Читать книгу The Complete Liveship Traders Trilogy: Ship of Magic, The Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny - Робин Хобб - Страница 34

THERE WERE FEW SAFE HARBOURS on the Outside Passage worthy of the name, but Nook was one of them. It was a tricky place to get into on an outgoing tide, but once within, it was one of the few places where both ships and sailors could rest easy for a night or two. Most ports on the Outside were regularly scoured by the winter storms that blew in off the Wild Sea and pounded the beaches mercilessly, sometimes for weeks on end. A wise captain kept his ship well away from land on her way south, for the closer she came to the outer banks, the greater the chance she would be driven ashore and pounded to pieces on the rocks. If their water supplies had not gone too foul even for sailors to drink, chances were that the Reaper would not have taken the risk of coming into Nook.

But she had, and so the crew was having one blessed evening of shore-liberty, of women, of food that was not salt and water that was not green with scum. The holds of the Reaper were full, cask after cask of salted meat, stacks of rolled hides, tubs of oil and fat. It was a rich cargo, hard-won, and the crew were justifiably proud of having filled her so swiftly. It had been but fifteen months since the Reaper had left her home port of Candletown. Their return journey had been far swifter than their outbound one. The professional sailors knew they had well-earned the bonuses they expected at the end of the trip, while the hunters and skinners had kept their own tallies as to what their shares would be. Those forced into sailing knew that all they had to do now was survive as far as home, and they would disembark as free men.

Athel, the ship’s boy, had distinguished himself by earning a skinner’s bonus on top of his regular wages. This had made him somewhat popular with those on the ship who enjoyed playing dice, but the shy boy had turned down all offers to accept his scrip against his forthcoming bonus. To the surprise of all, he had also refused the offer to move in with the skinners and hunters and become one of them, preferring to remain as a common crew member. When pushed to answer why, the boy would only grin and say, ‘D’ruther be a sailor. Sailor can ship out on any kind of vessel. But hunters and skinners, they have to come north at least once a year. This is my first time north; didn’t like it much.’

It was actually the best answer he could have given. Hunters and skinners were left admiring themselves for how tough they were, while the sailors nodded approvingly to themselves at the wisdom of his choice. Brashen had to wonder if Althea had taken all that into account or simply made a lucky decision. He watched her across the tavern. She sat at the end of a bench, nursing the same mug of dark beer that she’d first ordered. She nodded to the talk at the table, she laughed in all the right places, and she looked convincingly bashful when the whores approached her. She was, he thought, finally a member of the ship’s crew.

That afternoon on the slaughter-beach had changed her. She had proven to herself that she could excel, when the task did not demand brute strength or bulk to accomplish it. For as long as they’d been ashore there, her first task had become to skin, and with the passing days, she had only become swifter at it. She had brought that confidence back on board with her, taking to herself the tasks where nimbleness and swiftness counted more than size. She still struggled when she had to work alongside the men, but that was expected of a boy. That she had excelled in one area had given them faith that in time she would grow into her other tasks as well.

Brashen swallowed the last two mouthfuls of beer in his mug and held it up for more. And, he thought to himself, she had the sense not to get drunk with her shipmates. He nodded to himself. He’d underestimated her. She’d survive this voyage, so long as she kept on as she had begun. Not that she could spend many years sailing as a boy, but she’d get by for this one.

A barmaid came to refill his mug. He nodded to her and pushed a coin across the table. She took it gravely and bobbed a curtsey before darting off to the next table. A pretty little thing she was; he wondered that her father allowed her to work in the common room. Her demeanour made it plain she was not one of the women working the room as whores, but he wondered if every sailor would respect that. As his eyes followed her about the room at her tasks, he noted that most of them did. One man tried to catch at her sleeve after she had served him, but she evaded him nimbly. When she reached Athel, however, she paused. She smiled as she questioned the ship’s boy. Althea made a show of glancing into her mug, and then allowing the girl to refill it for her. The smile the tavern girl gave the supposed lad was a great deal friendlier than she had offered the other customers. Brashen grinned to himself; Althea did make a likely-looking boy, and the bashfulness the ship’s boy professed probably made her more alluring than most. Brashen wondered if the discomfort Althea exhibited was entirely feigned.

He set his mug back on the counter in front of him, and then opened his coat. Too warm. He actually felt too warm in here. He smiled to himself, replete with well-being. The room was warm and dry, the deck was still under his feet. The anxiety that was a sailor’s constant companion eased for a moment. By the time they reached Candletown with their cargo, he would have earned enough to give him breathing space. Not that he’d be so foolish as to spend it all. No. This time, at least, he’d hearken back to Captain Vestrit’s advice and set a bit by for himself. He even had a choice now. He knew the Reaper would be more than willing to keep him on. He could probably stay with the ship for as long as he wanted. Or he could take his ship’s ticket in Candletown, and look about a bit there. Maybe he’d find another ship there, something a bit better than the Reaper. Something cleaner, something faster. Back to merchant-sailing, piling on the canvas and skipping from port to port. Yes.

