Steel (3 page)

“Guess the salvage wasn’t a waste after all,” one of them said.

“Not at all, we found ourselves a nice bit of cargo,” said the bald man, and the rest laughed. They leered with rotten and gap-toothed grins.

“She’s a bit skinny, in’t she?” This one poked at her, pinching the flesh of her forearm. She slapped at his hand and lurched away, but another set of hands were there, grabbing at her. This only made them laugh more.

This wasn’t a party boat. This was something else.

Whoever these people were, whatever was happening, they held their bodies like predators ready to strike, and their gazes showed wicked, murderous desire. She felt light-headed.

Thinking she’d be better off jumping right back into the water, she glanced behind her. A couple of the men had moved along the side, blocking her escape that way. So she was stuck. Trapped.
Screwed
.

Except that she recognized something else in the situation: Several of the men carried swords with long, slender blades. Rapiers. Besides the cannons on deck she didn’t see any more serious weapons. Nothing like handguns. Only long knives. She understood rapiers. Jill could make a feint. Show them she wasn’t easy pickings. It might even work.

Swinging back, she made toward the side, as if she planned to shove past the men and dive over in a spectacular and stupid bid to escape. A shout went up, and as she hoped, the men behind her reached out, grabbing at her to hold her back and keep her from jumping. She’d noted which one of them had a rapier—he kept it down, out of the way so as not to impale anyone while they hauled her from the side. Having misdirected them, she dug her shoulder into this one’s chest, ripping herself from the others’ grips in her sudden change of direction. With both hands, she grabbed the rapier’s solid steel guard and yanked. The yelling around her was louder than the ocean’s waves.

She took hold of the rapier and swung it point out, sweeping an arc around her. The shouts turned to surprise and panic, and a space cleared around her. Holding the sword level, point out, her grip on the handle steady, she stared at her enemies over the edge of the blade. Now she could handle herself.
Now
she felt a little bit safe and in control.

The men backed away, keeping a good distance around her, as if not sure what to make of her. Some were still chuckling, like this was a game. Several of them had raised their own swords, but made no move toward her. Maybe waiting to see what their bedraggled refugee would do next.

Then things got even stranger.

Across the deck came a shout and the sound of heavy footsteps, hollow on the wood. The men looked suddenly alert—maybe even nervous, and the crowd parted.

The figure who approached, who the rest of the mob respectfully made way for, wasn’t tall and didn’t seem powerful like most of the men. She was a woman, sturdy, wearing a long coat belted around her waist, her curly cinnamon hair left loose over her shoulders. She wore a black three-cornered hat and polished boots. Her scowl was hard, angry.

“What have you louts fished up then, eh?” the woman said. When she saw Jill, she frowned, glancing at the bald man from the rowboat. “You found her in the wreckage?”

“Yessir.”

Back to Jill now, she said, “What happened, then? How’d you survive the
Newark
’s sinking? Or maybe you were on
Heart’s Revenge
?”

Jill couldn’t open her mouth to speak, but she shook her head, wondering when she was going to wake up, wondering if she was still underwater, hallucinating or unconscious. So much for feeling safe.

“Speak up, then,” said the woman—she must have been the captain here. “Who are you and where’d you come from? Say something, wench, or I’ll throw you to these bloody dogs.”

At that, the men laughed and growled, like the dogs she’d called them. Jill swept the rapier again, trying to keep that clear space around her. Trying to give herself space to think.

The woman’s scowl turned into a half smile and she said, “You think you can use that, then?”

The sword was much heavier than Jill’s épée at home. Her arm trembled with the weight of it, and her breaths came in gasps. She didn’t know how long she’d be able to fight. But she would fight. She nodded. “Yes.”

“Very good. Henry!” the captain called. “You feel like a bit of a game?”

“I do at that, sir.” A young man stepped forward, and Jill’s heart jumped a little. He was
cute
. Athletic, skin the color of a rich brown wood, short black hair, and a wry smile. Like all the rest, he wore a loose white shirt, loose pants, and went barefoot. And he held a rapier.

He swung the weapon through a few circles like it didn’t weigh anything. The crowd, including the captain, pressed back, leaving a wide circle of open deck for them to fight in.

