“They’ll understand,” Livion says. “The city will understand.”
Solet laughs. “You’re as foolish as him, trusting up. That attitude will ruin you. We’ll all be heroes whenever we get in, however many die in the meantime, but to let a fortune slide off the rail into the sea: the Trust won’t consider that heroic. Poor judgment, they’ll say. Hardly command material, they’ll say. What would your woman’s father think?”
Livion says through grinding teeth, “Your sailors are waiting for you to remove the mast.”
“Tristaban will think you threw her away along with your career.”
Jeryon mounts the stern deck. Behind him are two sailors. He says, “This conference has gone on long enough. Solet, the rowers are exhausted. If we’re going to get in as soon as possible, the sailors will have to take a turn at the oars. As a good example, you will lead them.”
Solet says, “But I’m a mate.”
Jeryon says, “Then I won’t need to chain you to a bench.” He tells the sailors, “Take Solet to his new station.”
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?”