I sat as instructed at the head of the ship but pushed myself back as far as I could manage, my spine pressing into the sole enclosed room onboard.Several torturous imaginings of Halvar falling over the front of the ship flashed in my mind’s eye.
Fara knelt beside me, running twitching hands up and down the wood of the ship’s nose, eventually lowering her ear to the deck.She laughed her shrill, strange giggle.“This is a most marvellous ship,” she said.“It has a heart that beats and beats and beats.Long after we are all dead, this ship’s heart will still rush on.”
“Let us not talk of dying,” I said, trying to force away the image of Halvar plummeting into the sea out of my mind.He was growing comfortable—perhaps even sleepy—in my arms.The end of one of my braids was clenched in his little fist, one of his chubby cheeks squished against my shoulder.
“Let us not look at the land we are leaving behind,” Fara said, righting herself and sitting beside me, leaning against the cabin.“Let us look at the big open space we are rushing toward.”
Quickly, I lost interest in speaking or thinking.The glint of white caps among the black waves emptied my mind, and the emptier my mind became, the closer to sleep Halvar seemed.
I cannot say how long we sat there like that, staring at the sea, but eventually, Flojer came and sat just to my right.
“I can hold the boy some, if your arms need rest,” he said.
“He might wake,” I said sleepily.
“I will face those consequences bravely,” Flojer said, smirking and holding open his arms.
My armsweresore—I’d been holding him nearly all day.Perhaps it is worth the risk, I thought, lifting Halvar gently.
He stirred, but didn’t wake, settling into Flojer’s big arms.
“Thank you,” I said, grabbing hold of my left elbow with my right hand and stretching it, feeling the muscles loosen.
“Do not think of it,” he said.“I had one this young once.I remember what it was like.”
For a moment, it seemed Fara and I didn’t exist.Flojer stared at baby Halvar, looking entirely lost in his own thoughts.
“May I examine his palm?”Flojer said finally, looking back at me with warmth in his eyes.
I nodded.“Only do not tell me what you see.I do not want Halvar’s story told to me by anyone but him.”It was a phrasing I had adopted because people were always trying to read Halvar’s palm back at court.
Flojer snorted, opening Halvar’s little fingers with his calloused captain’s hand.He pressed his lips together and nodded to himself, seemingly holding back laughter.“This is the right ship for such a child.Pray tell, what is his name?”
I smiled.“Halvar.”
“Fervynd,” Fara added.“Halvar from the Storm.”
“Interesting,” Flojer said, his eyes shining as they locked with mine.“You decided this name yourself?”There was something knowing in his smile.
“I…”
The wind surged around us, driving my skirt wild.I quickly tucked it beneath my outstretched legs, suddenly aware of why Fell had suggested I consider trousers so many times.
“You need not answer,” Flojer said, turning to Fara.“Might I glimpse yourskaelas well?”
Her palm shot out willingly, and Flojer leaned forward to look.“Ah.We share something.”He slid Halvar onto his lap, stirring the baby once more, before holding his hand out to Fara, pointing at one line in particular.
Fara smiled.“I am nervous for it.”
And suddenly I felt I was very much intruding on a private moment between two people who I wasn’t sure should be having a private moment at all.They held each other’s gaze for what felt like a long while.
“You need not be nervous,” Flojer said finally.
Our days passed sweetly aboardThe Fearsome Beast.
Flojer took to calling HalvarKakyi, which meant:Little Captain.Most nights, Halvar would sit in Fell’s lap for the beginning of his row, and much to many rowers’ adoration, he could sometimes be set so that it looked like he was holding the oars.
“He wants to raid!”someone shouted the first time.
