ship.
'Say no more,' the captain cautioned. 'These words should be for the Bingtown Traders' Council. We will send a boat for him immediately. Do you think they will allow him to leave?'
She shrugged helplessly. 'I but ask you to try.'
The captain scowled. 'I warn you, lady. There are many in Bingtown who will consider this but a ploy to get into our good graces. Feelings for the Satrapy have run foul of late, for you have not…'
'Please, Trader Caern! You are distressing our guest. My lady Companion, please, allow me. I shall be proud to extend to the Satrap the hospitality of Restart Hall. Although we Traders may seem a bit divided at the moment, I am sure that you shall find that the hospitality of Bingtown lives up to its legendary standards. For now, let us get you off this windy deck and into the captain's sitting room. Come along. Fear nothing. Trader Caern will send off a boat for the Satrap. You shall have a hot cup of tea and tell us all about your adventures.'
There was something almost comforting in the broad man's assumption that she was a helpless, trusting female. She set her hand atop his forearm and allowed him to escort her away.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Shakedown
'IF SHE LEAVES HER GEAR BAG STICKING OUT FROM UNDER HER BUNK ONE more time, I'm going to kill her.'
Althea half-rolled over in her bunk, then worked the rest of the way over on her elbows. The bunk was so damn narrow she could not even roll all the way over in it. She peered down at Amber. The carpenter stood, hands on her hips, and teeth clenched, glaring at Jek's gear bag. She was panting as if she had just run the rigging.
'Calm down,' Althea cautioned her. 'Take a breath. Tell yourself it doesn't really matter that much, it's just the cramped quarters.' She grinned. 'Then kick it as hard as you can. You'll feel much better.'
For an instant, Amber stared at her. Her eyes were flat and hard as her namesake. Then she turned wordlessly and kicked Jek's duffel under her bunk. With a sigh, she hunched down onto her own bunk. It was immediately under Althea's. Althea heard her trying to arrange herself in it. 'I hate this,' she muttered savagely after a few moments. 'I've seen coffins that were bigger than this bed. I can't even sit up all the way.'
'If we get into any weather, you'll be glad it's so tight. You can brace yourself and still manage to sleep,' Althea advised her.
'Now there's something to look forward to,' Amber muttered.
Althea hung her head over the edge of her bunk and peered down at her curiously. 'You're serious, aren't you? You really hate this that much?'
Amber didn't look at her. She stared at the bulkhead that was in front of her nose. 'All my life, I've always had somewhere I could go to be alone. To go without solitude is like going without salt.'
'Brashen offered you the use of his room, when he is not in it.'
'It used to be my room,' Amber said without rancor. 'Now it is his, with his things in it. That is all the difference in the world. I cannot settle myself in there. I feel like an intruder. Nor can I latch the door against the world.'
Althea pulled her head back up. She racked her brains. 'It would not be much, but you could curtain your bunk with canvas. It would be a tiny space, but Jek and I would respect it. Or you could learn to climb the rigging. Up at the top of the mast is an entirely different world.'
'Exposed to everyone's view,' Amber suggested sarcastically. But there was a note of interest in her voice.
'Up there, the sky and the ocean are so large that the little world below you does not matter. In reality, once you are up the mast, you are almost invisible to anyone on deck. Take a look up there the next time you're on deck.'
'Perhaps I shall.' Her voice was low again, almost subdued.
Althea judged it was best to leave her alone. She had seen this before, in new sailors. Either Amber would adapt to shipboard life, or she'd crack. Somehow, Althea could not imagine her going to pieces. She had an advantage over most new hands in that she had not come to the sea to make an exciting new life for herself. The adventurers fared the worst: they woke up on the fifth day to realize that the monotonous food, enforced companionship and general squalor of the crew quarters were the norm of the glorious new life they had embarked upon. Those were the ones who not only broke, but often took others with them.
Althea closed her eyes and tried to sleep. Soon enough she'd have to be out on deck again and she had problems of her own to wrestle. The weather had been fair and the Paragon was sailing as well as any ordinary ship would have. The ship had not been jolly, but he had not descended into one of his morose moods, either. For those blessings, she thanked Sa. The other side of the coin was that she was having problems with the crew. In fact, she was having the very kind of problems that Brashen had predicted she would, damn him. Somehow, that made it impossible to go to him for advice. She had been so cocky, back on the beach. She had been sure she could handle herself and the men under her command. Now her crew seemed bent on proving the opposite.
Not all of them, to be fair, she reminded herself. Most, she thought, would have fallen into line well enough, if not for Haff. He bucked her at every opportunity. Worse, he was charismatic. The others easily fell in with his attitude. He was handsome, clean and engaging. He always had a cheery word or a jest for his shipmates. He sprang to it readily when another man was in trouble. He was the ideal shipmate, well liked by the rest of the crew. His own natural leadership, she decided wearily, was exactly why he was always at odds with her. Her sex was the rest of the issue. He seemed to have no problems taking orders from Brashen or Lavoy. That was another reason why she could not take her grievances to them. This was something she'd have to unknot for herself.
If the man had been openly insubordinate, she could have dealt with it openly. But he defied her subtly and made her appear incompetent to her crew. She imagined herself making that complaint to Brashen and winced. Haff was clever. If she was paired with him, hauling on a line, he held back his strength, forcing her to work to the limits of hers. The one time she had told him to put his back into it, he had looked shocked at her rebuke. The other men had glanced at them in surprise. Paired with anyone else, Haff always did more than his share. It made her look weak. She was not as strong as the men she worked alongside. She could not change that. Nevertheless, damn him, she did her share, and it humiliated her when he made the others think she could not keep up. When she set him to a task on his own, he did it swiftly and well. He had an air of rakish showmanship that turned the simplest job aloft into a feat. Disdain for her command and a certain relish of risk: uncomfortably, she recalled a young sailor named Devon who had shared those traits and how she had admired him. No wonder her father had gotten rid of him.
Haff's other trick was to defer to her as a woman rather than as the mate in command. He would make a sly show of stepping aside to allow her to precede him, or offering her a rope or tool as if it were a cup of tea. This last brought snickers from the other men, and today Lop had been fool enough to imitate it. He had been clumsily obvious as he bobbed his head obsequiously to her. Their positions had been right and she had delivered a substantial kick to his butt that had sent him down the companionway ahead of her. There had been a general laugh of support for her, ruined when some faceless wag called, 'No luck, Lop. She likes Haff better'n you.' From the corner of her eye, she had seen Haff grin broadly at the remark and waggle his tongue. She had pretended not to have seen, simply because there was no good way to deal with it. She thought she had pulled it off until she saw the look on Clefs face. Disappointment was writ large on his face. He had turned aside from her, shamed by her shame.
That as much as anything had convinced her she had to act the next time Haff stepped out of line. The problem was, she still had no idea what to do. Second mate was a hard position to hold down. She was both of the crew and above them. Neither officer nor honest seaman, she had to walk this line alone.
'What would you like to do about Haff?' Amber asked her quietly from the bottom bunk.
'It spooks me when you do that,' Althea complained.
'I've explained it before. It's an obvious trick, used at every fair you've ever been to. You've been shifting about up there as if your bunk is full of ants. I simply picked the most likely cause of your anxiety.'
'Right,' Althea replied skeptically. 'To answer your question, I'd like to kick him in the balls.'
