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Althea waited for the ship’s carpenter to join her at the railing before she hazarded her guess. ‘You spoke to the captain about Lavoy and Clef?’

‘I did.’ Amber drew a kerchief from her pocket and wiped her brow. ‘It did me no good. Brashen said only that Lavoy is the mate, Clef is the ship’s boy, and that he would not interfere. I don’t understand it.’

A slight smile curved Althea’s mouth. ‘Stop thinking of him as Brashen. If Brashen were on the street and saw Lavoy knock a young boy down, he’d jump right in.

But we’re not on the street. We’re on a ship and he’s the captain.

He can’t stand between the first mate and the crew.

If he did it even once, the whole crew would lose respect for Lavoy.

They’d have an endless string of complaints about him, and every one of them would wind up at the captain’s feet.

He’d be so busy nurse-maiding, he’d have no time to be captain.

I’ll wager that Brashen does not admire Lavoy’s action any more than you do.

But the captain knows that ship’s discipline must come before a few bruises to a boy’s pride. ’

‘How far will he let Lavoy go?’ Amber growled.

‘That’s the captain’s concern, not mine,’ Althea replied. With a wry smile she added, ‘I’m just the second mate, you know.’ As Amber wiped her brow again and then the back of her neck, Althea asked, ‘Are you well?’

‘No,’ Amber replied succinctly. She did not look at Althea, but Althea stared frankly at the carpenter’s profile.

Even in the fading light, her skin looked papery and taut, making her features sharper.

Amber’s colouring was always so odd that Althea could tell little from it, but tonight it reminded her of ageing parchment.

She had bound her light brown hair back and covered it with a kerchief.

Althea let the silence stretch out between them, until Amber added reluctantly, ‘But neither am I sick. I suffer a malady from time to time. Fever and weariness are all it brings. I shall be fine.’ At Althea’s horrified look, Amber hastily added, ‘It is not a spreading disease. It will affect only me.’

‘Nevertheless, you should tell the captain of your problem. And probably confine yourself to our quarters until it passes.’

They both startled when Paragon added quietly, ‘Even the rumour of fever and plague aboard a ship can cause a crew to become jittery.’

‘I can keep it to myself,’ Amber assured her. ‘I doubt that any besides you and Jek will notice my illness. Jek has seen it before; it will not bother her.’ She turned suddenly to face Althea and demanded, ‘How about you? Do you fear to sleep near me?’

Althea met her gaze through the gathering darkness.

‘I think I will take your word that there is nothing to fear. But you should still tell the captain. He may be able to arrange your duties so that you have more time to rest.’ She did not add that he probably would find ways to isolate Amber to keep her illness secret.

‘The captain?’ A small smile bent Amber’s lips. ‘You truly think of him that way all the time?’

‘It is who he is,’ Althea replied stiffly.

At nights, in her narrow bunk, she certainly didn’t think of Brashen as the captain.

By days, she had to. She wouldn’t tell Amber just how hard it was for her to keep that distinction clear.

Talking about it wouldn’t make it any easier.

It was better kept to herself. She suspected uncomfortably that Paragon knew her true feelings for Brashen.

She waited for him to say something horrible and revealing, but the figurehead kept silent.

‘It is part of who he is,’ Amber agreed easily.

‘In some ways, it is his best part. I think he has lived many years, planning and dreaming about how he would be if he were the captain. I think he has suffered under poor captains, and learned well under good ones, and he brings all that to what he does now. He is more fortunate than he knows, to be able to live his dream. So few men do.’

‘So few men do what?’ Jek demanded as she strolled up and joined them.

She grinned at Althea and gave Amber an affectionate nudge.

She leaned on the railing, picking her teeth.

Althea stared up at her enviously. Jek radiated vitality and health.

The deckhand was long-boned, well muscled, and completely unselfconscious about her body.

She did not bind her breasts at all, nor worry that her sailor’s trousers reached no farther than her knee.

Her long blonde braid was tattering to straw from the wind and saltwater, but she cared not at all.

She is, Althea thought uneasily, what I pretend to be: a woman who does not let her sex deter her from living as she pleases.

It wasn’t fair. Jek had grown up in the Six Duchies, and claimed this equality as her birthright.

Consequently, men usually ceded it to her.

