Jek didn't appear to notice her stiff silence. "Ever notice the captain's hands?" Jek asked them rhetorically. "He's got the hands of a man that can work… and we've all seen him work, back there on the beach. But now that he's the captain and not in the tar and slush, he keeps his hands as clean as a gentleman's. When a man touches me, I hate to have to wonder where his hands last were, and if he's washed them since. I like a man with clean hands." She let the thought trail away as she smiled softly to herself.

"He's the captain," Althea objected. "We shouldn't talk about him like that."

She saw Amber wince for her at her prim little words. She expected Jek to turn her sharp wits and sharper tongue against her, and feared even more that v Paragon would ask a question, but the woman only stretched and observed, "He won't always be the captain. Or maybe I won't always be a deckhand on his ship. Either way, I expect a time will come when I won't have to call him 'sir'. And when it does…" She sat up abruptly, grinning with a flash of white teeth. "Well." She lifted an eyebrow. "I think it would go well between us. I've seen him watching me. Several times he has praised me for working smartly." More to herself than the others, she added, "We're just of a height. I like that. It makes so many things more… comfortable."

Althea could not hold the words back. "Just because he praised you doesn't mean he's staring at you. The captain is like that. He recognizes a good job when he sees it. When he does, he speaks up, just as he would if he saw a bad bit of work."

"Of course," Jek conceded easily. "But he had to be watching me to know that I work smart. If you take my drift." She leaned over the railing again. "What do you think, ship? You and Captain Trell go back a ways. I imagine you two have shared many a tale. What does he like in his women?"

In the brief silence that followed this question, Althea died. Her heart stilled, her breath caught in her chest. Just how much had Brashen shared with Paragon, and how much would the ship blurt out now?

Paragon had shifted his mood again. He spoke in a boyish voice, obviously flattered by the woman's attention. He sounded almost flirtatious as he replied, "Brashen? Do you truly think he would speak freely of such things to me?"

Jek rolled her eyes. "Is there any man who does not speak far too freely when he is around other men?"

"Perhaps he has dropped a story or two with me, from time to time." The ship's voice took on a salacious tone.

"Ah. I thought that perhaps he had. So. What does our captain prefer, ship? No. Let me speculate." She stretched in a leisurely manner. "Perhaps, as he always praises his crew for 'working smart and lively, that is what he prefers in a woman? One who is quick to run up his rigging and lower his canvas-"

"Jek!" Althea could not keep her offense from her tone, but Paragon broke in.

"In truth, Jek, what he has told me he prefers is a woman who is quiet more often than she speaks."

Jek laughed easily at his remark. "But while these women are being so quiet, what does he hope they'll be doing?"

"Jek." All Amber's rebuke was in the single, quietly spoken word. Jek turned back to them with a laugh while Paragon demanded, "What?"

"Sorry to interrupt the hen party, but the captain wishes to see the second mate." Lavoy had approached quietly. Jek straightened up, her smile gone. Amber glowered silently at him. Althea wondered how much he had heard, and chided herself. She should not be loitering on the foredeck, talking so casually with crew members, especially on such topics. She resolved to imitate Brashen more in how he separated himself from the general crew. A little distance helped maintain respect. Yet the prospect of severing her friendship with Amber daunted her. Then she would truly be alone.

Just as Brashen was alone.

"I'll report right away," she replied quietly to Lavoy. She ignored the belittlement of the "hen party" remark. He was the first mate. He could rebuke, chide and mock her, and part of her duty was to take it. That he had done so in front of crew members rankled, but to reply to it would only make it worse.

"And when you're done there, see to Lop, will you? Seems our lad needs a bit of doctoring, it does." Lavoy cracked his knuckles slowly as he let a smile spread across his face.

That remark was intended to bait Amber, Althea knew. The doctoring that Lop required was a direct result of Lavoy's fists. Lavoy had discovered Amber's distaste for violence. He had not yet found any excuse to direct his temper at Jek or the ship's carpenter, but he seemed to relish her reactions to the beatings he meted out to other crew members. With a sinking heart, Althea wished that Amber were not so proud. If she would just lower her head a bit to the first mate, Lavoy would be content. Althea feared what might come of the simmering situation.

Lavoy took Althea's place on the railing. Amber withdrew slightly. Jek wished Paragon a subdued, "Good night, ship," before sauntering quietly away. Althea knew she should hasten to Brashen's summons, but she did not like to leave Amber and Lavoy alone in such proximity. If something happened, it would be Amber's word against his. And when a mate declared something was so, the word of a common sailor meant nothing at all.

Althea firmed her voice. "Carpenter. I want the latch on my cabin door repaired tonight. Little jobs should be seen to in calm weather and quiet times, lest they become big jobs during a storm."

Amber shot her a look. In reality, Amber had been the one to point out that the door rattled against the catch instead of shutting tightly. Althea had greeted the news with a shrug. "I'll see to it, then," Amber promised her gravely. Althea lingered a second longer, wishing the carpenter would take the excuse to get away from Lavoy. But she didn't, and there was no way Althea could force her without igniting the smoldering tension. She reluctantly left them together.

The captain's quarters were in the stern of the ship. Althea knocked smartly, and waited for his quiet invitation to enter. The Paragon had been built with the assumption that the captain would also be the owner, or at least a family member. Most of the common sailors made do with hammocks strung belowdecks wherever they could find room. Brashen, however, had a chamber with a door, a fixed bed, a table and chart table and windows that looked out over the ship's wake. Warm yellow lamplight and the rich smells and warm tones of polished wood greeted her.

Brashen looked up at her from the chart table. Spread before him were his original sketches on canvas scraps as well as Althea's efforts to formalize his charts on parchment. He looked tired, and much older than his years. His scalded face had peeled after he was burnt by the serpent venom. Now the lines on his forehead and cheeks and beside his nose showed even more clearly. The venom burn had taken some of his eyebrows as well. The gaps in his heavy brows made him look somewhat surprised. She was grateful that the spray of scalding poison had not harmed his dark eyes.

"Well?" Brashen suddenly demanded, and she realized she had been staring at him.

"You summoned me," she pointed out, the words coming out almost sharply in her discomfiture.

He touched his hair, as if he suspected something amiss there. He seemed rattled by her directness. "Summoned you. Yes, I did. I had a bit of a talk with Lavoy. He shared some ideas with me. Some of them seem valuable, yet I fear he may be luring me to a course of action I may regret later. I ask myself, how well do I know the man? Is he capable of deception, even…" He straightened in his chair, as if he had abruptly decided he was speaking too freely. "I'd like your opinion on how the ship is being run of late."

"Since the serpent attack?" she asked needlessly. There had been a subtle shift in power since she and Brashen had stood together to drive the serpent away. The men had more respect for her abilities now, and it seemed to her that Lavoy did not approve of that. She tried to find a way to phrase it without sounding as if she criticized the mate. She took a breath. "Since the serpent attack, I have found my share of the command easier to manage. The sailors obey me swiftly and well. I feel that I have won their hearts as well as their allegiance." She drew another breath and crossed a line. "However, since the attack, the first mate has chosen to tighten discipline. Some of it is understandable. The men did not react well during the attack. Some did not obey; few jumped in to assist us."