Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [32]
“I was on the Queen of the Waves,” the ghost continued, drawing farther ahead of Cauvin, who cursed Molin Torchholder earnestly and silently, then followed him into the Broken Mast’s depths. “We came upon jetsam and grappled it on deck. There was a man in the wrack, naked pink as the morning he was born and not a mark on him. The cook’s mate, he gives it a shove with his toe—as to waken it up. Burst like a ripe carbuncle, it did and there was hagfish all over the Queen’s deck, writhing like snakes. We shoveled like the damned getting them back to the deep, and when we were done, there was only the hide of a man left on the wrack, not a speck of bone or blood. The hags’d eaten him up, stern to stern.”
Between the still air, the stench, and the ghost’s story, Cauvin wiped cold sweat from his forehead. “This the way you usually welcome new customers?”
“The fools on the shore … they touched the blackfish, same as the cook’s mate, he touched that corpse. That’s why the stink.”
“Froggin’ fantastic.”
The ghost knocked on a door. From the inside a man’s deep voice said, “Send him in, Anst.”
“The captain will see you now.”
Chapter Four
Cauvin entered a low-ceiling room heated by a brazier smoking in a sandbox atop one of the barrels. The room was cluttered with crates and barrels that might contain the Broken Mast’s stock of brandy. Captain Sinjon—a bald, gray-bearded man—sat behind a checkered table that had been cleared of its counters. A brass lamp of unfamiliar design cast shadowy light on the captain’s lean, weathered face and an intricately, but obscurely, carved and painted box.
When Cauvin had closed the door, Captain Sinjon asked to see the token. The room was considerably warmer than the commons or the streets had been. Cauvin felt himself beginning to sweat before he stood the little ship in the center of one of the black squares.
The captain examined the jade by lamplight. “How’d you come by this?”
There was only one chair in the chamber, and Sinjon was sitting in it, which left Cauvin standing and feeling awkward. He nudged one of the crates with his boot and, judging it solid, sat down on the corner.
“I got it from an old man with the instructions to tell you that there was blood on the moon last night.”
From his crate-corner perch, Cauvin could meet the captain’s stare directly, which quickly proved a mistake. The man didn’t blink. One eye—his left—bore straight on, like a snake’s, while the other wandered slowly: up, down, inward, outward. Cauvin had seen more than his share of strange sights, but Sinjon’s roving eye made him anxious. He had a predictable response to anxiety.
“My old man,” he snarled angrily, “says you’re supposed to give me a froggin’ box. That froggin’ box.”
After an overly long hesitation, the captain sighed. He folded his hands over the carved box and pushed it toward Cauvin without releasing it.
“Just today I’d begun to hope it was mine to keep … and open. Considering who he was … what he was, Lord Torchholder understood the sea. So long as he was up in the palace, the captains could be sure of a fair hearing for their grievances—no telling what’s to happen now. The Irrune—they’d never seen the sea, didn’t have a porking word for it in their jabber. Most of the Rankans, they weren’t much better than that stinking silty port of theirs. The Ilsigi—now they understand the sea. You can sail an Ilsig ship through any water, any weather, but as She rules, you’ll pay and pay forever for the privilege. The Ilsigi—they understand gold and silver best of all. The Torch, he knew that, so when Her folk came to Sanctuary, he saw the advantage straightaway.”
Captain Sinjon said a word—a name, perhaps—in a language that Cauvin had never heard before. It sounded like “bey-sib” or “bey-sah”; or maybe it was two different words. The captain must have seen the confusion on his face.
“You’re too young,” he said. “You couldn’t remember, even if you wanted to—and who wants to remember nowadays, eh? Better tuck your