Forty-Four The Black Tide Gathers

FORTY-FOUR

The Black Tide Gathers

SAMUEL

T he following day, Benedict was summoned to the fort. Uninvited and taut with nerves, I occupied myself with practical matters, perusing requests from quartermaster, gunner, carpenter, purser, and so forth for resupply while in port. I put the final details into a written report to the Admiralty of all we had seen in Mere and knew of the Black Tides, the Ess Noti, and Faucher's magics. Then I laboriously made two copies, adding them to my personal copies of Maren's notes. One bundle I stowed in my sea-chest and the other I quietly posted to my parents' largely forgotten house east of the Lesterwold. No matter what transpired next, no matter how the powers that be reacted to the revelations, there would be record.

I sent several other letters besides, requesting an update on the Rosser household and reaching out to old friends. I had not done the latter in years and had to swallow a great deal of pride to do so now, but I felt in want of allies, and hoped the truth of Alice Irving's affair with Ben might have begun to soften their opinion of me.

The cabin door slammed open. Ben strode in, throwing his hat onto the floor and pulling at his cravat like a man fighting with a noose. Mary appeared in the doorway behind him, slipped inside, and shut the door cautiously.

"I am barred until an official inquisition," my brother raged. He threw a hand out, the strangled cravat clutched in his fingers. What little control he had left faded with each word until he was screaming. "The fucking Mereish Fleet is coming and they will not give me a ship!"

Magni power billowed out through the room, wave upon wave of hateful, intense magic.

Mary came to stand with me, shoulder to shoulder, as Tane flickered across her skin. "He has been raging at the crew," she whispered.

"What are you saying?" Ben snapped.

Mary flinched, and I glared at him. "Calm yourself."

Ben's rage peaked. "Do not look at me like that! Not the two of you. Do you think I would hurt you? My only allies in this shit-smeared world? The only people who I do not have to bewitch into enduring me?"

"That may be the kindest thing you've said to me," Mary commented.

He glowered at her.

"Ben." I did not approach him. "Your ship was lost with all hands, and only you survived. An inquisition is not uncalled for."

"This is not about the wreck! It's about Alice !" Ben threw the cravat at me, but it only fluttered placidly to the deck. Unsatisfied, he advanced on us, breaths ragged, half a dozen aborted ravings on his lips. He stopped at the warning expression on my face, with visible strain.

"I am disgraced. They will not let me fight. Before the week is out they will be pressing drunken wastrels from the gutters, but they will not have me ."

I felt no pity, which, upon reflection, surprised me. He was experiencing what I had endured for the past four years.

" Hart will not sit in harbor," I said steadily. "And anyone aboard my ship when we engage is required to do their part. Have you been ordered to stay on shore?"

"What? Ordered? No." Ben stared at me for a long moment, then seized his own forehead and pressed his temples so hard his thumbs turned white. "Sam, I earned my rankings. I will not be degraded to fucking privateer."

"Then don't," Mary suggested, her patience clearly at an end. "Find a tavern, get drunk and pity yourself. If we survive, we'll peel you off the floor. And if we die because you were not there to help us? You can always bewitch yourself a few new allies."

Ben jerked out a chair at the table and sat. Every line of him quivered, fraught with tension, then the life drained out of him. He opened his mouth to speak, and my mind raced ahead, hoping for an apology, a confession, gratitude. None came.

"Fine," he said at last. He looked around the cabin, bleary-eyed. "I can stay aboard? Fight with you?"

I nodded.

"Good. I need a drink."

Mary came to stand over Ben. "No, you need company. And if we happen to drink and play dice and pillage the pockets of every fool in Renown, that will be an aside."

Ben looked at her warily. "Where is the highwayman? Is he not your usual accomplice?"

"He'll come too."

Ben seemed to calculate for a moment, then leaned around her to look at me. "Well, are you coming?"

* * *

I had watched Mary and Grant play cards before, but that night, as I watched them win and lose and win again, I realized two things. The first was that they played more than cards—the two of them were working in concert, tactfully fleecing specific targets while the locals, sailors, and petty officers all around were none the wiser. The second was that they communicated through subtleties of movement and phrase that I only started to catch after my second drink, when I lost the will not to openly admire Mary.

I saw their hands lingering on the wood of the table at the same time, and knew without a doubt that Tane was in on their little scheme, whispering cues only ghiseau could hear. It was admirable and deplorable, but for once in my life I could not care. Mary was happy, and I could not help but share that, warmth growing between us. My veins hummed with a pleasant lightness, Ben was relaxed, if subdued at my side, and so far no one seemed to have recognized us.

