Luck in the Shadows

can work your passage. You'll have to bunk in the hold, but you're in luck there, for the cargo is grain and wool. Last voyage we carried granite cobbles. If that's agreeable to you, let's cross palms on it and call it done."
    "Done it is," Alec replied, clasping hands with him. "Many thanks to you both."
    Talrien had a longboat moored at the quay.
    After loading in his few remaining possessions, Alec and Talrien carefully lifted Seregil into the bottom of the boat.
    Seregil was paler than ever. His head lolled limply from side to side as wavelets nudged the longboat against the stone footing of the quay. Tucking a wadded cloak behind his friend's head. Alec looked down at him with a pang of fear. What if he dies? What will I do if he dies?
    "Don't you worry, lad," Talrien said kindly. "I'll see to it he's made comfortable. You go sell your wagon and I'll send the boat back for you."
    "I–I'll be here," Alec stammered, suddenly reluctant to leave Seregil in the hands of strangers. But what else was there to do? Clambering into the rickety cart for the last time, he flicked the reins over the pony's dusty rump.
    Mycenian silver trees turned out to be rectangular lozenges of silver, each with the rough shape of a tree struck into it. Clutching the coins, he ran back as fast as he could to the docks.
    As he came within sight of the deserted quay, a sudden thought stopped him in his tracks. Before they'd left the Darter , hadn't Captain Rhal spoken of Plenimaran press-gangs working the ports?
    "By the Maker," he groaned aloud, dread settling like heavy ice in his belly. In his haste and weariness, had he handed Seregil over to a clever pair of rogues? Cursing himself, he stamped up and down in the cold, squinting into the darkness for any sign of movement. He hadn't even thought to ask Talrien which of the ships was the Grampus . It was a still night. Waves lapped gently against the quay. The faint sounds of men singing happily over their mugs in nearby taverns made his vigil all the more lonesome as he stood in the darkness. A bell sounded aboard one of the ships at anchor, its tone muted and distant.
    He was just calling himself ten kinds of fool when he caught sight of a light moving toward him over the water. It disappeared for a moment, obscured by the hull of some ship, then reappeared, still bobbing steadily his way with the splash of unseen oars.
    A wiry, redheaded sailor scarcely older than himself brought the little craft neatly alongside the dock. Alec didn't know much of press-gangs, but this didn't have the look of one.
    "You the new hand for the Grampus !" the boy inquired, shipping his oars and looking up at Alec with a brash grin. "I'm Binakel, called Biny by most. Haul in then, 'less you fancy spending the night on the jetty, which I don't. By the Old Sailor it's colder'n a cod's balls tonight!"
    Alec had hardly clambered down onto the stern bench before Biny was pulling away. He talked a steady stream as he rowed, needing no prompting or encouragement as he rattled on with hardly a pause for breath. He had a tendency to jumble one topic in with another as things occurred to him, and a good deal of it was profane, but Alec managed to sift out enough to set his mind at rest by the time they drew alongside the sleek hull of the Grampus .
    Captain Talrien was a good-tempered master, according to Biny, whose highest praise was that he'd never known his captain to have a man flogged.
    The Grampus was a coastal trader. Carrying three triangular sails on tall masts, she could deploy twenty oars on each side when need be, and ran regularly between the port cities of Skala and Mycena.
    The crew was in a fury of preparation on deck.
    Alec had hoped to speak with Talrien again, but the man was nowhere to be seen.
    "Your friend's down here," Biny said, leading him below.
    Seregil lay asleep in a deep nest of wool bales. More bales and plump sacks of grain were packed into the long hold for as far as Alec could see by the light of Biny's lantern.
    "Mind the light," Biny warned as he left. "A spark or two in this lot and we'll go up like a bonfire! Keep it on that hook over your head there, and if ever we meet with rough seas, be sure to snuff it."
    "I'll be careful," Alec promised, already searching for fresh bandages. Those covering Seregil's stubborn wound were badly stained.
    "Cap'n sent down food for you, and a pail of water. It's there around the other side," Biny pointed out. "You ought to speak to Sedrish