Chapter Fifteen
“I’m here and ready to listen.” Leftrin folded his hands on top of the galley’s scarred tabletop. He tried to remember if Bellin had ever before asked to speak to him privately. He didn’t think so. He tried to be calm but feared what she might tell him. Was she ill? Was Swarge ailing and trying to keep it to himself? Both were sturdy folk. The thought that one of them might be threatened alarmed him, not just for his friends but for his ship. The crew of a liveship tended to stay aboard for a lifetime. Losing any one of his crew would unsettle Tarman badly. Leftrin tried not to jump to the worst conclusion, but when Bellin quietly latched both the doors to the galley and brought mugs of coffee to the table, dread roiled in his belly.
“I’ve got two things to tell you,” she said without preamble. “Neither is any of my business, and maybe one of them isn’t your business, either. But what happens on Tarman’s deck affects all of us, and as a member of the crew, I feel I’ve a right to speak out. Maybe a duty to speak out.”
Fear lurched through his bones. “Is someone sick?” he demanded.
“Ha!” The laugh burst out of her. For an instant, she grinned, and she kept her smile as she said, “Some call it that, and as I’ve felt it myself, I won’t disagree. Seen you catch that sickness, too, not so long ago.”
“Bellin,” he warned her, and she dropped her smile.
“Captain, Hennesey is in love. With Tillamon Khuprus, a woman far, far above him. Thought you needed to know that, as captain. I don’t know what Reyn Khuprus might think of his sister dallying with a common riverman. We’re a tight crew here, and even in the hard times, we’ve all pulled together. So when trouble tries to come on board, well, I think we all need to shove him off before he sets foot on the deck.”
Leftrin stared at her and then transferred his gaze to the black surface of his coffee. He tried to think. This was the last piece of news he’d ever expected to receive. Hennesey in love? That was bad enough. Hennesey sniffing after a woman, a passenger on his ship, was even worse. Especially a well-born woman of a house that had just financed their resupply.
He took a breath and spoke heavily. “I’ll take care of it.” It was his task and he knew it. He just wished he knew how to approach it, what tack to take. First, he’d sound Hennesey out, he supposed. If it was just his pecker leading the way, that would be one thing, something that Leftrin wouldn’t hesitate to crush. But if Hennesey was losing his heart. . He thought of how Alise had made him feel, and he recalled too how sternly Sedric had spoken to him, forbidding him from loving her. It hadn’t stopped him.
“There’s something else to consider, Captain. She likes him back. Really likes him. I saw her sitting with Skelly on the deck late last evening. They both looked of an age in that light, and when I came up to join them, they sounded of an age. Talking about boys.” Bellin shook her head and smiled fondly. Then, with a sigh, she added, “And that brings me to my second thing we got to talk about. Skelly.”
Leftrin made as if to speak, but Bellin held up a hand. “Captain, you promised to hear me out. I know she’s your family. She’s my family, too. It doesn’t look like Swarge and I will ever get a baby of our own. That girl, she’s in both our hearts. And we’ve been talking about her of a night, more than once, and we don’t see this going anywhere good for her. We know what she hopes. She wants that Trehaug family to break her engagement now that maybe she won’t be your heir. But if that happens, and she flies off to that Alum boy, well, that’s not going to end good. To put it plainly, he’s an Elderling now, and she isn’t. He isn’t going to come aboard and learn this ship and work it. He has to stay with his dragon. And she might think she could walk off Tarman’s decks and be happy ashore, but she won’t. For a month or two, she might. But in the long run-”
“I know,” Leftrin said, cutting in abruptly. He lifted weary eyes. “Do you think I haven’t thought of all that, Bellin? I have. I was hoping she’d have a chance to see her fiance when we were in Cassarick, that perhaps that spark might kindle. She’s young. It may be that what she feels for Alum is just an infatuation. We’ll see. But that, too, I’ll take care of.”
