“Any man can name a clan,” Rone said.

  “But can any man name you, I wonder? I can draw the runes for you, but that would still require trust. I am Somniatel. That should be enough for you to know my word is true.” Farthow leaned forward. “Now, I have named what I know, which means others know it. One man in particular, Vindrel, who I think you are familiar with, probably also knows it.”

  “How are you going to help?” Charlotte said. She lowered her gun and worked herself back to standing.

  “I have a few things in mind, but you must trust me,” Farthow said. He stood up and put his tea down. He held his left hand forward, palm up. “The armed man is to be feared.”

  “But the open hand may still carry faith,” Rone said, and completed the other half of the ritual, pushing the back of his left hand against Farthow’s palm. “I will trust you today. May oblivion take you if you lie.”

  Farthow nodded. He looked to Charlotte. “Now that the unpleasantness is behind us, let us consider our predicament.”

  “You have another ship for us?” Rone asked.

  Farthow shook his head. “My employer cannot afford to be that overt. I think if we can get you on your own ship and get it out to sea that would be best. There might be a corporate liner going someplace else tomorrow, but I have no idea without heading down to the docks myself, which of course I cannot do.”

  “You have anything in mind?” Rone said.

  “It’ll be trouble,” Farthow said.

  “No different than tonight, then,” Charlotte said.

  Farthow cocked an eye to Charlotte. “Rumor carries that you’re from the deep country and used to shooting and hunting.”

  “I am,” Charlotte said.

  Farthow smiled. “Then perhaps I have a good rifle for you. Better than that old smoothbore. Should be handy.”

  “A rifle?” Charlotte said.

  “It’s a special type of gun, technically a piece of heresy of course, used a great deal by sharpshooters and the like.” Farthow walked to the corner and produced a long gun with a heavy steel barrel. “This belongs to my best man, Dem, but I can buy him another.” He handed it to Charlotte. “You’ll need a different sort of ball, too. I have some.”

  Charlotte frowned as she looked the gun over. “You said it was forbidden; why is someone working for the count allowed to keep something like that? Wouldn’t the count be angry with you?”

  “Who said I worked for the count?” Farthow said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Rone did,” Charlotte said. “And it makes sense. He’s the only person in Masala who would care about retarding the plans of Sarthius Catannel.”

  Farthow smiled and put his hands up in resignation.

  “You didn’t answer my question, by the way,” Charlotte said. “Does your Count condone heresy?”

  Farthow chuckled softly. “What if I told you we had more valuable things than guns at our disposal?

  Rone looked down with a smile. “In the world of politics, faith is nothing. Power is what matters. Heresy can be powerful.”

  “When we can get away with it,” Farthow said. He smiled. “Of course, I make sure we always get away with it. Now, you think you can handle that?”

  Charlotte nodded.

  He gave a sideways look to Rone. “What about you? I’ve heard you may have a few hidden talents.”

  “Many,” Rone said, “but if you mean magic, I’m afraid I’m as dull as you are.”

  Farthow smiled. “The talent’s dwindling just like our blood, but I’m not completely watered out.” He winked.

  X: Glamour

  The sea was on fire as the sun rose out of it, burning bright with hues of red and orange. A crewman wiped sweat out of his eyes and grumbled about the hard work of the rigging, while others busied themselves carrying crates and rolling barrels up the gangplank and onto the main deck. It was going to be a warm day. The yards were being rigged by a pair of men on the mainsail. The dingy canvas sails burned umber in the brightening sky, still furled and creaking in the morning wind. Two figures in leathers, one in a long coat and one in a cloak, walked up the gangplank to the main deck, sidestepping a few shirtless crewmen. One wore a hood, the other an oversized travel hat, flapping slightly in the wind.

  “Good to see you again, Phillip. And looking right and proper this time, too. It even looks like you’ve traveled before!” Big Johnny walked up to the pair, sticking his pipe back into his teeth. Rone quickly stepped forward and extended a hand. Johnny reached past and slapped Rone hard on the back, causing him to cough.

  “If you’re not dressed for the road, you’ve got no business on it,” Rone said, smiling from under his hat. He moved to the rail and looked out to sea.

