Part 1

From the Unpublished Manuscript

To a restless soul, the only proper home is the sea. And to a soul such as mine, which is perhaps more restless than most, the only proper sea is the Caribbean. In her calmer moods, her clarity and freshness put me in mind of the Captain in whose service my gracious sovereign placed me; when she is stormy and changeable, she evokes the irresistible caprices of the woman who still, above all others, torments my nighttime dreams and my daylight imaginings. And the clear, rushing greens and blues of her seldom-quiet waters I can never see (even if only in my mind's eye, any longer) without calling to memory the gazes, sometimes deceptively calm and sometimes smoldering, of two of the most remarkable women I've known in a life more long than tranquil.

My given name, although it was of little consequence then and matters even less now, is John William Sere. When I was a sailor in that most luxurious of times, where a man was free to be what he would and a woman even more so, I was known as Jack. Although my rise in the ranks was modest in comparison to that of many, I can say with pride that it was entirely due to my own capability. And when I was assigned to the good ship Discovery as a representative of His Majesty's government, the mission itself was in recognition of the service I had provided to the Navy which had been my home from a tender age.

But I get ahead of myself. Properly speaking, this story begins at the point when a wealthy, independent-minded woman landed a ship called Intrepide at a small port town in a western bay, where another woman, named for a spirit, kept a spotless, modest tavern. Neither had met the other; they had in common only their ignorance of each other's existence; but their paths were to cross one sunny, blue-skied day without a hint of cloud, and each would soon find the other as necessary to her soul as the clear and brilliant Caribbean air itself.

That a woman would appear in command on the deck of a sailing ship, in those days and in that place, might be thought singular, were it not for the fact that another female had been plying the trade routes for some time, in search not of wealth but of a far greater treasure--knowledge. For the one, the mission was an exploration of possibility; for the other, a single-minded pursuit of a lost jewel, in the form of a woman. They could not have been more different, and yet, seeing them together (as I was privileged to do on many occasions), I was always struck by how similar they were.

It is the unassailable right of old age to assume that life was more resonant when we were young: the colours more brilliant, the gardens more brightly perfumed, the women more voluptuous, the ale more potent. But it seems to me as though all those things were indeed true of that time and place, and if it has pleased God to reward a long life of service by taking away much of my enjoyment of its simple glory, at least He, gracious and understanding to the most fragile of mortals, has left me my memories.
 

* * *
 

It was the type of day that made every sailor think she had taken to the sea of her own volition. The sunshine ran across the bright white stonework of the small port town, pitched high on the cliffs over the harbor, and the light uncovered hitherto unknown shadings of green in the leaves that turned and swung in the gentle breeze. The sea, calm and majestic, sent its long, deep blue waves serenely into the shore, foaming into whitecaps just before they reached the not-quite-white sands curving into the part of the harbor that was too shallow for ships. To the south, a deeper part of the harbor rocked and tossed with a forest of masts in movement against the glitter on the waves, the swells lifting each ship in turn, then laying it down into the soft, welcoming water as gently as a mother cradling her babe.

As a mother cradling her babe--that was something she could use. The woman with the basket of laundry set it down in the soul-satisfying sunlight and reached into the pocket of her apron. She drew out a piece of paper torn from the flyleaf of a book she used in another place and another way and unfolded it, looking for a spot she hadn't covered with writing. She found a clean square inch, by some miracle, and flattened it over her knee while she dug in her apron pocket for a stub of pencil. The pencil point slid over the paper with a satisfying, subtle scratching noise. When she was done making her note, she lifted her head and looked around.

The wind toyed idly with her reddish-blonde hair, which she, in defiance of both convention and practicality, wore loose at a length just below her shoulders. It occasioned much extra care, but somehow she was unable to bring herself to put it into a plait, although she knew it would be much cooler and easier to keep clean. She looked out into the placid, rolling sea with steady, direct eyes that many sailors, hopeful for more than a mug of ale and a kind word, had told her mirrored its color.

But she knew that was only flattery, not truth; the Caribbean she knew, the only one she paid attention to, was blue--a deep, rich, soul-roiling blue that reminded her of something she had never quite been able to put her finger on. Her own eyes were a clear, bright green--striking enough in this place of dark eyes, she supposed, but nothing like the rarity and majesty of the velvety royal blue of the sea. Some day, she thought vaguely, perhaps she would see that color in something other than the sea--

The wind, playing with her hair, had picked up, and with it was something she was never able, in years afterward, to identify. It was something like a musical phrase, and something like a glimmer of light, and a bit of it reminded her of a rare and costly perfume, and the word destiny rushed into her mind like the waves rushing into the sand, infiltrating every pore and every atom of her with a soft, golden excitement. She lifted her head to the far-off ocean, and found herself leaning forward, trying to catch what it was sending her.

* * *

This clime seemed never to know a bad day. As the odd-looking woman came up the steps to the deck, a soft, cooling breeze wrapping her round like her unremembered mother's arms, the boundless blue sky and gently bobbing deeper blue waves played for her a symphony of color and motion. She knew that, sooner or later, they would encounter a storm--they had to--but in the six weeks they had been under canvas, going to and fro and getting ready to cross and crossing and now about to make landfall, it had been the kind of thing that made one understand why the Arabs had a concept of Paradise. The heavens a soft blue bowl above; the sea a quietly restless churning below; the salt-scented air caressing and mild; even the seabirds, agleam in the sunshine, betraying nothing of their beachside lack of manners and squabbling as they soared in the currents, keeping up with the ship in its effortless surging, foaming rush. The ship herself seemed eager for landfall, to get back to the land she had lived on, back once long ago when her planks and staves and keel had been alive and rooted in the earth, before imperious and unthinking men had wrenched her from her safety, chopped and nailed and pounded and caulked her into something more, and yet less, than she had been.

For such a violent birth, she was certainly a beauty, a sweep of wood, rope, and canvas adorned with metal and glass. She whispered speed, and grace, and civilization in a harsh world--although it seemed, today of all days, as though there could never be such a thing as harshness in all of Mother Nature.

And yet, it mattered nothing, she knew, to the woman who waited up on deck for her: the beautiful day, the beautiful ship, the wind-teased rush of ocean swells matched by the arch of lighter-colored sky. For there was no light in her, and there would be none until she found what she was looking for.

She came up the steps quietly. She had learned to move quietly in her life; it is not easy to be a woman over six feet in height, and tattooed overall to boot, and so she had learned the virtue of moving silently in a way few could understand as deeply as she. Sometimes it came in handy; sometimes, as now, she had to make a point of speaking to avoid startling the sailor who stood with her back to the steps.

"Good afternoon," she said, and the sailor turned without hurry or surprise and nodded, puffing at her pipe with a calm familiarity. "The Captain is on deck?"

The sailor nodded toward the prow, and the tall woman with the decorated, stippled face crossed the decking with an ease that marked her as an experienced seafarer. She knew, of course, precisely where the Captain was. It was a small ship, and the Captain's habits were entirely predictable, after a month on the open sea; she spent as much time as she could gazing at the deep blue water with solemn eyes that matched the color of the waves undulating under the keel. It would be possible, the tattooed woman thought, to spend the rest of one's life looking into those eyes, and she supposed that, once the Captain had found what she was looking for (or became convinced she had lost it forever), some fortunate someone might do just that.

Not that that someone would be a tattooed woman even taller than the Captain, who was hardly what one would call "petite". Just now, she stood with one hand wrapped around a line to steady her proud, upright form, the movement of her long dark hair forming a counterpoint to the movement of the waves beyond her, the fabric of her shirt lifting and falling as an errant patch of breeze caught it, now outlining the shape under the shirt, now concealing it as if in a sudden fit of modesty.

The Captain looked away from the mesmerizing sight of the sea rising and falling just long enough to nod a greeting to the tattooed woman.

"Taking the air?" the taller woman inquired politely, and felt rewarded when there was a quick flash of brilliantly white teeth from the Captain.

"There's certainly enough of it out here to take," the Captain replied, tossing her hair out of her eyes with a quick, economical gesture. The tattooed woman had never seen her bind it back, even though that would have been a sensible, prudent approach on board a sailing ship. She was so level-headed and matter-of-fact in everything else, though, that her first mate felt she could forgive such a minor eccentricity. She hadn't been at sea nearly long enough to get casual about appearances, but perhaps that would come, in time, after she got sick of having to comb it out every night. The tattooed woman shrugged, but only in her head; she had certainly seen worse personal habits out of the captains she'd served with, and she was surprised to find herself fonder of this one than she had been of any of the others combined.

And after only a month. Well, we would see what storms and sickness would bring. The true test of a Captain, after all, is not in how she looks when she's standing at the prow on a lovely afternoon.

Still and all, there was the ship, and the Captain's care and expensive taste in appointing her, and the caution with which she had selected her mate and her crew, and the way she seemed to belong aboard, a trick few of the landlocked ever managed. Something about her made one think of hidden fires, or of someone who was much older and much more experienced than she looked. For some reason, looking at her, the woman with the tattoos remembered an old, long-dead Indian friend who had told her that the soul could migrate through the centuries.

She admonished herself not to waste time in idiotic speculations and dug into the pouch at her waist for her pipe. There was little hope of lighting it above deck, but she could get it loaded before she went below again. "I imagine we'll see Haven by tomorrow morning," she said conversationally to the Captain.

The gaze in the blue eyes lost some of its delicacy; the mouth contracted into a tighter line. "And then," said the Captain with a soft grimness, "our real work begins."

"If there is anyone who knows where your sister might be," said the tattooed woman, packing a crumbly, perfumed tobacco into the carved pipe, "we will find him in Haven."

"Or her," the Captain added, looking out to sea again, as though even the wide Caribbean was not wide enough for her vision.

"It is unlikely to be a woman," the first mate commented. She did not add that, if a woman had been responsible, she knew exactly which woman it was likely to be, and that the Captain could not possibly have worse news.

But better to let her enjoy what she could of the afternoon. The Creator Spirit alone knew what they were likely to find in the deceptively-named Haven.

She turned to go below and light her pipe and have her smoke. The Captain put out a quick hand and stopped her.

This time, the blue eyes were trained full on her, and it was as though the sea and the sky had tumbled together to show her the soul of the Caribbean. She almost missed what the Captain was saying, which was, "I am extremely grateful to all of you for following me on this fool's errand to the ends of the earth. And you in particular."

This time, the first mate shrugged for real. "You pay well... you give chances to sail to women, not just men... you leave us alone to do our jobs... you love your sister and you want her back unharmed. I am honored to sail with such a Captain."

"Thank you, Mingeaux," said the dark-haired woman clinging to the line of the lovely yacht.

Mingeaux quirked an eyebrow decorated with a subtle pattern of blue dots, wondering, for the fifteen thousandth time, what the lady was doing sailing around the Caribbean looking for her sister. Piu Giu, she had heard the Genoese on the crew call her, "Little Julie", but she was only little in comparison with the fearsomely tall, broad-as-a-gangplank first mate who stood next to her at the prow.

Lucky sister. And lucky crew who took her money and ate her food and followed her into what they had fervently assured her, with the distasteful exaggeration Mingeaux found common in the Genoese, could turn out to be Hell incarnate, but they wouldn't care because they were already so devoted to the most bella Captain in the hemisphere. Not that that particular crown had a great number of competitors; in fact, she could think of only one.

And perhaps that one might be in Haven. Stranger things had happened. And perhaps Mingeaux would have a chance at a cup of tea and a chess match with a man who was like enough her to be a brother. To someone without a family, it meant much indeed.

And it made her more determined to see her new Captain to the end of her journey, whether that was a joyful (though unlikely) reunion with her beloved sister, or locating a square-dug plot where she could leave a nosegay of heartbreakingly beautiful Caribbean blossoms.

Some of which were closer than she had thought. "Haven," Mingeaux murmured, lifting a long, wiry arm to point one elegant, expressive finger at the horizon, which had just darkened an infinitesimal amount.

