“Farewell,” I echoed.
I listened to his footsteps fade. I counted each step, and calculated how many he would need to take to cross the deck and descend to where the prisoners were held in the forward hold.
Then I slipped out of the door, and quietly followed him.
FORTY-ONE
Honor, Dishonor and Benedict Rosser
SAMUEL
I managed to still my shaking hands by the time I faced Benedict, but only just. Mary’s forgiveness impacted me more deeply than I expected, and everything I had learned tonight was an urgent jangling at the back of my mind.
But now I had to focus on my brother.
Benedict peeled from the shadows as I approached the forward hold with a hooded lantern. Bars and barriers had been erected over the space, cutting it off from the crates and barrels and bundles that packed the rest of the hold. Demery had obviously been prepared, and the prison was sound.
“Sam.” My twin leaned against the bars. Beyond him, the thirty or so crewmembers who had accompanied him languished, glaring and muttering in the shadows. “Did she tell you about us?”
“Who—” Immediately off-footed, I closed my mouth and fought to regroup. He was trying to take the upper hand, and I could not let him. “I am here to help you, Ben.”
“She enjoyed it, there is little doubt of that,” Benedict went on. His tone was flippant, but his stare was as fixed as a hunting wolf. And like a wolf, his eyes glistened in the light of my lantern. “Tasted like wine, and smelled of winter wind and sweat. Sweet, is a woman’s sweat. On her cheeks. Her throat. Her breasts.”
Rage hit me like a rogue wave. For an instant, all I could see was a vision of smashing my brother into the bars.
When the impulse passed, I still stood a pace away from the prison, but the slim handle of the lantern had bent in my grasp.
“Do not speak of Alice like that,” I hissed, trying to speak quietly enough that his crew—or any pirates in the myriad shadows around the hold—would not overhear. “I am here to help you. Do you want to die?”
“Alice?” Benedict laughed, but when he continued, his voice was as low as mine. “No, she tasted like… what did she call it? Rosewater. Rosewater, and the lavender tucked under her pillow. So clean. So proper. I doubt Mary’s ever touched rosewater in her life, no matter what they dressed her in for that party. Now Mary, she’s much different than Alice. Except for how badly she wanted me.”
Before I knew I was moving, I had Ben by the collar. I hauled him into the bars with a clatter and reached both hands through, grinding him into the rough iron.
“Continue acting like a dog, and you’ll soon die like one,” I spat in his ear. “There is only one person here who gives a shit what happens to you.”
I saw the whites of Ben’s eyes as he craned to look up at me. He panted in pain, but grinned all the same. “You want to kill me right now.”
“I do,” I growled, then shoved him, hard. He stumbled backwards and nearly tripped, but caught himself. “However, you remain my brother.”
Benedict clutched his crushed face for a moment, then muttered, “Uncle’s not here to whip us, Sam. You can stop being my savior.”
I snorted, overwhelmed by scorn and loathing. I raked hair back from my eyes and forced my breath out in a steady, measured rhythm.
“I am not doing this because of him,” I said, speaking each word intentionally. “I am doing this for myself. I do not want my brother to die. I do not want to be the one who kills him. I want you to be a better man so that I can look you in the eye and not despise you. So shut up and listen to me.”
Silence fell between us. I heard a brush of fabric against wood, somewhere in the shadows, but attributed it to Ben’s gaping crew, witness to everything I said.
Benedict watched me with an expression so intense, yet so opaque, I could not read it.
“Help Demery defeat Lirr. Fisher has taken care of Ellas—she is of no use to you anymore. You have few cards left to play, so play them right. Otherwise these pirates may kill you, and I will not stop them. You would have hung them all.”
Ben rolled his eyes, ignoring the bit about Ellas. “Sympathizing with pirates, Sam? You are a traitor.”
“They are the ones in power now,” I countered. “You of all people ought to realize that being a pirate—a murderer, adulterer—does not guarantee justice. Besides, I would rather fight beside a pirate with a just cause than a ‘lawful’ captain like Ellas.”
Consideration flickered behind his eyes.
“I ought to despise you for siding with him and locking me in here,” Ben admitted, eyeing me up and down. “But I never thought I would hear you say something like that. You have always been so…”
“Do not say ‘honorable,’” I growled. “I am not.”
“I was going to say bull-headed and dull.” My brother smirked. He considered me for another minute, then decided, “Fine. I will help the pirates, but only against Lirr. I want my prize, and I want my commission intact—help me get that. I have my eye on a captaincy.”
His grin was more than a little cruel as he added, “Uncle has to be proud of one of us.”
My throat thickened. I nearly abandoned him then, and left him to Demery’s justice.
But in the back of my mind lingered two young boys, one’s hands bloodied from a lash. I remembered a night of pain and suffering that I could have prevented.
I heard my uncle’s voice too. But, no… perhaps it was no longer the voice of an admiral behind his desk. It was my own.
He is my responsibility.
“I will do what I can for you,” I vowed. I considered telling him of what the Mereish merchant had said, of possibilities of healing, but the glint in his eyes told me that only blood would sate him today. “You will sail home in glory.”
“And the prize?” Ben prompted.
“I will ensure you are given your fair share.”
“Fine, then.” My brother laced his arms over his chest and looked back at his crewmembers. I did not need to slip into the Other to sense he was using his Magni’s power when he said, “Right, sailors, we are going to help the pirates kill Lirr. Any objections?”
I left him before their cheers filled the hold. I wove through the ship, passing pirates preparing for battle. They barely glanced at me, clearing for action and readying the guns. There were no insults or threats, no brawling or drunkenness. They were just men and women with tasks, some pale with nerves, others grim, and yet others laughing and encouraging one another on.
They were people, criminals, but people all the same. People who would fight and die beside me tonight.
I found Athe in the melee and told her of Ben’s decision.
“He is a Magni,” I warned. “Be cautious of anything you think or feel when he is about.”
“I am familiar with the sort,” she returned, surveying a pair of young crewfolk as they clattered cannonballs into cradles between the guns. “Demery and I will discuss it. If I’m not convinced, I will not let that man free, understood? I would sooner put him down than jeopardize this crew.”
“That is all I ask.”
It was not until I was up on deck, in sight of the Wold and the icy sea, that I offered a quiet prayer—for Benedict’s cooperation, for my own conscience, and for Mary’s safety.