Guild, formed forty years ago in an attempt to stop the rampant criminal activity in and around the Southern Ocean ports. At first the various countries that signed the Guild charter used their navies to enforce it, but there were too many language barriers, cross purposes, and old grudges. In the first three years, twice as many naval vessels as pirates were sunk, often at the hands of so-called allies.
Finally someone clever suggested the creation of a special fleet of fast, heavily armed ships designed for the sole purpose of catching, capturing, and returning for trial any and all pirates. Someone even more clever-our old friend Queen Remy-realized that the best ones for the job were former pirates themselves.
So, for the last twenty-five years, the Anti-Freebootery Guild had done an adequate job keeping piracy confined to very specific, well- known areas of the ocean. Why had they not wiped it out entirely? For two reasons: One, pirates were as renewable a resource as corn or whores, and second, if they did wipe it out, the pirate hunters would be unemployed and might return to their old ways.
We’d been at sea for two weeks without encountering any pirates, but no one seemed too concerned. Certainly not the Red Cow ’s captain; in fact, I had yet to see him concerned about anything.
As my eyes finished adjusting, a new voice said, “Good morning, Captain.”
I turned to see Quartermaster Seaton clinging to the port mainsail shrouds. He was like many seconds-in- command I’d known, competent but happy to stay in the background. He had a goatee decorated with little bits of seabird bone, and a fringe of sun-lightened hair around his head. His otherwise bald pate was tanned dark and spotted in places with big moles. His arms sported muscles that looked like leather cords, and were covered with elaborate tattoos from ports all over the world. The captain led the crew, but Seaton made sure they followed his orders. He continued, “How’d you sleep?”
“Mostly on my back,” I deadpanned. “Still getting used to the heat. Have you seen Captain Argo?”
He nodded forward. “She’s down there jawing with Captain Clift.”
I followed his gaze. Jane, clad in billowing trousers and a sleeveless tunic tight enough to let everyone know when she got a chill, stood at the port bow rail. Beside her was our captain, Dylan Clift.
Clift was taller than Jane, slender, and deeply tanned, with a thin mustache along his upper lip. He was as likely to leap into the crow’s nest himself as send one of the crew to do it, and much like Jane, he tended to laugh a lot. He knew every crewman’s name, usually his background, and instinctively handled them in the most efficient way, goading with some, no-nonsense with others. He was the reason we-well, really Jane-had chosen the Red Cow. He’d served as Jane’s quartermaster during her pirate days, and followed her into pirate hunting. Several of the crew had also put in time under “Cap’n Jane” on both sides of the law. The rest had heard enough about her to be properly respectful, and they treated me well because I was with her. Jane’s exaggerated hints about my past helped, too.
“Interesting to see the two of them together again,” Seaton said.
“Did you serve under Jane?”
He nodded. “Aye, on her last two voyages.”
“When she captured Rody Hawk?”
Seaton’s expression hardened. “We don’t mention that name, Mr. LaCrosse. He’s bad luck. And no, that was before my time. In fact, no one who was on that voyage, except Cap’n Clift, still follows the sea.”
“My apologies,” I said. At least I wasn’t the only one leery of saying Hawk’s name aloud. “Lots of new rules to remember.”
He smiled. “Aye, it’s true. But as the man who’s paying our way, I suppose you can follow or not any rules you please.”
“I’ll still try to be less disruptive.”
Seaton saluted me. “Aye, sir, it’d be much appreciated.”
The conversation had caused a lot of my anger to burn away, but it grew hot again when I heard Jane’s laugh on the wind. I went along the rail past the windlass and joined the two captains at the bowsprit.
Clift turned to greet me. “Good morning, Mr. LaCrosse,” he said. His dark tan made his white teeth startling.
“Morning, Captain Clift. Any imminent action?”
“Not yet. Possibly tomorrow at the earliest. We’re still not in the real shipping lanes, so unless we come across a pirate skulking out of his hiding place, we have the luxury of peace and quiet.”
“I guess I can stand the wait.”
“You seem to be able to stand anything that’s necessary, Mr. LaCrosse.”
“I imagine my job is kind of like yours. Days of boredom punctuated by moments of total panic.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “That’s it exactly.”
I turned to Jane. Smiling, I said, “May I speak with you for a moment? In private?”
“Sure,” she said. “Excuse us, Dylan.”
“Certainly,” Clift said. And once again, I caught the moment that I’d seen now at least once a day since we left port. Clift smiled at Jane, then looked quickly away. He seemed to be changing clothes internally, putting on a different face for Jane than for everyone else. The “Jane face” wasn’t that different from his regular demeanor, and if I hadn’t caught on to the moment he switched, I might never have noticed. I had asked neither of them about it, because I could interpret it for myself: Captain Clift had it bad for ex-Captain Argo.
I pulled Jane across the deck to the starboard bow rail. She twisted out of my grip and said, “Hey, what’s the matter with you?”
I said quietly, “It took me a while, but I finally realized you lied to me.”
She looked outraged. “The hell I did.”
“You knew exactly who Black Edward Tew was the first time I mentioned his name.”
She started to protest some more, but bit it back. She knew I had her.
“When I asked you if you’d heard of him, you deliberately said something like, ‘There’s a lot of pirates in the world,’ which is not an answer. You were hiding that you knew about him without having to actually lie about it. And it was only after that that you started asking about his treasure. I thought you were just joking, but you knew there might be a treasure involved. At that point, even I didn’t know that.”
She said nothing.
“Now tell me why you did it,” I finished.
She started to speak, then stopped, then looked out at the water. I waited. A few sailors passed us, regarded us oddly, but said nothing.
At last Jane said softly, “Okay, you got me. I knew about Edward Tew. I should’ve told you. But I didn’t lie to you.”
“Don’t split hairs with me. Tell me why.”
“Why do you think? Miles. That stupid son of a bitch. Ever since I’ve known him, he’s been after the big score. I thought about telling you, but I know how good you are at this kind of thing, Eddie; if you started looking from scratch, without any hints from me, you might turn up a clue everyone else missed, and we might actually find Black Edward’s treasure. Even if I only got a cut of it, it’d be a fortune. Maybe then…”
She trailed off and looked away, but I heard the words anyway. Maybe then Miles will stop gambling and whoring.
“I’m not interested in Black Edward’s treasure, Jane. I’m really not.”
“I know that. I didn’t believe it at first, but I do now.” She looked contritely down, and then slowly her smile returned and she cut her eyes up at me. “Still, if we happen to, you know, stumble across it…”
I threw up my hands. “If we come across it, I don’t care who takes it. To be honest with you, the last thing I want is a pile of ill-gotten blood money.”
She grinned knowingly. “You’re piling it on thick, Eddie. I’m starting to not believe you again.”
I poked her in the hollow of her throat. “This is your warning shot, Jane. If you lie to me again-and just so we’re clear, just like I told Angelina, keeping things from me counts as lying-I’m leaving you at the next port we come to.”
“Okay,” she said seriously. “I’m sorry, Eddie. I should’ve trusted you.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“But I didn’t lie to you. I wouldn’t.” She poked me in the chest. “And you know damn well if you’d been really paying attention, you’d have caught me. So it’s really your fault for being sloppy.”
She said this playfully, but the seriousness beneath it was clear. And damn it, she was right. She smiled,
