Bone Jack

Rather hoping that his assumption that he’d become a slave owner came from the heat of an uncomfortable moment, Itzal hurried to find Ben. Ben allayed any suspicion Itzal had by confirming them.

With blood-sticky hands, Ben grabbed Itzal and shoved a piece of oil-skin parchment toward him.

“Sign it,” Ben said.

Itzal looked at the parchment. It was a bill of ownership.

“Sign it,” Ben had said. From the look of him he would faint soon—from the pain and blood loss. Probably for the best.

Before he could do it, Itzal dutifully signed the document. He tried not to think about it.

Itzal stood with his new property, looking at the top of a set of stairs, where Captain Iskander Younes puffed on a cigarette like a bored gentleman at a country cottage.

“And so, you see, I cannot leave,” Captain Younes said. “My first mate’s in the clink. These pirates have impounded my ship,” he gestured with a casual expansiveness more appropriate to taking note of an old and boring view rather than a colony of thieves. “Most of my crew have also been arrested, and all of my cargo and supplies have disappeared. Do you remember all those references to the Mad Khan you encountered in your reading? Its moments like these that seeded his legends.”

Itzal sighed. “That’s fearfully inconvenient,” he said.

Captain Younes nodded. He looked as disaffected as a landlord who simply could not fathom why his gardener wasted his time so. “I understand that puts you in a dreadful situation,” Captain Younes said.

“It does,” Itzal said.

“I fear our adventures together…such as they have been…” Captain Younes said, as if his mind wandered with the smoke from his cigarette, “cannot continue on the same way any further.”

“It’s a shame,” Itzal said.

Captain Younes nodded once. He put his cigarette in his mouth and he looked at Itzal. “Here,” he said. He handed Itzal a long, black coat, similar to his own, but shabbier and a little shorter. Itzal had a strong impression it belonged to a younger Iskander Younes. “You’ll need a better coat,” Captain Younes said. “May you find your way.”

Itzal smiled, not with happiness but rather in the insubstantial way the sad and lost smile.

“Something funny?” Captain Younes said.

“I’ve just…I heard that before,” Itzal said. “Once or twice.”

“The blessing of the Bone Jacks?” Captain Younes said. “I dare say that you have.”

“What will you do?” Itzal said.

“I admire your ability to take interest in someone else’s dire circumstances when nothing about yours offers you comfort,” Captain Younes said. He took a puff on his cigarette. Then, standing next to Itzal but facing the opposite way—with his back to the Razorgrass Sea and his face toward the buildings of Khuurai Dalain—Captain Younes made his statement. “I will have war.”

“In that, may you find your way,” Itzal said.

Captain Younes nodded. Without looking again at Itzal, Captain Iskander Younes walked away from the docks and into the city of Khuurai Dalain. If ever a man sauntered, Captain Younes did then.

Itzal took a deep breath. He went to the chest-height stone wall that looked over the expanses of razor grass. Nearer at hand, he looked at busy stone jetties. Sailors and traders bustled in knots about the business of mooring, unmooring, loading, and unloading ships. Most of the visitors to Khuurai Dalain apparently tied up here. Only “honored guests” or something like that were directed into the large, covered dock where the Riot had moored.

Possibly one of the ships below would barter with Itzal, if Itzal had anything to barter with. Itzal turned around, leaning backwards against the wall. He looked at the only thing he owned.

Seven men lounged about on the steps of a dry fountain. Or, rather, three of them lounged. Two patrolled, alert. Two more sat together, making occasional comments in the Alwatan language. They looked every bit like a group of bravos, uninterested in the ramshackle town around them. The occasional trader hurrying past spared them not even a glance. It was just the sort of place that sell-swords and bravos would loiter, waiting for some merchant or lord to offer them a job as a bodyguard or something. Some of the local bravos did, in fact, loiter nearby. The local bravos watched Itzal’s slaves (he did not like the sound of that) with ill-concealed contempt. They couldn’t assess the Full Kits. They looked fairly young and refined, but bristled with the most elegant weapons seen in those parts.

