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I braced the sink with my hands. “The captain is a monster.”
“He might seem like that on the outside but—”
“No, he is. On the inside too.”
Maisie wiped her hands on the front of her apron. “He’s always been nice to me. What did he say?”
“He…”
Maisie was of an age where talking about sex was generally discouraged. Meeting her eyes now, I didn’t think she would appreciate talking about it. “It doesn’t matter.”
I turned back to the sink to continue scrubbing. “But you’d have thought a man of his age would know how to dress himself.”
“Dress himself?” Maisie said with a frown. “Why would you say that?”
“He said it’s one of our duties. It isn’t?”
Maisie covered her mouth with her hand to suppress her laugh. It didn’t work.
He almost made me undress him…
The bastard. I swear, I’ll kill him…
Maisie returned to the main table at the back. She tossed a little more flour on the surface and used an old chair leg as a rolling pin to create the pastry. “He must like you. He never made me dress him—or undress him as the case may be.”
“But… He… No,” I said, growing flustered. “Just no.”
“Why not? He is a dish. And you’re young and nubile. You ought to make the most of your youth while you can. I wish I had.”
So much for thinking Maisie wasn’t up to talking about such things. I guess she was starved for discussions on topics other than decapitations and slavery over the years. She’d had no woman to speak with for… How many years?
“Maisie?” I said softly. “How long have you been here?”
“What year is it?” she said.
I told her.
She pressed down with her body weight to spread the pastry. “Oh, about thirteen years.”
I was gobsmacked. Thirteen years. I was learning the words to my favorite boybands at that age.
“And you didn’t try to escape?” I said.
“Sure I did,” she said. “Many times. The captain back then wasn’t as kind as Nighteko.”
I couldn’t see how that was possible.
“He ordered for me to be whipped and tortured,” she said.
I gasped. “That’s terrible!”
“Not so terrible as you might think,” Maisie said. “One of the crew volunteered to beat me. He took me down to the cargo hold, tore the shirt off my back, and then dropped the whip on the floor. He told me to mend my shirt and make sure it looked like I’d mended it. I had to limp around the ship for a few weeks to make sure my valiant defender didn’t get in trouble.” She turned to me with a glint in her eye. “Can you guess who that crewmember was? The one that risked being whipped and tortured himself?”
His name was a murmur on my lips. “Nighteko.”
“That’s right. I didn’t try to escape for a while after that. Then I got used to being here, I guess. So, don’t take it to heart, lassie. Believe me. Things could be a lot worse.”
He has a streak of honor in him.
