Original: "Trafalgar & Boone," Part 3
The time has come to introduce Trafalgar! I mean, she has top-billing, so she needs to show up in the first 10,000 words. That's just my opinion. ;D But I had a whole origin story set up for her and this seemed like as good a time as any to get it in.
AO3
INTERLUDE
ETHIOPIA
1899
She was told she would be a nurse, an occupation that didn’t excite her but was nevertheless respectable. All the girls were told the same with a caveat of a worst-case scenario that a small number of them might be forced to work as chambermaids. She’d once had a name when she was smaller but when her mother died she became used to responding to Tall Girl. Becoming a nurse would be a step up from her current position, and she was well-trained to be a maid. Anything to get her away from the beasts at home with their hungry eyes and wandering hands. She was not yet old enough to draw their full attention but that day was coming soon.
She and the other girls were taken from Addis Ababa in a bus. The other girls on the bus chattered and babbled about their destinations. The men who gathered them up made promises of Paris and London, places where the air didn’t scorch the soles of their feet. Who cared if they were made to work for the privilege of living there? Everyone had to work, after all! The excitement was so great that no one noticed Tall Girl joining the queue. The strangely-scary men standing guard were watching for girls trying to get away, not those trying to sneak aboard the bus.
The trip to Djibouti, along half-formed roads that jostled and shook the contents of the bus, took them the entire day and into the night. Most of the girls slept curled against the wall or across the laps of their newfound friends. Tall Girl feigned sleep so she wouldn’t stand out, but she was awake and alert when the men pulled to the side of the road to swap drivers. She heard their voices through the open window. It was then that she learned their true destiny.
One of the men walked slowly down the aisle of the bus, pausing at each seat to look at the girls before making a note on a pad. He finally returned to his compatriots outside and sneered at them, “You have brought me a bus full of chambermaids and nurses.”
Tall Girl was confused. Wasn’t that the point?
“It will take time to get to the destination. At this age, the girls ripen like bananas. By the end of the journey you will not find a nurse or maid among them.”
But if not maids or nurses... Tall Girl had a sickly stomach feeling that she knew precisely what the men intended for the girls on the bus. She huddled against her seatmate, a girl whose name she hadn’t bothered to learn, and tried to think of a way out of the predicament. When they finally arrived at the port, they were hustled off the bus. Now that they were a thousand miles from home, the men were less restrained in their gruffness. There was no need to pretend kindness because the girls had nowhere to go.
Tall Girl had seen the men carrying knives and pistols, and she kept her head down so she wouldn’t rise above the other girls in her line. When one of the guards was near to her, she hooked her left foot over the right and forced herself to stumble. She didn’t try to break her fall to protect her palms for what was coming next. The guard grabbed a handful of her thick, straight hair, hauling her up as he called her a clumsy oaf. She threw herself against him and put her arms around his waist. She pursed her lips and winked lazily.
“Save it for your master,” the man said.
As he shoved her away, she folded one hand around his gun and the other around the hilt of his knife. His push was all the force she needed to free the weapons, and she spun the gun around to fire it as soon as she was clear. The girls around her scattered like a frightened murder of ravens, shrieking at the sudden twig-snap sound of the gunpowder. Tall Girl slashed with the knife and cut the throat of the man she had disarmed; it was a kindness when compared to what his employers would have done in the face of his failure.
Other men converged on the troublemaker, and she fired at one while slashing in the other’s direction. The one dodged her knife and wrapped his arms around her, so she jammed the blade up into his bicep. The man howled in her ear like a stuck pig, and in his pain she became the stronger of the two. She twisted the knife as she freed it and bent her knees. She dropped into a crouch and bowled him over her back, standing suddenly to make him fall backward. He grabbed for her foot but she slammed her heel down on the back of his hand with a satisfying crunch.
Three other guards grabbed hold of her. One closed his hand around hers in an attempt to pull the gun away from her, but Tall Girl’s grip was too strong from years of toiling for her stepfather and his men. She pulled the trigger and the bullet entered the soft flesh just below the man’s arm. She used the man’s grip to spin him around into one of his friends, knocking them both down. She stooped and stole the other man’s gun since she feared hers was nearing empty, and she pulled her hand free as the boss barreled toward her.
She turned and brought the gun up, closing one eye to get a bead on his forehead. She was about to fire when she was tackled from behind. She twisted to retaliate but saw that her attacker was one of the other girls. More piled on top of the pile, holding her down and shouting horrible names as the weapons she’d stolen were wrenched out of her hands to leave her defenseless once more. The boss ordered the girls up with harsh words barked as he shoved them out of his way, kicking a few in the rear ends when they didn’t move fast enough.
