“What is that smell?” Jonnen asked, screwing up his little face.
Up at the head of the line, Sidonius pressed a finger to his nose and blew a stream of snot from each nostril.
“Sewage.”
“And fish,” Bladesinger nodded.
“TIMBER,” said Tric. “TAR. LEATHER AND SPICES. SWEAT AND SHIT AND BLOOD.”
“Quite a nose you’ve got there,” Sidonius smiled.
Ashlinn met the deadboy’s glance, saying nothing.
“We’re here.” Butcher stretched in his saddle and yawned. “It’s Amai. You can smell it from miles away. There’s a reason they call this city the Arsehole of Liis.”
They’d been riding for almost two weeks, miserable and dripping the whole damn way. The Lady of Storms had calmed her temper after a turn or so, softened her howling tempest into a depressing, relentless drizzle that soaked everyone to the skin. It was as if the goddess were saving her strength, coiled and ready like a waiting serpent for the moment Mia took to the ocean again. But it made the ride easier at least.
They had no more trouble on the road—the citizens they passed stepped well out of the way of Centurion Sidonius and his tiny cohort, and the few soldiers they met simply gave bored salutes and marched on. Each nevernight they’d bed down in whatever shelter they could find, or huddle together in the lee of the wagon. Tric would prowl about on guard and Butcher would run Jonnen through his paces with the blade (the boy’s form was actually quite good, and he was a frighteningly swift learner) and Mia would pace back and forth inside her head. Thinking of Bryn and ’Waker, of Mercurio and Adonai and Marielle, of that bitch Drusilla and that bastard Scaeva and all they’d taken away.
Soon, she promised herself.
Soon.
But first, there was an ocean between them to conquer.
“You said you grew up in Amai?” Mia asked Butcher, shifting her numb arse on the driver’s seat. Jonnen was holding the reins, watching the road studiously.
“Aye,” the man nodded. “Shipped out when I was fourteen.”
“Shipped out?” Bladesinger asked. “I thought you hated ships.”
“I do. But you grow up in a place like this, you’ve not got much choice. Fuck working in some pub or market stall. Right in the earhole.”
Ashlinn frowned. “Were you a fisherman, or…?”
“Fisherman?” Butcher scoffed. “I ought to box your bloody ears, girl. Could a fisherman slay Caelinus the Longshanks in single combat in front of twenty thousand people? Or gut Marcinio of the Werewood like a fish?”
“Aye,” Sid said. “A fisherman could probably gut a man like a fish, Butcher.”
“I was a pirate, you fucking cunts,” the Liisian blustered.
“But…” Mia frowned. “You were seasick, Butcher. You spewed your guts out the entire way from Whitekeep to Galante.”
“Well, I was a shitty pirate, wasn’t I?” the man cried. “How d’you think I ended up a damned slave?”
“O…,” Mia nodded. “That … makes a surprising amount of sense, actually.”
“Point is I grew up here,” Butcher scowled. “I know this city like I know women.”
Ash raised her hand—
“Don’t,” Mia hissed.
“Right,” Sid said. “So what can we expect from the Arsehole of Liis? And they should really think of a better name for it, by the by.”
“It’s about as dangerous a pit of murderers, rapists, and thieves as you’re ever likely to come across,” Butcher said. “If you’re not salted, you’d best watch your damned step. Life is cheaper than a ha’-copper sweetboy here.”
“Salted?” Ash asked.
“Aye, crewed,” Butcher nodded. “On a ship, like. If you’re part of a crew, you’re salted. If not, you’re dryland scum. Pirates follow a code, see. The Six Laws of the Salt. First one’s Fraternity. Let’s see…” The man’s munted face creased in thought as he tried to remember. “‘Spite him, curse him, kill him, but know he the taste of salt, your brother shall he be.’ In other words, you might hate another pirate’s guts, but in harbor, you both stand head and shoulders above the freshwater plebs.”
“What if it’s a woman?”’Singer asked.
Butcher blinked. “Eh?”
“If the pirate is a woman. How can a woman be your brother?”
“I don’t fucking know,” Butcher growled. “I didn’t write the bloody things.”
“How can they tell who’s salted and who’s not?” Sidonius asked.
