heading [https://i.imgur.com/Dxx5rxJ.png]
----------------------------------------
17 May
Beast Slayer
Time Strait, Near Hestin
Dear, dear, T:
I’m sorry. No, I’m sick really. After a little rest and some time without impending doom hanging over my head like a storm cloud, I realized I could have handled this better. Much.
First of all, we’re safe, out of immediate danger. I should have made that clear in my last letter, please forgive me. When I wrote it, I was fairly certain that as long as the wind didn’t die, we wouldn’t fall to the fog. Yet I didn’t tell you that. To be honest, I think I went a little crazy for a while, in the most delicious way.
Given a break from using the Touch, I’ve come back down to earth, so to speak, though the ship still thrums in the back of my mind. I cannot understand how Captain Clacey was such a terrible man when he must have felt as I did. That said, it’s curious, the Slayer doesn’t remember him. I tried to picture the Captain through our bond, and all I get is a distant, foggy feeling from the ship before the connection between us recedes back to normal.
The widow-fog chased us for nearly five days, but as we moved into warmer waters (no longer white and blue, but white and green, far prettier than it sounds) the mist seemed almost to tire like a living thing, gradually falling behind. Interestingly, Tory thrived with the ship under motion. Despite his poor leadership decisions he does have a clear understanding of how to bring the best out of the ship, communicating that clearly to the sailors. I think, at some juncture, I’ll need to appoint a different first mate and keep Tory where he’s most suited.
On that note, I have thought long and hard about what you’ve said, and I’ve decided having a captain in reality is better than having a figurehead that turns the wheel this way and that. A persuasive part of me wants to go back to hiding in the galley, lugging buckets of eel guts rather than being responsible for the barely controlled chaos that is the Slayer right now. Only I now understand retreat isn’t an option. The chain of command is so established at sea that even when the crew wants to break it, the men waver without that familiarity.
The problem is, I can’t even imagine myself as captain of a nethership. So I’ve tried, essentially, to adapt your advice and be Mama brought back from the dead.
It’s not going tremendously well. Worse than I expected, actually. The crew has parted into two factions, unequal slices of buckberry pie. Far and away the biggest slice persists in treating me with apathy or disrespect, calling me, “Captain Mar”, stolen from Uri’s slurred pronunciation. I’ve decided to ignore the taunts, sensing my making an issue of their snideness only fuels the fire. The worst offenders I can’t ignore though, those that spit towards my feet when I’m close or eye me suggestively when I’m at the wheel. I rebuke them, ordering more shifts (like I can make them work). I still keep a knife tied to my wrist, Sawl’s now since Nate’s is covered with…well, I keep Sawl’s close. The danger has kept the men in line, but I’m bracing myself for what they will do given leisure.
After the fog let up, we set up a skeleton crew. Lacking any better ideas, I had the men reef the sails until we figure out where we are, and everyone else but me slept until the drool nearly swamped us. Unfortunately, we always founder when I’m forced to sleep, since I have no relief helmsman with the Touch. We drifted, waking to a glorious morning shining on waves the color of spring trees, the sky blue above us. Uri anticipated my order, starting to troll before first light with our collection of massive, deep-water fishing poles.
A crab the size of a carriage wheel, with gold-tipped claws and black fur (yes, you read that right, fur, I cut off a bit to include in this letter) was his most significant catch—and a lucky one. Apparently, the crab just swallowed a fish that Uri’d already hooked and was about to reel in. According to Uri, these giant crabs are rare but found mostly in the northeast of Time Strait (magnetism doesn’t really work the same here but we use the same names for directions). Combined with the green currents, he’s fairly certain we are close to the south edge of Hestin, a Nethercountry with whom we have no trade inhabited by tall goblins who would, quoting Uri, “fry our gizzards and play pick-up-sticks with our bones.”