The woman beside her leaned forward, as if scenting her destiny in the placid breeze.

* * *

Not many leagues to the west, the first mate of another ship was approaching his Captain, who sat on the deck in the beautiful sunshine, utterly uninterested in the visual poesy of wind and wave. She was peering closely into a brass eyepiece, which was attached to a gleaming microscope, which was screwed tightly into the top of a table affixed with stout pegs to the deck. With such rigid attention to keeping everything immobile, she was the only part of the equipment of inquiry that wasn't nailed down. This was one of her riskier habits, and one her first mate had never been able to break. He was certain that, with the pitch of the deck, she would some day lose an eye.

But she went on serenely, day after day, studying the little bits and pieces that made up the wide, wide world she was too preoccupied to give much notice to. The only time anyone had seen her temperish about it was when the deck gave a sudden list while she was refocusing.

He stood impassively beside her, folding his hands behind his back, and looked out past the web of rope into one of the less objectionably stormy days he'd seen since becoming a sailor.

"Mr. Thomas," she murmured without looking up, "do you recall what it was that Archimedes said to the soldier who came to arrest him?"

Without replying, he moved to one side.

"Thank you," she said, in that same low voice. She still hadn't moved away from the eyepiece.

"I am concerned," he commented idly, "that your effectiveness as captain will be compromised if you are blind in one eye."

She lifted her head with the quick grin that meant she was on the trail of a secret that the natural world kept well hidden. "Mr. Thomas," she said, gesturing carefully toward the microscope, "do you know how sea urchins contrive to reproduce their kind, despite their lack of proximity to one another?"

"No," he admitted, "but I am certain I shall find your explanation enlightening."

"As nearly as I can determine," she said, looking up at him without self-consciousness, "they come in male and female, as do we."

It was not a promising beginning. This sort of thing generally made him uncomfortable, and he had to remind himself that she had never behaved in an improper fashion toward any member of the crew. She was a perfect lady, and he resolved to repeat that to himself throughout the duration of the natural-history lecture.

"I believe that, when the tides offer the maximum in favorable chance to the sea urchins, the males release a cloud of generative fluid, which is carried in the currents to the females," she said eagerly. "They then use the fluid to fertilize their eggs, which are borne along the currents to resting places that offer protection from hatchlings of other creatures who find them a delicacy."

"Ingenious," he said. (It seemed the safest response.)

She picked up a tin cup, which had, until recently, contained her tea. "It has made me curious, though," she said reflectively, "about the difference between the generative fluid of the sea urchin and that of other creatures."

The bell went off in his head. "Captain," he began.

She swirled the dregs in the bottom of the cup. "Van Leeuwenhoeck made some studies of his own," she continued, heedless of his growing mortification. "The light is good enough up on deck that it might be possible to draw a comparison--"

She couldn't be serious. Could she? "Captain," he interrupted in desperation. "While I am certain that some members of this crew would be delighted to offer you further evidence for you to continue your studies, I am uncertain that you could get them to agree to the activity you appear to be proposing."

She looked up from the cup, startled. "But--"

"Captain," he said, grateful that she could not see the blush that was spreading over his face. "I am afraid that no member of this crew--" (he winced at the unfortunate choice of the word "member", but went on anyway) "--would consent to an... unassisted collection method."

Her face took on that interesting expression that meant he was fighting his way through something she really wanted to hear.

"At present," he said, mustering his dignity, "there is no man on this crew who would obey a direct order to... to..."

"Jack! Off!" hollered a voice behind them. Thomas and the captain turned, and she waited, patiently, with a barely audible sigh, for what was certain to happen next. Beside her, Thomas felt the sense of liberation from mortal embarrassment go in waves over him.

A woman stormed up the steps from below, dragging a struggling man by the collar. "Captain!" she bellowed. "I caught this throbbing idiot within ten feet of the chronometer!" To punctuate her statement, she threw the man to the deck, where an unfortunate movement of the ship sent him tumbling.

"She'll hurt him some day," Thomas murmured.

"That's why we have the rails," the captain murmured back. Thomas went to the rail and helped the man up. He began to straighten his collar and put an innocent look on his face.

"Torres," the captain said, turning to the livid woman, "you really must not spend your time tossing representatives of His Majesty's Navy about as if they were rag dolls."

"But, Captain," the woman said, her fury not abating in the slightest, "if he so much as breathes on the chronometer, we'll never know where we are!"

"Sail west long enough, and you'll run into a continent," the Captain said placidly. "You can't really help it. And I'm not at all certain that Mr. Sere could damage the chronometer that badly from--how far away was it, Mr. Sere?" she asked the man.

"N--not close enough to harm it," he replied.

"But not within ten feet, certainly?" the captain inquired with polite disinterest.

He tugged at his collar again, looking remarkably like a tortoise attempting to hide.

"Ten feet was our agreement, was it not, Mr. Sere?" the captain asked, gently implacable. Her blue eyes were aimed directly at him; Thomas knew just how uncomfortable that direct look could be, and he felt for the hapless bumbler who was looking for an excuse.

"Ah--well--that is--"

"Mr. Sere," the captain interrupted, seeing as how he had yet to say anything remotely sensible, "Torres has a point. Without the chronometer, Mr. Thomas cannot determine our longitude with any precision. If we lost that chronometer, we could wander about helplessly in the ocean for a long time. Suppose we couldn't get home for a while? Weeks? Months. Two years. Three, maybe even six."

Thomas thought this was stretching the bounds of credulity, but he didn't challenge her. The lad needed to learn; at least, aboard this ship, he didn't have to do it at the end of a lash. Maybe gross exaggeration would finally get through to him.

Miserably, Sere nodded.

"Very well," the captain said gently. "We'll consider the matter closed." Torres fumed; the captain ignored her. Something seemed to occur to her, and she spoke to Sere again. "Mr. Sere, perhaps you'd care to perform a small task for me in expiation--" She picked up the tin cup and looked toward Thomas out the corner of her eye. "It's not difficult; in fact, Mr. Thomas can instruct you."

Thomas managed not to leap on the cup and wrestle it out of her hand, but he did permit himself an audible, horrified gulp.

"I'm out of tea," the captain said mildly.

Sere took the cup gingerly and went below, shying away as he passed Torres, who lifted a lip at him like a wolf. Thomas tried to avoid clutching the rail in profound relief, asking himself once again why he considered such a horrible woman one of his best friends.

"Torres," the captain said.

Torres straightened up. "Captain," she said, not flinching. "If I find him near the equipment again, I'm going to slit his hamstrings."

"Discipline is the Captain's province," Thomas reminded her.

"Then I thank God that He didn't see fit to make me a captain," Torres growled.

"I believe the rest of the crew shares your opinion," Thomas replied.

The Captain shot him a quick glare, not without amusement, and he inclined his head slightly in apology. "Torres," she said quietly, "I don't believe it's necessary to remind you what would happen to us if we crippled a member of the British Navy."

"Captain," Torres said stubbornly, "I'll never be the scientist you are, but I know something about light and gravity. It gets dark at night, and things fall off of ships."

"Not this thing," the captain replied. Thomas knew her well enough to know that she was trying not to laugh. "Please, Torres. You're too good an engineer to let him worry you so."

"I'll be nothing as an engineer if all I have is a dead chronometer and a pile of rubble where the laboratory used to be," Torres grumbled, but Thomas knew she'd gotten the message.

"Then I'll try to keep him away from the equipment until he gets his sea legs," the captain said, adding mischievously, "even if it takes him another ten years."

Thomas directed his gaze toward the top of the mast, by far the safest place to look.

* * *

The complicated marvel of bringing the ship into the harbor and berthing her safely kept them occupied most of the morning, and talking to the authorities (what there were of them) took up much of the afternoon, so it was only in the light of a rose-gold sunset that the tall brunette and the taller tattooed woman made their way up the winding, steep-sided hill to the place Mingeaux identified as the very heart of the port.

The captain had her hands jammed into the pockets of her jacket, her head sinking toward her chest, watching her feet with every step. She looked like she was thinking. Mingeaux didn't much care to know what, or to interrupt. They walked past the unfamiliar tropical foliage and the exotic people without any comment from the captain, and Mingeaux realized that she had come to expect visitors to Haven to be at least a little curious about this out-of-the-way place.

Not this one.

She was surprised when the captain spoke.

"So what is this place we're heading for?"

Mingeaux led the way around a donkey cart, nodding to the colorfully-dressed woman who was driving it. "It's a tavern."

The captain nodded without looking at her, with an amused air of "I thought as much."

"A lovely, clean little place, run by the daughter of the woman who started it. The best ale in the Caribbean."

"No higher recommendation," the captain replied dryly, dodging around a pair of cats who were doing their best to impede their progress.

"And also the best information," Mingeaux said in a low voice.

The captain shot her a quick glance, and there was no time for anything more before Mingeaux stopped in front of a trim little building.

In the setting sun, the whitewashed stone of the tavern took on a faint polish of rose-red. The tile-covered roof slanted down toward a trim kitchen garden on one side, and an assortment of tables and benches on the other. Two large windows flanked a substantial wooden door, above which swung, in the slight, refreshing breeze, a wooden sign that said simply, "The 'Bonny Anne'".

The captain backed up a few steps and looked at the building, first this way, then that. It had the same neat lines and polish as the ship that had brought her halfway around the world, to this spot. She nodded in approval, a delicate smile playing over her lips and settling in her eyes.

Mingeaux watched, knowing that she wouldn't be able to wait long. From inside the neat little building came the sounds of people having a good time.

The captain took a few slow steps toward the door, then reached out and patted it with a gentle hand. "Nice tavern," she said softly to the doorway. She reached for the door handle with one hand and gestured to Mingeaux with the other.

Inside was a large, well-behaved crowd, moving through swirls of tobacco smoke and enjoying their liquor. To one side of the room, a woman behind a counter set a tankard that foamed with promise in front of a sailor. At the back of the room was a low hallway framed by a stairway that led to the second story. The captain looked around at the tables, which were unexpectedly clean, and the whitewashed walls, and the intact glass of the windows. It was certainly different from most taverns she'd been in recently.

The place was deceptively full. More than a few of the crew of the Intrepide was already there, and the captain lifted an eyebrow at Mingeaux, who shrugged with a slight, blue-dotted smile. She turned to the woman behind the counter. "Mistinguette!" she called.

The woman turned and gave her a luminous smile, white teeth in a dark face. "I thought I saw that ugly mug lurking about in the yard," she said in French. She came around the corner and charged for Mingeaux, who wrapped her in a warm embrace. "Mingeaux! I would've thought the devil had taken you for his own already!"

"Afraid of the competition," Mingeaux answered in French. "It's good to see you!"

"And you, you little thug," she said, pulling back and looking at Mingeaux. "Wait a moment. You look prosperous. What wealthy woman are you misleading now?"

Mingeaux looked back at the captain, whose eyes were bright with suppressed laughter. "Ah, Mistinguette," she answered, "the truth is close enough to the joke to be rather uncomfortable. This is my new captain." She nodded toward the woman behind her.

"Welcome to the 'Bonny Anne'," the woman said, holding out a hand. After a moment, the captain reached for it, and the two shook hands across the broad back of the first mate.

"Delighted," the captain murmured. By now, an interested crowd was watching the three of them.

"Where's your handsome mistress?" Mingeaux asked.

"Upstairs," the woman answered, jerking her head toward the stairs. She hadn't let go of Mingeaux's shoulders, and Mingeaux hadn't taken her arms from around the woman's waist.

"M'amie," called a voice from the stairs, and the captain looked up.

The woman on the stairs was shorter than the captain--not that many women weren't--and would have seemed painfully young, if it hadn't been for the self-confidence that wrapped her around like a mantle. Her hair was either blonde or red; whichever shade it was, it set off the sparkle in her green eyes to perfection. She was in a simple blouse and a long skirt, but her figure certainly needed no adornment. She was beautiful, and fresh, and alive, and in that moment, every sailor in the place turned from her glass to drink in something far more fulfilling.

