Captain Ford frowned. ‘Short of reefing sail and waiting – which is even more dangerous, because then we’d be practically begging them to board us – we have to keep going. We have to look like we’re keeping to a normal routine.’
Brexan stared aimlessly into the steel-grey clouds, saying nothing.
After a while, Captain Ford threw up his hands. ‘All right, all right. Were you just going to stand there all morning?’
Brexan laughed. ‘I just wanted you to see things my way. Sometimes keeping my mouth shut is the best strategy.’
He reached for her and she backed away a step, then blushed when all he did was turn her wrist to stare at Mark’s watch. ‘How do you read this thing?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Give it to me.’ He stepped back from the helm. ‘Keep us on this course. Don’t make eye contact with any of the schooner crew, but you can wave or smile at the bargemen. We don’t want to look like we’re up to no good, but then again, we are up to no good, so we don’t wantOh, rutters, you know what I mean.’ He jumped to the main deck and disappeared below.
Captain Ford knocked, then opened Marrin’s cabin door to find Steven, Gilmour and Alen huddled over a thick leatherbound book. There’s another item that will have us all hanged, he thought. I’m glad I didn’t see that before. Milla was sleeping in Steven’s berth and Hannah was gone.
‘-like an infection,’ Alen said, finishing a thought.
‘For lack of a better term, yes,’ Gilmour said. ‘It was a way to teach the novices, but you’re right too: in its most basic form, it’s like an infection.’
Steven waved Ford inside and asked, ‘What news, Captain?’
He held out Mark’s watch. ‘I need to know how to read this.’
Steven chuckled. ‘We can’t be more than an aven from Pellia, we’ve got a full fleet of Malakasian navy ships and a regiment of Home Guard searching for our little friend here, and there are a myriad other ways for us to die in the next day, and you’d like a lesson in telling time? And pointless time at that, I might add; you know that thing is essentially worthless here in Eldarn?’
‘We have a problem.’ He held out the watch.
‘Shit,’ Steven said, his smile melting away, ‘I was joking…’
‘We’ll make Pellia in an aven,’ he began as Alen closed the ancient book. ‘It’s another half-aven, maybe more if we lose this wind, to the blockade, and once there, we might wait in line for half an aven, and take another half-aven before they wave us through to the Northeast Channel.’
‘But…’ Gilmour said.
‘But we may get boarded, especially if the wind dies down.’
‘Shit and shit and shit,’ Steven said. ‘You’re right: this is a problem. I didn’t think of this last night, Captain. I’m sorry.’
‘If they see Milla, we’re sunk – perhaps literally,’ the captain said, ‘and if they get even a whiff of that thing-’ he pointed at the book, ‘then we’re as good as hanged.’
And we can’t go through the portal early,’ Alen said, ‘because with my bloody luck, we’d step out onto an Irish potato farm.’
‘Exactly – whatever an eyerish potato farm is. So I need to know how to read this, and how much time we have to wait until you all can get off my boat.’ He held out the watch.
‘What time is it?’ Steven checked his own wrist. ‘Ten fifty-five. Hannah’s been gone four hours; that’s almost two avens.’ He mumbled to himself for a few moments, then said, ‘Eighteen divided by two point five is seven point two – so, to be safe, figure about eight avens.’
‘Good rutting lords,’ Captain Ford cried, inadvertently waking Milla, ‘that’s a long time!’
‘How can we help?’ Gilmour asked.
‘You can stay out of sight,’ he said. ‘We’ll moor in the harbour, not the marina where we were; that’s too dangerous.’
‘Right,’ Alen said, ‘you’re right: we left too quickly on the heels of that mess along the waterfront. They’ll be watching for us.’
‘I can get a two-aven mooring to resupply. The harbourmaster won’t give us a second glance. But if we wait around too long, or we sail back and forth across the inlet too many times-’
‘They’ll alert the navy,’ Gilmour finished for him. ‘Very well, Captain. We’ll remain below.’
‘Three avens from now will be just past low tide,’ Captain Ford thought aloud, ‘and we can break off the mooring and pretend we’re making repairs. The incoming tide will haul us back upriver and at the right moment, we’ll put on sail and run for the blockade. You can disappear before we get there.’
‘An excellent plan,’ Alen said.
‘Until it all falls apart,’ Captain Ford said glumly.
Steven showed him how to read Mark’s watch. ‘It will have to reach five o’clock – that rune there – twice before we leave. Understand?’
‘Got it, I think,’ he said after a few more moments studying the round face. ‘Right now you’re welcome to come up on deck, for about another aven or so, then I’ll need you below.’ He turned to Milla and managed a smile. ‘Especially you, my darling.’
She rubbed her eyes and yawned.
‘Thank you, Captain,’ Gilmour said again as the tired seaman slipped back into the corridor, already shouting for Pel.
‘I’ll need it for about two avens,’ Captain Ford told the Pellia harbourmaster. ‘We’re heading in for supplies; we’ll be back before the tide changes. I’m leaving two crewmen on board to mind her.’ Brexan sat in the brig-sloop’s miniature launch, gripping the oars hard to keep her hands from shaking.
‘It’s fifteen Mareks for two avens,’ said the harbourmaster, a thin, reedy man with pale, pockmarked skin and a receding hairline. He stood in the bow of a single-masted ketch while his assistant, a boy of perhaps a hundred and twenty Twinmoons, minded the tiller. Both were wrapped in heavy cloaks which had the Whitward family crest embroidered in gold across the back.
‘Let’s make it twenty-five Mareks,’ he handed the harbourmaster a fistful of coins, ‘and you keep an eye on her for me, huh?’ He winked. ‘We’ve a long journey ahead of us and I don’t want to see anything scraping her.’
‘It is rather busy today, isn’t it?’ The scrawny official sniffed noisily. ‘All on the heels of that disturbance yesterday morning – Lords, but that was trouble.’
‘Those frigates involved?’ He nodded towards the bulky Falkan vessels moored side-by-side in the deeper water.
‘That’s none of your concern, Captain…’ He fished for the name, but Captain Ford shook his head gently.
‘That’s none of your concern, my friend,’ he murmured.
Unperturbed, the harbourmaster pocketed Captain Ford’s gratuity. ‘We’ll see you off in two avens, Captain.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, winked again and took his seat beside Brexan, who started rowing towards one of the public piers. ‘That wasn’t so bad,’ he whispered. He checked to make sure the harbourmaster was no longer watching them, then asked, ‘What time is it?’
Brexan glanced at her watch. ‘It’s just before the second rune. So fifteen more revolutions-’
‘Hours,’ he said, ‘I think they’re called hours.’
‘So fifteen more hours,’ she repeated obediently.
‘So, what’s on our shopping list?’
Brexan took a folded piece of parchment from her tunic and he took over the oars while she read aloud, ‘Pel wants a woman-’
‘A likely story,’ the captain snorted. ‘Pel wouldn’t know what to do with one if she fell from the sky.’ He realised what he was saying and blushed.
Unfazed, Brexan went on, ‘Hoyt wants ten boxes of tecan, fifteen roast gansels, two hundred crates of Falkan wine, a block of mild cheese, a new set of silk leggings and a log large enough to carve a full-sized woman. A naked, full-sized woman, obviously.’
‘Oh. So is that all?’
‘Oh no,’ Brexan laughed. ‘Kellin would like you to kill the man who invented women’s underclothes. She also requests a side of beef, twelve barrels of Pragan beer, a more comfortable place to sleep, peace in our time, a slightly smaller backside and a way to keep her berth as warm as summer in Estrad Village.’
‘All sounds simple enough. And you?’