A Tyranny of Petticoats Read Free Page B

than the lads on the
Vanity.
    I’ve lost count of the holes I’ve put in, but I’m spent. The warship’s list is bad enough that she’s in no position to fight us or give chase. And if she goes down, I want to be nowhere near.
    I’ve earned my prize. Pop’s prize. And half the rum ration of every man on the
Vanity
whose life I saved sinking this Spanish tub.
    I cram my dagger into its sheath, push off the side of the listing warship — the barnacles open up my toes like meat — and thrash through the waves toward home. Each stroke takes all my effort, and halfway there I start to crawl-paddle and sputter out seawater hard enough to set my vitals throbbing.
    I won’t make it if I think how bad I hurt.
    So I think how to explain to Half-Hanged Henry that I don’t want his daughter’s hand in marriage.
    I think of the first time I made it all the way up to the topgallant yard on the
Sally Dearest,
how I felt light enough to spread my arms and take wing like a bird.
    And I think of Pop, who only ever wanted a place of his own and a houseful of babies.
    My blind, splashing hands clatter against something hard and wet and splintery. The
Golden Vanity.
I grab and scrabble for a barnacle handhold, but Captain Royal Navy actually careens them off proper on occasion, and I must weakly tread water.
    Up on the foredeck I see faces of the crew peering over, tiny ovals of color against a flat gray sky and sprawls of dingy canvas and a tangle of rigging.
    I dredge an arm out of the water in salute. Any moment now a rope will fall over the side. Somewhere in me is the strength to hold that rope, and I will find it.
    One by one, the faces at the rail disappear.
    Only the old man is left.
    “She’s sunk!” I shout. “I sank her. Pull me up!”
    The old man doesn’t reply. He doesn’t throw a rope either. He merely shakes his head.
    Over my shoulder, the Spanish warship is tilting like driftwood and the whole quarterdeck is in chaos as men push and fight for dry ground. Seeing her on her way down reminds me how hot and weak my arms are, how much of a struggle it is to keep my head above the waves.
    “Captain!” I howl, but it’s a mistake because I choke on a sudden harsh mouthful of water.
    “Can’t do it, Joe,” he says, and disappears from the rail.
    I’m gasping with every flailed stroke and kick, but I manage to free my dagger from its sheath. I punch it out of the water and shout, “I know well how to sink a ship, Cap! If this is how you’ll serve me, I’ll take you to the bottom with me. We’ll all be on Mother Carey’s table together!”
    And that’s when Pop appears at the rail, fighting the first mate and the bosun, who have him by either arm. There’s a length of ratline in his hand and he almost gets it over the gunwale before they haul him away, out of sight.
    He’ll go to the bottom too.
    I open my hand and let the dagger fall, down and down, to Davy Jones.
    Pop is roaring like a madman and cursing every Goddamn one of them and shouting at me to stay strong, his last little baby, the only one he could save.
    I flail one final stroke and go under.
    I’m colder than I’ve ever been, but nothing hurts anymore — not my arms, not my feet, not my eyes, not my guts.
    Above me is a dull shadow set against shades of rippling, glinting motion. It’s the size of my thumb, oval but pointed at both ends.
    Like the bottom of a ship.
    I’m standing before a table on the quarterdeck of an ancient, rotted merchantman. Her mast is a ragged stump and stray chain shot is lodged in the gunwales. At the head of the table is a woman whose face is hidden by shadow and wavered by the movement of the currents around us.
    “Jocasta,” she says, and all at once I know who she is. I know it even though I have only a whisper of a memory of her. This is the voice that would lilt through fire-warmed, comfortable darkness when I was small enough to be tucked into a willow basket. Then would come her gentle hand, rubbing my