Chapter Two: 708 O.V: High Spring Tide
Balthier was waiting for the Strahl as Fran brought his ship into a smooth dock in the aerodrome hangar. The sunlight pouring in through the iris slit roof of the hangar hurt his pounding head but Balthier chose to ignore this. It was his own fault his head hurt in the first place.
Seated on a large packing crate, one knee drawn up as a perch for his chin, Balthier slowly uncoiled and slipped off the crate as the Strahl's boarding ramp dropped down with an almost silent whisper of hydraulics; Balthier stretched, yawned, bowed his spine to iron out the kinks, and slung the cloth sack over his shoulder before ambling at sedate pace up the gangway and into his ship.
'Hello Balthier,' Penelo leaned around one of the passenger seats in the Strahl's main cabin to grin at him a little mischievously, 'Did you enjoy your shore leave? You're looking a little pale,' the little madam then batted her eyelashes at him, having grown bold in the last year and a half. 'Are you not feeling well?' She simpered.
Balthier mock scowled at her. 'I don't like your tone young lady.' He croaked out (his voice was hoarse as a desert wind – he was a little worried he had caught some unpleasant malady while in port) and he wagged his finger at the young girl in braided pig-tails in mock approbation.
Penelo giggled as he passed her and in petty revenge he dropped his bundle straight into her lap.
'Be a dear and sort this, would you?' He carried on to the front of the cabin.
Fran's long elegant ears rose, flickering, up above the pilot's chair (his usual seat) and Vaan's beaming, vacuously content face, peered at him from around the navigator's chair. Balthier stifled uncharitable thoughts and notions which no doubt sprang from his hang-over. He didn't truly wish to punch the boy.
'Fran said we might have to go and find you.' Vaan told him, clearly a bit disappointed that this was not the case. 'She said there were thirteen taverns in port and you'd probably caused a fight in all of them.'
Balthier shot an unloving look at the back of Fran's head before lightly smacking Vaan about the crown, 'Out of my chair, boy.'
'Hey, no fair,' Vaan yelped like an infant but vacated the seat fast enough.
'Are you even fit to co-pilot?' The boy asked a bit unwisely as he moved towards the back of the cabin and Balthier stuck out a foot to trip him as he went. Penelo, watching these familiar shenanigans with open enjoyment, laughed out loud as Vaan staggered and almost fell.
'Zip the lips, Vaan,' Balthier suggested mildly, 'Or you'll be out the air-lock.'
Without further ado he then collapsed gracefully into the navigator/co-pilot's chair usually filled by Fran and sank gratefully into its plush upholstered depths. Fran finally deigned to slant a sideways glance his way.
'Has the spirit of Brighid left you now, Balthier?' He could see the slight flare of her nostrils as she sampled his scent for lingering traces of drink in his blood stream. Fran detested the scent of drunken humes – or at least she did when the hume was Balthier himself.
Balthier couldn't help just the slightest of smirks from rising to his lips as he answered her, 'Yes Fran, my shore leave was very enjoyable. How was the Ecosta purvama?'
Fran's lips twitched just a little and her right ear twitched, 'Enjoyable.'
'Marvellous,' Balthier shaded his eyes as Fran began launch procedures; sunlight cascaded down from the opening hangar roof. He squeezed his eyes closed as the Strahl lurched upward. Gold and blue afterimages danced behind his tightly closed eyelids.
In their years of partnership Balthier and Fran were usually perfectly content to live, work, and do everything in-between, together in very close quarters. They were, for the most part, all each other needed in all Ivalice, but even partners with as close a bond as they, required a little respite to indulge in their disparate passions alone from time to time.
So, four or five times in a year, Fran would pitch Balthier out of his own ship, and drop him in the middle of some likely pirate port with instructions that he was to try not to get himself killed and a promise to retrieve him in a week's time. Balthier would then proceed to indulge in what Fran euphemistically called 'the call of Brighid' and scratch that particular hot-blooded itch that Fran most emphatically would not assist him with, but any number of nubile young women would.
