Fortunes of War

There was an obliteration in the sea. Eleni would dive into its dark waters, roiling or becalmed, and find another world, domain of Neros Sea King, the blue below a mirror of the blue above, where fishes flew like birds. She would imagine swimming down and down, the same route as the souls of the dead, until she emerged onto the Underworld’s shores, her mother and father waiting.

She wondered how long she would need to hold her breath and if, once she left the light above and all was blackness, she might see a light below, guiding her down until down was up and she could cease fighting, for her breath would pull to the surface, which was not the same surface she had entered. Kethalea had done it, the poets said, to save her lover, but he had not the same breath in his lungs as she, and she kissed her breath to him when he ran out, until neither had enough and both drowned, falling back to Demesios’s quiet, lifeless lands.

Eleni wondered, but nothing more, as she dived down to harvest the sponge that was her livelihood. Besides anything else, she couldn’t leave Pavlos alone in the world, the last of their family, and the one who had escaped the danger of sponge diving to the lessened danger of a merchant ship. An escape denied to Eleni – sailing being a man’s prerogative – but her brother had promised to make his fortune and share it with her, and she indulged him by believing, at least while he was in port. Since the war had started, she wasn’t even sure she was in greater peril than he anymore.

Her pickings were poor, the sponge eluding her, the day she heard that her brother’s ship had returned to Xhodesi. Fortune, she was called. Pavlos could praise her captain for hours, and no doubt would again when he came down to visit her. It was a relief: she could give some of his wages to her landlady; she was a fortnight behind.

She heard, in the afternoon, the heroic tale. That Fortune, protecting other merchant vessels, had outsmarted, outsailed, and outfought a Theman corvette, driving the enemy into the waiting arms of Tirasos, a Xhodesii frigate. That together they had taken her; a great victory. People who knew her brother asked if he had visited yet, to tell the tale. Said that they would buy him a drink at the tavern – as much wine as he could keep down – to hear it from his lips.

But her brother didn’t come. Instead, that evening, a man came to her door and asked to speak to her. Her landlady disapproved but let them use her sitting room. He was Daniele A’Themi, he said, merchant adventurer, captain-owner of Fortune. A tall man, his face windswept, leaving a craggy countenance and bright, hard eyes.

‘I apologise for the delay. I was required by the tetrarchs first,’ he said.

Eleni didn’t ask what the city’s ruling council might want with him, but instead said only, ‘Why are you here, please, sir? Is Pavlos hurt?’

‘Pavlos, I’m sorry to tell you, Miss Veroutsos, is dead. One of three aboard Fortune who fell in our fight with Hrakion. I gave him the rites at sea.’

The rest of what he said, her landlady had to remind her of later. Her responses, she would never recollect. He paid her debts, and all the wages Pavlos was owed, and some more besides, and then he left, and with him her brother’s spirit, walking away with his captain and out of her life.

#

She went down to the boats the following day, finding one that would take her on for the usual split, avoiding the questions thrown at her like stones. Fortune was on everyone’s lips. When Eleni mentioned she had met her captain – hoping to throw off the condolences – interest in her only increased. The tide saved her, forcing the sponge divers and fishermen into the boats and out onto the water.

But nor did interest in Fortune and A’Themi dissipate the next day, nor for the following week. He was a hero of the city, striking an early and unlikely victory against the Theman dogs and their tyrant prince. A true citizen-patriot, even if his family was Theman by origin. In the Senate, they voted him formal honours. The Tetrarchy presented him a wreath of laurel. From the Admiralty, he received a letter of marque, turning him into a privateer in the republic’s service.

He was recruiting, they said, further expanding his crew into that of a true warship. A difficult business, they added, what with so many sailors impressed into the navy, including from his own ship when he entered port. He’d have to take any who came.

Eleni wondered about those who would sign on. Serving under the captain Pavlos had been so attached to. Their little lives absorbed into something greater: into a ship, into the war. Finding adventure and comradery amongst the men who had known her brother. Making their fortunes from their shares of any prizes the ship took – which, if A’Themi was anything like Pavlos had thought, would be many and considerable.

But it was not, and could not, be for her, and so she returned to the boats each day, using the heavy weights to dive for sponge, risking drowning for a few talents. Since A’Themi’s visit, she had the most money she’d ever owed and nothing to spend it on but wine and the honeyed fritters she and Pavlos always shared when he came home.

