Captain Pyra Quadde was forty-seven years old. She was five feet ten inches tall and weighed in at a muscular one-seventy. Her hair was a wonderful deep auburn, spoiled by being filthy and greasy. She wore knee-length boots in stained black leather, cracked and dulled with salt. Her black skirt reached below her knees, and she was swaddled in several layers of thick sweaters. Over all was a dark blue pea coat with tarnished brass buttons. A belaying pin, its end gleaming from use, was stuck in the broad leather belt. Her right hand gripped a stout walking stick, its end gray iron and the handle a smooth piece of ivory.
From behind, Ryan guessed that she could have been mistaken for a middleweight male wrestler, run to fat.
From the front she was nothing but an astoundingly ugly woman.
Her complexion was sallow, the skin oddly tight in places, slack in others. The furrows and wrinkles were seamed with dirt. Spots and boils decorated her cheeks and chin. A bristling mustache clung as tenaciously to her upper lip as a beggar to his last ten cents. The eyes were sunken in rolls of fat, like raisins in dough, and they glittered like chips of jet, fixing themselves to Ryan's face. When she smiled, Captain Quadde revealed a most peculiar set of false teeth. Ryan realized with a shudder of revulsion that they had been carved from some kind of animal bone.
"Thou butchered goodman Jonas? Thou, with a single starboard glim to peek through? Is that true, Rodriguez? The truth, thou sniveling bastard."
The landlord couldn't meet her eyes. Glancing toward Ryan Cawdor, he decided he couldn't face him, either.
"Yeah," he muttered into the stillness.
"What?" She spoke softly, the way a cougar will snarl deep in its throat.
"Good evening, Captain Quadde," Ryan said. "I chilled your man."
"Thy name?"
"Ryan Cawdor."
"Why didst thou slaughter poor mild Jonas? He would not have harmed a sleeping babe." There was a snigger of laughter from someone near the piano, quickly muffled as the woman turned and stared in that direction.
"I didn't like the way he looked and spoke." The surging anger that had pushed him into the fight with the seaman still moved within Ryan. Gentler, like the waves on a beach after the eye of the storm had passed on, but still strong enough to fuel his instinctive dislike of the hoggish woman.
She moved closer, and he noticed that she limped on her right leg. His eye was caught by Krysty, who was looking at Captain Quadde with an expression of almost religious horror. Her lips were moving, and Ryan guessed she was whispering an invocation to Gaia, the Earth Mother. Her long crimson hair, sentient to the moods of its mistress, was coiled tightly and protectively about her skull.
"Didst thou not like the way Jonas spoke and looked?" the woman said musingly. "For that he was slain. Lies here leaking out his red, red roses."
Ryan allowed his right hand to drop to the butt of his blaster. "Don't come any closer," he warned her.
Pyra Quadde halted, a scant six feet from him. Veryslowly she lifted the cane in her hand, until, as cold as death, the ferrule touched Ryan's throat. He made no move to stop it, knowing that she couldn't manage enough leverage from where she stood to harm him.
"Thou dost threaten me, outlander?" she growled. "Thou hast no love for living. Knowest thou not that no man in Claggartville would dare to life a hand 'gainst me?"
"Then Claggartville doesn't contain many men, does it?"
The walking cane was lowered slowly, until it tapped on the boards. The woman moved back a step, seeing that the spreading pool of blood from Clegg's corpse was oozing stickily closer to the toes of her boots.
"I'd give a ram keg filled with jack to have thee 'board the Salvationwhen we sail the day after the morrow. To go hunt the great whales across the gray ocean."
Her eyes roamed around the silent tavern as she spoke, and Ryan felt a faint prickling of something that was almost fear between the blades of his shoulders. The way this stocky woman seemed to hold the entire ville in thrall was frightening. He'd seen enough barons running frontier pest-villes who had less presence than Captain Pyra Quadde.
"What dost thou want done with?.." the landlord stammered, pointing at the corpse and not knowing quite what to call it.
"Garbage! Heave it off the dock and let the eels take it."
"Aye, Captain."
The woman fixed Ryan again with her stare. "Thou hast had a day, outlander. Times pass. List, and thou canst hear it sliding by. Three days without work and thou must leave or work'll be found. Think on that, Ryan Cawdor."
"Get out into the fog and blackness where you belong, or stay and get yourself chilled like that piece of dead meat there."
"Big words, outlander." She spun around and stepped to the door, the stick tapping smartly. She paused for a moment, hand on the latch, and Ryan half drew the pistol, expecting her to turn holding a hideaway blaster.
But she opened the heavy door, her dark shape silhouetted a moment against the white fog beyond. Then she was gone, with only the rapping of her stick fading away down the alley.
