Chapter Nine – Pirate Smith
"Ah, Pirate Smith," James said.
"What?"
"I thank you for your assistance in my chase, Captain Adriaans," he said, his voice the very embodiment of authority. "It's international collaborative efforts like these that make our nations stronger."
"You've some nerve, pretending to be in the Navy," Lily said. "Captain Adriaans, this man is a pirate."
"Poor girl, simply can't stop lying. It's all that time she spends with her fellow pirates, you know. They're a bad influence."
"I'm not a pirate. I'm not even branded." She turned to the captain, just barely keeping herself from shouting, the blatant injustice of James's accusation clawing at her. "He's no evidence at all."
"I'm an agent of Her Majesty's naval forces," James said, offended. "And I have the appropriate paperwork." He took one of the scrolls out of his hand and waved it at her. "My credentials," he said, tucking it under his arm. He unrolled the other parchment, this one much more worn and ragged, and held it up for her to see.
The bastard had made a wanted poster for her, and had even added a surprisingly accurate drawing of her face. James's gambit was so sneaky, so underhanded—pirate, Lily silently reminded herself—and her hand twitched, nearly reaching for her cutlass.
Once again, though, she was outnumbered.
"An obvious homemade forgery," she said, trying to stall. She had to think through this, but her brain was floundering, her heart hammering. She couldn't have got so far only to be out-lied. "You've no more proof you are who you say you are than I do."
As true as that statement was, neither Peder nor Captain Adriaans seemed convinced by her argument. James looked the part of a royal officer, after all, and he carried himself with the appropriate demeanor, and he had documentation to substantiate his claims.
And, perhaps most significantly, James was a man. Men of proper society would never listen to a woman over one of their own gender.
All Lily had was her mokeskin pouch, a dress filthy from her swim and citywide trek, and a cutlass. In retrospect, she should have gone for a weapon less associated with pirates.
She stood with arms folded tightly, trying to hide her growing panic at the inescapable direction the situation was heading, as Captain Adriaans offered James a pair of manacles. There would be no running once she was chained, no distracting them and slipping away unnoticed.
"Good luck," Adriaans told James. "Catch more pirates."
"Will do, Captain." James turned to Lily with the manacles. "Are you going to cooperate?"
Peder didn't offer her the chance, though, shoving her chest into the wall and wrenching her arms behind her back.
"You're not even going to let a lady have her arms in front?" she said.
"You're a pirate," James said, snapping cold iron onto her wrists, "not a lady, and pirates are not to be trusted."
"Obviously," she muttered.
She refused to speak to or look at James as he pushed her down the gangway, keeping her head held high despite the dirty looks she got from sailors on the pier.
James walked at her side and kept a firm grip on her irons with one hand, her cutlass in the other. Even if she ran, no one would help her run away from a naval officer. If they'd been in a pirate port, perhaps, but not among honest merchants.
"Come on." James steered her over to a rowboat tied to the pier. "In you go."
He moved aside to let her hop down, but she took a step back instead, eyeing the city next to them.
"This would be much easier if you freed my arms," she tried.
"I was trying to offer you a bit of dignity," he said, his hand gripping her irons tightly again, "but fine, continue to be an enormous pain in the arse."
"I'll stop being a pain once you stop holding me captive."
"You're the wronged party? Might I remind you, you're the one who lied to me, you're the one who tried to steal from me, and you're the one who whacked my best mate in the head!"
She arched an eyebrow at him. "When you put it that way I sound bloody impressive."
"Oh, for fuck's sake. I'd push you into the boat if I weren't such a gentleman."
"Gentleman pirate? Is that your new claim?"
But James didn't respond. He seemed to be debating how to get the both of them in the rowboat without letting go of her.
"Just get in first," she said sweetly. "And I'll stand here and wait patiently."
He pressed his lips together and frowned. "This would be so much easier with magic." He glanced around and waved at a nearby sailor. "Oi! Help a bloke out?"