One night, her head fuzzy, she remembered his spare shirt, which he’d left with her to mend. She threw it on and hugged it to herself, hoping for some comfort and finding it elusive. She noticed her distorted reflection in the window: her brother’s shirt, her hair uncovered and let down in a single braid, like the sailors wore it.

She looked at herself and Pavlos stared back at her and she held his eye and her thoughts were an audacity. Diving had muscled her frame and her brother’s too-large shirt hid what needed to stay hidden. She lacked a man’s moustaches, but a boy’s lip could be bare. She’d need more clothing – fustanella and jacket and shoes and the like – but A’Themi’s money would stretch that far. It could be done, if the poets were to be believed.

#

‘Name?’

‘Elias Veroutsos, sir,’ Eleni said.

The man looked up at her from his chair, set down in the midst of the docks, Fortune behind him. She’d seen the ship before, waving off her brother. Built in the Islander xebec style, long and narrow and shallow for speed. Three masts, lateens at the fore and mizzen and a square-rigged mainmast. She was a beautiful, elegant creature, pulling Eleni towards her like a siren.

Eleni turned her attention back to the man, who had finished writing down the name she’d given. Mosk, he’d called himself, the ships bosun. She was sweating under his scrutiny. She cursed herself for not practicing a lower register for longer, and for not trying out the deception at the market and taverns. But she hadn’t the time: all said Fortune would sail next morn, wind permitting.

‘Previous ships?’

‘I’ve sailed boats, sir. As a sponge diver, helping bring them in and out.’

‘Previous ships?’ he repeated.

‘None, sir,’ she admitted.

He sighed. ‘Well we’re a half dozen hands short, so you’ll have to do. Provisionally. Half pay and half shares until I decide otherwise.’

‘But—’

‘Or you can go back to sponge diving.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good.’ He presented her something to mark, explaining it a little as she complied.

‘How old are you, boy?’ he added. An afterthought, evidently.

‘Seventeen,’ she replied. She’d already thought about the question, to have an answer prepared, and decided to drop her age by four years. Old enough that they wouldn’t turn her away; young enough to explain her stature.

‘You’re a pretty one. Expect some attention. Be sensible about it.’

‘Yes, sir.’

She hadn’t considered it, and had only vague notions of how to avoid undressing in front of anyone. In truth, her hope was that no-one would notice it, or her, much at all. Perhaps that was stupid of her. Nor was she sure what would happen if she were found out, except that she certainly wouldn’t be paid.

‘Off you go then,’ he said. ‘You’ve missed dinner and we’ll have no leaving the ship tonight. Tomorrow, we’re off to war.’

#

‘Veroutsos, wasn’t it?’

It was the man ahead of her in the line who spoke, hauling on a rope with another dozen or so crewmen under the pale rays of morning. Eleni nodded at him.

‘We had another Veroutsos,’ he said, stopping to heave before speaking again. ‘Pavlos. He died. Maybe you knew him?’

‘It’s a common name,’ Eleni replied.

Which was why she had decided against using a false one, though perhaps that had been a mistake. She looked at the man again. Thickset with long arms and chestnut hair, a wide mouth under a sharp nose, she put him on the far side of thirty. With a final pull, someone ordered a halt to the hauling and they released the cable.

‘How’d he die?’ Eleni asked, driven by the same perverse instinct as when she picked at a scab.

‘Cannonball blew his head off,’ said the sailor. ‘Saw it happen.’

‘Oh.’

‘Aye. Against Hrakion, it was. But of course you know all about our heroics there.’ He laughed and Eleni tried to smile back.

‘Did you know him well?’

‘I did, aye. Very well. A good man, Pavlos. Good sailor. Good mate.’

‘I’m sorry he died,’ Eleni said.

‘Me too, lad. Me too.’

He sighed and turned to go.

‘Could you help me?’ Eleni asked. She wasn’t about to let a link to her brother just walk away. ‘She’s my first proper ship. I don’t want to do anything wrong.’

He looked at her. Brightened.

‘Aye, lad, I could help.’ He clasped her shoulder and grinned, the expression swallowed by his moustaches. ‘Call me Stelios. Elias, wasn’t it?’

‘Elias,’ Eleni confirmed.

She followed Stelios to their next task, and the next. He talked a lot, to her and everyone else. She replied little but enjoyed the words. He was a repository of stories – what sailor wasn’t? – and she thought about Pavlos hearing those same stories. About how her brother had fit into this crew, and about how she might.

