stipend for any troubles I might offer.'
The serving girl brought a bottle and thick glass and put them before Finaren.
The captain thanked her and pulled the cork from the bottle. 'Care for a libation, lad? Trust me, I think we're both going to need it.'
Jherek's stomach flip-flopped, and he had to force the words out. He'd often seen Finaren take a drink and knew the man kept a ship's keg tapped, but he'd never seen the captain in a drunken stupor. He noticed for the first time the stink of liquor already on Finaren's breath and said, 'No, thank you.'
Finaren filled the glass in front of him and put the bottle away unstoppered. 'Me, I'm going to get royally pissed back at Butterfly, lad.' He drained off half the contents of the glass, then had a coughing fit that ended with, 'I've damn sure earned it.'
Jherek said nothing, already not liking the turn the conversation was taking.
'Valkur's brass buttons, lad, would that you were not who you are.' Finaren met his level gaze, and Jherek saw the pain in the older man's eyes.
'But I am,' Jherek whispered, barely able to get the words out.
'It's one thing for me to tell my crew a white lie for a good reason,' Finaren said.
'I never asked that,' Jherek said.
'I know that, lad. Hell, I'm not blaming you for me putting me own head in a noose on that one. You came to me and told me about that tattoo, same as you told Shipwright Makim who you were, and it was my choice not to tell the crew about it.'
Jherek remembered that decision. Even though Finaren had made the choice, he'd hated living that lie around men who on occasion trusted him with their lives.
'They wouldn't have stood for it,' Finaren said. 'Me, I don't know how I'd agreed to let you ship with me.'
Jherek opened his mouth to speak, not sure what he was going to say.
'You just shush, lad,' the captain cautioned. 'I'm here to make my peace, and I'll not have you taking blame on yourself where there's none. I could have done it another way, but I knew there'd be some of them men wouldn't stand for having you aboard. Selune grant me some good fortune here that they never find out who you truly are.'
Shards of hot tears stung the backs of Jherek's eyes but he wouldn't let them fall. He grew angry at himself, knowing how the conversation was going to end, and frustrated with himself that he could have believed even for a moment that it was going to go any other way.
There was no way to escape his heritage. The flaming skull tattoo marking him as one of Falkane's pirate crew had been magically administered, put on by Falkane himself. Falkane hand picked his crew, taking the hardest men a reaver's life could turn out, and he tied them to him for the rest of their lives by the tattoo. Nothing could erase that tattoo once it had been inscribed. Jherek had tried everything. Even before Madame litaar had attempted to remove it with her magic, he'd even tried to cut it from his flesh, leaving the scars that marked it.
'Lad, one of the most unfair things in life is the fact that a man can't pick the man who fathered him.' Finaren's voice took on an unaccustomed thickness. 'That day you came to me, why that's as clear in my mind as if it were yesterday. You were only a lad. Hell, you still are, but then you didn't have all the muscle and height you've picked up these past few years. You were just a spindly boy, not even shaving.'
Jherek remembered, too. He'd thought Madame litaar was punishing him for wanting to go to sea and had set his interview up with the crustiest captain that operated out of Velen to discourage him. Finaren's demeanor had been hard to take.
'I thought I'd have you out away from the city a half day's journey and you'd be crying for your ma,' Finaren went on. Even though he knew Madame litaar wasn't Jherek's natural mother, he'd always referred to her that way, 'Taut I saw that look in your eyes when you talked about the sea, and I knew it came from the fire in your belly a man always has when he's fallen in love with the briny blue.'
'There's no other place I'd rather be,' Jherek said.
'I know, lad, and a man with that kind of passion, he's going to find the way of it. That's why, even after you told me who you are, and showed me the tattoo when I doubted, that I let you sail old Butterfly. I turned down growed-up men to put you on her deck.'
Jherek knew it was true. Malorrie maintained contacts among the docks and had relayed the stories to him.
'Damn your father's eyes, lad,' Finaren said, 'I can't be taking you with me any more. We've had a good run of luck these past few years. I tell you now, I've never had a finer man crewing aboard Butterfly. Umberlee take me now if I'm lying.'
'No one said anything to me these last couple of days,' Jherek protested, knowing that was just as damning as anything. He just wasn't ready to let go.
'I know, lad, but plenty's been said to me since then. Your birthright has almost split my crew. Some are for you and some are against you. Almost had guts spilling out on ship's decks tonight when the matter was brought up, and I can't have that. I've got to have a crew like the fingers on a hand, always together and always working to stay that way. Otherwise I'm out of business and someone else'll be owning Butterfly. That's a thought that makes the blood run cold.' Finaren shook his head sorrowfully and finished his glass. 'What if they learned the real truth of the matter?'
'I don't know,' Jherek whispered. Even then, it hurt to get the words out.
'You aren't just a boy who escaped impressment,' Finaren stated. 'You're Bloody Falkane the Wolf's son!' He paused and made a brief luck sign in Selune's name. 'There are those who'd kill you hoping to get back at that man.'
Jherek leaned back in his chair, defeated. He looked at the table, suddenly realizing what it meant: one man giving and one man taking. Only there were no deals he could make and he knew it.
'You hate me, don't you, lad?' Finaren asked gruffly.
'No,' Jherek answered honestly.
Finaren looked away for a time, then gradually met his eyes again. 'I hope you mean that, lad. It'd break me heart if you did.'
Jherek tried to get around the hurt and loss that filled him. During the last few years, other captains had offered him employment after learning how good he was aboard ship and how skilled he was with marine craft as well as weapons. He'd turned them all down, even the offers that came with more wages attached. For a moment he resented the fact that he hadn't accepted them, hadn't left Finaren and gone his own way, but he knew if another captain had discovered the truth about his birth, he'd have been hung from a yardarm if he hadn't had his throat slit first.
'Maybe I can get a ship somewhere else,' he said.
Finaren nodded. 'Aye, there's a thought, but try somewhere far from the Sword Coast where the flaming skull tattoo won't be as heatedly remembered.'
'Could you give me a letter of recommendation?'
'Aye, that I could, lad, but are you sure you want to ask me for one? Someone asks around down here, they're going to find out about this. By morning, this whole town will know and tongues will still be wagging.'
Jherek knew he was right.
'Maybe the Sea of Fallen Stars,' Finaren suggested. 'You find a captain, tell him your da was a fisherman, that you learned the trade from him. They see what you can do, you'll move up smart enough.'
Shaking his head, Jherek said, 'I can't lie. I didn't lie to you, and I'm not going to lie to someone else. There'll be another captain out there willing to take a chance on me.'
Finaren hesitated for a moment, then shook his head sorrowfully. 'I hope you're right, lad, but you're going to be looking for one few and far between. You're no stripling boy now. You're almost a man full-grown. Most men will look on you as more of a threat. Valkur's brass buttons, Jherek, how many of them sahuagin did you kill in that battle? How many pirates and other creatures before that?'
'I couldn't tell you.'
'Look for a way to get rid of that tattoo,' the captain advised. 'That'd be the first thing to work on.'
'Madame litaar couldn't get rid of it.'
'Meaning no disrespect whatsoever, lad, but your ma don't know everything that's under the sun. Mayhap
