Shame douses the annoyance. The man has discovered his only son is robbing his people of their livelihood. Now that son has taken his only grandchild captive. Can I blame him for being in a constant state of panicked excitement? No. He is beside himself with worry, and he is pleading with us to hurry.
With the badly tilting deck, wecannothurry. We need to hold tight to the side as we pick our way. We creep toward the ladder descending belowdecks. I am almost there when a figure flickers to my left. I nearly ignore it, presuming it is Lord Thomas urging us to hurry. Then I see a waving hand, a hand that is certainly not Lord Thomas’s pudgy and wrinkled one. I spin, and I have only the faintest impression of Andrés, waving to get my attention before he vanishes again.
“Andrés?” I whisper.
Nicolas turns. “You see him?”
“Briefly and not well. He seems to be trying to say something.”
That tension in me coils tighter.
Something is wrong.
Nicolas nods. “No doubt he is trying to tell us there is a young woman captive below. I can only imagine the panic that would cause for him. He doubtless fears she is about to suffer his fate.”
That makes sense. And yet...
I peer down the hatch into the darkness belowdecks.
What if this is not what it seems? What if it is a trap? Yes, Emily could be there, but perhaps she is not a captive but a willing lure. She seemed to be an ally, and my instincts say she is. Do I trust that?
Nicolas has begun descending the ladder. I motion for him to come back up, but he cannot see me. I pause only a heartbeat before climbing down after him.
We’re on the first level among the crew quarters. Water pools around our feet, and to my left, the tilted corridor is under several feet of water. That is one reason for Emily’s captors choosing the captain’s quarters—it is a high point, still almost dry.
I’m about to whisper that we need to speak when voices waft from down the corridor. A man tells someone, “Stop that.”
“The rope chafes,” Emily snaps. “I wish it loosened.”
Nicolas’s head jerks up. When I slip beside him, his hand goes out to stop me, as if I were trying to get past.
I lean in to whisper my fears, which this exchange seems to confirm. Emily is a false captive, snapping at her captor to loosen her staged bonds.
“Why don’t I just remove it for you, your majesty?” the man says.
“That would be grand. Would you?”
The man snorts. “If you wished to be treated like his lordship’s niece, perhaps you ought to have remembered that before you betrayed him.”
“I did not betray him. He is behaving monstrously, and I will not sit by and watch it. He has put me here to teach me a lesson. The only lesson I am learning is that he is not the man I thought he was.”
Nicolas exhales, nodding as he realizes Emily is truly a prisoner, and we have not stepped into a trap. Yes, as a writer, I am suspicious, always imagining the twists one might add to a plot. The lord’s niece is a traitor! No, she is an ally! No, she is a traitor pretending to be an ally!
If I were writing this scene, I might indeed have Emily-the-traitor decry her imprisonment when the hero is within earshot, but my dialogue would be very different from what we just heard.
Emily is indeed a captive, and her reaction is not terror, as one might paint such a damsel, but annoyance and anger, and I credit her for that, even if I worry that she does not quite understand the severity of the situation. How could she? To her, she is indeed merely being taught a lesson.
Nicolas leans to my ear and whispers, “All is well, non?”
I glance at him. “You think she is faking captivity?”
“I do not now. I simply...” He looks around and then says again, “You do feel all is well, non?”
“Why do you hesitate?” a voice says behind me as Lord Thomas’s ghost hurries past. He turns to face us. “She is right there.”
“And she is fine,” I whisper. “Annoyed but not in immediate danger. We hesitate because we are uncertain.”
“Of what?” he says, voice rising. “My son is on his way. You do not have much time.”