In less than a half hour, Corrine and Bernard were relieved and surprised to find themselves standing on solid ground with a mostly-undamaged lifeboat bobbing merrily away tied to the docks behind them. “Yow!” Bernard gasped, “That went better than expected!”

“Indeed,” Corrine responded, looking out at the rough sea they’d just crossed. They’d nearly capsized a half dozen times, and had more smashed into the dock than rowed up alongside it, but what mattered was that it was done and they’d both survived. They gave the wild waves one last glance, then turned and walked purposefully down the road toward they knew not what; all they did know was that they were looking for a doctor and that there must be advertisements of some kind somewhere.

They both found it awkward to walk on land. Bernard had not set foot on dry ground in many years, and Corrine had actually never been off a ship before. If they hadn’t been on a serious and time-sensitive mission she would have liked to look around the city – she would have found even the scummy docks they were currently hurrying through quite fascinating after a life confined to one ship or another. She had been born on a ship and her family’s livelihood was on ships, so there had never been any need to leave the sea as long as they made enough money to get all they needed. Which they did because they were a rockin' traveling theater troupe, and one of the only ones that toured the ocean. When Bernard and Emily had become performers, it had been in the heyday of theater trouping, and so it had been hard for a couple just starting out to get a gig. But Emily had always had a head for business, and so it didn’t take her long to realize that there were all sorts of cruise ships and merchant ships and other ships in the ocean that were full of stir crazy folks who would pay an arm and a leg for some entertainment.

Bustling through the city, Corrine and her dad inquired of everyone they could as to whether they could point them in the direction of a good doctor. However, the shady waterside characters who frequented the docks either couldn’t afford health insurance and so didn’t have a doctor, or were operating below the radar and had their own shady back alley doctors they didn’t want to name, so Corrine and Bernard were not getting nearly as much help as they’d have liked.

In one neighborhood by the docks, they kept spotting flimsy signs posted at main intersections saying in a big, messy scrawl, “24 Hour Docktor. House Calls Available. 15 Pigeon Row.” If it weren’t for the fact that the docktor couldn’t spell ‘doctor’, they might have been desperate enough to resort to visiting a doctor whose advertisement was flimsy intersection signs, but that misspelling was just too much for them. So, they left the neighborhood of the docks and found themselves getting into a fancier part of the city.

Unfortunately, though, they were soon to find that fancy doctors were also the sort who were disinclined to climb aboard a pirate ship. The combination of the fact that they were already booked weeks out for first time patients and the fact that, not being in need of drumming up business, they saw no need to take the risk of going of their own accord under the shades of the Jolly Edmond, made it so Corrine and her dad found themselves – before the town crier had yet yelled noon – scouring back alleys for less savory physicians then they’d have considered even hours earlier.

And when that search proved both fruitless and more dangerous than they felt comfortable with (Warren would have no way of getting help if they got themselves murdered by some filthy gang of toothless vagrants) they found themselves back at the docks, standing in the middle of a busy intersection, staring down at one of the flimsy “Docktor” signs.

“Can’t hurt to check,” Bernard said. “A person doesn’t need to spell to fix a broken arm,” he added, as though he’d made a swell point.

Corrine gave him a skeptical glance, but decided to try giving the ol’ man a break for a change and kept her mouth shut. Instead, she merely shrugged. After asking directions of a helpful old five-toothed crone, they found their way rather uneventfully to 15 Pigeon Row. It was a decrepit shack, of course.

“Dude,” Corrine breathed as she raised a hand to knock on the old door that had once been painted orange of all colors, “I can’t believe we’re really doing this.” But Warren was trapped under a crossbeam, and an injury like that needed attention as fast as attention could be obtained. This docktor at least couldn’t be worse than Doc Brock. So, in response to encouraging hand-flapping gestures from her forebear, Corrine gave the door a hesitant knock-knock-knock.

A skinny lady with short black hair answered the door so fast that her hand had to have been on the doorknob already. The surprise on the face of the black-haired lady showed that she must have been walking out the door just as Corrine had knocked. “Oh!” they both said in unison and took steps backward. Corrine tumbled down the stairs and landed in a pile of muck. Her dad and the lady hurried to help, but she swatted them away and regained her feet with an “I’m fine, I’m fine. Back off.”

“I’m sorry about that, dear,” the lady said sincerely. The ‘dear’ felt a bit out of place to Corrine since they seemed to be about the same age.

“It’s no problem --“

“Here, come in and let me make you some –“

“We don’t have time,” Corrine said tersely, turning down whatever the lady had been about to offer before she’d even heard what was on the table as a peace offering. “We need a doctor.”

