City of Lies - Lian Tanner [76]
Pounce flushed. “Yeah, I s’pose ya have.”
Toadspit shook himself as if he had only just noticed what was going on. “You’re not going to trust him, are you?” he muttered to Goldie.
“No,” said Goldie, not bothering to lower her voice. “He’d still sell us to Harrow if it suited him, wouldn’t you, Pounce?”
Pounce shrugged. “Maybe. But I pays me debts too. Ya saved Mousie from the sharks. So I’ll give yez a ride ’ome in me ship.”
Toadspit bristled. “Who says it’s your ship?”
“I says.”
“I bet you can’t even sail it.”
“Can you?” said Pounce.
Bonnie had been listening to all this with Frisia’s bow held loosely by her side. Now she rolled her eyes at Pounce. “Of course he can. My brother can do anything.”
“Shut up, Bonnie,” mumbled Toadspit.
“Listen,” said Goldie, losing patience with all of them. “None of us know how to sail this ship except for Smudge. So it doesn’t matter who calls themselves captain. It’s going to be Smudge telling us what to do.”
The big man shook his head. “Not me. I’m not gunna help yez. Harrow wouldn’t like it.” Behind him, the cat stretched and showed its claws.
“Harrow won’t know,” said Goldie.
Smudge glanced nervously over his shoulder at the cat. He lowered his voice. “Harrow knows everything.”
“You can be captain,” said Goldie.
Smudge hesitated, and Goldie could see the temptation working away inside him. But his fear of Harrow was too great. He shook his head again.
Goldie sighed loudly. “In that case we’ll just have to make you help us.”
“Make me?” Smudge laughed uncertainly. “How ya gunna do that? Yez are only little. An’ I’m big.”
Goldie turned her back on him and winked at Bonnie. “How many arrows have you got?”
“Lots. Do you want me to shoot him?” said Bonnie. She was only wearing one shoe, and now she kicked it off and stood eagerly in her stockinged feet.
“Hey!” said Smudge.
“Not all at once,” said Goldie. “Just a bit here and there. Start with his kidneys.”
Bonnie took an arrow from her quiver and fitted it to the bow.
“Hang on a minute,” said Smudge.
Bonnie raised the bow and began to circle the big man. “Where are his kidneys?”
“I’m not sure,” said Goldie. “There, I think.” She poked Smudge in the back. “It doesn’t really matter. Just keep trying until you hit them.”
“All right, all right!” said Smudge. “I’ll help yez.”
Bonnie made a disappointed face. “Can I shoot him anyway?”
“Only if he doesn’t get the ship on course for Jewel right now,” said Goldie.
Smudge ran to the tiller, and the Piglet was soon heading steadily westward. Goldie sank to the deck and closed her eyes, trying very hard not to think about Cord.
Instead, for the first time in days, she let her thoughts turn to Ma and Pa. How she longed to see them! She wished she could make the ship move more quickly—
“Goldie.”
Reluctantly she opened her eyes. Bonnie and Toadspit were squatting in front of her, with Frisia’s bow and sword in their hands. Bonnie must have retrieved her own bow from the dinghy, because she held that as well. Morg sat on Toadspit’s shoulder, her black feathers rustling in the wind.
“Ffffowl,” muttered the cat in a halfhearted fashion, from its spot near the rail.
Without a word, Bonnie laid the two bows on the deck. They were the same length, but apart from that they looked nothing at all alike. Frisia’s bow was almost new. It had a leather grip, with a small carving of a wolf cub just above it, and it was painted in intricate patterns of red and black. The tips were inlaid with silver rings.
In contrast, Bonnie’s bow was so old that it had surely forgotten it had ever been part of a living tree. The original grip was missing, and there were scrapes and scratches all over the wood. If it had ever been painted, there was no sign of it now.
But then Bonnie pointed to the tip, where the bowstring looped around it, and said, “Look. You can see where the silver rings used to be. And here, just above the grip. It’s the wolf cub.”
Goldie peered at the old bow without touching it. Certainly there