Rose swallowed with difficulty. It was almost too real.
Slowly—and with the occasional retreat—she approached.
A red-haired boy sat on the dock amidst a large pile of canvas. With a thick needle, he was sewing up a slightly scorched, canon-ball sized hole. Rose shivered.
“What do you want?” the boy asked, looking up when Rose’s shadow fell upon his work.
“I, um,” trilled Rose sharply. She cleared her throat and affected to lower the tone of her voice. “I’m looking for Fenric.”
“Aye, well who ain’t?” said boy tersely, turning back to make a stitch.
Expecting further response, Rose watched the boy as he pushed the needle expertly through the thick sail. When it became clear that the boy had no intention of being helpful, Rose continued.
“He told me to find him here,” she prompted.
The boy shrugged but didn’t look up, “Ain’t that nice.”
“So,” Rose attempted, stepping towards the gangplank, “should I just look for him up here, then?”
“Meddling gods, no! They’d kill me!” The boy grudgingly gave Rose his full attention, stepping between her and the ship. “Look, he ain’t here. He’s never here. I would know. Just go away.”
“Good morning, young Master Rose!” called Fenric from the ship above them.
The shipboy stared at him and then threw up his arms in exasperation.
“I knew I’d be seeing you again,” Fenric motioned for Rose to stay as he limped energetically down the plank. He waved a good morning at the shipboy, “And good morning to you, Master Colwyn! I trust you’re both enjoying this lovely morning.”
Cricket, having returned to his work, scowled, and gave the thread a brutal tug.
“Yeah, it’s great,” Rose said perfunctorily.
“Excellent,” Fenric answered, cheery. He turned away from the ship. “Master Rose, I would be much obliged if you would assist me on a walk. As you can see, my leg has been greatly injured as of late and I can’t seem to move around like I used to.”
At Fenric’s instruction, Rose offered a shoulder for support. The two began a slow hobble across the harbor road.
“So, what brings you to the Turnagain this fine morning?” Fenric asked pleasantly.
“You, ah, you told me you’d help, if it, you know, if last night didn’t work…” Rose grumbled, feeling sorry she had come now that this moment had arrived. “And, um, it...it didn’t work, so... If you were still willing to, you know, help…”
Fenric halted and looked at Rose, concerned.
“Mumbling is the sign of a weak man, Benson Rose,” he said gravely. “You must remember to always speak clearly and to do so with an air of confidence. Do you understand me?”
Rose nodded, not understanding at all. “Sure…”
“There’s time to work on that,” Fenric said, waving a hand. He began his slow, limping walk again. “Right now it’s more important that you be helped, which I’m glad to do, provided you do something for me first.”
Rose braced herself and asked, “What do you want me to do?”
Fenric stopped and held his arms wide.
“Today,” he presented, “right now, in fact, at the Turnside-Down Tavern there’s an interview process of which I wish you to take part.”
“Interview?” asked Rose, taken aback. “For what?”
Fenric beamed broadly. “To be hired on the Turnagain’s crew.”
Rose stopped in her tracks.
“I don’t know what you think’s going on,” Rose stammered, “but I’m trying to get my family back. I need to build a home for them. I can’t join a crew…”
“The price of my help is the interview,” Fenric said firmly, “though I wouldn’t dream of forcing you to take the position, were it to be offered.”
“You want me to go interview for a job that you know I won’t take?” Rose asked incredulously.
Fenric shrugged. “It’s important to try on the skins of others every so often, lest our minds forget all the many things they’re capable of.”
The Scribe’s tawny eyes looked deep into Rose’s green ones. She wondered how much he could see through them. She blinked to break the contact.
“I do that and you’ll help me?” Rose asked.
“A deal is a deal,” Fenric agreed. He extended his hand, and Rose, examining it carefully, slowly placed hers inside. They shook for a second time.
“Good man,” Fenric approved. He pushed Rose towards a small crowd of prospective sailors lining up into a tavern. Settling himself on a bench, he told her, “I’ll meet you back here when you’re finished.”
