Ben's NaNoWriMo Log

Chapter 38 added Sep 23, 2005
When Sarah first arrived at Blood Tide Cove she was nobody. On her return, she was a hero. The celebration lasted three days, though Sarah and her companions left most of the revelry to the crew. In the latter part of their first night back in the pirate haven, Sarah found herself sitting at a quiet corner table with Molly, Alec, Mordial, and Carathix. Lars was happy to join the rowdy seamen that filled the rest of the tavern. They had told the story of the impossible raid a hundred times, and it had already grown to an even more unbelievable yarn. Captain Grayson swaggered his way through the crowd, making his way toward Sarah's table. He doffed his hat to her. "Cap'n Caldwell, I must admit I misjudged ye. I thought fer sure ye'd be swingin' at the end of a noose by now, yet here ye are. I humbly beg yer forgiveness." Sarah smiled. "There's nothing to forgive, Captain Grayson. I was an untested beginner who was lucky enough to find a good crew willing to give me a chance." She grinned at Carathix. "I also happened to have a couple of useful connections." "Aye, so ye do." The pirate captain shrugged. "Well, I was never good at bein' humble, let alone beggin'. I do have a proposition for ye, however." He gestured with his goblet toward the door and the docks beyond. "Ye've got a hold full o' weapons now, but I'd wager ye don't have anyone to sell them to just yet." "I can see how you might think that," she said. "How does this proposition of yours figure in?" "Well, ye can't very well sell the things in Jal Kufri; if there was a market there, the king wouldn't have been shipping them overseas. Likewise, there's hardly ever a big market in the Midlands for weapons. That leaves you with the Morils, of whom I reckon I know more than you do. In fact, I happen to know a certain someone who will happily take them off yer hands for a reasonable price. Not as good as you could get selling them yourself, assuming ye wanted to make the trip across the Dragon, and assuming you had any contacts in the black markets there." His grin was one of supreme confidence. His arrogance irked Sarah, but she had to admit the logic of his argument. "And I suppose you would want some sort of compensation for introducing me to this friend of yours?" "Perish the thought! Think of it as a friendly gesture." He leaned forward. "What I would like, however, is an equal share in the profits from the second shipment." Sarah blinked. "The what?" "Certainly ye're not goin' to stop now? I'd hate to see such a brilliant career end as soon as it began." She hadn't even considered trying to take the second arms shipment. She was still amazed that she had been able to take the first without sending her entire crew to a watery grave. "Carathix? Could it be done?" The wizard leaned back in his chair, his hand stroking his chin. "The risk would be far greater, without a doubt. He wouldn't make the mistake of leaving the ship in the hands of Boarshead. It'll be Seakeep mages at least, Stormwatch if he manages to make the right people happy. Either way, they'll know what tricks to look for and how to counter them. They also weren't expecting anyone to attack them last time. We won't catch them off guard again." He shook his head. "There's no way we could pull it off a second time." "And if ye had another ship and a hundred more men?" "That's a different story." Carathix looked at Sarah and shrugged. "There's no guarantee that it would work, but it would even the odds quite a bit." Sarah really hadn't given any thought to trying to take the second arms shipment. The fact that they had succeeded the first time was still sinking in. The thought was tempting, though. Losing one of the three shipments surely had angered the traitor king; the loss of another would hurt him. Even if she wanted to try it, would she be able to convince her crew to follow her into the jaws of death again? She looked out into the crowd of jubilant pirates. They would follow, she had little doubt. Rather than making her happy, their loyalty only made the decision a heavier one. She held their lives in her hands. Eleven of the sixty sailors that went with her on the first raid never came back; how many more might she lose on a second? She turned to Molly, speaking in low tones. "What do you think? I don't want to go through this again if it's not going to make any difference." "Well, aside from the obvious damage to his pride," said Molly, looking up at the soot-blackened ceiling, "by my estimate the king is out about... thirty thousand crowns on this venture." "Thirty thousand?" Sarah couldn't even imagine that sort of money, at least not all at once. Molly smiled. "Swords cost money, you know." She shrugged. "Of course, if the other two shipments go through, he'll be able to absorb that loss more easily." "And what if we take two? Or all three?" "He must need the money, so the loss of potential profit will hurt a lot, plus the cost of the weapons themselves which he will still owe to Ironhold will be another debt on top of what's already there. Unless he has another source of ready income, he'll have to raise taxes." Sarah frowned. She had heard her parents grumbling about taxes on many occasions. "That sounds like it'll hurt the common folk more than the king." "In the short run, yes. The more he raises taxes, however, the less support he'll have to maintain his reign. The nobility will feel the pressure too, and his power base will erode. If it goes on long enough, he'll find himself faced with a challenge for the throne." "Civil war? That doesn't sound much better." "Toppling a king is a messy business, Sarah. There's no way around it. If it makes you feel any better, it probably wouldn't last very long; Alfred isn't a warrior king, so he doesn't have a loyal army of his own like Stephen and others like him had. He would have to depend solely on the support of his political allies, which would be thin with the royal coffers running low." Sarah weighed her options. Finally, she nodded. "All right. Let's do it."
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