Blaggard's Moon (9 page)

Shayla watched her daughter. “It's not what we are, it's what we can become. Not so many questions will be asked down there, about family trees and histories. It is possible to start over.”

None of this impressed Jenta. “And what is the name of this great city of hope?”

Shayla could find no way to couch the news. “We're going to Skaelington,” she said at last. “Skaelington City.”

“Skaelington!” Jenta exclaimed. “But mother, Skaelington is—”

“Yes, yes, I know, it does have…a bit of a reputation.”

“A bit? There's not a savagery known to man that doesn't happen in Skaelington!”

The pirates crowed their agreement.

Delaney took a deep breath, remembering the moment. A pair of dragonflies buzzed the surface of the pond, zigzagging in and around one another, like an angry dance. It was a funny thing, how Ham Drumbone could keep a shipload of pirates in a silent trance with a tale of two ladies in a fancy carriage. But he could do it. One reason was that pirates weren't that different than merchant sailors, at bottom, most of them having been exactly that at some point in the past. A fish jumped at the pair of bugs, huge teeth snapping, clicking loudly. It missed its snack by a hairsbreadth and plopped quietly back into the water.

Another reason, Delaney figured, was that everyone knew Ham would be getting to a fight sooner or later. Most often sooner.

“And how will Skaelington be better than Mann?” Jenta asked, incredulous.

“The city has much to its shame, of course. But there is a cornerstone
of Vast society there as well. We will be able to start anew, as Shayla and Jenta Stillmithers, from a good family in Nearing Vast.”

“Stillmithers?” She was shocked. “You've changed our name?”

“ ‘Flug' is not exactly poetry.”

“But
Stillmithers
? Did you make it up?” She felt something escaping her, something she wanted at all costs to hold onto.

“It's a gentleman's name.” Shayla went quiet. Then she said softly, “Now it's your name. It's our name. I will hear no more about it.”

Jenta understood her mother, and knew there would be no changing her mind. This was the life for which she had been groomed. But to leave everything, every familiar thing, even her name, invited by a stranger into a wild world far away, all in the hopes of some great and permanent improvement in their station? It seemed beyond absurd.

She watched the city streets roll by, wondering if this was the last time she'd see them. Citizens were buying and selling and chatting in the warmth of an early summer day. All of them doing what they knew, being precisely who they were, pretending nothing. It was gentle; it was easy; it was what she wanted. She couldn't imagine desiring anything more.

The docks rolled into view soon enough, and the increased bustle of the shipping trade only deepened her melancholy. The carriage rolled to a stop. “I don't want to leave,” she said.

“Of course not. You can't see how it will benefit you. But you will see, in time.”

A coachman opened the door; not the driver, but another servant sent to greet them. The carriage had been driven directly onto the pier, and had stopped at the foot of the gangway. Neither woman moved.

Jenta wiped at an eye. “Mama,” she said in barely a whisper, “maybe I don't belong at fancy balls.” There, she'd finally said the words.

“I thought you adored that cotillion you attended.”

Jenta blanched. Her mother had not mentioned it in years, ever since forbidding Jenta to mention it again. “I did.” And now it came back, as though summoned…the young man with the dark eyes watching, the cup of punch cold in her hand, the sense of serenity and possibility as she spoke to him on the porch. “But Mother, why isn't such society enough? I don't ask for more. I can serve. I can work. You do it, and you're the best woman I know. If I can do that and stay here…who cares what people think?”

Shayla stared hard at her daughter, trying to will some sense in her. For just a moment, she sincerely wished she had been one of those brutal
mothers who convinced their children at all costs to flee from their parent's example. Almost anything seemed better than having Jenta aspire to be like her. Then Shayla sighed. She moved across the carriage to sit next to her daughter, moved a wisp of hair off the girl's forehead, then put an arm around her, pulled Jenta's head softly to her own shoulder. “Don't fear this. If life in Skaelington isn't all it should be, if within a year there is no promise of a future even there, then perhaps we shall return.”

Jenta raised a sad face toward her mother. “But you didn't take Mr. Frost's money, did you?”

“Ladies?” the coachman asked. He put his hand into the carriage.

Jenta descended with easy grace. One servant walked alongside her up the gangway, while another took her mother's arm. Halfway up, the heartbreak within her became unbearable and she turned to take in one last view of the city she was leaving behind, perhaps forever. But she didn't see the city. For just across the dock, not thirty yards away, was another ship, a naval vessel.

She saw Damrick Fellows.

She had just seen him again, so clearly in her mind, as she had spoken of the cotillion. Now suddenly he was here, returned, arriving as she departed, descending his gangway as she ascended hers. And he saw her. His eyes were penetrating, severe, focused. He was little more than a stranger, and yet he did not seem to be. He seemed like someone she knew well. And he seemed to see through her, to the heart of her pain. He offered her something with that look. A different way out, perhaps. A society in which she'd be welcomed without seeking anyone's permission.

After a moment in which time seemed suspended, her face flushed, and Shayla was at her elbow, pulling her away. Jenta turned and ascended to the deck.

And from across the dock at that moment, Damrick watched that beautiful, forlorn young woman as she walked up the gangway. She had turned to look at him, but then she looked farther, he felt, searching through him for something else, something that he wasn't. And then she turned away.

But everything came back. Her dress had been gray satin with little white beads, gray ribbons. She smelled of honeysuckle. She was present, poised.
Poised
, that was the word, as though she stood at the edge of a precipice in perfect balance. Her laugh, her voice, her eyes as she glanced at him sideways, accusing him of watching her. He remembered everything about her; everything but the sadness. That was new. He wanted to
go to her. He wanted to protect her from whatever had hurt her, whatever threatened her.

But she had remembered herself, had lowered her eyes and turned away from him.