A duel. A freaking duel. She’d lost her last bout—why did she think she had a chance now? She almost dropped the rapier and begged them to have mercy, to not hurt her. But this Henry didn’t stop smiling. He even looked like he was laughing at her. That goaded her. The burning, competitive anger that rose up in her was the only familiar thing about the situation.

Henry stood, right foot pointed forward, arm lowered so the rapier’s point rested on the deck, and waited for her.

She took a deep breath and steadied herself. Easier said than done when she could feel the floor shifting under her, rocking back and forth unpredictably with the movement of the waves. She reminded herself of her pre-bout mantra: stay calm, keep breathing, don’t panic, don’t let her opponent fluster her. But she didn’t know how she could be more flustered. Which made it all the more important that she keep breathing and stay calm.

She stood
en garde
, right foot forward, left foot back, knees bent. Warily, she saluted him with the rapier she’d stolen and settled her arm into position.

Still seeming amused, Henry saluted her back, flourishing with his off hand and bowing his head besides. Then he stood ready. And why should he be any good, this scruffy-looking kid on a weird sailing ship? No reason she shouldn’t be able to take him.

The edge of her rapier gleamed, sharp and dangerous. A real blade, meant for causing harm. For all her bluster, she had never held a sharpened rapier before. She almost stopped the fight right there, but the way the men around her looked at her hadn’t changed. They were as dangerous as a real rapier; she had to defend herself. And she would.

He made the first move, reaching out with his blade to tap the end of hers. Nerves and panic made her overreact; she struck his weapon back with a hard beat and jumped back, retreating sloppily. The crowd laughed, and she blushed. That was an amateur move and they all knew it. The captain crossed her arms and frowned.

Before she’d completely settled back into her stance, he struck again, another lazy hit against her blade. But she was ready for it this time and disengaged—dropped her sword slightly so that when he expected to hit it, it wasn’t there—and immediately lunged. She caught him off guard that time, and he swung his sword up in a hasty parry and stumbled back. His wide eyes showed surprise. He’d thought he was toying with her. Playing games with a weak opponent. Thought maybe that she was just a girl and no good at this.

Realizing she couldn’t rest for a moment in this fight—she had to keep him constantly off guard—she pressed. Lunged again, was blocked again, but moved to attack on a different line.

He crossed to his left, moving in a circle around her, startling her. She shifted to keep up, to keep him in front of her. They were fighting in a circle, not on a strip, like in fencing competition. The change disoriented her.
Just keep him in front of you.

They exchanged more passes, steel slapping against steel. He drew her thrusts and parried them, that smile still on his face. He was guiding the fight, not her. She tried not to let it make her angry. He never got past her defenses; all her parries were strong, even though her arm burned, and every time their swords met a tingling numbness traveled through her muscles. Her guard fell lower and lower. In a few moments, she wouldn’t be able to hold up the sword at all.

When he struck again, she parried like before, but the move brought his blade down and the tip snagged on her pants, just above the knee. The fabric sliced through with a quick ripping sound. Everyone heard it, and Henry jumped back, startled.

She realized then that all of his blows had been at her arms and legs. Because anything else, any stab to her body with a real rapier, would kill her. He wasn’t trying to kill her. Her stomach felt sick and roiling at the thought that a slip—any stab that got past her defenses—would really kill her. And she’d been trying to kill him, because she hadn’t thought of anything but scoring the touch.

A four-inch slice cut through her pants, a gaping oval exposing skin. No blood; he hadn’t broken skin. Suddenly, she couldn’t catch her breath. She let her arm drop like a weight, rapier dangling from her hand. Henry looked at her, challenging, gripping his rapier hard like he was ready to go on. He wasn’t smiling anymore.

“Knock off there, both of you,” the captain called. They’d already halted the duel, but her order kept them from rushing into another attack—or from expecting an attack from the other. Henry relaxed, lowering his weapon and looking at his captain.

Jill was still trying to slow her breathing, which came in gasps. Her heart was racing.
She would have died, a wrong thrust and she would have died….
And she had been so worried and frustrated about simply losing.

The captain’s voice was kind when she spoke to Jill this time. “You know the forms well enough and stand pretty with a sword, but you’ve never fought for blood, have you, lass?”