Fran in the meantime usually took her respite upon any number of tropical, verdant and un-populated purvama dotting the skies and, well, Balthier wasn't completely sure what she did while she was up there, but whatever it was he suspected she was quite pleased to be doing it alone.
Now, sighing with contentment for being back in the Strahl once more, Balthier was just about to put his feet up and take a nap to soothe his pounding head, when Penelo's little cooing gasp of happiness broke through the cheerful silence of the cabin.
'Oh, these are pretty.' The girl had obviously managed to pry open the knots in his bindle and the purloined white table cloth fell open over her knees as she handled Balthier's shore leave ''acquisitions''.
(One should always gather mementos when in foreign climes; Balthier just didn't see why one should pay for them).
'Wow,' Vaan had reached across the aisle in between the seats to snatch up a gilt emblazoned Mythril candle stick, while Penelo lifted a long loop of pale pink pearls up to the light. Her eyes held a decidedly avaricious light in them as she sorted a tangle of jet beads, shell ear rings, and coloured glass bangles.
'Oh what's this?' The girl had found a pale grey velvet pouch in the jumble and pulled it loose. Balthier glanced back behind him as she did so and stretched out a hand.
'I'll have that.'
A little reluctantly Penelo handed it over and consoled herself with guarding the rest of the ''treasures'' from Vaan. Balthier smirked in amusement for a moment; it was so easy to please these children: a few coloured beads and a pearl and the girl thought she'd stumbled on the lost crown jewels of Nabudis.
Fran was watching him, not with her eyes, which remained fixed on the horizon as she deftly piloted them away from the port, but with her other senses. He could almost taste her curiosity and he smirked, proffering his little pouch: 'For you, Fran.'
He laid the bag in her lap and sat up a little straighter as Fran removed her hands from the steering levers (the Strahl was going in a straight line and there were no on- coming ships). Without a word Fran unfastened the silk ribbon holding the neck of the little bag tightly closed, and raised the pouch to her nose to sniff the contents.
Balthier watched her reaction keenly, catching and cataloguing the quiver of pleasure in her long ears, the sudden flicker of her gaze sideways to him and the spark of warmth in those ruby depths. She nodded to him, deeply, the ghost of a smile just touching her lips. She then re-sealed the bag and placed it securely in her lap as she took control of the Strahl once more.
Balthier turned back to watch the horizon at the same time she did. He didn't need to hear meaningless platitudes of gratitude to know that Fran appreciated her gift.
Satisfied Balthier once again settled down into his chair and closed his eyes. His headache really wasn't all that bad, and now that they were cruising through the clouds instead of rising jerkily from the aerodrome, the nausea twirling in his stomach was almost gone.
'Hey Balthier?'
Vaan poked his head forward from the back passenger seat directly behind Balthier. Balthier resisted the desire to slam his elbow backwards into that moon-round face.
'What?' He asked making his disinterest in the answer clear in the phrasing of the question. Alas, as always, Vaan continued blathering on undeterred.
'Um, I was wondering what you were going to do with all this stuff?' He meant, of course, the fistfuls of trinkets Balthier had purloined while on shore leave. 'Because, we could um, we could help you sell it.'
Balthier kept his eyes closed and swallowed down a smile. What Vaan actually meant was that he and his pig-tailed paramour would contrive to spirit his stolen goods away and either distribute them to the poor urchins of Low Town, or conversely, sell them to that geriatric, smoke weed addled Old Dalan for trifling amounts of Gil that the two altruistic brats would then use to clothe, shelter, and feed the little army of Rananastran orphans the two children called family.
'Is that right, hmm?' Balthier had drawled lazily, making himself more comfortable in his chair, 'And what if I say I intend to keep my loot for myself?' he asked mildly.
'I don't think pink pearls would suit you, Balthier.' Penelo opined sweetly and he could hear from her tone that she knew he was but teasing them.