And they were, to Itzal, precious cargo. If Ben’s bill of ownership—now Itzal’s—was anything to be believed, their worth could have bought him a new ship, fully kitted, if Itzal could find the right market.

They were the one thing that he could not risk harm to.

People kept scurrying around the Full Kits as if frightened. Itzal wished they’d stop. He glanced, rather annoyed, toward one of the bravos, disappointed with the bravery of the local color. Did they not know that, no matter how armed they were—no matter how much they carried themselves like the more lethal form of dancer—they would not harm anybody?

That thought hadn’t occurred to Itzal yet. Now it did, it inspired another thought. Because…no, the bravos did not know. In fact, no one knew. No one knew that the Full Kits wouldn’t start fights—as far as Itzal knew, they would fight no one unless their owner told them to.

Itzal turned again to look at the jetties and the ships, remembering a half-noticed observation. He peered around the scurrying people. He saw hats and boots from all over the world. Eventually, he found what he wanted: a particular Tal Khumuus steward, hurrying toward a ship with bamboo-ribbed sails.

Turning around again to the Full Kits, Itzal finished thinking his thought. Then he thought for a bit more, deciding how to phrase it.

“Those aren’t just ornamental?” he said to Caesura.

“You slander the blade,” Caesura said. He smiled, as if to an old joke.

“And you…none of you are ornamental?” Itzal asked. “I mean, you’re not just a bunch of fellows who look good holding a sword, that the Slandersmith Guild sends to make their weapons look good?”

“We are forged from birth with these weapons,” Caesura said. “We are made to use them, as they are made to complete us.”

“Aside from feeling rather unsettling to hear that…” Itzal said. He didn’t have anything to finish it with. Instead he nodded, and he looked back at the jetties.

“You’ll do as I say?” Itzal asked.

“Our master commands our lives.”

“Even if it’s perhaps…slightly…illegal?”

“Whose laws?” Caesura asked. “We recognize only yours.”

“Fine,” Itzal said. His heart fluttered, he thought with the giddiness of power. He hoped not to grow used to it. “That’s fine.”

He left some silence, deciding how to steel himself for the next plunge.

“Master forgive, if I speak out of turn,” Caesura said.

“Please speak out of turn, Caesura,” Itzal said.

“What is your command?”

“My command,” Itzal said, disliking the idea of command. He’d accept the need of it for now. “I guess I shall have to command it. I command you, my band of Full Kits, to enact some specific piracy. Listen near and I shall tell all.”

Caesura seemed to more or less lead the Full Kits. Itzal didn’t need to talk to them much before they started designing their own plan. He gave them a task, and Caesura translated it—most of them only spoke Alwatan. Then they spoke together for a few minutes, gesturing in sweeps and prods. Within moments, they had a plan, and they started executing it. Three of them disappeared into the crowd in one direction, two of them in another, and Caesura and the burly one bristling with weapons walked with Itzal straight toward the target.

“I’ll need names for you all at some point,” Itzal said to Caesura.

“He’s called Erkek Domuz,” Caesura said, pointing at the burly one bristling with weapons. Erkek nodded, grinning. He had good teeth.

“Glad to know you, sir,” Itzal said.

“What are you, then?” Caesura said, pointing at Itzal with two fingers. “Rapier man?”

“Beg pardon?” Itzal said.

“Master forgive, if I speak out of turn… Rapier. Quick and efficient. Pointed. You favor a rapier, I guess,” Caesura said.

“Oh…I don’t know. I am not sure I favor anything.”

“You shall need a weapon for now,” Caesura said. He shouted something to Erkek. With a lazy flick, Erkek tossed over one of the weapons hanging about him. Caesura caught it, and held the handle of it out to Itzal.

