Free Mother Bears by Unknown Page A

his hand. “I’m Vorrin, captain of this ship.”
    The farmer’s lips thinned as he took Vorrin’s measure. Vorrin’s close-cropped black hair and thin mustache were a strike against him here on the archipelago. His accent, city-fine, didn’t help. The farmer hooked his thumbs in his belt, a conspicuous rejection of the hand. “I am Yul.”
    “Lead us to the nearest ale, friend.” Jendara stepped between the two men, hurrying Yul down the gangplank. She could feel Vorrin’s eyes on her back, and could easily imagine the irritated expression. He abided the Ironbound Archipelago because she wanted to do business here, because he loved his nephew and believed in keeping his word. But he didn’t like this cold, rough land.
    The crunch of gravel beneath her boots made Jendara smile. It had been one thing to leave the islands for the man she loved, but she’d never felt right when she was away. Here the stone lay just beneath the tough heath, and the beaches were long stretches of gray rock and gravel. Even the land was hard here. It went without saying that the people worked hard, fought hard, and grew hard as frozen leather under the wind’s cold buffeting.
    But business had been brisk in this town, and the wind a constant reminder that she had a trade route to finish before the winter sea grew too rough for Vorrin’s ship, the Milady. Jendara hadn’t taken a moment to visit the village. It wasn’t so different from the place where she’d grown up. The steep peaks of the house roofs stood out from the green turf climbing up the walls, the houses themselves snuggled down into the earth. They could withstand any storm, stay warm in any gale—little tough houses for big tough people.
    A donkey huffed at her as they passed a lean-to where animals could wait out of the weather. Jendara patted its shaggy head and then hurried to catch up as Yul pushed opened the nearest door, releasing the pungent tang of peat smoke and spilled ale.
    Jendara stepped inside and was struck by the realization that she had been here before. She could remember sitting at the little bar, rubbing oils into the backs of her still-itching hands, tossing back drinks that burned her throat but eased the fresh sting of the tattoos. She touched the back of her hand, the now-old ink covered by fingerless gloves. She could easily imagine the black jolly rogers beneath the wool, puffy and peeling as they had that night. So it must have been the end of her first pirate tour, pockets loaded and a lust to prove herself filling her heart.
    Yul nodded at the barkeep, a shaven-headed man as broad as Yul and just as bearded. The man filled three tankards in quick succession, sliding them down the bar without a word. Jendara drank a long pull of the foaming stuff.
    “Well, well, if it ain’t the famous Jendara. I thought the rumors of you turning respectable were gullshit, but look at you out here, drinking with the farmers.”
    Jendara put down her tankard with deliberate softness. She turned to face the voice—one of those nasty, thin voices she’d come to associate with cowards. There was no point ignoring it: men like this only responded to intimidation. She folded her arms across her sheepskin vest and let her ice-blue eyes speak for her.
    A short and dirty man stood in front of the nearest table, where a knot of men sat drinking. The little man sneered. He wasn’t a native—the brown hair and narrow jaw, far too small for all his yellow teeth, proved that. From the waves of fish stench wafting off his layered sweaters, she imagined him a very minor pirate who made ends meet by fishing.
    The worst kind of pirate. The jolly rogers on the back of her hands felt suddenly hot, as if Besmara, chief bitch and goddess of all pirates, agreed with Jendara’s pronouncement.
    She peeled off her gloves slowly, letting everyone in the bar see the tattoos.
    “Jenny, Jenny, Jenny.” The weasely man took a swig of beer and grinned down at her. She remembered