The Last Knight, page 13
Then he turned away, for at that point only an idiot would have asked a question. So I wasn’t surprised when Sir Michael said, “Captain? Where are we going?”
The captain looked surprised, but I was relieved to see that a reasonable question didn’t offend him.
“We’re headed for our home berth, Tallow Port.” A rustle of dismay swept the room. Tallow Port was halfway around the realm. “We should get there in about three months, wind and weather permitting. If you’re smart, you can be back here in six months—your sweethearts won’t have time to miss you, and your kiddies won’t have grown an inch. If you’re not smart…” He shrugged and departed, and Sir Michael and I stared at each other in consternation. In six months Lady Ceciel could hide herself anywhere. And the trail would be cold.
The next day, we crept up on deck, blinking in the fitful sunlight, for the autumn weather had shifted again. It was called a deck, I learned. And though the interior floors were called floors, the interior walls were called bulkheads, the beds were called bunks, and there were many other bits of useless wordplay.
That first day, most of the new “crewmen” sat in a wretched huddle, but Sir Michael wandered around asking questions about this or that, and I did a bit of learning myself.
We ate with our fellows in misery, and the meals added to that misery. Breakfast consisted of a bowl of boiled wheat with dried meat in it, and hard biscuits. Mid-meal was a bowl of boiled, dried meat, with wheat in it, and hard biscuits. Dinner was a bowl of dried meat, with a wedge of cabbage, or a few carrots, or a potato, and hard biscuits. My only consolation was that the captain and his officers fared no better.
As we ate, we learned something of the men who’d been kidnapped with us. One was a carpenter, one an apprentice tanner, and so on. Several were sailors, and they were fairly resigned to their lot, though they’d not have chosen this ship. We also heard, that first day, the story of the seagull that had soared through an open cabin window and snatched a broiled fish right off the captain’s plate like…well, like magic. The captain beat it to death with a chart weight, for he was sensitive about receiving proper respect, even from seagulls. The response when Sir Michael introduced himself as a knight errant, and me as his squire, was tiresome, but it soon passed. The only one of us who really stood out was Willard.
Willard was the man who’d cried when Cracker told him he’d been cudgel-crewed. He was a merchant’s clerk by trade, and physically not unlike the captain—small and slight with thinning hair, though he was only in his early twenties. But far from possessing the captain’s hard competence, Willard couldn’t seem to do anything right. He tried his best, but he dropped so many things that after three days’ trial Cracker banned him from the galley. Perhaps fear made him clumsy, or perhaps that was simply the way Willard was.
The captain finally gave up and assigned Willard to act as ship’s clerk, recording all matters of cargo. There wasn’t much clerking to do while we were at sea, so for most of his work shift the first mate set Willard to scrubbing the deck and cleaning and polishing the metalwork. He still dropped things, but if he screwed up these simple tasks he wouldn’t sink us.
A few questions determined that the crew was loyal, and the officers were the only ones armed, so I resigned myself to my fate. Perhaps when we were released in Tallow Port I could persuade Sir Michael to declare my debt repaid and let me go. Jack once told me that any connie who couldn’t make a fortune in Tallow Port ought to give up and get an honest job.
As the first few weeks of our training passed, I became a reasonably competent apprentice seaman. My hands were deft enough at knots, and the rest of the job consisted of hauling on, or releasing, whatever rope they told you to. Each rope had a specific name and function, and I got them all memorized at about the same time my hands and bare feet grew callused. I learned to ride the pitching deck better than I could ride a horse. I should also mention that all our feet were bare, not through cruelty or stinginess on the captain’s part, but to give us better purchase on the deck—especially when it grew slick with rain or high waves, or when Willard tipped over his wash bucket.
But if I became reasonably competent, Sir Michael took to the sea as if he’d been born to it. Of all the “new crewmen,” he was the only one allowed to climb into the nets of rope that spiderwebbed up from the deck. He seemed to take a special pleasure in this cramped, noisy, tilting world, surrounded by the endless expanse of wind, wave, and open sky.
