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"You know, Captain," said Locke, staring down at the blood-soaked sleeves of his jacket, "that sort of gives me an idea. A really, really amusing idea…"
4
Just past the second hour of the morning, with Tal Verrar finally shuddering into a drunken somnambulance and the Festa fires extin— guished, the Poison Orchid in her costume as the Chimera crept past the Happy Pilchard. She passed the battered, sleepy little ketch at a distance of about two hundred yards, flying a minimal number of navigation lanterns and offering no hail. That wasn't entirely unusual in waters where not one act of piracy had been reported for more than seven years.
In darkness, it was impossible to see that the Orchid's deck carried no boats.
Those boats slowly emerged from the ship's larboard shadow, and at a silent signal their rowers exploded into action. With the haste of their passage they turned the dark sea white. Three faint, frothy lines reached out from Orchid to Pilchard, and by the time the lone watchman on at the ketch's stern noticed anything, it was far too late.
"Ravelle," cried Jean, who was the first up the ketch's side. "Ravelle!" Still dressed in his blood-spattered finery, he'd wrapped a scrap of red linen around his head and borrowed an iron-shod quarterstaff from one of the Orchid's arms lockers. Orchids scrambled up behind him — Jabril and Malakasti, Streva and Rask. They carried clubs and saps, leaving their blades sheathed at their belts.
Three boats" worth of pirates boarded from three separate directions; the ketch's meagre crew was swept into the waist by shouting, club-waving lunatics, all hollering a name that was meaningless to them, until at last they were subdued and the chief of their tormentors came aboard to exalt in his victory. "The name's Ravelle!"
Locke paced the deck before the thirteen cringing crewfolk and their strange blue-robed passenger. Locke, like Jean, had kept his bloody clothing and topped it off with a red sash at his waist, a red banda
"Don't kill us, sir," pleaded the captain of the little vessel, a ski
"You are interrupting critical hydrographic experiments," shouted the blue-robed man, attempting to rise to his feet. He was shoved back down by a squad of leering Orchids. "This information is vital to the interest of all mariners! You cut your own throat if you—" "What the hell's a critical hydrographic experiment, old man?" "By examining sea-floor composition—" "Sea-floor composition? Can I eat that? Can I spend it? Can I take it back to my cabin and fuck it sideways?" "No and no and most certainly no!" "Right," said Locke. "Toss this fucker over the side." "You ignorant bastards! You hypocritical apes! Let go— Let go of me!" Locke was pleased to see Jean stepping in to perform the duty of heaving the robed scholar off the deck; not only would the man be scared witless, but Jean would control the situation precisely to keep him from actually getting hurt.
"Oh, please, sir, don't do that," said the Pilchard's captain. "Master Donatti's harmless, sir, please—"
"Look," said Locke, "is everyone on this tub an idiot besides me? Why would I sully the soles of my boots with a visit to this embarrassment unless you had something I wanted?" "The, um, hydrographic experiments?" asked the captain. "MONEY!" Locke seized him by the front of his tunic and heaved him to his feet. "I want every valuable, every drinkable, every consumable this overgrown dinghy has to offer, or you can watch the old bastard drown! How's that for a hydrographic experiment}"
5
They didn't clear such a bad haul for such a little ship; obviously, Donatti had paid well to be carried around for his experiments and been unwilling to sail without many of the comforts of home. A boat laden with liquors, fine tobacco, silk pillows, books, artificers" instruments, alchemical drugs and bags of silver coins was soon sent back to the Orchid, while "Ravelle's" pirates finished sabotaging the little ship.
"Rudder lines disabled, sir," said Jean about half an hour after thed'r boarded.
"Halliards cut, braces cut," shouted Delmastro, plainly enjoying her role as an ordinary buccaneer for this attack. She strolled along the larboard rail with a hatchet, chopping things seemingly at whim. "Whatever the hell that was, cut!"
"Sir, please," begged the captain, "that'll take ages to fix, you got all the valuables already—"
"I don't want you to die out here," said Locke, yawning in feigned boredom at the captain's pleas. "I just want to have a few quiet hours before this news gets back to Tal Verrar."
"Oh, sir, we'll do what you ask. Whatever you want; we won't tell no one—"
"Please," said Locke. "Cling to some dignity, Master Pilchard. I want you to talk about this. All over the place. Use it to leverage sympathy from whores. Maybe get a few free drinks in taverns. Most importantly, repeat my name. Orrin Ravelle." "O-orrin Ravelle, sir."
"Captain Orrin Ravelle," said Locke, drawing a dagger and placing it against the captain's throat. "Of the good ship Tal Verrar is Fuckedl You stop in and let them know I'm in the neighbourhood!" "I, uh, I will, sir."
"Good." Locke dropped the man back to the deck and stowed his dagger. "Then let's call it quits. You can have your amusing little toy ship back now."
Locke and Jean met briefly at the stern before boarding the last boat back to the Orchid. "Gods," said Jean, "the Archon is going to love this."
"Well, we didn't He to him, did we? We promised pirate attacks at every compass point. We just didn't say thed'r all feature Zamira as the major attraction." Locke blew a kiss to the city, spread across the northern horizon. "Happy Festa, Protector."
6
"If there's one thing I never particularly need to do again in my life," said Locke, "it's dangle here all day painting this bloody ship's arse."
At the third hour of the afternoon the next day, Locke and Jean were hanging from crude rope swings secured to the Poison Orchid's taffrail. Now that last night's hasty coat of dark paint had forever blotted out the Chimera, they were laboriously christening the ship with a new moniker, Delight. Their hands and tunics were spattered with thick silver gobs.
They had progressed as far as "Delig", and Paolo and Cosetta were making faces at them through the stern windows of Zamira's cabin.
"I think piracy's a bit like drinking," said Jean. "You want to stay out all night doing it, you pay the price the next day."
The Orchid had turned north that morning a comfortable forty or fifty miles west of the city; Drakasha had cleared the area of their Pilchard raid with haste and decided to spend the day at a remove, brushing up her old wooden girl's new disguise. Or, more accurately, turning that duty over to Locke and Jean.
They finally managed to put the "light" into Delight around the fourth hour of the afternoon. Thirsty and sun-baked, they were hauled up to the quarterdeck by Delmastro, Drakasha and Nasreen. After thed'r gulped down proffered mugs of lukewarm pinkwater, Drakasha beckoned for them to follow her down to her cabin.
"Last night was well done," she said. "Well done and nicely confusing. I don't doubt the Archon will be rather vexed."
"I'd pay something to be a fly on a tavern wall in Tal Verrar these next few days," said Locke. "But it's also given me a thought, on our general strategy." "Which is?"
"You told me that the captain and crew of the ketch weren't Verrari — that will curb some of the impact of their story. There'll be questions about their reliability. Ignorant rumours and mutterings." "Right…"