Shanty For The Soul: Pieces Of Eight, #1

By Steve Conoboy

They've wounded his ship, they've murdered his parrot, they've battered his reputation, and broken his trust. Everything that matters to him has come under attack. Cap'n Silus de Senza, however, is One o' the Eight and will fight to get it all back. Not a single soul will be safe from his wrath, not even those he's sailed alongside for years.

The only person he can trust is Billy Bird, the crow's nest girl, a young pirate with sharp eyes who's about to see more than she ever bargained for.

In the volatile Province of Maudlin, enemies old, new and numerous await. Grand Merchant Xavier Angst bears a grudge that has simmered for eight long years, and he will spend every coin he has to ensure Silus does not escape again. Many others remember de Senza's last visit and have not forgiven him.

Running out of friends, Silus is relieved when he bumps into Cap'n Samira Dalal, another of the infamous Eight, and a pirate renowned for her cool demeanour and sharp wit. Together they learn that one of their number, Brawley the Vile, arrived two days ago and was murdered along with most of his crew. It's too great a coincidence. The harbour town is an elaborate trap, and the more they fight the tighter it grips.

 

Someone - or something - hunts them, and once again Silus de Senza's arrival in Maudlin will turn the damned place upside-down.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Conoboy
• Release date: Jun 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201516239

Book preview

Chapter 1 

In the last peaceful minutes before someone shoots the Cap’n’s beloved parrot, Billy wallows in the crow’s nest, enjoying an occasional nip of illicit rum, sneezing as fumes sear the roof of her mouth. The heavy liquor clings to the walls of her throat, viscous and tenacious like oil from a squid. To clear her claggy palate she hawks up large, egg-yolk sticky globs of spit onto her tongue, then whoofs them out with a sharp rooster strut of the neck and head, firing a foamy streak in an arc aimed high at the whale-ghost clouds which loom up and up in the above, before decaying momentum sets the rum-spit on a plunging descent into the stirring sea all that way below. She always loses sight of these glistening saliva-bombs in the final instant before splashdown, but not because her eyes aren’t up to the task of tracking. The sun hangs low at this hour, near the end of its pendulum swing, and the last of its light catches the tips of waves hopping across the water, leaving scratches across the surface of these bleeding satsuma plains through which this plump galleon, The Machiavelli, slides. Into this keen shimmer her phlegm disappears, like a coin flicked into a treasure chest, losing individual form to blend in with an ocean of gold.

Billy Bird they call her, on account of her always being up here on the uppermost peak of the main mast, the tallest of three, and of her eyes so sharp that they could mark one card as different from another when held at the opposite end of the ship. The Magus, that reader of people, that scryer of futures, said in tones like old crumpled sheets that huge birds dwelled in mountains far from here, far from anywhere, enormous creatures with wingspans the equal of the sails on this ship and with eyesight like nothing else he’d known. Eagles, he called them, creatures that needed to see everything that could be seen so they could survive through cold like nothing you’d want to know, he said. And the Magus tells everyone, states it as fact, that Billy’s eyes match these eagles which had marveled him so long ago and so far away. So that was that, settled and done. The crew took to calling her Billy Bird, and though at first she made a fuss and acted like she hated the name, eventually she grew to enjoy her given identity. It isn’t only a name; it’s a place, a position. It is permanence.

