A thorough search of the hold rousted a number of rats and one enterprising prostitute, but no saboteurs or assassins. I pushed my sea chest next to my flimsy cabin door that night and tucked my knife under my pillow.
The next morning I found an odd little ornament of twigs, wire, and feathers dangling from the outer door handle to my cabin, similar to the one Master Caraby had shown me. I tapped it and watched it swing. After a moment, I turned, leaving it where it was. Whatever it meant, I saw no reason to disturb it.
That day I served as a general dogsbody around the ship, helping the hands check the pulleys and rigging and taking my battle station during arms and gun drills. The work was easy, which I appreciated, since my various cuts and bruises continued to remind me of my drunken folly, and the hands were quiet but polite around me. Toban returned to deck that afternoon, sitting with a bandaged ankle as he spliced ropes, and I paused to greet him. The other two hands who’d been in the hold with us — Jym and Meze — gave me friendly nods when our paths crossed. I took comfort in the thought that at least some of the crew didn’t want to kill me.
On the second night I heard Master Caraby’s voice booming across the deck. Sighing, I closed my book and set it on the wardroom table. Soon enough the stout ship’s master entered the wardroom, laden with cloth-wrapped packages. His smile faded as his eyes lit upon my bruised face, and he stopped at the other end of the table.
“Sentinel,” he said cautiously, lowering his bundles to the tabletop. “Lieutenant Guerin told me what happened.”
“Had you warned me from the outset that my name was anathema in Chevachèche,” I said icily, “I might have avoided giving offense to the islanders and saved myself a beating.”
He flushed and looked down, pulling out a chair and dropping into it.
“I had hoped….” He sighed and looked up at me, his expression full of regret. “I had hoped that maybe, if you never used your name, you’d never have to learn the truth about your family. I knew it wouldn’t be a pleasant revelation, and I saw no reason to subject you to it. But I should have guessed the spirits wouldn’t let it be.”
My scowl deepened, tugging the small, still-healing cuts on my brow and scalp.
“The spirits weren’t the problem,” I countered. “The fact that I had no idea that my name was associated with some sort of local bugaboo was. I am a sentinel, Master Caraby, not one of the naval youngsters under your care. How many others on this ship knew of my family’s history and neglected to warn me?”
“Don’t bring others into this, Sentinel.” Caraby shook his head. “The decision to keep the truth from you was entirely mine.”
“You stopped others from mentioning it?”
“I may have … advised against it.”
“That thing on my door — one of the hands put it there, I assume.” I pointed. “What is it? A hex?”
Caraby turned in his chair to examine it.
“No. It’s more of an … an appeasement.” He rubbed his forehead with thick fingers. “A votive charm intended to please you, just like the first. Our Chevachèchen hands assume you’ve returned to the islands seeking vengeance. However, they also assume that as long as they’re on your ship, they’re safe from your wrath. If the Saint-Clouds had any virtue, it was that they jealously guarded their own.”
“If anybody on this ship needs to appease me, Mister Caraby, it would be you.” I kept my voice cool. “Did you hear that one of the hands tried to kill me?”
“I heard about the accident,” he admitted. “And I also heard that it might not have been an accident. I was hoping the latter was simply tavern gossip.”
“The captain doesn’t think so. Which means at least one hand didn’t consider himself safe from me. And now he’s dead — mysteriously strangled immediately after attacking me.” I smiled bleakly. “I can only assume my alarming reputation has been suitably enhanced by the event.”
Caraby held out his hands apologetically.
“For what it’s worth, Sentinel, I did explain to the more influential communicants and elders in town that you were ignorant of your family history and have shown no sign of behaving like the old Saint-Clouds of legend. I believe the local Navy sentinel had a word with them, as well. Adrahan’s spirit workers are willing to leave you alone, as long as you stay off their island. But our crew….” He lifted a shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “I shall have a word with them.”
“If you had simply had a word with me —”
“I apologize, Sentinel, I truly apologize. I regret the way things turned out, and I shall do all I can to ensure you aren’t troubled by this matter any further.”
His apology didn’t feel sufficient, but I didn’t know what else I could say or do — and despite my profound irritation, I didn’t think he’d harbored any malicious intent. He’d underrated me, however, and treated me with condescension, and I didn’t intend to forget it.
“Very well, Mister Caraby.” I picked up my book again. “I shall hold you to your word.”
He stood and silently gathered his bundles, taking them into the tiny cabin next to mine and shutting the door behind him. The vibration set the votive charm on my door swinging back and forth.
Lieutenant Guerin came aboard the next morning, red-eyed and drilling her marines with a snappishness that suggested that she’d ended her leave much as she’d started it. I had time to do little more than give her a friendly nod as I worked. That night, however, found us in the wardroom together, along with several other officers, both commissioned and warrant. I hesitated next to the empty chair beside the marine captain.
“I owe you my thanks, Lieutenant,” I said, feeling awkward. She lowered her newspaper and arched an eyebrow.
“You damned my eyes when I retrieved you from the wharf that night, but then you thanked me later in the jollyboat … although I should be surprised if you remembered it,” she said.
“I confess that I do not,” I admitted, “although I do remember you helping me into the bosun’s chair.”
“Nothing I haven’t done for many another shipmate over the years.” Guerin shrugged. “And I do carry some of the blame for the night’s events. Chevachèchen rum is strong for a newcomer.”