He felt a once-familiar burn in his lower lip and hastily shifted the quid of cindin. It was as potent as the seller had promised, to eat through his skin that fast. He had another mouthful of beer to cool it. It had been years since he’d indulged in cindin. Captain Vestrit had been an absolute tyrant on that point. If he even suspected a man of using it, on shore or on ship, he’d check his lower lip. Any sign of a burn put him off the ship at the next port, with no pay. He’d won the small plug earlier at a gaming table, another amusement he hadn’t indulged much of late. But, damn it all, there came a time when a man had to unwind, and this was as good a time as any. He hadn’t been irresponsible. He never bet anything he couldn’t lose. He’d started out with some sea-bear teeth he’d carved into fish and such in his bunk time. Almost from the start of the game, he’d won steadily. Oh, he’d come near to losing his deck knife, and that would have been a sore blow, but then his luck had turned sweet and he’d won not only the cindin plug but enough coins for the evening’s beer. He almost felt bad about it. The fellows he had fleeced of the coin and cindin were the mate and steward of the jolly Gal, another oil-ship in the harbour. Only the Jolly Gal had an empty hold and full kegs of salt. She and her crew were just on their way out to the killing-grounds. This late in the season, they’d have a hard time filling her up. Wouldn’t surprise Brash if she stayed on the grounds the season through, going from sea-bear to small whale. Now there was ugly, dangerous work. Damn glad he wouldn’t be doing it. His winning tonight was a sign, he was sure of it. His luck was getting better and his life was going to straighten itself out. Oh, he still missed the Vivacia, and old Captain Vestrit, Sa cradle him, but he’d make a new life for himself.

He drank the last of the beer in his mug, then rubbed at his eyes. He must have been wearier than he thought he was, to feel so suddenly sleepy. Cindin usually enlivened him. It was the hallmark of the drug, the benign sense of well-being coupled with the energy to have fun. Instead he felt as if the most wonderful thing that could happen to him now would be a warm, soft bed. A dry one, that didn’t smell of sweat and mildew and oil and oakum. With no bugs.

He had been so busy building this image of paradise in his mind that he startled to find the tavern maid before him. She smiled up at him mischievously when he jumped and then gestured at his mug. She was right, it was empty again. He covered it with his hand and shook his head regretfully. ‘I’m out of coin, I’m afraid. It’s all to the good. I’ll want a clear head when we leave port tomorrow anyway.’

‘Tomorrow? In this blow?’ she asked sympathetically.

He shook his head, confirming his own reluctance. ‘Storm or no storm, we have to face it. Time and tide wait on no man, or so they tell us. And the sooner we leave, the sooner we’re home.’

‘Home,’ she said, and smiled again. ‘Then this one is on me. To a swift trip home, for you and all your crew.’

Slowly he removed his hand from the top of his mug and watched her pour. Truly, his luck was changing. ‘You’re from the same ship as those men, aren’t you? The Reaper?’

‘That’s us,’ he confirmed. He shifted the cindin in his mouth again.

‘And you’re the mate of the Reaper then.’

‘Just barely. I’m the third.’

‘Ah. You’re Brashen, then?’

He nodded and could not help from grinning. There was something flattering about a woman knowing his name before he knew hers.

‘They’re saying the Reaper has filled her hold and is headed back. Must have been a good crew?’ She raised one eyebrow whenever she asked a question.

‘Good enough.’ He was starting to enjoy this conversation. Then, in her next breath, she betrayed the true reason for her generosity.

‘That’s your ship’s boy on the end, there? He’s not much of a drinker.’

‘No, he’s not. Doesn’t talk much, either.’

‘I noticed,’ she said ruefully. She took a breath, then suddenly asked, ‘Is it true what they say about him? That he can skin sea-bears near as fast as they shoot them?’

She did think Althea, or Athel, was comely, then. Brashen grinned to himself. ‘No, it’s not true at all,’ he said solemnly. ‘Athel is much faster than the hunters. That’s the problem we’ve had with the lad, he was down there skinning them out before they were shot. Our hunters had to spend all their time chasing down the naked bears he’d already skinned.’

He took a swallow of the beer. For an instant she just stared at him, eyes wide. Then, ‘Oh, you,’ she rebuked him with a giggle and gave him a playful push. Relaxed as he was, he had to catch at the bar to keep from falling. ‘Oh, sorry!’ she cried and caught at his sleeve to help him right himself.

‘It’s all right. I’m just more tired than I thought I was.’

‘Are you?’ she asked more softly. She waited until his eyes met hers. Her eyes were blue and deeper than the sea. ‘There’s a room in back with a bed. My room. You could rest there for a while. If you wanted to lie down.’

Just before he was certain of her meaning, she cast her eyes aside and down. She turned and walked away from him. He picked up his mug again and as he sipped from it, she said over her shoulder, ‘Just let me know. If you want to.’ She paused as she was, looking back at him, one eyebrow raised quizzically. Or was it invitingly?

A man’s luck turning is like a favourable tide. One has to make the most of it while it’s there. Brashen drained off the last of his mug and stood up. ‘I’d like that,’ he said quietly. It was true. Whether the offer of a bed included the girl or not, it sounded very good. What was there to lose? He shifted the cindin in his mouth again. It was very, very good.

‘One more round,’ Reller announced. ‘Then we’d better get back to the ship.’

‘Don’t wait for us,’ one of the hands giggled. ‘Head back, Reller. We’ll be along soon enough.’ He started to sag his head down onto his arms.

Reller reached across the table and gave him a shake. ‘None of that, Jord. No passing out here. Once we get to the ship you can drop to the deck and snore like a pig for all I care. But not here.’

Something in his tone got Jord’s attention. He lifted his head blearily. ‘Why’s that?’

Reller leaned across the table. ‘Deckhand from the Tern gave me a warning earlier. You know that Jolly Gal tied up just to the lee of us? Crew had the red-heaves before they got here. They lost seven men. The skipper has been about town for three days, trying to hire on more crew but with no luck. Word is that he’s getting desperate; they got to get out to the grounds. Every day they stay here is likely another week they’ll have to spend hunting. Fingers from the Tern told me our crew would be wise to stick together and sleep on board tonight. One of their hunters has gone missing for two days now, and you know what they think. So when we go back to the ship, we all go back together. Less you want to wake up northward bound on the Jolly Gal?’

‘Crimpers?’ Jord asked in a sort of horror. ‘Working here in Nook?’

