“If I may, I'd suggest you get some medical help for the lad. I'm sure there's some kind physician aboard. Just ask the captain to-”
“Gyrd, get up,” the man shouted, “Get up or by damn you'll regret it!”
The man kicked out viciously at the boy, aiming at his head.
“Here, now.” Finn stopped him with an open palm to the chest. The man staggered back, nearly going to the deck.
“You interfere with my goods, and I'll have the captain put you in irons!”
“He will, too,” his wife put in.
“I shall interfere if it's the proper thing to do,” Finn said, “and if I catch you abusing this lad again …”
“Gyrd is not a lad,” the man said, glaring at Finn, pulling himself to his feet. “An IT is what it is, and nothing more than that. Now step aside, Master whoever you are, and I'll take my property below.”
“Call him what you like. Just don't hurt him again. He has the same rights as you.”
The counselor rolled his eyes at that. Still, he clearly saw something in Finn he didn't like. Turning away, he nodded at his wife, then walked off with his head in the air as if he'd just astonished the judge, the jury and everyone in court.
His wife squatted down and lifted the Newlie to his feet. The boy gasped, swayed and nearly fell, but the woman had a firm, bony grip on the boy's slender arm.
“You'll think twice afore you spill your Master's precious tray again,” the woman said, in a voice like iron striking tin.
Dragging the whimpering lad away, she turned and stomped after her husband. First though, she stopped, drew a small blood-red stone from under her robes, kissed it twice, held it beneath her left eye, then pointed it at Finn.
At once, Finn felt a sharp prickling chill, as if the woman's amulet had burrowed its way into his heart.
It was not a big spell, but it hurt all the same. Finn took a breath to shake it off. Almost at once, the pain disappeared. As had the black-clad woman and her miserable charge, gone back below.
He felt a great sorrow for the boy. He wanted desperately to chuck the skinny bastard and his wife into the deep, but that wouldn't help, really wouldn't do at all.
“Master Finn …”
Finn turned to face Magreet. The burly oaf at the captain's feet was off his knees now. He leaned against the mainmast, rubbing the back of his head. He was still the same enormous lout who'd tried to make sausage out of Finn. Yet, Finn thought, something was not the same. He was still large and ugly, his hair was still red. Now, however, whatever demon drove him seemed to be at rest.
“I must officially warn you,” the captain said, “that I will brook no more of this violence and poor attitude aboard my vessel. If you have any further quarrel with one another, you will cease hostile action until you get ashore.”
Finn stared. “Does he know that? By damn, sir, it was he who tried to stick a blade in me, not the other way around.”
“I have informed Mr. Nucci as well.”
Nucci frowned at Finn. “I need to know your name, and your family history as well, sir-if indeed you did not spring from common folk. Honor demands that I meet you again and battle until one of us is dead.”
Finn had to laugh. “Do I get a blade this time, or just you?”
“Whatever you wish.” The bully waved him off. “I assure you, though, a weapon will do you little good against me.”
“You think not?”
“Oh, I am certain of it, sir.”
The man's ugly face split into a joyous grin. “I hope you will join me for supper tonight. I do not wish you to think ill of Sabatino Nucci, in spite of our little quarrel.”
“Thank you for the invitation,” Finn said. “But I don't believe I will.”
Sabatino shrugged. “As you wish, then. Captain, if you ever strike me again, I shall consider it extremely annoying. Good day to you both.”
Sabatino Nucci strolled away. Finn watched him until he was well out of sight.
“Feathers and Birds, what in bloody hell is the matter with him? Why, he would've fair skinned that lad if I hadn't come along. And he nearly skinned me.”
“I told you,” Magreet said. “He is a Nucci. The Nuccis are vicious, every one.”
“But not all the time.”
“No, not all the time. And the trouble with a Nucci, Master Finn, is he will never tell you when …”
4
“He never even asked about the lad. Was he hurt? Was he maimed? Was the poor boy alive or was he dead? I tell you, Letitia, I am not even certain this Sabatino fellow remembered what he'd done.”
“Why, how could he not?” Letitia pressed a delicate finger to her chin, a gesture Finn always found enchanting. “Of course he did. The boy was a Newlie, so the man didn't care.”
“Maybe,” Finn said, pacing the small cabin from one end to the next. “I'm not too sure of that. When it was over, he was rude, pompous, nasty, terribly overbearing, but quite a different fellow from the frothing lunatic he'd been….”
“Lunatic or not, he's a human person, and that's the way they think.” Letitia wrinkled her nose and smiled. “Not you, of course, dear Finn. Sometimes I think you're simply too nice to be a person at all.”
“I appreciate the thought.”
“Well, it's true, my dear.”
“Nicely put,” said Julia Jessica Slagg. “You'll never get a finer compliment than that. Or likely deserve it, I fear.”
“Be quiet,” Finn said, “nobody asked.”
Julia gave a rusty cackle and clawed up the bed to Letitia's lap. “If this poor lizard had to wait for someone to ask, she would never get to speak at all.”
“I'm grateful you reminded me of that,” Finn said. “That switch is not working as it should. If the ship would hold still for a moment, I could remedy that at once. Of course, with all this rolling and such, vital cogs and gears could spill out and roll about …”
“Stop it, both of you,” Letitia said. “I have to spend our vacation in this-tiny, stuffy room, but I do not have to listen to you two bicker all the time.”
She sighed then, and reached out to touch Finn's hand, as she nearly always did when a single cross word had passed between the two. And when Finn looked into those enormous, glossy black eyes that swirled with iridescent color like opals drowned in warm and fragrant oil, his heart near swelled with joy.
Granted, her ears were perhaps a bit long, but they came to a soft and lovely curve, peeking like furry pink secrets through her long ashen hair. Her lips were small and shapely, and, while her nose was somewhat pointy, Finn found it to be a very nice nose indeed. Her form was quite slender in all the proper places, and not too slender where slender wouldn't do at all.
How, he wondered, could he not love Letitia Louise? What she had been was not what she was now. An animal was one thing, a Newlie something else again. Many, of course, couldn't see the truth of that. Many, he knew, likely never would.
And who, in the end, was blessed with more kindness and love? Fair Letitia, or Sabatino Nucci and that vile and scrawny pair with little but stone in their hearts? All three were human through and through, and what did that gain them but cold and empty lives?
The world was full of questions, and Finn, Master Lizard-Maker, knew the answers to very few at all …
He brought their supper from the galley, a meal Letitia hardly touched-watery oyster soup, oat-bread and fish. Letitia nibbled on the bread, but, as ever, wouldn't touch the soup or fish. Meat was meat, whether it came from land or sea. Her kind had never been predators, they'd always been the prey.
“Did you see anyone?” she asked, her precious pink tongue finding crumbs at the corners of her lips. “Does everyone go and eat there? I mean, it must be interesting, meeting new people at sea …”