The next morning it was raining. Sallina and Garibaldi stood on the deck of the Reliant staring at Rotunda island. The beach was two hundred paces away. Small waves lapped quietly against the sand. At the top of the beach were the first steps of the staircase to the hot springs. The clouds were low over the forest. Mist rose slowly between the branches, turning and spreading in the open air. The ground sloped up until the trees touched the clouds and disappeared.
Sallina and Garibaldi wore oil-skin jackets and water-proof hats they had bought in Prudence. On their feet were sandals made by Siban in Kublaminsk. Water dripped off their hats, down their jackets, and onto their toes. The water felt cool and refreshing.
"Ready?" Sharpy said.
"Yes!" Sallina said.
They climbed over the side of the ship and into the rowboat. Sharpy climbed down after them, and four more sailors. They sat rocking in the little boat. On the beach, Natasha waited for them. Sharpy waved to her.
The Captain climbed down the side and lowered himself into the boat. "Okay," he said. "Thanks for waiting." He looked around. "Where's Baat?"
"He's not feeling well," Sallina said. "He has a fever."
"Oh, what a pity," the Captain said. "Very well." He pointed towards the shore. "To the beach."
The sailors rowed the boat to the beach, and let it slide up onto the sand. Sallina, Garibaldi, Sharpy, and the Captain stepped out of the boat and walked through the shallow water to the sand.
"Perfect weather for the hot springs," Natasha said.
"Absolutely," the Captain said. He held a walking stick in one hand and wore a small, sail-cloth pack on his back. He looked up at the forest and blinked at the rain. "But don't wait for me, I'll be slow. Go on ahead."
"Okay," Natasha said, "See you up there."
Sharpy and Natasha walked hand-in-hand up the beach and began to climb the staircase. Garibaldi and Sallina followed them. The stairs were made of giant blocks of gray stone. Each step was as high as Sallina's knee and one step deep. Most of the stairs had cracks in them, and out of the cracks small plants were growing. The tops of the stones were smooth, and the rain made them slippery.
Sallina stopped to look at a particularly large block of stone. Garibaldi stopped beside her. She kneeled and ran her fingers over the edge of the step. Instead of being sharp, the edge was rounded, and it sank down towards the center.
"This step has been worn down by thousands of people walking upon it," she said.
Garibaldi knelt down and touched the stone for himself. She was right. The smooth surface looked just like the stones in the church tower near his home. The church was supposed to be as old as the world.
"The steps must be ancient," he said.
"Thousands of years old," she said. She stood up. "I wonder who made them."
The Captain stopped on the step below them. "I don't know who made them," he said, "but I have often wondered. They are certainly old, and there must have been a time when they saw a lot more traffic than they do these days."
Garibaldi stood and wiped the dirt from his knees. "How old is the world?"
The Captain looked at him and smiled. "How old is this world, or how old is the world of men?"
Garibaldi frowned. "The world of men."
"Thousands of years," the Captain said.
Garibaldi nodded. His father had been right.
"Well, are you going to get along?" the Captain said, "or shall I go around you?"
Sallina and Garibaldi started walking up the stairs again. They soon left the Captain behind. Sharpy and Natasha were out of sight around a bend. Sallina and Garibaldi were alone in the forest. The trees were a mixture of tall, straight pines with evergreen leaves high up off the ground, and wide, smooth-barked beech trees with thick leaves glistening in the rain.
Sallina looked into the darkness between the trees. According to the sailors, nobody lived here, and it was bad luck to sleep the night on the island. Why was it bad luck? Was the place haunted by the spirits of the people who made the stairs?
Sallina and Garibaldi caught up with Sharpy and Natasha. They were not holding hands any more. Sharpy was breathing hard. He had one hand on his injured leg. Natasha was walking beside him, saying nothing.
"Go on past us," Sharpy said.
"Actually," Sallina said, "I would rather slow down and enjoy the walk."
They climbed slowly with Sharpy. He stopped once to sit down. Natasha rubbed his leg. She looked up at Garibaldi and smiled. "Thank you for letting me have him back."
Garibaldi nodded.
Sharpy stood up and kept climbing. As they went up towards the clouds, the rain grew less heavy and stopped. Water dripped off the leaves all around them.
