Chapter Eight

Anne Thorinson despised crime of any fashion and felt the criminals, however petty, deserved whatever thumping they earned. The boy she watched in Logan’s market square was no exception, part of the Wolfpack Gang. He was older, about twelve summers, and served as the distraction. Engaged in a loud argument with a fruit vendor, his job was to create a scene and several patrons, rich and poor, had gathered to watch the spectacle.

All eyes were on the boy except hers. Anne scanned the crowd for movement.

“I wasn’t stealing!” the boy screamed. “You’ll be bringin’ const’bles down on me,” his gutter speech accused, “for nutin!”

“I know you!” the vendor accused. “You’ve stolen from me before!”

“I ain’t nevah!” the boy protested, raising a fist.

The man grabbed it straight away, a mistake because the boy created the real distraction by kicking and writhing wildly. His leg caught that of the table, toppling it over and sending a cascade of various fruits into the crowd. On cue, a half dozen street urchins descended, scooping up as much as they could carry in their shirttails before darting down Main Street. When they reached the first intersection they scrambled in all directions and abruptly disappeared.

Nice change to an old trick, the constable nodded, admiring their ingenuity. With eyes locked on the crowd she searched for the real threat.

“Let go of me!” the boy screamed again.

“Constable!” the vendor called over the laughter of the crowd. “Constable! Come quick, I’ve been robbed!”

The boy finally twisted just enough his shirt broke away. Theatrical stitches, Anne realized, as he darted ten steps toward freedom.

He could have kept running but seized upon one final opportunity by turning and offering a hand gesture. “Your mother’s a tavern-turner!” he shouted to the vendor, then sprinted away.

Anne finally spotted her quarry. A skinny girl, about ten years old, deftly snipped a purse from a seemly gentleman watching the ruckus. As quick as her hand moved, the satchel fell into her basket of withering flowers, each offered for a penny. As soon as it landed, she buried it beneath the foliage into what the constable assumed was a hidden compartment.

The girl was close, and Anne was quick. Her hand grabbed the arm holding the basket and struck the space between her shoulder blades with the other. As the child gasped, the constable shoved her to the ground and slipped on shackles before her wind had returned.

“Be easy with that child!” the uppity gentleman warned.

Anne brushed away the flowers and drew forth the man’s purse, tossing it toward his chest. “No need to press charges,” she informed him. “I watched the little demon take it, so my word’s all we need for the magistrate.”

“She’s just a child!” the man argued, staring dumfounded at his purse and feeling the cut leather ties dangling from his belt.

“She’s a criminal,” Anne said, hoisting the girl to her feet and hauling her away, “and criminals deserve punishment.” She half dragged the child to the constabulary station. If she moved fast enough, she could still make it to the Wolf Den and bust the leaders of the gang sorting the stolen fruit.

The stench of the Logan docks putrefied the air, mixing smells that should never combine. Innards and carcasses lay discarded hither and thither along the fishery, and dung from various sources—human included—smoldered in dark corners between every building. Barrels piled high with rotting food and waste sat behind every door, the worst of which rested behind a tavern. The Mangy Dog, the sign on the front door identified it, and the inside reeked worse than the rear.

On its steps sat an old man, himself a blend of piss and rum, rubbing the bit of his leg exposed beneath leather straps. Attached to this bruised and infected stump he awkwardly carried a wooden peg, the best remnant of his sorry life and the only piece of him worth any brass. None of Pete was worthy of copper, silver, or gold.

“Spare a penny for a glass, mate?” he asked a sailor walking by. The man turned his eyes and pretended not to hear.

“You, dearies?” he asked a group of prostitutes who hurried their steps. “Have a penny to spare?” Even the bilge scum of Logan were above this man.

His life had not always been this wretched. He sailed every sea in Andalon, rising to serve as first mate under the finest captain the ocean had produced. That was his proud moment, right before the fall. He wasn’t yet sure the abyss he fell into offered a bottom.

You’re a coward, his mind accused. A coward and a traitor, unworthy of remembering better times.

He felt around for a bottle that wasn’t completely empty. Only a drop would silence his accuser.