A small adjustment to her neckerchief, in the black and spider-web gold of her ship’s colours, to keep out a breeze that turns chilly. Billy gives consideration to another taste of the syrupy rum, but resists for fear of running out too soon. The fattened sun, a skinned fruit with its juicy flesh bared, sits a ways short of falling altogether out of the sky, and there’s a while under the cold expanse of night to be had in the crow’s nest after that. Not that she minds, not at all, and it’s this simple love for a moment which Billy will later look back to and crave. All that the young lass wants is up here, especially after her unauthorised visit to the hefty barrels down in the stores. She has solitude away from her fellow pirates, each of them a braggard and a stink. She has time to relive whatever rousing stories had been woven of aroma-thick air in the ship’s mess, or to sit wide-eyed and quaking as she overhears moonlit meetings on the deck below, some ship-mates passing back and forth liquor and dark tales of ghosts and worse, unaware of how high their mutterings carry, forgetful of the endless hours Billy Bird spends up in her nest. She soaks these stories up, every last one, draws them in deep and clutches them tightly so they can’t escape, so she will always remember them well. They bubble and churn within her innards, heating the blood and firing the lungs. Perhaps she’ll have a Story of her own one day. Perhaps she’ll end up like Anders McAnders, cooked and dried like a prune skin, stories falling out of his every crease and each of them worth catching. Big hooks skewered the prizes which Anders brought for show, almost as large as the man himself, catches packed to the gills with epic battles that spilled more precious blood than the man’s body could ever have held, and with terrible acts of treachery low enough to bring a scowl to the scarred face of even the most scurrilous of pirate, and with escapes so incredible that not a soul could help but gasp when at last Anders revealed where he had managed to hide the key.

That’s what Billy wants most in the final minute before Scrawn the parrot meets his abrupt and violent end, a set of tales of her own, tales as tall as this mast which she sits atop, which some days she stares down, a great length of rich brown wood, and on these days she reckons that it doesn’t sway so much as bend. On these days she imagines it as a vast, inverted, soft rubber pendulum ticking away the circadian motions of the sea, or as a metronome that has ceased to click but groaned instead as wind and rhythm flexed it, tested it. The Cap’n’s occasional guest has a metronome. On one occasion she allowed Billy to set the device into action herself, and it mesmerised Billy with its unrelenting march, by its clack, clack, clack which switched her eyes from left to right to left again. By the same fashion, the weaving of the ship can lull her to calm, following rhythms less uniform yet far more familiar. Quietly it would shush and whisper stories of its own and tales that it has picked up along the way, almost inaudible for travelling so far and inescapably more intriguing for that. Billy listens closely to the oceans, like she listens to Anders and to Eliza with her metronome and to anything else upon which she might be carried away.

A crack.

Shocking, loud.

What might crack?

Wood.

Billy seizes the edges of her nest, sure without firm evidence that the mast has split under her, stomach sinking into the leagues of cold-space that open up beneath it.

Resting her belly on the lip of the nest and gripping tight with limber fingers, Billy tips herself over a thin axis, legs swinging up into nothing, the horizon throwing itself over her head and bringing the restless ship with it, the deck lurching like a broad see-saw stamped upon by a giant foot. The snap of canvass sails blisters her ears now she’s under the basket. None are folded or ripped or coming loose from the rigging. All remains as it should, the mast intact, unbroken.

The noise came from the deck.

She can see pretty much everything down there: the square sail on the fore mast and the lateen sail on the mizzen are down, as the Cap’n prefers to cruise when the day sinks into night. There doesn’t look to be anyone about. No, there, someone, a solitary figure, up near the prow, holding a mop which trails thin rivulets of water like drag-marks left in the wake of a shored squid. It’s Finian, the First Mate, to judge by the blue and white checkers of the scarf tied around his head, and he’s motionless, fixated by something. Further up-ship, near to the wheel. Scrawn’s perch, where the little red and gold fellow likes to sit and feel the winds ruffle his feathers. Scrawn isn’t there. Scrawn lies several spans away from his favoured spot, sprawled untidily on the deck in front of the locked-down wheel, wings flared and set at uncomfortable angles. Billy saw a sparrow laid out like that once before. She’d hit that particular sky-rat with a stone. It didn’t get up again.

Volume comes easily to Billy, has to for the sake of warnings, and her lungs act as vast bellows. ‘What have ye done to Scrawn? What have ye done?’

