Steel (10 page)

Stress, adrenaline, distraction. Even now, looking at the split skin, it didn’t really hurt. But she suddenly wanted to faint as her stomach flipped over.

Henry pulled her arm back and started ripping off the sleeve.

“I don’t know how that happened, I don’t remember,” she murmured.

He took the piece of sleeve, wrapped it around the wound, and jerked it tight. She winced and bit back a shriek.

A scream from belowdecks echoed what she was feeling. It sounded like torture, and it didn’t stop.

“What’s that?” Jill said, suddenly upright and aware.

Henry’s mouth puckered, like he’d eaten something sour, and he wouldn’t look at her. “I’d guess the surgeon’s taking someone’s arm or leg off.”

“What?”

“Like as not someone broke an arm too badly to be set. Better to have it off,” Henry said, speaking casually, as if it didn’t matter, and staring at the open hatch.

Saul, whom she’d helped belowdecks—no, it couldn’t be him. He wasn’t hurt so badly. Was he? “But it was just broken, a broken arm can be fixed. It just needs to be set and bandaged.”

“It can’t be fixed,” he argued. “You try to tie it up, it’ll swell and get rotten. Then it’ll kill him. Better this way.”

Jill was standing now, a hand on her own bandaged arm, staring at the hatch, imagining the scene that was happening below. Maybe Henry was wrong, maybe the surgeon wasn’t really amputating Saul’s arm. Why would he? And without anesthetic, without drugs or hot water or antibiotics—it was a wonder these people weren’t all dead.

She was lucky she wasn’t dead. And what would happen to her if she stayed here much longer?

The screaming stopped, and after that terrible sound the ship seemed quiet. The sounds of people moving, calling to each other, pounding wood and throwing lines, seemed peaceful.

“Oy, Tadpole! You’re bleeding.”

Jill spun to find Abe coming toward her.

“Emory should have a look at you,” the quartermaster said.

“No,” Jill said. “No, it’s fine, it’s just fine.” She covered the wound with her hand, but blood had already soaked through the bandage and was leaking down the arm. She couldn’t hide it.

Emory appeared at the top of the steps then, emerging from below like a creature rising up from underwater. He was wiping bloody hands with a soiled cloth. A red film covered his arms nearly to the elbows, and his shirt was stained with great patches of scarlet.

“Who’s next?” he said.

“Tadpole’s cut her arm,” Henry said.

“No, I’m okay, it’s okay.” Jill backed away.

“I’ll just have a look at it.” Emory gestured her forward.

“It’s only a scratch, don’t cut my arm off!”

The surgeon looked away, hiding a silent chuckle. “If it’s not broken or rotten, I promise you I won’t cut it off, and if you don’t let me stitch it up, it’ll grow rotten.”

With Abe on one side of her and Emory on the other, she was fairly sure she wouldn’t escape, but she didn’t much like the idea of the surgeon stitching the wound. Her arm throbbed thinking of it. But she remembered the gaping flesh and knew she probably needed stitches. Her shoulders slumped, and she started picking off the bandage.

“I’ll get my kit,” Emory said.

Ten minutes later, she was sitting on the deck, trying not to watch while Emory stitched the wound with a needle that didn’t seem sharp enough and thread that felt like it should have been used to mend sails. Henry had given her a mug of rum, and she’d drunk it. It didn’t dull the pain, but it made her not care so much.

“This isn’t so bad,” Emory said. “You’ll have a scar to tell stories about. Badge of honor.”

She slouched sullenly, trying not to think about how he hadn’t disinfected anything. She’d splash some of the rum on the wound later. And wouldn’t that hurt like anything?

“You’re glum,” Emory said, by way of distraction.

“I hate this,” she said.

“Well, what did you think was going to happen, signing articles on a ship like this?”

“I didn’t plan on this, I’m not supposed to be here. They said they were going to throw me overboard if I didn’t sign. What else was I supposed to do?”

“I’m sure you can explain it all to the judge before they hang you for piracy.”

Jill pulled away to look at him.

