The Dragon Round (Dragon #1)(13)

Solet says, “Livion.”

Whining, Livion thinks, is not Ynessi. Deception, though, is very Hanoshi. Has the captain overheard them? Has he divined Solet’s scheming? It would surely leave its stench on him. And it’s better to fire a maid, Trist once said, before the jewelry’s gone. If Solet is put in chains once he’s below, how long until I am too? If we don’t hang together now, we could hang separately later.

“Livion,” Solet says.

Livion curses Jeryon under his breath. “Belay that order,” Livion says to the sailors. “As first mate I am declaring the captain unfit for command: for disobeying the rules of engagement, for endangering the ship and her cargo, for putting us behind schedule, for abandoning his post, for doing so during an emergency, and for failing to seek reliable profit by not rendering the dragon.”

“As second mate,” Solet says, “I concur.”

“Ha!” Jeryon says. “Using the book against me. The Trust will see through that.”

“Lock him in the hold,” Livion says.

“You can’t hold me,” Jeryon says as two sailors grab his arms.

“Wait,” Solet says. He pushes out Jeryon’s arms and runs his hands over his torso and hips. Solet smiles, digs out the razor case from the captain’s pocket, and flips it into the sea. “Now we can hold you,” he says.

Whatever confusion and anger the sailors feel as the captain is dragged below is quickly replaced with the joy of avarice and potential advancement as Solet gathers a rendering crew. An Ynessi could expect nothing less from a Hanoshi crew.

“This is wrong,” Beale says. “He saved us. They’re relieving him because he saved us.”

“What could we do?” Topp says. “We just float on the waves. The mates, they are the waves.”

“At least the shares will buy us a better boat,” Beale says.

Tuse says, “Your charges are true. Your motives are nonsense. This is mutiny, plain and simple.”

Livion says, “So you’ll oppose us.”

“Yes,” Tuse says. He tightens a seeping bandage. “You can’t deal me into a game I won’t play. I won’t have him killed.”

“No one said anything about—” Livion said.

“Are you soft-hearted or soft-headed?” Tuse says, holding up a burned hand. “Do you think you can just take him to Hanosh and make your case at the inquiry? Sort this whole thing out? Have everything be normal?”

Livion says, “We’re going by the book.”

“You’re holding it upside down,” Tuse says. “Let me explain something to you: When you punch a man, you put him down. Otherwise, he’ll put you down.” He jerks his thumb at Solet. “He’d agree with me.”

Solet guides the half-completed rendering. The dragon has been tied to the galley, and, not having a cutting stage, sailors work on it from the starboard rail and the ship’s dinghy. Its head, feet, and wing claws have been hacked off with axes, wrapped in canvas, and put in the captain’s cabin. The dragon’s body is tied to the starboard rail, and is being spun so the skin can be stripped off in great sheets. This work is easier. The trick was flaking some vertebrae into blades, attaching them to handles, and using these shards, incredibly sharp and difficult to dull, to cut the skin and flay it from the meat.

Meanwhile the sharks work on the meat, exposing more bone, which they’ll harvest next.

Livion wishes he had more spit in his mouth. He says, “If we have to kill him, Tuse, we have to kill you. He’d agree with that too.”

“You don’t have the stones,” Tuse says.

“I don’t need them. See that bolt of skin?” Livion says. A sailor carries one to the captain’s cabin. “It’s worth more than the Comber. You don’t think that sailor would flay you as well if you do something to take it away?”

“You’re a good man, Livion,” Tuse says. “I like serving under you. But what you’re doing here, it’ll destroy you. The rot’s already setting in.”

Livion keeps all expression from his face. He wants to admit he’s only saying what he imagines Solet would say, but that would prove Tuse’s point. Instead he says, “Are you with us? Or him?”

Tuse slumps into his rowers’ deck posture. “My chances are better with you. But here’s my price: We give him the captain’s chance. We let the sea decide.”

“And confirm this was a mutiny,” Livion says, “not a legal action.”

“Only if he gets back,” Tuse says, “and that’s the chance we take. We’ll say he was lost overboard saving Beale. A hero’s end. Who’s to complain that it was improper? And our hands are clean.” He can see this appeals to Livion.

Livion says, “What about your rowers? Can we count on them?”

“I think so,” Tuse says. “They’ll need the money soon. The guild is finished. Soon the only rowers will be prisoners. They’re half as effective as brothers, but half the cost. And you can whip them.”

“Will they keep quiet?” Livion says.

“And risk the gibbet?” Tuse says. “Sure. But the poth won’t.”

On the rowers’ deck the poth wishes she had another bottle of wine and a sharper saw. She’s treated those who needed her help the most, and now she can consider those she thought would live regardless. She starts with a brother slumped over his oar.