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:  C H A P T E R  T E N : 

 Two weeks passed on The Avarice of the Sea, and we had long since passed the Brunmere peninsula, and stopped at the east-most island off the coast. It took two days for Cody to convince Avarice that I was safe enough to come back up on deck, but the third day there were storms and I was stuck back in the cell until the fourth. 

My purpose on deck was minimal, but in the later days when my back was no longer stiff from scabs, I convinced Harvey to teach me how to climb the mainmast spokes. I could only ever reach the main boom, but it was still fun just to sit up there and hold onto the mast for my dear life while feeling the wind in my hair. Avarice caught Harvey and I up there once and yelled so loud we swore it was the reason Harvey fell backwards and was caught in the shroud.

On the calmest days, I spent them up on the boom watching the crew work below. There were twelve of them, not including the captain. They rotated work, passed along tasks, and acted like one big family. I realized this after understanding that all their bantering and cursing was just in good fun, and that none of them actually meant to elbow the other in the nose.

There was a fight sometime later between two pirates, one of whom had snatched his monthly oil and vinegar during mealtime. It was one massive clout to the head that sent the pirate thief to the ground, and I clamored down the spokes just so I could hear what was going on. Avarice had taken the thief into his cabin, and the man came out later with a crisscross marking on the inside of his wrist where his tattoos bubbled around the branding mark. Cody explained to me that thieves are branded with that symbol on the ship.

He showed a mark on his wrist of a circle, and above that one a cursive letter I could not read. "This 'un means I killed one of the crew," he pointed to the circle before pointing to the other, "an' this 'un is fer treason."

"Really?" I blurted out, wanting to say more but I kept my mouth shut. I wanted to know everything--I wanted to know what possessed Cody to kill one of his father's crew, and I wanted to know what he did to get the treason mark. For some odd reason, I felt the peculiar interest a lot of newbies might feel when stumbling across the treason mark on the captain's son's wrist. It did not sit well with me.

He nodded and pulled his sleeve back over his arm. That was two days prior to the journey out of the Nomen Strait. We had stopped at Brunmere a fortnight ago, and the men came back to land baring supplies by the cratefuls. They lowered them off of the cliffs and loaded them into the storage space beneath the hold. On the stop at the east-most island of the Brunmere Isle, we kept there for days upon nights. I had never set foot on the island, but after my jump from the boat Avarice was insistent that whoever hung back on the boat, had to keep a close eye on me. Therefore, I was held below the ship in the cell.

The fight between the pirate and the thief started on the fourth night on the island. It became apparent that Avarice of the Sea was well known around the small port of Shire'ren. It was a small, bustling town, but up close and from a distance it was littered with filth on the streets and taverns up and down the premises. The closest I had gotten was on the third day of being on the island when Avarice left his ship to do business with one of the tavern owners, and Cody snuck me out to stand on the dock.

When we first left the ship, I was swaying and stumbling all over my feet. Any attempt at escaping was all for naught, since I could not even keep myself up completely. He laughed and pointed at me in the beginning, and then held me up so he could introduce me to one of the dock boys.

"This is Bernier. Captain sometimes pays 'im to clean the side of the ship," Cody told me after pulling a fairly tall fellow aside from a rickety shed. Barrels of supplies were stacked up along the side of the building. I had to tilt my head up to see the top of them, and also the top of Bernier's head as he swiped his hands on his pants and held out a still-stained palm in my direction. I rarely ever had a man offer to shake my hand, so he nearly tore off my arm on our first go at a conversation.

"Pleasure to meet ya, ma'am," he told me, a grin on his face as he shared a brief glance with Cody. "Where'd ya meet this one? Was it Procella again?" he asked, winking at me while I blushed all shades of red and tried my best to hide it while Cody laughed and punched Bernier in the arm.

"Gods no. I'd sooner swim the Donec Sea than go there again," he said. I couldn't hold back a giggle as the two men bantered and joked around.

Bernier was a great man of many talents, his best being his ability to balance any object on his finger tips. Cody insisted he show me, and soon Bernier was balancing a fairly empty crate, but a crate nonetheless, on the top of his head whilst supporting the handle of a dagger on the tip of his index finger.

"Mother of Zula! How did you learn this?" I exclaimed, holding my hands against my head as if fearing it would explode. He chuckled, grinning down at me before catching the handle of the dagger in one hand, and tipping the crate into the other.

