Assassin’s Fate

Per won the game and Clef stood up from the table. He looked weary and sad and much older than he had when we first had come aboard. He looked around at the faces and then lifted his mug of fresh water. ‘Shipmates to the end,’ he said, and the others nodded and drank with him. It was a strange toast that fanned my guilt to white-hot coals. ‘I’m taking the anchor watch,’ he announced, and I knew it was not his usual duty. I suspected he would spend it near the figurehead. The spy in me wondered if I could manage to witness whatever words they traded. When Per proposed another game, I shook my head. ‘I need to walk a bit after that meal,’ I told him, and left him to tidy our game away.

I leaned on the railing and watched the pirate town as the summer night descended. The sky darkened from azure to the blue that precedes black, and still Amber and the others did not return. Per joined me on the deck to watch the lights of Divvytown come out. It was a lively place; music carried to us across the water, and the angry shouts of a street fight came later.

‘They’ll probably stay the night in the town,’ I told Per, and he nodded as if he did not care or worry.

We retired to Amber’s cabin. ‘Do you miss Withywoods?’ he asked me abruptly.

‘I don’t think of it much,’ I told him. But I did. Not so much the house as the people and the life that had been there. Such a life, and for too few years.

‘I do,’ Per said quietly. ‘Sometimes. I miss being so sure of what my life would be. I was going to grow taller than my father and be Tallestman, and step up to his job in the stables when he got old.’

‘That might still be,’ I said, but he shook his head. For a time, he was quiet. Then he told me a long, wandering tale about the first time he’d had to groom a horse much taller than he could reach. I noted that he could now speak of his father without weeping. When he fell silent, I stared out of the window at the stars over the town. I dozed off for a time. When I woke, the cabin was dark save for a smudge of light from an almost full moon. Per was sound asleep and I was perfectly awake. With no real idea of what had wakened me, I found the boots I had kicked off, donned them and left the cabin.

On the deck, the moon and the still burning lights of Divvytown made the night a place of deep greys. I heard voices and walked softly toward the bow.

‘You’re dragging anchor.’ Clef made his accusation factually.

‘The tide is running and the bottom is soft. It’s scarcely my fault that the anchor isn’t holding.’ Paragon sounded as petulant as a boy.

‘I’m going to have to roust every crew member I still have aboard to hold you in place, lift anchor and drop it again.’

‘Perhaps not. It feels to me as if it’s holding now. Perhaps it was just a bit of slippage.’

I stood still, breathing softly. I looked at the town and tried to decide if the ship had moved. I couldn’t decide. When I looked at Vivacia, I became certain that he had. The distance between the two liveships had closed.

‘Oh, dear. Slipping again.’ The liveship’s words were apologetic but his tone was merry. We edged closer to Vivacia. She seemed unaware of us, her head drooped forward. Was she asleep? Would a ship made of wizardwood need to sleep?

‘Paragon!’ Clef warned him.

‘Slipping again,’ the ship announced, and our progress toward the other liveship was now unmistakable.

‘All hands!’ Clef roared abruptly. His whistle pierced the peaceful night. ‘All hands on deck!’

I heard shouts and the thudding of feet hitting the floor below decks and then Paragon saying, ‘Vivacia! I’m dragging anchor. Catch hold of me!’ Vivacia jerked to awareness, her head coming up and her eyes flashing wide. Paragon held out his arms to her in a plea and, after a moment, she reached toward him.

‘Mind my bowsprit!’ she cried, and narrowly they avoided that disaster. Paragon caught one of her hands and with an impressive display of strength pulled himself close to her. It set both ships rocking wildly and I heard cries of alarm from Vivacia’s crew. In a moment, Paragon embraced her with one arm despite her efforts to fend him off.

‘Be still!’ he warned her, ‘or you will tangle us hopelessly. I want to speak to you. And I want to touch you while I do so.’

‘Fend him off!’ she shouted to her crew who came running as she pushed futilely against his carved chest. Clef was shouting commands to his crew and someone was angrily cursing at him from Vivacia’s deck, demanding to know what sort of an idiot he was. Clef tried to shout an explanation while barking orders at his crew.