The Man Who Was a Woman, and Had a Number for a Name

Part 2

 
Kathryn Jameson, captain of the science vessel Discovery, strained to see into the darkness, hunting vainly for an unequivocal glimpse of sail. Her eyes had been playing tricks on her since shortly after nightfall; she knew it was best to leave the enemy-spotting to younger, less weary optics, but her worry over their distressingly vulnerable position made her gaze stray to the horizon, where, for the hundredth time, a barely-visible flume of ocean spray made her heart race until it settled into the quiet churn of the sea.

It had been a trying day, filled with anxious moments and the types of decisions she didn't normally face. To anchor or not to anchor? Stop or keep going? And to where? Did she really want to return to Haven, trailing trouble in their wake? Was any place safe?

Somewhere out on the vast Caribbean was a ship, and on it one angry man who wanted something they had acquired quite by accident. They knew nothing about him--not so much as his name--and his motives and strengths were something she could not begin to guess.

The reason for their unknown adversary's anger stood at the stern, a few paces away from Jameson, staring out into the inky darkness of the benighted Caribbean, a tall, self-possessed, nearly silent blonde woman in a luxurious man's suit. The slight breeze ruffled the stranger's shirtsleeves, and Jameson sighed silently, watching her.

"Sabamin Tessa." I wonder what her real name is? Or if she even remembers it?

Tessa lifted her head, and her profile stood out sharply in the lantern light. A queen from a realm of ice, stiff with dignity and noble in some secret sorrow. She was, to put it simply, beautiful.

I wonder how far he will go to retrieve her.

Discovery carried only small arms, and not many of those. If only I had thought to keep room for the cannon, she thought, staring into the restless darkness beyond the tall woman who had become part of the crew in such a dramatic and sudden fashion. She shook her head slightly, wondering what her husband would've had to say to that. Nonsense, Kathryn, you saw Torres's plans for the ether evaporator and promptly pitched over the side, heartsick with carnal longing.

Still and all, having a four-pounder installed belowdecks would've been a serious comfort, and one she sorely needed right then.

Her crew did not appear half so concerned as she--but then, appearances could mislead. From her position at the stern, she looked down upon a merry group disporting themselves on the deck. It seemed Emilie had decided that, on this night and no other, she had to put into action a mysterious plan, the mere mention of which caused Torres to fume and Jack Sere to blush. Jameson considered it far more prudent not to inquire.

Emilie had lit the deck lanterns. Jameson wondered if it might make them easier for the Arab ship to spot--did it matter? Were they being followed at all? They had lost them within two hours, and the sea was not of a calm that would allow their pursuers to track Discovery's wake. Couldn't her group use a bit of distraction? They were scientists, not warriors. If they were attacked, could they defend themselves? Would they? Moody and preoccupied, she watched Emilie round up crew members.

"You here," Emilie said to Daschenhauer, the ship's botanist, seating her in a chair near a slightly swaying lantern. Daschenhauer nodded and put her fiddle up to her chin, sawing out a few notes and pulling the bow away with a flourish.

Jameson had to admit that having something--anything--to do would calm a nervy crew, few of whom were accustomed to pursuit at the hands of a possibly murderous adversary. Or perhaps she was the only one who felt the danger from the darkness. She glanced at Tessa again; the blonde was staring out to sea, completely oblivious to the little group assembling on the deck.

Ballard, the chemist, had a set of two little drums hooked together, which he set between his knees and slapped in a complex rhythm. Jack whirled, startled, at the sound, and Emilie patted his arm in reassurance.

From below, Berthe trundled up the stairs with an enormous bundle in a hugely padded bag. Her arrival provoked a chorus of approving shouts, and when she sat at the table Thomas usually used for his chess-matches, four of the others gathered to help her wrestle it out of the heavy cloth bag.

Emilie put her hands on her hips and cocked her head like a curious little canary. "Berthe, what is that thing?"

"Sandwich Two," called one of the scientists, and the others laughed. Berthe stripped the cloth away from the object, and Emilie approached it with apparent trepidation. Berthe finally hauled it out of the bag, and there was a flash of polished wood in the lantern light as she set it onto her lap.

It was a large, curvaceous stringed instrument with a long, thick neck. Jameson remembered every single step of the construction of the outlandish, outsized thing. It always reminded her, for some reason, of a fancy woman she and her husband had seen in Haven on their first trip: substantial, eye-catching, expensive-looking, comfortably luxurious.

"'Tis an instrument I made to replace my beloved Sandvish One," Berthe explained in heavily-accented French, tuning the instrument.

"Which was a tenth the size of this one," Daschenhauer pointed out.

"It looks like a bowl with a broomstick attached," Emilie said, intrigued. "And for a giant's hand."

"We thought the measurements got swept overboard," Ballard laughed. "It only took her six months to fashion it, and half the trees in--" Berthe raised an eyebrow at him, and he coughed apologetically into his fist.

Berthe settled the huge gitarre onto her lap. Her hands fluttered over the strings, and the sound, mellow and rich, swept over the deck.

Jameson noted that Tessa turned her head when she heard the music.

The door from below opened up again, and Torres climbed up, catching Jameson's eye and nodding. That meant the laboratory was buttoned up tight. Good. If it came to a fight, she didn't want any of the equipment getting damaged any more than they could avoid. Right behind her was Mr. Thomas, who took up a position next to Jack.

Torres turned to the little orchestra setting up on deck between the masts, and her serious look turned to disbelief in a flash. "What in the name of St. Catherine of Siena is going on up here?" she demanded, rounding on Emilie.

"I'm afraid it's my fault, Torres," Emilie said apologetically. "I'm doing an experiment."

"An experiment?!" Torres looked astounded and swept her arm in an all-encompassing gesture. "With the deck lit up like high noon in Rome, and this crowd making enough noise to wake the kraken?"

"I'll need it," Emilie said patiently, sticking her hands in her pockets.

"Woman, has it escaped your notice," Torres said through gritted teeth, "that we are being pursued by a band of cutthroats who'll stop at nothing until we're all lying dead on the deck in pools of our own blood?"

Emilie blinked. "But surely it's not as--"

"Torres," Jameson called, leaning over the rail on her elbows. "We lost sight of them hours ago. Even you agreed to haul in canvas for the night. I think it safe to say that the ocean's vast enough to give us some cover, don't you?"

Torres subsided to a simmer. "I still think it's not--"

"Objection noted," Jameson interrupted. "And thank you. If it's our last night on earth, must we spend it at attention, clutching our muskets, afraid of the dark?"

That did it. Torres heaved a sigh and leaned against the rail amidships, crossing her arms. "Go ahead," she muttered to Emilie, with ill grace.

"Thank you," Emilie said, the lantern light sparkling in her eyes. She turned. "Jack."

Jack, taken off guard, stumbled over a water-barrel and fell backwards. Berthe laughed out loud as Daschenhauer held out a hand to help him up. Thomas assisted from the other side, and together they hauled Jack to his feet.

Tessa's brows contracted in confusion. She is really very--Jameson turned away to watch the little drama amidships.

"Tell me he doesn't have anything to do with your experiment," Torres grumbled, jerking a thumb at Jack.

"Oh, but that is the experiment," Emilie said, smiling sweetly at Jack and holding out a hand. Confused, he took it. "All of a piece?" she inquired, and he nodded stiffly, rubbing his head. "Good."

"I can hardly wait to hear your experimental protocol," Torres said dryly.

Emilie gave her a quick glance not entirely free of mischief, then stood directly in front of Jack, facing him. She looked up at him, and Jameson could see his face flush. Emilie told him softly, "I'm sorry I haven't a skirt on... but I thought it might be easier this way."

Jack's throat moved, and there was an unconcealed and perfectly terrified gulp. Jameson covered her mouth with one hand, hoping the gesture looked casual.

"I have been thinking," Emilie said, taking Jack's other hand gently, "about how to teach you a... physical sort of subtlety." She chopped with one hand, cutting off Torres's outraged sputter before it got good and started. Emilie looked up into Jack's face again, and Jameson was reminded of just how small she actually was. "So... I thought... that until you found a woman you wished to marry--"

"Hah!" Torres exploded.

Emilie raised an eyebrow in her direction.

"Sorry," Torres mumbled, settling back against the rail.

Emilie turned her attention to Jack again. He was blushing with furious energy, but he kept his eyes nailed to her face. "I had thought that I might teach you to dance."

Jack's knees almost gave way as Torres's laugh rang out over the water. "Him?" she demanded, as Emilie propped Jack up by an arm. "You'll be lucky he doesn't stomp a hole in the deck!"

"Don't listen to her, Jack," Emilie murmured to him. "She just doesn't want anyone to know she has two left feet."

"Two left feet?!" exclaimed Torres, leaping away from the rail and striding toward the little orchestra. "Me? Well, if it's dancing you want, woman, then prepare yourself for--"

Berthe got to her feet and lifted the gitarre in a defensive posture, and Torres slunk back to the rail.

"If there are no other comments?" Emilie asked politely, and Torres shook her head in evident disgust.

Jameson bit her tongue as Emilie squared off against Jack. "I thought we might start with a rondelle."

By now, Tessa had turned from her position at the stern and was watching the little group amidships, her expression attentive. She stood as straight as a flagpole--and damned near as tall, Jameson thought wryly--and her eyes were the only thing alive in a stony, sculptured face.

"Maestra," Emilie nodded to Berthe, who laughed and turned to her other two musicians, patting a foot on the deck to give them the rhythm.

The music, when it started, washed across the deck like a bracing ocean wave. Jameson closed her eyes for a moment, letting her soul fill with the luxury. The tune was lively, the musicians expert and accustomed to one another's habits. When she opened her eyes again, Emilie and Jack were dancing.

He wasn't half bad, even if he was looking at his feet. She could see his face twitch with nervousness, and Emilie murmured something too low for her to hear over the music. He shook his head with what looked like distracted stubbornness, and she laughed merrily over the sound of the gitarre and the fiddle.

Emilie was all grace where Jack was clumsy but game, and he managed to stay with her through the first verse of the cheery little dance. It was really the type of music that made it impossible to sit still--it teased and beckoned, fluttered and swooped, and Jameson found a restlessness like the sea building in her sinews.

She avoided taking a step or two of her own by calling to Emilie, "Whoever taught you to dance?"

"Brandy," Emilie replied merrily, sweeping Jack into a more complicated step. He just managed to avoid hooking his foot over one of the shrouds, and Jameson winced at the potential for mayhem. "Very good, Jack!"

Jameson glanced toward Torres, who was leaning against the rail, watching Emilie and Jack whirl, a wolflike hunger evident in her eyes. Oh, dear...

Jameson turned reluctantly to Tessa again, watching the tall woman, whose gaze followed the two dancers. She sidled over quietly, without hurrying, and stopped a pace away from the blonde.

The light from the lanterns settled gently over Tessa's face, softening the sharp planes and picking out the startling blue of her eyes. She would indeed have fetched a premium in the slave markets, and Jameson wondered again how Tessa would authenticate the manumission document she carried.

Tessa continued to watch the dancers, taking little notice of Jameson's presence, and Jameson glanced toward the minuscule dance floor. Jack was doing very well, and she followed him for a moment, vaguely surprised at his ability to keep up.

She turned to Tessa again, studying her profile as she might have gazed upon a marble bust, taking her time. Tessa gave her not the slightest notice, although Jameson could have reached out and touched her shoulder, they were so close.

"It's good to see Emilie enjoying herself," Jameson said in French, her voice soft but abrupt, and Tessa turned her head, giving Jameson her courteous attention. "She's just lost her father," Jameson went on.

The steady blue eyes rested on Jameson's face, and the music went on, entirely too lively for the self-possessed girl in front of her. Jameson began to feel like a fool. "A few days ago. It wasn't entirely unexpected--Etienne had been ill for some time, we all knew it was coming--but it was sudden."

"She hides her grief well," Tessa responded, training her gaze on Emilie again.

What was that? Disapproval? Admiration? Jameson found herself staring intently at Tessa's face, trying to read something human, something containing emotion, in the face that might have been chiseled by Michelangelo.

"Is the man her lover?" Tessa inquired, nodding toward Jack.

"Ah--no," Jameson stammered, taken aback. "They just met."

"Then this one?" Tessa asked, inclining her head toward Torres, wrapped round with shadows and longing.

Then she sees it too--Jameson shook her head with a little smile. "Emilie's still a bit young for a lover. She has ambitions as an engineer."

Tessa's eyes came to rest on Jameson's face again, and Jameson found the attention more than a bit unsettling. The music wound up toward a conclusion, and Jameson found herself suddenly wondering if Tessa could dance.

This nonsense had to stop. "Do you remember your parents?" she asked Tessa.

"Very well," said the blonde, her voice deep and rich, and Jameson caught a glimpse of a powerful, lasting grief.

Well, that wasn't quite what I--

"Captain," Tessa said softly. "You must give me back to him."

The little orchestra on the deck concluded the song with a flourish, and a spatter of applause interrupted Jameson's thoughts. Jack drew a breath as Emilie bowed elaborately to him, the light from the lantern spilling over her shoulders. Mr. Thomas held out a cup of water, and Jack took it with a hand that trembled slightly.

Jameson turned back to the tall woman at her side. "I am disinclined to do so, Mam'selle."