“Some get inked,” Butcher shrugged. “Or scarred. Others will wear a token of their ship while in harbor. The worst are just known by reputation.”
“All right,” Mia nodded. “What are the other rules?”
Butcher scratched his small black cockscomb of hair. “Well, there’s one called Dominion. Basically what a captain says on the deck of their own ship is the word of god. And another called Allegiance, which is about chain of command. Crew follow the first mate, mate follows the captain, captain follows the king.” The Liisian pouted in thought. “I always forget the name of the fourth one. Heritage or Heresy somesuch…”
“Still can’t believe pirates have bloody kings,” Sid muttered.
“Believe it,” Butcher nodded. “And pray to the Everseeing and his Four fucking Daughters you never meet this bastard. Born of a jackal, they say. Drinks the blood of his enemies from a cup carved from his father’s skull.”
“Did his father die having sex with the jackal, or afterward?” Mia asked.
“Must’ve been quite a revel…” Ashlinn smiled.
“Scoff now, Crow,” the Liisian said. “But the Butcher of Amai fears no man of woman born. And Einar Valdyr makes me want to mess my fucking pantaloons.”
“Since when did you start referring to yourself in third person?” she asked. “Or wearing pantaloons, for that matter?”
“O, fuck off.”*
“Einar Valdyr sank the Dauntless,” Jonnen said softly. “And the Godstruth three months after that. The Daughter’s Fire the following summersdeep.”
Mia looked at her brother, eyebrow raised.
“I studied infamous enemies of the Itreyan Republic last year,” he explained. “I’ve a memory—”
“—sharp as swords,” Mia finished, smiling. “Aye, I know.”
Bladesinger sighed. “Well, Mother Trelene willing, Corleone is waiting for us at harbor. We just keep our heads down, find this pub of his, and ponder our next move.”
“With a bellyful of wine,” Sidonius said. “By a roaring fireplace.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Ashlinn nodded.
“Aye,” Butcher said. “The Mother of Night and all her cursed dead couldn’t hold me back.”
Mia looked to the silent Dweymeri boy, plodding along beside the road.
Tric didn’t even flinch.
The smell was breathtaking.
Mia couldn’t describe it as a stench as such, although a stench was certainly wrapped up in the aroma somewhere. The cityport of Amai was crusted on the shores of the Sea of Sorrows like scabs on a pitfighter’s knuckles. The stink of dead fish, abattoirs, and horseshit hung in the air above it, strung with notes of the ocean beyond.
But beneath the stench were other aromas. The perfume of a thousand spices: lemonmere and frankincense and black lotus.* The toast-warm scent of fresh tarts and sugardoughs. Sizzling meats, sweet treats frying in olive oil, the tang of fresh fruits and ripe berries. Because crewed by murderous privateers they may’ve been, but each ship in Amai’s harbor had arrived with something to sell. And beyond a haven for bastards and brutes and brigands, Mia realized the city was something else besides.
A marketplace.
They’d taken off their soldier’s livery—Butcher advised that entering the city wearing colors of the Itreyan Republic was just asking for trouble. Besides, Sidonius’s suit of gravebone armor was worth a living fortune and would be sure to attract attentions in a city of thieves. They kept on their chain mail and swords and hid the rest in the wagon, though Mia still wore her gravebone longblade sheathed at her waist.
The city was walled, but the broad, iron-shod gates were flung open and unmanned—it seemed King Valdyr could find few fucks to give for who came and went. Making their way into the city proper, Mia was struck by the crowds. Folk of all colors and shapes and sizes: tall and swarthy Dweymeri; pale, dark-haired Itreyans; blond-haired, blue-eyed Vaanians; and everywhere, everywhere, olive-skinned Liisians with their dark curls and musical voices.
“This is our mother’s country,” she told Jonnen. “You don’t speak Liisian, do you?”
“No,” the boy replied, looking around at the swell and the crush.
“Listen to it,” she smiled, breathing deep. “It’s like poetry.”
He looked up at her then, his dark eyes clouded.
“Teach me a word, then.”
Mia met his stare. “De’lai.”
“De’lai,” he repeated.
“That’s it,” Mia nodded. “Very good.”