Penelo, Balthier had long considered, was the sly one in the pair, much more so than her dear dim-witted Vaan.
'I'm deeply wounded,' Balthier told her with aggrieved dignity, 'I had it in mind to make myself a pair of pearl drop ear-rings, and now I am quite stricken with self-doubt and disappointment.'
'Oh no, not pearl drops,' Penelo cheerfully rejoined, 'You should make some big, dangly hoop ear-rings, out of these bangles. That would suit you much better.' She brandished the bangles in question, which were as wide as her hand span. Balthier allowed himself a chuckle and shook his head indulgently.
'You brats are coming very close to insubordination,' he warned them, rubbing at his temple, 'Why is it that you are even here, taking up room in my ship, hmm?'
'Because it's your fault our airship fell into that crevasse in Bervenia.' Vaan reminded him promptly, 'You promised to help us make the Gil up to repay the owner.'
Balthier glanced at Fran, contriving to look annoyed, 'I still maintain that I made no such solemn oath,' He stated for the umpteenth time. 'And even if I did, a contract made while inebriated does not stand in law.'
It had been on his last shore leave excursion before this one that the Rabanastran duo had discovered him while in the process of downing pints, (and in so doing the pair exhibited a surprising aptitude for manipulation and cunning) and had thus proceeded to harass him into scratching out a written promise to let them tag-along with he and Fran until such time as they were no longer likely to have their knee-caps split by angry debt collectors and could pay off the owner of their borrowed (and subsequently crushed) airship.
'A contract signed, is a contract bound.'
Fran chastised him, as she had on the morning after when Balthier had been confronted with what he'd done. To this day he wasn't sure if Fran thought the whole thing highly amusing, or if she blamed him for Vaan and Penelo's continued presence.
'Bah,' Balthier flapped a hand in dismissal of the whole sorry affair, as he usually did.
'Fine,' he sighed. 'Take the loot, if you must.' He twisted around to glower at the children both, 'But I expect at least ten percent of the sale price to go towards repaying your debt. I'll not have the two of you taking up space in my ship forever.'
The two manipulative, scheming little street rats both nodded their head with earnest sincerity. 'Yes Balthier,' they said in unison but Balthier couldn't help but note that Penelo had already looped the coil of pearls about her neck and had donned the jangling bangles, which she was now admiring on the bend of her forearm.
Balthier sighed and turned back to face front. At this rate he and Fran would have to pay the debt off themselves just to be rid of the pair.
'Viera have a saying,' Fran murmured to him as she deftly piloted the Strahl around a gathering storm off the coast of Phon, 'translated it states: reap what you sow.'
Balthier scowled at his partner, well aware that she was laughing at him silently. He crossed his arms almost petulantly over his chest and slouched down in the co-pilot's chair even further, which was hardly befitting a man of his dignity, but bugger it, if a man couldn't sulk in his own ship, what was the point of it all?
'Thank you for that gem of Golmore wisdom, Fran.' he muttered mulishly deliberately and staunchly closing his eyes.
'I'm thrilled to see you again, too.' He added snippily but completely truthfully.
709 O.V: High Summer Eve: The Queen's Chambers – Rabanastre
Balthier had been drifting in and out of consciousness for the last hour and a half. He was shivering violently and his limbs glistened with sweat. Ashe had cast a number of curative spells upon him and this had eased his breathing and relaxed him into a deeper more restful slumber.
Nevertheless Balthier needed to be examined by a more expert healer than she, and Ashe dared not cast anything stronger than a Cura on him in case the bullet wound sealed over with the bullet still lodged inside him.
So now, with Balthier completely insensible, and having promised him aid, even against her better judgement, Ashe had very little time with which to actually acquire that aid before his presence was discovered and all manner of mayhem thus ensued.
Therefore Ashe now sat on her bed, back against her headboard, watching the first fingers of dawn paint the sky beyond her balcony and gnawing nervously on her bottom lip.