"But--"

"I must find someone who can vouch for that manumission paper. That means I have to locate someone whose Arabic is good enough to read it."

"But he--"

Heedless, Jameson went on. "And my only prospect is God only knows where at the moment. She sailed with unseemly haste from the port of Haven just before we did, and I have no idea when--"

"Captain," Tessa hissed with urgency, placing a slender, elegant hand on Jameson's sleeve. Distracted, the captain looked up into the alabaster face, struck dumb. "Your crew is in the gravest danger from that man."

"Oh, Tessa," Jameson whispered without thinking, "he'd have to chase me through the very gates of hell to get you back."

What? As the shock rolled away in Jameson's brain, the two of them stood looking at one another, solemn and silent. The band struck up another tune, and Tessa took her hand away just in time to avoid--to avoid--Jameson wasn't certain what she had been about to do, and she didn't want to know. Why on earth did I say such a thing? Jameson felt her face grow hot and took a step back.

"You know nothing about me," Tessa murmured, barely audible above the music.

"I know," Jameson replied, "that you are a capable mathematician, that you served your master well, and that you are now free." She met the taller woman's eyes steadily, although not without an effort. "And I will not rest until the entire world recognizes that last part."

"There is no way to repay you for such a--"

"Nonsense," Jameson interrupted, relieved. "You speak six or seven languages, can keep account-books in your head, you could be trained in science and engineering--my God, the possibilities--" She was obviously badly shaken; she'd had no intention of saying such a thing, hadn't even thought of it until it came out of her mouth...

Tessa was shaking her head solemnly. "I could never be a part of this crew," she said soberly.

"Whyever not?" Jameson broke in, thinking it over. "We can always use a good mathematician." Torres and Emilie might welcome someone to do the calculating while they work on the machinery... we could build accurate star charts... we could use someone to systematize the records... For a brainless blurt, it was beginning to look like a very good idea indeed.

Tessa's face contracted in pain. "We have nothing in common," she pointed out, "save our skins..."

Jameson looked into Tessa's eyes again, seeing them glisten in the lantern light, and she vowed a vow that had no words. "And our sorrows," she replied quietly, as the music whirled away toward the sea and the stars.

 

* * *
 

"Who?" Captain Carlisle said, her voice low and deadly.

"I--I didn't ever know her name," Miss Brundage said hesitantly, looking up into the captain's face, which hovered within inches of her own. The two women were outlined in the lamplight, the one half-sitting in Mingeaux's bunk and the other standing over her. The darkness of the cabin surrounded them with a close denseness Mingeaux could almost feel.

Mingeaux got to her feet as the startled feeling subsided. "Mam'selle, do you mean to say that--"

"That you recently met a woman who looks like me?" Carlisle asked with deceptive softness. Mingeaux could see the captain's hand tighten into a painful-looking fist.

Miss Brundage shook her head with a slight frown. "Yes--that is--" Helpless, she lifted her blistered face to Mingeaux. "Can it be that I have dreamed it?"

"I would have said," Mingeaux replied, tucking suddenly-cold hands under her arms, "that, save for seeing angels where there are none, you exhibit few signs of delirium."

"Tell me," Carlisle hissed, and Miss Brundage met her gaze again, shivering with sudden fear.

"Captain," Mingeaux said cautiously, reaching out to move her away from the ill woman in the bunk.

Carlisle took a step back. "Please," she added in a desperate whisper.

Miss Brundage thought for a moment, her eyesight turning inward, then nodded. "I think... I think it cannot have been a dream..."

"How long ago?" Carlisle asked. "Where?"

"About two months ago." She turned stiffly to Mingeaux again. "What is today?"

"April the twenty-fourth," Mingeaux replied.

Miss Brundage nodded. "Yes. It was early in February. I worked on the slavers' records in a house--it might've been the overlord's house, or a counting-house for the port, or, for all I know, the colonial governor's mansion..." Uncertain, she looked at Carlisle again, and the captain gestured to her to continue. "I worked in that house, and slept in a barrack-room where the guards lodged--"

Mingeaux thought of the implications of that and cleared her throat. It sounded like a growl, and Miss Brundage glanced at her in surprise. "Beg pardon," Mingeaux murmured, and, after a momentary hesitation, Miss Brundage turned back to the captain.

"I was walking from the counting-house to the barrack one evening. It was close to sunset, I recall, and the sun was in my eyes."

Carlisle was listening with a barely-controlled impatience, bent over the bunk, looking as though she might strangle Miss Brundage quite without intending to.

"So as I walked down the steps, I held up my hand to block the sun, and as I did, a coroneted carriage swept up the drive, fast. It came to a stop perhaps five paces from me, and so I halted lest I shy the horses..." She seemed again to be thinking hard.

"Go on," Carlisle urged.

"And the footman hopped off the back as the door opened. And a guard got out, then a woman, then another guard. The guards flanked her and turned her toward the steps, and I saw her face for the first time." Miss Brundage looked at Mingeaux. "I was as close to her as I am to you now."

"And?" Carlisle prompted.

"She was in a blue silk day dress, far too warm for the heat... she had dark hair, swept up off her neck and caught up at the back..." She searched Carlisle's face with somber gray eyes. "She wasn't as tall as you, and looked a few years younger, but her eyes were so like yours..." She shook herself and went on, "The guards didn't touch her, I remember that; she walked like a queen between them. But... as she passed me..." She fell silent, although her lips moved a bit.

"Yes?" Carlisle murmured.

"She... she whispered, 'Help me,'" Miss Brundage said, and her shoulders slumped a bit.

"And then what?" Mingeaux asked, stepping softly toward the bunk. She had the vague idea of getting between the captain and her guest, should it become necessary.

"One of the guards, he took her elbow and gave it a bit of a jerk, not enough to cause a stumble, but enough to make her turn her head."

Carlisle's eyes flared in fury, and Mingeaux saw her clench her teeth.

"And they went up the steps--I could've reached out and touched her, she was so close, but she didn't look at me again. By the time I turned, they had gone up the steps to the veranda. The door opened instantly, and they vanished inside." Her gaze drifted again for a moment, then she looked into the captain's face. "She looked enough like you that you might have been sisters."

"Where?" Carlisle spat softly, and Mingeaux could see the beginnings of a violent frenzy in her.

Miss Brundage answered bluntly, "The sailors called it Hell's Arse-hole. I have no idea where it was, only that it was some two days' sail south of Santo Domingo."

"How do you know that, mam'selle?" Mingeaux asked, placing a cautioning hand on the captain's shoulder.

"Because," Miss Brundage replied, "they moved me there the day after I saw the lady. It was a two-day sail, and we were headed north the whole time."

"Santo Domingo?" Mingeaux asked, baffled. "And you didn't see the lady again?"

Miss Brundage shook her head with an effort. "I am certain they'd have asked me to make a record if she'd been there. I wrote records for every slave that passed through the port. But--nothing. I heard not so much as a whisper of gossip about her."

Now that Mingeaux was close enough to see them, Miss Brundage seemed to be near exhaustion, and the captain within seconds of an explosion. The expression on Carlisle's face was eloquent: despair, matched only by rage. She turned to Mingeaux, the anger glittering in her eyes, keeping the tears at bay. "Ste. Claire lied to us," the captain hissed. "She probably wants us dead."

"She wants you back," Mingeaux said sensibly, "and she may not know where your sister is."

"Is that Genevieve Ste. Claire?" Miss Brundage broke in.

The captain and Mingeaux rounded on her. Astonished, Mingeaux answered, "You've heard of her?"

"Indeed--she bought most of the slaves that went through Santo Domingo." Miss Brundage seemed to lose her equanimity for the first time, and her voice turned bitter. "I know her by reputation only--tisn't as though she'd soil her pretty skirts talking to the bookkeeper, but I'm not plotting vengeance over the snub."

"D'you think--?"

"No," Miss Brundage said firmly, shaking her head at Mingeaux. "I know she cannot have been the lady's..." She glanced up at Carlisle, speechless with rage before her, and finished, "Captor."

"How do you know?" Carlisle demanded, her hands trembling.

"The arms on the carriage," Miss Brundage replied. "They weren't hers."

Mingeaux moved to within inches of the bunk. "Then, mam'selle, who owned the carriage?"

"A man named Aristide," Miss Brundage said quietly.

The captain turned to Mingeaux again, murder in her eyes.

 

* * *
 

It was late at night, and the stars sparkled in a clear, velvety sky. Brandy sat on the steps of the "Bonny Anne", polishing the glassware with a clean, soft towel. It was the kind of task that gave her ample opportunity to look at the stars and wonder exactly how one would describe them in words.

Pinpoints? No, surely that had been done to death.

Around her, the fronded palms tossed against the darkness, restless but soothing, in a fresh, warm breeze. From the tavern behind her came the last sounds of revelers being turned out for the night, and Mistinguette's voice, with the musical accent that carried across a crowd, reminding them that the cups and tankards had to stay where they were.

Pinpricks, then. In the fabric of heaven.

Oh, who'd ever believe that?

The door behind her opened, and a group of sailors made their way gingerly down the steps. One of them saluted Brandy, stepping carefully around her. "Buona sera, mia cara, bellissima donna--"

"Shut up, idiot," remarked another, giving her companion a clout between the shoulder blades. "She can do a hell of a lot better than a penniless Sicilian."

Brandy tried not to laugh out loud--the Sicilians she'd met got their feelings hurt easily--and saluted back. "May you find your way back to your ship with no wrong turns and a minimum of mishaps on the cobbles."

"And may we soon return," bowed the sailor. "To see our beautiful tavern-mistresses again."

Abruptly self-conscious, Brandy nodded and turned her attention toward the glass in her hands, which was already squeaking with the vigor of her polishing. The sailor bowed again, took the Sicilian's arm, and started down the hill toward the harbor.

Another pair of tavern regulars came down the steps, avoiding the young blonde who sat there. "Ahh... shhh..." said one, putting a finger to her lips in an exaggerated gesture. "Our little poet is dreaming over her cups."

"She's not the only one, my dear Martinez," remarked her friend. "You've been doing quite a lot of that yourself tonight." They linked arms and walked out into the yard.

Halfway to the road, Martinez whirled and threw her arms up to the sky. "Mistinguette!" she called, while her friend tried to shush her. "Marry me!"

Brandy looked up, startled.

"I'll make you the happiest woman in the Caribbean," Martinez continued in a loud voice.

"You already have," said a sardonic voice behind Brandy. She looked up to see Mistinguette standing in the doorway of the tavern, hands on her hips and a wide grin on her face. "You've left for the evening."

Martinez clutched her heart with both hands and staggered back a pace. "Ah, my goddess, you wound me."

Mistinguette folded her arms and leaned in the doorway. "Like you'd do me any good tonight, the shape you're in."

"Sobriety," said Martinez with gravity, "is much an overrated trait."

Mistinguette opened her mouth for what was certain to be a cogent and well-reasoned response, but Martinez's friend beat her to it. "I'll get her back to the ship," she offered, putting her hands on Martinez's shoulders.

"Good idea," Brandy agreed instantly.

With a little effort, Martinez's friend got her turned around and walking toward the harbor. A bit down the road, she turned to holler to the woman in the doorway. "Don't think I'll give up!"

"Don't think I'll lose sleep!" Mistinguette called back, and there was a raspy laugh in response.

When they had vanished into the darkness, Mistinguette settled herself beside Brandy, putting her arms round her knees and regarding the fine, soft night with evident contentment. "So, little one. Another evening successfully clubbed to the ground and shot."

Brandy laughed. "Is it as bad as all that?"

Mistinguette shrugged. "You don't see me getting a proposal from M. de Nicot, do you?"

Brandy set a glass carefully into the wooden box at her feet and picked up another. "To tell you the truth, I'm not certain Uncle is that fond of female companionship."

"It's not as if I'd insist on him sleeping with me," Mistinguette groused. "I could keep his house and spend his money and lend him one of my more spectacular gowns every once in a while."

That got a guffaw. "I'll make the offer when I see him again." Brandy set the now-clean glass into the box and drew out the next, setting to with the towel.

Mistinguette looked at the wooden box, filled with glasses. "Are you trying to find the most difficult method for cleaning a glass, or are you simply bored mindless?"

"It was a bit close inside," Brandy shrugged. "I felt like a bit of air." She held the glass up, squinting at the stars through it. The little specks of light reflected through the watery glass, around the sides of which the darkness seemed to curve with a soft seductiveness. Lovely.

"Oh, aye, you can tell when Jeunesse is in port," Mistinguette agreed, wrinkling her nose. "They're all addicted to that horrid Turkish stuff they consider tobacco."

"And proposals," Brandy added innocently, ducking as Mistinguette's hand reached out to box her ears.

"Hey, my girl," Mistinguette said, "why should you be the only one with a complicated love life?"

Brandy put the glass down with a sigh and draped the towel over her knees. "I suppose one could call it that... if I had one..."

Mistinguette put a comforting arm around Brandy's shoulders and pulled her close. "Oh, she'll be back. And tell you what. I'll hold her down while you beat the living shit out of her."

"Sealed," Brandy murmured, burrowing in close to the warm breast of her friend. Mistinguette smelled of woodsmoke and tobacco, fragrant beer and a faint hint of lemon, rich and soothing and alive. Brandy closed her eyes and reveled in the feeling of Mistinguette's closeness.

