Emerald awoke uneasily, her stomach lurching and her head heavy. At first, in the utter darkness of the room, she did not know where she could be, except that she was in a bed, and yet was wearing a day gown and corset.
“Am I home?” she wondered aloud. “The room seems to lurch from side to side. I must have had rather too much claret last night!”
Emerald drew in a breath of stale, hot air, and gulped hard to settle her stomach. She sat up from the mattress to light the candle that ought to be on her bedside table and slammed her head hard on a wooden plank just above her, falling back to the bed in pained bewilderment.
“I don’t sleep in a bunk,” said Emerald in a very small voice. She lay very still and observed the bed moving up and down and side to side in uneven patterns. She gasped as she noticed the sound of shuffling feet on floorboards above her, and even more alarming, the unmistakable noise of water, a great deal of it, slapping against the wall beside her ear.
In a sudden flood of memory, Emerald recalled the events of the past day and sat bolt upright, once again slamming her head onto the bunk above her, and falling back down to the bed.
“Ow,” she said, weakly.
“Are you daft?” answered an old scratchy voice. Emerald held her breath and looked to the side, where the blackness of the cabin was broken by a spark, which grew into a match flame. An old man held the fire to his wooden pipe, gave a somewhat demented smile, then lit a small lantern to his side, bathing the room in a sickly glow.
It was as Emerald feared – a boat cabin of the very lowest means, probably the undercarriage of a small ocean vessel. She must have been taken here by whatever scoundrel had abducted her from Tobias’s manse. The old man coughed musically and leaned onto his knobby knees.
“I asked if you’re daft!!” he repeated loudly.
“Ah…no.” replied Emerald, standing up carefully from the bed. “At least, I don’t believe so.”
“Oh,” said the man, with a polite tip of his hat. “I only asked because you seem to talk to yourself a great deal.” He thought for a moment, sucking on his pipe. “I do that as well. But then…I am daft.”
“Oh.” said Emerald, at a loss for any other response. She swallowed hard, gurgles sounding in her empty stomach. She looked up at him, a realization striking her.
“You!” she said.
“ME!!” said the old man, looking around suspiciously.
“You’re that old man from my village…the one who always gives me such ill advice!”
“You’re mistaking me for someone else!” retorted the old man, blowing out a puff of smoke. “I am the one who always gives you wonderful advice.”
The door to the cabin swung open and a hairy, muscled arm reached in, grabbing hold of the old man’s collar.
“You again?!” snarled the man in the doorway, pulling Emerald’s companion out of the room. “You know what we do to stowaways?”
“What?” asked the old man, genially.
“We feed them to the Lanolin Channel sharks!” the strong man growled. He stepped into the room, one arm still clamped on the old man. He leered at Emerald, a scar on his cheek twisting and bending as his grin grew bigger.
“You look a bit green about the gills, HIGHness,” he said with a sarcastic bow.
“I…” Emerald searched carefully for words. “I get seasick,” she said weakly.
“Well then,” he said, his tone still falsely polite. “Perrrrrrrrhaps you’d keer to join us up on deck, for yer friend eer’s goin’ away ceremony!”
She had a brief rush of prideful resistance, but her stomach lurching once more, she reconsidered it.
“Why thank you, sir,” she said, taking his outstretched filthy hand to steady herself.
The sailor tugged her down the low corridor with one hand while shoving the old man with the other, until they reached a steep, short stairwell. He wheeled her ahead of him, pushing his body against hers as she climbed with his mouth against her face, his breath humid on her ear. She gulped back a rush of sickness and climbed as fast as she could, the old man ahead of her whistling some old shanty and practically refusing to budge.
The hatch opened above them, a gust of fresh, salty air greeting Emerald’s grateful lungs. She stumbled out onto the deck and looked around frantically at the water’s horizon all about them. No land in sight, she noted, her heart sinking.
“Why Miss LaVerte!” said a familiar, dangerously silky voice behind her. She wheeled about and stumbled slightly, then steadied herself. She looked up and met the man’s gaze with a gasp of horror.
Peter Prique smiled sourly at her reaction.
“If I’d known who you were at the time,” he said, picking lint off of his Flangian cravat, “I’d certainly have raised your rent!”
A crew of ugly, unsavory men chortled deferentially at his joke, then stopped abruptly as he glared at them. He pointed at the old man.
“Overboard! Now,” he snarled. He grabbed Emerald roughly by the shoulder and dragged her to the railing of the boat as the men pulled a short plank out from the hull. The scarred sailor pushed the addled old man onto it.
“Walk!” he growled.
The old man laughed and danced lightly to the edge, still holding his pipe. He looked at Emerald and winked.
“My advice to you, my dear,” he said, “is to go along with these men! They seem like nice fellows to me!” He looked down at the water, his face scrunched up in contemplation. “Lovely day for a swim,” he said to his pipe, then dove into the water.
“No!!” cried Emerald. Prique shoved her across the deck, so that she stumbled and fell into a puddle of brackish seawater, her bodice laces snapping. She looked up at her former landlord. It was a sadly familiar scenario.
“What do you want with me?!” she cried, her confusion rising to match her nausea.
“Why…” Peter Prique’s face grew perversely delighted. “You don’t know?!”
A cry sounded from the bird’s nest above them. Prique looked up in alarm.
“A skiff!” cried the pimply sailor in the nest. “Two leagues and gaining on us!”
Prique hastened to the railing and looked out into the distance.
“Raise a sail!” he bellowed. He looked back out at the horizon and squinted in confusion. “What in hell is that flag?!”
Emerald pulled herself carefully upright and adjusted her gown to protect her modesty as best she could. She crept back along the railing towards the masthead and looked out to sea. She spotted the ship in the distance, a huge swath of white fabric flying from the mast with a messy black symbol painted onto it.
Emerald’s heart began to pound, her stomach now steadied by feverish hope. She focused intently on the flag, and nearly cried out with joy as it flapped open, exposing the symbol clearly.
A falcon. Emerald turned to face the salty wind with a sharp eye, her hair flying loose behind her as if in tribute.
“Sailors beware,” she recited with a grin. “Mad Junie Flint is back at sea!”