Jill could only shake her head—no, she’d never fought for blood. Not real blood. Only ranks, medals, and maybe a college scholarship. She bowed her head, embarrassed, when tears fell. She wiped them away quickly. Her still-wet hair stuck to her cheeks. Salt water crusted her clothing. However much she wanted to sit down, pass out—or drop the rapier, which she wouldn’t have been able to raise again even if Henry came at her in another attack—she remained standing before the captain, as straight as she could, which wasn’t very at the moment.

“What’s your name, lass?”

“Jill. Jill Archer,” she said, her voice scratching. She only just noticed that she was thirsty.

“And, Jill, how do you come to be adrift in the wide sea so far from home?”

The tears almost broke then, and she took a moment to answer. “I don’t know.”

S
he was Captain Marjory Cooper, and she wasn’t the only woman aboard. The handful of other women among the crew dressed like men and blended in. Only the captain wore her hair long and loose and her clothes fitted, showing off her figure. The entire crew, all ages and builds and colors, looked at the captain in awe and didn’t hesitate when she sent them back to work. Jill, she ordered to the captain’s cabin.

Jill had a random thought: If only Tom and Mandy could see this, the sails and cannons and costumes. Exactly what they’d wanted. They’d be so excited. If only they could be here—and then her gut lurched, because she didn’t want her brother and sister anywhere near these people, whoever they were.

Captain Cooper didn’t take Jill’s stolen rapier from her, and Jill wondered if she really seemed so harmless that she could walk around armed and no one cared. Or if everybody knew that even with a rapier, Jill was alone here and couldn’t do anything to hurt them. She had no power. Still, she clung to the weapon like it was a life preserver and felt some small security by having it.

Rapier in hand, Jill wasn’t as frightened as she might have been, alone with the captain. But having the rapier didn’t mean anything—Jill was too exhausted now to use it. While she was pretty sure she could kick, scratch, and fight if she was in danger—for a little while, at least—beyond that, she was pretty much screwed, just like she thought at first.

The captain had a small room in the back of the ship, below the main deck. At least, it seemed small to Jill, but it must have been the largest quarters aboard. The simple wood-paneled room had a table with a bench in the middle, cupboards on two sides, and a narrow bed in the back. A small glass lantern hung from the central beam, giving only enough light to make out the corners on the furniture. They both had to duck when standing inside, the ceiling was so low.

Captain Cooper offered Jill a tin cup of water. It tasted stale, but it cleared the salt from her mouth and soothed the burning in her throat. Then Cooper kicked the bench, scooting it out from the table, indicating that Jill should sit.

Jill turned gratefully to the seat—her legs were trembling. But the captain stopped her. “Wait. There. What’s that in your pocket?”

The outline of the piece of rusted rapier was stark through her wet clothes. Startled, Jill set down the cup and pulled out the broken blade. All she’d been through, and it hadn’t fallen out. And still, her hand tingled when she held it. Like it was trying to tell her something, in a voice that sounded like breaking waves.

Captain Cooper held her hand out. Jill wasn’t sure she wanted to give her the shard. Then again, Cooper could just take it. Reluctantly, she offered it to Captain Cooper.

Frowning, Cooper held it up to the flickering light, turning it, front and back. With a handkerchief she pulled from the front of her vest, she scrubbed at it for a moment. Rust flaked away in a fine red powder.

The captain’s face grew drawn, lips pressing into a tight frown. If Jill didn’t think it was impossible, she would have thought the woman sounded nervous. “Tell me true now—were you on the
Newark
when Blane sank it, or were you on the
Heart’s Revenge
?”

“Neither,” she said. “I was on a tour boat, I fell over by accident—”

“And where did you get this?”

“I found it on the beach. I was just walking and saw it in the sand.”

“Found it—just lying there, you say? Then how did you end up in the water? We shouldn’t have found anyone, picking through Blane’s trash. Blane doesn’t give quarter.”

“I don’t know,” she said weakly. “I don’t know how I ended up there. I don’t know who Blane is.”

“Then you don’t know where this came from?
Who
it came from?”

“No.” Jill pursed her lips and grit her teeth to keep from crying. Tried to stand straight until she realized her legs really were about to give out—they felt like rubber. She sat on the bench. “It probably washed ashore—how could I know where it came from? It’s old, hundreds of years old.”

“Hundreds of years—” The captain sounded startled. “And where do you come from?”

