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Chapter 1


At any other time in her twenty-five years, Enid would have found her circumstances invigorating. Blue water crowned with snowy foam sang past the hull as the sails and rigging snapped and hummed in accompaniment overhead. A fine spray peppered her angular face and left a brisk trace of its salt perfume as it passed. A part of her recognized the perfection of the day as it unfolded beneath a rare clear sky over the Straits of Albion, but the rest of her was conscious of only one thing: the hostile frigate closing in on her ship from the starboard side.

Without the impromptu tutelage of the vessel’s master, a rotund fellow named Arnaud Efarge, Enid wouldn’t be able to put a name to the type of ship pursuing them, nor the quarter from which it approached. She was a student of True Art, not of ships and the sea. As far as she could discern, there was no real difference between the merchantman carrying her toward a destiny she prayed was rich in vengeance and the predatory warship that snapped at its watery heels. Certainly, this “frigate” carried more cannon. That was obvious to even her untrained eye. Still, reason seemed to decree that their smaller ship, with its rakish lines and gallant spread of sail, could bear her past the reach of those guns.

Unfortunately, reason held little sway over the affairs of wind and wave. The frigate grew visibly larger with each passing moment, despite the frantic activity of the sailors in the merchant’s rigging and the master’s grim concentration as he paced the rail of the quarterdeck. As he passed, she put out a hand to stay him and asked how so large a vessel could close on a smaller, fleeter ship, something as incongruous to her as an ox running a hare to ground.

“She has the gauge of us,” Master Arnaud snapped, even as he gently scratched between the ears of the long, six-legged otterkin draped over his shoulders like a living stole. Seeing the blankness in Enid’s eyes, he said in a softer tone, “The weather gauge. It means she has the favor of the wind. She can match our every move and still close on us.”

“But surely its sheer bulk will slow it! We are smaller, lighter, and faster, are we not?”

The master’s fatalistic chuckle did not please Enid or the otterkin, which chittered nervously. Arnaud soothed it absently as he explained.

“Milady, we are smaller and lighter, of that there can be no doubt. But faster than a frigate under a full press of sail?” He chuckled grimly and shook his head at her naivete. “Size has its advantages in many things, milady, and sailing is one of them. All those yards and yards of canvas she spreads would tear the masts from our poor Marie, but they push the frigate there along at a pace we can never outstrip without abandoning all our cargo, water, and passengers to the sea.”

Enid’s brow furrowed slightly at the mention of abandoning passengers to the sea and her hand strayed toward the hilt of the small sword dangling from her hip.

Master Arnaud raised a hand in apology and was about to speak when a fluttering noise floated down from above. The broad-faced commoner cursed under his breath as he squinted up at the sails.

“We’re losing our wind, milady.”

A glance at the frigate revealed it was more fortunate in finding loyal zephyrs. Her sheets still bellied with wind and a great spume of spray greeted her blunt prow each time it rose above one wave to fall upon the crest of another.

The sailors high in the little merchantman’s rigging whistled tunelessly like a flock of artless birds.

“What is the meaning of that racket?” Enid asked absently as she allowed her will a looser rein. She grew lightheaded as her being encompassed both more and less than her physical shell. The coppery taste of magic welled up in her throat and she felt the other sorcerer in the depths of the frigate, in some dark place below the waterline. Dying sylphs surrounded him, slowly suffocating in that dark place. He was literally killing their wind.

“To call up a wind, milady,” the master answered. “Whistling for a fair wind is a common practice at sea.”

“I do not think the winds can hear them. I will see what I can do to help.”

The master took a cautious step backward and muttered his thanks as she closed her eyes and reached out toward the foam-wreathed frigate with her hand and will.

There he was: a small man in more than physical stature, the sort who reveled in such small cruelties as extinguishing the spark of minor spirits. Still, he was strong in his own element, and she doubted she could counter his workings without time to properly prepare. So be it. If she could not stop him, she would lend her strength to him. She felt his terror as the surrounding sylphs began to expire more rapidly than he could control. Each sylph took some of itself with it as it perished in a dying inhalation, each leaving the small room more airless with its passing.

Enid’s outstretched arm tensed, and her hand curled into a fine-boned claw. The master backed into the quarterdeck’s rail and his thick-fingered hand clutched the prayer beads around his thick neck as she drew in a seemingly endless, whistling breath. She barely noticed him. She was somewhere else, across a narrowing expanse of tumbling waves, and while she saw a face sinking into a mask of fear, it was no common sailor’s.

Here was a petty sorcerer. A mage of the fifth or sixth rank, she reckoned, highly capable at the casting of a few rote processes, but no true practitioner. It was disheartening to see how low the Theocracy had brought the greatest nation in the world, a nation once famed and feared for the prowess of even its lowest-ranking mages. Still, she had no pity for this traitorous wretch and worked against him with a will. There was a moment when, if he had known more, he could have made their encounter a true duel, but, in the face of an Institut-trained mage he was all but unarmed. Still, she grinned in wolfish delight at sending one more Theocrat to hell.

