Rising Tide

by Mel Odom

  “I’m sorry,” Jherek said.

  A lump swelled in his throat as the confusion touched him. In every situation he truly believed there was a right thing to do, a fair thing. But for the life of him, he couldn’t see what it was in this instance.

  “Every manjack on this ship has been looking at them women,” Finaren growled, “including meself. A fiery little wench like that, she gets a man’s blood up. Trouble is, she knows it too, the little tart. She could’ve had any man on this cog, yet she went out of her way to reach for you.”

  “Captain, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” Jherek said. “I’ve tried to stay away from the Amnians as you suggested.”

  It had been easy, in fact, since the merchants had partied constantly since being aboard ship and Jherek had never liked being around loud, raucous people. Drinking seemed to blur the lines of polite society, and take away even the rules a lot of good people stood by when they were sober.

  “I know, lad. We’ve just got a wicket of trouble to deal with. The girl’s father is demanding some kind of recompense.”

  “I could offer him an apology.”

  “That’s good of you, but he’s looking for something more along the monetary lines. I’m loath to give it to him. I can be a tight-fisted old miser meself, and I believe he knows what really happened betwixt you and that little tramp. He also knows I daren’t tell him off without proof of it.” He looked away, turning his attention back to the ship he’d spent so much of his life on.

  Below, two members of the ship’s crew sat in chairs mounted on the aft deck. Most of Butterfly’s supply of fresh fish was taken up in nets, but swordfish had been spotted running on the salt earlier. The meat was a delicacy, but the swordfish had a habit of tearing up nets. The sailors sat in the chairs and fished with hooks. It was a lot of work, but it saved the nets. The fishing had also become something of a pastime aboard ship, and men gambled over who would be the first to land a catch.

  “Well, lad,” Finaren said after a short time, “it’s my problem to think on. I just wanted to get the right of it from you.”

  Jherek nodded, understanding full well the predicament the captain was in. “If there’s anything I can do, let me know. I’ll gladly do it.”

  Finaren looked at him with fondness, then dropped a heavy hand on Jherek’s shoulder. “Aye, lad, I know that you would. You’ve been more honest with me than any man I’ve ever sailed with.” He shook his head. “You’ve enough weight to bear, young Jherek, without dealing with the bilge offered by a selfish and conceited twit of a girl. No, I’ll stand up and take care of this. Nobody’s going to ramrod this ship but me. You just steer clear of any further encounters with those Amnians. I’ll not have you spilling some young fop’s guts and garters across my deck because he’s trying to show out for Merchant Lelayn.”

  “Aye, captain.”

  “Have you had anything to eat, lad?”

  “Not since morningfeast.”

  “The mid-day meal was an hour ago, lad.”

  “I didn’t want to come down.”

  Finaren nodded. “I know. You stand steady up here. I know you like the solitude anyway. I’ll have Cook put together a kit and have it sent up.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Faugh. It’s nothing, lad. Not many men would have let that girl slap them and walk off the way you did. Nor would they have kept a civil tongue in their heads.”

  Jherek also knew of no other sailors who carried the dark secret he did. If that secret were to get out, it would see him clear of sailing—if it didn’t get him killed outright. Captain Finaren had hired him on in spite of knowing the truth.

  Yeill was wrong, Jherek knew, love did exist. He knew that because he loved the old sea captain for the way he accepted him in spite of the birthright that marked him. He watched Finaren nimbly descend to the lower decks, bellowing out orders to the ship’s crew at once.

  Some of the tense knot gripping Jherek’s stomach released. He took a moment to himself and said a small prayer to Ilmater, the Crying God, asking for the strength to go on, then he returned to his work on the rigging.

  By late afternoon, only an hour or so short of eveningfeast, the winds deserted Finaran’s Butterfly. She slowed to the point of becalming, which was bad enough, but then the Amnians started drinking and partying again, deciding they were bored.

  Jherek sat in the crow’s nest, curled up with a novel of chivalric romance Malorrie had suggested. He’d also brought a treatise on civil disobedience that he fully intended to discuss with Malorrie when he reached Velen. The whole thought of civil disobedience, for the right reasons and under auspicious circumstances, was confusing. Jherek had read it twice during the voyage, and it still didn’t set any easier on his mind. Right was right, and to suggest that it might not be right at times was too much for him to think on.