Althea still sometimes felt she needed someone’s permission simply to be herself.

Men seemed to sense that in her. Nothing came easily.

She felt the struggle was as constant as her breathing.

Jek leaned over the railing. ‘Good evening to you, Paragon!’ Over her shoulder, she asked Amber, ‘Can I borrow a fine needle from you? I’ve some mending to do, and I can’t find mine anywhere.’

‘I suppose so. I’ll come in a bit and get it out for you.’

Jek shifted restlessly. ‘Just tell me where it is and I’ll get it,’ she offered.

‘Use mine,’ Althea interjected. ‘They’re in my small duffel, pushed through a piece of canvas. There’s thread in there, too.’ Althea knew that Amber’s exaggerated need for privacy extended to her personal belongings.

‘Thanks. Now, what was this talk of what few men do?’ Jek allowed her lip to curl and a speculative look came into her eyes.

‘Not what you’re thinking,’ Amber told her tolerantly.

‘We were speaking of people living their dreams, and I said that few do, and even fewer enjoy the experience. For too many, when they get their dream, they discover it is not what they wanted. Or the dream is bigger than their abilities, and all ends in bitterness. But, for Brashen, it seems to be turning out well. He is doing what he always wished to do, and doing it well. He is a fine captain.’

‘He is that,’ Jek observed speculatively. She leaned back along the railing with catlike grace and stared up at the early stars speculatively. ‘And I’ll bet he does a fine job elsewhere also.’

Jek was a woman of appetites; it was not the first time Althea had heard her express interest in a man.

Shipboard life and rules had pushed her into a period of abstinence that was at odds with her nature.

Although she could not indulge her body, she let her mind run wild, and often insisted on sharing her ruminations with Althea and Amber.

It was her most common topic of conversation on the rare nights when they were all in their bunks.

Jek had a wry humour about her observations, and her tales of past liaisons gone awry often left the other two women helpless with laughter.

Usually Althea found her ribald speculations about the male sailors amusing, but not, she discovered, when the man in question was Brashen.

She felt as if she couldn’t take a full breath.

Jek didn’t appear to notice her stiff silence.

‘Ever notice the captain’s hands?’ Jek asked them rhetorically.

‘He’s got the hands of a man that can work…

and we’ve all seen him work, back there on the beach.

But now that he’s the captain and not in the tar and slush, he keeps his hands as clean as a gentleman’s.

When a man touches me, I hate to have to wonder where his hands last were, and if he’s washed them since.

I like a man with clean hands.’ She let the thought trail away as she smiled softly to herself.

‘He’s the captain,’ Althea objected. ‘We shouldn’t talk about him like that.’

She saw Amber wince for her at her prim little words.

She expected Jek to turn her sharp wits and sharper tongue against her, and feared even more that Paragon would ask a question, but the woman only stretched and observed, ‘He won’t always be the captain.

Or maybe I won’t always be a deckhand on his ship.

Either way, I expect a time will come when I won’t have to call him “sir”.

And when it does…’ She sat up abruptly, grinning with a flash of white teeth.

‘Well.’ She lifted an eyebrow. ‘I think it would go well between us. I’ve seen him watching me.

Several times he has praised me for working smartly.

’ More to herself than the others, she added, ‘We’re just of a height.

I like that. It makes so many things more… comfortable.’

Althea could not hold the words back. ‘Just because he praised you doesn’t mean he’s staring at you. The captain is like that. He recognizes a good job when he sees it. When he does, he speaks up, just as he would if he saw a bad bit of work.’

‘Of course,’ Jek conceded easily. ‘But he had to be watching me to know that I work smart. If you take my drift.’ She leaned over the railing again. ‘What do you think, ship? You and Captain Trell go back a ways. I imagine you two have shared many a tale. What does he like in his women?’

In the brief silence that followed this question, Althea died. Her heart stilled, her breath caught in her chest. Just how much had Brashen shared with Paragon, and how much would the ship blurt out now?

Paragon had shifted his mood again. He spoke in a boyish voice, obviously flattered by the woman’s attention. He sounded almost flirtatious as he replied, ‘Brashen? Do you truly think he would speak freely of such things to me?’

Jek rolled her eyes. ‘Is there any man who does not speak far too freely when he is around other men?’