“I wouldn’t dare,” Tress said with a start. “I mean…you’ve been so kind to me.”
It isn’t kindness, Fort wrote. It’s a trade.
“For what?”
Haven’t decided yet, Fort said. Go back to your food, girl.
She did. Unfortunately.
As she tried valiantly to keep eating, another of the sailors walked in. This was the shorter woman who had stood up to the captain the day before. Her black hair was in tight curls. She strode in and slapped something on the counter, barely giving Tress a glance.
How to describe Salay, the helmswoman? She was the same ethnicity as Fort, and like him was from the Islands of Lobu in the Sapphire Sea, where the zephyr spores release a burst of air when watered. She had delicate features, but wasn’t the least bit fragile.
“All right, Fort,” she said. “I’ll give you three.”
She’d deposited three small earrings onto the table.
I told you, Salay, Fort wrote. I have no use for earrings. They make my ears itch.
“Four then,” Salay said, placing another on the counter. “I won them off a Doug at cards, but it’s all I have. They’re solid gold. You won’t get a better deal anywhere.”
At the word “deal,” Fort perked up visibly. He inspected the earrings.
“Come on, Fort,” Salay said. “I need to get back to duty.”
Fort rubbed his chin, then scratched at his dreadlocked head. Then he took something from below the counter and set it out for her: a pocket watch.
“Finally,” Salay said, slipping it off the counter and hurrying out.
Fort inspected the earrings one at a time, smiling. It was true that he had no use for earrings, but…it was a good deal. And good deals, to Fort, were their own reward.
Tress managed to choke down the last of the food. She felt she deserved a medal for that. Fort merely gave her another cup of water, then shooed her away—but not before he wrote, Come back after everyone else has had supper. Maybe I’ll have something for you to eat.
Tress nodded in thanks. On her way out, she passed me skipping a little as I went in to settle on a stool before Fort’s counter. The quartermaster brought out some more of the “food” and gave it to me.
“My favorite!” I said.
Don’t try to eat the plate this time, please, Fort wrote.
I dug into the food, humming to myself at the flavor.
What? Yes, I could taste it. Why wouldn’t I be able…
Oh, the five senses? Yes, I said I lost my sense of taste to the Sorceress’s curse. You thought…you thought I meant that sense of taste? Oh, you innocent fool.
She took my other sense of taste. The important one.
And with it went my sense of humor, my sense of decorum, my sense of purpose, and my sense of self. The last one stung the most, since it appears my sense of self is tied directly to my wit. I mean, it’s in the name.
As a result, I present you with Hoid, the cabin boy.
Anyway, that rounds out the people you need to remember for now. Captain Crow. First officer （and cannonmaster） Laggart. Fort the quartermaster, Ann the carpenter, and Salay the helmswoman. Everyone else was a Doug, I think…
Oh, right. I nearly forgot Ulaam. But seeing as he was dead, he barely counted.
THE CORPSE
With her stomach full of “food,” Tress was able to return to the top deck and resume her scrubbing with renewed vigor. She didn’t know how long it had been since someone had properly washed this deck, but it was coated with a layer of dead spores that had turned black with grime. It took real work to get down to the actual wood, and so her progress was slow.
“Wow,” Huck said from her shoulder, comparing the dark grimy wood ahead to the vibrant brown planks she’d cleaned, silver lines sparkling between many of them. “That really makes a difference.”
“Spore scum sticks to basically anything,” she said, scrubbing hard. “I’ve never found a better remedy than soap and effort. This wood is going to need some pitch when I’m done though.”
Tress knew quite a lot about sailors for someone who knew next to nothing about sailing. She had listened to many a man or woman complain about the life, which—to hear them talk—was an existence full of drudgery. Many an off-duty sailor in the tavern had been assigned scrubbing duty before, so Tress knew that pitch on the boards would seal them and fill the gaps—plus it made them far less slippery. And you always scrubbed across planks, never along them, so you didn’t wear grooves down the centers.