Birthplace? Previous ship, if any? Illnesses? Schooling? Skills? Everything they told him went into his logbook.
Pazel dreaded his turn. All day long he'd heard whispers behind his back-guesses and speculations about his skin and accent. When he named Ormael as his birthplace there were winks and muffled laughter.
Fiffengurt looked up from his book, and for the first time since their arrival looked genuinely angry. The laughter ceased. Then Fiffengurt asked for his previous ships. By the time Pazel had listed all six, the boys' faces were still and thoughtful.
'How did you learn Arquali so well?' said Fiffengurt, writing smoothly.
'I worked hard at school, sir,' Pazel answered with perfect truth. His fine Arquali had nothing to do with his mother's spell.
When the interviews were done, Fiffengurt told the boys about their duties. Pazel was glad that for all the Chathrand's size, the tasks that kept her sailing were like those of any ship, and he knew them well. Tarboys did not set sails, or weigh anchor, or stand watch, but they helped the sailors in all these tasks, and did a thousand more besides. If they were not mending sailcloth they might be washing uniforms, sanding anchor-chain, filing down old floor nails or hammering new ones. Then there were the running errands: coal to the galley, meals to the men, water for officers, snuff for the first-class lounge. The galley itself needed twenty boys at a shift. Each deck got a daily scrub. Every rope wore a protective skin of tar.
'How much rigging do we carry, boys?' Fiffengurt asked. 'Can ye guess?'
'Leagues and leagues!'
'A mile's worth! Two miles!'
Fiffengurt laughed. 'Thirty-nine miles,' he said. 'And there won't be a fray or a weakness in any bit 'o them, lads. Not while Nilus Rose is captain.'
During the whole of that day his Gift barely made itself felt: all the boys spoke Arquali, even if a few, like Pazel himself, had a different mother tongue. Still the purring went on in the back of his head, and now and then a sailor cursed or muttered about new tarboys underfoot, and Pazel knew his Gift was translating.
Then at dusk an incident occurred that brought back his old fear of madness. The boys were on the topdeck, center aft, listening to First Mate Uskins' loud and rather sinister lecture on what he called the Five Zones. The point of his harangue seemed to be that the higher your rank, the more parts of the ship you could visit without orders or express permission. The captain was the only 'Five-Zone man' aboard: he could of course go anywhere; but no one, not even the first mate (Uskins leaned forward and struck his own chest), might enter the captain's quarters uninvited. Think of it, boys! And he, Uskins, was a Four-Zone man!
His dramatic speech ground on toward the inevitable final comment on their own status as lowest of the low (a remark Uskins seemed to look forward to). As he boomed and huffed, Pazel realized one of the boys was whispering on his left. It was an odd whisper, not at all mindful of Uskins. Someone, thought Pazel, is making a big mistake.
When Uskins turned to gesture at the forecastle, Pazel risked a glance. There was no one on his left. He snapped his eyes forward again, perplexed. He had distinctly heard a voice.
A moment later it came again, louder this time: 'They ate well today. Shepherd's pie for breakfast.'
Definitely on his left. But before Pazel had a chance to look again a second voice answered the first. This one was low and bitterly amused.
'Of course they did. And they'll eat well until the gangway's dismantled. You can't have boys deserting before the voyage starts.'
Was he dreaming? There was absolutely no one in sight: just the bare deck, and a grate covering the shot- locker hatch, the little shaft by which cannonballs could be hoisted to the forward guns. Pazel glanced quickly at Neeps. The other boy caught his eye, but there was no look of understanding. Neeps hadn't heard a thing.
'You see that posture? Chin up, hands behind the back? He's been to school, that one.'
Pazel blinked. His hands were folded behind his back.
'From the Keppery Isles?' asked the first voice.
'Wrong color. That's not just sun on his skin.'
Despite himself, Pazel cast a glance at his brown feet.
'Fidgets a lot. He'll stand out, Taliktrum.'
'He was quite still a moment ago.'
He wasn't dreaming, he was merely insane. The voices were coming from the grate. Whenever Uskins gave him the chance, Pazel squinted at it. The shaft was about two feet square. That one person might be inside it seemed absurd. That two might was simply impossible.
Then the voice said, 'Ormael.'
Pazel could not breathe. He'd had years of practice at hiding his feelings from dangerous men, but nothing had prepared him for what was happening now. They were talking about him!
'Ormael! That's it! Rin's eyes, a lad from the Trothe of Chereste! He must hate them to his marrow! Give him a match and he'll burn her to the waterline!'
'That remains to be seen, Ludunte. But what's the matter with him? He's beginning to look sick.'
'Just our luck if he drops dead before-'
'Quiet!'
Pazel was shaking. Fortunately Uskins took no notice: his conclusion was carrying him away: 'You may not touch the ladder to the quarterdeck. You may not open a fastened hatch. You may not touch a backstay, or a forestay, or slouch against a mast, or malinger about the galley, on pain of-'
'Did you bend your voice?'
'Of course not!'
Pazel could no longer stand it. He trained his eyes directly on the grate, and the voices broke off. He could see nothing, but he had the strangest feeling that he had locked eyes with two invisible beings.
Neeps elbowed him a warning. Pazel wrenched his gaze back to Uskins, trembling. At once the two voices resumed.
'I'll be damned to the Pit! He hears!'
'He can't! He can't!'
'He does! Look at him!'
'A freak, a monster! Taliktrum, we'll have to-'
Uskins cleared his throat. He was looking straight at Pazel.
'What the devil is the matter with you?' the first mate demanded.
Now all eyes were on him.
'N-n-nothing, Mr. Uskins. Sir!'
Uskins' eyes narrowed. He squared his shoulders. 'You're the Ormali,' he said. 'Pathkendle.'
'That's right, sir.'
'I do not need you to assure me I am right!' boomed Uskins, in a voice that turned heads around the topdeck.
'I'm sorry, sir.'
'Tarboys do not presume to confirm an officer's statements! If the officer's word is doubted, what good can a tarboy's do? Of course it can do no good at all. Isn't that so, Pathkendle?'
'I… uh… yes, yes, sir.'
'You hesitated. Why?'
'Pardon me, sir. You just told me not to confirm your statements.'
'Silence! Silence! Wharf cur! You dare make sport of me? Go empty your bladder, as you so visibly need to do, and then fetch lye from the galley and scrub those heads till they gleam! And when you see your own reflection remind yourself how lucky you are not to be whipped, you miserable, clever, ruddy-skinned runt! You other boys are dismissed!'
By heads Uskins meant the toilets, which on sailing ships are placed as far forward as possible so that the wind, always a bit faster than the ship itself, carries the reek of them away. The Chathrand's complement was two rows of eight, an astonishing number. He was still going at it with a long brush and lye when the order came to strike moorings, and sailors dashed to their stations, and the running pennants were hoisted to the topmasts. Hardly the glorious moment Pazel had dreamed of that first night on the Eniel. Still, he felt lucky when he thought of Uskins' error: better to be thought weak in the bladder than soft in the head. Or convulsive. Or possessed.
