Page 15 of Among the Burning Flowers
‘You heard me. If you can slay a sleeper, you have the nerves I need.’
‘Wait.’ She sat up a little. ‘You want me to live on your ship?’
‘You say it like I’ve asked you to be the local ratcatcher.’ He blew his smoke towards the villagers. ‘I don’t just want you to live on my ship, Estina. I want you to be the voice of my crew.’
‘The voice of your—’ She had to laugh. ‘Why would your crew ever listen to some orphaned nobody?’
‘Because you’re the sort of orphaned nobody who shoots a customs officer, damning herself to the gibbet, to protect a crewmate. And seafarers, above all people, respect that sort of loyalty.’
Suylos had rebuked her for saving Liyat, calling her a lovesick fool. The idea that anyone could respect it was news to her.
‘I don’t like this,’ she informed Harlowe. ‘What happened to the last boatswain?’
‘Rogue wave.’ Harlowe sucked on his pipe. ‘I won’t lie to you. There are risks. But theRoseis a fine ship, a good home. You’d have food and drink and new sights each morning. You could see the sky lights dancing in the North. I’d even take you as far as the East.’
‘Harlowe, I’m no seafarer. You know this very well. Doesn’t a boatswain need years of experience?’
‘You’d have to work for the position. I’d start you off as an ordinary,’ he said, ‘but I’ve told my crew about you, and they’re willing to let you prove yourself. Knowing you’re a culler will only warm them to you. In any case, you know enough to work your way around a ship. I made sure of that when I passed you to Suylos. I told him to put you in a few sea parties.’
‘You’ve beenplanningthis?’
‘In case of a catastrophe.’ His gaze was cool and steady. ‘You’ve been fighting to survive Yscalin since the day you were born. Even before you washed up in Oryzon, your parents were struggling, because the Six Virtues only apply to certain people. There’s no generosity for the poor, no temperance or courage among the robber knights. No justice for cullers like you, who’ve kept people safe and been vilified for it. Your parents saw that. It’s why they defied the king.’
‘And I thought it was simple greed.’
‘No. The temperance duty opened their eyes to the damned hypocrisy of it all. They died in a debtors’ prison, racked by the bloody flux. Do you want to go the same way?’
‘Obviously not.’
He had found out for her, when she told him their names. She tried not to imagine their deaths.
‘I would have left you with the Greenshanks,’ Harlowe said, ‘but now you’re an outlaw, you’ll always be hunted. Leave the land of the Saint – all this sanctimonious nonsense – and join my crew.’
‘I would bring down the wrath of the comptroller on your heads, not to mention King Sigoso.’
‘The high seas are not subject to Yscali law.’
She could almost see it. A life on the waves, and new lands ahead, never having to beg for her supper. The idea filled herwith a sudden, painful longing – a hunger for escape, formore.
And then she closed her eyes to the vision, like a tortoise withdrawing into its shell.
‘I can’t leave,’ she said. ‘This is my home, Harlowe.’
‘You only say that because you’ve never known anything else.’
‘No. I love Yscalin,’ she insisted. ‘I loved my life on the coast. I loved running circles around the preventers. I love good wine and crisp red pears, summers so hot you feel like Fýredel is—’
‘Don’t speak that name.’ His voice was soft. ‘The right wing hears all, wherever he sleeps.’
Harlowe might think himself enlightened, but in the end, he was as superstitious as any other sailor. Then again, so was Melaugo. Like many lowborn winemakers, her parents had carried out all sorts of rituals to ensure a good harvest, like planting corn dolls in the ground. It was probably against some law, but when you were as poor as dregs, survival came first.
‘Ican’tleave,’ she said again. ‘Liyat is here.’
‘Liyat will not settle with a partner. You’re chasing a pipe dream with that one, Estina.’
‘You don’t know her well enough to say that.’
‘I’ve known her longer than you,’ Harlowe reminded her, ‘and I know that she is married to her work. She also has a thicker hull than my ship. Not even a cannon would get through.’
