Flowers to fruit

Knotty can sense it after she wakes up. She rolls over, sweat cooling in the middle of her shoulder-blades from the humid air that has pressed close to her skin all night after the rain. Almost imperceptible, the scent of dairy she breathes in on the back of her partner, Make’s, neck. Knotty reaches over under the blankets to knead the flesh below the other woman’s navel by rolling the heel of her hand and fingers.

Make touches Knotty’s face behind her. Always the first out of bed, Knotty, especially now since she can hear a commotion on deck. Let the dogs fight, she thinks, burn some of that fury out of them. She washes at a ewer, scrubbing her face and neck with seawater, and retrieves her red-feathered tricorne hat from the bedpost. It contrasts her dark stringy curls.

She crouches in front of Make. The other woman has twisted her body uncomfortably, her gut lain to the mattress to try and dull the ache there. “What shall we dress you in?”

Knotty opens the chest in her cabin, a trove of their shared belongings. Make’s half is mostly bundled petticoats, bodices, and lace. Knotty’s is a tumble of men’s clothing—linen shirts, breeches, and woollen coats—her preference, easier to move in (and undo, she had told Make once with a crook of her mouth).

Their valuables, Knotty’s pistols and Make’s jewellery, a row of brooches, rest underneath them. Knotty frowns. The brooches have begun to rust. Even small luxuries don’t do well on the ship. Her spice reserves, too, are unenviable. Perhaps the cook will have some. A tan and green waistcoat across her arm for Make to choose from, she closes the lid of the chest harder than she should, apologises for the noise, and helps Make out of her shift into a blouse, buttoning her waistcoat.

Knotty rarely pleads, but as her fingers press and fasten, she whispers next to Make’s earlobe, “Stay in.”

“You’ll need me at your side today.”

Knotty grunts, unable to argue. She has left the crew for too long, as they find out upon hearing a body slam into the cabin door. Knotty opens it from the inside to see the nose cartilage of her first mate smashed under her boatswain’s fist.

A spray of blood flecks her upper lip before the two women mind the unlatched door and stumble into something of a lineup, clothes in disarray.

“Anyone who throws the next punch will be holystoning this deck from now until sundown,” Knotty warns them.

“Captain, I have a brilliant proposition for you!” her first mate, Reimburse, grins, blood on her teeth.

“She’ll get us all killed with her talk!” Oneness, the boatswain, snarls.

Make lays a hand on Knotty’s shoulder, a looming presence of refinement. Motherly, she is shied from by the crew like children afraid to take blame. “Let me.”

“With respect, miss, it’s the captain’s responsibility to settle disagreements.”

“They’re all yours,” Knotty says dismissively, leaving both crewmembers at Make’s mercy while she heads in the direction of the galley.

The cook, Far, is bent over the brick hearth. She dusts hen feathers from her hands, swatting them past her apron.

“Far.”

“Captain.” She spares Knotty a moment to nod and then resumes tending to the plucked bird. “I thought I’d let the crew have something special, rum and fruit tonight.”

“Mm.” Knotty inclines her head to give her approval. “Do you have any ginger?”

“How much?”

“Pot of tea’s worth. Make is on the rag.”

“I’ll bring it to you. Will you be in your cabin?” the cook asks, and when her captain answers affirmatively, “Make, too?”

“Safest with me.”

“I only remember what happened the last time, is all.”

Knotty stops stroking the old scar on her chin. She takes her leave of the cook, ambushed by the first mate on her way out of the galley. An arm thrown around her shoulders, Knotty is steered by Reimburse to a private corner on the gangway to the forecastle.

“Captain, I’ve had what Make calls an ‘epiphany’—”

“Have you made your apology to the boatswain?”

“—and she’s in full support of my proposal,” the first mate barrels ahead without regard for her question. “Captain, why don’t you just kill the bitch?”

She mistakes her captain’s appalled silence, as she often does, for her acceptance, continuing eagerly, “I would do her in for you.”

