“Damn you!” Camargen pushed past the startled gunners and seized a hold on the bowsprit himself, saw Silver-hair forge farther and farther out, toward the end of the bowsprit, where the mainstay held, the stay of not only the mainmast, but all the masts, Silver-hair with this shining metal in hand, and no good intention.
Bent on killing them all, on killing the whole ship. If that stay went, they were dead men, all.
Water, fresh and salt, mingled in the air. Camargen swarmed outward on the bowsprit, got hold of Silver-hair’s leg and hauled, and Silver-hair half lost his hold, turning with his back to the gale and his free hand lifted, holding not a knife, but a wizard’s wand.
“The hell you do!” Camargen shouted against the wind, and hauled with all his strength, for life itself.
A violent gust hit them. The Fortunate completely vanished behind a great mountain of water, and the Widowmaker nosed down, her bowsprit aimed at the trough. He seized a fistful of trouser-leg and hauled with all his strength, to get his hands on Silver-hair himself.
Silver-hair slipped further, and grabbed him. “You don’t understand,” Silver-hair shouted at him. “Let me get us through!”
He had a grip on Silver-hair’s belt now, hauled him against the bowsprit only to get his hand on his throat, and as he did, Silver-hair slipped, dragging them both over, dragging them right down where rope and chains held waterlogged old Korgun. With a crack like a catapult, the bowsprit shook.
Canvas had ripped, a tattered streamer of the lateen foresail blowing over their heads, trailing its sheets. Then, sickening shock, the great cable of the mainstay parted a strand, and another, unwinding before their eyes.
Crack! again, and something had given way. The whole mainstay parted, the mainmast pulled violently aside, and death was taking them apart, trailing canvas. Cables and canvas frayed and parted as if sudden rot had taken them. Camargen had Silver-hair by the throat now, and vengeance was all he had, vengeance for his crew, for the Widowmaker herself, for all the long sorry chase and the end of it in a watery grave. Old Korgun looked on, blue-lit in lightning and spray, and Camargen kept his grip, kept it while the timbers parted in a series of sickening cracks and lost-soul groans, and the whole fabric of the ship came undone. They went under together, tangled in each other, and while he drowned, he kept strangling the one who’d done it to them, in hatred more precious than his last-held breath.
“Where did you get this?” Bezul held the necklace in front of Kadithe’s face and Bezul’s sharp gaze raked him up and down.
Kadithe Mur ducked his head and mumbled: “I made it.”
The little bell rang over the Changer’s door and Bezul’s strong fingers grabbed his arm, pulling him into a little room just inside the shop’s warrens, closing the door behind them.
“Sit!” Bezul hissed and Kadithe hunched on the edge of the wooden chair facing the small, cluttered desk. Bezul threw himself down in the desk-side chair and laid the necklace, gently as if it were a butterfly wing, on the table between them. “You tell me and you tell me straight, boy, is that stolen?”
“No.”
“I don’t deal in that sort of thing. You know I don’t.”
“I tell you, I didn’t steal it!”
Bezul’s wife, Chersey, cracked the door and asked, was everything all right.
“Fine, my dear,” Bezul answered quietly, and Kadithe scowled at the floor.
She nodded, once, and disappeared from the door, her point made.
“All right, boy, start talking, and fast. You say you made it. Out of what?”
He shrugged, resentment rising. “Stuff. Shite lying in the gutter, under the scrap from th’ fires. Lotsa bits left lyin’ ’round iff’n ya opens yer eyes.”
Hell, half and more of Bezul’s stock out in that warehouse he called a store came from the same source, just better stuff, gang-scavenged.
“Who taught you?”
His eyes dropped. He’d been a fool to come here, or rather should have stuck with the odd repair job Bezul had for him. The new bits and bobs, his work, only raised questions he dared not answer. Secrecy, more, anonymity, Grandfather had always said, was their only safety.
“Just … give it back,” he said sullenly and reached for the piece, only to find Bezul’s square-fingered hand covering it.
“Not so fast.” Nothing could hide from those keen eyes. They bore past pretense and saw:
“Kadithe. Kadithe … Mur?”
He jumped. He’d never given the name. Never. But Bezul nodded slowly.
“Mur. Aye, you have the look of his boy.” He sat back, taking the necklace with him, and said, almost to himself: “I thought the line had died out.”
“Just … give it to me.”
“Grandson?”
He set his jaw.
“Where is he, boy?”
Counting the necklace lost, he darted for the door, only to run headlong into Bezul’s wife.
“Here, now.” She caught his arms, and gentle but firm, made him lift his head. She tsked softly and wrapped a kind arm around his shoulders.
Kind. So why did he still feel like a prisoner?
“What’s going on, Bezul?” she asked, over his averted head.
“The boy here wanted to trade this for a shirt and a blanket. Take a look. Tell me what you think.”
She made him look up again. “Promise me you won’t run?”
He swore, his voice breaking, and threw himself back in the chair. She picked the necklace up; lamplight caught the moonstone ring on her finger, making it glow with life. A beautiful stone … with a setting that failed to do it justice. All urge to escape faded in the face of that beautiful stone, how he’d set it, given half a—
Chersey exclaimed softly, then moved over to the lamp, and all thought of the ring vanished. If he hadn’t been terrified, the look on her face would have made him happier than he’d been in … a very long time.
“Beautiful. So very delicate. I haven’t seen work like this since …” Her voice trailed off and her eyes lifted to meet her husband’s. Then she turned to Kadithe, lifted his face with a finger beneath his chin, then brushed his hair back from his eyes to study him the same way she’d studied the necklace. “Where is he, child? We heard his shop was ruined, burned to the ground, that he died.”
He said nothing, only wished desperately that he could leave.
She chuckled softly, the way Grandfather chuckled when he recalled his time in the palace. “He was always so proud of his bronze-work, his statues. He never appreciated … Of course, it wasn’t stylish. Large, ostentatious, that’s what the nabobs wanted. But the jewelry he made was for his daughter-in-law. She was small, delicate.” She smiled at him; he shuddered. “A lot like you, child.”
He ground his teeth. Delicate wasn’t something he wanted to be. Delicate didn’t survive what he’d survived these last years. o way. No froggin’, shite’n way in hell.
“He says he made it.”
“Does he, now?” She took his hands before he kenned her intent, studied them from all angles, touching the calluses, the tiny pricks and cuts the metal left, apologized when she inadvertently pressed a still-raw burn, then smiled and placed the necklace in his hands before releasing him altogether. “He’s taught you well.” She settled on the edge of the desk. “So, husband, how are we going to help this talented young man?”
“What about the shop?” Bezul asked.