a building of wood and bits of stone, with a sloping roof, and inside there was the smell of staleness and ale.
They all looked up, the ten or so fellows in the house, from their benches.
He stood just inside the door and said, “Who owns the pale ship?”
“I do,” said the one the woman had called Fatty. He was gaunt as a rope. He said, “What’s it to you?”
“You don’t use her much.”
“Nor I do. How do you know?”
“She has no proper smell of fish, or the birds would be at her.”
“There you’re wrong,” said Fatty. He slurped some ale. He did have a fat mouth, perhaps that was the reason for his name. “She’s respected, my lady. Even the birds respect her.”
“I’ll buy your ship,” said Jeluc. “How much?”
All the men murmured.
Fatty said, “Not for sale.”
Jeluc had expected that. He said, “I’ve been paid off from my regiment. I’ve got money here, look.” And he took out some pieces of silver.
The men came round like beasts to be fed, and Jeluc wondered if they would set on him, and got ready to knock them down. But they knew him for a soldier. He was dangerous beside them, poor drunken sods.
“I’ll give you this,” said Jeluc to Fatty.
Fatty pulled at his big lips.
“She’s worth more, my lady.”
“Is that her name?” said Jeluc. “That’s what men call the sea. La Dame. She’s not worth so much, but I won’t worry about that.”
Fatty was sullen. He did not know what to do.
Then one of the other men said to him. “You could take that to the town. You could spend two whole nights with a whore, and drink the place dry.”
“Or,” said another, “you could buy the makings to mend your old house.”
Fatty said, “I don’t know. Is my ship. Was my dad’s.”
“Let her go,” said another man. “She’s not lucky for you. Nor for him.”
Jeluc said, “Not lucky, eh? Shall I lower my price?”
“Some daft tale,” said Fatty. “She’s all right. I’ve kept her trim.”
“He has,” the others agreed.
“I could see,” said Jeluc. He put the money on a table. “There it is.”
Fatty gave him a long, bended look. “Take her, then. She’s the lady.”
“I’ll want provisions,” he said. “I mean to sail over to the islands.”
A gray little man bobbed forward. “You got more silver? My wife’ll see to you. Come with me.”
The gray man’s wife left the sack of meal, and the dried pork and apples, and the cask of water, at the village end of the pier, and Jeluc carried them out to the ship.
Her beauty impressed him as he walked towards her. To another maybe she would only have been a vessel. But he saw her lines. She was shapely. And the mast was slender and strong.
He stored the food and water, and the extra things, the ale and rope and blankets, the pan for hot coals, in the cabin. It was bare, but for its cupboard and the wooden bunk. He lay here a moment, trying it. It felt familiar as his own skin.
The deck was clean and scrubbed, and above the tied sail was bundled on the creaking yard, whiter than the sky. He checked her over. Nothing amiss.
The feel of her, dipping and bobbing as the tide turned, gave him a wonderful sensation of escape.
He would cast off before sunset, get out on to the sea, in case the oafs of the village had any amusing plans. They were superstitious of the ship, would not use her but possibly did not like to see her go. She was their one elegant thing, like a Madonna in the church, if they had had one.
Her name was on her side, written dark.
The wind rose as the leaden sun began to sink.
He let down her sail, and it spread like a swan’s wing. It was after all discolored, of course, yet from a distance it would look very white. Like a woman’s arm that had freckles when you saw it close.
The darkness came, and by then the land was out of sight. All the stars swarmed up, brilliant, as the clouds melted away. A glow was on the tips of the waves, such as he remembered. Tomorrow he would set lines for fish, baiting them with scraps of pork.
He cooked his supper of meal cakes on the coals, then lit a pipe of tobacco. He watched the smoke go up against the stars, and listened to the sail, turning a little to the wind.
The sea made noises,