“From the sea? The last thing I remember is Tark and Queeker forcing me to take a drink of Rackburn’s foul-tasting stuff.”
“Forcing you to take a drink of Nightlady?”
“Look, I’ll tell you all about it, but right now I have to take a-Um, er. . I say, is there a privy nearby?”
Aylis laughed and said, “We thought you might need to go, and we’ve a chamber pot at hand.”
“Wull, then I’ll. .” Pipper started to throw off his blankets but quickly covered up again. “Hoy, now, where’s my clothes? I mean, I can’t go traipsing about naked as a loon.”
Aylis smiled and said, “I’ll turn my back. The privy pot is right there.”
She listened as he swung down from his hammock and, on unsteady feet, lurched the few steps to the privy pot. He made water for what seemed a very long time, and Aylis wondered how someone that small could hold that much. But at last she heard him stumble back and, with a grunt, swing up into the hammock. A moment later he said, “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to dress and make certain that Bink is all right.”
She turned about to find him once again under his blanket, his eyes closed. “I’m afraid,” said Aylis, “the only thing we found you in were breeks.”
“Breeks? No boots, no jerkin, no-”
“Just breeks.”
“Well, if you could bring me-”
Roused by the noise, “What th-?” exclaimed Binkton, sitting up and then wildly grabbing at nought but thin air as the hammock flipped over and he fell out to hit the deck with a muffled thud. As he groaned to his feet and fought his way free of his blanket, he shouted to no one in particular, “Are we on a blasted rat-eating ship?”
By this time, Pipper had raised up enough to see Binkton, with the Human, the Elf, the whatever, now on one knee at his side. “Are you injured?” she asked.
“What?” Binkton whirled around and snarled, “Am I-?” But in that moment he discovered he was naked and facing a kneeling female. “Oh, goodness.” He grabbed at his blanket to cover himself.
In that same moment, Aravan clambered down the ladder to the peals of Aylis and the fair-haired Waerling’s laughter, while the dark-haired buccan seethed and glared at the two.
The Warrows slept the rest of that night and most of the following day, Pipper casting off the dregs of Nightlady, and Binkton recovering from his ordeal. That evening they told Captain Aravan of the events leading up to their near drowning in the Avagon Sea:
“. . and then they threw us overboard, the two of us shackled together, a great weighty chain dragging us down, Pip entirely unconscious. But I picked the lock on the chain and-Oi, now, wait a moment. Why, those dirty, rat-eating blighters, Pip, I’ll wager it was our very own chain I sent to the bottom.”
Pipper managed an “I wouldn’t know, Bink,” around a mouthful of soup-sopped bread.
“Our lock, too!” shouted Binkton in ire.
Aravan waited for the pique to subside, then asked, “And thou didst say this man, this Largo Rackburn, is the one responsible?”
“Yes,” seethed Binkton. “He and Tark and Queeker and others. But it’s Rackburn behind it all, him and his gang of ruffians, threatening shop-keepers and landlords and peddlers and whoever else they can take from.”
Aravan and Aylis and the two buccen sat on the low foredeck of the Eroean , Pipper and Binkton now dressed in their breeks but nought else, their jerkins and boots and socks having gone into the sea. Yet the night was mild, and a light southern breeze spilled over the larboard bow and brought comforting warmth with it. A half-moon rode overhead, shedding silvery light down upon the decks.
The buccen’s state of undress would not last long, for the sailmakers and leather workers had taken their measures and were even then sewing shirts and trews and cobbling footwear.
Aylis smiled at the fuming Warrow and said, “But you, Binkton, and you, Pipper, you took from them and gave back to those who had been wronged? Nicely done, I say. Nicely done.”
Binkton, pulled from his vexation by her smile, nodded and said, “I’d rather you just call me Bink and him Pip.”
Pipper managed a nod, even though he was at that moment taking a sip from his cup of tea. No sooner had he a mouthful than he choked and hacked and coughed and pointed, trying to say something, though it seemed more as if he were strangling. As Aravan patted the buccan on his back, Pipper finally managed, “B-Bink! Look. A tiny person.”
Aravan laughed and said, “For a Waerling to dub someone else tiny, well. .”
Lissa groaned and dropped her ‹wild-magic› cloaking shadow and said, “I forgot.” She turned to Aravan and said, “I’m sorry.”
But Aylis said, “Fear not, Liss; they have already taken the oath to reveal nought seen nor heard aboard the Eroean .”
His mouth yet agape, Binkton stared at the Pysk, but Pipper, now past his choking fit and grinning with the wonder of looking upon someone so wee, said, “You forgot what?”
“That Warrows can see through Pysk darkness.”
In that same moment, Vex scrambled up a ladder from belowdecks and came trotting toward Lissa.
“I knew I had seen a fox,” said Pipper. “And now I know why.” He turned to Aravan. “You’ve a Fox Rider aboard.”
“Of course he’s got a Fox Rider aboard,” snapped Binkton, now past his own moment of awe.
“No, what I meant,” said Pipper, “was why do you have a Fox Rider aboard, if I might ask-might I?”
“I am a scout,” said the Pysk. “And by the bye, my name is Aylissa, but everyone calls me Liss or Lissa.”
“Pipper Willowbank at your service,” said Pipper, leaping to his feet and bowing, “but everyone calls me Pip. And that one over there is Binkton Windrow; but you can call him Bink.”
Binkton, too, got to his feet and bowed, and Lissa curtseyed in return.
As Pipper and Binkton resumed their seats, Lissa clambered up the ladder to the foredeck and sat down as well, Vex curling up beside her. “A scout, you say,” said Pipper. “Oh, I’ve always wanted to be a scout aboard the Elvenship. I mean, legend has it that way back when, Warrows were known to do such.”
Aravan nodded. “Aye, ’tis true. Betimes in the High King’s First Era, I did sail with Waerlinga as scouts, for none can move quieter than they.”
“Hmph,” snorted Lissa. “Not even Pysks?”
Aravan held a hand out level and waggled it. “Wert thou afoot, mayhap so, but afox, I think not.”
Lissa cast a skeptical eye, but said nought.
Aravan turned a speculative look upon the buccen. “Ye didst say ye performed as Fire and Iron. And thou, Binkton, canst pick locks?”
“Haven’t come across one yet that I couldn’t open,” said Binkton proudly.
Pipper nodded in agreement and said, “It was all part of our act. Why, as a challenge, Bink even broke out of the gaol cell they have in Raudholl. Opened the Dwarven shackles, too.”
“Thou didst pick the locks in Redhall?”
Binkton grinned and nodded.
“Hai!” said Aravan, casting the buccan a salute.
“Is that a difficult thing to do?” asked Aylis.
“Well,” said Binkton, “I don’t like to brag, but-”
“It took him four candlemarks,” blurted Pipper, all agog at the skill of his cousin. “Whereas, in the Human gaols”-Pipper snapped his fingers-“it took but mere moments.”
As Aylis covered her smile with her fingers, her eyes dancing in merriment, Binkton sighed and said, “Pip’s right. It took a while, but I finally did get loose.”
“To open Dwarven fetters and one of their gaol doors in but four candlemarks is quite remarkable,” said Aravan.
“Well, I would have done it sooner,” said Binkton, “but all I had left after the Dwarves searched me was but a piece of bent wire.”
Aravan rocked back in amazement, while Aylis and Lissa and Pipper clapped in applause.
Even as Binkton blushed in response, Aravan now turned his gaze upon Pipper. “And thou art an acrobat?”