I wouldn’t have left the safety of the deck for a hundred gold roundels, but I had noticed before that a year of supporting himself with odd jobs had given my noble employer an unusual expertise at manual labor.
Then came the afternoon when Sir Michael summoned me to the railing with a direct look, and a jerk of his head so slight it was almost devious.
I sauntered over to him. It was a good afternoon for sauntering, not a cloud in the sky and the sun so warm our feet stuck to the pitch that sealed the deck planks.
“Look, Fisk.” He was leaning against the rail like a man with nothing on his mind. “No, not that way—out to sea.”
At first I saw nothing but water. Then a wave tossed us up and I glimpsed a line of low humps on the horizon. “Land?”
“Land! I’ve been up in the rigging and I think ’tis no more than a mile off. Can you make it?”
“Make it what? Wait a minute, you don’t mean…”
Sir Michael nodded, his eyes still resting casually on the busy deck. “Over the side, right now, before they lock us up.”
“You’re mad,” I told him. “You’ll freeze. You’ll get eaten by sharks or something.” But my heart began to pound. If Sir Michael was forced to leave me behind—through no fault of mine—he’d never declare me unredeemed. Not Michael.
“The sun’s been on the water all day, Fisk. It won’t be that cold. They’ll order us below soon. Can you make it?”
My freedom. Free, and in Tallow Port—half a realm away from past misdeeds and crazy knights errant. Still…A foolish qualm of conscience seized me.
“Are you sure you can make it?” I asked.
That caught Sir Michael’s attention and he stared at me—about time, too. He was being so casual, he was about to look suspicious. “Almost sure. I can’t guarantee our safety, but if I thought ’twas truly dangerous I wouldn’t propose it. What—”
“Then you should go,” I told him, trying to sound courageously resigned, which was tough the way my heart was singing. “You’ll have to leave me here, Sir Michael. I can’t swim. But I’ll be all right, and it’s more important to bring Lady Ceciel to justice. Go. Now.”
“You can’t swim?” I glared, and he went on more softly, “Fisk…is that the truth?”
I realized he was thinking of the time I’d told him I didn’t know how to fight. Heat flooded my cheeks.
“Of course it’s true,” I snarled. (As it happens, it was.) “Where would I have learned to swim? The city sewer? Get out of here, Michael, while you’ve got a chance!”
His eyes widened. Then he drew himself up and took a deep breath. “No. I won’t leave you. We’ll find another way.”
“What other way? You’ll never get a better opportunity!” He was looking noble and stubborn, curse him. “I’ll be fine! What about your redemption? Your honor? What if Lady Ceciel kills again?”
Sir Michael shook his head. “I don’t think so. If she was going to kill anyone, it would be us. And she hasn’t, Fisk. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
When I thought about it, it did, but…“Not really. Lots of people hate their spouses more than they could ever hate a stranger. Maybe she had a good reason to kill Herbert.”
“Mayhap she did. I wish I knew what it was.”
“Then go find out!”
“No, Squire.” He took my arm and pulled me away from the rail. “I won’t desert you. We’ll find another way.”
“Thanks a lot, Noble Sir.”
The son of a bitch laughed.
Shortly after that, they ordered us down to the room where we bunked and locked us in. We might have tried to cry out or throw a message out an airhole. But as the captain pointed out, he’d committed no crime in this fiefdom, so even if we did attract attention, no one would do anything about it. And as I pointed out to Sir Michael, even if the law interceded for the rest, they’d let the captain keep us since indebted men have no legal rights.
Sir Michael said that shouldn’t weigh with us if we could help the others, and the ensuing argument kept us from boredom as the evening dragged on.
Another week passed. Since the weather stayed fair, the captain ordered us to paint all the ship’s trim—at sea, you have to keep wood painted or oiled, or it rots.
Sir Michael, Willard, and I were applying scarlet paint to the aft deck rail. It was a bright, clear day with just enough wind to keep the ship moving, and we were all dipping our brushes in the same bucket. Then Willard moved his foot and knocked it over. Sir Michael grabbed for the bucket—we’d both been saving the paint from Willard all morning—but this time he missed, and the paint spilled down to the main deck.
