"Hungry for what?"
Jehu was also busy nearby and he heard the muttered conversation.
"Hungry for meat, shipmates. The meat that grows from the loins of a man. The meat that grows and shrinks and rises and falls. That's the fine red meat for our captain's tastes."
The Bartlebywas homeward bound, her voyage ended prematurely by the loss of Captain Delano's two brothers. Her search across the vastness had been a fruitless one, and she was headed back to Claggartville to mourn her dead. She passed by the Phoenix, close-hauled on a starboard reach, and the captains were able to pass on their hurried news.
Krysty and Jak stood by Captain Deacon, to make sure he resisted the temptation to reveal his plight. But he kept silent about his unwelcome quintet of passengers.
The men of the Bartlebygazed with naked curiosity at the white-haired boy and the fire-haired young woman. But there was no time for questions. Just the one vital question, answered by the wild-eyed Delano, shaking a fist toward the heavens.
"Less than a hundred leagues ahead. On the southern edge of the whaling banks. If ye seek her for some vengeance, go with my blessing. If to aid her, then may ye sink with my curse."
Then the whaler plunged astern of them, vanishing swiftly. Deacon turned to Krysty, tapping at his teeth with a forefinger. "Closing. The Salvationis not the swiftest vessel from the ville. With a good wind we can claw a couple of knots from her. More if Pyra Quadde is quartering the Lantic for the whales. Delano has seen few in a week or more. We could come within sight of her in another couple of days or less. Maybe less."
"Be good," J.B. said, joining them.
Deacon looked at the Armorer, unsmiling. "Yeah mister. It'd be good. Good to see the backs of ye outland chillers, and get on with our job."
"When we get our friends safe, you won't see us for dust. Or for spray," Krysty replied.
Deacon, hands locked in the small of his back, walked away from them to the other side of the deck.
Another day on the Salvationwithout the sighting of a whale. Toward evening Captain Quadde beckoned Ryan to where she stood on the main deck.
"Figured I'd tell thee that I'm set on having thee, Outlander Cawdor. Soon. Settle the score 'twixt us. Well set-up man like thee." Her long tongue peeked out between the filed ivory teeth and licked her chapped lips. In an attractive woman it would have been a stimulating and coquettish gesture. In Pyra Quadde it was simply frightening. And disgusting.
That night, while the rest of the crew slept around them in the forecastle, Ryan told Donfil about the threat from Pyra Quadde.
Coiled uncomfortably in his too short bunk, the shaman asked him what he intended to do.
"Got no choice. I'll do a lot to stay alive. Trader used to say a man who died of pride was a fool. A corpse can't get any revenge. But her idea of fucking ends in death. We know that."
"You'll chill her first?"
In the rolling darkness, Ryan nodded. "Yeah. Guess so. If I can do it right. Then see if we can take out enough of the crew to win the ship. Not much of a hope, I guess."
"I got nothing better. Maybe we'll catch some whales tomorrow. Take her mind off... off other things."
"Yeah. Maybe."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Following a hunter's instinct, Pyra Quadde set her course back toward land, moving northerly, hoping to pick up one of the mighty schools of whales that broached and sunned themselves off the deserted coves.
The sun shone brightly, and the last of the blubber was finally rendered in the ovens and stored in sealed barrels below the main deck. The whaleboats were cleaned, lowered and raised again, the men on the davits chanting an old whaling capstan song to lighten the chore.
Though the sun shone brilliantly, Ryan noticed that dark clouds were building up, far away ahead of them, thunderheads that rolled and bubbled, filled with venomous lightning, streaked with white splashes across the violet sky.
"Yeah," said one of the other sailors, when he mentioned it to him. "Over the land, that is. Wind rips it apart and pushes it our way. Could be bad from the height of them chem clouds."
"How come the sea's so flat?" Donfil asked.
It was true. The waves had flattened out and disappeared, and even the long ocean swell had almost gone. The ship sailed gently on, as if it were a child's toy, placed upon a painted, mirrored sea. The sails flapped idly on the yards and the helmsman spun the wheel, looking for a breath of a breeze to help them on their way.
Captain Quadde had a canvas chair brought out and placed on the quarterdeck, where she sat and watched her crew with a baleful eye. It was warm, and she'd changed out of her heavy sweaters.
Now she wore a white blouse, with torn, dirty lace at collar and cuffs. One sleeve was ripped from elbow to wrist. The material was thin, and it was possible to see that the woman wore nothing beneath it. The dark circles of her nipples pushed at the tight blouse.
Her skirt was cotton, pale blue, covered with food and drink stains down the front. It was too tight for her around the waist, and she'd tried to pin it shut. But it revealed a gap of rolling fat. Her wide belt carried the belaying pin on one side and the .44 on the other. Her legs and feet were bare, the toenails crooked and jagged.
She had a bottle of the usquebaugh at her side, as well as a chipped tankard of clouded glass. By late afternoon she was visibly, and audibly, drunk.
"No fugging whales in the whole fugging sea. She was only a fishmonger's daughter, but she knew how to lie on the fragging slab and say fill it! Fillet! Where's the pigging whales gone? Must be the outlander with his one fucking eye and all bad luck. Like whistling on deck. Brings lucking bad fuck, it does. Yeah, it does."
Around noon the lookout from the masthead had called down that he could see the top spars of another ship. Shadowing them, so he said. But he couldn't make out enough of the cut of the jib to be certain that it was still the Bartleby, searching for her missing children.
"Course it's them," Quadde shouted. "Preaching Biddy Delano! May his balls rot and his cock wither and his ass leak his brains all over his clean frogging decks."
Each change of lookout reported the same sight. Just on the edge of seeing, only the top spars visible, keeping her distance, beating in toward the stormy land at the same speed as the Salvation. Maybe just a knot or two faster.
"Don't keep telling me the same, or I'll have thee bunking 'stead of th'outlander."
So, after that, none of the crew mentioned to their captain that the whaling ship on the horizon was steadily creeping in closer. Cyrus Ogg ventured to mention to Second Mate Walsh that in his humble opinion the other vessel wasn't necessarily the Bartlebyunder Captain Delano. He certainly wasn't about to hazard his lay on whose ship it was. But the set of the mizzenmast reminded him very much of the Phoenix, Captain Deacon in command.
Dusk was beginning to ease itself across the mirrored sea. The wind had just begun to freshen again, bringing the threat of the storm clouds even closer. Now, from the crow's nest, it was possible to make out a gray smudge away to the north, beneath the dancing daggers of the lightning.
"Shore, right enough," Johnny Flynn confirmed, sitting behind the tryworks, exercising the joints of his broken finger.
"How far off?" Ryan asked.
"Good many sea miles, yet, cully," the sailor replied.
"The chem storm looks closer."
Flynn spit over the side of the ship, nodding his agreement. "Aye, outlander, it is that. Me da's da spoke of the years after the long winters and the red fires. Said they had storms then as a man would die in. Off the sea it'd rain purest acid and strip the flesh off of thy bones faster than a pack of mutie sharks. Lightning spears so thick and fast a man couldn't hope to dodge 'em. But... we still get good blows now and again. Best beat away from 'em."