“The Bahamas. I’m on vacation. We were in a boat, I fell off—”

“You must be addled.” The woman was pacing now, just a few steps back and forth across the cabin, and she wouldn’t look at Jill.

“I don’t know where it came from, and I don’t know how I got here,” Jill said.

Cooper held up the blade—just a broken scrap of metal. “You’re connected to him somehow. Through this.”

“How do you even know what it is, how can you recognize it?”

“I’m the one who broke it. It should have been lost forever, and now it’s back. Because of you.” She pointed the rusted scrap at Jill, who leaned away from it, her heart pounding. Which of them was crazy here?

“But how—”

Cooper shook her head. “No. No more. You aren’t making sense. Maybe you will after you’ve had some rest.”

“But my family, the tour boat couldn’t have gone too far, I wasn’t in the water that long—”

“Lass, there’s no other boat around for leagues. You lost your family, and you’re lucky to be alive.”

“Then take me back to the island, they’re probably waiting for me—”

Captain Cooper turned on her. “There’s naught but cutthroats and bloody pirates on that island. An’t no one’s family there, and if yours is then they’re fools and’ll soon be dead, like as not. You’ll stay here, where I can keep an eye on you.”

That shut Jill up. It also made her mind stumble. The Bahamas, an island of pirates? All those stories come to life? Maybe she’d fallen a long ways off her family’s tour boat.

So what did she do now?

Captain Cooper kept the piece of rapier. Not that the thing had been much of a good luck charm for Jill. But the captain wouldn’t explain why it was important, why it wasn’t just a scrap of metal.

She slept in the captain’s own bed—“Just for now, don’t be getting any pretty ideas”—a mattress in a wooden frame, with rough sheets and a heavy wool blanket. Jill thought she should have slept heavily for hours. But the ship’s movements kept her awake. Slow, arrhythmic swaying, rocking her one way and another on the hard mattress that might have been stuffed with straw. She started to feel nauseated and wasn’t sure it was all from the boat’s rocking. Shutting her eyes tight, she tried not to think of it.

Jill slept lightly and with dreams of falling, of being underwater and not being able to swim. She was a good swimmer; nothing should have been able to keep her from the surface. But something was holding her down, anchoring her. And she thrashed awake; the dreaming sense of vertigo didn’t go away. She was still on a ship surrounded by strangers, uncertain of the place and time. She’d never felt so helpless.

Well, she’d wanted to get away from everyone, hadn’t she?

The motion of the ship had increased, rolling so much that the lantern hanging from the roof beam swung back and forth, and she would have slammed against the bed’s frame if she hadn’t braced herself. Nothing was loose in the cabin—everything was shut up in cupboards, and the table and floor were clear. Anything loose would be falling all around her. The ship seemed to be riding over hills, making animal-like groans around her.

She was going to throw up. Her stomach seemed to be lurching in the opposite direction from the ship, and though she covered her mouth with her hands, she couldn’t stop it. Bile surged up.

A bucket—solid wood, heavy and stable—stood against the wall. As if it had been set there in expectation. She stumbled out of bed and bent over it without looking inside, just in time. She heaved over and over, losing everything she’d eaten that day, and then some. She wouldn’t have thought her stomach could hold so much.

Then the acrid stench of it hit her and made her heave again.

Finally, she turned away, sitting heavily, her back to the wall, catching her breath. She wiped her mouth on the tail of her shirt because it was all she had. Her cup of water was gone—of course, it would have emptied all over the cabin by now. Dizzy, her choices were to keel over, go to sleep and never wake up again, or go outside and get some fresh air. Assuming she could look ahead without her vision swaying in front of her.

Using the frame of the bed, she pulled herself to her feet. Her first step made her stumble—the floor wasn’t where it should have been. To go the straight line from the bed to the door, she made a zigzagging path across the floor, following the ship’s rocking. But she reached the door and leaned there, shutting her eyes and catching her breath, determined not to be sick again. Doggedly, she gripped the latch on the door and opened it.

Captain Marjory Cooper, her smile crooked and her gaze hard, stood blocking her way. “I heard you were up. Feeling better then?”

Jill swallowed, hoping to keep her stomach steady. But she didn’t dare open her mouth, just in case. The captain pushed her back into the cabin.

“You’ve not spent much time at sea, have you?”

Jill shook her head and tried to guess if Cooper’s smile was meant to be comforting or mocking.

