
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1800388.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Original_Work
  Relationship:
      Original_Male_Character/Original_Male_Character
  Character:
      Original_Male_Character(s)
  Additional Tags:
      Pirates
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-06-17 Chapters: 3/? Words: 6093
****** The Accord ******
by beetle
Summary
     Bankim Rao is trapped in a living Hell, under his aunt's greedy,
     insistent thumb. Enter a naked, bound, wanted pirate in a bit of a
     fix. If either of them are to escape their chains, an accord must be
     struck between them. And quickly.
     Written for the prompt(s): Pirates.
Notes
     See archive warnings.
     Terms:
     Anjaan: Stranger.
See the end of the work for more notes
***** One *****
The stranger is pale and naked and has a bounty on his head. He’s also gagged
and tied up—hands and feet, and on his stomach—on Durijesh’s pallet.

He looks up as I slip into the room fully, his panicked, pale eyes widening in
wary hope. I close the door quietly behind me and lean against it for a moment
as a plan springs into my mind, fully formed, if not especially detailed or
well thought out.

The hard part will be getting this stranger’s acquiescence, but I’m suddenly
quite certain that Ican, his own circumstances notwithstanding.

So the question becomes not: Can I do this? But: Do I really mean to do
this? I must mean to . . . or else I’d not be here, but attending to my usual
duties at Madam Abharana’s Exotic Lotus Palace. I’d be running orders to the
kitchen, or mopping floors or preparing a room for its next visitors, instead
of contemplating something that’ll likely end with the gagged stranger beheaded
and me sold to the highest bidder.

As it is, Cook’ll be wondering where I am and what’s keeping me, and the messy
rooms left unattended will be a mute testament to my absence.

Taking a deep breath—it’s too late to back out now, Bankim, I tell myself—I
approach the bed. The man in it begins to struggle and try to speak through the
gag—one of Durijesh’s fine scarves—and I pause, halfway to him.

“Be quiet,” I say softly, but commandingly. I have the power here, for the
moment, and he needs to understand that before any deal can be stuck between
us.

The man stops struggling and squints at me. Eyes the color of an afternoon sky
before a rainstorm track me as I move toward him once more. He’s a large man,
all lean, long muscle and pale, hairy skin. His features are strong
but pleasing, in a foreign way, though they’re partially obscured by the
shoulder-length dark hair hanging in his face. But not so obscured that I’d
failed to instantly recognize his face.

“Do you understand what I say?” I ask slowly, because one can never tell how
much a foreigner understands of one’s mother tongue. But the stranger nods
once, tossing his hair out of his face. Yes, his features are quite handsome. I
know Durijesh had, before this turn of events, been pleased to have such an
attractive customer. “Good. You’re in quite a bind. Literally.”

A muffled huff is my response and those sky-before-a-storm eyes become a
bitstormier. I smile and hold out my hands in placation. “A terrible bind, yes,
but I’m willing to help you escape. Get you out of this place and back to your
ship—you are, I assume, a sailor?”

A wary nod.

“I thought so. And all I ask in return,” I begin, only to see his eyes narrow.
“All I ask is that you take me with you.”

Another muffled huff and the stranger begins rocking side to side as if trying
to roll over onto his back. The pallet creaks loudly and I sigh. “Do stop that.
You’re only going to get us discovered.”

The stranger makes a frustrated sound and glares at me. I sigh again and take
the last few steps that put me within reach of the bed, and I sit next to him.
“If I remove Durijesh’s scarf, will you promise not to scream or shout or speak
loudly? We really will be discovered if you do.”

Appearing to think it over, the stranger closes his eyes for a few moments,
then nods again. He opens his eyes to gaze into mine in a way I take to mean
that I have his word.

It would have to do.