And then, looking to the stern, she realised something. All was sea. Fortune was the centre of a world entirely blue, excepting a few distant sails. Parsisni, her home island, that never in her life had she been without, either standing upon it and or in the waters around it, was gone, falling away over the horizon.

#

For four days they maintained course and Eleni sought to integrate herself into the crew, Stelios her guide. Sailing, she understood. But not the rhythms of a ship upon a voyage nor the isolated little society that sailors made far from shore. And then there were the guns.

Every evening they practiced, under the supervision of the captain – whose eye she avoided, for fear of being recognised – and the bosun and Mr Kepharot, the gunner. Sixteen guns: the light forward chasers and the long sixes and the heavy twelve-pounder carronades.

Eleni was assigned to the crew of one of the sixes, alongside Stelios, where they had her running powder and worming or sponging or loading or ramming. The tasks for speed and dexterity. Pulling and pushing the gun into position, running it in and controlling its jumping recoil, were taken up by the largest amongst them, sweating and heaving after only a few shots.

They were exhilarating, the guns. Dangerous, barely controlled beasts, always looking to bite. They grew burning to the touch, belched thick white smoke and dirty black powder over everything, and shot back after every firing, seeking limbs left carelessly close. No evening was complete without a few injured feet or fingers, to Kepharot’s evident irritation.

Eleni had seen guns fired from distant ships coming into port, or from the citadel on high, presiding over the city, but never from so close. Never had she imagined handling one herself. They were oddly little things; the rage of Neros captured in a flask. Just such a cannon had killed Pavlos, and surely so many others besides in this infant war. If all went well, soon Eleni herself would wield them in anger against some hapless Theman or Thasionan merchant ship and take her share of the resultant prize money.

On the fifth day, just such a ship was spotted.

Eleni couldn’t see it – it had been announced from the tops, and A’Themi went up to confirm it with his spyglass, but, from the deck of the ship, she remained obscured. It took a while to confirm, but eventually the rumour started, murmured from sailor to sailor: she was Thasionan, a brig, certainly a merchant vessel. A legitimate prize.

When the orders came to turn the ship on an interception course, to unfurl more sail and trim them perfectly, all were eagerly awaiting and ran to their assignments, bare feet slapping against the wet deck. It was a great flurry of activity that swept Eleni up, seeing her hauling rope and climbing rigging, during which she got her first glimpse of their target and stopped a moment to peer across the miles of water and grin in excitement.

The activity didn’t last, and soon Mosk called sharply for calm. It would take them hours at best to reach her: there was time for excitement later. Then, they’d need every hand. They went to an early dinner, wolfing down their stew of salt pork thickened with biscuits, and their watered wine. It was awful stuff, the usual fare, and Eleni hated it, her head always full of the remembered taste of fresh flatbread and oysters and fish. Yet, subsumed by talk of their hunt and the prize awaiting them at its end, she forgot all of that and the salty stew was ambrosia.

Eleni tried to go back on deck, after, but was shooed down to her hammock after just a short look over the gunwale at the foreign sails now clearly visible. As she left, she heard Mosk mention something to the pilot. Movement on the barometer, a question about the winds. Nothing more, but it put her on edge as she clambered into the ship’s belly.

‘Nervous?’

It was Stelios, idly rolling a die, half hidden by the forest of hammocks. Eleni crouched down beside him. Off at the end, hidden by the little screen they put up, she heard a noise from the nook where sailors took each other for pleasure. In spite of Mr Mosk’s warning, no-one had asked to take Eleni there yet, to her relief. She wondered if Stelios had something to do with that. If others assumed he had some claim on her. If Stelios, perhaps, thought that too.

‘I am, a little,’ Eleni admitted.

‘We’ll be grand, lad. Like as not, she’ll surrender without a shot fired. Hrakion was a fight, but she was a ship of war, not some fat little trader.’

‘I know. There might be a storm, though. Don’t tell anyone. I shouldn’t have heard.’

‘I won’t. Get some sleep. It could be a long night.’

‘Aye, Stelios,’ she said. He threw the die again. ‘What’re you doing?’

‘Testing my luck. I’ve got five sixes, so far. Only three ones. Think that means fate’s on my side today. Pavlos got more ones and sixes, before we fought Hrakion, and I told him to be careful, but he laughed it all away. Maybe you’d like a few throws? Let you know how the gods are feeling about you.’

