Nightfall saw a towrope passed from Fletch to Tess so that both might proceed in the calm. Owing to the latter’s longer length, broader beam, and, most importantly, lack of engines she featured a great cabin at her stern, with a relatively spacious room for the captain and another for his family. A large dining table stood at the great cabin’s center. Around it sat the officers of the two ships. Their faces and a sizable spread of food from Fletch’s still fresh stores glowed in the light of Letitia’s gilt shaded oil lamps. Behind them the dark ocean, marked only by a thin line of wake, went on to the horizon.

“What were you carrying when they intercepted you? We found no cargo below,” Granger asked.

Luft looked about, bewildered, then rose and went to a small desk in the corner of the cabin. From a drawer he produced a paper bearing a wax seal at the bottom. “We’re a merchant raider sir, I took on only provisions enough for the journey. The rest of our weight is ballast. See here our letter of marque.”

Granger studied it, “I was under the impression you were a merchantman and that the deck guns and other arms were brought by the Bexarians.”

“Many were. We left port with only a 20 line piece.”

Granger cut deftly into a hunk of pork, “What were your intentions?”

“Colliers, sir, colliers. Many of the Bexarian types are still under sail and those that burn coal as well as haul it are terribly slow. I did some business with their civil colliers during the peace and they were, in all honesty, pathetic sights. Now almost all have been drafted into the service and I knew even the most lightly armed ship might capture them at her leisure.”

Badrine looked up from his meal, “Business, sir? Are you a Reserve officer then?”

“Not quite, not at all, in truth. I was a manager at the Northwark Collier Company. This is a true privateer, in the old way, there’s not a commissioned officer aboard except you gentlemen. I drew the cream of my crew from men I trusted at the company - fine merchant sailors. As for the rest I placed an advertisement.”

Granger nodded, “That explains the presence of your lovely family. Taking guests on combat voyages has been proscribed for fellows like me for at least 50 years. Though, I must ask, since you meant to go in harm’s way, why take them? I did not doubt the decision when I thought you were a freighter, but, if I may say so, you - they - were very lucky, far worse things have happened out here in war than spending a few weeks as captives to a raider.”

“You pain me, sir,” Luft remarked, touching his heart for emphasis. “I have been in moral agony over the decision to bring them even before the Bexarians set upon us. However, however, it was truly no decision at all. Dear Tess was not my ship at the outset of the war. I had always intended to purchase a ship like her should a war come, the inspiration regarding the colliers came to me some years ago, but when I went to buy her, despite my reputation about the town, the terms of credit were very poor unless I could gather a greater down payment. I am a man of high salary but few assets, I must admit my home was my only free-held one, and so to have Tess, so to say a home on the water, I had to sell my home on land. I could not burden my friends with taking them in, and, indeed, my wife insisted upon going.”

The men, along with Bethany and Letitia, were drinking Luft’s wine. Finishing a glass, Farley began, “I must ask. How were you taken?”

“I was in a squadron of privateers, about 200 versts south of here. We had another sailing ship like this and an old tramp steamer. We had seen no enemy, but suspected some might be about so we lay spaced three versts apart to ensure we could defend each other without risking collision or encirclement. Tess had the center position. I was woken by two blasts and ran on deck, to starboard I saw the tramp, afire and sinking, to port I saw nothing but debris on the water. Only a verst away an armed trawler bleated at me with its signal lamp and ran up the Bexarian flag. I tried to flee but the wind was low, nevertheless I did not strike, and they boarded. We fought well and seeing their boarding may not succeed the trawler said if we did not strike we would be sunk immediately, like our companions. I know not what weapon the trawler had, perhaps mines or some torpedo, but I knew if it was used against us we would go under so fast that drowning was guaranteed for most.”

“They sunk the others without warning?” Threlfall asked.

“If they gave one we did not hear or see it. I suspect they knew they could only board one ship - the trawler’s crew was small, hence their need to put my sailors to work as slaves in the rigging - and so dispensed with the others. Why they chose us to live I do not know, except, perhaps because we were the finest looking.”

Granger rose to consult a chart on Luft’s desk. After studying it for some time, he inquired, “Do you suspect the trawler will still be operating in that area - 200 versts south?”

“With so little room for coal onboard, certainly. There are a few islands there, she is likely staying close to them,” Luft replied.

“Very good. Mr. Farley, speak with the prisoners, I want to know more of the habits of this trawler.”

Farley nodded.

Granger went on, “Mr. Luft, I would understand completely if you wish to make for Kjell to re-provision and recover yourselves after your captivity, but if you will sail with me I mean to go south and root out the little coward that caused it in the first place.”