Illya joined us at some point during the night, depositing a bottle of vaguely red cinnamon liquor on the table and initiating a drinking game that, while absolutely nonsensical, succeeded in getting half the tavern roiling with laughter. After that he had command of the establishment, and, somewhere between my second and third knuckle of the liquor, the tables were pushed back and dancing began. Someone produced a fiddle, someone else a drum.

I sat deeper into my chair, side-by-side with Ben, and watched as five women—three sailors and two locals, one of whom passed off her baby as she rose—took to the empty space and began a southern Aeadine dance, with plenty of heel-swinging, skirt-tossing, and coordinated shouts. After a moment two more women joined them, the cheers of the tavern-goers grew and, attracted by the sounds, more people crowded in from the street.

"It's the Shepherdess!" Mary shouted, too loud in my ear. She shoved her drink into my hand and tugged her skirts up through her belt, grinning at me. "I know this one!"

All I could do was laugh—truly laugh, deep and relieved and freeing—as she launched into the fray. The other women greeted her with whoops and laughter and reaching hands, the fiddle flew, and the steps of the dance became even more rapid.

"How profoundly rural," Ben commented. When I did not reply, he tipped his head to the side to consider me. "You look like an imbecile."

I met his gaze, fully aware of the wideness of my grin. Thoughts and worries crowded the back of my mind as they always did, and the Dark Water lingered in the edges of my vision. But I had no headache, and, between the drink and the music, I could ignore the wider world.

For now.

"Now that you cannot be healed, what will you do with her?" Ben asked.

That made my grin falter. The women's dance ended with a roar of laughter and cheers. The dancers sagged, breathless, Mary in their midst with her fraying braid flung over her shoulder. Then the music struck up again, and the women reorganized into a new dance. Mary did not seem to know this one as well, but that did not dissuade her, and the others swept her along.

"I haven't the faintest idea," I replied to Ben.

"What does she want?" he prompted.

I sipped at Mary's drink instead of replying.

"How long do you think you have? Before the Other takes you?"

His questions were starting to grate, and my peace to fray. The Dark Water swelled, leaving the corners of my vision and broadening to veil the room. Mary's form became a whirl of teal and grey, reflecting off the obsidian waves around my ankles. The moody red pulse of Ben's magic washed over half my face.

"I would give myself a year," I replied. The words came with a surprising lack of emotion—it was a thing I simply knew now, even if I had not examined the knowledge beforehand. I blinked the Dark Water back to the edges of my vision. "This matter with Hae has shortened my time significantly."

Ben stared at me, as inscrutable as always.

I emptied the glass. Cinnamon burned up into my nose and tugged me fully back into the human world.

"I would have done it. The… healing."

It took me a remarkable length of time to realize Ben had truly spoken those words. I turned to find him watching Mary dance, and I saw not sadness in his eyes, not truly, but something close to it.

"You are sure?" I asked, the secret of what Mary and I intended to do rattling about in my skull.

"Yes," he replied. "After the Mereish Fleet was turned back. We will both need our powers at their fullest until then. I understand that, short of a miracle, my career is over. My life as it is, is over. I must change too."

I could not contest that. In fact, I could hardly speak. I wanted to blame the alcohol in my veins for the sudden rush of emotion and the hot, damp blur in my eyes. How could Ben be speaking like this? Was he lying? Did he suspect I was hiding the cure from him and intended to use it whether he agreed or not?

The temptation to tell him was strong. Fortunately, Ben looked away as the song ended and more dancers flooded the floor, the women partnering up with one another and random men.

Mary glanced at us, mouth open, perhaps to call for me to join. But when she saw the seriousness of our expressions, a little of the mirth faded from her eyes.

A stranger stepped up and offered his hand. Mary curtsied and joined the dance with him.

I felt a shadow touch my brow. "Does she know that man?"

Grant sank down in the chair on my other side, flushed and holding his hat in his lap, brimming with coins and cheap jewelry. "No idea," he said absently, putting his feet up on another empty chair and beginning to sort through his winnings, tucking them into his pockets. "But no need to get ruffled, he looks a decent fellow."

I watched Mary and her partner swirl around the floor in yet another rural dance. His hand was easy on her waist, hers across his shoulders, and they executed the steps with a fluidity and unity that told me they had both known this dance since childhood.

I felt a flush of possessiveness, brief and visceral. Then I recalled the way Mary had looked at me only moments before and extinguished the feeling with a long, steadying breath.

"Thank you for being willing," I said to Ben, my eyes still on Mary. "Truly."

Ben waved the words away. He looked less than pleased at Mary's choice of partner. "Are you going to do something about that?"

"No." I smirked. "I am grateful you have found a place in… well not your heart, but that you have some acceptance of Mary."

"You care for her," Ben scoffed, his countenance one of droll incredulity. "Therefore, she is you, and you are my blood. Besides, she is useful. So are you going to dance with her, or let that bumpkin grope her all night?"

