Joanna Bourne: My Lord and Spymaster

Lark was old and lumbering and always in need of repair—a poor excuse for a ship, but she stayed just barely profitable. Lark carried dirty cargo she didn’t want fouling better vessels—horse hides and dried fish and such.

Strange how it didn’t come as a shock to see Quentin here, his back to her, arguing with Blodgett. It was like her brain had kept working and calculating, and it’d already come up with Quentin’s name and was just now getting around to telling her about it.

Quentin and Pitney. Quentin was the schemer. Pitney would never have come up with this on his own.

Lark ’s crew was aboard. She could feel their footsteps on the deck boards. Fine weather for sailing, and it sounded like they were getting ready to do it.

“Jess . . .”

She turned her head. Light on the water blinded her. Then the shapes sorted out. It wasn’t a pile of dirty cloth next to the rail. It was a man, tossed down and twisted unnatural.

“Jessie . . .”

She rolled to her belly and crawled to him.

Pitney had been shot. Blood pooled on the deck under him. He had red at the corner of his mouth. It was blood with bubbles in it, and that meant he’d been hit in the lungs. Men didn’t live when they were hit in the lungs. “Pitney.”

“Jessie girl. I didn’t . . .”

His mouth was full of blood. He couldn’t finish the words. She could. “You didn’t mean this. None of it. You wouldn’t hurt me. Wouldn’t hurt Papa. I know that. I never thought anything else, not for a minute.”

She managed to sit and pull him up, into her lap, so his head lay against her. His clothes were sticky wet. So much blood in a man. The tears coming down her cheeks fell on his face.

His breath sucked and bubbled. “. . . just letters, Jess. Letters to France. I didn’t know . . .”

“You didn’t know they were treason.”

Easy to see how he’d been tricked into this. Just letters. That’s how it started. He’d taken a coin or two to send packets of letters, secret, to France. “To my sister.” “To my business in Lyon.” All those years smuggling lace and brandy and tea in good faith, he wouldn’t think about treason. Not till he was in too deep to stop.

“. . . I wouldn’t . . .”

“You never would. Not treason.”

“Thought Josiah would get away . . .”

“He doesn’t blame you.”

“I tried to . . .” His breathing took on the rattle that meant death was coming. “. . . stop . . .”

“You stopped them, Pitney. You did fine.” He was still breathing, but his eyes didn’t see anymore. He could hear, maybe. “Yer always saving me neck. You remember the time you come in arfter me, when I fell out of that damn dory off Hythe? And we neither of us could swim a lick. Papa was so bloody irritated. He yelled at me about it, off and on, for a year. You would not believe . . .”

There wasn’t any more life in him. She could tell the change, holding him.

LAZARUS held court in the same house, in the dim, vulgar parlor. In the back, four men piled the tables with swag from a large robbery. Two others talked to an old woman hunched over an account book. Most thieves paid their penny to the local Runner, but if you took gold, you had to come to Lazarus, to the old woman, to pay your pence. There wasn’t a fence in London would touch it otherwise.

Sebastian strode up the center of the room, Adrian beside him. None of the thugs lounging to the left or right said a word or tried to stop them. All those cold, violent eyes followed them.

Lazarus was holding a fine sable robe, admiring it. He ignored Adrian and cocked his head toward Sebastian. “What the hell’s going on, Captain?”

“We know who Cinq is. He’s got Jess.”

ON the far side of the deck, Quentin wound his way through a long, arrogant, complicated complaint. Blodgett was answering. None of it meant anything. She lay Pitney’s body back to the deck and closed his eyes. When she turned, Blodgett was saying, “. . . shoot him here. Then you bring me Whitby’s daughter. Get her below, for God’s sake.”

Quentin was different, here. He stood proud as a rooster. Swaggering. “I said to cast off.”

“We will, Mr. Ashton. We will. Nobody’s going anywhere on the slack of the tide.” Blodgett spat, showing his opinion of landsmen. “Billy, clear these boxes out of the way.” He kicked a valise.

“Take her to my cabin,” Quentin ordered a passing sailor. He sounded excited, like a kid going on holiday.

Blodgett snarled, “Not now . You, Henshaw, wrap some chain on that body. We’ll roll it overboard, downriver. And get the damned girl belowdecks.”

“Aye, Captain.”

They caught her before she made it over the railing. A pair of them slammed her to the planking, hard. One added a quick punch to her stomach to make her think twice about trying that again.

When the red faded out of her vision, Quentin stood over her, blotting out the sky. “You have given no end of trouble. And for nothing.” He poked his boot into her ribs. “You waste your time. You waste my time. You cause me expense and danger. It’s ridiculous. You two, hold her. I cannot understand why—”

He’d killed Pitney. She lunged for him. A sailor kicked her down and held her.

“Coward. Sodding, poxy, slimy, lying—”

Quentin leaned down, nagging. “You will learn to do what I tell you. There are good reasons for everything I do. Matters of state beyond your comprehension. If you would stop and listen to me for a minute—”

“I said to get her under cover.” Blodgett shoved Quentin aside and grabbed her by the hair and jerked her to her feet. “We’re at dock in the middle of London. Every ship has some fool with a spyglass. You can play with her when we’re out at sea.” Blodgett pushed, and she fell, staggering, against the belly of a huge sailor. “Stow her.”

She fought while they dragged her off and screamed every time she got her mouth loose. It took two of them to haul her away. She hurt them some. But not as much as they hurt her back.

Down below, in the cargo deck, they twisted her arms behind her and pushed her into a locker built tight to the hull. They kicked it closed and locked the door behind her and left her alone in the dark.

“HE wants her for ransom. And to give to the French.” Sebastian paced the carpet. “She’s only valuable to him alive. He has to keep her alive.” He was trying not to think about all the ways Jess could be hurt, and stay alive.

Beggars, thieves, cutthroats, and pimps detoured around him, making their way to Lazarus for orders. Word was spreading out. Every minute, more and more of the scum of the earth were looking for Jess.

Somewhere out there, she was afraid. Maybe hurt. He wouldn’t believe she was dead.

He stepped over the ferret. Adrian had let it loose in here for some goddamned reason. It kept getting underfoot. “Quentin won’t risk moving her twice. They’ll take her directly to the ship.” What else? There had to be more he could figure out. “It’ll be a small ship. Fifty tons or less. Small enough to have a crew that can be trusted to keep quiet. They’re smugglers or worse. He wouldn’t try this with an honest crew. We’re looking for a small ship with a bad reputation.”

From the corner of his eye he saw Lazarus signal his boy, Twist, to his side, and whisper orders, “. . . tell the Measle . . . Bernardo . . .”

Quentin had been listening to Jess at dinner every night. He had to know the net was closing. Quent had laid plans for his escape. “Look for a ship’s been sitting idle a week, with the crew aboard. They’ll have some excuse.”

Lazarus said, “Take those words with you. Pass them along. Don’t stand there. Go.”