She took the proffered die and rolled a two.

‘That don’t mean anything,’ Stelios said. ‘Only ones and sixes count.’

She threw again. A three.

‘You talk about him a lot,’ she said. ‘Pavlos.’

‘Aye, I’m sorry about that. Too much, I’m sure. And you never even knew the man.’

‘No, I don’t mean that. You clearly… you cared for him.’

‘That I did, lad.’

‘Your beloved?’ She’d suspected it since the very first day.

‘Aye. Aye, that he was. But I don’t think he cared for me as much as I did for him. I wanted to ship with him until I was too old to sail. He didn’t see himself as a sailor for life. Just wanted to make enough money that he could help his little sister. So I always knew I’d lose him. Didn’t expect it to be so soon.’

‘He talked about a sister?’

‘Aye, nothing but. Eleni. I told myself I’d visit her, while we were in Xhodesi. I didn’t. Cowardly, that was. I’ll visit her when we’re back. Talk to her a little about him. Do you think she’d like that?’

‘I’m sure she would.’

She rolled a six and he smiled.

‘There you go,’ he said. ‘Told you you’d be grand, and the fates agree.’

He put a hand on her knee, pausing a moment before speaking again.

‘I’ve been grieving him; the gods know that. But from the moment I saw you, you reminded me of him. Not just your name, but something about you. You’re a beautiful lad, Elias.’

‘Thank you. But—’

‘I’m not asking for anything, lad. Not right now. I’d feel… disloyal, finding another so soon. But you might think about it.’ He plucked up the dice and rolled it himself, tutting at the single pip it landed on. ‘Now find your hammock. Try to rest. Think of nothing but the riches that await.’

#

Eleni did find her hammock, but couldn’t sleep, thought the ship rocked her like a mother, creaking lullabies. She thought of her brother again. The image of him and Stelios flashed into her mind and she pushed it away, only to have it replaced with another of herself with the older sailor. The more she expelled the unwanted thoughts, the more they impressed themselves onto her.

Was he gentle in his love? Fierce? What had Pavlos felt with Stelios, behind that screen and outside of it, when their hands had touched over coarse rope. Had she always been in her brother’s mind, her plight, her poverty, stopping him from living his own life as he ought? What did she feel for Stelios – anything beyond his connexion to Pavlos? She made a decision.

Rising, she pushed her way through the hanging canvas to where she knew Stelios would be. She almost tripped on the way, thrown by an unexpected roll of the deck, but soon found him asleep in his hammock. She shook his shoulder and whispered his name.

‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ she said, voice low. None could overhear her admission.

‘Lad?’

‘It’s about me, Stelios. I need you to know. I’m not Elias, not a lad. I’m his sister. I’m Eleni. And I’m so… I’m so grateful to you. And I—’

‘You’re a lass?’ Blessedly, he whispered the accusation.

‘I—’

‘Neros won’t like that. Sailing’s a masculine art. It ain’t right. You shouldn’t’ve.’

‘Stelios, I’m telling you that I’m Pavlos’s sister.’

‘We’ll have to tell the captain. He can pour a libation, maybe appease—’

Another unexpected movement almost toppled her onto his chest.

‘No-one else can know. Stelios, I’m telling you. And I’m asking you not to give me away.’

‘But lad— lass, it’s not—’

‘All hands on deck!’

The cry cut him off and in a moment his demeaner changed. He jumped up, joined by dozens more feet hitting the deck in near simultaneity.

‘Stelios.’

‘Not now, lad. You heard. All hands. Up we go.’

Without waiting for her, he marched off, forcing her to follow. The hatch was banging open and shut, she heard as they approached, letting in a screaming wind and lashing rain. Someone held it open, and they and a couple dozen others charged upon deck, emerging into a swirling chaos.

The sea was fierce, the weather more so. Wind pushed and pulled at the sails, battering them around, a cat with its food, threatening to snap the masts. A lot of sail still showing, given that a storm had been expected.

A’Themi and Mosk were in the midst of it all, calling orders.

‘Haul!’ cried the bosun at the line of men clewing up the mainsail.

‘You!’ shouted the captain, waving his hand at a group of those just arrived, Eleni and Stelios amongst them. ‘Onto the yards. Furl all sails!’