Willard winced. “Sorry. I’ll clean it up.”
I was about to make some reply when I noticed that Sir Michael, who’d leaned over the rail in his attempt to catch the bucket, had evidently frozen there. Then he moved back, stiffly, his expression so grim that my jaw dropped.
I was going to ask what was wrong when I heard footsteps coming up the stair to the aft deck. Bootsteps.
The whole left half of the captain’s face was scarlet, and paint splattered his clothes. He looked like a player who’s been hit with a fruit pie, but no one laughed; this was the man who had beaten the seagull to death. This was the man who regarded an offense against his dignity as the ultimate crime.
We’d been painting the underside of the rail, so all three of us were on our knees, anyway.
“C-c-c-captain.” Willard’s body crumpled under the weight of the captain’s rage. He cowered, twitching with fear, and I thought that his own terror, combined with the shock and pain of flogging, might actually kill him.
“I did it.”
We all turned to Sir Michael. The captain looked startled, but Willard’s face revealed a shamed, desperate hope. I opened my mouth to protest, but Sir Michael grabbed my wrist, squeezing hard, commanding silence. He stood and faced the captain, and I realized the whole ship had fallen silent, watching.
“My apologies, sir,” Sir Michael said, in a clear, carrying voice. “’Twas an accident.”
The sailors in the rigging might have seen what happened. I looked up at them—all but two were watching Sir Michael and the captain, and those two were looking at Willard.
Willard crouched on the deck. He tried to speak but produced nothing but little choking sounds. His white face twisted like a man about to retch. I put my hands on his shoulders, squeezing him into silence. The two sailors above said nothing. I said nothing.
The officers herded the crew off to one side and drew their swords, but we all knew no one would try anything. Sir Michael was pale, but except for a couple of lines between his brows, his face showed no expression. He pulled off his shirt when they told him to, and they tied his wrists to the main mast so we couldn’t see his face.
Cracker and his assistants were summoned from the galley—everyone had to be present. Cracker’s shrewd eyes took in the whole scene, and he went to stand beside Willard. Willard clutched him and began to babble.
The captain, who had gone to his cabin, returned wearing an old shirt and old, dark britches. He carried a whip—a long, leather one, like ox cart drivers use. That kind of whip takes some skill, and for a moment I hoped he wouldn’t know how to handle it, but of course he did. It could have been worse—I’ve heard of sea captains using whips tipped with metal barbs. He flipped out the coil, then flicked it expertly, so the slack rolled down the length of the leather and the end snapped against Sir Michael’s bare back. Sir Michael flinched but didn’t make a sound. A red stripe appeared, and a drop of blood rolled down his skin.
In my opinion, heroism is vastly overrated.
The whip whispered and cracked again. I was about to start cursing my employer for every kind of fool, when I realized this might well be the fate Sir Michael had spared me in Deepbend.
Sir Michael stayed silent at first—though Willard flinched and whimpered at every cut. But that couldn’t last. After a few minutes (I refused to count blows, for that only makes it worse) blood began to splatter on the deck and Sir Michael began moaning, softly.
An odd, sick smile lit the captain’s face. He’d been waiting for Michael to scream and wouldn’t stop until he did. Something Michael would fight to the last.
Vastly overrated.
But those soft moans marked the beginning of the end of Michael’s self-control—a dozen more blows set him screaming. The captain stopped soon after that and went to change his clothes again.
Willard clung to Cracker, crying.
I wanted to go below and help tend Sir Michael, but they told me that was Cracker’s job and sent me back to work.
Sir Michael was young and strong. He’d be fine in a week or two, no doubt. Absolutely no doubt. There was no reason for my hands to shake for the rest of the afternoon…but they did.
CHAPTER 10
Michael
“Shh, lad, shh, just hold on a bit. Shh.” Cracker’s voice was the second thing I became aware of. The first was my back, which felt as if thorns were being raked across it every time I drew a breath.