The heavy silver necklace, from which depended the locket with Giuliana Carlisle's initials, settled into place over her bosom. It was a weight that took some getting used to. Brandy put her hand up and caressed it; it felt silken, warm against her skin.

"Some day," Mistinguette remarked in a low voice, "you'll turn your attention to the tavern again, and this distressing little incident of thoroughly rotten judgment in women will all be fodder purely for your verse."

Brandy snorted and sat up. "You've forgotten what happens when our patrons get ahold of a promising morsel of gossip."

"Oh, no, they won't," Mistinguette said stoutly. "They've all been put on notice. Knifings over religion and politics are perfectly fine, but no one is to ask you about that dreadful woman."

"Mistinguette!" Brandy exclaimed, scandalized.

Her friend shrugged and spread her hands. "Well, what did you expect? Mark my words, my girl, there'll come a day when just being reminded of that blue-eyed demon will cause you to take a horsewhip to one of 'em. And you're just the woman to do it."

"You," Brandy said slowly, shaking her head with a smile. Wordsmith that she was, she couldn't think of a single thing to say after that, and so she reached down and hauled the box into her knees.

Mistinguette got to her feet and plucked the box from Brandy's lap, tucking it under her arm and swinging the door wide with one hand. Beyond her, the tavern's main room glowed with a subdued, welcoming light from the candles, softening into puddles of wax, and the girl on the stairs felt a tiny shred of hope creep back into her weary, hung-over soul.

Brandy got to her feet, giving the tropical night one last, appreciative look, then turned to follow Mistinguette into the tavern. Something occurred to her just then. "Hey," she said. "However did you get 'em to agree not to?"

Mistinguette, halfway up the steps, turned to give her a flash of a grin. "I have their bar tabs locked in my head."

 

* * *
 

Jameson stretched, heading up the stairs to the deck of Discovery. The watch hadn't awakened her in the night--good sign, or portent of utter destruction? The ship looked intact; perhaps, after all, they hadn't been set upon by seriously annoyed Arabs in the middle of the--

Kathryn, she told herself severely. You are the captain of this vessel. You may as well begin to act as though you knew it.

Besides, it was far too beautiful a morning to waste in worry. The ship, sails aloft, swept through a world of wild, deep blue, the skies fresh with newly-minted clouds and the sea a hustle of purposeful water bearing them toward Haven, and safety.

She cast a glance toward the stern, where the ship's pilot stood stolid at the wheel, studying the building clouds. She nodded to him and made her way toward the bow.

Above her, the canvas fluttered and the wind sang through the forest of lines. Jameson hooked her hand around a line and looked up for a moment, studying the sturdy, well-tended masts and their intricate webbing. A vessel made for the pursuit of knowledge, not pleasure. You'd not mistake Discovery for an idle woman's plaything, like Intrepide, but she supposed she and Captain Carlisle might be more alike than she was quite comfortable contemplating.

She threaded her way across the deck with care. Well, perhaps the resemblance wasn't quite so close; after all, she had no interest in, or talent for, seducing young blonde vir--

Jameson stopped.

At the bow stood Sabamin Tessa, her shirt rippling in the breeze. She had a hand curled loosely about one of the shrouds, and she was staring out to sea, her blue eyes narrowed against the glare of the newly-risen sun. Her light hair whipped in the airy sunlight like a fragile campfire. Jameson noticed that she wasn't wearing the form-fitting vest she'd had on when they met, and there was a soft, unmistakable womanliness in the ramrod-straight figure. The wind teased its way into Tessa's shirt as if caressing her.

Jameson caught her breath. She is so very beautiful. How could she ever have traveled as a man for so long?

"Good morning," called the captain, not wishing to startle her guest.

Tessa turned to her, inclining her head courteously. "Captain. May God shower blessing upon you and your family."

"Heavens," Jameson replied with a smile, "that sounds terribly official." Tessa didn't crack a smile, and Jameson changed the subject. "You're up early. Restless night?"

Tessa shook her head as the captain moved closer. "I wished to clear the cobwebs."

"I can think of no better place to do it, Miss Tessa," the captain answered. "The Caribbean has the virtue of being both an enticing natural laboratory, and a remarkably beautiful one." She shut her trap before she could blurt out how well it suited the tall, serious young woman before her.

Tessa, however, merely nodded and moved back from the prow half a step.

Jameson retreated in turn, not quite certain why, and stooped to reach for the latches on one of the deck tables, stowed securely on the deck. Tessa watched with concentrated attention as the captain unfolded the table and set it into place. She locked it down to the deck, checking the fastenings.

Conscious of Tessa's alarming proximity, Jameson began to explain. "We employ these tables as work surfaces. They lock into place so that they will remain stable during use."

Tessa ran a long-fingered hand across the surface. "Ingenious."

"Ahoy, Captain!"

Jameson and Tessa turned toward the stern, where Mr. Thomas was crossing the deck toward them.

"Good morning, Mr. Thomas," Jameson called over the noise of the wind in the rigging. His appearance was a distinct relief.

"Do you intend," he asked, "to use the microscope this morning?"

Too late, Jameson looked around. The waves were picking up, and rags of foam shot from their crests, spinning away in the wind. "I suppose not, then."

"Indeed," he said, with a shade of disapproval. "The sea is far too rough, and likely to get rougher." He nodded to Tessa, who put a hand to her chest and bowed to him.

"Mr. Thomas is engaged in a continual battle to keep me from blinding myself," Jameson said to Tessa, who finally quirked a bit of a smile.

"It is," he remarked soberly, "one of the great struggles of my life." He turned to the captain, putting his hands on his hips. "May I offer, instead, a game?"

"Mr. Thomas," she protested instantly, "Mam'selle Tavernier of the 'Bonny Anne' has a saying: 'It is impossible to have a battle of wits with the unarmed.' If I had ever managed to prevail against your formidable talent, even once, you might find a more receptive audience for your offer. As it is, I'm afraid I'd have to pitch you overboard to win a game."

Tessa made an odd noise that sounded like a sneeze. Thomas and the captain turned to her, and she shook her head briefly, putting a hand to her face.

"Captain," Thomas said, trying to sound reasonable. "One cannot learn if one never plays."

"And even less if one never wins," Jameson shot back. He gave her a look as close to pleading as he ever got, and she threw her hands in the air with a sigh. "Very well. Fetch the board."

He smiled and turned to go amidships, unlatching another of the tables. After a moment, Jameson knelt to unlock the table she'd just set up. She was surprised when Tessa knelt next to her to help.

They had the table stowed in a trice, and Jameson got to her feet with much ponderousness. "And now to the chopping-block," she said sourly.

She settled herself into the chair opposite Mr. Thomas, who was fitting the chesspieces into holes in a chessboard clamped securely to the table amidships. He sat back, folded his arms, and nodded politely to the captain.

She brushed a few stray wisps of hair out of her face and studied the board with a feeling not unlike a lead weight plunging into the depths of the ocean. It always looked so promising, before she'd made her first move. She picked up a pawn in resignation and moved it two spaces forward, and Thomas responded immediately by bringing out his queen's knight.

Oh, well, it wasn't as though anything she did was really going to help.

They were several moves into the game when Jameson sensed someone at her shoulder. Turning, she saw Sabamin Tessa staring intently at the board.

"D'you have any advice, Miss Tessa?" Jameson asked casually. "For I could certainly make use of it."

Tessa flushed and shook her head, obviously embarrassed. She started to move away, and Jameson reached for her before she quite realized what she was doing. She caught the girl's hand, which was soft and warm, and somehow--

The captain felt her chest grow hot, and she opened her hand. Tessa's fingers slipped out of it, but her eyes stayed on the captain's face. Jameson knew the blush was spreading upward and knew she had to act quickly.

"I could use your help," Jameson said lightly. "I'm certain to go down to another inglorious defeat unless you can lesson me--and fast."

Tessa gave her a wavery, shy smile. "I am not certain I can undo the damage you have done in just ten moves, but I am willing."

"Remarkable, isn't it?" Ten moves and I'm dead? Merciful heaven, I had no idea I'd so little aptitude. When Jameson turned back to the board, Mr. Thomas was regarding her with a sardonic expression. "Oh, Mr. Thomas," she said, a bit unsettled, "surely you will grant me the right to an advisor?"

"A battalion," he replied, "if it increases by a fraction of a percent your chances of a successful challenge."

"Between the two of you," Jameson remarked, hunkering over the board, "I shall lose what little dignity I possess." She turned her head and raised her eyes to the young blonde standing by her shoulder. "What shall I do next, Miss Tessa?"

"The knight." Tessa nodded toward the board, and Jameson put a hand on the king's knight and looked a question at the blonde. "Yes," Tessa replied.

"To the left, or to the right?" Jameson asked, and Tessa's disbelief was obvious.

"It is true that the captain does not know the names of the squares," Mr. Thomas commented, "but she is certainly well-versed on the generative powers of the sea urchin."

It was apparent that Tessa didn't quite follow him, for which Jameson was grateful. "To--to the left," Tessa said.

Mr. Thomas moved his bishop in answer, and Tessa nodded to Jameson's queen. Jameson picked up the queen and hovered it in circles above the board until Tessa nodded again, then set it into the hole.

Thomas put his hand on a rook, then sat back in consternation. His eyes swept up to the captain, then settled, in astonishment, on Tessa's face. She returned his look with bland courtesy and folded her arms, and the captain couldn't refrain from a nasty chuckle.

"What are you doing?"

The captain looked up to see Torres and Emilie standing behind Mr. Thomas.

"Learning to play chess," Jameson replied smugly.

"Has this game lasted longer than thirty seconds?" Torres asked with a grin.

"Indeed," said Thomas, sounding a bit distracted.

"It's a record!" Torres exclaimed, leaning against the rail to get comfortable.

As the game went on, it became difficult for Jameson to read Tessa's increasingly enthusiastic nods. She took to pointing, then came closer to put her hand on the back of Jameson's, an exquisitely ticklish sensation. The long, slender body leaned over the captain's shoulder, the statuesque face close to her own, and it was a challenge to keep her mind on her game. (Not that she had the faintest idea what she was doing.)

Tessa got closer and closer to the board, and eventually Jameson got to her feet and gestured for her to take a seat. She joined Torres and Emilie by the rail, and Tessa slid into the chair.

The game became a sprint in an instant, and Thomas started to look worried as the moves went by like lightning. By this time, the crowd watching the chess-match was starting to grow, and Jameson looked toward the wheel to make certain someone was still steering.

Jack Sere joined them, watching in utter incomprehension at a chess match that went at the speed of a horse race, and then Mr. Nilsson, the cook, came to see what had kept them from breakfast and stayed to watch the battle. Ballard, who had some talent for the game, leaned over Thomas's shoulder with concentrated attention, following each move.

Every once in a while, the watchers would gasp at a move Jameson couldn't follow. At times, Thomas and Tessa moved so fast their hands were a blur over the board. Tessa raised her eyes only occasionally, and Thomas's face grew more stubborn, his frown ever more profound.

Jameson was unable to avoid a distinctly sadistic pleasure. Thomas the invincible was getting a serious thrashing--and right in front of the entire crew, most of whom he had humiliated over the board on more than one occasion. Good.

Finally, Tessa made one move with one of her few remaining pawns and sat back, quirking an eyebrow at Thomas. He put his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands, sighing. Then he reached for a piece, but thought better of it. Then he folded his arms and sighed again. Then he pulled at his lower lip, the frustration evident, and murmured, "Very well."

The onlookers exploded in triumphant merriment, and the yelps and whoops startled Tessa, who blinked and returned from wherever it was one went to decimate an opponent at chess. Daschenhauer pounded Tessa on the back, and Emilie put a comforting hand on Thomas's shoulder, and Berthe shook her head, hollering something about miracles and something about vengeance, and Torres elbowed Jack in the ribs and said she wished she'd had some money on that one, and Ballard pumped Tessa's hand, and Tessa looked up at the captain with the first unselfconscious, unabashed smile they'd yet seen from her.

"Well done, Miss Tessa," Jameson said, holding out a hand. After a momentary hesitation, Tessa took it. Then she turned and held out her other hand to Thomas, who clasped it firmly, looking thunderingly impressed.

It was just about then that the lookout bellowed, "A sail!"


 

* * *
 

It had been a long and trying night, which Mingeaux passed largely in attempting to keep the captain from chewing the sails into sodden fragments. They had spent hours talking over the next move: try to find the island Hester Brundage spoke of, or return to Haven for more information? Eventually, Mingeaux's impatience had won out: how were they to find a tiny island "two days south" of Santo Domingo, when no chart showed it and none of the crew had ever heard of it? In the end, Spinelli brought the ship about, and they were headed back for Haven. It was hard to avoid a sense of utter, ashen defeat.

Long before daybreak, Carlisle was at the prow again, staring with bitter, wild fury into the darkness. DiFalco, who had the night watch, had shaken Mingeaux awake, and she had left her borrowed bunk to see, again, to the captain's sanity.

"Captain," she whispered to the ghostly figure that looked like a vengeful Fury, "it will avail us little if you are insane by the time you confront him."

Carlisle's head had whipped round, and the whites of her eyes flashed at her first mate. In a voice that rasped with rage, she expressed a blasphemous and indefensible opinion directed, no doubt, at Aristide.

"And I should be happy to carve the tree for you to use," Mingeaux told her. "And, believe me, any member of this crew would sit on him while you did it. But we must know more."

