“‘Twas hardly the cap’n’s fault the ship sank,” he claimed, eyes darting like a hat-maker’s. “For magic be no fit or adequate substance t’build worthy vessels with, not at sea, no matter how powerful the wizard what wields it—”
Collyer shook his head, baffled. “Speak plainly, man. The . . . Salina is sunk, now?”
“No, no, what I meant was that other ship, the one Cap’n Parry cobbled from wrecks and some few sections of deck, sails, what-have you—a mast or two, even, seein’ they have so many between ‘em—and then budded off his and Cap’n Rusk’s first ship, like a flower-cutting. Oh, ‘twas a terrible difficult undertaking! Most ‘specially so with those two hard at it all the time throughout, hammer and tongs, for I’ve never seen two such men for quarrels. Rather fight than talk, they would, though it’s true enough how they do do a truly powerful sight of that, as well . . . ”
“No surprise, there—ghost or no, a ship should have one captain only. ‘Tis known.”
“Aye, and there they’d agree wi’ you, sir! Which is why they so long t’make two ships of their one, accordingly, and each sail far away, in opposite directions.”
Humming to herself under her breath, Tante Ankolee let the two men before her talk, busying herself with a bit of ‘broidery she’d tucked into a pocket of her skirt. And as stitch knit to stitch, needle dragonfly-flashing in the morning sun, she used the task’s cover to reach out softly with her soul’s fingers, rifling through that giddy skirl of worshipful fear-crazed memory and outright dream-lit invention Mipps currently termed a brain; there were all sorts of snatches of useful material here and there—albeit only half-glimpsed and barely registered, dimly, in the background of what Mipps considered far more interesting experiences—which she now commenced to pick through, sorting and cataloguing, sifting purest chaff from possibly fertile, only half-chaff grain.
At the top, she saw Parry stalk about restlessly, fair vibrant with impatience, as Rusk and his quartermaster went over the section of the ship’s books regarding food-storage in finest, most niggling detail. New deprivations loomed, probably because their various crews had swelled so prodigiously over the past few weeks; Rusk counseled a push back into nearby shipping lanes, to gather supplies for those who needed them, even if he and Parry did not—take a fresh prize, the old pirate’s answer to everything.
At the suggestion, Parry gave Rusk a look that might have been punctuated by spit, were he a different man. “This your fault, sir,” he threw up at him, “somehow, and all of it.”
“How, by the Devil’s balls?” Rusk snarled back. “You be the wizard, here; ye know damned well I wot nothin’ of magic savin’ how to recognize the stink of it, when blown from your direction.”
“Enough to curse me.”
; “Oh, aye? All men know as much, fool, just as all men would do the same, if only they knew ye as I do. Besides which—I have apologized, and that whole-heartedly, for any wrong I may have done you, back before ye saw fit to take my life in the most unbefitting manner possible . . . nay, do not dare t’lift your brow at me, sir! Ye saucy bloody knave!”
“Did I? No, please, do go on—I find myself interested where you mean to end, having already begun with a lie.”
“Fish-wife! If ye did not so rail like a woman, ye might find yourself less oft treated like one.”
“You do not impress me, sir, no matter how loud you rave. You never have.”
“Oh, I do think I’ve managed, a time or two. Shall we test it?”
With this, Rusk took a step towards him—short by his reckoning, yet long enough by most others’—and Tante Ankolee saw Parry’s fingers curl as though longing to warn him off, blue-green sparks striking from their nails. “You will stay in your place, by God,” he ordered, “or—”
“Or what?” Rusk roared, not retreating. “Will ye kill me again? If only!”
“Would to God I could! Or myself, and be done with you, forever!”
Tante Ankolee felt her head nod, to hear it. Thinking: But this will never happen. For punishments do not work that way . . . most ‘specially them that seem, i’ th’ main, entirely self-inflicted.
The two of them regarding each other now, panting slightly, while the men around them kept strictly to their tasks, pretending total ignorance of what had just passed. For the overhearing of such arguments were obviously rule rather than exception, when working this particular voyage.
But: “As ye will, then,” Rusk said, almost to himself. “Yet tell the truth for once, my Jerusha, and shame the bloody devil—in all these long years, who is’t ye’ve thought on more oft than I?”
“None, admittedly. Given our circumstances, however, this is surely no great marvel.”
“No mystery, either, seeing how ye yearn after me still, no matter your protests t’the contrary. Can ye deny it?”
“As Peter did Jesus.”
“Ha! Well, we all know what happened t’him.”
In Mipps’s memories, Tante Ankolee saw Jerusalem Parry toss his head like a ruffled cat, hiss, and turn his back on Solomon Rusk, thus signaling that their argument was over, for the nonce. While Mipps himself bent even further to . . . whatever he might have been doing, something frankly unintelligible to her, save that it involved an adze. And now she was pulling herself back up into the here-and-now, where she found Captain Collyer asking, his patience audibly worn thin—
“But how did this new-made witch-ship of Parry’s sink, yet again? And be explicit, this time; ‘tis the king’s business we’re here on, man. England herself requires it.”
Mipps touched his forelock, reverentially: “Oh, you can trust me, y’worship! Now, as to the sinkin’ . . . ’twas Cap’n Parry’s project from the outset, albeit with my poor aid, and didn’t Cap’n Rusk mock at him for it! Y’see, that ship of theirs had gone down once already, after Cap’n Parry was tricked into setting foot on a floating island; thought he’d beat his curse ‘til the ship’s magazine blew, with him too far away to stop it from slidin’ t’pieces ‘fore that shark-man he kept took a bite of him, big enough t’shoot cannon through—”
“Yet it sails still, this original ship, and multiplies.”