  Taking a pause in the book, holding his place with a finger, he leaned over the edge of the crow’s nest and looked down at the cheering and screaming Amnians thronging the ship’s stern. His reading was getting increasingly harder as the roil of dark clouds coming in from the west took away his light. He wondered if they were in for another storm.

  “Umberlee take the lot of them,” Hagagne grumbled, climbing up the rigging to reach Jherek.

  Hagagne was in his late thirties, a sallow man with loose skin that never seemed to quite brown enough and left him constantly reddened and peeling. He was bald on top and had an unruly fringe of hair around his head.

  “What’s going on?” Jherek asked the sailor.

  “They’ve decided to fish,” Hagagne answered, perching on the edge of the crow’s nest as Jherek made room.

  Jherek watched as deckhands brought the two fishing chairs out and set them up. Yeill and one of the Amnian young men sat in the chairs and belted themselves in with the leather restraint straps.

  “They saw Marcle and Dawdré fishing earlier,” Hagagne said, “and decided it would be great sport.”

  Jherek knew Marcle and Dawdré had done all right for themselves, bringing in ulauf and whitefish on the long poles as well as the swordfish. A lot of meat had been salted and put back in the ship’s larder.

  “They’ve even got a wager going on,” Hagagne said with a harsh laugh.

  Jherek looked the question at him.

  “If the young bitch—”

  “Please don’t call her that,” Jherek said, but his voice carried sheathed steel.

  Hagagne shrugged, taking no offense. “If the young lady,” the older sailor amended, “wins, she gets one of the dandy’s breeding stallions, something he seems to be particularly proud of. If he wins, he gets to spend the night in her silks.”

  A cold depression settled over Jherek’s shoulders.

  “You liked her, didn’t you lad?” Hagagne asked. “Even after that bit she done for you?”

  “I don’t even know her.” Jherek watched the young woman with a heavy heart, knowing his words were more true than he’d thought earlier.

  “You’ve a tender heart, Jherek. All you young brooding ones do.” Hagagne pulled a pouch from his work apron and took out a pipe carved in the likeness of a sea horse. The sea horse’s curled tail created the bowl. He filled it with pipeweed, lit up, and said, “Lucky for you it’ll pass, and glad you’ll be of it.”

  Once Yeill and her competitor were lashed in, the long fishing poles were attached to the chairs and locked in. As the hooks were baited, the gathered Amnians cheered again and passed around several bottles of the wine they’d been drinking since they boarded in Athkatla.

  “Her father knows of the wager?” Jherek asked.

  “Aye, and he was one of the first to encourage the competition. To hear him tell it, his daughter’s luck is phenomenal.” Hagagne grinned evilly. “Only we know about the one that got away, don’t we, lad?”

  Seeing no humor in the remark, Jherek refrained from responding.

  Deckhands threw the baited hooks into the slight wake behind the cog.
Yeill and her competitor worked the reels at once, letting more fishing line out. Another deckhand poured out a bucket of chum from the big barrel kept in the stern.

  “What about the situation with the Amnians?” Jherek asked.

  “You mean about the girl’s da breathing down the cap’n’s neck?”

  “Aye.”

  “They reached an agreement.”

  Jherek felt even lower, wondering how much profit Finaren had lost because of him. Even volunteering to give up his wages for the trip wouldn’t cover the loss, he was sure. “Do you know what it was?”

  “Aye.” Hagagne relit his pipe and smiled broadly. “The cap’n said he thought that Merchant Lelayn would hate to try to make a raft of his precious cargo and float it back to Athkatla from the Sea of Swords. The Amnian merchant, why, he agreed that was truly so.”

  “Why did he do that?”

  “I got this story only secondhand, you understand,” Hagagne said, “so I might not have the right of it, but I do know what was basically said.”

  Jherek waited impatiently. Hagagne was one to draw on his stories.

