It was the day after Miya’s birthday. She’d woken early and, after washing and getting dressed, had gone in search of her father, finding him in the first place she looked; his study. He glanced up as she knocked on the open door.
“Come in Miya, you don’t need to knock.”
“Did you sleep at all last night?” Miya asked, as she walked over to his desk.
Her father grinned. “Not as much as I would have liked.”
“What are you doing here? Reading?”
“About tactics, mostly.” He patted the pile of books on his desk. “Naval battles, island defence … it’s been a while since I’ve had to think about these things.”
“Huh? What about those practice battles we do every couple of months?”
Tomas shook his head.
“It’s not the same. In a real battle, it’s not just how quickly your crew can load the cannons or get the ship turned around. When the ship you’re up against is firing more than just wooden dummy cannonballs at you …” Tomas sighed. “It’s not brute strength that wins a battle.”
“Finesse,” said Miya, smiling at her father. Then the smile vanished. “So … so you think that guy’ll come here? Attack here?”
Tomas squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead hard. “I don’t know, Coconut. I hope not. But from what Sola has said, about Pete’s movements–well, look here.”
Miya stepped closer to her father’s desk as he moved a stack of books, revealing a large piece of paper spread out underneath. On it he’d traced a map of the Rainbow Archipelago.
“Tonfa-Tonfa is up here, and Sola said he’d seen people from both Pala-Mala and Na’alofa on board Pete’s ship. They’re both north of Tonfa-Tonfa–here and here. It wouldn’t really make sense for him to attack Na’alofa, then head to Pala-Mala, then go all the way back to Tonfa-Tonfa. So we can chart his progress down from Pala-Mala first–actually, likely Wo’osi up here first but that’s just a guess–then down to Na’alofa, and then down to Tonfa-Tonfa. I’d say Pete was targeting merchants off Algernon’s eastern coast before coming into the archipelago, probably using Sweissaresa or Stottburg as a safe port.”
“So you think he IS a pirate?” Miya inquired. “Not just a sea bandit or raider, but an actual, genuine pirate?”
Tomas cleared his throat.
“There are a couple still around, I suppose,” he said.
“Oh, that’s interesting to hear,” said Miya. “Maybe he came from a ‘distant, savage land’?”
“Possibly,” said Tomas. Miya looked at him a moment longer, eyes narrowed.
“Interesting,” she said, slowly, before focusing on the map once more. “His next target would be To’ofa?”
Tomas smiled, just for a moment. “I think so. If he continues this pattern. He’s padding his crews with northern islanders, but they’re generally not good sailors–not in ships, anyway. But they’re strong, good fighters … and with their families at stake …”
Tomas sighed and pushed the map aside. Miya picked it up and studied it.
“So … so we know where he’s heading next,” she said. “I mean we know where he’ll be–”
“Or was.”
“But he’s heading down the islands. Right?”
“A day or two’s sailing between each, give or take, a day to conquer, maybe a day recovering and securing any prisoners, then onto the next … if he’s heading here, I’d say we’ve only got a week or two to prepare. Less if he decides he’s got enough northern island slaves. He could be heading for Clover Island right now, if that’s the case.”
“You think he’s going to attack us?” Miya asked, lowering the map.
“It’s a possibility.”
“Then we HAVE to attack him first! Not just for the sake of the northern islands but for Clover Island’s safety! The longer we wait the more slaves he’s going to capture, the more … oh.”
Tomas nodded. “I don’t want to fight the northern islanders, and he’ll almost certainly put them at the front of any attack he makes. They’re our friends, our neighbours–their families are in danger, they have no choice. But we do.”
“But … but if they attack us here, we have to defend the island, right?”
“If our families are in danger, then we have no choice either,” said Tomas. He sighed. “Such is war.”
“Then we rescue the northern islanders!”
“If I was Badger Pete,” said Tomas, grimacing slightly, “I’d keep the families on the same ships as the slaves–keep them close, always the reminder of what’s at stake. That way, the slaves in the crew will give their all to keep the ship afloat.”
“That’s horrible,” said Miya. “What an awful plan!”
“But a good one–an effective one.”
“Then … then what are we going to do?” asked Miya.
“If we do fight Pete on the sea, then we’ll try to cripple his ships without sinking them, then board and take out the non-islander crew–hoping that the island slaves realise what we’re doing and join us in the fight.”
Miya nodded enthusiastically. “Then we’d double our boarding forces!”
“But we can’t count on them joining us. They’re afraid for their families, and Badger Pete has almost certainly told them what will happen if they try to rebel in any way. They may be too afraid of that to join us, even then.”
Miya sat heavily on a couch. “What a crappy situation,” she said. Tomas looked at her, then went to sit down beside her, putting his arm around her shoulders.
“We’ll figure something out,” he said. “Maybe we can get help from somewhere.”
“Huh. Who would help? Everyone hates us.”
“They don’t hate us, they–well, the Highland does, but–”
“And Algernon doesn’t even put us on their maps. Right?” Miya shrugged off her father’s arm and stood up. “And the southern islands don’t care about anything, and places like Outlook Island only have a few decent ships, and the northern islands are already falling, and everywhere else is too far away to even know we exist. No one’s going to help. It’s just us, as usual. One Island In All The World.”
“Miya–”
“You should get some sleep,” said Miya, and then she left.
Town was subdued, the usual bustle and noise of the town square replaced with stillness and hush; small groups talking quietly. Miya tried to hold herself proudly and present a strong example to her people, but most of them didn’t even really look at her. She stopped at the well in the middle of the square and threw in a coin, making a fervent wish as she did, then made her way down towards the docks, through the largest residential area of Blackport. She tried to smile at the trees and flowers painted along Star Street, then actually did smile when she passed a cart loaded with bags and crates. Even in these hard times, Miya thought, new people are coming to the island.
It wasn’t until she was half a street away that realisation struck her. She stopped, turned her head to look back at the cart. No, she thought. That’s not someone new moving in; that’s someone getting ready to leave–someone getting ready to run away. Miya glared at the cart for a moment, began stomping up to give whoever was moving a piece of her mind. Then she stopped. She looked at the cart again, at the bags, large and small–in particular at one small bag that had been decorated with ribbons.
Miya shook her head and turned away, her proud stride subdued as she continued down to the port. This was usually Miya’s favourite part of town, but today the normal busy, energetic atmosphere was replaced by one of trepidation and wariness. Dock workers stood or sat around, smoking and talking, a few looking up as Miya passed, but none saying anything to her. She walked to the end of the longest pier and stood there a moment, hands on hips, looking out to sea, then she turned, looking back, at the town and the cliff behind it, and her own house atop that. She looked at the dock workers, who looked away in turn, and she looked at the ships in dock–those belonging to residents and visitors, and those belonging to the Black Navy. She frowned, then walked briskly back up the pier, scabbard bouncing against her leg.
“Look lively, you lot,” she said, stopping in front of a group of dock workers. “Don’t you have something to do?”
“Who, us?” the one nearest her asked. “Not many ships in, girl.”
“Girl?”
“Princess,” the dock worker corrected himself, then cleared his throat. “Sorry.”
“I should think so. No ships, you say?”
“Been scarce for a few weeks now. Reckon it’s something to do with this Badger Pete character stomping around up north, scaring everyone away. We’ve had a few from southern parts, but nothing much overall. Once word spreads we’ll be seeing even less, too.”
“Hm,” said Miya. She looked up at each dock worker in turn. “Are you lot scared? Thinking of leaving?”
The lead dock worker glanced at his fellows. “Can’t say it hasn’t come up, in conversation like,” he said. “But this is our home, ye know? Wouldn’t be right to leave just when she needs us. Besides, where’d a bunch of scallywags like us go? Where’d have us?” he said, drawing a couple of low chuckles from his workmates. Miya looked at them and nodded.