The pirate lay slightly angled on his good side with one hand lightly clamped around her ankle as she sat with her knees drawn up under her chin. His hand around her ankle seemed almost like a shackle; an emphatic reminder that she had made this man's fate her burden, at least for the span of seven days. Balthier's breath brushing against her hip, hot as the winds of the Westersand, tickled and she absently reached down to brush her fingers against the sodden, flattened sandy hair plastered to his head.
'Pirate,' she sighed frustrated, 'Why is it that you have such hold on me?'
Ashe studied Balthier intently as he lay beside her, helpless. In the seven months he had travelled in her party, from Rabanastre to the heart of Archades and on to Bahamut's fall, Balthier had always managed to maintain a veneer of elusiveness. He wasn't enigmatic like his partner Fran, or reserved like Basch, but there was always a sense that nothing that the party experienced while in battle or in rest really penetrated the impregnable façade the "leading man" had built up about himself. The only time Ashe had seen genuine emotion from Balthier had been when confronted with his maniacal father, first in Draklor, and then upon the apex of the Pharos, when his father had fallen to his hubris finally. Even so, Balthier had not so much as shed a tear for his father, or faltered in his stride thereafter.
At the time, when Ashe had been so torn with self-doubt and indecision, Balthier's seeming indifference in the face of such insurmountable odds and his absolute self-assurance, had been an enormous asset. An untouchable man in possession of an airship and a keen and unclouded mind; Balthier had been a pillar of strength with which Ashe chose to lean on increasingly as the battles wore on. Then when she'd thought he and Fran had died onboard Bahamut she had wept for him and her guilt for his loss had been deep indeed.
A year later, onboard the ancient airship of Feolthanus, Ashe had tried to talk to Balthier while watching the sunset on the deck. She had tried to feel out if there was any lingering affection between them, for she had believed that Balthier must have felt some affinity for her to risk so much in favour of her cause. She had wanted his advice also, regarding Al-Cid Margrace's advances, but for the most part, however, she had wanted his continued friendship.
Balthier had treated her like a stranger on that deck; he had seemed genuinely at a loss to understand her hidden insinuations and could only brag about his blasted Strahl. Ashe had known then that Balthier was an untouchable man indeed; as fickle as the changing seasons: like the wind he blew one way today, and the other on the morrow.
Now two years after that failed conversation, Balthier was here, in need, and demanding her help, trying to tug upon bonds of loyalty and friendship he himself had severed. She wondered at the man's selfishness, his callousness, but then chastised herself. In all likelihood Balthier was merely desperate to find Fran and was prepared to use any means available to him to do so. Ashe couldn't even blame him for it; she understood desperation well enough.
'Your Highness?'
Ashe was up and off the bed in a heartbeat as a woman's voice called from the outer doors of the chamber. 'My Lady, it is I Palia; you summoned me?'
'Palia, I am here. Are you alone?' Ashe moved swiftly to wrench closed the insect netting around the bed, although it would not do much to hide the presence of a man asleep between her sheets. She hurried swiftly over to the doors of the chamber as her most favoured lady-in-waiting entered the chamber.
'Yes my lady, I am alone, as you requested,' Palia stated as she came in, confusion writ large upon her dark olive features, 'Is there something the matter?'
Palia was Bhujerban by birth and upbringing and spoke with the musical accent of Dorstonis. She had served since childhood in the household of Marquis Ondore, Ashe's own uncle, and was something of a distant cousin to the Ondore family and, as Ashe's mother had been born of that line, to Ashe herself. Her uncle had offered Palia's services to Ashe as a coronation gift and Palia had been very pleased to take up such a high position of trust within the Dynast Queen's staff. It was Palia, beyond any other in the palace that Ashe felt she could trust with such a delicate matter.
'Yes,' she nodded her head, still chewing on her lip nervously, 'You could say that Palia.' Ashe stepped into her bed chamber and gestured to the bed.
Palia's eyes widened in total surprise, 'My Lady there is a man in your bed.'
Ashe couldn't help it, she laughed. 'Yes, I know. I found him in my bathroom.'