“What does it mean?”
“Sister,” she smiled.
The boy turned his eyes back to the crowded streets, keeping his thoughts to himself as the wagon rolled on. Tric walked out front, the crowd instinctively parting before him as he cut them a path along the rain-soaked thoroughfare. Mia looked about them, watchful and on edge. She began to notice patterns among the throng, obvious among the colors and threads once you looked for it. Men with white kerchiefs embroidered with death’s heads about their arms. Another group with mermaids inked at their throats, yet another with triangular scars etched into their cheeks. Like heraldry, or a familia’s sigil. The men carried themselves as comrades would, all armed, all looking somewhere on the wrong side of dangerous.
“Salted,” she murmured.
“Aye,” Butcher nodded beside her. “Rulers of the roost. The ones in wolfskins are Valdyr’s boys. Wulfguard. He has men all over the city.”
Mia noted the group Butcher was talking about—a quartet of tall and surly-looking bucks, each with a skinned wolf across his shoulders. But though the privateers in the mobs carried themselves with swagger, there was precious little trouble for a city so allegedly rife with bastardry. A few fistfights. Some vomit and blood on the cobbles. Mia began to wonder if Butcher had overstated the case—she loved the ugly sod, but he wasn’t a man to let the truth get in the way of a good yarn. Aside from having to scare off a pack of grubby urchins loitering around the wagon (Ash flashed a knife and promised to geld the first one to get too close) and a fellow flying out a second-story window as they passed, there was an almost disappointing lack of drama. Mia and her comrades soon found themselves looking down on the glittering jewel that was Amai’s harbor.
Even though the Lady of Storms had drawn her veil across heaven, it was still a breathtaking sight. Ships of every cut and kind: square-rigged caravels and three-masted carracks, mighty galleys with hundreds of oars at their flanks and deadly balingers that ran under power of both oar and wind. Figureheads carved in the likeness of drakes or lions or maids with fishes’ tails, sails stitched with crossed bones or grinning skulls or hangman’s nooses.
Mia’s eyes caught on the largest vessel at dock—one of the biggest she’d ever seen, truth told. It was a massive warship, at least a hundred and fifty feet long, with four towering masts reaching into the skies. She was painted the color of truedark, bow to stern, her name daubed down her prow in ornate white script.
Black Banshee.
“What are those?” Bladesinger asked.
The woman was pointing to two tall spires of stone, looming above the shoreline. Each was seventy feet high, pale limestone, covered in vast tangles of razorvine.
“Those are Thorn Towers,” Ashlinn murmured. “They’re scattered all over Liis. It’s where the Magus Kings used to break their slaves. Torture their prisoners.”
Butcher raised an eyebrow. “How’d you know that?”
“My father got sent on an offering in Elai.” Ash’s voice was low, her eyes narrowed as she looked at the spires. “He made the kill but got caught on the way out. The Leper Priests tortured him in towers just like those for three weeks. Ripped his eye out. Cut his bollocks off.”
Butcher and Sidonius shifted uncomfortably in their saddles. Mia reached back and took Ashlinn’s hand, saw the haunted look in her girl’s eyes.
“He died there?” Bladesinger asked softly.
Ash shook her head. “He escaped. His body, anyway. But part of him stayed in there the rest of his life. It’s what drove him away from the Red Church.”
“I’m sorry,”’Singer said. “Must have been hard to see that.”
“… It wasn’t easy.”
Mia squeezed Ash’s hand, entwined their fingers together. Glancing at Tric, she saw the boy watching them, his face like stone. Torvar Järnheim had raised his son and daughter as weapons to be used against the Ministry. Ashlinn’s and her brother’s betrayal had almost brought the Red Church to its knees. And it had cost Tric his life.
Torvar was dead now—murdered at the hands of Church assassins. Mia could see faint pain in Ashlinn’s eyes as she looked down on those towers, that dark reflection of the place her father lost himself inside. Uncomfortable silence settled on the scene. But Butcher soon put paid to it, sitting taller in his saddle and squinting at the docks below.
“I can’t see the Bloody Maid,” he murmured.
“Nor I,” Sidonius said.
