Ship of Magic

“Well. How to explain it ... you didn't get ashore in Chalced, did you? Well, what we heard there was that pirates were suddenly attacking some of the slavers. At least one taken, and rumors of others being threatened. Well. It's end of autumn now, but by spring, Chalced needs a powerful lot of slaves to do the spring plowing and planting. If pirates are picking off the regular slavers, well, by the time we run into Chalced with a prime load, it will be a seller's market. We'll get so much for our haul, we can probably go straight home to Bingtown.”

Mild grinned and nodded in satisfaction, as if somehow Kyle getting a good price for slaves would reflect well on him. He was likely only repeating what he'd heard the elders of the crew say. Wintrow said nothing. He looked far out over the heaving water. There was a heavy, sick place under his heart that had nothing to do with seasickness. Whenever he thought forward to Jamaillia and the actual act of his father buying slaves to sell, a terrible sorrow welled up in him. It was like having the guilt and pain of a shameful memory in advance of the event. After a moment, Mild picked up the conversation again.

“So. Torg's got you up here again?”

“Yeah.” Wintrow surprised himself, stretching his shoulders and then leaning back casually against his grip. “Doesn't bother me so much anymore.”

“I can tell. That's why they do it.” When Wintrow lifted his brows, Mild grinned at him. “Oh, you thought it was a special torture just for you? No. Torg likes picking on you. Sa's balls, Torg likes picking on anyone. Anyone he can get away with, anyway. But running the ship's boy up and down the mast is a tradition. When I first come aboard, I hated it. Brashen was mate then, and I thought he was the son of a sow. Once he realized I was nervous about coming up here, he saw to it that every one of my meals ended up here. ‘You want to eat, go get it,’ he'd tell me. And I'd have to climb the mast and crawl around up here until I found a bucket with my mess in it. Damn, I hated him. I was so scared and slow, my food was almost always cold when I found it, and half the time there'd be rain sloshing around with it. But I learned, same as you, not to mind it after a while.”

Wintrow was silent, thinking. Mild's fingers danced again over the keys, picking out a lively little tune. “Then Torg doesn't hate me? This is some kind of training?”

Mild stopped with a snort of amusement. “Oh, no. Depend on it. Torg hates you. Torg hates everyone that he thinks is smarter than he is, and that's most of us aboard. But he knows his job, too. And he knows that if he wants to keep it, he's got to make you into a sailor. So, he'll teach you. He'll make it as painful and unpleasant as he can, but he'll teach you.”

“If he's such a hateful person, why does my . . . the captain keep him on as second mate?”

Mild shrugged. “Ask your Da,” he said cruelly. Then he grinned, almost making that a joke. He went on, “I hear that Torg had been with him quite a while, and stuck with him on a real bad trip on the ship they used to be on. So when he came to the Vivacia, he brought Torg with him. Maybe no one else would hire him and he felt an obligation. Or maybe Torg's got a nice tight ass.”

Wintrow's jaw went slack at the implication. But Mild was grinning again. “Hey, don't take it so serious. No wonder everyone loves to tease you, you're such a mark.”

“But he's my father,” Wintrow protested.

“Naw. Not when you're serving aboard his ship. Then he's just your captain. And he's an okay captain, not as good as Ephron was, and some of us still think Brashen should have took over when Cap'n Vestrit stepped off. But he's okay.”

“Then why did you say . . . that about him?” Wintrow was genuinely mystified.

“Because he's the captain,” Mild laboriously explained. “Sailors always say and do like that, even if you like the man. Because you know he can shit on you any time he wants. Hey. You want to know something? When we first found out that Cap'n Vestrit was getting off and putting a new man on, you know what Comfrey done?”

“What?”

“He went to the galley and took the cap'n's coffee mug and wiped the inside with his dick!” Delight shone in Mild's gray eyes. He waited in anticipation for Wintrow's reaction.

“You're teasing me again!” A horrified smile dawned on his face despite himself. It was disgusting, and degrading. It was too outrageous to be true, for a man to do that to another man he hadn't even met yet, just because that man would have power over him. It was unbelievable. And yet . . . and yet ... it was funny. Suddenly Wintrow grasped something. To do that to a man you knew would be cruel and vicious. But to do that to an unknown captain, to be able to look up at man who had life-and-death power over you and imagine him drinking the taste of your dick with his coffee . . . He looked aside from Mild, feeling with disbelief the broad grin on his face. Comfrey had done that to his father.