Page 161

Sorcor just stared at him for a moment. Then he seemed to decide to humour Kennit.

‘Couldn’t be better. Unless you’d come ashore and talk to the merchants yourself.

They’ve all but begged that you come and be their guest. I already told you once.

They saw our Raven flag coming into the harbour and turned out the whole town for us.

Little boys were shouting your name from the docks, “Captain Kennit, Captain Kennit”.

I heard one tell another that when it came to pirates, you were better than Igrot the Terrible. ’

Kennit startled, then made a sour face. ‘I knew Igrot when I was a lad. His reputation exaggerates him,’ he said quietly.

‘Still, that’s something, when folk compare you to the man that burned twenty towns and—’

‘Enough of my fame,’ Kennit cut him off. ‘What of our business?’

‘They’ve resupplied us handsomely, and the Sicerna is already hove down for repair.’ The burly pirate shook his head. ‘There’s a lot of rot in her hull. I’m surprised the Satrap would entrust a gift’s delivery to a rotten tub like that.’

‘I doubt he inspected her hull,’ Kennit suggested dryly. ‘And they welcomed the new population we brought them?’

‘With open arms. Last slave-raid carried off the best smith in town. We’ve brought them two new ones.

And the musicians and such are all the talk of the place.

Three times now they acted out The Liberation of the Sicerna — got a right handsome lad being you, and a great worm made of paper and silk and barrel hoops that comes right up…

’ Sorcor’s voice died away abruptly. ‘It’s a really good show, sir.

I don’t think there’s anyone in town who hasn’t seen it. ’

‘Well. I am glad that the loss of my leg proved entertaining for so many.’

‘Now that’s not it, sir,’ Sorcor began hastily, but Kennit waved him to silence.

‘My liveship,’ he announced.

‘Oh, Sar,’ Sorcor groaned.

‘Did we not have an agreement?’ Kennit asked him. ‘I believe we’ve just captured and liberated a slave-ship. As I recall, it is now my turn to go after a liveship.’

Sorcor scratched at his beard. ‘That weren’t quite the agreement, sir. It was that if we saw a slaver, we went after her. And then the next liveship we saw, we’d go after. But you’re talking about hunting a liveship, or laying in wait for one.’

‘It all amounts to the same thing,’ Kennit dismissed his objection.

‘No, begging your pardon, sir, but it don’t.

I’ve been giving it some thought, sir. Maybe we ought to lay off both for a time.

Just go back to pirating like we used to.

Go after some fat merchant-ships, like we used to do.

Get us some money, have some good times.

Stay away from slavers and serpents for a while.

’ Sorcor’s thick fingers fumbled with the gilt buttons on his vest as he offered this.

‘You’ve shown me life can be different than what I thought.

For both of us. You got yourself a nice woman.

She makes a real difference around here.

I see now what you were trying to get me to understand.

If we went back to Divvytown with a good haul, well, like Sincure Faldin was saying about being respectable and settled and all… ’

‘Once we have a liveship under us, you can have your choice of virgins, Sorcor,’ Kennit promised him.

‘A new one each week, if that is what pleases you. But first, my liveship. Now. If we can assume that anything we learned from the Sicerna’s crew is true, then it is likely we still have at least one liveship south of us still.

Come and look at the chart with me. It seems to me that luck has placed us in a fine position.

To the south of us, here, we have Hawser Channel.

A nasty bit of water at any time, but especially at the change of tides.

Any ship going north has to go through it. Do you see?’

‘I see,’ Sorcor conceded grudgingly.

Kennit ignored his reluctance. ‘Now, in Hawser Channel we have Crooked Island. The good passage is to the east of the island. It’s shallow in a few spots, but the shoals don’t shift much.

To the west of the island is a different story.

The current runs strong, especially at the tide changes.

Close to the island we have shoals that constantly form and reform.

To the west we have the aptly-named Damned Rocks. ’ He paused. ‘Do you recall them?’

Sorcor frowned. ‘I’ll never forget them. You took us in there that one time the Satrap’s galley got after us. Current caught us and we shot through there like an arrow. Took me three days to believe I came out of it alive.’

‘Exactly,’ Kennit concurred. ‘A much swifter passage than if we had gone to the east of Crooked Island.’

‘So?’ Sorcor asked warily.

‘So? So we anchor here. A beautiful view of the approach to Hawser Channel. Once we see the liveship enter the channel, we take the west passage. As the liveship emerges, there we are, waiting for her, anchored in mid-channel. The east passage still has a respectable current. The liveship will have no choice but to run aground in the shoal here.’ He lifted his eyes from the chart to meet Sorcor’s solemn look with a grin.

‘And she is ours. With minimum damage, if any.’

‘Unless she simply rams us,’ Sorcor pointed out sourly.

‘Oh, she won’t,’ Kennit assured him. ‘Even if she did, we’d still just board her and take her anyway.’

‘And lose the Marietta?’ Sorcor was horrified.

‘And gain a liveship!’

‘This is not a good idea. A hundred things could go wrong,’ Sorcor objected.

‘We could be smashed to bits on the Damned Rocks. That’s not a piece of water I’d ever willingly run again.

Or if her draught is shallower than ours, we might take all those risks and she might still just slip past us quick-like while we were still anchored. Or…’

He meant it. He actually meant it, he wasn’t going to go along with the idea. How dare he? He’d be nothing without Kennit. Nothing at all. A moment before, he’d been swearing he owed all he was to his captain, and now he would deny him his chance at a liveship.

