The Magic of Recluce - L. E. Modesitt [51]
I watched the waves for a while, and she watched beside me.
Finally, I tried again. “Do you remember when we met…the first thing you said was something like I was a sorry sight…when I was learning staff work, you took the first opportunity to beat the crap out of me…” I looked back at the water, wondering if I’d said too much, wondering why I even bothered.
“Oh…” She actually sounded taken aback, and it felt like she was surprised.
I shook my head.
“You don’t make it easy, either, you know.” Her voice was quiet.
I could barely hear her above the waves, the whisper of the wind, and the creaking of the ship. “What did I ever say?” I asked.
“That’s it. You never let anyone see you. You’re bored, or very polite, and we all know what you feel. That’s why no one can get very close, not even Krystal, and she wanted you a lot.”
Krystal? She was older…only said she needed a friend…
“You’re upset again.”
I glared at the waves instead of Tamra.
“And angry.”
“Why do you push at me?” I asked.
“Because…I’m scared…and you’re scared…”
Scared? Me?
“Yes, you, Lerris. You’re scared, scared shitless, no matter what you tell yourself or anyone else.”
Whhsssttttt…The Eidolon lurched, and a sheet of water sprayed past me, leaving me with wet hands and a tighter grip on the railing.
Scared? Maybe? But who wouldn’t be?
When I looked up again, a lot later, Tamra was gone. I wished she hadn’t left, somehow. But she was still a bitch.
The rest of the day held the same pattern. The Eidolon plowed west-northwest. The wind held. The crew kept working on repairs. Sammel stayed seasick, and Isolde and Tamra avoided me. The crew avoided us all, except to ask brief questions of Isolde. We ate bread, cheese, fruit, and tea after the crew did at midday.
I walked the deck, studying how the ship was put together, trying to sense the underlying patterns, the forces, the stresses. In a way, it was like Uncle Sardit’s work—simple on the surface, very solid, and a lot more involved than I had thought.
Tracing the flow of the woods, the way the masts were stepped, the flow of the hull and the timbers and braces—that was easy. The metals were harder, especially the mechanical stuff.
Whuffff…whufff…
The belch of the engine and the acrid scent of burning coal broke me away from trying to feel how the stem and the bowsprit were joined.
Flappppp…thwipp…
Aloft, some of the crew were furling sails. Not all of them, but the mainsails.
A line of green hills had stretched southward off the bow—on the side opposite where I had been sitting propped against the forward hatch cover. When I scrambled up, I could also see a fainter line to the north, covered with a haze that had seemed more like low-lying clouds.
Freetown couldn’t be that far away, not if we were at the edge of the Great North Bay.
Splattt…thwap…thwap…splatt, thwap, thwap…
The paddles began to bite into the calmer waters of the bay. Then the sun dimmed as the Eidolon moved under the high hazy clouds and into suddenly damper air.
Back behind the ship’s bridge, a crewman hoisted a huge Nordlan flag to the top of the aft mast. I wondered who the Candarians didn’t like. Except that wasn’t the way to look at it. Who didn’t the Duke of Freetown like? That was the question.
“Are you ready to go?” Isolde stood by my elbow.
“All I have to do is gather my pack and staff.”
“Leave them there for now. It will be a while, but we need to get ashore as soon as the Eidolon ties up.”
“Safer for us or them?”
Isolde didn’t answer, perhaps because she had left.
The Eidolon, with the grizzled captain on the bridge, continued to make surprising speed, the engine substituting for the sails, which now hung nearly limp. Once we had neared the hills and entered the bay, the wind had died, as had the waves.
Sammel appeared at the rail, followed by all of the dangergelders but Dorthae—and Isolde. Myrten wore a white bandage on his forearm, which showed only when he reached to steady himself on the railing.
The sun had disappeared totally behind the shapeless clouds by the time the ship