He grabbed Tall Girl by the hair and lifted her up as she squirmed like a fish on the end of a line. She bared her teeth at him despite the pain in her scalp. He drew his knife and held the blade against her throat, and Tall Girl knew she would be used as an example as to what happened to troublemakers. The bleeding men lying on the ground around them would be more than enough to justify her death. But then someone shouted from near the ramp and hurried over.
The other man spoke calmly and quickly in a language Tall Girl didn’t recognize. She heard something that she almost translated as “Don’t waste her,” and “perfect opportunity,” but she had no idea what he was talking about. She felt the blade tighten against her throat before it was pulled away and the man dropped her to the ground.
“You are very lucky. You are very very lucky.”
He ordered two of the men still standing to lock her below-decks until they were safely away from shore. She was dragged away from the other girls, the ones who believed so strongly in the lie that they had subdued their only possible savior. It was hard not to dismiss them to their fates, meeting their smug expressions and closing off her sympathy. You brought this on yourselves, you foolish girls. Remember that when you’re begging for someone to save you!
She was half-dragged aboard a massive ship, practically a city afloat, and taken down into the hellish depths. She could feel the heat emanating from somewhere beyond the thin walls of her cell, too discombobulated to fight back before the hatch was closed and locked behind the men. She stood in the center of the space, which was small enough that she could stretch her arms out and brush any of the four walls. There was a thin mattress on the floor with a threadbare rag draped over the top of it. She sat down on top of it and folded her legs, staring up at the ceiling as she listened to the sounds of the crew preparing for the launch.
They were well on their way, out over the Gulf of Aden, when the door to her prison finally opened again. She hadn’t been fed or allowed to visit the lavatory, and she’d seen too many tiny bugs crawling on the mattress to attempt sleeping on it. She stood when the guards returned, expecting them to violate her for free. Instead the bigger one grabbed her arms and bound her wrists with thick rope before shoving her forward. Three more men stood outside; obviously her performance on the dock had taught her captors caution. They surrounded her as she was marched forward, up the steel steps to the fresh air and dark skies of night.
The man who had saved her from the boss’ fury was standing near the railing. He was dressed in cream and tan suit, his brown overcoat whipping about him in the breeze. He was bald and wore black-tinted glasses even though the only light came from the moon. He was reading a book that he held in his right hand, marking his place with a finger to watch as she was led over to him.
“Did she give you any trouble?” he asked.
“We can handle a girl.”
“Is that why you have two men dead and three more in bandages? Stand her there. Thank you.” He took off his glasses and smiled at her. “What is your name, girl?” When she didn’t answer he said, “I am called Solomon. You know Solomon, yes? The wise man from the Holy Bible? Does this mean I am wise? Ah!” He laughed and shook his head. “A name is just a word. One shouldn’t pretend it is too important and get a full head. Do you have a name? Something I could call you?”
Tall Girl stared at him.
He sighed and shrugged his shoulders in surrender. “Very well. We don’t need to know your name. Untie the girl’s arms, please?”
The guards did as they were told, gripping her wrists so she couldn’t run. Where would she have run to, anyway? She tensed but didn’t fight as Solomon put down the book and fished in the pocket of his overcoat. He withdrew a small glass jar and unscrewed the top.
“Very soon you will have a different name. Soon you will be the one commanding every person on this boat. Judging from the fire you spit on the dock, that is something you very much would like. Yes? So there is no reason for you to fight us. We are giving you a gift. Power.” He used two fingers to fish around inside the jar.
Tall Girl watched him. “You wish to steal my body.”
Solomon looked at her, as if surprised she could speak. “We’re giving you the opportunity to host a very powerful being.”
“At the expense of my soul.”
“Such a trifling thing. People trade money, lives, other people in pursuit of power. I am giving this to you for free.”
Tall Girl shook her head. “The expense is too great.”
He withdrew his fingers from the pot to reveal they had been coated in black ink. He stepped forward as it dripped down toward his knuckles, and the wind picked up off the water as he began to trace her forehead and cheeks. From his expression she gathered that the designs he was making were complex and had importance, but they felt utterly alien. She tried to imagine what they were by picturing the movement of his fingers on a blackboard but they made no sense. He ripped open the front of her dress and drew another hieroglyph on her chest, making her shudder as his finger traced over her sternum. He took an egg-shaped stone from his pocket and used his other hand to pinch her chin. When her lips parted, he pushed the rock between them. It was small enough not to gag her, but it weighed down her tongue and tasted like sand.
