Mirian was certain Djenba knew damned well to say starboard, since the famous druid had consulted with sea captains and sailors for at least a decade. Starboard, Rendak corrected, good-humoredly, then shifted the wheel under calloused hands.
I think you’ll need to veer to the right a little. A gull on the rail screeched piercingly, then launched itself into the night. The animals I speak with are hardly exact. Djenba spoke every word like a drawn-out sigh, detached and languid. Divorced twice, widowed once, Rendak was hardly a romantic, but Djenba had him acting like a lovestruck youth. With Djenba, he took any word as an opening for conversation. Her husky contralto carried softly to Mirian. The woman lingered on his left, a slim figure redolent of sandalwood and coconut. Rendak held himself a little straighter than usual, too, though his height couldn’t approach that of their passenger and guide, the druid Djenba.
Even in the dim light, Mirian could see he was sucking in his gut. Though Rendak was fit and compactly muscular, his belly usually sagged just a little. She walked aft to the narrow quarterdeck, nodding at two of the hands as she passed, and stopped at the wheel to consult with their passenger, who waited beside Rendak, the Daughter’s first mate. She was reasonably certain her old hands could manage well, but as she turned away she felt another pang of guilt for gambling their lives on this venture. Sending her crew into the shrouds in this darkness increased the odds someone would plant a foot wrong and plunge to the deck, or into the black waves. Mirian wasn’t averse to danger, but she abhorred risking her people. As long as they continued to cover the silvery arc of moon, the Daughter had a reasonable chance of slipping in and out without being seen. Mirian glanced up at the scudding clouds. The brightest gleam rose from the distant lanterns of roisterers lairing in Smuggler’s Shiv. She stood in the high, narrow prow of the swift little caravel, leaning without thinking into every roll of her ship as she searched the darkness. A nighttime drop, with all its inherent risks, was still safer in these waters than anchoring near the Shiv in broad daylight, when she would be seen by thousands of curious and covetous observers. While the band of pirates known as the Free Captains was oath-bound to keep hands off Sargavan shipping, approaching the famed haven of cutthroats, privateers, and murderers was tempting fate.
As the Daughter of the Mist slipped lightlessly past Smuggler’s Shiv that night, Mirian Raas would have laid bets some mangy vessel had sails spread nearby, either coasting in or heading out from the berths that tongued from the rocky shore.
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