"Up to the room," Ryan ordered, collecting the others with his eye. It wasn't the time to linger in the cramped bar, among so many threatening strangers.
Donfil was last into their room, shutting the door gently and leaning his shoulder against it. "Lot of sour badness in that woman," he said.
Krysty nodded. "Right. I could hardly breathe with her in the same room, Ryan. Why did you have to push the fight with?.."
"Because I had to. I did it, he's chilled and we move on."
"If I may venture a small suggestion," Doc said. "I think we would do well to consider the possibility of moving on from... from... from whatever this dreary place is called. Ah, Claggartville. It came back to me."
"I hate this place!" Lori said vehemently. "It's fulled of badness. We shall... should get out and back to the gateway and go someplace else. "
Ryan looked at Jak and J.B., the only two in the group who hadn't spoken. "How about it?"
"Don't see any point staying," Jak mumbled, head down. "No work. No jack. I say go."
The Armorer still stayed silent. He walked across to the low window and peered out, wiping at the condensation with his sleeve.
"J.B.?"
"Trader used to say something about the man who doesn't get into a firefight but runs away, lives to run away on another day."
Ryan had heard it before, but the old joke still amused him. "Sure, but what do we do? I agree with Jak, in a way. Can't see much to keep us in this ville. Woman like that Pyra Quadde looks like she could pull a lot of strings in Claggartville. If someone mebbe plans to coldcock me, I'd rather not stick around for them."
"So we go?" Krysty said, the relief heavy in her voice.
"When should we plan our departure?" Doc asked, sitting on one of the beds, cracking the knuckles of his right hand with a sound like distant musket fire.
"Tonight?" Donfil suggested, also sitting down to avoid being stooped almost double under the low ceiling.
"Old bitch watch for us," Jak said, joining the Armorer at the window, looking across the fog-shrouded roofs toward the masts of the ships. Now that they knew the layout of the quay, it was possible to work out which was the Salvation. Farthest to the right, as they saw it.
"Mebbe," Ryan agreed.
"Lot of sec patrols on the roads. Might have to blast our way out."
J.B. was right. From what they'd seen of the ville, it was tightly run. The seven companions would have the firepower and could certainly get clear of the outskirts of the place. But that didn't guarantee that they could get back to the beach where they'd left their raft and make it across the treacherous waters of the sound. The ville was full of ships of all sizes. The sec men might simply shadow them from the sea and then pick them off like ants in a sugar bowl.
"First light? No. Dark's better." Ryan scratched the side of his nose with his index finger. "Can't wait until the three days are up. Too much pressure on us. Too many eyes. Too many mouths flapping about us. Best if we sit out the day tomorrow. Let them think we're ready to take anything on the third day. Early meal at evening."
The Apache smiled. "Truly but the Anglos are the masters of cunning and deceit that our fathers warned us against."
Krysty grinned. "Up here and out the window. Over the flat roof into the alley. Up through the fog, if it rises every night. We can circle around and the patrols won't be alerted like tonight."
"That's the plan. Anyone got anything to say? Things we should do? Mebbe things we shouldn't do? Anything?"
J.B. coughed. "Only usual things. Dark clothes and greased weapons. Lori to cover her hair and muffle the bells on her spurs. Doc to grease his knees to stop them creaking."
Everyone laughed. A joke from the Armorer was more rare than a necktie on a chicken.
"That's it, then." Ryan looked at his friends again. "Around this time tomorrow night. We go. Tomorrow we keep moving and stick together and try to keep a low profile. Let's not attract too much attention to ourselves."
Everyone agreed.
"Again, outlander! Again, again!"
It seemed as if every inhabitant of Claggartville was gathered around Ryan and the others on the side of the main dock, close by a weathered clipper ship with a falcon for a figurehead.
"Smite the mark with the iron again, outlander! Thou hast nine scores from nine casts. Not a harpooneer in all New England could do better."
Donfil smiled courteously at the skinny old man who was handing him the long harpoon. "I'll try it for you."
"Not toomuch attention, Man Whose Eyes See More," Ryan whispered.
"Relax, One Eye Chills. The more they like me, the less they'll worry about us running from them." He turned away from Ryan to look among the open expanse of spray-slick cobbles, between the rows of eager faces, all of them looking at the heavy oak door that stood propped up against a pile of empty oil barrels. The white-bearded elder had paced it out, counting aloud, so that everyone there could ooh and aah.
It was a full forty paces. At the center of the door was a doubled circle of whitewash, not as large as the head of a child. The wood around it was chipped and scarred where it had been used as a target or test of skill for several years.
The seven friends had been walking through the ville in the bright morning sunshine, all the night's fog burned away. Whereas there had been mainly curiosity on their first walk around the streets and alleys, there was now suspicion, tainted with fear. It was obvious to Ryan that the shadow of Pyra Quadde lay heavy over Claggartville. The news had spread that he had fallen out with the Salvation'sskipper.
