move I don't like!”

Damrick didn't bother to look behind him. He whispered into the big spy's ear. “Tell your boss that Damrick Fellows is back in town. Tell him the gates of hell are open for business.”

“Are you him?” the man asked. “Are you Fellows?”

“Are you going to give Conch that message, or not?”

“No, I ain't.”

Damrick pulled back the hammer.

“Shoot me if ye want, mister, but I ain't sayin' nothin' about no gates a' hell. Not to the Conch.”

Damrick sighed. Then he raised the pistol and cold-cocked the pirate with it, hitting him hard at the base of the neck. The man shuddered, but stood. Damrick scowled, then took another swipe at him with the pistol butt, this time across the back of the head. The man wobbled, teetered, and fell.

“That man's got a thick skull,” Lye noted.

Damrick turned to Jenta. She was far away, detached. “Come with me now,” he said urgently. He put out his hand.

She looked at it, but shook her head. Her eyes were cold.

Damrick felt like he'd had the wind kicked out of him. “Why not?”

She spoke slowly, to make sure he understood her. “Because I belong to Conch Imbry.”

Lye blew out his cheeks. “Reckon she's got a thick skull, too, Dam—”
he caught himself halfway through the name, and looked around him. “—it all,” he concluded loudly. “Come on, let's get, afore some real trouble comes along.”

Damrick refused to move. He kept the spy's pistol in one hand, pulled the sealed envelope from his pocket with the other. He laid it in front of Jenta. She stared at it.

“Sit back down!” Lye barked at a gentleman who was making a move for the door. The man sat. But others were at the window, outside looking in. He couldn't stop them from leaving, from going to report all this to Conch Imbry. “Let's get!” he barked, though it came out more like begging.

“Go ahead, open it,” Damrick directed Jenta.

“It's not addressed to me.”

“But it's about you.”

She opened it, and read. When she looked back up, she was far away. She tossed the paper back onto the bar.

“Wentworth is alive,” Damrick said. “Isn't he?” She did not respond, and he knew it was true.

“Now I will marry Conch Imbry.”

“But why?”

“Because I choose to.” Her demeanor grew urgent. “Now. Will—you—leave me—alone?”

The muscles of his jaw tightened. “No.”

“Oh, boy,” Lye said with a heave of his chest.

She stared at Damrick, then turned and walked away, toward the private room. When she came out from behind the curtain she had a pistol in her hand. She saw Damrick, shook her head as if to say,
You're still here
? Then she raised the pistol, and aimed it at him.

Damrick shook his head. His mind turned. She was a pirate, then. She had a gun. So did he. The oaths he'd made others take, his calling, his mission, justice, the law, even his instincts…all led him to one single conclusion. She should die.

Jenta clicked back the pistol's hammer. Her eyes were empty and dark.

How does one develop a fist of iron,
Winall Frost had asked,
without developing a heart to match?
Damrick heard the words in his head.

He made his choice. Without taking his eyes off her, he set his pistol on the bar.

“I'm not leaving you to him,” he told her. And this time his low voice
was sharp enough to split an oak. “And I'm not leaving here without you.” His next words were spoken with the same intensity, but a softer edge: “Jenta, I want to marry you.”

The immediate result was a sharp, collective inward breath, a room full of gasps followed by a long stretch of no breathing at all.

The pirates in the forecastle reacted the same way, and then were quiet for a long time. Finally, Sleeve broke the silence. “Well I'll just say this and then shut up. If I went out searchin' the world over fer the very best way to make smack solid sure I wouldn't never live a life that was long and happy…why, I believe I'd stop right there on that one.”

He found no disagreement.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

SUCCESS

“H
E
'
S SHOT DEAD
,” Motley insisted glumly. “I saw it with my eyes.” He was covered in mud and dried blood. His long hair was matted with burrs and his clothes reeked of swamp muck. The dappled marks on his face were hidden under mud and blood and welts from thorns and briars. He sat on the deck of the
Shalamon
, and Mart Mazeley knelt on one knee beside him.

“Did you kill Runsford Ryland?” Conch's unimpressive card dealer asked calmly.

“No! No sir. I shot the Gateman! I told you that. It was the Gateman shot Ryland.”

“Why would they shoot him if they believed he was on their side?”

“It happened real fast. Ryland was checkin' on one of 'em, a man with a popped-out eye. Mr. Ryland thought he was dead, but he wasn't.”

“The Gatemen shot Ryland, but they let you escape.”

“No one let me! I told ye, I'm the one shot the Gateman.” Motley was glum. He could tell that this was not going well, but he couldn't tell why.

“How many did you shoot?”

“Just the one.”

“And where were the rest of the crew?” Mazeley asked.

“On the raid.”

“They left you with one guard, whom you managed to shoot, while he shot one of his own. Did the Gatemen strike you as inept?”

He looked confused. “They didn't strike me at all.”

Mazeley blinked. “Did they come across as incompetent?”

“Incom…”

“I'll ask a different question. Why did you and Ryland run from the fight in Oster?”

“We didn't run. Me and Mr. Ryland got captured while still fightin', and was lucky to live.”

“Captured while fighting. Yet the Gatemen were overrun and killed.”

“Naw, not in Oster. They beat us real bad. Kilt everyone but me and Ryland.”

Mazeley just blinked again. Then, “Did you see Scatter Wilkins there?”

“Oh, yeah. He brought the
Lantern Liege
into the harbor to block the way. Fired with his cannon.”