I watched her staring at the waves, and I knew that it wasn’t only Xander who she had been keeping faith with, but Lucia, whom nobody had listened to, at the end.
The crew had jumped from the dinghy, and three of them began to haul it on to the beach. The fourth sailor limped as he waded to Piper. They shook hands, the man grasping Piper’s hand with both of his.
“This is Thomas,” Piper said, turning to me. “Captain of The Rosalind.”
“We didn’t see the signal fire until just before dawn,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if we’d get here in time to catch you.”
“We thought you’d been taken,” I said.
“We nearly were,” Thomas said. “We hit a bad summer storm in the western straits, barely a month after we’d left the island. We got off fairly lightly, but The Evelyn was driven aground on a reef. The damage was bad, and half of their water tanks were wrecked too, so Hobb had to turn back.” He looked grim. “Zoe told us about what’s happened: the island. The figureheads. What the General said, about Hobb and the crew being captured. They must have got back just after the Council seized the island. Probably sailed right into the Council’s fleet.”
“And your figurehead?” said Piper, turning to look at the ship’s patched prow. “I saw it myself. How the hell did they get hold of that?”
“When we eventually came back, we didn’t make it back to the island—a Council ship gave chase just outside the reef. Got close enough to do some damage to our mast, but we managed to lose them in the western reef and get clear. We knew then that the island must have fallen. We limped back to the mainland, and came here first, like we’d agreed. But there was no signal, no sign of anyone from the resistance. After that we tried all the usual places, but there were no signal fires, and more and more Council ships about. In Chantler Bay there were three of them at anchor—we only got past there unseen because it was dark. The winter storms were well and truly starting by then, and we got desperate—even dropped anchor by Atkin Point and sent four scouts inland to the safe house, but it was burned out. Had to keep moving—they’re patrolling the coast more tightly than ever. We’d been spotted again, and had one of their brigs on our tail, when the big storm blew in from the north, a month back. Seas as high as I’ve seen. We shook off the Council ship, but lost two men. Ran aground on some rocks, just off Chantler Bay, started taking on water. That’s when we lost the figurehead, and half the prow with it. The brig that was chasing us must have come across it. Who knows if they really thought we’d gone down, or if they just wanted you to think we had?
“When the storm was over, we couldn’t even find somewhere safe to beach and fix the hull. I had to keep the crew on the pumps night and day.”
“I came here first,” Zoe said, taking over the story. “Right after I’d left you. Waited a few nights. Tried Chantler Bay, but drew a blank. But a fisherwoman in a tavern there said she’d seen a ship, listing badly, and heading south. She said it wasn’t one of the Council’s, but too big to be a local fishing boat. I went down to Siddle Point, lit the signal fire on the old lookout post, three nights running. A patrol came through, too, on the second day, passed not a hundred yards from where I was hiding. I was about to give up. I could hardly believe it, on the third night, when I saw the lantern flashing back at me.
“When I was aboard, we sailed back here.” I thought of Zoe’s nightly dreams, and knew what it must have cost her, to take to the sea again. “The patrol ships hardly ever come this far north,” she went on, “so we were able to beach The Rosalind in Coldharbor Bay. It took almost a week just to fix the hull.” She looked at me and Piper. “If you’d come a few days later, you’d have missed us. I was going to head back to New Hobart, to Simon, and leave the crew here to guard Paloma.”