“Good,” she said. “Carry on.”
“As you say, princess.”
Miya left the dock workers and walked back up into town, holding her head high and keeping her pace brisk.
“Oh, hi Miya! Why are you walking like that?”
Miya turned to see Penny coming out of a grocer, several bags held in her arms.
“Like what?” Miya asked, relaxing her posture just a little. “Do you want help carrying those?”
“Oh, yeah–if you don’t mind,” said Penny, offloading a couple of the bags onto Miya. “Thanks.”
“No problem. I was planning on heading that way.”
“So,” said Penny, as they began walking up the street together, “what are you doing in town?”
Miya shrugged. “Nothing much.”
“Because you looked like you were kind of on a mission.”
“Just, you know, a princess walking amongst her people,” said Miya, readjusting the bags she was carrying.
“Pffffft.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, thanks again for the charm, it’s really cute,” said Miya. “I didn’t get to thank you properly yesterday but I really love it.”
“I noticed you had it on your little wrist bangle thing before, I’m really happy you like it. I’ve got about a dozen wonky ones at home, getting that shape right is surprisingly difficult. I should’ve gone with just like a clover shape or something.”
“But the horseshoe is so you, y’know?” said Miya. Penny stopped walking.
“I guess so. Well, here we are already. Seems barely worth getting your help, now that I think about it.”
“Oh, you’re staying with your Mum?” asked Miya, looking at the little cottage.
“Yeah … well … she kind of wants me close at the moment. You know.”
Miya bit her lip. “Mm,” she said.
“Hey, have you heard anything more about that pirate? Badger Pete?”
“No, I–”
“I heard he was heading here,” said Penny.
“Well, that–”
“And that your dad was planning on sending most of our navy away to help the northern islanders–”
Miya turned and glared up at Penny.
“They’re our neighbours and our friends,” she said, her voice sharp. “We have a responsibility to help them out. Badger Pete’s kidnapped their families, for hope’s sake! He’s forcing them to work for him–to fight for him, even! What are we supposed to do, just sit back and say ‘Oh, that’s okay, we’ll just be over here not caring’?”
“But then what if Badger Pete comes here, attacks us? I think your Mum’s right, we have to think about ourselves first.”
“I can’t believe you’re even saying that, we have to help them!”
“Why?”
“B-because … because they need it!”
“That’s not very sound reasoning, Miya,” said Penny. “Um, do you want to come in?”
“No, not right now. I’m kind of busy. Here.” Miya thrust the bags she’d been carrying at Penny and stomped away.
“Miya–”
“See you later, okay?”
Penny watched Miya stomp off up the street and sighed, then started taking her groceries inside.
Miya stomped around the lower fields for a while, then she stomped up the path to her house, where she stomped around the upper fields for a while before throwing some heavy rocks off the cliff and into the ocean below. After that she felt a little better. She was just about to go find Penny to apologise (and present some new good arguments she’d thought of while calming down) when she noticed Sola, sitting on a bench beside the front door. He had on a nice new blue shirt and a pair of brown trousers, and looked very uncomfortable in them.
“Hello,” Miya said, stopping beside him. He looked up at her.
“Hello Miya,” he said.
“Why are you just sitting out here?”
Sola thought for a moment, then shrugged.
“Aren’t you bored? Why don’t you go into town or something, explore a bit?”
Sola shrugged again.
“What’s the problem?” Miya asked, sitting beside him. “People around here are pretty friendly–well, usually they’re better than they are now, I mean everyone’s a bit on edge about, y’know, things. Oh, why don’t you come with me and visit my friend Penny? She’s really nice. Most of the time. Do you like horses?”
“I’ve never met one,” said Sola.
“Penny LOVES horses, she–wait, was that a joke?”
Sola smiled a little.
“Wow, cool. Anyway, let’s–wait, does that mean you do like horses or you don’t like them?”
“I really haven’t ever met one,” said Sola.
“So … so it wasn’t a joke?”
Sola shrugged.
“What is up with you, why are you so grumpy today?”
“Grumpy?”
“Like, all down and kind of sad and whatever. Are you … are you worried about your people?” Miya asked.
“Of course. But …”
“But? Something else buggin’ ya?”
Sola sighed. “In my village, there are … there were seventy-four people. I know them all by name and face and voice, some better than others, but all of them familiar. The other villages around us, too, are familiar. Very rarely in my life have I met someone and not known who they are. And yet here there are hundreds of people, all new to me, whose faces are unfamiliar and whose names I do not know. Can you understand?”
Miya looked at Sola a moment, helplessly.
“Um,” she said. “So you’re upset because you don’t know everyone?”
Sola shook his head. “Change.”
“Pardon?”
“Change,” he said, gesturing with his right hand. “Change to something else.”
“Oh, um … uh, I really like that shell you gave me. See?”
Miya held up her hand, showing Sola her copper wrist bangle, from which dangled Penny’s horseshoe charm and the little shell he’d given her. He smiled.
“I’m glad. It’s a very special kind of shell. We call it Ula Se.”
“Ula Se,” Miya repeated. “Neat.”
“If you–”
“Hello, you two. What are you up to?”
Miya and Sola looked up at Lily, who’d just come out of the house.
“Just sitting around chatting,” said Miya.
“That’s nice. Have you seen your father, by any chance?”
Miya caught a well-disguised edge to her mother’s voice.
“Is he in trouble?” she asked.
“No, nothing like that. I just need him for something.”
“Um, I saw him in the study earlier,” said Miya.
“Well he’s not there now.” Lily put her hands on her hips and tutted. “He has the worst habit of disappearing just when I need him.”
“I saw him around an hour ago,” said Sola, slowly. “He walked down that path.”
“Over there? Thank you, Sola.” Lily smiled at Sola then at Miya, then strode off towards the cliff path that led down to the family dock. Miya watched her go, then stood and tugged on Sola’s sleeve. He stood, and Miya gestured for him to follow her.
“Come on,” she said, “we’ve got to find Dad. Good work throwing Mum off the trail there, quick thinking.”
“Pardon?”
“Saying that he went down the cliff path!”
“He did go down the cliff path,” said Sola.
“What? So why did you tell Mum?”
“Because … because she was looking for your–our–father?”
Miya gave a big, exasperated sigh.
“Come on, Sola, this is basic stuff! Okay, I guess you haven’t been around long, you don’t know how things work here … I’ll explain later, right now we have to go rescue Dad!”
“From your mother?”
“Exactly!”
Sola looked confused.
“Look. Sometimes … oh, it’s too complicated. Just … if Mum’s looking for Dad, don’t tell her where he is. Okay?”
“Lie?”
“No! No no no no no no. Well yes. It’s just … sometimes Dad needs to do something because it’s the right thing to do. And sometimes Mum needs to stop him from doing that because it’s not the smart thing to do. Understand?”
“No,” said Sola.
“Just … just forget it. I hope Dad’s okay.”
“He’s over there, should we ask him?”
Miya looked where Sola was looking and saw her father, walking quickly up the path from town. She jogged over to him.
“Mum’s looking for you,” she said. Tomas stopped and glanced at his daughter sideways.
“Where is she now?” he asked.
“Family dock.”
“You send her there?”
“Sola did.”
“Good lad. How long ago?”
“Not long. Where you been?”
“Arranging.”
“Getting ready to go after a certain pirate menace?”
“Could be.”
“Need a lieutenant?”
“You’re not coming.”
“First mate?”
“You are not coming, Miya.”
“We can discuss that later.”
“Can we?”
“We certainly can.”
“Oh.”
“Good luck with Mum.”
“Thanks.”
Father and daughter nodded at each other, then Tomas stole into the house and Miya returned to Sola.
“I think I sorted that one out. Honestly, nothing would ever go smoothly around here if it wasn’t for my good influence. I don’t know what they’d do without me.”
