Chapter 15
I climbed down, and Marc was true to his word.
He followed me at every foot, and I was immensely happy when my foot stepped onto hard ground.
I landed and leaned my shoulder against the hard wall.
We stood in a small garden surrounded by a high stone wall on all sides.
A small gate stood at the rear, and a door led into the house.
“We made it,” I whispered as I clutched my hand over my heart.
Marc tilted his head back and studied the vines. They were the worse for wear. “We’ll have to think of another way to escape.”
Ramaro popped out again and glared at his captain. “Can’t we just tell her no and go out through the front door!”
“Too easy,” Marc quipped as he grabbed my hand and grinned at me. “Now it’s time to show you the real Cathair.”
He pulled me away from the wall and to the gate, which we slipped through.
The exit led to a narrow alley filled with fragrant wildflowers and tall grass, except where horses and people had trodden.
The ground was packed dirt in the middle, and we followed those trails to one of the cobblestone roads.
We hurried up the road, and the further we traveled, the more people we met until we flowed with a steady stream of humanity.
The dwindling daylight allowed me to see more of the city, and what I beheld was a whole bunch of advertising posters and graffiti.
The urban advertisements and art covered many of the stone walls that surrounded houses and the rear yards of businesses.
Many of the brightest scrawls mentioned Iris, and one of the posters even had a picture of her.
I paused to admire the woman with the luscious brown hair and bright eyes.
She had a perfectly round face, free from wrinkles, and a dimple on her left cheek.
Her perfect smile stared at all the passersby, beckoning them to listen to her sweet voice.
She wore a slim-fitting outfit that revealed more than she should have, as her collarbone had a few wrinkles that revealed her true age as something above forty.
Marc leaned against me and examined the poster. His attention fell on me. “What do you think of her?”
I shrugged. “She looks, um, nice.”
“Nice enough to catch Barreto’s attention back when we were young.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “You knew this Iris singer?”
“She was Barreto’s love before she left for Cathair many years ago.”
“Has she always liked to sing?”
A soft smile slipped onto his lips. “Ever since we were young. She would go to the small coves on the island every day and practice. The fishermen would anchor their ships close by to listen to her singing. They said it brought them more fish than the best bait.”
“Did you attend her early concerts, too?” I asked him.
He grinned. “Naturally. It gave me practice at sneaking around.” I lifted an eyebrow, and he laughed. “Iris didn’t like people listening to her practice. She couldn’t stop the fishermen, but when she caught Barreto or me, she’d give us both a tongue thrashing.”
“Has it been a while since you two talked?”
“About five years,” he mused as we continued on our way.
“She had a concert at a port near where I’d anchored, and I went ashore to listen to her.
We spoke a short while after the concert and parted ways again.
” He cast a curious look at me. “Did you want to attend the concert? I’m sure I could get us tickets. ”
“If we have time,” I mused as I looked over his bandanna. “I mean, won’t Fidel and the others be worried?”
He grinned. “I’ll send them a deckle and tell them they can drink the rest of the rum in the hold. That’ll keep them for a few days.”
“A deckle. . .” I murmured before my eyes lit up. “One of those paper birds?”
“The same. There’s a deckle office in all the ports and most of the smaller villages, though there aren’t many with as high a quality as Marty’s family.”
My face drooped. “We should have brought Pen.”
His eyes twinkled. “Who says we haven’t?”
I blinked at him. “What do you-”
My question was answered when Marc raised his arm. A yellowed piece of paper slipped out of his sleeve and landed with a soft song on my sleeve. My eyes lit up as I recognized the elegant, if worn, figure of Pen. The bird let out another caw and flapped his wings.
I smiled and stroked his chest. “You’ve been hiding him all this time?”
“He’s naturally shy, and he didn’t like the way you carried yourself onto the Wraithcourier’s boat,” Marc told me as he studied the beast with dancing eyes. “So I let him fly into my sleeve to keep himself dry until we had a use for him.”
“Will you send Marc’s message to the ship?” I asked the bird. The paper avian bobbed its head.
“Let me write it,” Marc mused as he turned us onto a less busy side street. “And you can be off. Meet us back at the house when you’re through.”
“How will you write your letter on him?” I wondered.
“We can borrow some ink a the deckle shop,” he suggested as we wound our way through the winding streets. “There won’t be any risk in that.”
A muffled voice came from my coat. “There’s a risk wherever you go with that stupid bandanna.”
“We’ll have to test out your theory,” Marc teased.
“Don’t risk our necks!” Ramaro shot back.
“Not on an empty stomach,” the captain mused as he studied our surroundings. “There’s an office around here, and the pub isn’t far, either.”
I was glad to hear that, as my stomach felt as hollow as a barrel of rum after an all-night kegger.
We traveled another few blocks, experiencing the creeping nightlife of the city.
Elegant carriages rolled past, leaving laughter and the crack of the whip in their wake.