The sailor hesitated, and Lily held out hope, but then James shouted again, and this time the man came toward them. He didn't speak English, but James managed to indicate that he needed help getting his prisoner into the boat. The man obliged, holding onto Lily's irons until James had lowered himself into the boat.
James waved for the sailor to bring Lily to him. She started to crouch down, expecting to more or less hop into the boat on her own, but instead the sailor picked her up under her armpits.
"Oi!" she shouted. "I'm not a sack of potatoes."
She almost kicked out, but his grip on her was tenuous, and she couldn't swim in manacles if he dropped her. Reluctantly she forced her legs still.
"You could've got in willingly," James reminded her. "You chose this."
"Rubbish!"
James grabbed her legs, and the sailor slowly lowered her, until James's arms came around her midsection. He swung her around, nearly losing his balance, and then settled her feet onto the bottom of the boat.
It was humiliating.
She was also well put out that in spite of this embarrassment, her stomach had decided to throw a raucous party at being in such close, personal proximity to James.
He helped her sit on one of the slats across the boat and turned back to the pier.
"Cheers, mate," he said, tossing up a small gold coin up to the sailor.
The man nodded and wandered away, and James faced Lily again.
"All right, Smith. Let's go."
Sirius hauled her over the rail of the ship with more force than was strictly necessary, then shoved her at Dorcas, who gleefully grabbed onto Lily's irons.
They wore matching victorious smirks, and Lily's mind went momentarily blank at the horrid realization that she was back on this cursed ship with both of them.
James climbed over the rail while Peter secured the rowboat to the ship.
"Looking very impressive, Captain Potter," Marlene said, waggling her eyebrows at James.
He grinned at her and pulled his wand out of his pocket. A few swishes later and his clothes had reverted to normal.
"Show off," Sirius muttered.
James clapped him on the shoulder. "You're looking well."
"No thanks to her."
"Yeah, well, no retaliation, got it?"
"Prongs."
"We'll discuss this later, all right? After we've interrogated her." James beckoned Dorcas, and Lily stumbled at her push, falling into James's arms. "Marlene, join us in a minute. Lily, come along."
He frog-marched her into the library and forced her into a chair. She fidgeted, trying to get comfortable with her arms still awkwardly behind her. It was a losing battle.
Of course, under other circumstances, Lily wouldn't have minded being tied up and at James's mercy. Unfortunately he'd shown little interest in the more entertaining scenario her mind oh so helpfully provided.
He held onto her shoulder, keeping her in place, and moved to stand behind her. She flinched when he murmured a spell, and then relaxed when she felt the manacle fall away from one of her wrists.
But he didn't release the other wrist. Instead she heard him shuffling behind her, the chains of the manacles clinking, and she turned her head to see him hold the loose cuff around the table leg. He murmured a few spells, one at the manacle to make it fit around the table leg, another at the wood with no effect that Lily could discern, and a final one to fuse the table leg together with the floor.
If Sirius tried to retaliate, she wouldn't be able to stop him.
"I thought I'd bargained for my freedom on board," she said, repressing the panic welling up in her throat.
"You escaped. That ended the parley, as far as I'm concerned."
"Then I want a new parley."
"And I'm refusing."
"You can't refuse. It's parley."
"Who are you going to complain to about it? Sirius? Dorcas? I think even Marlene might be a bit peeved at you. Yeah, you're bloody impressive, all right. Bloody impressive at pissing people off."
"I have the right to parley."
"And I have the right to protect myself and my crew, and I can't do that and give you parley. So, not sorry, you lose out in this scenario." He glanced at the door. "I need to check in with my crew and then I'll come back to deal with you. I don't know—ah, McKinnon."
Marlene strolled into the room looking very chipper. "Here to serve, Captain. I think you should've kept the other hat. Much more regal."
"Search her, all right? Properly this time."
"I searched her plenty well last time. If I'd searched her any more thoroughly I think I'd have had my second lesbian experience."