Mia felt an unfamiliar thrill of fear in her belly then, stamping it down with gritted teeth and trying not to think about the cat-shaped hole in her chest. She knew Cloud should’ve been here by now—if they’d had time to ride all the way from Galante, he’d surely have had time to sail here. But looking among the ships at berth, she saw Corleone’s red-sailed beauty was nowhere in sight.
“They might be at anchor farther out in the bay,” she offered. “Those berths look plenty full.”
“Aye,” Bladesinger said. “Let’s just cleave to the plan. Where was Cloud supposed to meet us?”
“He just said he’d see us at the pub,” Mia said.
Sid cast his eye over the docks below. “I don’t mean to be difficult, but did the fancy bastard narrow it down at all? Because I can spy about twenty of them.”
Butcher grinned and shook his head. “Follow me, gentlefriends.”
Mia glanced at Tric again, but the boy was looking out at the storm-washed seas. So, giving Ash’s hand one last squeeze, met with a small but grateful smile, she turned toward the harbor. Butcher led the way down to the crowded docks, the stench of old fish and new sewage mercifully thinning as the nevernight winds began blowing in off the bay. Wandering along a winding trail of inkdens, pleasure houses, and drinking holes. Shrines to Lady Trelene and Nalipse, tithed with cups of blood and animal parts and old rusted coins. Blind beggars and drunken louts and streetwalkers. And finally, they arrived at a large and somewhat well-to-do establishment on the edge of the water.
The sign hanging over the door simply read THE PUB.*
“I like it,” Mia declared.
After a short tip from Sid, a stableboy took charge of their horses. The seven road-weary companions doffed imaginary hats to the bouncers and found themselves in the common room of a bustling, hustling taverna. The bar was wide and broad, stocked with a thousand bottles and echoing with a thousand tales. The walls were scribed with the strokes of a thousand hands—written in ink and charcoal and lead; declarations and drivel and poems and all between:
My love I left, my heart I left, with my promise to return.
Pilinius has a pizzle like a barnacle.
Which of you bastards took my beer?
Yes
YES
The tiger is out
“Find a table,” Butcher said. “First round’s on me.”
“Most generous of you, Butcher,” Mia smiled.
“Aye, aye,” the Liisian nodded. “Listen, can I borrow some coin? I’m good for it.”
Mia sighed and handed over a few beggars from her stash. Tric made his way through the throng with the group following, and just like the folks in the streets outside, the crowded commons parted before him. They found a booth on the dockside of the room, still scattered with empty mugs and small puddles that smelled suspiciously like piss, but they were so weary and cold, it mattered little. They were close to the fire and in from the rain, and after two weeks in the saddle, that was miracle enough.
They huddled into the booth, Jonnen sandwiched between them. Tric fetched a stool from the crowded bar and sat at the other end of their round table so he could better keep an eye on the room. The pub was a tangle of friendly conversations and heated debates, of drunken rebuffs and accepted advances, of tall tales and deadly truths. A trio of minstrels were sat in a corner near the fire, strumming a lyre and beating a drum and singing the bawdiest tune Mia had ever heard.*
Butcher soon returned with a tray loaded with pints of ale, slapping one down in front of each of them, including Jonnen.
“What should we drink to?” Bladesinger asked.
“The Lady of Storms?” Sidonius offered. “Perhaps she’ll ease off a bit.”
Butcher raised his drink. “A man may kiss his wife goodbye. The wine may kiss the frosted glass. The rose may kiss the butterfly, but you, my friends, can kiss my arse.”
“How about to friends absent?” Mia said, raising her tankard.
“Aye,” Ashlinn nodded. “Friends absent.”
“TO LIVE IN THE HEARTS WE LEAVE BEHIND IS TO NEVER DIE,” Tric said softly.
Mia met the boy’s eyes and murmured agreement. Ash gave a grudging nod. The group hoisted their mugs and took a quaff, all save Jonnen (who eyed the drink with appropriate suspicion) and Tric (who didn’t look at his drink at all).
“So where the fuck is Corleone?” Sid asked, wiping his lips.
“Is my face red?” Butcher demanded.
“Not particularly,” Sid replied.
“Well, I s’pose he’s not up my arse, then.”
