Prin found her in the dining room, sitting at a table with two other women, all of an age near fifty. They played a game with ivory markers on a board and dice, talking and laughing while sipping wine. Joining them didn’t appeal to Prin. She had other things to consider.
Without being noticed, she opened the door to the outside deck again, after taking a blanket from a small pile near the door to throw over her shoulders against the chill. A woman sat on one chair to her left, and a man to her right. The woman flashed a quick smile and turned her attention back to the endless ocean, while the man pulled a hat low over his eyes and ignored her.
Prin walked closer to the bow and found a place near the railing where she leaned against it and adjusted the blanket against the wind. The sails were full, the night dark and the wind came from the beam, so it struck her full on. She hadn’t heard the pops of sails, creaks of rigging, and rush of water against a hull for years, but it all came back. As the ship pitched and rolled, her legs compensated without thought.
The other woman stood and re-entered the dining room. Prin saw the lights of another ship far off the port side and watched as it converged. If neither changed course, in an hour they would sail close.
An arm slipped around her neck and pulled her tight against the chest of someone taller, and who needed a bath. The forearm locked against her windpipe.
Prin’s reflexes and training could have broken the chokehold, but she hesitated and waited. Her right hand slipped to the new knife at her waist, but she still hesitated. She didn’t believe she was in abrupt danger or he would have tried to kill her.
A voice whispered in her left ear, “I know who you are.”
She believed him. “How?”
“That house you live in. Old women enter, young ones come out, but never together. Not once in the two years that Jam paid me to watch.”
“Jam? He paid you?”
“So, you do know him? He says you do. I’m gonna earn enough gold to last me a lifetime when I turn you in.”
“Who do you think I am?”
“Hannah, the princess who ran away from Wren. Now, shut up, or I’ll slit your throat.”
“What are you going to do with me?” Prin asked, genuinely puzzled at what he intended. Did he think Sara and Brice would allow him to take her prisoner without objection? Or he could hide her for the entire voyage? No, he intended to murder her before anyone else figured out who she was and collected the bounty.
He used his height as leverage to turn her. She felt the edge of the blade he held at her throat and knew she was right. The same reward would be paid if she was dead or alive, and there were some who would probably pay more if she was dead. His arm tightened around her throat.
“You’ve made a mistake,” she managed to hiss.
He increased the pressure. He’d probably turned her to make sure they were still alone as he looked at the deck behind them. The pressure increased and cut off her air.
Prin reacted violently. After driving her heel down on his instep, she gripped her left balled fist with her right hand and rammed her elbow into him, just below the rib cage. She used the right hand to help drive the elbow deep into his soft belly. She felt the hold on her neck relax slightly, but enough. She reached over her head with both hands, fingers clawing for a grip on his hair. She filled both hands and quickly bent at her waist, yanking him over her shoulder as hard as possible.
The unexpected frenzy took him by surprise, and he tumbled over her shoulder, off balance. His momentum carried him another step, where he crashed into the railing, arms flailing in the empty air. He struck the guardrail hard. His upper body leaned far out, then his feet slipped, and he tumbled into darkness.
Prin had her fists balled to strike him again, but he was gone. The last impression was the soles of his feet as they slid over the railing. She hadn’t even heard a splash. Prin leaped to the side of the ship and looked over, hoping to find him on the deck below, but there was no other deck below, only the steep side of the hull, and the churning black water below.
She looked over the stern of the ship, but in the darkness, saw nothing to indicate a man had fallen overboard, and she knew it was almost impossible for a ship to turn and locate someone, especially at night. Her attacker was either drowned or soon to be.
His knife lay near her foot, and she retrieved it with two fingers. A poor excuse for a knife. She dropped it over the side.
Jam, this is your fault. Prin found the blanket and placed it around her shoulders again, then sat down and tried to calm the shaking that took over her body. Her almost daily practice with the combat master had given her the advantage from the first, and she knew it, but she hadn’t been in a true fight since fleeing Wren.
Not a fight. The word fight implied it had somehow been fair. It hadn’t. The outcome might have been different if the man had slit her throat at the first touch, but after that, he had no chance. Still, she hadn’t intended to kill him.
She felt her hands tremble and she almost rushed to the railing to puke but managed to hold it back. She sat and let the confusing thoughts come and go. She had meant to hurt him and didn’t know what she would have done if he hadn’t fallen over. In many ways, it was the best outcome, if she could regain control of her body and stop shaking.
Jam had put him up to it, and the man admitted he’d watched them for two years and knew their every move. He might have told others on the ship who they were but doubted it. He wanted the entire reward for himself. Besides, if she had defeated the man and not killed him, he would have told everyone on the ship who she was, just for spite.
Prin almost convinced herself she was not at fault, but the image of the bottoms of his boots going over the railing haunted her mind. She saw them as clearly as if the event had happened in daylight, only seconds ago. Perhaps the boots had caught lamplight cast through the windows of the dining room, but it was a sight she would never forget.
She stood and stumbled into the dining room, drawing the attention of Sara, who hurried to her side and hissed, “Prin, anything wrong?”
“No.”
“You’re lying to me.”
“I think I just killed a man.”
Sara pulled up in shock, then took Prin by her shoulder and spun her, forcing her into the passageway filled with doors to the cabins, but no people to overhear. “You don’t know if you killed him?”
Prin held her eyes focused on the planks of the floor. “I guess if he can swim he might still be alive. At least for a while.”
“A man fell overboard?”
“Not exactly. He attacked me with a knife . . . and you know how reflexes take over? Especially after the combat master teaching us for all those years? He put a knife to my neck.”
Sara said, “So you reacted and tossed him over your shoulder? There’s no blame for that.”
A man opened a cabin door down the passage and poked his head outside, looking to scold whoever was doing all the talking. Prin and Sara hurried to their cabin to escape his harsh words. Prin said, “Actually, that’s not totally the way it happened. He wanted to brag about watching us at Maude’s house. He said he’d been doing it for two years and had never seen the young girls with the older women, so he thought they were the same.”
Sara scowled in the dim light and ignored Brice hanging over the side of his bunk as he listened. “How did he know to look for you at Maude’s house?”
“Jam sent him.”
“He said that?” Sara’s voice had risen almost to a shout.
Brice said, “Keep it down. The walls between cabins are like nothing.”
“Jam paid him to watch us.”