Mingeaux's eyes had drifted upwards, and now she released Mistinguette gently, not looking away from the woman on the landing. "Brandy," she murmured, moving to the foot of the stairs and placing a hand softly on the banister. "All grown up. And so beautifully."

The woman moved with quick grace down the stairs and buried herself in Mingeaux's body. Mingeaux's arms went around her, and she gave the top of the woman's head a kiss.

The captain was close enough to hear the woman say in a low voice, "Don't let go," and Mingeaux's passionate whisper, "Jamais." It had been a long time since she had seen such a reunion, and her heart contracted in pain at the thought of her sister, who knew where in a cold and ruthless world.

The young woman broke the embrace first, and Mingeaux was obviously reluctant to see her step away. "Come outside," the redhead said, taking Mingeaux's hand in one of her own and holding her skirt out of the way with the other. Mingeaux allowed herself to be dragged toward the doorway at the bottom of the stairs.

Bemused, the captain put her hands back in her pockets and winked at Mistinguette as she followed her first mate and, apparently, her dearest friend toward the back of the tavern. Mistinguette tossed an answering grin to the captain, shook her head, and went back to her taps.

The woman in the skirt led them back through a hallway of which the captain got only a glimpse before she found herself going through a doorway into the open air. The woman stopped at a riotous row of flowers and turned to Mingeaux.

"It's good to see you," she said, seeming shy and awkward, for the first time, like a little girl.

"My little Brandy," Mingeaux murmured, reaching out with a tender hand to brush a stray strand of hair away from her eyes. The woman reached out and caught Mingeaux's hand and held it to her cheek for a moment, and the two of them looked deeply into one another's eyes.

The captain looked away, studying the clean white wall of the back of the tavern, and the rows and rows of absurdly green plants framing it.

Mingeaux cleared her throat. "Mademoiselle," she said, "I would like to present my new employer, Captain Giuliana Carlisle, late of England and now commanding my new post, the Intrepide. Captain, this beautiful girl is Gingembre Tavernier, the owner and operator of the 'Bonny Anne'."

With reluctance, the young woman turned away from Mingeaux and held out a hand to the captain. The green eyes met hers with a look of frank, open interest. Unlike most women she had ever met, this girl seemed to have nothing to hide, and no reason to pretend that she did. The captain murmured something polite in French and took the small hand in her larger one.

How did she contrive to keep her hands so soft if they were always washing glasses? How did her cheek manage to retain that artistic blush, and why did eyes so young look as though they'd seen everything the world had to offer? And why did they look so startled now?

"A pleasure," the young woman said in a low voice. "I hope you're finding Mingeaux as exceptional as all her friends do."

Where had she seen eyes quite this same color? "Indeed," the captain said carefully, a bit distracted, "she has proven to be invaluable throughout our voyage. I couldn't have made it two leagues without her assistance." There was a moment of silence as the young woman kept her hand in the captain's. She let go of Giuliana's hand slowly, not as if she really cared to, and reached up to sweep her hair away from her neck.

Mingeaux was looking at the young woman closely. The redhead--or was she a blonde? In the twilight it was difficult to tell--scanned the captain's face, then dropped her gaze, studying the path at her feet.

"Come, now, Brandy," Mingeaux told her with mock sternness. "You're not normally so shy around sailors."

The captain turned to Mingeaux for a moment, seeking a bit of respite from the intensity in the green eyes. "Had you thought of explaining that I'm not really a sailor?" She looked back down at the young woman's bent head. She found herself fighting an impulse to reach out and stroke the soft-looking hair. "Forgive her teasing, Mademoiselle," the captain said carefully, not trusting her French. "I'm really not terribly respectable."

The green eyes came up to meet hers again, and there was a bit of laughter in them. "Then you're a fit companion for her," the redhead--blonde--said quickly, and Mingeaux laughed.

Gingembre Tavernier, the captain thought. Ginger the Tavern-Keeper. How very lovely. It suits her. "You're aptly named, Mademoiselle," the captain remarked, thinking about the reputation of redheads and wondering if just a touch of it made her just a touch temperish. "Though I cannot fathom why Mingeaux calls you 'Brandy', unless it's a comment on your profession."

"In a way," the girl said easily, putting her hands behind her back and gesturing with her head for the two of them to follow her. She walked past Mingeaux, then took perhaps a shade of a second too long to move by the captain, who held out a hand subtly, giving Brandy precedence up the path. As she walked, Brandy turned her head to remark, "It was when I was an infant. In fact, it was the first time we met. Do you remember?" she called to Mingeaux, who chuckled.

"Indeed I do, but I've always doubted that you did." She turned to the captain. "Her mother hadn't been a mother long, and this tavern was all she had. So she brought her new daughter here, and she cradled her in a hollowed-out brandy cask."

"A very comfortable bed," Brandy remarked, turning her head again. The captain raised her eyes to the girl's face just in time, nodding politely to her to continue.

They walked around the corner of the tavern, and Brandy took up the story. "So my mother had a friend who traveled the trades, and she hadn't met her little brat of a girl yet." Mingeaux made some sort of protest, and Brandy laughed easily, otherwise ignoring her. "So when she came in off her ship, there I was in the cradle, and she made a great show of exclaiming over the new brandy."

They had reached the area with the tables and benches, and Mingeaux took a seat, gesturing to the captain to do the same. "My mother tells me she was most effusive," Brandy went on, taking a seat opposite them. "'Ah, look, Anne, a new vintage! How very rare! And it looks like it will age with promise.'" Her face lit with laughter and affection as she looked at Mingeaux.

"And so it has," Mingeaux said softly. "At its full maturity. More rare and beautiful than ever."

They had eyes only for one another, and the captain began to feel like an intruder. The front door opened, and the dark-skinned woman came out with a tray on which was a bottle and three glasses.

"Oh, thank you, Mistinguette," Brandy said, getting up. The captain got to her feet at the same moment, and their hands touched briefly on the table. The captain turned her eyes seriously to Brandy's, but Brandy looked to Mistinguette, moving her hand away to get the tray and set it on the table.

Mistinguette went to one of the torches set around the garden and pulled a punk from her apron. She opened the cap, blew gently on the glow inside, and touched the end of the punk to the wick of the torch. Mingeaux got to her feet and took her flint-and-steel from her pocket, working on another torch. She got it going in a trice, despite the breeze, and the captain was impressed.

In a moment, the profound red of the setting sun had four more modest companions. In the soft light of the torches, Brandy pulled the cork from the bottle with the ease of lifelong practice and filled the glasses. Mingeaux bent down to whisper something to Mistinguette and got a low laugh in reply before she turned to go back into the tavern.

The torchlight picked out the hollow of Brandy's throat, and a bit of her shoulders, and the captain reminded herself that she was paying a courtesy visit. Mingeaux settled beside the captain and waited for Brandy to pick up her glass.

"To old friends," she said, saluting Mingeaux, "and new." She turned to the captain just long enough to be polite. The three touched their glasses together gently and the captain took a sip.

It was like the gentle, welcoming light of the torches, distilled into a nectar that warmed her like nothing had since her sister disappeared. Her eyebrows went up in spite of her resolution to be neutral, and Mingeaux laughed. "No one in the whole world knows how to make this glorious stuff except my little girl here."

"'Glorious' is a good description," the captain said, looking across the table at the woman who would not meet her eyes. Were she and Mingeaux lovers? Did she think the captain would object? Or was it, perhaps, that the hunger in her eyes was all too apparent to this girl, who missed nothing?

She sighed silently and sat back, and Mingeaux cleared her throat. Brandy turned her attention to the tattooed woman, who said, "The captain is here to find someone."

Brandy turned to the captain, suddenly alert. "'Someone'?"

The captain nodded briefly. "My sister. She was taken off the Phoebus six months ago. By slavers."

Brandy gave Mingeaux a look made more serious by the deepening gloom. "Slavers?"

Mingeaux shrugged. "Who else could it have been?"

Brandy's face went through several expressions in a flash. She ended up looking down at the top of the table. "Please accept my regrets, madame," she said in a low voice, not looking up at the captain.

The captain's heart sank. "You know of these things, do you?"

Brandy raised her eyes to the captain, and a deep fury shone from them. "I only know 'of' them, madame," she said firmly. "I don't traffic in flesh, nor do I approve of people who do." She raised a hand and swept it around, indicating the garden. "Look around you. This is one of the most beautiful spots the Lord ever made. And yet we pitiful creatures cannot be satisfied with perfection. No, no, we needs must bring evil into everything we touch. This is the corruption at the heart of Paradise."

Mingeaux began to look patient, and the captain leaned forward to listen. "This hideous parody of merchanting brings nothing good to these islands," Brandy continued. "Nothing but blood and death and misery. And some day these islands will explode in fire and we will have no one to blame but ourselves. And--"

"Surely that won't all occur this evening," Mingeaux interrupted, raising her hands soothingly.

The captain had gone quite pale, or perhaps it was just the torchlight. Brandy controlled herself, clenching her fists on top of the table. "I beg your pardon, madame," she said, biting off her words.

"No pardon necessary," Giuliana said quickly. "What--" She picked up her glass again and studied it in the torchlight, as if she were really interested in the color of the light through the liquor. "What do you think has happened to her?"

Brandy folded her arms, leaning back. "Is she as beautiful as you?"

Startled, the captain raised her eyes to Brandy's.

"She means," Mingeaux interjected hastily, "that... ah... comely European woman are most often not set to fieldwork."

She thought it doubtful that either had heard her, but the captain set her glass down carefully on the table without looking away from Brandy. "Is that true?" she asked simply.

"Six months," Brandy said slowly, "is not long enough to destroy a woman."

"Even one who is unaccustomed to the tropics?" the captain asked, immune to comfort.

Brandy leaned forward, placing a gentle, tentative hand on the captain's sleeve. "I think it entirely likely that she is still alive."

Mingeaux closed her eyes and put a hand to her forehead. "Possibly," she said in warning. "Many things can happen to a European here."

The captain's face twitched. "If that is the case, and the worst has happened," she said with deceptive steadiness, "then I owe a just and merciful God thanks for what He has spared her."

Brandy bit her lip and looked away from the table. The captain stared at the liquor in the glass, which was a color not unlike the hair of the woman who sat opposite her. Mingeaux leaned forward and put her elbow on the table, then propped her chin in her hand.

Brandy looked up, directly into the captain's eyes. "What can I do to help?"

* * *

From the Captain's Personal Log

April 17, 1810 - Discovery

The end of a day of much valuable study finds me in my cabin, finishing my notes on my (speculative) description of the reproductive habits of the sea urchin. The glorious weather continues to offer us unprecedented leisure in which to work. It is enough to convince one that the Caribbean never knows a storm; I am wondering what conflagration our beautiful mistress has in mind for us, as I am certain this extended period of calm can only bring a ferocious torrent eventually. The ship is sound and the crew experienced, however, and their ability to withstand travail is without peer.

A misunderstanding arose between Mr. Thomas and me to-day, and I am afraid I took advantage of the occasion to tease him a bit. It is highly unChristian of me, and I expect God will have to add it to my account (which is already considerable). I made a point after supper of assuring him that I would not have asked him for any service he found repugnant, and so the misunderstanding is smoothed over. With any other man, the gulf would have been profound and the breach difficult to repair; however, Mr. Thomas seems that singular type of person who truly understands women, and so our friendship is marked by an ease and comfort I have known but seldom. He misses his wife and children terribly, and although he would sooner lose an arm than admit it, there are times when I see him gazing toward the northwest with unspoken longing. How I wish I had the wherewithal to make his situation different, but his family's owner is now aware that he has something I consider of value, and he will go to his grave rather than subsume his lust for gain to the call of merciful humanity.