“Kindly refrain from biting me,” I murmur as I reach out to tweak a bit of
scarf and whip it out of his mouth. As soon as it’s out, the stranger clears
his throat quietly and croaks: “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” I tuck the scarf into my pocket, just in case I need to
reapply it within the next few minutes. “Now, as to my terms—“

“No one can just bring a random whore onto the Vivianna without the captain’s
approval,” he says in a more even tenor. His accent is strange—clipped and
gutteral. I shiver and glance away from his dark-blue eyes till I’ve collected
myself.

“Then you must somehow secure the captain’s approval. Also I’m neither random
nor a whore. I’m the person who’s in a position to save your life,” I tell him,
and he smiles, hard and rather cold.

“And you’d trust my word that I’d speak for you well enough to get the
captain’s approval?” he asks curiously, managing to roll half onto his back to
get a better look at me. I sit up straighter and hold his gaze. “Why, when I
could just tell him to toss you overboard or keelhaul you?”

I didn’t know what keelhaul meant. It was a strange, guttural word in the
stranger’s strange, guttural language. But it didn’t sound like something
pleasant.

“I’ve known a few sailors—men like you.” The stranger snorts sarcastically.
“Their word, once given sincerely, is everything. If you give me your word, I
would trust it to the ends of the Earth.”

The stranger blinks and that hard, cold smile falters.

“Sailors are notorious liars,” he says finally, quite bitterly. “And I’ve
broken my word to people who’ve relied on me more than I can count without my
boots off. What makes you think I’ll keep my word to you?”

I spread my hands again, this time in resignation. “What choice have I got?
What choice haveyou got?”

“A word given under duress is not one I’d feel obliged to keep,” the stranger
says miserably, pressing his damp face into Durijesh’s pillow, seeming fairly
resigned himself. “Anyway, you’re only placating me. Keeping me calm till the
law comes to haul me off to my death.”

“I can assure you, I’m not. I want to get out of this place as much as you do,
if not more. Now,” I touch his shoulder and he shudders. Muscles jump under my
hand and he looks up at me hopelessly. “Do I untie you, or let Durijesh come
back with the constabulary and find you here?”

The stranger closes his eyes again and takes a deep breath. “And all you want
is safe passage on the Vivianna?”

“Safe passage, yes. And your word that I won’t be harmed, or forced off the
ship in any way.”

“Lad, it’s a ship full of hard-drinking, rough-playing sailing men. I can’t
promise one of them won’t think you looked at him askance and try to—to pick a
fight! I can’t promise one of them won’t take it into his head to have you,
whether you want him to or not!”

“Your word, anjaan, that no harm will befall me. Or we’ll both sit here till
the constables come.”

He opens his eyes and looks at me a little desperately. “And how far are you
looking to go with us?”

“As far from here as I can get.”

“Why?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

“It is if I’m bringing someone’s valued slave or a criminal aboard the ship.”
That desperate gaze grows steely and I draw myself up again.

“I am no slave nor am I a criminal. You have my word on that.”

“Oh, have I, now? Well, that’s just jolly good, then.” The stranger chuckles
raggedly, once more burying his face in Durijesh’s scarlet pillow before
looking up at me again. “Fine. You have my word. My word that I’ll get you safe
passage on the Vivianna for as far upriver as she’s going. That I will let no
harm befall you nor will I let anyone try to throw you off the ship,” he adds
off my steady gaze.

“I’m willing to work while I’m aboard, to earn my keep. Not in that way,” I add
when his gaze, rather lively for a bound man, sweeps consideringly over me. “I
said I’m not a whore and I was telling the truth.”

“Then what are you, lovely lad who works in a whorehouse and yet is not a
whore?”

I blush furiously. No one’s ever called me lovely before, though I’ve
heard pretty till I’ve grown sick of it. “I’m a scullery boy and housekeeper.
I’ve been working for Madam since I was eight.”

The stranger frowns. “And how old are you, now.”

“Nineteen,” I lie. Then off his disbelieving look, sigh yet again. “Almost
sixteen.”

