Amalie, is the woman's name.  Ama, to her friends, and sometimes her daughter, a shortening both of her name and of "Mama."  She carries her daughter through all the day and most of the night, all of them hiding off the road when a horse and rider approach, watching anxiously for the queen's colors.  There's always the right sort of bushes to hide in—the fields grow taller by the road, and thicker, and if they didn't do so before, the guards don't know enough to see it.

The crow keeps watch, circling above them, but sometimes flying down to play in circles around Ama and Siv, much to the little girl's delight.  The knight keeps watch, then, looking back along the road as they walk.  The knight's sword still lies in the grove Siv called up from the city stones, and the knight is ill at ease without it, though the knight is ill at ease with the whole of the situation, running from the queen.  The woman sends the knight sidelong glances, but they cannot reach the coast in one day.  She sleeps poorly, when they finally stop nearly to dawn, arms wrapped around her daughter where they lie in a field, the knight a silent sentry.  Sunrise sends them on their way again, Siv still dozing in her mother's arms.

When they reach the port city of Ledan, the knight is carrying Siv.  Ama rouses herself enough from her exhaustion to speak to the sailors at the docks.  The knight waits with Siv in the shadows of an alley.  Siv can't sleep with the racket of the docks, and squirms until the knight puts her down, afraid she'll hurt herself on the armor.  She stares out at the throngs of people, eyes wide with wonder, and wants to go, and wants to explore, and pulls on the knight's hand, but the knight only pulls her deeper into the alley, shying from the light.

There are shouts for fish, caught fresh this morning, and someone with pies, and a newsboy ringing a bell and calling about Her Majesty's Ship Garland being robbed by pirates, and a group of sailors by the alley's entrance stumbling past, singing drunken shanties, and the knight draws Siv closer.

Ama returns, then, and beckons them to follow.  One of her earrings is missing.

They slip through the throngs, until they escape them to find an older, smaller dock away from the others.  The only ship there seems a rowboat in comparison to the great merchant vessels sitting proudly in the bay, and a battered one at that.  A few people in her rigging are hanging a new sail, and a lone figure below swabs the deck.  The old sail, torn and tattered, hangs over the side of the ship, obscuring her name.

A woman in a long blue coat meets them at the gangplank.  Her face is lined and weathered by the sea, framed by gold-beaded dreadlocks, and she carries herself with an easy confidence.  "Beni didn't say you were bringing a knight."  There's an undercurrent to her pleasant tone, her easy smile, as deep and dark as the sea.

"I bought passage for three," says Ama.

"Did you now?"  The woman's eyes dart across the knight, the child, the sword's empty sheath.  "Seems as I've heard a couple tales about a traitor knight.  Mighty interesting tales."  She looks at Ama, one side of her mouth quirking up in a smile.  "Hard to forget a thing like that."

"I already—"

The woman raises an eyebrow.  "You already...?"

"How much?"

"He's fancy enough, ain't he?" the woman asks, nodding to the knight.

The knight, cradling Siv in one arm, spreads the other in an apologetic shrug.

"Here," says Ama, shoving her remaining earring roughly into the woman's hand.  "It's all I have."  Anger laces her tone, the words short and harsh.

The woman smiles, and bows over it.  "Welcome aboard."

※

They're offered a small cabin near the captain's with two bunks set into the wall, one atop the other.  It seems to have been used as a storage room until now, extra planks and tools and a jar of paint set here and there that the knight sets carefully to one side.  The crow taps at the porthole and is let in soon after.

Life aboard the ship is not so bad—though terribly uninteresting for Siv.  By the third day, she's pushing life into the floorboards to call them up as saplings.

"Siv, we need those to walk on."

Siv giggles from where she sits on the floor, two saplings barely as tall as she is budding and sprouting tiny yellow-green leaves.

"Siv."

A third sapling springs up, all of them growing more and more leaves along tiny, twisting branches.

"Siv.  Those aren't yours to play with like that."  Ama closes her eyes a moment, calming herself.  "We need to keep things nice for the sailors, okay?"

The saplings have grown to a miniature hedge.  Siv's wide eyes peer out from over it.  She giggles again, eyes crinkling at their edges, and she ducks down behind it.

"How about we play a game?  Can we play a game, Siv?"

Siv peeks out again, suspicious.

"How about...how tiny can you make those?  Can you make them really itty bitty?"

Siv frowns.  "I don't wanna."

"Oh, I bet you can't do it!  I've heard it's really hard."

The frown deepens.  "Can too."

"No way."

"Yes way!"

"I don't believe you."

"I can!  I can make them tiny!"  Another hedge sprouts, half the height of the first.  "Tiny and tiny and tiny!"  Three more, each shorter than the last.

"Oh!  I believe you, I believe you!"  Ama scrambles to correct herself, dropping from her seat on the bunk's edge to kneel on the floor and hug Siv.  "I'm sorry, Siv, love, I believe you."

Siv pouts, but lets herself be held.

"How about we go up to the deck to see the waves?  Would you like to do that, Siv?"

Siv is stubbornly silent.

"We can look for fish," coaxes Ama.

"...Are there more birdies?" Siv asks.  "Like Crow?  Can Crow come?"

"...I think Crow should stay here," Ama says, glancing to the knight, who shrugs, not knowing where the crow is at the moment.  "Crow is probably tired."

