Widow's Welcome by D K Fields

Author:D K Fields [Fields, D K]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781789542486
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2019-07-10T04:00:00+00:00

*

I wished that my other self would do what needed to be done. His approach was direct and unfailing, and he was everything I was not. But in this Black Jefferey failed me.

I waited as long as I could, almost starving myself in a kind of paralysis of inaction, of indecision. I could only take so much of the ensuing self-loathing, and it was that which drove me from the cabin. I stood painstakingly slowly. My legs shook from the balls of my feet all the way to my hips, as if my exposed ribs and prominent shoulders weighed a ship’s worth of crew. Hunger was through feasting on my insides and instead sulked where my stomach once was. I eased the door open a fraction; it was heavier than I remembered. In my other hand I held the knife I’d used to kill Brin.

I staggered, lively as a corpse, through a dead ship.

Fian had passed, still in her hammock. Judging by the damp patch beneath her she had been one to sweat in the fever, and not that long ago. There was nothing I could do for her, except maybe cut the hammock’s ties, but that felt pointless, childish even.

I saw no one else below deck, from one end of the ship to the other. Beyond the hammocks the galley was predictably empty. Though I knew I was hungry, the thought of food, of anything passing my lips ever again, made me shudder. I fled from fruit that was near ruin.

At the door to the captain’s cabin I paused only briefly, feeling sure there was someone inside.

Mona was by the table, which was covered in open map scrolls, just as I had seen the captain so many times before. She seemed to understand what she was looking at, and she kept her gaze on those thin, faint lines when she said, ‘Hello, Orin.’

I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. ‘I realise now, I never told you my name,’ I said, my back to her.

‘You didn’t have to. I chose you, not Cope.’

‘Because I saw Dahey die?’ I said.

‘I may not believe your legend myself, but the Audience are fickle. What better way to bring plague and death to this ship, than to have Black Jefferey himself aboard?’

I turned, the knife clear in my hand. Perhaps she saw it catch the light, or perhaps she could just sense the keenness of its edge, the readiness of it.

‘Is that for me?’ she said.

‘For us.’

‘I was wrong, then, when I said you wouldn’t understand.’

‘I understand we both deserve the Widow’s judgement. And I’ll take my chances with the rest of the Audience.’

‘We could wait for the plague,’ she said calmly, as if discussing options for an afternoon stroll.

‘You don’t need to pretend anymore, Mona. I know you survived it. Why else would you be alive?’

‘Oh, you know, do you? Why are you still alive then, Sanga?’

‘Because I am the plague.’

She gave a mocking bow. ‘Then I thank you, for making my role in this tale all the easier.

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