Chapter 207: Toe the Scratch

By then, James let his own voice come back plain and thought no more of it.

The roars that came up from the cockpit below belonged to no bird alive, and it drew him back toward the spectacle.

He didn’t need long to see what had changed.

The cockfighting card had run its course sometime in the last hour, and the same sunken circle that had dying roosters now belonged to sailors squaring off with nothing but their fists.

Blood marked the boards in multiple spots, dark and dry, which told James this wasn’t the first fight of the night.

The crowd leaned in cheered or kept a wary distance, and Kwaku stood plainly enough between the two.

The fellow that faced Kwaku staggered, blood dripping from one eyebrow, and then made the common mistake of swinging with everything he had left.

Kwaku caught him mid-swing, jerked him forward, and drove his face into the ground with such force that teeth and blood flew together. The man’s nose flattened against the packed earth, and the crack of bone spread clean over the pit.

He dropped hard, twitched once, and lay still, blood running from his mouth onto the boards. Still breathing, but he wouldn’t be toeing the scratch again that night, and likely not the next few nights either.

The crowd roared with excitement, and even some familiarity. Most of them shouted fresh odds on whoever climbed in next, while the loser was forgotten almost at once.

Coins and kerchiefs changed hands over who would wear the winning colors in the next round.

Kwaku climbed out without hurrying. His knuckles were marked, but his face wore the usual expression, which was none at all.

He found James waiting and gave him no more than a nod, quite unconcerned about the blood drying on his hand.

"Bloody hell."

James looked him over, more delighted than he had expected.

"Beatin’ half this pit senseless is yer idea of findin’ new hands, is it?"

Kwaku turned the thought over with consideration, then replied.

"I made offers of a captain’s articles this evening. Every one was declined."

"Only natural. Stranger asks a man to sail off with him."

"One needed asking twice."

Kwaku’s hands remained loose at his sides while he spoke, without so much as a gesture to accompany words that might have made another man wince. "His first answer struck me as premature, so I pressed him again, with considerably more persuasion than the first attempt required. I took hold of a portion of his testicles, and applied pressure until he reconsidered his position in full."

James lips parted open, then shut it again before words escaped. He replied between a laugh and a wince and left it there.

Kwaku went on as though he had said nothing special.

"That is how I learned the name of the one soul on this pit actually worth asking."

He raised one hand, unhurried, and called across the noise.

"Bran!"

Bran moved when the name reached her, breaking away from a knot of rough men and women loitering near the pit.

All of them turned to watch her go, just as James did.

She came across sun-browned and hard-muscled through the shoulder in a way most women in this city never got the chance to be. An old scar showed pale against the brown of one forearm.

Her copper hair was hacked to the shoulders, and her linen shirt was laced tight across a large chest that would have been difficult to ignore even if she had given reason to try, while below them she had a pair of thick hips and a broad, heavy rear that gave her altogether too much figure to be mistaken for delicate.

A billhook hung easy there, carried with the same indifference another woman might give a fan.

"There he is, then, look you."

She looked James over from boots to hat without the least hesitation and grinned wide enough to show a chipped tooth. "The great captain everyone’s been going on about all evening, is it? There’s a fine sight for you, though I’ll own I expected more blarney from a man they’re calling the very devil for charm."

James raised a brow, unsure how his reputation had even spread this far already.

"Kwaku, bach, you might have warned the poor man I was coming."

She let neither of them time to catch up. "Bran, they call me. Branwen ferch Ithel, if you’re wanting the whole mouthful, though nobody’s troubled with that since my own mother stopped hollering it after me for supper."

She shot him another look from head to boot and seemed very pleased with the result.

"Well, you’ll do. Sail well, do you, Captain, or is that Kwaku’s job entirely?"

"Aye, well enough."

James laughed, amused despite himself. "Better than I fight bare-knuckle, I’d wager, though I’ve not had the pleasure of finding out which of us would win that argument."

"There’s time yet."

James couldn’t have sworn whether she meant it as a promise or a threat.

"And what exactly are ye wanting a berth on my ship for, lass?"

"Oh, the work’s the work, isn’t it? Same as anywhere."

She said it almost as an afterthought. "My Crows’ll be wanting their berths too, mind, and no argument over it, since I don’t sail anywhere my own people don’t sail alongside me."

Fair enough, though he had to ask. "And what exactly do you and your Crows bring to a deck, besides a fondness for landing a man face first into a mast?"

She would reply, but Kwaku got there first.

He seemed mildly impressed, for once. "She is proficient with a variety of implements, several of which I confess I would not have considered weapons before this evening."

"Damn right I am."

Bran didn’t seem troubled by it. "My Crows are the finest fighting hands in this whole city, look you, and there’s not a soul standing at this pit that’ll tell you different."

Some handful of rough men and women nearby nodded along. They were plainly her own people, already turned to watch.

James saw how much of the crowd near the pit answered to her.

It made he rather curious. "Why does a lass who commands that much respect of her own want any part of a ship’s crew at all?"

Bran’s expression eased, and her voice dropped low enough that James had to lean closer to hear her. "I’ve had my fill of this city’s pit, Captain. Some coin thrown at broken men and women for others amusement, night after night, and nothing ever comes of it but another broken back come morning."

She looked toward the harbor direction again, past the cockpit walls.

There was no play in her now. "I’ve heard tell from Kwaku that you run a fair ship, and an easy one besides, not a bloody one. Whatever they say of me and mine, I’ve no taste left in my mouth for violence that serves nothing beyond itself."

James believed her.

"You’re in, lass. You and every Crow that’ll follow you aboard."

"Well now."

Bran’s grin returned twice as wide as before.

"That is done, then."

James waved her towards the pit, to figure out how to break the news for her folks.

Then he set off into the noise of the room.

One fool left to find, and his own lucky charm besides.