Page 140

‘Yessir.’ She bit her lip to keep from saying more.

As the captain totted up her pay and bonus and counted it out to her, she gave him marks for his own honesty.

Blunt and merciless as he had been, he still counted out her correct pay, down to the last copper shard.

He passed it to her, and while she pocketed it, he took up a ship’s tag and with mallet and stamp drove the Reaper’s mark into it.

He wiped ink over it to make it stand out better, and then took up a leather scribing tool. ‘Full name?’ he asked casually.

Odd, the places where the world caught up with one. Somehow she had never foreseen this moment. She took a breath. It had to be in her name, or it would be worth nothing at all. ‘Althea Vestrit,’ she said quietly.

‘That’s a girl’s name,’ the captain complained as he began to carve the letters into the ticket.

‘Yessir,’ she agreed quietly.

‘What in Sa’s name made your parents hang a girl’s name on you?’ he asked idly as he started on the ‘Vestrit’.

‘I suppose they liked it, sir,’ she answered.

Her eyes didn’t leave his hands as he carefully scored the letters into the leather.

A ship’s ticket, and all the proof she needed to make Kyle keep his oath and give her back her ship.

The scribing hand slowed, then halted. The captain looked up and met her eyes.

A frown deepened on his face. ‘Vestrit. That’s a Trader name, isn’t it? ’

Her mouth was suddenly dry. ‘Yes—’ she began, but he cut her off with a wave of his hand.

He swung his attention to his first mate. ‘Vestrits had that ship, what was her name? A liveship?’

The mate shrugged, and Captain Sichel turned back to her sharply. ‘What was the ship’s name?’

‘The Vivacia,’ Althea said quietly. Pride crept into her voice whether she willed it or no.

‘And the captain’s daughter worked the deck alongside the crew,’ Captain Sichel said slowly. He stared at her hard. ‘You’re that girl, aren’t you?’ His voice was hard now, the words an accusation.

She held herself very straight. ‘Yessir.’

He flung the carving implement down in disgust. ‘Get her off my ship!’ he snapped at the first.

‘I’ll go, sir. But I need that ticket,’ Althea said as the mate advanced on her. She stood her ground. She wasn’t going to shame herself by fleeing from him now.

The captain gave a snort of disgust. ‘You’ll get no ticket from me, not with my ship’s stamp on it!

Do you think I’ll let you make me the mock of the slaughter-fleet?

Shipped a woman aboard all season and never even knew it?

That would be a fine laugh on me! I ought to shake your pay out of your pockets for such a lie.

No wonder we had such troubles with serpents, worse than we ever had before.

Everyone knows a woman aboard a ship draws serpents.

We’re damned lucky we got here alive, no thanks to you.

Get her out of here!’ This last he bellowed at his mate, whose expression showed he shared his captain’s opinion.

‘My ticket,’ Althea said desperately. She lunged for it, but the captain snatched it up. She’d have to assault him to get it. ‘Please,’ she begged him as the mate grabbed her arm…

‘Get out of here and off my ship!’ he growled in return.

‘Be damned glad I’m giving you time to pack your gear.

If you don’t get out of here now, I’ll have you put off on the docks without it.

Lying whore-bitch. How many of the crew did you sleep with to keep your secret?

’ he asked as the mate forced her toward the door.

None, she wanted to say angrily. None at all. But she had slept with Brashen, and though that was no one’s business but hers, it would have made a lie of her denial. So, ‘This is not fair,’ was all she could manage to choke out.

‘It’s fairer than your lying to me was!’ Captain Sichel roared.

The mate thrust her out of the room. ‘Get your gear!’ he growled in a savage whisper.

‘And if I hear so much as a rumour of this in Candletown, I’ll hunt you down myself and show you how we deal with lying whores.

’ The push he gave her sent her stumbling across the deck.

She caught her balance as he slammed the door behind him.

She swayed with the strength of her anger and disappointment as she stared at the slab of wood that had closed between her and her ticket.

None of it seemed real. The months of hard work, and all for what?

The handful of coins that was all a ship’s boy was worth.

She would have gladly given them all back, and everything else she owned for the scrap of leather that he was, no doubt, cutting up even now.