“Bloody hell.” The stranger chuckles again, and it’s tinged with despair. “I’ve
lived to see everything—the day Bonny Jack Blythe needs rescuing by a scullery
boy young enough to be his son! Oh, how the mighty have fallen!”

I stand up, crossing my arms. “Do we have a deal?”

The stranger’s eyes narrow once more and anxiety makes my heart race. But
eventually he nods.

“We have an accord, lad. And you have my freely given word,” he says again,
solemnly, and I can’t help the grin that shines out at his words.

“And you have mine,” I promise. “But you must do exactly as I say, when I say,
in order for us to get out without attracting too much attention. Now. Hold out
your hands.”

I pull my knife from my waistband and his eyes widen.
***** Two *****
Chapter Summary
     Written for the prompt(s): Pirates.
Chapter Notes
     See archive warnings.
 
Getting out of the Exotic Lotus Palace without being noticed isn’t exactly hard
this night.

This, despite the fact that the stranger’s head and shoulders taller than
anyone I’ve ever seen—tall, even, for the odd northerner I’ve occasionally met.
I can feel his hulking presence behind me as I lead him toward the back hall
and staircases, made no less intimidating and powerful for the fact that he’s
now dressed in his linen shirt, black worsted trousers, and tall brown boots.

I lead him past the fancy rooms of the working ladies and lads, to the back of
the large, old brick townhouse, and the tiny, Spartan rooms of the staff—those
of us who aren’t whores—pausing only to duck into my room and pack a small
bundle hurriedly under the stranger’s increasingly impatient gaze. 

Durijesh had likely gone to the constabulary to inquire about the reward for
bringing the stranger in. That had been almost half an hour ago. Who knows how
long the idiot would be gone? And who knows how many lawmen he’d be bringing
back with him when he returned?

“Hurry,” I say to the stranger when, shouldering my bundle—several changes of
clothes and the few small keepsakes I’d managed to hold on to from my life
before coming to the Exotic Lotus Palace—I close the door to my room. Then I’m
walking quickly, confidently toward the back stairs that lead down to the exit
near the kitchens. “Look like you know where you’re going and have every right
to be going there, and we should be fine.”

“If you say so, lad,” he replies, sounding amused and aggrieved simultaneously.
I don’t bother to look back to gauge his expression.

We pass no one on the back stairs or landings—it’s a busy night, so everyone is
doing something. . . everyone except me, of course—and it seems to be clear
sailing, so to speak, to the back exit from the ground floor landing.

“Walk, don’t run, for the back exit,” I command over my shoulder, pointing
across from the large rectangle of gaslight that represents the back entrance
to the kitchen. Directly before it is the back door. “If someone stops us or
tries to, just keep walking as if you don’t hear them.”

“As young master commands,” the stranger says, sounding amused once more. I
stiffen, but start walking again.

We’ve just reached the rectangle of light and the door across from it when
someone calls my name.

My hand freezes on the doorknob—for all of two seconds. Then I’m turning it and
opening the door onto the alley behind the Exotic Lotus Palace. Bright
afternoon light shines in, momentarily blinding me. The alley smells of garbage
and piss and freedom.

I’m not going to let anything or anyone stop me.

“Wait—Bankim, stop!”

“No,” I whisper to myself as my heart twists in my chest. I step out the door
and as I do so, I hear a thud from behind me, as of a body being slammed into a
wall. When I break my own edict to turn around and see what’s happening, the
stranger has my friend Harun pinned to the wall and is glaring at him.

Harun looks frightened and horrified.

“Bankim,” he begins and the stranger presses him more firmly into the wall. I
sigh and step back inside, glancing beyond the bulk of the stranger to see if
anyone from the kitchen is paying us any mind. No one is, miraculously.

“Harun,” I start then frown up at the stranger. “Let him go, anjaan, he’s no
threat to us.”

“He’s a pair of eyes and flapping lips when the last thing we want is to be
seen,” the stranger hisses, still glaring at poor Harun, whose eyes tick
frantically between us. The stranger has the better part of one foot on
Harun—on me, as well—and at least one hundred pounds . . . all of it muscle.