‘Where better?’ Reller asked in a low voice. ‘Man don’t come back to his ship on time, no one’s going to stay tied up here to look for him. Easy to lay in an alley, pick off a few tars from a homebound vessel, the poor sots wake up back on the hunting waters. I tell you, this isn’t a town where a sailor should walk about alone.’

Jord abruptly hauled himself to his feet. ‘I’ve had a gut full of these northern waters. No way I’ll even take a chance on that. Come on, fellows. Let’s to the ship.’

Reller glanced about. ‘Hey, where’d Brash go? Wasn’t he sitting over there?’

‘He went with a girl, I think.’ Althea spoke up for the first time. She heard the disapproval in her voice and saw the faces turn toward her in surprise. ‘One I thought was looking at me,’ she added sourly. She picked up her mug, took a sip, and set it down. ‘Let’s go. The beer here tastes like piss, anyway.’

‘Oh, you know what piss tastes like, do you?’ Jord mocked her.

‘Don’t need to. All I need to know is that this stuff smells just like your bunk, Jord.’

‘Aw, a bunk sniffer, eh?’ Jord guffawed drunkenly. The others joined in the laughter and Althea just shook her head. Afloat or ashore, the humour and witticisms were the same. She actually found herself eager to return to the ship. The sooner they sailed from this armpit, the sooner they’d get to Candletown. She pushed back from the table. Jord leaned over to look in her mug. ‘You going to drink that?’ he demanded.

‘Be my guest,’ she told him and turned to follow the others out of the tavern into the storm. From the corner of her eye she saw Jord toss it off and then make a face.

‘Ew. Guess you got the bottom of the cask or something.’ He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and followed.

Outside the storm was still blowing. Althea wondered wearily if it ever did not storm in the forsaken hole. She squinted her eyes into the rain-laden wind that tore at her clothes and hair. In two steps she forgot that she had ever been warm and dry. Back to life as the ship’s boy.

She almost didn’t hear the innkeeper calling from behind her. Reller turned, and when she glanced back to see what he was staring at, she saw the man leaning out the door of his tavern. ‘You Athel?’ he yelled into the storm.

Reller pointed silently at her.

‘Brashen wants you. He’s had a bit much to drink. Come and haul him out of here!’

‘Wonderful,’ she snarled to herself, wondering why he had picked on her. Reller motioned her to go back.

‘Meet us back at the ship!’ he roared into the wind and she nodded. She turned back to the inn wearily. She didn’t look forward to staggering through the storm with Brash leaning on her. Well, this was the sort of task that fell to ship’s boys. If he puked, she’d get to clean that up, too.

Muttering to herself, she climbed the steps and then stepped into the tavern. The keeper motioned towards a door in the back. ‘He’s in there,’ he said disgustedly. ‘Nearly passed out on one of the girls.’

‘I’ll get him out of here,’ Althea promised and dripped her way past the tables and benches of drinkers to the door. She opened it on a dimly-lit chamber. There was a bed, and the tavern maid with her blouse unlaced. The girl was bent over Brashen as Althea came in. She looked up at Althea and smiled helplessly. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said, still smiling. ‘Won’t you help me?’

Perhaps if Althea had truly been a ship’s boy, she would have been distracted by the girl’s bared breasts and would simply have stepped into the room. She probably would not have stared at Brashen as she did, thinking that he did not look like a man passed out in a bed but rather like a man who had been struck down and then arranged on a bed. In that momentary pause, she caught a flicker of motion to her left. She dodged back, catching the blow on the side rather than on the top of her head. The club crashed into the top of her shoulder as well, numbing her right arm down to her fingertips. She staggered forward with a cry as the man who had clubbed her slammed the door shut behind her.

The girl was in on it. Althea grasped that instantly, and spurred by her pain, she struck the tavern maid in the face as hard as she could with her left hand. It was not her best punch, but the girl seemed shocked as much as hurt. Clutching at her face, she staggered back with a scream as Althea spun to face the man beside the door. ‘You heartless little bastard!’ the man spat, and swung at her. Althea ducked it and sprang for the door behind him. She managed to pull it partway open. ‘Crimpers!’ she shouted with every bit of breath in her body. A white flash of light knocked her to the floor.

Voices came back first. ‘One from the Tern, the one they’ve been looking for. He was tied up in the beer cellar. One from the Carlyle and these two from the Reaper. Plus it looks like there’s a couple more out the back with some earth scraped over them. Probably hit them too hard. Tough way for a sailor to go.’

There was a shrug in the second voice that replied, ‘Well, tough is true, but we never seem to run out of them.’

She opened her eyes to overturned tables and benches. Her cheek was in a puddle of something; she hoped it was beer. Men’s legs and boots were in front of her face, close enough to step on her. She tipped her head to look up at them. Townsmen wearing heavy leathers against the storm’s chill. She pushed against the floor. On her second try she managed to sit up. The movement set the room to rocking before her.

‘Hey, the boy’s coming round,’ a voice observed. ‘What did you hit Pag’s girl for, you sot?’

‘She was the bait. She’s in on it,’ Althea said slowly. Men. Couldn’t they even see what was right in front of their faces?

‘Maybe, maybe not,’ the man replied judiciously. ‘Can you stand?’

‘I think so.’ She clutched at an overturned chair and managed to get to her feet. She was dizzy and felt like throwing up. She touched the back of her head cautiously, then looked at her red fingers. ‘I’m bleeding,’ she said aloud. No one seemed greatly interested.

‘Your mate’s still in there,’ the man in boots told her. ‘Better get him out of there and back to your ship. Pag’s pretty mad at you for punching his daughter. Didn’t no one ever teach you any manners about women?’

‘Pag’s in on it, too, if it’s going on in his back room and beer cellar,’ Althea pointed out dully.

‘Pag? Pag’s run this tavern for ten years I know about. I wouldn’t be saying such wild things if I were you. It’s your fault all his chairs and tables are busted up, too. You aren’t exactly welcome here any more.’

