Page 69 of Captive of the Pirate King
My stomach thrills because in less than a week, I’ll be setting foot in the secret pirate haven that seven kings would pay a ransom to find.
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The Scarab Archipelago is a string of rocky islands bared to the blistering sun. Shanties made of driftwood and limestone cluster between boulders along its coastline. Instead of pure sands flecked with white shells, the island on which we land has clumps of yellow foam and sickly-looking growths dotting its gray beaches. The air reeks of dead fish, and something more—something raw, seeping, sickening.
“What happened here?” I murmur.
Hanschel is poling the skiff that I’m sitting in, urging it closer to shore, and he replies in a quiet, factual tone. “Used to be a lot nicer. Trees and such. These islands were famed for gildwood, a beautiful golden lumber. Looked very fine as furniture in rich folks’ mansions. I remember back when it was first discovered, when everyone in all the seven kingdoms was hungry for gildwood. Ships full of lumberjacks would dock here and cut down great chunks of the forests at once. I’m shamed to say I was aboard one of ’em.”
The creases across Hanschel’s brown forehead deepen as I watch him, and his weathered lips tighten. Pirate though he is, he feels guilty about what happened here, and his part in it.
“Wasn’t right,” he growls. “I knew it then, but I told myself it weren’t my problem. I was just gettin’ paid, savvy? Just doin’ my job. But men like me—we stripped these islands for the rich bastards on the mainland. Stripped ’em naked. The faster we stripped, the higher the price of gildwood went and the more tree-hunters came roarin’ into port with their saws and axes. Nothin’ the islanders could do to stop it, ye see. They had no weapons and little technology. We took the trees and paid the islanders with worthless scrap, like the robbers we were.” Hanschel rubs gnarled fingers across his forehead. “Afore we knew it, we’d taken the last gildwood tree from the last island.”
“But what about seeds? Can they replant the trees?”
“Takes a hundred years for a gildwood tree to reach maturity,” says Hanschel. “I’ve heard that the islanders have started a couple new groves, but they won’t tell no one where. ’Fraid of more poachers nabbin’ the baby trees while they’re still tender. And when those trees are full grown, I’ve no doubt the gildwood frenzy’ll happen all over again. Humans don’t learn, ye see.”
He drives the pole into the bank and picks up a board we brought, tilting it from the edge of the skiff to the dry sand. He helps me up and I walk the board gingerly until I reach the foul-smelling sand.
“What’s all the yellow foam?” I ask.
“Some of the tree-hunters would cut and cure the wood right here before taking it aboard,” Hanschel replies. “They used chemical scrubs to prepare the wood and keep it fine for their buyers. The runoff went straight into the sea, and it still hasn’t cleared from the waters. Most of the creatures along the coast are befouled with it. The islanders have to go out beyond to reefs to get clean fish.”
I refrain from asking him any more questions, because he and the other pirates are busy unloading the stores that Locke plans to give to the islanders. Locke himself is already ashore with Neelan—they’re somewhere in the shanty town ahead, talking with the island leaders. I was supposed to stay on board theArdentand rest, but since my cramps are long gone, I chose to come ashore. Locke doesn’t expect me, which gives me a pleasant sense of freedom and mischief.
Sea air shouldn’t burn the nostrils and sear the lungs, but this air does. I pick my way hurriedly across the reeking sand, cupping my fingers to shield my mouth and nose from the foul miasma crawling into my airway. When I reach the dunes, I can breathe a little easier.
The shanty town starts among the rocks along the beach and extends through the dunes, sprawling beyond them in a flat, sun-baked jumble of seared white roofs. Some of the buildings are clearly from a long-ago time of greater prosperity—they’re larger, better constructed. But even those buildings have fallen into disrepair. Sun and storms have blasted this place until it’s little more than a bone-yard of limestone and bleached branches, assembled into haphazard shelters.
The islanders are just as sun-seared and faded as their buildings. Their clothes and faces lack the color and vibrancy of the Wierling Isles’ inhabitants. Here in the Scarab Archipelago, the people are pale shadows, hunched beside racks of drying fish, bent over pots of eel soup. A child crouches by a bowl, grinding shells into a fine powder and then mixing them with a gelatinous substance to make a paste that I really hope isn’t for eating.
I’m wearing a long, silky skirt today—deep green embroidered with gold and tiny twinkling gems. I hold handfuls of the material so it doesn’t brush the chalky ground. My corset only covers my breasts, leaving my belly and lower back exposed, but I’m draped in a gauzy, glittery scarf that offers a little extra coverage. My hair is still short, but it looks less choppy now, and it clusters in loose auburn waves over my head and around my face.
I can’t help feeling self-conscious because my appearance contrasts so starkly with my surroundings. When stick-thin children begin to emerge from the shacks and stare at me, I feel even worse. I knew this was a place of poverty—why didn’t I bring something to give these people?
Of course, I have nothing of my own to offer. Everything on the ship belongs to Locke, including me. He hasn’t paid me in real coin yet, and I haven’t pressed for it. A very thin line separates me from these destitute folk—a line held in place by Locke’s affection for me. Without him, I’d be dead or destitute. And as grateful as I am, maybe I resent him a little for being my savior.
The children creep nearer to me as I walk the sandy path through the shanty town. “It’s the Pirate King’s queen,” one of them says boldly to the others.
That sounds so much nicer than “the Pirate King’s whore.” I smile at the girl who spoke, and she ventures nearer.
“What’s your name?” she asks.
“I’m Veronica.” I pause, smiling at her.
“Do you have any food?”
My heart twists. “I don’t, but the Pirate King’s men are bringing some ashore, along with other things—clothes, lamp oil, candles, fabric—I’m not sure what else. What do you need here?”
“Everything,” says a hollow-eyed boy. “We need everything.”
His words are like a punch to my gut. Impulsively I strip the glittery gauze wrap from my torso and hold it out to the girl. She looks about fifteen, able to appreciate and care for something fine. “For you.”
Her eyes brighten, and she leaps to snatch the garment. She runs the fabric through her fingers with a soft sigh of delight.
“And you.” I nod to the boy, while my fingers latch onto one of the gems sewn to my skirt. They’re not diamonds, but they’re real semi-precious stones, worth something. Maybe not immediately useful to these hungry kids, but it’s all I have. I hold out the gem to the boy, and he accepts it eagerly, rolling it in his palm.
More children cluster around me, and I rip more of the twinkling jewels from my clothing, handing them out until I have no more to give. The once-beautiful skirt is now spattered with small holes where I ripped the jewels free, and the embroidery threads hang loose and broken in places, but I don’t care, because the children around me are laughing, delighted.