As she came back to herself, she was aware of the cheers of the surrounding sailors. The wind had slipped from the Artagny’s sails, which now hung limp like so much laundry on a charwoman’s lines. The little merchantman’s topsails scratched up a breeze and filled with a satisfying snap of canvas. Even in such light airs, she was pulling away from the becalmed frigate. The Marie’s crew and passengers voiced their joy as the distance between the two ships widened.

The celebration was short-lived. The Marie did not make more than a mile before the frigate’s topsails filled and she began to make way again.

Enid raised an inquisitive brow at the master, but he shook his head.

“She will still run us down, milady. Even without a mage, her natural advantage over us is too great. We have gained some time, but not much. I expect we’ll be under her guns before dark. Then the killing will begin.”

“It has already begun,” Enid said, the little mage’s blue face in her mind’s eye, his hands clawing at his throat as he struggled fruitlessly to draw one breath past his last in an airless chamber beneath the waves.

It seemed the ardent pursuit of revenge was as poor a shield against Fortune’s indignities as hope. The frigate closed steadily despite the loss of its ship’s mage. The Marie’s crew struggled gamely, fighting with the sails to urge every inch of headway from her. So far, no baggage or cargo had gone over the side to coax another quarter knot out of the merchantman. Master Arnaud said that he doubted it would make any difference and if, by some miracle, the Marie was able to escape, the refugees aboard would be left destitute. As the frigate closed with them, though, he looked grim enough to reconsider his position on the matter.

He had good reason: the fluttering black pennant at the frigate’s masthead meant she carried a Confessor aboard.

Were the Marie to fall into the hands of a Confessor with high-born émigrés aboard—such as the Marquise Enid d’Tancreville—the ship would be taken up by the state. The Marie’s master would be hanged on the spot for treason. His men would be sentenced to a life in service to the Theocratic Navy. For most of the fat little brig’s passengers, falling into the hands of a Confessor was a fate that rivaled capture by the inhuman Darghaur that haunted the dark fairy tales of their youth.

The frigate loomed near enough that Enid could discern the small details of her construction and spot the scarlet-robed figure of a Confessor upon her quarterdeck. The black maws of her cannons, which seemed large enough to swallow the merchant ship, drew Enid’s eyes with a morbid gravity.

Following her gaze to the guns, the Marie’s master said quietly, “They’ll keep closing and eventually fire a gun across our bows, unless the dogs sailing for the Theocrats have abandoned tradition altogether.”

“And what shall we do, then?”

The master took a deep breath, which stretched his brown coat tight across his barrel chest. He shook his head and cast his eyes toward the deck.

“You’ll call it cowardly, milady, but we’ll heave to. The Marie wouldn’t survive a single volley, and if she did, my men would be slaughtered. I cannot let that happen, milady. They rely upon me, and their families upon them.”

“Considering the welcome the Confessor will give you for harboring aristocrats, I would not call surrendering to save your crew cowardice. You are a brave man, Master Arnaud, and an honorable one.”

Master Arnaud frowned and colored slightly. “I hope you will feel the same an hour or two hence, when I surrender my pretty little Marie to that bastard of a Confessor, Redeemer rot him!”

Enid d’Tancreville offered a chilly sniff at the unwonted familiarity embodied in the commoner’s profanity, but she could not help but share his assessment of the scarlet-clad figure pacing the command deck of the approaching frigate.

The sun hovered just above the horizon, its bottom half grossly deformed, giving it the shape of a baleful orange pear. To Enid, it seemed to cast a heavy, reluctant light that illuminated in broad strokes but refused to add more detail than the occasional flash of a polished surface or glitter from a breaking wave. Perhaps its desultory performance was due to the rapidly approaching night. Why bother to reveal what darkness would soon devour? If this were the sun’s excuse, she felt a strong empathy for its case. After all, she showed no more energy as dusk approached, its blackness eloquently presaged by the dark mass of the frigate growing visibly larger to starboard.

She stood at the rail, still in body and mind. When a second sail was spotted an hour ago, a rush of desperate hope had seized her and the rest of the ill-fated Marie’s passengers and crew. That hope was soon crushed. After a few moments of reckless cheer, a keen-eyed young sailor in the tops discerned that the vessel upon which they had hung their hopes of rescue flew the same hated black pennant as the frigate.

Master Arnaud identified the vessel as another frigate, though smaller and more lightly armed than the one that had dogged their heels during the course of the long afternoon. In the patient tones of a doomed schoolmaster, he informed her it was a “28” and the larger ship was a “40.” The numbers, he said, referred to the number of cannons borne on each. The twenty-eight, he opined, had witnessed the chase, and piled on sail to assist, or, failing that, claim a right to a portion of the prize money for being in plain sight of the capture. Enid raised an eyebrow curiously at the mention of prize money and the master’s round frame shook for a moment in what passed for humor under such dire circumstances.