"There is no groping," I calmed him. "Have another drink."

When the song ended Mary brought her dancing companion over, and introductions were made. One August Wade, a soldier stationed at the fort, took in Ben's and my nearly identical faces with a predictable degree of startlement, then gave me a salute. His smile was a genuine thing, full-cheeked and boyish, though he could not have been much younger than me.

"Captains Rosser, yours is a name I've heard many a time," he said to the pair of us, revealing the same accent as Mary's in a deeper, masculine rumble. "For good and ill, I'll admit, but I'll not judge a man 'til I've laid eyes on him, and you both seem a fine sort."

"We do?" Ben asked sardonically, and I resisted the urge to kick him.

"They can be," Mary hedged, glancing at me with a depth of pride that made my heart swell. "August is from the Wold too, from Round-the-hill."

"Is that the name of a town?" Ben smirked.

"Nay, not a town." August laughed, grinning in a way that said he both saw Ben's scorn and had borne it before. He glanced at Mary. "A hamlet?"

"A hut, a mill, and some cows." She shrugged.

"There about," August agreed. "Now, I promised the next dance to a friend. If you'll excuse me? Innkeep's daughter, was a pleasure to see you again."

"Cowherd's boy," she returned, touching the brim of a nonexistent hat.

As if on cue, another woman edged from the crowd, plump and pretty and wearing her soldier's uniform with the collar unbuttoned and cravat undone. She swept us an acknowledging look, offered Mary a small, peaceable smile, and held out her hand to August. Together, they moved off.

Another song began, this one with Illya in the middle of the fray.

"So you do know him?" I clarified.

"We met once or twice." Mary situated herself in my lap, smiled at my startlement, and took her drink back.

I recovered enough to slip my arms around her waist, breathing in her scent of sea and lavender and fresh, sweet sweat. Ben sat beside us, drinking restfully, as the tavern burst with music and dance and raucous singing.

Conversation became impossible, but I did not care. I ignored the voice at the back of my mind, the one that sounded much like my uncle, encouraging decorum. I resisted memories of another tavern, another night, and the disagreement that had divided us for so long and still whispered cautions.

Instead, I rested my head on Mary's chest as she draped her arms around my neck and kissed my temple. We were hardly the only couple in the tavern in such a state.

"Sir." I twisted to look in the direction of the speaker and saw a middle-aged man, leaning through the crowd towards me. He looked like a landsman, with a long coat and tall boots, better for trudging across snowy countryside than working aboard ship. His skin was weatherworn and his body wiry, with the hint of a paunch. His expression was friendly, but there was an odd eagerness in his eyes that made my arms stiffen around Mary.

Mary turned, following my gaze, and Ben looked up from his drink.

"Sirs," the man corrected himself, smiling nervously and tugging off his cap. "You may not remember me, beyond some twenty years ago it were, last we met. My name is Pitten, Mr. Jeremy Pitten, and I was a friend of your mum, Saint keep the kind lady's soul."

Memory rushed at me like a rogue wave. I remembered this man, younger, holding his cap the same way as he did now, in the entryway of Rosser House as Black Tide elders greeted my mother. He had smiled at Ben and I, lingering in the door of the study with chalk on our fingers from our lessons. Our governess had called us back, but not before I had seen my mother lead this man, and those elders, into the sitting room and close the door.

Mary stood sharply, inserting herself between Pitten and I in the cramped space. I stood just a breath behind her and, dimly, was aware of Ben stepping around to flank the man.

Pitten forced another smile. The jolly, rapid music and the laughter and chatter of the patrons took on an ominous quality now, unsettling and discordant with the deadly drum of my blood.

"I—Ah—I came to give you this, is all." Pitten held out a letter with one hand, leaning around Mary to try and give it directly to me.

Mary snatched it. "Leave. Now."

"Of course, of course," Pitten said, taking as much of a step back as he could in the press, wringing his worn cap in his hands.

Ben materialized behind the man, separated by only a handful of raucous tavern-goers. For once, the murder in his eyes was reflected in my own.

Pitten retreated another step, then seemed beset by impulse. "You and your brother are Black Tide Sons, Mr. Rosser." His gaze flitted about for Ben, not realizing he was behind him. "And this is a sacred time. You should join us to pay respect to the Midden Ghist. Your mother would have wanted it so."

The Midden Ghist. The creature who inhabited the abandoned chapel in the forest, the only ghisting in the Lesterwold.

Mary, crushing the unopened letter in one hand, advanced. "Leave before I lose my temper and do something I will regret."

Pitten turned twitchily, nervous to take his eyes off my face, and froze at the sight of Ben watching him over the heads of the crowd.

Mary added, "Or he does something he will not."