* * * * *
Most of Captain Kaille’s crew had been introduced to him personally as a friend or family member of someone he knew or had worked with. He had once, in an emergency, sought out the North-West Sailor’s Union to supply him with a few strong men, but Portridge had no such organization.
Kaille tried to keep his spirits high and his expectations low.
The group of recruits brought before him was noticeably lacking. It was as though the men of prime working age and sound body had been purposefully weeded out, leaving him the sorriest group of boys and old men he’d ever seen.
For starters, while several had at least a passable understanding of ropes and knots, nearly a dozen requests for samples were met with blank stares or tangled messes. One enthusiastic youth managed to tie his hands together so tightly that he had to be cut free.
The Captain sat at the re-purposed tavern table with Jas, Hector, Auk, and Tavern Tey, who provided commentary on each man he knew, little of which instilled them with much confidence.
“It’s not Pol’s fault he lets loose such prodigious air,” Tey explained, fanning away the odor after portly Pol’s exit. “He has an unfortunate stomach condition, but he’s a good man, deep down.”
“I think deep down is his problem,” Jas muttered. Kaille chuckled.
“Uri’s a good man too, if a little slow,” Tey said kindly as a hulking man with a wide, vacant smile shuffled in. “He’s strong as an ox, anyway.”
“Are you serious with these applicants?” Kaille leaned over to ask Tey disbelievingly after half an hour.
“I told ye what happened here. Not only are my best men gone, but the best ones after them are too afraid to deal with me anymore,” Tavern Tey whispered over Uri’s broad syllables. “That’s why I invited a…wider selection. Ye’ll find yer diamonds in the rough. Just be patient, Captain.”
Kaille held up a hand to silence Uri, who had just counted from one to ten using only six numbers. “Thank you, that’s quite enough.”
Uri nodded dumbly and shuffled away.
A heavily tattooed man entered, settling his steely gaze on them all in turn.
“Yeah, that’s Hykan,” Tavern Tey leaned over to say. “The man’s never said a word to me. I’ve been too afraid to ask anything.”
“Have you sailed before, Hykan?” Jas asked bravely.
Hykan cracked his knuckles loudly in reply.
After several more wordless minutes, punctuated by the cracking of various bones in the tattooed man’s body, Hykan turned to leave without being dismissed. An exuberant young man bounded unwittingly into Hykan’s chiseled shoulder. He bared his teeth and growled, but left the room without causing trouble.
“What’s your experience with a sailing vessel?”
“My pa’s boat just had the one paddle, but I’s got a real strong left arm,” said Lerr. He flexed impressively.
“I had a job fer a few weeks scraping the barnacles off em,” answered Gev a little while later. “That job made me itch something terrible, so I stopped,” he said, scratching at one of the many purple marks on his face.
“I pulled rope for a whaler one summer as a lad. Did a lot of mopping too,” said Grig, a slumped old man, humbly.
“I’ll do anything ye want, but only if I can bring Catherine along,” demanded Venne.
“Women are no
t allowed aboard—” Jas began.
“Oh, Catherine ain’t no woman,” Venne chuckled, “she’s my sheep.”
As the afternoon wore on, Captain Kaille regretted his agreement to be dragged to this ridiculous tavern. Jas was right—he had been failing his duty as Captain. A sturdy hand on his command would have prevented them this profound embarrassment.
“Why should we hire you?” Jas asked.
“I’m not rightly sure you should,” old Grig wheezed. “I could die at any moment. But I’d love to die with a vast blue horizon in front of me.”
“Look at these idiots,” said the aggressive young Byll when he was cut free of his disastrous attempt at a bowline. He clapped his hands together and held them out, presenting himself. “I am clearly the best choice.”
“I know lots of great jokes,” said Gev. “Hey, did ye hear the one about the Mountain Monk and the Manticore?”
“I ain’t much fer conversation, but Catherine’s a right clown!” Venne giggled.
Lerr kissed his flexed left arm and winked.
Captain Kaille began to feel annoyed. Like any man at the moment he admits his mistake, he was immediately ready to move past it. The first step of moving on, it seemed to him, was to get out of this dingy tavern.