  “There are no roads where we’re going, lad.” Johnny leaned back against the carved rail and spat into the water. “All the same, I had a feeling a silky doublet wasn’t really you. You get a sense about these things in my trade. Bright colors have a way of making men like me antsy.” He narrowed his eyes.

  Rone touched his nose and smiled slightly. “Brown is bright in a sea of color, captain.”

  “That it is.” When the captain turned around, the wind coming off the land in the early sun blew the smoke from his pipe into his eyes, momentarily making him squint. He pulled his black hat lower. “You’ll be happy to know we’ll be leaving within the next quarter-hour, just as soon as we’re done packing the fresh stores. Good, strong wind off the mainland should push us out to the northern current, and we should be into the Pelagian winds by tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Speed isn’t too much of a worry for us. Well,” Rone corrected himself, “I’d like to leave on time, but the length of the journey doesn’t concern me all that much.”

  “It concerns me. I’m a merchant. I have ah...” The captain paused a moment and closed one eye, “deadlines to keep.” Rone handed him a bag that jingled. Big Johnny immediately pocketed it.

  A sailor, who Rone recognized as Pierce from the day before, walked up to the captain and handed over a leather-bound book opened to one of the middle pages. “Everything seems in order, sir. We’ll be pulling up the fruit barrels shortly, and I took the liberty of acquiring several fresh barrels of water as well as more dry stock.”

  Without turning his head from the papers, Johnny shouted, “Quarter-hour me boys! When that sun hits the deck, I expect to be gone. Let’s hope the full hold makes up for your empty pockets. Better hope none of you got the rot, because I don’t pay sailors to sit sick in the cabin with fire piss!”

  Some of the crew cheered and laughed, but most seemed to not even notice the captain’s remark. A pack of six men stood idly by, talking to each other.

  “Is venereal disease a problem with your crew?” Rone asked, laughing.

  “It’s a problem with every crew. Can’t tell the boys where they should put their precious assets, even if some of them are a bit…rotten.” He grinned down at Rone. “Thank the twelve I haven’t had sick sailors spread it in the crew.”

  “I don’t remember anyone telling me about all this when I was on a ship.” Rone leaned over the rail with the captain.

  “No wonder you make interesting small talk. You’re a man of the sail then? No, wait, you were a company marine. You have the look of a fighter.”

  Rone nodded. “I wasn’t a good one. Conscription has a way of taking the professional passion out of you.”

  “Who was it? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “South Sea Trading Company.”

  “Not even a proper warship. I’m sorry, mate.”

  “I’m alive. They aren’t. That’s enough for me.”

  The captain frowned with realization and looked about him at the still men on deck. “Why are you standing around?! Pull up them barrels; the wind ain’t waiting for us, ya know!” The crew stood motionless; those that had been working now stopped as well to see the commotion.

  “It’s been a good eight years Johnny.” Danny, the thin and gaunt young man from docks the day previous, now wearing a loose-fitting peasant shirt, stepped forward from a small idle crowd of men. In his hand was a pistol, aimed at Johnny. Johnny stood calmly, pursing his lips and rocking on his heels.

  “Ah, Danny,” Johnny said. “Put that pistol away. Your mum would squint a lemon if she were to see you trying to mutiny.”

  “This is serious, Johnny,” Danny said. “I’ve stood by while you’ve led this crew into pointless danger for the last time. I’m doing what my father should have, and taking over controlling share of this enterprise. Be glad it’s not at sea.”

  Johnny turned to Rone. “Sorry you didn’t get to know Danny here as the ever-loyal and righteous first mate, making this betrayal all the more biting. Suffice to say,” he turned back, looked Danny right in the eye, and said with a flat affect, “I’m shocked.”

  “You should know better than to transport fugitives.”

  Johnny laughed falsely. “An old conscript, is that what this is about? Or are you just sore that you have to sleep with the crew for a few more nights?”

  “Try a royal kidnaper,” a booming voice said. A tall and menacing man in a green jacket, with a black beard and long black hair, stepped forward to stand above them on the quarterdeck, next to the helm. In his hand was a full hilt broadsword and the other held pistol.

