Jherek nodded, understanding full well the predicament the captain was in. "If there's anything I can do, let me know. I'll gladly do it."
Finaren looked at him with fondness, then dropped a heavy hand on Jherek's shoulder. "Aye, lad, I know that you would. You've been more honest with me than any man I've ever sailed with." He shook his head. "You've enough weight to bear, young Jherek, without dealing with the bilge offered by a selfish and conceited twit of a girl. No, I'll stand up and take care of this. Nobody's going to ramrod this ship but me. You just steer clear of any further encounters with those Amnians. I'll not have you spilling some young fop's guts and garters across my deck because he's trying to show out for Merchant Lelayn."
"Aye, captain."
"Have you had anything to eat, lad?"
"Not since morningfeast."
"The mid-day meal was an hour ago, lad."
"I didn't want to come down."
Finaren nodded. "I know. You stand steady up here. I know you like the solitude anyway. I'll have Cook put together a kit and have it sent up."
"Thank you."
"Faugh. It's nothing, lad. Not many men would have let that girl slap them and walk off the way you did. Nor would they have kept a civil tongue in their heads."
Jherek also knew of no other sailors who carried the dark secret he did. If that secret were to get out, it would see him clear of sailing-if it didn't get him killed outright. Captain Finaren had hired him on in spite of knowing the truth.
Yeill was wrong, Jherek knew, love did exist. He knew that because he loved the old sea captain for the way he accepted him in spite of the birthright that marked him. He watched Finaren nimbly descend to the lower decks, bellowing out orders to the ship's crew at once.
Some of the tense knot gripping Jherek's stomach released. He took a moment to himself and said a small prayer to Ilmater, the Crying God, asking for the strength to go on, then he returned to his work on the rigging.
By late afternoon, only an hour or so short of eveningfeast, the winds deserted Finaran's Butterfly. She slowed to the point of becalming, which was bad enough, but then the Amnians started drinking and partying again, deciding they were bored.
Jherek sat in the crow's nest, curled up with a novel of chivalric romance Malorrie had suggested. He'd also brought a treatise on civil disobedience that he fully intended to discuss with Malorrie when he reached Velen. The whole thought of civil disobedience, for the right reasons and under auspicious circumstances, was confusing. Jherek had read it twice during the voyage, and it still didn't set any easier on his mind. Right was right, and to suggest that it might not be right at times was too much for him to think on.
Taking a pause in the book, holding his place with a finger, he leaned over the edge of the crow's nest and looked down at the cheering and screaming Amnians thronging the ship's stern. His reading was getting increasingly harder as the roil of dark clouds coming in from the west took away his light. He wondered if they were in for another storm.
"Umberlee take the lot of them," Hagagne grumbled, climbing up the rigging to reach Jherek.
Hagagne was in his late thirties, a sallow man with loose skin that never seemed to quite brown enough and left him constantly reddened and peeling. He was bald on top and had an unruly fringe of hair around his head.
"What's going on?" Jherek asked the sailor.
"They've decided to fish," Hagagne answered, perching on the edge of the crow's nest as Jherek made room.
Jherek watched as deckhands brought the two fishing chairs out and set them up. Yeill and one of the Amnian young men sat in the chairs and belted themselves in with the leather restraint straps.
"They saw Marcle and Dawdre fishing earlier," Hagagne said, "and decided it would be great sport."
Jherek knew Marcle and Dawdre had done all right for themselves, bringing in ulauf and whitefish on the long poles as well as the swordfish. A lot of meat had been salted and put back in the ship's larder.
"They've even got a wager going on," Hagagne said with a harsh laugh.
Jherek looked the question at him.
"If the young bitch-"
"Please don't call her that," Jherek said, but his voice carried sheathed steel.
Hagagne shrugged, taking no offense. "If the young lady," the older sailor amended, "wins, she gets one of the dandy's breeding stallions, something he seems to be particularly proud of. If he wins, he gets to spend the night in her silks."
A cold depression settled over Jherek's shoulders.
"You liked her, didn't you lad?" Hagagne asked. "Even after that bit she done for you?"
"I don't even know her." Jherek watched the young woman with a heavy heart, knowing his words were more true than he'd thought earlier.
"You've a tender heart, Jherek. All you young brooding ones do." Hagagne pulled a pouch from his work apron and took out a pipe carved in the likeness of a sea horse. The sea horse's curled tail created the bowl. He filled it with pipeweed, lit up, and said, "Lucky for you it'll pass, and glad you'll be of it."
Once Yeill and her competitor were lashed in, the long fishing poles were attached to the chairs and locked in. As the hooks were baited, the gathered Amnians cheered again and passed around several bottles of the wine they'd been drinking since they boarded in Athkatla.
"Her father knows of the wager?" Jherek asked.
"Aye, and he was one of the first to encourage the competition. To hear him tell it, his daughter's luck is phenomenal." Hagagne grinned evilly. "Only we know about the one that got away, don't we, lad?"
Seeing no humor in the remark, Jherek refrained from responding.
Deckhands threw the baited hooks into the slight wake behind the cog. Yeill and her competitor worked the reels at once, letting more fishing line out. Another deckhand poured out a bucket of chum from the big barrel kept in the stern.
"What about the situation with the Amnians?" Jherek asked.
"You mean about the girl's da breathing down the cap'n's neck?"
"Aye."
"They reached an agreement."
Jherek felt even lower, wondering how much profit Finaren had lost because of him. Even volunteering to give up his wages for the trip wouldn't cover the loss, he was sure. "Do you know what it was?"
"Aye." Hagagne relit his pipe and smiled broadly. "The cap'n said he thought that Merchant Lelayn would hate to try to make a raft of his precious cargo and float it back to Athkatla from the Sea of Swords. The Amman merchant, why, he agreed that was truly so."
"Why did he do that?"
"I got this story only secondhand, you understand," Hagagne said, "so I might not have the right of it, but I do know what was basically said."
Jherek waited impatiently. Hagagne was one to draw on his stories.
"Cap'n told Merchant Lelayn that he had him a crewman willing to take lashes from the cat over what that little bit-that daughter of his had done," Hagagne said. "Cap'n told him that he couldn't do no less than stand by his crewman, and he'd be damned if anybody was going to skipper this ship other than him. Also told Merchant Lelayn that he couldn't do any less than pay for ship's passage ahead of time now, what with all the confusion his daughter had caused."
"The fee was paid?" Jherek asked in disbelief.
Hagagne nodded, puffing on his pipe contentedly. "In gold. Neghram seen it himself."
Before Jherek knew it, a smile lifted his lips. Maybe his luck was finally changing.
"Not many cap'ns would have done what the cap'n done," Hagagne stated. His head was wreathed in pipe-weed smoke. "I might not have believed it myself if I hadn't been on the ship that done it."