The Knight

The mate turned away, starting down a steep little stair. I told Pouk to go first, because I knew that if I left the open air I was going to be sick. For a minute or two I looked around at the ship—the reeling castles of brightly painted wood at the front and back, the deckhouse, the swaying masts, with long, slanted poles to spread the sails that were bunched around them now, and the rest of it. My face felt hot, and I was glad the wind was cold. I knew I might throw up any minute, and I swore that I would make Pouk clean it up if I did.

And kill him if he would not do it.

“Sir?”

It was him, naturally, looking up from the stairs.

“Trying to keep my bow dry,” I said. I fiddled with the oiled leather bowcase we had gotten for it.

“Th’ cabin’s a mite small,” Pouk said.

It was. With the mate, Pouk, and me in it, there was hardly room to turn around.

“This here’s my bunk, sir.” The mate seated himself on it, giving us a little more space. “Up there’d be yours.”

The upper bunk looked dirty, and emitted a sour smell over and above the reek that seemed to be everywhere under the main deck.

“Captain’s cabin’s right up there,” the mate announced proudly. “‘Cept for that, this here’s the best berth on the ship.”

Pouk had his back to the mate. He waggled one finger and winked.

I said, “Somebody’s been sleeping up here already. Who is it?”

“Our second, sir. Nur’s his name.”

“If I’m going to be taking his bed, I ought to make my bargain with him.” Pouk grinned approval.

“I’ve the say, sir.” The mate sounded angry. “As for bargainin’, there won’t be none. Two—”

I had made up my mind, and I cut him off. “You’re right, we’re not making any kind of deal. I wouldn’t sleep in here if you locked me in. Show me the captain’s cabin.”

“He’d have to do it hisself.” The mate sounded angrier than ever.

“Then let’s go see him.”

There was an awkward silence until I realized that I would have to go out before Pouk and the mate could. I did, bumping my head on the top of the tiny doorway and turning sidewise to get my shoulders through it. The whole affair was awkward enough, and painful enough, that I forgot to be sick for a minute or two.

Back on deck, the mate rapped (timidly, I thought) on the captain’s door while I took long breaths of cold salt air.

“Cap’n?”

There was no answer. I decided the gale had gotten worse, if anything. Cold rain slammed my face, and was very welcome there. “Cap’n, sir?” The mate rapped again, a trifle louder.

“Be a long tunne a’ money,” Pouk whispered.

The sterncastle door opened. I glimpsed a middle-aged man’s dirty face and bleary eyes before it closed again.

“You gotter come back,” the mate announced with great satisfaction. “Come back tomorrer.”

I pushed him to one side and pounded on the door. When the captain opened it, his face red with rage, I shoved him backward and went in.

After the mate’s cabin, this one looked spacious indeed, a good four paces long and three wide, with a ceiling almost high enough and big windows on three sides. I pointed to one and said, “Open that!”

The captain (who was naked) only stared. Pouk hastened to obey.

I said, “I see only one bed. Where will you sleep?”

“You’re a knight?” The captain took trousers from the back of a chair screwed to the floor.

“Right. Sir Able of the High Heart.”

“I doubt it.” The captain sat down on the cabin’s one bed. “I’ve never heard of you.”

“You’d be smart to act as if you had,” I told him. By that time I was really beginning to catch on to the way these people talk.

“You want to travel in my cabin.” He snorted. “That’s what Megister Kerl said.”

“Right again. To Forcetti.”

“If I permitted it,” the captain seemed to weigh each word, “it would cost you seven gold ceptres. Good gold, too. Paid in advance, and not a copper farthing shy of the full seven. You’d sling your hammock over there, and by wind, rain, and sea you’d have it out of my way each morning before breakfast.”

Kerl had come in behind me by that time. He chuckled.

The captain rose and buckled his belt. “Otherwise, I’d teach you, Sir Able of the Shy Fart, how the authority of a captain is to be obeyed. As it is, I won’t let you have it at any price. I give you as much time as it takes to make sail to clear my ship.” From under his mattress he pulled a curved sword of Osterling make. “Or we’ll throw you in the bay.”

I grabbed his wrist with my left hand and got hold of the pommel with my right. Before I could wrench the sword away, a punch from Kerl spun me half around.

The sword came free. I ducked another punch, and hit him in the chest. I still remember the sound of it, like a mallet pounding a tent stake. It gave me a moment to throw the captain’s sword out the window.

As soon as it was gone he was on me, bellowing like a bull. That stopped the first time I hit him. He fell down, and I picked him up and shoved him headfirst out the window, catching hold of an ankle as it crossed the sill.

“Sir Able? Sir Able ...”