He looked back. “You see, when this ship is taken by the English, I’ll explain to them that I was a prisoner, taken against my will when my ship was captured, and that I’ve nothing to do with any of these folks. They’ll let me go. What will you do? How will you explain when they take the book and see your name written down? You’ll hang with the rest of the dogs. Unless you help me.”

His hard words belied the gentle way he tended her wound, holding the skin closed, making little stitches to seal it. She looked away again, unhappy at the way the blood and water dripped from his hands.

“We won’t be captured. That’s all,” she said.

“Of course we won’t,” he said with false cheer and an insincere grin.

T
hey had spent that week onshore in Jamaica cleaning and repairing the
Diana
, and now they had to do it all over again, at sea.

No one had died, which amazed Jill. For all the blood and wreckage, death seemed the obvious outcome. But she was relieved. That was a close enough brush with death for her. A dozen of the crew, including her, had been injured, three of them seriously enough that they stayed belowdecks, under Emory’s watch. Two of those had splinters and shrapnel in their legs and torsos, had lost blood, and needed rest. Jenks had bandaged the cut on his forehead—the scrap of cloth was streaked with dried blood. Emory had amputated one arm, and Saul would need time to heal.

Jill almost felt like she’d doomed him by bringing him to Emory’s attention. Surely the arm could have been set, surely such drastic treatment could have been avoided. No one else seemed to think so, and the amputation was treated as a matter of course. She kept thinking that it didn’t have to happen—back home, it never would have happened.

All the other injuries were to the
Diana
herself, and the crew set about healing her. The supplies they’d stolen off the slave ship proved to be useful—they had fresh sail and rope to replace the destroyed rigging. Carpenters among the crew checked the masts and shored up the damaged areas, securing timbers to weakened parts, almost like splints.

Jill was set to scrubbing the decks again, clearing away splinters and debris, throwing buckets of scrap overboard. And getting rid of more blood. She’d seen more spilled blood in the last two weeks than in the whole rest of her life.

And still, Jill and Henry practiced swordplay. She’d felt helpless during the battle, and she didn’t feel helpless with a sword in her hand. She never wanted to see another battle. But if she did—and if they were boarded next time—she wanted to be able to defend herself and not cower on deck while debris rained down around her.

Swordplay was different on the deck of a rocking ship than it was on a sandy beach. Jill learned the trick of it quickly. You always wanted to keep your knees bent and loose when you fenced; it kept you nimble, able to respond and move, advancing and retreating quickly while keeping good balance. The less you worried about where your feet were the more you could focus on the blade—yours and your opponent’s. On a rocking deck, she just had to keep even more loose and nimble, so that her legs moved under her to keep her balance while her upper body—and her sword—remained steady. Then Henry got tricky, jumping onto the shrouds, swinging from a line to the deck, fighting from the boom or even the gunwales, risking losing his balance to get her in a bad spot. Then he’d have the high ground, the position of strength—and they were fencing in three dimensions, not just the back-and-forth of competitive strip fencing. It was maddening—but thrilling. She could feel herself getting better. When she and Henry fought, everything else, all her problems, and the fact that she was so far from home, faded away.

All this time, Captain Cooper stayed at the helm, staring through her spyglass to open sea, or checking the direction of her makeshift compass. The rapier tip always pointed away, to where the
Heart’s Revenge
had sailed.

In a moment of quiet, Jill crept toward the helm, expecting the captain would yell at her to get back to work, and find some new chore for her. The captain glanced at her—and didn’t yell. Encouraged, Jill nodded at the rapier point, resting in Cooper’s hand.

She wanted to touch it—it was why she’d picked it out of the sand in the first place, and kept it. It still seemed to whisper secrets to her, just out of her hearing.

“How does it work?” Jill asked.

Cooper gazed over the water. “That’s ‘How does it work, sir.’”

Jill glared. “Sir. How does it work? How does it know?”

“Blane’s got the rest of the sword,” she said. “That’s how.”

“Can it do anything else?” Jill asked. Like reveal the secret of how she got here, and how to get home.

Regarding the pitted steel, Cooper shrugged. “I don’t know. The sword it came from has power—that’s why it wants to get back. What do you think it can do?”