They heard voices up ahead. Natasha put her hand on Sharpy's shoulder. "We're almost there."
The clouds were so close above them now that Garibaldi thought he could throw a stone straight up and see it disappear. He looked around, but he could not see a stone lying around of the right size, so he kept walking.
The staircase went over a ridge and down into a depression in the side of the hill. The bottom of the depression was hidden by a rising cloud of steam. They followed the stairs down into the cloud, which swirled around them. Sallina sniffed the air. The steam smelled of rotting eggs. The stairs brought them out of the steam and ended. They stood upon a stone pavement in front of a pool of water thirty paces wide. The pavement was made of the same large, gray stones as the staircase. The cloud of steam they had just walked through was rising off the center of the pool, where the water was hot and bubbling. Water flowed out of the pool over a stone lip on the right.
A stone bench ran all the way around the edge of the pool, knee-deep in the water. Sitting side-by-side on the bench nearby were a dozen sailors from the Endeavor and the Reliant. A few more were swimming in the deeper water, splashing one another, and laughing.
Natasha pointed to the left. "Lets go over there. That's where the water is hottest. We can come down here to cool off later."
They walked around the pool to the far side. There they took their clothes off and hung them on the bushes at the edge of the forest. They stepped slowly into the water. It was hot, and they had to get in slowly or else the water hurt their skin.
When Sallina was sitting up to her neck in the hot water, she sighed. "Oh my." She closed her eyes. "This is wonderful."
Garibaldi leaned back until the water came up to his chin. He watched the steam rising in front of him. A few raindrops landed on the surface of the water. The white clouds drifted just above the tips of the trees. The bench was smooth and slippery. He wondered how many people had worn it smooth with their bottoms over the thousands of years since the bench was made.
"The heat feels great in my leg," Sharpy said.
Sallina opened her eyes and looked at Sharpy. He sat with his legs stretched out in front of him. Natasha was leaning her head on his shoulders with her eyes half-closed and her hair floating around her neck.
The Captain arrived with his back pack and walking stick.
"Ahoy Captain!" the sailors said.
The Captain raised his walking stick. "Ahoy me hearties!" He put the stick down and leaned upon it. He took several deep breaths and said, "A good morning to you all!"
He walked half-way around the pool, put his pack on the ground and undressed slowly. Some of the men from the Reliant blew whistles at him, but he ignored them. When he was wearing only his undershirt and underpants, he put his toe in the water and stepped down onto the bench.
"No clothes in the pool!" a man said.
The Captain looked up. "Is that so?"
"No, it's not," a woman said, "Go in as you like, Captain."
The Captain nodded. "I figured none of you wanted to see my fat butt anyway."
The sailors laughed.
"I wanted to see it, Captain!" the man said.
The Captain sat down on the bench and put his hands on his knees under the water. "Oh, that feels lovely," he said. "Next year, I'm going on diet!" He lifted one arm out of the water and held a finger in the air. "And then I shall prance about naked for you until you are begging me to put my clothes on again."
"We look forward to that," another woman said. It was the big woman who had helped Harry break up the fight the night before.
After that, the sailors let the Captain relax on his own, which he did.
Sharpy said, "Are you nervous about the rescue?"
Sallina looked at him. He was talking to her. "Yes," she said.
"That Baat is good with sticks, so I wouldn't worry too much."
Sallina nodded. The only reason I'm going, she thought, is because Garibaldi is going. And the only reason he's going is because his friend Baat is going.
"I keep thinking," she said, "It would be easier for one person to go in and get her than all four of us."
Natasha smiled "Meaning that you think you should stay behind?"
Sallina frowned. "No, I'm not going to let Garibaldi go on his own."
"That's the way it is with these things," Natasha said, "Nobody wants to let a friend or a lover go off on their own. But you're right: sometimes it's better if only one person goes."
Garibaldi said, "Like when Jacqueline swam ashore to the Sisters of Sunshine?"
"Sisters of the Sun," Sharpy said.
"Yes, like that," Natasha said, "And the reason we let her go on her own was because she's such a strong swimmer, anyone else going with her would just hold her back and put her in danger."
Garibaldi tried to remember if the Captain had really said Sisters of the Sun. He was sure he remembered the Captain saying Sisters of Sunshine. He shook his head.
