CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

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CANDLETOWN

Candletown was a lively little trade port on the Marrow Peninsula. Althea had been here before, with her father. As she stood on the deck of the Reaper and looked around at the busy harbor, it suddenly seemed that if she jumped from the ship and ran down the docks, she must find the Vivacia tied up and her father on board her just as it used to be. He’d be in the captain’s salon, receiving merchants from the city. There would be fine brandy and smoked fish and aged cheese set out, and the atmosphere would be one of comradely negotiation as he offered his cargo in exchange for their wares or coin. The room would be both clean and cozy, and Althea’s stateroom would be as it once had been, her personal haven.

The sudden ache of longing she felt for the past was a physical pain in her chest. She wondered where her ship was, and how she was faring under Kyle’s usage. She hoped Wintrow had become a good companion to her, despite the jealousy that assured her that no one could ever know the Vivacia as well as she did. Soon, she promised both herself and her distant ship. Soon.

“Boy!”

The sharp word came from close behind her, and she jumped before she recognized both Brashen’s voice and the teasing snap in the word. Still, “Sir?” she asked, turning hastily.

“Captain wants to see you.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied and jumped up to go.

“Wait. A moment.”

She hated the way he glanced about to see if anyone was near, or even watching them. Didn’t he realize that to anyone else that was an obvious signal of something clandestine between them? Worse still, he stepped close to her, to be able to speak more softly.

“Dinner ashore tonight?” He tapped his pouch, so the coins inside gave a jingle. A newly stamped ship’s tag hung from his belt beside it.

She shrugged. “If I get liberty, perhaps I will.” She chose deliberately to miss the invitation in his question.

His eyes traveled over her face lingeringly. “That serpent burn is nearly gone. For a time, I feared you’d carry a scar.”

Althea shrugged, refusing to meet the tenderness in his eyes. “What’s one more scar on a sailor? I doubt anyone else aboard has noticed it or will.”

“Then you’ve decided to stay on with the ship?”

“I’ll work it as long as we’re in port. But I think I’ve a better chance of getting a ship back to Bingtown from here than from the other little ports the Reaper will visit after this.” She knew she should let it lie at that, but sudden curiosity made her ask, “And you?”

“I don’t know yet.” He grinned suddenly at her and confided, “They’ve offered me second. Almost twice the pay I started out at and it looks much better on a ticket than a third. I might stay aboard her, just for that. I’ve told them yes, but I haven’t signed ship’s articles yet.” He was watching her face very carefully as he said, “On the other hand, if we found a sound ship heading back to Bingtown, it might be good to see home again, too.”

Her heart dropped into her belly. No. This mustn’t continue. She forced a casual smile to her lips and a laugh. “Now, what are the chances that we’d both end up on the same ship again? Pretty slim, I’d say.”

Still, he watched her so closely. “Depends on how hard we tried,” he offered. He took a breath. “I did put in a word for you here. Said I thought you did more the work of a real sailor than a ship’s boy. The first agreed with me. Like as not, that’s what the captain wants to see you about, to make you a better offer if you stay on.”

“Thank you,” she said awkwardly. Not because she felt grateful, but because she felt the first sparks of anger kindling. Did he think she needed his “good word” to be seen as an able-bodied seaman? She was well worth the wages they paid a regular hand, especially as she could skin, too. She felt as if he’d cheated her of her dignity and her own worth, by putting in his good word. She should have stopped at that, but heard herself add, “I think they’ve seen that about me already.”

He knew her too damn well. “I didn’t mean it that way,” he hastily apologized. “Anyone can see you’re worth your pay. You were always a good sailor, Althea. And your time on the Reaper has made you an even better one. If I had to work rigging in a storm, I’d choose you to be up there with me. A man can count on you, aloft or on deck.”

“Thank you,” she said again, and this time it came out even more awkwardly, for she meant it. Brashen did not give out compliments casually. “I’d best report to the captain if I want to keep his good opinion of me,” she added, as a way to be quickly away from him.

She turned away from him, but he called after her, “I’ve got liberty. I’m off to the Red Eaves. Good food, and better ale and cheap. See you ashore.”

She hurried away from him, and hoped that by ignoring the odd look Reller sent her way she could dismiss it. Damn him. She’d hoped to live aboard and work the off-loading and re-supplying of this ship until she had a berth on another one. But if Brashen made it too awkward, she’d have to go ashore and pay for a room. Her lips were folded tight as she knocked at Captain Sichel’s door. She tried to smooth her face into a more presentable expression when she heard his terse, “Come ahead.”