He raised his eyebrows. "Regardless. Find everything this time, would you?"
"Aye aye, Captain."
James snorted and left, shutting the door behind himself.
"So," Marlene said, turning to Lily, "just us again, eh?"
Lily shrugged and looked away. If she opened her mouth, especially to Marlene, she might have done something stupid like confess how absolutely terrified she was. Marlene had been kind to her, but she wasn't going to free her, that much was obvious.
Marlene was almost an ally. But not really, not when it mattered.
Marlene sighed. "I'll let James do the interrogating. For now let's see if we can't get that dress off you without me slicing you open."
The shadows crept across the floor while Lily slumped in her chair. Marlene had thoroughly searched her and found all of her goods once more. She'd had the decency to give Lily a book from the shelf, though, and she'd extended the manacle chain so Lily could stand up and take a few steps away from the table.
But as best Lily could tell, she was well and thoroughly stuck in place.
Late in the afternoon, near dinnertime, she heard shouts through the closed windows, buoyant laughter, and someone running up and down the steps to the quarterdeck.
They were leaving Oporto.
Lily hadn't managed to escape.
For the first time, icy despair washed over her. If they were headed for the Azores, it would take them a couple of weeks to arrive, weeks during which she might have nothing to do but sit around and hope someone deigned to give her a book.
Even if she could endure the passage to the Azores, she couldn't begin to guess at how long they might be there searching for the treasure. If they decided to stay at sea while they puzzled over the map instead of taking port on one of the islands, Lily would have no chance of escape.
She'd tried her best to get away and it hadn't worked. He'd still found her and bested her and now she was stuck on this bloody ship again, maybe indefinitely, and some people on the ship wanted to kill her, and now they might, actually, since she'd injured one of them.
She'd run and been clever and armed herself and it hadn't mattered at all. Her feet ached from running around uneven streets and her hair was a disgusting mat from her swim and every weapon she'd collected had been ripped from her.
Hot tears flooded her eyes, and she fought back a sob. She folded her arms, her blasted chain clinking as it moved, and curled over the tabletop, resting her arms on the table and hanging her head. A few drops rolled off her cheeks, dropping onto the wood.
Crying always made her face flush and her nose stuff up and her chest ache. Sometimes crying helped, leaving her feeling grotty but empty when she was done, but this was different, more miserable: Hope hadn't been this elusive, this distant, in years.
More tears spilled over as she wished for nothing more than to be back home, tucked up by the fire with her parents on either side of her, all of them reading while Petunia embroidered.
She never should have left home, never should have wandered onto James's ship, never should have thought she could run away from well-trained witches and wizards.
But she had and there was no way out.
Someone knocked gently at the library door.
Lily swiped her palms over her eyes and sniffed. "Come in."
Caradoc entered wearing one of his soft smiles, and carrying a tray full of steaming hot food.
"I thought after a long day of running you might be hungry," he said, sliding the tray in front of her.
"Have I told you that I'm madly in love with you?"
He didn't laugh, just broadened his smile a little, and sat down across from her. With a wave of his wand, he Conjured her a handkerchief, and she threw him a thankful look while she dabbed at her eyes.
"Sorry," she said. "Don't mind me."
"It's all right. It's not surprising you're feeling a little frustrated."
"Frustrated's only half of it," she said, and then she closed her mouth. Caradoc was kind, yes, but he was also part of the crew that didn't trust her, and the things she told him might end up back with James, or worse.
Still, he might not be a confidante at the moment, but he hadn't had to serve her a proper meal.
"Really," she said, "Thank you."
He nodded. "You're welcome."
She took a bite of the fish he'd brought her. "What did you do with your day on land?"
"Oh, I ate at a nice restaurant, picked up a few trinkets. Nothing like your cutlass, though."
"Funnily enough James saw fit to take that from me."
"I'm surprised you bought one at all."
"Why, should I have stolen it instead?"
"No," he said, smiling, "because you're a witch."