Cautiously and mostly due to curiosity Palia inched forward to peer through the gauze netting to look at Balthier. 'Oh my,' she breathed out in surprise turning to stare at Ashe with big, round dark eyes, 'Highness this man is very sick.'
'Yes,' Ashe hurried forward to pull back the netting from her bed once more, 'He has been shot and beaten. He told me the bullet was still lodged in the wound and as I have not found an exit wound, I'm forced to concede he must be telling the truth.'
Palia was staring at Ashe in bafflement, 'But Your Highness, who is this man?'
Ashe sighed and flapped her hands irritably down upon Balthier, who remained oblivious, 'This, Palia, is the sky pirate Balthier.'
Palia sucked in a sharp breath, 'The pirate?' Her dark eyes flitted down to the man in the bed, 'Ah, now I see.'
Nodding briskly, though Ashe was not sure at what, Palia leaned down to carefully roll Balthier onto his back. She hissed when she saw the state of his bullet wound. Ashe felt obscurely embarrassed.
'Palia, this is not….' She stopped herself and tried to work out what it was she wanted to say, 'This is not as it might appear.' She winced at her own ineloquence. 'This has never happened before. It is not as though Balthier regularly appears bleeding and feverish in my bathroom of a night.'
Palia actually grinned at this, 'I didn't imagine he would, my lady.' She chuckled, 'Your counsellors would pitch a fit if he did.'
Ashe did not see the humour in this statement. She bit down on her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood, 'Palia I need your help. I have promised Balthier that he can have secret sanctuary while he heals, and he needs the attentions of a healer far more skilled than I, but I cannot let anyone know he is here.' She shook her head in frustration, 'There would scandal.'
Palia eyed her curiously, 'Well,' she said judiciously after a moment, 'There would definitely be considerable interest.' Palia turned back to Balthier curiously, kneeling by the bed so she could very delicately examine the wound site. 'Especially because your uncle, the Marquis, has put out a bill of reward for anyone who knows the whereabouts of the pirate Balthier.'
'My uncle has done what?' Ashe was astounded.
Although it was not possible to offer full pardon to a career criminal who showed no sign of reforming, Dalmasca, Bhujerba, and even Archades, and their respective leaders, had essentially decided to turn a blind eye to the Strahl's movements in their territories as a courtesy and recognition of Balthier and Fran's aid in bringing peace to Ivalice's warning nations. So long as Balthier did not so flagrantly infringe upon the law as to make it impossible to ignore, Ashe had thought that her uncle, like she herself, would continue to turn the other cheek.
Palia looked up at her from where she had been examining the bruises and abrasions running up and down Balthier's right arm from shoulder to wrist. She looked somewhat furtive, as well she might.
'No one wanted to tell you, my lady, and the truth is that Rabanastre is not oft troubled by sky piracy so it matters not here – but you see my lady, there's outright war among the pirates and has been for months. Your Balthier was thought to be a casualty of that war.'
Ashe dropped to her knees next to Palia, resting one arm on the bedside, 'Why have I not heard this?' And how is it that a maid in my service knows more about foreign affairs than the sovereign of Dalmasca, Ashe thought to herself sourly. 'Why would it be kept from me?'
Palia looked a little awkward, 'I don't know your highness, I'm just a servant, I'm not privy to these high decisions,' she evaded with the artfulness of someone who is much more than a mere chamber maid. Ashe gave her a sceptical look.
'You appear to be privy to more than I, Palia. What does my uncle want with Balthier?'
Palia shook her head, 'That I truly do not know, my lady. I know that the pirate in-fighting has been damaging the passage of trade and freight in and out of Bhujerba for months, and it is much worse in the coastal regions of the Empire and Rozzaria.'
Palia said all this as if it were common knowledge, when in fact Ashe had been blissfully unaware that anything was out of sorts in Ivalice. Palia, perceptive enough to realise that the conversation was not to Ashe's liking struggled to bring the discussion to a satisfactory resolution; she smiled nervously:
'Perhaps your uncle simply wanted to find Balthier because he was once ally to you, and his death would grieve you? Certainly I'm sure he was only thinking of you when he advised your counsellors not to speak of his disappearance.'