“I imagine that they’d be very sad and lonely for a long time, should anything ever happen to you,” said Sola. Miya shivered.
“Okay, well, thanks for bringing me down,” she said. “Do you want to go and see my friend Penny with me now?”
Sola looked down at his feet.
“Come on, she’s super nice. Look at it this way, if you don’t start meeting people around here you’ll never be any better off.”
Sola raised his head to look at Miya. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Well, you said you knew everyone in your village, right? So, you’d better start getting to know people around here! You already know me, Miya Black, AKA the greatest girl on the island, and my Mum and our Dad, so you’ve got kind of a lot of people to get to know … like a thousand, actually. To be honest even I don’t know all of them, and I’ve lived here my whole life. But if you tried I’m sure you could meet at least five a day–I mean meet them good enough to learn their names and get to know them a little bit. So that’s … um …”
“Two hundred days to meet everyone on the island,” said Sola. He smiled, then shook his head. “I’m not sure.”
“Oh, come on, don’t be such a wuss! Come and meet Penny, anyway, and her mum, and I guess her little brother. If you’re going to start with anyone, start with them. They’re excellent.”
“Penny! Penny Buck! It’s your bestest friend Miya here to see you! And I brought your favourite cinnamon buns! And my really, really big brother!”
Miya waited a few seconds, then frowned.
“Penny, I’m sorry about being rude this morning, I was kind of annoyed but I had a good stomp and thought about it and I’m okay now!”
She waited a little longer, then gave a melodramatic sigh.
“Guess they’re not home. Goodness, how inconvenient of them. I wonder where they are?”
Sola shrugged and shook his head slightly. He hadn’t said anything since leaving Miya’s house, and the further they’d come into town the more he’d seemed to shrink into himself, his head lowering, his posture stooping, his gaze fixed firmly on the ground.
“Well, we’re not doing any good standing around here. Hum hum hum. She’s not at the stables because we would’ve seen her on the way down here. Are you okay?”
Sola shrugged.
“What’s the problem?”
Sola shrugged again and made a little ‘all of this’ gesture.
“Oh help, I’m sorry, your townaphobia. Peopleaphobia? What is it that you’re scared of, exactly? Is it the buildings?”
“No. I am not scared. I am uncomfortable.”
“Would you feel better if we went back to the house?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, let’s go then. Maybe we can find something to do around the upper fields. Or the house. Oh hey, do you like books?”
Sola looked at Miya. “Yes. Do you have one?”
“One?”
“It’s just in here. You should have said something earlier, I didn’t even think–okay, here we are.”
Miya opened the door and Sola stepped inside slowly, looking around at the tiny paradise he’d just been introduced to. It wasn’t a large room, just a little nook that caught a lot of light really, with a couple of old overstuffed chairs and a small table in the middle, and a large bookshelf on each wall. Sola walked slowly to the closest bookshelf and stared at the books on it, the expression on his face somewhere between awe and disbelief.
“So many,” he murmured.
“Yeah, it’s pretty special, Dad’s kind of a book nut, collects them from all over. Whenever he goes away he usually comes back with at least one. That shelf’s stories and stuff, you know, adventures and mysteries and myths and legends and plays, and some, um, stupid romantic rubbish.”
Sola nodded, not really listening to anything Miya said, reading each book’s title carefully, stooping to look at the books on the lower shelves.
“So just, you know, read whatever you want, make sure you bring ‘em back when you’re finished, though, Dad gets really funny about that. He’s usually pretty laid back but books are his, what do you call it, his weak point or something.”
Sola slowly pulled a book from the shelf and opened it.
“Or you can just sit in here and read. It’s pretty nice, means you don’t have to worry about forgetting to return a book like ONCE and Dad giving one of his little speeches that start with ‘I’m just a little bit disappointed in you, Miya’. Ugh. I hate those. Um.”
Sola stood in front of the shelf, perfectly still, only moving to turn the page.
“I’ll … just leave you to it. I know what it’s like when you really get into a book. Uh, maybe I’ll go try to find Penny, apologise for this morning. Are you okay here? Do you want a cinnamon bun? Y’know … to be going on with?”
Sola nodded slowly, still reading.
“Okay then.”
Miya put a cinnamon bun on the little table between the two chairs, looked around the room, put her hands together, and then left, closing the door quietly behind herself. In the corridor outside, she allowed herself a brief triumphant smirk.
“Mission: Make Sola Happy … huge success!”
“There you are! I’ve been looking EVERYWHERE for you, literally EVERYWHERE.”
“Did you check the northern jungle? Inaccessible Bay? Did you travel to Paradise Island and the Highland and to Al-Rhal and Spirea?”
“Well, no, but–”
“Then you didn’t look literally everywhere,” said Penny, smiling at her friend.
“You and your fancy talking!”
“Do you want to come in now?”
” ‘kay. I brought you some cinnamon buns. Some of them accidentally got eaten, though.”
“Oh, thanks Miya. It’s a bit close to dinner right now to have them, though. Maybe for afters.”
“You’re always so ‘proper’!”
“Come in, anyway.”
Miya followed Penny into the little cottage. It was small but densely furnished, shelves and cabinets and cupboards crammed into the hallway and kitchen, and almost every free bit of wall had something on it–paintings and carvings and decorative wall-hangings, mostly.
“Where’s your mum?” Miya asked, looking at a framed painting of a town nestled amongst green hills.
“Out with Bradley, getting stuff for dinner. Want some tea? I have to light the stove anyway.”
“Sure! Um, I’m sorry about being rude earlier, I didn’t mean to be, I’m just really–”
“It’s okay. I know what you were trying to say.”
Miya flopped into a big, comfortable kitchen chair.
“It’s all just so complicated,” she muttered.
“If only we had a bigger navy, right?” said Penny, making sure the stove was properly lit, then closing the iron door and straightening. “Or someone that would help us.”
“Yeah … too bad everyone hates us.”
“That’s not entirely accurate,” said Penny, as she filled the kettle.
“Are you saying there’s someone that doesn’t hate us?”
“No, you said ‘too bad everyone hates us’, but you should have said ‘too bad everyone hates … me’.”
Miya’s jaw dropped in mock-shock.
“Ouch!” she said. “That’s kind of mean, Penny!”
“I know. It’s sort of like revenge for you being rude this morning.”
“Oh. Well, that’s okay then.”
“It’ll take a while for the stove to heat up. Wanna split a cinnamon bun while we wait?”
“I knew you were going to say that. Before I said ‘you’re always so proper’ but that wasn’t entirely accurate, actually I should have said ‘you always PRETEND to be so proper’,” said Miya, tearing one of the buns in half. “You can have the big bit.”
“That’s unusually generous of you,” said Penny, accepting the half and taking a very large, very unladylike bite out of it.
“It’s only because I’ve already eaten like three this afternoon already.”
“I figured as much. Hey, how are you getting on with your new brother?”
“Oh, great!” said Miya, nibbling at her half. “I mean, pretty good. I wanted to bring him around to meet you earlier, actually, but you weren’t here.”
“What’s he like? I haven’t really met any northern islanders before.”
“I have, but he’s kind of different to the ones I’ve met–you know, usually they’re all, I don’t know … big and friendly and smiling and laughing all the time. Sola’s kind of serious.”
“You think maybe, just perhaps, I’m just making a guess here, a stab in the dark, you think that’s because his entire village was enslaved?”
“Penny.”
“Sorry. But that must have something to do with it.”
“I think mainly he’s lonely and kind of uncomfortable because this place is so different to his home. He came from a village of just like seventy people and he knew all of them, he’s not used to being someplace where he doesn’t know everyone.”
“Hm. I guess it was kind of the same for me when we first moved here … but then again maybe not.”
“Yeah. Can you imagine losing your entire home? And everyone you know, just taken prisoner …”
“I can’t. I can’t even imagine,” said Penny.