“Let’s not venture too far into the realm of what’s been up your arse, Butcher,” Mia said.
“Speaking of, your ma says hello,” the man grinned.
“Oi,” Mia warned, eyebrow raised. “Leave my mother out of this.”
“That’s just what your da said,” the Liisian chuckled.
Mia couldn’t help but guffaw, raising the knuckles into the man’s face. He slapped her hand away, raised his mug again. “Cheers, you beautiful bitch.”
Mia blew the man a kiss, took another swallow.
“You all have filthy mouths,” Jonnen muttered.
The group drank in silence, content to listen to the pub’s hubbub and the song of the minstrels in the corner. By the time they’d reached the seventh verse* their glasses were empty. Ashlinn looked about the table wordlessly, eyebrow raised in question. And met with no dissent, she set off in search of another round.
“First time I got drunk,” Sidonius ventured, “I got so sloppy I vomited on myself.”
“I fell into the ocean and almost drowned,” said Bladesinger.
“I got married,” Butcher said.
“You win,” Mia nodded, lighting a cigarillo.
Jonnen pushed his ale away with both hands.
“Good lad,” Mia smiled, kissing the top of her brother’s head.
“I need a bath,” Bladesinger said. “And a bed.”
“Aye, we should get some lodgings here,” Sid said. “With good fortune, Corleone’s just been delayed a turn or two.”
“And with ill fortune?” Butcher asked.
Sid had no answer for that, nor Mia either. She puffed away on her cigarillo, felt the kiss of cloves on her tongue, wondering what they’d do if Corleone failed to arrive. They had coin, but not enough to book passage for seven. They’d still no answer to the problem of the Ladies of Storms and Oceans. And looking around The Pub’s innards, Mia couldn’t see many folk she’d trust the way she trusted the captain of the Bloody Maid. Now she was settled in, she could feel what Butcher spoke of, catch a glimpse of it in a silvered smile or at a knife’s edge or in the bruises at the corners of a serving lass’s mouth. An undercurrent of violence. A streak of cruelty in this city’s bones.
Tric stood slowly, pulling his hood low, hiding those black hands in his sleeves.
“I’LL WALK THE JETTIES, SPEAK TO THE HARBORMASTER,” he said. “PERHAPS THERE’S SOME WORD OF THE MAID AND ITS DELAY.”
“Don’t you want to rest?” Mia asked. “Warm yourself by the fire a spell?”
“ONLY ONE THING IN THIS WORLD CAN WARM ME, MIA,” he replied. “AND IT’S NOT A HEARTH IN A DOCKSIDE COMMON ROOM. I’LL RETURN.”
She watched him leave, sensed the Falcons around her exchanging glances. Remembering the feel of his heartbeat under her palm. Bladesinger headed off in search of the innkeep to arrange lodgings, Butcher and Sid nursed their empty glasses. Mia smoked in silence, watching the room around her. It seemed a mix of regular citizens and salted, the pirates in their colors mixing with crew of other ships, gambling and carousing, occasionally joining in with the bawdier verses of “The Hunter’s Horn.” There seemed to be a birthturn revel or some other celebration up on the mezzanine. Mia heard breaking crockery and howls of laughter and …
“Get your fucking hands off me!”
Ashlinn’s voice.
“Watch Jonnen,” she told Sid, rising from her chair.
“What’s—”
“Watch him.”
Mia stalked into the crowd, pushing through the crush until she found herself in a semicircle of folk that’d formed around the bar. Ashlinn was in the middle of it, a spilled tray and empty tankards and puddles of ale about her feet. Three young men were stood in front of her, all leering grins and yellowed teeth. They wore greatcoats and leather caps and lengths of rope tied in nooses around their necks.
Salted, for certain.
Ash had her fists clenched, fury scrawled on her face as she addressed the tallest of the group—a fellow barely out of his teens with lank red hair and a monocle propped on his eye in an attempt to look lordly.
“You put your hand on me again, whoreson,” she spat, “you’ll be learning to toss with a stump.”
The lad chuckled. “That’s not very nice, poppet. We’re just having a play.”
“Go play with yourself, wanker.”
