Chapter Nine

“Don’t look now, Cap’n,” said Sam, “but we got the welcome committee.”

The palace doors swung wide. A tall figure in full military uniform, accompanied by a retinue of a dozen armed guards, clipped down the palace steps and strode toward them, his boots kicking up sand.

Harriet blinked in the sunlight and gestured to her crew to stay where they were. First up I’d best show them we don’t mean no trouble, she thought.

“Steady, lads,” said Harriet. “I’d rather avoid a fight if we can help it. Not least ‘cause I wouldn’t place a bet on us winning.”

Davy stood next to her, tense and frightened, dark fingers flexing around the hilt of his knife; on her other side, Sibelius was calm as ever, his flintlock primed. Sam and Barney stood behind him.

“Keep your weapons at the ready, lads, but no moves ‘less I give the say-so. Understood?”

Sibelius unlocked the firearm and replaced it in his belt. The others lowered their knives. Harriet slipped hers back into its sheath. Now then, she thought. Let’s see if I can’t get us out o’ this mess with a bit o’ common sense.

Harriet stepped forward, her right hand raised, palm open in the universal gesture of peace. The opposite party came to a halt. The metallic chack-chack of a dozen more guns being primed chunked through the air. Twelve barrels aimed at her. Blimey, she thought, this lot are a bit nervy, ain’t they?

The leader wore a black helmet emblazoned with the insignia of the phoenix. From his shoulders draped a cloak embroidered with the same design. His grave eyes watched her from beneath craggy eyebrows.

Don’t fancy me chances with this grim-looking cove, but here goes nothing.

“Hello, guvnor!” she said. “We come in peace, from Earth. That’s a big island far away. Er… we don’t mean no trouble. We just…”

Ratta-tat-tat-tat! The sand blistered in tiny puffs of smoke as bullets thudded around her feet. She flinched, but stood her ground. Right you are, she thought, her heart pounding even faster than the bullets. I’ll keep me blooming mouth shut, then.

She looked round at the others and shrugged. They were more angry than frightened. Sibelius had pulled his goggles over his eyes.

The soldiers parted either side of the leader as two huge cannons crunched forward, their cavernous barrels trained on her and the crew. The leader walked toward them, pushing his cloak over his shoulder to show a gnarled hand resting on the hilt of a ceremonial saber. Harriet’s blood pulsed in her ears, the acrid after-smell of gunpowder irritating her nostrils.

“I am Lord Cranestoft, High Steward and Regent of the Island of Birds,” the man said without emotion.

Harriet resisted the urge to say, “Pleased to meet you.” She wasn’t pleased to meet him.

Cranestoft’s fingers flexed on the hilt of his sword as if the formalities bored him and he would much rather dispatch them with a few strokes of sharpened steel. “You are under arrest,” he said. “The charge: attempted attack on our sovereign city. You will be kept as prisoners of war until your fate has been decided. Any resistance will cause immediate extermination. Do you understand me?”

Blooming heck, this one got out o’ bed the wrong side this morning and no mistake!

“Do you understand me?” Chack-chack-chack.

Harriet nodded. “Got it, guvnor,” she said. “Loud and clear.” She winked and gave him the thumbs-up sign.

Three minutes later Harriet walked at the head of a line, her crew behind, Sibelius taking up the rear, each of them manacled and chained, an armed escort on either side.

Davy whispered to her, “I thought this is meant to be paradise, Cap’n?”

“Not much of a holiday destination, if you ask me, Davy. Just goes to show you can’t believe everything you hear, don’t it?”

A guard jabbed her in the ribs with the butt of his rifle. “Silence!”

They marched across the sandy oval. Their arrival and arrest had been witnessed. Men, women and children had been watching from the walls. They shuffled away, tutting and shaking their heads. High above, standing on an ornate balcony, stood a young woman who had been watching them, too. She wore a silk dress, a string of pearls at her throat and a silver fascinator pinned into her hair.

Must be the princess, Harriet thought. She smiled, but the young woman turned away.

“Keep moving,” said a soldier, shoving at Harriet’s shoulder. The guards led them to a steep, narrow staircase. It seemed to go on forever, sinking deeper and deeper beneath the palace.

At the foot of the staircase a windowless chamber was dimly lit by wall lanterns. The guards chivvied them along a tunnel. They passed steel doors, barred and bolted. I reckon this lot has something to hide, Harriet thought.

The manacles chafed her wrists. The weariness of their long journey ached in her bones. So much for rest and recuperation, she thought.

“Halt!” commanded a guard, yanking her chains.

Bolts rattled. Hinges squealed. Pushed into a dank chamber she could only describe as a dungeon, Harriet’s thoughts were grim. Soldiers locked their chains onto iron rings embedded in the walls. The door clanked shut behind them and bolts thudded back into place.

Insipid, yellow light seeped through a barred grille in the doorway. Her crew looked frightened and depressed. Davy was silent, taking it bravely as she’d expect of him. Sam was jittery, nervous, eyes flitting from one to the other of his companions. He tossed his blond fringe from his face and tried to muster a grin. Barney avoided her gaze, looking at his feet. Sibelius smiled at her.

Fine captain you are, Harriet Howland, she thought, getting your crew into such a fix. Aloud she said, “Come on lads – we’ve been in worse jams, ain’t we? Remember that time the daughter of the Doge took a shine to Davy? Where was that?”

“The Island of the Pig People,” said Davy, grimacing.

Sam and Barney laughed. Davy blushed.

“Or what about the Thunder Trolls o’ Hellabore?”

“I thought we was goners then, for sure,” agreed Sam.

“The Doom Vortex between the islands of the Kush Complex was a close thing, too,” added Barney, looking up now.

“Ah oui!” said Sibelius, his gold tooth catching the light. “But we made it through, n’est-ce pas?”

“There you go, lads,” said Harriet. “Means we’ve had one hundred percent success getting out o’ fixes up to now, don’t it?”

“Up to now,” said Sam.

“Well, I’ll tell you what, Sam,” said Harriet, resting the back of her head against the stones. “That way o’ thinking ain’t going to help none. It don’t look rosy, I’ll be the first to admit that. And right now I ain’t the foggiest idea how we’ll do it; but we will get out o’ here. We will.”

“Bien sûr!” said Sibelius.

Davy nodded. “We have to try at least.”

“We will,” said Harriet. But in that moment, even she didn’t believe it.