"Practice, I guess. On the slow days when it's just me around 'ere, I try an' find stuff to do," he explained, and proceeded to demonstrate a rendition of a northerner's dance that I knew all too well. Father would take Theo and I to performances in the theaters, and I took classes with a few of the dancers. Bernier's take wasn't perfect, but to people like Cody, it was pure genius.

"You are such a fantastic artist--I can't believe your work is to clean boats," I exclaimed before thinking it through. It caused both Bernier and Cody to laugh.

"That's what I said," Cody told me, and nudged Bernier with his elbow in order to get his attention. He pointed to me and said, "Ya may not know this 'bout this little lady, but she's an excellent voice."

"Do not!" I gasped, shoving my hands onto my hips. "How would you know, anyhow?"

"If ya bathe together, then obviously..." Bernier mumbled, causing me to shout at him and Cody to smack him in the arm again. "It's true though!"

"Yeah, and it's also true that she sings a lit'le under her breath when she's just standin' there on deck," he said, and I opened my mouth to disagree, but I realized he was right. I did that a lot out of habit, but it never bothered Theo or Father back at home.

I wondered if they missed my habitual singing.

"Oh yeah? Let me here it then, com'on now," Bernier insisted, giving me a tap on the arm when I realized I was spacing just a tad. I came back into focus and shook my head bashfully. It was one thing to sing out of habit, and the other to sing on command.

"Here, I'll start. It goes a little somethin' like this," Cody said. After clearing his throat, Cody started humming the tune and leaned in to signal my start. I reluctantly began to sing the song my mother used to sing to me before putting me to bed.

"'My boat's by the tower, and my bark's
on the bay,
And both must be gone by the dawn of
the day.
The moon's on her shroud, and to light
thee afar
On the deck of the daring's a
lovelighted star-"

Bernier started singing, having heard plenty of pirate songs in his life time, "So wake, lady wake, I am waiting for thee."

Cody joined in, and soon the three of us were singing, smiles on our faces as we approached the last three lines of the lullaby:

"Oh, this night or never my bride thou
shalt be
So wake, lady wake, I am waiting for
thee.
Oh, this night or never my bride thou shalt be."

The sky was dark now, and the town was awake. People were passing on shore, grinning at us as we sang the finale. Even if no one clapped, I felt an immense happiness gather in my chest as I saw the glitter of a smile in Bernier's dark green eyes, and the way Cody grinned absently at me. His hand came to my shoulder, and he shook it once and shook a smile right onto my face.

He slung an arm over Bernier's shoulders and patted him on the back. "We best be heading back to the ship. Captain's gon kill me if he finds out we left." Bernier had no idea.

"Right, right. Cap'ain's orders and all," he said, and waved Cody off before clapping a hand on my shoulder. "Twas nice meeting you, ma'am."

"You also." I rested my hand on his arm once before breaking away and chasing after Cody down the dock.

My back ached only slightly, but it was better and I learned to cope with it. Running irritated it a bit, but I was thankful for the shirt Harvey gave me from the communal duffle. It was stained with excess blood and dirt, and had gotten beat up over the weeks, but it was still functioning.

My curls were becoming one big mass of fuzz and knots, and were mainly kept in a low bun against my back. When I was taking lessons from the crew, it helped to have my hair out of the way, and none of them seemed to mind tying their hair back at all in rope and cords. My skin was starting to break out in pimples, my cheeks were burned from the sun, and to any outsider I looked like one of the crew.

I was not a princess on Avarice of the Sea, but they called me one anyway. It was a basic title, like how Ivan was called a know-how. I picked up on his nickname after a while of trying to dissect their jargon, and also the fact that Harvey was sometimes referred to as a monkey since he climbed the mast so much. No other man in the crew could beat him when it came to climbing up to the crow's nest.

Even if The Avarice of the Sea was not my original home, they started to treat me like one of their family. No matter what they did, though, could not keep me from wanting to go back to Damunt more. I had been away from home long enough, and it was starting to sink it that journeying with pirates was about to become a permanent ordeal.

At least, until we started heading west.

I knew we were heading west, because that was where the sun set, and when we left Brunmere Isle, we left land all together. There was nothing out there, not as far as I knew, but we were going there and in a day or so we would pass the edge of Valens and leave behind my country to go explore the great unknown. I kept these thoughts to myself, since I did not want Ivan the Know-How to start correcting me on geography I had no knowledge of.

I thought about my mother a lot, which was becoming a common topic in my mind on the countless nights I spent in my cell. Whenever I thought of mother, I was reminded of the girl in Avarice's cabin. I had not heard a single peep about her, and Cody shut right up about it when I asked.

