Bethany returned to her cabin. She heard the mainsails raised fore and aft, and Fletch began to move, though terribly slowly. She was beginning to feel more at ease, the papaver no longer tormented her as it had, though unless she distracted herself, Clotilde and Threlfall did. She no longer saw them, at least not outside of what she knew to be dreams, and that was a relief, but the fact of their deaths was enough. She sent for breakfast. After delivering it, the steward looked her up and down, “you’re holding together better, then?” he asked.
“I suppose, yes, did I worry you?”
“You worried the lot of us, in truth you continue to. It’d be poetical for you to die after stopping us sinking, but I’m not sure it’d be of any good to anyone but the balladeers.”
He withdrew. Bethany did not see another soul that day except in silhouette, going by her cabin window. She managed the morning and afternoon well enough, but as night gathered her mind became harder to discipline. She sat in the warm eddy of light before her stove with pencil and paper. Sketches became impressions that, by midnight were merely scribbles, something to keep her hands moving. If she focused on that alone, the simple present, she could manage, but the past and future could not be safely considered. There was little in her memory that was good and all of that was tainted now. Most of her fond memories were in the company of others, and those others had all come to ruin, she could not recall them apart from their fates. Her entire family save her father dead in body or, as it came to her sister, in mind. Clotilde: drowned or frozen, Threlfall, a suicide, Marah, abandoned all too easily, half-mad and on the street if alive, likely dead. All her bright days were cast in relation to some tragedy, ‘o, if only we’d known.’
She slept at last through simple exhaustion, the light of dawn entering her cabin by that time.
Boyle shook her awake. As soon as she opened her eyes he took a great step back from her bunk. “What’s the matter?” Bethany demanded.
“Misters Farley and Badrine,” he whispered.
Bethany sat up, “what about them?”
“They mean to fight a duel, it’s beginning now.”
“An exhibition? I didn’t know Badrine was a swordsman.”
“It’s no exhibition, miss, and the Chief Engineer is no swordsman, that’s just the trouble, he’ll be minced.”
“This is too absurd. Are you alright?” Bethany looked in his face for drunkenness, he was speaking in gabbles, but seemed otherwise sober.
“I am in my right mind, you have my word this is true.”
“How can it be? Just yesterday they conducted the burials together, they seemed to be quite agreeable toward each other.”
Boyle cocked his head, “yesterday, miss, oh no. It’s been three days since the services for the dead. You... am I surprised you do not recall... you had a fit of sorts the next morning. The steward saw fit to put you under, for your own good.”
Bethany sighed, looking about her cabin. Threlfall’s mirror was smashed and it was in general disarray. “What did he use?”
“Come again?”
“How was I put out?”
“Just and old sleeping draught, to tell the truth it’s mostly rum.”
“But no papaver?”
“No, we ran out of that treating the wounded after the airship.”
Bethany’s face softened, “right, now what about this duel? Surely you misunderstood.”
“I did not,” Boyle almost huffed, “it is a matter of honor, over a slight. Mr. Farley is intent upon making for some Bexarian outpost, we were not given the details. Mr. Badrine seems more keen on sailing due north, for safety, does not wish to do anything more without consulting you...”
“Consulting me?”
“Miss, according to our orders you are the captain, you’ve been so since we left Bray. Mr. Granger was your official delegate, but with him dead authority has fallen to you alone, at least in fact. In practice only Badrine wishes to consult you, I think he is certain you will agree to go north and will be his ally. That is the trouble, Badrine told Mr. Farley, and let it be known among some others, that to do anything but wait for you to be ready to speak would be, near as makes no difference, mutiny. An accusation of mutiny on such sandy ground, among officers, well it cries out for a duel.”
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“So we have just been sitting idle these three days?”
“Repairs have been conducted and we have beat a diversionary course. Through their seconds they have agreed to permit those actions, but only that. Mr. Badrine says the boiler is ready to be lit, but will not do it except to sail north.”
A rowdy cry rose from what sounded like a large group of sailors on the fantail.
“Have they started, then?” Bethany asked.
“I hope that was the start, if not that then someone has drawn blood.”
“What would you have me do?”
“Go and stop them, you’re a lady, they would not fight in front of you, especially if you asked them to stop.”
Bethany left the bunk and made for the cabin door, “wait,” Boyle interceded, “you’re only in your nightgown, you’ll freeze.”
Bethany glanced in the badly cracked mirror. She was in her nightgown, worse yet it was stained with sweat as if from fever. “Go, I shall get dressed properly, quickly, then I shall do as you ask.”
Boyle forced her boat cloak into her hands, “there is no time, I am sorry.”
Bethany relented, pausing only to don a dark felt hat, meant to be part of her ruined uniform. Her hair was in a worse state than the rest of her, and, besides, it looked warm.
She and Boyle found the fantail packed with sailors. They formed a ring about the deck gun, the dueling ground running, it appeared, from the gun’s mount to the mizzenmast. She did not see the officers themselves, but heard scuffling against the deck punctuated by sword ringing against sword.
“Make way! Make way!” Boyle commanded. He had bounded ahead of her and parted the raucous pack of sailors, leaving a narrow but clear path to the duel. Bethany hurried forward. She arrived in time to see Badrine hook a bloodied hand on a cleat fixed to the mizzen and haul himself up. His sword, a pathetic, tarnished thing, lay on the deck a few paces from him. Opposite him Farley cut a menacing figure. He wore only his uniform undershirt and navy blue trousers bloused into shining boots - giving, Bethany understood, his opponent as little as possible to grab and offering the body as much maneuverability as decency allowed. His saber was standard issue, un-embellished, but, despite what had to be at least a decade of use, it was in perfect condition. Farley pointed the saber accusingly at Badrine as he rose, tracking him with the tip of the blade as the engineer moved haltingly toward his dropped weapon. Badrine lunged for his sword. Farley clamped the blade to the deck with his boot while gently pressing the end of his saber against Badrine’s chest.