He stepped back when he was done, wiping his fingers almost daintily on a cloth before he picked up the book again. They all had to constantly readjust their footing as the boat dipped and rocked with the waves, and Solomon flipped through the book until he found the proper page. Black ink dripped down Tall Girl’s nose and pooled around her eyes, dripping from the designs he’d drawn. The stone filled her mouth and muted her, and she realized she could feel shapes carved on the stone’s face against her tongue.
Solomon began to read from the book, and Tall Girl thought she saw something spark out over the water. He continued reading and fear shot through her as if she’d been struck by lightning. She tensed her arms against her captors but they head fast. As Solomon droned, the waves beneath the ship turned calm as glass while waves on the horizon churned. She felt a tingle in the stone, as if she really had been hit by lightning and it was being conducted through the strange object.
Solomon raised his voice against the rising wind, and Tall Girl kicked and fought against the men holding her. She could feel something dark and evil crowding in on her consciousness, a creature of some sort, from the depths of the darkness. She was terrified in a way she’d never been before as Solomon continued to read and the strange ink drew lines down her face.
Tall Girl opened her mouth and spit out the stone.
She couldn’t do it with enough force to injure Solomon, though it did hit him in the chest, but he dropped the book in a desperate attempt to grab the stone before it hit the ground. The becalmed sea suddenly burst back into life, and Tall Girl was thrown to the deck with her captors. Solomon shouted in his own language as the stone hit the ground and rolled toward the rail. Lightning flashed overhead as storm clouds seemed to spontaneously blossom above the ship’s position.
The cant and roll of the sea caused the stone to move erratically so that Solomon couldn’t get hold of it. He let out a shrill cry as the stone went over the edge into the water. Tall Girl watched as he reacted without thought, tearing off his overcoat so it wouldn’t weigh him down. He put a foot on the railing and used it to push himself off, arms stretched out as he followed the stone into the wild sea. There was a boom that echoed so loudly she was certain it had been heard by her stepfather back in Addis Ababa, and then quiet descended once more.
The men holding her were dazed by what had happened and had released her to brace their hands on the deck. She pushed herself up before they thought to restrain her, walking over to Solomon’s discarded coat. She wrapped it around herself, the tail whipping in the breeze before it settled around her torso. So patted the pockets and felt a few things heavy enough to be weapons, then she turned and looked up at the shining golden beacon of the bridge.
She ascended with purpose, head held high and jaw set. The darkness that had encroached on her mind was dispelled the moment she spit out the stone and now she was clearheaded to be very afraid of the other men aboard the ship. Solomon had certainly had friends, and they would not likely believe that he’d been the agent of his own demise. She had only one chance to save her life, and she held firmly to it as she opened the door to the bridge.
The captain, navigator, and the man who was in charge of the girls all looked at her, fearful but wary. “Did it work?” the captain asked in English. Her hair had come loose in the maelstrom and she knew she must look like a wild beast wrapped in a man’s coat. Due to her height, the coat fit rather well, but the sleeves were too long for her. She hoped she didn’t sound like a frightened girl when she spoke.
“Solomon told you to expect this?” Her tongue was numbed by the stone, turning her sibilant letters into lisps, and she had only a passing understanding of English, but she was still understood. The men nodded, and she could see their terror. “He told you my final destination?”
“Yes. Cairo.”
“Then do not make me wait. I have been patient for far too long.”
“Yes, mistress.”
She turned to leave, but one of the men said, “What do we call you?”
“I am called Tall Girl.”
Her heavy tongue, combined with her lack of fluency in the language, slurred the words together. When later the crew began referring to her as Trafalgar, she didn’t question it for fear of drawing their ire. Besides, there was something about the sobriquet that appealed to her. She kept Solomon’s coat because it was warm, and because she had never had anything with material quite so fine. She went through his pockets and found all sorts of trinkets, bizarre items that she couldn’t pretend to understand. She knew when she arrived in Cairo she would demand all the girls in the hold be set free. She would kill if she had to, but the men were too frightened of her to put up much of a fight. The tails of the coat flapped against her thighs as she stood on the upper deck and watched the coast of Africa roll by.
She had no idea what awaited her in Egypt, but it had to be better than what was in store for her back home. She’d escaped her stepfather, she had survived the attempt on her life, and now every day ahead of her was a gift. She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her new coat and clung to her new name, repeating it in her head until it was a word of power.
