Page 42 of The Sea Witch
“Immediately after, I asked to be transferred to theJupiter. I had to get back out onto the water as soon as possible, had to find—”
He broke off, and the column of his throat worked.
“So, you search,” Alys said quietly. “The tavern at St. Gertrude. Climbing the rigging of my ship to get a look at Van der Meer and theEdelsteen. How long has it been, since he died?”
“He didn’tdie. He wasmurdered. Youdiepeacefully in your sleep, in your own bed. You’remurderedon the deck of your ship. Shot in the chest. Point-blank.”
She was silent. Ellen had had her breath stolen, a rough hempen noose around her neck wringing away her life, and too many times Alys had imagined what it had been like for hersister, slowly, slowly choking to the sounds of a crowd cheering on her death.
“Five years,” Ben said after a moment. “Six days after my twenty-first birthday.”
“A long time to carry the burden of vengeance.”
“I’ll bear that weight until the day I die.”
“What’ll you do, when you find whoever was responsible?”
“I...” He cupped his forehead. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. Another way I’ve failed my father.”
“You didn’t fail him.” She stepped closer to the bars. “What happened wasn’t in your control.”
“I should have been there.”
“Sometimes, we can’t be there for the people who need us most. And we have to live with that.”
Her hands came up to reach through the bars and touch him, offer some measure of solace or comfort, paltry as it might be. But she forced them back down to her sides.
“Did you learn anything from looking at theEdelsteen?” she asked.
“Evidence was in short supply, but even if the killerwason that ship,” he added, “peering at him through a spyglass from over a hundred feet away isn’t the ideal way to gather intelligence. For all I know, he’s on Van der Meer’s ship. Hell, he couldbeVan der Meer, but being trapped here means I’ll never get the truth.”
“Van der Meer is all bluster. And a coward. Trickery is how he plays the game. He’d never look a man in the eye with the muzzle of a flintlock pressed into his target’s chest. A dagger between the shoulder blades is his favored way, but even that’s too messy for his liking.”
“He has a reputation for guile, but hemight—”
“Jacob wouldn’t kill an officer in the Royal Navy. He’d rather fuck and cheat at cards than attack a naval ship.”
“You sound confident in your assessment ofJacob’scharacter.”
Her level gaze met his. “Want me to say it? We were lovers.”
“Were.”
“Everyone makes mistakes. One of mine happens to be a handsome Dutchman who can eat cunt like a god but is as trustworthy as an adder.”
After a long silence, Ben said, “That leaves Diego Sanchez, Louis Dupont, and Edward Best. The other pirates seen near my father’s ship.” He exhaled. “I’m trying to be Orestes, but I’m as useful as one of Medusa’s victims, turned to stone.”
She’d met some of those men he’d mentioned, yet they were no friends of hers and she knew little about their histories. After a moment, she snapped her fingers and the glow around the cage’s bars disappeared. She took a key from her belt and used it to unlock the cage before stepping back.
“It’s late and my crew’s exhausted.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Tomorrow, you’ll get the chance to talk to each of them to learn if any of them know anything about your father’s murder.”
Motionless, he stared at her.
“We’ll take you back to my quarters,” she continued when he didn’t move, “and through the forenoon watch, the company will come down one at a time and tell you what they know. Women aren’t looked upon favorably on pirate ships, so they wouldn’t have served with Sanchez, Dupont, or Best, and wouldn’t have been present at the crime. Even so, it’s always possible someone heard something, news or a rumor or anything that might give you more information.”
Still, he stayed rooted to the spot. She felt his disbelief, a heavy weight dragging him down.
Alys gripped the bars of the cage’s door and pulled it open. She waved her arm wide in invitation. “This isn’t a trap, Ben. It’s not freedom, either. I still need you, but I won’t punish you for doing exactly what I would have done, had I been in your boots. For the record, I was a seventeen-year-old girl trappedin a grim Cape Ann fishing village five years ago. And I never knew anything about your father’s murder until this very night. Believe me. Or don’t. That’s your choice.”
