"Alright, you scurvy dogs, listen up!" Maggie said as she turned away from Daniel, raising her voice to address her entire crew at once. "I'm going down to the hold to take inventory. Barnes, you keep an eye on Captain Sousa. Rogers, you're responsible for the other one." She gestured to Falsworth. "If either one of them causes trouble, I'll have you punished for it. As for the rest of you, you know what your duties are. Now get to work!" With that, her crew dispersed, with more than a few mutters and sidelong glances at Daniel and Falsworth. In a few minutes Rogers had disappeared with Falsworth, leaving Daniel alone on the deck with the man who'd killed Jonathan, whose name, he now knew, was Barnes, and the helmsman, whose name he did not know. Barnes approached Daniel hesitantly, caution in his every movement and gesture.
"Aren't you supposed to give me something to do?" Daniel asked cuttingly after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence.
"I'm...not sure what you can do," Barnes replied with a not-so-surreptitious glance downward at Daniel's false leg. Like Rogers, he spoke with an Irish accent, though his was stronger and considerably rougher, more of a brogue than a lilt. Daniel bristled.
"I'll have you know, I am more than capable of performing the same tasks as the rest of the rest of your damned crew," he snapped. Barnes recoiled slightly, seeming surprised by his outburst
"Very well," he said carefully. "Can you climb rigging?"
"Of course," Daniel replied, doing his best not to snap at Barnes this time, though there was still irritation in his tone.
"Good," Barnes said, nodding. "Very good. In that case, I think I'll put you on watch for now. That way you won't be in able to cause trouble, and it will be easier for me to keep an eye on you while I carry out the rest of my duties."
"As you wish," Daniel responded sardonically. "It's not as if I'm in a position to refuse."
"Excellent," Barnes replied. "I have some things to attend to down below, but I'll be back in a few minutes. Sawyer will be in charge of you in the meantime." When Daniel nodded his understanding, Barnes turned toward the helm and shouted "Sawyer!"
"Yes?" Sawyer asked without turning away from the ocean in front of them.
"If Captain Sousa causes you any trouble," Barnes said, "You have my full permission to shoot him." Daniel couldn't see, but Sawyer must have indicated his understanding because Barnes turned and made a dismissive gesture upwards towards the crow's nest, accompanied by the equally dismissive sentence, "All right, Captain Sousa, up you go. I'll be back shortly." Daniel proceeded to scramble up the rigging as quickly as his false leg would allow, and as a result caught only glimpses of Barnes disappearing down below. Reaching the crow's nest, he did a quick visual sweep of the ocean surrounding the ship and saw that it was empty for miles in every direction, all the way to the horizon. A sigh escaped him and he dropped heavily into a sitting position, his back against the mast behind him. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, feeling the warmth of the afternoon sunlight on his face. Already he could feel himself relaxing, the tension going out of his shoulders. Removed as he was from everyone on the ship, simply by virtue of the height of the crow's nest above the deck, he had risen above all of his current problems, as well as a certain female pirate captain who was their cause, at least for the duration of his watch.
Unbidden, images of his crew sprang to the forefront of Daniel's mind, Jonathan, who would never make it to manhood, Dugan and Pinkerton, who would no longer joke around with Falsworth despite his obvious dislike of their behavior, Jarvis, who would never see his wife again. He felt tears leak out from under his closed eyelids. His crew, every last one of them, was lying with the Dauntless in a watery grave somewhere in the ocean behind him, and he keenly felt the sorrow that accompanied that fact. It was a captain's duty to protect his crew at all costs, and to go down with his ship, if it came to that, and Daniel had failed in both those regards. If he had fought harder against the pirates invading his ship, or if he had even fought back at all against Rogers and Maggie, he would be with his men and his ship in their watery grave, the way a captain should be. In a way, he was glad that Maggie had relieved him of his coat. He no longer deserved to wear it.