“You’re r-running away again, aren’t you?” Harun stutters, his eyes finally
settling on me. I look away.

“Yes,” I admit lowly. “It’s my only chance to be free of this place. Every time
I run away, Madam has them bring me back. This time I mean to go so far
she’ll never find me.”

“B-but why run? We have it g-good here—honest work, f-food, and free room and
b-board. And n-no one h-hurts us. . . .” Harun’s dark eyes are wide and
stricken, and I look away again. I know a little of Harun’s story—snippets of
the fifteen horrific years he’d borne before fetching up at Madam’s two years
ago. To him, the life we currently have is a good one. But to me, someone who
remembers a life of freedom, of affluence, and of love . . . the Exotic Lotus
Palace is a living nightmare. One I’ve been trying to wake up from for eight
years.

“You wouldn’t understand, Harun,” I say, because it’s true: he wouldn’t. “I
just—I need to leave and I need to do it now. Please, don’t tell anyone I’ve
gone.”

“But—”

“Keep your gob shut or I swear, by all that’s holy, I’ll cut your throat,” the
stranger hisses grimly, quietly, and Harun’s already wide eyes widen further,
impossibly, and he sags in the stranger’s cruel grip. Without thinking I reach
out to put a hand on the stranger’s tense arm. Once more, muscles jump under my
touch.

“He won’t tell anyone. Right, Harun?” I’m speaking to Harun, but suddenly
looking into the stranger’s stormy eyes. “He won’t tell anyone.”

The stranger stares for long moments into my eyes before finally nodding once
and easing his tight grip on Harun, who further sags.

“I w-won’t tell, Bankim. But not because I’m afraid of h-him.” Harun’s voice
firms up and when I look at him, he’s watching me mournfully, almost
yearningly. My heart twists some more and I look away again. “I w-want you to
be h-happy, and if leaving is wh-what makes you h-happy . . . then go with m-my
blessings.”

I don’t know what to say, other than: “Thank you, Harun.”

“But I w-will miss you,” he adds almost defensively, glaring back at the
stranger, who rolls his eyes and lets Harun go with a snort. Harun straightens
his clothes and turns to me, stepping close. He reaches out and brushes his
fingers down my cheek. His eyes on mine are steady and filled with tears. “I’ll
miss you.”

And then he darts in quick and presses a kiss to my mouth, holding it for a few
seconds before leaning back, blushing so deeply it shows up even on his sun-
darkened skin.

“I’d better g-get back to w-work before s-someone comes l-looking,” he exhales
in a rush then turns and shoulders past the once more amused-looking stranger.
“Safe travels, Bankim.”

“Thank you, Harun,” I say, numb with surprise and one hand flown to my tingling
mouth, but he’s already lost to the noise of the kitchen and likely doesn’t
hear me. I stare after him, my heart beating so fast it feels as if it’ll seize
. . . or perhaps simply break. If my plan goes as it should, I will never see
him again. . . .

“Come, lad,” the stranger says almost gently, stepping toward the door and
putting a hand on my shoulder, turning me away from the rectangle of gaslight
and the kitchen, and toward the more natural afternoon light and freedom.
“Let’s disappear while we still can.”

Glancing behind me once—Harun is nowhere in sight, though several members of
the kitchen staff are, and any of them could turn and see us at any second—I
nod and follow the stranger out the back door.

*


After we leave behind the Pleasure District, the stranger takes the lead in our
escape.

Through roundabout ways, he leads us to the docks on the Beva River, and the
lively trade and work that goes on there at all hours of the day and night.
Amongst the late afternoon crowds we are faceless, anonymous. I soon find
myself clutching at the stranger’s hand for fear of losing him in the throngs.
He bends a questioning look back at me, and I hold my head high.

Finally, shrugging, he starts us moving again, hand in hand.