The mop hesitates upright for an instant when released, as if stunned by what has occurred. Then it collapses with a watery slap, its head sagging like a discarded old wig ruined in a storm. First Mate Finian turns his face up to the howl from on high, and even with such a distance between them Billy can see that the man’s skin has been wrung dry of blood, eyes and mouth indistinguishable from each other, all three big and round with surprise. Billy wishes she had kept her own trap shut. If Finian has done for the parrot, he’ll do for the Bird next.

With a grunt, Billy hauls herself the right way up and sits down hard in the bottom of her nest. Finian calls up. ‘I didn’t, ye stupid girl! I didn’t!’ Billy hears these plaintive cries clearly, yet any meaning they hold can’t penetrate through the insect fugue inside her head. She’s utterly focused on the body she’s seen. On the murder. That’s what this is, Billy realises with an involuntary jerk. Murder. ‘Billy Bird? Get yer arse down here, Billy Bird! It wasn’t me, ye hear? Ye hear?’

But Billy has no intention of going anywhere. She’s done some of her best thinking in this basket she considers her own, but now her thoughts race in a tumble-tangle dash. The Cap’n’s parrot, dead. He will be furious. More than furious. Much, much more than merely furious. The First Mate, a post marking Finian as the Cap’n’s most trusted crew member, did it. Billy has the horrible feeling that Finian won’t be the only one regretting the dawning of this day. Billy, the eyes of this ship, didn’t see enough to save Scrawn. ‘Shittin’ lizards.’ Why couldn’t she have kept an eye, just one damnable eye, on the parrot?

‘I didn’t do it, Billy, I didn’t! Are ye hearin’ me?’

‘Piss off Finian!’ Billy pops over the basket edge to project her voice further. It’s time to do her job. She must rouse the ship. ‘There’s been a killin’! Up on deck!’

‘Shut yer mouth! I’ve done nothin’!’

‘Anyone! There’s been a killin’!’ She can’t understand it. Where in Damnation is everyone? And the helmsman. He can’t be far. Shouldn’t be far. But Harley’s nowhere in sight. Not one lass or lad has yet shown their face... ‘Burnin’ arses!’ She tilts further over the edge of the basket for a better look. There, pasty-faced Finian who never tanned, who only singed then peeled, boosting himself onto the main boom and advancing with uncertain strokes up the rigging, his motion strange like a man swimming up flexing ladders. With a swift and instinctive move Billy draws her curved and serrated knife from her belt of cracked and crinkled leather. Not to plunge it into Finian, whose face reddens with anger and effort. Not to defend herself either, because she doesn’t intend for Finian to get close enough to attack. ‘Everyone! Up here now! Now!’

‘Me an’ you needs to be talkin’ about this, Billy! Ye better be hearin’ me!’

Whatever words Finian throws at Billy, the lass pays them no heed. Her focus zeroes in on the multitude of ropes which hold everything together, which keep the sails up and make the running of the ship smooth and easy. Finian climbs those same ropes. Billy gets ready to choose and cut.

Chapter 2

Three minutes before his beloved Scrawn gets blown out of this life and into the next, the Cap’n, a long and languid man, lazes in his quarters wearing nothing but his striped long johns and his jewel-spangled boots, taking deep, chugging draws on his third baccy roll in a row. Plenty of pirates get hooked on chewing the rotten stuff, as the spittoons found about the ship sit testament to, but for Silus de Senza nothing beats the anticipation that builds when cutting off a section of thin parchment, sprinkling on a fine vein of tobacco, then stretching out for a few quiet moments of soothing smoke. The stuff might yellow his fingers this way, but at least it doesn’t rot the very teeth out of his head, as is the case with many of his lasses and lads who chew instead of smoke. There’s a significant lack of winning smiles amongst the crew of three score pirates.

