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“I’ll manage.”
Roxbury went back to his bag and pulled out an old dragoon pistol and a small box of ammunition. “This might help if all else fails. Do you know how to use it?”
“Yes, I do. Thank you, captain.”
He nodded and turned to take my arm. “Let’s go. All that noise is no doubt making my men nervous. Not that it takes much.”
On sudden impulse, I pulled my arm away and hugged Grimora. It seemed to surprise him greatly, and I could have sworn he blushed. As for Roxbury and me, as we made our way down the path to the beach, I could still hear the crying coming from the cave, and I shuddered.
“What did you say to him?”
“I told him that a long time ago my father and mother told me I couldn’t come home again, so I knew a little about how much that hurts. His situation is much, much worse, of course, but I wanted him to know that it doesn’t do any good to stay angry. It’s like an acid that only eats away at you but never hurts them at all. The anger only holds you back and winds up destroying you.”
I glanced over at him in surprise to find him watching me, and then he leaned in close.
“Are you all right? Do we need to stop and rest?”
“We just barely started down the mountain.”
“I thought you were limping a little.”
“I’m fine. It’s just…Banshira. Or I should say that poor boy. It was kind of you to say that to him and to give Grimora the pistol.”
“It wasn’t kindness. If the entire village came after them, that pistol would be good for only one thing. To give that boy a better death than the villagers would give him.”
I gasped and clutched his arm. “Oh no. Isn’t there anything else we can do?”
“I don’t know what. My men would never allow either of them on the ship. I suppose your esteemed cousin Lex might be able to do something for him. He’s their King Regent, after all.”
“He would, if he knew about him. Maybe I could write to him.”
“Not now you won’t. He and Harrison will be searching for you. The rest of your bunch too, I suppose. I don’t mind fighting them, but if I killed any of them, I imagine you’d be quite unreasonable about it.”
I saved my breath and just gave him a look instead, and he grinned. “That’s what I thought.”
“I will write to him later on though, and I won’t forget.”
He muttered something it was probably best I couldn’t understand, and we kept on down the path. When we arrived on the beach, we got on the boat that would take us out to where the Fancy Lady was anchored. I was tired, so I went below to Roxbury’s cabin when we got there and fell across the bed to rest. By midday, we had pulled away from the shores of Igella and were on our way toward the Lumian Sea to Gilead, where Roxbury had built his island home.
I’d never been to Gilead and had only occasionally heard of it, and now it looked as if we were going to spend the winter there. Pirates had first taken over the sparsely inhabited island of Gilead over fifty years earlier, when a pirate named Black-Hearted Harry brought his ship into harbor, loaded down with loot taken from plundering trade ships up and down the Lumian and Anberra coastlines. He then bribed the head men of the villages in Gilead to let him stay and use it as a base of operations.
Over the next twenty-five years, Gilead became completely taken over by pirates who discovered that the harbor was well-suited to their needs. It was out of the way, being far to the north, and too shallow for large man-of-war ships but deep enough for the fast shallow draft ships favored by the pirates. From the harbor, pirates could employ hit and run tactics on the merchant shipping all up and down the coast, and there was not much to stop them.
Some pirates, like old Gold Tooth Jack Devane, had even built homes there, planning to retire there one day. The Captain Devane I knew—the newer version of him—had appropriated the house like he had the old pirate’s name.
The weather held on the first leg of our journey, with that odd clearness the air gets when it’s turning colder. The water was very dark, almost black, and the sky was cloudless blue. The closer we got to leaving the coastline of Igella, the more Roxbury seemed to relax.
I listened in fascination that evening over supper while Roxbury told me all about it. He sat back in his chair as he drank a tankard of ale and assured me that I would love it.
“It’s a nice house—plenty big enough, with a fireplace in every room for winter, which comes early so far north. The harbor is protected naturally though, so we don’t have to worry about ships getting icebound. It’s perfect really, if you don’t count the sea dragons.”
“Oh, of course. Why would I?”
He smiled and nodded. “Exactly. They don’t come into the harbor, and we rarely see them.”
I opened my mouth to ask more questions—I had so many questions—but I closed it again abruptly and decided to change the subject. I decided he was probably joking and decided it was better not to play along and encourage him. Meanwhile, Roxbury was drinking too much and beginning to lean his elbows on the table and give me long, soulful looks with his eyelids lowered. I knew what that look meant, and I was still not ready for a replay of what happened in Banshira’s Cave.
I pointed my finger at him and said in a loud, clear voice, “No.”
