Page 304
“Well, perhaps I did. No, wait. I clearly recall that you asked me why I hadn't come to the liveships for help. ”
“That was not a question, that was just a conversational gambit. But even if I give you that, you still owe me a question. ”
Althea was inclined to feel generous. “Ask away, then. ”
Ophelia smiled, and a bright spark of mischief came into her eyes. For a second she bit the tip of her tongue between her white teeth. Then she asked quickly, “Who is that dark-eyed man who gives you such . . . stimulating dreams?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - STORM
“LET'S TRY THIS,” WINTROW SUGGESTED. HE PUSHED HER FETTER AS FAR UP HER SKINNY SHANK AS IT WOULD GO.
He took a strip of rag and lightly wrapped it around the girl's raw ankle. Then he slid her fetter back over the top of it. “Is that better?”
She didn't speak. The moment he took his hand away, she began working her ankle against the fetter again.
“No, no,” he said quietly. He touched her ankle and she stopped. But she did not speak and she did not look at him. She never did. A day or so more, and she'd be permanently crippled. He had no herbs or oils, no real medicines or bandaging. All he had was seawater and rags. And she was gradually scoring her own tendons. She seemed unable to stop herself from working against the fetter.
“Give it up,” a voice from the darkness suggested sourly. “She's crazy. She don't know what she's doing, and she's going to die before we get to Chalced anyway. You washing her and bandaging her is only going to make it take longer. Let her go, if that's her only way out of here. ”
Wintrow lifted up his candle and peered into the gloom. He could not decide who had spoken. In this part of the hold, he couldn't even stand up straight. The slaves chained here were even more restricted. Yet the rolling of the Vivacia as she cut through the heavy seas kept them in constant motion, flesh against wood. They averted their eyes from his dim candlelight, blinking as if they stared at the sun. He scooted farther down the line, trying to avoid the worst of the filth. Most of the slaves were silent and impassive to his passage, all of their strength invested in endurance. He saw a man half sitting up in his chains, blinking as he tried to meet Wintrow's eyes. “Can I help you?” he asked quietly.
“Do you have the key to these things?” one man to the side of him answered sarcastically, while another one demanded, “How come you get to move about?”
“So that I can keep you alive,” Wintrow answered evasively. He was a coward. He feared that if they knew he was the captain's son, they'd try to kill him. “I've a bucket of seawater and rags, if you want to wash yourself. ”
“Give me the rag,” the first man commanded him gruffly. Wintrow sopped it in water and passed it to him. Wintrow had expected him to wipe his face and hands. So many slaves seemed to take comfort from that bare ritual of cleanliness. Instead he shifted as far as he could to put the rag against the bared shoulder of an inert man next to him. “Here you go, rat-bait,” he said, almost jokingly. He sponged tenderly at a raw and swollen lump on the man's shoulder. The man made no response.
“Rat-bait here got bitten hard a few nights ago. I caught the rat and we shared it. But he ain't been feeling well since. ” His eyes met Wintrow's for a glancing moment. “Think you could get him moved out of here?” he asked in a more genteel tone. “If he's got to die in chains, at least let him die in the light and air, on deck. ”
“It's night, right now,” Wintrow heard himself say. Foolish words.
“Is it?” the man asked in wonder. “Still. The cool air. ”
“I'll ask,” Wintrow said uncomfortably, but he wasn't sure he truly would. The crew left Wintrow to himself. He ate apart from them, he slept apart from them. Some of the men he had known earlier in the voyage would watch him sometimes, their faces a mixture of pity and disgust at what he had become. The newer hands picked up in Jamaillia treated him as they would any slave. If he came near them, they complained of his stench and kicked or pushed him away. No. The less attention he got from the crew, the simpler his life was. He had come to think of the deck and the rigging as “outside. ” Here “inside” was his new world. It was a place of thick smells, of chains caked with filth and humans meshed in them. The times when he went on deck to refill his bucket were like trips to a foreign world. There men moved freely, they shouted and sometimes laughed, and the wind and rain and sun touched their faces and bared arms. Never before had such things seemed so wondrous to Wintrow. He could have stayed abovedeck, he could have insinuated himself back into the routine as ship's boy. But he did not. Having been belowdecks, he could not forget or ignore what was there. So each day he rose as the sun went down, filled his bucket and got his washed-out rags, and went down into the slave holds. He offered them the small comfort of washing with seawater. Fresh water would have been far better, but there was precious little of that to spare. Seawater was better than nothing. He cleaned sores they could not reach. He did not get to every slave, every day. There were far too many of them for that. But he did what he could, and when he curled up to sleep by day, he slept deeply.