by Robin Roseau
"I'll let you have me however you want, even if you do this every voyage," she said again. "Just tell me."
"I have never done this before. I have had dalliances. Often. Not every trip. I frequently find myself fighting off women. So does Radha. But not like this. I promise, you will not feel the fool."
She stepped into my arms and quickly kissed me. "Has Melissa Roughridge been one of your dalliances?"
Radha began coughing.
"No. Melissa does not dally with women."
"She teases the crap out of them, however," Radha said, rubbing her jaw.
Rani hugged me quickly then pulled away. "Do I have orders, Captain?"
"Commander," Sorri said. "Will you join us for breakfast?"
"Sergeant Titan is due to relieve me in an hour," she replied. "I would love to join you, Captain."
"Ensign Karden will have the helm from noon until six," Sorri said. "I will be officer of the watch. I would like her knowledge of rigging properly assessed and any shortcomings addressed in a timely fashion. Is now convenient if I leave her with you?"
"Yes, Captain."
"Then I will see you both at breakfast. At that time, I would like your report regarding the Ensign's readiness and your plan to fix shortcomings."
"I'll need some sleep, Captain, after breakfast, unless this is an emergency, and if she has helm this afternoon, there are scheduling issues."
"We have an easy sailing day, Commander. If you can produce a plan of study, we have countless idle seamen who can grill her as necessary."
"Yes, Captain," Radha said. "Excellent plan."
Sorri turned to me. "You are with Commander Halfheart until breakfast, and then with whomever she assigns after you have finished your cabin girl duties until lunch. You will attend me at lunch and then you have the helm."
"Aye-aye, Captain," I said, grinning.
"Don't look too happy, Ensign," Radha told me. "If you are unable to satisfy me when I test you this evening, tomorrow morning you will be scrubbing the decks."
"Oh goodie!" Rani said. "An opportunity to learn a new skill." Rani grinned. "Captain, I'll need baiting before lunch, and maybe before I am turned over to anyone unprepared to handle me."
"I'll see to it, Captain," Radha said.
"Thank you, Commander."
I turned my back on them and headed down, but I wasn't even to the ladder when I heard Radha asked Rani, "Ensign, how would you judge the set of the sails?"
I chuckled to myself. Radha was being mean. We don't expect seamen to judge the sails before we send them aloft.
* * * *
Rani was subdued at breakfast. She served us quietly and seemed tentative about joining us. I had to invite her twice. She didn't speak during the meal except to inquire whether we needed more of this and that. When we were done, I ordered her to clear, and as soon as she was out of hearing, I asked Radha, "What happened?"
"She was getting cocky. I took her down a few pegs. She'll be fine. She snapped at me twice, though, so I'll deal with that next."
"Ask Glora to do it," I told her.
"I can handle it," Radha said.
"I know you can, but you need to sleep, and getting screamed at for twenty minutes isn't going to help."
She nodded. "So. Nice mark."
"Thanks," I said, angling my neck so she could see it better. "Jealous?"
"A little, but only because you never let me do that to you."
I guffawed, not expecting the comment to turn in that direction.
"Do you know what you're doing?"
"Not a clue."
"If you're just playing with her, you better tell her."
"I'm not."
We continued to talk about her until we hear the outside passage door open. A moment later, Rani knocked and entered. Radha immediately began talking about repairs due on the ship.
"You aren't fooling me," Rani said. "But I know I am a fascinating topic of conversation. However, I didn't know you were the type to kiss and tell, Sorri."
"I think you did all the advertising of our kissing needed, Rani," I replied, fingering my neck. She grinned at me for a moment.
"Commander, I have duties and I need baiting. And you need sleep. What would you like me to do?"
Radha pulled out her key to the brig. "Please go see Glora. Then do your duties here. See the officer of the deck when you are ready, and he will know which seamen are to work with you. Glora may hang onto this key until the Captain or I collect it from her."