"I'm not tired!"

"I know, love.  Let's go see if there's any seabirds about.  Sometimes there's really big ones, almost as big as you!"

Siv's eyes widen in amazement, and she makes no further protest as her mother stands and carries her out of the cabin.

The knight looks at the hedges.  The knight's posture slumps with a sigh. Carefully, the knight eases down to kneeling, taking the first of the plants in gauntleted grip. A moment of careful leveraging...but the woody stems are still too young, and only bend without truly breaking.

Of course it wouldn't be so easy.

The knight abruptly sits straight.  The odds and ends stored in the cabin previously are still stacked in the corner, and the knight sizes up a couple of the planks to be certain of the replacements before prying up the offending boards in their entirety.  With a moment's consideration, the hedged planks are shoved out the porthole, whatever story they may once have told lost to the sea.

The knight turns back with a self-satisfied tap of heels on wood, taking up the new planks and kneeling by the hole in the floor—and pausing.  And peering into the dim hold below.  There's a metallic glint as the ship rolls on a wave, the crates all stamped with the same thing: HMS Garland.

The knight nearly crashes into the bunk, rising that quickly as the ship takes another wave.  The crow squawks a warning as it darts through the porthole—too late.  It swoops across the abandoned project and slips out the door barely in time before it closes behind the retreating knight.

Amalie and Siv are at the ship's railing, Siv pointing at something from Ama's arms.  Ama jumps as the knight takes her shoulder as though to pull her into an embrace, turning to guide her back to the cabin, but there's a commotion that way, the abrupt contrast of the noise finally bringing to notice the emptiness of the deck, and two dozen sailors spill onto the deck, converging on the opposite railing, someone shoved up onto it—onto the gangplank that's thrust out.

"We all know you kept something special from the last take," a voice rings out, "worth far more than anything you gave us!  Planned to keep us all in the dark, did you?  Let us think a few baubles were the only reason we chased her?  And after all this time..."

The captain straightens, a harsh glint in her eyes.  "I don't know who's been feeding you tales—"

"Pah," the speaker spits.  "Even to the end, a liar and a cheat."

The crowd surges forward, but the captain doesn't flinch, standing just out of reach unless they climb the plank with her.  "You've turned, Beni," she says, locking eyes with the speaker where she stands at the rear of the crowd.  "But I'll have my revenge."  And she leans back, plummeting out of sight.

The knight nudges, then pushes Ama toward the door, and she stumbles back into motion, all of them fleeing back to the cabin.  After showing Ama the stolen goods below, the knight hurriedly repairs the floor—and not a moment too soon as a knock comes at the door.

Ama and the knight look at each other.  Ama squeezes Siv's shoulder, pulling the blanket up to wrap around her.  "Stay right here, okay?"

Siv nods, deep brown eyes wide and round.

Ama answers the door.

Beni stands there, hat in her hands, cropped curls covered by a powder blue satin kerchief.  "The captain's taken ill," she says smoothly, "so I'll be acting in her stead.  Just thought you should know," she ends with a smile as deep and dark as the captain's.

"Ah...of course," says Ama, her own smile shaky.  "Thank you."

"Of course," says Beni.  She places her hat back on her head, tilting the brim to Ama.  "Do let me know if you need anything."

Ama nods a little, and closes the door too quickly.  There's a silence in which you could hear a cat blink.

"Mama?"

Ama releases a great breath, leaning back against the door and sliding down to the ground.  "How do we get out of here..." she whispers to her knees.

The knight looks at her, and at the floor—at the floor, with its new planks.  The knight reaches over, tapping the ones still sitting to one side with some urgency, and gesturing to the tools.

"That can't be enough to make a boat," Ama mutters.  "And how would we know where to go?"

The knight pauses, shrugs, pauses again, and points with equal urgency to the wall, toward the main deck.

"...We did see a rowboat," Ama says slowly.

That night finds the four of them—mother, daughter, knight, and crow—peering out of the door onto the deck.  The crew seems to have drunken themselves into a celebratory stupor following the afternoon's events, most of them finding their ways belowdecks and no proper watch set.  Ama leads the way, carrying Siv, the knight clanking softly along behind.

The boat is stored midship, even with the main mast, and Ama lifts the canvas cover to let Siv crawl inside.  "How do we—" A shout, and a scream from somewhere belowdecks cut her question short, and she looks at the knight with wide eyes.  Siv whimpers, lifting the canvas to look out.

"Mama—"

"Shh, shh, Siv, it's all right.  We just need to get the boat in the water, and everything will be all right."

Footsteps—someone running, just below them.

"We just need to get it into the water," Ama repeats, casting about for whatever mechanism could achieve that.

The door slams open, and Ama yelps, and there's another shout, someone pointing toward them in the darkness barely lit by stars.

"In the boat—stay in the boat, Siv—we just need—"  And she and the knight both startle as leafy branches erupt from the deck, cradling them and the boat in verdant embrace as they lean over the rail and the sea, as deep and dark as itself, rears up to meet them.

※

Based on talesofthedeep's prompt:

You're the newest addition to the crew of the most notorious pirate ship. Not long after, the crew mutinies, the captain is murdered, and the crew members begin to die mysteriously.