Emma Holloway - A Study in Ashes

Nick put a hand on the brass plate. Welcome home, my lady . He felt her touch, almost like a kiss on the cheek, and she was gone, no doubt to explore every cupboard and cannon in her new vessel. In no time at all she’d be back, demanding to fly.

A TALL, LANKY MAN WITH RED HAIR AND WIRE-RIMMED glasses skidded to a halt in the doorway. It was the helmsman, the residue of shock still on his face as he looked at Nick. Digby had been one of the Red Jack ’s crew, and a friend. The man’s eyes grew bright with moisture, but he blinked and drew himself up, offering an awkward salute. “It’s a good thing you’re back, sir. We have a visitor.”

“A visitor?” Nick looked around the bridge, where he’d been listening to Striker explain the instrument panels. He wasn’t ready for visitors. Hours had passed since he’d returned, but they had gone by in a blink.

“Who is it?” Striker asked, and then his face fell. “Bollocks, now what does he want?”

A man pushed past Digby, and Nick knew him at once. Roberts . There weren’t that many pirate captains hunting the skies—especially ones who made themselves at home on other people’s ships. Often permanently, and with their unlucky host at sword point.

“You might have warned me,” Nick muttered.

“I told you he keeps dropping by,” Striker grumbled. “I still don’t trust him.”

Nick folded his arms, telling himself not to make assumptions—but the man was a wolverine in a tailcoat. Even if Striker had plucked him off an island prison, and even if by some freak of circumstance he really did want to be friendly, showing weakness could be a fatal mistake. “Captain Roberts,” Nick said cautiously.

Roberts was a tall, big-boned man, but he had lost weight since Nick had seen him last—probably during his time on Devil’s Island. There were shadows under his craggy cheekbones and his ruddy complexion now looked fevered. He was dressed in a dandy’s clothes, but they’d seen better days, hanging limp and greasy around his frame. Nick could smell the brandy on him from where he stood.

“Ah, Captain Niccolo.” Roberts ambled across the bridge, pausing in front of the chair. “Back from the dead, I see,” Roberts mused, the burr of a Scots brogue rounding the words. “Where the hell were you, lad?”

“In a prison,” Nick said, trying to keep the chitchat brief. “I escaped.”

The man made to sit down in the captain’s chair. Nick pulled the knife from his belt and threw it in one smooth motion. The blade flashed through the air and clunked into the arm of the chair, pinning the man’s sleeve. “That’s my seat,” Nick said smoothly, “if it’s all the same to you.”

Roberts looked up from the knife that quivered a bare inch from his flesh. The man’s dark eyes narrowed with anger for a heartbeat before he broke into a great, booming roar of mirth. “Ah, Niccolo, for a dead man, you are mighty fast!” Then with a grunt, he tugged the knife from his sleeve.

“Let’s start again. Hello, Captain, what are you doing on my ship?” Nick asked, struggling to keep his voice calm.

“It’s a bit of a tale. I was on Devil’s Island until Mr. Striker here brought this marvelous ship to set me free.”

“So I heard.”

“Aye, and I’m a grateful man. That island is bloody awful, let me tell you. As hot as hell and not a drop of spirits to drink.” Roberts began to sit down again, thought better of it, and leaned on the back of the chair instead. His long, lank brown hair swung forward over his shoulders. “I owe your crew a favor, Nicky my lad, for helping my boys break me out of the Frenchies’ prison. It was a bloody miracle and each one of your crew is an angel born and bred.”

Striker shifted his weight, his coat clanking as he moved. “We were along for the exercise. It was your old crew that wouldn’t rest until you were back.”

Nick began to relax—not much, but enough to take his hand off the second knife he had hidden up his sleeve. “And that is why you’re here? To acknowledge this debt?”

Roberts broke into a devilish smile. “Nay, lad, I’ve done that time and again already until Mr. Striker is ready to bar the door. This time I came to ask another boon.” He held up a hand before Nick could protest, and Nick saw the flash of a gem-studded ring. Roberts had never been shy about showing off his loot. “Let me explain. I have my own ship, the Dawn Star , three hours’ ride up the coast. It was, uh, being underutilized by a Portuguese trader I met in Barbados, where Mr. Striker here was good enough to leave me and my boys after we left Devil’s Island behind.” Roberts gave a regretful shrug. “There were a few glasses of rum and a game of cards and suddenly the ship was mine. You know how it goes.”

In other words, Roberts had cheated the Portuguese captain of his ship. There was a reason every honest seaman dreaded his name. “The favor?” Nick prompted.

Roberts pulled out a flask, took a swig, and smacked his lips. Despite the costly ring, there was grime worked deep into the creases of his fingers, as if he hadn’t washed in weeks. “Right to the point you are. Well, as I said, I have my own ship again, and I’m thinking to myself, ah, Roberts, what’s next? What are you going to do with your last few years in the great blue sky?”

He leaned forward, gripping the chair. “And then I say to myself, what about this whisper I heard that there’s a pardon for every pirate that sides with the rebels against the Steam Council?”

Striker looked at Nick, head cocked. He hadn’t heard this yet.

Roberts went on. “It sounds like a crock of nonsense, but then I think, the Red Jack did business with those rebel boys—they all said so at the Saracen’s Head, back before you went away, Nicky boy. So yes, thinks I, that crew would know the truth of it, and those kind souls would steer me right. And so I’m here, but from your face it’s news to you, Mr. Striker. Is my errand a waste of time and aether?”

“It’s new information,” said Nick cautiously. “The pardons would come only under certain conditions.” He was making this up, but he was sure the queen wouldn’t hand them out willy-nilly.

The pirate regarded him steadily, all business now. “I want that pardon, lad. After the island, the savor has gone out of this life. Pillage for its own sake has paled. Perhaps I’m just tired, but I want to bounce my grandbabies on my knee and look back at the good old days with a wistful sigh.”

Nick tried to picture Roberts in his dotage, and failed. Nevertheless, the Schoolmaster wanted ships. “I don’t know what the work would be. More than just running supplies. Maybe defense against the Scarlet King’s dirigibles. Could be against foreign allies attacking the coast.”

Roberts stood up straight, his feet planted apart, as if riding a heaving deck. “And I’m more than ready to show them the business end of my cannons, but those cursed Baskervilles are as hard to find as cockroaches at high noon. How do I treat with them?”

“I can deliver your terms to the Baskervilles,” said Nick. “Standard negotiation rates.”

Roberts’s eyebrows curled in suspicion. “Two percent of plunder?”

“Three.” Nick wasn’t going to get greedy—the rebels needed an air fleet more than he needed gold—but not bargaining would have undervalued the pirate’s offer. “Subject to the acceptance of looting as part of the agreement.”

“Fair as an April morn,” said Roberts. “And I won’t be the only one to think so. Our pirate brothers have a bone to pick with the steam barons. In the time you’ve been gone, conditions have gone down the crapper. Fuel is costly. Parts are hard to come by. The Violet Queen wants to shut down our pleasure ships because they’re not authorized brothels. As if the Steam Council has any business where we take our pleasures! She even wants to tax our rum. Now I know that men in our line of work like to go our own way, but it’s time we banded together. And since the men of the Jack knew the rebels, and I knew the men of the Jack , I was chosen as the one to speak.”