Satin Hostage – Chapter Nine

The next morning Serena awoke to a shaky stomach, aching head, and sour thoughts of the preceding night. She didn't go out on deck until after noon, and when she did, she wondered how the crew could continue as if nothing had changed.

It's not their world that's been capsized, she knew. Only hers. But even Darien was the same. He acted no differently toward her. It was only new to her, not him.

With great effort Serena turned her thoughts to other matters, but found little interest in watching the jaegers and gulls battle over a fish one had dipped up from the sea's waves, or the large turtle one of the Delucian men hauled up from the waters. She discovered her attentions going repeatedly to Brons. The cabin boy had just entered his teen years, she guessed, and wasn't too familiar with the operation of the Nor, judging from his blunders and constant questions to Lucas and the boatswain.

"New since Ibereth?" she wondered, mimicking the small voice echoing in her head. She shook it from her mind.

It took all Serena's mental powers not to observe the boy too closely. He'd already noticed her scrutiny, but she couldn't decide if he was puzzled or wary of her. He certainly didn't return her attentions with the loathing she expected, and she wondered if he knew who she was. She couldn't remember if he'd been present when Zoicite was on deck in Leneau.

By nightfall Serena was emotionally exhausted from the turmoil of her own thoughts and busy conscience. Even with her preoccupation, Darien persuaded her into a game of Bull and Lion. She didn't fully realize she had consented to play until he plucked the chapbook from her unmoving hands as she sat in a chair before the fireplace in the bedchamber.

"You said you'd play."

She withdrew her feet from the hearth which had grown far too warm with the modest fire, not looking at him. "Of course."

She sat down at the table, her eyes going to the tea and plate of biscuits beside the game. Darien lowered the blinds against the chill night air and sat down across from her.

"You haven't eaten all day," he commented, nodding for her to make the first move. "And that was quite a bit of brandy for you last night." He set a frog across from hers after she'd moved. "What's on your mind?"

Her eyes held no humor and just a bit of a headache still. "You know what's on my mind," she said sharply.

"So you are considering what I told you." His elephant took her jackal. "Careful, little firefly. Your light is flickering."

Her hand moved the amethyst rabbit and snatched his white and gray horse from the board. "How can you joke about something like this?"

He frowned over the board, developing a retaliation under her unexpected attack. "It was a long time ago, Serena. Methuen is dead."

She shook her head, watching his black and white turtle take her jade fish. "That doesn't mean you've forgotten."

"No. I haven't forgotten."

"Why did you wait so long to escape from the mines?"

He grinned. "So you're accepting the truth."

She frowned. "About Methuen? I've not made up my mind."

"I thought about it a lot. We all did. But we'd been told slavery was rampant in Embrosse. Anyone who escaped would be brought bake to the mine overseer and punished severely. We all believed it. No one knew differently." He made his next move, watching her consider the tea in her cup. "There were no workers over age twenty there."

She studied him closely. "None? What happened when the boys grew up?"

Darien knew, but he didn't care to detail the mass grave outside the mine barns. "They were put down, like a diseased animal. I suppose the mine overseers didn't want trouble."

Serena took her next few turns without speaking. With an effort she shoved the image of the mines farther back into her mind. She sipped the tea, finding the light bergamot taste pleasing, something that had been lost on her the preceding day. It settled well with her stomach and she looked with interest at the biscuits. "What did you do after you got to Cor Ten? Did you go home?"

"Not directly."

She detected reluctance in his tone, but pushed the subject despite it. "You don't want to tell me."

Darien shrugged, and then scowled as she moved the black cat. "Why do you want to know?"

The bite of biscuit seemed suddenly too dry, but she swallowed it with a drink of tea. "Call it idle curiosity," she said. "You were sixteen, or thereabouts. You'd probably learnt the language, knew something about Embrosse by then. Learned that slavery was indeed illegal in Embrosse. If you didn't go home, what did you do?"

He slid the window shutter halfway closed as the room cooled. "There was no work in Cor Ten, and to stay there would probably lead to recapture, so I found a ship heading to the Delucian Islands."

"Pirates?"