* * * *
"I take back everything I said about it being easy, Captain," Rani said quietly to me, struggling with the wheel. "Am I making everyone seasick?"
"Probably," I told her.
"I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but the ship looks like one of its sailors on leave." I watched as she struggled, overcorrecting each wayward motion of the ship, making large turns of the wheel when only the slightest correction were needed.
"Relax, Rani," I told her. "Take your hands off the wheel."
"What?"
"That's an order, Ensign."
She immediately obeyed, pulling her hands from the wheel. The ship wobbled in its course, the wheel shifting slightly side to side, but it steadied out. We were five degrees off course, and the sails weren't quite trimmed right for this heading, but I let Rani figure it out. Twice she reached out for the wheel to correct our heading, but both times I told her, "Stand down, Ensign."
She finally turned to me, anguish filling her features. "The ship sails better without me, Captain. But it's off course."
"You're trying to do too much at once. You need to nudge it." I bumped her aside and showed her, and we slowly came back on course. I kept one hand casually draped across the wheel. "It doesn't take as much as you were giving it. Relax." Then I pulled us off course and stepped aside. "Try again."
Over the course of the afternoon, she got better. By the time I called a seaman to relieve her, she was drenched in sweat, but was doing well in the light seas. I wouldn't have put her on the wheel during heavier winds, but she was calming down, and I was pleased with her progress.
"Good job, Ensign," I told her.
She turned to me. "Please don't patronize me, Captain."
"I don't patronize my crew, Ensign," I told her. "You have time to clean up, but please invite your family to join us for dinner."
Misplaced
Rani Karden
I clung to the rigging, scared out of my mind. The motion on deck hadn't seemed so bad, but we were only halfway to the crow's nest, and the motions were huge. I felt like I was going to be flung from the rigging to dash against the deck far below. I froze, wrapping my arms around the rigging and shutting my eyes.
"Keep going, Ensign," Sorri said from behind me.
"No," I replied. "I can't."
I felt the rigging begin to tremble and whimpered. Then I felt Sorri's hands touching my back as she clung to the webbing next to me.
"Are you all right?" she asked me quietly.
"I don't belong here, Captain. Make it stop!"
"Hey," she said. "You're doing great."
"It won't stop moving!"
"I know, isn't it a blast?"
I opened my eyes and looked at her and she was grinning. "God, I love it up here! It can be scary in a storm though."
"Are you insane?"
"No, seriously, it's scary in a storm."
"Not funny." The ship took an especially violent motion. I screeched, slammed my eyes shut, and clutched the rigging more tightly.
"Rani, did your father every throw you up in the air as a child?"
"What?" I said, opening my eyes to look at her. "No."
"Hmm."
"My brother and cousin used to swing me though. One would grab my arms, one would grab my legs, and they would swing me back and forth."
"Did you enjoy it?"
"Yeah. I used to ask them to do it."
"This is like that," she said.
"It is?"
"Yes. Look up at Radha."
I looked above me. Radha had swung around until she hung from the bottom side of the rigging, hanging on by one hand and one foot. She was swinging wildly with the motion, but she was grinning down at me.
"She's going to fall!"
"Not hardly," Sorri said. "But don't try to copy her. You're not strong enough."
"Are you all insane?"
"It's fun, Rani," she said again. "This is pretty gentle. It'll be stronger near the top, but still gentle. We waited for light seas. You were ready two days ago, but we needed calm seas."
"These are calm?"
"Well, it's not a harbor, but yes."
The ship shook as it plowed into a trough, and then it rose up, and we swung around wildly. Sorri grinned at me.
"You didn't fall. That was a good one, and you didn't fall. Let's just stay here a bit and maybe you can see."
So I hung on, just staring into Sorri's eyes. She stayed next to me, grinning the entire time.
"I don't get much excuse to come up here. I don't like the crew thinking the rigging is for playtime, so unless I have a legitimate excuse, I don't lead with a bad example. But I love it up here!"