"Oh. Right. Well, I had Sirius's wand, but I'm—I don't know many spells."
"I suppose not." His eyes lit up. "Sirius threw a fit over you taking his wand."
Her mouth slanted into a grin. "Oh, I took it, all right. He went down awfully quick. I think his skull must be a bit thin."
He didn't verbally agree with her, but his smile widened just enough for her to notice. "Sirius can be difficult, sometimes."
"So long as by sometimes you mean during any hour between one and twelve, then yes, sometimes he is difficult. Why you keep him around…."
"He and James have been best mates for a long time."
"I noticed."
"I suppose you did." He pushed himself out of his seat. "I'll leave you to it. Although you should know, per James's instructions, that that knife doesn't work against human skin."
Lily blinked. "I didn't—"
"I know," he said, pushing in his chair. "I'm only following orders."
She sat alone again, thankfully tear-free but still morose, until James returned.
He'd never failed to ignite something in her, and she was terribly glad of it, if only to feel something other than depressed.
He leaned against the doorframe and sighed. "Where's Sirius's wand, Lily?"
"In the river," she said airily.
"You've really got to stop lying."
"I don't see why."
"Don't you want to get off this ship?"
"If you've already forgotten," she said, standing up and lifting her chin, her chain clinking, "I did get off your ship. But it's clear to me that you've no intention of letting me go because for whatever mad reason you think I'd work for What's His Face. That is it, isn't it?"
"I would let you go if you'd just stop being so untrustworthy."
"Oh, please. I'm not a saint but I've hardly been poisoning the food."
"That's the thing, though, Lily." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I know you were up to something."
"It's called trying to escape. It's generally what captive people try to do when you lock them up. I'm happy to give you the long and glorious history if you like."
"My crew told me you were leaving your bed at night. They tried to find you, but funnily enough, you were nowhere to be found."
She'd never been gone for very long periods of time in the library, rarely more than half an hour at a time. But apparently that was long enough.
"Then why didn't you say anything?" she said. "Or was it another trap?"
"It wasn't a trap, I was giving you the opportunity to prove I could trust you."
"I didn't violate your trust. I didn't do anything but sit by myself when I left bed," she said, which was technically true.
"You could've done that without hiding—however it is you're hiding, that is, I still don't know—but how can I think you weren't scheming when you didn't want us to know what you were doing?"
She didn't have a ready lie for that question, and if they were angry with her now, telling them that she'd been planning to sell information about the treasure they were after certainly wasn't going to help her position.
"So you're just going to hang onto me indefinitely," she said.
"No, I've actually found a solution."
"Which is?"
He reached into his vest and pulled out a small vial with a few drops of clear liquid inside. "My crew picked up some Veritaserum today. It'll solve the question of your background once and for all."
"Yes, but…."
She had acted deceptively, and she had very little important information to hide, besides her intent to sell information about the treasure. But if he was offering her the chance to prove that she was who she said she was, and if that would mean her freedom, she'd suffer through it. At least they'd know she was only planning to steal information from them, and not sabotage them entirely.
"All right," she said.
"Take that again?"
"Give it to me. I've got nothing to hide."
"You're awfully eager to tell the truth now that I've taken the option away from you."
"Look, obviously given the choice, I would prefer not to be on board. You lot are going—well, wherever you're going that's so secret. I want to be anywhere else. You think this potion will make you trust me? Give it to me and take me back to Oporto."
"Did I mention you're a pain in the arse?"
"I don't do what you want, I'm a pain in the arse. I offer to cooperate, I'm still a pain in the arse. You're clearly the pain in the arse among the two of us."
"You'll have to tell me where Sirius's wand is."
"You think I'm petty enough to pick annoying him over getting off your bloody ship?"
He pushed off the door with his shoulder. "I suppose."
Lily swallowed, ready to drink the potion, but he walked right past her. "Aren't you going to dose me?"
He wearily turned around. "Honestly, I'm about half asleep. You can prove yourself to me in the morning."