“What’s your trouble?” the lady asked, looking Corrine up and down in an appraising sort of way that indicated she must be the doctor.

“It’s my brother. His arm is crushed under a beam on a ship out in the Bay. Are you the doctor?”

“Yep,” the lady said, signaling for them to follow as she darted back into the little building.

Inside, it was tiny and just as decrepit as the outside was, but it was at least clean, and the bed that was presumably for the patients looked spotless, which was reassuring. From ceiling beams so low Corrine could have touched them without standing on tiptoe, bunches of scrawny asparagus that looked like they must have come from a produce reject bin were hanging to dry. The short-haired lady said as she grabbed a black bag off the rickety little table by the bed, “My name’s Jane.” Then she grabbed a bundle of asparagus, tossed it in the bag, and snapped it shut.

“Mine’s Corrine,” Corrine said, so happy to see that Jane was apparently going to help out that she was finding it difficult to mention that the ship Jane’s patient was on happened to house pirates. It would be wrong not to tell Jane at all, since setting foot on a pirate ship was quite risky, but it would also be wrong to let the only doctor willing to help Warren slip through their fingers. In the end, she decided to wait to divulge the information until they were rowing out to the boat and had had a chance to talk Warren up a bit; that way Jane would be thinking of him more as a human being and less as a risk.

“I’m Bernard,” said Bernard. He was also struggling with whether or not to tell Jane that they’d be taking her to a pirate ship, and his moral obligations took control of his mouth before his reason could shut him up. “Listen… the thing is… er… my son is on a pirate ship--“

Corrine stared at her father in disbelief.

Jane froze for a moment and then gave him a suspicious look. “You’re pirates?”

“No, just sailing with them. We’re a traveling theater troupe.”

Jane was quiet for a while, opening up her bag and riffling through it, more to kill time as she weighed pros and cons of the situation than to actually check on the contents of her bag. At long last, she looked up at their expectant faces and said, “OK, I guess I’ll go… But only because I’m assuming you checked with every other doctor you could before you settled on me. I’m your last resort, right?”

Corrine and Bernard nodded guiltily.

Jane sighed. “Honestly, what will it take for people to be comfortable with a female doctor?”

They walked out the door.

Corrine said as Jane locked the door, “Whoa there sister, you aren’t our last resort because you’re a lady. I can’t speak for all your potential clientele, but you were our last resort because you’re a doctor who can’t spell ‘doctor’!”

Jane gave another sigh. She was one of those folks who is prone to sighing a lot. “Honestly, am I the only one in this city who has a sense of humor? I can spell D-O-C-T-O-R just fine! I wrote it with a ‘K’ on those signs because I am the doctor who works by the docks! DOCKtor!”

Bernard and Corrine exchanged looks behind her back, but composed themselves before Jane turned around and strode to where they were waiting beside the pile of muck Corrine had become acquainted with earlier.

“Right-o, lead the way, ” Jane said, then they walked toward the docks, dodging pickpockets and ticket scalpers and revolutionaries handing out trifold brochures about why the citizens should revolt against the Royal Family.

Finally, they made their way to their little lifeboat, which had a parking ticket stuck to its bow. Bernard grumbled and moaned like a textbook caricature of a dad, then he remembered this was a pirate lifeboat and no way do pirates pay parking tickets. He had another internal struggle with his moral obligations, but his morality muscle was plum tuckered out after his earlier struggle with whether or not to tell Jane about the pirate ship, so Bernard wasn’t feeling up to exercising it again until it had had a rest. With only minimal guilt, he tossed the ticket into the sea. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand!” he said. How do they have popsicles in Fritillary, you ask? Good question. Icebergs are involved.

They were about to hop into the life boat when Corrine noticed an ad nailed to a nearby post advertising harpsichord repairs and tuning. A strange place for such an ad, but she didn’t give it much thought. All she thought about was how, once her brother was patched up enough to notice that the harpsichord had been damaged in the storm, he would be heartbroken. It would be nice to be able to supply this name and address to him when he went ballistic.

She tore a little tab off the bottom of the sheet and joined her comrades in the gently bobbing boat, the oars of which Jane had already taken, insisting that just because Bernard was a man that didn’t mean he was by default the only one capable of rowing a boat. She had been brought up by first-generation feminists who had joined the movement shortly after Queen Lillian had taken the helm as its spokesperson and declared that the belief that women and men were equal was no longer grounds for being burned at the stake as a witch. Jane’s mother and father had raised Jane to believe that she could do or be anything. So, she had become a doctor who, among other accomplishments, also rowed her own boats.