She had in hand a few pieces of clothing: a loose, long-sleeved shirt, cotton pants, and a soft cap. The clothing Jill arrived in wasn’t so out of place here—her clamdiggers were like the trousers that many of the sailors on board wore, and her tank top was just a shirt. But the captain handed her the new items.

“You’ll burn like a lobster in the sun in those things. You need to cover up until you get a good tan on you. It’ll keep the men from looking too hard at you as well. These should fit you. They’re cabin-boy sized.”

Reluctantly, Jill took the clothing. Changing clothes made her situation—lost at sea on a boat full of strangers—seem permanent. She felt like a prisoner. She ought to get out of here—and go where? “What’s going to happen to me?”

“We’ll have to discuss that, won’t we? When you’re dressed, come up on deck.”

Jill was actually happy to get out of the scratchy, salt-laden clothes she’d nearly drowned in. But she thought she looked like a bum in the loose clothes. No—she looked like a pirate. She kept her bra on—it made her feel a little more like herself. Like it could shield her. She also brought out the rapier, which she’d kept with her on the bunk. Since no one said anything, she was going to carry the weapon.

When she opened the door and came out on the deck, she hesitated, amazed.

All the sails were unfurled, and the wind filled them. Above her, a collage of rippling white canvas rose up on tall masts. Bright sun gleamed on them, almost blinding. Beyond them, the sky was blue, and white specks—seagulls—danced and wheeled in the wind above the ship. Around her was ocean, wide and blue, and the ship skimmed across waves, sleek as a fish. She reached up and felt wind brushing her fingers, ruffling her hair. For a moment, she felt like she could step into the air and float.

“You! Lass! Over here!” The captain called to her from the back of the ship, on the other side of the hatch and stairs leading below. There was an honest-to-God wheel here, half her height, with handles protruding off the spokes. Just like in the movies. This was all like a movie. She had to be dreaming.

Cooper had tied a piece of string around the middle of the rapier shard so that it dangled, balanced and horizontal. She held the end of the string at arm’s length and watched, along with the two men with her—the bald man from the rowboat and another, dark-skinned, his hair in long braids tied back with a bandanna. He gave Jill a smile, and she looked away.

Though the ship rocked and shifted, the rapier tip remained pointing in one direction.

That wasn’t possible, the way it remained motionless, frozen in place despite dangling in midair. It was just a piece of metal…. Jill stared at it. She wanted to touch it, feel the surface again, just to be sure. But she’d have had to reach past Captain Cooper to do it, so she didn’t.

The shard had been cleaned and oiled—very little of the rust remained, though the steel was still rough and corroded, with a reddish sheen of tarnished metal. But a pattern was visible now, curling lines like waves engraved on the flat of the blade.

“It’ll be our compass,” the captain explained, at Jill’s wondering expression. “It wants to return to its master. And however far it’s traveled, you’ve brought it right back, girl, haven’t you?”

“I don’t know how I got here,” Jill said. She kept telling her, and Cooper kept not believing her. “How is it doing that?”

Cooper gave her an odd, considering look. Then shook her head. “Blane’s looking for it, too, I reckon. I’m lucky I got to you first. Hell,
you’re
lucky I got to you first. Assuming you’re not spying for him.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about at all—who is Blane?” Jill’s hand clenched on the handle of her borrowed rapier. Not that she could do anything with it; that guy Henry proved that. The wire wrapping on the grip pressed into her palm; she wanted to hit something with it, no matter how little good it would do.

“Settle down, there. Know what I think? However you got here, whatever it means, you’ll lead me to him. Then I’ll have done with him for good. Now, what to do with you in the meantime?”

Just let me go
, Jill thought, but to say it would have sounded whiny, weak. She had a feeling these people wouldn’t think much of her at all, if they thought her weak. So she kept silent and glared.

The captain put a hand on her hip. “You look like you’ve had a lot of soft living, but anyone on the
Diana
who expects to eat gets put to work.”

“I don’t know anything about sailing,” Jill argued.

“You don’t have to, to scrub the deck.”

Why would anyone bother scrubbing the deck of a sailing ship that was constantly getting wet, salty, and stepped on? You’d have to scrub it every day.

“Captain,” the black man said, his smile sly. “She should sign the articles if she’s going to be on the crew.”