Mia walked out into the ring of amused onlookers, took Ash’s hand. Drawing attentions was in no one’s interest here. “Come on, let’s go.”
“O, and who’s this? Haven’t seen you about before?” Monocle turned his stare to the twin circles branded on her cheek. “What’s your name, slave?”
“Ash, let’s go,” Mia said, leading her away.
The two other thugs moved to cut off their escape. The crowd closed in a little tighter, obviously enjoying the sport. Mia felt a slow spark of anger in her chest, drowning out her fear. Trying to reel it in before it burst into flame. Without Mister Kindly in her shadow, she had the option to be cautious here. To let her fear have its sway. She knew starting a ruckus wouldn’t end well.
Hold your temper.
“I asked you your name, girl,” Monocle said.
“We seek no quarrel with you, Mi Don,” Mia said, turning to face him.
“Well, you’ve found it all the same.” The lad stepped up to her, glowering. “The crew of the Hangman aren’t the kind to brook insult from freshwater tarts, eh, lads?”
The two behind folded their arms and murmured agreement.
Hold. Your. Temper.
“Unless … you can think of a way to make amends?”
A smile curled the corner of Monocle’s mouth.
Hold.
Your …
And reaching down slow, he placed his hand on Mia’s breast.
… All right, fuck it, then.
Her knee collided with his groin the way falling comets kiss the earth. A flock of gulls burst from a nearby cathedral spire and took to the sky, shrieking, and every male within a four-block radius shifted in his seat. Mia grabbed the lad by the noose and slammed his face into the edge of the bar. There was a sickening wet crunch, a horrified gasp from the onlookers, and the lad collapsed, lips mashed to mince, the splintered remains of four teeth still embedded in the wood.
One of the thugs reached for Mia, but Ashlinn punched him square in the throat, sending him reeling backward, wide-eyed and gagging. She fell atop him, snatched up one of the fallen tankards, and started pounding it into his face. The second reached for the nearest weapon that came to hand—a wine bottle, which he smashed upon the edge of the bar to craft what was colloquially known as a “Liisian jester.”* But as he stepped up, Mia curled her fingers, and his shadow dug into the soles of his boots.
The lad stumbled, falling forward, and Mia helped his descent by grabbing both his ears and bringing his face down into her knee. Another ghastly crunch rang out as the boy’s nose popped across his cheek like a burst blood sausage. Mia put a boot to his ribs for good measure, rewarded with a lovely fresh crack.
Ash finished up her tankard work. She turned to look at Mia, chest heaving, a savage grin on her face. Mia licked her lip, tasted blood, dragging her eyes away from the girl to the crowd around them. She pointed to her breasts with bloody hands.
“No touching save by request.”
One of the scullery maids burst into applause. Folk in the crowd looked at each other, shrugging assent. The band picked up their tune and everyone turned back to their drinks. Mia grabbed Ash’s hand, pulled her up off the fallen privateer. Ash pressed close, still a little out of breath, looking from Mia’s eyes to her lips.
“I’d like to make a request for touching, please.”
Mia smacked Ash’s arse and grinned, and Bladesinger pushed her way through the mob. Sidonius and Butcher soon found them, holding Jonnen’s hands. They stood together in the crowded common room, speaking in hushed voices.
“Think we’ve attracted enough notice for one nevernight,” Sid growled.
“Should we go elsewhere?” Ash asked. “Avoid undue attentions?”
“Aye,” Butcher said. “You don’t fuck with the salted in this city. We should head to another inn, far from this one as we can get and still be in Amai.”
“Corleone was supposed to meet us here,” Sid pointed out.
“We can leave word for Tric with the doorman,” Mia said. “It’s not like he sleeps anyways. He can wait here and watch for when Cloud arrives.”
“If he fucking arrives,” Butcher growled.
Mia looked at the crowd around them, caught a few sideway glances. Adrenaline was running through her veins after the brawl, her heart beating quick. Mister Kindly’s absence left her empty, and Eclipse was still riding Jonnen, so she was left with her fear. Fear of reprisals. Fear for what could happen if Corleone left them hanging. Fear for Mercurio, for Ash, her brother, herself.
She looked at the bloodstains on her hands. Realized they were shaking.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said.