“Do your work as quickly as possible,” the officer instructed as he led Mansel down onto the passenger deck. “Don’t speak unless spoken to, and if you have any questions, come back to me. Is that understood?”
“Aye,” Mansel said.
“Good, here we are.”
The officer knocked on the door and Zollin opened it. He ignored Mansel completely, doing his best to give no sign that he knew the bigger man.
“This man will fix your problem,” the officer said. “If you have any complaints, please find me.”
“I will, Lieutenant, thank you,” Zollin said.
The officer spun on his heel and walked briskly back up to the main deck. Zollin stood aside and let Mansel into the cabin. The table was smashed, as were both of the canvas chairs.
“How did you explain that?” Mansel asked.
Zollin waved at Eustice, who was sporting a black eye and grinning.
“We had a bit too much to drink and had a disagreement, didn’t we Eustice?” Zollin said. Eustice nodded and they all tried not to laugh.
“So how’s life as a sailor?” Zollin asked.
“I hate it,” Mansel said as he slumped onto the bed. “I’m too big to move around ’tween decks. I have to stay bent over almost the whole time.”
“Couldn’t you get on as a passenger?”
“No, you picked the most popular ship in the kingdom.”
“It was the only ship still taking passengers.”
“Well, at least it won’t last too long. My real problem is getting along with the locals. They all seem to think I’m not cut out for life at sea. I’m beginning to believe them.”
“Well, try not to cause trouble. What can we do to help?”
“Nothing that I know of,” Mansel said. “I’m trying to keep a low profile, but it’s getting harder. I may have to crack a few heads before we get to Osla.”
“Be careful,” Zollin warned. “I’m trying to lay low as well. The last thing I want is to attract another monster.”
“Tell me about it. This is the first time I’ve been allowed above deck in days without Ern. He’s worse than your father. I don’t want to be down in the workshop if something happens to the ship. There’s no way I could get on deck fast enough not to drown.”
“Are you getting enough food?”
“Not really,” Mansel admitted.
“Okay, Eustice, fix Mansel something to eat. I’ll repair the furniture.”
“Wait, you can’t use magic. It has to look like I patched it up. I’ll need to go down and get some wood.”
“Can you spare a moment to eat?”
“Yes,” he said enthusiastically.
Eustice gathered food from their stores. The bread wasn’t fresh, but it wasn’t crawling with weevils, and they still had some fruit and cheese. They gave Mansel a small sack full of dried meat, which he stashed in his satchel. They had wine and ale, but he forced himself to drink water, since he had no way to hide the smell of alcohol on his breath.
Once he’d finished eating, he shuffled out of the small cabin and returned to the work shop. Ern was busy making another barrel. Mansel understood the desire to have fresh casks, since the water he usually drank tasted like it had been drawn from a stagnant pond. The water barrels had to be moved to shore and refilled at every port they stopped in. The constant wear and tear often resulted in barrels that weren’t watertight, and it didn’t take much seawater to ruin a barrel and it’s contents.
“What’s the problem?” Ern asked.
“The damn fools got into a drunken fight and smashed up the furniture,” Mansel explained.
“The captain should make them do without it,” Ern said bitterly. “If that happened ’tween decks, we’d get the cattails for certain.”
“What’s the cattails?” Mansel asked.
“You don’t want to know, boy. You just keep your nose clean and do you duty.”
“Aye,” Mansel said as he secretly stashed the food Zollin had given him among the supplies he was gathering. He felt a pang of guilt at hiding the food, but he knew that if he told Ern, the old sailor would just take it from him and perhaps even report him to the captain. The last thing Mansel needed was to be kicked off the ship before they reached Osla.
He was thinking about the last time he’d been at sea, with Quinn. They’d been forced to stop along the way for repairs and Mansel had gone ashore, gotten drunk, and missed returning to the ship. Quinn had left him in the middle of Falxis. The memory was still bitter in his mouth, but he would never have met Nycoll if it hadn’t happened. Getting back to Nycoll was what Mansel wanted more than anything in the world, but he had to help Zollin. After all the terrible things he’d done under the witch’s spell, he felt compelled to repay his friend somehow. And the truth was, he had to make sure Gwendolyn the witch was stopped. He remembered the small army of men willing to kill and even die for her. She couldn’t be allowed to spread her foul sorcery across the kingdoms, he thought. Then, when that was done, he would return to Nycoll.
“Toady,” came a sing-song voice from behind Mansel.
He turned toward the voice just as something slammed into his stomach, forcing all the breath from his lungs in a whoosh. He dropped to his knees and gasped for breath.
“Look, he’s kneeling before you, Slice,” said a rat-faced sailor with rotting teeth and one eye that was turned out at an unnatural angle.
“Of course he is,” said the sailor with the scar. “They all do, sooner or later. How’s it feel, Toad? Aren’t you more at home on your knees? Maybe you miss the mud. We could help with that.”
Mansel was still struggling to get his breathing under control when Slice swung a small wooden club at his head. Mansel dodged away from the blow instinctively.
“Ah, you want to play, eh? That’s good Toady, very good indeed,” said Slice.
He feigned one direction and then swung the club in the other. It caught Mansel on the shoulder. Pain exploded across the young warrior’s neck, shoulder, and arm. He slumped back, but Slice moved in close and kicked Mansel hard in the ribs. Mansel fell over onto his side, sharp pain stabbing through him with each breath now. He felt shaky and weak, but he was angry too. He pulled the mallet out of the satchel of tools that still hung around his head and shoulder.
“Look, he’s still got a little fight left in him,” said the rat-faced sailor.
There were several other sailors standing back from the fight with the rat-faced man. Slice’s gang, who seemed to never be working, were the bullies between decks. Fighting on board was forbidden, Mansel knew that, but he wasn’t going to lie down and take a beating if he could help it.
“That mallet won’t help you, Toad,” said Slice.
“Leave me alone,” Mansel warned.
“Or what? You can’t stop us. You going to run to the captain and rat us out? If you do, you’ll never make it off this ship alive. No, I think you’re going to take your knocks like a man. But first we’ll send you someplace you’re more at home. Get him, boys.”
The other sailors rushed forward. Mansel tried to rise up and swing the mallet, but he was too weak. Slice caught the mallet on his club and then the hammer was snatched roughly from Mansel’s hand. They picked him up by the arms and legs. He started to struggle, but the pain in his side and shoulder was devastating. The sailors carried him a short way and then Slice pulled open a trap door. The sailors slung Mansel into the darkness below.
Fear made his stomach feel as if it were going to jump out of his throat, but the drop wasn’t that far and it ended quickly. The Northern Star was made up of three decks. There was the main deck, and immediately below that was the passenger deck, which also housed the officer’s quarters. The lowest deck was the cargo deck, but there was a small space between the cargo deck and the passenger deck, and the crew called the cramped area the “’tween decks.” From the ’tween decks was a shaft that allowed crew members to access the lowest part of the ship-the space below the cargo deck, which the sailors called the bilge.