“Prize money, milady! Why do you think any sailors volunteer for service in the navies of Albion and Ardainne when they can command twice the wages aboard a trading vessel like the Marie than aboard a first-rate ship of the line?”

“For the honor of serving their king and country?”

The master brought his laughter under control as Enid’s features darkened. He held up an apologetic hand.

“I do not make light of you, milady, and indeed there must be some who do just that. Most of ’em, though, are gamblers. They are wagering their lives the man-of-war they are aboard will take enough prize and head money to more than make up for the difference in basic wages.”

Master Arnaud explained that ships and cargoes captured at sea became the property of the capturing ship’s sovereign. By long tradition, those sovereigns showed their gratitude for such windfalls by awarding most of their value to the crew who had hazarded their lives to secure it. A captured merchantman would be valued according to its cargo and the condition and type of its hull, while a captured warship was usually valued at the cost of construction less the cost to bring her up to the capturing navy’s standards of seaworthiness.

“The Marie is a fine ship and is low in the water with a hold full of wine bound for the Spice Colonies. If they can prove we have so much as one escaping aristocrat aboard, we’re in forfeit of our bond and those ships”—Master Arnaud gave a spite-filled wave in the direction of the closing vessels—“may claim us as a rightful prize. The two captains will no doubt make enough from us to refurnish their fine manors or perhaps buy a few more horses for their stables. Their sailors will make as much in prize money for this one day’s work as they would have in a month or more of regular wages. So, you can see why they crack on so. Ah, it appears the little frigate intends to play an active role in our capture rather than taking her money just for watching. See how she is coming on? She means to cut across the forty’s bow and head us off. Now they’re racing to see who closes us first.”

And so Enid spent her last hour as a free woman, and most likely as a live one, watching the slow dance performed by the three ships, each occasionally altering course or making some arcane adjustment in sails intended to urge a little more speed across the rising sea. Master Arnaud stood beside her, feeding his greedy otterkin biscuits. Between calming words for the nervous animal and the occasional shouted commands, he kept her informed of the purpose behind each movement of the cumbersome minuet. At one point, he snorted derisively and threw his hands up in disgust.

“Look how sloppily the twenty-eight is handled! See how her sails have gone slack? She’s lost the better part of her headway and the race as well! See how her crew struggles to bring her around? A pity. She was so close to her mark. Now she’ll pass aft of her larger sister for certain. She’ll be in position to rake us there, but we’ll strike our colors long before I let him turn my Marie into a slaughterhouse.”

“Rake? What does this mean, to be positioned to rake us?”

Arnaud maneuvered his thick-fingered hands to show the positions of two ships and raised his right hand slightly. “This is our Marie. My left is the small frigate. When the light frigate passes behind us, she’ll have her broadside facing toward our aft, like so.” The master’s hands made a T. He frowned a moment before continuing. “Were she to fire a broadside into us from such a position, her shot would sweep down the length of our ship, slaughtering man after man as it passed. The carnage would be dreadful.”

A few moments later the small frigate was all but invisible on the far side of the much larger 40-gun frigate, which now stood so close Enid could see the gunners peering around their cannons through its gaping gun ports. She noted the hateful smile upon the scarlet-cloaked Confessor as he leaned indolently upon the rail of the quarterdeck. One of the frigate’s guns boomed and belched smoke and actinic fire. Enid was startled despite herself. An alarmingly large plume of water erupted just past the Marie’s bow, bathing the front half of her deck in acrid-smelling water. Master Arnaud turned to her, his expression halfway between apology and resignation, and shouted for his men to strike the colors and bring the Marie around to be boarded.

The big frigate erupted in boisterous cheers as the Ardain flag was lowered aboard the Marie, her crew and officers apparently untouched by the irony inherent in the little merchant striking the same flag that flew from the frigate’s mizzenmast. Enid leaned heavily on the rail, her face set in an expression of sour resignation. The frigate lowered a boat to ferry across the boarding party. Arnaud came to join her and when she turned to glance at him, he seemed smaller somehow, as if the last orders he’d shouted as the Marie’s commander had taken all his energy and vitality with them. She shrugged to herself and doubted if she looked much better to him.

“Will the Confessor come with them?” She gestured with her chin toward the boat bobbing at the frigate’s side. Sailors and a few marines swarmed down ladders on the ship’s side to take their places in the boat. It was difficult for her to imagine the scarlet eminence of a Confessor duplicating the feat.

“No, milady. A lieutenant will be sent across with the compliments of the frigate’s captain and demand I present myself and my ship’s papers to him at once. They’ll take me across while the lieutenant and his men make a quick survey of the Marie and search the passengers and crew for hard coin. Any money aboard is forfeit to them at once, you see.”

Enid made a disparaging remark about piracy as the smaller frigate slowly emerged from behind the bulk of her sister ship, passing her astern, just as Master Arnaud predicted. Her second remark, regarding vultures arriving late behind the wolf, was drowned out by the deafening roar of a cannonade and the aft third of the Artagny vanished in a thick cloud of gray-white smoke and splinters.