Ah, but they’re a good bunch though, as a general rule. He hears them all now in the belly of the ship, making a real raucous time of it, great gusts of whoops and hollers swooping up from the guts of this wood and iron beast, then sighing away just as sudden, a pause to take breath. They draw it in, draw it in, then off they go again, so loud that the hull groans as if distressed by the disturbance. Silus allows a wry smile to ease itself onto his salt-dry lips. High spirits grip the crew, elevated by the prospect of reaching dock in mere days after a particularly long haul, and a couple of card games after the evening’s grub quickly escalated to a feast of gambling, which he reckons eventually settled around one game or other, something tense and exciting. Dice and knives are likely involved. So are some fingers, if past form is anything to go by. The thought makes Silus chuckle, and that sets him choking on a lungful of smoke. The number of things chopped off then messily and mercilessly stitched back on again never ceases to amaze him. Pirates do more damage to each other than they ever sustain in any boarding action or raid. Let them continue their fun. The occasional bout of lettin’ loose always boosts morale, and besides, if they let off some steam now, there’ll be a little less whistling through them when at last they reach land. They’re plenty capable of causing enough trouble at half-mast, never mind setting them free at full-tilt. By the end of their first night in port, the town will be drained dry of booze and of whatever else awaits the locusts to consume.

Silus would readily admit that he was looking forward to an extended bout of recreation himself. Once he locked them with stone grey eyes that spark like struck flints, the women couldn’t help themselves, and Silus was always prepared to take himself a helping. A different bed with a different body pressed hard against his, that’s what he needs, that’s what he craves. Too long with only Eliza for company has dulled his senses, and they require the pressures and scents of unfamiliar skin to jolt back to inquisitive life. No guilt in these thoughts. Along with polished metal eyes, coal-scrawled hair and taut tendons like twists in a tree, this man spawned of earth then cast out to water received many gifts from his mother, and a knack for straight-talk numbers among them. Even as they had embarked upon the first of their many couplings, Eliza Mantroshino was reminded, direct and to the point, him wanting to get it said first, that the de Senza blood was mixed and thickened with wanderlust, and settling down was not an urge to be found in these veins. She had laughed then, a cat only interested in cream, arched back aching her supple form into his. ‘You spout the same old shite that I’ve already told you,’ she said, and then slowly they acceded to each other’s wills.

Soon their fun together will once again end, leaving Silus free to seek other pursuits. 

Eliza will also be free. She currently occupies the en-suite, soaking in the warmth of a bath it took three dozen kettlefuls to heat, and he can’t help but wonder who might be occupying her thoughts. As smells of heated fruits and flowers irritate his nostrils, the questions won’t stop coming. Is it his good self, given that they have been companions for several weeks without break this time round, or does her mind drift elsewhere? Does she flick through her memories for names, and for faces without names, and for times worth revisiting, nights worth reliving? Does she contemplate offers once given, for surely she received many, sifting through those which might be worth taking up when they reach town? Or does she pamper herself with a different course in mind, preparing to find some entirely new experiences, cleansing her skin of the sullies of Silus de Senza, scrubbing her flesh till it pinkens and is ready to be rendered unclean again by the sweat of those she has yet to meet? All of the above; that’s the bet Silus would place his coin on, one coin and the treasure chest it came from. There’s no-one more wilful than Eliza, none more eager to do as she pleases, that much he once accepted. He had no choice.

‘Ye’ll forget her again soon enough.’ The problem of Eliza will have to wait. He has others to consider.

The least of these concerns: their current proximity to the harbour town of Maudlin. Bad memories dwell there. He would rather attempt to sail on forever than drop anchor near Maudlin. His end awaits in that place.

Grand Merchant Angst, the way his pasty fingers gripped Eliza’s arm...

‘Forget that shite,’ Silus growls at himself. ‘Pointless givin’ it any consideration.’ They’ll drift on by, and at this distance no-one in that shithole will ever know he’s been near.

Concern number two is a tougher proposition, and one he can’t merely avoid. A ship’s crew is a difficult beast to manage. Only by removing its teeth could it be tamed, but with naught but bleeding gums, how could it be expected to bite? It required enough blood to whet the appetite and enough rum to keep it soothed. Once in a while, though, one or two of those teeth would turn  rotten, and infection has a nasty habit of spreading, if left to its own devices. In these cases, some savage dentistry becomes the only cure. Two of his crew are up for the chop, siblings who try his patience one time too often in spite of almost constant reprimands and uncountable dire warnings, all littered with gruesome details of what he intends to do if they don’t wise up quick. Razor Jane and Pinhead Pete, the Cauloon twins, identical only in their ability to see a scheme in whatever unfolds around them, and in their smiles, childish and apologetic things that could charm almost anyone into turning a blind eye, just this once.