"Don't talk 'bout her. She's none of yer concern, so don't you worry about it," he told me.

"Yes, but where is she now? Did Avarice leave her in Brunmere Isle?" I asked, but he shook his head and waved a hand at me to be quiet.

We were down underneath the deck with Ivan, spreading out maps across the circular game table. I saw on one end a continent shaped similarly to the coast of Damunt and Valens, but with far more detail and markings up and down the edge. Lines were strewn up and down the pages, mapping all the way from one end to the other, and around the cool ice waters south of Faymoore all the way back up to the seasonal waters of Res'rustica. Seeing my country side by side with Ambrose's, I felt a sting pierce my chest, just like it always did when I thought about home and the life that was ripped away from me.

"She's not in discussion anymore, so leave off," he demanded, sterner this time as he looked pointedly at me. I frowned and stared down at the maps, my fingers flicking at a tear in the edge of the page.

"Why don't'chya find Nash? He told me he had to speak with you," Ivan said. I wanted to groan in frustration. I wasn't surprised by this, but that didn't mean I wanted to go. Nash was a great fellow, but he offered the most mundane tasks, and I was sure they only had me help him because they wanted me out of their hair.

"But I want to see this. It looks interesting. It'd be incredible to learn how to map and navigate," I insisted, shuffling around the table to stand next to Ivan. He had a pair of glasses propped up on his nose, bulky and poorly made ones, but he tended to look better when he wore them at the tip of his nose like he was now. He looked at me over the rim, suspicious and slightly uncomfortable.

Cody once told me that the know-how had troubles when it came to the opposite gender, and I figured I would use that to my advantage.

"Wh-What?" he stammered, taking a side step and pretending he wanted to look into some books he had set out, and fumbled with the pencil tucked into one of the pages as a bookmark.

"Yeah, I mean, what's this over here? None of the maps in Damunt have this on them," I said, reaching over to point a finger at the landmass across the Donec Sea. Come to think of it, Father's sailors had never been that far west. There was no point.

"Uh-"

"Maxine, please, we're tryin' ta work. We can't work with ya flirtin' yer virginity away," Cody complained, and Ivan nearly lost it when he started choking and slapped his hand over his mouth to keep from coughing up a lung. He turned pink in the cheeks while I grew downright pissed at Cody.

"Shut up! You're the one who went out in Shire'ren to have a ball with the wenches," I retorted, shaking a finger at him. He stared at me with his jaw slightly open, as if I hadn't heard a word from the crew members about all their flings with the tavern girls. They talked all about their stories, their friends' stories, and even strangers' stories. When they had all day to chat while at work, they talked about every single thing that came to mind. There was more gossip going around the ship than the handmaidens at the palace, especially after a fiasco like at Brunmere Isle.

"That's ridiculous! Where'd ya hear that?" he exclaimed after gathering himself back up again.

"It's all over the ship."

"It's been barely two days!" he cried out, throwing his arms up and groaning aloud. "Harv has such a blabber mouth--ya know what, give 'im a message for me, will ya? Let him know I'm after him, an' he should sleep with one eye open," he demanded, slamming his fist on the table and giving me a pointed look to see that I was listening. I was smiling so widely I thought my face might crack in two.

"Sure thing, captain," I joked, saluting him and turning to leave up to the top deck, when a noise sounded over our heads--way over our heads.

It took three or four calls for me to figure out what the man was saying. By that point, Cody was cursing up a storm and Ivan was tossing all the papers together and trying to fold the map back up as fast as possible.

"Frigate ahead! All hands hoay! Frigate ahead!"

"What's he saying?" I asked, coming up beside Ivan to gather his books and help him back up to the captain's cabin where they are kept. He looked frantic, and we'd barely reached the stairs when men started filing down into the hold shouting for gunpowder and ammunition. I spun around in a panic to find Cody, but he was off breaking open crates and shoving them over to his men.

"Quick, we must hurry. Help me with this," Ivan shouted over to me over all the noise. I scrambled to catch the bag before it could fall to the floor while Ivan raced ahead of me, running to get to the cabin. I chased after him, and looked around for what the concern was.

I spotted the problem on the horizon. It was starting to grow closer, but I saw the basic outline of the sails and the shape of the ship's body. My steps faltered, and I nearly stopped to abandon everything just to see what color the flag was. I wondered if it was an enemy pirate ship, and wished for a moment that Avarice didn't have so many enemies.