And on we go for what seems like hours to one who’s only rarely been to the
docks, such as I. There are so many sights and sounds and scents. So much to
take in. And I’m all eyes, trying to absorb it. Bolts of fine fabric—silks,
satins, velvets, George cloths—for exporting are being loaded onto ships.
Exotic foods—meats, vegetables, spices—are being unloaded. People paler than
even the stranger I find myself clinging to haggle and deal with people even
darker than Harun.

“Quit gawping, lad. That’s a good way to get yourself noticed and remembered,”
the strangers leans in to murmur and I blush.

“I’m not used to such sights,” I say helplessly staring as two men—carrying a
large cage the size of a small sofa, with what looks to be a gigantic parrot
inside—cross our paths, grunting with exertion. “What is that?”

“It’s none of our concern, is what yon bird is,” the stranger says, pulling me
along at a faster clip, squinting into the distance. “And once you’re on board
the Vivianna, you’ll see stranger sights than a giant chicken.”

“Sights like what?”

But the stranger doesn’t answer. Merely pulls me along until at last, after
another eternity of walking, we’ve stopped at a large ship near the end of the
docks, where the trade and crowds have thinned considerably. The gang-plank is
down and men are moving about the deck and shimmying up and down ropes and
masts.

The stranger pauses a few steps from the gangplank and turns to me solemnly.

“This is her,” he says, looking me over. “Your home for the next several weeks,
should the captain see fit to let you stay aboard.”

I nod anxiously. “And you’ll speak for me, as best as you’re able?”

“Aye, that, I will. We have an accord, remember?” He smiles fleetingly before
going on. “Tell me one thing first, though . . . why is it you’re so keen on
leaving your home?”

I open my mouth to remind him that it’s none of his business, my reasons for
leaving. But then I realize . . . putting him off might be alienating a true
potential ally. And what does it matter if he knows the truth? “When my mother
and her twin sister were barely my age, they were both sold into bondage. To
the Exotic Lotus Palace. My mother’s first customer was my father . . . and
upon hearing her story, he bought her and freed her, and married her. He would
not do the same for my aunt, who eventually—after five years—earned enough
money to buy her freedom. When she did, she changed her name to Abharana, the
same as the previous Madam, and within three years, she was the new Madam of
the Exotic Lotus Palace. By that time, both my parents had died and I was sent
to live with Madam Abharana. I’ve been there for eight years.”

The stranger frowns down at me. “You’re saying . . . the Madam of that place is
your aunt?”

I nod again and the stranger sighs. “I take it she would pitch a fit if you
were to disappear so completely, you being her only family?”

I snort. “She fancies that she wants to someday leave the Palace in my hands.
To that end, she had me educated until I was fourteen, trained in maths and
literature, so that I could hold my head high among the other . . . Pleasure
District owners and managers. But when I turned fourteen, she began saying she
wanted me to do as she’d had to do: work my way up as a whore, to a manager,
and eventually a Madam. Or Master, I suppose. And the more I refuse her or try
to run away, the worse she makes my life at the Palace. I’ve gone from
assisting her in the day to day operations to being a scullery boy in just over
a year. I don’t know that there’s much further to demote me. I’m afraid she
might decide to . . . to sell me.” I clutch my bundle to me with one hand. The
other is still being held by the stranger in a surprisingly gentle grasp. 

“I see.” The stranger’s still frowning. “And what did your lover think of you
maybe turning whore?”

Confused, I look up from our clasped hands. “Lover?”

The stranger nods back the way we’d come. “That scrawny boy who fancies you—the
one who saw us leave.”

Harun?!” I laugh, though it sounds false to my own ears. “Harun is not my
lover!”

“Though not for lack of wanting, I’ll wager.” That fleeting smile graces the
stranger’s face again. “Yours is a beauty that’ll break hearts, lad, if you’re
not careful and if it hasn’t, already.”

“No it’s not.” I look away. At the Vivianna. “And if it is, so what? It’s the
face I was born with. I can’t help that.”