“Every time I start even trying to imagine I have to stop because it makes me feel so empty, and sad, and angry … but, at least I made him a bit happy today.”
“What’d you do? Oh, take him horse-riding?”
“That’s your answer for everything! No, I showed him the library, apparently in his village there were like six books total, and he read them all about a hundred times each. He’s totally nuts for books, even more than my dad maybe.”
“Wow. You wouldn’t think so to look at him. You’d think he’d be more into, y’know, hunting, fishing, outdoor stuff,” said Penny. She popped the last morsel of cinnamon bun into her mouth, leaned over and checked the fire, then shook her head. “Not even warm yet.”
“Well, he’s pretty into that stuff too. I mean, he paddled all the way here from Tonfa-Tonfa just in his canoe, that’s like ten days paddling.”
“I didn’t even think about that, pretty amazing.”
“I’ll say.”
Miya finished the last of her cinnamon bun half. “How do they make these so good?”
“I don’t know,” said Penny. “But they’re pretty much the only reason I let you hang around me.”
“What, because I bring you cinnamon buns?”
Penny shrugged with a cheeky little smile. “Pretty much.”
Miya considered this. “Well, that’s fair,” she said. “Oh, but you know who’s, like, totally addicted to them?”
“Who?”
“Lars.”
“Lars your fake uncle Lars? Lars the super-amazing sword guy Lars? No way.”
“Yep!” said Miya, delighted at Penny’s reaction.
“That’s so weird, he seems like the type of guy that doesn’t even like sweet stuff.”
“He buys like a half dozen at a time and just gromps the lot. It’s true! I’ve seen him do it!”
“What, you like followed him and hid and watched him eat six cinnamon buns in a row?” asked Penny.
“Well … kind of. It was, like, fascinating!”
“And then what, you jumped out and said ‘Surprise! The jig is up, fatty!’?”
“Huh? What? No, I just kind of crept away again.”
“I would have jumped out,” said Penny.
“No you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t even have followed him in the first place because you’re a complete wuss,” said Miya, laughing.
“I am not!”
“You are! You so are! Like that time we went exploring up the western side of the island? And we found that sea cave and you wouldn’t go in?”
“You mean the time that we found a sea cave and I warned you about how dangerous they are, and you completely ignored me and went in and got trapped when the tide changed, and I had to go get help and you almost drowned?”
“At least I didn’t wuss out!”
“Miya, Miya, Miya. Princess Miya Black. Just sometimes I’d like to know exactly how you think.”
“Hey, a lot goes on in my head. My brain goes so fast sometimes I amaze myself.”
Penny looked at Miya, disbelieving.
“You have a brain?”
The kettle did eventually boil, and after a cup of tea and another shared cinnamon bun Miya accepted Penny’s invitation to dinner. She helped prepare the food and chatted with Penny’s mother, who was a small, defiant woman who Miya was secretly just a tiny bit scared of, and her little brother Bradley, who was as annoying but oddly endearing as ever, and after a fun meal and some talk and some laughter, and after making a promise to visit more often, Miya left the little cottage and headed for home.
The sun was just beginning its slow descent, bathing the island in a kind of golden-orange glow that Miya wanted to wrap herself up in. She ran up the path to the lower fields, twirled a few times, then made her way up the cliff path to her house, stopping every few steps to admire the view.
“It’s magic outside right now, you should come out and look!” she called out as she burst through the front door, but the house was quiet. She checked her father’s study but it was empty, as was the front lounge, the nice lounge, and the evening lounge. The kitchen was empty and the stove cold, and there didn’t seem to be anybody upstairs, either.
“Mum? Dad? Sola?”
Miya made her way through the house but it seemed empty. One of the last rooms she checked was the library, and after opening the door and glancing in she was about to discount that as empty too, until she looked again and realised Sola WAS in there–in the same spot she’d left him, in fact, standing there almost as still as a statue, moving only to turn the page of the book he was reading. She looked at the little table between the two chairs and saw that the cinnamon bun she’d put there was untouched.
“Sola! Have you not moved from that spot in all the time I’ve been away?” Miya demanded. Sola didn’t move for a few seconds, then slowly he raised his head and turned to look at her.
“This book is very interesting,” he said, after a moment.
“It must be, you’ve been standing there reading it for like three hours!”
Sola looked around, out the window at the evening light.
“I didn’t realise,” he said. “Sorry.”
“You should be! Well, actually, I guess there’s nothing technically wrong with just standing in the same place reading for hours and hours and hours … but wouldn’t you be more comfortable sitting? Don’t you get tired or like cramp from standing like that?”
“I’m used to being still,” said Sola.
“Well, okay, I suppose, if you’re fine with it. Um, so I guess you haven’t seen Mum or Dad around?”
“I’ve just been here reading.”
“Okay. Um, could you maybe sit down when you do it? I just … I don’t know, it’s just kind of creepy thinking of you standing there reading like that.”
“All right,” said Sola. He moved to one of the chairs, sat down carefully, then focused on the book again.
“I’ll, um, leave you to it. Once the sun goes down you can use that lamp over there for light. Or you could take the book upstairs to your room, or, y’know, maybe to one of the lounges, the one upstairs right beside the stairs is where we usually sit in the evenings. We call it the evening lounge. You know. Because of that.”
Sola nodded.
“Okay, well, anyway, I’m gonna go look for Mum and Dad. It’s kind of strange for them not to be here, so … yes. See you later, okay?”
“Okay.”
“See ya.”
Miya left Sola to his book and then stood outside the library, thinking. After a moment she gave this up and headed for the front door, intending to check the family dock.
“Oh, hello Miya, I didn’t know you were home.”
“Mum!” Miya spun around, surprised by her mother’s sudden voice. “Where on earth were you?”
Miya’s mother looked at her. “I was just here. In the occasional lounge.”
“Oh,” said Miya. “I forgot about that one. Didn’t you hear me calling?”
“I was crocheting. You know how I get caught up in it.”
“Huh. Um.”
“Something the matter?”
“I know we made a promise not to talk about, y’know, ‘kingdom affairs’ together–”
“After The Incident I really do feel that’s best,” said Lily.
“But–”
“Miya …” her mother’s voice held a warning tone.
“I just–”
“Miya, think carefully.”
Miya looked at her mother helplessly, then sagged.
“What did you crochet?” she asked, weakly. Her mother smiled.
“It’s a scarf. I just finished it a few minutes ago. I thought you might like it.”
Lily pulled the scarf from her craft bag. It was black, with little white skulls and green clovers sewn on.
“It’s a scarf of compromise,” she said.
“Um, yes, I can kind of see,” said Miya.
“I thought you might like it for when you’re out on your ship, for once it gets colder, I mean.”
“Yes, at this time of year it’s a bit warm for a scarf,” said Miya. “Definitely too warm.”
“Well, I’ll put it away for now. I know you’d just lose it if I gave it to you now.”
“Yes, that’s almost certainly what would happen,” said Miya.
“So,” said Lily, “how are you?”
“What? I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? You look a little worn.”
“I’m just … worried.”
“We all are, sweetie,” said Lily. She patted Miya on the shoulder. “But we’ll pull through. We’re a strong family.”
“Small but tough,” said Miya.
“Exactly.”
“Did you find Dad?” Miya asked, innocently.
“No. No, I didn’t. Have you seen him?”
“He was around the house earlier, now I don’t think he’s here. Oh, don’t get a fright if you go into the library, Sola’s in there reading and he’s kind of ‘still’.”
” ‘Still’?”
“You kind of don’t notice him at first. Just warning you.”
“Well, thank you. He’s reading?”
“Yeah, apparently he’s kind of Dad-like in his book-nuttery.”
“I’m glad he’s doing something, he’s been awfully quiet.”
“I think that’s just him,” said Miya. “Um, are you okay with him and all that? I mean like … y’know … Dad’s Past.”
