The Aeronaut's Windlass (46 page)

Chapter 36

Spire Albion, Habble Landing, the Black Horse Inn

I
t was well after midnight, Gwen felt simpleminded with exhaustion, and the Spirearch’s master etherealist was leading the bar in an enthusiastic round of “Farmer Long’s Cucumber,” a song that featured a number of shocking concepts Gwen had scarcely encountered before that night, along with what seemed to be an infinite number of verses.

“Really, Benedict,” she complained. “I’m sure I’ve no idea where you could have learned such a crass piece of exploitative trash.”

“. . . and she hid it there again!” Benedict sang, grinning, before turning to his cousin. “From Esterbrook, naturally.”

“The cad. Are you almost out of verses, at least?”

Benedict took a sip of his drink, his expression scholarly. “Marines on an airship apparently make a custom of writing more verses to their favorite songs during their tours of duty. Only the best—”

“You mean most obscene,” Gwen interjected.

Benedict bobbed his head in acknowledgment. “Only the best are retained, but even so after several centuries of sailing tradition . . .”

Gwen arched an eyebrow. “You’re telling me that they’re going to go on all night, aren’t you?”

“Well past that, if they don’t get tired of it,” Benedict said. He squinted up at the cheery, ruddy-cheeked etherealist. “One wonders, though, where Master Ferus learned them.”

“I was once a Marine, of course!” Ferus bellowed. Then he and several customers of the pub shouted in unison, “
Semper fortitudo!
”

Gwen sighed.

“
Fortitudo
, Miss Lancaster,” Master Ferus said, and plopped from the table down into his chair with the grace (or at least the drunken recklessness) of a much younger man. “An old, old word, even by my standards. Do you know what it means?”

“Strength,” Gwen said promptly. “‘Always strong.’”

“Ah, but what
kind
of strength?” Ferus asked, over the roar of a new singer taking over more verses of the song.

This one featured Farmer Long’s cucumber falling in a mud hole, and Gwen wanted nothing to do with it. “Sir?”

“There are many, many kinds of strength.
Fortitudo
refers to something quite specific.” He poked a finger at Benedict’s biceps in demonstration. “Not this kind of brute power, not at all. It means something more—inner strength, strength of purpose, moral courage. The strength required to fight on in the face of what seems to be certain defeat. The strength to carry on faithfully when it seems no one knows or cares.” He swirled his cup and eyed Gwen. “And the strength to sacrifice oneself when that sacrifice is what is required for the good of others, even when one could offer someone else up instead. Especially then.”

Gwen smiled briefly. “How, um . . .”

“Pointlessly trivial?” Ferus suggested quickly.

“I was going to say ‘interesting,’” Gwen said in a mild tone.

“And that’s as close to diplomatic as she gets,” Benedict noted.

Gwen kicked her cousin’s ankle beneath the table. “Master Ferus, it grows late.”

“Indeed,” the etherealist said, and stifled a yawn with one hand. “Perhaps we should consider discontinuing our investigation until we have heard from our field agents.”

“You mean the cat?” Gwen asked.

“Quite.” Master Ferus suddenly peered at Benedict. “I say, boy. What’s caught your interest?”

Benedict’s feline eyes were focused on the bar at the far side of the room, where the master of the house was speaking in a low voice with a newcomer, his expression intent. The fellow was a broad, burly man in green aviation leathers and a greatcoat trimmed in the thick grey-brown fur of some creature of the surface, making his already massive shoulders look inhumanly broad. The coat’s sleeves bore the two broad rings of an airship’s captain. His square face was ruddy and getting ruddier, and he slammed a blocky fist down onto the bar hard enough to be heard even over the singing crowd. “What!?”

One thick fist shot across the bar and seized the innkeeper by the front of his suit.

The frantic innkeeper darted a nervous glance over toward their table, and spoke in a low, hurried voice to the burly aeronaut.

“Ah,” said Benedict. “I think now I see why our host was so reluctant to rent you the room, coz. He’d already promised it elsewhere.”

“That isn’t a Fleet uniform,” Gwen noted.

“It is not,” Benedict said. “Not a uniform at all, really. He must be a private captain.”

“Olympian, I should think, from the colors and the fur trim of his coat,” Master Ferus put in. “Olympian and, it would seem, possessed of a fury. Which is funny, if you know enough history.”

The Olympian released the innkeeper after a few more low, choice words, and then stalked toward their table, scowling. Gwen studied him the way she’d been taught to consider possible opponents, and found herself growing alarmed. The man moved far too lightly on his feet for someone with a build so powerful, and his balance (as one might expect from an aeronaut) was excellent. Worse, his eyes were quick and alert, sweeping the room as he moved, the mark of a man who was on guard for trouble.

Gwen had attained some modest skills in the hand-to-hand combat arts of the Wayists, but she had, or so she thought, no illusions about her ability to deal with a much larger or better-trained opponent without the element of surprise to support her skill. “Benny?” Gwen said. “Unless you think we should shoot him . . .”