Of course, that voice belonged to the hangings-on of what used to be his conscience. Peter Longshanks, once a pious and upright fellow, had slowly shaved off pieces of that morality, replacing it with grief and loss with every decision he ever made.

You never deserved her in your life, his accuser whispered. Like every woman you ever loved or tried to honor, they placed their faith in the wrong man. The sea should have taken you, he lamented, or even a sword.

In the end though, or perhaps the beginning when viewing his life’s spiraling descent, the business end of a musket had literally pushed him over the ledge. He had fled like a coward when faced with mutiny, losing his captain’s ship to another.

Finding no trace of any liquor, he pulled himself up onto a salt bleached crutch. It would snap beneath his weight someday and hopefully land him face first into a puddle. Then he would finally drown like the sorry wretch he was.

“Well now,” a voice said mockingly, “if it ain’t Peg-legged Pete!”

He ambled around to find two sailors watching from the next porch over.

“Tell him no,” Pete said defiantly. “I won’t be bought with none of his pieces of silver.”

“Silver?” the men laughed. “What he wants from you will earn the finest gold from the southern continent.”

“I won’t,” Pete promised, but his stomach rumbled loudly and his head spun as he stared up at the pair. Gold would mean food and a bath, he mused.

But you’d spend the bulk of it on rum, his accuser pointed out.

Hopefully enough to drown me for good, he prayed.

One of the men tossed a small purse at his feet. “Wash up and feed that belly,” the sailor commanded. “You start work tonight.”

Had Pete a shred of dignity left, or even perhaps a bit of self-respect, he would have ambled off and left the money lie. As he bent down to pick it up, he toppled over. The sailors roared with laughter as his yearning for rum and death won out. Peter Longshanks was, after all, a shadow of the man he ever had a chance to be. Tears wet his cheeks as he realized he’d destroyed his body with rum, but sold his soul for gold.

After the sailors had gone, a woman’s voice asked from the shadows, “What’ve you got there, Peter Longshanks?”

Pete scrambled to a sitting position, palming the purse and slipping it under his rags. “Nothing,” he lied.

“Public begging’s a crime, Pete. Haven’t we been over that?”

He drew out his hand, holding the purse where the woman could see. “I wasn’t begging... well, I was, but this is payment for a job. I’ve got a job to do, Constable!”

Anne approached the beggar, kneeling beside him casually. She held out her hand and waited. After a few breaths, Pete placed the purse in her palm. She weighed it with a shake.

“That’s a lot of coin for a man like you, Mr. Longshanks. What is it those men would have you do?”

“I was to get a shower and a meal, they said.”

“And?”

“And I’m to help them find a crew.”

“What kind of crew, Pete?”

He became agitated, heart fluttering and beating fast. He couldn’t lie to this constable, and she would never accept a piece of the purse to look the other way. Above reproach this woman was, and all of Loganshire knew it.

“Fisherman,” he lied.

Anne shook her head sadly. “I recognize those men from their posters, Pete. They’re known pirates and part of Devil Jacque’s crew.” Leaning in closer she whispered, “I hate pirates and won’t be having any of their kind around my docks.”

“I swear!” he lied again. “I didn’t know!” He pointed to the purse. “In that case, take their gold!” He’d bathe in Lake Norton if he had to, and food could be found in time. “I don’t want it, nor do I want anything to do with a man like Devil Jacque.”

“Keep it, Pete,” she said, slapping it into his palm. “But you work for me now.”

“I... I can’t! His crew will kill me if I turn him over!”

Anne smiled slyly and gestured toward their surroundings. Her green eyes and red hair seemed to dance in the sunlight as she asked, “And this? You call this living, Mr. Longshanks?”

His stomach dropped as a tiny part of forgotten conscience made an appearance. “What would you have me do, Constable?”

“Set him up. I want to take him down and burn that cursed ship of his. I’ll send it, him, and his entire crew to the bottom of the lake before allowing a man like him to walk freely in Andalon. Get close and tell me where to find him.”

The purse again felt heavy in his hand and grimy fingers closed around the sum within. He watched the woman leave, never taking his eyes from her back until she disappeared down the street.

You won’t help her though, the accuser in his mind pointed out.

“No. I’m more afraid of him.” For the first time in eighteen years, Peter Longshanks spoke the truth.