“Call me whore?” Mia nodded slow. “Fool it is, then.”
“There were witnesses aplenty,” Ashlinn said. “If we—”
“Enough!”
The bellow pierced the air, sharp and bright. All eyes turned to the balcony. Valdyr was sitting up straight in the Throne of Scoundrels, Mia’s longsword placed point-first in the floorboards, one scarred and callused hand at rest on the pommel.
“Draker,” he said. “If you have umbrage, then call for Affray. If not, shut your fucking mouth before I make you my woman and burn your ship into the sea.”
The Hangman’s captain took an involuntary step back, but then glared at Mia.
“Aye,” the man snarled. “The Hangman demands Affray.”
Mia whispered sidelong to Butcher. “Is that the trial-by-combat thing?”
“Aye.”
Corleone raised a hand. “Now, ju—”
“I accept,” Mia shouted.
A chorus of cheers and shouts went around the mezzanines, the captains and their crews clunking tankards and stamping feet and expressing general contentment at the possibility of more bloodshed.
“Shit,” Corleone sighed. “Shiiiiiiiiiit.”
“What?” Mia hissed. “I already kicked the little bastard’s teeth out of his head. You think I can’t skip along a few of those wires and knock his arse into the drink?”
“You’ll not be fighting Draker Junior,” Corleone explained. “It was the Hangman who issued challenge. The ship. That means her captain gets to pick his finest salt to romance you. He’s not about to send his son and heir to fight you, or you could claim Draker Junior’s share of the ship through Heritance.”
“Heritance!” Butcher cried, immediately lowering his voice. “That was it! That’s the law I couldn’t remember! I knew it was an H word.”
“What the flaming blue fuck is Heritance?” Mia whispered.
“Fourth Law of the Salt,” Cloud said. “Governs ownership of property acquired in pursuit of matters … felonious.”
“Eh?”
“Booty, lass,” BigJon said. “It’s about booty and right of conquest. Be it on Seas of Four, or dry of land, when you claim a man’s life, you claim all he was. You kill a man, his purse is yours. You kill a captain, his ship is yours. So you kill Draker Junior, anything his father has bequeathed him would go to you.”
“Let me understand this,” Sid said. “You people have codified a law that actually encourages you to murder your comrades and take their shit?”
“Well, how would you run it, then?” BigJon demanded, looking Sid up and down. “A man gets topped and any bucktoothed mongrel with a sticky set of fingers can come grab what he wants? Or the state takes it, maybe? Sounds a recipe for chaos to me.”
“Aye,” Corleone nodded. “This way, it’s all kept aboveboard. I keep telling you, just because we’re pirates doesn’t mean we’re lawless brigands.”
“And I keep telling you,” Sid boggled, “that’s exactly what it fucking means!”
“Claim a man’s life, you claim all he was,” Mia murmured.
“Aye,” Corleone said. “So the fellow they’ll send to fight you won’t be possessed of much. And anything he does own, he’ll probably bequeath to his captain or mates before the battle.”
Mia looked across the room and saw a mountain of a man wearing a hangman’s noose who was indeed hastily scribbling a note on a scrap of parchment. He handed the note to his captain, who tucked it inside his greatcoat. The man then took the stairs down to the common floor. He was Dweymeri, as big as a small wagon, his saltlocks cut into a short, wild crop atop his head. His biceps were thicker than Mia’s thighs, his face marked with beautiful inkwerk and rent with awful scars earned from a lifetime of battle.
Sigursson had climbed down from the king’s balcony to stand before Mia. He held out a heavy wooden blade edged with obsidian shards.
“Mother Trelene watch over you, girl. Lady Tsana guide your hand.”
“All right, then,” she muttered.
Mia handed Jonnen over to Ashlinn, kissed her girl fiercely on the lips.
“Don’t you die on me,” Ash warned.
“Sounds a sensible plan.”
“You actually have a plan?”
Mia sucked her lip and scowled. “I’m working on it.”
The girls kissed again, until Corleone finally cleared his throat.
“Is there anything you’d like to bequeath to…”
Mia turned to look the captain in the eye, and his voice failed.
“Right,” he nodded. “Had to ask.”
Mia kissed Jonnen on the brow. “I’m going to need Eclipse. Just for a while, all right?”
The boy nodded slow, glanced at Mia’s opponent. The man was twirling his blade through the air as if it were an extension of his own body, the air left bleeding behind it. His muscles caught the muted sunslight, gleaming like polished steel.