Chapter 6 #3
"We had an entire barrel of salted pork broken into," Bohdi continues, warming to the story now that he has an audience.
"Bottom of the hold, near the aft stores.
Something chewed through the seal, and I do mean chewed, the marks were the size of my thumbnail, and helped itself to a generous portion of our winter provisions.
I discovered the extent of the problem when I found one particularly fat rat sleeping, not hiding, not foraging, just having a rest on a full belly, in one of the crew's bunks.
" He pauses for effect. "Halvar's bunk, specifically.
Who, as you know, was in the medical bay at the time, so this rat had apparently decided to claim the vacancy. "
"And Gunnar's been supplementing."
"His words, not mine." Bohdi waves a hand. "He says the meat was salvageable. I'm choosing to believe him because the alternative is unpleasant and I've already eaten three bowls this week."
Eskil presses two fingers against the bridge of his nose. "Your solution?"
Bohdi brightens. "I've roped Ermin and Skander into being our official rat hunters.
" Skander is one of the young deckhands, barely older than Ermin, with more enthusiasm than coordination but a dogged persistence that serves him well in tasks that require patience and low ceilings.
"I've promised the youths a blade from my own collection when we've landed at home. "
Eskil laughs. It comes out before he can stop it, rough and genuine, because the mental image of Ermin and Skander crawling through the hold on their bellies hunting rats with the solemnity of warriors on a sacred quest is too vivid and too absurd to resist. "What collection?
You don't have a collection, Bohdi. You have three knives and one of them is Jaheira’s. "
"Look." Bohdi holds up a finger. "If they manage to catch all of the rats, I'll figure it out. That's a future Bohdi problem. But for right now the rats are running, the boys are running, and no one is eating the salted pork." He pauses. "The remaining salted pork."
Eskil shakes his head. The laughter fades but the warmth of it stays, a brief reprieve from the tension that's been sitting between his shoulder blades since they left shore.
Bohdi has always been able to do that, find the absurd in the mundane, the humor in the crisis, the story worth telling in the middle of the mess.
It's why Eskil keeps him close. Not just for the axe. For the man.
Bohdi leans forward, feet still propped, and nods at the documents spread across the desk. "What are you going over?"
Eskil sits back and runs a hand through his hair. "What we took. Trying to find some sort of worth out of it."
"And?"
"It's not encouraging." He pulls the manifest closer and taps a column of figures.
"Three crates of unrefined iron. Two of low-grade copper.
All of it needs heavy refining before it's usable, and the refining costs will eat a third of the value.
" He moves his finger down the list. "Other goods include textiles, mediocre quality, nothing our weavers can't produce themselves.
Spices, some decent, most common. And native plants, but nothing especially worthwhile.
A few things the herbalists might find interesting, but nothing that justifies a three-week crossing. "
Bohdi listens without interrupting, which means it's worse than he thought.
"What about the gems and gold from the castle?"
Eskil lets out a long exhale through his nose and tips his head back, staring at the ceiling of the cabin. "It'll just cover the cost of getting there and back once we've paid our men, repaired the ship, and replenished supplies. Maybe a little left over. Not enough to call a profit."
Bohdi is quiet for a moment, processing. Then he shakes his head slowly. "What rotten luck."
"The Jakadi scouts were working with outdated information. Or someone fed them a line."
"Either way, it's done." Bohdi pulls his feet off the desk and sits forward, elbows on his knees. "We went, we saw, there was nothing to see. We move on."
Eskil nods, though the frustration doesn't abate. Three weeks of sailing, forty warriors, provisions that could have been spent elsewhere, all for a return that barely breaks even. His brother is going to be diplomatic about it, because that’s the way Morgan handles everything, but the council will have opinions. The council always has opinions.
Bohdi gets up, retrieving his skein of wine from the desk. "I'm going to go check on my valiant knights and their hunt. Last I heard, they'd cornered one behind the flour stores and Ermin was trying to coax it out with a piece of hardtack."
"Stop wasting time."
Bohdi is already at the door. He turns, hand on the frame, and gives Eskil a look that is equal parts affection and defiance. "This is useful, my lord. Rat-free provisions are the backbone of any successful voyage. It's practically tactical."
"Out."
"Going." He gives a lazy salute and closes the door behind him.
The cabin is quiet. The lamp swings gently with the ship's movement, casting shifting patterns across the charts and manifests. Eskil stares at the numbers that refuse to improve, picks up his charcoal, and goes back to work.