“First, that’s a personal item,” Monty says, unable to quash the indignation in his voice as she chews the stem. “Second, I didn’t know about the whorish Felicity Montague doing crimes and being marooned, or we never would have come. We are trying to find her—and now we know she isn’t here, so you can let us go.” Basira presses her fingernail into the black tobacco in Monty’s case, then raises it to her nose and inhales. Monty grinds his teeth. “Is Sim here? Let me speak with her—she knows me. We’ll get this sorted.”
“The commodore is at sea,” Basira replies, testing Monty’s half-eaten biscuit on her tongue. “Protecting us from the enemies Miss Felicity Montague welcomed into our waters.”
“What article of your accords did she break?” I ask. I ask. Basira and Monty—as best he can with the manacles—look at me in surprise. Basira may have thought me mute. Monty might have forgotten I was here at all. I swallow, steeling my courage so my voice comes out as more than a whisp. “Your fleet operates under a set of predetermined laws that all the sailors agree to abide by. I’m assuming that, in return, the accords assure them some basic rights.”
Basira drops Monty’s pipe back onto the pile of our possessions. “Yes. What of it?”
“To have a fleet your size, I assume your code includes some sort of clause about the right to a fair trial—particularly since you mentioned Felicity sitting before your governors to be judged. Or something to protect your sailors from a demagogue or tyrannical captain targeting them for unfair punishment.”
Basira folds her arms. It may just be the angle of her tipped-up chin, but her smirk suddenly looks more like a smile. “What’s your question?”
“Not a question,” I say quickly. “Rather a request that you abide by your own code. Monty is a member of your fleet. Or, at least he has the ink. Which means he signed these accords as well, which means that he is entitled to a fair trial for entering your court unwelcome, during which he can present his facts and receive a judgment voted upon by more than one woman. Do you have a copy of the fleet contract we can review?”
I don’t know if any of this is true—I’m cobbling together the scant details Monty offered, plus what Basira has said about Felicity, then doing my best to channel these facts through an impression of Edward Davies—speak with authority and charm in equal measure. I’ve met enough members of the peerage to know that, even if you don’t know exactly what you’re talking about, a few official-sounding vagaries and a confident tone often more than does the trick.
“Are you his solicitor?” she asks, and I shake my head. “And yet you know so much about our laws.”
“No,” I say. “But I’m familiar with governmental structure. Yours seems to be a constitutional monarchy, with your commodore standing in for the king, though without total veto powers. The success of such a regime requires a preordained series of guidelines for your citizens to follow. Without some kind of constitution or declaration of rights, you have anarchy. Your operation seems far too well organized for that.” There is, of course, likely a good deal of corruption. No government is without that rot. But now doesn’t seem the time to mention it.
“You want to be put on trial?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say, with more confidence than I feel. “So long as we are given a chance to plead our case and judged fairly on our own situation.”
Basira considers this for a moment, then points a finger at me. Her skin glitters with oil. “But you’re not a member of the fleet. You never signed our accords. Or else you’d know there’s a provision warning sailors against bringing strangers aboard our ships without permission from the captain.”
“We’re not on board your ship,” I reply, trying to sound calmer than I feel. Be Edward! God, if I survive this, Parliament will be easy. “We are visitors to the city of Salé, which, as I understand it, is home to many pirate fleets. If you hold us in particular contempt, we would like to face the same assembly that sentenced Felicity Montague for judgment. Clearly their ruling was fair, as she broke the laws and was banished.” I really would prefer not to sit in prison for months to then be put on trial before some sort of pirate council, but I’m hoping Basira also won’t want to go to all that effort for two blokes with one set of trousers between them and will let us go. Having to assemble any governing body is often more trouble than it’s worth. Particularly if some of them are pirates at sea.
Basira laughs. “No, you’re not a solicitor.” She picks up my papers from the pile of our things, skimming them like she might find confirmation there. “You’re a politician.” She doesn’t sound quite as authoritarian as she did before—instead, she seems amused. I will take amused. I am happy to be amusing if it gets us out of here alive. “Felicity Montague could be a politician too. She loved to talk until she stopped making sense. So many words for a woman with so little to say. You would think she . . .” She trails off suddenly, staring at the spyglass she uncovered when she picked up my documents. She drops my passport—straight into a puddle of water, and I debate momentarily whether I should say something—and reaches for the spyglass.
“Why do you have this?” She holds it up to the light with the sort of reverence usually reserved for religious relics.
“It was my mother’s,” I say. “She gave it to me.”
“Who is your mother?”
“Caroline Braitwaithe Montague.”
“Is she a treasure hunter?”
I glance at Monty as best I can. “Not that I’m aware of.”
“A pirate, then.” She tests the weight of the spyglass in her hand, then flicks the lenses open and holds them to her eye. “She was a thief, at least.”
“I don’t think so,” I reply.
Basira lowers the spyglass and points it at me. “If not by thieving,” she says, “how did she come by the spyglass belonging to the captain of the Flying Dutchman?”
11
Basira looks disappointed when I don’t faint or scream or expire at her pronouncement. A flag goes up in my mind, some memory too distant to see clearly, but the name inspires nothing else. Monty looks equally at sea.
Basira lets out an exasperated sigh at our ignorance. “Isn’t that what you call it in English? Or is it de Vliegende Hollander in your stories as well?”
Vliegende Hollander. The museum, I realize suddenly. That’s where I saw it. The vanitas Buddle had shown us in the book had been called the vanitas of the Vliegende Hollander. The vanitas—the death painting—with our spyglass in it. I didn’t think to ask the meaning of the title. I didn’t know it would matter.
“You really don’t know the story?” Basira asks, looking between us. Monty gives a noncommittal grunt, but I shake my head. “The Flying Dutchman is a ghost ship cursed to sail the seas for eternity, ferrying the souls of dead and drowned sailors from this life to the next. To see the Dutchman is a sign.”
“A sign of what?” I ask.
“Death,” Basira replies. “The Dutchman only appears to take you with her. Fathoms below.” She looks down at the spyglass, running her thumb along the words carved there, and the letters spell out the rest of the name in my mind.