Chapter 7
Afull week on the ship and Indrie is beginning to learn the rhythms of it.
Not just the physical rhythms, the roll of the hull, the creak of timber, how the wind changes pitch when it shifts direction, though he's learning those too, his body adjusting by increments to the constant motion beneath his feet until he no longer has to think about keeping his balance.
It's the human rhythms he's mapping now.
The patterns of the people. How the crew moves in shifts, day watch and night watch rotating with a precision that doesn't require discussion, each person knowing where they're meant to be and when without being told.
How Bohdi delegates with a combination of bark and good humor, sharp orders delivered with a grin that takes the edge off, expectations made clear but never cruel, disappointment expressed with a raised eyebrow rather than a raised fist. How Gunnar's kitchen operates on a strict schedule that the cook enforces with a wooden spoon and a withering look that could curdle milk at twenty paces.
The wooden spoon, Indrie has learned, is not for hitting.
It's for pointing. Gunnar wields it with the authority of office, jabbing it in the direction of tasks that need doing, ingredients that need fetching, pots that need stirring.
When Indrie was too slow to pull the bread from the oven on his second morning in the galley, Gunnar had pointed the spoon at the smoking loaves and then at Indrie and then back at the loaves with an expression of such profound disappointment that Indrie had scrambled to rescue them without needing a single word of translation.
The bread had been salvageable. Barely. Gunnar had eaten a piece, chewed thoughtfully, and given Indrie a look that communicated you can do better and we both know it before returning to his own work.
It was the most gentle reprimand Indrie had ever received for a mistake, and he'd stood there for a moment afterward, holding the slightly charred loaf, trying to understand why his eyes were stinging.
He's carved out a routine. Mornings in the galley helping Gunnar prep meals: peeling, chopping, measuring, stirring, learning the particular alchemy of feeding forty people from limited stores.
Gunnar is teaching him things. Not just cooking, but the philosophy behind it, delivered in fragments of Indrie's language supplemented with demonstrations and the occasional exasperated gesture.
How to stretch ingredients without sacrificing substance.
How to adjust seasoning when the stores are low.
How to make hard bread edible by soaking it in broth, and how to make broth from bones and scraps that most people would throw overboard.
It's resourceful in a way that resonates with Indrie, who spent years in Kalkoa making poultices from whatever wilted herbs the kitchen garden managed to produce.
Afternoons on deck helping wherever extra hands are needed.
He's learned to coil rope properly. Dagny had shown him three times before it stuck, and he'd practiced on his own until his hands were raw and the coils were tight enough to earn a nod from the boatswain.
He's learned to haul canvas without getting tangled in it, to secure barrels with the right knots, to scrub the deck planks in the direction of the grain so the wood doesn't splinter.
He's not strong enough for the heavy work, hauling anchor chain or manning the oars when the wind dies, but there's always something that needs smaller hands and careful attention, and Indrie has both in abundance.
Evenings tending to anyone with ailments or injuries.
This is where he comes alive, and he knows it, can feel the shift in himself when he opens his satchel and lays out his supplies.
The anxiety that hums beneath his skin all day quiets to a murmur.
His hands stop trembling. His mind sharpens to a single point: the person in front of him, their pain, and what he can do about it.
He is good at this. It is the one thing about himself he has never doubted, the one piece of his identity that Armond's fists couldn't beat out of him.
He is a healer. Whatever else he is or isn't, slave, captive, stray, burden, he is a healer, and that is enough to keep him upright.
Dagny is teaching him their language with a dedication that borders on obsessive.
She quizzes him at meals, pointing at items on the plate and waiting for him to name them before he's allowed to eat.
She corrects his grammar while they're coiling rope, her hands working the hemp while her mouth works through conjugation tables she's apparently memorized specifically for this purpose.
She's taken to pointing at random crew members and making Indrie name them and their role on the ship, a drill she conducts with the intensity of a military exercise, jabbing her finger in rapid succession at one person after another while Indrie scrambles to keep up.
"Him."
"Erik. Deckhand."
"Her."
