They had no respect for Meas. Mostly they ignored her and instead spent their time walking up and down the line, occasionally lashing out with small clubs for some infraction that Joron could neither see nor understand. The prisoners appeared completely cowed and subservient.
A seaguard raised his club, about to bring it down on the head of the old man before him.
Meas grabbed the man’s arm before the club fell.
“No.”
“No? This flotsam looked at me like I were nothing. He deserves a beating.”
“This flotsam,” said Meas, “may become part of my crew, and if he is to be punished I will see it done. Put down your club.”
“Make me,” said the seaguard. By the time he had finished that last word he was on the deck and his club in Meas’s hand.
“If you can take this back,” said Meas, brandishing the club, “you can beat who you wish.”
But the seaguard, mouth bleeding from a blow he never saw coming, made no attempt to reclaim his weapon.
“Keep it,” he said, pulling himself to his feet and wiping blood from his lip. “There’s plenty more of ’em on this ship.” And he walked away.
She watched him vanish into the bowels of the hulk and shook her head, dropping the club on the slate and glancing around at the other seaguard, who if they did not respect her at least watched her warily. The convicts, on the other hand, began to stand a little straighter.
“Twiner,” she said, “join me while I pick a crew. Some I want for the ship, some I will use as soldiers. You will help me decide who goes where.” He stepped in close to her. His new boots bit into his feet, the barely cured fishskin of the clothes they had picked up on the way felt too tight around his arms, rubbed the tops of his legs where his skin was still damp from the bathhouse, but he did not let his pain show.
“Yes, Shipwife.”
“Now.” Her whisper was a warmth in his ear. “We need a deckmother to keep the crew in check and provide discipline. A purseholder, for I do not trust the man Tide Child has. Oarturner we have. I will not turn out Barlay – she proved herself at Corfynhulme. A bowsell of the maindeck to run the gallowbow teams, and some who at least have something about them to be bowsells alongside her. Bonewright we have also. I will forego a hatkeep for my clothing but I need a seakeep who knows boneships, and the same for a wingwright. Now, I do not say the women and men we find here will be trained, or used to those positions, but we may be lucky. However, if they know what I want they will all claim they have the experience I look for, and no one lies like a deckchild. So we walk the line, we talk to these women and men and we choose ones we like, ones we think we can use and ones with a bit of spark in ’em. And we want violent women and men too, the kind that are trouble, for I will make them our own seaguard if Karrad will not give me any. You understand?” He nodded. “Very well, then let us inspect our livestock. You speak to ’em; it is better if I appear distant.”
Joron approached the first in the line, a woman he guessed was at least thrice his years. Long white hair, matted and caked with filth, reached down her back.
“What is your name?”
“Caller,” she said, but her eyes were far away and he did not feel that she was naming herself. Nevertheless, he took her answer for want of any other.
“An odd name, for an old woman.”
She stepped in close to him. A gnarled finger reached up and hooked around his collar, pulling him down to her.
“Do you sing?” she said.
“What? No, not since . . .” He stopped. He had no need to explain his songs had stopped with his father’s death. Not to this old woman.
“We’ll be all right,” she said. “You sing boy and we’ll be all right. The Hag is coming, you’ll see. She’ll take us all to—”
He was pulled away by Meas. “Not this one; her mind is gone.” She turned to a seaguard. “You can take her below. Move on, Twiner.” She leaned in close to him once more. “Don’t waste your time on the lame birds. Look for strength and intelligence – you can see it in their eyes.” She glanced down the line of ragged figures. “Though I suspect we might end up taking them all no matter what, as half will die before we get over the horizon. Find me my crew, Joron. Find me the ones who will make my ship fly.”
He wondered why she was letting him choose. Was it really so she could appear aloof? Or was it a trap of some sort? Not that it mattered as he could not refuse. If it was a trap he must walk into it.
Joron moved along the line, and if there were sorrier and weaker women and men in the Hundred Isles he could not imagine where they would be. Occasionally he would stop in front of one, considering that if they were fed up to full health then maybe . . . but Meas would shake her head and he would move on. The first lot were rejected completely, Meas looking downcast at the sight of them trooping below as the next batch were brought up.
He walked over to her as the second lot organised themselves into line.
“Not a one among them, Shipwife? Are you sure?”
She nodded.
“They have been here too long – would cost us food and then they’d probably die. I’d take a tailor or a cobbler over them, missing limb or no.” And so it was with the next and the next. And Skearith’s Eye moved over the spines and more were brought up.
Another dismal lot.
The only hopeful one was the last of them, a huge man though he stood stooped, staring at the deck, and his face was almost lost in ragged black beard and hair.
“You,” he said, “what is your name?”
“Muffaz, Deckkeeper,” he said. His voice was barely above a whisper. Joron almost moved on, thinking Meas would judge the man weak as he looked utterly beaten, but there was something about him he could not put his finger on, and it was not just his size. “What was your crime, Muffaz?”
“I am Maiden-cursed, D’keeper.”
Joron’s heart sank.
“Unfortunate,” he said, as all he knew it was ill luck to take a man who had murdered a woman aboard ship.
“Who did you kill?” said Meas.
“I murdered my lover, Shipwife. Six month with child she were.” He coughed, choking back a sob. “I should take the short walk and feed the longthresh, but cannot do it. Drink, it were. Anhir and the temper it brings. Never touched her before in anger, but one moment and all is ruin. I have sworn never to touch another drop of the drink as long as I live, may the Hag make my life short.”
“What position did you hold before you were condemned?” said Meas.
“I was oarturner, Shipwife. On a four-ribber, see. Worked it ten years.” Joron looked him up and down again, a bad feeling in his gut about having his sort on the ship. Then glanced at Meas.
“We are a ship of the dead, Twiner,” she said. “Cursed all, and a strong back is always useful.” Was there a light in the man’s eyes at that? A sudden flare of hope?
“Go and stand over there, Muffaz,” said Joron. The man nodded and Joron moved on to find himself inspecting such a collection of ne’er-do-wells and ragged lasses that he could barely believe any of them had ever flown the sea. These people were as far from the image of fleet deckchilder given to him by his father as it was possible to be.