'My uncle did what?' Ashe exploded rising to her feet and pacing swiftly as she rubbed her lips with a finger. 'How dare uncle Halim do such a thing? I am ruler here, not he. My counsellors should answer to me and me alone.'
Palia watched Ashe with tense expression. Her Highness Ashelia was known to possess a legendarily fierce temper. Almost unconsciously Palia moved to protect the insensate man in the bed, should Ashe's wrath spill over into actual explosions. Taking a deep breath Ashe swallowed down her anger and eased the tension from her shoulders, scrabbling for self-control and lady-like deportment.
'Very well,' she stated stiffly, 'none of this can be helped now.' Spoken from between clenched teeth, the statement lacked the comforting tone Ashe might have hoped to impart.
Eventually Ashe turned back to the bed, 'Palia can I entrust Balthier's care to you? I will give you leave to be absent from court.' Ashe waved a hand at Balthier's prone form, 'He's an arrogant, conceited man, but he is not without honour and decency. He should give you no trouble if you tell him I have bid you tend him.'
Palia's lips quivered in an odd little smile and she rose from the bedside and bowed formerly to Ashe. 'I shall tend him well, my lady. Have no fear.' Palia's brown eyes were thoughtful, 'May I summon for a large wicker basket, and a porter, your highness?'
Ashe frowned, 'Why for?'
Palia's smile was crooked at the edges and her dark eyes were sly, 'It will not be comfortable for him, but I think I can keep him asleep and thus unaware for the journey, for I had thought that transporting the pirate inside a large laundry basket with these soiled sheets,' she gestured to Ashe's bed linens, 'might be the best way to get him from the palace without anyone being the wiser.'
Ashe's eyes grew wide and a very clear mental image of the leading man stuffed into a laundry hamper with yesterdays dirty linens floated before her eyes. Ashe couldn't help it, a burst of laughter escaped her lips, swiftly followed by more of the same, and she tried to suppress gales of mirth with a hand to her mouth, but all to no avail.
'Oh good gods,' Ashe gasped out, 'I wish he was awake to hear you say that, Palia.'
Eyes bright she tried to smother her giggles and only experienced partial success, 'Make him ready however you can, Palia.' Ashe took a deep breath and threw back her shoulders, lifting her head and assuming her regal airs, 'I will summon a basket and a strong servant to bear it hence.'
Impishly Ashe couldn't help looking back upon Balthier's helpless, sleeping form. Her smile was not exactly pleasant; Hah, she thought rather pettily, that will serve you right, pirate. Ask for a queen's help and be taken out with her dirty linens.
708 O.V: High Spring Tide
'W –what is that?'
Penelo's dismay awoke Balthier from a pleasantly dreamless slumber and he opened his eyes just as Fran turned the Strahl into a gentle downward arc starboard.
'Is that an airship?' Vaan poked his head through the gap between the navigator and pilot's seats to gape out of the main screen windows. They were passing over anonymous steppe land, a veldt of multi-tonal green, but from the depths of that wavering green ocean a large plume of black smoke engulfed the husk of a downed vessel. Balthier sat up in his chair.
'What's left of one,' he murmured sharing a sideways look with Fran.
'Do we investigate?' she asked him. Balthier nodded once, in sharp affirmation.
'I think I know this ship,' he said quietly as he called up topographic charts stored in the Strahl's sensors and looked for a likely spot for Fran to set his girl down safely. 'I think it is Tyree's ship.'
'The smuggler from Iona Isle,' Fran nodded having recognised also the modest, green and vaguely bug-like airship.
Balthier nodded, thinking. 'Speck's men were in port,' he told Fran as she weighed anchor and the Strahl came to dock not fifty feet from the downed craft, 'One of the Company approached me with another offer,' Balthier felt his lip curl, 'tried to slip me one of those damned coins when he thought me too far gone to know the game.'