She had only glimpsed the officer’s mess once or twice on the trip. Now as she entered it, she found it even less impressive than she had before. True, this was a hard-working ship and oil and meat were messy cargoes, but her father would never have tolerated the clutter she saw here. Captain Sichel sat at the table, while the first stood at his shoulder. There was a strongbox on the table, and a ledger as well as a stack of leather tickets and the ship’s seal. She knew that a number of the men had been paid off earlier that day. Those who had come aboard as debtors or prisoners had walked off as free men. True, they’d received no pay to show for the long year aboard the ship, only the stamped leather tag to show they’d put in their time, and a receipt to show their debt worked off. She caught herself wondering what sort of homes most of the men were returning to, or if their homes still existed. Then she felt the captain’s expectant stare and called her mind back to herself.

“Reporting, sir,” she told him smartly.

He glanced down at the open ledger before him. “Athel. Ship’s boy. And I’ve a note here that you earned a bonus skinning for us as well. That right, boy?”

“Yessir.” He knew it, she knew it. She waited for whatever else he wanted to say.

He flipped back through another book on the table, and ran his finger down the entries. “I’ve a note here in the ship’s log that it was your quick action that kept our third from being crimped, and yourself as well. Not to mention several men from other ships. And,” he flipped the pages forward to another marker in the logbook, “the mate has noted that on the day we hooked the serpent, your quick action kept another man from going overboard. That so, boy?”

She struggled to keep the grin off her face but could do nothing about the pleased flush that rose to her cheeks. “Yessir,” she managed, and added, “I didn’t think anyone had made note of those things.”

The captain’s chair creaked as he leaned back in it. “We take more notice of most things than the men aboard suspect. With this large of a crew, and half of them jail scrapings, I depend on my ship’s officers to watch closely, to see who is worth his salt and who isn’t.” He cocked his head at her. “You came on at Bingtown as a ship’s boy. We’d like to keep you on, Athel.”

“Thank you, sir.” And no offer of a raise in either pay or status? So much for Brashen’s good word.

“That suits you, then?”

She took a breath. Her father had always preferred honesty in his men. She’d try it here. “I’m not sure, sir. The Reaper’s a fine ship, and I’ve no complaint against her. But I’ve been thinking I’d like to make my way back to Bingtown, and get there sooner than the Reaper would take me. What I’d like to do, sir, is take my pay and my ticket now, but stay aboard her and work as long as she’s in port. And if I didn’t find another berth before the Reaper sailed, perhaps I could stay aboard her after all.”

So much for honesty. The captain’s look had darkened. Plainly he believed he’d made her a fair bid in offering to keep her on. He wasn’t pleased that she’d consider looking about for a better one. “Well. You’ve a right to your pay and your ticket, of course. But as to your maybe, perhaps attitude, well, we set a great store on loyalty to the ship. Plainly you think you could do better elsewhere.”

“Not better, no sir. The Reaper’s a fine vessel, sir, a fine vessel. I was just hoping to find one that would take me home a bit sooner.”

“A sailor’s home is his vessel,” Captain Sichel observed heavily.

“Home port is what I meant, sir,” Althea amended weakly. Plainly she was not handling this well.

“Well. Let’s tally you out and pay you off. And I’ll give you your ticket as well, for I’ve no quarrel with the job you did. But I won’t have you idling about my deck and hoping for a better position. The Reaper is scheduled to sail within the month. If you come back before we up anchor and want your position back, well, we’ll see. It may be filled easily, you know.”

“Yessir.” She bit her lip to keep from saying more. As the captain totted up her pay and bonus and counted it out to her, she gave him marks for his own honesty. Blunt and merciless as he had been, he still counted out her correct pay, down to the last copper shard. He passed it to her, and while she pocketed it, he took up a ship’s tag and with mallet and stamp drove the Reaper’s mark into it. He wiped ink over it to make it stand out better, and then took up a leather scribing tool. “Full name?” he asked casually.

Odd, the places where the world caught up with one. Somehow she had never foreseen this moment. She took a breath. It had to be in her name, or it would be worth nothing at all. “Althea Vestrit,” she said quietly.

“That’s a girl’s name,” the captain complained as he began to carve the letters into the ticket.

“Yessir,” she agreed quietly.

“What in Sa’s name made your parents hang a girl’s name on you?” he asked idly as he started on the “Vestrit.”

“I suppose they liked it, sir,” she answered. Her eyes didn’t leave his hands as he carefully scored the letters into the leather. A ship’s ticket, and all the proof she needed to make Kyle keep his oath and give her back her ship. The scribing hand slowed, then halted. The captain looked up and met her eyes. A frown deepened on his face. “Vestrit. That’s a Trader name, isn’t it?”

Her mouth was suddenly dry. “Yes—” she began, but he cut her off with a wave of his hand.