Carlisle got control of herself with an effort that cost her no little air. "I have no further resources, Mingeaux. None of them will talk to me."

Mingeaux shrugged. "You are a stranger, and bent on retrieving a valuable piece of property--"

Carlisle's fists were in her shirt-collar before she quite realized it, and Mingeaux's back slammed against the mast. "My sister," Carlisle spat in fury, "is no man's property."

Mingeaux, caught off guard, was astounded; she'd had no idea the captain was so strong. She raised her hands and placed them gently on the captain's wrists, taut with rage. "I know that, Captain," she murmured, trying to calm her. "But it must needs convince those who don't."

Carlisle was gasping, trying to catch her breath, and she looked away from Mingeaux into the gloom.

You'd best take care, Mingeaux told herself. You did not imagine she could hurt you. "Captain," she said softly. She put a hand on Carlisle's shoulder, and the captain's hands loosened against her collar. "You will make yourself ill."

Carlisle kept her face turned away, and she pulled her clenched hands away from Mingeaux's shirt with difficulty. "I must apologize, Mingeaux. One does not attack one's allies."

The first mate gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "If the provocation is sufficient. I intended merely to give you an idea of the obstacles we yet face." As if she didn't know more clearly than you... She ran her hand down the captain's shoulder to her arm. "All is not lost. Will you not allow yourself to hope?"

Carlisle's eyes closed briefly, and she put a hand over Mingeaux's shoulder to steady herself against the mast. She was still struggling for a lungful of air, and Mingeaux was suddenly tempted to draw her into her arms like a lost child. "Not," the captain whispered, "until she is safe."

"Well, then, we are closer than we were."

Carlisle's desperate face lifted, and her eyes bored into Mingeaux's. "Do you think we can believe her?"

Mingeaux thought about it. "How could it be a trick? What self-respecting spy would threaten herself with a horrible death on the off chance we'd intercept her?"

To her surprise, Carlisle began to laugh, a sick, crazy sound in the predawn gloom. "Aye, I'd thought of that... 'twould make him quite the prankster, wouldn't it?"

Mingeaux shrugged. "Evil he may be--probably, and crazy, for a certainty. But that kind of forethought is, I think, beyond him. And there's no way he'd get a woman that smart to agree to such a dangerous game; there's not enough gold on the continent."

Carlisle heaved herself away from the mast and turned, closing her eyes and letting the wind rush over her face. "I promised," she called gruffly against the whistle of the breeze, "that I'd trust you to decide. And so now I must."

"Faith, Captain," Mingeaux said simply. There was no answer, and so Mingeaux said, "Do you promise not to cast yourself into the sea?"

Carlisle whirled, and the anger in her face was as fresh as if they'd never spoken of it. "The only way I am leaving this earth," she said, her voice level and venomous, "is with my sister safe by my side, and that foolish, goat-loving, foppish, devil-spawn's severed head swinging from the bowsprit."

It took Mingeaux a moment to think of something in reply to this. "Well, then," she said finally. "At least now we know the terms of the bargain. Good morning, Captain."

And she turned with relief and crossed the deck to go below and check on a much more congenial sailing companion.

She knocked gently on the door of her cabin. "Mam'selle... it's Mingeaux. Are you receiving?"

"Let my maid fetch me my yellow silk," called the merry voice of Miss Brundage, and the door opened a moment later.

The blisters had worsened during the night, and the lady had some trouble keeping her feet against the pitch of the ship. Mingeaux hissed in consternation and took her guest's elbow. "You should not be up."

"Horizontality loses its charm after a time," remarked Miss Brundage vaguely, wobbling a bit.

"In future, tell your maid to get the door," Mingeaux said, escorting her back to the bed. "Have you slept?"

"On and off," shrugged the lady, climbing back into the bunk with care. It made Mingeaux wince just to watch. "It's not a problem--certainly nothing to compare with the news I have apparently imparted to the Captain." She settled back against the wall of the bunk and turned her gaze to the porthole, outside which the sky was lightening. It made the ravages to Miss Brundage's skin all too apparent, and Mingeaux reached for the pitcher of aloe-vera.

"I've already done that," Miss Brundage said, and Mingeaux peered into the pitcher, noting that almost all of the gel was gone.

"When?" Mingeaux asked.

"I think it was right after the watch changed," Miss Brundage said. "I heard footsteps and voices above."

"So," Mingeaux said, setting the pitcher down carefully, "you are conscientious as well as resourceful." Where was she to find anything more to treat her guest? How much more ill could she become by the time they got back to Haven?

"My angel," Miss Brundage said in a low voice, interrupting her worries, and Mingeaux looked up into the serious gray eyes. "How long has her sister been missing?"

Mingeaux's brain locked like a rusty machine, and she heard herself stutter an incoherent syllable.

Miss Brundage's eyes strayed to the porthole. "Not my affair, then."

"Six months," Mingeaux said abruptly.

Miss Brundage's eyes darted back to her again.

"Taken off the Phoebus, a Southampton ship. Set upon by slavers."

Her guest's gaze did not waver a fraction.

"She was traveling," Mingeaux said heavily, "to meet the man she was to marry."

Miss Brundage's eyes closed, and she turned her head, looking sick at heart. There was a brief, bitter silence. "And I was the last to see her..." Miss Brundage whispered. "And I had to tell the captain that. A woman as beautiful as that..." She shook her head, painfully.

"It is not your fault, Mam'selle," Mingeaux pointed out in a near-whisper. "Indeed, we are more grateful than we can say that you--"

"Does Aristide have her?"

It was unlike Miss Brundage to interrupt, and Mingeaux bit her lip, thinking. "It is a possibility." She sat at her desk and placed her hands on her knees, aware of how tired she was. "How we are to ascertain the truth is, to be frank, a bit of a puzzle."

Miss Brundage sat up with an effort and leaned over to place a gentle hand on Mingeaux's knee. "Surely," she said, "nothing is beyond the sight of an angel."

Mingeaux sighed and shook her head, trying to smile a bit. "I fear that we can hope for no divine assistance in this, Mam'selle."

"Says the woman who guides a ship unerringly across the sea to a tiny speck of rowboat," replied Miss Brundage softly, sweeping her hair from her face with one hand.

Mingeaux was caught speechless. Miss Brundage's face was serious, what she could see of it under the damaged skin, and she was far closer to Mingeaux than she'd been.

"If you cannot have faith in your ability to work miracles," Miss Brundage said, "then leave it to those who have no reason to doubt."

"You should rest," Mingeaux replied after a bit, and Miss Brundage smiled and lay back.

Mingeaux heard footsteps clattering down the stairs and turned her head. DiFalco threw herself half through the door. "Mingeaux, you awake?"

"DiFalco," Mingeaux said patiently, "the entire continent is awake. Can you never come down those stairs quietly?"

Miss Brundage was watching the exchange with polite curiosity; it was obvious she didn't speak Italian.

"Piu Giu wants you," DiFalco said without preamble.

"Don't call her that," Mingeaux said wearily, getting to her feet. "She's the captain."

"We've seen a sail," DiFalco added.

Mingeaux turned to Miss Brundage. "We have company, Mam'selle. I must go see who it is."

"Gracious God," replied Miss Brundage, with a twinkle in her eye, "this section of the ocean is becoming as crowded as London."

Mingeaux grinned and gestured toward her. "Rest. I shall return when I can."

"An angel's day is always full."

"Rest, I said."

Miss Brundage laughed, and Mingeaux put a hand on the gunner's shoulder as they climbed the stairs, which seemed to have grown steeper.

Topside, Spinelli handed her the spyglass, and Mingeaux walked toward the prow, where Carlisle still stood sentinel, her gaze directed toward a speck of white approaching them.

Mingeaux settled her feet on the deck and raised the spyglass to her eye. After a moment, she lowered it. "That's no lady," she murmured, with pleasure. "That's Discovery."

 

* * *
 

Thomas shaded his eyes, looking in the direction of the newcomer, and after a moment Jameson handed him the telescope. "That's not the Arab ship," she said, puzzled.

"It's Mingeaux's new post," Thomas said.

"I thought they were on their way to Santo Domingo," Jameson said.

From below, Torres came rattling up the steps, a musket in each hand, forgetting to be careful.

"Torres," Jameson called, as Emilie pattered up the steps at her heels, "do be cautious. What good does it do us if the architect of our ether evaporator has only one hand?"

"Attackers?" Torres panted.

"Friends," Jameson corrected blandly. She stole a glance at Tessa, who hung back, looking half apprehensive and half as if she hoped she wouldn't be noticed. Hah. As if that were a possibility. "No need for worry, Miss Tessa," she called over the noise of the wind and waves. "They're not hostile."

In a few moments, much of the crew had gathered amidships, looking off to port, where the clean-lined yacht approached swiftly, skimming the waves like a gull.

"Mon dieu," Emilie murmured, putting a hand up to block the sun. "She's fast." Tessa crept closer to watch the yacht.

"Emilie," Jameson said absently, "don't run up the stairs after someone who's holding a weapon."

"Aye, Captain," Emilie said, abashed. "I'm sorry."

Jameson put an arm around her. "I'm not scolding, dear one. I just want someone in the laboratory to start thinking." She nodded toward the approaching yacht. "D'you know who's aboard her?"

Emilie shook her head, sliding an arm about Jameson's waist.

"Captain Carlisle," Thomas said.

"Brandy's lover?" Torres exclaimed, and Emilie stared at her in shock.

"And Mingeaux," Thomas said, with a note of keen pleasure. He looked at Tessa briefly, and his lips curled in a wicked little smile.

"Brandy has a lover?" Emilie interrupted, flummoxed.

"You've been otherwise occupied, dear heart," Jameson said. She was glad she had someone to hold on to; the relief that it wasn't the Arab ship was making her a bit weak in the knees.

Torres narrowed her eyes into the glare and nodded her head. "Intrepide carries guns," she mused. "And a good gunner: DiFalco. I knew her in Lisbon."

"It looks very much as though they're eager for a visit," Jameson said. She glanced at the waves running past the ship with a critical eye. "The sea's a bit high to put out a boat, though."

"I have no doubt," Thomas said, with that odd air of enjoyment, "that Mingeaux will think of a way."

 

* * *
 

DiFalco and Spinelli stood at the wheel, studying Discovery. Mingeaux waited until the captain had joined them at the pilot's station. "I have an idea," she said, and Carlisle nodded. "Between them, the crew of Discovery knows almost everything about what happens in these islands. I vote we talk to them and get some advice."

"They may not be returning to Haven," Carlisle pointed out. It was the first reasonable thing Mingeaux had heard her say in quite a while, and she drew a breath in relief.

"No, no," Mingeaux said. "I'll go aboard Discovery, see if I can talk to them."

Spinelli's eyebrows shot upward. "Mingeaux," she protested, "it's far too rough for a boat."

"We won't need one," Mingeaux said, speaking quickly to forestall any second thought. "Can you get us within ten yards of her?"

"And--and keep the masts, you mean?" Spinelli sputtered. "Are you mad?"

"What have you in mind?" Carlisle asked quietly.

"I'll swing over on a rope," Mingeaux told her.

"C--Captain," Spinelli protested.

"Can you do it?" Carlisle inquired of her first mate, her voice neutral.

"Yes," Mingeaux said.

"You'll heel us right into her," Spinelli said in disbelief.

"She's not that top-heavy," Mingeaux told her. "Besides, we have the Caribbean's best pilot at the wheel."

"I'm wondering about my counterpart on Discovery," Spinelli muttered, running a hand over her face, which glistened a bit with sweat.

"We can counterbalance with the guns," DiFalco said, warming to the idea.

Spinelli looked at Mingeaux as if she'd sprouted horns. "You'll either drop into the ocean--"

"I'll wear a line so you can haul me back out," Mingeaux said.

"--Or you'll smash into her side and break every bone in your--"

"Mingeaux," the captain interrupted quietly. "How important is this?"

"Captain," she said, taking Carlisle's elbow and leading her out of earshot. They stopped amidships, where the singing of the wind in the lines would mask their speech. "We are a day and a half out of Haven. When Aristide's men see us put in to the harbor, he'll know that we know. And we had better damned well have a plan, or we'll lose our chance to get any information about your sister's whereabouts."

Carlisle looked away, in the direction of Haven, her sight flying over the leagues that separated her from her bitterest enemy. "That lying, evil troll of a--" She switched to Portuguese in mid-sentence and applied a long, evocative, and astonishingly comprehensive curse to Aristide's entire line.

Mingeaux winced. "I don't dare disagree," she said, putting her hands to her hips, "but surely even the devil himself doesn't deserve all of that. Some day you must tell me where you acquired your Portuguese."

Carlisle's eyes snapped back to her. "Can you do it?"

Mingeaux nodded, with a sigh. "I have before."

"Has Spinelli?"

Mingeaux shrugged, smiling. "High time she learned; she's done everything else."

Carlisle put a hand to Mingeaux's shoulder. "This voyage," she said seriously, "cannot proceed without you."

Mingeaux nodded. "I'll take care."

 

* * *
 

Intrepide got close enough for Spinelli to signal to the boatswain what she had in mind. The pilot's horrified expression told Jameson all she needed to know, but the boatswain nodded, clapped the pilot on the shoulder in reassurance, and went to explain to the captain.

