“Blackgem berries make me squirt, you know.”
“Excuse me?”
“Squirt water, of course! What else would I squirt? What a dirty mind you have!”
… sea-sponge? “Well, I didn’t know that. I mean, how could I, since it’s such a … well, a private thing.”
“Not for much longer,” she said, taking another mouthful.
Spilgit frowned, only now feeling the unusual warmth in his lap. “You call that a squirt?”
“Well,” she said, “it’s just that it got me all excited!”
“Really? Oh, then should we-”
“Not you, silly! Fangatooth! On the tower, with his arms spread wide like I said!”
“Alas, I didn’t see any of that, Felittle. Busy as I was in here, putting things in order and all. Even so, for the life of me I can’t see what it was that excited you about such a scene. He does that most mornings, after all.”
“I know that, but this morning it was different. Or at least I thought it was.”
“Why?”
“Well,” she paused to drink down the rum, gusted out a sweet sigh, and then made a small sound. “Oop, it’s all going now, isn’t it?”
Spilgit felt the heat spreading in his crotch, and then his thighs as it pooled in the chair. “Ah, yes…”
“Anyway,” she continued, “I thought he was looking at the wreck, you see? But I don’t think he was. I mean-”
“Hold on, darling. A moment. What wreck?”
“Why, the one in the bay, of course! Arrived last night! You don’t know anything!”
“Survivors?”
She shrugged. “Nobody’s been down to look yet. Too cold.”
“Gods below!” Spilgit pushed her from his lap. He rose. “I need to change.”
“You look like you peed yourself! Hah hah!”
He studied her for a moment, and then said, “We’re heading down, darling. To that wreck.”
“Really? But we’ll freeze!”
“I want to see it. You can come with me, Felittle, or you can run back to your ma.”
“I don’t know why you two hate each other. She only wants what’s best for me. But I want to do what her girls do, and why not? It’s a living, isn’t it?”
“You’re far too beautiful for that,” Spilgit said.
“That’s what she says!”
“And she’s right, on that we’re agreed. The thing we don’t agree on, is what your future is going to look like. You deserve better than this horrible little village, Felittle. She’d as much as chain you down if she thought she could get away with it. It’s all about her, what she’s wants you to do for her. Your ma’s getting old, right? Needing someone to take care of her, and she’ll make you a spinster if you let her.”
Her eyes were wide, her breaths coming fast. “Then you’ll do it?”
“What?”
“Steal me away!”
“I’m a man of my word. Come the spring, darling, we’ll swirl the sands, flatten the high grasses and flee like the wind.”
“Okay, I’ll go with you!”
“I know.”
“No, down to the wreck, silly!”
“Right, my little sea-sponge. Wait here, then. I need go back to the Heel and change … unless, you need to do the same?”
“No I’m fine! If I go back Ma will see me and find something for me to do. I’ll wait here. I wasn’t wearing knickers anyway.”
Well, that explains it, doesn’t it. Oh darling, you’re my kind of woman.
Except for the peeing bit, that is.
The hand gripping his cloak collar was hard as iron as he was dragged from the foaming, icy surf. Hacking, spitting out seawater and sand, Emancipor Reese opened his eyes to stare up at a grey, wintry sky. He heard gulls but couldn’t see them. He heard the war-drums of the waves pounding the rocks flanking this slip of a bay. He heard his own phlegmatic gasping, punctuated by the occasional groan as that hand continued dragging him up the beach, across heaps of shells, through snarled knots of seaweed, and over sodden lumps of half-frozen driftwood.
He flailed weakly, clawing at that hand and a moment later it released him. His head fell back with a thump and he found himself staring up at his master’s upside-down face.
“Will you recover, Mister Reese?”
“No, Master.”
“Very good. Now get up. We must take stock of our surroundings.”
“It’s made up of air, not water. That’s enough of the surroundings I need to know.”
“Nonsense, Mister Reese. We seem to have lost Korbal Broach, and I could use your assistance in finding him.”
At that, Emancipor Reese sat up, blinking the rime from his eyes. “Lost? Korbal’s lost? Really? He must be dead. Drowned-”
“No, nothing so dire, I’m sure,” Bauchelain replied, brushing sand from his cloak.
“Oh.” Emancipor found himself staring at the wreck of the ship. There wasn’t much left. Fragments were being tossed up to roll in the surf. “What is it about me and the sea?” he muttered. Amidst the flotsam were more than a few bodies, their only movement coming from the water that pushed and pulled at their limp forms. “It’s a miracle we survived that, Master.”
“Mister Reese? Oh, that. Not a miracle at all. Willpower and fortitude. Now, I believe I spied a settlement upon the headland, one that includes a rather substantial fortification.”
“No,” moaned Emancipor, “not another fortification.”
“Prone to draughts, I’m sure, but more suited to our habits. We shall have to introduce ourselves to the local lord or lady, I think, and gauge well the firmness of his or her footing. Command, Mister Reese, is a state of being to which I am not only accustomed, but one for which my impressive talents are well-suited. That said, and given our record thus far when assuming positions of authority, even I must acknowledge that trial and error remains an important component to our engagement with power.”
“Now here’s a miracle,” said Emancipor as he pulled out his pouch of rustleaf. “The hawker claimed it would be water-tight, and she was right.” He found his pipe, blew the wet and sand from it and began tamping the bowl. “Life’s looking up already, Master.”
“The lightening of your spirits is most welcome, Mister Reese.”
“Show me a man who can’t smoke and you’re looking at the end of civilization.”
“I’ll not argue with that assessment, Mister Reese.”
The crescent beach they’d found banked steeply above the waterline, and high ragged cliffs rose beyond, but Emancipor could make out a trail. “There’s a way up, Master.”
“So I see, and if I’m not mistaken, we will find our companion in yonder village.”
“He didn’t wait for us?”
“He elected wings to effect his escape from the sinking ship, Mister Reese. I would have done the same, if not for you.”
“Ah. Appreciate that, Master. I really do.”
“My pleasure. Now-oh, we have company on the way.”
Emancipor saw, too, the three figures making their way down the trail, hunched over against the buffeting wind. “Are they armed, Master? This could be a wrecker’s coast.”
“Armed?”
“My eyes ain’t what they used to be, Master.”
“No, Mister Reese. Not excessively so. I assure you, to us they pose no danger.”
“Glad to hear it, Master.” Emancipor was starting to get cold, or, rather, he was starting to feel it. His dunk in the seas had numbed things up pretty fast. Glancing over at Bauchelain, he saw that the tall necromancer was not even wet. Mages, he concluded, were obnoxious in so many ways it was almost pointless listing them.
Now shivering, he studied the three strangers making their way down the trail.
Hordilo Stinq’s pirating days were behind him now. He liked the feel of solid ground under him, even as that terrible sea still held him close, within reach, stubborn as an ex-wife whose sole reason to breathe was the conviction that she was still owed something by the fool she’d tossed away, and it didn’t matter how many years had passed since he’d last wallowed in her icy arms. The watery witch never let him wander too far from her thrashing shores. These days, it was nothing to step outside to begin his daily patrol, and feel on the wind the wet spray of her bitter spite. Aye, an ex-wife, spitting like a cat and howling like a dog. A hoary, wild thing with venom under her long nails and dead spiders in her hair.