As she turned slowly away, she caught Reller staring at her. He raised an eyebrow quizzically.

‘They’ve turned me off the ship,’ she said briefly. It was true and the simplest explanation.

‘What for?’ the sailor demanded, following her as she headed towards the forecastle to gather her meagre belongings.

She just shrugged and shook her head. ‘Don’t want to talk,’ she said gruffly, and hoped she sounded like an angry adolescent boy instead of a woman on the verge of hysterical tears.

Control, control, control, she whispered to herself as she clambered one last time into the cramped and stuffy place she had called home all winter.

It was the work of a few moments to snatch up her possessions and shove them down into her sea-bag.

She swung it to her shoulder and left the ship.

As her foot touched the dock, she looked around her with new eyes.

Candletown. A hell of a place to be with nothing but a handful of coins and a sea-bag.

A man turned his head and stared at him oddly.

Brashen glanced at him and then looked away.

He realized he was striding down the street with a foolish grin on his face.

He shrugged his shoulders to himself. He had a right to grin.

He was proud of her. She had looked just like any tough ship’s lad, standing there on the Reaper’s deck.

Her casual acceptance of his invitation, the cocky angle of her cap had all been perfect.

In retrospect, this voyage that he had expected to kill her had actually been good for her.

She’d recovered something, something he’d believed Kyle had hammered out of her once he took over as captain of the Vivacia.

The lack of it was what had made her unbearable those last two voyages.

It had changed her cheekiness to bitchiness, her sense of fair-play to vindictiveness.

On the day her father had died, he had thought that spark of the old Althea had been extinguished.

He had seen no sign of it until that day on the Barrens when she was skinning out sea-bears.

Something had changed in her that day. The change had begun there and grown stronger, just as she herself had grown stronger and tougher.

The night she had come to him in Nook, he had suddenly and completely realized that she had returned to being the old Althea.

He had realized too, how much he had missed her.

He took a deep breath of land air and liberty.

His pay was in his pockets, he was free as a bird, and had the prospect of some very good company for the evening.

What could be better? He began watching for the signboard of the Red Eaves.

The first mate had grinned and recommended the inn to him as a clean place for a thrifty sailor when Brashen had mentioned he might spend the night ashore.

The mate’s smile had plainly indicated he did not expect Brashen to spend the night alone.

For that matter, neither did Brashen. He caught sight of the inn’s red eaves long before he saw its modest signboard.

Within, he found it clean but almost austere.

There were only two tables and four benches, all sanded clean as a good ship’s deck.

The floors were covered with raked white sand.

The fire in the hearth was built of driftwood; the flames danced in many colours.

The place was empty of customers. He stood some time in the open room before a man gimped out to greet him.

He was wiping his hands on his apron as he came.

He looked Brashen up and down almost suspiciously before he gave him, ‘Good day.’

‘Your house was recommended to me. How much for a room and a bath?’

Again there was that scrutiny, as if the man were deciding what Brashen could afford.

He was a man of middle years, a sea-scarred fellow who now walked on a badly twisted leg.

That was probably what had put an end to his sailing.

‘Three,’ he said decisively. Then he added, ‘You’re not the kind to come in drunk and break things up, are you?

For if you are, then the Red Eaves has no room for you. ’

‘I’ll come in drunk, yes, but I don’t break things up. I sleep.’

‘Emph. Well, you’re honest, that’s in your favour.

’ He held his hand out for the coin, and as soon as he had it in hand, he pocketed it.

‘Take the room to the left at the top of the stairs. If you want a bath, there’s a pumphouse and a fireplace and tub in the shed out back.

Fire’s banked, but it doesn’t take much time to stir it up.

See to yourself and take as long as you want, but mind you leave all as tidy as you found it.

I keep a tidy place here. Some don’t like that, they want to come in and drink and eat and shout and fight until all hours.

That’s what you want, you’ll have to go somewhere else.

Here an honest man can pay for a clean bed and get it.

Pay for a well-cooked meal and get it; not fancy, but good clean food, cooked today, and an honest mug of good beer with it.

But this isn’t a tavern or a whorehouse nor a place to make bets and game for money.

No, sir. It’s a clean place. A clean place. ’