The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,59

known. Gunner’s barb was a reminder that he was not now what once he had been.

“A metaphor’s a gun. You gotta know its range,” Gavin said, with less defiance than he’d intended.

“Aye. But even a man firin’ at greatest random hits the mark sometimes,” Gunner said. “Like what your man Commander Ironfist done at Ru. Snatched your bacon from the coals, eh? But I guess you were speakin’ o’ metty-force. Metal farcically . . . ?”

“They trip up the best of us,” Gavin said, smirking.

Sudden as a summer squall races over the horizon, Gunner’s face went murder dark. “And how ’bout the worst of us? You got a bone to prick with me, Guile?”

Gavin blinked. “It’s, uh, it’s only an expression. I meant it could happen to any of us.”

“You di’n’t say that. And a Guile never misspeaks. And when a Guile says ‘the best of us,’ he means hisself. You meant yourself, didn’t you?”

“In this, uh, particular instance, I—You know something, Gunner? Captain Gunner, I mean. Sir.”

“Something?! Do I know something?!” The little man drew himself to his full height and grabbed his wild beard in a defiant fist. He slapped his chest. “Cap’n Gunner knows half the mysteries of the sea and sky, and all lissome lies and winsome ways of a woman’s wink, and more of the conundra of the cannonade than other cunts kin count!” He frowned at a sudden thought. “Also not bad with a fiddle.”

Gavin took a deep breath. “You know why we’re doing this?” Gavin asked.

Gunner ignored him. “Also a fair hand with a fiddle. Also a fine . . . Aha! A fair fine fiddler, too!”

“Do you know why we’re doing this?” Gavin repeated.

“I heard ya! It’s only din a few bays. Days. I ain’t forgot. We go to ensconce our legends in the firmament of the Celestine! They’ll be naming constellations after us. Me mostly, ’tis truth, but there’s stars enough to go ’round.”

“That ain’t the why for me,” Gavin said.

Gunner made his voice small, whiny, mocking: “ ‘We’re already legends!’ says you. I know. So why for you? You really think you’ll save your lady’s skin? From the master o’ them?” Gunner threw his chin toward his Order crew, meaning Grinwoody.

“You ever wonder if you’re a good man, Gunner?”

“Eh?” Gunner scrunched his face like he was trying to pick some jerked meat out between his teeth with his tongue. “I’m tops at most things what I put my hand to. But being a man? Ain’t really something you gotta try at if you’re in our perfessions, aye? Not sure what kinda pirate worries ’bout how manly he is.” Gunner stopped, looked at his first mate. “Pansy!”

The woman, with her hair glued in hard, spiky points, resembled a flower in zero respects; she was at the ship’s wheel on the sterncastle, twenty paces away. Her body was as hard as a terebinth tree clinging to a wind-torn cliff, and her face was harder still. “Aye, Cap’n?” she shouted, even her voice harsh.

“Pansy, you ever worry ’bout how manly you are?”

She answered immediately. “Daily, Cap’n!”

“Didn’t think so!” Gunner said. He scowled at Gavin.

Gavin couldn’t tell if the pirate was taking the piss.

He tried another tack. “Captain, I got a head full o’ books, enough to know a few things. For good and ill, history’s written with a blood-dipped quill. Good men died, fighting against me, under the banners of bad men, held there perhaps by old loyalties or law. But that never bothered me. We who gamble in taking up arms with the intent to kill know that our own lives are our ante,” Gavin said. “But I get this dream. Not every night, but often enough to dread sleep. In it, I’m manacled to a kneeler, and buckets of blameless blood march into a darkened room and pour themselves over my hands while I fight to get away, and all the time, they shriek at me. You ken?”

Gunner nodded.

Ridiculous. Gavin had never told anyone about that. Maybe he would’ve told Karris, if they’d had longer together.

“From the Freein’?” Gunner asked.

“Aye.” ‘Ayes’ and ‘ain’ts’ now seasoned Gavin’s speech like salt in jerked meat. “There was this girl . . .” He trailed off. And at the end, he’d given her death. He gave them all death.

It made him want to vomit all over again. How could I have done that?

“Ya killed her, I s’pose? So what? It’s the voyage they sign on for, innit?” Gunner asked. “Yer drafters.”

“It is,” Gavin allowed, narrowly