I grasped the beam above my head, slipped my legs out of the hammock, and dropped with a whump of blankets and skirts. I hadn’t fully undressed the night before, just removing my bodice and loosening my stays enough to sleep. I tightened my stays again with a few tugs as I picked my way over to the lidded bucket hung on one wall and saw to my necessities. Then I dressed, fixed my braid, and stepped out into the main cabin.
It was empty, its table clean, chairs lashed and trunks closed. The windows and balcony door filtered bright sunlight through murky, bottle-bottom panes. Each had a small section that could be opened, and one of these was carefully fastened back.
Salty wind gusted through on a shaft of cool light. I made for it, closing my eyes and letting the clean air fill my lungs. The songs of the crew drifted to me more clearly, the drumbeat steady and punctuated with laughter.
“Ah, you are awake.”
I froze. The voice was familiar, tugging me back to the gallows and rough hempen noose.
Footsteps approached, two cautious paces, and I turned to see Charles Grant standing on the other side of the table, between me and the cabin’s main door. Our eyes met and for a heartbeat he looked appropriately chagrined, then his expression locked into a pleasant smile. The handsomeness of the look was marred only by two bold cuts down one cheek, still crusted with scabs and edged with fresh, puffy, pink flesh.
“What happened to your face?” I asked, stunned. “Why are you here?”
The man’s smile twitched and he rubbed a thumb along his jaw. He ignored my second question. “Speck did. Or rather, he held me down while Kaspin took his due.”
A shard of pity wedged into my heart, but it was easy to ignore after what he’d done.
“Why would he do that?” I asked hotly. “I thought you’d settled your debt by selling me into a life of servitude.”
“A warning. He’s a killer, Mary, and he would have butchered both of us if I had not… did what I did.” He took another step forward, and my eyes dropped to the cutlass at his hip. “I saved your life.”
“And I saved yours from the noose. How are you here?” Fury rippled through me. If he hadn’t sold me out, if I’d have run off into the snow instead of lingering beside that riverboat… My path would have been so different.
Or would it? Inexplicable as his motives were, Lirr would still be hunting me. And I would be alone, on the run, with no idea what was happening or where to find my mother.
But I’d just awoken on a ship full of pirates, far from home, and come face-to-face with the man who had set that series of events into motion. I was in no mood for fortitude.
“I did what I had to do,” he insisted. “Life is full of difficult decisions, Mary.”
Mary. He tossed out my name as if we were friends.
I snorted. “What are you doing here, Mr. Grant?” I demanded for a third time.
He plastered a smile back on his face and gave a sweeping bow. “I’ve gone on the account.”
“What?”
“I’ve become a pirate.”
“You joined Demery’s crew?”
He nodded and rested a hand on his cutlass, one foot forward and slightly turned to the side in a dandy’s pose. “I have. It was time to start a new life, and I figured—hoi, pirates are the highwaymen of the seas, so my skillset ought to transition well. Provided I don’t have to sail anything. Luckily, Demery said he’s in need of a man like me.”
“You really want that noose, don’t you?” I trembled, a bone-deep shudder of tension and anger.
“What’s life without the threat of death?”
“Pleasant?”
“Insufferable.”
I stewed for an instant before another question struck me. “How long have you been aboard? Not since Whallum, surely?”
His response was a smile that reminded me of a dog caught chewing a shoe. He shrugged. “Well, you were rather unsociable after we picked you up.”
“You’ve been here the whole time?”
“Ah, I see you two have been reunited.” Demery strode into the room with a large ledger under one arm. Passing us, he stepped up to the table and set the book down. “Mary, if you wouldn’t mind?”
I was about to demand why Demery had taken Grant aboard, but self-preservation stayed my words. Besides, between my frayed nerves and trembling hands, I felt wearier with every passing moment. I should have stayed in my hammock.
I shot Grant one last look and joined Demery at the table. He opened the ledger and fetched quill, ink and drying powder from a trunk, then set them out.
“These are the ship’s articles. Her accord,” the captain informed me, tapping the open page. “See here, ‘Every One shall obey civil Command. The Captain shall have two full shares of all Prizes.’—that’s me—‘They who are found Guilty of Cowardice in the Time of Engagement, or should Murder Another, shall suffer Death.’ So on and so forth. You see how it is. Everyone aboard this ship signs. Everyone aboard this ship is held to account. That includes you. Do you understand?”
I was privately shocked that pirates would have such a code of conduct but didn’t comment. Instead, I wanted to know, “Did Charles sign?”
Demery flipped farther into the book and stopped on a page that was only half full. Both it and the one before it was scrawled with dozens of names and dates, interspersed with signs for those who could not write and occasional sums in the margins. More than a few names were crossed out with single, black strokes. But the last one stood out clean and sharp, its flowery scrawl taking up twice as much room than any other.
‘Charles Addison Grant, on the 14th Day of the First Turning of the Bountiful Moons, in the 20th year of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Edith. Ambassador.’
“Ambassador?” I looked between the two men.
“A man of good education who I can send ashore to parley with various powers over the course of our journey,” Demery returned, uncorking the ink and passing me the quill.
“I am educated, charming, persuasive, and willing to do bad things.” Grant sat in a chair across the table and glanced at my hand, hovering, quill poised. “Are you going to sign?”
I couldn’t help thinking that the scars on Grant’s cheek would likely hinder his reputability in the future, but brushed the thought aside. Demery was looking at me with expectation too.
I flipped back to the articles and read them slowly. But despite my efforts, half the words fluttered away. If Demery and his crew were captured, this ledger might send me right back to prison, if not the noose. Sure, I could plead innocence as the ship’s Stormsinger, but there could still be unpredictable repercussions.
I dipped the quill in the bottle of ink, holding it there a heartbeat longer than was necessary, then signed. I signed as large as Grant had, my mother’s maiden name sealing my fate within its graceful letters.
‘Mary Firth, on the 24th Day of the First Turning of the Bountiful Moons, in the 20th year of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Edith. Stormsinger.’
Demery sprinkled drying powder over the page and blew it away in a swirling gust, then closed the ledger and smiled at me. “Welcome, Ms. Firth. Now, let’s find you something to eat, and I’ll tell you what’s next.”