"I don't see why you're exhausted. I'm the one who did most of the work today."
"Trust me, I did plenty of walking myself." He yawned and headed for his cabin. "Good night."
"Not even a pillow?"
He opened the door to his room and Algernon sprang out, making an annoyed sound.
"Hey, there," James said, in a low, soothing voice.
But Algernon raced past him and over to Lily to wind his way around her shins. She reached down to stroke his back.
James leaned against his doorframe, barely keeping himself upright. "So much treachery today," he sighed.
"Go on, then," she told Algernon quietly. "He needs you."
Algernon meowed, but trotted over to James and followed him into his cabin. Lily almost gave up hope of a pillow, but then James reappeared and threw one at her with surprising accuracy. She couldn't catch it one-handed, though, and had to settle for blocking it from hitting her face.
"Thanks," she called, but he was shutting the door and she wasn't sure he heard her.
Sleeping on the floor was never pleasant, but the promise of pending freedom carried her off to sleep.
She awoke from her light doze with a start.
Someone was slowly turning the door handle from the main deck.
She didn't have weapons, save her body and the chairs, but she could shout for James. Annoyed as he was with her for escaping, he wouldn't let Sirius or Dorcas hurt her.
She quickly climbed into a crouch, moving her chained hand as little as possible.
The door opened one centimeter at a time, and Lily froze, unable to move without rattling her chains. She could hear the faint creak of wood under the person's feet, and the crashing of the waves against the ship in the distance.
Someone's shoulder slid through the gap in the door, followed by a head.
A head she didn't recognize.
The woman's face was turned back toward the deck as she slipped through the door, and Lily's body thrummed with tension. She cursed James for taking away her cutlass and leaving her unarmed when there were, apparently, other people trying to sneak onto his ship.
She would have to face this woman, though. In a second she'd see Lily and—
The woman's face turned in toward the library.
The clouds obscuring the moon made it impossible for Lily to make out her expression in great detail, but the little light that trickled in from the doorway revealed a thin face, mouth hung open a little in shock.
She and Lily stood, eyes locked on each other, for a tense moment.
And then they moved.
In the second it took the woman to step fully inside the room and raise her wand hand, Lily picked up the chair next to her. The woman was out of arm's reach, but not by much.
While Lily was in the process of swinging the chair at her head, Lily saw the woman's wand twitch and heard her utter a spell. Lily couldn't duck mid-swing, though, and she felt something rip along her side, a sharp, glancing blow that forced a gasp out of her.
Casting the spell cost the woman the second Lily needed: The woman's wand arm came up too late to properly stop the chair from banging into her head. Lily felt the reverberations as the legs connected with the woman's arm and head – not hard enough to knock her out, but enough to hurt her, at least a little.
"James!" Lily shouted.
The woman had recovered from her blow, swearing under her breath, and raised up her wand again. She shot off another spell and Lily dropped into a crouch.
But the spell went in another direction, flying over Lily's head.
Someone else cast a spell, and a flash of white light hurtled toward the woman from behind Lily, who turned to see the caster through the legs of the table.
James, of course, standing tall in his doorway.
Lily whipped her head back to the stranger, who'd pointed her wand at Lily again.
"I'll kill her," the woman said calmly.
"Then I'll kill you," James said. "Eye for an eye, and all that."
The stranger was watching James, apparently deeming Lily a non-threat.
Lily flicked her eyes around, trying to find another weapon. But she didn't need a weapon. She was close enough.
She shot her arm out, making a swipe for the woman's wand, but the woman was quicker. She fired off another spell at Lily, whose limbs stopped responding to her commands, her body immobilized in place with her hand outstretched.
Her face was frozen looking up at the woman, allowing her to see a red jet of light clip the stranger's shoulder. Lily caught the brief look of anger on her face before the woman collapsed in a heap on the ground, her wand rolling out of her hand and across the floor.