When she arrived in Egypt, she was Trafalgar. She strode down the gangplank with her head held high as she headed out to discover what exactly that meant.
AO3
INTERLUDE
ETHIOPIA
1899
She was told she would be a nurse, an occupation that didn’t excite her but was nevertheless respectable. All the girls were told the same with a caveat of a worst-case scenario that a small number of them might be forced to work as chambermaids. She’d once had a name when she was smaller but when her mother died she became used to responding to Tall Girl. Becoming a nurse would be a step up from her current position, and she was well-trained to be a maid. Anything to get her away from the beasts at home with their hungry eyes and wandering hands. She was not yet old enough to draw their full attention but that day was coming soon.
She and the other girls were taken from Addis Ababa in a bus. The other girls on the bus chattered and babbled about their destinations. The men who gathered them up made promises of Paris and London, places where the air didn’t scorch the soles of their feet. Who cared if they were made to work for the privilege of living there? Everyone had to work, after all! The excitement was so great that no one noticed Tall Girl joining the queue. The strangely-scary men standing guard were watching for girls trying to get away, not those trying to sneak aboard the bus.
The trip to Djibouti, along half-formed roads that jostled and shook the contents of the bus, took them the entire day and into the night. Most of the girls slept curled against the wall or across the laps of their newfound friends. Tall Girl feigned sleep so she wouldn’t stand out, but she was awake and alert when the men pulled to the side of the road to swap drivers. She heard their voices through the open window. It was then that she learned their true destiny.
One of the men walked slowly down the aisle of the bus, pausing at each seat to look at the girls before making a note on a pad. He finally returned to his compatriots outside and sneered at them, “You have brought me a bus full of chambermaids and nurses.”
Tall Girl was confused. Wasn’t that the point?
“It will take time to get to the destination. At this age, the girls ripen like bananas. By the end of the journey you will not find a nurse or maid among them.”
But if not maids or nurses... Tall Girl had a sickly stomach feeling that she knew precisely what the men intended for the girls on the bus. She huddled against her seatmate, a girl whose name she hadn’t bothered to learn, and tried to think of a way out of the predicament. When they finally arrived at the port, they were hustled off the bus. Now that they were a thousand miles from home, the men were less restrained in their gruffness. There was no need to pretend kindness because the girls had nowhere to go.
Tall Girl had seen the men carrying knives and pistols, and she kept her head down so she wouldn’t rise above the other girls in her line. When one of the guards was near to her, she hooked her left foot over the right and forced herself to stumble. She didn’t try to break her fall to protect her palms for what was coming next. The guard grabbed a handful of her thick, straight hair, hauling her up as he called her a clumsy oaf. She threw herself against him and put her arms around his waist. She pursed her lips and winked lazily.
“Save it for your master,” the man said.
As he shoved her away, she folded one hand around his gun and the other around the hilt of his knife. His push was all the force she needed to free the weapons, and she spun the gun around to fire it as soon as she was clear. The girls around her scattered like a frightened murder of ravens, shrieking at the sudden twig-snap sound of the gunpowder. Tall Girl slashed with the knife and cut the throat of the man she had disarmed; it was a kindness when compared to what his employers would have done in the face of his failure.
Other men converged on the troublemaker, and she fired at one while slashing in the other’s direction. The one dodged her knife and wrapped his arms around her, so she jammed the blade up into his bicep. The man howled in her ear like a stuck pig, and in his pain she became the stronger of the two. She twisted the knife as she freed it and bent her knees. She dropped into a crouch and bowled him over her back, standing suddenly to make him fall backward. He grabbed for her foot but she slammed her heel down on the back of his hand with a satisfying crunch.
Three other guards grabbed hold of her. One closed his hand around hers in an attempt to pull the gun away from her, but Tall Girl’s grip was too strong from years of toiling for her stepfather and his men. She pulled the trigger and the bullet entered the soft flesh just below the man’s arm. She used the man’s grip to spin him around into one of his friends, knocking them both down. She stooped and stole the other man’s gun since she feared hers was nearing empty, and she pulled her hand free as the boss barreled toward her.
She turned and brought the gun up, closing one eye to get a bead on his forehead. She was about to fire when she was tackled from behind. She twisted to retaliate but saw that her attacker was one of the other girls. More piled on top of the pile, holding her down and shouting horrible names as the weapons she’d stolen were wrenched out of her hands to leave her defenseless once more. The boss ordered the girls up with harsh words barked as he shoved them out of his way, kicking a few in the rear ends when they didn’t move fast enough.