"No. A legitimate freighter importing spices and oils from the islands and western Izramuth," he said. "One particular voyage we never got to Izramuth, however. We were intercepted off the coast by a pirate vessel called the Maimed Fox."

Skepticism claimed her face. "I've heard of the Maimed Fox, and it never really existed. It's only part of the legend of Captain Dell. My father told me about it."

Darien smiled at her disbelief. "I'm sure your father heard the embellished version of Captain Dell, which is fiction, but he did exist. I sailed with him for two years."

Serena debated this new information suspiciously. "Were you with captured Princess Arisse?"

"Dell never captured Princess Arisse, if that's what you've heard, Serena. He only returned her to Queen Menat after finding her on another pirate ship."

"Why would he return her? The reward had expired," she recalled in a troubled voice. Although she thought the stories of Captain Dell and the Maimed Fox to be legend, the kidnapping of the young princess was very real.

"Captain Dell had a soft spot for children - a misplaced fathership, if you will," he admitted off-handedly. "When we came upon the Lost Dove he found Arisse, and she had not been well cared-for, to put it nicely. Captain Dell took great pains to return the girl."

Serena considered his story as she finished the biscuit. Queen Menat had established a national holiday to honor Arisse's return. She let her rabbit take his lizard. "When did you become captain of your own ship?"

He studied her with indifference. "Gathering facts to use against me? Leave that to the bounty hunters, Serena."

When she looked at him her face held a surprised innocence. "How could I be a threat to you? I'm the captive," she murmured, playing her blue bird.

His lion moved across from her bull. "I win."

"This time."

She collected the carved animals and set them up on the board again. He reached back and brought out a bottle from the cabinet behind him, amused at her line of questioning. He poured his cup full from the bottle. When he offered to fill her ceramic cup she shook her head. He stood and built up the dwindling fire and closed the shutters fully as the wind grew in force outside.

Serena had more on her mind than the game or Darien's feigned distrust. She had satisfied herself with the belief that her father was ignorant of how Methuen's mining was accomplished. She was even able to admit her uncle had been involved with slavery. However, there was much more than her conscience hinging on Zoicite's business practices.

"If what you say it true about Zoicite - and I don't believe it is," she added hastily as he moved a jet owl, "why didn't you go to King Thulgarde with this, this mistaken allegation?"

"There is no mistake, dear Serena; not with my charge."

She shook her head, dismissing this with wave. "Why didn't you go through a political channel rather than steal me? You said you sailed for King Thulgarde. Surely he'd listen to an accommodating ally, even an illegal one," she said. "If you really sailed for him."

"That approach does not become you," he growled. He replaced her crystal seal with his malachite frog. "Going to your king would only drag out the ordeal rather than see its end. It would take months to prove what I know, and all while Zoicite - and you - would be leaning in Thulgarde's ear with stories to discredit a pirate's claim."

She frowned at him, not seeing the howlite horse across from her cat. "But you would have evidence, if what you say is true. Four mines, well, three without Ibereth, full of slaves."

He only shook his head, holding her attention. "Not by the time Thulgarde actually looked into my claims. Your husband would have every boy cleaned out. Maybe even cause collapses so he wouldn't have to account for the lack of workers. The Maeyen coffers are full; he could easily survive a year of stilled mine work."

"Much longer than a year," she corrected stiffly, but her voice dropped to a croak. Suddenly the sick feeling returned like a gale and she couldn't meet his eyes. "I'm sorry, Darien. I shouldn't have said that. It was a wealth you helped build."

Her oblique remorse fascinated him, but he also knew it wasn't hers to bear. "I didn't tell you about your uncle to gain your sympathy, Serena," he said gently. "I had no intention of telling you."

"I know." She swallowed with difficulty and lifted her eyes only to the game. "I wish I didn't know."

"I told you that."

"I know that, too."

She moved a carved animal absently, wishing a paralysis would overtake the too real comprehension forming in her mind. No, she thought adamantly. Not Zoicite. After all, she hadn't seen any mark on Brons' arm. Darien had offered to let her look, but she'd declined. Perhaps he was bluffing, knowing she would not look. Even now she didn't want to see the boy, to sustain her own belief.

