I open my mouth to speak, but she continues. “I don’t need you to tell me he loves me. I don’t need you to tell me that he almost lost me, so he’s scared of something else bad happening to me. I already know all this. What I need are ideas for how I can have my life back. I’m bored out of my mind, Sorinda. I need this. Please don’t send me back to the keep!”
I close my eyes briefly, remembering that moment when Tylon shot her. The bullet grazed her head, but it managed to hit in such a way that blood oozed all over Alosa’s brig. We thought the shot killed her instantly at the time. I was ready to wring Tylon’s neck myself, but Wallov beat me to it.
Losing anyone is awful, but a child? Roslyn’s my friend and crewmate just as much as anyone else, yet it would be so much worse if anything happened to her.
It sounds like Wallov is coddling her for the sake of his sanity.
“This journey is very dangerous,” I say. “We’re intentionally headed for trouble. This was the wrong vessel to sneak aboard, Roslyn. You’re seven. You—”
“I’m basically eight!”
She’s over six months away from eight, but I’m not about to argue the point.
“I sent word to Alosa that I found you. Your fate is in her hands now.”
Roslyn groans. “Alosa’s just as bad as Papa. She takes his word as law instead of making use of me as one of her crew! I’m a pirate, Sorinda. I need to be a pirate!”
Any earlier anger or irritation I might have had toward Roslyn for sneaking aboard my ship vanishes. Because I can see exactly where she’s coming from. She’s being forced to be idle, and that would drive anyone insane. I understand why she did it, and though I don’t agree with her decision, she’s going to get enough of a punishment from Alosa and Wallov without me adding to it.
My voice is neutral as ever as I say, “No one gets free passage on my vessel. If you expect food in your belly and a bunk at night, then you had best be prepared to work for it. To the crow’s nest with you.”
Roslyn’s whole face changes. The anger drains away, and pure gratitude replaces it. She launches at me, wraps her little arms around my waist, and says, “Thank you, Sorinda!”
“That’s Captain to you, and this is temporary. Just until I receive word from Alosa about what she wants done with you.”
“Understood, Captain.” She skips from the room, singing a sea shanty as she goes.
This is already proving to be a long voyage, and it’s only day two.
Chapter 5
ALOSA’S REPLY ARRIVES THE next morning.
Sneaky little thing. I should have known she’d try something like this. I’d hoped I was finding enough things for her to do around the keep, but she misses the sea. Still, Roslyn disobeyed her orders, so dump her arse in a rowboat at Darmont as you sail by. I’ll have someone waiting on the docks for her, ready to bring her home.
In the meantime, I need to have a talk with Wallov. He needs to loosen the reins on Roslyn. We’ll figure something out. Hope you find a use for her over the next month.
—Alosa
I inform Roslyn of what’s to become of her when we reach the Seventeen Isles. She pouts but nods once. I suspect she’s going to make the most of her month of freedom.
As the days crawl by, I make a point of getting more familiar with the bodies aboard Vengeance. There are twenty-nine of us in total: twenty-three women, five men, and one not-basically-eight-year-old stowaway. I’ve never met over half the crew, so I set about changing that. I make rounds every day, asking for names and doing my utmost to memorize them. I make a point of knowing everyone’s duties and where everyone sleeps. I learn the day-shift and night-shift rotations, learn what happens when, and familiarize myself with the other inner workings aboard the ship.
I don’t want to be surprised by anything.
I catch up with old friends, which include two of the gunwomen, Philoria and Bayla. They’re regularly talking firearms, cannons, and other things that require any sort of explosion. They introduce me to Visylla.
“If you need anything blown up, I’ve got you covered, Captain” are the first words she says to me. “There’s enough black powder on the ship to light up a city. Don’t worry, it’s all in the hold.” She lowers her voice and hides her mouth behind her hand as she adds, “Don’t let anyone light a candle near the storage.”
“Is this an extreme use of exaggeration?” I ask, because I don’t know her.
“No,” Philoria and Bayla say at the same time.
“Don’t worry, Captain, the queen encouraged me to bring as much as I could fit on board,” Visylla says. “It’s all sanctioned.”
“We don’t have enough cannons to warrant that much gunpowder,” I point out.
“Oh, it’s not all meant for the cannons. I specialize in makeshift handheld bombs.”
I just stare at her, because what could I possibly say to that? As I pass by my old friends, I say, “Don’t let her blow up the ship.”
“Aye-aye,” they reply.
I’ll have to keep a careful eye on that one.
The crew behaves during the daytime hours, everyone performing their chores like clockwork. That’s when I have to be out and about for them to observe me and gain confidence in my abilities.
But then the sun sets, and I get to be myself. That’s when I observe them.
I often slip out of my captain’s coat and tread along the shadows of the ship, trailing wherever intuition takes me. Nothing should happen aboard Vengeance without my anticipating it.
Iskirra, the ship’s healer, makes money on the side by offering tattoo work to anyone who wants it. I like to watch her in the evenings with her needles and ink. It’s relaxing. Not to mention amusing the things the crew find important enough to permanently mark their bodies with. Taydyn, the fifth and final man aboard the ship, gets some sort of musical instrument inked onto his chest, right above his heart. Iskirra, herself, has several tattoos along her arms, one of which is a black and white rose that looks exquisite against her ebony-colored skin.
Enwen arranges card games in the galley almost every night before bed. I keep an extra-sharp eye on him, but true to his word, he doesn’t steal so much as a single coin from the crew, unless you count cheating at cards, which I’m sure he doesn’t. He’s very careful about it. Only cheats on low-paying hands so no one gets too suspicious or angry. He’s so quick with his fingers, switching out cards beneath the table, that no one else notices. He distracts the other players with tales of ghosts and kraken and other superstitious nonsense. I’d previously thought Enwen didn’t like gambling, but I think he does it because Kearan is often to be found at the card table.
Rorun is bedding one of the kitchen girls. I learned quickly not to go into the hold when I see the two of them ducking out of sight. Jadine, the cook, smokes a pipe in the evenings. She has her own stash of spices in the pantry that are just for her. Cyara, Unesta, and Ryndra—three of my able-bodied sailors—offer to tell fortunes for the crew, and Enwen spends far too much of his sneakily won coin to hear nonsense about the great deeds he will perform in his lifetime.
Tonight I crouch behind some crates in the galley after the lads are done playing cards, waiting to see who will venture here this evening.