But they had been welcomed at the quay. Several men, some of them with bronzed complexions and long sleek hair, had been competing with the long whaling spears. Innkeeper Rodriguez had mistaken the tall Mescalero for a top harpooneer and the word had scurried along the lanes. Now the crowd wanted to see Donfil in action, pitted against the local champions.
"You don't have to do it," J.B. had whispered to the shaman. "If they suss you aren't good with the spear, then they'll be even more watchful of us. Understand?"
The Indian had nodded. He understood.
He'd taken the peculiar spear with its single steel flue, and hefted it, feeling for the balance. The shaft was of stout elm, about four feet in length. The metal was roughly two feet long, of iron, the cutting point of harder steel set in it.
"There is thy mark, heathen," said the old man, who seemed to be in charge of the friendly competition.
"May thy gods strike firm," said one of the young local harpooneers. "A deep strike and a rich harvest to thee."
"And to thee, brother," the Apache replied, balancing himself carefully, fixing his eye on the small white blob upon the door.
Ryan was uncomfortable, surrounded by so many strangers, many of them hostile. But Donfil's eager participation had made it even more hazardous for them to try to pass on by.
Ryan was a reasonable hand at throwing a knife, as was J.B. Jak was the best with his concealed blades that Ryan had ever known, but none of them had ever thrown spears.
There was a blur of movement, the only sound the exhalation of breath from the Apache as he released the iron. Then the gasp from the onlookers as the harpoon struck trembling in the center of the paint mark on the oaken door.
"Four-ace lucky!" shouted one of the middle-aged men watching. "Do it again, outlander!"
Donfil More did it again, five times from five casts.
Nine times out of nine throws.
The cheer nearly raised the steep-sloping roofs of the houses of Claggartville, the noise sending a flock of feeding gulls screeching from the calm waters of the harbor.
The watchers broke ranks and pressed in on the strangers, but Ryan and the rest were almost forgotten. It was only as friends of the Mescalero that they were slapped on the back, their hands pumped, grins shining in their direction.
"I'll give thee a twentieth part of a voyage if thou wilt ship with me as harpooneer!"
"An eighteenth!" a second captain yelled, jumping up and down in his anxiety to secure the services of this amazing giant who could thread the iron through the eye of a needle.
"No. No, thank you all. But I am here with my friends."
"Thou needest work. All of ye," warned a chubby man with a stovepipe hat, tarnished green with age. "I'll find labor for all seven of ye. E'en the snow-head mutie and the wenches, if thou signest on for a year's hunting the right whale."
"Aye, Boaz, but what lay dost thou offer the heathen ironman?"
"Enough, I'll warrant."
The sailor who'd pressed the question bellowed with laughter. "Best lay thou hast ever offered a harpooneer was one-seventieth." He paused to make his point stronger. "And that was for thy wife's sister's oldest son, was it not, Boaz?"
The plump captain was not in the least set back by the gibing. "Aye, that be so, neighbor. And the worst hand with an iron I ever did see. When he fell from the top foreyard ten days from harbor, it was for the best."
The crowd joined in the general merriment.
But beyond them all, at the farthest end of the crowded quay, Ryan could see the quarterdeck of the Salvation. And the dark-clothed figure of its sinister skipper was leaning on a rail, smoking a white clay pipe. When her glance met Ryan's the woman straightened and spit in the water, turned away and vanished down the nearest companionway.
It cast a chill over the cheeriness of the moment for Ryan, though he said nothing to any of his friends.
Back at the Rising Flukes, while they waited for Rodriguez to call them down to their supper, everyone congratulated Donfil on his uncanny skill with the unwieldy harpoon.
"I swear it was the most stunning example of skill I ever did see!" Doc exclaimed, trying to flatten his straggling gray locks over the planes of his skull with the palm of his hand.
"Bastard double-chiller," Jak said, sitting cross-legged on a bed, honing one of his knives on the sole of his boot.
"How'd you get that good, Donfil?" Krysty asked, leaning against the wall by the window, one arm across Ryan's shoulders.
"Hunting. The war spear is not as long as the whaling iron, but it requires much the same skill. I have always had a good eye."
"Ten out of ten," J.B. said quietly. "Most men couldn't do that with a handblaster."
"Wins the gentleman a ten-cent stogie or a Kewpie doll of his choice," Doc barked, banging on the floor of their room with his swordstick.
"What's a Kewpie doll, Doc?" Lori asked.
"I fear I... I don't recall, my dear child."
They were interrupted by the landlord of the Rising Flukes calling them down to eat.
Unless something went dreadfully wrong with their plans, it would be their last meal in Claggartville.