Alive with curiosity, Jameson agreed. "It must be important," she murmured to Thomas, as both ships pulled in canvas and slowed.

"Perhaps it is connected with their mission," Thomas said. They watched Mingeaux getting rigged with two lines, one attached near the tip of one of the yards and the other fastened to a belaying-pin on the deck rail.

Spinelli kept Intrepide close, matching Discovery's speed, and the two ships ran in parallel, fighting the waves for steadiness.

Mingeaux tested the lines, nodded to Carlisle, and stepped back toward the rail. She got a running start and leapt over the rail just as the line caught, swinging her into space in an effortless-looking arc that carried her right to Discovery's foredeck.

Jameson closed her eyes briefly. Breathless, Thomas rushed to steady Mingeaux, who was hastening to remove from her waist the line from Intrepide's rail. "My friend," he exclaimed, as Mingeaux swung the line back into space for Intrepide's sailors to haul in, "is there nothing you cannot do?"

"Raise the dead, and mate in three moves," Mingeaux replied mildly, clasping his hand. "Good afternoon, Thomas."

Jameson shook her head in amazement. "Nice of you to drop in, Mingeaux," she said with a relieved smile. "I take it this is not a social visit?"

"I fear not, Captain Jameson," Mingeaux said seriously. "I would speak with you and Mr. Thomas."

The captain and Thomas exchanged a look. "We are at your disposal," Jameson replied, gesturing aft toward the stairs to her cabin.

"Mingeaux!" called an eager young voice.

Mingeaux's head whipped around. "Emilie?" she called in disbelief. The girl barreled into her arms, and Mingeaux lifted her from the deck in a fierce, protective hug. "Whatever are you doing here?"

"I'm on Discovery's crew now," Emilie said, and Mingeaux stooped to place a gentle kiss on her forehead.

"And what has your papa to say about this, eh?" Mingeaux said easily.

Emilie stiffened in her arms.


It was going to take them some time to catch up, and Emilie's head was in a whirl already. They were crowded into the captain's cabin, Mingeaux in the chair at the desk, Jameson sitting on her bunk, Thomas and Torres leaning in opposite corners.

At Mingeaux's feet sat Emilie, leaning against her knees. Mingeaux had kept Emilie's hand clasped in both her own for some time. Emilie was half-dozing in exhaustion, coming to occasionally to listen to the conversation, but mostly drifting in a pleasant fog. Mingeaux was here, and she felt better than she had in some time.

"Thus it is," Jameson concluded, "that we find ourselves with two new crew members, pursued by what I am assured is an implacable enemy, and headed back to Haven at a dead run." She shrugged. "There's more to the story, but we're not overblessed with time to tell it."

Mingeaux nodded, her expression sober. "I shall take a look at Miss Tessa's manumission paper as soon as you think advisable. Perhaps we can clarify her master's intentions, at least."

"We thought you were on your way to Santo Domingo," Thomas said unobtrusively.

"And so we were," Mingeaux replied, looking up at him. "And we've turned back to Haven ourselves. And I need your advice."

"So much that you'd come aboard swinging on a rope?" Torres asked, lifting an eyebrow, and Mingeaux grinned at her.

"Had to. Couldn't invite you aboard Intrepide, after all."

"Captain Carlisle not the sociable sort?" Torres inquired.

"No, it isn't that," Mingeaux said, lifting a hand to stroke Emilie's hair. "You see, there's a woman in my cabin."

Emilie lifted her head, intrigued.

"Is she naked?" Torres asked.

"Torres!" Jameson exclaimed.

"Not any more," Mingeaux said blandly. She looked at Torres's face and burst into laughter. "Another long story. I apologize, Torres, that's dreadfully unfair."

"Only to the lady in your cabin," murmured Emilie.

"Dear heart," Mingeaux said, gathering the girl's face in her hands and bending to kiss her forehead, "you're about to drop off the side of the earth for a month. Why don't you go to bed?"

"Because I want to hear this," Emilie protested sleepily.

"Mingeaux may not wish to share the story with everyone," Jameson pointed out, her voice soft.

Emilie sat up abruptly. "Is Captain Carlisle Brandy's lover?"

Mingeaux's expression was more than enough revenge for Torres. "On second thought," she said, when she could say anything, "perhaps you'd better stay after all."

"Emilie," Jameson said with a smile, patting the bunk beside her.

Emilie got to her feet and crawled into the bunk behind Jameson, curling up and putting her hands under her chin. She trained sleepy eyes on Mingeaux, who leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and clasped her hands loosely.

"Captain Carlisle," Mingeaux began, "is the best commander I have ever shipped with, despite her inexperience and her worry over her sister's fate."

"Come, that's saying a lot," Torres commented, folding her arms. "She's also a manipulative and indiscreet seductress, and a strong suspect in a murder."

That roused Emilie to wakefulness in a flash. Mingeaux turned to Torres, putting a hand on one knee. Her voice, when she spoke, was mild. "Now, Torres, what kind of scientist jumps to an explanation on only half the facts?"

Emilie sat up slowly. "Is she Brandy's lover?"

Mingeaux rounded on her with a gentle smile. "And where would I be," she said easily, "if I revealed every lady's secrets?"

Emilie covered her face with her hands, blushing, and Jameson put an arm round her shoulders.

"Let us say," Mingeaux went on, "that you can ask Brandy for the truth of it when you see her next."

"And the murder?" Torres said, not to be put aside.

"I can promise you, mam'selle," Mingeaux replied with directness, "that she is no murderer."

"Then--" Thomas began.

"I think that's enough of that," Jameson interjected hastily, before all of them had reason to regret losing their ignorance. "Go on, please, Mingeaux."

"Thank you, Captain," Mingeaux said, bowing her head slightly. "I find her single-minded in her determination, courageous, a quick learner, and loyal and noble besides. That the good people of Haven have chosen to cast a woman they barely know in a demonic light cannot be seen as entirely her own doing."

There was a brief silence in the cabin. Torres seemed to be thinking it over. "You know her far better than we," Torres said, finally.

"Indeed," Mingeaux said with a brief nod.

"I should like," Jameson said slowly, "to meet this paragon."

Mingeaux spread her hands. "As we are both headed toward Haven, and seeing that the seas have calmed, and as we must needs pull sail for the evening, I was going to suggest that very thing. I'll go fetch her, if you agree."

Done," said Jameson.

In the silence that followed, Emilie gave forth with a ferocious and unsmotherable yawn. Jameson turned and ruffled her hair indulgently. "Right now, little one," she said, "you're long overdue for some sleep. I say we leave you to it, and arrange the visit of Captain Carlisle for this evening."

"It's your cabin!" Emilie protested.

"Hah," Torres said, with scant sympathy. "Like you'd make it the six steps to your own bed."


A hour before sunset, in a sea grown calm as the cloud cover retreated, a little yawl pulled away from Intrepide, bound for Discovery, a short distance away. The larger vessel put out a Jacob's ladder, and Captain Carlisle ascended, Mingeaux right behind her. At the top of the ladder, Torres and Thomas put out a hand to haul the captain of Intrepide aboard, and she murmured a thank-you not loud enough to carry across the deck.

Intrepide's skipper raised her eyes to the foredeck, where Discovery's captain stood beside a table bolted into the decking.

"Captain Jameson," said the newcomer in English, "permission to come aboard."

"Granted, and with pleasure," replied Jameson. "Welcome to Discovery, Captain Carlisle."

Carlisle bowed slightly as Mingeaux came over the side and stood watching the two.

Carlisle was, of course, taller. One noticed that right off. And much more expensively dressed, in a formal suit of finely-worked, sumptuous fabric, to Jameson's more casual, more practical garb. One would have thought Carlisle the more commanding of the two, save that her experience at sea was so limited.

Jameson gazed at her counterpart with that hungry expression in her eyes that Thomas recognized as insatiable curiosity. He could certainly understand it; the tall, imposing-looking woman before them was already a legend. The air of sorrow that lay over her seemed to be a physical burden, and she held her shoulders square with what looked like effort. Murder, seduction, a chancy temper--one could believe all of the stories of this quiet, powerful figure. Plus, she was--no reason to deny it--one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen, and he'd seen plenty in these islands.

Carlisle lifted her hat from her head and turned to look around at the trim, crowded deck. A small smile lightened her unnatural blue eyes and barely crept over her mouth, and Torres reached behind her to grip the rail for strength as the steady gaze swept over her. "She's beautiful," the captain of Intrepide murmured.

"Thank you," Jameson replied quietly.

It seemed that the crew of Discovery was going to stand there until an hour after sunset gawping at Carlisle, so Mingeaux remarked, "Shall we get to a place where you can talk?"

Jameson shook herself out of her reverie. "Of course. I thought--the laboratory?"

Carlisle nodded.

"Don't knock anything over," a seriously rattled Torres said into the silence.

"Torres," Jameson said, closing her eyes and putting a hand over them.

But the beautiful woman had whirled on Torres, and she looked only seconds away from a laugh. "You do well to caution this stumbling giant," Carlisle replied, a merry, irresistible light in her eye. "I'll be careful, Torres, I assure you."

She had spoken in Portuguese, and Torres's eyebrows went up as her chin dropped.

"Shall we get below before anyone else is tempted into honesty?" Jameson said, touching Carlisle's sleeve to show her the way.

"My pleasure," said the visitor.

Mingeaux gave Torres a roguish wink, then turned to follow them down the steps to the laboratory.

Torres blew out her breath in a sigh. "My God. I thought she was going to kill me."

"Captain Jameson," Thomas inquired, putting his hands behind his back and taking a step toward the stairs, "or Captain Carlisle?"

"I'm not nearly as affrighted of our own commander," Torres said, cocking her head in the direction the two had gone.

Thomas patted her on the shoulder with reassurance. "I should not think," he remarked, "that mortification at a tactless comment will be likely to carry you off, Torres." He passed her serenely, grateful that his back was to her so she couldn't see him smile. "It would have long since occurred." He tried to keep his composure as she began to sputter.


Jameson preceded Carlisle into the laboratory, going to one of the workbenches to light a spirit-lamp. When she turned, Carlisle had a hand up on the doorpost and was bent over to peer into the crowded room, a look of delight on her guarded face.

"But this is wonderful!" she exclaimed, her voice low. "And does it belong to that fearsome lady topside?"

"Torres," Jameson said with a laugh, gesturing the tall woman inside. "Who keeps us on our toes. She's not married."

"That astonishes me," Carlisle said with an easy grin, threading her way carefully past the equipment to perch on one of the workbenches. Behind her, Mingeaux, whose challenge was even greater, moved slowly into the room.

Carlisle looked around at all of the equipment in fascination as Jameson lit another lamp, moving it under a stand on which stood a water-vessel. "We'll have tea shortly," she said.

"Thank you," Carlisle replied.

Her voice held a rich and cultured accent; Jameson thought that Mingeaux's description of her as noble wasn't confined to her character. "Mingeaux tells me," Jameson remarked, setting up the teapot, "that there might be a way we can be of service to you."

"Indeed, I should be indebted," Carlisle remarked, pulling her boots in and trying to get comfortable.

"I apologize for the cramped quarters," Jameson remarked. "We'd've met in my cabin, except it's occupied by an exhausted young lady who needs her sleep."

"Another one? " Carlisle remarked, smiling across the ether evaporator at Mingeaux, who returned her grin. "There's quite a lot of that on the sea lately."

Jameson was intrigued to see real affection between them, an unselfconscious and seemingly fast friendship. "How long have you two known one another?" she asked, aware that she was prying.

Surprised, Mingeaux glanced at her captain. "Only a couple of months," Carlisle replied with warmth, "but I should be utterly lost without her."

"You had something you wished to discuss with Captain Jameson?" Mingeaux prodded.

Carlisle gave her a brusque nod and turned to Jameson. Halfway through her recitation, the water-vessel boiled violently, and Mingeaux got up, so as not to interrupt, and made the tea. Carlisle went on talking until Mingeaux handed round the cups, and she took a sip and raised her eyes to the glass pyramids set in the underside of the decking.

"Heavenly," she said, sounding grateful. "It's been a while since I had any tea this good. Thank you."

Jameson steadied her teacup against the sparkling enamel of the dissection-table. "Hm... so we have a difference of opinion on who knows what about your sister's whereabouts."

Carlisle nodded over the cup, the blue eyes shadowed in solemn pain.

"You know the place better than I," Mingeaux said, spreading her hands. "How likely is it that Aristide had something to do with her disappearance?"

"I would say very," Jameson answered, her voice quiet in the gloom.

Carlisle set her teacup down on a worktable and looked away, moistening her lips.

"Which is a good thing," Jameson added.

The captain's eyes snapped up to meet Jameson's level gaze again.

"She'd be far worse off in the hands of Genevieve Ste. Claire," Jameson pointed out. "Not that either option is particularly attractive."

Mingeaux put an elbow onto the workbench carefully and cupped her chin in her hand, staring attentively at Jameson.

"Ste. Claire despises beautiful women--too much of a temptation," Jameson said, keeping her eyes resolutely on Carlisle. "If your sister had had the misfortune to fall into her hands, she'd most likely be dead by now."

Carlisle's jaw clenched.

