Arabella of Mars(68)
“Yes, sir.” She folded briefly in the air, a sketch of a curtsey. “Thank you, sir, for your generosity.”
“You are welcome, Miss Ashby. Now”—he took a breath and straightened himself in the air—“I am afraid I must impose upon you.”
“Sir?” Her heart began to flutter in her throat, and she chided herself for girlishness.
“The wretched business just concluded has put us several days further behind in our already delayed voyage, and we must proceed to Mars with all deliberate haste.”
“Of course, sir,” she said, ducking her head to hide her foolish disappointment. She turned to leave, wishing nothing more than to escape the great cabin as quickly as possible.
“You misunderstand, Miss Ashby.” She paused, hand on the latch, and turned back to face him. His expression was serious. “I require you to work out a course for us, a minimum-time transit from our current position to Fort Augusta, whilst I appraise the readiness of the ship and remaining crew. I expect a sailing order within the hour.”
To her own surprise, Arabella felt her face break into a broad grin. “Aye, aye, sir,” she said—then, with a start, she ducked her head and covered her mouth. “I mean, certainly sir, I will endeavor to comply.”
“Carry on, Miss Ashby.” He nodded to her, then to Aadim. “Your navigator.”
As was often the case, she was uncertain to whom that comment had been directed. But Aadim’s glass eyes seemed to glitter with mirth.
*
After the course had been worked out and the ship got under way again, Arabella found herself with something she had never before had on Diana: time on her hands with nothing to do. Lacking duties, a station, even a bunk—the carpenter had not yet finished fitting out a corner of the great cabin as a sleeping berth for her—she was reduced to floating in a corner of the weather deck and trying to stay out of the way.
The only other time she had been a passenger, traveling with her mother and sisters from Mars to Earth, she had spent most of the voyage locked in her cabin, seething at the injustice of her imprisonment and her unwanted transportation. Lacking both information about and any particular interest in the airman’s life and duties, she had learned little and experienced nothing. But now, having been an airman herself for so many weeks, she understood much of the activity that streamed past her on all sides. Decks were holystoned, sails set, brass polished in a constant smooth pavane of industry that seemed to mock her inactivity.
Though her life as Arthur Ashby had been brief, arduous, and often unpleasant, she found now that she missed it terribly.
The ship’s bell sounded, eight bells in the forenoon watch, and the watch above divided themselves into their messes for dinner. With great fondness and sadness Arabella saw her former messmates—Gosling, Snowdell, Taylor, Young, and dear, dear Mills—gathering and laughing together as they descended the ladder. How she wished she could join them.
They did not even seem to see her. She had turned into something like an officer or a capstan—a piece of the ship’s furniture, an obstacle to be saluted, polished, or worked around.
But, she gradually realized, one of the men did see her, and was hanging back as the rest of the larboard watch descended to the upper deck for dinner.
Gowse.
The burly, broken-nosed airman removed his cap from his head, clutching and twisting it in his meaty hands as he drifted over to Arabella. “Ashby,” he said, and tugged his forelock like a footman. “Miss Ashby, I mean.”
This was the first time they had truly seen each other since the chaos after the mutiny’s end. Arthur Ashby would have clapped Gowse on the shoulder, shaken his hand, and thanked him heartily for what he had done.
“Mr. Gowse,” said Arabella, and acknowledged him with a nod.
“I…” Gowse paused, mangling his already-beaten hat still further as he gathered his thoughts. He did not meet her eyes. “I suppose I should be shamed of meself, for bein’ beat by a girl.” Then he did look up. “But I’m not. Ye were very brave there, with Binion holdin’ his pistol on you and all, and ye were brave in that fight too. If that’s the kind of girl it takes to beat me, well then I suppose I’m still right enough.”
Arabella smiled at Gowse’s embarrassed sincerity. “You are quite right enough as far as I’m concerned, Mr. Gowse, and I am honored that you treated me as a friend when I needed one.”
Gowse crammed his battered cap back on his head. “Ye still are a friend to me, sir,” he said. “Ma’am. Miss.”
“Ashby will do, I suppose,” she replied. “It is still my name, after all.”
“Ashby then.” Gowse grinned and sketched a salute, then ducked down the ladder to join the rest of his mess.
*
With Gowse’s departure, Arabella found herself at a loss. Surely she could no longer mess with the men, yet she had no idea where she would eat. But Watson soon appeared on deck, saying, “With the captain’s compliments, Miss Ashby, you are invited to join the officers for dinner.”
Arabella soon found herself at a table in the great cabin—a table she’d often set up, as captain’s boy, but had never seen set with food. The officers gathered round, each bowing to her with a deference that would have been entirely incomprehensible even one day earlier, then fitted their legs into the leather straps on its underside to present a semblance of seated manners. After some embarrassed confusion, the straps at Arabella’s place, to the captain’s right hand, were fastened together into a single, longer strap that passed beneath her skirted thighs.