Slowly I relaxed.
"Want to climb just a little higher?" she asked. "Maybe we can catch up to Radha."
I looked up at the first mate. "Not that high!" Then I looked down and clasped the rigging again. "It's so far!"
"Look at Radha, honey," she told me. "Or look at me. You'll get seasick if you look down, and the people below you won't appreciate it."
"Oh god," I said. But I looked at her, and I rode along as the ship bucked and heaved, and Sorri grinned at me.
"Let's start climbing," she said. "You can go slowly if you want. It isn't a race."
"The seamen go up and down so fast!"
"Years of practice."
"I saw them running along the booms, too, not even hanging on."
"Yeah, when I see them do that, they earn extra duty. They still do it, but I think they have secret signals when I'm about, and I don't catch them very often."
"Doesn't Radha stop them?"
"This is a source of contention between us. She's the worst of them, but I can never catch her."
I looked up at Radha. She was looking around, still dangling from an arm, one bare foot hooked into the rigging.
"Doesn't she get tired?"
"Eventually. She's showing off for you. She knows you're scared."
"The entire ship knows I'm scared, Sorri!"
"We're going to show them you overcome your fear, Rani. Aren't we? Come on. Just a few feet higher. See how it goes."
She got me moving again, climbing the rigging next to me, hanging off the end to give me the room I needed to splay against the rigging with my belly pressed against the cables.
"Look up," Sorri said. "It's not that much further."
"What if something breaks?"
"It won't. It survives storms, and we're methodical about maintenance."
"The mast looks so thin up there! Will it support our weight?"
"Looks are deceiving," she replied. "You weigh nothing compared to the seamen that go up there."
We climbed further, then I stopped when my next handhold was Radha's foothold.
"Looking good, Ensign," she said down to me. "Get your butt up here."
We swayed back and forth several times.
"Ensign, you seem to have trouble recognizing an order," Radha said to me.
"Commander, the path seems to be blocked."
"Oh for heaven's sake," she said, and a moment later she was hanging from the rigging, her feet waving in free space far above the deck.
"No!" I yelled.
Radha laughed at me. "Come on, I don't want to hang around all day."
"Perhaps, Commander, you should lead the way to the nest."
"Aye-aye, Captain," Radha said, smirking at me. Hand over hand, she scrambled to the bottom of the crow's nest then flipped over to the top side of the rigging and finished climbing into the crow's nest. She turned around and grinned down at me.
"Get up here, Ensign. You have the watch."
"Oh god," I said. I looked over at Sorri. "And I said I wanted to do this."
"You're doing great."
Working carefully, I climbed the rest of the way, clutching the rigging white-knuckled every time the ship shuddered from the waves. Another minute later, and I was just outside the crow's nest.
"Oh god," I said. "Everything is swinging around!"
"Naw," said Radha. "This is nothing. Work around and throw a leg in."
It took both of them urging and Radha's hand's clasping at me, but I worked my way into the nest, clutching the mast as it continued higher into the sky. Sorri joined us, and the fit was cozy. She wrapped her arms around me and kissed the back of my neck.
"Well done, Ensign," Radha said. "How are you doing?"
"Scared out of my wits, Commander," I said. "Thank you for asking."
She chuckled. "Aren't you glad I was difficult to satisfy when I was grilling you? You could have been up here yesterday."
"I have not seen the ensign demonstrate her competence, Commander," Sorri said. "Remedy that."
"Ensign," the commander asked. "What is this fine upright piece of wood you are clutching so tightly?"
"The foremast, ma'am," I replied.
"And the name of the sail immediately below our feet?"
"Fore topgallant, ma'am."
She continued to quiz me. She asked me the names of the lines used to adjust the set of the topgallants. She asked me the names of the lines used to secure the topgallants to their boom when reefed. "What is that sail, Ensign?" she asked.
I turned to see where she was pointing. "Main topgallant, Commander."
She continued to point to other aspects of the ship's rigging and sails, and I named each.