"Sigrid. Sail... sailmaker? She repairs the sails."
"Close enough. Him."
"Sven. He... I don't know the word. He does the ropes."
"Rigger. Rigging, Indrie, the word is rigging."
"Rigging."
"Good. Him."
He gets most of them right now. The faces and names have sorted themselves in his mind, each one in its place, associated with a function and a temperament.
Erik, the deckhand with the bad ankles and the cheerful disposition.
Sigrid, the sailmaker who doesn't talk much but hums while she works.
Halvar, still recovering from his fever, who now greets Indrie with a nod every time they pass each other in the corridor, the potion having forged a bond between them that neither has acknowledged aloud.
When he gets one wrong, mixing up two of the younger deckhands who look frustratingly similar, Dagny flicks his ear and makes him try again.
The gesture is quick, painless, the tap of a fingertip against the curve of his ear, and the first time she does it Indrie flinches so hard she immediately grabs his arm and apologizes, her face stricken.
He has to assure her twice that he's fine, that she didn't hurt him, that the flinch was reflex and not fear.
She doesn't fully believe him, he can see it in how she watches him for the next hour, cautious, guilty, but she does it again the next day when he gets Erik's surname wrong, lighter this time, barely a brush, and Indrie manages not to flinch.
She grins. He smiles back. And the gesture becomes theirs, a small, sisterly correction that aches in its familiarity.
Not because it reminds him of someone, but because it reminds him of something he's never had.
Ermin, newly come of age and practically vibrating with curiosity at all times, has become a near-constant shadow.
If Indrie is in the galley, Ermin is hovering in the doorway.
If Indrie is on deck, Ermin is beside him, handing him things before he asks for them and occasionally handing him things he doesn't need at all.
If Indrie is in the medical area sorting through his satchel, Ermin is cross-legged on the floor opposite him, watching his hands with rapt attention, mesmerized.
He asks Indrie about Kalkoa, what it looked like, what the people were like, what grew there.
The questions come in bursts, rapid-fire, half in Ermin's language and half in the few words of Indrie's that he's picked up, supplemented by the hand gestures and charades he's so gifted at.
Indrie answers as best he can. He tells Ermin about the brown fields and the grey castle and the mines that swallowed men whole.
He doesn't talk about Armond. He doesn't talk about the bruises or the small room with the thin mat.
He talks about the herb garden behind the kitchen, the one he'd maintained himself, and how the sage bloomed in early spring with small purple flowers that smelled of rain.
Ermin asks about healing. About the herbs in Indrie's satchel, what they do, how they work.
He picks up each bundle and each vial and holds it up with a questioning look, and Indrie teaches him.
Dried willow bark for pain and fever. Yarrow for bleeding.
Chamomile for stomach ailments and sleep.
Calendula for wounds. Valerian root, crushed and steeped, for anxiety so acute it locks a person's muscles and steals their breath.
Indrie doesn't mention that he knows this one from personal experience.
He shows Ermin how to identify basic medicinal plants from the stores Dagny helped him gather before they left shore, small bundles of whatever grew wild near the camp that Indrie recognized as useful.
Ermin is a surprisingly quick study when he bothers to slow down long enough to listen.
His memory is sharp, his hands are steady, and he asks follow-up questions that tell Indrie he's actually processing the information rather than just absorbing it.
He gets the plants confused sometimes, holds up yarrow and calls it willow bark, or mixes up which root is for pain and which is for sleep, but the corrections stick. He doesn't make the same mistake twice.
He confides in Indrie one evening, while they're sitting together in the medical area and Indrie is teaching him to grind dried herbs with the mortar and pestle. The confession comes haltingly, delivered to the pestle rather than to Indrie's face.
"I've never been on a voyage this long," Ermin says, turning the pestle in his hands.
"Most of my time at sea has been short crossings.
Coastal runs. Training exercises within sight of shore.
" He pauses, grinding the herbs with more force than necessary.
"This was supposed to be my first real expedition. "
Indrie waits. He's learned that Ermin talks in fits and starts, building pressure until the rest of it comes out in a rush.