In that lay the crux of the matter. All the lasses and lads on board, they love Jane and Pete, the elder members of the crew mooning over them like the son and daughter they’d never abandoned. Nothing more than the jolly japery of two lively young uns getting into scrapes was how they saw it. There was always another story to relate about those two, something that would begin, ‘Now, ye wouldn’t believe what that Jane an’ Pete got up to when we was all asleep.’ And there were a thousand rememberings to be had while the drink flowed freely, memories which started, ‘Do ye remember that time, a small ways back when, in that town, now what was it called?’ Memories which continued: ‘And Razor and Pinhead, the wild pair o’ bastards, they got trapped by the owners in that big manor house, ye remember? The governor and the governess, aaarr, that’s right. And all that explainin’ they did about bein’ hired to test their gaff’s woeful security, and then all them jewels fell out o’ the hole in Pinhead’s pocket, and then do ye remember what they did?’ Of course, it’s all a great laugh, real thigh-thumping stuff, unless seen from the viewpoint of the one who was left in the midst of their mess, the one who was forever being cajoled by the crew into dreaming up new ways of getting them out of jail, the one who was often the intended victim of their sticky-fingered antics and convoluted plots to score an extra portion of the pie.

Silus thumps a fist on the table, causing his compass and hip flask to jump in surprise atop the patchwork of maps and star-charts covering every inch of available wood. He has suffered enough at the behest of those dishonest bilgebags, and if he thought he could get away with it, he’d chuck them overboard this minute and dance a jig as he sailed away and watched them drown. But the crew, the blasted crew, they’d be up in arms if he did such a thing, they’d...

Crack.

Surprising, loud. The remains of his baccy roll pause halfway towards a further meeting with his lips as Silus wracks his brain to identify that noise, a sound not amongst those his ship commonly makes. Not the breaking of a beam, for that would be followed by far worse noises, such as the sails folding and flapping uselessly like the wings of some stricken monster from myth, and then would come his own bellowing, distraught at the expense of yet more repairs, and finally a skull cracking as responsibility was apportioned. That wasn’t the snap of wood he’d heard. A whip snapping across the smooth of someone’s back could split the air with such force, but the noise had been louder even than that. A gunshot then, from up on deck, judging by the clarity. If it had been fired below boards, the sound would have been muffled, at least to some small degree.

A gunshot.

This realisation does nothing to improve his already blackening mood. Everyone knows the rules about possessing hand-held munitions on his ship. He’s shouted those bloody rules often enough. No firing of pistols and revolvers on board. That sort of nonsense always resulted in patched up holes in the sails and, even worse, in the hull, because of ricochets or frighteningly awful aim. Disputes could only be resolved by the blade, not by attempting to shoot the perceived enemy in the back while brimming over with booze. ‘Why do these idiots refuse to listen?’ Someone will get the lashes for this, a good half dozen so hard that they cut down to the ribs.

A reluctant Silus relinquishes his seat to hunt around for his breeches and one or other of his shirts. An argument grows outside. Shouting. Whomever had tried to do for whomever had evidently made a poor job of it (no surprise there), with the fortunate survivor making their displeasure clear. They’ll have to keep themselves busy for a minute, as Silus hasn’t found what he is looking for. ‘Bleedin’ hellfire, where’s all me clobber?’ He’s not about to deal with a situation kitted out in only his long johns, especially when there’s a hole torn into one of the arse-cheeks. ‘Where’s me bastard breeches?’

A shout stands out from the others, this one from the crow’s nest. ‘There’s been a killin’! Up on deck!’

