“I don’t need a babysitter,” I say. Especially not one like Hobbs.
“They’re not my orders,” Hobbs says to the sea. “The Deep Blue knows I don’t want this anymore than you do. The admiral insisted.”
“No,” the captain says, and the soft breeze of relief washes over me. It’s the captain’s ship—his rules.
“The admiral said you’d say that,” Hobbs says, finally looking away from the ocean, meeting the captain’s stare. “He also said his decision is final, and if you make me call him off his ship, well, let’s just say you don’t want to do that…” Sometimes the implied threat is more effective than the threat itself, or even carrying out the threat. This whole meeting is becoming a demonstration of the lessons my father taught me growing up.
The captain’s face is getting redder by the second, and I swear he’s about to burst into flames, but then he turns away stiffly, making a show of stomping toward the boat. “Get in,” he says over his shoulder. “Both of you.”
I’ve barely just met the captain, and yet, because of Hobbs, he hates me already.
~~~
I’ve never seen a ship like the Mayhem.
Just like on The Merman’s Daughter, there are men and women everywhere, but they’re not all working. In fact, I don’t think half of them are working. As I scan the decks at mid-ship, I spot a dozen people lounging, men and women alike. To my left, a fat, grizzly man is slumped against the side of an overturned barrel, his hand tucked beneath his belt. On my right, a skinny fellow with a long, curly mustache snores loudly, his arm around a sleeping woman with a top so tight and low my cheeks flush. With each exhalation, the hairs of his mustache flutter.
Above me, the sails open, but not in an orderly fashion, one at a time, like on my father’s ship, but almost all at once. The wind catches them despite the numerous holes and tears in the thick cloth, and the ship lurches forward. I grip the splintery hand rail to stop from falling over.
“A damn, bloody mess,” Hobbs mutters from beside me. For once, I agree with Hobbs.
But something’s strange, too. Despite the distinct smell of stale grog and fish that lingers in the air like a cloud, and the strange array of men and women working and lounging, the decks appear to be clean, well-scrubbed and free of clutter. The contrast is stark.
That’s when I notice them. The bilge rats. There are only four of them, compared to the dozens that work the decks of my father’s ship, but they’re scrubbing away at the lower decks like their very survival depends on keeping the wooden planks clean. Like all bilge rats, they’re brown-skinned and skinny, but muscular, too, because of all the scrubbing, I guess. Two are boys about my age, maybe a few yars younger, with sunken eyes and a wiry hunch to their bony shoulders. Another is an older bilge rat man, probably the oldest bilge I’ve ever seen—maybe nineteen, twenty. Usually the bilge don’t live that long, not with the Scurve running through their small, dirty living conditions like a crashing wave.
The fourth rat is a girl who looks around my age with long, dark hair, almost to her waist, braided tightly down the center of her back like a black spine. She’s on her knees, raking the brush back and forth across the deck with a tenacity and fervor at least twice that of any of the boys working beside her.
I’m dimly aware of Hobbs stalking across the deck, following the captain. Someone says my name, but the world has melted away, and all I can see is this bilge rat, working harder than I’ve ever seen anyone—rat or sailor, oarsmen or deckhand—work. For what? For the ship that’s the red, swollen pimple on the fleet’s backside?
And then she suddenly stops and turns, as if sensing my gaze.
And she sees me, looks right at me, her braid swinging behind her, her legs pushing her to her feet. Her eyes are a beautiful shade of brown, almost creamy, the perfect accent to her sun-kissed skin. But they’re flashing with something I didn’t expect. Not wonder, interest, or admiration—nothing good like that. They’re narrowed and burning, almost like the sun is in them, shooting rays of heat at me. She speaks.
“What the bloody scorch are you lookin’ at?” she says, and I’m not sure what I’m more surprised by, the tone of her voice or her words. On my father’s ship, a bilge rat speaking like that to one of the sailors would be thrown overboard, no questions asked. And I’m no ordinary sailor. I’m an officer and the son of the admiral.
The world that had melted away like a puddle of candlewax in a frying pan returns with a whoosh, as a burst of wind whips over the hull and across the deck, from starboard to port. The only motion is from the men manning the sails, who continue to struggle to get the right tension and direction. Everyone else is frozen, as still as human statues, watching.
The other three bilge rats have stopped scrubbing and are sitting cross legged, brushes and hands in their laps, their eyes wide. Those of the sailors who aren’t asleep have stopped whatever they were doing. They’re looking at me and then at the bilge rat, back and forth, back and forth, probably wondering who will flinch first.
Captain Morrow is standing on the quarterdeck, staring down at me with interest. Hobbs is halfway up the steps, arms crossed, frowning. My father’s spy. For why else would he be here? And this is my first test, whether by chance or design, and I’m totally screwing it up. I’m looking around me like a scared little boy, hoping someone will come to my rescue—
“Well?” the girl says, tapping her foot.
—but I’m a lieutenant,
“Are you gonna answer or what?” she adds.
—son of the admiral,
“Or are you too scared?”
—and she’s nothing more than a servant, one of the rats that come from nowhere, to scrub our decks and clean our clothes…
But she’s kinda pretty, in a she-looks-like-she-wants-to-punch-me-in-the-face kind of way.
And I don’t want to cause trouble on my first day, not when trouble seems to have such a knack for finding me.
In the silence, my boots are like hollow thunder as I walk across the deck. I know where I should be walking, where Hobbs would walk: toward the bilge rat to teach her some manners.
Feeling shaky, I reach the steps to the quarterdeck and climb them, brushing past Hobbs and ignoring the captain’s eyes following my every step.
“I’d like to see my cabin,” I say, my voice coming out high and weak.
~~~
Hobbs sneers, looking at me with no less distaste than he would if I was a rotten fish on his supper plate.
“A bit of grog and a shiny new officer’s uniform don’t make you a man,” he says, spitting out the word man.
I have a hundred comebacks planned, clever words that would put him in his place, teach him some manners, shut him up and make his face go red, but as I try to speak, they jam in my throat, a jumble of disjointed words, tangled, turning to ash, choking me. My mouth is dry, and whatever threads of pride and dignity I had left this morning have been snipped by the scissors of fate and my own weakness, worthless except to a scavenging bird seeking to build a nest.
Because I walked away from a rat. A rat who insulted me (with pretty eyes), who made me look like a child in front of the men I’m meant to lead. I know what my father would’ve done. Strutted up to her, slapped her hard across the face, probably kicked her to the deck, and had her thrown to the sharp-tooths. Made an example out of her.
The bilge rats will respect you if they fear you, he once told me after I’d just watched him manhandle a new rat who wouldn’t stop crying. The boy was no older than me at the time, seven yars old. A child.
And his words from earlier: Beware the bilge rats…They’re not like us. They’ll do anything to bring you down, to make you as low as they are. Don’t trust them. They are tools to be used, nothing more.
It’s almost like he knew I’d have trouble with them. It took me all of a few seconds on my new ship to fail at the hands of a bilge rat.