Then she said the name of various features and asked me to point it out and explain what it was.
The quiz went on and on.
And slowly I forgot I was at the top of the ship, swaying back and forth and making all sorts of unnatural movements.
"Big one coming!" Sorri said. "Hang on for this one." She took my hand and wrapped it around one of the stays, then clutched my fingers around the line. Both Sorri and Radha made sounds of joy as the ship slid down into a trough and rode back up the other side, our perch shifting wildly.
Sorri turned to me and said, "Why, Ensign, I do believe you are grinning."
"Shut up. Thank you for the distraction, Commander."
"You are welcome."
I looked down. Minori was on the deck, looking up into the rigging. I waved at her, and she waved back.
"Eyes out, Ensign," Radha said. "Watch the horizon."
I looked out to where sea met clouds.
"Looking out helps you from getting sick," Sorri explained. "If you think you're going to get queasy, we'll descend. If it gets bad too quickly, there's a way to get down really fast."
"Without dying?"
Sorri laughed. "Yes. But you'll scream."
I watched the horizon and began giggling during the more violent motions.
"During heavy seas, this post is horrible," Radha said. "We haven't had it manned for much of the trip, but it's a good thing we had someone here when we saw those warships."
"Do you two do this a lot?"
"I stop up every day," Radha said.
"No. I meant escort a passenger up here."
"Hell no," said Sorri. "You're the first."
"Oh," I said in a small voice. "How about seamen? You knew how to distract me."
"Yes," Radha said. "One or the other of us goes the first time a new seaman climbs the lines. If it's someone we think may be nervous, sometimes we both go."
"So you're used to new seamen screaming in terror when the mast swings about like this?"
"Well, not exactly," said Sorri. "Um."
"Um, what? Captain?"
"Well, most
seamen learn to climb the lines when we're in harbor."
"Most?"
"Yes," Radha said. "So not a lot of swinging about. Still, there's some light swaying. But it's an easy day."
"So just how often would the first time be out at sea."
"Hmm," said Radha. "Corporal Westmere-"
"No, I've had her in the rigging since long before she even joined the crew."
"That explains why it was so easy for her."
"Perhaps Seaman Nordon."
"Nope," said Radha. "Mara had him in the crow's nest the night he signed up."
"Damn it!" the captain said. "We have rules for a reason."
"Relax. She grilled him. He already knew everything. Of course, the grilling wasn't nearly as exhaustive as the ensign's, but he was just a seaman recruit, and she is an ensign. We have higher standards for her."
I looked between them then back out to the horizon. "Do the two of you mean to suggest everyone on this ship learned to climb up here while the ship was still?"
"Well, no," Sorri said. "My first time climbing the rigging was at sea."
"And you got your butt tanned for it, too," Radha said. "She got ten feet before the officer of the watch had three seamen dragging her ass out of the rigging."
"I could have made it!" Sorri said. When I glanced at her, she was grinning.
"So I'm the first?" I asked.
"I guess so."
"And what made you decide to experiment with me?"
"Well, you see," said Radha. "We have to pay a fifteen-crown blood price to the families of seamen who die."
"And your bond is only ten crowns," Sorri added.
"So we figured it was cheaper to experiment on you," Radha said.
"And besides, we still have you for weeks. Weeks of feeding you, weeks of teaching you," said Sorri. "We're probably only a few crowns into the effort of earning your ransom bond. So hardly any loss to us at all if you fell."
"You two suck," I said. We grew quiet for a while. "Am I actually looking for anything up here? You said I had the watch."
"Sails, land, storms, kraken, that sort of thing," Radha said. "These seas are known for kraken, but we can usually see them floating on the surface and avoid them."
"We had to fight one off a few trips ago," Sorri said. "Got one of the passengers, too."
"Not that badly," Radha said. "Squeezed her pretty good, but she was an old hag and tasted bitter, so he let her go. The captain went overboard and brought her back."