Althea squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them. The floor seemed to have steadied. ‘I see,’ she told the man. ‘I’ll get Brashen out of here.’ Obviously Nook was their town, and they’d run it as they saw fit. She was lucky the tavern had been full of other sailors who weren’t fond of crimpers. These two townsmen didn’t seem overly upset about how Pag made his extra money. She wondered. If there weren’t a knot of angry sailors still hovering near the fire, would they be letting her and Brashen go even now? She’d better leave while the going was good.

She staggered to the door of the back room and looked in. Brashen was sitting up on the bed, his head bowed into his hands. ‘Brash?’ she croaked.

‘Althea?’ he replied dazedly. He turned toward her voice.

‘It’s Athel!’ she asserted grumpily. ‘And I’m getting damned tired of being teased about my name.’ She reached his side and tugged uselessly at his arm. ‘Come on. We’ve got to get back to the ship.’

‘I’m sick. Something in the beer,’ he groaned. He lifted a hand to the back of his head. ‘And I think I was sapped, too.’

‘Me, too.’ Althea leaned closer to him and lowered her voice. ‘But we’ve got to get out of here while we can. The men outside the door don’t seem too upset about Pag’s crimping. The sooner we’re out of here, the better.’

He caught the idea quickly, for one as bleary as he looked. ‘Give me your shoulder,’ he ordered her, and staggered upright. She took his arm across her shoulders. Either he was too tall or she was too short for it to work properly. It almost felt as if he was deliberately trying to push her down as they staggered out of the back room and then through the tavern to the door. One of the men at the fireside nodded to them gravely, but the two townsmen merely watched them go. Brashen missed a step as they went down the stairs and they both nearly fell into the frozen muck of the street.

Brashen lifted his head to stare into the wind and rain. ‘It’s getting colder.’

‘The rain will turn to sleet tonight,’ Althea predicted sourly.

‘Damn. And the night started out so well.’

She trudged down the street with him leaning heavily on her shoulder. At the corner of a shuttered mercantile store she stopped to get her bearings. The whole town was black as pitch and the cold rain running down her face didn’t help any.

‘Stop a minute, Althea. I’ve got to piss.’

‘Athel,’ she reminded him wearily. His modesty consisted of stumbling two steps away as he fumbled at his pants.

‘Sorry,’ he said gruffly a few moments later.

‘It’s all right,’ she told him tolerantly. ‘You’re still drunk.’

‘Not drunk,’ he insisted. He put a hand on her shoulder again. ‘There was something in the beer, I think. No, I’m sure of it. I’d have probably tasted it, but for the cindin.’

‘You chew cindin?’ Althea asked incredulously. ‘You?’

‘Sometimes,’ Brashen said defensively. ‘Not often. And I haven’t in a long time.’

‘My father always said it’s killed more sailors than bad weather,’ Althea told him sourly. Her head was pounding.

‘Probably,’ Brashen agreed. As they passed beyond the buildings and came to the docks he offered, ‘You should try it sometime, though. Nothing like it for setting a man’s problems aside.’

‘Right.’ He seemed to be getting wobblier. She put her arm around his waist. ‘Not far to go now.’

‘I know. Hey. What happened back there? In the tavern?’

She wanted so badly to be angry then but found she didn’t have the energy. It was almost funny. ‘You nearly got crimped. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.’

‘Oh.’ A long silence followed. The wind died down for a few breaths. ‘Hey. I was thinking about you earlier. About what you should do. You should go north.’

She shook her head in the darkness. ‘No more slaughter-boats for me after this. Not unless I have to.’

‘No, no. That’s not what I mean. Way north, and west. Up past Chalced, to the Duchies. Up there, the ships are smaller. And they don’t care if you’re a man or a woman, so long as you work hard. That’s what I’ve heard anyway. Up there, women captain ships, and sometimes the whole damned crew are women.’

‘Barbarian women,’ Althea pointed out. ‘They’re more related to the Out Islanders than they are to us, and from what I’ve heard, they spend most of their time trying to kill each other off. Brashen, most of them can’t even read. They get married in front of rocks, Sa help us all.’

‘Witness stones,’ he corrected her.

‘My father used to trade up there, before they had their war,’ she went on doggedly. They were out on the docks now, and the wind suddenly gusted up with an energy that nearly pushed her down. ‘He said,’ she grunted as she kept Brashen to his feet, ‘that they were more barbaric than the Chalcedeans. That half their buildings didn’t even have glass windows.’

‘That’s on the coast,’ he corrected her doggedly. ‘I’ve heard that inland, some of the cities are truly magnificent.’

‘I’d be on the coast,’ she reminded him crankily. ‘Here’s the Reaper. Mind your step.’

The Reaper was tied to the dock, shifting restlessly against her hemp camels as both wind and waves nudged at her. Althea had expected to have a difficult time getting him up the gangplank, but Brashen went up it surprisingly well. Once aboard, he stood clear of her. ‘Well. Get some sleep, boy. We sail early.’

‘Yessir,’ she replied gratefully. She still felt sick and woozy. Now that she was back aboard and so close to her bed, she was even more tired. She turned and trudged away to the hatch. Once below she found some few of the crew still awake and sitting around a dim lantern.

‘What happened to you?’ Reller greeted her.

‘Crimpers,’ she said succinctly. ‘They made a try for Brashen and me. But we got clear of them. They found the hunter off the Tern, too. And a couple of others, I guess.’

‘Sa’s balls!’ the man swore. ‘Was the skipper from the Jolly Gal in on it?’

‘Don’t know,’ she said wearily. ‘But Pag was for sure, and his girl. The beer was drugged. I’ll never go in his tavern again.’