“I don’t know. But I think it has something to do with me.”

This time, Cooper looked at her, her eyes narrowed, showing wrinkles from so much time squinting in the sun. “You do, do you? What, then?”

If she could explain it, she wouldn’t need to ask. “All I know is I found it, then I fell into the water, and then all this happened.” Jill spread her arm to show the
Diana
, its crew, and the ocean around them.

“And you think, somehow, this has the power to undo it all?”

“I don’t want to undo it—” And Jill stopped, because she didn’t want to forget this. She didn’t want it to have never happened, even the worst parts, like the battle, the amputated arm, and the slave ship. She wanted to remember Nanny, the nighttime sky, and learning to fight with Henry. “But I want to go home. And if some kind of magic brought me here, then it can send me back.”

Cooper might have yelled at her about being part of the crew and never going home; but she didn’t. Instead, she looked sad, her expression turning soft. Jill hadn’t expected that.

“Get back to work, Tadpole,” Cooper said finally. Jill did so.

During the evening meal, Captain Cooper called for order and addressed the crew.

“Blane’s headed east, that’s all I know,” she said, her voice carrying.

“It’s what a bit of rotten steel told you,” Jenks said, a thought echoed by noises of agreement. The soiled bandage over his eye made him seem even more surly.

“Aye, and we all have reason enough to curse the man and do what we can to keep him off these waters. He’s never done a one of us any favors.”

“None’s arguing with you there, Captain. But we haven’t taken a real prize in weeks. We signed on for the loot, not a bloody foxhunt.”

“We take Blane, we take his loot,” Cooper said.

“If he don’t sink us first,” another man said—John, one of Jenks’s mates. More grumbling followed.

The captain went on. “Here’s my notion: We sail to Nassau. Refit what we need, unload what we have to unload—drink us a bit of ale while we’re there.” Murmurs of agreement met this idea. “And we can also get word about Blane and where he’s gone to, and what he’s planning.”

Jenks was still frowning when he stood and said, “I call for a vote.”

“Where else do you suggest we go?” Cooper said.

“No. Not a vote on destination. I call a vote for captain,” he said.

The ship was quiet for a moment, everyone falling still and looking at the first mate. His face was shadowed in the setting sun, making his glare and his scowl seem worse. He gripped his mug in both hands and ignored the wondering looks that turned to him. Jill thought he might have been drunk.

Jill leaned close to Henry to whisper, “What’s happening?”

Quietly and urgently, he answered, “Jenks is tired of chasing after Blane. He wants to replace Captain Cooper.”

“With who?” she said.

Before Henry could answer, Captain Cooper gave a brash laugh, drawing their attention.

“What?” she said to Jenks. “And vote for yourself instead? Think you can do better, then?”

Jenks nodded. “Aye, you’ve forgotten what we’re here for. For prizes, not revenge!”

Jill felt cold—she didn’t want Jenks as captain. She thought of what would have happened to her that first day if Jenks had been in charge—and thought she’d have ended up back in the water, or worse.

“You think I’m afraid of a vote?” Cooper said. “You think I’ll start sobbing like a wee maid? What about the rest of you? Are you with him or me?”

The crew was silent.

“A vote’s been called,” Abe said, his voice clear. He climbed into the shrouds, putting him above the gathering. “Are you sure, Jenks?”

“That fight today never should have happened. Of course I’m sure.”

Some grumbles of agreement echoed him, and some of dissent. Surely this wouldn’t end peacefully.

“Then we vote.”

Jill gripped Henry’s arm. “What happens now? What happens if Cooper loses the vote?”

He shook his head, his jaw set, his brow furrowed with worry. “The captain and those loyal to her will be set ashore, and the
Diana
sails on.”

“She won’t lose, will she?” Jill said. Henry didn’t answer.

Abe brought out two wooden buckets. Meanwhile, the crew passed out markers among themselves—they looked like buttons of metal and bone—then lined up in front of Abe. Jill hung back, but Henry pulled her in line.

Abe held up the bucket in his right hand, then his left. “This is a vote for Captain Cooper. This is a vote for First Mate Jenks. Captain?”