The sailors yelled encouragement to each other as they ran to the mainmast ratlines and began climbing. Wind buffeting her, Eleni reached the mainsail yard and followed Stelios along it, grabbing handfuls of canvas and pulling it in.

The yard was slick and Eleni was too short to keep her feet safely on the footropes as she reached over it to take up more sail. As she pulled back, she slipped, her arms finding no purchase. She threw them out as she fell, banging her knee against the yard, and dropped onto the footrope, which she clung to with both hands, heart pounding and breath ragged.

‘Give me your hand!’ Stelios shouted, next to her.

He was at the very end of the yardarm and dropped the sail to reach for her. The ship shifted violently, leaning so far that they had naught but open water below them, before snapping back just as powerfully. Eleni nodded, more to herself than to him. Convincing herself into what she was about to do.

She let go with one hand, swinging towards him, trying to get a leg around the footrope as she reached for his arm. At the top of her swing, she grasped wildly but felt no purchase, the rain in her eyes making all a blur. And then her movement stopped, a firm hand against her wrist, pulling her up, giving her the time she needed for her feet to find the ropes.

‘Thank you,’ she shouted as he helped her the rest of the way up.

‘Got to furl the sail!’

It was true. Along the rest of the yard, the task was complete. Only at their end did the mainsail still hang down, flapping eagerly. All because of her mistake. Eleni reached over to keep furling, straining to finish as fast as she could.

‘Don’t rush!’ Stelios ordered into her ear. ‘No mistakes!’

She nodded back to him and they kept it up until the sail was furled and could be tied away. Ahead of them, the foremast was bare. Behind them, she hoped the mizzen was likewise. Then there was nothing more they could do but go back down and brace out the storm.

Eleni shuffled along the yard, shivering in her soaked clothing. She looked back to Stelios, who waved her forwards. Another roll rocked the ship and Eleni clung on, watching the deck disappear beneath her feet as they dangled over the water.

A flash of something flew across her vision. Something not tied down or brought below, picked up by the wind and thrown. It struck Stelios, who lost his grip. For a moment, their eyes met, before he plunged down, missing the gunwale by inches to plunge into the angry waves.

Eleni stared after him, stunned. It didn’t… it wasn’t… it couldn’t… No. No no not another no. She ran along the footrope to the end of the yard, pushed off with her hands, and dived in after him.

She hit the water and it welcomed her below. She opened her eyes to the familiar light sting and blurry surroundings. Her ears were dulled, her lungs still. Below her, no bed spotted with sponge and corral and populated by Neros’s creatures. No, just unending water, down and down into midnight blackness and, beside her, Fortune’s hull, a foreign thing, a stranger in this land. A world serene. A haven from the chaos above.

Stelios wasn’t at the surface, fighting to stay afloat. So he was falling below, into the dark, into the Underworld. She kicked off the hull and swam down, searching for any sign of him.

There! Ahead and below, a falling form. She spotted him from the little bubbles racing from his mouth. His eyes were closed, his limbs limp, pushed about by the current. Eleni raced after him.

She was a sponge diver, in the water near every day since she was a girl. Others would drown three or four or more times over in the time before she needed to take another breath. She kept swimming.

A final kick, a final pull, and she grabbed the shoulder of his shirt, clasping him close. She shook him. Wasn’t sure that she could pull him up unconscious. He didn’t stir. She closed his mouth, protecting the last of his breath, but it just fell open again when she released it.

Panick – the diver’s death – filled her. She thought of Kethalea and looked down again at the void below. The peace that lay there. Had Kethalea regretted her choice? The poets never said. Perhaps she’d known she would drown and preferred to join her lover. Pavlos was waiting for her, and their parents. She could bring Stelios to him. Kiss her breath to her brother’s lover and join them all on the other side.

She looked up. A halo surrounded Fortune’s hull and the ship called down to her. Up there was a man who had gone to find her when her brother died, to tell her personally and see her cared for. Was it her brother she had followed, when she lied her way aboard Fortune? Or was it him, her captain, drawing her by an act of kindness to follow him into a world she had never imagined could be hers?

There was a whole crew up there with him. Men she had to keep lying to, but men who had taken her in and made her one of them. Rough men. Her comrades. Her fellow sailors. They were a life beyond diving for sponge, fighting alone every day merely not to drown. A belonging she’d lacked since her brother went to sea, leaving her adrift with no hope for tomorrow and no-one to share today.