"I don't believe Zoicite would keep slaves," she said aloud, the words sounding hollow to her. "I know he wouldn't, Darien." She sighed restlessly. "We aren't as close as some engaged couples, but he has been honest with me. I know that much of him."

He decided against voicing his first thought, and instead said: "You thought you knew Methuen, too."

For several long moments they played in silence. Each move was preceded by a lengthy deliberation as both were absorbed by various thoughts. Serena's preoccupation cost her three game pieces, but it wasn't until he confiscated her black amber cat that she cared to halt his attack. Two moves later her bird crossed in front of his lion.

"Who is my ransom?" she said suddenly.

He looked up from the board in surprise. "I told you yesterday, Serena; If you're –"

"I don't care," she cut him off. The hematite bull moved across from the lion. "It's my ransom. I should know."

Darien turned the lion on its side. "But it's my game and I make the rules."

She sat back in the chair, resolute to learn her ransom. "You must care for someone," she continued, holding his steady stare. "It can't be woman. Mine work is for men."

He leaned back, taking a long drink of the brandy he had neglected. "No, it's not a woman, but it's encouraging to know you do possess a romantic imagination," he said with a slow grin.

Serena didn't let the comment ruffle her determination. "Who is it, Darien?"

He took his time deciding whether to answer her, all the while observing her obstinate posture. Her gaze was unwavering, her chin tilted just enough to create a straight line of the coral lips. Under his stare, a pout came to her mouth and his eyes rose to hers.

"My brother."

The relentlessness in her blue eyes softened to something more malleable. "But you said the Southern Hoshi took you," she said. "You said nothing about him."

"It didn't take him then. Joshan was picked up off the docks two years ago," he calculated, pouring her empty tea cup full from the bottle.

"Well ... why doesn't he just escape? Like you did?" she suggested, her shoulders sagging. She frowned. "How old is he?"

"Eleven."

Serena's face wrinkled at the tender age. "That means he was nine ..." Her voice sharpened. "You're very old to be his brother. There would twelve or fifteen years between you two. Are you sure he isn't your son?"

Darien smiled at her speculation. "No. I'm sure he's my brother. The last from my mother's womb, and her dearest. She wants him back." He swiftly read the look crossing her face. "You didn't think pirates were sprung from the sea, did you?"

"No, but I didn't think you held your mother in such high esteem," she quipped. She took a drink of the brandy as her nerves jolted in ten different directions.

"I do."

"Why do you think he's in a Maeyen mine?"

He considered her mood. "I saw him. In the Ibereth mine. I told you I've already tried taking him myself, and bribing the guards, to no avail."

Serena took little time estimating his sincerity. As she started to speak, a knock came to the office door.

"Go ahead," he said, but she shook her head.

When Darien left to talk to Lucas in the quarterdeck's short hall, she was alone with her thoughts and yet another new view of her captivity. What she'd learned the past few days was too much to digest in a mere evening. She stood and listlessly put the stone animals in the cloth bag and tried not to focus on any particular thought. She heard the outside door open and close and expected Darien to enter the bedchamber. When she looked to the doorway, Brons stood there.

Serena dropped the amber cat figurine and heard it hit the floor. Brons' dark eyes went to the carved animal, carefully retrieving it for her. He held it out and she nervously took it.

"Captain said you have question maybe," he said expectantly in broken Embrosse. His attention went from her face to the flannel cote she wore and back again.

Serena wasn't completely aware of his gaze. Her thoughts had frozen at his presence. Gradually she understood why Darien had allowed him in the room. She cleared her throat. "What kind of question?"

Brons shrugged. "Don't know."

She nodded, her eyes going to his arms, which were covered by his shirt. "Is Embrosse your homeland?"

"No."

"Where are you from?"

"Kiddock."

She returned his cautious curiosity until she heard voices at the office stairway door. "I don't have any questions, Brons," she said quietly as the outside door opened.

He left and a moment later a key turned in the office door. Serena discovered her hand squeezing the amber cat she still held. Mechanically she placed it with the other pieces in the pouch and put the game in the chest. She glanced at the tea cup still half full of brandy, and then turned down the light and went numbly to bed, commanding herself not to think.