Cooper was first, and she held up her marker for all to see with a flourish and placed it in the right-hand bucket. Many of the crew cheered, which made Jill feel a little better. Cooper couldn’t possibly lose. Jenks was next, and of course he put his marker in the left-hand bucket. More people cheered. Jill didn’t like the way Henry was frowning.

Abe put his marker in Cooper’s bucket.

One by one they cast their votes. Jill tried to keep track of how many people dropped buttons in Cooper’s bucket, but the line moved quickly and she lost count. Far too many people put their markers in Jenks’s bucket. The line stepped forward, and Jill was standing before Abe.

“Last vote, Tadpole,” the quartermaster said. He pointed to the buckets. “Cooper or Jenks?”

She dropped her button for Captain Cooper.

“Henry, boy. Help me count,” Abe said. The two hunched over the buckets and began counting.

The crew watched while Abe counted, slow and careful, putting each button in a pile by its bucket. Henry counted out the buttons a second time. Jenks paced, taking swigs from a bottle tucked in his hand. Cooper stood at the helm, waiting calmly.

“I’ll have you fined for drunkenness, Jenks,” Cooper said to him.

“Not if you’re stuck by yourself on a godforsaken spit of land, you won’t,” he called back.

When Abe stood, everyone turned their attention to him.

“I have the count!” He waited for a dramatic pause. Jill was about to scream at him, but someone did it for her.

“Just tell us what it is, you black dog!”

Then Abe smiled. “Jenks has eighteen votes. Captain Cooper has twenty-seven and is our captain still.”

A cheer went up—and most everyone cheered. Probably even a few who had voted for Jenks. No one questioned Abe or asked for a recount—he’d been voted quartermaster and everyone trusted him. They’d all watched him count. Jill might have expected fighting to break out, the whole rowdy crew taking sides and battling for control of the ship. But they respected the vote. Not even Jenks protested.

Cooper stepped slowly across the deck to where Jenks stood, his bottle of rum hanging at his side.

“Jenks, you’re the best sailing master on the seas. But I can’t let this pass.”

Jenks took a long draw on the bottle, then coughed. His look turned sad. “I’m only tired, Captain. I meant no harm.”

“And what happens the next time you’re angry and drunk and you call me out again?”

“I won’t, I promise—”

“I don’t believe you. Abe, Tennant, get one of the boats ready.”

“No, Captain, I didn’t mean anything!”

Jill found Henry again. “Now what’s happening?”

“He brought it on himself,” he said.

Abe, Tennant, and half a dozen others hurried around the rowboat, arranging the pulleys that would lower it into the water, and loading it with a bucket of water, a bag of food, and an oar.

Then they loaded Jenks into the rowboat. You didn’t need an island to maroon someone.

As the boat was lowered toward the water, Cooper stood at the side, holding a pistol aimed at Jenks. The first mate—or former first mate—had turned sullen, splayed on the bottom of the boat, glaring up at the captain, unable to rebel any further.

The captain called to the rest of the crew, “Anyone else rather put their lot in with Jenks than with me, if you think I’m such an awful captain?”

They were all leaning on the side with her, watching, silent. Not even Jenks’s supporters made a sound. Cooper made sure to look at each of them, hold their gazes, and stare right through them. Every one of them ducked away. The ropes and pulleys creaked as the rowboat sank to the water.

When the boat finally touched down to be rocked and shaken by waves, Jenks shouted, “Curse you! Curse you all!” By then the boat had been cut loose to drift away as the wind pushed the
Diana
onward. His voice was quickly lost amid more common shipboard noises.

“Now,” Cooper said, slipping the nose of the pistol under her belt. “We sail for Nassau. Then we go hunting like we ought to. We have a reputation to maintain. Any more arguments?”

None. The crew got to work as though nothing had happened. Jill looked back and saw a dark, foreign shape bobbing on distant waves. Then she didn’t see anything. Cooper never once glanced back.

Then the usual drinking started. By morning the
Diana
was repaired, the sails were unfurled, and the course set for the Bahamas.

Back where Jill started.