Tess’s sails flashed in the morning sun. They were filled now as she proceeded due south on a reach. A few hundred arshins distant Fletch, also under sail, kept alongside. Mr. Luft stood on the quarterdeck, at the helm, with a briar pipe in his teeth. One of Fletch’s launches hung from a starboard side davit, dripping seawater on the deck. It had delivered Farley, with several marines, to meet with the prisoners and Bethany to do whatever she liked. She had asked to come along as the boat was being readied in the hope of introducing variety to a long day at sea.

After wandering the spar deck, watching men climb precariously up the foremast’s rigging to set the sails, Bethany found herself going aft. She scaled the steps to quarterdeck. There, behind Mr. Luft, she found Clotilde at the taffrail. The girl looked more like her father than her mother or her sister. Her complexion, though too pale for this climate, was dark like his. Her hair was black and tied up in a shabby bun that allowed loose strands to play in the same strong wind as the ship.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Bethany wished to look over the stern as she was doing, but felt she could not walk up without saying anything. “Fine day,” she observed to the girl.

When Clotilde did not answer Bethany approached and looked down at the choppy, churned sea. Having caught her in the corner of her eye, Clotilde at last said, “Oh, you’re visiting,” without looking up.

“Yes, I just came aboard. This is a lovely ship.”

Clotilde moved along the taffrail until she was close enough to say, in a low voice, “It is, but I would rather a house.”

Bethany smiled softly, “Of course, but it is wartime.”

“My father is too old for this,” Clotilde breathed.

“Mr. Granger is older.”

“Yes, but he has been a Naval officer forever, he learned when he was young, learned all the right things when learning is easy. My father is trying to learn it all now, for the first time.”

“He seems to be doing fine.”

Clotilde finally looked up, “I suppose so. It is such a risk though. I tried to tell him to stay home and give a younger man his plan, stake him, rather than go yourself, but his wife was behind him.”

“His wife? Not your mother?” Bethany asked with a touch of slyness.

“Yes. My mother, Katherine, is dead - seven years now. Letitia is his second wife, and Carolina, of course, was born to her.”

“My mother is dead too, she went a few years ago.”

“I’m sorry for that and for bringing it up at all, it’s not your trouble. God, you are a guest, I should be offering you tea not whinging, yes, sorry, would you like some?”

“If you would. I was content to look around.”

“We may as well, it passes the time better than this.”

Letitia’s tea service made that of Fletch’s steward look like a tin pot. Bethany suspected the woman had taken all of the fine things from her house rather than see them sold. She had sat with them briefly but left when Carolina began to cry about something. They were alone now in the great cabin with the large stern windows open. Through them came a fine breeze with a touch of damp as it picked up spray from the wake.

“Where did you go to school?” Clotilde inquired.

“Who’s to say I did.” Bethany replied.

“I know that’s your father’s ship, you were not working in the mills all your girlhood.”

Bethany shrugged, “I went to the Zellum Academy, about 500 versts north of Bray.”

“And after that?”

“Pardon?”

“Those academies end at 14, do they not?”

“They do. After that, well, I traveled.”

Clotilde took a sip of her tea, “That’s unusual.”

“I was the middle child, with an elder brother, not much was expected of me.”

“I see. That’s my father’s fear, he has no son. He meant to have one, but instead got Carolina. Should anything happen to him he would leave the three of us in the lurch at least until I married. That’s why he went out here, I suspect, to make his fortune.”

Bethany could see by Clotilde’s eyes that she deeply disliked the plan. Indeed, she had worn a look of creeping melancholy since they had met. Somehow, Bethany liked that. It was strange to see in a girl near her own age and class anything but practiced, aloof contentment.

Stirring her tea, Bethany replied, “He may well do it. We’ve only taken one prize and got over one million Ritter.”

“Yes, yes, but what if he dies? Not what if the ship goes down, but what if a single round strikes him and he dies? I suppose Letitia would own the ship then, but she cannot command it. We would be at the mercy of the bosun I suppose.”

“I can’t answer that, but he can. You should ask him if he has orders written down, a sort of will, in case he perishes and if he does not then you should tell him to make one, for his family’s sake.”

“I am sure he does not, nor would he make one. You don’t know him. I am not sure he understands that he can die. He’s like a younger man in that way, like a newly recruited soldier, well what I’ve read they are like. The stories say they are bravest before they see battle. After they become not cowards but rather more careful with their lives.”