Torres and Mr. Sere continue at one another's throats; there was another argument to-day over his proximity to the chronometer, and it ended with her threatening to hamstring him (not in his presence, thankfully). It is true that the young man can be trying; he seems unable to get near a piece of equipment without putting it in grave danger, and his ability to get into trouble astonishes us all. There is something fine, decent, and brave at his core, however, and I think it is this that has preserved his life on more than one occasion. I know that he was assigned to Discovery to keep him from destroying the Argent, his former post, a bit at a time; however, just when one has written him off as hopeless, he will think of something, or do something, that restores my faith in the dictum that no human being is utterly beyond redemption. I shall always recall his quickness in shouldering Mr. Thomas aside during the unpleasantness in Boston, and how ill he was during his recovery from the resulting wound.

Torres continues prickly and difficult, and the presence of Mr. Sere goads her into displays of temper. I think she is still not accustomed to the idea that it is she I want to run this ship, not any man I have ever known; maritime habit dies hard, and she can be forgiven, after a lifetime of rejection on account of her sex, the assumption that she holds this post only until I find a male who can do half as much half as well as she. That this is not the case will probably take some time to sink in.

We have collected many specimens and much information this latest trip, and so it is in to Haven to-morrow, to offload, sort and crate for the transfer to Europe. Even if only half the specimens arrive at their eventual destinations, the natural-history collections of the Old World will be considerably enriched. It is indeed felicitous that fortune has favoured us with the opportunity to add to the store of knowledge of the Caribbean to which my husband contributed with such richness and depth. I am proud to continue his example, and think it a fitting legacy; we could not have counted on children to keep up the tradition, and so I shall, in time, hand this important task to someone not of my body, but of my same mind, as it was handed to me.

Another, more personal reason to be grateful for our return to Haven is that I stand every chance of having several excellent meals prepared by the excellent Mistinguette at the "Bonny Anne", to say nothing of the liquor, which makes an abstemious woman question her discipline. While I have nothing against our own cook, and admire his cleverness in feeding us all under often difficult circumstances, it appears that, more often than not, Mr. Nilsson's definition of "edible" and mine differ quite as much as the theological opinions of Calvin and the Pope.

* * *

After Mingeaux and the captain had departed, walking down the steep street back to where the Intrepide slumbered in the starlight, Brandy stood at the edge of the kitchen garden with her hands clasped on her elbows, watching them go. One she could not remember not knowing; the other she could not believe she had never met before tonight.

The night was not particularly cold, but she was, and she pulled her arms closer in to her body, attempting to warm herself. This was in contrast to the way she had felt in the presence of that singular blue-eyed woman in the soberly-cut suit, when she was aware of the heat traveling over her skin in waves. It was as though that serious gaze, the beautiful face, could see straight into her soul, and she marveled that God had not stricken her dead for the thoughts that filled her head when she found herself within inches of something she had never realized, until this most magical of nights, that she was starving for.

Well, she would just have to starve, then. The lady was interested only in recovering her sister, and would certainly not welcome advances from a lowly island tavern-keeper. The best she could hope for was indifference; the worst... well, we would see whether the glacial lady could be provoked into a temper, wouldn't we?

But--gracious God! Why make me this way if there is no hope that--!

Annoyed with herself, she turned away from the darkness that had swallowed up the two of them. She might have known it would be Mingeaux who had brought this complication into her life. Mingeaux, whose every visit brought with it something new, something unexpected. The tall woman, the source of books and instruments of music and stories and flaring gemstones and fine writing paper and pots of ink (once she found out Brandy's secret obsession, and she was still not certain how that had happened). If her mother had not had a rule about entanglements with sailors, she might well have had two mothers, her own and Mingeaux. Although she supposed that they could not have been any closer had they spent years of uninterrupted time in each other's presence.

And perhaps that was what it took. Her parents had had a brief, but intense affair, marked with mutual passion and a button-bursting pride in their daughter. It had eddied down, as she knew such towering passions had to after a while, but the deep friendship remained, although her mother and father saw one another perhaps twice a year .

For all the effect her father had had on her mother's body, and despite his supreme gift of a daughter, Mingeaux was the only one who touched her mother's heart, day after day, year after year. And Mingeaux was the only one who came close to tempting Anne into abandoning her vow never, ever to grant her love to someone who made a living on the sea. Both of them had seen enough soul-shattering grief in their time to know that it was a ticket to pure madness when only one of you was a sailor. Neither would have given less than her all, and you could more easily lose an arm than the other half of your soul.

And then, the irony; Mingeaux kept coming back, seeming ironclad and bulletproof, while Anne had succumbed during a minor epidemic of some unnamed tropical fever two years before. And now, the reluctance was all one-sided; Brandy was always happy to see Mingeaux return, hale and hearty, but Mingeaux seemed to find it ever more painful to look at her. She knew she was very like her mother, and supposed that time would only increase the resemblance.

For now, Mingeaux was locally notorious for her habit, when she got into Haven, of shouting a question from the deck at the first live body she came across. And as long as the answer continued to be "Yes," she supposed Mingeaux would keep coming back.

Well. Every time she returned, she would by God get the loving greeting a daughter would give her mother. Even if she brought along friends who would unhinge her daughter just by walking into the tavern.

She permitted herself one brief free moment of speculation before going back into the tavern, knowing that just the memory of it would make her blush before the blue-eyed steadiness when she met the captain again.

A just and loving God, she couldn't help thinking, might have made it possible.

She shook her head with impatience. A just and loving God would never have brought that woman to Haven.

She turned to go back inside, knowing that the loneliness that settled over her heart was now a forever thing, and willing it to enter. Something had to keep her company for the rest of her life, and the sooner she made friends, the less it would hurt.

* * *

The golden-red brandy burned in her veins, thrilling and alive, and she felt herself a traitor to enjoy the feeling so much when her sister was not walking home from a tavern at her side.

Generally, she reacted to the feeling of intoxication by acting more sober and upright, and so she could understand Mingeaux's reaction when the tattooed woman murmured softly, "I wonder what you're thinking."

She turned her head to give her first mate a reassuring look. "How lovely your friends are."

Something seemed to snap in Mingeaux then, some tightness, some expectation--of what?--and her stride was looser, her arms freer, as they continued down the street. "Brandy," she began, as the captain had hoped against hope that she might, "is one of the best women the Creator Spirit ever put on this benighted earth. Her mother was the same."

"'Was'?" the captain inquired, lifting an eyebrow.

Mingeaux's mouth tightened, and the captain wondered if she'd overstepped the bounds of employer. "The Creator Spirit wanted to teach me appreciation for the good things She had given me," she said unexpectedly, "and She took Anne to her a couple years hence."

Something about sorrow tended to make you think you were the only one. Old heartache was still heartache, just dulled by the weight of grief and the oldest enemy, time. "I'm sorry," the captain murmured.

Mingeaux shrugged, with the philosophical stance of one who had had to practice her philosophy on more than one occasion. "She left me Brandy."

The captain smiled into the velvety tropical night, thinking of the youngster's obvious intelligence, her vivid sense of right and wrong, and her premature self-confidence. Then she thought of her body, which she was evidently still on the brink of learning more about. If she slapped herself in the darkness, would Mingeaux see it? "Few can claim they've left such a comely legacy."

Mingeaux's head turned toward her with what looked like fascination, or maybe suspicion. She opened her mouth to ask a question when a lantern flared in the darkness to her left. Instinctively, she reached out with a long arm to move the captain away from the light, her other hand going to the knife in her belt. The captain turned her back to Mingeaux's and put her own hand under her coat, and Mingeaux spared half a thought for surprise that she was so well prepared for an attack.

"Good evening, ladies," intoned an accented voice Mingeaux hoped she'd never have to hear again.

"Stand down," she whispered in English to the captain, who turned to face the lantern but kept her hand on her belt. "It's merely a talking arsehole."

The captain peered into the darkness beyond the lantern with intense interest. The hand holding the lantern slid the cover higher, and a pool of light picked out the features of a dark-haired man with an ugly mustache.

"Dominguez," Mingeaux said, sounding less than completely delighted.

"Mingeaux, as I live and breathe," he said insolently, his accented French making every word sound like the invitation to a duel. "I should have thought that some enraged husband would've cut your throat long before now." He held the lantern up and looked at her face. "Getting older has only made you uglier," he commented.

"I wanted to give you a fighting chance at having a family," she replied, her voice dry and calm.

"Who's the jerk?" the captain asked, in English.

"Commander of the Watch," Mingeaux responded.

"Obviously, he spends most of his time on watch peering through shutters, watching the ladies of Haven undress," the captain said.

"In French, if you please, madame," Dominguez said.

"One-handed," the captain added, and Mingeaux could not help laughing.

"I said, in French," Dominguez repeated, swinging the lantern so that the light caught a furious pair of blue eyes.

"Very well, then, monsieur," the captain said, unable to keep the belligerence out of her voice. "I am Giuliana Carlisle, captain of the Intrepide, which currently lies berthed at the foot of the hill, in your lovely harbor, on the first stop of a private tour. I have been enjoying the hospitality of your people and the great natural beauty of the place, and up until a moment ago, had some trepidation that I had been carried off by a sudden and unseen accident to Paradise. To my relief, meeting you has convinced me that I have not."

The torrent of French seemed to catch him off guard, and Mingeaux watched with undisguised pleasure as Dominguez fumbled for an answer. "You? The captain?"

Giuliana nodded with patience. "Of a private vessel."

"Another woman," he snarled, and Mingeaux took a step forward.

"Watch what you say before the captain," she said.

Giuliana drew up even with her first mate and put a hand gently on Mingeaux's arm. "Pray allow me, Lieutenant."

Dominguez's eyebrows hit his hairline. "Lieutenant?"

The promotion had come as a surprise to Mingeaux as well, but she kept her face impassive, bowing slightly to her boss. "We are accustomed to commissioning officers for sterling work," Giuliana said impatiently. "And sparing them annoyance so that they may continue to do so. Back to the matter at hand. Who, as long as we're on the topic, commands you, monsieur?"

"I am the commander of the Watch," he said, grasping at the shreds of his dignity. "I answer to the magistrate."

"Who is--?" Giuliana asked, leaning back and folding her arms.

"His Honor Bertrand de Nicot."

"Ah," Giuliana said noncommittally. "Well, then, in that case, when I see him, I shall have to commend his agents for watching out for the safety of the residents of this fine town."

Dominguez got pale, and it was enough for Mingeaux to see in the light of the lantern. "I wish you a good evening, ladies," he said, taking a step out of the way and waving an arm vaguely in the direction of the harbor.

"So you said," Giuliana replied, sweeping past him with an unspoken condemnation that would have done credit to a dowager duchess. Wide-eyed, Mingeaux followed.

In spite of her even longer legs, it was a matter of quite a few strides before Mingeaux caught up with her boss. It was far too dark to see her face, but the single-minded speed of her stride, far too quick for safety, convinced her that breaking into the captain's thoughts would not be a good idea.

The captain bit off a long, bloodcurdling sentence in Portuguese, one word per furious step, and Mingeaux was astounded all over again; she'd known few sailors who would risk eternal damnation by using the expression. And wherever had she learned it?

"I'm sorry," the captain muttered after a moment.

"Better to ask forgiveness of God," was all that Mingeaux could say in answer.

The captain stopped and threw her hands in the air, looking around for something. "I lost my temper."

"If that's losing your temper, he's a fortunate man," Mingeaux said. "You could say three words to the magistrate and have him hanged at high noon off the tallest mast in the harbor."

"And curse some innocent ship with his odious ghost forever?" the captain answered, and there was a smile Mingeaux couldn't see in her voice. "Whom could you possibly dislike that much?"

"Just him," Mingeaux said, reaching out to take the captain's arm and lead her to the harbor. "Come on, it isn't safe here at night."