"Speaking of Jacqueline," Sharpy said, "Here she is."
Jacqueline and Jasper arrived at the edge of the pool by the end of the steps. They said hello to the sailors in the water, and began to walk around the edge in the opposite direction.
"With her latest victim," Natasha said.
"What do you mean?" Sallina said.
"She means Jasper, poor fellow," Sharpy said.
"Why?"
Natasha sat up and leaned over Sharpy's legs towards Sallina. "He's her fifth lover in two years. He'll end up with a broken heart just like all the others." She pointed towards Jacqueline. "You know, she's half the reason we split the men and women up into two boats."
Sallina leaned towards Natasha. Her eyes were wide. "Really? What happened?"
Natasha looked at Jacqueline and Jasper. They were stepping over the place where the water ran out of the pool. "Well, first she dumped Harry for Ronaldo, and Harry was mighty upset about it."
"Who's Ronaldo?"
Natasha held up one finger. "Hold on a second. And then, in the middle of a storm, Ronaldo was hurt on the deck of the Reliant, and the Captain ordered him below."
Sharpy frowned and held a hand in front of Natasha's eyes. "You shouldn't gossip."
Natasha pushed his hand down and smiled. "Don't be silly, dear, of course we should gossip."
Garibaldi put his chin on Sallina's shoulder so he could see Natasha's face. "Then what?"
"So," Natasha said, "Ronaldo goes below, earlier than expected, and goes to Jacqueline's hammock, because he wants her to warm him up, and what does he find?"
Sallina and Garibaldi waited with their mouths half-open. Sharpy shook his head.
"Otis is in the hammock with Jacqueline," Natasha said. She put her hand over her mouth and giggled.
"Otis?" Garibaldi said.
"Yes, Otis. Can you imagine?"
"But," Sallina said, "He's seventy years old."
Garibaldi leaned back and laughed. Now he understood what Dan had meant when he said about Otis never ceasing to amaze him.
"So then what?" Sallina said.
"Ronaldo was furious. He said he was going to kill Otis, but Otis just laughed at him. Somehow all three of them started fighting. It's not clear who was fighting whom, but Harry came in and broke it up." Natasha leaned back and looked down at the water. "So then Ronaldo drew a knife and stabbed Harry."
Sallina gasped. "Stabbed him?"
Natasha nodded. "Stabbed him. The next day, Dan gave Ronaldo twenty lashes at the main mast. That was too much for Ronaldo. A week later, when we dropped anchor at Troka, he left the ship. We haven't seen him since."
Sallina looked at Jacqueline and Jasper. They were standing naked by the pool, trying to push one another into the water with the palms of their hands. Jasper was wiry and strong, but Jacqueline was about a hand's width taller than him, and Jasper's arm was still weak. Jacqueline's body was smooth and muscular. Her red hair hung down to her waist covering her back, but when it swung aside, Sallina saw long, white scars. She remembered what the Captain had said about Jacqueline being flogged on some navy ship.
"A few months later," Sharpy said, "the Captains decided to separate the crews of the two ships into men and women."
"Jacqueline is still with you," Sallina said, "Even though she causes so much trouble."
"Yes," Natasha said.
"Why didn't you kick her out of the crew?"
Natasha looked at Sallina. She tiled her head to one side. "Kick her out?"
"Yes, for causing trouble."
Natasha shook her head slowly and smiled. "We wouldn't do that. We're like a family. You don't kick people out of your family just because they behave badly."
There was a squeal and a splash. Jacqueline was in the water. She came up and flung her hair back off her face. Water flew in the air behind her, all the way across the pool and landed near the Captain. He smiled.
"It's hot!" Jacqueline said.
Jasper jumped in and landed beside her, curled up into a ball. He made a big splash. Jacqueline held up her hands to protect her face, closed her eyes, and laughed through the spray.
The next day it was hot again. The sun rose into a hazy sky and beat down upon the deck of the Reliant. Instead of climbing up to the hot springs, the sailors were off in the forest hunting, where it was cool beneath the trees, or they were playing on the beach, where the sand was hot and the water was refreshing. Sallina sat on deck with Garibaldi, Baat, and Otis, sewing masks for the night of the Circus Masquerade. The sound of a group of men and women laughing on the beach and splashing in the sea made Sallina smile. The day before, Baat had been lying in bed with a fever. Today Baat was feeling good and Dan was the one lying in bed with a fever.