“And the small army she brings with her? Would you kill them too?” Knotty asks in a brusque tone. The wind blows wisps of her hair onto her lips.

“Well, I might need a dash of o-be-joyful first, but I’d manage.”

Knotty ravages that line of thought with one of her seething expressions. “It’s an honour to be one of the five. We wouldn’t last a day without their protection.”

“But Captain, wouldn’t you rather own the five?”

That draws a few intrigued looks from the women working near the foremast. The group has idled to hear their conversation. The boatswain barges past, urging the onlookers to continue their duties.

“Captain. Reimburse.” To the latter, she asks, “How’re your teeth?”

The first mate laughs, baring them all. “Intact.”

“Rowboat’s been spotted off the larboard, Captain.”

Knotty considers the shadow smudged on the expanse of sea. Bobbing closer, the craft is crammed full of bodies, at least five. She instructs her boatswain, “Help them to board.”

“You aren’t going to meet them without your sword, surely?”

The first mate’s hand landing hard on her shoulder stops Knotty from heading towards the rope ladder to oversee its deployment. Reimburse shoves open Knotty’s coat and goes to stuff a knife in the inner pocket.

“No,” Knotty refuses the weapon curtly. “We aren’t to present a violent reception.”

“Or a suppliant one,” Make’s voice comes from her right. The other woman’s hands slip a belt around her waist. Her sword, a familiar weight, nudges her hip.

Knotty tells her first mate, “I want you below deck in the hold throughout this visit. I’ll send Make to you if need be.”

Reimburse nods, tucking the knife in her hand out of view at the same time a boot appears on top of the gunwale, a leg kicked over it.

A child clambers onto the ship, then another, and another. The first mate curses, the boatswain sucks her teeth. Knotty only adjusts her coat.

The children are followed by two much older women, scarred, greying at their hair, and Rakehell.

Ostentatious, Rakehell. Longer-haired than Knotty, if the captain wears one of her best coats, Rakehell would wear one of exquisite fabric. If Knotty dares to wear a ring, she would wear ten. The type of person who never puts something back the way it was after they have picked it up. Objects are theirs to use, not tidy, care for, or make proper. If they do not bend to her whim, they are broken.

She is encircled by a host of ship’s girls. One pauses to gaze in awe at the hypnotic threadwork of Make’s waistcoat, subjected to a kick in the back of the leg by an older lackey so their knee is skinned on the deck. They scurry backwards, received warmly at Rakehell’s side with a hand tousling their hair, though Rakehell does not look at them.

“What cheer?” Rakehell extends her hand in greeting. Knotty clasps it, feeling Rakehell’s numerous rings bite the flesh of her palm. She glances at Knotty’s sword a second too long to be missed.

Knotty musters a cordial smile. “Shall we retire to my cabin?”

Two chairs have been positioned facing each other inside of the captain’s cabin. Knotty, Make, and Rakehell enter. The ship’s girls and older women accompanying Rakehell wait outside, not straying far from the door, Knotty is certain.

She retrieves her coin purse from a locked drawer at her desk. Make stands without a chair while the other two women take their seats.

Rakehell, upon being handed the coin purse, begins to count each of the gold pieces one by one in her lap, her fingers sliding greasily over their faces.

In her peripheral, Knotty notices Make behind her chair wringing her hands on the back of the furniture. The other woman touches her gut, rubbing her fingers across it.

“You should sit.”

“No.”

Once the coin purse has been emptied, Rakehell returns the coins inside. “Exactly what I asked for. No more, no less.”

Knotty waits, expectant of Rakehell to leave. Instead, she sinks deeper into her chair, arm on knee, her chin leant on her fist. Her gaze shifts to Make.

“Make, is it? Let me ask you something. If you were under my employ for years…if I ate with you, taught you, if I gave you the cunning to survive on your own, and all the more so because I gave you a ship, would you expect to be given exactly what you asked for in return, no more, no less?”

