Behind him, Ryan heard the splintering voice of Captain Quadde. "Thou hast just two minutes, outlander. Then I come down and ye're both done."
The low-ceilinged forecastle was cluttered with bedding and discarded clothes. A single oil lamp turned on gimbals in the middle of the room, and at first glance Ryan couldn't see anyone.
"Hill?"
No answer. Ryan took his feet off the bottom step and looked more carefully. If the sailor had really taken refuge down here, then there weren't many places for him to be hiding.
"Don't fuck me around, Hill. She'll use this to chill us both."
"Don't wanna die."
"Nobody does." Now that he'd heard the voice, he'd also spotted where the man was lurking — in the corner behind one of the tables. Ryan wasn't sure, but he thought he detected the gold gleam of light off the steel of a knife.
"She'll kill me. I was frightened. Been aloft too many times too many storms. Wanted to jump ship this time, but she wouldn't let me. Had me down there, chained, all the time in Claggartville. Help me. Thou art an outlander. She won't kill thee."
"No. I'm her friend, Hill. She said to tell you not to worry. Come up and she'll tell you herself."
"Liar!" Ryan heard the haunted tone of someone who knew the words were lies, but desperately wanted to think that they weren't.
"Double-truth."
"No."
Time was passing. Ryan could hear it, with the beating of the pulse in his own skull. "I'm telling you the truth. On my brother's life." Such as it had been. "Trust me, Hill. What do you have to lose? What? Nothing."
"I'll slit thy throat if thou liest to me, outlander. I swear I will."
"I got no blade." He held his arms spread out sideways, fingers wide.
Ryan's eyes were accustomed to the poor light, and he walked across the forecastle, reaching out with his right hand in a gesture that was transparently friendly. He stooped toward the crouched figure of Kenny Hill.
"Thou wilt not betray me, outlander? Not to that woman?"
"My word on it. Come on."
The sailor held a narrow-bladed dagger in his right hand, and he reached out trustingly with his other hand to grasp Ryan's fingers.
Immediately Ryan pulled him up, with a great burst of convulsive strength. Fending off the knife with his other hand, he dropped his face and butted Hill across the bridge of the nose.
There was the satisfyingly soft, rotten-apple sound of bone breaking. As Hill cried out, Ryan jerked his knee hard into the man's groin.
The knife tinkled to the floor and the sailor slumped after it, retching and barely conscious. He started to weep.
"Get up, you cowardly little bastard," Ryan snarled, heaving him to his feet, lifting him across his own shoulders. He carried him up the swaying ladder, ignoring the crack as Hill's head struck the ceiling. Blood was gushing from the broken nose, puddling on the steps. As he emerged onto the deck, Pyra Quadde was near the hatch.
"Thou hast a minute left and... Oh!" she shouted. The warning died in her throat as Ryan appeared with Hill slung over his back.
There was a smattering of talk from the crew, and Ryan thought he even heard someone start to clap. But it might have been mad Jehu.
"Dump the offal there and get in line, Outlander Cawdor," she Ordered. Ryan genuinely couldn't tell whether the woman was pleased to see him alive or not.
He joined Donfil and Johnny. The Apache looked quizzically at him. "Got no choice," Ryan whispered.
Quadde had the semiconscious man stripped by a couple of the other hands, and bound to the foot of the mainmast. Ryan noticed that there was a couple of iron ringbolts set into the decking, in just the right positions to shackle a man's ankles, forcing his legs spread wide. Hill's arms were tied behind him, then a length of rope was wound clear around the mast and knotted. Another cord was pulled tight around his neck, keeping him upright, preventing him from wriggling free. Captain Quadde stood near the sailors who were tying Hill, but she didn't seem to give them any other orders. It was as though they knew how to tie the prisoner, because they'd done it often enough before. A cold thought.
The light was fading fast now, even though the skies had cleared. The Salvationwas butting her way into the Lantic wastes, a white bone of foam under her stem.
The captain leaned over the helpless man, who was now recovering consciousness. She stood between his spread feet, swaying to the motion of the ship. The metal tip of her cane was behind her, mere inches from Hill's genitals.
"This puking pus-dog has been caught for deserting his post in poor weather!" she shouted. "His punishment is to be kept here, tied and bare, for all of the night and all of the next day. He is to have no food and only one pan of water at noon tomorrow. Any man speaks to him or goes near him shares his punishment. Hear that well."
"Doesn't seem that fireblasted harsh," Ryan whispered to Johnny.
"What thou hearest and what happens ain't always the same, matey," the sailor replied. Ryan crooked an eyebrow at him, but he wouldn't explain further.
"Don't let her do it, friends!" Hill shouted, shaking his head to clear his mouth of his own blood. "You know what she'll do."
"Gag him," Quadde ordered, not even looking at the man behind her.
"You know!" Hill screamed, voice ragged with stark terror. "Don't let her do..."
His words disappeared under a hank of cotton waste that was rammed into his mouth and knotted in place.
"Now, to your quarters. Watch on deck only. Eat well. Tot of rum to every hand, Mr. Ogg. Carry on, men."
She didn't move from where she stood, ignoring the mumbling prisoner at her heels. The men filed dutifully away, down the companionway into the shelter of the forecastle. The cooks trotted off to begin the meal, in their cramped galley by the steerage companionway. Ryan was last off the deck, and he hesitated a moment, glancing behind him at the woman's silhouette.
But she had turned away from him, her stout walking stick lifted to her shoulders. Even as he stared, she brought the metal tip down with a vengeful force. Ryan couldn't see where she struck Hill, but he heard only the wet sound of iron on flesh as he descended.
It didn't take any imagination to know where the vicious blow had been aimed.
The rest of the men gathered around Ryan, slapping him on the back for his bravery in going after the armed man. None of them seemed to worry about Kenny Hill's fate, and Ryan shared their lack of concern. Best coward was a chilled one, in his view. Hill might get a beating, but it wasn't as though Pyra Quadde was planning to butcher him.
The food was terrible. The stew was mainly gristle and splinters and bone, floating in a scummy pool of grease. Mealy carrots and a handful of overcooked beans completed the main course. It was followed by a rusting tin of sweet red jelly that didn't taste like any fruit that Ryan had ever eaten. The whole thing was accompanied with weeviled biscuits and washed down with watery beer.
"Why's the meal so terrible?" Ryan asked Johnny.
"Once we get to the hunting, then the captain allows good meat and all from the locked freezer. Reckons it makes us all the more eager to get out the dories and cast the irons. The better the catch, then the better the tucker we get."
Ryan and Donfil were spared being on deck duty for the night watch. Sailing in untroubled waters, there was normally no more than one man at the wheel and another in the crow's nest, swaying at the top of the mainmast.
Shortly after they'd finished the supper, the crew began to bed down for the night. One man played a mouth harp for a few minutes, a slow, mournful ballad that Ryan thought he vaguely recognized. One or two were patching clothes, bent over their work in the poor light.