Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [15]
I said, “You are in my queendom!”
He eyed me, fear and doubt warring in his eyes. “Ye don’t look like no prince!”
My clothing was as poor as his, and not much drier. I said, “No, of course not. This is the queendom of . . . of Witchland, and I am an apprentice witch. How else could I have flown you up the cliff?”
Fear routed doubt. The sailor threw himself at my feet in the weeds and rocks. “Witchland! Oh, spare me, sir . . . uh, my lord . . . spare me!”
“I will spare you if you tell me all you know of the ship that brought you here, its voyage, and its captain.”
The sailor, still on his belly, peered up at me with the expression of a dog that expects to be beaten. I realized then what I should have seen at first. His beard had hidden most of his face, but his flat nose and big head, the slur in his voice, his confusion at being asked three questions at once—this man was like Cat Starling, but without her beauty. His was the mind of a child, and it was as a child that he could not grasp where he was, what had happened to the ship, or why the murderous seas had turned calm in the space of a heartbeat.
“Rise,” I said as lordly as I could manage. “Good. Now, tell me—what was the name of your ship?”
“The Frances Ormund.” He turned his eyes toward the sea and grimaced in bewilderment—where had the ship gone?
I did not want him thinking, remembering, realizing. “Look at me. No, directly at me . . . good. Now, who was her captain?”
“Cap’n James Conyers.”
“Good. Where was she bound?”
“For Carlyle Bay.” It seemed to steady him to have only one short question at a time, questions he could answer with certainty. The fear had not left his misshapen face, nor the knife his hand, but I sensed that as long as I kept his attention focused on me, he would not panic. The knife had a curved blade, wickedly sharp, and a wooden handle carved like an openmouthed fish.
I said, “How many hands aboard the ship?”
“Eleven, and the cap’n, and Mistress Conyers.”
“What was your cargo—no, don’t look down—what was your cargo?”
“Gold from Benilles and cloth from . . . I forget.” He hung his head.
“It’s all right that you forgot,” I said. Cloth and gold—a rich cargo, a small ship, a light crew. A good choice for wreckers.
“Oh!” he said, brightening. “And we brung a man from Benilles—someone important, he was! With medals on his chest!”
The man, his medals, and his importance had all been devoured by the hungry sea. “What is your name?”
“Bat.”
“No other name?”
“No, sir. Bat be all I carry.”
“And what kind of captain was James Conyers to you, Bat? A fair master?”
This question was too complicated. Bat looked at me hopelessly.
“Did Captain Conyers ever have you flogged?”
“When I fouled the line. The cap’n, he give me three lashes. But they was light. He tell me that I . . . I be trying as hard as I can, and that be true.”
“Did he—”
But Bat had found his tongue. “The cap’n have the bosun flogged for stealing, and we put him ashore at Yantaga, we did. No pay, neither, and lucky he warn’t sent to no gaol. The cap’n, he stood on deck when the big storm came, and he won’t let no man leave his post, and then afterwards he said—”
I heard all of what the captain said, what the captain did, what the captain was. This simple-witted man stood before me, salt drying on his ruined clothes, and painted the picture of an idol, a man such as I, at least, had never known. Fair. Kind. Intelligent. Capable of doing anything. How much was true, and how much blind devotion?
Bat finished with, “But where be the cap’n now? I can’t leave my post!” Panic took him. “Did you witch my cap’n?” The curved knife in his hand twitched.
“I did not.” More figures had emerged from the sea to wander the beach below. One might even be Captain Conyers. “Bat, come with me.” I tried to make my voice as full of authority as I could—I, a skinny and fearful murderer fighting for his very life. Which, in this country, hardly even existed. But Bat followed me.
I led him to a