He swung his attention to his first mate. “Vestrits had that ship, what was her name? A liveship?”

The mate shrugged, and Captain Sichel turned back to her sharply. “What was the ship’s name?”

“The Vivacia,” Althea said quietly. Pride crept into her voice whether she willed it or no.

“And the captain’s daughter worked the deck alongside the crew,” Captain Sichel said slowly. He stared at her hard. “You’re that girl, aren’t you?” His voice was hard now, the words an accusation.

She held herself very straight. “Yessir.”

He flung the carving implement down in disgust. “Get her off my ship!” he snapped at the first.

“I’ll go, sir. But I need that ticket,” Althea said as the mate advanced on her. She stood her ground. She wasn’t going to shame herself by fleeing from him now.

The captain gave a snort of disgust. “You’ll get no ticket from me, not with my ship’s stamp on it! Do you think I’ll let you make me the mock of the slaughter fleet? Shipped a woman aboard all season and never even knew it? That would be a fine laugh on me! I ought to shake your pay out of your pockets for such a lie. No wonder we had such troubles with serpents, worse than we ever had before. Everyone knows a woman aboard a ship draws serpents. We’re damn lucky we got here alive, no thanks to you. Get her out of here!” This last he bellowed at his mate, whose expression showed he shared his captain’s opinion.

“My ticket,” Althea said desperately. She lunged for it, but the captain snatched it up. She’d have to assault him to get it. “Please,” she begged him as the mate grabbed her arm.

“Get out of here and off my ship!” he growled in return. “Be damn glad I’m giving you time to pack your gear. If you don’t get out of here now, I’ll have you put off on the docks without it. Lying whore-bitch. How many of the crew did you sleep with to keep your secret?” he asked as the mate forced her toward the door.

None, she wanted to say angrily. None at all. But she had slept with Brashen, and though that was no one’s business but hers, it would have made a lie of her denial. So, “This is not fair,” was all she could manage to choke out.

“It’s fairer than your lying to me was!” Captain Sichel roared.

The mate thrust her out of the room. “Get your gear!” he growled in a savage whisper. “And if I hear so much as a rumor of this in Candletown, I’ll hunt you down myself and show you how we deal with lying whores.” The push he gave her sent her stumbling across the deck. She caught her balance as he slammed the door behind him. She swayed with the strength of her anger and disappointment as she stared at the slab of wood that had closed between her and her ticket. None of it seemed real. The months of hard work, and all for what? The handful of coins that was all a ship’s boy was worth. She would have gladly given them all back, and everything else she owned for the scrap of leather that he was, no doubt, cutting up even now. As she turned slowly away, she caught Reller staring at her. He raised an eyebrow quizzically.

“They’ve turned me off the ship,” she said briefly. It was true and the simplest explanation.

“What for?” the sailor demanded, following her as she headed towards the forecastle to gather her meager belongings.

She just shrugged and shook her head. “Don’t want to talk,” she said gruffly, and hoped she sounded like an angry adolescent boy instead of a woman on the verge of hysterical tears. Control, control, control, she whispered to herself as she clambered one last time into the cramped and stuffy place she had called home all winter. It was the work of a few moments to snatch up her possessions and shove them down into her sea-bag. She swung it to her shoulder and left the ship. As her foot touched the dock, she looked around her with new eyes. Candletown. A hell of a place to be with nothing but a handful of coins and a sea-bag.

         

A man turned his head and stared at him oddly. Brashen glanced at him and then looked away. He realized he was striding down the street with a foolish grin on his face. He shrugged his shoulders to himself. He had a right to grin. He was proud of her. She had looked just like any tough ship’s lad, standing there on the Reaper’s deck. Her casual acceptance of his invitation, the cocky angle of her cap had all been perfect. In retrospect, this voyage that he had expected to kill her had actually been good for her. She’d recovered something, something he’d believed Kyle had hammered out of her once he took over as captain of the Vivacia. The lack of it was what had made her unbearable those last two voyages. It had changed her cheekiness to bitchiness, her sense of fair play to vindictiveness. On the day her father had died, he had thought that spark of the old Althea had been extinguished. He had seen no sign of it until that day on the Barrens when she was skinning out sea bears. Something had changed in her that day. The change had begun there and grown stronger, just as she herself had grown stronger and tougher. The night she had come to him in Nook, he had suddenly and completely realized that she had returned to being the old Althea. He had realized, too, how much he had missed her.

