which was bearable; if she’d laughed, we might’ve fought right there on the deck. But she didn’t.
I turned and walked away. As I did, I spotted Clift watching with the same mixture of curiosity and faint jealousy I’d noticed before.
The Red Cow was not a big ship to begin with. I wondered just how much smaller it would get before this trip was over.
Chapter Nine
The lookout, a gangly girl named Estella who stood on the foremast crosstree, called, “Sail ho! Right ahead.”
It was the first change in routine since we left port, and I expected a major reaction. What I got was a collective, ship- wide shrug. The crew did not rush; they sauntered into action. Half the men continued to lounge around the deck, while the other half waited to see if this was anything more than a passing vessel minding its own business.
You couldn’t miss one change, though. Suhonen emerged from the hold, clad only in knee-length pants and a sword belt holding a cutlass. Around his thick neck stretched a tattooed line of dancing human skeletons. Men scrambled to get out of his way as he went to the rail and stood casually, as if waiting for a carriage. But his eyes never left the horizon directly ahead, where the mysterious ship now appeared as an unmistakable silhouette.
Clift yelled to a man halfway up the mainmast shrouds. “Greaves, you old seagull, what do you see from your perch up there?”
Greaves, the sailing master, was a solid man in every sense: thickly muscled, unflappable, and with a manner that ensured he never had to give an order twice. He kept a short unlit pipe perpetually clamped between his teeth. “It appears t’be a Langlade merchant vessel,” he said. “But she’s flying the flags in the right order.”
Murmurs traveled through the crew around me. More men stopped what they were doing and came to the rails to watch. Clift said, “Verify that with the lookout.”
“Verify!” Greaves called up.
“Confirmin’ the mate’s statement!” Estella called down. Jane and I joined Clift at the port bow. The ship ahead flew several flags and banners, so I wasn’t sure which ones conveyed the information they all recognized.
“This is damned peculiar,” Clift said, wiping sweat from his chin. “A Langlade merchant ship.”
“Maybe she was taken before the pirates could refurbish her,” Jane said. To me she added, “Pirates don’t build their own ships, they just take existing ones and modify them. Usually they pick something with a little more muscle, though. A Langlade merchant ship is just a raft with ambition.”
“Why would a Langlade merchant ship be flying the pirate- hunter safety signals, then?” I asked. “For that matter, what exactly are the pirate-hunter safety signals?”
“It’s a way to let other pirate hunters know a ship has already been taken,” Clift said. “There’s a code in the way the flags are flown, which masts they’re attached to, which ones are higher or lower. Otherwise, we might start fighting before either side recognized the other.”
“Could it be a trick to lure us in close?” I asked. I felt tingles of excitement at the thought of a break in the monotony, even if that break might mean bloodshed.
“Maybe,” Clift said thoughtfully. “If someone bought the code, which gets changed every six months, and used it correctly. It’s not a simple thing. Still, that doesn’t explain why a ship like that would be sailing under such a banner.” He looked back at the quartermaster and called, “Call the watch below, Mr. Seaton. The men can use the practice.”
“Aye, Cap’n,” he said, then repeated the order in a roar that rippled the canvas.
Turns out “call the watch below” meant, essentially, what we were already doing: watching as the new ship grew closer. Jane’s description of it was accurate. It had a single mast, a low waterline, and a deck that was flush from bow to stern. The big, crude tiller seemed wholly inadequate to open ocean travel. In the middle of the deck, just forward of the lone mast, stood a pyramid of wooden crates held in place by a net and ropes.
There seemed to be about half a dozen men aboard her, no more frantic than our own. At last Greaves bellowed, “That’s Fernelli, first mate on the Randagore. They’re for real.”
“The Randagore is another pirate hunter,” Jane explained to me.
“So everything makes sense now?”
“Fuck no. Not a lick.”
The man Greaves had indicated waved from the other ship’s deck. “Hello, Red Cow! Do I smell rum from your ship?”
“You smell it from your own foul breath!” Clift yelled back good- naturedly. “But come aboard anyway!”
The ships pulled abreast, and a boat lowered from the other ship. A few minutes later, Fernelli, bald and with a bushy beard decorated with ribbons and little bells, leaped aboard the Red Cow. His two oarsmen followed with much less flair.
He gave Clift a hearty kiss on each cheek, then froze when he saw Jane. “By the giant stingrays of Bola Bola, it’s Jane Argo!” he cried. He wrapped her in a hug and spun her around as if she weighed nothing. Jane laughed with delight and, when he put her down, kissed him on the mouth.
“Fernelli, I’m glad to see you saw the light and joined the right side,” she said.
“The light had nothing to do with it. I got tired of lice in my beard and no gold in my pocket. At my age, regular wages plus bonuses sounds mighty good.” To Clift, he added, “What are you doing in the Randagore ’s part of the ocean? She’s only a day behind us. Did they redraw the patrol districts again?”
“We’re chartered,” Clift said.
Fernelli’s eyebrows rose. “A private charter? You got permission for that?”
“Of course not. It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission,” Clift said with a grin. “We’re looking for Black Edward Tew’s old quartermaster.”
“Marteen?”
“Aye. He’s back on the account.”
“So I’ve heard.” He looked at Jane. “You back hopping waves as well?”
She shook her head and nodded at me. “I’m hired muscle. He’s the gold.”
Fernelli gave me a once-over. “And why would a land- bound gentleman such as yourself be wanting to find Wendell Marteen?”
“I just want to talk to him,” I said.
“About Black Edward’s lost treasure?”
“Just about Black Edward.”
“Right,” he said with a knowing wink. “Find the man, find the money. I never put no stock in the tales of his sinking, either. Always assumed he changed his name and retired, like old Captain Lowther. They hung him when he was eighty- five, did you know that? After forty years as a law-abiding citizen. All because of a few massacres when he was a young man. I guess Marteen didn’t want to sit around waiting for the hangman to catch up to him.”
“I’ll ask him when I see him,” I said noncommittally.
“Well, you should also ask him if he knows anything about these damned ghost ships, because no one else does.”
“Ghost ships?” Clift repeated.
Fernelli jerked his thumb at the ship he’d just left. “Found this one five days ago. Still under full sail, just like you saw her now. A few odds and ends gone, but most everything still there. Certainly all the cargo crates are still full. No sign of anyone aboard her, or where they might’ve gone. And you can save your lips the effort, we’ve looked into every possibility, and there’s nothing. It’s like they just vanished right off the ship in the middle of whatever they were doing.”
I looked at Jane. “Does that happen a lot?”
“No. I mean, sometimes, sure, but usually if you look hard enough, there’s an explanation.”
“You said ‘ships,’ ” I pointed out to Fernelli. “Plural.”
Fernelli scowled. “What’s that word mean?”