The air was thick with the burnt-bitter scent of mallow salve. Cracker’s clothes rustled and I gasped at the sting as he rubbed salve over the whip cuts, but the sting was followed by blessed numbness. For superficial scrapes like these, it would give several hours of ease—more if ’twas magica, but that wasn’t likely on a ship like this one.
I gritted my teeth, and Cracker worked quickly. In only ten minutes the mallow had taken full hold and I was able to sit up, carefully, and drink a mug of clear broth, thick with the taste of various herbs.
“I’ve got to get back to the galley now,” said Cracker. “But your mate can tend you through the night.”
I thought of trying to explain that Fisk was my squire, not my mate, but the pain of lying down again stole my breath, and by the time I recovered it Cracker had gone.
I suspect that some of those herbs were soporific, for within minutes I found my eyelids drooping. The light coming through the airholes was pink with sunset, and I realized, sleepily, that this was going to leave me with some rather explicit scars. Not respectable at all. But remembering poor Willard’s twitching face, I found I had no regrets—rescuing the weak is what a knight errant is supposed to do. And all I had to do, to keep Father from finding out, was to never take off my shirt. ’Twas simple. I was still thinking how simple it was when I drifted off to sleep.
I woke again sometime in the night. My back throbbed and burned, and my throat was tight with thirst. Light hands smoothed salve over the aching welts, and I hissed at the sting.
“Cracker?” I asked. When you’re lying on your stomach, turning your head requires more back muscles than you’d think.
“No, it’s me. Fisk.” ’Twas a good thing he added his name—his voice was so gentle I barely recognized it. Moving very slowly, I turned to look at him.
“You don’t have to sound so kindly. ’Tis not that bad.”
“Thank goodness. Being that kindly was a terrible strain.”
I didn’t dare laugh, but I was glad he sounded more like himself. He leaned down, his eyes searching my face. The rocking candle lantern cast shifting shadows over his. He evidently found what he was looking for—he relaxed and straightened. “You’ll be all right.”
“That’s what I told you.”
I waited for him to tell me that this had not been a smart thing to do either, but he said nothing more. His fingers on my back were feather soft—a pickpocket’s touch. How had I ever managed without a squire?
I said as much when he helped me sit up so I could drain a mug of rum-spiked water.
“Don’t get too content with it,” he replied. “I’m hoping that someday you’ll declare my debt repaid.”
“Someday,” I agreed, yawning despite the pain.
“I don’t suppose you’d put a time limit on that?” He tried to sound tough and indifferent, but the softness had crept back into his voice.
“Not yet.” I fought the impulse to yawn again as he laid me down. My back was numb once more, and between that and the rum, I was almost comfortable. “I’ll let you know.”
“You do that,” Fisk said. I wondered if he realized he was smiling.
The next time I awakened I found Fisk sitting, sound asleep, against the wall beside my bed. Ships are never silent, but there’s a deep stillness that prevails over the darkest part of night, and I sensed it now.
The mallow’s numbness was wearing off, and I realized that Fisk must have reapplied it several times without waking me—and had sat up all night to do it. I hated to wake him, but there was a bodily necessity I had to take care of, and I couldn’t sit or stand without help.
“Fisk?”
He woke with a start, stiff and disoriented, and for a moment I forgot my growing discomfort. Fisk is a complex person. I would have to remember this kindness the next time he infuriated me—though the last time, he hadn’t even understood that it was his lack of trust that angered me even more than his lie about being able to fight.
“You’re a very good man,” I said. His face crimsoned from collar to hairline, as if I’d accused him of something shameful.
“I just don’t like pain.” He rubbed his face briskly, regaining control. “Especially if it’s mine. What can I do for you, Noble Sir?”
I’d always known ’twas going to take time.
By morning I could sit up by myself, although I tired quickly when Willard came to speak with me. Or mayhap ’twas simply that ’tis exhausting to be thanked, not to mention wept over. I was relieved when Fisk arrived and kicked Willard out, with a briskness that was not unkind.
