Rising tide - Mel Odom [40]
The young sailor sat at a back table and nursed a mug of hot tea. He didn't really favor the tea, but he didn't drink mead or the liquors the tavern served. The barkeep kept watch on him. The Figureheadless was a place where pirates met, and where honest work on the sea was discussed at a table where a murder might have been plotted only moments ago.
The walls held no decor except stains from drink, oily hair, and blood. Sawdust covered the heavy walkways and looked like it should have been changed days ago. The tavern's three serving girls had already been by and offered themselves-for a price. He'd politely declined, and his thoughts had wandered inadvertently back to Yeill, wondering how someone so beautiful could look at life the way she did. For the tavern girls, it was just another means to make a couple silvers, and though he couldn't condone it, he at least did understand.
How was it that having wealth and not having wealth so often put the people who had and didn't have it in the same camp? he wondered. He realized it wasn't so much like a camp as it was like the table in front of him. People had to fill the seats on both sides, one giving and the other taking, each in turn, to fulfill the business between them.
In its basest terms, he supposed it was business, like Finaren sitting across from merchants who needed goods shipped to and fro.
It was still no way to live life. Coins were a means, not tools of war and not some counting system in a game. What mattered about life was the way a man lived it.
There were those, he knew, who would never get the chance to live a decent life at all no matter what was in their hearts. He felt immediately guilty at that, thinking of the time Madame litaar and Malorrie had spent with him these past years. Closing his eyes, he lowered his head and folded his hands, praying to Ilmater that he have the strength not to find fault with others for his own troubles and that he wouldn't slight what he had been given.
When he blinked his eyes open, he found Finaren standing there. The captain had his hat in his hands as he waited quietly.
"I didn't mean to intrude on your prayers, lad," the older man said in his deep voice.
Jherek pushed himself from his chair and turned up a hand to offer the seat across from him. "You're not intruding, sir."
"I'm not one to get between a man and his god," Finaren said, easing himself into the chair.
Jherek gave him a small smile and took his own seat. "Did you get the repairs set up for Butterfly!"
"Aye, and rogues that they are, they're going to charge a man an arm and a leg to have them done." Finaren waved to one of the serving girls and called, "Wench, you've got a restless man here dying of thirst. Bring me a bottle of your harshest who-hit-Nate and be damned quick about it."
Jherek was surprised at how demanding the captain was. As rough and prickly as he was at sea, he remained the epitome of good manners around children and women.
Finaren looked at him, then sighed. His shoulders slumped. "Being hard on the lass, aren't I?"
The young sailor shrugged, feeling even more nervous than he had when Finaren first sat down. The captain could bluster and yell louder than any man Jherek had ever known, but only in its proper time and place.
"I am and I know it, lad," the captain added. "There's no excuse. Rest assured that she'll see a healthy stipend for any troubles I might offer."
The serving girl brought a bottle and thick glass and put them before Finaren.
The captain thanked her and pulled the cork from the bottle. "Care for a libation, lad? Trust me, I think we're both going to need it."
Jherek's stomach flip-flopped, and he had to force the words out. He'd often seen Finaren take a drink and knew the man kept a ship's keg tapped, but he'd never seen the captain in a drunken stupor. He noticed for the first time the stink of liquor already on Finaren's breath and said, "No, thank you."
Finaren filled the glass in front of him and put the bottle away unstoppered. "Me, I'm going to get royally