"But Aristide..." Jameson shrugged. "He's not the type to be swayed by comeliness, except as a way to further his own ends. Which are, chiefly, money and power." She shook her head and took a sip of her tea. "I don't know exactly what it is that drives him. I don't know that anyone does. It's almost as though he's been waiting for a long, long time... all his life... waiting for something, or someone..."

"He's about to get it," Carlisle said, soft and menacing.


Two hours past sunset, Mingeaux went on deck, longing for a breath of air. She had watched Jameson and Carlisle sow the seeds of friendship, which she hoped would sprout into something rich and healthy, and they had moved to Thomas's neat, spare little cabin to continue talking. Now Mingeaux was looking around at the quietly tossing sea, deep in a soft darkness. The sky spangled with millions of stars quietly burning overhead, and the moon hung motionless in the cloudless sky, silvering the deck. She stole a look at Intrepide, keeping up with the slow-moving Discovery without apparent effort, the moonlight gleaming on her sails. They'd be only a day out of Haven by midnight, and should arrive back in port before sunset. She'd welcome seeing Brandy again, and getting their unexpected passenger to a bed that didn't toss quite so much.

Mingeaux climbed carefully around the rigging in the tricky light from the moon and the deck lanterns, working her way toward a crowd seated about one of the tables affixed to the decking. Emilie, seeing her approach, got up and came toward her, and Mingeaux held out both arms to pull her close.

"Dear one," Mingeaux murmured into her hair, "I'm so sorry."

Emilie burrowed closer into Mingeaux's vest and tightened her arms about her waist.

"He was a wonderful man--" Mingeaux began, and Emilie shook her head quickly.

"Did you sleep well?" Mingeaux asked, brushing the hair away from Emilie's face. It was a bit difficult to do, as she had attached herself to Mingeaux with the tenacity of a barnacle.

Emilie looked up, and the exhaustion was plain on her pretty, intelligent face. "Yes, thank you. It's quite a different thing to sleep at sea..."

"It becomes the softest of lullabies soon enough, don't you worry," Mingeaux said, bending to kiss her on the forehead. "Shouldn't you head back to bed?"

Emilie shook her head and pulled away a fraction of an inch. "I want to hear about Brandy and the captain."

Mingeaux chuckled softly, and was rewarded with a smile. She put a tender hand to Emilie's face. "Right, then, my little rigging-monkey. Take care you don't pull a sea's-worth of canvas over your curious little head."

"Mingeaux!" called a voice, and she lifted her head to see Thomas standing by the gathering on the foredeck. "Have you a moment?"

"Several, for you, Mr. Thomas," she called back. "Have you a chess-match in mind?"

"Always," he said, and there was a spluttered round of giggles from the group on the deck.

Mingeaux smiled down at Emilie, disentangling herself, and held the girl's hand as she went carefully to the foredeck. "I warn you, my friend," she said easily, "that it's been a long few days, and I am far too weary--"

Thomas stepped away from the board on the table, and in the lantern light, Mingeaux saw a blonde woman she didn't recognize. She shot to her feet as Mingeaux approached, and the wind ruffled her loose shirt around her tall frame. Her eyes picked up gleams from the lantern, and it was impossible to tell what color they were; her hair, though, was as blonde as Emilie's, and just as short.

"And this," Mingeaux said, putting out a hand as the light dawned, "must be the mysterious Mam'selle Tessa."

"An honor, Mam'selle." The woman took her hand with brisk courtesy, and Mingeaux noted that her skin was soft, without calluses. Her face hardly bore a line, and Mingeaux was close enough to see that her eyes were as blue as the captain's.

An Arab slave? "I believe you have a paper for me to examine," Mingeaux remarked.

"There's not enough light," Thomas interjected eagerly, and Mingeaux looked at him in some puzzlement. "I was thinking that perhaps you could save that for morning...." He indicated the seat opposite the tall blonde woman; mystified, Mingeaux settled in and gazed around at a sea of suppressed grins.

"I," said the blonde, putting a hand to her chest and bowing over the board, "am Sabamin Tessa."

Mingeaux blinked. "M--Mingeaux. What did you say your name was?"

"Sabamin Tessa," said the woman, smiling a bit.

"Are you quite certain you heard them correctly?" Mingeaux inquired.

"Mam'selle Tessa also plays, as we found out only this morning," Thomas told her hastily.

"Indeed," Mingeaux said, leaning back against the rail and folding her arms suspiciously. Emilie put a hand on her shoulder and leaned in to get a good look.

"I offer you white," Tessa said in Arabic, gesturing politely toward the board.

"I believe I had better take it," Mingeaux said, leaning forward. Thomas, Torres, Jack Sere, and Emilie bent forward at the same time. Mingeaux put her hands to either side of the board and looked at each of them in turn. "You know," she remarked, "air is a requirement for the players, if for nothing else than to keep a level head."

Abashed, the others drew back, but not very far, and Mingeaux sighed and picked up a knight, setting it deliberately into place.

By the time she looked up into the blonde's face, she had already moved one of the outermost pawns out two spaces.

Mingeaux looked at the board again and sent a pawn on its way, and the blonde followed up immediately with the other outermost pawn.

"It is to be Caesar-speed, I perceive," Mingeaux said, moving the knight again. Tessa's knight leapt out to meet Mingeaux's, and the battle was joined.

Then it was silence, but for groans of frustration and yelps of surprise, not all one-sided, as Mingeaux found herself in the chess-match of her darker nightmares. There was a riot of motion over the board, and the pieces clicked into their holes as if chased by demons. The onlookers she was barely aware of gasped with the speed and power of it, and Mingeaux knew she was in real trouble, for the first time ever. The blonde's hands flew like the whirling of a scimitar in combat, and Mingeaux barely had time to think of her next move before the tall, silent figure opposite her was hemming her in, boxing her out...

She remembered every move later, to her astonishment, and would replay that first game over and over in idle moments of desperation or triumph. The succeeding years would find her, eyes open in the darkness, staring at the ceilings of nameless places of menace or opulence, and running over each feint, each parry, each thrust, each tiny loss and victory on the way to a thorough, ignominious defeat at the hands of the only player she had ever known who was more skilled than she.

She recalled, too, the expression in the silent woman's face, the rare looks of surprise and respect, the more frequent gleam of vengeance and calculation, her frown when it became an endless round of siege and defiance.

"Enough," Mingeaux said finally, her voice gruff and hoarse, and the blonde lifted startled eyes to hers as the crowd around them let out a collective sigh.

For a moment, Mingeaux regarded her adversary across the table, her dominion in tatters, her confidence in worse shape still.

"It has been a long few days," Tessa commented courteously, "and you are weary."

Mingeaux couldn't think of anything to say. When Tessa held out her hand, Mingeaux took her first free breath in ages and clasped it firmly.

"You," Torres announced smugly to Thomas, "owe me a sovereign." She folded her arms and grinned at him. He looked a bit shell-shocked.

"Sabamin..." Mingeaux said, gesturing to the board with her left hand, "...Tessa." She waved her right hand over the few pieces left on the field.

"At your service," said the blonde, with a respectful bow. She looked distinctly impressed.

"Well, and what's going on up here?" called Jameson from the stairs.

"Chess!" exclaimed Emilie in excitement.

"Ah, God," Jameson said, turning to Carlisle, who was right behind her. "I might've guessed." They picked their way cautiously across the deck and Jameson stopped and looked down at the board. "Well, and did Miss Tessa manage to send you to inglorious defeat, as she did our Mr. Thomas this morning?"

"No, Captain," he replied, and there was awe in his voice. "It was a draw."

"You're indeed a danger, then," Jameson said with a smile to Tessa. "For Mingeaux is the finest chess-master in this hemisphere."

Carlisle appeared surprised. "Are you?" she inquired of her first mate.

Mingeaux shrugged and reached in the pocket of her vest for her pipe. "I may have been at one time, but that's obviously no longer the case." She was a bit shaken, and Emilie patted her shoulder soothingly. "Tell me, mam'selle," she said, getting to her feet and stamping the blood back into her limbs, "have you explained that singular name to them?"

"No," said Tessa hastily, standing up in turn.

"You see, Captain," Mingeaux said to Jameson, pulling her tobacco-pouch from her vest and loading her pipe, "she attacks in a curious manner, using only nine pieces." Mingeaux gestured at the board with the pipe-stem. "The outer pawns, and then the entire back row except the king." She stuck the pipe into her mouth and pulled out the punk in her pocket to light the tobacco. "And after the pawns are out of the way, she gives them no more thought than if they were gnats..."

"I take it that's unusual?" Jameson asked, giving Carlisle a sidelong glance.

Mingeaux shook her head, blowing out a fragrant cloud of smoke. "It's a method of great confidence, almost as though you were certain you had nothing to lose. I've never seen anyone--" She blinked and took the pipe from her mouth. "It's your name, isn't it?"

"Yes," Tessa said, and the light of respect was back in her face.

Mingeaux leaned forward and rested her hands on either side of the board, looking into the eyes of the tall blonde. "It translates," she explained quietly, "as 'Seven of Nine'."

Jameson crossed her arms and put a hand to her chin, and Tessa lifted her head in pride and looked into the captain's face with an unreadable expression.

The lookout hollered out of the darkness, "A sail!"


 

* * *
 

Murmured voices awakened Hester, and she took advantage of it to climb painfully from the bunk and settle a ravening thirst. Pitcher in hand, she peered briefly out the porthole; it was night, and peaceful, and she could see just the barest hint of the moon as the ship swayed gently in the waves. Above her was a rush of hurrying feet, and belowdecks she heard a grinding, rumbling noise. She swallowed the rest of the pitcher in haste and limped her way to the sea-chest.

In a moment, her rummaging hands had run across what felt like a pair of soft trousers, and she pulled them from the chest, feeling for the legs. She nodded, her skin stiff, and drew them carefully over her legs, hissing as the cloth intercepted her blistered skin. She tucked the shirt into the waistband and looked about her in the gloom, wondering what she was going to use for a belt.

The knock, when it came, was soft but insistent. "Mam'selle Brundage... are you awake?"

She swung the door wide, and Mingeaux's tall frame blocked the doorway. She was holding a lantern, and her face registered surprise when she saw Hester dressed.

"'Resourceful', I believe you said?" Hester whispered. "What is it?"

"Mam'selle," Mingeaux replied, hooking the lantern carefully to the wall sconce and going to her sea chest, "I regret that we must transfer you to another ship for a time." She pulled a wide belt out of the sea chest and held it up for Hester without looking. "The ship is Discovery, and good people crew her. You needn't fear for your--" She hauled a soft pair of boots out of the chest and threw them aside, muttering, "Those will never fit her, idiot--"

"Mingeaux," Hester said, laying a hand on the taller woman's forearm. Mingeaux turned her head in the odd shadows of the lantern light. "Are you in danger?"

The tattooed woman gave her a quick grin. "Not as such, and not yet. But I'd breathe more easily if I knew you were safe." She turned back to the sea chest and pulled out a pair of slippers embroidered with familiar-looking designs. For a moment, Mingeaux seemed to hesitate, then she handed them to Hester. "Put these on, and we'll get you aboard."

Hester sat on the bunk and pulled the slippers onto her feet, ignoring the pain. "Are we under attack?"

"No," Mingeaux said, helping her to her feet. Her grip was strong, yet it didn't hurt her blistered skin at all. An angel's touch, of a certainty. "I can commend you to the crew of Discovery. You'll like them; they're scientists." Hester knew she was talking to keep her from worrying; unnecessary, as she couldn't avoid it, but a courtesy she appreciated.

"The captain is a fine woman, and she will care for you as if you were a member of her crew." They had moved into the hall outside the cabins. From below, Hester could hear staccato voices, and more dragging sounds. None of it seemed benign. Hester's heart sped up as she murmured, "Mingeaux."

Mingeaux, in the act of reaching for the lantern, turned her head. "Mam'selle."

Hester stretched out her arms to the tall, solemn woman before her. Mingeaux put an arm around Hester gingerly, holding the lantern well out of the way, and Hester raised herself on tiptoe to touch her sun-damaged lips gently to Mingeaux's cheek. "Thank you for your friendship, and for my life. I shall try to make it something worthy of you."

Mingeaux looked a bit rattled, but she whispered in utter seriousness, "And if I never have anything else from the sea, I shall remember that, one magical day, she granted me a mermaid."

"What angel will look after my angel?" Hester said, trying to keep the tears at bay, and Mingeaux gave her a smile and took her hand to lead her up on deck.

After that, it was a blur of motion--the stars blazing overhead and the moon tossing with the movement of the little boat, and her hand warm and safe in Mingeaux's, and she was trying to be brave (and not to be sick), and then they were climbing the Jacob's ladder to the other ship, Mingeaux right behind her. Cautious hands helped her over the rail to the deck, which she barely had a moment to glimpse in the gloom.

Mingeaux, leaning over the rail, called to a woman on the deck, "Thank you, Captain."

The other woman nodded. "We'll keep her safe. May God hold you, my friend."

"Run for Haven," Mingeaux replied, and then she had vanished over the side to take the little boat back to her ship, which Hester had never seen from the outside.

 

* * *
 

Carlisle's hair whipped in the freshening breeze as she caught Mingeaux's arm to help her back over the rail. "How's DiFalco doing with the guns?"

"Twenty minutes more, she says," Carlisle replied, turning to look at the western horizon, where a square of white had gotten noticeably larger since she'd left to put Miss Brundage aboard Discovery. Mingeaux's lips tightened; her little errand might've condemned them all.