  “Cap’n told Merchant Lelayn that he had him a crewman willing to take lashes from the cat over what that little bit—that daughter of his had done,” Hagagne said. “Cap’n told him that he couldn’t do no less than stand by his crewman, and he’d be damned if anybody was going to skipper this ship other than him. Also told Merchant Lelayn that he couldn’t do any less than pay for ship’s passage ahead of time now, what with all the confusion his daughter had caused.”

  “The fee was paid?” Jherek asked in disbelief.

  Hagagne nodded, puffing on his pipe contentedly. “In gold. Neghram seen it himself.”

  Before Jherek knew it, a smile lifted his lips. Maybe his luck was finally changing.

  “Not many cap’ns would have done what the cap’n done,” Hagagne stated. His head was wreathed in pipeweed smoke. “I might not have believed it myself if I hadn’t been on the ship that done it.”

  “Still,” Jherek said, not able to fully shake the doubt that had lived within him all his life, “standing up for me might not have been the best thing to do. The Amnians will get word of what Captain Finaren has done and Butterfly will be on their black lists.”

  “Kind of thought the same thing, lad. Seems Merchant Lelayn mentioned that to the cap’n. Said he didn’t care to do business with a man who didn’t keep his mind on business. Then the cap’n, he told the Amnian that an honest man was worth his weight in gold to a man in business for himself, and the passage to and from Baldur’s Gate aboard this ship didn’t come close to that amount. Said him not standing up for you might mean losing you, and that was his bottom line.”

  Jherek knew that wasn’t true. Getting a berth on a ship’s crew had been hard, even in Velen. If it hadn’t been for Madame Iitaar and his experience working in Shipwright Makim’s yard, Captain Finaren wouldn’t have given him a second glance. If not for Butterfly, he didn’t know what ship he would have crewed aboard. There were too many experienced sailors in the Duchy of Cape Velen, and none of those bore his sins.

  “In the end,” Hagagne went on, “Merchant Lelayn agreed that the cap’n standing up for you was good business. Said when he got back to Athkatla, he’d put another cargo together and ship with Butterfly again.”

  “That is good news,” Jherek said.

  “Aye. With the cap’n and Butterfly, we’ll do all right. Not many got the rep of either of those.”

  It was something to take pride in and Jherek did, even though the edicts of Ilmater preached against such feelings. He glanced back at the Amnians below. “I’ll wish them good luck in their fishing.”

  “From up here,” Hagagne suggested.

  “Aye.”

  Hagagne gave him a side-long glance. “And hope that the lady wins so that she doesn’t have to live up to her end of the wager?”

  Jherek’s face burned. Thoughts of the young woman sharing her bed silks with anyone didn’t set easy with him even though she wasn’t what he’d thought she was.

  “Don’t be so embarrassed, lad. Your heart’s full of love at your age, and there’s nothing wrong with it, but you could do with a little seasoning, if you’d allow yourself. I know some of the tavern wenches who wouldn’t mind a tumble if you’d only ask.”

  Ignoring the comment, Jherek gazed up at the darkening clouds. The storm seemed more threatening than ever. The shadows had chased the green from the Sea of Swords, turning even the water dark. Off in the distance, pale flickering lightning knifed through the sky.

  “You reading again?” Hagagne asked, picking up the book.

  “Aye.”

  “Never found a knack for reading meself,” the crewman said, “but I like being read to well enough. What’s this book about?”

  “A liege’s man,” Jherek said. “He joined the king’s army to fight against the goblin hordes threatening the kingdom, only to find that he’s falling in love with his liege’s lady.”

  “Does she know?”

  Jherek nodded. “The lady’s marriage was an arranged one. She doesn’t love her liege. She loves the warrior.”

  “Perhaps when you have time, you’d read this one to me.” Hagagne picked up the thick volume. “I’d predict a short, unhappy ending, but I tell by the heft of this book that’s not the case.”

  “No.” Jherek loved the intricacies of the plot, loved the way the liege’s man was at war with his own feelings and the rules he’d laid down for himself He still didn’t know how the story would end. “Aye, I’ll read it to you if you’d like.”

  Hagagne clapped him on the back. “Now there’s a good lad. I shall look forward to it.”