The stranger laughs, seeming delighted. “You’re the only person I’ve ever met
who’s taken exception to being called beautiful.”

I shrug. “The only value my looks have is that they remind me of my mother.
When I look in a mirror, I see her face staring back at me and that comforts
me.”

The stranger shakes his head, still smiling, almost bemusedly, now. “You are
quite the bundle of contradictions, lad. Practical yet sentimental, worldly yet
naïve, mercenary yet principled . . . you’re quite intriguing, you know? In
fact,” he says, turning to step onto the gangplank and taking me with him. “In
fact, there might be a position for you shipboard.”

“I told you, anjaan, I’m not a whore.”

“I don’t mean that kind of position.” The stranger leads me up the gangplank,
still holding my hand. “I was thinking more along the lines of cabin boy.”

I frown as we reach the top of the gangplank. The stranger hops down onto the
deck, then turns to lift me down by the waist, bundle and all, as if I weigh
nothing. “What’s a cabin boy?” I ask as my feet touch the deck and I
immediately feel the gentle rocking of the ship.

“Well, it’s—”

Suddenly a piercing whistle goes up from somewhere on the deck, and all the
sailors rushing about finish up their tasks and form two neat rows on the deck,
all faster than I’d have previously countenanced. Then, a burly, pale man on
the right end of the front row blows his whistle again, three high, sharp
notes, before calling in that northern language: “Captain on deck!”

I immediately start looking around for him, this man in whose hands my fate
rests, but I see no one stepping out of what I assume to be the captain’s
quarters. I look to the stranger for a cue as to what to do but he’s looking up
and around him at the ship, his keen, stormy eyes taking in every mast, sail,
and rope. “Good morning, gentlemen!” he barks ringingly. “Back to what you were
doing! We’re weighing anchor sharpish!”

The response shouted by the men present is once more in that guttural northern
language I can’t follow for more than a few words, but I understand enough of
it to know the response to the stranger’s shouted order is an obedient and
excited: “Aye, Cap’n!”

I gape up at the stranger in shock as the lines of men break up and scurry
about to take up the tasks that’d been interrupted by the return of their
captain. The stranger—the Captain—looks down at me and smiles again, wryly.

“Y-you—” I start and stutter, and his smile widens.

“Yes. Me,” he says, chuckling, and I blanch. I can feel the blood draining from
my face. And draining and draining, till even the world begins to lose its
color around the edges, taking on shades of grey. I begin to sway and the
captain’s chuckle cuts off as he realizes something’s amiss.

“Lad? Are you all to rights?” he asks, pulling me closer by my suddenly cool
and clammy hand, his own free hand coming up to touch my forehead. “No fever.
But you’re pale. For you.”

“Please,” I say, still swaying even under his calming touch as the slight
rocking of the boat seems to become a pitch and yaw that makes the world
revolve nauseatingly. But I manage to meet the captain’s stormy eyes.
“Please don’t make me go back to her . . . she’ll sell me,” I whisper, tears
running down my face as the world goes gently dark. My last thought as I fall
forward into the captain’s arms, my knees buckling, is: At least I may get a
chance to apologize to Harun before she sells me.