"No, you were right to do it," Carlisle said, staring at the sail. "Don't doubt that."

Mingeaux glanced at her in surprise, then a sharp whistle from Discovery's boatswain signaled that the crew was raising canvas for the run to port.

"How long should we give them?" Carlisle asked, turning to her first mate. The light from the deck lanterns carved her face into a gruesome apparition of vengeance, for all her mild words.

"Spinelli will tell us," Mingeaux answered.

Discovery's sails began to go up, and slowly, agonizingly, the ship commenced to move. In a few minutes, she was well under way, and Carlisle and Mingeaux were astern by the pilot's station, watching Spinelli study the sails.

When Discovery was farther away, and the interloper closer, Spinelli called for the crew to raise Intrepide's sails. The responsive yacht leapt into action, and in a trice they were speeding after the larger, heavier vessel.

Mingeaux could tell DiFalco was coming up the stairs by the clattering. "Guns a-ready, Captain," she announced.

"Good," Carlisle replied. "Thank you."

They turned to watch the pursuing vessel. She was long and low, headed right for them. It looked very like the Arab ship had found her prey.

 

* * *
 

An anxious night found the three ships pacing one another as if they were doing a well-rehearsed ballet on the ocean. Discovery had a good lead, Intrepide standing guard at her back, the unknown following with fanatical determination.

Carlisle was slumped in a chair at the stern rail, watching the pursuing ship. She had an elbow on the rail and her cheek mashed against her fist. Mingeaux stood by the pilot's station on the moon-washed deck, ready to relieve Spinelli, and DiFalco had just gone below to check the brace of guns for the thousandth time.

Mingeaux glanced moonward; almost dawn, and they'd been at this idiocy all night. "Have they nothing better to do?" she muttered in disgust.

"They haven't a chess-player of your skill aboard any longer," Carlisle said with a sidelong grin. They'd gotten to speaking Italian, because of the pilot and the gunner, and it was a language Carlisle handled with ease and wit.

"Why does he want her so badly?" Mingeaux murmured. "Surely one can find anything one wishes in Tripoli, and six months of that would ruin her."

Carlisle's face turned grim. Well done to remind her, idiot. Mingeaux would've swatted her forehead with her hand, except that she was tempted to hit very hard indeed, and she'd be needed conscious. "Your pardon, Captain," she said.

Carlisle waved her words away as if they were ocean-flume. "While this vessel responds to my command," she said soberly, "there's one woman who, this one night, isn't brothel-bound."

Spinelli glanced her way, startled, and Carlisle roused herself to sit up. "Besides," she said, "I'm not so certain that's what he wants."

"What do you think he wants?" Mingeaux asked. She turned to study the sails; all trim, nothing to adjust....

"You see how she was dressed. Her master was wealthy." Carlisle got to her feet and stared at the ship to their stern. "Captain Jameson said Signorina Tessa kept her master's books, but only in her head."

"Yes," Mingeaux replied, as DiFalco came back up the stairs to nod once at her. "I recall thinking how odd that was."

"Well," said Carlisle, sticking her thumbs in her belt and pacing by the stern, "suppose the man who claims her knows that? And suppose he wishes that he had her master's wealth for himself?"

"I hadn't thought of that," Mingeaux admitted. "She's the key to her master's fortune."

"I know," Carlisle said, her jaw tightening. "We're all too busy trying not to think of her in a seraglio to consider that, perhaps, he's not after a treasure of the flesh."

"She is certainly beautiful," Mingeaux said, filling a pipe for Spinelli, whose hands were occupied at the wheel. "Perhaps we are distracted by that."

"Beautiful women," Carlisle commented, her gaze directed at the pursuer, "can be dangerous in other ways."

"Amen to that," Spinelli murmured, and Mingeaux grinned as she lit the pipe. Spinelli turned quickly to the captain, stammering, "That is--I mean--"

"Here," said the first mate, shoving the pipe into the pilot's mouth, "stick this in that big yap before it gets you into trouble."

The captain turned from the rail abruptly and took a few steps to join Mingeaux and Spinelli at the wheel. "We must turn them away from Haven." Mingeaux didn't reply, and Carlisle said softly, "You know what would happen if we led them there."

Mingeaux bit off a soft curse. The pilot glanced her way, and she sighed. "Perhaps they'll listen to reason."

"We can't get close enough," Spinelli said, through teeth clenched about the pipe-stem.

"Then perhaps they'll listen to a volley of eight-pounders," DiFalco said.

"DiFalco," Mingeaux said, pinching the bridge of her nose, "you're not helping."

"The maneuver you pulled yesterday," Carlisle said abruptly to Spinelli.

Spinelli dropped the pipe, which cracked into bits on the deck. "Captain!"

Mingeaux stubbed out the sparks on the decking with her foot. "She's right," Mingeaux said. "That's far too dangerous."

"It didn't look like you were having that much trouble," Carlisle pointed out.

"'Not much trouble', she says," Spinelli muttered, throwing a help me look at DiFalco, who stuck her hands in her pockets to watch the fun. "Only ten years off my life and almost becoming first mate (a job I don't care for), is all!"

"Genoese," Carlisle said with a smile. "Making a mountain out of a molehill. Come, Spinelli, I hired you because you were the best pilot in Marseilles."

"I'd like to meet the arsehole who told her that," Spinelli murmured, casting an apprehensive glance astern.

"At your service," Mingeaux replied, bowing elaborately.

Spinelli closed her eyes, despair washing over her face. "Might as well die bashing into an Arab vessel," she said in resignation. "My only other course is to cut my throat."

"That's the spirit!" Carlisle exclaimed. "Come on, Spinelli, just close enough for me to talk to them."

"Can we at least wait till daybreak?"

"Surely," the captain said, sounding reasonable. "That will give me time to braid the candles into my hair."

It sounded to Mingeaux distressingly much as if she were enjoying this.

 

* * *
 

"They yet pursue," Thomas remarked.

Jameson sighed hugely. "And Intrepide between us and danger," she replied. "We owe them a great deal." She glanced at the sky, which was beginning to lighten. "Miss Brundage!" she called to the silent figure amidships, and their newest passenger turned her head with an effort and began to limp toward her.

"Captain," she said courteously.

"It's toward dawn, and time you were below."

"Oh, Captain... May I not stay?"

Thomas raised an eyebrow at Jameson. "You've been out in the wind all night," Jameson answered, "which can in no way hasten your recovery. But Mingeaux would rend me limb from limb if she knew I'd let you out into the sun."

"Very well," sighed the woman with the blasted face, turning toward the stairs that led below.

"You're in with Miss Tessa," Jameson said. "To your left. She'll hear you knock."

"Thank you, Captain," said Miss Brundage, making her way painfully down the stairs.

"Enough of this," Thomas commented, "and we shall have to double the number of bunks."

"If we don't get to Haven safely," Jameson responded, her voice grim, "that won't be necessary."

 

* * *
 

The sun burst over the horizon, painting a blood-red line that seared Mingeaux's sleepless, dry eyes like a poker. Behind them, churning furiously in the waves, was the interloper. She was far too massive to keep up a safe pace with the nimble little yacht, and it was then that Mingeaux knew they were serious, and they were after them.

"Ready?" Carlisle said softly.

"Aye," Mingeaux said, turning to shout to the crew.

They trimmed their speed, moving to port to place themselves directly in front of the Arab ship. It got close enough to smash through Intrepide's wake, but not one of the sailors on the deck of the Arab ship moved to reef any sail.

"They're not slowing," Mingeaux said.

"I thought as much," Carlisle replied. "All right, match speed, then."

Intrepide moved away from the larger ship, which was still bent on overtaking them, and they ran in tandem until Mingeaux could report that the yacht could easily outdistance the larger, heavier vessel.

"Bring us alongside," Carlisle said.

The maneuver took Spinelli almost half an hour, and she cast anxious glances at the yards as Intrepide slipped closer to the pursuers. They were thirty yards apart, still moving fast, and Mingeaux could see the figures moving on the deck of the Arab ship, plus the glint of sunlight on muskets.

When she looked back, the captain had Intrepide's substantial megaphone, and was tying the lanyard to her wrist. She headed for the webbing that led to the foremast yards, and Mingeaux hastened after her, slipping a bit on the deck.

"What are you doing?" she hissed.

"Close enough to talk to them," Carlisle said with determination.

"Are you addled?" Mingeaux pointed at the other ship. "Those are muskets!"

"Perhaps their aim is bad," Carlisle pointed out.

"It's a merchant! They'll be crack shots!" The sweat was starting under her arms.

"A musket isn't that accurate," Carlisle said, dismissively.

"It will be point-blank if you insist on getting close enough to talk to them," Mingeaux replied.

"Yes, see to that, will you, Mingeaux?" Carlisle said serenely, putting a foot to the webbing and starting to climb.

Mingeaux caught her by the boot. "Must I knock you down with a broomstick and tie you to your bunk until the fever passes?"

"No time for fun now, Mingeaux," said Carlisle soberly. She looked down and shook her boot free, then nodded at her first mate. "See to it."

Out of options save mutiny, Mingeaux swallowed her disgusted reply. "Get us as close as you can," she called to Spinelli, who engaged in an elaborate and vivid pantomime that indicated her reluctance. Fed up, Mingeaux marched back to the pilot's station. "Clip the God-damned yards if you must, Spinelli! That's the captain up there!"

Spinelli twitched the wheel, and Intrepide inched closer to the Arab ship. Mingeaux turned to DiFalco. "A musket. Several. The man who aims for her pays with his life."

DiFalco nodded and beckoned a quartet of sailors. In a trice, each was back on deck with a musket in each hand, and Mingeaux took both of DiFalco's from her. "Below with you, and fire your first volley on my order, or the Captain's, or Spinelli's. Got that?"

DiFalco nodded, clapped Mingeaux hard on the shoulder, and clattered below to the cannon.

Mingeaux gestured to the sailors, who ranged themselves along the rail and took aim at the Arab ship. Intrepide moved closer, and they began to pick out details of the clothing of their counterparts. Half the other sailors were aiming at the picket-line along Intrepide's rail, and the other half trained their guns, as Mingeaux had feared, toward the foremast, where--she took a rapid look--Carlisle was clinging to the webbing, wrapping one arm about the yard and raising the megaphone with the other.

Mingeaux had a bead on the chest of the man aiming at the captain. Intrepide heeled toward the Arab ship, and there was a strangled sound from Spinelli as the yards swung toward one another. Mingeaux looked up , and Carlisle was just getting her footing back, setting her boots into the webbing as if she hadn't a care in the world. Mingeaux swiped the sweat from her eyes and squinted down the barrel of the musket again.

"Messieurs," said a loud voice she barely recognized as Carlisle's, "break off your pursuit."

As Intrepide edged closer, a ridge of water formed between the two fast-moving ships, churning into a maelstrom. On the deck of the other ship, a man in a dark robe turned and gestured excitedly toward one of the sailors. The sailor rummaged in a chest on the deck and brought out a megaphone. The dark-robed man held it to his mouth and shouted in French, "That ship has something that belongs to me!"

"Not at all," Carlisle replied. "His master freed him on his death."

There was consternation on the deck of the Arab ship, and a couple of the sailors glanced toward the man in the dark robe. He raised the megaphone again. "You lie!"

"He has a manumission," Carlisle pointed out.

The ships were so close that the yards were in serious danger of clacking together. Mingeaux glanced at Spinelli, who was watching the yards, eyes wide as she struggled to keep the ships from smacking into one another.

"He's free," Carlisle said simply.

The swirl of water between the hulls writhed like the back of a sea monster. Mingeaux was trying to gauge the sway of the ship, adjusting her aim in minute increments. The line was a row of waving muskets.

"You have no proof!" the man shouted.

"Come, monsieur," Carlisle said, sounding good and fed up. "I have had a very rough week, and you will either do as I say, or you'll do for a target."

The man lowered the megaphone and hollered to one of the marksmen, who sent a ball spinning into Intrepide's shrouds. Mingeaux aimed for the puff of smoke from the musket and dropped the marksman to the deck with a ball through the knee.

She heard Intrepide's gun-ports slide aside with a low, wooden rumbling, and the boatswain of the Arab ship turned to shout to his sailors as two of them went to collect the injured man. Mingeaux took up the other musket and glanced at the captain, who was climbing back to her post with an effort. A ragged gap in the webbing told her that the man's shot had been either accurate or lucky; she hoped Carlisle wasn't punctured.

The captain fought to haul the megaphone back up to her and fumbled it into her hand. She was clearly livid. "I have a row of eight-pounders trained at your water-line," she told them, her words snapping with precision. "Break off."

The boatswain appeared to be arguing with the man in the dark robe, who eventually dashed the megaphone to the deck and stomped below in a fury. The boatswain caught up the megaphone and called hastily, "We break off, Captain. No need for to shoot."

He turned and called orders to his sailors again, and they moved to pull in the sails. The Arab ship dropped behind, and when it was a safe distance away, the pilot turned the wheel. After a long few moments, she turned ponderously northward.

Only when the other ship was a goodly distance from them did their gunners stand down. Mingeaux handed her musket to the sailor next to her and hurried to the webbing, where Carlisle was making her way down, placing her boots with deliberate care. Mingeaux caught her around the waist and helped her the last two steps, and finally her insane, courageous, and entirely too victorious captain stood on the deck beside her.