  “Wish I could say it was good to see you again, Vindrel,” Rone said.

  “Every time I think it might be good to see you again, I only find you to have fallen further, Rone,” the man up top said, his face expressionless.

  “I’ve never cared what you thought of me,” Rone called back.

  “Royal kidnapping?” Johnny said to himself. The big man for the first time looked genuinely shocked, even scared. Footsteps thundered on the planks as pikemen and musketeers dressed in a uniform of bright green trousers and blue shirts below shining breastplates marched onto the boat from some hiding place on the docks. A few barrels fell from the plank into the water as the crew stepped back to let them pass.

  “Perhaps you have not heard, Lady Charlotte,” Vindrel began, sounding as cordial as he could while shouting over the sea and wind. “But the Lord King of the Isle, Eric Grasslund the twenty-third, has died, and Sarthius Catannel, your husband, the Count of Cataling, is set to succeed the throne.” For a set of seconds that seemed to drag out, only the wind, whipping through the loosened sails, could be heard. “Turn the girl loose and I’ll make sure you avoid the torture chamber.” Vindrel pulled back the hammer on his pistol. His thick black beard obscured the features of his face, but beneath his hat, his eyes shone out as a green amber.

  “A quick death then? I could just as easily have that right here.” Rone looked up at Vindrel.

  “Don’t count on it,” Vindrel said. “And it’s better than you deserve.”

  “Why don’t you just give me half your commission? That’s a better bargain.”

  “Always joking at the wrong time. You could have had your own commission,” Vindrel said, “You could have been a great spymaster – to a king, no less – but once again you are too proud to do anything on account of me.”

  “Well, without me you’d have no job to do out here, so I’d say I’m entitled to at least twenty percent.”

  “There’s no bargaining your way out of this one. I have you, and the lady, whether you cooperate or not.” Vindrel then called out louder, “My lady, please stop cowering behind this vagabond and come to safety. Your husband, the rightful king, is most worried for your safety.”

  One of the halberdiers on the deck walked toward the trio. He extended his hand toward the figure hiding behind Rone. There was a flash of movement, then he drew back a bloody stump, which he stared at in silence for a few moments before falling to his knees. As he kneeled on the deck he looked under the hood to see a pair of green eyes and a close-trimmed blonde beard that Johnny had missed and that none of the crew had thought twice about; in fact, virtually none of the crew up to that moment seemed to even remember that the figure had been standing on the deck, and those who did could have sworn that it was a small, feminine form, not a broad-shouldered man with a full beard.

  “Glamour,” Johnny breathed in disbelief, the lone sound that carried over the silence of the bloody moment.

  It was Farthow. Crimson drops fell from the dagger in front of him.

  The soldier screamed, as if suddenly realizing the horror of his injury.

  Before he could react to the bloody spectacle of the shrieking, shocked soldier, Vindrel grunted at a sharp pain in the bottom of his ribs. In surprise, he pulled the trigger of his pistol. Smoke swirled as he shot, but he missed Rone wide, hitting the railing and sending wooden shards and splinters into the face of a nearby mutineer.

  “They have cover from the docks!” One of the Cataling soldiers shouted. Several of the soldiers around him joined him in turning toward the docks, suddenly afraid of some hidden enemy in the jumble of tack stacked dockside.

  Moments later, Farthow’s hood was off and he was running through the deckhands that encircled them, slashing wildly with a broadsword and stabbing with a dagger, leaving arcs of blood where he had stood moments before. Rone at the same time ran forward, batting aside the ends of pikes with his backsword and slashing with his long dagger at wrists and necks. He put down two of the soldiers in front of him with his backsword, who swung their long battle pikes uselessly in the close quarters, before drawing his pistol and leveling it at Vindrel. Rone held the shot, watching the black-bearded man slowly slide down the wooden rail and collapse on the quarter deck near the wheel.

