“And what you think he care?” She gave a snap, contemptuous. “This much, like any other cunning-folk. ‘Sides which, ‘twasn’t always so. Was it?”
True enough. So instead of bothering trying to deny it, Rusk merely demanded—“Tell me how best t’protect myself, then, witch. Or leave me t’my fate.”
“Chain him up an’ sink him deep, th
at the best way. But you won’t do that.” Sighing, as he shook his head: “Well, then . . . give me that eye o’yours and I work me will on’t, rub it wi’ the blood we share on me mirror, an’ see what rise up in the reflection. For we do be the same line, after all, wi’ that one ancestress of yours puissant as any ten o’mine; should help, to a point.”
Given how little its loss troubled him, these days, Rusk felt an almost foolish stab of surprise to hear her even mention the gewgaw’s mere existence. But he popped it free nonetheless, and handed it over—ivory inlaid with jet, the skull and crossed bones winking back up at him from his own salt-rough palm. “I’ll wait on the beach, shall I?”
“As ya please,” Tante Ankolee replied, all blissful-unaware how she parroted the same man whose ill-wishes she sought to keep her roguish “little” half-brother safe from.
Rusk lay on the sand, stretched out and warming himself, ‘til the sun dipped low enough to turn everything behind his lids deep red. At which point he heard crunching to his right hand and knew without even looking how Parry drew near, his booted steps sure and light as any other stalking thing.
“She has your looks, on close examination,” Parry said, settling himself beside with arms wrapped ‘round his knees, “for which, one can only assume, she is hardly to be blamed.”
“A misfortune most Rusks share,” the captain agreed, still not opening his eye. “Her dam and mine were bed-mates, of a sort, though seldom sharing the same one at the same time.”
“Ah, so your father kept slaves; well, then. Perhaps that explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“How you have no qualm treating others thus, free or slave. But then again—if that was truly what you wanted, in my case, you would have done better to leave the collar on.”
At this, Rusk did rise up, casting both his remaining eye and the empty socket a Frenchman’s sword had left behind down Parry’s way. He saw the man’s fine, lean face even more set than usual, his shoulders stiff, ever-so-slightly a-tremble in the dimming light, and felt something soften in himself, if only for a moment.
“Nay, Jerusha—much as I may covet t’see you on your knees, it’s little use you’d be t’me that way. And while I run no charity, to work a ship, any ship—pirate, Navy, the most mundane-lawful tub ever sailed—is indenture, as all aboard her know, with me no exception, my captain’s colours aside. For so long as she’s mine to command I’m owned just as sure, by the Bitch of Hell herself.”
For a moment, Parry had nothing to offer by way of reply—and indeed, that moment stretched on so long, Rusk almost thought he had made him understand.
But then:
“This is easily said,” Parry told him, coldly, making his own feet and meeting Rusk’s half-gaze straight-on. And turned a black-clad back on him, spine no longer anything but ramrod-straight.
That night, when Tante Ankolee gave him back his eye, Rusk felt it sting slightly as it went in: her “protection,” no doubt, and just as well. For from what he could see, he would probably need it.
***
The bag Rusk’s cousin had helped him start grew apace, along with Parry’s powers, and he and the captain settled into an uncomfortable sort of working partnership, accordingly. Since the wizard was learning on his feet, however, this arrangement did not come without dangers: when they ran into doldrums, Parry raised a wind to nudge them free that quick-swelled into a full-blown storm and almost swamped them, whilst a glamour meant to slip them close enough to a prize to board her unawares lit them up with ghostly flame, which had the exact opposite effect, drawing cannonballs like hail.
Still, even Rusk had to own himself impressed when Parry split the ship they’d just been almost sunk by down its midsection like a hot knife with one wave and used the two halves to cobble a new hull from, shelling the Bitch in strange wood; the result dressed them permanently in false colours, making them seem no threat at all from a distance so they might make striking range at double-time, then run up the black flag.
At the revels, after, Parry sat alone and un-drinking, on the very edge of the crowd. When Rusk passed him the rum he refused it: no surprise, there. “I seldom imbibe,” Parry told him, shortly.
“‘Seldom’ still leaves me aught t’work with, ye realize.”
Caught unawares, Parry had already half-started to laugh before he could quite stop himself but choked it off a second on, quick enough to rasp in the throat. “To proclaim oneself abstemious entire aboard a Navy vessel would have been foolish in the extreme,” he said, at last. “Assuming you care to know my logic on the matter.”
“Ah, it always does me good t’hear ye use such large words in casual conversation, my Jerusha; broadens the mind, it does, and lifts me own vocabulary likewise.” Thus rebuffed, Rusk drank the dram down himself, and sighed. “Still, I cannot but think from your manner that ye have not yet forgiven me my trespasses, as that Book you once studied says ye should. What say you?”
“That you may count yourself entirely correct, in such a conclusion.”
“A pity. I’ll leave you to your brooding, then, shall I?”
“Please.”
Rusk sketched him a bow, received a haughty nod in return, and withdrew some few paces, taking up a watchful position. When the fires burnt low enough, his crew began to pair off—some with native girls, some with each other—and he returned, softly, to where Parry now dozed on one hand, his grim head nodding. Then waited ‘til even a sharp clap next to one ear was no longer sufficient to rouse him and gathered him up, retiring to what he’d begun to think of as their cabin.
Morning found them both stripped down and well-ensnared, with one of Parry’s fearsome cheekbones dug deep above where Rusk’s black heart beat strongest through the fur of his chest. As far as Rusk could tell, the delights of the night had been entirely mutual, in their moment—but by the time Parry’s eyes opened fully he was angry again, small hairs all over his body fair lifting with painful little blue-green sparks yet generally schooled to a cold stillness almost more frightening to witness than any full loss of control, as though he knew himself far too badly-enraged to give way to his passions, lest they stream from him so strongly they ripped the very ship ‘round he and Rusk to shreds.