It was a long rapier with the basket hilt and long blade customary to rapiers. Like slanderswords often did, it varied from the shape that the style of sword usually would have. This rapier had a broader blade than a rapier ought to have, though it didn’t add to the weight, and its balance didn’t force it to keep its point directly toward the enemy. It wasn’t a purely stabbing weapon. The lower balance of it and the sturdy blade would make it possible to do a little hacking with it, if necessary. The effect in Itzal’s hand was gyroscopic, as if it wanted to move by itself. It was a sword that would not easily be held at rest and encouraged a quick and fluid fighting style.

Itzal mused on this. He watched the ship that was the object of their act of piracy. The sailors began casting off moorings. The timing would be critical. Itzal and the Full Kits couldn’t wait too long, but if they started too soon they’d be sunk.

“Master forgive, if I speak out of turn,” Caesura said. “We await your signal.”

Itzal nodded. He scanned the crowd and cover on the jetties both sides of the ship they wanted. “I don’t see all of you Full Kits,” he said.

“Nevertheless,” Caesura said, smiling. “We are ready. Have faith.”

Nodding again, Itzal ran some figures. He needed to make his move when the ship had gotten under way enough that they couldn’t call the dock guards to lend a hand, but not so far off that the ship got too far to reach. The sailors casting off the last mooring lines suspected nothing. Caesura and the Full Kits deserved credit. All of them that Itzal could see—so four of them—looked like bystanders with no interest in causing any trouble at all.

The ship started rolling away. The moment ticked close.

“I’d like to avoid killing anyone,” Itzal said to Caesura.

“Master forgive, if I speak out of turn,” Caesura said. “You implied that.”

“Did I?” Itzal said.

“Yes,” Caesura smiled. He seemed to be enjoying himself. “You asked us to capture a boat for transportation.”

“And?” Itzal said.

“We have a limited set of skills,” Caesura said, drawing a short sword. “Sailing is not one of them. We would not cover much distance if we killed the existing crew.”

“That is a good point, sir,” Itzal said, distracted by his estimation of the distances the ship inched along.

“Master forgive, if I speak out of turn,” Caesura said. “You need not call me that.”

“What?” Itzal asked.

“ ‘Sir,’ ” Caesura said. “It is not appropriate to give a slave a title of that kind.”

Itzal thought on it. It seemed natural to call Caesura “sir.” His every little gesture suggested high breeding. Itzal would have to think longer on it.

“We shall talk on it later, Mister Kimse,” Itzal said. “For now we have an act of piracy to conduct.”

Smiling and giving his two fingers over his sternum salute, Caesura led Erkek down the jetty. Itzal ran between them. At the end of the stone jetty, Itzal jumped. He landed on the rail of the ship. Staying on the rail, he ran up to the back of the ship. It happened too fast for anyone on the ship to react except with surprised shouts.

He jumped onto the deck in front of the ship’s captain—distinguished by his large hat with many feathers. There Itzal flicked the tip of his sword up under the captain’s beard.

“Surrender,” Itzal said, and he fancied he said it brazenly. He would not have managed even saying it with confidence were it not for the indignant curses from where Caesura and Erkek stood with pointed weapons to the throats of the next two most ranking officers they could find nearby. They had only managed accomplishing it by the quickness of their actions.

Itzal could not tell if the captain of the ship understood the word “surrender.” The anger in his eyes looked unyielding. The captain started to open his mouth, probably to call Itzal and his ancestors names. Something over Itzal’s shoulder distracted the captain. Itzal didn’t look to see what it was, but he listened. What Itzal heard was the definite cussing—though the words were Yaria, so Itzal didn’t know the translation—of several men being taken hostage. Tal Khumuus officers had immense wealth, compared to the coarse linen clad sailors. It had been easy, it seemed, for the rest of the Full Kits to appear from wherever they had been hiding and make captives of as many officers as they could reach.