The good news is, we’re not near the Serpent’s Claws as I’d feared. The bad news is, we’ve been driven two weeks off course. Since with the glowing waves and sky we can see obstacles in the water at night, I’ve ordered the crew to keep us moving at all hours, sleeping in six-hour shifts. I sleep in two-hour snatches, not daring to let us drift longer than that. We don’t have the water or food to dawdle, and for once Tory didn’t argue with me—or ignore me—before carrying my order out.
In truth, I say all this to explain why I don’t have time or coherence to write more. Since I’m repeatedly working my Touch to exhaustion, I’m rarely clearheaded, stopping when fizzy and emotional and a little insane until I sleep and it starts all over again. I just woke and should be steering now, but I couldn’t let you wait any longer.
Your letter twisted my heart. I am so sorry to have added to your pain, and I’m sick knowing that Erring could be there right now! What happened this past week? You said you were leaving Rosetree, but does that mean Viscount Warren answered your letter? Have you escaped? How did you escape?
The sooner I send this the sooner I’ll find out your situation, so I only have two more things to say, good things. I’m merely tolerated by most of the crew, but I must admit the situation would be much worse without the dozen or so men who support me. Only a few are vocal about it (have you ever noticed trouble is always louder than decency?), foremost among them being Trin and Surgeon Sawl.
Trin is well-liked, clever, charismatic, and open. I’ve started asking him questions when I’m confused. Catching on quickly, Trin casually shares tidbits of information at random, going on about sailing, the ship’s management, protocol, and even how to aim the bow into the waves just right to minimize the impact on the ship. The latter I have been doing on instinct since I took the wheel, sensing through the bond that the ship rides better if spearing the crests rather than rolling with them.
“Interesting, isn’t it?” Trin says something like that after every precious nugget of information, almost winking. He knows what he’s doing, and I know what he’s doing, but my dignity is intact. What’s more it isn’t obvious to the men that Trin’s rescuing me or that I’m more ignorant than a deckhand.
I trust his information more since Trin has always been friendly to me, before and after my identity was revealed, before and after the ship and I connected. You know Papa never trusted men whose manners shifted depending on the climate. There’s an unchangeableness to Trin that is reassuring and I’m glad to be making allies at last.
As for Sawl…don’t scoff, Ree, I haven’t forgotten the investigation, or his guilty circumstances, but I’ve come to rely on him in the strangest way. You remember how Papa used to nod at the matrons or step aside for a new debutante, and unconsciously everyone in his circle reacted the same? Sometimes, his deference seemed almost a Touch of its own. Sawl has the same effect, a power that scares me if it were ever turned against me.
Sailors Yori and Biff are still down with magtox fever. Its not really a fever in a true sense, but poisoning. You get it from eating bits of eel gill on accident, an organ that filters especially toxic magic in the water—our cook’s fault, surely, despite his denials. So Sawl tends them almost all the time, and now he has Roger to care for too (the shoulder wound isn’t healing well, or Roger would be in the brig; I’m trying not to think about it).
Yet despite adding a patient, Sawl seems to make a point of spending more time in the galley lately, and whenever I come in he stands and says, “Captain,” cool as you please, before sitting back down as if nothing happened.
The others don’t stand, but they all copy him: “Captain.” Some still do it even when he’s not there. Once, I overheard him rebuke Daw when the brute was hinting at my supposedly checkered origins, “We’re not rats to bite ladies when their backs are turned. Enough.”
What’s more, his words brought instant silence. I wonder if it’s because of their reliance on him, since Sawl is the only thing between a man and death given a wound or illness. Still, it was just the sort of thing Papa used to say.
I can’t go on like this forever. I’m planning on anchoring the ship soon if Uri thinks we’re shallow enough and giving the men and myself a light holiday. That’s when I plan to investigate the murders, Sawl, and that mysterious magical streak on the line. I came to a nasty realization last night, one born of sitting and waiting and listening to myself.
