Outlandish Suggestions

"This was a mistake," Serenica told her friend for the third time after managing to get her stomach in order. "We have talked about Spade for the better half of an hour now and I have been throwing up in the middle of sentences. I am an idiot."

"I am sorry if my repressed anxieties disappoint you," Myorka said, clearly annoyed. "I heard you have killed a man. Do you want to discuss the details of a cold-blooded murder?"

Serenica admitted that she was not enthusiastic about sharing the worst moments of her life.

"I will tell you one thing, though," the bookkeeper said with a hushed voice. "If someone tries to keep you as a captive, make them think you trust them."

Myorka kicked Serenica out, perhaps because of all the vomit and intrusive questions, and the healer was left with her curiosity and the fading buzz from the paw.

She still had work, though, and as the annoyance of the comedown was beginning to set in, a thoroughly disoriented Gadfly came to her.

"Let me drink," he demanded. "The Admiral won't let me drink."

"And with good reason," Serenica said. She was once again in a mood where niceties seemed downright impossible. "If you get drunk, you'll fall into the darn ocean. Again. Or you'll tell someone else to jump, and they'll do exactly as you say. You're supposed to be the boatswain, after all."

"The patient knows best," the man insisted.

"The patient knows when to say that, only when it's convenient to them." Serenica glared at the delirious boatswain, rubbing her temples.

There had to be something she could do about Gadfly's mental condition, though. The incident had made him regress and there wasn't much progress in him to be undone, anyway.

With Myorka's permission Serenica raided the cupboards of both cabins and found a few leaves of corna. Excellent. That would stimulate the patient and perhaps provide a shock big enough to scare his brain into working properly once again.

"Here, chew on these and tell me if you still feel out of your mind," Serenica said and gave the boatswain two leaves. Just enough to get him awake.

"You know, at first I thought of you as this bookish woman with no practical wisdom," Gadfly said while he was chewing.

Serenica could see the disgusting mass of leaves and spit in his open mouth. She had kissed this man. Really, she had put her lips upon that filthy mouth. Somehow she couldn't hate him, not one bit. Gadfly was the kind of useful idiot that was irreplaceable in a well-oiled community. Serenica didn't like to admit such things to be true, but simpletons were an integral part of any society, whereas she had to fight for her right to exist with her high demands and intellectual ambitions.

"Really?" she asked. "How come did you begin to think of me any differently?"

"You're still bookish and weird, but I am convinced now that you'll kill many men and women before getting killed yourself. You are a scary lady."

Serenica took that as a compliment.

The boatswain was forming coherent sentences at this point and not demanding booze anymore. Serenica saw that as an improvement.

She went to calm her nerves with another pipeful on the deck.

"You shouldn't give him corna," the Admiral said to her as they enjoyed a pinch of spare time and a lot of smoking. "I'm not exactly sure if you should give Myorka the paw, either, but at least she can handle it and will not come back for more."

"Do you happen to have any better ideas?" Serenica asked. "We have been sailing in tar for a while now. I think Gadfly needs to be functional if the Princess is to be functional."

"He is the best boatswain I have ever seen," the first mate admitted. "But damn, does he have to be so thick in the head department?"

Despite her paw comedown, Serenica laughed heartily. "Surmica! He can't even pronounce my name right."

"Have you talked with Spade lately?" the Admiral asked.

Serenica was surprised by this topic. "Should I have?"

"He's been speculating about you. All kinds of paranoid stuff. He even joked about you being Kinley's lost sister."

The mere suggestion was so outlandishly insulting that Serenica shuddered. "How can he say that? I am honorably Raelian. Far from the snobbish pieces of -"

"Relax, he said that as a joke. It's because you are always so thrown off by the most potent forms of traditional witchcraft."

"Traditional?" Serenica chuckled. "Apparently it is a tradition of his people to make the dead speak."

"I know. He's being absurd. It is unheard of to have a Karshaan man communicating with the underworld. I think you should speak with him. A witch to a witch."

Serenica knew she shoud have waited for the nasty lingering aftertaste of the paw to vanish. She was too impatient for that.

She found Spade taking sips from his flask in secret, crouched behind the helm.

"You are an alcoholic," Serenica said.

"Who bit you in the butt?" The captain stood up and offered the flask to her. "I'm trying to make sure I die with my boots on."

"How about living to die as an old man with your son and wife beside you?" Serenica accepted a quick sip of rum, just enough to make the yearning for more paw a little more bearable.

"William has told you of my suspicions, hasn't he?"

"I know I am a hypocrite. I have taken a life." Serenica stared into Spade's dark eyes that seemed almost purple in the dim sunlight. The sky was cloudy, but the wind was favorable, and the captain barely needed to touch the helm. Gadfly was apparently working his magic again.

"But you had the decency to let him stay dead. All right. I am a frightening man. How is my lovely wife?"

"She will talk," Serenica said, the thrill of the rum warming her tongue, making her more confident. "I am certain of it."