Facing a situation where more than half his lieutenants—it was a small ship, after all—and himself had knives to their throats, the captain let the silence loom. Itzal feared that would be an end of it. No progress made, and the summer wind wasting along half-rigged sails. Showing interest in appealing to a higher power, the captain’s eyes slid sideways toward a man standing nearby. Itzal recognized the man. It was, in fact, for this man that this particular act of piracy had seemed useful. It was the steward of Modris Khan, standing nearby.

“What is it that you want?” The steward said.

“To make sail,” Itzal said. The steward translated to the captain, and the captain looked back at Itzal, pointedly measuring him up, and making no attempt to hide his dislike for what he saw.

Whatever his moral objections might have been, the captain seemed to decide a course of action. The captain made a few orders, careful not to move his throat too much, for fear of the sword. Itzal listened to the footsteps behind himself. First they were hesitant, but then they took on the purpose of a group of sailors moving about their practiced jobs.

For a while after that they played a waiting game. Itzal kept his sword point to the captain’s neck, and the Full Kits loitered nearby to make sure that nobody surprised Itzal, and nobody spoke except what needed to be said to start the ship on its way.

Everybody seemed happy with the arrangement, except the steward, who proved to be rather chatty.

“Who are you?” he said, proving himself interested in only the most difficult points.

“Itzal Dantzari,” Itzal said.

“I have never heard of you,” the steward said.

“I hope that never changes,” Itzal said, not quite sure what he meant by it but rather pleased by the effect. It sounded mysterious and just the sort of thing a local hero might say. He looked over at the steward, whose blank stare froze whatever cheeriness Itzal felt about his clever remark. Oh well, Itzal supposed, back to the witticism drawing board.

“Worth a try,” Itzal said, shrugging.

“This course of action may lead to your doom,” the steward said, as if commenting on the quality of an oatmeal with nothing in it. “You have the advantage of surprise, but the value of surprise shrinks with every passing beat of your heart.”

“Yes,” Itzal said.

“Do you have any salvation to your plan? It looks as wretched as the ravings of a dullard.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Itzal said. “I think you’ll see it’s a similar plan to yours, if you give it a chance.”

“Because your arm will never tire?” the steward said.

“Because you will be my advocate in a few minutes,” Itzal said.

That gave the steward a moment of pause. “Do you know what the Sun said to the Moon when the Moon sought to win the farmer’s heart?” the steward said.

“This one I think I know,” Itzal said, thinking back to the book of Tal Khumuus fairy tales he’d once perused. “Did he say, ‘You cannot grow wheat by wishing’?”

“I always heard ‘potatoes,’” said the steward, “but yes.”

Itzal attempted to smile to the steward. He decided it must look strained, so he gave it up.

“I will wait a few minutes, Mister Dantzari,” said the steward, sitting on the bench that ran across the aft rail. “Then we will talk again, if you are still alive.”

The steward lit his pipe. The captain frowned at Itzal. The crew went about their business.

And, eventually, the ship got well under way.

Glancing toward Khuraai Dalain, Itzal decided it had fallen far enough behind the ship. Itzal glanced at Caesura. Caesura said, “We await your example.” Itzal nodded, then he looked at the steward.

“You are the steward of Modris Khan,” Itzal said.

“Yes,” said the steward of Modris Khan.

“May I know your name, sir?” Itzal asked.

The steward, in the middle of cleaning his pipe, looked at Itzal. By his frown he seemed disinclined to cooperate, but his curiosity won out. “Nergui,” the steward said.

“Mister Nergui,” Itzal said. “I take it that you are one of only a few men nearby who speaks this language.”

“Not much,” Nergui said.

“I’m afraid my understanding of Yaria is crude at best. I am about to do something, and I shall require an interpreter as soon as I’ve done it. Would you mind terribly to act as interpreter for me?”

“I anticipate the opportunity with great curiosity, Mister Dantzari,” Nergui said.

“Thank you, sir,” Itzal said. Then he took a deep breath, and he presented the handle of his sword to the captain of the ship. “The ship is yours, captain.”