Eleni let Stelios go, sent him down, watched him fall. She reached for the light and began to swim.

She kicked and she pulled and she kicked and she pulled and she broke the surface, returning back to the world above, the world of wind and rain and crashing waves. Returning to the world of fight and struggle, from the world of peace and release.

A wave smacked her, throwing her back down, but she surfaced again, took a breath, and swam for the ship. The waves were strong; she was stronger, forcing herself through them and under them, inching forwards.

A few feet away, she could almost touch her salvation, and another wave hit her, throwing her towards Fortune. Her head struck the side, dazing her, holding her below. She looked down to the easy, obliterating dark. And then she kicked up, grasping the lowest side step in both hands, clinging on as the roll of the ship submerged her and then lifted her up.

Feet scrambling, she found purchase and climbed the next step. The next step. The next. Hands reached down, pulling her by her shirt and her arms, beaching her upon the deck, back onto Fortune and amongst her crew.

Eleni rolled onto her back, coughing water and breathing raggedly. Her limbs ached and her eyes streamed. More hands, pulling her up, slapping her back, rubbing her cold forearms.

‘Well done, lads.’ It was Mosk who spoke. ‘Did you see Stelios?’

It took her a moment to realise the words were for her.

‘I tried… he was already gone.’

‘Mr Kepharot said you jumped. That true?’

‘I thought I could save him.’ The tears were disguised by the rain.

‘Stupid, lad. You’ll only get yourself killed, doing that. Fortune needs every hand – put yourself in danger and you put her in danger; you put us all in danger. Understood?’

She nodded.

‘Don’t be harsh, Mosk,’ said another voice. The captain. Eleni looked at him, found his eyes, held them. He broke the gaze.

‘The boy wasn’t thinking,’ A’Themi continued, ‘but his instinct was a good, if misguided, one. Now get down below, lad. Get out of those wet things, get warm, and get some rest. Come to my cabin in the morning.’

Eleni gave her thanks and her ascent, and staggered back to her hammock, too exhausted even to grieve.

#

As instructed, she reported to the captain’s cabin as soon as she awoke. The storm had calmed and they had put on sail, she saw as she scanned the deck. But there was no sign of the ship they had been pursuing.

She knocked on the door and heard the captain call from inside. It was his steward who opened it, ushered her inside, then left them.

‘Would you like some coffee?’ Captain A’Themi asked. He was sat behind a desk and gestured for her to take a chair opposite him.

‘Please.’

He poured her a cup, which she gingerly sipped. It was strong and warming.

‘Remind me of your name, lad.’

‘Elias, sir. Veroutsos.’

‘Of course. No relation of Pavlos Veroutsos, who died so bravely under my employment?’

‘Not that I know, sir. Stelios asked me that too.’

‘Not that you know,’ he repeated with a smile. He knew. He had to. Had invited her into his cabin to upbraid her and dismiss her.

‘How well did you know Stelios?’ A’Themi asked after a pause to drink his own coffee.

‘Not well. But he was kind. I liked him.’

‘He was a good sailor.’

‘He was, sir, yes,’ said Eleni.

‘I’m sorry to have lost him.’

‘Me too, sir.’

‘I endangered us all, leaving up such a spread of canvas with a storm approaching, just to close on our prize. Alas, she’s gone from our grasp now. And Stelios with her. As I said, your instincts were good. It takes bravery to do what you did. I commend you for it.’

‘I didn’t save him, though, sir.’

‘No. But rarely can we choose the results of our actions. Only the actions themselves. So we ought make sure they’re the right ones.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You’ve heard the story of Hrakion, of course. How we used Fortune to lure her away from Kestrel and Sweet Wind, and into the awaiting Tirasos.’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘But then, I didn’t know Tirasos was there when I ordered the manoeuvre. So far as I knew, I was ordering us to give ourselves up to save our compatriots. Sometimes fate sees fit to reward us. Other times not.’

Eleni didn’t know what to say to that.

‘Mosk was right, too. Bravery has its limits. It is admirable, to place another’s life before your own. But for those who value their own life too cheaply, such calculations are skewed. Say this for the coward: say that he loves life, as should we all.’ He took a long breath. ‘You’re part of a crew, here. Fortune is your mistress. You don’t serve her by unduly endangering yourself. Believe me, the sea will provide enough dangers as it is, without searching for more.’

Still, she was silent.