Fran's ears twitched, both at once and she cast him a keen look, 'You took it up, not?'
'Of course not,' Balthier commanded the Strahl's doors to open, 'But I wonder just how many poor bastards have, and come to regret it.'
'Who's Speck?' It was Vaan who asked the question.
'No one you want to meet,' Balthier told him tiredly as he gestured for the two youths to precede Fran and he out of the Strahl. The smell of burning components and glossair oil was particularly astringent as the four of them alighted from the Strahl.
'I don't like the looks of this,' Balthier murmured to Fran and she nodded.
'Our weapons,' she glanced back at Penelo with a slight nod and the girl immediately ran back up the Strahl's ramp to fetch them. Vaan sidled closer, eyes dancing from in one direction and another scanning the empty grasslands for hidden threats.
'You think this might be a trap?' he asked sounding both anxious and excited. Penelo clattered back down the Strahl's ramp then, over burdened with Balthier's Fomalhaut, Fran's great bow and Vaan's Deathbringer sword. Penelo's own staff was slung across her back.
Balthier checked the gun over and loaded some shot, 'I rather doubt there's a horde of brigands hidden in the grasses,' he admitted dryly, 'but a man only needs to be wrong once and he has an eternity of rest to regret his lack of diligence.'
'Agreed,' Fran plucked her bow's string and nodded as it sung a clear note like a tuning fork through the quiet air, 'Balthier and I shall enter, you and Penelo scout.'
Neither of the children argued, which stood both as a testament for their respect for Fran's authority versus that of Balthier, and also their growing maturity. Vaan headed off in a wide arc around the nose of the ship, while Penelo moved off competently to the rear.
Balthier sighed and hitched his shoulders, 'Ladies choice,' he gestured to Fran, 'Would you like to precede or shall I?'
Fran's nose twitched, 'I smell death on the wind.'
Balthier arched an eyebrow, 'Right, well, I'll go in ahead then.'
He took the lead up the ramp of Tyree's ship, the Emerald Duchess. The hatch had been forced open and torn from its hinges and great clouts of dark smoke rose from the ships interior, hot and stinging with burning embers. Balthier waved Fran back as he stepped into the ships interior. Of course, despite his attempts at chivalry Fran was right at his back as he kicked open the dented door to the main cabin. Really there were times when it was damned difficult to be a leading man when his partner refused to play her part properly.
The interior of the central cabin, the Emerald Duchess being of similar design to the Strahl, was a wreck. Power relays disgorged their wiring from holes in the wall casings and the flight console was utterly destroyed, spitting sparks into the hot, smoke laden air.
Tyree, the stout, affable, cheerfully low key part time smuggler from the sleepy Iona Isle, was still seated in his pilot's seat, which had been twisted right around to face away from the shattered main window screens of the Emerald Duchess.
Balthier sighed, suddenly tired beyond belief, and approached Tyree's unmoving form gingerly. Tyree's hands had been stapled to the arm rests of his chair by long nails driven through the flesh of his palms. This had been done presumably to stop Tyree from offering much in the way of resistance as someone, or perhaps a great many someones', had shot the man twice with a small calibre weapon straight through both eyes. Blood and thicker things had dried in viscous runnels of dark fluid down his cheeks and clotted under the man's double chins like hideous tears.
Pushed into Tyree's gaping open jaws his killer or killers had pushed one of the dark disk coins with tag, which Balthier had been offered in port two nights ago, under the dead man's tongue.
Fran shifted behind him, he sensed her presence like a change in the air currents of this stifling charnel house of a former airship.
'This is the Company's work.' She told him unnecessarily. 'Something must be done; else all good pirates shall share Tyree's fate.'
Balthier rose to his feet and brushed off his trousers. He looked down at the corpse of a good man for a long, quiet moment.
'Something will be done, Fran.' He told her calmly, 'and we shall do it.'
