‘You may feel bad, but I’m pleased to see you actually look a bit better.’
‘Those pill-things Hannah brought back for me are working wonders,’ Hoyt said, ‘especially since I don’t have to taste them. My shoulder’s dried up, the swelling’s gone down and I even feel like eating again. I can walk around a bit too – it’s astonishing medication.’
Brexan broke in with a small frown, saying, ‘You should still be taking it easy. Why don’t you go back and lie down for a while? I can handle this.’
‘No, no, I’m fine,’ he protested, ‘and it feels good to be out here. It’s a nice morning to be up and about.’
‘That it is,’ the captain agreed, then, changing the subject, said, ‘I don’t need much help up here this morning. We’re all shipshape and running fine, and I know I won’t be able to sleep until Pellia’s no longer in sight. But I do want to talk with you about your plans. I need to get back to Southport before too long. We’ll make for Orindale now and I’ll take on cargo; it’s a captain’s market there in the wake of Mark’s devastation last Twinmoon.’ He paused to watch Garec, in the bow. He’d unslung one of his quivers and was methodically checking fletching and tips, running his fingers down the shafts to check they were all still straight and true. He turned back to Hoyt and Brexan. ‘You both know I’ve lost most of my crew, and so I’m inviting you two to stay on with me, as long as you like. I’m going to be a busy man while Orindale’s shipping companies are rebuilding. I’ll try to confine my runs to Orindale and Southport – that shouldn’t be too difficult to do – so you won’t have to worry about going too far from home, either of you.’
Brexan put a hand on his arm to stop him. ‘Captain – Doren – thank you. That’s a wonderful offer, it really is… but I’ve got to get back to Nedra and the Topgallant. She’s not getting any younger, and I felt like what I was doing there was- well, something special.’
He looked puzzled. ‘And this isn’t? Brexan, you’re out here saving Eldarn-’
‘I suppose, in a way; I made a tiny contribution – but this is different; you can’t be a hero every day. There has to be something else, something good, and steady…’
‘Something good and steady? That’s why I’m here-’ he gestured around the quarterdeck. ‘You’ve just described the reason I sail this little boat back and forth across the Ravenian Sea.’
Brexan said, ‘I can see that… but I’ve got to find my own peace. It’s been a long journey; I’ve come a long way…’ Her voice tailed off for a moment, then she went on, ‘I managed – quite unexpectedly – to kill the man who started me on this road, but you know, when I finally watched him die, I realised I was missing Nedra and the comforting predictability of the boarding house – where, come to think of it, I’ve got a four-hundred Twinmoon party to reschedule.’ She laughed. ‘Gods, just think of all that food to cook!’
‘That’s a curious thing for a soldier-turned-partisan to say.’ Hoyt pulled his cloak tight around him and turned away from the wind.
‘Who knows?’ Brexan said, ‘maybe I’m getting old. But I thank you, Captain, for your offer.’
‘So you won’t go looking for this woman, Gita Kamrec?’ Captain Ford asked, still hopeful that the lure of adventure would change Brexan’s mind.
‘Maybe, if she arrives in Orindale,’ Brexan said, ‘but to be honest, I spent a Twinmoon looking for Resistance forces in the Eastlands and I couldn’t find anyone.’ She chuckled. ‘Some spy, huh?’
‘How about you, Hoyt?’ he asked.
‘Me?’ Hoyt sighed. ‘I don’t know. I think if they all come back from Jones Beach, or wherever it is they’re going, I might accompany them to Sandcliff.’
‘In Gorsk?’ Brexan hadn’t expected this.
‘I have quite a collection of textbooks,’ Hoyt said, ‘medical treatises, most of them old, verging on ancient, but they’re about all we have left in Eldarn – outside the library Alen discovered beneath Welstar Palace, of course.’ He pulled the spent ampoule out of his tunic pocket. A few drops of anti-venom still clung to the glass. ‘Look at it,’ he said. ‘Hannah was able to steal this from a village healer’s shop, a village large enough to require only two guards. That’s a small place – and yet look at the technology.’
‘So you’re going to teach? To conduct medical research?’ Brexan asked.
‘If Steven and the others succeed in closing the Fold, I’m hoping that perhaps they might find a way to preserve the integrity of the far portals. With those operating, who knows what a healer might bring back? If they’ll have me, I’ll do anything they want – sweep, dig latrines, whatever – if only we can get a medical university started there in Gorsk.’
‘So you’re heading for Southport,’ Captain Ford said.
‘First stop, yes; I have my things to pick up, and a cache of books stored outside the city.’
‘And then?’ Brexan asked.
‘If I can, hitch a ride back to Orindale and wait for Alen and Gilmour to return.’
‘I know just the place, good food and comfortable beds guaranteed,’ Brexan said with a grin.
‘That sounds just right,’ Hoyt said. His face dropped as he thought of Churn and Branag, and all they had sacrificed.
Captain Ford cursed under his breath and grumbled, ‘All right, I understand… but I rutting hate signing on a new crew. You never know what you’re going to get – drunks, root addicts, shiftless losers…’
‘Maybe you’ll get lucky,’ Hoyt said, ‘after all, I guess there’ll be no shortage of out-of-work seamen in Orindale these days.’
‘They’re probably all drunk and freezing to death out behind the southern warehouses,’ he muttered.
‘You’ll find the right people, I’m sure of it,’ Brexan said firmly, then turned to Hoyt, who was hunched over, his hood pulled over his head, looking like a man two hundred Twinmoons his senior. ‘And you need to get back to bed,’ she said, even more firmly.
‘It is mercilessly cold out here,’ he said defensively.
‘Go on, back to bed with you, Doctor Navarro – but I do hope when you have your own medical practice or your own classroom you’re not this lazy,’ Captain Ford teased.
‘Only when I can get away with it, Captain,’ Hoyt said, smiling himself. ‘And like Brexan, I thank you for your offer, but I-’
‘Now, don’t kill my hopes entirely.’ He adjusted their course slightly. ‘It’s still a long way to Orindale; you might change your mind, so I’m leaving the offer open.’
‘And now I think I’ll take your suggestion and return to my berth.’ Hoyt held the handrail and shakily negotiated the quarterdeck ladder to get below.
Brexan looked out across the grey sea. ‘How far to Pellia?’
‘About an aven. It’s another half-aven into deep water and then half an aven after that to see us through the blockade.’
‘What will you tell them? Why are you running empty?’
‘I heard about the destruction of the merchant fleet in Orindale; it’s worth the journey to secure long-term shipping contracts. Any Malakasian captain with a shallow-running ship would be insane not to go. Whether they search us or not will depend on the seas. If it’s blowing, they might wave us through. We’re obviously not hauling anything big, like refugees or troops, or heavy crates of weapons. Fennaroot is well out of season, and I don’t know if they’ll board in heavy seas just to track down an illegal shipment of tobacco or wine. Who cares? It isn’t a very big boat; so how much could we really be running? As it is, we’re practically skipping over the surface, so I’m hoping they’ll wave us right through.’
‘And if they don’t?’ Brexan’s face showed her anxiety. ‘We’re a large crew for such a small ship, aren’t we? And Hannah and Alen said the Home Guard are looking for Milla. If the wrong officer gets a look at her, we could be in-’
‘Then our friends will just have to disappear through their tapestry portal a few avens early, won’t they.’
‘But that could leave them anywhere in their world, many days’ travel from this Jones Beach.’ She sounded increasingly worried.