  Johnny did not waste the moment of confusion, or spend time wondering over whatever spell Farthow had managed. He drew his cutlass and put it to work against two musketeers, who fired even as their blood splashed on the deck. Johnny was knocked down by a pikeman’s knee strike before he could turn to face the men who closed from dockside. Muskets exploded all over the deck, filling the air with black smoke, but Rone and Farthow were already out of the way, hacking a path through the soldiers on either side. Those who still held their live muskets were afraid to fire on their comrades, instead trying to put to use their sidearms. Sailors who had held back from the mutiny, apparently not privy to Danny’s plan, now busied themselves with the soldiers and the men surrounding Danny, fighting with blade or grappling as opportunity allowed. Some fought with what was handy – a stick here or a knife there, but already cutlasses were being pulled from the inside racks and put into ready hands.

  Johnny, still floored, flinched at the shots and rolled on the deck, trying desperately to avoid the thrusts and slashes of the pikeman above him. He hit his head on the railing after rolling away from a near miss and found himself swooning. When a soldier finally readied himself for a killing blow, pulling his great spear far back past his shoulders, Johnny picked his knees up, reached into his pants, and fired a hidden pistol. The pikeman’s breastplate sparked and then began dripping blood from a blackened circle under his ribs.

  Within few minutes, though it felt far longer to those in the fight, the struggle on deck began to turn into a rout as mutineers and soldiers, filled with fear of and unable to regroup, began to jump off the ship or back down the gangplank. Musketeers, now freed of the burden of friendly fire, unleashed a half-hearted and half-aimed volley up to the main deck, striking a single mutineer by chance but otherwise only pummeling the wood of the ship. Rone rushed forward after the volley and kicked at the gangplank. It wobbled and flexed but did not drop. A pikeman rushed up to stab him and Rone turned aside, then fired his pistol at the man. The shot hit the man high on the thigh, sending him limping backward minus his pike.

  Farthow began throwing things at the retreating soldiers: small barrels, bottles, rocks, and chunks of wood – whatever was immediately handy. He knocked over one of the fruit barrels and Rone jumped over to help him push it down the gangplank. It bounced and bounded down, cracking the timber of the plank and knocking two stubborn pikemen into the bay. Three musketeers on the dock, who had failed to see the rout behind them, stopped and looked quickly at one another, their guns spent, then rushed away from the ship as Farthow continued throwing refuse.

  Rone turned to look for Big Johnny. The captain stood holding a pistol to Danny, who in turn had a sword trained on him. The surrounding men had stopped to watch, and Rone could not tell who was loyal and who was a traitor.

  “You know why I had to do it,” Danny said. His eyes were hot with anger and fear.

  “Aye, just business and all that. I don’t think that’ll keep you out of hell though.” The captain looked to his left at the dock. “Still time to step off, my boy.”

  Danny shot forward with his left foot, his sword extending at what would have been a potent thrust, had the sword been a rapier and not a cutlass. Johnny, despite his size, stepped backward just as quickly, and the blow fell short. The hammer of Johnny’s pistol snapped forward. The flint sparked and the pan flashed, but the gun failed to fire. Johnny held his arms out in a wide pose. “I guess you got me after all, Danny boy. Tell that pretty mum of yours I went out smiling.” Danny drew back to strike the captain, and in turn Johnny, moving in a flash, drew a knife from the small of his back and rushed him.

  He stopped short as a spray of blood erupted out of Danny’s shoulder, blinding Johnny and causing him to stumble. He recovered quickly, faster than Danny. The big man gripped the first mate’s right hand with his own free left, pushing the first mate’s cutlass away harmlessly. Johnny drove his dagger home, punching it deep into Danny’s chest.

  The first mate’s muscles went lax and he crumpled to the deck, his sword clanking against the hard oak as he reached for his chest, red death oozing between his fingers. He struggled for a few seconds, breath catching, eyes looking out to nothing, then he ceased to move. A few yards away, Rone and Farthow flinched. Farthow sheathed his blades, turned, and bowed toward the shore.

  “Full of surprises,” Rone said. He took a deep breath and looked to the rooftop of the closest dock house, where a small shadow stood up and disappeared, two long guns resting on its shoulder. Behind him, the mutineers that remained were holding their hands up, forced into a corner of the deck.

 

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