The crisis isn’t really over. The murders were overshadowed by the immediate danger of the Widow-Maker coupled with my doubt that I could ever handle the ship, but now that that doubt has been put to rest it only means I’m responsible for a hundred other things. I try to tell myself this isn’t so different from managing Rosetree, or keeping the butcher honest, or ordering seed for the next planting. Yet the green waves slapping the hulls and the furry crab hissing and scrambling about the deck, scattering gold dust when he clattered his claws—I feel very at sea. Our food must be rationed, the murderer’s motivations divined, and if we are lucky enough to reach Neth Harbor, I have to somehow figure out how to buy enough cargo and supplies to get us home.
But can I go home? I always thought the Nethership escape would be a temporary one. That I would be gone a year or so where Councilor Erring couldn’t follow, then return to the real world once he’d cooled down. Perhaps at worst moving to Trifay or another neighboring country where’d I’d work in some capacity as a governess or a tutor. But I’ve had luxury to consider it, standing at the wheel for hours, and I’m not sure I can go home with the king himself taking an interest in our family.
Besides, when we inevitably return to Solish waters, will they take the Slayer from me? How will they not, whoever they are? Already, separation seems a terrible thought, and every day I grow closer to a ship in a way I never thought possible. It’s as if I’m seeping into the wood and she’s seeping into my bones until there’s less and less soul between us. But I’m no captain! I’m just the last and only option. I was never meant for this life.
Yet I love the wind, Ree, and now I feel it a hundred times stronger, caressing every sail, beating against the hull. I wish I could take you flying with me. Maybe someday I will.
Maree
a tuft of magical fur [https://i.imgur.com/gmwafZc.png]
----------------------------------------
17 May
Rosetree
Solan
Dear M,
I’m sitting in the dirt and straw (I hope it’s dirt), with a sad, sputtering candle at one elbow, my inkwell balanced on a mounting block. My mind feels like it’s home to a dozen pigeons all scrambling over a single scrap of biscuit. I’m in a foul mood. About the only thing that feels all right in my world at the moment is the fact you’re all right.
I’ve been rubbing that bit of fur you sent me between my fingers. Stroked one way it feels scratchy as goat whiskers, the other like softest silk.
I don’t know how long this tallow candle will last, and I don’t have another, so I’ll be quick as I can. Despite the king’s ‘suggestion’ that Nate and I stay imprisoned at Rosetree, we were determined not to obey…but as you’ve already guessed, treason isn’t the easiest thing to plan for.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Erring himself wrecked our plans. He came a day early, just as I had feared.
What was the plan, you ask? Well, first of all, you should know Warren did reply. My letter found Viscount Warren and his wife at an inn along the post’s route, and he wrote back before he even returned home, inviting us last-minute to his house party and even offering to invite a friend or two of mine if I desired. Warren did have stipulations on who he’s willing to host, I have the letter with me. I quote, “They can’t be fussy, tiresome, egotistical or silly, which narrows it down tremendously. Are there even half-a-dozen gentlefolk to pick from within those parameters?”
His quick acquiescence makes me wonder, though. None of his class does such a thing without motive, even a kindly, eccentric peer like Warren. Of course, I wrote at once and suggested he invite the Bilso girls and their mother, as well as Camden—though I didn’t tell Nate about Camden. You’ll scold me again for keeping secrets, but you don’t know how fastidious Nate has become since you left. He’s lectured me more on propriety in the past half year than all our lives combined, including bits about not speaking to Steward Arran familiarly, all while he picked up drinking and gambling habits. I truly think Nate might not let me go at all if he guessed Camden would be at the party, even with Councilor Erring descending on us.
With Yoren Hall available as a temporary safe haven, now we had the challenge of escaping Rosetree and Erring in one fell swoop. In the end, you ended up handing me the key to our cage accidentally.