And why wouldn't she? A fine lady like that, facing a bold look from a scruffy marine across a dock. It took her a moment to assess, to gain her bearings, is all. She probably didn't even recognize him. Worse, perhaps she did. The woman with her, her mother, was there to remind her of her station, should she forget it for an instant.

“Pretty girl,” Lye Mogene said.

Damrick's anger flared, but he saw nothing more than a man making an idle comment to pass the time.

“What? You know her?” Lye's round face was serene and without concern—an unusual condition for him. But they had just been mustered out of the Navy, and were in no particular hurry to do anything at all.

“I met her once.” Something went hollow within him as he realized the folly of his hope.

“Rich man's daughter. Don't be messin' there 'less ye want to get throwed in jail, or dead.”

“Hmm.” It was a grunt of agreement. But it didn't remove the hollowness.

The pair walked down to the dock and sat on their duffels. Damrick rolled up his trouser leg to look at the wound in his left calf muscle from that morning's battle. He hadn't even known he'd taken it until Lye noted the blood. The surgeon had removed the shrapnel; what was there now was hardly a scratch. Wouldn't leave much of a scar, if any. He rolled the pant leg back down.

“Mine's better,” Lye said, showing Damrick the stitched gash in his forearm. “Least I'll have somethin' to remember the Navy by.”

Damrick's eyes wandered from his friend's wound to the ship's deck across the way, but the young woman was long gone. She'd be in some fine cabin by now, served by six or eight waiters or stewards or whatever they may be called. He ran a hand through his hair. What he felt now was more like anger.

It wasn't just the girl, either. The fight had worked on him, like shrapnel still lodged in a muscle. He'd lost more than one friend in the skirmish; and even though he'd made others pay the debt, the idea of letting those pirates go…he had no knife that could cut that event out from under his skin.

The captain had explained it, of course. And Damrick understood. They couldn't overpower a peaceful vessel, couldn't stop a captain doing what he was licensed to do, even if that captain went by the name of Sharkbit Sutter. So the
Defender
had turned and headed for port. Voyage over. And now Damrick's tour of duty was done.

“We goin' to see your papa?” Lye asked.

Damrick grunted. His father's dry-goods business beckoned. The store was a thirty-minute walk from here. He'd promised Lye there'd be work there for him, at least for a while, until his friend could find more permanent employment. But Damrick couldn't bring himself to set out on that short journey. Not just yet. “Let's eat,” he suggested instead.

With Lye Mogene at his elbow and dark thoughts on his mind, he took his dinner at a small table in one of the quieter pubs near the docks of the City of Mann. As they ate in silence, they overheard two sailors standing at a long, smoke- and ale-stained bar.

“Sharkbit, ye see, he's luckier than the rest of 'em,” one of them was saying. “Give me luck over brains. Luck over pluck. He'll live longer than Skeel Barris, or Dancer Clang, or Conch Imbry, or any of 'em. You can write these words down.”

“Luck, pluck, brains,” said his partner dismissively. “Give me fight any day. Give me Scatter Wilkins. There's no man alive who fights, or gets his men to fight, like Scatter. I'll take Scat Wilkins on any sunny day, and twice on a stormy night.”

“Nah. What would Scat a' done today against the
Defender
? Fought 'til he was bloody, and got most all his men kilt.”

“And then gone and got some more and gone back 'til he won the day. He wouldn't never give up. He'd a' never parleyed, neither. And he's got some Drammune sailing with him now, what I hear, makes him even dangerouser. Them Drammune…they fight like a cannon full a' grapeshot fired down a hallway.”

“They do, I'll grant it. But it don't matter. Scat can bring the whole Drammune Glorified Army, or whatever they call it. But it takes luck to do what Sharkbit did. Taken prize by a Vast man-o'-war, outnumbered, outgunned, and still he sails off with a whole crew alive, and tip o' the hat and how-do-ye-do to the king and his whole flag-wavin' Navy! Scat couldn't a' done it.”

“His whole crew wasn't left alive,” Lye seethed. “We killed a third of 'em anyway, or he'd never parleyed.”

“Shh,” Damrick answered, listening close.

“See, the Navy thought they had 'im,” the first man continued, “but no. It was Sharkbit had
them.
He's wanted for piracy, don't ye know? Got at least four warrants and a price the size of the king's palace on his head. But somehow, he convinces a full naval captain that a piece a' paper signed by some shipping boss means he should go free. He's got a spell on 'im, I'm tellin' ye. Or a curse. Call it luck. Call it being looked out for from above. Or from down below.”

“Ah, you're dreamin'. It wasn't God or the devil, but somethin' a little more down to earth…” he rattled some coins in his pocket, “…somethin' with a little glint to it.”

The first man laughed. He raised his mug, “Enough gold, and you can buy a chest a' luck!”

“Here's to that kinda luck…and may our pockets ever be full of it!” And they drank.

Lye Mogene watched the change come over Damrick. His whole body tensed. His dark eyes grew black as he stared off into nothing, as though seeing a world he had never seen before.

“What? What are you thinkin'?”

But Damrick Fellows could not speak. He had just assumed that there were no warrants. Sharkbit was new to piracy; it was easy enough to believe. But if there were warrants, their captain would have known about them. Damrick stood and walked to the bar, his hand on his sword hilt.

Lye swore under his breath, rose, and followed.

“What do you know about those warrants?” Damrick demanded of the first man.

Both sailors stood tall and raised their chins to what felt like a direct challenge. “What warrants?” one asked.

“For Sharkbit Sutter.”

“Who wants to know?”

“We're marines from the
Defender,
” Damrick said with a seething ease, “and we killed a couple score of pirates today, and should have killed them all. And if you know all about it, and you weren't one of us, I'm thinking you were one of them.”