Then I’m just gone. Lost to darkness and unknowing.
***** Three *****
Chapter Summary
     Written for the prompt(s): Pirates.
Chapter Notes
     See archive warnings.
When I awaken, moaning at the throbbing of my head, I try to sit up and only
manage to get a few inches up off the pillow—pillow?—before falling back into
it. The world is spinning just enough to make movement unwise, especially with
the way my stomach is gurgling.
So I lay there with my eyes closed for a little while before opening them
again, expecting to see my room back at the Palace. What I get is—
—richly appointed quarters like I’ve never seen before, all in dark wood, with
a large desk in a corner, the one opposite to the bed in which I lay. On that
desk are papers and what look like maps. Not far from that desk is a globe. In
the third quadrant of the room is a medium-sized rectangular dining table with
six chairs around it.
In the fourth quadrant is a large copper tub—for bathing, I could only
presume—and a giant wooden footlocker. Eastern-style rugs and carpets cover the
floor in a profusion of colors and shapes.
Four lanterns are lit and hanging from holders in each corner of the room, but
the main source of light is the lurid sunset coming in from the window set
between the desk and globe, and the dining table. By its light I can see that
the bed I’m in is huge enough to sleep four—six, if they were all very close
friends. It’s as soft as I remember my parents’ bed being when I was little,
and I’m covered by wonderfully cool sheets and a heavy coverlet.
“Where am I?” I wonder weakly. Just then, the door to the quarters opens,
letting in even more of that lurid sunset. There, outlined by the light, is the
stranger.
Rather, the captain. He’s dresse much as he’d been when last I’d seen him,
though his wild dark hair has been pulled back by a ribbon. He’s carrying a
tray.
“You’re awake, lad,” he says warmly, entering the quarters and kicking the
doors shut behind him, first with one foot, then the other. He approaches the
bed and places the tray on my legs, sitting on the right edge of the bed when I
steady the tray with my hands.
“Gave us all quite the scare, you know,” he says as I examine the tray: dry
toast, a bowl of meaty broth that makes my recovering stomach gurgle for
another reason entirely, and a goblet of wine. The only thing that my stomach
likely won’t reject at this moment is the toast, so I pick up a point and
nibble on it.
“Sorry. And thank you,” I add, nodding at the tray. The captain smiles kindly.
“You’re very much welcome. After all, you saved my life.”
“Perhaps,” I reply, thinking that anyone who’s won captaincy of a ship would
very likely have found their way out of Durijesh’s clutches and, failing that,
out of the clutches of the local law. “Are you going to send me back to the
Palace?”
The captain huffs amusedly. “That’d be kind of hard to do, seein’ as we’re a
good ways down the Beva, goin’ toward the Arjun Sea.” He chuckles at my gape-
mouthed stare. “Aye, lad, you’ve been asleep for over a day.”
I lean back in the pillow, putting down the toast as what little strength I’d
recovered leaves me.
I am . . . free. At last. Free. On my way to someplace or places beyond Madam
Abharana’s reach.
“As per our deal, Bankim, I’m prepared to take you with us as far as you’d like
to go in repayment of the debt I owe you. You’re free to debark at any time.
Or,” the captain goes on before I can thank him again. “Or, should you prefer
it, the position of cabin boy is still open to you. The ship needs one,
frankly, and I can’t be bothered to kidnap one from back home. That was humor,
lad. A joke,” he adds when I don’t laugh.
Still keeping a straight face despite wanting to smile just because he expects
it and because I’m so giddy, I shrug. “Was it? Because I usually laugh at
those. Strange.”
The captain bursts out laughing and I finally allow myself a small smile. “Oh,
lad, you’ll fit in well around here. Well, indeed—no respect for authority,
just like the rest of this motley crew. Good show! Say, what’s your full name?”
“Bankim. Bankim Rao.” I allow my full smile to show and the captain’s own smile
widens.
“There’s that heart-breaker smile! Well, Bankim Rao.” The captain wipes his
stormy eyes and I’m once more struck by how handsome he is. Like someone from a
legend. Harun hadn’t been handsome—not ugly, but not handsome, either. Yet I’d
liked his face just fine. Seeing it had been the high-point of my day. I had
looked forward to almost nothing but for nearly two years. I’d become enamored
of . . . if not him, then of the way he looked at me and made me feel.
