L. Modesitt - Wellspring of Chaos

“What are you reading?”

Kharl glanced up to find the third mate-Rhylla-looking down at him. “It’s a book on order and chaos, ser. Someone left it to me, back in Brysta.”

“Not many sailors-or coopers-read,” observed Rhylla.

“I suppose not.”

“Furwyl said you lost everything to the tariff farmer. Why did he do that?” Rhylla’s voice expressed mild concern.

“Because I stopped Lord West’s son from having his way with a neighbor girl.”

“Aye. That would do it.” Rhylla snorted. “What happened to the girl?”

“He had her father murdered. Her mother died years ago.”

“So they killed the father and ran you off?”

Kharl nodded.

“You look like it wasn’t that simple.”

Kharl laughed, half-bitterly. “They hung my consort because she couldn’t prove she didn’t do something. My eldest son left Brysta as a carpenter’s assistant on a ship; my youngest left to live with my consort’s sister. The tax farmer demanded twelve golds…”

“Twelve…golds?”

“Twelve. I got off with a mere thirty lashes, and the deaths of my consort and neighbor.”

“Thirty-and you still can walk?”

“I didn’t for a while.”

“I can see why you wanted to leave Brysta. You think things’ll be better elsewhere?”

“Things? No. I figure that people are the same everywhere. But I won’t have a lord’s son looking to do me in elsewhere.”

Rhylla nodded. “Good folk and bastards everywhere. Trick is to keep to the good ones and avoid the others.”

“Sometimes that’s hard,” Kharl pointed out.

“These days…harder. One reason why I’m staying here as a third.”

“You could be a second on another ship?”

“Been offered twice. Pay’d be better, but the crew share’d be smaller, and I’d end up drinking all the extra coins to forget. Hagen’s a good captain. Too few like him. You know that he owns other ships, but still sails as captain?”

“No.” It didn’t surprise Kharl. Hagen was good, and he couldn’t imagine the captain sitting in a countinghouse or a mansion and being happy. He didn’t know why he thought that, but he did.

“You hid out waitin’ for him, didn’t you?”

Kharl smiled ruefully.

“Smartest thing you coulda done.” Rhylla nodded. “Need to check on the duty sentries.” She stepped away.

Kharl looked down at the page open before him.

…each thing under the sun, be it a man or a machine, a creature or an object created, is unique, no matter how closely it resembles another, and yet all these unique things are created from the sameness of order and chaos, and all that is unique is the manner in which order and chaos are twisted into the unique forms that we are and that surround us…

He thought about the words for a time…for a long time…until the bell rang for supper, and he slipped the book inside his tunic and went below to the long narrow mess.

After eating, he went back on deck to think, and to watch the stars appear in the night sky, brightening as the sky darkened. In time, he returned to the crew quarters.

As he undressed and slipped into his bunk, he hoped he could sleep soundly. He did-except for the time when Reisl staggered back into the forecastle, clearly drunk, and mumbled incoherently before collapsing into his own bunk.

Kharl sighed and went back to sleep.

Kharl had already washed up and trimmed his beard, and was getting ready to head to the mess for what passed for breakfast, when Bemyr’s whistle shrilled through the forecastle, announcing that breakfast was ready. Another whistle would call the in-port morning muster, where additional duties might be assigned.

“Frig…” mumbled Reisl, turning and sitting on the edge of his bunk, legs dangling as he held his head in his hands.

“Too much ale,” called Argan.

Behind them, Wylat just grinned.

Reisl slumped to his feet and began to pull out clothes from his bin, where he had tossed them the night before. He straightened abruptly. “Know I was ale-decked,” he mumbled, “but not enough to lose every copper in my wallet.”

“You had some when you came back aboard?” asked Kharl.

Reisl nodded, then turned to Hodal. “You know what happened to my coin?”

Hodal looked up at the taller man. “No. You think I’m that stupid?”

Kharl could sense that Hodal was telling the truth. The cooper glanced around the forecastle, taking in the sailors still in their bunks. Some were asleep, others pretending to be so.

“What about you, Kawelt?” asked Reisl, stepping forward toward the next bunk.

“Like to take anything you have, Reisl. Didn’t.”

Kharl could see/sense just a touch of the strange whiteness that no one else seemed to notice around the third upper bunk-the one holding Asolf. Kharl eased toward it, nodding to Reisl.

Reisl stepped toward Asolf. “Why did you empty my wallet, Asolf?”

The broad-faced sailor cocked his head. “You’re one to be making charges. You couldn’t have seen the sun if it had risen right in front of you.” He eased out of his bunk without looking at Reisl. He already wore trousers, but not deck shoes.

“I just asked if you emptied my wallet.”

“Why would I do that?”

Kharl looked at the younger man. “You don’t want to answer the question, and usually people who don’t want to answer have a reason they don’t want to.”

“Carpenter…it’s not your business.”

“Theft in the fo’c’s’le is everyone’s business,” snapped Bemyr from the hatchway. “Yes or no?”

“No,” replied Asolf.

“That’s a lie,” Kharl said without thinking.

Asolf drove right toward the cooper. Kharl stepped aside and, as he did, one-handedly flung Asolf to the deck. The deckhand lay there for a moment, then started to gather his feet under him. Kharl wondered if the sailor had a knife or a marlinespike. His own fingers tightened about the carpenter’s hammer in his belt.

“You move, and you’re off the ship in the clothes on your back,” Bemyr stated coldly.

Asolf froze.

“I think I’ll take a look in Asolf’s bin,” Bemyr said, moving forward.

“Yeah…I took all three coppers in his wallet,” Asolf said tiredly.

“I’m sure you did, and I’m sure you took more than that,” Bemyr said. “You and I are going to talk to the captain. Get up.”

Asolf slowly rose, glaring at Kharl. “Friggin’ half mage.”

“Didn’t take no mage to figure out you were hiding something,” Reisl said.

“Even I could figure it out,” added Bemyr. “Let’s go.”

After the two left the forecastle Reisl looked at Kharl. “Thanks. Always thought he was snitching coppers here and there. Never could get him.”

“You seemed to know who it was,” Kharl said.

“Knew for a while, but he’s mean.” Reisl shook his head. “You took him down so quick.”

“Just luck,” Kharl lied. He’d sensed that Asolf would attack, and he’d been ready. Since he was half a head taller, broader, stronger, and ready, the thieving sailor hadn’t had a chance.

“Take that kind of luck any day.”

“So will I,” replied Kharl with a laugh. As he left and headed for the mess, Kharl wondered why Asolf had called him a half mage. Because the sailor was touched with chaos and had realized Kharl could sense it? Or just to get Kharl distrusted by the other sailors?

Breakfast in port wasn’t bad-there was hot bread and an egg mush with scraps of meat. Kharl took his bowl and sat at one end of the narrow table, scooping up the mush with a crust of the rye bread, listening as others entered the mess.

“…the bosun and the captain threw Asolf off…caught him stealing coppers, bosun did…”