He took a deep breath of land air and liberty. His pay was in his pockets, he was free as a bird, and had the prospect of some very good company for the evening. What could be better? He began watching for the signboard of the Red Eaves. The first mate had grinned and recommended the inn to him as a clean place for a thrifty sailor when Brashen had mentioned he might spend the night ashore. The mate’s smile had plainly indicated he did not expect Brashen to spend the night alone. For that matter, neither did Brashen. He caught sight of the inn’s red eaves long before he saw its modest signboard.

Within, he found it clean but almost austere. There were only two tables and four benches, all sanded clean as a good ship’s deck. The floors were covered with raked white sand. The fire in the hearth was built of driftwood; the flames danced in many colors. The place was empty of customers. He stood some time in the open room before a man gimped out to greet him. He was wiping his hands on his apron as he came. He looked Brashen up and down almost suspiciously before he gave him, “Good day.”

“Your house was recommended to me. How much for a room and a bath?”

Again there was that scrutiny, as if the man were deciding what Brashen could afford. He was a man of middle years, a sea-scarred fellow who now walked on a badly twisted leg. That was probably what had put an end to his sailing. “Three,” he said decisively. Then he added, “You’re not the kind to come in drunk and break things up, are you? For if you are, then the Red Eaves has no room for you.”

“I’ll come in drunk, yes, but I don’t break things up. I sleep.”

“Emph. Well, you’re honest, that’s in your favor.” He held his hand out for the coin, and as soon as he had it in hand, he pocketed it. “Take the room to the left at the top of the stairs. If you want a bath, there’s a pump-house and a fireplace and tub in the shed out back. Fire’s banked, but it doesn’t take much time to stir it up. See to yourself and take as long as you want, but mind you leave all as tidy as you found it. I keep a tidy place here. Some don’t like that, they want to come in and drink and eat and shout and fight until all hours. That’s what you want, you’ll have to go somewhere else. Here an honest man can pay for a clean bed and get it. Pay for a well-cooked meal and get it: not fancy, but good clean food, cooked today, and an honest mug of good beer with it. But this isn’t a tavern or a whorehouse nor a place to make bets and game for money. No, sir. It’s a clean place. A clean place.”

He found himself nodding woodenly to the garrulous old man. Brashen was beginning to suspect that the mate who had sent him here had been having a bit of fun with him. Still, here he was, and it was quiet and clean and quite likely a better place to entertain Althea than a crowded, noisy tavern. “I’ll be heading out back to take a bath, then,” he announced when the landlord paused for breath. “Oh, and a shipmate of mine may be coming here to meet me. He’ll be asking for Brashen. That’s me. The lad is named Athel. Would you bid him wait for me?”

“Aye, I’ll let him know you’re here.” The landlord paused. “Not a carouser, is he? Not the type to come in here drunk and spew on my floor and knock over my benches, is he?”

“Athel? No indeed, not him. No indeed.” Brashen beat a hasty retreat out the back door. In a small shed set in a cobbled yard, he found the water pump, a bath trough and a fireplace as the landlord had promised. Like the rooming house, the pump-house was almost excessively tidy. And the several rough towels that hung on pegs looked clean, if well used, and the trough did not show a ring of some other man’s grease. Just as well, Brashen told himself, to stay at a clean place. He pumped several buckets of water and put them to heat. His shore clothes were in the bottom of his duffel. They were clean, though smelling a bit musty. He hung out his striped shirt and stockings and good woolen trousers to air near the fireplace. There was a pot of soft-soap and he helped himself to it. He took off several layers of grease and salt and possibly a layer of skin as well before he was finished. For the first time in weeks he took his hair out of its braid, washed it well and then bound it back again. He would have liked to lie and soak in the tub, but he didn’t want to keep Althea waiting. So he rose and dried himself and trimmed his beard back to its former shape and donned his clean shore clothes. Such a treat to put on clean, warm, dry clothes over clean, warm, dry skin. The bath had left him almost lethargic, but that was nothing that a good meal and a cold mug of beer wouldn’t cure. He stuffed his dirty clothes back in his sea-bag and did a quick tidy of the room. Tomorrow, he’d find a laundry to have all his clothes washed out, save for those so tarry as to be hopeless. Feeling a new man, he went back to the main house to have a meal and wait for Althea.

         

She had never been in a foreign port alone before. Always before, she had had shipmates and a ship to return to when the night grew dark. It was not late afternoon yet, but the day suddenly seemed both more chill and more gray. She looked around herself yet again. The world was suddenly an edgeless, formless place. No ship, no duties, no family ties. Only the coin in her pocket and the duffel on her back to concern her. A strange mixture of feelings suddenly assailed her; she felt at once forlorn and alone, devastated at their refusal to give her a ticket, and yet oddly powerful and independent. Reckless. That was the word. It seemed there was nothing she could do that would make things worse than they already were. She could do anything she wanted just now, and answer to no one, for no one else would care. She could get shamelessly drunk or spend every coin she had on a sybaritic night of food, wine, music and exotic surroundings. Of course there was tomorrow to worry about, but one always had to reckon with tomorrow. And if she chose to slam into one head first, there was no one to forbid it, or to say shame to her the next day.