"Of a piece?" Mingeaux asked, breathless.

"Aye," Carlisle said, nodding briskly. She looked a bit wobbly, and Mingeaux shot out a hand to steady her. She was shaking, hard. Mingeaux frowned at her in concern.

The captain lifted her bright blue eyes to Mingeaux's face. "Is there breakfast?" Carlisle asked.

 

* * *
 

Intrepide and Discovery made the trip in to Haven in parallel, running fast. Mingeaux passed DiFalco, who was sitting morosely amidships, elbow propped on her knee and chin on her fist, staring bitterly to the north, where her promising target had vanished hours before.

"Fear not, DiFalco," Mingeaux told her, patting her shoulder. "I have the feeling this captain's going to give you something to shoot at before we're done."

Spinelli was below, trembling in her bunk at their narrow escape, and Mingeaux went to check on the pilot who held the wheel. She glanced up at the yards--a miracle, but not so much as a scratch on the varnish--and went below to talk to the captain.

She found her in her cabin, one hand clamped to the edge of her writing-desk as she attempted to complete what looked like a letter; not an easy task, given the sway of the ship. She looked up as Mingeaux stooped to stick her head in the doorway. "All well?" she inquired brusquely, and looked back down at her letter when Mingeaux nodded.

"We'll be in Haven in two hours," Mingeaux said, bracing herself in the doorway with one hand and gesturing toward the desk with the other. "If you'd care to wait to finish that."

With a smothered growl, Carlisle put the pen back in the case and snapped it shut. "Why must the sea always be so damned rough?"

"It suits the captains who sail her," Mingeaux answered, smiling gently.

Carlisle gave her a sideways look.

"I have never seen anyone climb into the yards and defeat an opponent by yelling through a horn," Mingeaux added. "Or... never in French, at any rate."

"Effective," Carlisle grunted.

"Foolhardy," Mingeaux replied.

Carlisle looked at her first mate from under her eyebrows. "It had every reason not to work," Mingeaux pointed out.

"But it did."

Mingeaux sighed and moved into the captain's cabin, leaning against the bunk. "And just how long," she inquired mildly, "do you think I could keep this vessel running without its owner?"

Carlisle turned and placed an arm over the back of the chair. "I hadn't thought of that."

"You may be certain it crossed my mind when they commenced firing at you. May your first mate respectfully request that you expose yourself to no more than three loaded muskets at a time?" Mingeaux looked out the great glass window at the rear of the captain's cabin, where the water frothed and swirled as the wind bore them toward safety. She added casually, "After all, your sister will be expecting you with all limbs intact."

"I cannot ask the crew to throw themselves at dangers I am unwilling to face."

"Captain," Mingeaux said, crossing her arms and balancing against the sway of the ship, "believe me, if your luck hadn't held, we would all be sharing the same fate right now: fish-meal, and fervently hoping we were square with the priests." She thought for a moment. "As it is, I shall have to dose Spinelli with an interlude of India rum, opium, and doe-eyed companions before she can go on."

Carlisle looked intrigued at that, and opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it.

"Besides," Mingeaux said, with a diffident shrug, "it is not as though your sister is the only one who thinks of you."

A tiny frown appeared on the captain's face. "You told me," she said slowly, "that you'd break my neck."

"Will that be necessary?" Mingeaux asked softly.

Carlisle seemed uncertain for a moment. "That's--that's who I was writing to."

 

* * *
 

They made harbor at about two o'clock, and the first order of business was for the crew of Discovery to cheer the foolish bravery of their unlikely rescuers. Carlisle acknowledged the slightly hysterical salute with a gracious and solemn bow, then took DiFalco with her up the hill to the tavern, leaving Mingeaux to check in with the port authorities.

Discovery's crew swarmed aboard the moment the inspectors left, and Mingeaux found herself surrounded by a crowd of admirers. Emilie threw herself into Mingeaux's arms while Thomas shook her hand violently, and Torres stood to one side, the battle-lust still gleaming in her eye.

"We saw the whole thing," Emilie exclaimed, her hug giving Mingeaux some concern for her breathing. "I'm so glad you're all right!"

"Your captain has an idea or two about tactics," Torres commented, whacking Mingeaux on the shoulder.

"You have resolved to instruct her in what a yacht can, and cannot, do?" Thomas inquired.

She had no chance to answer: from the deck of Discovery herself, Jameson called across to Intrepide. "That was certainly an interesting maneuver, Mingeaux. In what tactical guide might one find it?"

"She writes her own book, Captain," Mingeaux called back.

"In that case," Jameson said, "I move that we name it the 'Carlisle'." She closed her eyes in horrified remembrance. "And may it never be used again."

Mingeaux laughed. "No arguing that point. Mam'selle Brundage? And Mam'selle Tessa?"

"Belowdecks, getting some rest after all that jostling. I thought we would wait until after sunset to return Miss Brundage to you."

"I'm in your debt," Mingeaux replied.

"She was most concerned for you," Emilie told her. "I like her."

Mingeaux smiled down at the girl. "And I would like a glass of ale."

"I'll get the first round," Torres offered.

 

* * *
 

Captain Carlisle had toiled up the hill, DiFalco at her side, not speaking except to offer some gruff thanks for DiFalco's work with the guns that day. Awed into silence, DiFalco made a brief reply.

When they approached the tavern, Mistinguette was shaking out some rugs in the bright afternoon sunshine. "Well," she said, when she had recovered from her astonishment, "look who's back. The scourge of the Caribbean and destroyer of hearts. Found your chest of doubloons so soon?"

To DiFalco's surprise, Carlisle grinned at her and swept her hat from her head in an elaborate bow. "Lost the map. Good afternoon, mam'selle. Is your colleague in?"

"In the back," Mistinguette said, jerking her head back over her shoulder. Carlisle didn't move, and Mistinguette snapped, "No, I'm not going to announce you. She's had enough nasty surprises for one week."

Carlisle lifted an eyebrow at her and climbed the steps to the tavern, DiFalco trudging at her heels. The captain stopped and turned, and put a hand to DiFalco's shoulder. "My gunner here," she said, "has had an adventure." She turned a mild gaze on DiFalco. "Why don't you stay here and tell Mam'selle Mistinguette all about it?"

DiFalco settled herself on the steps with a grin. "Well, you see, it was late last night that a ship approached us..." Mistinguette, after one sour look in her direction, turned to shake out another rug.


The captain blinked in the marginally less bright common room of the "Bonny Anne". She walked in a circle, searching the corners without success, then called, "Mam'selle Tavernier... are you in?"

There was no answer, save a muffled thump from upstairs.

"Mam'selle?" the captain called again, a bit puzzled. She put a foot on the bottom step and her hand on the rail, wondering if she should go up.

"Mam'selle?"

"Yes--yes--I'm here," said a voice from upstairs, hastily.

"Shall I come up?" Carlisle asked.

"No! Stay right where you are--I'll be down directly."

She sounded a bit breathless, perhaps a shade panicky--Giuliana smacked herself in the forehead with her fist, silently but with force. Idiot. She may not be alone... The thought made her surprisingly melancholy, and she wandered a few aimless steps toward the front door, where the brilliant afternoon sun coated the world outside with heavy yellow-orange light.

Well, you should've expected it... she is young, and lovely, and free of other obligations. Giuliana fiddled with her hat, then with a cup on one of the tables, wondering just how long it took a young lady to get dressed in these islands. Not that you'd precisely represent a catch--

"Captain."

She spun on a heel, almost upsetting one of the chairs, and looked up, to where Brandy stood at the top of the stairs.

She felt the blood drain into the toes of her boots. The young woman at the top of the stairs was in a high-necked light green dress without an apron, and her hair was off her shoulders, gathered tidily at the back. She looked young, and fresh, and beautiful, and as she stood uncertainly, twisting her hands together in nervousness, Giuliana knew she would've given anything to make her life a marvel of ease and a cocoon of love.

"Mam'selle," she said, with some difficulty.

Brandy jerked her thumb in a vaguely westerly direction. "I--I was just--"

Giuliana held up a hand to interrupt. "No need to explain, mam'selle. I apologize for... for..." Something ran across the surface of her mind then, half unlikely memory and half powerful wish, and she stopped speaking.

The young woman on the stairs leaned over with a smile equal parts shyness and enjoyment, placing her hands on the railing. "For--?"

"Ah..." This is nonsense, Giuliana. You've come halfway across the earth in a boat. You've taunted a murderous opponent with a good bead on you. Talk to her! "Have you a moment for me?"

"Of course," Brandy replied, grasping the railing carefully and walking with measured grace down the stairs. As she descended, the light from the large front windows caught her in a golden radiance, and Giuliana had to remind herself to breathe.

The dress--the collar swept up over her neck, stopping just short of her chin, and the sleeves were long and fitted, as was the bodice, which was--really--she hadn't known that Brandy had any other dresses. And it set off her eyes and her hair with grace--damn it, I shall never decide what color her hair is--

"Did you find what you sought?" Brandy asked carefully.

"Ah... no," Giuliana admitted, feeling deflated. "Our information proved unreliable."

"I'm sorry," Brandy said, looking away.

"I'll keep--that is--" Giuliana said hastily. "It's not over yet."

"Is everyone well?" Brandy asked, her head still turned.

"Yes."

"Mingeaux?"

"Yes." Please, for God's sake, look at me! "She's fine. As always, she performed with commendable bravery--"

Brandy shook her head. "I'd rather not hear about it, if it's all the same to you."

Giuliana couldn't stand Brandy not looking at her, but she didn't dare touch her. "Mam'selle... may I ask..."

Brandy finally turned and lifted her head, and that was far worse. The green-eyed gaze hit her like a blow, and she began to realize that, perhaps, she was just a fraction short on sleep and just a bit light-headed.

"It's like this, Captain," Brandy said, her voice almost languidly polite, but her eyes direct and sharp. "You came into my life a little over a week ago. In that time, I calculate that you and I have spent about ten hours together. And now, a good friend has been implicated in a murder, I've been kissed in the street with the entire town and my uncle paying close attention, the Watch has burst into my house late at night, half the crockery in the tavern is in ruins, I've been encouraged to take a horsewhip to my patrons, someone has offered me a great deal of money for a token of you, anyone who walks into the tavern is forbidden to speak your name, and... I... have begun to write poetry."

She turned her head, mortified, and made her way to the table, where she picked up the cup and took it to the bar. "You will forgive me, Captain," she said, her back to Giuliana, "if I am uncertain of my prospects of surviving an entire day in your presence."

The silence went on for quite a while, and Giuliana tried to wrap her brain around what she'd just heard. Finally, she turned her head and stared out the window. "Well, Mam'selle," she said, "surely you will admit that our friendship has nowhere to go but up... especially if you give up the poetry."

Brandy's laugh started in her shoulders, and the captain turned to see her prop herself up on the bar on both hands. In a moment, she was fighting for breath, and Giuliana realized that she was weeping. Alarmed, she hastened toward the bar to place her hands on Brandy's shoulders, and Brandy turned her face away, putting a hand to her mouth.

"Mam'selle," Giuliana said urgently. "You mustn't. Please."

Brandy shook her head.

"Brandy," Giuliana murmured, putting her hand under the other woman's chin.

Brandy took a shuddering breath and placed both her hands deliberately on Giuliana's shoulders, pushing away just a little. She got herself under control and wiped her eyes, then looked up at Giuliana.

In her haste to change the subject, Giuliana seized on the first thing she could think of. "Someone offered you money?"

Brandy's face took on a wry expression. "Aye. Your lover."

The shock of it was light and fast. "Mam'selle, you've been getting into your inventory. I don't have one."

Brandy's distaste was evident. "Genevieve Ste. Claire."

"Great God." She'd forgotten all about the promise that odious woman had extorted from her. "What made you think--"

"She came to see me," Brandy sighed, putting up an arm to brush Giuliana out of her way and walking out from behind the bar.

Giuliana was having a bit of trouble picking up the stitches. "And she told you--"

Brandy turned to face her, her hands locked again. "She gave me to understand that it was a certainty."

"Did she," Giuliana replied, occupying herself for the next few seconds in planning a thorough clock-cleaning for the infuriating blonde when next they met.

She didn't precisely want to ask the question, but she did anyway. "What was it she offered to... to buy?"

There was a moment of silence. Brandy reached for the collar of her dress and unbuttoned it, pulling it away from her neck. "This."

Stunned, Giuliana took a few steps toward her. The silence stretched out as the captain walked toward Brandy, a riot of thought, emotion, dream, premonition storming through her brain. Destiny and fate. The wrath of nations and the sweetness of nectar. Glory swirled around the slight blonde woman in the green dress, and Giuliana thought she was going to lose her soul.

She stopped before Brandy and reached out with a hand she wasn't certain was hers to take up the locket with her initials engraved on it. "You're wearing it," she whispered.

"And you," Brandy said steadily, "are the only one who will ever get it away from me."

Breathless, Giuliana put her arms around Brandy and leaned toward her, and Brandy's hand slid with maddening delicacy up Giuliana's vest.

A shadow passed over the window, and the two of them glanced outside, where a carriage drawn by a magnificent team glided to a stop just before the door of the "Bonny Anne".

The arms on the side belonged to Genevieve Ste. Claire.