“Restrain myself? Good Christ!” Red-faced and steaming, Matthew was on a tear. As a matter of truth, he felt he could tear the head from the neck of any sonofabitch who defied him. Even if it was the white-goateed and austere Captain Jerrell Falco who stood before him, armed with his twisted cane, and staring at him with steady and rather frightening amber-colored eyes. “These are my friends!” Matthew said into Falco’s face. “They’re not animals, and they’ve done nothing wrong!”
“Oh my,” said Madam Chillany, who wore a thin smirk that very nearly was her last, “I knew this was a bad idea.”
“Matthew!” Berry was calling for him. She sounded weak and sick. And who wouldn’t be, Matthew thought, in this undersea tomb that smelled of tar and dead fish, with the ship rolling enough to tear a person’s internals loose.
“Get them out!” Matthew roared, at both the woman and the captain. The smirk melted from her face and Falco’s goatee may have smoked a bit as well.
The twisted cane was laid softly but firmly upon Matthew’s right shoulder.
“Calmness,” said the captain, “in a situation of pressure is a virtue, young man. I suggest you become more virtuous in speaking with me, beginning with your next word.” He had a deep, resonant voice that Matthew thought any church pastor would sell his soul to possess. And then Falco’s head turned and he said something in a rough dialect to Zed. Matthew, to his everlasting amazement, heard Zed give a throaty chuckle.
“You can…speak to him?” Matthew asked, feeling the sweat of rage start to evaporate from his brow. “He understands you?”
“I speak the Ga language,” Falco answered. “Also five other languages. I read and write ten languages in all. I was educated in Paris, and I have lived on three continents. Why would I not have taken benefit of my travels?”
“He understands you,” Matthew repeated, this time as a statement.
“I believe that fact has been demonstrated.” Falco frowned. His eyebrows were graying, but had not yet turned as snowy as his chin-hair. Gray also was the hair that could be seen beneath his brown leather tricorn. “What are you doing down here?” The amber eyes shifted to Madam Chillany. “Why did you allow this?”
“He insisted.”
“If I insist you jump to the sharks wearing a necklace of fish guts, would you do so?” He gave her a stare that would have buckled the knees of any ordinary woman, but Aria Chillany was nearly a witch herself, it seemed, so it had little effect.
Matthew strode past them and went to Berry’s cell. To say she was a sad-looking mess was to say that the sun did not shine at night. And truly her sunny disposition had been darkened by this perpetual gloom, enough that Matthew felt tears of new anger squeezing past his eyeballs. “Damn this!” he said. He put one hand around the bars, the other still gripping the bowl of apple, orange and lime. They built these brigs to keep mutineers and madmen at bay, and surely the iron that would not surrender to a Ga warrior would not be moved by a problem-solver. Berry came up close to him, her hair in her face and her eyes as murky as the light. “Can you get me some fresh water?” she asked him. “I’m very thirsty.”
“Yes,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’ll get you some fresh water. First, take this.” He pushed the orange between the bars, and she took it and bit into it peel and all as if this were her first food since leaving New York. He turned toward Falco and Madam Chillany with something near murder glowering in his eyes. “I want my friends out of here. Captain, I implore you. They’ve done no crime to fit this punishment. I want them freed from this place and given decent cabins.”
“Impossible,” said the woman. “Everything is taken.”
“It seems to me that one uses what can be used,” Matthew said. “For instance, your cabin might be freed if you were to take habitation with your husband. I mean to say, the man who posed as your husband. A few more nights of sleeping with him and you might fall in loving bliss all over again.”
“I’d rather die!” shrieked the harpy.
Matthew ignored her. “Captain, could you find a bunk for a Ga? Perhaps give him some work to do, after he’s been decently fed and allowed to breathe healthy air?”
“He stays here!” said Madam Chillany. “It’s safer for all!”
Captain Falco had been staring fixedly at Matthew. Now his amber gaze settled upon the woman. “Do I hear,” he said quietly, “you making decisions concerning my ship and my crew, madam? Because if I do, I will remind you that I am indeed the master of this vessel—”
“I’m just saying it’s better he stays locked—”
“I hear what you’re saying,” the captain continued, “and I appreciate your opinion.” He looked again at Zed and fired off some statement that made Zed shrug. “I don’t think he’s a danger,” Falco said, addressing Matthew. “The girl is certainly no danger.”
“They should be freed from this place,” Matthew said. “The sooner, the better.”
“I disagree.” Madam Chillany stepped between Matthew and Falco to disrupt their burgeoning accord. “Captain, I will remind you that you are being paid very well by your employer to—”
“Madam, you are not my employer,” he said, with a hint of a curled lip. “Yes, I am being paid very well. I am loyal to my employer, as long as he pays well. I always do my job to the best of my ability…but my job, madam, is to make the best decisions possible under the shadow of the sails above our heads. Now, I’ve been coming down here for several days to speak to the Ga. And to the girl as well. I was simply told when they were brought aboard that for the sake of security and simplicity they should be caged here, and I agreed with your position. At that time I agreed,” he added. “But now, having spoken to both of them and gained a bit more…shall we say…understanding of the issues involved, I see no point in having them remain in these cells.” He reached for the wall, where a ring of keys hung from a hook. “After all, where are they going to go? And I believe the swords and pistols aboard this ship can handle a Ga if he loses his temper.” He spoke again to Zed, who answered with a chest-deep grunt and a shake of his bald head. “Madam,” Falco translated, “he vows not to lose his temper.”
“The professor won’t care for this,” she warned as Falco slid a key into the lock on Zed’s cell, and instantly Matthew knew she’d gone a threat too far.
Falco unlocked the cell and opened the door with a creak of sea-rusted hinges. He motioned Zed out. “I believe our young guest has a good idea,” said Falco. “Concerning the arrangement of quarters. I think our Ga here can be given tasks to perform and therefore rate at least a blanket on the deck, if not a hammock.” He strolled past Matthew to slide a second key into the lock on Berry’s cell door. “As for her, I believe she should rest in some comfort, to make amends for this affront to her dignity. Madam, I expect you to move into the doctor’s cabin within the hour. If he has any problem with this, he’ll know where to find me.”
“No!” The woman had a voice on her. It nearly shook the oaken beams at the ceiling. Her eyes blazed. She was one mad madam. “I refuse! He snores to high heaven and his feet stink like the devil’s ass!”
The key turned. The lock was sprung. Falco opened the door and Matthew was there to catch Berry when she staggered out.
“I’ll be glad to provide you with wads of cotton,” Falco told Aria Chillany. “Two for the ears and two for the nose. Shall we all go up now and enjoy a little sunshine?”
Thirteen