‘Damn. No wonder Jord’s sleeping so sound, he got the dose that was meant for you. Well, I’m heading over to the Tern, hear what that hunter has to say,’ Reller declared.

‘Me, too.’

Like magic, the men who were even partially awake rose and flocked off to hear the gossip. Althea hoped the tale would be well embroidered for them. For herself, she wanted only her hammock and to be under sail again.

It took him four tries to light the lantern. When the wick finally burned, he lowered the glass carefully and sat down on his bunk. After a moment he rose, to go to the small looking-glass fastened to the wall. He pulled down his lower lip and looked at it. Damn. He’d be lucky if the burns didn’t ulcerate. He’d all but forgotten that aspect of cindin. He sat down heavily on his bunk again and began to peel his coat off. It was then he realized the left cuff of his coat was soaked with blood as well as rain. He stared at it for a time, then gingerly felt the back of his head. No. A lump, but no blood. The blood wasn’t his. He patted his fingers against the patch of it. Still wet, still red. Althea? he wondered groggily. Whatever they had put in the beer was still fogging his brain. Althea, yes. Hadn’t she told him she’d been hit on the head? Damn her, why hadn’t she said she was bleeding? With the sigh of a deeply wronged man, he pulled his coat on again and went back out into the storm.

The forecastle was as dark and smelly as he remembered it. He shook two men awake before he found one coherent enough to point out her bunking spot. It was up in a corner a rat wouldn’t have room to turn around in. He groped his way there by the stub of a candle and then shook her awake despite curses and protests. ‘Come to my cabin, boy, and get your head stitched and stop your snivelling,’ he ordered her. ‘I won’t have you lying abed and useless for a week with a fever. Lively, now. I haven’t all night.’

He tried to look irritable and not anxious as she followed him out of the hold and up onto the deck and then into his cabin. Even in the candle’s dimness, he could see how pale she was, and how her hair was crusted with blood. As she followed him into his tiny chamber, he barked at her, ‘Shut the door! I don’t care to have the whole night’s storm blow through here.’ She complied with a sort of leaden obedience. The moment it was closed he sprang past her to latch it. He turned, seized her by the shoulders, and resisted the urge to shake her. Instead he sat her firmly on his bunk. ‘What is the matter with you?’ he hissed as he hung his coat on the peg. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?’

She had, he knew, and half-expected that to be her reply. Instead she just raised a hand to her head and said vaguely, ‘I was just so tired…’

He cursed the small confines of his room as he stepped over her feet to reach the medicine chest. He opened it and picked through it, and then tossed his selections on the bunk beside her. He moved the lantern a bit closer; it was still too dim to see clearly. She winced as his fingers walked over her scalp, trying to part her thick dark hair and find the source of all the blood. His fingers were wet with it; it was still bleeding sluggishly. Well, scalp wounds always bled a lot. He knew that, it should not worry him. But it did, as did the unfocused look to her eyes.

‘I’m going to have to cut some of your hair away,’ he warned her, expecting a protest.

‘If you must.’

He looked at her more closely. ‘How many times did you get hit?’

‘Twice. I think.’

‘Tell me about it. Tell me everything you can remember about what happened tonight.’

And so she spoke, in drifting sentences, while he used scissors to cut her hair close to the scalp near the wound. Her story did not make him proud of his quick wits. Put together with what he knew of the evening, it was clear that both he and Althea had been targeted to fill out the Jolly Gal’s crew. It was only the sheerest luck that he was not chained up in her hold even now.

The split he bared in her scalp was as long as his little finger and gaping open from the pull of her queue. Even after he cut the hair around it to short stubble and cleared the clotted strands away, it still oozed blood. He blotted it away with a rag. ‘I’ll need to sew this shut,’ he told her. He tried to push away both the wooziness from whatever had been in his beer and his queasiness at the thought of pushing a needle through her scalp. Luckily Althea seemed even more beclouded than he was. Whatever the crimpers had put in the beer worked well.

By the lantern’s shifting yellow light, he threaded a fine strand of gut through a curved needle. It felt tiny in his calloused fingers, and slippery. Well, it couldn’t be that much different from patching clothes and sewing canvas, could it? He’d done that for years. ‘Sit still,’ he told her needlessly. Gingerly he set the point of the needle to her scalp. He’d have to push it in shallowly to make it come up again. He put gentle pressure on the needle. Instead of piercing her skin, her scalp slid on her skull. He couldn’t get the needle to slide through.

A bit more pressure and Althea yelled, ‘Wah!’ and suddenly batted his hand away. ‘What are you doing?’ she demanded angrily, turning to glare up at him.

‘I told you. I’ve got to stitch this shut.’

‘Oh.’ A pause. ‘I wasn’t listening.’ She rubbed at her eyes, then reached back to touch her own scalp cautiously. ‘I suppose you do have to close it,’ she said ruefully. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. ‘I wish I could either pass out or wake up,’ she said woefully. ‘I just feel foggy. I hate it.’

‘Let me see what I have in here,’ he suggested. He knelt on one knee to rummage through the ship’s stores of medicines. ‘This stuff hasn’t been replenished in years,’ he grumbled to himself as Althea peered past his shoulder. ‘Half the containers are empty, the herbs that should be green or brown are grey, and some of the other stuff smells like mould.’

‘Maybe it’s supposed to smell like mould?’ Althea suggested.

‘I don’t know,’ he muttered.

‘Let me look. I used to restock Vivacia’s medicines when we got to town.’ She leaned against him to reach the chest in the small space between the bunk and the wall. She inspected a few bottles, holding them up to the lamplight and then setting them aside. She opened one small pot, wrinkled her nose in distaste at the strong odour, and capped it again. ‘There’s nothing useful in there,’ she decided, and sat back on the bunk. ‘I’ll hold it closed and you just stitch it. I’ll try to sit still.’