James had begun running toward the woman before she'd even hit the ground. When he reached her, ropes flew out from his wand to slither around her, binding her arms to her sides and her legs together.
Severus had told Lily about the jinx she suspected she was under, but he'd neglected to tell her how excruciatingly frustrating it was, how utterly helpless she felt sitting there unable to move. Now that the danger had passed, the slice along her side throbbed, but she couldn't do anything about it.
James bent down to grab the woman's wand where it had fallen, and then finally he turned to Lily. With a wave of his wand, her body relaxed, and she toppled backwards, her head whacking against the table.
"Shit," she said, sitting up and rubbing her scalp. No blood, from the feel of it, but it would probably bruise.
James let out a short laugh. "Couldn't have put it better myself." He stepped over the tied-up woman, pushed the library door all the way open, and stuck his head out to the main deck. He whistled twice and moved back inside to look at the stranger.
Lily stayed sitting on the ground, leaning back against the table, one hand pressed against her side. Her eyes stayed riveted on the fallen stranger, her heartbeat a sharp staccato, her body prepared for its attacker to rise up again at any moment.
Footsteps thudded on the main deck. Sirius appeared in the doorway, with Dorcas's head peeking out beside his shoulder. He stepped over the body, the candle in his hand illuminating the dark look on his face.
"Is this one of your mates?" he demanded of Lily.
"What's going on?" Marlene said, who'd joined Dorcas in the doorway. "Who's that?"
"I don't know," Lily said impatiently. "She walked into the library—"
"And Lily hit her with a chair," James said approvingly. "And then I Stupefied her."
Marlene moved around Dorcas to get a better look at the woman's face. "Where did she come from?"
Sirius turned on Marlene. "A bloody good question, McKinnon. Why didn't you see her going into the library?"
Marlene stood up and took a step backwards, running into Dorcas, who grumbled. "Er, that is…I may have…not been entirely awake."
"Marlene," said James, his voice low and dangerous. "Tell me you didn't fall asleep on watch."
"I'm sorry, all right? Obviously it was an accident! I was trying to stay awake but with our shifts all messed up from Oporto—"
"We'll talk about it later," he snapped. "And as for you two – Sirius and Dorcas, how did you not notice her sneaking around?"
"We were in the common room," Sirius said dismissively. "A chair broke and Dorcas was fixing it."
James was too busy looking at Sirius to catch Marlene's enormous eyeroll.
"Shit, Sirius, you couldn't have fixed it yourself?" James paced toward his bedroom door. "Dorcas, you were supposed to be on duty, not faffing about in the common room."
"Wasn't faffing," she muttered, arms folded.
"Merlin, you lot." James angrily ruffled his hair with one hand. "Can't believe none of you noticed she was on board."
"She must've snuck on after she," Sirius said, jerking his head down toward Lily, "saw fit to bludgeon me. Which is probably why she ran, to get you off the ship so this one could get on board."
"What?" Lily made to stand up, but her wound gaped, and she winced. "I left because I wanted to get away from you lot!"
"Oh, it was just coincidence that there was some witch hanging about in Oporto waiting to sneak on our ship? She had to have known we were coming."
"Did you check for a mark?" Dorcas asked James.
He shook his head, and she bent down to pull up the woman's sleeve.
In the faint light from Sirius's candle, Lily could see a stark black inking on the inner part of her forearm, a grotesque skull with a snake coming through the mouth.
James sighed. "I'm going to call Mad-Eye."
"You've got a friend called Mad-Eye?" Lily said, feeling a bit giddy. She pressed her hand down tighter on her side, which was sopping wet with something sticky, now that she thought about it. "Does he wear an eye patch, too?"
"Yes," Marlene said, and she sounded weird as she took a step toward Lily, "but the more noticeable thing is his peg leg."
"Pirates," Lily sighed. She leaned her head back against the table, mind drifting, imagining James with a peg leg to match his eye-patched cat. She laughed a little, and her mind tipped away from consciousness. "So predictable," she murmured, and she was lost.