Needing comfort, Daniel grasped at the chain around his neck with shaking fingers and withdrew his locket from under his shirt. His heart sank when he opened it and found it empty. The portrait of Violet was gone. He had no idea when or where or how he'd lost it, but, with the way things were going, it was reasonable to assume that it was gone forever. He felt his spirits sink even lower, settling somewhere in the neighborhood of the pit of his stomach. He was startled from his self-pitying reverie by calls from down below for the crew of the Blood Shrike to assemble in the galley for the evening meal.
"Sousa!" came Barnes voice from below him. Daniel leaned over the edge of the crow's nest, his hands against its edge. Spotting him, Barnes called up "Captain wants to see you in her quarters!"
Why? Daniel wondered. What else could she possibly want from me? She's already taken everything I have. He did not voice his doubts out loud to Barnes, wary of how he might react. Instead he climbed wordlessly out of the crow's nest and down the mast, landing on the deck with a thump. He stumbled forward on impact, but Barnes caught his shoulder and prevented him from falling.
"Thank you," Daniel said reluctantly. Eyeing Barnes suspiciously, he asked "Why are you being so nice to me?" Barnes shrugged.
"Captain said to make sure you didn't get roughed up too much," he said nonchalantly. "In case you turn out to be useful as a bargaining chip in the future. You can't negotiate with damaged goods."
"I might have known it was something like that," Daniel muttered darkly. "It's clear my value to you is as free labor and cargo, not as a human being."
"Come now," Barnes protested as he escorted Daniel belowdecks. "That's not fair."
"But it's true, isn't it?" Daniel snapped. Barnes' only response was a frown, which led Daniel to believe that he did indeed have the right of things. A few feet down the hall from them, a door opened and Maggie stuck her head out into the hallway, her dark brown curls bouncing.
"Ah good," she said, spotting them. "I see you delivered Captain Sousa as I ordered." There was a mocking tone in the way she said "Captain Sousa" that Daniel understood- without a ship or crew, what was he captain of, really?
Maggie's statement had clearly been meant as a dismissal, but Barnes remained where he was, standing by Daniel's side in the narrow hallway. He was evidently waiting for Maggie to actually say the words "You're dismissed."
"You can go now, Barnes," Maggie said, her mouth quirking upwards at the corners, correctly interpreting her crewman's gesture. For all her faults-and there were many- Daniel had to admit that she seemed extraordinarily in tune with her crew.
When Barnes had left, Maggie beckoned Daniel forward, into her quarters. On the table in the center of the room was laid out a lavish feast. It was too much for one person, so Daniel wondered what Maggie intended to do with it all.
"I didn't intend on dining alone," Maggie said, as if reading his thoughts. "I never do. Normally the honor of being my dinner companion goes to Rogers, but today it is yours."
"I don't consider it an honor to dine with someone who has none," Daniel snapped.
"You'd be wise to dispense with the attitude, Captain," Maggie warned. "It might make me decide that you're more trouble than you're worth. Now please. Sit." Though she said "please", her tone made it clear that it wasn't a request. Daniel dropped stiffly into the seat opposite the table from her, his shoulders tense.
Maggie's falsely flippant attitude didn't extend through their meal. As soon as they started eating, a tense silence settled over the room. Without thinking, Daniel reached up to touch the spot where his locket lay under his shirt, as he always did when he was feeling uncomfortable. Maggie's silence must have been because she was waiting for an opening, as at that moment she said, "Looking for this?" in a distinctly taunting tone, pulled something out of her pocket, and tossed down on the table between herself and Daniel. He glanced down and saw that it was the portrait of Violet that had gone missing from his locket. He froze, staring at it.
"Well?" Maggie prompted. "Go on. Take it. Far be it for me to deprive you of the only view of your beloved you're going to get for the foreseeable future." Daniel snatched the portrait up from the table with quick, nervous fingers, feeling apprehensive. He was smart enough to figure out that Maggie never did anything for anyone without the expectation of future repayment, and he dreaded what she would want him to do for her when the time came to pay the debt she was owed for returning Violet's portrait to him.