It wasn’t as if careful planning had paid off well for her lately.

She gave a final heist to her bag and then deliberately set her cap at a jauntier angle. She strode down the street, taking in every detail of the town. This close to the waterfront, it was ship’s brokers and chandlers and cheap seaman’s boarding houses, interspersed with taverns, whorehouses, gaming rooms and druggeries. It was a rough section of town for a rough pack of folk. And she was part of them now.

She chose a tavern at random and went inside. It looked no different from the taverns in Bingtown. The floor was strewn with reeds, not very fresh. Trestle tables bore ancient ring stains from many mugs. The benches looked much-mended. The ceilings and walls were dark with oily smoke from cooking and lamps. There was a large fireplace at one end, and there the sailors had gathered thickest, close to the warmth and the smell of stew. There was a tavern-keeper, a lean, mournful-looking man, and a gaggle of serving maids, some sullen, some giggly. A staircase at the back led up to rooms above. The conversational roar pushed at her as solidly as a wind.

She found a spot at a table, not as close to the fire as she wished, but still much warmer than it had been outside, or in the forecastle of the ship. She set her back to the wall at the mostly empty table. She got a mug of beer that was surprisingly good, and a bowl of stew that was badly seasoned, but still a vast improvement over ship’s food. The chunk of bread that went with it more than made up for it. It had not been out of the oven for more than a few hours. It was dark and thick with grain and chewy. She ate slowly, savoring the warmth, the food, and the beer, refusing to think of anything else. She considered getting a room upstairs, but the thumps, thuds, shrieks and laughter that drifted down the staircase made her aware that the rooms were not intended for sleeping. One tavern maid approached her half-heartedly, but Althea simply pretended not to understand. The girl seemed as glad to go on her way.

She wondered how long one had to be a whore before one got tired of it. Or used to it. She found her hand had gone to her belly and was touching the ring through her shirt. Whore, the captain had called her, and said she’d brought the serpents down on the ship. Ridiculous. But that was how they had seen her. She took a bite of her bread and looked around the room and tried to imagine what it would be like to randomly offer herself to the men there in hopes of money. They were a rancid lot, she decided. The sea might make a man tough, but for the most part, it also made him ugly. Missing teeth, missing limbs, hands and faces weathered dark as much by tar and oil as by wind and sun; there were few men there that appealed to her. Those that were young and comely and well-muscled were neither clean nor mannered. Perhaps, she reflected, it was the oil trade. Hunting and killing and rendering, blood and salt and oil made up their days. The sailors on the merchant vessels had been cleaner, she thought. Or perhaps only the ones on the Vivacia. Her father had pushed the men to be clean to keep the vessel free of vermin as well.

Thinking of the Vivacia and her father did not hurt as much as it once had. Hopelessness had replaced the pain. She brought her mind about and sailed straight into the thought she’d been refusing. It was going to be damn close to impossible to ever get a ship’s ticket in her name. All because she was a woman. The defeat that washed abruptly over her almost sickened her. The food in her belly was suddenly a sour weight. She found she was trembling as if she were cold. She pressed her feet against the floor, and set her hands to the edge of the table to still them. I want to go home, she thought miserably. Somewhere that I am safe and warm and people know me. But no, home was none of those things, not anymore. The only place those things existed for her was in the past, back when her father had been alive and the Vivacia had been her home. She reached for those memories, but found them hard to summon. They were too distant, she was too disconnected from them. To long for them only made her more alone and hopeless. Brashen, she thought suddenly. He was as close to home as she could get in this dirty town. Not that she intended to seek him out, but it suddenly occurred to her that she could. That was something she could do, if she wanted to, if she wanted to be reckless and truly care nothing about tomorrow. She could find Brashen, and for a few hours, she could feel warm and safe. The thought was like the smell of a well-laden table to a starving man.

But she wouldn’t do it. No. Brashen would not be a good idea. If she went to meet him, he would think that meant she was going to bed him again. She deliberately considered that idea. She felt a slow stirring of interest. She gave a snort of disgust and forced herself to truly consider it. The sounds from upstairs seemed suddenly both degrading and silly. No. She wasn’t really interested in doing that with anyone, let alone Brashen. Because if they did, that would be the worst idea of all, because sooner or later one or the other of them, or both of them, would be back in Bingtown. Bedding Brashen on the ship had not been a good idea. They had both been tired and half-drunk, to say nothing of the cindin. That was the only reason it had happened. But if she went to meet him tonight and it happened again, then he might think it meant something. And if they encountered one another in Bingtown … well, what happened on the ship was one thing, but in Bingtown it would be quite another. Bingtown was home. So. She would not go to meet him and she would not bed him. That was all quite decided with her.

