Chapter Six #2
Rhys was staring at it with a glint in his eye that made Jasper suspect it would no longer be his scarf by night’s end.
“What if we went to the Crow’s Nest tonight instead of the Cauldron?” he suggested as they stepped out into the early autumn air. “I heard the Templeton-Rath ship was spotted and wanted to confirm.”
Malcolm made a soft, little grunting noise. “If we must. That place is not my preference.”
“Why’s that?” Rhys asked, grinning and shoving his hands in his pockets as he fell in next to them. “You don’t like the flavor that the patina of grime adds to your ale?”
Mal made the noise again.
But it got a chuckle out of Jasper, which was much needed, what with the level of tension in his shoulders.
And besides, the Crow’s Nest was a shorter walk than the Cauldron.
‘Grime’ is a good word for the overall aura of the place, Jasper thought as they walked through the entry and toward the bar. It was full of sailors, so he supposed that was unavoidable at worst and perhaps even preferable at best.
It gave the place a sort of authenticity to the temporary porters, he reckoned.
He sent Mal off to find them a table in the crowded saloon while Jasper and Rhys shouldered up to the barman in an effort to find both repast and information.
“Oh, yes, she’s blowing in slow, though,” the barman told him, nodding. “Probably will arrive at the niner. It’s them Ceylonese traders, isn’t it? Heard we’re getting a new parcel office. Hope it’s near.”
“‘Another one’?” one of the jack tar lads, floaters day by day for whichever shipping company would hire them, said with a moan from the corner of the bar as Rhys motioned to the hoppiest ale they had.
“It’s already getting crowded. Them quarry deliveries are ruining my mornings and bloody Stockton keeps blaming the new partner but won’t hire us out to make up for it. ”
“Lennox,” another jack said with a chortle. “Just saw him come in here, but he scurried to the back. Likely after a barrel of forgetting juice like his sire.”
“Well, he’s sober now,” the first replied. “Maybe he’ll hire us. Doubt it, though. Drunkards and their kin are tight fisted.”
“All right, lads, steady on,” Jasper said with a frown. “New parcel lot will be farther down Ship Street, most like, near the crane.”
“Which crane?” a jack in the back asked, frowning. “Rusty Reaper or the Ballast? If it’s the Reaper …”
“It is, I’m afraid,” Jasper confirmed with a chuckle at the chorus of moans. “I know. Maybe Templeton-Rath will pay to have it scoured and tinkered.”
“Or replaced altogether,” the jack in the corner muttered.
“Say, you’re his mate, aren’t you?” the original jack tar asked, ignoring all talk of cranes and office locations and drawing closer, ale on his breath as he leaned in to peer at Jasper. “I know you. East India. What are you doing slumming it here at the Crow?”
“We’re all in the same business,” Jasper assured him. “I was raised on the dockyard, same as you. So was Lennox.”
This won a round of scoffs from the sailors that made Jasper stifle a frown and a sigh. Next to him, even Rhys’s shoulders appeared to have gone up a little.
“Why you askin’ about the Ceylonese, then?” the second jack pressed. “Worried? Think your friend will dunk his head in the Ceylonese arrack before they can sell it? Maybe he’ll go one better than his old man and try a chip of opium, eh? They say vices like that run in the family.”
The barman raised his eyebrows and made a turn on his heel, walking rapidly into the back as though he’d just recalled serious business that required him to not remain present for the rest of this chat.
Jasper closed his eyes briefly, licking his lips as he took a deep, steadying breath at the roar of laughter from sailors. There were five of them, he reckoned, but only four that appeared deeply invested in the comedy of this particular subject.
There was a loud click to Jasper’s left as Rhys set the pitcher down with a thunk, turning slowly to look at the man who’d just spoken.
Rhys smiled slowly, tilting his curly head to the side. “I don’t understand the joke,” he said, thickening his Welsh lilt as he leaned against the bar. “Not from pierside, me. I’m a pavilion boy, myself. I want to laugh too.”
“Well, he’s seed of the best known lush on the wharf, isn’t he?
Lennox. Right fancy, considering his origins.
Left the counting houses for London banks,” one of them explained, leaning into Rhys’s sharp, humorless grin.
“He’s got airs like he comes from pedigree, but we know the truth.
Ain’t no dock boy should be that proud or that fancy.
It’s only a matter of time before the blood wins out.
Only a fool would expect anything better from the loins of that old drunk. ”
Jasper sighed.
“I really wish you hadn’t said that,” he told them, glancing at Rhys, who shrugged and stepped almost imperceptively toward Jasper’s side, ready for the inevitable next moment.
“Why not?” the man asked, still grinning.
Which made Jasper’s first punch land very easily, right in the center of his face.
Whatever Malcolm saw when he finally emerged from their reserved table to find out what was taking so long, Jasper did not know, only that sometime later, both he and Rhys were seated on the wooden benches facing the ocean, bruised, bloody, and still chuckling, while Malcolm lectured them until the niner bell rang off the dockhouse watchtower.
And the Templeton-Rath ship did indeed, finally, blow in.