Remember when you mentioned Councilor Erring’s dislike of touching uncouth people? And his disdain for liquor? It struck me that Erring might not be a snob. Perhaps he has a fear of getting sick. If he’s known to dislike liquor no man would ever offer to share his flask. Say Erring really is an assassin for the king, I imagine being weak or ill might even cost him his life in that ‘business’.
Luckily for us, Berta’s daughter Lena is sick with hay pox. Don’t frown, I don’t mean it—much. It’s just it worked out perfectly for us and Lena. The girl has been a nervous wreck, worrying about her kitchen job as Rosetree continues to trim back spending and her illness keeps her from working. Before you start getting bossy, of course we wouldn’t let the poor girl go just for getting sick, but you know they’re a family that won’t accept anything that looks like charity.
The plan was to have Lena pose as me, suddenly ill with hay pox. It’s not like hay pox is life-threatening, merely miserable and contagious (yes, Nate and I have already had it as children, but no one outside the family knows that). My room is on the upper floor. While we spread the word I’m ill, Lena lets herself be glimpsed in the window every so often, then gets to snuggle into my bed and soothe her itchy throat with hot lemon tea until she recovers. Since Erring and I aren’t well acquainted, even if he demanded to see me for himself (I’m hoping he won’t want to get close) Lena could pass as me all tucked under the quilts.
Then Mrs. Tarai from town would escort me north, myself disguised as a lady’s maid until we’re out of the county at least. You know Mrs. Tarai, being a rank rebel under all those widow’s weeds, with money to burn and a hunger to devour Viscount Warren’s reportedly huge library. She agreed almost at once, even if she wrung her handkerchief nervously all the while I explained and Nate looked on stonily.
There’s no helping one fact: Nate will have to stay, and that is the part of the plan I am nearly frantic over. Instead of getting angry as I would or defiant like you, Nate’s grown depressed at my announcement, acknowledging my plan is necessary but saying little else. Even though he won’t say it (men are such stupid, speechless creatures sometimes) I think he feels he’s failed. I debated breaking every liquor bottle in the house before leaving.
It has been a nightmare to pack for a house party without appearing to pack at all. Though we trust our servants, the king has proven adept at twisting the knife into people’s sides. So Nate and I decided the fewer who know the truth the better. Therefore, only Berta, Lena, Arran, and Grundlin knew about my leaving. Grundlin has been bustling about on tasks far below his station as butler, carrying bundles too bulky for his age, but you know he’s more a general than a butler. He loves a bit of intrigue, seventy-year-old veteran that he is. I can tell he feels as if we’re going to war with scars to prove he can well handle the melee.
I didn’t realize that I was in for a battle of my own when four days ago I wandered into Mama’s study with my gaze fixed on my slippers, mind swimming with details. Walking in, I was surprised by a wall of masculine reek. Cedarwood, horse,obstinacy—it filled the air. My head lifted like a deer scenting a boar. Boars in this case.
Nate and Arran stood side by side, leaning back against the desk, cutting two entirely different impressions. Nate was pale and hungover, chestnut hair hanging into his eyes that are always haunted. Steward Arran looked like if a bull charged him, the bull would lose.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” I said, backing towards the hall.
“You’re not going tomorrow,” Nate said, sounding tired to his bones.
My temper and anxieties flared. “I’m not staying here, Nate. It’s our only chance.”
“You’re not going tomorrow…without some protection.”
“You’ve taught me to defend myself well enough, and I’ll carry a dagger. It’s a house party, not a battl—” My breath cut off mid-word, eyes flicking to Arran.
He shrugged, unsmiling. It was like seeing granite breathe.
I can’t explain my antipathy, Maree. I’ve known Mr. Arran all my life, but spending any amount of time with him is difficult now, especially without your cheerful buffer to bring sunshine to the air. He is so formal since he returned from conducting business in Solis, and before that the university. I know it is because Nate has without words shifted the household to keep better the boundaries between servant and family, whatever our history with Arran. I haven’t forgotten your rebuke about friendship, Captain Maree, but I’m not sure I agree with it, and dragging Papa’s memory out of his grave to hurl at my head is a dirty tactic. I hate that the world works this way, yet there’s no denying it does.
