Dropping everything, Tubbs snapped to mock attention. ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ Tubbs shouted and, to the amusement of the crew, took several steps before pausing and pointing a gnarled, arthritic finger at his temple. ‘Uh, sir?’
‘What is it, Mr Tubbs? Make it quick, sir, make it quick!’ Marrin gripped the helm, doing his best impersonation of Doren Ford.
‘Uh, sir, we’re not shipping any cargo, sir. There are no ledgers; we don’t have a quartermaster, and there are no barges to cast off.’
‘Very well then, Mr Tubbs, nice work. Why don’t you help yourself to a jigger or two from my private stores?’ Marrin was lost in his performance, so engrossed in playing up the captain’s idiosyncrasies for his appreciative audience that he didn’t notice the sudden silence that had fallen over the crew.
‘Do you really think that’s wise, Mr Marrin?’ the captain said. ‘Beer at this aven?’
Marrin stammered apologies, slinking back from the helm, his face blazing red despite the cold. ‘Sorry, sir, it’s just- Um, Tubbs looked thirsty, sir.’
‘Get us underway, please.’ The captain had been a good sport, but now it was time to work. The crew of the Morning Star leaped into action, each to his or her appointed place, some scuttling up the rigging like monkeys, setting the sails, checking the lines; others manned the capstan whilst the day’s first watch took up position as they came about for their run up the coast.
Captain Ford smiled. The Morning Star was his life, and he was happy to be back to sea. He felt the brig-sloop beneath his feet; he knew this ship inside out and could almost guide her through the water by touch alone. She was only a little larger than a naval pleasure-boat, but they were single-masted, with fore and aft rigging, while the Morning Star was square-rigged on both her fore and mains. She was sleeker even than the quickest of the Malakasian schooners, already fast, and running empty she’d make even quicker time. Ford wondered what the record was from Orindale to Averil. With a northern Twinmoon and an empty hold, whatever it was, the Morning Star stood a good change of beating it. Or we might heel and swamp, he thought, searching for Marrin in the rigging.
‘Marrin,’ he called.
The youth dropped to the deck.
‘Did we take on additional ballast for this run? With no cargo, the Twinmoon and a northerly course, an unexpected gust could have us heeling to the scuppers.’ He wasn’t angry, not yet, but making good time was secondary to keeping the Morning Star afloat.
‘We did, sir, just a bit. I thought you might want to hurry along so we didn’t add much, just enough to compensate for drafting so high.’ As Sera Moslip joined them, Marrin elbowed her in the ribs and said with a raucous laugh, ‘The ballast, Captain, and whatever Sera’s added to her backside. I know you always count on that for a bit of additional weight. That old Nedra could certainly cook, couldn’t she?’
Sera, excited to be underway as well, pressed her lips into a thin smile before rearing back and slugging Marrin hard across the jaw. She shook an aching fist and muttered, ‘Sorry, Captain.’
The crew roared as Marrin fell to the deck.
The captain didn’t bother to hide his own grin. ‘May the gods bless and keep you, Sera,’ he muttered under his breath.
‘Thank you, Captain,’ she murmured back, equally quietly.
Marrin, bleeding from a split lip, pulled himself up and stood on trembling legs. He turned to the captain, embarrassed, and shouted, ‘I do love this job!’
A roar of approval came from the sailors busying themselves on deck and in the rigging. The boy knew how to take his licks. It would be a fine sea day.
Garec laughed so hard his head hurt. He hooted and whistled and shouted Sera’s name along with the crew, while Marrin pulled himself together. ‘Did you see that, Kellin?’ Garec said, clapping her on the back. ‘That was beautiful; she’s like Versen, no gods-rutting warning at all, just, blam! and you’re on your backside waiting for the fog to lift. Oh, he would have loved this.’
Brexan, who had been quiet all morning, brightened. ‘I wish you would do more of that,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Talk of him.’ Brexan’s face was half in shadow.
‘Of Versen?’ Garec said, looking a little surprised. ‘All right, I’ll talk of him all the way to Pelli- ah, Averil, if you like.’ He searched her face, not sure what he expected to see. Brexan simply stared back at him. ‘You got to know him well in a short period of time, didn’t you?’ he said finally.
‘I don’t know what’s worse for me now,’ she said, ‘wanting what I had, keeping my little box of memories all tidy and neat, or wanting what you have, a lifetime of stories, highs and lows, good and bad. Do you know what I mean?’
‘I do,’ Kellin said. ‘It’s like my father – he died when I was young, and I never asked my mother about him. She told me some things, but I’ve always been content with what I remember of him. He’s the only perfect person I’ve ever known. He probably had just as many flaws as the rest of us, but I’m not interested in knowing them.’
Garec felt the Morning Star creak as it rolled beneath them. He said, ‘I don’t know what to tell you, Brexan, but I’ve lost six close friends in the last two Twinmoons. Sallax, Versen and Brynne were the best friends I’d ever hoped to have.’ Without looking at Kellin, he added, ‘I am as alone as I can imagine, but like anyone, I find comfort where I can, from Kellin, from knowing my family is safe at home, working the farm, from feeling like we’re nearing the end of a painfully long struggle… and most especially from my memories of who they were – who they still are – in my mind.’ He reached for Kellin, who took his hand. ‘Did you know that Versen could eat his own weight in eddy-fish? Eddy-fish… We lived a quarter-aven from the ocean, and all he ever wanted to eat were those fatty bottom-feeding river fish that any seventy-Twinmoon-old kid would throw back as worthless. We used to stay up late, drinking and singing, and sometime after the middlenight aven, when the rest of us were beginning to drift, he’d come charging in with rods and rigs, a couple of bottles of wine in his cloak, wanting to go night-fishing.’
Garec looked around the deck and smiled. ‘I wish now that I had gone with him more often, but it was always humid and the bugs were bad down there. But Sallax often went, and they’d come back after dawn, hungover, and smelling like a warm case of death, and we’d all eat eddy-fish for breakfast. It was wonderful.’
‘How did he prepare it?’ Brexan was crying, but she was smiling through her tears.
Garec snorted, then, embarrassed, said, ‘He always rolled them in something – ground sugarroot, pepperweed, greenroot, anything he could lay his hands on. We teased him about it, that all he was doing was trying to find the perfect mask for the flavour – eddy-fish tastes like day-old laundry water to most people. But actually, he had a way with them that made them edible – the sweet potatoes were the best.’ He licked his lips, savouring the memory. ‘It was his own invention. He’d fillet the fish, dunk the bits in egg, and then coat them in mashed-up sweet potatoes. Then he fried them… gods, I can remember the smell! Those mornings everyone joined us for breakfast.’
‘Sweet potato-wrapped eddy-fish, for breakfast?’ Kellin made a face.
‘And beer,’ Garec added.
‘Sounds wonderful,’ Brexan said as she wiped her eyes. ‘You’ll have to make it for us one day.’
‘I’ll have a go at it, but I don’t know where we’re going to find eddy-fish out here.’ He turned to watch Orindale fade off their stern.
Kellin pointed at Marrin, now climbing the rigging above the mainsail like a lemur. ‘Punched out, and he can still crawl about up there. I’d have given up five or six times already.’
‘Or bailed my stomach, for the gods and everyone to see,’ Brexan agreed.
‘We were lucky to find them,’ Kellin said softly, ‘and even more lucky to find you, Brexan.’
‘They do seem to be a competent crew,’ Garec mumbled.