"So in addition to his other virtues, Talking Arsehole Dominguez is an effective deterrent to crime?"

Mingeaux's laugh started somewhere near her toes and burst from her throat in a suffusion of relief. "We're going to pay for that," she said easily. "He's the type who believes in getting even."

"You outrank him," the captain pointed out, and Mingeaux guffawed again.

"I certainly didn't expect a promotion," she said.

"And it'll be permanent, too," the captain said stoutly, adding, "Just as soon as I start my own navy."

Mingeaux shook her head with yet another laugh. They were close enough now to the harbor that the ground began to level out.

"What did he mean by 'another woman'?" Giuliana asked.

"Ah," Mingeaux said. "He was referring to Captain Jameson of the Discovery. It's a British ship. They travel all over picking up rocks and leaves to look at."

Giuliana made a wordless noise of inquiry.

"It's a science vessel, a floating laboratory," Mingeaux explained. "She's captain because her husband owned it. They traveled all over together--"

"--looking at rocks and leaves," the captain interjected.

"--And the occasional lizard," Mingeaux added. "And--well, he died."

"There's a lot of that going around," the captain murmured.

"And so now she commands."

"To the fury of the right-thinking orifices of the world," Giuliana said. The masts of the harbor tossed and swung gently against the starlight, and she stopped for a moment to look up at them. "Come on," she continued, "we've had a lovely evening, and I'd rather not have some one-balled idiot ruin my memories of the beautiful lady at the tavern."

I've never had a captain who sounded so much like a sailor, Mingeaux thought. Or felt so much like a friend.
 

* * *
 

When Brandy made her way slowly back into the tavern, staring at her feet and thinking, Mistinguette watched her cross the room, thinking, So, now it has happened to her.

 

* * *

As it happened, the first thing Giuliana thought of the next morning was the woman she had met the night before. She allowed herself a few moments of perfect laziness, stretching her muscles, eyes closed against the brilliance of the sunlight stealing into the odd little corners of her cabin. The ship rocked gently, putting her in mind of a half-cask of brandy with a little red-headed girl bundled inside.

Or was she a blonde? She opened her eyes and looked around at the tidy little room. She traveled light (not that one could describe a brace of pistols, ammunition, and cleaning and polishing supplies as "light"), and the cabin held few of the fripperies that marred her rooms back in England. It was amazing what people thought a woman needed to get through her day. She was fine with a few suits, a pair of boots, a hat or two, something to write on and with, and a way to protect the money that represented her freedom.

And freedom it most certainly was. She swung her legs out of the bed and stood in the center of the floor, the half-wall of glass at the stern giving her a breathtaking view of the expansive ocean beyond the port.

She wondered if Brandy would appreciate it.

Then she laughed at herself for her nonsense and began to get herself together for the day.

 

* * *

Mingeaux was on deck, sending a long plume of smoke out of her mouth and watching it dissipate in the breeze, when the captain joined her. "Good morning!" Giuliana called, making her way up the steps to where Mingeaux kept an eye on the port, beginning to bustle in the early-morning light.

"Good morning," Mingeaux replied agreeably, taking another puff from her pipe. "We should have everything loaded and be ready to depart in another two days."

She had expected some sort of an argument, as the captain had a big task ahead of her and had been hitherto rather impatient, but all Giuliana did was nod. "Excellent."

"I'll be overseeing things here," Mingeaux told her, adding mischievously, "if you'd care to hunt up the magistrate and tell him how efficient his security forces are."

Giuliana shook her head with a smile and leaned against the rail. "I have far more important things to do today."

Mingeaux did not point out that it was exceedingly unlikely anyone would be willing to discuss the captain's missing sister with her. Anyone who might know where she was would not be eager to share the information.

She decided to change the subject. "So will your busy day leave your evening free?"

The captain turned her head and gave Mingeaux a speculative look. "I take it you'd like to visit the 'Bonny Anne' again?"

Mingeaux smiled broadly, the pipe clenched in her teeth. "I was thinking perhaps you wouldn't take it amiss if both of us went."

The captain stared out across the water, not answering.

 

* * *

"Haven," Thomas said.

The captain looked up from the microscope. "Ah, good. We have to take the sextant to Etienne to repair the effects of Mr. Sere's proximity." She bent down over the microscope again.

He really did not want to bring it, to use an unfortunate phrase, up, but he inquired, "Are you delving more deeply into the habits of the sea urchins?"

"I think I've invaded their privacy quite enough for one voyage, don't you?" she asked, smiling without looking away from whatever it was that was so fascinating. "No, I'm attempting to determine how the corals grow."

It was a much safer topic than her last obsession. "And to what conclusions have you come?"

She was just going to answer when they heard Torres bellow, "Jack Sere, I swear before Christ I'm going to feed you to the sea turtles!"

The captain raised her head long enough to close her eyes and put a hand to her forehead. "I'll be glad to see Haven."

"If only," Thomas said unobtrusively, "because we will be able to put an entire island between them."

 

* * *

When she came in the door, hands in her pockets and sternness in her face, the clerks stopped what they were doing and looked up at her apprehensively.

One of them, more courageous than the rest, got off the high stool and took a few steps toward her. "May I help you, mam'selle?"

She took a look around her at the floor-to-ceiling shelves of pigeonholes, stacked with sheets of paper arranged as neatly as human beings could keep such things. "You keep the records of ships in the area?"

"Yes, mam'selle," the man replied. He had an untidy fringe of hair around his otherwise bald head, and his cuffs were frayed from what she recognized as long hours copying out papers.

"I would like to know," she said bluntly, "what became of the Phoebus, out of Southampton, which passed through this region some six months ago, and lost a number of passengers and property to persons unknown."

The clerks looked at one another with ill-concealed nervousness. Her accent was that of a wealthy, possibly titled Englishwoman, and there was no end to the trouble she could make if she'd a mind to.

And she definitely looked as though she'd a mind to.

"The--ah--the Phoebus, mam'selle, I believe you said it was?" asked the clerk.

"You know I did," she answered, low and deadly.

He walked slowly to a rack of books and took one off the top. "Well," he said, moving with a deliberate lack of speed, "let's just see what we can find here."

Behind her, the door opened and closed swiftly. She turned, but she wasn't fast enough to see who had just left. She turned back to the clerk, murder in her face. Only by main force was she able to keep her hands in her jacket, but they were fisted tightly. "The Phoebus," she reminded him, snarling it through her teeth.

He set the book down on a table and opened it to the very first page. It was a logbook containing port entries, she could see from reading it upside down, and the first listing in it was dated 1804. He set his finger onto the first entry and began to move it down the page with all the swiftness of molasses on a horizontal marble slab outdoors north of the Arctic Circle in January.

She tried not to grind her teeth, or to reach across the table and strangle him with his own cravat.

The door opened again, and the clerk looked up with immense relief. She turned to see a well-dressed man in the doorway.

"Well," the man said in French, "it's not often that Claude entertains a beautiful woman." He turned to shut the door, then shrugged his cloak negligently off his shoulders and handed it, and his cane, to one of the clerks. "I just had to come and congratulate him on how well his morning was going."

When he took a step across the room, holding out both hands to take hers in a warm, subtle handshake, she saw that his shoulders were broad, his hair dark, his eyes warm and brown, his smile as dazzling as the diamond that flashed from the center of his silk cravat. Muscles moved under the expensive cloth of his perfectly-tailored, perfectly clean suit.

He hesitated a fraction of a second after shaking her hand, then lifted it in both of his to kiss it gently. She lifted an eyebrow at him, and he smiled again, this time an intimate, bedroom look.

She pitched her voice low, aiming for a part of him that was relatively far away from his ears. "Any further, monsieur," she said, with as much seductiveness as she could pack into the words, "and my father will expect you to propose."

His eyes gleamed as he laughed, throwing his head back. His throat was magnificent, and she hated the arrogant rat with an immediate and powerful hatred. "What a delightful lady! I can see why Claude here is captivated." He gestured toward the clerk with one hand, and she took the opportunity to extricate her hand from his.

He put his hand to his magnificent silk waistcoat and bowed to her. "I am Aristide," he said, "and your slave."

He could not have said anything else to make her antipathy flare more strongly. "Don't you mean 'servant'?" she said, using the euphemism that prevailed in the Caribbean.

He laughed again, and she longed to take a belaying pin to his handsome, smug face. "I can see that your wit is as formidable as your beauty," he said.

Not a belaying pin--one of her pistols. Loaded with something that would cause hideous scarring. She was not by nature violent, but she could make an exception for this Aristide. "If you'll excuse us, monsieur," she said tightly, "this gentleman and I have business to conclude."

"Indeed?" the handsome man asked, his eyebrows hiking upward in ill-feigned astonishment. "And what does the lady require?"

She sighed and drummed her fingers on the top of the table. Ignoring Aristide with the same ostentatiousness as he had shown in greeting her, she turned back to the clerk. "Try the book that has the more recent listings--something from this century, perhaps. Like 1809, for example."

The clerk walked slowly back to the pile of books and began to sort through them at a glacial pace. Giuliana sighed loudly in extreme annoyance and leaned on the table, on her elbows.

Aristide leaned forward on the table in his turn, bending almost double to place his elbow next to hers. "What is the lady looking for?" Aristide asked the clerk after a moment of silence.

"Don't answer that," Giuliana snapped, at the same time that the clerk mumbled, "The Phoebus."

She was not going to get away from this place without murdering everyone in it, she could see.

"Ah, the lady wishes to know more about shipping out of Southampton," Aristide said, turning to her with a charming smile.

Shocked, she turned her head to look at him. He was so close that she could see the depth in his eyes, a combination of intelligence and hunger that had, she was intrigued to see, nothing whatsoever to do with lust.

"I have a proposal," he said, gesturing with a hand on which a mean-looking ruby glinted in the sunlight. "And not for your father. I would like to discuss the shipping news with you over dinner."

She straightened and put a firm hand on the table. "Monsieur," she began, "I appreciate a lengthy talk about footage of canvas and tonnage as much as the next person, but the information I seek--"

"--is unlikely to come from an elderly man who is so stunned with your beauty that he can barely open a ledger," Aristide said with another intimate smile. "My cook is one of the finest in the Caribbean. Are you certain you wouldn't care to partake?"

She thought about it. Long and hard. (She was certain he'd try to convince her that it was, at any rate.) Surely he wouldn't poison her. Or could she bring her formidable first mate along? "It would hardly do," she said as if thinking it over, "for me to visit a handsome gentleman alone."

"So bring your duenna," he said, spreading his hands in a so-that's-settled gesture.

My duenna could snap you in two, she thought, and I would pay a great deal to see it.

 

* * *

Captain Jameson was pleased to see that the harbor looked the same; there were few things you could count on in an uncertain and changing world. The ship pulled in beside a long yacht she had never seen before, a windswept-looking beauty in mahogany and glass. The name Intrepide gleamed from the bow as Discovery moved slowly to settle beside her. When the hands had made the ship fast, she spent a few moments looking at the yacht and wondering what idle, dissipated pleasure-seeker had brought her out.

Thomas passed her, carrying the book and their manifests, on his way to talk to the port authority. "Marseilles," he said shortly.

"I beg your pardon?"

"She's out of Marseilles," Thomas said, nodding toward the yacht with the beautiful lines.

She stared at him for a moment, then at the yacht, then followed him down the gangplank they had run out to the dock.

 

* * *

Giuliana was in a thoroughly foul mood when she strode down the hill toward the harbor. The port authority office had given her no help whatsoever, and now she had only the infuriating M. Aristide, whom she presumed would give her nothing useful and then ask her to pay for her supper.

"Captain!" she heard Mingeaux shout. She turned to see her first mate loping easily along the street, catching up to her in a few strides. "Everything's going according to plan." She seemed much more excited than the news that they were on schedule should make anyone, but perhaps it was just that the captain's own mood was so dark that anyone else's would seem sunny by comparison.