A sudden change in tactics occurred to Kennit.

He lifted a hand to stem the mate’s wotds. ‘Sorcor. Do you care for me at all?’ he asked with disarming directness.

That stopped his words, as Kennit had known it would. The man almost blushed. He opened his mouth and then stammered, ‘Well, Captain, we’ve sailed together for a time now. And I can’t recall a man who’s treated me fairer, or been more…’

Kennit shook his head and turned aside from him as if moved.

‘No one else is going to help me with this, Sorcor. There’s no one I trust as I do you.

Since I was a boy, I’ve dreamed of a liveship.

I always believed that some day I’d walk the deck of one, and she’d be mine.

And —’ He shook his head and let his voice thicken.

‘Sometimes a man fears he may see the end sooner than he’d believed.

This leg… if what they say is true for me…

’ He turned back to Sorcor, opened his blue eyes wide to meet Sorcor’s dark ones.

‘This may be my last chance,’ he said simply.

‘Oh, sir, don’t talk like that!’ Tears actually started to the scarred mate’s eyes.

Kennit bit his lip hard to keep the grin away.

He leaned closer to the chart table to hide his face.

It was a mistake, for his crutch slipped.

He caught at the table edge, but the tip of his rotten stump still touched the floor.

He cried out with the agony of it and would have fallen if Sorcor had not caught him.

‘Easy. I’ve got you. Easy now.’

‘Sorcor,’ he said faintly. He regained his grip on the chart table, and leaned hard on his arms to keep from collapsing.

‘Can you do this for me?’ He lifted his head.

He was shaking now, he could feel it. It was the strain of standing on one leg.

He wasn’t accustomed to it, that was all.

He didn’t truly believe he’d die of this.

He’d heal, he always healed, no matter how badly he was injured.

He could do nothing about the grimace of pain that twisted his face or the sweat that had started fresh on his face.

Use it. ‘Can you give me this last chance at it?’

‘I can do it, sir.’ Dumb faith vied with heartbreak in Sorcor’s eyes. ‘I’ll get your liveship for you. You’ll walk her decks. Trust me,’ he begged Kennit.

Despite his pain, Kennit laughed in his throat.

He changed it to a cough. Trust him. ‘What choice do I have?’ he asked himself bitterly.

Somehow the words slipped out aloud. He swung his gaze to where Sorcor regarded him worriedly.

He forced a sick smile to his lips, warmth to his voice.

He shook his head at himself. ‘All these years, Sorcor, who else have I ever trusted? I have no choice but to put the burden once more upon our friendship.’

He reached for his crutch. He took hold of it, but realized he did not have the strength to hold it firmly. The healing of his stump was drawing off every bit of strength he had. He blinked his heavy eyes. ‘I shall have to ask for your help to reach my bed as well. My strength deserts me.’

‘Captain,’ Sorcor said. The grovelling affection of a dog was in the word.

Kennit stored the thought away to consider when he felt better.

Somehow asking Sorcor’s aid had made the man more dependent on his approval than ever.

He had chosen his first mate well, he decided.

Were he in Sorcor’s position, he would have instinctively grasped that now was his best opportunity to seize full power.

Luckily for Kennit, Sorcor was slower-witted than he.

Sorcor stooped awkwardly and actually lifted Kennit bodily to carry him back to his bed.

The abrupt movement stirred his pain to a new intensity.

Kennit clutched at Sorcor’s shoulders and his brain swam dizzily.

For an instant he was overwhelmed by an ancient memory of his father; black whiskers and whisky-breath and sailor-stink, whirling and laughing in a drunken dance with the boy Kennit in his arms. A time both terrifying and happy.

Sorcor set him down gently on his bunk. ‘I’ll send Etta in, shall I? ’

Kennit nodded feebly. He reached after the memory of his father, but the chimera danced and mocked him from his shadowy childhood.

Instead another face smiled down on him, sardonic and elegant.

‘A likely urchin. Perhaps something useful can be made of him.’ He tossed his head against his pillow, shaking the memory from his mind. The door closed behind the first mate.

‘You don’t deserve these people,’ a small voice said quietly. ‘Why they love you is beyond me. I would tell you that I would rejoice in your downfall the day they find you out, save that is also the day their hearts will break. By what luck do you deserve the loyalty of such folk?’

Wearily he lifted his wrist. The little face, strapped so tightly over his pulse point, glared up at him.

He snorted a brief laugh at its indignant expression.

‘By my luck. By the luck in my name and the luck in my blood, I deserve them.’ Then he laughed again, this time at himself.

‘The loyalty of a whore and a brigand. Such wealth.’

‘Your leg is rotting,’ the little face said with sudden malignancy. ‘Rotting up the bone. It will stink and drip and burn the life from your flesh. Because you lack the courage to cut your own foulness from your body.’ It sneered a grin at him. ‘Do you wit my parable, Kennit?’

‘Shut up,’ he said heavily. He had begun to sweat again. Sweating in his nice clean shirt, in his fresh clean bed. Sweating like a stinking old drunk. ‘If I am evil, what shall we say of you? You are part and parcel of me.’

‘This piece of wood had a great heart once,’ the charm declared. ‘You have put your face upon me and your voice comes from my mouth. I am bound to you. But wood remembers. I am not you, Kennit. And I swear I shall not become you.’

‘No one… asked you… to.’ His breath was coming harder. He closed his eyes and sank away.