As for sending Arran with me, Nate probably enlisted him to keep me from even winking in a man’s direction. Heaven help us when Mr. Quinn Arran, in all his brotherly ire and vigilance, realizes secret-fiance Camden is going to be there.
No. Blasted. Way. “Who will manage the estate if Mr. Arran’s gone?”
Nate flinched, caving in a bit before my eyes. Inwardly I cursed my thoughtless temper. He never has felt confident managing Rosetree, and now I made it seem as if Nate’s insecurities are both well-founded and apparent to the world. Which they’re not.
Unable take the words back, I switched tack, as you sailor types would say. “The attacks likely won’t stop and Erring is coming. I don’t want Nate here protecting Rosetree without help. And won’t they notice Mr. Arran’s absence?”
“The Namans’ have business partners in Eimouth, a town near Yoren Hall. A bowyer just found his taxes have been mislaid.” Arran smiled, a polite gesture that didn’t reach his eyes. “It is excuse enough for me to ride with you, along with the fact Mrs. Tarai is a close family friend without a male escort.”
“The house party is only three weeks long.” Nate rallied a bit, as if he smelled victory. “Mr. Arran’s been gone longer than that before. Besides, the guests may think me negligent, sending you two days’ journey north without even a manservant for protection.”
I cast a dirty look at Arran, who hadn’t even the grace to appear ashamed. The negligence argument was tailor-made for Nate, and I had little doubt my brother hadn’t thought of it himself. I opened my mouth to argue further but closed it again when Arran held up his hands.
“Let’s leave it up to Mrs. Tarai,” he said, ever-so-reasonably. “It is her carriage and safety she is risking.”
I wilted. I hadn’t thought of that. I had no argument against it either. Mrs. Tarai is anxious and fretful and having Arran escort us would ease her mind tremendously with petty thieves and the Blackened Pair terrorizing the roadways. She was a bully sport to let me dress and travel as a maid in the first place, an outlandish deception most women would never allow let alone assist with.
I acquiesced with poor grace, partly because I had in that instant realized Arran would not be welcome at many of the events I would attend. As steward, he wasn’t quite a houseguest or a servant, and likely he would go nearly mad with boredom. Serve him right. Let him come.
It seems petty now that I’ve written it all out, the angry spilling out with the ink. I don’t know why the boys’ teaming up against me affected me so. Much has changed anyway.
The very day I was to leave with Mrs. Tarai, I was awoken by a crash on the stairs. By the time I sat up, there was a brisk knock on my door.
“Are you decent?”
“Mr. Arran?” I blinked—you know I don’t wake up fast—and swung my legs over the side of the bed. Outside, the morning sky was barely gray.
“I need to come in at once.”
“No, you don’t,” I shot back, looking about for something to throw over myself. None of my dressing gowns are thick enough for real modesty. On impulse I went to the wall and yanked down Grandmama’s kaleidoscope quilt as if it were nothing more than an old tarp and not a masterpiece in cloth. Cinching it around my waist with my belt from yesterday, I looked ridiculous. “Come!”
Arran burst in with reckless energy but nonetheless carefully shut the door behind him. At the sound of the click leaving us alone, I raised my brows.
Arran crossed to the window, sensibly drawing the curtains so no one would see his intrusion. “Nate is dead drunk and Erring is nearly here.”
“Erring? Here? How do you know?”
“I’ve had some folks from the village I trust on watch down the road, at all hours of the day. Geri from the bakery just arrived on his old nag, the poor horse trembling from the run. We don’t even have half an hour before Errring arrives.”
