Laurie R. King - Pirate King

BOOK ONE
S HIP OF F OOLS
November 622, 1924

RUTH: I did not catch the word aright, through being hard of hearing I took and bound this promising boy apprentice to a pirate.

H ONESTLY , H OLMES ? P IRATES ?

That is what I said.

You want me to go and work for pirates.

Oer the glad waters of the dark blue sea, our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free

My dear Russell, someone your age should not be having trouble with her hearing. Sherlock Holmes solicitous was Sherlock Holmes sarcastic.

My dear Holmes, someone your age should not be overlooking incipient dementia. Why do you wish me to go and work for pirates?

Think of it as an adventure, Russell.

May I point out that this past year has been nothing but adventure? Ten back-to-back cases between us in the past fifteen months, stretched over, what, eight countries? Ten, if one acknowledges the independence of Scotland and Wales. What I need is a few weeks with nothing more demanding than my books.

You should, of course, feel welcome to remain here.

The words seemed to contain a weight beyond their surface meaning. A dark and inauspicious weight. A Mariners albatross sort of a weight. I replied with caution. This being my home, I generally do feel welcome.

Ah. Did I not mention that Mycroft is coming to stay?

Mycroft? Why on earth would Mycroft come here? In all the years Ive lived in Sussex, hes visited only once.

Twice, although the other occasion was while you were away. However, hes about to have the builders in, and he needs a quiet retreat.

He can afford an hotel room.

This is my brother, Russell, he chided.

Yes, exactly: my husbands brother, Mycroft Holmes. Whom I had thwartedblatantly, with malice aforethought, and with what promised to be heavy consequencesscant weeks earlier. Whose history, I now knew, held events that soured my attitude towards him. Who wielded enormous if invisible power within the British government. And who was capable of making life uncomfortable for me until he had tamped me back down into my position of sister-in-law.

How long? I asked.

He thought two weeks.

Fourteen days: 336 hours: 20,160 minutes, of first-hand opportunity to revenge himself on me verbally, psychologically, or (surely not?) physically. Mycroft was a master of the subtlest of poisonsI speak metaphorically, of courseand fourteen days would be plenty to work his vengeance and drive me to the edge of madness.

And only the previous afternoon, I had learnt that my alternate lodgings in Oxford had been flooded by a broken pipe. Information that now crept forward in my mind, bringing a note of dour suspicion.

No, Holmes was right: best to be away if I could.

Which circled the discussion around to its beginnings.