Down in the hold of the ship, below the cabins and the dormitory, there were three large chests full of cloth, thread, braid, buttons, and sequins. Otis had taken the three of them down to see the chests that morning, and they had spent a happy half-hour pulling things out of the chests to use in their masks, and looking at them in the light of their lantern.
At one point, Baat pulled out a large, blue, three-cornered hat and put it on his head. He stood with his arms on his hips and said, "Argh! I Pirate One-Leg of Bad Island!"
Otis took the hat off Baat's head. He brushed the dirt off the felt and looked at it without speaking. The hat was worn at the corners. Most of its gold braid was stained and thin. There was a tear in the felt right above the head. Otis put his finger through the tear and stroked the braid. He put the hat back in the chest.
When she remembered how Otis had put the hat back in the chest, Sallina looked up from her sewing. Otis was making a mask for Dan. His tough, old hands were pushing the needle through a leather strap. The mask was made of leather. When he pushed the needle through the leather, he lifted his lower lip and his beard moved and stuck out in front of his chin.
"Otis," she said.
He finished his stitch. "Yes, Miss." He did not look up.
"What was that hat that Baat put on his head?"
Baat stopped sewing. He licked the end of his thumb. He had stabbed it three times with the needle so far.
"That was the Captain's hat," Otis said.
"Why is it in the chest?"
"His wife gave it to him. When we lost her, he didn't want it no more. It was all worn out. He gave it to me and said, get rid of this old thing, Otis, I don't have the heart to do the deed myself." Otis pushed his needle through the leather. "But I kept it, I did."
They went back to their sewing. A group of sailors cheered on the beach. Sallina stood up to see what was going on. Jasper and Sharpy were wrestling in the sand, and the sailors were gathered around watching the contest. She was glad to see that the two of them were feeling well enough to wrestle. It was amazing how well they had recovered from their broken bones.
She sat down again. "The Captain told me that his wife was washed overboard in a storm."
Otis nodded.
"When was that?"
"Three years ago."
"Ouch!" Baat said. He licked his finger.
Garibaldi shook his head. He was enjoying the sewing, although he had a habit of sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth while he sewed, which Sallina found unattractive. Should she say something to him about it?
Baat frowned at Otis. "You make me do this."
Otis looked up. "Don't be such a sissy, boy." He went back to his sewing.
Sallina laughed. Baat took a deep breath and went back to his sewing. His stitches were widely-spaced and crooked, but he was getting the job done. Only that morning, when the Captain had told them to start making their masks, Baat had said that sewing was, "Woman's work." Everyone who heard him stopped talking and looked at him. Sallina thought this was because what he said was insulting to women: that sewing was not a good enough job for a man. But Otis said, "Don't be a sissy, boy. A man can sew just as well as a woman. Scared of the needle are you? They are scared of it too. It hurts when it stabs you. But you have to do it anyway." After that, Garibaldi said, "I can sew." Baat had looked at Garibaldi, Otis, and the Captain. "I sew my mask," he said.
His mask was like a stocking that pulled right down over his face, with holes for his eyes only. He was stabbing himself with the needle trying to sew some thick gold braid around the neck.
"What was the Captain's wife like?" Sallina said.
Otis looked up at Sallina. He stared at her for a while and went back to his sewing. He held the needle between his teeth and pulled on the thread. "She looked like you, Miss."
Sallina put her sewing on her lap and tilted her head back. "Like me?"
"Aye."
"How much like me?"
"You could be sisters," Otis said.
Sallina looked towards the aft deck. The Captain was sitting in a chair, reading a book in the shade of a sail. Nearby, Alicia was lying with a cloth over her eyes, fast asleep.
"Did he tell you that?" Sallina said.
Otis chuckled. "He don't have to tell me, Miss. It's plain to see, for anyone what has eyes for it."
Garibaldi leaned forward. "Is he in love with Sallina?"
Otis laughed and stared at Garibaldi. "Young man, if I told you yes or no, would you know what that meant? Do you know what love is? Do you know the love a man feels for his daughter? Or a sister?"
