“She’s lookin’ pretty banged up, Cap’n Morrass,” said one of the shipwrights. He was a squat, balding man with one eye and a jawline the likes of which a stone Adonis would have been proud to own.
“Aye,” Drake said, morose. “Been a long while since we last put her in for real repairs. Couple of leaks here and there, but nothing we ain’t been able to handle or patch until now.” He missed the sound of her creaking under his feet and the spray as she cut through waves. Strange that he could go months at a stretch on land and away from his ship, yet the moment she was beached he couldn’t stand to be apart from her.
“What about the gipples?” asked another of the shipwrights, as different from the first as day from night. This one was tall, thin, and chinless, with skin as dark as onyx and eyes as bright as the bits Drake was offering to pay him to fix the ship.
“Dead.” Drake pointed to a stretch of beach where dark shapes were splayed out in stark contrast against the yellow sand. “Found four of them in all, and all had damn near chewed through the hull. Plenty of wood needing replacing. My boys could patch it, but I want her fit as a fiddle and tarred up to stop this happening again.”
“How else is she lookin’? Any other damage?” The third shipwright was a young man who barely looked as though he was off his mother’s tit, but he was the son of an old man Drake knew well. While Drake couldn’t say he trusted the fellow – he wasn’t given to trusting any living soul apart from his brother – he would happily claim to respect the ancient ship builder.
“Bugger me, lad,” Drake said with a snort. “She’s been out on the waters for about three years since anybody last had a good look at her. What do you think?” The older shipwrights laughed, as if the boy’s question had been so obvious he needn’t have asked. “Minor damage for the most part. Some railing replacement and the like. Might as well give her a new mast while we’re at it, I suppose. That one’s been set fire to once or twice.”
“I suppose you’ll be wanting the good wood for replacements?” said the squat shipwright. By way of response Drake only stared at the man. “Of course. Well, I reckon I could do it for seven hundred and fifty bits. Three weeks’ work at most.”
The chinless shipwright chimed in next, while Drake looked at all three of them, thoroughly unimpressed. “Seven hundred bits and two weeks.” He grinned at his fellows as though he’d just secured the deal.
“My da’ll do it fer five hundred just to have the opportunity to work on the Fortune,” said the child with a smug grin. “Still take two weeks though. Can’t rush good work, he always says.”
“Five hundred?” said the stout shipwright in a voice so high most singers would have been envious. “You can’t do it for that, won’t even cover the costs.”
The young lad grinned at them both, and within moments all three shipwrights were arguing as though who Drake chose to fix his ship was up to them. With a sigh he turned away and went back to staring at his poor, beached ship. Nearby he could see Princess and the Arbiter arguing about something. The woman was becoming a constant pain in the poor man’s arse with all of her demands, but Drake wasn’t about to turn her away. An Arbiter was a powerful ally, and Hironous had, for some reason, ordered her to protect Drake.
He thought about what his brother had said the last time he’d seen him. Not only was Hironous Vance the youngest Inquisitor the Inquisition had ever seen, but he also had the sight. The sight manifested in women as the power to look into a person’s past through their own eyes, but in men it manifested as the power to look into a person’s future – and for that reason Hironous Vance was also known as the Oracle, though not to many outside of Drake’s crew.
“I don’t have time for this,” Drake said quietly. “I gotta find that bloody pretend pirate, Stillwater.”
“Did you say something, Captain Morrass?” said the chinless shipwright.
Drake looked over his shoulder at the arguing fools. “Reckon ya might have mistaken the point of me bringing you here,” he said with a charming grin. “I ain’t asking you what price one of ya can do it for. I’m telling all three of ya to get to work and fix my damned ship. And I’m giving ya one week to do it.”
“I already have a client.”
“One week?”
“They couldn’t fix it in a month!”
Drake spat into the sand. It was a small gesture, but enough to silence all three shipwrights. “I don’t care about your other clients and I don’t care about your issues with each other. Ya each get one thousand bits, all nice and shiny, and if the Fortune ain’t back on the water in a week, I’ll cut ya noses off and sew them to your arseholes. Good?”
The three men looked at each other quickly and, as one, nodded their assent. “What should I do about Captain Barklow?” the stout one said.
“Who?” Drake had never heard of Captain Barklow, which put the man well and truly in the realm of inconsequential. Captains came and went all the time out in the isles, and unless they’d proven they had a name worth knowing, Drake didn’t bother taking the time to know it.
“The Captain of the Hearth Fire,” the shipwright said, nervously scratching at his chiselled chin. “My workers are currently fixing his ship.”
Drake considered the situation for a moment, then grinned as opportunity once again presented itself. “Pull the workers and get them to fixing the Fortune. I reckon I’ll go have myself a chat with this Captain Barklow.”
Drake looked over at his first mate. “Princess,” he shouted. “I want you and Byron with me. We’re going to town. Beck, might be you want to tag along as well. Maybe you’ll get to see what us pirates are really like.” He turned back to find the three shipwrights watching him intently. “And you boys might want to get to work. You’ve got a week to fix my bloody ship.”
Port Sev’relain was fair buzzing with activity and noise. Drake wagered he’d never seen so many folk out and about in the town at once. Pirates walked about in groups, some enjoying snatched days of shore leave while others hauled loot and supplies to and from their respective ships. Horses and carts may be the accepted method of transporting goods in most civilised places, but the Pirate Isles were far from civilised and the people that lived there even less so.
Pirates were many things, Drake knew, but work– shy wasn’t one of them. They were men and women who eschewed rigidly lawful societies in a bid to make something for themselves, and there was no better way to make something for oneself than by taking it from someone else. It was a work ethic Drake could agree with. The pirates of the isles were his people, and he’d make sure they all knew that soon enough.
Their entrance into the town proper, from the beach upon which the Fortune sat sad and silent, didn’t go unnoticed. Drake had been the one to bring the dire news of Black Sands, the first major pirate town to be destroyed since the days of the old Captain Black and the Great Purge. Deun Burn had already cast doubt on Drake’s legitimacy simply by suggesting that he may have had a hand in that destruction. Whether that accusation was true or not, the Riverlander would need to be turned or buried before he began speaking out against Drake. But the Oracle had been clear and crystal on the matter: Stillwater had to be recruited, and soon, before he joined the other side.