“What do you thean I mink!” Gunner bellowed, drawing back his fist again.
Gavin darted between them. “He’s respecting you, Captain. Obeying you. If he answers, he’d be disobeying your order to be silent. See?”
“Ahhh! Stickin’ up for your whoremate. But . . . that’s true, ain’t it?” Gunner said, stepping back. He twisted a bit of his beard and chewed on it. “My order to him did set the sails against the rowers, eh? ’Tain’t fair, that. And I do believe in a fair taint.”
“Then it’s no wonder you enjoyed your time with Pansy’s mother so much, Captain,” Gavin said, deadpan.
Gunner guffawed as the sailors nearby chuckled or laughed aloud, though Pansy did not. Then Gunner stopped abruptly.
“You’re a crafty little cunt, ain’tcha, Guile?”
Gavin said, “Once upon a time, I was actually reckoned a big cunt.”
Gunner was not amused. “Don’t get above your station, wee little man, or we’ll make your lady parts more gapey than you’d wish, like Orh’lam’s are about to be.”
Orholam mumbled a protest but didn’t speak. Gavin gulped. If every attempt at humor was a risk, attempts at humor with a happily homicidal madman were perhaps a risk not wisely taken.
“Gapey Guile, they’ll call ya, eh, eh?” the captain asked.
The sailors chuckled dutifully, and then Gunner dismissed them to their work. They left the forecastle like it was an order. As they went, Gunner waggled his eyebrows at Gavin, grinning, suddenly convivial again.
Aha, Gavin had been speaking out of turn, so Gunner had merely been showing them who was in charge.
Gavin had gotten off lightly for such an offense. He wasn’t even bloody.
My lucky day.
Now Gunner gazed at the horizon. “No one hates the sea like a sailor,” he said.
He patted the big cannon that dominated the forecastle. The damned thing—now with bonus prophet adorning the muzzle—was steel. Steel, not brass. Gavin had never seen such a thing, always heard that steel couldn’t be cast reliably this large. Either the Ilytians were making rapid advances in their metallurgy or every shot with this thing was risking a shrapnel-filled death for everyone on the forecastle.
Gunner hopped up on the cannon, his sentiment passing as quick as a whitecap. “Queer, eh? Boomer this big, out front? Should be too heavy so high up, made o’ steel. Should make the ship squirrely as all hell, foulin’ her center of weight.”
“But it doesn’t?” Gavin guessed. He had no delusions that Gunner had forgotten about Orholam, and whatever it was he had against the old man.
“Lighter than possible,” Gunner said.
Well, obviously not, Gavin thought.
“Shoots true, too,” Gunner said. “Accurate within your arm’s stretch at a thousand paces. Greatest random is near thrice that.”
“You name her?” Gavin asked, trying to anchor himself back on Gunner’s good side.
Gunner had walked down the barrel until he was looming over Orholam. He stood on one foot, and with his opposite big toe lifted Orholam’s chin to look at him. But Gavin’s words distracted him. “Her? Her?! What the—how dumb are ya, Guile? Her! Him. C’mon. Cannons’re always he’s. Even you with your inky fingers gorta know that!” He did hip thrusts out over the empty air. “Boom! Boom!”
“Ah. Of course,” Gavin said.
Gunner held on to nothing. He stared at the sky, he stared at the sea, he stared at his crew. He squatted now and patted the side of his cannon as a sane man might pat a horse’s cheek. “Ol’ Phin gave him the cognomenclature The Compelling Argument.”
Gunner stood, and kicked a lever, then rode the cannon as it slid slowly back on a track. When it stopped, Orholam grunted, jarred against the muzzle pressed into his belly.
Gavin grinned. “He’s, uh, he’s beautiful. And it’s a very fitting name.”
“Captain, may I—” Orholam interjected timidly.
“You a slow learner, boy?” Gunner blazed, spittle flying.
Orholam swallowed.
“You’ll get your chance to proffer a defiance.” Gunner’s eyes flicked upward. He tugged his beard. “Defense. ‘Defiance’ is good, though, eh, Gapin’ Guile?”
Gavin nodded. “It works. It defiantly works.”
Gunner missed it. That intense focus on one thing at a time that served him so well elsewhere meant the man often missed everything else.
“Shaped shells, you ever heard a such a thing?” Gunner asked. “Fer a cannon. And old Phin left forms so’s I can make more. They gives me an extra two hunnerd paces, ackerate! BUT! I can use regular old round shot, too. And looksie this.”
Gunner showed Gavin a set of levers that popped out near the muzzle. Gavin couldn’t even pretend to understand.
“Puts spin on a ball, if you use a ball. Don’t work for the shaped shells, unmoors the putty,” Gunner said. More’s the pity? “Costs yer some distance, but I can curve a cannonball. Up, down, or t’either side. Not much, mind you, and not sure what good it be—drop a ball tight o’er a wall, maybe? Phin was prollaby havin’ fun. Showin’ off like he do. You wanna see?”
“Love to!” Gavin said. There wasn’t much entertainment out here, and Gunner treated him nearly like an equal, as long as Gavin played along with his whims. “But . . . um . . .”
Gavin motioned to the old man strapped over the muzzle.
“Oh, I hadn’t forgot!” Gunner said. “You think I can curve it ’round him?”
Orholam’s body was entirely blocking the muzzle.
“If it were possible, you’d be the one to do it,” Gavin said. “But . . . I’m afraid he’d just foul the spin and mess it all up.”
Gunner scowled. Orholam was nodding emphatically.
“Eh, still worth a shot!” Gunner said. He began checking the cannon with the unhurried efficiency of an old minstrel tuning her lute. Then he examined the harness that strapped the old prophet to the muzzle, arms and legs bound down the wide barrel, his belly and chest positioned to be turned into mist.
“It’s going to make such a mess,” Gavin said.
“Ol’ Phin knew I love shit like this,” Gunner said as if he hadn’t spoken. “Curving cannonballs. That oughta be my new curse. Quite the gift. Almost makes me wish I hadn’t played Hide the Musket in his old lady’s skirts. Thet’s on him, though. Man worked too much, he did. A woman’s like a cannon herself. Keep her well lubricated, and she’ll not just stand hard use but shine with it. But you cain’t just empty your powder horn in her, then drop her back on the rack to rust! Phin shoulda knowed better. He’s got three daughters.”
Gunner blinked.
“I mean, not that he should’ ve—been emptying anything . . . in his daughters. I mean, he shoulda knowed better than to marry a woman with appetites nearly as wide as her vengeful streak. By Ceres’s swingin’ saggies, I think she wanted us to get caught that last time. Had to be quick on the trigger with the old man stomping around downstairs, and her none too quiet. Then I had to climb on the roof and wait till nightfall to get away. Still. She shouldn’ta did that to Ol’ Phin.”