She tipped her head and appeared to be on the cusp of saying something more. Then she gave him a curt nod. “I know you will, Cap. You take good care of all of us, and Tarman, too. I don’t envy you right now. But I know you’ll do whatever has to be done. Or said.”
Bellin got up heavily, drank the last of her coffee, and hung her mug on the rack. She unlatched the door to the crew quarters, and then the one to the deck, and left him there. The wind banged the door shut behind her.
Leftrin sat for a time longer, his mug cradled in his hands. He heard a woman’s voice out on the deck. Tillamon. He leaned to look out the small window and saw her smiling. She was unveiled and her hair was free to the wind. Today there was a break in the rain, and sun actually shone on the decks. “But how do you know where it’s deep enough for him and where it’s too deep?” she was demanding of someone.
“Well, you just look at the river’s face, and you know.” Hennesey. With a lilt in his voice that Leftrin had never heard before. “When you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you can tell just by looking.”
Leftrin stepped to where he could see Hennesey’s face. Yes. There were some times when you could tell the depth of something just by looking. “Oh, Hennesey,” he said under his breath. “Best I tell you to talk to Reyn. Better you ask permission to court now than later.”
He wondered what the Elderling would say to his first mate.
A knock sounded at the cabin door. Hest sighed and rolled over on the narrow bed. “What is it?” he snapped.
“It’s just me!” Redding replied cheerily. The door opened and he entered, walking carefully, a tea tray in his hands. He caught the door with his heel and tried to flip it shut, stumbled, and barely managed to land the tray on the small table as he caught his balance. Remaining slightly hunched, he braced his hands on the table. “We’re nearing Trehaug, and I still haven’t got my sea legs,” he announced with a wan smile.
“We’re on a river, man. The ship scarcely rocks at all. It’s not as if we’re contending with waves.” Hest rolled onto his back to stare at the low ceiling. These new ships might be impervious to the river’s acid, but the shipwright had given far too little thought to passenger comfort, despite being Jamaillian. The captain had explained to him that they were intended for the swift transport of freight, but even so! It vexed him to know that the captain and the first and second mates on the
“No. I mean, yes, you’re right. I’m just not accustomed to the floor moving at all.” Redding waited for a response, and when Hest gave none, he smiled too brightly and said, “Well, I suppose this will be our final meal on this part of our adventure. We should dock before nightfall. I’m quite looking forward to seeing Trehaug. I hope the weather clears a bit, and we finally get a chance to socialize. This is my first visit to the Rain Wilds, you know.”
“Don’t anticipate great things and you won’t be disappointed,” Hest observed sourly. He swung his long legs off the bed and stood up carefully. “Don’t expect the weather to clear. It’s rained for days, and I expect it will continue to rain. As for touring Trehaug-hah! Rain Wild cities are scarcely worthy of the name. There are a few buildings of substance on the big low branches and then residences that are strung about in the trees like random fruit, but there is little of the conveniences of civilization. They look down on the folk of the Six Duchies and the other northern countries, but in truth, the Rain Wilders are just as backward and provincial. The only reason to come here is to buy Elderling artifacts and magical goods. It’s the only thing that keeps these cities alive.”
Hest wandered over to the small table and perched on a chair. As soon as he was seated, Redding plopped into his own chair and took up his napkin. Plainly he was famished, as he was at every meal. He licked his lips and gave an anticipatory wriggle as he eyed the covered dishes. The man wallowed in his pleasures with no pretense of disciplining his appetites. His blatant greed and venality had initially intrigued Hest after years of Sedric’s careful manners and public restraint, but of late, Redding’s obsequiousness and unsubtle pleas for gifts and bribes had begun to chafe. The man had absolutely no shame. As a result, he was actually more difficult to manipulate than Sedric had been. Implied threats of pain seemed to motivate him best. But even that amusement was beginning to pall. The man had proven a poor replacement for Sedric. Bringing him along had been merely a matter of realizing that there was no one else available at such short notice and knowing how much it would irritate his father when he