“I always knew your father had a past, Miya,” said Lily, using what Miya always thought of as her ‘careful’ voice. “Of course I didn’t expect something like this to come of it, especially not now, but, well, we have plenty of room and he seems like a very nice young man. We just all have to make an effort–speaking of which, thank you for trying so hard to include him in what you’re doing, it’s very noble of you.”
‘Noble’ was Queen Lilith’s highest compliment, although Miya always saw it as carrying an undertone of ‘thank goodness you’re behaving like a princess and not a pirate’ when her mother used it to describe anything she did.
“Well, I figure he needs a friend now, right? I’m trying to get him to meet more people around the island but he gets really uncomfortable in town–around strangers, he’s not used to not knowing people.”
Lily frowned. “I hope he’ll fit in.”
“Mum!”
“For his sake, of course,” Lily added, quickly.
“I should think so.”
“Do you think I can do anything?” Lily asked. “I’ve been a little preoccupied with things, I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t made any time for him.”
“I … I think maybe you shouldn’t force anything? He’s … he seems like …”
“Ah.”
“Ah!” said Lily. Tomas had opened the front door, and was frozen standing there, his hand on the knob. He looked at Lily and then at Miya, then back at his wife. His expression was what Miya thought of as his ‘dog caught raiding the biscuits’ look.
“Excuse us, would you Miya? Your father and I have some things to discuss,” said Queen Lilith. Miya shot her father a sympathetic look, then made a hasty retreat, leaving them alone. Maybe I can rescue Dad a little bit later, she thought, then he’ll owe me. I’m SURE he’s organising some kind of attack against Badger Pete. I have to be part of that.
“After all,” she said to herself as she headed out the door, “it’s my job to protect my kingdom.”
“Oh, hello, Princess! Beautiful evening, yes?”
“Yes! I was really wanting to find someone to share it with, nobody at home seemed interested. But it’s really, really gorgeous!”
Although the light wasn’t quite as magical as it had been earlier, the sun was still at least half an hour away from setting and the wispy clouds above were glowing pale gold, the shadows were long and the light warm. Miya had met Lars on the path leading down to the stables, near their training area.
“Sam is appreciating it, anyway,” said Lars. The small black and white terrier looked up, mouth hanging open in a doggish grin. “You know he has such refined sensibilities, although of course the ‘artistic temperament’ to go along with that.”
“Hello, Sam!” said Miya, kneeling to roughly stroke the dog’s head. “How’ve you been?”
Sam responded to Miya’s touch with almost ecstatic joy, squirming under her hand before jumping up a little to alternately lick and play-chew on her hand as she laughed and pushed him away.
“He’s such a nuisance!” she said, fondly. “Aren’t you? Are you the biggest nuisance of a dog on Clover Island? I think you might be! I think you are!” Miya looked up at Lars. “What have you been doing today?”
“Oh, pottering around town, that manner of thing. Nothing spectacular.” There was just a trace of wistfulness in Lars’s voice.
“I know what you mean,” said Miya, standing. “You didn’t see Dad?”
“I haven’t seen much of your father lately, he seems to be busy.”
“Oh, I thought he would’ve talked to you about stuff–he’s trying to figure out how to deal with this stupid Badger Pete thing, I would’ve thought you’d be the first person he talked to.”
“Well, you know I’m not such a great person for tactics and decisions and so forth,” said Lars. “Your father always took the lead in that manner of thing. This is why he is a king now and I am just someone who teaches wilful girls how to wave around a sword like it was not a feather duster.”
“I’ve been squeezing rocks a lot lately, I’ve been worried and busy but I’ve still been squeezing them,” said Miya. “And you know I’ve got Dad’s sword now, I’ve been practicing with it–it’s much heavier than my old one and the balance is different but I think I’m getting used to it. It’s the same kind as yours, right?”
“Not quite, his is–”
“I know, a ROYAL Amician straight sabre, he’s so funny about that. So yours isn’t?”
“My sword can be called a royal Amician straight sabre. But only by those ignorant of the bladesmith’s art, of the history of these swords. Only by those who do not treat these matters with the proper respect.”
“Gosh. You’re worse than he is.”
Lars laughed. “Some things are important, Princess.”
“I know, I know–”
“Now this looks like trouble. Three of the most wilful mischief makers on Clover Island all gathered together in one place. Hello, Knives.”
“I was just talking to the princess, saying it’s been a while since I saw you, Boots.”
Tomas walked down the path to them, stopped beside Miya, and absently leant his arm on her head.
“Dad!”
“It’s just such a convenient height,” he said, as Miya pulled away and Lars laughed.
“I should have had children,” Lars said. “I often think, where do I lean my arm? Sam is too short for it, I know, I’ve tried.”
“Hello, Sam,” said Tomas, addressing the dog. “How are you? Still the most beautiful dog on the island? Yes, I see that you are. How about you, Lars?”
“I think probably there are some on the island more beautiful than me,” said Lars. “Although perhaps you would be hard-pressed to gather a dozen of them in a room. Also I’m not a dog.”
“Oh, of course not. You know me and my trouble, I never could tell if someone was a dog or not,” said Tomas. “How have my beautiful yet difficult though certainly not-a-dog daughter’s lessons been going?”
“You know her, a mind like stone. Very difficult to chisel anything into it, but once it is there, it is there.”
Tomas nodded as Miya said ‘hey!’.
“Focusing on defence?” he asked. “I think her guards are a little sloppy.”
“I’m right here, you know,” said Miya.
“I would say her guards are fine, her guards have never been a problem, I think perhaps because some other teacher–not as fine a teacher as myself, but someone that at least knew which end of the sword to hold–spent so many hours hammering certain basics into that solid brain of hers. ‘Sloppy’ is not the word. You insult both her and yourself by using it,” said Lars, his tone half-joking, half-serious. “Her grip, however–”
“My grip’s good!” Miya protested. “I squeeze rocks all the time!”
“Grip, grip, grip, you’re never going to forget that one time, are you?” said Tomas, with a grin. “I don’t know, losing that sword was–”
“The sword that I lost was not just a sword,” said Lars. “And I seem to recall, not two months after that time, that my dedication to improving my grip was not so unappreciated, yes? Some matter of a certain person very definitely NOT breaking both legs, because another certain person was able to catch and hold him before falling. And I seem to recall something else, some small matter, so small that it seems difficult to remember exactly the details–I think it has something to do with a person who could never defeat another person. This despite some kind of special royal sword? I’m not sure, my memory is not young.”
Tomas grinned again, then he looked down at his daughter. “Anyway,” he said. “I’ve been sent out to retrieve this one.”
“Ah. Your captain has spoken,” said Lars. “And you have obeyed.”
“What?” said Miya. “Dad, I’m fourteen now. I should be able to stay out at least until the sun’s gone down.”
“Your mother is in a mood, a very … what’s the word … how do I put this … Lars, help.”
“Protective?”
“Exactly–Lars, I have no idea how, but you always do it–Miya, your mother has been in a very protective mood lately, of the island generally and of you specifically. She’s worried you might get kidnapped.”
“WHAT?”
“Well, there are pirates around. And they kidnapped Sola’s entire village, so we know they’re capable of that kind of thing.”
“I think it’s in really poor taste to make light of that, actually,” said Miya archly.
“I agree with the princess,” said Lars, mock-appalled. “As does Sam.”
“And besides which,” Miya continued, “they’re not even close to the island yet–”
“Their main fleet isn’t. But this Badger Pete’s actions so far don’t speak to a mindless, directionless thug, I actually think your mother has something of a point here. He might have sent scouts ahead, he might have agents working for him around this area, if he knows the archipelago then he’ll know that Clover Island has the largest navy of any of the islands and so represents the biggest threat–”
“You had better go with him,” Lars said to Miya. “He’s beginning to make sense to me, my experience has been that this is usually a sign of something very wrong happening.”