“It wasn’t the rum that caused the trouble.” Since she hadn’t indicated that I was unwelcome, I pulled out the chair next to her and sat. “I told you that my family had an unfortunate history on the islands, but I should have mentioned it to Lieutenant Thomas, as well.” I glanced around, but Thomas wasn’t there — on watch, I assumed.
“Yes, I’ve learned more about your family situation, in the days since.” Guerin folded the paper and laid it on the table in front of her, cocking her head. I was suddenly aware that the rest of the wardroom had fallen silent, listening to us. “And I must say, Sentinel Saint-Cloud, that if you are planning to re-establish an evil empire of bloody-minded becks on Adrahan, you would do well to bring along more of my marines the next time.”
Her words surprised a sharp laugh from me, and I felt my cheeks heat.
“I shall keep that in mind, Lieutenant Guerin,” I promised. She tossed me a mocking salute and picked up her newspaper again, and with a few chuckles, the others in the wardroom resumed their conversations.
Later that evening, finding the heat in my cabin oppressive, I climbed up to the deck. To my relief, there was no sign of Captain Tancrède. Cadet Cutter was on the quarterdeck, however, along with Lieutenant Owen, who was conversing in low tones with the helmsman.
“Sentinel.” Cutter trotted over, regarding me with open curiosity. “How are you feeling?”
“Well enough, thank you,” I replied. I was all too aware that my bruises and scrapes looked worse now, after darkening and crusting over, than they had when I’d first been brought aboard. “And you? How did you spend your leave, Cadet?”
“I paid social visits and attended church,” he said without enthusiasm. I stifled a smile.
“Then you spent your time more productively than I.”
“I wish I’d been with you,” he hissed. “You were outnumbered. If I’d been there, I could have held them off long enough for you to make your calls, and then they would have thought twice about attacking a Chaser!”
I reached out to pat his shoulder, then caught myself at the last minute and dropped my hand. It wasn’t an appropriate gesture between a warrant officer and a ranking officer, even though I could easily have been Cutter’s parent twice over.
“I would have been grateful for your help,” I assured him, as if he could have done anything to appease a mob or ameliorate the adverse effects of my own inebriation. “However, the mistake was mine, and I’ve paid the price.”
“There have been more fights about it on shore,” Cutter confided, lowering his voice. “The captain isn’t well pleased because he fears the admiral will hear, but I think it’s only right that the Chasers stick up for their sentinel.”
“Oh, no….” I glanced toward Lieutenant Owen. He’d turned back to the deck and was watching us with curiosity. “Can you make them stop? I don’t want to stir up any more trouble for the captain.”
“Well…” Cutter gave me a conspiratorial look. “They’ll have to stop soon enough.”
“We’re leaving port?”
He slipped me a wink and then stepped away.
The next day word filtered down into the hold, where I was helping the hands unfold and check the stored sails, that the Chaser was soon to set sail. For the rest of the day the ship was alive with movement as fresh produce and water were delivered by lighter, coops of chickens and a struggling goat were lifted aboard, and sailors in various stages of inebriation were ordered back to their watches. I found myself walking with the ship’s bosun and one of the marines, searching for and ejecting civilians and smuggled bottles of liquor from all the various nooks and crannies of the ship. I found myself impressed by the crew’s ingenuity; there seemed to be an endless number of places in which a determined sailor might hide prohibited goods and guests.
“Here, Sentinel, meet the new additions to our crew,” said the purser, Tio, as he passed me on his way to his office. He held up a rattan cage.
“Cats?”
“Working hands, not pets.” Tio made a face. “The crew’s been complaining about rats moving about the ship, and I don’t want them getting into our stores.”
“Clearly,” I said, though I couldn’t help but remember what the master’s mate, Disa Wates, had said about eating rats. If there were no rats left, surely the crew wouldn’t eat the cats in their stead?
I hoped I never need find out.
That afternoon Captain Tancrède called the officers, commissioned and warrant, into his cabin. I stayed in the back, sweating under my formal jacket in the room’s close and crowded confines.
“The Chaser is to remain attached to the Austral Fleet under Admiral Raihan,” Tancrède said without preliminaries. He leaned over a table that had a map on it, and the officers around him leaned over it with interest. I was too far away to see anything. “There’s been an upsurge in pirate raids along the coast, and the admiral’s heard fresh rumors about a pirate haven called Perdue. He’s put several ships on patrol and wants us to do the same. Our job is to stop the raids and, if possible, find out where Perdue is located.”
“Has there been any news of the Damme Boy, sir?” Lieutenant Peck asked. Tancrède straightened, and I saw a thin smile on his lips.
“A fisherman sighted the ship off Bezoire nine days ago.”
From the satisfied murmurs around me, I guessed that the Chaser’s officers were eager for a rematch. I felt more ambivalent about the matter, remembering that the last time the two ships had clashed, my predecessor had been killed.
“Mister Caraby?” Tancrède turned to the ship’s master.
“Ship’s ready to sail as soon as you give orders,” Caraby said smartly. “We should be able to reach Bezoire in two days.”
Tancrède quizzed the other officers on the status of stores and crew, then nodded with approval.
“Then we take our leave from Adrahan tomorrow, two bells in the morning watch,” he declared. “Tell the lookouts to keep their eyes peeled.”