He grabbed Tall Girl by the hair and lifted her up as she squirmed like a fish on the end of a line. She bared her teeth at him despite the pain in her scalp. He drew his knife and held the blade against her throat, and Tall Girl knew she would be used as an example as to what happened to troublemakers. The bleeding men lying on the ground around them would be more than enough to justify her death. But then someone shouted from near the ramp and hurried over.
The other man spoke calmly and quickly in a language Tall Girl didn’t recognize. She heard something that she almost translated as “Don’t waste her,” and “perfect opportunity,” but she had no idea what he was talking about. She felt the blade tighten against her throat before it was pulled away and the man dropped her to the ground.
“You are very lucky. You are very very lucky.”
He ordered two of the men still standing to lock her below-decks until they were safely away from shore. She was dragged away from the other girls, the ones who believed so strongly in the lie that they had subdued their only possible savior. It was hard not to dismiss them to their fates, meeting their smug expressions and closing off her sympathy. You brought this on yourselves, you foolish girls. Remember that when you’re begging for someone to save you!
She was half-dragged aboard a massive ship, practically a city afloat, and taken down into the hellish depths. She could feel the heat emanating from somewhere beyond the thin walls of her cell, too discombobulated to fight back before the hatch was closed and locked behind the men. She stood in the center of the space, which was small enough that she could stretch her arms out and brush any of the four walls. There was a thin mattress on the floor with a threadbare rag draped over the top of it. She sat down on top of it and folded her legs, staring up at the ceiling as she listened to the sounds of the crew preparing for the launch.
They were well on their way, out over the Gulf of Aden, when the door to her prison finally opened again. She hadn’t been fed or allowed to visit the lavatory, and she’d seen too many tiny bugs crawling on the mattress to attempt sleeping on it. She stood when the guards returned, expecting them to violate her for free. Instead the bigger one grabbed her arms and bound her wrists with thick rope before shoving her forward. Three more men stood outside; obviously her performance on the dock had taught her captors caution. They surrounded her as she was marched forward, up the steel steps to the fresh air and dark skies of night.
The man who had saved her from the boss’ fury was standing near the railing. He was dressed in cream and tan suit, his brown overcoat whipping about him in the breeze. He was bald and wore black-tinted glasses even though the only light came from the moon. He was reading a book that he held in his right hand, marking his place with a finger to watch as she was led over to him.
“Did she give you any trouble?” he asked.
“We can handle a girl.”
“Is that why you have two men dead and three more in bandages? Stand her there. Thank you.” He took off his glasses and smiled at her. “What is your name, girl?” When she didn’t answer he said, “I am called Solomon. You know Solomon, yes? The wise man from the Holy Bible? Does this mean I am wise? Ah!” He laughed and shook his head. “A name is just a word. One shouldn’t pretend it is too important and get a full head. Do you have a name? Something I could call you?”
Tall Girl stared at him.
He sighed and shrugged his shoulders in surrender. “Very well. We don’t need to know your name. Untie the girl’s arms, please?”
The guards did as they were told, gripping her wrists so she couldn’t run. Where would she have run to, anyway? She tensed but didn’t fight as Solomon put down the book and fished in the pocket of his overcoat. He withdrew a small glass jar and unscrewed the top.
“Very soon you will have a different name. Soon you will be the one commanding every person on this boat. Judging from the fire you spit on the dock, that is something you very much would like. Yes? So there is no reason for you to fight us. We are giving you a gift. Power.” He used two fingers to fish around inside the jar.
Tall Girl watched him. “You wish to steal my body.”
Solomon looked at her, as if surprised she could speak. “We’re giving you the opportunity to host a very powerful being.”
“At the expense of my soul.”
“Such a trifling thing. People trade money, lives, other people in pursuit of power. I am giving this to you for free.”
Tall Girl shook her head. “The expense is too great.”
He withdrew his fingers from the pot to reveal they had been coated in black ink. He stepped forward as it dripped down toward his knuckles, and the wind picked up off the water as he began to trace her forehead and cheeks. From his expression she gathered that the designs he was making were complex and had importance, but they felt utterly alien. She tried to imagine what they were by picturing the movement of his fingers on a blackboard but they made no sense. He ripped open the front of her dress and drew another hieroglyph on her chest, making her shudder as his finger traced over her sternum. He took an egg-shaped stone from his pocket and used his other hand to pinch her chin. When her lips parted, he pushed the rock between them. It was small enough not to gag her, but it weighed down her tongue and tasted like sand.