“Mine too,” Miya agreed.
“Besides which,” said Tomas, “What I’ve seen tonight also supports your mother’s logic. There are some very suspicious characters skulking around the place–no offense, Sam,” he said, addressing the small dog seriously, “but you do keep some rather roguish company.”
“Roguish,” said Lars, with a small sigh. “It has been years since I was called that. Although in truth I don’t appreciate it so much when it’s Boots doing the calling. I preferred the young ladies of dubious virtue.”
“Yes, well, the less said about that the better, I think,” said Tomas. “Don’t listen, Miya.”
“Huh?”
“I think she’s safe for perhaps a little while longer,” said Lars, smiling. He clapped his hands together once and Sam stopped snuffling at a likely patch of grass, trotting back to his place beside his master’s feet. “Good to see you, Boots. Don’t make the gap too wide, yes? It becomes difficult to fill.”
Tomas shook his head, smiling at his old friend. “I’ll try,” he said. “It’s funny, though, you wouldn’t expect it but being a king comes with rather a lot of responsibilities.”
“I think we had more fun in the old days,” said Lars, with a chuckle. Tomas just smiled at this.
“Come on, Daughter,” he said, tousling Miya’s short hair. “Let’s get back before your mother starts worrying. Take care of yourself, Sam. Tell that master of yours to stop skulking so much, it’s a bad habit that’ll get him into trouble one of these days.”
“He doesn’t know what to make of you sometimes,” said Lars. “But he seems to think you are a decent sort, and I know better than to argue with a terrier. Good night, Princess. I hope you dream of great adventure.”
“You too, Uncle Lars,” said Miya, turning back and waving as she walked off behind her father. “See you later, Sam!”
Miya had gone to bed as soon as they’d returned home and risen the next morning extra early, hoping to catch her father before her mother rose. Queen Lilith was a notoriously late sleeper so this wasn’t exactly difficult, and Miya found her father in the kitchen having an early breakfast.
“Dad!” she said. “Good!”
“Miya,” he replied. “No.”
“What?”
“No. I know you don’t want to hear it, but ‘no’,” said her father, before taking a bite of his toast.
“I haven’t even said anything yet!”
“But I know exactly what it is that you WILL say. And the answer, I’m sorry to say, is no.”
“Okay then, mister ‘I know everything there is to know about my daughter’, what was I going to say?”
” ‘Dad, I know you don’t want to put me in any danger but I really want to help out and do my part to protect the kingdom, and really you know I’m a good fighter and good on a ship and I’d be a great asset to you, and you need good crew, so really there’s no way you can say no, right? Right?’. Something like that.”
Rats, thought Miya. “N-no, I wasn’t going to say that,” she said. “Hah! As if I’d say something like that. Um.”
“So what were you going to say?”
“I … was going to ask you … about …”
The sound of a bell from outside interrupted Miya, to her quiet relief. Her father frowned, then got up and answered the door, coming back a minute later with a piece of paper in his hand, frowning even deeper.
“What is it?” asked Miya, through a mouthful of stolen toast.
“Badger Pete has sacked Goodport on Triangle Island. Took everything of value, stole every seaworthy vessel and left the port burning behind him.”
“Oh no.”
Tomas grimaced. “Although I feel awful for saying it, in a way this is good news for us.”
“What? Dad!”
“I mean that Triangle Island is not a part of the northern islands, and it’s a good distance to the west. I didn’t think Pete would go that far out of his way, but now it seems as though he’s conducting a systematic campaign of sacking and recruitment … and enslavement, of course. From Triangle Island it seems likely that he’d attack Blossom Island next, and then the others in that area … again, though I hate to say it, that puts a good few islands between us and his fleet. We almost certainly have more time than I had hoped, two weeks or more, especially if he returns to the northern islands … still, to sack Goodport so thoroughly–the message says he attacked with an overwhelming force, but gives no indication to actual numbers.”
“You’d think someone would’ve counted,” said Miya.
“You’ve never been in a battle,” said Tomas, “it’s not quite that easy. Especially if you’re on the losing side.”
“Huh.”
“This is a third-hand report, passed from a Goodport fisherman who saw the attack to a trader to one of our fishermen … the attack happened five days ago …”
Tomas paused a moment, then was suddenly moving, Miya dropping the toast and following him instantly, both of them heading for his study. Once there, Tomas pulled out his map while Miya cleared a space for it on his desk, then they rolled it out, weighed down the corner with some books, and studied it together. Tomas tapped Tonfa-Tonfa with the back of a pencil.
“We know he was at Tonfa-Tonfa twelve days ago,” he said. “To get from there to Triangle Island in seven days … no, let’s say six, this Pete seems like a cautious character, he’d take a day to scout out defences, prepare his attack …”
Tomas frowned at the map for a moment, while Miya looked at him expectantly.
“What?” she blurted out after a few seconds, unable to contain herself. “What’s going on?”
“I think he might have stopped at Tonfa-Tonfa–stopped attacking the northern islands, I mean. Maybe just La’asi, and then if he headed west immediately … if he didn’t … no, not with frigates …”
Tomas trailed off as he looked at the message again. “It just says ‘warships’. Maybe it was brigs … but even then, even with favourable winds the whole way–he’s travelling slower than I had thought.”
“That’s great!”
“Possibly.” Tomas tapped his pencil against his lip for a moment, then scribbled out some numbers on a piece of paper, frowned at them, then crossed a few out and wrote some slightly higher numbers in their place. He looked at these new numbers a moment, made a few quick calculations, scrabbled through a pile of books to find a small black notebook, flipped through that, ran his finger down a page filled with rows of tiny numbers, found one particular number, copied that onto the paper he was scribbling on, made a last calculation and scrawled out a final figure which he circled.
“What is it?” asked Miya, who hadn’t been able to follow her father’s last few actions at all. “What was that ‘possibly’?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Why not? Be sure!”
Tomas chuckled.
“Sorry, Coconut, but we just don’t have enough information to be certain about anything.”
“Since when has that ever stopped us? Just tell me what you think is happening!”
Tomas gazed at the map for a moment, then nodded.
“Battle fleets effectively travel at the speed of the slowest ship. You have your fast scouts, they go ahead or around or wherever, and you have your big slow warships trailing behind a little, but generally speaking everything has to arrive at the target site all together before you attack. Understand?”
Miya nodded.
“Add to that the greater organisation and communication required to co-ordinate a larger fleet, which always slows things down … I would say, based on the information we have, assuming it’s accurate, that Badger Pete has more ships that I had thought–perhaps a dozen, two dozen. We know he has at least one big frigate, from what Sola told us, probably more.” Tomas frowned again. “What Sola told us,” he repeated, then looked down at the map.
“What?” asked Miya. Her father shook his head.
“It is possible … if Pete has as many ships as I believe he does … he may have split his fleet, to attack the islands. I guessed that he attacked Wo’osi first, then Pala-Mala, then Na’alofa and Tonfa-Tonfa. I was assuming he kept his fleet together, had not the numbers to split. But if his fleet was big enough, he could have dispatched a group of ships to take Wo’osi and Pala-Mala, while the other attacked Na’alofa and Tonfa-Tonfa–no, that doesn’t work. Sola said that there were people from Pala-Mala and Na’alofa aboard the frigate he boarded, which means that that same frigate had been part of the attacks on Na’alofa and Pala-Mala–”
“Wait a sec,” said Miya. She thought a moment, then looked at the map. “That frigate would be one of the slower ships, right? So maybe Pete did split his gang up–half attack Pala-Mala, half attack Wo’osi, maybe. Then the two fleets meet up with the frigate at another point–like Tonfa-Tonfa–and transfer the slaves there.”