“That’s brilliant,” I said, stunned. Why didn’t I think of setting up a watch? Then the rest of his speech really caught up with my groggy brain. “Wait, we have minutes? We haven’t even picked up Mrs. Tarai in town, our whole disguise—”
“Is blown out of the bay, yes. By the time the carriage were hitched, he’d be nearly to Rosetree. Any carriage coming from this direction he would know is from here. Might even search it as an envoy of the king.”
“Now, no need to panic. I can hide somewhere on the estate, Lena can still take my place, we’ll leave this evening when Erring is distracted—”
Arran waved away this suggestion, eyeing me with such intensity that I gripped Grandmama’s quilt around my throat. After a charged, silent, minute he nodded slowly.
“No. We’ll cross paths with him on the road.”
“You just said that’s suicide. He’ll see me.”
“He will.” Arran’s stony face flickered. He tilted his head and squinted. “In a fashion.”
My candle is sputtering, so suffice to say for now I’m writing these letters sitting on the floor in dirty trousers outside a ramshackle inn, a cow chewing its cud in the next stall over. I am now Mr. Tarai, Mrs. Tarai’s nephew. The last three days have been misery and a half, but I’ll have to tell you the rest of our makeshift escape in the next letter. We still have another three days before we reach Yoren Hall taking a circuitous route. That is, if I don’t kill Arran before we get there.
Now I find myself more able to write clearly about the muddle your letter left me in. I feel like cheering that you’ve taken a stand, but I smell a sea rat, sister. You mentioned some snakes looking you up and down—are you in danger of a man attacking? Truly, are you? I’ve asked before and you won’t answer. We should plan for such a thing, not just hope your captain’s swagger keeps them in line. I’m both furious and frightened at how thin that line seems to be.
As for Trin and Sawl, I feel a fearful hypocrite. I told you to find allies and here I am puffing up like a mama hen when two people actually support you—or seem to. It might be foolish to rely on anyone until you have a clearer idea of who to trust, and winking men like that Trin make me sweat, sailor or no. Not to be smug, but Camden wouldn’t dare wink at his fiance let alone a superior, and his honor is indisputable.
Besides, Maree, are you being intentionally dense? Is Trin more than just ‘supportive’? And what on earth does the man look like? Talk of men aside, how are you to continue on like this? Not sleeping, harassed by half your crew, with the pressure of their lives on your shoulders—double dense. I can’t believe I’m the one trying to convince you to have some sense and slow down before something worse happens.
I nonetheless feel helpless to advise with anything else. How could I help you run or ship? Or ration food? Or even lead? You always used to wave bills in my face, wanting to talk about the price of eggs, or this or that tenant’s complaint, and I crossed my eyes and refused to look, laughing at you. I’m feeling as if I’ve crossed my eyes and willfully kept things blurry on a lot of things.
I’ve never traveled without you or Nate. I never realized that before. Now I’m traveling in disguise, and leaving Nate alone to contend with the king’s pet monsters. Is it silly, Maree? Or cowardly? I wrote to you of allies and friends and my grand plans, but was this really just me wanting an escape? Am I abandoning him?
And the unspoken reality Nate and I haven’t bothered discussing: Erring and the king will know. Eventually, perhaps even before the party has ended, the king will catch wind of my presence outside Rosetree, and I’m afraid he will see it as an open rebellion not unlike yours.
Defeat by starvation or the sword, sis? I think I’d choose the sword, and Nate would too. Perhaps that’s why we haven’t discussed the possibility of our flimsy ruse failing. It doesn’t matter, as long as we fight.
The toxic, man-eating sea sounds lovely through your eyes—most things do. During the long ride tomorrow, I’ll imagine I’m flying with you. That Mrs. Tarai doesn’t smell like slightly-spoiled perfume, and that Arran isn’t tailing us like a mastiff in a vest.
In short, I’ll imagine I’m free. I know you’re not, Maree, not really, but something of you smacks of freedom, no matter the danger you face.
Don’t you dare suggest you can’t come home. I’ll single handedly lead a coup against the crown if I have to, just to see you back at Rosetree again.
Tarisa