It was a body.
The man was sprawled on his back. He was tall and slender, with long dark hair, a long beard, and a black eyepatch. He wore white trousers and a loose tunic, with no shoes.
The sun glinted off his exposed eye. It was wide open, and stared at nothing. I’d seen enough lifeless eyes to recognize this one at once.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered. Rody Hawk was dead.
Then a sepulchral voice commanded, “Don’t talk about my mother.”
Chapter Six
I was so startled that I lost my balance and pivoted wildly in the basket. I saw hazy sky, the barred window, then hazy sky again. I grabbed another bar and steadied myself. I looked around the room carefully, but saw no one except the corpse on the floor. There was also no place for anyone to hide. Where the hell had that voice come from?
I risked a look up into the clearing sky. Was someone on the roof? Had it been a ghost? A god? At that moment, as the chill sweat ran down my back, anything seemed plausible.
Then the corpse of Rody Hawk sat up and looked right at me with its dead, milk-white eye.
Before I could do anything undignified like scream, the corpse shifted the eyepatch to the other side, uncovering a perfectly good eye and reseating the patch over the useless one. Then he yawned.
I looked down. Thankfully, the mist was still thick enough to hide me from view. If Jane had seen this, I’d never have lived it down.
Rody Hawk shifted into a cross-legged position and looked straight at me. Even with only one eye, it was like he saw right through to the back of my skull. The hairs on my neck tingled. He said, “I don’t know you.”
“No,” I agreed, trying to steady the basket with my trembling legs.
His voice had no identifiable accent. “You’re too scruffy to be a new guard. Warden Delvie is a stickler for appearance. And it’s not time for my lunch.” His eye narrowed and he cocked his head. Hawk was a small, neat man; even his untrimmed hair and beard looked tended. “Are you from the Society of Scribes, then? No, you’ve brought nothing with which to write. So who are you, my man?”
“Eddie LaCrosse.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“No reason it should.”
“So you must want something.”
“I want a lot of things.” I managed to find a balanced position with one hand on a bar and the other gripping the rope for dear life. As long as I kept my knees locked, I stayed reasonably still. It did not, however, convey nonchalance. “Not falling out of this basket is at the top of the list.”
Hawk smiled. He had small white teeth. “You’re not afraid of me.”
“Sure I am. You’re Rody Hawk. I’d be stupid not to be afraid of you.”
He arched his back and threaded his fingers together behind his head. “I apologize for the fright,” he said as he stretched. “Sleeping on that saggy cot has begun to trouble my back. I find alternating with the floor minimizes the discomfort. So what is it that brings you up this high?”
“I’m looking for a pirate.”
“You found one. The best, or worst, depending on your perspective. And if my current accommodations are any indication, perhaps I’m both.”
“I’m looking for a particular pirate.”
“I’ve been known to be very particular.”
“Not to burst your bubble, but I’m looking for one named Black Edward Tew. An old girlfriend wants to know what happened to him.”
“And why are you the one doing the looking?”
“I’ve been hired to.”
“A sword jockey?”
I nodded.
“He hasn’t been around for years. I’ve heard he was dead. Why does your client wish to find him now?”
“She’s waited as long as she can.”
“That’s a woman’s reason, all right.” Hawk closed his eye in apparent thought. At last he said, “I assume you know the story.”
“Not really. I’ve just heard contradictory hints.”
“And so you thought of me?”
I shrugged. I didn’t want to mention Jane, or my bribe for him, unless I had to. “You’re the first guy lots of people think of when they hear the word pirate.”
“How flattering. Well, I get so few visitors, I suppose it would be rude of me to send you packing. So you want the story of Black Edward Tew, eh? Here’s the tale as I know it. Edward Tew was a common sailor on merchant vessels, content with his lot, until one day he met a girl in a tavern. I don’t know the particulars, and I’ve heard it told both ways: either she turned him pirate to keep her in jewels, or he turned pirate on his own to impress her. I suppose ultimately only the two of them know what really passed between them. At any rate, shortly thereafter, he signed onto a new ship, and while it was at sea, he led a mutiny. The captain was killed, the loyalists set adrift, and the ship rechristened the Bloody Angel. Always liked that name. And young Edward Tew became Black Edward, novice scourge of the waterways.”
I was aware of Hawk’s horrible deeds, his fearsome reputation, and the fact that if he really applied himself, he could probably kill me before I saw it coming. Yet it was hard not to smile. He had an easygoing air that implied his prison stay was little more than a weekend inconvenience. Don’t forget what he is, LaCrosse, I told myself, or what he’s capable of.
“Up to that point, it could have been the story of a thousand pirates, including myself,” Hawk continued. “But now comes the miraculous part. King Clovis of Witigan built a new castle far from his old one, and the quickest way to move his treasure to it was by sea. Only the good king outsmarted himself. He put together an intimidating fleet, all right: a dozen Witiganian warships guarded the single massive vessel on which everyone assumed he’d put his treasure. But in reality, he put it on a plain merchant ship leaving three days later, which is what Black Edward unknowingly captured as his first victim. Imagine his surprise when he saw the biggest single treasure in recorded history lying before him.”
“I bet he smiled.”
“I’d have pissed myself. So Edward immediately headed back for his woman. But a storm came up and sank his ship within sight of his destination. All hands lost, save one to tell the tale. As luck would have it, there’s a huge trench there, far too deep for any diver, and there lies Black Edward’s treasure, intact but untouchable. They say.”
“In my experience, ‘they’ aren’t always that reliable. Convenient there was one survivor. Who was he?”
“The quartermaster. A thoroughly unscrupulous worm of a man.”
“You knew him?”
“He tried to sign aboard the Poison, but he was more trouble than he was worth. He told me that the tale of Black Edward’s demise was a lie, that in fact the treasure was hidden on an island and the whole sinking of the Bloody Angel was a ruse.”
“You didn’t believe him?”
“I wouldn’t believe him if he said the sun rose in the east.”
“So you never checked his story.”
“No.”
“What was his name?”
He smiled. “You’re the kind of man I could drink with, Mr. LaCrosse. If they let me have drinks here, that is. You assume that since I’m sitting up here desperate for company, that I might break my oath to the Brotherhood of the Surf. Grand Article Number Four: ‘No brother will ever betray another to the forces of law and order.’ ”