“Yes. Yes, maybe,” said Tomas. He looked at the map again. “In fact, that would explain why Sola didn’t see any Wo’osi’ans on the ship–Wo’osi is the northernmost island, perhaps the prisoner transport from there hadn’t quite caught up yet. This is good, Coconut.”
Miya beamed as her father continued:
“This means that–especially if that frigate is trailing the main fleet–if we could find it, target it, free the prisoners … if that is the strategy Pete is using, we may be able to use it against him.”
“Right! That way we free the islanders, cripple Pete’s biggest ship, maybe even capture Pete himself!”
“Maybe,” said Tomas. “Don’t get too excited too soon. These are all guesses, remember.”
“But such good guesses! I’m sure we must be right. We ARE right, I can feel it! But, oh, we have to hurry, if we’re going to–”
“And what’s this ‘we’ I keep hearing?”
“Um … the royal we?”
“The royal we. Meaning ‘I’. So, in fact, you are planning on doing all this yourself?”
“No! Together! With you! And the Black Navy, we have enough ships, don’t we? Even if we leave half here that’d give us four corvettes and your brig, and … and the Black Swan IS the fastest ship in the ocean, we both know that, I could scout … I wouldn’t even have to be in the battles, I could just … y’know … watch, maybe?”
Tomas looked at his daughter a long while.
“Miya … my darling …”
He stopped a moment, and cleared his throat.
“You don’t know how much I would love to have you at my side, aboard my ship.”
“So–”
Miya’s father raised his hand, and she closed her mouth.
“If you were not my daughter, I would have you as part of my crew in a moment, your age be damned.”
Miya forced herself to be silent, her dark eyes bright.
“But you are my daughter, Miya. The thought of … I’ve had dreams …” Tomas stopped again, just for a moment, then continued. “Please understand a father’s dilemma,” he said. “Please understand that … that to avoid anything, anything happening to you, I would give up everything I owned, I would give this vermin Badger Pete my crown and my island, my ship, my crew, the clothes off my back and the sword from my belt.”
“Dad …”
“But it won’t come to that,” said Tomas, his voice firm. “Because before that can happen I will fight. I will fight armed with the knowledge that you are here, and that you are safe, and that I am fighting for you. Do you know the strength that you give me, my darling? Maybe one day you will understand. But do not ever think that by staying behind–by staying safe–you are not helping.”
“I … I won’t,” said Miya.
“And please understand why you must stay behind.”
“I understand,” she said. “I still want to go with you, but …”
“Please, Miya,” said Tomas. He grinned. “Don’t make your father cry.”
“I won’t,” she said fiercely. “I’ll keep safe.”
“Good.” Tomas relaxed, letting out a long breath. “Aside from anything else, honestly, your mother WOULD kill me.”
“So. Here to waste my time? I was wondering when you’d turn up, your father mentioned something about this a few days ago.”
Miya smiled as she walked into the blacksmith’s forge, the heat of it starting her sweating within a few seconds. She’d always loved this place–the orange-white glow of the forge itself, the ever-present smells of burnt horse hoof and metal and coal, the solid walls built from huge chunks of dark stone, blackened further by the smoke of many years.
“How many times have you told me to make sure my sword is sound?”
“I didn’t know you were going to end up with that sword,” said Hands, the blacksmith. He was sitting on a wooden stump beside his anvil, shirtless but wearing a thick leather apron, his absurdly muscular body a mass of burn-scars. He was in the middle of eating a large sandwich.
“Still, could you check it? Please?”
Hands grunted.
“Ah, give us a look, then.”
Miya drew her sword. Hands glanced at it.
“Sound enough,” he said.
“Do it properly.”
“All right, all right.” Hands put his sandwich down on a stack of wood piled against the forge’s wall, then took Miya’s sword from her. “Let’s have a look at this royal Amician sword and see if it’s miraculously decided to buck the trend of every other royal Amician sword in the world and decided to break.”
Miya smiled as she watched Hands check her sword, bending it, flicking it, using an astonishing variety of small hammers to tap all along its edge–despite Hands’ words he obviously loved handling such a fine weapon, and as he examined her sword his expression changed from indifferent resignation to the happy focus of the true devotee.
“By hope, they don’t make them like this any more. You know it used to be illegal for a master Amician bladesmith to make more than one sword a year? Punishable by death! That’s how it should be, these days they just run them out as fast as they can. No craftsmanship. No passion in them. That’s what this sword has, passion. For an entire year, this was the focus of a master bladesmith’s life. Hope’s truth, the dedication! Look at this blade, how straight it is–and it’s not like it hasn’t been used either, by your father and however many owners it had before him, but still as straight as the day that Amician bladesmith looked at this sword and declared it to be perfect. Not a bit out of line. Although …”
“What? What is it?”
Hands was holding the sword up to the light, turning it this way and that as he eyed it, frowning.
“There are some signs of wear. Not surprising in a sword this old, even a royal blade. Nothing to worry about, though. This edge, on the other hand …”
He glanced at Miya.
“You sharpened it?”
“I … yes, last night–”
“I think you were a bit rough with her.”
“I just–”
“Nah, nah, just hang on a moment.”
Hands rummaged around in a small iron box, took out several small, rectangular objects before he found what he was looking for. He held it up for Miya to see–a flat, dark, bluish stone, just an inch long.
“Too small, you’re thinking? Lemme ask you, when you fight with this sword, would you use brute force?”
“That’s not really my style,” Miya scoffed.
“Right. What’s the word?”
“Finesse,” said Miya firmly.
“Right. This sword wasn’t built for brute strength, though that isn’t to say she ain’t got weight–heavier than she looks, yeah?”
Miya nodded. “It’s much heavier than my old sabre, even though it’s not that much longer.”
“They say royal blades got twice the soul of any common sword–I reckon there’s some truth in that. But look at this edge here, look how thin and straight and beautiful it is. This sword wants some finesse to keep it sharp. Like so,” said Hands, letting the tiny stone slide along the sword’s edge at a precise angle. “The sword knows what it needs. Just listen to it.”
Miya smiled as she watched Hands sharpen the sword, listened attentively as he talked her through the techniques he was using, his usual rough way of speaking disappearing completely as his love for the subject shone through, and after half an hour of instruction and practice Miya felt she’d mastered the art of sharpening her new sword. At her request, Hands tapped a tiny, precise hole through the stone and threaded a fine loop of copper through that, so she could attach it to her wrist bracelet, the stone taking its place beside the wooden horseshoe charm and tiny blue and green shell already hanging there.
It took a little effort, but eventually Miya managed to pay the blacksmith for his time and the sharpening stone.
“Ah, at your insistence, Princess,” said Hands, taking the coins Miya handed him and dropping them carelessly in his apron pocket. “Keep that sword healthy and she’ll see you right. Of course,” he added hurriedly, “it’d be best if you never had to use it, but–”
“I know Mum told you that you had to say that, Hands. Don’t worry, Dad AND Lars AND Mum have all spent hours lecturing me about everything to do with fighting and swords and ‘make no mistake Miya this is a tool of war designed to kill but in the right hands it can be used to protect’ … I mean, I get all that. You don’t need to worry about me. Anyway, see you around!”
Hands watched Miya leave his shop, his brow furrowed, then he picked up his sandwich and began from where he’d left off.
To take her mind off things and give herself something to do, Miya looked for Sola, stage two of Make Sola Happy already bubbling away in her busy little head. He wasn’t in his room, which ignited a spark of suspicion in Miya, and as she opened the door to the library this suspicion was confirmed.
“Sola! Have you been reading this WHOLE TIME since I left you here last night?”
Sola blinked, then looked up at Miya.
“Miya,” he said. “Hello.”
Miya put her hands on her hips. “Oh. My. Goodness. Think of your health, man! Have you eaten?” She spotted the absence of cinnamon bun on the little table. “Just a cinnamon bun?”
“Thank you for leaving it.”
Miya looked at the two books on the table. “Did you read these already?”