"Well done," Giuliana replied, trying not to growl. She turned toward the ship's berth and strode in the direction of the yacht. Mingeaux caught up and walked at her side.

"How did it go?" she asked in a low voice.

"No information," the captain said, scanning the forest of masts, "but I did get a dinner invitation for tomorrow night." The two of them crossed the dock, and Giuliana added, "You're coming with me, by the way."

"Where?" Mingeaux asked, confused.

"Some charmer named Aristide," Giuliana snarled.

Mingeaux stopped dead in the middle of the dock. "Aristide?"

The captain turned and glared at her. "That's what I said. Listen, I've had a very unproductive morning, and I'm not looking forward to this, so--" She saw the expression underneath the blue swirls on Mingeaux's face and shut up. "What?"

"Aristide," Mingeaux murmured, lowering herself heavily onto a cask upended on the dock. "You'd sooner have a meal with Lucifer himself."

Giuliana looked around; the dockhands were busily doing whatever it was dockhands did, and no one was paying the two of them the slightest attention. She leaned over Mingeaux's shoulder, pretending to watch the ship berthed next to them unloading. "Who is he?" she asked in a low voice.

"Not here," Mingeaux answered, her voice just as low. "I have to talk to you. Later."

Giuliana looked at the ship next to Intrepide, swarming with hands and buzzing with voices. "Who's our neighbor?" she asked, gesturing with a hand toward the much larger ship.

"Discovery," Mingeaux said shortly.

"The one you've been waiting for?" Giuliana asked.

Distracted, Mingeaux nodded.

Giuliana put up a hand to shade her eyes and looked at Discovery, swaying against the lines that held her firm as dockhands and crew went to and fro. "What time does Mlle. Tavernier open the 'Bonny Anne'"?

"A hour before sunset," Mingeaux said.

"Do you think," Giuliana asked carefully, "that you could put off your reunion with this fine vessel until tomorrow morning?"

Mingeaux nodded again, but she didn't look happy.

 

* * *

When they climbed the hill again, the racing of Giuliana's heart was not entirely due to the steep angle of the street. She found herself looking forward to seeing the tavern-keeper again, and thought, before she could stop it, It's as though you were hurrying to a lover.

She tried to wrench her thoughts back to the matter at hand. What was wrong with her? Lovesick? Smitten? And just where would that leave her sister?

Possible answers to that question leapt with fever-speed into her brain. She realized, after a few moments, that concentrating on the white shoulders and undefinably-colored hair of the tavern-keeper was not the worst thing with which to occupy her mind. Very well, then, she had come halfway around the world to see what had become of her sister, and if she happened to notice another woman here and there along the way, any adventures would have to wait.

Mingeaux strode beside her, face like a thunderhead, as they threaded their way through a surprisingly large crowd. They were walking so quickly that it left them little breath with which to converse, but Giuliana gathered her thoughts and a lungful of air. "Have I done wrong?"

Mingeaux waved her hand in dismissal and kept walking.

"You say he is--" Giuliana began, but Mingeaux put a finger to her lips in brusque warning, and Giuliana was wise enough to shut up. They did not speak again until they were standing in the yard of the "Bonny Anne".

Mingeaux squinted up at the sky, judging the time, and headed abruptly around the side of the building. "Mam'selle," Giuliana heard her bellow, "you have visitors."

Curious, Giuliana followed the path Mingeaux had taken. When she was walking past the side of the building, she heard Brandy's voice answer, "Nonsense. You don't call family 'visitors'."

As she came around the back of the building, she saw the tavern-keeper, bare-armed in a shift and an old skirt, her back to Mingeaux. Brandy was laying out a wet towel across a length of line stretched several feet above the ground; evidently, they had surprised her doing her laundry. Giuliana stopped for a moment, thinking of herself again as an intruder, then took a few cautious steps toward her.

Mingeaux put her arms around Brandy from behind and bent to kiss her on the cheek, but soberly and with some distraction. Brandy looked up at her with a smile, which faded as she saw the expression on Mingeaux's face. She turned in Mingeaux's arms, a bit awkwardly, and her eyes rested on Giuliana.

"Mam'selle," Giuliana said, keeping her voice low.

Brandy moved unhurriedly to her laundry basket and picked up the blouse draped over the side, pulling it over her head. "We're not quite open yet," she murmured, not looking at Giuliana.

"Damn it, we know that," Mingeaux growled. Brandy's head snapped toward her in shock; evidently, she wasn't accustomed to temper out of her mother's friend. "This is important."

Brandy tucked her blouse into her skirt and directed her gaze at the ground. "You'd better come on in, then," she said, subdued.

"A moment," Giuliana said, stretching out a hand, and both of them looked at her. "Please forgive us, Mlle. Tavernier. Again I've been the cause of disruption to you. Apparently, I've done something that upsets Mingeaux--I'm still not certain precisely what--and she wanted us to come here, for some reason. I trust," she said, looking at Mingeaux, "that we're here to talk it over?"

Brandy looked up at Mingeaux, who was clenching her fists. "She's having dinner with Aristide tomorrow night," Mingeaux said.

Brandy made a noise that was halfway between a gasp and a sigh.

"And she wants me to go with her," Mingeaux said.

"An excellent idea," Brandy said.

Mingeaux stared at her in disbelief.

"No, hear me out," Brandy said, holding up a hand. She looked for all the world like a queen reasoning with a councillor, not a tavern-keeper who'd just been interrupted in the middle of hanging out the towels. "If anyone would know anything about the captain's sister, who would it be?"

"Aristide," Mingeaux said, with reluctance.

"And don't you think he'd be courteous to you if you were with her?"

Mingeaux's eyes swept the captain's figure. "Depends how low her gown is cut."

Giuliana raised an eyebrow.

Brandy turned to the captain, and her distaste for the subject was apparent. "Unfortunately," she said, shaping her words with caution, "that part is true. If he invited you to dinner, he'll expect you in a gown."

Giuliana swept her hat from her head and clapped it impatiently against the side of her trouser leg. "What else will he 'expect'?"

"Nothing," Mingeaux grunted.

"Probably," Brandy added.

Giuliana looked from one to the other. "Who is this man?"

Brandy took her courage in both hands and walked over to Giuliana. She took the captain's arm and looked up at her face. "Would you come inside, please?"

It was on the tip of Giuliana's tongue to reply, "Willingly," but she controlled herself and nodded instead.

 

* * *

Thomas and Captain Jameson were making their way up the hill slowly, as it seemed that Thomas could not take more than three steps before turning to look back at the pier. Discovery swayed majestically at the dock, and his apprehension was allayed until he thought of something else.

"Mr. Thomas?" the captain inquired, after he had stopped yet again.

"I beg your pardon, Captain," he replied.

"Surely they won't kill one another in three hours?"

Thomas shaded his eyes with his hand and studied the ship for signs of mayhem. "It is not their bodily health for which I have concern, but that of Discovery. I have great respect for the destructive capabilities of both Torres and Mr. Sere."

The captain sighed, but with a smile. "I can see that that is something I shall have to spend a great deal of time and attention on. He seems to have an astonishing talent for destruction, and her temper just makes him more nervous."

"I must confess it has a similar effect on me," Thomas murmured.

Jameson laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, then. Let's get your sextant repaired. Then we'll see if we can keep them from breaking it again."

They turned into a little side street, and Jameson led the way to a doorway set into a row of shops. She opened the door and gestured him inside, and he set the wooden case he was carrying on the table gingerly. The table was scrupulously clean, and stacked on one side were thick folded lengths of cloth. A curtain covered a doorway to the back of the shop.

She gave Thomas a mischievous sideways glance, and he thought to himself, She really does enjoy a challenge. Would that I were not so often her companion in these adventures.

"Ahoy," Jameson called.

There was a grumbling from the back of the shop. Jameson folded her arms and smiled briefly down at her boots, then turned to Thomas with a wait-and-see attitude.

"Is that you, woman?" said a gruff, older male voice from behind the curtain.

"Indeed it is, Etienne," she called. "The kraken has not swallowed me for apostasy, despite your prayers."

"You'd give the kraken indigestion," the voice replied with undisguised annoyance, and a barrel of a man came through the curtain. He was considerably shorter than Jameson, a fringe of wispy white hair around his head. The lack of hair on his head was more than compensated for by the thick, luxuriant beard that flowed like an ocean current over his ill-fitting shirt.

He spared her one irritated glance and put his hands on the box, squinting at it. "Still in pants, I see," he muttered.

"It's difficult to climb the rigging in a ball gown," she answered easily.

"Mr. Thomas," Etienne said, nodding to Thomas, who nodded back. The old man picked up one of the cloths and spread it onto the table in an economical movement he had obviously performed thousands of times. "I see you still haven't taken command," he said to Thomas.

"There is no need to do so, since the ship is ably commanded already," Thomas replied, clasping his hands behind his back.

The old man looked up at him, incredulous. "Mon dieu, fellow, can't you see what she is?"

Thomas quirked an eyebrow, pretending to misunderstand. "An excellent captain?"

"No, you idiot," Etienne responded impatiently. "A woman!"

At that moment, the door opened, and a young woman moved in quickly, then shut it against the bright sunshine in the street outside. "Papa, stop bellowing. They'll hear you in Port-au-Prince." She juggled a bundle of cloth-wrapped tools into her left arm and held out a hand to Thomas. "Mr. Thomas. Delighted to see you again, sir."

"A pleasure, Mam'selle," Thomas said with a bow.

The woman turned to Jameson with unfeigned delight. "Kathryn. How goes the parsing of the natural world?"

"Wonderfully well, Emilie. And you?"

The young woman shrugged, then set the bundle of tools carefully onto the table. "Learning more every day."

"And into more every day," Etienne said, grumpy.

"Papa, hush," Emilie said with patient affection. "You can't frighten off our best customers. What have you brought us today?" She picked up the box and set it carefully down on the cloth, then undid the latches gently and swung open the lid.

Jameson watched her pick up the contents with the hand of an expert. It was a shame; all other things being equal, this girl could have become one of the finest scientists in the world. Her brain was as quick as her hands, and her delighted curiosity about the world around her kept her in a continual voyage of knowledge-seeking that differed only in degree from that of Discovery.

She handled the heavy sextant with the confident air of one for whom it held no undiscovered secrets. Kathryn watched as she slid the halves together, frowned, and set the sextant onto the heavy, padded cloth on the table. Etienne leaned over and examined it in his turn, clucking gently and looking over the tops of his spectacles.

"Oh, my darling," Emilie said to the sextant, putting her hands to her cheeks, "whoever has been doing whatever with you?"

Kathryn put a cautious hand on the table and leaned forward, looking at the shining brass of the sextant. "You haven't met our newest crewmember, Mr. Sere. Late of His Majesty's Navy and along to make certain that we don't discover the secret to perpetual motion without claiming it for England."

"And, apparently, a clodhopper of a navigator," Etienne remarked with disapproval.

"Does he have a lover?" Emilie asked without a shred of self-consciousness, manipulating the two arms of the sextant.

Thomas closed his eyes in horror at the very thought, and Kathryn grinned. "I don't believe so. Why?"

"Often," Emilie said without looking up from the sextant, "that can teach a man a great deal about handling an instrument gently." She turned the sextant over and pointed. "Look, the set screw is damaged." She turned to unroll the cloth bundle of tools and pulled out a delicate screwdriver, applying it to the sextant with deft quickness.

"Three weeks," Etienne said, sitting back from the table and glaring at Kathryn.

"Oh, Papa, it doesn't take that long to get a new screw machined," Emilie murmured, looking at the screw with disapproval.

"Not if you go to your boyfriend," Etienne grumbled.

"Papa, we have been over this a million times. Maximilian is not my boyfriend, and the metal lathe cuts the time to one tenth of what it took at the bench." She looked up quickly, and her eyes met Kathryn's. "I'd like to make certain your Mr. Sere hasn't done anything else to it. Will you be here until the end of the week?"