“Stop!” Bethany cried.
Both officers looked fixedly at her, but Farley did not lower his sword.
“This stops whenever he yields,” Farley replied, flatly. Badrine dropped slightly and placed his hand on the hilt of his fallen sword. He pulled it up like a lever and Farley, still focused on Bethany, staggered back enough to free it. Sword in hand, Badrine flew toward the mizzen, moving as far as he could from his opponent. Bethany regarded Farley closely, he was bleeding from a cut to the chest but that was the only blow. Badrine was much worse off, with an array of defensive gashes about his left hand and forearm, blows to the face, and legs. Farley took a measured step forward. Badrine responded by rocketing toward him, using his sword as if it were a ram. Farley dodged and the blade passed between his arm and body, sticking in place when Farley dropped his arm to his side. Farley’s right hand, and, therefore, his sword, was still free and he pressed it against Badrine’s chest. Unwilling to let go of his sword, the engineer was locked to the marine.
“Either pull it out or release your grip and yield,” Farley, panting, demanded.
“Raise you arm and you will not be badly cut,” Badrine replied.
“If you are not willing to cut me then yield.”
Badrine tugged harshly on his sword and it came free of Farley’s underarm, releasing a torrent of blood. He moved back, then approached, chopping at him and striking the opposite shoulder. As the engineer raised his saber to go again Farley parried it, driving his foe’s arm back and then the entire man across the deck until he was against the mizzen. Farley pressed the tip of his sword against Badrine’s chest, only a few lines of skin and rib from piercing his heart.
“For the love of god, sir, yield!” Farley insisted.
Badrine declined to yield, raising his own sword toward the marine. Farley replied by moving his blade from Badrine’s chest to his neck, drawing blood just below the chin.
The sailors gasped and moved back. Above Farley’s head, in a shower of moldavite, Bethany’s rapier appeared and hung in the freezing air. It moved slowly downward until its point pricked the marine’s scalp.
Bethany stepped into the dueling ground, her hand raised to control her weapon. Farley stepped back from Badrine, the sword tracking him perfectly. He did not lower his saber, but kept its point against Badrine’s neck.
“This is a matter of honor, conducted within Naval regulations, you have no right to intervene,” Farley insisted.
“Let him alone, Bethany, if he is to beat me then he may, I will not hear of being saved by magic, you are not doing me a kindness, it would be terrible shame,” Badrine protested, his words choked by the blade at his neck.
Bethany’s rapier disappeared from its place above Farley and coalesced, glowing, in her hand. She advanced on the two men and placed her blade in the midst of theirs, poised to parry either one.
“I know on land,” she began, “no duel to the death can be fought without the approval of the mayor of the town or, outside of a town, without the province marshal’s assent. Gentlemen, is the same true at sea, must the captain or an admiral approve?”
“The captain must approve, miss, but our captain is dead,” Farley protested.
Bethany tightened her grip on her rapier, “your Sailing Master is dead, your captain stands before you.”
“She’s right, of course, Farley, but you will not admit it, else we would not be here now,” Badrine snarled.
“You misunderstand my position sir,” Farley began, lowering his sword from the engineer’s neck and moving away from he and Bethany. “I do not doubt for a moment Miss Esterhouse’s legal status as our captain, but she cannot act as captain, she is unfit, it is just as if our captain was lying wounded on any other ship, and so the authority defaults to us.”
“Unfit? Because I am a lady?”
“No, there are a litany of troubles that supersede even your sex. Your experience at sea does not extend beyond these few months you have been our guest, in which time you have accumulated no nautical abilities of note. Further, and I apologize for my forthrightness, but lives are at stake, you are prone to fits, some of the mind alone - you fall into long stretches of melancholy for which I have seen no effective remedies, and some of the body as well, as we witnessed not three days ago. Any captain would be relieved of his duties for anyone of these complaints.”
Bethany lowered her rapier, “perhaps I am not fit to lead, but I am fit to listen. In listening I shall learn what I have failed to learn so far. I do not claim to be the captain in the absolute, I know my title was bestowed by my father to fulfill some old obligation. I shall be an arbiter between you two officers, who worked so well together in the aftermath of the attack, to see you remain colleagues rather than shedding each others blood. In combat, in anything I do not understand, I will defer always to you gentlemen. Shall we at least try this arrangement, will you halt the duel and, for now, declare a draw? If you do not, if you keep fighting then I am afraid I shall intervene with force to see neither of you kill the other. This ship needs you both.”
“Take the compromise, Farley, that sword of hers is bewitched to heaven and back, she could end either of us in a flash,” Badrine suggested.
Farley toyed with his sword for a moment, holding it loose as if testing its weight. He strode toward Bethany and with a curt nod turned the blade around, offering it to her by the hilt.
“Per the captain’s instructions I submit to ending the duel as a draw but let it be known I have not received satisfaction,” he announced.
Bethany accepted the sword and Badrine offered his up. This left Bethany holding her own and the other two precariously in one hand.
“This is very good of you but you may have them back,” Bethany said, brightly, and handed the swords over. As the officers took them Bethany went on, “I trust you will save them for the Bexarians from here in.”