A killin’. All this time out at sea and the buggers choose now to start doin’ for each other. ‘Eliza! Have ye seen me breeches anywheres?’

Another shout, more urgent. ‘Everyone! Up here now! Now!’

‘Bugger it, an’ bugger everythin’.’ This one time, he’ll have to venture out as he is. ‘Forget about me breeches,’ he calls to Eliza, ‘I’ve got a situation to resolve.’ He snatches up his belt, swinging it about his waist and fastening it in one familiar motion, as the attached sheath and cutlass slap against his leg. Woe betide those who need dealing with. And woe betide any who pass comment on his arse. He steps out of the cabin into air cool enough to prickle his skin after the balmy atmosphere of the interior. He takes the four steps down to the main deck in pairs, then strides with grim purpose towards the source of the noise, hand ready on cutlass hilt... and stops after a clutch more paces. Of all the expected situations, this had not numbered among them. ‘What in Damnation is goin’ on up there?’

The lass hanging out of the crow’s nest with her knife to a rope has at least enough sense to cease her vandalism, but Finian, halfway up the rigging, keeps right on going, oblivious to all but his target. Finian never goes up there, not since McAnders called out the whole crew to laugh at his bizarre climbing technique, which put the Cap’n in mind of throwing a monkey in a lagoon and watching it struggle towards dry land. ‘Finian! Look at me when I’m shoutin’ at ye!’

That gets his attention, and even with a stretch of distance between them, Silus sees that the man’s face contains a worrisome dark red, a shade not seen since that terrible chase they’d both endured through the streets and back alleys of Grendle Vale several years ago. Exercise does not suit Finian well. It was an ill-fitting iron shirt that squeezed the breath from his lungs and the blood up into his head. ‘Ye must believe me, Cap’n,’ he huffs between great gasps for air, clinging perilously to an unfamiliar environment of criss-crossing ropes, and Silus doesn’t get a chance to demand clarification because another noise, one so terrible it makes him sick to his stomach to hear, cuts short his questions and sets him at a sprint away from Finian and the girl and whatever quarrel they may have.

Something in the hull

explodes.

He flings open the hatch to the mess hall. The cacophony bursts over him in a hot, sour wave as he slings his legs over the hand-rail of the staircase, and slides into air dense with rum fumes and rank with sweat and unwashed clothing. At a glance Silus calculates that half of his men are still here, jostling around two tables pushed together, throwing in handfuls of coin, arguing with each other, shoving and drinking from bottles and flasks and so engrossed in the game that they haven’t noticed how many of their fellows had left, haven’t noticed the ship’s slight list, a barely-perceptible tilt which Silus is keenly aware of. He picks out one of these men, barks his name. ‘One Eye!’ The pirate jerks round, missing his mouth with a slug of booze, eye-patch askew and black sash slipping loose. ‘There’s a situation up top! I don’t want it gettin’ any worse afore I return! And take some o’ them arseholes with ye!’

Silus darts off into the kitchens, the domain of the perpetually grease-slicked Cook. Crossing through this threshold is as sharp a change as rushing from the cool freshness sweeping across the deck into the months old muggy reek of stale breath which flavours the mess hall. These kitchens are a land of heat and steam, making Silus’ pores gasp at the intensity, and sweat immediately dapples his forehead, dozens of beads swiftly coalescing into trickles. He keeps his hands away from all surfaces. Bitter experience has taught him that there’s no telling which might be burning fierce enough to melt away skin. He pushes past two of the porters, both of whom look about them in alarm, shoved aside many times already by those who’d bouldered past to reach the lower levels. Iron and copper pots and pans rattle away atop the stoves as Cook uses up whatever supplies can’t await the next voyage, the fuller dishes spilling out a frothy head of boiling foam as the ship’s tilt deepens by a degree.