  Jherek replaced the volume in his kit, brought to him earlier by a crewman the captain had sent up. His eye wandered back to the cog’s wake to study the fishing lines. He and Hagagne watched in silence for a few moments, then watched Yeill’s line suddenly draw taut.

  A cheer rose from the throats of the Amnians, showing the effects of the wine they’d been drinking. It died away when the shark’s dorsal fin broke the water.

  The triangle of cartilaginous flesh looked impossibly large. The brute’s gray mottled head broke water next, the fishing line trapped in its snarl of teeth.

  The cheers turned to a panicked chorus of fear.

  Jherek rose to his feet, yelling down from the crow’s nest. “Cut the line! Cut the line!”

  The line was stout, unbreakable. Butterfly had a large crew and she had to feed them. The Sea of Swords held big fish, and the captain wanted none of them to get away once they were hooked. The enchantment on the lines he’d paid for kept them from breaking, though they could be cut. Still, two men had been pulled from Butterfly’s deck before.

  Captain Finaren himself moved first, shoving his way through the ring of Amnian wealthy. He drew his cutlass and pulled it back to swing.

  Timbers groaned and screeched as Yeill’s fishing chair yanked free of the deck and tore through the railing. She was gone in an instant, pulled under by the big shark she’d hooked.

  Jherek stood in the crow’s nest and drew his seaman’s knife from his leg sheath. The knife blade was a foot long, thick and heavy, with a saw-toothed back for cutting through bone. The small handle barely filled his fist.

  “Sea devils!” someone shouted.

  Glancing to his left, Jherek saw a sahuagin manta surface on Butterfly’s port side. The oblong barge used by the sahuagin to travel above or below water was much smaller than most of its kind that the young sailor had heard described. Like all of its kind that he’d heard about, the manta had been cobbled together from ships wrecked at sea or scavenged from shorelines. The boards were stained green with undersea scud from being submerged for so long, but fitted neatly into a wedge shape that made it very maneuverable. It rode low in the water, but the finned shapes of the sahuagin could be seen hunkered down on the benches. They paddled furiously, moving in response to a measured cadence, totally focu
sed on their prey.

  Jherek had heard stories about mantas that crewed as many as six hundred sahuagin, but firsthand stories were few and far between. Most men who saw them perished in the sea devils’ attack. From his initial estimate, he guessed that there were forty or fifty sahuagin aboard, easily twice the number of crew aboard Butterfly.

  Captain Finaren bawled out orders at once, calling his crew into action.

  Jherek looked at the water where Yeill had gone under. He couldn’t see her.

  “Lad,” Hagagne called from the ship’s rigging, already moving down to the deck himself. He stopped when he realized what Jherek was about to attempt. “Leave her. She’s probably already in that shark’s belly by now and not worth your life even if she isn’t.”

  “I can’t.”

  Hagagne reached back for the young sailor, but Jherek avoided the other man’s grasp. Without another word, he dived from the crow’s nest, plummeting toward the dark water.

  II

  9 Mirtul, the Year of the Gauntlet

  Jherek hit the ocean cleanly, holding his hands before him to break the surface tension and lessen the chance of injury from impact. Still, the force of hitting the water nearly drove the breath from his lungs. The cold bit into him with jagged, angry teeth. The sahuagin manta was ahead and on the port side of Finaren’s Butterfly so he knew he wouldn’t immediately be seen by the sea devils aboard their barge.

  He also knew that the shark that had taken Yeill’s hook hadn’t bitten by chance. The sahuagin ran with the sharks. He didn’t doubt the danger that more sharks would be around as he attempted to save the Amnian woman.

  The darkened sky above the ocean cut down on the visibility beneath the water as well. Pale colored sand covered the rolling ocean floor, and brain coral stood up in bunches, like tumors. A coral reef that housed dozens of multicolored fish hiding from the sharks ran in an irregular line to his right. As always, being below the ocean line filled Jherek with a sense of ease. Everything moved more slowly here, and it seemed more open to him than even the sky. He could feel the water, feel the pressure of it against his body, feel the current that mixed warm and cold water in layers. He felt at home there.