On the heels of that, I’m also startled when the captain holds out his left
hand, work-roughened and large, to me: “Welcome aboard the pirate-ship
Vivianna! We’ve set sail for the South Ch’in Sea and adventure, therein! As to
me, I’ll be your captain, Jack Blythe, also known as Jack, the Bonny.”
My jaw drops as Captain Jack Blythe stands up and starts for the door. “Wait a
moment,anjaan—I mean, Captain Blythe!” I call, remembering my manners. Just
because I’m apparently lying in the man’s bed doesn’t mean I should presume so
far as to continue calling him by a nickname given him when I’d thought he was
a simple sailing man.
Captain Blythe pauses and turns back to me, his face only mildly curious. In
that moment my suspicion that he’d been waiting to spring that lovely little
surprise—pirate-ship, indeed!—on me is confirmed. “You didn’t inform me that
you were a sailor on a pirate-ship!” It’s playing into his game, but what other
role have I been left with than that of shill?
The captain’s smile is sly. “That’s because I’m not a sailor on a pirate ship.
I am a captain of a small fleet of them. And I’m meeting up with that fleet in
the South Ch’in Sea in a fortnight’s time.” That sly smile relaxes into
something lazy and assessing as he watches me. “Tell me you truly didn’t know
why I had a bounty on my head? And such a large one!”
I flush, feeling embarrassed and caught out. “I—I didn’t. I wondered why
Durijesh was sneaking out in the beginning of his shift. And when I went to
check his room, I saw you and recognized your face from the posters at the
constabulary from the last few times I’d been brought there to wait for my
aunt. I run away a quite a lot,” I add when Captain Blythe’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Well. I must say, I’m certainly glad you were nosy.”
“I wasn’t nosy, I was . . . curious.”
“As I said: nosy.” The captain winks at me and I blush, glancing down at my
tray. “At any rate, if the idea of being a member of a pirate-crew puts you
off, I’ll be more than glad to set you to ground in Ch’in. A fine kingdom—one a
smart young man like yourself would do well in,” he muses, crossing his arms
over his chest. “Of course, if you decide to stay aboard, you can make a name
for yourself as well as money. And you’ll have a whole fleet’s worth of
brothers—and sisters—in arms to teach and train you, as opposed to being alone
in a strange land, not speaking the language, and left to your own devices. . .
.”
I know what the captain is trying to do . . . and it’s working. I hadn’t really
thought as far as what I would do in a foreign land with no family, friends, or
marketable skills. Staying in a place that I know I would be safe, could earn a
living, and know at least one other soul, is tempting indeed. But. . . .
“I can’t kill, Captain Blythe,” I say quietly, firmly. Captain Blythe frowns
now.
“I’m not asking you to,” he replies and I wrap my arms around myself,
shivering.
“Not yet, anyway.”
“Maybe never,” Captain Blythe says, then probably off the incredulous look upon
my face, and realizing how ridiculous his last statement sounded, corrects
himself. “Perhaps only in self-defense, or defense of a crew-mate.”
“I don’t know that I could, even then.” I shake my head, suddenly nauseas again
at the thought of making someone else bleed, even if my life hangs in the
balance. I shudder. “Probably not even then.”
Captain Blythe sighs, shaking his own head regretfully. “Then I’m afraid you’re
of no use to me or anyone on the Vivianna. A chain is only as strong as its
weakest link, Bankim, and I’ll not have any weak links aboard any of my ships.”
Unaccountably hurt—most men find the inability to harm or kill when necessary
to be a weakness, or so it’s been in my experience—I look Captain Blythe in the
eyes and hold his gaze, so that he can see my convictions, though different,
are as strong as his own. “I—I understand, captain.”
Captain Blythe nods once, still regretfully, it would seem. The once-over he
gives me is frank and very admiring . . . before his face shuts almost
completely, regret hidden behind acres of bravado and charm. “Very well, then,
Bankim. We’ll set you down in Ch’in. Is that far enough away for you?”
I nod once and the captain smiles, though it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Very
well, then. Ch’in, it is.”
And with that, he turns and stalks out of his quarters, closing the doors
behind him and leaving me alone to nibble on toast, slurp wine, and wonder if
I’ve just made the biggest mistake of my young life.
End Notes
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