On the street corner across from them, a homeless guy who had been watching them with interest as soon as he had seen Corrine looking at the harpsichord ad stood up, grabbed his hat full of change, and walked off with a purposeful stride.

#

The one good thing about how long it had taken them to find a doctor was that the storm had abated and the sea had calmed to the point where rowing out into the bay against the waves wasn’t too difficult. Jane, Bernard, and a grudging Corrine (who only liked feminism when the boys still did the grunt work) all took turns rowing, and after just an hour in the boat they reached the pirate ship. Jane glanced warily at the Jolly Edmond as it flapped merrily in the wind, but then reminded herself that there was a patient in dire need of help, and climbed up without another moment of hesitation.

They led her straight to Warren, who had gotten nothing but worse in their absence. Seeing at a glance the gravity of the situation, Jane got down to business, barking orders and doing doctorly things that I won’t get into the particulars of because it was an icky business. So, we’ll just pick things up again at the point a few hours later when all beam removal and bone setting and stitching without anesthetic were done: Jane put her hand gently to the forehead of a freshly patched up Warren and said, “OK, that should do it.”

Warren, who was pale, sweaty, and intensely cranky, couldn’t bring himself to say thanks to the lady who’d had four pirates pin him down while she thwacked his humerus back into alignment. His family, however, extended thanks for him; Jane took their money and, with the invalid tended to, was more than ready to blow this popsicle stand. So she asked Bernard if he’d be so good as to take her back to shore.

He courteously obliged, but they were halted in their tracks on the way to the lifeboat by Captain Maximus McManlyman (the pirate captain had his name changed legally from Pervis Collins after being laughed out of the Pirate Staffing Agency when they’d read his birth name on his pirate application. In a fit of youthful overenthusiasm he may have overdone it a bit).

“Captain McManlyman!” Bernard gasped, alarmed to see the grizzled dude blocking their path with blade drawn. “I was just going to row her to shore!”

“This nurse isn’t going anywhere,” McManlyman barked, jabbing a finger in Jane’s direction.

“I’m a doctor!” Jane growled. “Why must you assume--“

“But you’re a chick!” McManlyman said, looking genuinely confused. “Or – are you a really puny dude?”

“I’m not a chick--“

“Then you’re the most girly dude I’ve ever--“

“I mean,” Jane sighed, “I’m not a chick, but a woman. And not a nurse, but a doctor. Get it?” She’d been too irked to notice the sword, but now she saw it and gasped, backing up a few paces.

If Max McManlyman had been thinking, he’d have said, “Well, I’m a man and a pirate. Get it?” But he wasn’t thinking. “Whatever,” he said instead, waving his cutlass about. “You’re our prisoner now. We need another doctor.”

Quick as a blink, before she’d had a moment to think, she followed her gut instinct and made to fling herself over the edge of the ship, which they happened to be standing near. But McManlyman had been pirating a long time and had taken many a prisoner. He knew a thing or two about escape attempts.

He caught her by the ankle mid-dive and even (since she was a chick after all) gallantly held her out far enough so that she wouldn’t bash her head against the edge of the ship when she swung back like a pendulum. Then he said in his best Pirate Captain Voice, “I am Captain Maximus McManlyman and you are my prisoner.”

“Whozamus McWhatnow?” she asked as she swayed back and forth, trying to look up at him.

“Maximus McManlyman,” he responded. “You’re my prisoner.”

“Pull me up,” was her only response. It was exceedingly difficult to have a conversation while hanging upside down, and definitely took away any pretense that she might have any control over the situation. What she really needed was to be standing upright and having a rational talk with this bully, though really there was no point because there is no speaking rationally with bullies whether you’re upside down or right side up. Bullies have deep issues that take more than one rational chat to sort out.

“I really must object,” Bernard said from behind the Captain. He spoke as firmly as he could through his fear – this was the first time in all their years on the ship that he had ever come close to standing up to the Captain. “She was the only doctor in that entire city who was brave enough to venture onto this ship to help Warren. What sort of reward is it to repay such bravery and kindness with--“

“There is no way you’re forcing me to be a pirate,” Jane cut in, still hanging over the edge of the ship by her ankle. “Pirates kill people. I can’t sail with you.”

“Oh no, no, no,” McManlyman said. “You wouldn’t be killing anyone. You’d just be patching us up. I know you doctor types have a code. We pirates respect codes.” He began at last to haul her up. “We have a code, too: Get Lots of Treasure at Any Cost. You respect our code, we respect your code. Easy Peasy.” He set her on her feet.