Kaille came out of his own brooding mind as Jas was asking, “Can you work well with others?”
“I’m the middle of seven siblings, so I’m pretty used to having a lot of people around,” said Benson.
“What experience do you have with ships?” Hector asked, his low voice rumbling.
“None on ships, but my Papa was a fisherman and his boat was one of the bigger ones that far up the river. It had two sails,” Benson answered. “I knew how to take them up and down and how to steer.”
“Great,” Kaille interrupted. He had an urgent need to be done with this veritable circus. “You’re hired. Now get out. I have the other names. Please for the love of the gods, put an end to this.”
* * * * *
Sunlight stung Rose’s eyes as she left the dark tavern. On the bench by the water she saw Fenric waiting placidly, reading a small book.
She considered running from the entire strange experience, but she swallowed her reluctance and walked over to him.
“Alright, I talked to them,” she said, squinted. “Now you’ll help?”
He smiled cryptically, placing a finger to his lips. He pushed a hand into a deep pocket and, after a bit of fishing, produced two small vials. He presented them to her with a flourish.
“What are they?” Rose asked, unimpressed.
Fenric shrugged, turning them over to read the labels.
“Dried waster root and…tincture of greyberry,” he read. He thought for a moment, “Well now, that could be interesting.”
Handing them to her with the hand-written labels showing, he smiled expectantly.
She hesitated to take them. “I don’t know what to do with them. I don’t even know what they are. There’s no pictures.”
“You can’t read?” Fenric asked more harshly than intended.
Rose screwed up her face in offense.
He spoke soothingly, “I forget the ways of this kingdom, dear lad, forgive me. Look here, this purple one is best mixed with the Heladon, it will bind the essence of the petals together before the alcohol has a chance to weaken it. These yellow leaves should be put in the fireplace, they create a smoke that enhances whatever one is already feeling.” He looked at it again in surprise. “Strange to see it sold so openly. In other provinces it’s banned.”
Rose took the vials from him and tucked them into her doublet.
“Is that it?” she asked, expecting words of advice or mention of her interview.
“If you want that to be it,” the Scribe answered affably, giving nothing away.
Rose turned, took a step, and then turned back. The completeness of Fenric’s mystery was too great. “What is that supposed to mean?” she demanded. “Why did you want me to come here?”
“I make a point of collecting useful people,” Fenric said thoughtfully. “How would you feel about joining the Turnagain’s crew?”
“It’s not like I haven’t thought about it,” Rose stammered, “but I can’t. Believe me when I tell you that I’m not what they’re looking for. Besides, I have to take care of my family.”
“And yet, you easily could,” Fenric said. “Between the ship’s wages and the extra I would give you for…additional services…you could put your family up in a modest house, able to live independently.”
Rose froze. Additional services? Was he speaking of honest work as a boy or had her cousin’s ill-fitting clothes given her away?
She fought gagging long enough to ask, “Services? For you?”
Fenric was amused at her discomfort. “Dear boy, mere errands are all I mean. My bad leg will keep me from moving about as freely as I require. Some of the tasks I need done are of a delicate nature, you see. If I ask you to carry my secrets, it’s only fitting that I pay more than anyone else would for them. And believe me, I always will.”
“What secrets?” Rose asked before she could stop herself.
“Not yet, Master Rose, not yet!” Fenric chuckled. “But let me add, before you decide, that on top of a ridiculously large increase in wages, I shall also teach you to read. Then, together, we shall see the world.”
Rose stared at him, thoughts awhirl with suspicion, duty, and longing.
“Benson Rose?” a voice barked from behind them. Rose spun to face a smiling Jas Hawkesbury. “Welcome to the crew of the Turnagain. We leave tomorrow morning with the noon bell.” He pushed a small piece of leather into her hand.
Burned into it, Rose saw, was the design of an eagle in flight.
“I—”Rose began.
“Noon,” Jas said sharply, lifting another piece of leather and gesturing hurriedly to another accepted applicant. Stepping away, he added, “Not a second after, or you’ll be left here for good, and may the gods have mercy.”