“
I’m
not the one who bought his bed out from under him, coz,” Benedict said. “This situation looks like it needs smoothing to me.”

“I’d rather not be transmogrified into paste while trying it,” Gwen said.

Benedict sat back in his chair, his eyes amused, and said diffidently, “Did you, however briefly, consider
talking
to him? Just for the sake of novelty?”

“He doesn’t look like a man who would react well to threats.”

“An extremely fine coat,” Master Ferus mused. “They don’t give those to just anyone, do they?”

Benedict arched an eyebrow at the etherealist and said to Gwen, “I said
talk
, as opposed to
threaten
. Though one hardly need struggle to see the possibility that you might not understand the distinction.”

“You make me sound like a perfect ogre,” Gwen said.

“But an articulate, wealthy, and very stylish one, coz,” Benedict said. “Beautiful, too. Try it. Just for fun. And if it doesn’t work out, we can always grind his bones to make our bread later.”

“Or,” Master Ferus mused, “be ground, as the case may be.”

The Olympian captain reached their table, slammed his fist down on it hard enough to make all of the crockery and utensils jump up off the surface, and demanded, “Get out of my room.”

Gwen didn’t mind the threat display so very much. God in Heaven knew she’d made a few herself in the past several days. But neither did she care for it, nor feel terribly frightened by it. She was, after all, wearing a gauntlet—but then, she noted, so was the Olympian.

“I’m very sorry to have inconvenienced you, sir,” Gwen said. “But my associates and I required the room. It might be better if you looked elsewhere.”

The man, who had been staring hard at Benedict, turned his eyes to Gwen for a flickering glance before tracking back to the warriorborn. “She speak for you?”

“For purposes of this discussion, I’m afraid so,” Benedict replied.

“Fine,” the man said, and turned to face Gwen, looming over her. “Then you. Go gather up everyone’s things and get them out of my room, girl. Now.”

She recognized the tone of absolute authority in the man’s voice, and she did not care for it at all. “Introductions,” she said crisply.

That gave the Olympian an instant’s pause. “What?”

“You have not introduced yourself, sir,” Gwen said, her voice hard. “I should like to know your name before I exchange another word with you.”

The man straightened, his eyes narrowed, and then he shook his head. “Bloody Albion fussbothers . . .” He took a deep breath, visibly controlling more vile language, and then said, “Pine. Commodore Horatio Pine, of the Half Moon Merchant Company out of Olympia. And I don’t give a tenth-crown who you are. That suite is reserved for my captains and myself, and we’ve just walked a mile on the surface to get to this bloody Spire and nearly got shot up by your own bloody Fleet when we finally made it through. I am in no mood for games.”

Gwen nodded. “My name is Gwendolyn Lancaster of the House of Lancaster—yes, before you ask,
those
Lancasters, the ones who made the crystals that are most probably keeping your ships in the air, sir—and while I sympathize with your plight, I am afraid that I still require those rooms.”

“So yourself and your friends can do some comfortable drinking?” Pine spat. “I’ve got wounded men who need good rooms and the attention of physicians, and this bloody habble is packed to the roof. Get out of those rooms, or by God in Heaven and the Long Road both, I will leave you all unconscious in an alley and move my men in anyway.”

“Perhaps such brutish thuggery is how things are done in Olympia,” Gwen said, her voice lashing out like a whip’s crack. “But in Albion, sir, there is rule of law, and I shall be pleased to defend myself against any such violence.”

Pine narrowed his eyes. Then he said to Benedict, “You sure she speaks for you?”

Benedict sighed and leaned forward to lightly thump his forehead down onto the table. Several times.

“I didn’t threaten him!” Gwen protested to her cousin.

There was a sharp sound of crockery breaking, and Gwen turned to find that Master Ferus’s mug had dropped from suddenly limp fingers. He made a soft sound and twitched several times. Then he shivered and his eyes closed.

Gwen traded a look with Benedict, and held up a forestalling hand to Commodore Pine. “Master Ferus?” she asked after a moment. “Master Ferus, are you quite all right?”

Ferus opened his eyes, rose calmly, and said in a level tone, “Sir Benedict, I wonder if you would be so good as to draw your sword. Miss Lancaster, prime your gauntlet, if you please.” He took his chair and slid it over to Commodore Pine. “This, sir, is for you. You’ll find it quite wieldy, I expect.”

Pine blinked several times. “What?”

“Gwen,” Benedict snapped, rising and drawing his sword, his eyes everywhere.

Gwen swallowed and instinctively put her back to Benedict’s and, as Master Ferus had instructed, primed her gauntlet, the weapon crystal on her palm swelling to glowing life.

And then the doors of the Black Horse exploded open, and high-pitched, alien shrieks filled the air.

Chapter 37