Foggy scent-banks split apart like wave-crests over rocks as Silus ploughs through them. He bundles some of the slower and drunker lads out of the way so he can reach the kitchen’s rear stairs, heels skittering frantically down each and every one, adrenalin fueling his haste. His feet  throb when they hit the floor of the second level, and from somewhere nearby Cook yells obscenities about the number of filthy bastards running through his territory. Silus reaches and scrabbles down the ladder to the stores. He too yells, crying out the same order over and over again. ‘Buckets, buckets, buckets! Now, now, now!’

Anders McAnders replies from somewhere far down the ranks of barrels stuffed full of salted meats and potatoes and rice, and stacks of boxes raided for their spices and wheels of cheese. ‘Already on it, Cap!’ That leagues-deep voice holds the authority of a stone-built man who has handled many a crisis. It’s a relief that McAnders has taken charge up ahead and, more importantly, that he hasn’t yet moved his night’s drinking into the serious phase. Otherwise, he would be incoherent in some dark corner by now and the first buckets of sea water would not already be making their way past Silus, along a growing line of men.

‘What about Rabbit?’ Silus asks.

‘We got ‘im ‘ere with hammer and nails. We just need to get in at the hole.’ By the time Silus reaches McAnders, a slab of a man seemingly put together from the leaner cuttings of two lesser mortals, the flooding water laps around his knees, and in his unclothed state the Cap’n gets the shivers. He claps the big man on one breadth of shoulder, gets a brisk nod in response. ‘Ye’ll never believe who’s responsible for this,’ he says, leading the way onward to the smuggler’s hold at the far end of the stores.

Of all the crimes those two have indulged in, wounding the Machi is the only one he thought they’d never stoop to. This could cost Silus his ship. This could cost them all their lives. When his voice returns, it is monotone, and cold. ‘Keep some o’ these lads ready. We’ll need some muscle to throw ‘em in the pit.’

‘Aaarr, Cap’n. I expected as much.’ A couple of those in the bucket line work with grim expressions. They know fine well the fate awaiting the widely-admired twins, and though not looking forward to being part of their removal, The Machiavelli is all their livelihoods and no-one can get away with compromising it.

The false wall of the smuggler’s hold has been prised open, its large defending barrel rolled forward, and through here the ocean seeps in. It comes in churning belches, great reams of bubbles slipping and sliding over each other like the sloppy handfuls of frogspawn he once seized from a pond as a child. The sticky stuff had clung to his breeches then, and these waters drag at his long johns now as he wades through. It resists his efforts to walk with sufficient force that Silus needs leverage, grasping the inside of the hold walls and heaving himself forward. Rabbit stands shuddering in the chill waters, and above his patchy beard worry flutters in his eyes. Rabbit holds a stack of planks. The other two occupants are much more interesting to Silus, and the pair bear the brunt of his foulest of foul glares. ‘Razor. Pinhead. Ye piles o’ shite. What have ye done to me fine ship?’

Razor Jane lurks in the corner of the hold with her brother, warding off any approaches with a knife. The water boils up to her armpits, drip-dripping from the lank braids of her hair. Pete’s tilted face rests moments away from being obscured and he gasps fearfully for air. Silus knows something of this picture isn’t right; on a normal day, the twins are of similar height. With the appearance of the Cap’n, Jane suddenly looks as frightened as her brother. ‘Just give us a chance to explain, Cap’n, that’s all I’ll ask of ye. One chance to explain.’

‘Ye’ll throw down that itty-bitty dagger first lass, then ye’ll be askin’ nothin’. I’m in charge here, ye shite. Now drop it.’ She hesitates, gripped by the false belief that the weapon is her only bargaining chip remaining. In truth she has no chips left at all.

With a final splutter, seawater consumes her brother. Razor Jane drops the knife, and a pair of roughnecks who’d been lurking at the entrance slosh into the hold, one seizing Jane around the neck and dragging her out in a fit of thrashes and splashes, the other fishing around for a good grip on Pete, and having success equal to removing a writhing eel from a batch of fish. Jane protests her removal profusely, and as another captor takes up her legs, she cries out a warning: ‘Leave