“Yes.”
One of the books was a very dry-looking treatise on naval navigation that made Miya want to yawn just looking at it. The other was, to Miya’s slight surprise, ‘Necessary Tales’, her favourite book from childhood, a collection of stories about adventure in and around the Necessary Ocean from the times before the Great Pirate War. She glanced at the book Sola was currently reading, which was a guide to sailing.
“Um,” said Miya. “Uh, did you, um, you know … understand these books?”
“I do have some questions,” said Sola, carefully placing a small purple feather in the book he was reading to mark his place, then closing it.
“Oh. Um, I … I don’t really know that much about navigation, to be completely honest, that kind of book–”
“The navigation book was very clear and precise. I could understand everything in it, although I had to read some parts carefully, and more than once. But the other book often made no sense.”
Miya bristled. “What do you mean?”
“As an example, one of the first stories in the book is about a race between Patty Kidd and Two Beard Higgins.”
“Oh yeah, I never really liked that one so much either, Patty Kidd should’ve won that race. Two Beard cheated. And the way it’s written, it’s like he’s the hero? What?”
“That wasn’t my problem with it.”
“Oh.”
“In a later story, Patty Kidd is present at the Battle of Cutter’s Rock. But that battle took place in 1650, and Two Beard was not born until 1654. In another story Patty Kidd retires from pirating, aged 32. Two Beard’s age is not given in the first story, but it’s made clear that he was older than Patty Kidd at the time.”
Miya nodded at Sola, her expression open.
“Sorry, what was the question?” she asked. “Is this like a maths problem?”
“No. Perhaps it’s a logic problem. How can Patty Kidd have been present at the Battle of Cutter’s Rock, and also retire at age 32, and also be younger than Two Beard? Are there two Two Beards?”
“Oh. Oh, I get your problem. With those kinds of stories you can’t take them too seriously. Like, in that first one? Maybe it was Two Beard that was in the race but probably it was with some no-name pirate who never did anything else. So instead of making the story about Two Beard and someone you’ve never heard of, they made it about Two Beard and Patty Kidd, which makes it more interesting. You get it?”
“No.”
“Look, when people write a story like that, they’re not trying to make it realistic or, like, accurate or anything. They’re just trying to make it fun and exciting and interesting to read. It’s not a history book.”
“I realised that quickly. But, it has real people in it. Patty Kidd was a real person, wasn’t she? I’ve read about her in a book of history. Other people in the book too, are real, Two Beard Higgins, and Doctor Bones, and Gentleman Death, and Jean and Jonathan Black–”
“Oh, they’re real all right.” Miya grinned, then dropped her favourite bombshell: “They’re my grandparents.”
It didn’t have quite the expected effect, as Sola just nodded and said, “I did wonder.”
“Oh. Most people are kind of, y’know … shocked and impressed.”
“You share the same family name and I know that our father was a pirate. That would make them my grandparents, also.”
“Oh, hey! Yeah, I guess so. Huh.”
Miya pursed her lips for a moment. Having two legendary pirates as her grandparents had always been one of her special things. Sharing it with someone else, especially someone who didn’t seem to care all that much, was a little annoying.
“Anyway,” she said, “you can’t take those stories as truth. Dad says half of the stuff in that book never even happened, and the other half didn’t happen like they say it did.”
Sola nodded. “So our grandparents are different to how they’re portrayed in these stories.”
“I, um … I don’t really know. I guess they are but I’ve never actually met them. Apparently my grandmother and grandfather had a big argument when Dad was about my age, so he jumped ship and set out on his own. That’s all I really know about them. They don’t, like, visit or anything.”
“Our father hasn’t told you any more about them?”
“Mum REALLY hates it when they’re even mentioned, and whenever Dad accidentally says something about them he clams up really fast. I think he’s a bit embarrassed or something. I don’t know why, they’re both legends. At one point they were called the King and Queen of the Necessary Ocean. My own grandparents were among the greatest pirates these waters have ever known,” said Miya, eyes shining.
“It’s unfortunate that they’re not here now,” said Sola. “In their stories, triumphing over improbable odds seemed to be an everyday occurrence for them.”
“I know, like when … wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait just one tiny little minute here, Sola, that’s it! That is IT! Oh my goodness, of course!” Miya paced around the room, chin in hand, nearly vibrating with excited energy. “We’ve all been saying ‘there’s no one to help us’, thinking we’re all alone, but we’ve got THEM! The two greatest pirates in the whole world! They’d wipe the floor with Badger Pete without even thinking, without even trying, he’d be nothing to them. Even just one of them would be enough, I bet. Oh my goodness, this is great!”
Sola watched Miya dance around the room for a few seconds.
“I don’t quite understand,” he said. Miya danced over to him and grabbed his hands, pulled him from the chair (with surprising ease, given the difference in size between the two) and then around the room, forcing an embarrassed jig out of him.
“You have just given me the greatest idea anyone on Clover Island ever had,” she said, releasing him and grabbing a chair to stop herself. “We’ll find my grandparents–Dad’s parents. We’ll track them down, it can’t be too difficult, they’re legends after all, and tell them what’s happening here. Then we come back with them and deal to Badger Pete, rescue your people, fix EVERYTHING.”
“Are you sure?” asked Sola.
“Look at my face, Sola. Do I look the slightest bit unsure?”
“No,” Sola admitted.
“This’ll be great, I’ll get to meet my grandparents! And then once they see how great Clover Island is, how good Dad’s done, they’ll probably want to live here! And we’ll be a big family, all together! And then we’ll go and help rebuild your village, and you can live there or here or like travel between both places, and maybe I can go stay with you and your family sometime, and you can bring all your like cousins and aunts and uncles and just everyone back here to have a big party, oh, it’ll be great. And it’s so simple! You couldn’t get a simpler plan!”
Sola thought for a long moment, then nodded, once.
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay?” said Miya, who had been muttering to herself about planning a big beach barbeque and how many pigs they’d need.
“Okay, I agree,” said Sola. “It’s a plan.”
“A GREAT plan.”
“For now, any plan is good. However, I have some questions.”
“Go ahead and ask. My plan is flawless.”
“First. Are they still alive?”
“Of course they are. Next!”
“How do you know?” asked Sola. Miya sighed.
“They’re LEGENDS. If they had died, there’d be a big legend ABOUT them dying. Since there isn’t, they must still be alive. QED.”
“QED?”
“Quite Easily Done. Next!”
Sola thought for a moment. “That does have some logic to it. Second. Many of their actions in these stories show a dubious moral fibre.”
“What does that mean?”
“They did what they liked and had little or no regard for the consequences of their actions.”
“Maybe that’s exactly what we need right now! Everyone’s all busy thinking and talking and humming and hawing and arguing and worrying and every day people are losing their homes! Being split up from their families! Being walked all over by that monster Badger Pete! Maybe what we need is people who’ll do what needs to be done, consequences be damned!”
“Perhaps.”
“So you agree?”
“I agree that something needs to be done, and quickly. Third. You have no idea where your grandparents are.”
“I admit that is kind of a problem. Well … we know they’re not anywhere around here. We’d have heard about them if they were. But I’m sure Dad must have had some contact with them, he MUST have.”
“Fourth,” said Sola. “Our father ran away from them. I imagine that he had a good reason.”
“He was like fourteen, you don’t need good reasons to do stuff when you’re fourteen,” said Miya, with nary a trace of self-consciousness. “Also, just going back to ‘third’ for a moment, even being in just like the general area of legendary pirates like my grandparents is going to turn up HEAPS of clues about where they are. That’s just common sense. Legendary pirates leave legendary trails.”
“But you do not know, even generally, where they might be,” said Sola.
“Yeah, but I bet Dad does. And once he hears this idea, he’ll be sailing out to find them as fast as he can. Trust me.”
Next:
4
Lost Relations