Rose shivered in the heat yet again as she watched him retreat.
“Noon it shall be, then, when next we meet,” smiled Fenric. He motioned to the vials, “Use those well.”
Rose watched the Scribe limp away, and then yelled to his retreated figure, “I can’t go. When the ship leaves, I won’t be on it.”
Fenric merely waved at her.
*
Chapter 9:
The Ghost
* * * * *
Origins of Old Ben Kripple
Ghouls and Goblins
Penned in the Illaic by Krumb
*
Deep in the woods of Mallory there lived two brothers who worked as logsmen in the dark forest. Their names were Benjin and Yarg.
Benjin grew old and happy as a positive man, despite having been disfigured in a logging accident in his youth. Yarg, as twisted in spirit as his brother was twisted in body, grew to be more resentful of Benjin with every passing year.
Yarg was especially jealous of Benjin’s beautiful wife, the radiant Yanna, whose voice often filled the forest with joyful song. Few could understand why such a beauty had married the man they knew as Old Ben Kripple, but Yanna, who was drawn to his good nature, simply smiled at their disbelief. The two lived happily together for several months before Benjin was called back to his work in the deep woods.
While Benjin was away, Yarg, who stayed behind, watched Yanna from his cabin on the hill. He watched as she swept the cabin porch and as she drew her water from the well. When the sun went down, he stared across the distance at the light from her window and thought about her after the last candle was blown out.
After many weeks of this, Yanna couldn’t help noticing. She no longer sang as she swept and she began looking over her shoulder. As she sat each night in her lonely cabin, stout branches scraped and pounded against the log walls, causing her to tremble and cringe. She became certain that it was Yarg trying to get past her locked door—certain that she saw his face in the night.<
br />
Benjin returned from his journey to the deep woods on a stormy day. With every step he drew closer to his cabin and his wife, the lighter his heart became. He didn’t hesitate to enter upon seeing the door ajar, nor did he notice that no candles had been lit against the darkness. Instead he bounded joyfully into a horrific scene. His beloved Yanna lay still on the floor, her dress stained and her body torn. Benjin rushed to her side, only to find her long dead and cold. He screamed his despair to the heavens, and when they didn’t respond, he yowled his grief to the underworld.
Yarg, though whole in body, was known for his uncut fingernails, which Benjin had often seen him scrape against the rough bark of the trees. So it was that when Old Ben Kripple saw that one of Yarg’s claws had broken off in Yanna’s sky blue dress, he set off to take his revenge.
Marching uphill to stand before Yarg’s dark cabin, Benjin roared his brother’s name. After a time, Yarg appeared at the door, meeting Old Ben’s grief with a twisted sneer.
“You should have heard her,” Yarg said. “You should have heard her pleading for me to stop. But, if I’m not much mistaken, in the end she rather liked it. I know I did.”
Benjin felt himself swell in anger and he let his heavy woodman’s axe do the talking. He took three mighty swings and missed each time, sending Yarg into fits of laughter.
“What right did you have to her?” Yarg spat. “You, who are as ugly as the day is long? You, who were always loved and chosen over me? Why? Who are you?”
Yarg pulled out his own woodsman’s axe and met Benjin’s next attack. He was stronger, and dealt Benjin a fatal blow. Coming closer to his brother’s dying body, Yarg decided it was time to tell his deepest secret.
“I truly believed that, after I put you in the path of that falling tree, you would either die or become so miserable that no one would love you anymore,” snarled Yarg as he raised his axe. “But still, even then, you were always better than me. Well, not anymore, little brother, not anymore.”
With a resounding thud, Benjin the Logsman was no more.
Yarg went about his life as usual, feigning an air of happiness to disguise the void he had expected the death of his brother to fill. He did not complain when work became harder. Where once two backs had swung axes to fell a mighty tree, now it was just Yarg. Other logsmen, who had liked Benjin very much, did not offer to help. Because there was now twice the work to do, Yarg found himself working late into the night.