Scott Lynch - Red Seas Under Red Skies

"Some this, some that? Clerk of the court, we cannot abide untidiness. Simply charge everyone with everything."

"Understood. The mutineers are now incompetent and the incompetent are also mutineers."

"Excellent. Very excellent, and so very magisterial. No doubt I shall be quoted in books." "Important books, too, ma'am." "What else do these wretches have to answer for?"

"Assault and larceny beneath the red flag, Your Honour. Armed piracy on the Sea of Brass on the twenty-first instant of the month of Festal, this very year."

"Vile, grotesque and contemptible," shouted Drakasha. "Let the record show that I feel as though I may swoon. Tell me, are there any who would speak in defence of the prisoners?" "None, ma'am, as the prisoners are penniless." "Ah. Then under whose laws do they claim any rights or protections?" "None, ma'am. No power on land will claim or aid them."

"Pathetic, and not unexpected. Yet without firm guidance from their betters, perhaps it's only natural that these rodents have shunned virtue like a contagious disease. Perhaps some small chance of clemency may be forthcoming." "Unlikely, ma'am."

"One small matter remains, which may attest to their true character. Clerk of the court, can you describe the nature of their associates and consorts?"

"Only too vividly, Your Honour. They wilfully consort with the officers and crew of the Poison Orchid." "Gods above," cried Drakasha, "did you say Poison Orchid?" "I did indeed, ma'am."

"They are guilty! Guilty on every count! Guilty in every particular, guilty to the utmost and final extremity of all possible human culpability!" Drakasha tore at her wig, then flung it to the deck and jumped up and down upon it. "An excellent verdict, ma'am."

"It is the judgment of this court," said Drakasha, "solemn in its authority and unwavering in its resolution, that for crimes upon the sea, the sea shall have them. Put them over the side! And may the gods not be too hasty in conferring mercy upon their souls." Cheering, the crew surged forth from every direction and surrounded the prisoners. Locke was alternately pushed and pulled along with the crowd to the larboard entry port, where a cargo net lay upon the deck with a sail beneath it. The two were lashed together at the edges. The ex-Messengers were shoved onto the netting and held there while several dozen sailors under Delmastros direction moved to the capstan. "Make ready to execute sentence," said Drakasha. "Heave up," cried Delmastro.

A complex network of pulleys and tackles had been rigged between the lower yards of the foremast and mainmast; as the sailors worked the capstan, the edges of the net drew upward and the Orchids holding the prisoners stepped back. In a few seconds the ex-Messengers were off the deck, squeezed together like animals in a trap. Locke clung to the rough netting to avoid slipping into the centre of the tangled mass of limbs and bodies. There was a generally useless bout of shoving and swearing as the net swung out over the rail and swayed gently in. the darkness fifteen feet above the water. "Clerk of the court, execute the prisoners," said Drakasha. "Give "em a drop, aye!" They wouldn't, thought Locke, at the very same moment they did.

The net full of prisoners plunged, drawing unwilling yelps and screams from the throats of men who'd done murderous battle on the Kingfisher in relative silence. The pull on the edges of the net slackened as it fell, so at least they had more room to tumble and bounce when they hit the surface of the water — or, more accurately, the strangely yielding barrier of net and sail canvas with the water beneath it like a cushion.

They rolled around in a jumbled, shouting mass for a second or two while the edges of their trap settled down into the waves, and then the warm, dark water was pouring in around them. Locke felt a brief moment of genuine panic — hard not to when the knots binding his hands and feet were very real — but after a few moments the edges of the net-backed sail began to draw upward again, until they were just above the surface of the ocean. The water still trapped with the prisoners was about waist-deep to Locke, and now the sail canvas formed a sort of shielded pool for them to stand and flounder about in.

"Everyone all right?" That was Jean; Locke saw that he'd claimed the edge of the net directly across from him. There were half a dozen shoving, splashing men between them. Locke scowled at the realization that Jean was quite content to stay where he was.

"Fuckin" jolly," muttered Streva, holding himself upright by one arm. The other had been lashed to the front of his chest in a crude sling. Several of the ex-Messengers were nursing broken bones, and nearly all of them had cuts and bruises, but not one had been excused from this ritual by his injuries.

"Your Honour!" Locke glanced up at the sound of Delmastro's voice. The lieutenant was peering down at them from the larboard entry port with a lantern in one hand; their net was resting in the water three or four feet from the Orchid's dark hull. "Your Honour, they're not drowning!"

"What?" Drakasha appeared next to Delmastro with her false wig back on her head, now more wildly askew than ever. "You rude little bastardsl How dare you waste this court's time with this ridiculous refusal to be executed! Clerk, help them drown!"

"Aye, ma'am, immediate drowning assistance. Deck pumps at the ready! Deck pumps away!"

A pair of sailors appeared at the rail with the aperture of a canvas hose held between them. Locke turned away just as the gush of warm salt water started pounding down on them all. Not so bad, he thought, just seconds before something more substantial than water struck the back of his head with a wet, stinging smack.

Bombardment with this new indignity — greased oakum, Locke quickly realized — was general and vigorous. Crewfolk had lined the rail and were flinging it down into the netted prisoners, a veritable rain of rags and rope fragments that had the familiar rancid stink of the stuff he'd spent several mornings painting the masts with. This assault continued for several minutes, until Locke had no idea where the grease ended and his clothes began, and the water in their little enclosure was topped with a sliding layer of foulness.

"Unbelievable," shouted Delmastro. "Your Honour, they're still there!" "Not drowned?"

Zamira appeared at the rail once again and solemnly removed her wig. "Damnation. The sea refuses to claim them. We shall have to bring them back aboard."

After a few moments, the lines above them drew taut and the little prison of net and canvas began to rise from the water. Not a moment too soon, it seemed — Locke shuddered as he felt something large and powerful brush against the barrier beneath his feet. In seconds they were mercifully above the tips of the waves and creaking steadily upward.

But their punishment was not yet over; they hung once more in the darkness when the net was hoisted above the rail and were not brought back in above the deck. "Free the spinning-tackle," shouted Delmastro.

Locke caught sight of a small woman shimmying out onto the tangle of ropes overhead. She pulled a restraining pin from the large wooden tackle by which the net was suspended. Locke recognized the circular metal bearing within the tackle; heavily greased, it would allow even awkward and weighty cargoes to be spun with ease. Cargoes like them.

Crewfolk lined the rail and began to grab at the net and heave it along; in moments the prisoners were spinning at a nauseating rate, and the world around them flew by in glimpses — dark water… lamps on the deck… dark water… lamps on the deck…

"Oh, gods," said someone, a moment before he noisily threw up. There was a sudden scramble away from the poor fellow, and Locke clung grimly to his place at the edge of the net, trying to ignore the kicking, shuddering, spinning mass of men. "Clean "em up," shouted Delmastro. "Deck pumps away!"