‘Just a minute,’ Brashen said grudgingly. He had saved part of the plug of cindin. Not a very large part, just a bit to give him something to look forward to on a bad day. He took it out of his coat pocket and brushed lint off it. He showed it to Althea and then carefully broke it in two pieces. ‘Cindin. It should wake you up a bit, and make you feel better. You do it like this.’ He tucked it into his lower lip, packed it down with his tongue. The familiar bitterness spread through his mouth. If it hadn’t been for the taste of the cindin, he thought ruefully, he might have tasted the drug in his beer. He pushed that aside as a useless thought and nudged the cindin away from the earlier sore.

‘It’ll taste very bitter at first,’ he warned her. ‘That’s the wormwood in it. Gets your juices going.’

She looked very dubious as she tucked it into her lip. She made a wry face and then sat meeting his eyes, waiting. After a moment she asked, ‘Is it supposed to burn?’

‘This is pretty strong stuff,’ he admitted. ‘Shift it around in your lip. Don’t leave it in one place too long.’ He watched the expression on her face slowly change, and felt an answering grin spread over his own. ‘Pretty good, huh?’

She gave a low laugh. ‘Fast, too.’

‘Starts fast, ends fast. I never really saw any harm to it, as long as a man had finished before he came on watch.’

He watched her awkwardly move the plug in her lip. ‘My father said that men used it when they should have been sleeping instead. Then they come on watch all used up. And if they were still on it when they were working, they’d be too confident, and take unneeded risks.’ Her voice trailed off. ‘“Risk-takers endanger everyone”, he always said.’

‘Yes. I remember,’ Brashen agreed gravely. ‘I never used cindin aboard the Vivacia, Althea. I respected your father too much.’

For a moment silence held, then she sighed. ‘Let’s do this,’ she suggested.

‘Right,’ he agreed. He took up the needle and thread again. She followed it with her eyes. Maybe he’d made her too alert. ‘There’s no room in here to work,’ he complained. ‘Here. Lie down on the bunk and turn your head. Good.’ He crouched down on the floor beside the bunk. This was better, he could almost see what he was doing. He dabbed away the sluggishly welling blood and picked out a few stray hairs. ‘Now hold the gash shut. No, your fingers are in the way. Here. Like this.’ He arranged her hands, and it was no accident that one of her wrists was mostly over her eyes. ‘I’ll try to be quick.’

‘Be careful instead,’ she warned him. ‘And don’t stitch it too tight. Just pull the edges together as evenly as you can, but not so they hump up.’

‘I’ll try. I’ve never done this before, you know. But I’ve watched it done more than once.’

She moved the plug of cindin in her lip, and he remembered to shift his own. He winced as it touched a sore from earlier in the evening. He saw her jaws clench and he began. He tried not to think of the pain he inflicted, only of doing a good job. He finally got the needle to pierce her scalp. He had to hold the skin firmly to her skull as he brought the tip of the curved needle up on the other side of the cut. Drawing the thread through was the worst. It made a tiny ripping noise as it slipped through, very unnerving to him. She set her teeth and shuddered to each stitch, but did not cry out.

When it was finally done, he tied the last knot and then snipped away the extra thread.

‘There,’ he told her, and tossed the needle aside. ‘Let go, now. Let me see how I did.’

She dropped her hands to the bed. Sweat misted her face. He studied the gash critically. His work was not wonderful, but it was holding the flesh closed. He nodded his satisfaction to her.

‘Thanks.’ She spoke softly.

‘Thank you.’ He finally said the words. ‘I owe you. But for you, I’d be in the hold of the Jolly Gal by now.’ He bent his head and kissed her cheek. Then her arm came up around his neck and she turned her mouth to the kiss. He lost his balance and caught himself awkwardly with one hand on the edge of the bunk, but did not break the kiss. She tasted of the cindin they were sharing. Her hand grasped the back of his neck gently and that touch was as stimulating as the kiss. It had been so long since anyone had touched him with gentleness.

She finally broke the kiss, moving her mouth aside from his. He leaned back from her. ‘Well,’ he said awkwardly. He took a breath. ‘Let’s get a bandage on your head.’

She nodded at him slowly.

He took up a strip of cloth and leaned over her again. ‘It’s the cindin, you know,’ he said abruptly.

She moved it in her lip. ‘Probably. And I don’t care if it is.’ Narrow as the bunk was, she still managed to edge over in it. Invitingly. She set her hand to his side and heat seemed to radiate out from it. A shiver stood his hair up in gooseflesh. The hand urged him forward.

He made a low sound in his throat and tried one last time. ‘This isn’t a good idea. It’s not safe.’

‘Nothing is,’ she told him, almost sadly.

His fingers were awkward on the laces of her shirt, and even after she shrugged out of it, there was a wrapping about her chest. He unwound it to free her small breasts and kiss them. Thin, she was so thin, and she tasted of the salt water, oakum and even the oil that was their cargo. But she was warm and willing and female, and he crammed himself into the too-narrow, too-short bunk to be with her. It was likely the cindin that made her dark eyes bottomless, he tried to tell himself. Startling it was that such a sharp-tongued girl would have a mouth so soft and pliant. Even when she set her teeth to the flesh of his shoulder to still her wordless cries, the pain was sweet. ‘Althea,’ he said softly into her hair, between the second and third times. ‘Althea Vestrit.’ He named not just the girl but the whole realm of sensation she had wakened in him.