"I know the love a man feels for his wife," Garibaldi said.
Otis smiled. "Aye, that you do. Well, no, the Captain don't love Sallina like that. And even if he did, it's you she loves, and he would know that well enough to stay clear."
Sallina looked down at her lap and picked up her sewing. She held the needle tightly in her hand. She wanted to ask Garibaldi how he knew about the love a man feels for his wife. She wanted him to say that it was because he felt that kind of love for her, and she was almost sure that was why he said it, but she wasn't completely sure. She was afraid that, if she asked, he would say something like, "It's the way my father loves my mother," and she would feel embarrassed, and Otis would know she was embarrassed, and probably Baat would know too. But Garibaldi wouldn't notice. He would go back to his sewing, with his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth in that unattractive way, that maybe was kind of cute, really, because the needle was so small in his strong hands, and he was trying so hard to get his stitches straight like hers.
A woman's voice called out loud. "Sail Ho!"
Sallina looked up. There, standing on the little platform at the top of the Endeavor's main mast, a woman with a telescope tucked in her belt held her hands on either side of her mouth and shouted down at the Reliant's aft deck at Alicia and the Captain.
Alicia sat up immediately. "What's her rig?"
"Junk rigged!" the sailor answered. "It's the junk from Prudence!"
Sallina clenched her fist around her needle. It was the junk from Prudence. With the crew that left their sick comrade all alone in the hospital. The crew that was nothing like a family. Was the junk going to drop anchor right next to the Reliant, in the same bay? It would be crowded. She had just stopped feeling bad about the sick sailor. Now they would be reminding her every time she looked at their boat.
But the junk sailed around the point to the east. At first, Alicia and the Captain thought it must be on its way somewhere else. But Harry and Pops came back from hunting in the afternoon saying that it had dropped anchor in another bay nearby. Her crew was busy chopping down trees to make fires, and cutting a path through the forest.
"A path through the forest?" Alicia said. "A path to where?"
Sallina stood listening nearby with some other sailors.
"The hot springs, I expect," the Captain said.
Alicia pointed to the stairs at the top of the beach. "But there's the stairs."
The Captain smiled. "It doesn't make any sense to me either." He stood up, put his book down, and stretched his arms. "But the Chiin never make sense to me anyway." He looked at the rocky forest that stood between them and the boat from Chiin. "Harry, go back through the forest before dark and invite the captain of the junk to supper here. This may be a good opportunity to do business."
A dozen sailors were standing nearby, listening. Sallina was among them. They said, "Aye, good thinking, Captain."
"Yes sir," Harry said, "Will you write a note in Latin, or will you count on them speaking Weilandic with me?"
"I'll write a note in Latin. Their leader is sure to read Latin."
A sailor turned to Sallina and said, "The Captain is a scholar, you know."
"Oh yes," Sallina said. "Absolutely."
Harry went below to get the Captain's pen, seal, wax, and some paper.
Sallina had studied Latin at school. Many of the oldest books are written in Latin. If you want to read what the great men and women of the past have to say, or even what the gods have to say, you must learn Latin or Greek. Sallina studied Greek as well, but she liked Latin better. Latin was easier to learn, because it used the same alphabet as Weilandic. Greek had its own alphabet, and you had to learn all the new letters before you could start reading.
"Sallina," the Captain said, "How are you coming along with the masks?"
"We're almost done," she said, "With the first set. We'll do the second set tomorrow."
The Captain fingered his chin. He had started to grow a little beard there, which he called a goatee. It looked like a goat's beard. "Oh yes," he said, "You wanted two sets so you could wear one set going in, and another going out."
"It was Jacqueline's idea," Sallina said.
The Captain looked at Alicia. Alicia shrugged. He turned back to Sallina. "That seemed like a good idea at the time, but now it seems too complicated. You can stick with one set of masks if you want to."
Sallina smiled, "Oh, good. Then we can go back to the hot springs tomorrow instead of sewing."
"In the afternoon you can," the Captain said, "But in the morning, I want you to practice with the sticks again."
"Yes, sir," she said.
Pops came up the steps to the aft deck. The Captain smiled up at him. "So, Master Chef, what's for supper?"