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Finaren looked at him with fondness, then dropped a heavy hand on Jherek's shoulder. "Aye, lad, I know that you would. You've been more honest with me than any man I've ever sailed with." He shook his head. "You've enough weight to bear, young Jherek, without dealing with the bilge offered by a selfish and conceited twit of a girl. No, I'll stand up and take care of this. Nobody's going to ramrod this ship but me. You just steer clear of any further encounters with those Amnians. I'll not have you spilling some young fop's guts and garters across my deck because he's trying to show out for Merchant Lelayn."

"Aye, captain."

"Have you had anything to eat, lad?"

"Not since morningfeast."

"The mid-day meal was an hour ago, lad."

"I didn't want to come down."

Finaren nodded. "I know. You stand steady up here. I know you like the solitude anyway. I'll have Cook put together a kit and have it sent up."

"Thank you."

"Faugh. It's nothing, lad. Not many men would have let that girl slap them and walk off the way you did. Nor would they have kept a civil tongue in their heads."

Jherek also knew of no other sailors who carried the dark secret he did. If that secret were to get out, it would see him clear of sailing-if it didn't get him killed outright. Captain Finaren had hired him on in spite of knowing the truth.

Yeill was wrong, Jherek knew, love did exist. He knew that because he loved the old sea captain for the way he accepted him in spite of the birthright that marked him. He watched Finaren nimbly descend to the lower decks, bellowing out orders to the ship's crew at once.

Some of the tense knot gripping Jherek's stomach released. He took a moment to himself and said a small prayer to Ilmater, the Crying God, asking for the strength to go on, then he returned to his work on the rigging.

*****

By late afternoon, only an hour or so short of eveningfeast, the winds deserted Finaran's Butterfly. She slowed to the point of becalming, which was bad enough, but then the Amnians started drinking and partying again, deciding they were bored.

Jherek sat in the crow's nest, curled up with a novel of chivalric romance Malorrie had suggested. He'd also brought a treatise on civil disobedience that he fully intended to discuss with Malorrie when he reached Velen. The whole thought of civil disobedience, for the right reasons and under auspicious circumstances, was confusing. Jherek had read it twice during the voyage, and it still didn't set any easier on his mind. Right was right, and to suggest that it might not be right at times was too much for him to think on.

Taking a pause in the book, holding his place with a finger, he leaned over the edge of the crow's nest and looked down at the cheering and screaming Amnians thronging the ship's stern. His reading was getting increasingly harder as the roil of dark clouds coming in from the west took away his light. He wondered if they were in for another storm.