Brash. Brashen Trell. Some small part of her could not believe she was doing this with Brashen Trell. Not this. Some small, sarcastic observer watched incredulously as she indulged her every impulse with his body. He was the worst possible choice for this. Then, too late to worry about it, she told herself, and pulled him even deeper inside her. She strained against him. It made no sense, but she could not find the part of her that cared about such things. Always, other than that first time, she’d had the sense to keep this sort of thing impersonal. Now not only was she giving in to herself and him with an abandonment that shocked her, but she was doing this with someone she had known for years. And not just once, no. He had scarcely collapsed upon her the first time before she was urging him to begin again. She was like a starving woman suddenly confronted with a banquet. The heat in her was strong, and she wondered if that were the cindin. But just as great was the sudden need she was admitting for this close human contact, the touching and sharing and holding. At one point she felt tears sting her eyes and a sob shake her. She stifled it against his shoulder, almost afraid of the strength of the loneliness and fears that this coupling seemed to be erasing. For so long she had been strong; she could not bear to display her weakness like this to anyone, let alone to someone who actually knew who she was. So she clutched him fiercely and let him believe it was part of her passion.

She did not want to think. Not now. Now she just wanted to take what she could get, for herself. She ran her hands over the hard muscles of his arms and back. In the centre of his chest was a thick patch of curly hair. Elsewhere on his chest and belly there was black stubble, the hair chafed away by the coarse fabric of his clothes and the ship’s constant motion. Over and over again he kissed her, as if he could not get enough of it. His mouth tasted of cindin, and when he kissed her breasts, she felt the hot sting of the drug on her nipples. She slipped her hand down between their bodies, felt the hard slickness of him as he slid in and out of her. A moment later she clapped her hand over his mouth to muffle his cry as he thrust into her and then held them both teetering on the edge of for ever.

For a time she thought of nothing. Then from somewhere else, she abruptly came back to the narrow sweaty bunk and his crushing weight upon her and her hair caught under his splayed hand. Her feet were cold, she realized. And she had a cramp in the small of her back. She heaved under him. ‘Let me up,’ she said quietly, and when he did not move at first, ‘Brashen, you’re squashing me. Get off!’

He shifted and she managed to sit up. He edged over on the bunk so that she was sitting in the curl of his prone body. He looked up at her, not quite smiling. He lifted a hand, and with a finger traced a circle around one of her breasts. She shivered. With a tenderness that horrified her, he drew the sole blanket up to drape her shoulders. ‘Althea,’ he began.

‘Don’t talk,’ she begged him suddenly. ‘Don’t say anything.’ Somehow if he spoke of what they had just done, it would make it more real, make it a part of her life that she’d have to admit to later. Now that she was satiated, her caution was coming back. ‘This can’t happen again,’ she told him suddenly.

‘I know. I know.’ Nonetheless, his eyes followed his hand as he traced his fingers down her throat to her belly. He tapped at the ring and charm in her navel. ‘That’s… unusual.’

In the gently shifting lanternlight, the tiny skull winked up at them. ‘It was a gift from my dear sister,’ Althea said bitterly.

‘I…’ he hesitated. ‘I thought only whores wore them,’ he finished lamely.

‘That’s my sister’s opinion as well,’ Althea replied stonily. Without warning, the old hurt lashed her.

She suddenly curled herself smaller and managed to lie down in the bunk beside him. He snugged her into the curve of his body. The warmth felt good, as did the gentle tickling as he toyed with one of her breasts. She should push his hand away, she knew. She should let this go no further than it had. Getting up and getting dressed and going back to the forecastle would be the wisest thing she could do. Getting up in the chill cabin and putting her cold wet clothes back on… She shivered and pressed against his warmth. He shifted to put both arms around her and hold her close. Safe.

‘Why did she give you a wizardwood charm?’ She could hear the reluctant curiosity in his voice.

‘So I wouldn’t get pregnant and shame my family. Or catch some disfiguring disease that would let all Bingtown know what a slut I was.’ She deliberately chose the hard word, spat it out at herself.

He froze for an instant, then soothed his hand down her back. Stroking her, then gently kneading at her shoulders and neck until she sighed and relaxed into him again. ‘It was my own fault,’ she heard herself say. ‘I should never have told her about it. But I was only fourteen and I felt like I had to tell someone. And I couldn’t tell my father, not after he discharged Devon.’

‘Devon.’ He spoke the name, making it not quite a question.

She sighed. ‘It was before you came on board. Devon. He was a deckhand. So handsome, and always with a jest and a smile for anything, even misfortune. Nothing daunted him. He’d dare anything.’ Her voice trailed off. For a time she thought only of Brash’s hand gently moving over her back, unknotting the muscles there as if he were untangling a line.

‘That was where he and my father differed, of course. “He’d be the best deckhand on this ship if he had common sense,” Papa once told me. “And he’d make a good first, if he only knew when to get scared.” But Devon didn’t sail like that. He was always complaining that we could carry more sail than we did, and when he worked aloft, he was always the fastest. I knew what my father meant. When the other men tried to keep up with him, for pride’s sake, then work was done faster but not as thoroughly. Mistakes were made. And sailors got hurt. None seriously, but you know how my father was. He always said it was because the Vivacia was a liveship. He said accidents and deaths on board a liveship are bad for the ship; the emotions are too strong.’

‘I think he was right,’ Brashen said quietly. He kissed the back of her neck.

‘I know he was,’ Althea said in mild annoyance. She sighed suddenly. ‘But I was fourteen. And Devon was so handsome. He had grey eyes. He’d sit about on deck after his watch was over, and whittle things for me and tell me stories of his wandering. It seemed like he’d been everywhere and done everything. He never exactly spoke against Papa, to me or to the rest of the crew, but you could always tell when he thought we were sailing too cautious. He’d get this disdainful little smile at the corner of his mouth. Sometimes just that look could make my father furious with him, but I’m afraid I thought it was adorable. Daring. Mocking danger.’ She sighed. ‘I believed he could do no wrong. Oh, I was in love.’

‘And he acted on that, when you were fourteen?’ Brashen’s voice was condemning. ‘On your father’s ship? That’s far past the line of daring, into stupidity.’