Kathryn nodded. "Your work is well worth waiting for. I'm relieved to hear it's not beyond redemption."

Emilie smiled, and sunlight seemed to fill the room. "And neither, I'm certain, is Mr. Sere."

"It is probable that Torres does not share your opinion," Thomas commented sourly, and Emilie laughed.

"And how is my good friend Belinda these days?" she asked easily, walking around the table and taking Thomas's arm. "I'll see them out, Papa, no need to stir."

"Were it not for the redoubtable Mr. Sere, she would, no doubt, be in a foul mood far less often." Thomas walked to the door and opened it.

"I can see," Emilie said as she went through the door with Thomas, "that Mr. Sere is a gentleman who makes a vivid impression." Kathryn nodded to Etienne, who waved a hand at her, and the three walked out into the sunshine.

As Thomas closed the door, Emilie drew her shawl around her shoulders and turned to them, her face grave.

"How is he?" Kathryn asked, her voice low.

Emilie sighed and shook her head, her short blonde hair fluttering in the breeze. "His eyes are very weak now, and you can see the dropsy in his wrists."

"And the business?"

Emilie shrugged. "I do what I can, but not everyone is as accommodating as the good crew of Discovery about having a woman repair their instruments."

Kathryn caught Emilie's elbow and drew her to the side, out of the path of a donkey cart loaded with crates. "What about Maximilian?"

Emilie smiled, but there was a tinge of sadness to it. "He says he can convince his father to let me work in the shop with him, but there is that one little matter."

"Marrying Maximilian," Kathryn said, and Emilie nodded. Kathryn looked past her into the street, bustling with dockhands, shipwrights, carters, and bankers. "And that would only last until the first child came along," Kathryn murmured to herself.

"I've had... another offer," Emilie said with reluctance, and Kathryn's eyes snapped back to her in surprise.

"Of marriage?"

"Of an engineer's post," Emilie said, looking away.

"Great God," Kathryn breathed, incredulous. She reached out to put a hand on Emilie's arm.

"For Genevieve Ste. Claire." Emilie folded her arms and met Kathryn's eye.

The deflation was as sudden as the swirling hope. "I trust you told her no."

"Of course I did," Emilie said, a touch offended. "Did you think I wouldn't?"

"No," Kathryn said, frowning in the general direction of the people in the street. Thomas had maintained a discreet silence, but he was following the conversation with grave attention.

"It was a lot of money." Emilie closed her eyes and threw her head back suddenly. "And Papa is so ill..."

Kathryn touched Emilie's shoulder. "Listen to me, Emilie. You're far too gifted an engineer to waste that talent on... on building cages for human beings."

"That isn't precisely what she wanted," Emilie muttered, staring at the tips of her shoes.

"I'm not certain I wish to hear what she wanted," Kathryn answered, trying to conceal her fury. "Emilie, you know you always have a place on Discovery. You and Torres have always worked well together, and it looks as though Mr. Sere is going to be with us for a while, so you certainly wouldn't lack for repair jobs."

Emilie smiled again, the sadness only inches away. "Papa would never ship with a woman."

"I have observed," Thomas interjected, looking out into the street, "that your father can be something of an idiot."

Emilie laughed merrily. "True, Mr. Thomas. But he's my idiot. And my responsibility. And I'll take care of him." She shrugged. "And ask God to explain exactly why the evil always end up with the money."

Thomas gave her one of his rare, gentle smiles. "You have something that is far more valuable than all of Genevieve Ste. Claire's gold."

She looked up at him sideways with a flirtatious little smile. "And that is?"

"Purity of heart," Thomas said seriously.
 

* * *

Giuliana slumped on the bench, her arm propped against the table, her cheek resting on her fist. She stared morosely at Brandy and Mingeaux.

"Is there anything else?" she asked, feigned calm overlying her voice.

They shook their heads solemnly, in unison.

It was very late, and the light from the torches burned in her eyes. Giuliana sat up ponderously and inquired, "Are you certain?"

They nodded as one.

"You two certainly are comforting," Giuliana remarked. "Well," she said, swinging her numb feet over the bench and standing up, "it's time I was preparing for my night with the devil incarnate."

Mingeaux got to her feet and stretched, looking up into the night sky. "Perhaps some evening we can spend inside, eh?" She pulled Brandy up from the bench and kissed her cheek. "Bon soir, dear heart. Sleep well."

Brandy patted Mingeaux's stomach. "You as well." She turned to the captain. "I'll see you tomorrow at three?"

Giuliana nodded. "I'll be here."

Brandy's eyes swept over Giuliana's figure, intrigued. "I'm looking forward to it. I've never been a lady's maid."

Giuliana stamped her feet a bit to wake them up; she'd been sitting for hours, and the blood had collected somewhere between her kneecaps and her boot-heels. "Tomorrow," she said shortly, shooting a glance at Brandy. "At three."

Brandy inclined her head, a bit of amusement in her face. (Or perhaps it was just the torchlight.) She put an arm around Mingeaux's waist and walked the two of them to the road, then stood watching as they made their way down the street. When the darkness had swallowed them, she went back to the door of the "Bonny Anne" and returned to her customers.

She threaded her way across the crowded room, dodging sailors and dockhands who were going for their ale. Mistinguette caught her eye and nodded toward the end of the bar; Brandy found a loaded tray and picked it up, looking toward Mistinguette for some direction as to what table it belonged to. Mistinguette glanced toward the back, and Brandy was very busy for the next ten minutes.

By the time she got back to the bar, Mistinguette was leaning on it with both hands, keeping a wary eye on the patrons, wreathed in tobacco smoke and ill-lit in the flickering, reddish illumination from the fire.

"Thank you," Brandy said in as low as voice as would do the trick, and Mistinguette nodded briefly, her mind seemingly on something else.

"What is it?" Brandy asked, leaning in to avoid being overheard.

Mistinguette spoke out of the corner of her mouth, not looking at her. "Hook left a few minutes ago."

Brandy was instantly seized with a powerful feeling of misgiving. Hook, a Hollander, didn't have a position at the docks or customs-house, nor was he a sailor; there were vague rumors that he worked for Aristide, but if that was the truth, no one knew what it was that he did. Was there any--? "What's he been doing?"

Mistinguette shrugged. "Drinking. As usual. Except he's been nursing one shot of India rum all night."

Giuliana--! Brandy would have been out the door and after the captain, but she was just a fraction of a second too slow for Mistinguette; when she looked down, the other woman's hand was clamped firmly around her wrist, holding it tight to the bar. "Steady," Mistinguette said. "You can't help them now. She's got Mingeaux."

Brandy had only a moment to worry about Mingeaux, as one of the sailors made her way through the surge and crush to the bar. For some reason, Mistinguette was telling her to act like nothing was wrong; silently, she agreed, and Mistinguette took her hand off Brandy's wrist. "Daniela," Brandy said, greeting the sailor in Portuguese. "What can I get for you?"

"Your hand in marriage," slurred the sailor, and the tavern erupted in laughter.


There was a part of the street, halfway between the pier and the tavern, where the only light was from whatever stars were shining. Giuliana, as was her habit, had sunk her chin into her chest and stuck her hands in her pockets, and was walking without speaking to the tall, tattooed woman to her right.

She was never able to explain to her own satisfaction what caused her to take a couple of skipping half-steps to her left just then. She wondered about the foolishness of it even as she did so, but as it happened, it saved her neck. She found herself instantly separated from Mingeaux; the street was impenetrably dark.

Just as she opened her mouth to call Mingeaux's name softly, something big shoved her sideways, and she went to her hands and knees, skidding against the cobblestones. The air whooshed above her head, and she scrambled away from whatever it was, fetching up against a substantial piece of rock with her left hand. She gripped it and tried to pry it out of the street, but it wouldn't budge, and she tried to get to her feet, boots slipping, as whatever it was sliced through the air just to her right.

She had sense enough not to speak, although she was worried about the safety of her first mate, and she tried to move without making a sound. Perhaps she could catch the attacker's knee, twist it maybe--a clang and a spark on the cobblestones near her shoulder told her the attacker had the same ideas about the value of silence.

Giuliana remembered that she had a knife and drew it with a slither of metal against leather. How the hell would she be able to tell whether it was Mingeaux? Did she dare say anything? Was it--could it be--Mingeaux who was trying to kill her?

"Come on, then," she said in a low voice, with more menace than she had thought herself capable of. Another skittering of sparks against the cobblestones told her that her attacker was right on top of things, and she lashed out with the knife where she thought his arm was.

She missed, but it was enough to make him move back, and she had an impression of a darker darkness in the street. Aha. If she could keep her eyes on that mass of black, she might know where he'd approach from next time.

The blade clanged onto the cobblestones again, and she was quick to clap her knife over it, trying to pin it down so that she could get one good fist into his face. He was very strong; she couldn't hold the blade for long, but the attacker was close enough for her to smell the sweat, leather, rum, and heightened musk of male excitement. It wasn't Mingeaux; she was alternately relieved and suddenly, terribly afraid.

She was still half on her knees, and holding the blade pinned to the cobblestones with all the force her arm would generate. She could only tell where he was by the stars she couldn't see against his bulk. He wrenched at the blade, and she knew she couldn't hold him for long.

He heaved to get the sword up again, and she knew she was only moments away from having to let up with the knife. Could she get him with it in time?

She made her decision and let the knife blade go abruptly, and he staggered backwards a few steps with the suddenness of it. She heard the breath leave his chest in a sudden grunt, and then she was watching his body, outlined in the starlight, heaving backwards at an impossible angle as someone caught him up from behind.

A rush and a gurgle made her lift her arm, and a fountain of blood pattered down on her, soaking her instantly in a warm, sticky rush. The blade clattered into the street as the gusher went on, then slowed. Whoever it was wrenched his body sideways and threw it in the street, where it turned once, sodden and ponderous, then lay still.

Giuliana found herself on one knee, breathless and aching, covered in the blood of the attacker, but safe. Her protector crouched in the street. "Captain?"

"Mingeaux." The relief of it made her glad to be kneeling. She didn't have much breath to spare, so she whispered, "Well?"

"He's dead," came the answering whisper.

"I meant you," Giuliana said, trying to get some air into her bellows. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," Mingeaux said grimly. "And you?"

Giuliana took another breath, surprised at how difficult it was. "Fine." She closed her eyes, a bit dizzy, and then felt herself falling sideways. She caught herself with the hand holding the knife. Mingeaux put a comforting, strong hand to her elbow, and Giuliana resisted the temptation to curl into her like a child.

With an effort, she pulled herself upright and opened her eyes. Her clothes were starting to stiffen as the blood dried in the soft night air. "Well. Do we--" she was having a bit of trouble getting air. "Do we call the Watch?"

Mingeaux snorted. "Not likely. Dominguez would be just as happy to finish the job."

Giuliana's brain began to work again. "We've got to get you away from here." She thought for a second. "Can you get back to the ship without being seen?"

It was almost completely dark, but she had no trouble seeing the expression of stubbornness on Mingeaux's face as she shook her head in instant negation. "I'm not leaving you here."

Giuliana wondered how to put it so the tall woman would understand. "Listen. If I'm in gaol, you can go on and find my sister. If you're in gaol, I can't go another step. Consent. Please. For God's sake. For hers."

There was a moment of silence, then Mingeaux got to her feet and hauled the captain up by an elbow, effortlessly. "I'm leaving you with Brandy," she murmured. "She'll take care of you."

Giuliana shook her head, a bit dizzy with the unaccustomed altitude as she got back on her feet. "I don't want to get her into trouble."

Mingeaux laughed shortly. "Don't think you can," she answered. "That's the only lady who could harbor a gaggle of escaped slaves in broad daylight in the square without being flogged for it."