“But I’m not--“ she said, straightening out her disheveled clothes as she glared at him.

“But you are. You, as I have mentioned a few times now, are my prisoner. You can say ‘OK!’ and go help some hurt pirates, or you can say ‘NO!’ and get sent to the brig and we’ll bring some hurt pirates down and you can then help some hurt pirates. Your choice. The end result is the same so I’m cool with whatever decision you make.”

“No!” yelled Jane and Bernard in unison. McManlyman nodded as though this was exactly what he’d been expecting. Then he brushed Bernard aside, and hauled Jane down into the bowels of the ship where he locked her up. He ordered that some lanterns and doctor trappings and injured pirates be sent down to her, assuming rightly that even though she’d said she wouldn’t help she still wouldn’t be able to keep from doing so once she saw some real live injured human beings laying there groaning and bleeding on the floor of her cell. Doctors were so predictable.

Bernard waylaid McManlyman as the Captain was on the way back from locking up Jane and said, “Not cool, man. Not cool. What the heck was that? You can’t--“

“I can. What is with all these people telling me ‘you can’t’? I’m a pirate captain, and so that means I get to do what I want to do. You’d do well to remember that. I like the money you pay us to transport you and your weird family across these waters, but I don’t like it enough to put up with any lip from you. Don’t make me get all piratical on you and your family – because,” he said, getting all up in Bernard’s face, “I will. Just give me a reason and I’ll totally do it, man.”

Quaking in his boots as he stared at the shiny blade of Captain McManlyman’s cutlass which hovered steadily inches from his face, Bernard decided he’d done what he could to help. Jane seemed like a capable enough lady, he rationalized, and maybe, he thought hopefully, with her feminist leanings she might not want some guy jumping into the fray to fight for her. He didn’t want to insult her or anything, he tried to convince himself as he found himself nodding mutely at the Captain.

Jane would certainly not have been offended by any help from Bernard – she would have seen him not so much as a man helping a distressed damsel but as one human being who had an opportunity to assist another human being in need, which was definitely more what the situation was. But, though Bernard tried to do the right thing whenever he could, he was no hero or soldier, or any good at protecting himself, and he couldn’t go getting himself killed for a lost cause when he had a family that needed him. So, he stepped back with only a mild irritation at being bullied, but also with a firm knowledge that there was really nothing he could have done to win anyway (short of challenging the Captain to a tightrope walking contest or a tap dancing duel, and it was very far from likely that McManlyman would have ever consented to agree to that sort of showdown).

McManlyman gave Bernard an annoying ‘That’s right, you’re backing down,” look that Bernard tried to ignore as he strolled off to check on his son who was resting on the floor of the family’s room. Warren gave him a brave smile from his nest of pillows and quilts on the floor and said, “Did you see the doctor off without incident?”

“Yup.” Bernard knew his son well enough to be sure that once Warren knew about the doctor’s wrongful imprisonment he would try to do something silly and end up in a situation that, even in top form, he wouldn’t be able to handle; in Warren’s incapacitated state he would stand no chance at all of defending Jane.

Warren had been raised from infancy acting in family dramas, reading books about heroic knights, playing romantic songs on his banjo and accordion, reading poetry, and in his off time daydreaming while staring out at the sea. The lad was consequently a bit too romantic for his own good, and he needed to be kept in the dark about the fact that the brave woman who had risked venturing onto a pirate ship in order to give him medical attention was now being held captive. The injustice of it would drive Warren to do something pretty stupid.

That night, the family was awoken from their sleep by the sound of Warren yelling like a madman. They assumed he was in need of more of the pain tonic that Jane had left them. It took Emily a few minutes of listening to his fevered blathering, though, to realize that his arm felt OK and he was flipping out because he had just remembered the harpsichord had been smashed in the storm along with his arm.

“Mom, what am I going to do?” he asked frantically, actually clutching at her sleeve.

“Honey,” she said, all soothing and maternal, “Let’s get you fixed first, and then you can worry about the harpsichord.”

“But what if the Captain throws it out? I need that harpsichord, Mom. I can’t live--“

Corrine, who had been rummaging through her bag this whole time, pulled out the contact info for the harpsichord repairman. “Here,” she said, thrusting the paper tab into Warren’s hand and holding up the lantern so that he could read it. “I found this on the docks.”

Warren read it, first distractedly, then intently, gripping it in his fingertips like a tiny little lifeline. “Ooh, Corrine! Could you track down this guy?”

“Sure thing, little brother. I’ll head out tomorrow morning.”