‘No. It wasn’t like that.’ Althea spoke reluctantly. She didn’t want to tell him any of this, yet somehow she could not stop. ‘I think he knew how I adored him, and he sometimes flirted with me, but in a joking way. So I could treasure his words, even as I knew he didn’t mean them.’ She shook her head at herself. ‘But one night I got my chance. We were tied up at a dock in Lees. Quiet night. My father had gone into Lees on business, and most of the crew had liberty. I had the watch. I had had liberty earlier that day, and I’d gone into town and bought myself, oh, earrings, and some scent and a silk blouse and a long silk skirt. And I was wearing it all, all rigged out for him to see whenever he came back from the taverns. And when I saw him coming back to the ship early, by himself, my heart started hammering so hard I could barely breathe. I knew it was my chance.

‘He came aboard with a bound, like he always did, landing on the deck like a cat and stood before me.’ She gave a snort of laughter. ‘You know, we must have talked, I must have said something, he must have said something. But I can’t recall a word of it, only how happy I was to finally be able to tell him how much I loved him, with no need to be careful, for no one would over hear us. And he stood and grinned to hear me say it, as if he could not believe how fortune had favoured him. And… he took my arm and walked me across the deck. He bent me over a hatch cover, and lifted my skirts and pulled down my knickers… and he took me right there. Bent over a hatch cover, like a boy.’

‘He raped you?’ Brashen was aghast.

Althea choked back an odd laughter. ‘No. No, it wasn’t rape. He didn’t force me. I didn’t know a thing about it, but I was sure I was in love. I went willingly, and I stood still for it. He wasn’t rough, but he was thorough. Very thorough. And I didn’t know what to expect, so I suppose I wasn’t disappointed. And afterwards, he looked at me with that adorable grin and said, “I hope you remember this the rest of your life, Althea. I promise I will.’” She took a deep breath. ‘Then he went below and came back up with his sea-bag all packed and left the ship. And I never saw him again.’ A silence stretched out. ‘I kept watching and waiting for him to come back. When we left port two days later, I found out Papa had fired him as soon as we had docked.’

Brashen let out a low groan. ‘Oh, no.’ He shook his head. ‘Taking you was his revenge against your father.’

She spoke slowly. ‘I never thought of it quite that way. I always thought that it was just something he dared to do, reckoning he wouldn’t get caught.’ She forced herself to ask him, ‘You really think it was revenge?’

‘Sounds like it to me,’ Brashen said quietly. ‘I think that’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard,’ he added softly. ‘Devon. If I ever meet him, I’ll kill him for you.’ The sincerity in his voice startled her.

‘The worst was afterwards,’ she admitted to him. ‘We got to Bingtown a couple of weeks later. And I was sure I must be pregnant. Just positive of it. Well, I dared not go to my father, and mother wasn’t much better. So I went to my married sister Keffria, sure that she could advise me. I swore her to silence and then I told her.’ Althea shook her head. She moved the cindin in her lip again. It had left a sore. The flavour was almost gone now.

‘Keffria?’ Brashen pushed her. He sounded as if he genuinely wanted to know the rest of the story.

‘Was horrified. She started crying, and told me I was ruined for ever. A slut and a whore and a shame to my family name. She stopped speaking to me. Four or five days later, my blood-days came, right on time. I found her alone and told her, and told her if she ever told Papa or Mama, I’d say she was lying. Because I was so scared. From all she had said, I was sure that they’d throw me out and never love me again if they knew.’

‘Hadn’t she promised not to tell?’

‘I didn’t trust her to keep her word. I was already pretty sure she’d told Kyle, from the way he started treating me. But she didn’t yell at me or anything. She hardly spoke at all when she gave me the navel ring. Just told me that if I wore it, I wouldn’t get pregnant or diseased, and that it was the least that I owed my family.’ Althea scratched the back of her neck, then winced. ‘It was never the same after that between us. We learned to be civil to one another, mostly to stop our parents from asking questions. But I think that was the worst summer of my life. Betrayal on top of betrayal.’

‘And after that, I suppose, you sort of did what you pleased with men?’

She should have known he’d want to know. Men always seemed to want to know. She shrugged, resigned to the whole truth. ‘Here and there. Not often. Well, only twice. I had a feeling that it hadn’t been… done right. The way the men on the Vivacia talked, I suspected it should at least have been fun. It had just been… pressure, and a bit of pain, and wetness. That was all. So I finally got up my nerve and tried a couple more times, with different men. And it was… all right.’

Brashen lifted his head to look into her eyes. ‘You call this “all right”?’

Another truth she didn’t want to part with. She felt as if she was giving away a weapon. ‘This was not “all right”. This has been what it was always supposed to be. It was never like this before for me.’ Then, because she could not bear the softness that had come into his eyes, she had to add: ‘Maybe it was the cindin.’ She fished the tiny fragment that was left out of her lip. ‘It made little sores inside my mouth,’ she complained and looked away from the small hurt on his face.

‘Like as not, it was the cindin,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve heard it affects women that way, sometimes. Most women don’t use it much you know, because it can, um, make you bleed. Even when it’s not your time.’ He looked suddenly embarrassed.

‘Now he tells me,’ she muttered aloud. His grip on her had loosened. The cindin was wearing off and she was suddenly sleepy. And her head had begun a nasty throbbing. She should get up. Cold room. Wet clothes. In a minute. In a minute, she’d have to get up and go back to being alone. ‘I have to go. If we get caught like this…’

‘I know,’ he said, but he didn’t move. Except to slide his hand in a long caress down her body. A shiver seemed to follow his touch.

‘Brashen. You know this can’t happen again.’

‘I know, I know.’ He breathed the words against her skin as he kissed the back of her neck slowly. ‘This can’t happen again. No more. No more after this last time.’