Scott Lynch - Red Seas Under Red Skies

"If we cross paths with another sail on the way down," she continued, "I'll give thought to taking her. And if we fly a red flag, that's your chance. You'll go in first; you'll board the prize before any of us. If there's fire or bows or razor-nets or gods-know-what, you'll taste it first and bleed first. If you survive, grand. You're crew. If you refuse, we dump you in Port Prodigal. I only keep a scrub watch on hand as long as I have to." She nodded to Ezri.

"As of now," said Delmastro, "you can have the forecastle and the weather deck as far back as the mainmast. Don't go below or touch a tool without instructions. Touch a weapon, or try to take one from one of the crew, and I guarantee you'll die on the instant. We're touchy about that.

"You want to get cosy with a member of the crew, or they offer to get cosy with you, do what you will as long as you're off-duty and you stay off the bloody weather deck. Out here, what's given is given. You try to take something by force, you" d better pray you die in the attempt, because we're touchy about that, too."

Zamira took over again and pointed at Locke and Jean. "Ravelle and Valora will be rejoining you." A few of the men grumbled, and Zamira rested her hands on her sabre hilts. "Mind your fucking manners. You put them over the side and vowed to let Iono be their judge. I showed up about an hour later. That settles that; anyone who thinks they know better than the Lord of the Grasping Waters can jump over the rail and take it up with Him in person." "They" re scrub watch like the rest of you," said Ezri.

Still the men didn't look particularly enthusiastic, and Zamira cleared her throat. "This is an equal-shares ship." That got their attention.

"Ship's quartermaster goes by the name of Gwillem. He counts the take. Thirty per cent goes to the ship so we don't slink about with rotting canvas and cordage. Rest gets split evenly, one share per beating heart.

"You don't touch a centira from what we already took out of your old ship. No apologies there. But if you get your chance on the way to Port Prodigal, and you're crew when we sell the Messenger off to the Shipbreaker, you'll get a share of that, and that'll set you up nicely. If you're crew."

Locke had to admire her for that; it was a sensible policy, and she'd brought it into the lecture at a moment calculated to deflect dissension and worry. Now the Red Messenger wouldn't just be an unhappy memory vanishing over the horizon in the hands of a prize crew; it might be a waiting pile of silver.

Zamira turned and headed aft, leaving Delmastro to finish the show. As murmurs of conversation began to rise, the petite lieutenant yelled, "Shut up! That's the business, then. There'll be food in a while and a half-ration of beer to settle you down some. Tomorrow I'll start sorting those of you with particular skills and introducing you to some work.

"There's one last thing the captain didn't mention." Ezri paused for several seconds and made sure that everyone was listening attentively. "The younger Drakashas. Captain has a boy and a girl. Mostly they're in her cabin, but sometimes they" ve got the run of the ship. What they are to you is sacred. I mean this, more than I mean anything else I" ve said tonight. Say so much as an unkind word to them and I'll nail your cock to the foremast and leave you there to die of thirst. The crew thinks of them as family. If you have to break your neck to keep them safe, then it's in your best interest to break your bloody neck."

Delmastro appeared to take everyone's silence as a sign that they were duly impressed, and she nodded. A moment later, Drakasha's voice sounded from the quarterdeck, magnified by a speaking trumpet: "Up anchor!"

Delmastro lifted a whistle that hung around her neck on a leather cord and blew it three times. "At the waist," she hollered in an impossibly loud voice, "ship capstan bars! Stand by to raise anchor! Scrub watch to the waist, as able!"

At her urging, most of the Messenger's former crew rose and began shuffling toward the Orchid's waist. A large work party was already gathering there, between the foremast and the chicken coops, fitting long capstan bars in their places by lantern light. A woman was scattering sand on the deck from a bucket. Locke and Jean fell in with Jabril, who smiled wryly. "Evening, Ravelle. You look a bit… demoted."

"I'm happy enough," said Locke. "But honestly, Jabril, I leave the Messenger in your hands for what, an hour? And look what happens." "It's a bloody improvement," said someone behind Locke.

"Oh, I agree," said Locke, deciding that the next few days might be infinitely more pleasant for everyone if Ravelle were to swallow anything resembling pride over his brief career as a captain. "I agree with all my gods-damned heart." Ezri shoved her way through the gathering crowd and vaulted atop the capstan barrel; it was wide enough that she could sit cross-legged upon it, which she did. She blew her whistle twice more and yelled, "Rigged below?" "Rigged below," rose an answering cry from one of the hatches.

"Take your places," said Ezri. Locke squeezed in next to Jean and leaned against one of the long wooden bars; this capstan was wider than the one aboard the Messenger, and an extra twenty or so sailors could easily crowd in to work it. Every place was filled in seconds.

"Right," said Ezri, "heave! Slow to start! Heave! Slow to start! Feet and shoulders! Faster, now — make the little bitch spin round and round! You know you want to!"

Locke heaved at his bar, feeling the grit shift and crunch beneath him, poking uncomfortably at the sensitive spots between his toes and the balls of his bare feet. But nobody else was complaining, so he bit his lip and bore it. Ezri was indeed spinning round and round; clank by clank, the anchor cable was coming in. A party formed at the larboard bow to secure it. After several minutes of shoving, Ezri brought the capstan party to a halt with one short blast on her whistle. "Vast heaving," she cried, "secure larboard anchor!"

"Cast to the larboard tack," came Drakasha's amplified voice, "fore and main topsails!"

More running, more whistles, more commotion. Ezri hopped to her feet atop the capstan and bellowed a quick succession of orders: "Hands aloft to loose fore and aft topsails! Brace mainyards round for the larboard tack! Foreyards braced abox!" There was more, but Locke stopped listening as he tried to make sense of what was happening. The Poison Orchid had been drifting by a single anchor in a calm sea, with a light breeze out of the north-east, and she'd drifted down so that the wind was dead ahead. What little he understood of Ezri's orders told him that the ship would be slipping a bit aback, then turning east and bringing the wind over her larboard bow.

"Fore and aft watches, at the rails! Top-eyes, wide awake, now!" Ezri leapt down onto the deck. Dark shapes were surging up the ratlines hand-over-hand; blocks and tackles creaked in the growing darkness and still more crew were coming up through the hatches to join the tumult. "Scrub watch! Scrub watch, get to the undercastle and stay out of the bloody way! Not you two." Ezri grabbed Locke and Jean as they moved with the Messenger's men and pointed them aft. "Tool locker, under the starboard stairs abaft the mainmast. Get brooms and sweep all this sand back into its bucket. After you unship the capstan bars."

They did just that, tedious work by wavering alchemical light, frequently interrupted by busy or discourteous crewfolk. Locke worked with a scowl until Ezri stepped up between him and Jean and whispered: "Don't mind this. It'll make things a hell of a lot easier with your old crew."

Damned if she wasn't right, Locke thought; a little extra humiliation heaped on Ravelle and Valora might be just the thing to stifle the old crew's resentment. "My compliments," he whispered.