He stepped back when he was done, wiping his fingers almost daintily on a cloth before he picked up the book again. They all had to constantly readjust their footing as the boat dipped and rocked with the waves, and Solomon flipped through the book until he found the proper page. Black ink dripped down Tall Girl’s nose and pooled around her eyes, dripping from the designs he’d drawn. The stone filled her mouth and muted her, and she realized she could feel shapes carved on the stone’s face against her tongue.
Solomon began to read from the book, and Tall Girl thought she saw something spark out over the water. He continued reading and fear shot through her as if she’d been struck by lightning. She tensed her arms against her captors but they head fast. As Solomon droned, the waves beneath the ship turned calm as glass while waves on the horizon churned. She felt a tingle in the stone, as if she really had been hit by lightning and it was being conducted through the strange object.
Solomon raised his voice against the rising wind, and Tall Girl kicked and fought against the men holding her. She could feel something dark and evil crowding in on her consciousness, a creature of some sort, from the depths of the darkness. She was terrified in a way she’d never been before as Solomon continued to read and the strange ink drew lines down her face.
Tall Girl opened her mouth and spit out the stone.
She couldn’t do it with enough force to injure Solomon, though it did hit him in the chest, but he dropped the book in a desperate attempt to grab the stone before it hit the ground. The becalmed sea suddenly burst back into life, and Tall Girl was thrown to the deck with her captors. Solomon shouted in his own language as the stone hit the ground and rolled toward the rail. Lightning flashed overhead as storm clouds seemed to spontaneously blossom above the ship’s position.
The cant and roll of the sea caused the stone to move erratically so that Solomon couldn’t get hold of it. He let out a shrill cry as the stone went over the edge into the water. Tall Girl watched as he reacted without thought, tearing off his overcoat so it wouldn’t weigh him down. He put a foot on the railing and used it to push himself off, arms stretched out as he followed the stone into the wild sea. There was a boom that echoed so loudly she was certain it had been heard by her stepfather back in Addis Ababa, and then quiet descended once more.
The men holding her were dazed by what had happened and had released her to brace their hands on the deck. She pushed herself up before they thought to restrain her, walking over to Solomon’s discarded coat. She wrapped it around herself, the tail whipping in the breeze before it settled around her torso. So patted the pockets and felt a few things heavy enough to be weapons, then she turned and looked up at the shining golden beacon of the bridge.
She ascended with purpose, head held high and jaw set. The darkness that had encroached on her mind was dispelled the moment she spit out the stone and now she was clearheaded to be very afraid of the other men aboard the ship. Solomon had certainly had friends, and they would not likely believe that he’d been the agent of his own demise. She had only one chance to save her life, and she held firmly to it as she opened the door to the bridge.
The captain, navigator, and the man who was in charge of the girls all looked at her, fearful but wary. “Did it work?” the captain asked in English. Her hair had come loose in the maelstrom and she knew she must look like a wild beast wrapped in a man’s coat. Due to her height, the coat fit rather well, but the sleeves were too long for her. She hoped she didn’t sound like a frightened girl when she spoke.
“Solomon told you to expect this?” Her tongue was numbed by the stone, turning her sibilant letters into lisps, and she had only a passing understanding of English, but she was still understood. The men nodded, and she could see their terror. “He told you my final destination?”
“Yes. Cairo.”
“Then do not make me wait. I have been patient for far too long.”
“Yes, mistress.”
She turned to leave, but one of the men said, “What do we call you?”
“I am called Tall Girl.”
Her heavy tongue, combined with her lack of fluency in the language, slurred the words together. When later the crew began referring to her as Trafalgar, she didn’t question it for fear of drawing their ire. Besides, there was something about the sobriquet that appealed to her. She kept Solomon’s coat because it was warm, and because she had never had anything with material quite so fine. She went through his pockets and found all sorts of trinkets, bizarre items that she couldn’t pretend to understand. She knew when she arrived in Cairo she would demand all the girls in the hold be set free. She would kill if she had to, but the men were too frightened of her to put up much of a fight. The tails of the coat flapped against her thighs as she stood on the upper deck and watched the coast of Africa roll by.
She had no idea what awaited her in Egypt, but it had to be better than what was in store for her back home. She’d escaped her stepfather, she had survived the attempt on her life, and now every day ahead of her was a gift. She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her new coat and clung to her new name, repeating it in her head until it was a word of power.
When she arrived in Egypt, she was Trafalgar. She strode down the gangplank with her head held high as she headed out to discover what exactly that meant.