Page 65 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son

“Yes, I understand you’re to thank for keeping my sailing master out of commission all this time,” the captain said, turning his attention on her.

“Keeping your sailing master out of the grave, sir,” Bash said. “I’m here now. Do we still make for Kingston?”

Mad sneered at him. “You’re here now. You decide.”

Which of course meant any decision Bash made would be the wrong one. Same as it ever was.

Enjoying the warmth of Maggie tucked under his arm, he walked to the bow, took out his compass and watch, and squinted up at the sun.

The men were rowing more or less in a westerly direction, but they made slow progress against the current. There were no clouds overhead, though in the distance, his spyglass revealed the speck of a vessel. Perhaps merely the Whale they’d left behind, but it ignited a familiar tingling in his scalp, intensified by the damage to his ear.

“What is it?” Maggie asked, reading his posture and expression as plainly as he read maps and charts. How did she know him so well after, what, a little more than five weeks? What other secrets had he failed to keep hidden?

He collapsed the spyglass and dropped it in his pocket. “Nothing to worry about,” he told her. “Can you find Dutch for me?”

She nodded once. “Of course,” she said, and he rested against the railing as she hurried away.

“Langley,” he shouted in no particular direction.

“All right, Nav?” the boy asked, dropping from the rigging.

“In my quarters, there’s a book of maps. Bring it to me?”

“The one with all them squiggly lines?” Langley asked nervously.

“Yes… why?”

“I were feeding the blasted bird, and well, it got out of its nest and shat all over your book when no one was looking.”

Bash closed his eyes. When he opened them, Langley had gone, but Maggie was heading back with Dutch.

“Should he be up?” the quartermaster asked her, eyeing Bash’s bandaged head warily.

“Either way, he is.”

Bash ignored them and began growling out orders. “If we turn the gib lines, we might tack a little more southerly and pick up wind.”

Dutch nodded and turned away, to relay the orders so Bash didn’t have to exert himself, but Bash caught his arm.

“Magnus,” he called. “You should check on your bird.”

A look of faint surprise crossed her face, guilty, like she hadn’t thought about the kestrel in days, and Bash was more pleased than he ought to be, knowing he was the reason.

“Are you sure?” she asked, clearly torn between eagerness to do as he suggested and trepidation at leaving him behind.

“Go on. I’ll be fine. See, I’ve Dutch here to look after me.”

She nodded warily and took off once more.

“What’s the temperature?” Bash asked Dutch quietly, not wanting to alarm Maggie as she walked away.

“Hot,” Dutch replied just as softly into his good ear. “Three skirmishes yesterday. Just fisticuffs, not much blood. Reports from the night watch claim ghost ships appearing and disappearing on the horizon.”

“Fata morgana?” Bash asked, the Italian term for a mirage some less experienced sailors took for phantoms.

Dutch shrugged. “Who can say?”

“Could it be Walsh coming after us?”