Free Revenant Eve by Sherwood Smith

is ver-ry good.”
    “Girls don’t shoot,” squeaked a brat who couldn’t have been more than ten. He was lost in a uniform that would have been loose on a boy five years older.
    When Aurélie held out her pistol—point properly down—the boys jumped back. “I do.”
    “Whose is that?”
    “It is my own.”
    “Why do you talk like a froggie?” the littlest one asked.
    “Quiet, Fletcher.” Benford cuffed the boy on the ear hard enough to send him staggering. “Have you ever shot a pistol, miss?”
    Fletcher, who was probably about ten, blinked back tears, but didn’t say anything, and Benford turned back to Aurélie.
    She said, “
Naturellement
—it is natural that I have shot my pistol. Why else am I here?”
    The boys considered this, then one said, “You ever shot at anybody?”
    “But yes. Not, what do you call it, a
fortnight
past. We were attacked by Ruiz the pirate, and I shot one in the knee. I hit another with my rapier.”
    “
You
fought a duel with a
pirate
.” Benford’s derision made the others laugh.
    Aurélie flushed. “I
shot
him! The other knocked my own rapier out of my fingers. But Benjy knifed his foot, and we ran away before he could pick up his cutlass and try to kill us.”
    Another brief silence ensued, as far above, the topmen exchanged incomprehensible comments, and the rising breeze toyed with everyone’s clothes and hair.
    The boys seemed to come to the mutual conclusion that the details in her telling, as well as the matter-of-fact tone, were convincing enough for trial.
    Benford said, “Let’s have a squint at your shooting, then.”
    Aurélie brought her pistol up, planted her feet, licked her finger to test the direction of the air, then sighted, all quick enough to make it plain that she was not a complete stranger to the heave of a deck.
    The target was a crudely painted man shape on a stained, weather-rotted piece of sailcloth lashed to a grating. A flash—a report—a puff of smoke instantly wafted away on the wind, and the boys looked at the target, already peppered with holes. But they knew whose shots had landed where.
    A new hole had appeared, well within the man shape, though to one side. The boys ran down to the target, and Benford stuck his finger in the new hole, as if Aurélie had somehow effected a cheat. But from the way he yanked back his finger, the burned edges were still smoldering from the hot iron ball.
    “
You
shot a pirate?” one of the boys asked her, his tone more cautious.
    “I told you,” she said. “Now I must reload my—”
    “I thought this was the quarterdeck of a man-of-war, not a drawing room.” The newcomer was the third lieutenant, roughly the same age asBenford. He and the latter eyed one another like a couple of bristling dogs, making it clear that the real conflict was between them.
    Aurélie said, “It is only that the gentlemen wish me to demonstrate my pistol.”
    “That one is the marquis’s daughter, sir,” one of the boys said in a significant whisper.
    “So I am given to understand,” the lieutenant said with heavy sarcasm. After all, it was Aurélie and the parson’s mother-in-law who had displaced him from his cabin. “Carry on, gentlemen,” the lieutenant said with an air of importance, and he waited.
    The others saluted, and he turned away—making it plain that he’d mostly spoken to get that salute from Benford, who as clearly hated being required to give it.
    Benford flashed a grim look Aurélie’s way, but she was already in retreat, having obviously been around boys long enough to know that when the top dog of any given hierarchy indulges in a spot of legally sanctioned bullying, as soon as he’s gone, the next dog down will look for someone else to hassle.
    Aurélie did not intend to be the recipient of Benford’s bad mood. She dashed down the companionway, dodging around the sailors carrying huge lengths of rolled up canvas, and almost smacked into the oldest of the lieutenants just coming up