A few streets featured gas lamps that burst to life as the sun set on the horizon, casting their soft, flickering glow over primitive raised stone sidewalks.
Children chased one another in a last fit of play before their mothers called them in for supper.
A group of one of these scamps noticed our coming. They wore the mask of the chimney sweep class, and their dirty but well-patched attire also denoted their occupation. One of their number, a lad of about fifteen, noticed us and perked up.
“Seastorm!”
The other boys’ heads shot up, and smiles spread across their lips. More chants of Seastorm rose from their number as they scurried over each other in their eagerness to reach us. I plastered myself close against Marc as they crowded around us, squeezing us in a tight embrace of eager glee.
“How ya been, Seastorm?”
“What are you doing here, Seastorm?”
“Causing as much trouble as I can get away with, and then some,” Marc answered the last lad.
“You bring us anything?” another wondered.
Marc laughed. “Nothing like what you want, Jimmy.”
Jimmy’s face fell, and he scuffed the ground with his foot. “I don’t want much. Just a gold statue or something.”
The other boys laughed at his ‘modest’ proposal. “We could all use one of them, couldn’t we, boys?” one of the older fellows shouted.
“Aye!”
“I’d like mine in silver!”
“Silver ain’t worth anything!”
“It’s worth more than your face!”
“Who’s the dame?” More than one of the boys gave me a thorough looking over.
Marc puffed out his chest a little as he gestured to me. “Boys, this is Miss Rose Larkin. She’s on her first voyage.”
One of the lads, a boy of about fourteen with a crooked cap on his head, offered me his grimy hand and a wide grin. “Pleased to meet ya, Rose!”
“That’s Miss Larkin to you!” one of the younger lads corrected him.
The older boy glared at him. “I’ll call her what I want, Fred, and don’t you go telling me what I can or can’t do!”
“The boy who had first called to us slipped up to me and bowed his head. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Larkin. Any friend of Seastorm’s is a friend of the Sparrow Syndicate.”
The name made the corners of my lips twitch upward. “The Sparrow Syndicate? Is that what you are?”
He puffed out his chest a little. “Yes, ma’am. My name’s Henry, and I run the group.”
“And I’m Jimmy!” the gold-hungry lad spoke up.
“The name’s Ben,” the fourteen-year-old told me.
More names were yelled, too many for me to remember.
The youngest in the group, a boy of five, bounced up and down to be seen through the forest of adolescents. “And I’m Petey!”
I smiled at all of them. “It’s a pleasure to meet you all, and please call me Rose.”
I felt a soft tug and looked down to find Petey staring up at me with a pair of doe eyes. “Did you bring me something, Rose? Mr. Seastorm always brings us something to play with.”
“Nothing that exciting this time,” Marc announced, and more than one face was crestfallen. He dug into his pocket and drew out a leather purse. The contents chinked like coins. “But you can have your own fun with this.”
A roar erupted from the group, and they eagerly crowded around him. Marc opened the purse and drew out a heaping handful of coins. The boys scrambled to snatch one of the precious gold items from his hand, and then scuttled away to paw at their treasure. Only one problem passed among them.
“You took two, Jimmy!” one of them shouted.
“I did not!” Jimmy snapped as he hugged his clasped hands against his chest. “There’s plenty for everyone!”
Marc’s sharp eye fell on the lad. “I drew out enough coins for only one a piece, sailor. No more and no less.” He tucked the bag into his coat and held open his once-filled hand. His palm now lay empty. “So where’s it gone?”
Jimmy scooted a few steps away while all the others watched the interaction in complete silence. “I don’t know! Maybe you dropped it!”
“Seastorm doesn’t drop anything he doesn’t want to drop,” one of the boys piped up.
Only one of the lads remained in front of Marc, the tiny Petey. Tears welled up in the boy’s eyes. “I don’t get one?”
Marc’s eye never left the older boy. “Will he get one, Jimmy?”
Jimmy’s shoulders drooped, and he opened one hand. “Come on, Ben. Here’s your stupid coin.”
Ben’s face lit up, and he scooted over to his friend. He took the coin and admired the rough surface with the face of a man on it. “Thank you!”
“Let that be a lesson to the rest of you that you have to stick together, or the Admiralty will stick you in separate cells.”
Many of the lads bobbed their heads.
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re right, Seastorm!”
“Now off with you,” Marc commanded them as he grinned at the company. “I don’t want to see you with that coin later, either.”
A whoop and holler came from the boys. “We won’t let you down, Seastorm!” They shot off down the street.
All but Henry. He tucked the coin in his pocket and looked Marc over. “What did you want from us, sir?”
Marc’s eyebrows shot up. “What makes you think I want anything?”
“Because you know we hang out around here, so if you came this way, that means you need something.”
Marc chuckled. “Smart lad. You’re right, of course. I have a job for you to do, but it won’t be easy.”
“Nothing worth doing is easy, sir.”
“A good answer,” Marc replied as he looped an arm around me. “And I’ll tell you about this job.”