Arabella of Mars(63)

Judging by the angle of the masts, she had barely made any forward progress.

She peered over the keel at the larboard mast. Were the airmen there sufficiently occupied that they might not notice one small figure moving along the keel?

Perhaps. They were so far away that it was difficult to be sure. But, by the same token, she was so far from them that they might not see her. And the storm, still growing in intensity, might serve to hide her from their view.

She wiped her streaming eyes and peered down the length of the ship to where the rudder loomed from the hull. It seemed a very long distance to creep at her current pace, but it could in fact be no farther than the length of the upper deck.

A distance she had covered in one leap on many occasions, during gunnery practice and the battle with the French.

Keeping one eye on the larboard mast, she slowly edged out onto the keel … now fully visible to the topmen, though they did not seem to notice.

She swallowed, drew up her knees to her chest, took a deep breath, gripped the keel hard with her heels, and pushed off hard.

Arabella’s heart pounded as the keel’s copper surface flew by just inches below her chin. Cold rain battered like hail at her face and shoulders.

A flash of lightning limned the rudder ahead, drawing rapidly closer.

Too rapidly.

She reached out her hands to slow herself.

And then a projecting flap of copper caught her hand! Pain tore across her palm and stabbed up her arm as she tumbled away, stifling a cry of pain and alarm. The world spun around her—hull and keel and masts and black, roiling clouds tumbling crazily past in rapid succession. Thunder boomed, disorienting her still further.

Arabella flailed in the air, straining her blood-smeared fingers toward the keel as it flashed past again and again. The first time she missed. The second time she brushed it with her fingers, serving only to send herself tumbling in a different direction. Disoriented, she missed the keel again on its next pass, and again.

On the next pass, stretch though she might, the keel flew by beyond her fingers’ reach.

And again.

Panic flooded her throat. The ship was receding from her, farther and farther on each rotation. Thunder and lightning disoriented her still further.

She stretched out a leg, reaching with her toes, but the keel only smacked her foot, adding a nauseating spin to her existing tumble.

And then something slammed into the back of her head.

Stunned by the pain though she was, she quickly groped behind herself for the offending object. One hand found rough, wet wood and gripped it with panicked strength.

With a painful wrench of her shoulder, her dizzying tumble slowed; a moment later the wood struck her across the hips. She folded herself across it, clinging like a desperate monkey.

Her head still spun, though her body’s rotation had stilled. Her right hand throbbed with pain. She tasted blood.

She was clinging to the rudder, a massive plank of khoresh-wood which creaked ponderously in her arms, swaying slowly from the impact.

Looking around, she saw that both masts were bare of people. Had they completed their task and returned to the deck without seeing her? Or were the mutineers rushing toward her even now?

She wiped her eyes, shook her head to clear it, and began clambering up the rudder.

*

Climbing the rudder was far easier than moving along the keel, as the enormous black iron hinges, attached with bolts, that connected it to the keel provided many handholds.

At the top, two mighty chains floated free, their links clinking in the roaring wind. Arabella pulled herself along the larboard chain, where great blasts of wind-driven rain tried to pluck her from the ship, but as each gust came she clung tightly to the chain until it passed. At last she reached the ledge below the great cabin’s window.

Carven vines, highlighted with gold leaf, bedecked the window’s lower edge. Cautiously, keeping herself out of sight, she pulled herself along the vines, leaving behind herself a series of bloody hand-prints quickly erased by the storm. When she reached the window’s lower starboard corner, she slowly put her head over the edge so as to peer into the cabin.

Her first view was of nothing but a buff coat.

Moving her head to one side and wiping the rain from the window with her sleeve, she had to suppress a gasp. Every one of the officers was crammed into the great cabin, with hands bound behind them, eyes covered with blindfolds, and mouths stopped with gags. Even Aadim had a cloth bag pulled over his head.

One midshipman, a very young boy by the name of Watson, floated in the center of the cabin, slurping from a bottle of Captain Singh’s very best wine. The butts of two pistols projected from the waist of his trousers.

Arabella bit her lip. Watson’s participation in the mutiny surprised her; he’d seemed a pleasant enough sort. But here he was. How could she get past him to free the captain and the other officers?

Just then the hatch to the maindeck burst open and one of the two men outside stuck his head in. “Watson!” he cried, wiping rain from his face. “Get yerself and them pistols on deck! That blackamoor Mills is kicking up a fuss!” Behind him, Arabella heard shouts and growls of anger.

Watson hastily corked the wine and departed, leaving the bottle spinning in the air behind him. The hatch slammed closed, and she heard it being securely dogged.

Thank God for Mills!

The great cabin’s window was not designed to be opened from outside, but neither was it intended to be secure, and in a few moments she had worked one casement free from its catch, swung it wide, and slipped inside. The cessation of the pounding rain on her back was a small relief. “It’s Ashby, sir,” she muttered in the captain’s ear, and slipped off his blindfold. One eye was swollen and purple, which filled her heart with compassion toward him and anger toward the mutineers. “I’ll have you free in a moment.”