My exultation was short-lived. The rest of the day was spent learning how to sail my fast, deadly ship. Or rather,tryingto sail her. Pangloss rounded up three motley-looking crewmates to help me sail her, introducing them as the bosun’s boys. One was a wrinkled, hunchbacked man who’d evidently come in far too close contact with a sword, while the other two were spotty teens with greasy hair, unkempt, ragged, and filthy clothes, and feet almost black with things I didn’t want to think about.
“That’s Tar—he be the one without the nose—and the twins there go by the name of Prudence and Impulsive.”
“Prudence?” I asked, smiling at the three men clustered around the front part of the ship. Forward, I corrected myself. The front was the fore, the rear the aft, and I was going to go mad trying to learn everything in the day I’d allotted to getting up to speed. “Isn’t that a girl’s name?”
The twin named Prudence snarled something inaudible as Pangloss laughed.
“Aye, it is, but in this instance it refers to the fact that Pru always be jumpin‘
into things afore he looks.”
“Ah. And Impulsive?”
“He be the opposite of his brother.”
“Excellent. Nice to meet you all. This is Bas, my cabin boy, and Bran, his raven. Ignore their respective pouts. They had a bit of an issue with the baths I made them both take last night.”
“We almost drowned, she were that mean,” Bas muttered. “I’m thinkin‘ I have the consumption from it.”
I glared him into silence.
“This lot be good lads,” Pangloss said in an undertone to me, “although they may need the taste of the captain’s daughter now and again.”
“I don’t care who they date on their own time, but I intend on running a tight ship,” I said, giving the twins a quelling look.
Pangloss laughed. “Nay, lass, the captain’s daughter be another name for the cat.”
“There’s a ship cat?” I asked, looking around the main deck.
“Cat-o‘-nine-tails,” Pangloss corrected me.
“Ergh. You expect me to beat them?” I asked in a whisper through my teeth, sending my new crew of three plus Bas what I hoped was a reassuring “I wouldn’t dream of physically assaulting you” smile. “I couldn’t do that!”
“Sure, ye could,” he responded with a humorous twinkle in his eye. “Ye’ll be changin‘ yer mind quick enough when ye’re becalmed because the lads are three sheets to the wind. Smartly, ye sprogs! Put yer weight onto the halyards! Hoist the sails!”
The actual training part of the trip wasn’t too awful, although I got horribly mixed up with all the nautical terms Pangloss was throwing at me. After getting rigging confused with the spars (spars are the poles used to support sails and rigging), mistakenly referring to the main deck as the poop deck (I just liked saying poop deck), and repeatedly confusing starboard (right) with port (left), I thought things couldn’t get much worse, but then we left the calm waters of the harbor and hit the open sea.
“Ye all right now that ye’ve chucked yer breakfast?” Pangloss asked as I lay crumpled over the railing of the deck, my head hanging over the blue-green water that slid past us with insidious ease.
“No. Dramamine. Please, if you have any mercy in your soul, get me some Dramamine,” I croaked, my voice hoarse from my seemingly endless bouts with seasickness.
“I’m thinkin‘ we’re not havin’ that aboard ship,” Pangloss said, looking around like he expected a giant box of Dramamine to tap-dance its way toward him.
“What ye need is a wee bit of grog until ye’ve got yer pins under ye.”
I turned my head enough to eye the metal tankard of grog he offered me. “I’ll die if I drink that.”
“Nay, ye won’t. It’ll settle yer gut, see if it don’t.”
For one moment I contemplated just throwing myself overboard and ending my misery, but my pride got the better of me. I was a strong woman, capable, respected, and in control of every situation. Was I going to let a little thing like seasickness get the best of me?
“Hell, no,” I snarled, snatching the mug of grog from Pangloss and drinking the whole thing down in one gulp. Maybe Pangloss was right. Maybe a touch of rum would settle my stomach and allow me to survive the hell into which I’d found myself thrust.
“Ye be a right pretty shade of green,” Tar the sailor said as five hours later we pulled back into port. “I had me a hat just such a shade when I was a lad.”
I slumped to the deck and wondered whether I could pay someone to scoop me up and cart me to Renata’s house.
“Eh… lass?” Pangloss, that evil personification of everything sailorish, loomed overhead giving me a meaningful look. I stifled the urge to vomit on his feet and tried to get my still spinning mind to focus on what he wanted.
