The Pirate Who Feared Deep Water

How it begins

Captain Tom Calder booked his swimming lesson under the name Mr. Brown. Iris Ren recognized him before he took off his hat. The missing fingers, the silver earring and the statue outside the harbor office narrowed the possibilities.

'I'm told you're discreet,' he said.

'I'm told you swam through the Burning Strait carrying six people.'

'Three. According to the better songs.'

'Can you swim?'

The captain looked at the shallow end. A leaf floated across it without incident. He watched its progress with unconcealed suspicion.

'Not in the way generally understood.'

Iris put away the rope she used for confident pupils. This would require something quieter. She pulled a chair to the water's edge.

'Then today we'll sit here.'

'I have six days.'

'You have as long as your body needs. Those are different measurements.'

He did not sit. Outside, the tide was falling away from the old harbor wall. Beyond it lay the reef where a village boat had been missing since the storm. Tom's ship had received a request for help that morning. Iris knew because the village elders had sent one to her too.

'There are people out there,' he said.

'Yes. They need a rescue plan, not a song.'

For the first time, he looked directly at her. The celebrated pirate was older than his statue and less certain about what to do with his hands.

'If the crew knows, they'll never follow me.'

'If the crew doesn't know, they can't keep you safe.'

A child laughed in the public baths beyond the wall. Tom flinched at the splash, then looked furious with himself. Iris moved the chair a little farther from the edge.

'We can begin there instead,' she said.

He sat down at last.

It was not the sort of beginning anyone would carve in stone. It was, Iris thought, a considerably better one.