get moving! Toliver, pull your fist from your shithole and get those fucking barrels stowed! Kael, get your eyes off Andretti’s whore pipe and up into the nest before I make you wish your old man plowed your mother’s earhole instead…”
… and so on.
“Apologies, Sister,” Cloud said. “He’s got a mouth like a sewer, but he’s the best mate this side of Old Ashkah.”
“I’ve heard worse, Captain.”
He tilted his head. “Have you now?”
The sister simply stared, and the lump of beef behind her loomed a little larger, and so without further ado Cloud escorted them down the stairwell into the Maid’s belly. Leading the pair along the tight hallway to the portside stateroom, he opened the door with a flourish and stepped aside.
“Hammocks only, I’m afraid, but there’s space aplenty. You can dine with me or alone, as it please you. I’ve a bath in my cabin also, if you’ve a need. Arkemical stove. Hot water. Your privacy will be golden, and though I’d not expect it, you get lip from any of my salts, inform myself or BigJon and we’ll see it put arights.”
“Your ‘salts’?”
“My crew,” the man smiled. “Apologies, Sister, I’ve a sailor’s tongue. Regardless, the Bloody Maid is my home, and you’re my guests in it.”
“My thanks, Captain,” the sister said, easing herself into one of the hammocks.
Cloud Corleone considered the girl carefully. Her shapeless white robes were almost loose enough to hide another nun beneath—sadly designed to leave almost everything to the imagination. Her face was pretty, though, freckled cheeks, bright eyes the color of a cloudless sky. Dragging off her coif, she released long red locks down over her shoulders, creased with a gentle curl. She looked three turns tired and in need of a good meal, but still, you’d not kick her out of bed for farting, holy virgin or no.
But something about her wasn’t right.
“May I help you with something, Captain?” she asked, eyebrow cocked.
The privateer stroked his stubble. “I’ve a bed in my cabin, too, should the hammock grow tiresome.”
“Still trying to be charming, I see…”
“Well.” He gave a bashful schoolboy smile. “I’ve a thing for women in uniform.”
“More out of them than in, I’d wager.”
The captain grinned. “We’ll be under way momentarily. North to Stormwatch, swift as sparrows, then back to Whitekeep. We’ll be there by weeksend, winds be kind.”
“Let us pray, then, that they are.”
“Any time you want me on my knees, Sister, just say the word.”
The big fellow in the corner stirred slightly, adjusting one of those suspiciously sword-shaped lumps, and the captain decided he’d learned enough for now. With a wink that could charm the paint right off the walls, Cloud Corleone tipped his tricorn hat.
“Good nevernight, Sister.”
And he closed the cabin door.
Walking up the hallway a moment later, the captain muttered softly to himself.
“Nun my arse.”
* * *
“The balls on that slick bastard,” Ashlinn whispered incredulously.
Mister Kindly coalesced above the cabin door.
“… i wonder where he keeps his wheelbarrow…?”
“I’m dressed as a nun,” Ashlinn said, looking about the room in indignation. “He does realize I’m dressed as a fucking nun, aye?”
Throwing aside her cloak of shadows, Mia faded into view in the far corner. Jonnen stood with his wrists bound, one of his sister’s arms about him, her other hand clapped over his lips. He glared at the Vaanian girl as his sister removed her hand.
“You have a filthy mouth, harlot.”
“Quiet,” Mia warned. “Or it’s the gag for you again.”
Jonnen pouted but fell silent, his eyes on his sister’s back as she crossed the cabin floor. Locking the door, Mia turned and met Ashlinn’s eyes.
“I don’t trust him.”
In the other corner, Tric drew his hood back off his head, thin white plumes spilling from his lips as he spoke. “NOR I.”
“Well, that makes three of us,” Ash replied. “He might as well have the word ‘pirate’ stenciled on the arse end of those ridiculous pants. It’s a good thing he only gets his second two hundred after our arrival in Ashkah.”
“I didn’t think the funds Mercurio gave us were still so flush.”
“They’re … not,” Ash admitted. “But we can burn that bridge when we arrive at it. The Siren’s Song already left port. This ship is sailing in our direction, and we’ve got nothing left to barter passage with elsewhere. So we take our chances here, or start marching across the aqueduct on foot and praying for a miracle. And considering we stole this habit of mine off a clothesline at a convent, I’m not too sure