Giuliana supposed this meant the plan was sensible, and so she allowed Mingeaux to steer her past the body. They started back up the hill toward the "Bonny Anne."


In the tavern, Brandy was all smiles, although she felt like screaming, running into the street, sending her drunken customers on a search mission--

"You're in a good mood tonight, Mam'selle," observed one of the Genoese, a short, muscular woman from the Intrepide.

"Perhaps she's meeting a lover later on," said Daniela at the next table.

"Any chance it could be me?" said the Genoese, scanning Brandy's figure.

"Any chance I could watch?" said the man sitting next to the Genoese. The Genoese reached out to cuff him on the back of the head in one quick, efficient movement, and the tavern echoed with laughter as he righted his spilled tankard.

Brandy drew him another tankard and crossed the room to set it down in front of him. "And if I am?" she said airily. "Surely you don't begrudge your tavern wench an adventure or two of her own?"

The murmur of speculation gathered into a surge of voices.


The captain had reason to be grateful for Mingeaux's strength all over again as they threaded their way around through the kitchen garden at the back of the "Bonny Anne". Her legs were nerveless, practically useless, and she had stumbled more than once.

Mingeaux held her up with one powerful arm and knocked gently at the back door of the tavern with the other. To their astonishment, the door opened immediately, and Mistinguette stood in the doorway, a stern expression on her face.

"Get your mistress," Mingeaux murmured, her face as serious as Mistinguette's.

"Any wounds?" Mistinguette asked immediately, and Mingeaux, surprised, turned an inquiring look at the captain. Giuliana shook her head, but to be truthful, she wasn't quite certain.

"Come in," Mistinguette said in a low voice, turning to lead them into the tavern.

Inside was the back hallway of the tavern, a narrow passageway that led to a larger room at the rear, on the side with the kitchen garden. Mistinguette opened the door and Mingeaux propelled Giuliana inside.

The room had a bed in it, and Giuliana looked at it with longing. She missed what Mistinguette said next. "I beg your pardon?" she asked politely, turning to the barmaid.

Mistinguette spared one heartbeat for an exasperated look, then turned to Mingeaux. "Get lost. We'll take care of her."

Mingeaux opened her mouth, but didn't say anything. Giuliana reached out with one gore-spotted hand, laying it gently on her arm. "Back to Intrepide," she said shortly. "With my unspeakable gratitude."

Mingeaux nodded and vanished with a suddenness that left Giuliana's knees weak.

"Undress, cut off the buttons, throw the clothes in the fire," Mistinguette instructed Giuliana, who nodded. The barmaid indicated the corner of the room with her chin. "Water pump and slop hole over there. Get that shit off you. I'll go get her."

Giuliana nodded again, stupidly, and pulled off her jacket with muscles that ached.


Mistinguette came back to the bar, a slight smile on her face. "Now, then, what's all this?" Brandy tried to meet her eye, but Mistinguette resolutely refused to look her way.

The sailors all began to talk at once, and Mistinguette held up her hands, laughing. "One at a time, one at a time."

"Mlle. Tavernier," announced the Genoese solemnly, "has taken a lover."

"Really?" Mistinguette responded, leaning one arm on the bar. "Anyone we know? Because I'm certain she has better sense than to step out with any of you lot."

The sailors guffawed, and the Genoese turned to the man sitting next to her. "Especially you," she announced.

Mistinguette winked at Brandy. "Well, then," she said easily. "You'd best not keep your lover waiting."

Brandy caught her breath as the sailors applauded. She forced a smile onto her face and called across the room to Mistinguette, "And just what will you be doing while I'm entertaining my lover?"

Mistinguette looked back at her as if the answer was obvious. "Taking wagers!"

Brandy got through the room in a flash, the sailors bowing her elaborately toward the back. Mistinguette got to the door just as Brandy went through and shut it on a gaggle of fascinated sailors. "Now, look," she said to the crowd in mock disapproval, holding up a finger, "give the girl her privacy. After all, no one interrupts you when you go to the pasture to visit the sheep."


A burst of laughter made Giuliana turn her head; the door opened and the tavern-keeper moved into the room quickly. She froze for a second when she caught sight of Giuliana. "Mon dieu," she breathed. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," Giuliana replied, feeling a bit more upright now that Brandy was here. She didn't stop to think about how odd that was. "Thank you. Mam'selle Tavernier, I apologize--"

Brandy put a quick hand to Giuliana's lips, and the captain realized that fainting wasn't entirely out of the question. "There's no time," Brandy hissed, taking no notice. "We've got to get you cleaned up." She knelt and put her hands around the ankle of Giuliana's boot. Giuliana pulled her foot out of it, a bit unsteadily, working the buttons on her shirt at the same time.

Brandy got her other boot off and picked them up, turning to the washbasin in the corner of the room. She began to work the pump handle vigorously, and a splash of water clattered out of the spout. Brandy held the boots under the stream, and Giuliana watched in fascination.

Eventually, they had the captain's clothing off, the buttons removed, the jacket and shirt and trousers in the fire. It was remarkable how much blood a human body could hold. Giuliana scrubbed at the gore clinging to her skin, but her hands were sore and her elbows hurt and her knees were weak and eventually she decided she was pretty worthless.

"Stand up straight," Brandy said, and she worked quickly to get the worst of the blood off her. Her hands were remarkably gentle, for all their speed, and Giuliana found herself thinking, Of course, she spends much of her day cleaning things. She spent a hazy few moments envying the bar glasses.

In a trice, she was clean again, and Brandy dried her skin with a surprisingly soft towel. Giuliana was starting to shake, and she was grateful when Brandy opened the chest at the foot of the bed and sorted through it for a shirt, handing it to Giuliana without looking.

She pulled it over her head. "I sent Mingeaux back to the ship," she remarked. It was the first thing she'd said since being hushed.

Brandy hauled a pair of trousers out of the chest and held them out for Giuliana. "Is she in one piece?" Brandy asked, and Giuliana was surprised to hear the unsteadiness in her voice.

Giuliana took the trousers with one hand and held out the other, catching Brandy's shoulder. "She's fine," she assured her, and something tense in Brandy seemed to loosen. "I owe her my life."

"Don't we all," Brandy said, avoiding her eye and turning away to continue scrubbing at the boots. The captain looked at her back for a moment, stepping into the trousers and fastening them at her waist. They were a surprisingly good fit, and she thought for a moment about whose they might be.

"Mam'selle," the captain said, reaching for Brandy's shoulder again with a bruised hand. Unwilling, Brandy turned and put her hands behind her, steadying herself on the wooden stand for the sink. "I wouldn't put her in danger," Giuliana said.

"You already have," the girl said, looking up at Giuliana with a forthright expression.

"I'm going to try to get her out of it," the captain replied.

"Then listen to me," Brandy said, and the captain nodded instantly. "We've been here together much of the night, except when you walked Mingeaux down to the ship. You came back, and I went away for about half an hour to see to my guests while you waited here."

The corner of Giuliana's mouth turned up in a smile.

"Listen," Brandy said impatiently.

"You have my complete attention, Mam'selle," Giuliana assured her, and Brandy moved roughly past her to check on the progress of the incineration of her clothing.

"I came back--" Brandy began, crouching by the fire.

"--and we've been in each other's arms ever since," the captain said gently, crouching beside her and studying her profile in the firelight. Brandy nodded tightly, poking the last of the clothing into a sudden flare of ash.

Brandy looked anywhere but at the captain's face. "Your hands," she said. "Keep them in your pockets."

"Are you so certain we'll have visitors?" Giuliana asked, and Brandy opened her mouth to answer when there was a knock at the door. "One moment," Brandy called hastily.

They got to their feet, moving with the same rhythm, and Brandy shot her one last glance of warning. She moved to the door, and the captain slipped her hands into her pockets calmly.

Brandy opened the door with impatience. "What is it?"

Mistinguette stood in the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron and looking uncertain. "Beg pardon, Brandy, but I've closed up the tavern."

Brandy sighed, looking into her face. "Damnation, Mistinguette, can I not leave anything to you, even for one night?"

"You have visitors," Mistinguette said hesitantly.

Brandy looked beyond her to where Dominguez and two soldiers waited in the hallway. She beseeched heaven with her eyes, silently, and said, "I'll be right out."

"We'll be right in," Dominguez shot back.

"Like hell," Brandy growled at him.

"Mam'selle," Dominguez called, far louder than he had to in the narrow hallway, "a man has been killed. I must speak with you."

She didn't have to simulate her temper coming to a boil. For a moment, she considered whether saying what she really wanted to say would only get them in deeper, and she decided it probably would. "Come on in, then," she said, swinging the door wide and giving Dominguez a roguish look through her eyelashes. You may be the Watch, but I've spent the night in the arms of a beautiful woman. How she wished it had been true!

"Mam'selle," Dominguez said, raising an eyebrow. Giuliana bowed slightly, then turned her eyes to Brandy.

"I'm sorry, Mistinguette," Brandy murmured to her.

"You might spare a thought for those who work while you play," Mistinguette whispered back, with some asperity.

"I shouldn't have snapped at you," Brandy replied, contrite. "Go to bed when you've locked up."

"Gladly," Mistinguette said, eyeing the soldiers. She moved past them in the hallway and they heard the door to the tavern close.

There was a moment of silence; Brandy turned her head to see Dominguez, practically quivering with fury as he glared at the captain.

"You said a man had been killed," Brandy said impatiently.

"Francis Houeck," Dominguez said shortly.

Brandy snorted. "Hook? What did he do, drink too much and slip on the cobbles on his way back to his doss-house? I can't keep them from pouring it down their throats, you know."

"It was not an accident," Dominguez said, not taking his eyes off Giuliana. The captain was capable, Brandy saw, of looking remarkably bored. She supposed that the expression had come in handy in the past.

"And the reason you're troubling this lady with it is--what?" Giuliana asked him. She was several inches taller than he, and Brandy could tell that it bothered him.

"Tell me, Mam'selle," he said, "where is your first mate?"

Giuliana's face got serious in a flash. "She'd damned well better be at the ship. Why? Has she been injured?"

"You only mentioned Hook," Brandy said, moving forward, concerned.

Dominguez turned to her. "We found his body in the street near the bank."

Giuliana tossed her head with impatience. "And this concerns us how, precisely, monsieur?"

"Have you been here all night?" he shot out.

The captain lifted an eyebrow at him. Brandy took a step and stood beside her, and the captain put a gentle, comforting arm around her waist.

Dominguez's throat worked suddenly. He thought for a moment, then asked the captain with studied courtesy, "May I see your hands?"

Brandy moved forward, hands clenched into fists at her sides, and snapped something sharp in the island patois. Whatever it was, it was certainly effective; Dominguez straightened in shock and stumbled backward a step.

Brandy stood in front of the captain, and Dominguez tried to keep his composure. "Tomorrow," he said to them. "The magistrate's office. Be there when it opens."

"Spending the night with a beautiful lady is not a crime," the captain said mildly.

Dominguez tore his eyes from Brandy's face. "No, Mam'selle," he said to the captain with unconcealed loathing, "but murder is."

He turned and left the room, and the soldiers clattered after. They went through the door to the tavern, and a few moments later, they heard Mistinguette's voice. The front door slammed a few seconds after that, and the captain relaxed a fraction, taking a seat in the chair beside the bed with gratitude.

She looked at her battered hands, which were starting to look far more bruised, and then up at the tavern-keeper. "What was it you said to him?" she asked.

Brandy turned to her, eyes still ablaze. "I told him if he wanted to know my scent, he'd have to wait for an invitation."

For a moment, Giuliana's brain froze. Breathless, she stared up at the girl's face. So she had a temper after all, and a quick one to boot. She ran her eyes over the tavern-keeper, realizing that there was more to this one than she had thought. "How old did you say you were?" Giuliana asked, when she could speak.

"Seventeen," said the Fury gazing into her eyes. "And this tavern is mine."