Make drifts across the room to the chest she and Knotty share, pushing back the lid. She comes away with one of her brooches, least decayed by the weather out of its set, passing it to Rakehell. Knotty can’t bear to look up, staring at the back of her fist on the chair arm. Her stomach twinges at Rakehell’s Thank you, dear.

Rakehell inspects the jewellery for the span of a breath, then adds it to the coin purse. “You could learn from her. A lesson in hospitality,” she calls out to Knotty once Make has reassumed her position behind the captain. “I’ve also come to discuss manpower.”

“You’re press-ganging plenty of daughters, I hear,” Knotty retorts.

Rakehell hmphs, betraying some amusement on her face. Disdain, too. “One of the little urchins brought a disease onto my ship, killed half my able crew. I thought you might be able to spare a hand or two for a few months.” The slyness of her phrase leeches the tolerance from Knotty and Make’s faces.

“Not a one!” This, from Make, who stands between Knotty and Rakehell.

The corners of Rakehell’s mouth fishhook upwards. She laughs belly-deep as Make continues her tirade.

“This wasn’t part of your agreement,” she protests to Knotty. “I’d sooner commit them to the bottom of the sea than her rancorous service!”

“Make—” Knotty stands up. To allay Make’s anger is her first concern, but then Rakehell leaves her chair as well.

The world pitches to one side, Knotty’s head beleaguered by tenfold heaviness. Rakehell is on top of her, a knifepoint skewering the fabric of her coat at the shoulder. She cannot breathe. Rakehell has gripped her by the throat. Knotty grasps for her sword, hindered from drawing it out of its sheath because of the proximity between their bodies. She punches Rakehell in the face, which the other woman finds hilarious.

Make screams, “Stop it!” She doesn’t dare to come any closer with the threat hanging in the air a swipe of Rakehell’s knife could open Knotty from shoulder to hip.

Someone yells outside of the cabin door. A fist or boot thuds it, an attempt at entry thwarted by resistance from another person.

“Perhaps I should bring you with me,” Rakehell suggests to Make. She chuckles at the horror in the other woman’s eyes. “Only a joke. If I were to take anyone, it wouldn’t be you.”

Rakehell stares fiercely at Knotty, smiling. Knotty’s body surges towards her out of hatred. Having rent her coat, the knife in Rakehell’s fist pierces her flesh, the blade deep enough it scrapes bone. If not for the hand at her throat, Knotty’s shrieking would be heard above them on deck.

Make brandishes one of Knotty’s pistols from behind her back where she had kept it hidden amongst the folds of her petticoat. She pulls back the hammer. The mechanism creaks from disuse, but locks sturdily in place as it is meant to.

Rakehell cocks her head at the sound. She lifts her chin, unperturbed by the weapon, and remarks flatly, “We both know that pistol has no shot.”

The pressure on Knotty’s throat eases somewhat. She raises a hand, her lapel soaked with blood. “Make, it’s alright. It’s alright.”

At her gesture to lower the gun, Make begins to cry. She drops the pistol into the chair next to her, covering her face with her hands.

“I’ll go with you, damn it.” Knotty’s voice is hoarse, spittle frothing over her lips with the effort to speak.

“Leave a ship captainless? No. Choose someone else.”

“I won’t!”

Rakehell applies force to Knotty’s neck with both of her hands now. The captain’s vision blanches, boots stomping frantically.

“Give me a name or I’ll take them all.”

The door to the cabin has opened. None of the three women observe the fact until they hear it shut again. A step ahead of the threshold, Far stands, absorbing the scene before her—the acrid smell of perspiration, blood pooled beneath her captain’s shoulder, Make’s tear-streaked face—balancing three cups of steaming tea on a tray.

Knotty twists her head around, the back of her skull grinding on hardwood. Her eyes strain to make out Far through the strands of hair falling past her brow. “Shoot her!” she implores.

Trust a cook to recognise the necessity between life and death. Before the words leave Knotty’s mouth, Far has drawn a pistol of her own from her belt, abandoning all thought about the tray she came to deliver. It slips off the edge of her other palm, clanging to the oak floor of the ship.

The tea set shatters into chips.