As they neared the turning into Try-pot Alley they came across a ragged urchin bowling a metal hoop, striking sparks from the stones. Ryan reached out a hand and took the hoop from the boy.
"What art thou?.." the guttersnipe began.
"One question. Who owns the Salvationl"
The boy spit against the wall. "Everyone knows that, 'cept outlanders. Captain Quadde, of course."
Ryan gave him back the hoop, and they continued on to the Rising Flukes.
Chapter Fourteen
"No work?"
"No work."
"All day in Claggartville... seven healthy outlanders and no work?"
The incredulity of the landlord was going on and on, and Ryan Cawdor was already beginning to find it exceedingly tedious. Ever since they'd returned after exploring the ville he'd been on about work, counting off on his fingers the people that he knew personally who were almost begging in the streets and alleys to find men and women to fill vacancies for all manner of work.
"Rory Starbuck the chandler. Also runs the rope-making works. He could take on a couple of fresh hands with no trouble. The women would be welcome with their looks at Eleanor Goodman's gaudy..." He caught the eye of Doc Tanner and hastily changed his mind. "No, I didn't... There's many taverns'd take them as pot girls or cooks if they had the skill. The Indian could ship as harpooner on any vessel leaving harbor. There's jobs in some shops for... Oh, so many that it makes my head spin."
"Why don't you just spin off and bring us some food?" J.B. suggested, as calm as ever. As menacing as ever.
The supper was baked fish, what Rodriguez called "star-gazers' pie." It had a thick golden crust with the heads of a dozen mackerels protruding through the top, eyes open, staring ceilingward. With it came some fried greens and large potatoes roasted in their skins, with butter oozing over the platters.
They washed it down with bumpers of ale, perhaps the very same they'd seen being rolled in iron-hooped kegs along the quayside.
The piano was being played by a blind man whose forehead was furrowed by a huge scar. He picked at the keys with a soft touch, singing slow ballads of lost love and vanquished honor.
As Rodriguez came across at the end of the meal to oversee the removal of the greasy dishes and dirty glasses, Ryan caught him by the sleeve of his linen smock.
"What is it, Mr. Cawdor? The meal not to thy liking?"
"Tell us about Captain Quadde and the Salvation. What's so terrible?"
The innkeeper tried for a laugh that got lost somewhere between his throat and his mouth, coming out like a strangled yelp. "Terrible?" he squawked. "Why rock the boat asking that sort of question? Won't do thee good, outlander."
"Quadde and the Salvation," Ryan repeated, tightening his grip.
"Not good to blab 'bout it. Don't want to finish keelhauled or having my backbone laid bare by the cat. Let thee find someone else to tell thee about Quadde. Not me."
Ryan looked around the Rising Flukes, seeing that his conversation with Rodriguez had hushed every voice in the place. Every face was turned to him.
"Well!" he shouted. "Any of you chicken-shit bastards tell an outlander about the fireblasted mystery of the Salvationand her captain?"
Faces were averted, eyes downcast.
"Let it lie, mister," the landlord whispered. "There's a couple of men of her crew here."
Ryan stood up, feeling the familiar rise of anger, the crimson mist that flowed down over his brain when the rage took him. For most of his adult years he'd been able to control it. Most of the time. But now it was swelling again.
"Rodriguez says some of you are off the Salvation. So, what's so fucking frightening about her?"
"Outlander?"
"At last." Ryan turned to face the man who'd spoken. He was sitting in front of a half-finished plate of mutton stew at the long table nearest to the silent piano. "I'm second mate on the Salvation. Been that for five years now."
He was a little taller than average height, with a smaller beard than was usual about the ville. Several scars lined his weather-beaten face, one of them pulling down the corner of his left eye. The middle finger was missing from his left hand. He wore the jumper and breeches that most of the sailors favored. There was a dirk in his belt with a hilt that looked as if it had been carved from a piece of bone or ivory.
"Then you can tell me why everyone shits themselves at the mention of your ship and your captain."
"Best keep thy prow out of waters that don't concern thee."
Ryan spit on the floor, shrugging off Krysty's warning hand, knowing with a surge of strange excitement that he wasn't going to be cautious. Not this time. This time he was going to see the quarrel through. Even if it meant pushing it all the way himself.
"You scared to tell?"
The man stood at that, pushing away the table, hands resting on his hips in a gesture that was provocative and also kept his right hand near the knife hilt.
"Scared, outlander? Jonas Clegg fears neither man nor beast. There isn't the man born of woman or the whale broaching from the deepest waters that scares Jonas Clegg."
"I say you're a liar. I say you're a liar, Clegg, and a white-gutted coward!"
The mate smiled at that, gesturing to the three men with him to step away. The rest of the customers of the Rising Flukes also got up from their tables, backing off to ring the walls. Rodriguez shrugged his shoulders and retreated behind the bar.
"Come on, lover," Krysty urged quietly.
Ryan glanced at her and she took a sudden, indrawn breath. She knew Ryan was a killer. That was his trade. But rarely had she seen his face glowing with the thrill of an imminent fight.
"Got to be, lover," he replied softly. "Had enough of this place. Polite on the surface and something stinking rotten underneath. Time to get that out here in the open."
"Careful, Ryan."
He kissed her lightly on the cheek. "Always am, lover."
"Finished saying thy goodbye to thy poxed whore, outlander?" Clegg sneered.
"Sure you don't want to run and get your poxy Captain Quadde and hide behind his skirts?"
"Hide behind?.." Clegg began, looking puzzled for a moment. "Then thou knowest not that much about the Salvation!"
"Get to the steel!" someone yelled, and the sailor grinned wolfishly.
"Aye, let us to the steel. Dost thou have a knife, outlander?"
Ryan drew the panga with its eighteen-inch cutting edge from its sheath, the sight of the weapon bringing a burst of whispering from around the taproom of the inn.
"Bring the blood-red roses to thy cheeks, Jonas," one of his shipmates cackled.
Clegg drew his own knife, showing it had a double-edged blade around eleven inches long. "My sticker'll draw the teeth of thy butchering cleaver, my chilled outlander," he called.
"Fuck the talk. Fight," Ryan gritted, his whole body twitching with the adrenaline rush. He was filled with the burning desire to annihilate the man in front of him. He didn't really know why, but that didn't matter much in the Deathlands, either. There was something inherently evil about the whaling ship Salvation, and he was about to remove a little of it from the earth.
The extra length and weight of his panga was outweighed by the difficulty of using it effectively against a lighter blade in the hands of a skilled man.
The sailor was a tough fighting man, veteran of dozens of tavern brawls and dockside melees. Over the years he'd killed at least a dozen men in eye-to-eye combat.
Ryan, approaching the near side of middle age, was a whetted, flawless chilling machine, with no idea of how many men and women he'd sent into the endless dark.
Sensing that the one-eyed outlander held himself like an experienced knife fighter, Clegg kept off, moving around in a slow shuffle, feet scraping on the worn boards. The point of his knife was up, threatening Ryan with a cut at groin or belly.