“What about the boarding? Your capture? Has that not disciplined him?”

“Perhaps, though I fear since he is following your ship back to the enemy it did not.”

Finishing her tea, Bethany resettled herself in her chair, “Have you ever had your portrait made? A real one, I mean, not a photograph.”

“When I was six or seven, not since,” Clotilde answered, distantly.

“We ought to go inside, won’t everything be ruined if it rains?” Clotilde asked, sitting on a gilt chair near Tess’ bow. Above her the square sails of foremast creaked in a growing gale.

Bethany peaked out from behind her easel, “Don’t worry, we have a seer on my ship and he said there will be no rain until after sunset.”

“A seer? My father couldn’t find one at any price. How did a ship so small come by one?”

Bethany smiled, “That’s actually a bit of a tale.”

“You have time to tell it.”

“He was assigned to a larger ship, a proper warship, but they put him off in a boat. Apparently he sent them around a storm, which he could predict, into the path of an enemy.”

“Why?”

“As I understand it, he can’t read men’s minds, which are capricious, only things which are natural or fated, like the weather.”

“Oh. From the outside those with the talent seem so powerful and then one finds rules abound.”

“Did your mother have it?” Bethany inquired.

“Have what?”

Bethany peeked out again, looking the girl in the eyes, “The talent - oftentimes witches die young, even of mundane causes, something to do with weakened immunity.”

“No, no. She was merely sick, though gravely so, of course. You should be careful with questions like that, I’m not bothered, but my father would be - it’s said that men who marry witches are not in their right minds. But... why did you ask anyway, was that the case with your mother?”

Bethany nodded, “She made little use of it but it was in her blood.”

Clotilde started from her chair, “Then you...”

“Yes,” Bethany interrupted.

Blushing, Clotilde sat down again, “That’s remarkable. They say one can always tell but I could not.”

“I’m not sure that’s strictly true - being able to tell, I mean.”

“Yes, perhaps. Can you do anything with it, might you show me something?” The girl was speaking faster than Bethany had ever heard from her and there was a touch more light in her eyes.

“Not from thin air, I’m afraid. I would need something with witch glass in it. I could get something from Fletch but...”

Standing again, Clotilde interjected, “Wait here, actually, I suspect I have something.”

Miss Luft walked as quickly down the deck as dignity allowed and disappeared into the great cabin. In her absence, Bethany turned her brush to the scene behind her subject, painting the beginnings of a darkening sky pocked with eddies of evening light. Clotilde returned, clutching something. She passed her chair, going directly to Bethany, and held out an ornate comb of tarnished silver inlaid in a few places with what could only be moldavite.

“It was my aunt’s,” Clotilde whispered, pressing into Bethany’s hand.

“I’m not sure I should try anything. What if I lose it?”

“Don’t worry, it’s not as if I knew her well.”

“Still, it must be valuable.”

“Please, just a little trick.”

“Trick? I can’t do anything so interesting as a trick, but, alright.”

Bethany placed the comb in her left hand and held her right some distance above it. Gently, she lifted the comb into the air and held it, hovering, until her concentration broke and it flew up, smacking her in the right palm. The comb clattered to the deck, Clotilde quickly recovered it.

“Oh,” she breathed.

Bethany extended her hands slightly and the comb quivered in Clotilde’s grip. She let go and it gently moved over to Bethany.

Giving an indulgent, excited clap, the Luft girl pronounced, “There, now that may be useful. Tell me, had I not let go, could you have still gotten it?”

“Maybe, it might have hurt, me or you I do not know, but I wouldn’t try it.”

Carolina came speedily up the deck with her mother, flustered, trailing behind. The child stopped near the easel.

“She wanted to see the picture,” Letitia explained.

Bethany’s response was preempted when the mother spied the comb in Bethany’s hand. She turned to her step-daughter. “What are you two doing with that? If you need to fix your hair for the painting I know you’ve ones that are far less dear.”

“Oh no, Bethany needed it to show me something... she’s a witch, you see, and there’s witch glass in it.”

“A witch?” Letitia asked. Her face remained bright in a practiced way, but her tone hardened.

“Well, not much of one. My mother passed the talent to me, but I’m not trained,” Bethany replied sweetly.

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Letitia challenged, still holding a smile as she moved to collect her daughter.

“It can be but I wouldn’t worry.”

“Of course.” Letitia replied and pivoted to Clotilde, “I will put this back for you,” she said, taking the comb.

Clotilde protested briefly but allowed her step-mother to walk away with it. She returned to her chair before Bethany’s easel.