So the only question that remained was what she was going to do with the rest of the evening, and the night to follow. She held up her mug to get a tavern maid’s attention. As the girl filled it, Althea pasted a sickly grin on her face. “I’m more tired than I thought,” she said artlessly. “Can you recommend a quiet rooming house or inn? One where I can get a bath as well?”

The girl scratched the back of her neck vigorously. “You can get a room here, but it’s not quiet. Still, there’s a bath house down the street.”

Watching the girl scratch, Althea decided that even if the tavern were silent, she wouldn’t want to sleep in one of their beds. She hoped to get rid of any vermin she’d acquired on the ship, not invite more. “A quiet place?” she asked the girl again.

The girl shrugged. “The Gilded Horse, if you don’t mind paying well for what you get. They’ve got musicians there, too, and a woman who sings. And little fireplaces in the best rooms, I’ve heard. Windows in some of the rooms, too.”

Ah. The Gilded Horse. Dinner with her father there, roast pork and peas. She’d given him a funny little wax monkey she’d bought in a shop, and he’d told her about buying twenty casks of fine oil. A different lifetime. Althea’s life, not Athel’s.

“No. Sounds too expensive. Someplace cheap and quiet.”

She frowned. “Don’t know. Not many places in this part of town are quiet. Most sailors, they don’t want quiet, you know.” She looked at Althea as if she were a bit strange. “There’s the Red Eaves. Don’t know if they have baths there, but it’s quiet. Quiet as a tomb, I heard.”

“I heard of that place earlier,” Althea said quickly. “Anywhere else?”

“That’s it. Like I said, quiet isn’t what most sailors come to town to find.” The girl looked at her oddly. “How many places do you need to hear about?” she asked, and then took the coin for the beer she had poured and sauntered off.

“Good question,” Althea conceded. She took a slow drink of her beer. A man who smelled badly of vomit sat down heavily next to her. Evening was coming on and the tavern was starting to fill up. The man belched powerfully and the smell that wafted toward her made her wince. He grinned at her discomfiture and leaned confidentially closer. “See her?” he demanded of Althea as he pointed to a sallow-faced woman wiping a table. “I did her three times. Three times, and she only charged me for the once.” He leaned back companionably against the wall and grinned at her. Two of his top teeth were broken off crookedly. “You ought to give her a go, boy. She’d teach you a few things, I’d wager.” He winked broadly.

“I’m sure you’d win that wager,” Althea agreed amiably. She drank off the last of her beer and rose. She took up her sea-bag again. Outside it had begun to rain. A wind was sweeping in with it, and it promised heavier rainfall soon. She decided to do the simplest thing. She’d find a room that suited her, pay for it, and get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow was soon enough to think of something significant to do. Such as find a shipboard job that would take her back to Bingtown as swiftly as possible.

Bingtown. It was home. It would also mark the end of her dream of recovering the Vivacia. She pushed that thought aside.

By the time it was fully dark, she had sampled six different rooming houses. Almost all the rooms were over taverns or tap rooms. Every one of them had been noisy and smoky, some with whores on the premises for the convenience of those staying there. The one she settled on was no different from the others, save that there had just been a brawl there. The city guard had come, temporarily driving out the more lively customers. Those who remained after the brawl seemed either worn out or sodden. There were three musicians in a corner and now that the paying customers were mostly dispersed, they were playing for themselves. They talked and laughed softly, and occasionally stopped in mid-piece to go back and try something a different way. Althea sat close enough to listen in on their intimacy and far enough away not to intrude. She envied them. Would she ever have friends like that? She had enjoyed her sailing years aboard ship with her father, but there had been a price. Her father had been her only real friend. The captain and owner’s daughter could never fully share the deep friendships of the forecastle crew. When she was at home, it was much the same. She had long ago lost touch with the little girls she had played with as a child. Married by now, most of them, she thought. Probably to the little boys they had spied on and giggled about. And here she was, in ragged sailor-boy togs in a foreign port in a run-down tavern. And alone. With no prospects save crawling home with her tail between her legs.

And getting more maudlin every minute. Time to go to bed. Right after this last mug, it would be time to go up to the room she had secured for the night.

Brashen walked in the door. His gaze swept the room and settled on her immediately. For a frozen instant he just stood where he was. She knew by his stance that he was angry. He’d been in a fight, too. The redness under his left eye would be a black eye before morning. But she doubted that was what he was still angry about. There was a tightness to his wide shoulders under his clean striped shirt, and small sparks deep in his dark eyes. There was no reason for her to feel guilty or ashamed. She hadn’t promised to meet him, she’d only said she might. So the sudden shrinking she felt surprised her. He strode across the tavern and glanced about to find an unbroken chair. There wasn’t one, and he had to sit on the end of her bench. He leaned forward to speak to her and his words were clipped.

“You could have simply said no. You didn’t have to leave me sitting and worrying about you.”

She drummed her fingers lightly on the table. For a few seconds she watched them and then looked up to meet his eyes. “Sorry, sir,” she reminded him. “Didn’t think as you’d worry about the likes of me.”

She saw his eyes dart to the musicians, who were paying no attention to them at all. “I see,” he said levelly. His eyes said much more. She’d hurt him. She hadn’t meant to, hadn’t really thought about that aspect of it at all. He got up and walked away. She expected he would leave, but instead he interrupted the tavern-keeper, who was sweeping up broken crockery. Brashen brought his own mug of beer back to the table and resumed his seat. He didn’t give her a chance to speak at all. “I got worried. So I went back to the ship. I asked the mate if he knew where you’d gone.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Oh. What he said about you was not …” His words trailed off and he touched the darkening bruise on his face. “I won’t be sailing aboard the Reaper again,” he said abruptly. He glared at her as if it were her fault. “Why were you so stupid as to tell them your real name?”

“The mate told you about it?” she asked in reply. Unbelievably, her mood dropped yet another notch. If he was talking about it, it was going to lessen her chances of getting aboard another ship as a boy. Despair hit her like green water.

“No. The captain. After the mate escorted me in there and they demanded to know if I had known you were a woman.”

“And you told them you had?” Worse and worse. Now they would be convinced she had whored herself out to buy Brashen’s silence.

“There seemed little point in lying.”

She didn’t want to know the rest, about who had hit whom first and when. None of it seemed to matter anymore. She just shook her head.

But Brashen wasn’t going to let it be. He took a gulp of his beer, then demanded, “Why did you give them your real name? How could you expect to sail again on a ticket that had your real name on it?” He was incredulous at her stupidity.

“On the Vivacia,” she said faintly. “I expected to use it to sail on the Vivacia. As her captain and owner.”

“How?” he asked suspiciously.

And she told him. The whole story, and even as she spoke of Kyle’s careless oath and her hopes of using it against him, even as Brashen shook his head at her foolish plan, she wondered why she was telling him. What was it about him that had her spilling her guts to him, about things that were none of his business?

He left a small space of silence at the end of her story. Then he shook his head yet again. “Kyle would never keep his word on a chance oath like that. You’d have to take it to Traders’ Council. And even with your mother and your nephew speaking in your behalf, I doubt they’d take you seriously. People say things, in the heat of anger … If the Traders’ Council started forcing every man who swore an oath in anger to live up to them, half of Bingtown would be murdered.” He shrugged. “On the other hand, it doesn’t surprise me that you’d try. I always thought that, sooner or later, you’d try to take the Vivacia back from Kyle. But not like that.”

“How, then?” she asked him testily. “Sneak aboard and cut his throat while he’s asleep?”

“Ah. So that occurred to you, too,” he observed dryly.

She found herself grinning in spite of herself. “Almost immediately,” she admitted. Then her smile faded. “I have to take the Vivacia back. Even though I now know I’m not really ready to captain her. No, don’t laugh at me. I may be thick, but I do learn. She’s mine, in a way no other ship ever could be. But the law is against me and my family is against me. One or the other, I might fight. But together …” Her voice died away and she sat still and silent for a time. “I spend a lot of time not thinking about her, Brashen.”

“Me, too,” he commiserated. He probably meant the remark in sympathy, but she bristled to it. How could he say that? Vivacia wasn’t his family ship. How could he possibly feel about her as Althea did? The silence stretched between them. A group of sailors came in the door and claimed an adjacent table. She looked at Brashen and could think of nothing to say. The door opened again and three longshoremen came in. They began calling for beer before they were even seated. The musicians glanced about as if awakening, and then launched into a full rendition of the bawdy little tune they’d been tinkering with. Soon it would be a noisy, crowded room again.

Brashen drew circles on the table with the dampness from his mug. “So. What will you do now?”

There. The very question that had been stabbing her all day. “I guess I’ll go home,” she said quietly. “Just like you told me to do months ago.”

“Why?”

“Because maybe you were right. Maybe I’d better go and mend things there as best I can, and get on with my life.”

“Your life doesn’t have to be there,” he said quietly. “There are a lot of other ships in the harbor, going to a lot of other places.” He was too offhandedly casual as he offered, “We could go north. Like I told you. Up in the Six Duchies, they don’t care if you’re a man or a woman, so long as you can do the work. So they’re not that civilized. Couldn’t be much worse than life on board the Reaper.”

She shook her head at him wordlessly. Talking about it made her feel worse, not better. She said the words anyway. “The Vivacia docks in Bingtown. If nothing else, I could see her sometimes.” She smiled in an awful way. “And Kyle is older than I am. I’ll probably outlive him, and if I’m on good terms with my nephew, maybe he’ll let his crazy old aunt sail with him sometimes.”

Brashen looked horrified. “You can’t mean that!” he declared. “Spend your life waiting for someone else to die!”

“Of course not. It was a joke.” But it hadn’t been. “This has been a horrible day,” she announced abruptly. “I’m ending it. Good night. I’m going up to bed.”

“Why?” he asked quietly.

“Because I’m tired, stupid.” It was suddenly more true than it had ever been in her life. She was tired to her bones, and deeper. Tired of everything.

The patience in his voice was stretched thin as he said, “No. Not that. Why didn’t you come to meet me?”

“Because I didn’t want to bed you,” she said flatly. Even too tired to be polite anymore.

He managed to look affronted. “I only invited you to share a meal with me.”

“But bed was what you had in mind.”

He teetered on the edge of a lie, but his honesty won out. “I thought about it, yes. You didn’t seem to think it went so badly last time …”

She didn’t want to be reminded. It was embarrassing that she had enjoyed what they had done, and all the more so because he knew she had enjoyed it. At the time. “And last time, I also told you it couldn’t happen again.”

“I thought you meant on the ship.”

“I meant anywhere. Brashen … we were cold and tired, we’d been drinking, there was the cindin.” She halted, but could find no graceful words. “That’s all it was.”

His hand moved on the table top. She knew then just how badly he wanted to touch her, to take her hand. She put her hands under the table and gripped them tightly together.

“You’re certain of that?” His words probed his pain.

“Aren’t you?” She met his eyes squarely, defying the tenderness there.

He looked aside before she did. “Well.” He took a deep breath, and then a long drink from his mug. He leaned towards her on one elbow and tried for a convincing grin as he suggested, “I could buy the cindin if you wanted to supply the beer.”

She smiled back at him. “I don’t think so,” she replied quietly.

He shrugged one shoulder. “If I buy the beer as well?” The smile was fading from his face.

“Brashen.” She shook her head. “When you get right down to it,” she pointed out reasonably, “we hardly even know one another. We have nothing in common, we aren’t—”

“All right,” he cut her off gruffly. “All right, you’ve convinced me. It was all a bad idea. But you can’t blame a man for trying.” He drank the last of his beer and stood up. “I’ll be going, then. Can I offer you a last piece of advice?”

“Certainly.” She braced herself for some tender admonition to take care of herself, or be wary.

Instead he said, “Take a bath. You smell pretty bad.” Then he left, sauntering across the room and not even looking back from the door. If he had stopped at the door to grin and wave, it would have dispersed the insult. Instead, she was left feeling affronted. Just because she had refused him, he had insulted her. As if to pretend he had never wanted her, because she was not perfumed and prettied up. It certainly hadn’t bothered him the last time, and as she recalled, he had smelled none too fresh himself. The gall of the man. She lifted her mug. “Beer!” she called to the sour innkeeper.

         

Brashen hunched his shoulders to the dirty rain that was driving down. As he walked back to the Red Eaves he carefully thought about nothing. He stopped once to buy a stick of coarse cindin from a street corner vendor miserable in the rain, and then walked on. When he reached the doors of the Red Eaves, he found them barred for the night. He pounded on them, unreasonably angry at being shut out in the rain.

Above his head, a window opened. The landlord stuck his head out. “Who’s there?” he demanded.

“Me. Brashen. Let me in.”

“You left the washing room a mess. You didn’t scrub out the trough. And you left the towels in a heap.”

He stared up at the window in consternation. “Let me in,” he repeated. “It’s raining!”

“You are not a tidy person!” the innkeeper shouted down at him.

“But I paid for a room!”

For an answer, his duffel bag came flying out the window. It landed in the muddy streets with a splat that spattered Brashen as well. “Hey!” he shouted, but the window above him shut firmly. For a time he knocked and then kicked at the barred door. Then he shouted curses up at the closed window. He was throwing great handfuls of greasy mud up at it when the city guards came by and laughingly told him to move along. Evidently it was a situation they had seen before, and more than once.

He slung his filthy sea-bag over his shoulder and strode off into the night to find a tavern.