‘Pavlos was a good sailor too. Dedicated. I think he’d be proud of you.’

‘Sir?’

He placed a finger to his lips.

‘Credit me with eyes and a memory. But that doesn’t leave this cabin, if you don’t wish it to. Who am I to decide another’s life for them? If you can sail, I can use you. Fortune, your fellow sailors, and the grand republic can use you.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Mosk put you on half pay and shares. No longer: you’re a member of this crew and shall be compensated as such. Off you go, sailor.’

She rose. Behind her, the door banged open and Mr Mosk rushed in.

‘The Thasionan! They think they’ve spotted her.’

A’Themi’s face was a wily grin.

‘Then the chase is back on.’ He picked up his spyglass from the desk and held it out. ‘Elias, take this to the tops and confirm it. I’m afraid the glass they have up there is rather inferior.’

She took it reverently, tucking it away and running to the ratlines. Up she flew, leaving the deck behind, soon reaching the tops, where she squeezed besides the men on the narrow platform, high above the world. A strong wind brushed her braid and her shirt.

‘Captain’s spyglass?’ one commented. ‘You’re a lucky one lad. Go on, tell us what you see. She’s over there, we think.’

She trained the glass on the distant sail, a couple points starboard.

‘Two masts,’ she said. ‘She’s no warship.’

‘Can you see her ensign?’

‘There’s blue, I think. Maybe white, in the corner.’

The sailor clapped her back.

‘Aye, that’s her alright. That’s our prize.’

Eleni grinned, taking the spyglass from her eye. She looked around at calm and empty sea. Her eye caught on a smudge against the horizon, near their larboard beam.

‘What’s that?’ she asked.

‘Never mind that, lad. That ain’t our prize.’

She put the glass back to her eye. It was another ship. But—

‘Where’s her mainmast?’ she asked. ‘She’s listing something fierce.’

‘We checked her ensign. She’s Daastrijnian, lad. We can’t take her.’

‘But we can save her! The storm must’ve snapped her mast.’

‘Lad!’

But Eleni was already racing back down to the deck. She struggled to control her breath as she reached it and ran to the captain, handing him back his spyglass.

‘So, is it her?’ he asked. Around him, the bosun and the gunner. Others stopped to indiscreetly listen.

‘It is.’

A cheer went up.

‘But sir,’ she continued, shouting over the din. ‘There’s a Daastrijnian. She’s in distress.’

The excitement stopped.

‘Where?’

Eleni pointed and described the ship she’d seen.

‘I see,’ he said when she’d finished.

‘We’ll go to her, won’t we, sir? We’ve got to.’

‘But our prize!’ someone shouted.

‘Quiet on deck!’ Mosk ordered.

The captain looked around at his crew, then out at the sea. Desperate anticipation hung in the air.

‘All who sail Neros’s seas sign a compact,’ he said. His voice was raised and authoritative. ‘To protect each other when we can. The Sea King tests us. A sailor alone requires his mates to meet those tests. A ship alone requires her sisters. Neros knows no nationalities and recognises not our wars.

‘The customs of the sea remind us that none of us choose distress, and all would wish salvation from it. One day we are the distress, the next we are the salvation. The same god who sent us Tirasos now presents us these endangered souls and asks us whether we shall defy his laws. We shan’t. There shall be other prizes, that I promise you. Do we not sail with fortune?’

Laughs and cries of appreciation for the ship.

‘But today, we are the salvation. What a wonderful duty. What a gift we shall give to those afeared men!’

Cheers. Eleni joined them. The orders went out, sails changed, wheel turned. The chase abandoned. The rescue begun. Defying death, sailing to life.

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Yes I am aware of the Patrick O’Brian novel with a very similar name, but damnit that won’t stop me making a pun. Thank you for reading. My next non-fiction will be released in two weeks, on Thursday 27th, and will be an essay on Kantian ethics and Terry Pratchett. (Really, this time.) Two weeks after that, my next short story is still somewhat up in the air but I’ll keep you all posted.

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This story is the second of Daniele A’Themi’s adventures though, as with all my fiction, every story is stand alone. Nonetheless, if you’d like to read the first, telling the story of the famous fight against Hrakion, you can find it here:

Captain A’Themi and his crew will return in the story Winds of Fortune, which I’ll write to release in November or December. Until then, if you’d like to read any more of my fiction, or indeed non-fiction, this might help: