Chapter 35

The oil lamp kept flickering.

It would burn fine for a few minutes, then start to cough like dying man. It was driving Maryam mad. She kept the irritation stoked, clutching the burning ember in her hand as a distraction. Fear had gnawed away at her guts the entire way to the port warehouse as she forced herself not to look at the ships in the harbor, the galleon and the merchantman flanking her skimmer. The galleon flew Watch black but not the other ship, and what did that mean?

Her mind spun up one tale after another. Had Bolic been caught smuggling, stealing? Fool her for leaving a pirate at the wheel of her ship, even if he was the finest sailor of the lot. Or perhaps there had been trouble in Kofoni, fighting with the crew of the merchantman – a death, even, some grisly accident that would need to be answered for. Or, some ugly part of her whispered, had the Orels been caught fleeing the Trebian Sea and now they were being dragged back here by the scruff of the neck?

Hooks traced calm against the veil, a reminder to stop spinning up a storm inside her head for what felt like the tenth time this morning. So Maryam forced herself to stop thinking about it, instead focusing on the lamp and the irritation. If she let the fear follow her into this room, it would eat her alive.

Song shuffled slightly to the side, drawing her eye. Even with a cane to lean on, her captain found it hard to stay up for more than an hour at a time. She yet found it difficult to walk without wincing, her bruises purpling but no less painful for it. The most troubling part was Song’s sudden turn to the taciturn, the way she kept silent for long spans. Maryam had thought it a black mood over their public humiliation, but Hooks thought it shame over how Song’s swollen lip made her pronunciation clumsy.

Maryam gripped her irritation at the lamp even tighter, lest she again think to compare the way she had entirely recovered with Song’s limp and black eyes. It was getting harder not to disappear down the rabbit hole with every minute spent in this dimly lit warehouse. After they followed the garrison summons here the soldiers at the door had let them in after checking their brigade plaques, but those they were to meet had yet to arrive and she had no idea how long they’d been in here waiting.

The sole oil lamp hanging from the ceiling flickered again, sizzling and biting at its brass shell, but halfway through the spectacle the door was suddenly wrenched open behind them. Song immediately straightened and out of habit Maryam hid one of her hands in her sleeve as she turned. Hooks, nestled in her dead eye, watched the arrivals with her.

Of the three people that’d just entered, they knew two. One was an increasingly familiar sight: Commander Salimata Bouare, the effective second-in-command of the Tolomontera garrison. A severe dark-skinned woman wearing elaborate earrings that Maryam had learned meant she was not Malani but from faraway Jahamai. The second was one whose presence she had feared.

Orel Bolic did not look to have been harmed, his horseshoe mustache freshly tended to and those dark eyes still nonchalant. They didn’t leave him a weapon, Hooks traced. Not even a knife. But neither had they bound his hands, which was something.

The stranger, the third face, was a beardless Tianxi with a patch over his right eye and a face like old leather. Watch, by the black of his coat, but not in a regular’s uniform. Ship captain, Maryam guessed, and that guess was soon confirmed when Commander Bouare made brisk introductions.

“Girls, Captain Tianming of the warship Starlit Dove,” the commander said, not bothering with greetings. “Captain, here are Warrant Officer Song Ren, captain of the Thirteenth Brigade, and Warrant Officer Maryam Khaimov – the owner of the skimmer.”

Bolic’s smile grew slightly strained at being left out of the introductions.

“Well met, captain,” Song said, the words slow so they would not sound mulched.

Captain Tianming simply nodded back, eyes lingering on the black eyes and beaten face. They would not make for a fine first impression, they all knew, which would be eating away as Song like acid. Maryam cleared her throat.

“Commander, is there a particular reason we are meeting here instead of the gatehouse?” she asked.

“The matter to be discussed is not under the jurisdiction of Colonel Azocar and the Tolomontera garrison,” Commander Bouare replied. “I am here to serve as a broker, not to adjudicate. For that same reason Captain Wen has yet to be involved.”

Meaning that whatever this was, Colonel Azocar would prefer it stay off the books and involving Wen would make it too official for his tastes.

“It would help,” Song carefully enunciated said, “if we were told what this is about.”

The commander glanced at the Tianxi ship captain, who shrugged.

“The Dove is part of the sixth squadron of the Western Fleet,” Captain Tianming told them. “We patrol the western trade lanes and when feasible we are to engage pirates. When we caught sight of cannons being fired off the coast of Kofoni, we set out to investigate.”

Maryam’s belly clenched. Cannons. Her skimmer bore none, so the Orels would not have been the ones firing, but there were only so many ships they could have been fired at. The man frowned.

“Your skimmer, Warrant Officer Khaimov, was being pursued by the same merchantman you see in port – the Cusan Haearn.”

She swallowed a scream of frustration, because while Maryam might not know what the words meant she recognized what Gwynt sounded like. It had been a Pereduri ship, or at least named in their tongue. She’d known it would be, deep down, from the moment she saw it in port. The Kingdom of Malan was not the only nation to build merchantmen – the large, armed trading ships were a mainstay of the eastern trade through the Sorrows – but it was the only nation that sent them this far west in the Trebian. Morcant, her sister hissed in her ear, and Maryam’s teeth clenched in hateful agreement.

“They lowered their flag when I had them hailed, and ceased firing,” Captain Tianming continued. “What I did not expect was that the port of Kofoni was shooting at both your skimmer and the merchantman with their own pieces. They refused to stop until the Dove fired a warning shot near their docks.”

Her nails bit into her palm, but she let Song talk. She was here as the owner of the skimmer, not the other captain’s interlocutor.

“And how did these parties justify their assault on a Watch auxiliary?” Song asked, tone mild.

Maryam almost smiled. Yes, let them remember we’re not just Izvoric, she thought. The Orels were contracted auxiliaries, with all the protections that entailed.

“Theft,” Captain Tianming replied.

Orel Bolic’s sharp face twisted in anger.

“Liars,” he snarled. “They only-”

“Be silent,” Commander Bouare sharply cut him off, “or you will be gagged. You will have your turn to speak, man, after Watch officers have.”

He looked entirely unconvinced, not without reason, but Maryam could not afford for them to get on Salimata Bouare’s bad side here.

“Bolic,” Maryam said in Recnigvor, “let them talk first. You will get your say.”

The man searched her eyes then, after a long moment, nodded jerkily.

“To be clear,” Captain Tianming testily said, “I did not mean to imply I blindly believe those claims. Only that they were made. As a senior officer of the Watch, I invoked our Blancaflor rights to investigate an attack on our assets. Witnesses in town agree that your crew traded fairly and made no trouble, Warrant Officer Khaimov.”

Maryam nodded stiffly at him. He paused.

“An attempt was then made to seize your skimmer,” Captain Tianming bluntly said. “The captain of the Cusan Haearn went to the mayor of Kofoni with bounty papers naming your crew as runaway slaves. Greed won out.”

Maryam did not trust herself to speak, closing her eyes as she struggled with to handle the surge of incandescent rage. It’d really been Morcant, it must have. Who else would have such papers, would even know who the Orels were? Song let out a short breath.

“Them being runaway slaves would mean the skimmer was stolen property and the mayor could seize it to sell it back to the Watch,” she said.

“Exactly so,” Captain Tianming told Song, for the first time sounding approving. “Anyhow, they took your crew lightly and sent only five sailors and a town guard to take the ship.”

That did not sound like so few men, Maryam thought, though considering a merchantman could bear up to two hundred crew – though that was usually on far journeys – she’d admit he had a point. The captain slid a look at Bolic.

“Your man feigned a surrender and ambushed them inside the hull, the way I hear it,” the captain said, no judgment in his tone. “One sailor made it out, and they captured another.”

Satisfaction from Hooks against the veil, but also discontent. Should have killed them all, her sister thought. Put them down like dogs.

“This seems a straightforward case of defending themselves against unprovoked attack,” Maryam evenly said, ignoring her sister. “Which leads me to wonder why we are having this conversation in a warehouse.”

“It was such a thing, until your people tortured the Pereduri sailor for information and learned there were northmen slaves in the hull of the Cusan Haearn,” Captain Tianming said.

Maryam breathed in sharply. She’d not bat at an eye at anyone taking a knife to slaver’s fingers, she had seen Mother’s captains do much worse, but she hoped they’d had the sense to do it somewhere Koval the Younger could not see.

“They mounted a rescue, I take it?” she said, catching Bolic’s eye.

He did not shy away from her gaze, standing straight and proud.

“Almost all their crew was out in town,” Bolic replied in Antigua. “There were a handful of sailors left on their ship, after we dealt with the others. We just had to be quick and bold to get our people out.”

Song swallowed a curse.

“To be clear, Orel Bolic speaks only the hypothetical sense,” she hurriedly said. “He is not confessing to anything.”

Commander Bouare only looked amused.

“There’s a reason we’re meeting in a rotting warehouse, Ren,” Captain Tianming grunted. “You don’t need to play those games, all this is off the books – until it isn’t.”

“Did you get them out?” Maryam asked Bolic, again in Recnigvor.

“All seven of them,” he proudly replied in the same. “Young men, headed for the port of Concordia to serve as laborers.”

Good, she thought, fingers clenched. Good.

“As I expect your man just said, they got the slaves out and killed another three Pereduri sailors doing it,” Captain Tianming said. “Things got out of hand from there. The mayor ordered your crew should be killed and that the Cusan Haearn’s people should be put under arrest, but your lot were already retreating and the Pereduri fought their way back to their ship.”

The mayor, Maryam darkly thought, must have panicked. Instead of making a fortune selling back the skimmer to the Watch after having gotten rid of ‘escaped slaves’ in a way that lay the blame on the Pereduri visitors, he’d instead become accomplice to an attack on Watch auxiliaries while living mere days away from Scholomance – and little more than a week away from Lucierna, a regional seat of the Watch.

That was going to get him killed unless he lied about what had happened on Kofoni, and that’d only work if he silenced everyone else involved. Not only the Orels but the Pereduri as well. On the other hand, she was not surprised he’d failed to detain anyone. Kofoni was a small, sleepy town and their town watch couldn’t have been more than a few large folk with clubs only belting them on when there was a pressing need. That they’d somehow had cannons to fire, as in more than one, sounded completely ridiculous.

“Your people got off the docks fast, but the merchantman was close behind trying to catch them and the mayor had two old pieces from the Century of Accord rolled out onto the docks to try and sink both ships.”

Maryam let out a low whistle, because the man must have been quite desperate to think that could end well. Her skimmer was unarmed, if heavily armored, but merchantmen could field between ten and twenty cannons. The Cusan Haearn could have razed the town to the ground if its captain wanted to.

“How does a town like Kofoni even have cannons?” Song asked, which was a damn good question.

Commander Bouare cleared her throat, a hint of what would have been embarrassment in less confident a woman showing on her face.

“When Scholomance last closed and the Garrison presence was drawn down, much of the obsolete armaments leftover from the conquest of the port were sold to neighboring islands in an attempt to cover shortages in funds,” she said. “I am surprised they still work.”

“One of them didn’t,” Captain Tianming said, sounding almost amused. “They had an E Hu mortar, of all things, and the antique blew up on the first shot. Wounded six and set a house on fire, the most damage done by any of the fighting.”

Bouare snorted and seemed about to add something when Maryam cleared her throat before the conversation could dip further away. She was not here for pleasantries.

“At which point you arrived on the scene and put an end to the fighting, captain,” she said. “For which you have my thanks. What happened after?”

“I invoked Blancaflor, shut down the port and moved to sort the whole mess,” Captain Tianming said. “The mayor of Kofoni is currently in my hold, clapped in irons and awaiting trial.”

“And the crew of the Cusan Haearn?” she asked, struggling over the Gwynt.

“No,” he said.

Of course not, she bitterly thought. Why should the slavers ever suffer consequence for what they did? Just another-

“Didn’t bother, I hanged them all except for the captain and the first mate,” Tianming casually continued, and she choked.

“You did what?” Song got out while Maryam cleared her throat, lost.

“They attacked Watch auxiliaries using fraudulent papers as pretext,” Captain Tianming frowned at them. “That fetches only one ending. I could have put them up against a wall, I suppose, but why waste the powder?”

“Hanging sixty-two sailors was something of a stretch of your authority, even if you are a senior officer,” Commander Bouare noted.

Captain Tianming spat on the ground, baring his teeth in a hard smile and revealing two silver fillings. He spoke a quick sentence in Cathayan, after, and while Maryam was not fluent in the tongue that was one of the few sentences she knew. All are free under Heaven, he’d replied. She could feel her sister’s disbelief but sometimes, just sometimes, the surprises need not be bad ones. Not that Maryam was fool enough to believe this business anywhere close to finished.

“You said earlier that this is not under Tolomontera jurisdiction, commander,” Song quietly said. “Under whose would it be, then?”

Captain Tianming spat again.

“There’s the rub,” he said.

“Kofoni is part of the northwestern Trebian command, under Marshal Camaron,” Commander Bouare said.

Camaron would be under a Conclave committee, but within his administrative region he was as a petty king unless a bigger dog took an interest.

“But I’m Western Fleet so I ultimately answer to Admiral Zokufa,” Captain Tianming said. “Before Malan throws a fit, we need to agree who we take the prisoners to trial under and what the tale will be – else the High Queen’s ambassador on the Rookery may take this straight to the Conclave.”

Bypassing the authorities on the ground by making it a diplomatic incident, she thought. From what Maryam knew of the Watch’s ruling body, petitioning them directly would have unpredictable results. There was no telling who that mule would end up kicking. She cleared her throat.

“I imagine you’d prefer the admiral,” she guess.

The captain grimaced.

“There’ll be costs,” he warned. “The Cusan Haearn is a prize ship now, so he’ll want her for the fleet – though you are entitled to a third of the prize’s worth. And Old Stormy will cover for your crew taking the fight to the merchantman by invoking patrol rights, but he’ll expect the slaves to go back. They were already paid for in Concordia and never entered Fleet custody, it’d be piracy not to return them same as any other cargo.”

Maryam’s teeth clenched until they almost bled. She knew it was not truly what he was suggesting, but the way those events were put together sounded a lot like paying her off to betray her countrymen.

“And Marshal Camaron?” Song asked.

“If the northmen set foot on Lucierna, it would be against Watch law to return them to the Malani,” Commander Bouare said. “As your Someshwari friend helpfully reminded me at the start of the year. It would, however, mean giving the marshal a full report of the events that unfolded on Kofoni.”

“Namely that our contracted crew seized and tortured a sailor, then attacked and legally stole from a Malani ship,” Song evenly said. “Crimes with mitigating circumstances but still crimes, for which the Thirteenth Brigade would be responsible under Watch law as the holders of the auxiliary contract.”

Which meant, Maryam thought, that Sebastian Camaron’s father would have a knife at their throat. Marshal Camaron would have in his possession evidence that could see the Thirteenth dragged in front of a military tribunal if he passed it on, and that wouldn’t even be the only leverage. The men Bolic had rescued would be staying on Lucierna: the marshal’s very seat of power, at his mercy.

In other words it would mean the Thirteenth Brigade being in his pocket until he’d squeezed enough use out of them to let them go – if he ever did. Fuck.

“How long do we have to decide?” she got out.

“The Cusan Haearn was expected in Concordia in three weeks,” Captain Tianming said. “But now that she’s here in port there is no keeping a lid on it. On a good ship lucky with the wind, a letter from here to Lucierna would take about a week – and then we get attention we don’t want.”

The Tianxi captain shrugged.

“I mean to stay here a few days to resupply the Dove and provide my men shore leave,” he said. “I’ll give you until then to decide. Send a runner for me if you mean to talk.”

The captain offered Commander Bouare a careless salute that she waved off – they were both Garrison but he was navy, of lesser rank but not beholden to her in the slightest – and the two of them a nod. Bolic only warranted a glance, and without another word the Tianxi left them behind. Maryam bit at the inside of her cheek.

“Bolic, do you have anything to add?” she said.

“The man spoke true,” Bolic grudgingly said. “Though he did not mention that Koval the Elder took a bullet and Poltava almost broke her leg.”

He frowned.

“And some of our people took up arms to help us leave the mornaric ship after being freed, wounding several sailors and killing one. If returned to the slavers, they will surely be killed for this.”

His lips thinned and no one here needed for him to add the unspoken part – it would not be a slow or gentle death. Maryam sharply nodded. Commander Bouare let out a sigh.

“Your crew is not under arrest,” she announced. “But they are grounded. You will not be allowed to leave Port Allazei until a decision has been made and your skimmer is to remain in port.”

She closed her eyes, barely paying attention as Song argued that grounding the skimmer should mean docking fees were waived, feeling the weight of all she had just heard crash down on her shoulders. It was… Gods, too much. She struggled to grasp it all, what it all meant. Song’s hand on her shoulder shook her out of it.

“Maryam?”

She passed a hand through her hair.

“I’m all right,” she lied. “Bolic, see to our freedmen. Do we have supplies enough for them in the ship?”

“We are nearly out of water,” he said, “but still have hardtack and salted pork.”

“Bring it over to the houses, then,” she said. “You won’t mind keeping them under your roof?”

She phrased it like a question, but it wasn’t. He silently acknowledged as much with a nod.

“Of course, princess,” he said. “I’ll send a few of us to fetch water from the wells as well. Several could do with a wash.”

She nodded.

“Let’s get out of here,” she told Song. “I’ve had enough of this place.”

—

They did not walk far before Song had to rest for a span, and close to the seawall as they were it was only natural that they ended up drifting towards one of the benches facing the water.

It was choppy out there today, at least as choppy as it ever got around Tolomontera. The wind whipped at the waves, tearing white streaks, and the endless back and forth of the tide crashed against the shore. It would have been soothing, if just to the right of Maryam’s field of sight she did not know three ships were waiting. Even when she forced herself not to look, she could feel them there like a specter dogging her footsteps.

Song let out a small sigh of relief now that she was no longer leaning on her bruised legs, making herself comfortable on the stone. Hooks traced against the veil and Maryam shrugged in answer. A heartbeat later her sister slipped out of her shadow, coming to stand by the wall with her arms crossed – in Watch black, in case anyone saw them, but with blue embroidery and copious lace that were all Izvoric.

The moment passed into silence, none of them quite ready to talk. But it was not a comfortable kind of quiet, more akin to a boiling kettle, and eventually someone gave in.

“They did the right thing,” Hooks said. “Saving those people.”

Song said nothing, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, and even as Hook’s face grew mutinous Maryam grimaced.

“But they did it in a way we might end up paying for,” she acknowledged.

“We will not,” Song said.

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Maryam blinked at her and Hooks straightened.

“You have a plan in mind?” she asked.

But when she saw the look on Song’s face, that quick ember of hope snuffed out.

“It is a difficult thing for me to say,” the captain got out, “but it must be said nonetheless.”

She found Hook’s gaze and held it then met Maryam’s eyes, silver to blue.

“We will not be going to Marshal Camaron with this matter,” Song Reng said, voice steely. “I will not sell the Thirteenth Brigade to such a man.”

“I didn’t ask,” Maryam said.

“No,” Song said, inclining her head, “but I will not leave it unsaid. It is a virtuous act, to free slaves. As it was to protect your countrymen through the making of the auxiliary contract. A principle embraced only when it is easy is no such thing.”

“But,” Hooks scornfully added.

“That rope goes both ways, Hooks,” Song flatly said. “Did Orel Bolic give so much as a moment’s thought as to what would happen to the Thirteenth should he raid that ship?”

“I expect he might have been more concerned with the literal slaves in the hull,” Maryam cooly replied.

It wasn’t entirely fair, she knew. And she didn’t entirely agree with her sister. But neither was it fair to compare their current troubles to the horror that had been awaiting the men Bolic had saved.

“I agree,” Song evenly said. “They, you and the other Orels were his sole concern.”

Her tone was rigidly calm, but in a way that betrayed anger more surely than screaming.

“Which is a difficult state of affairs to tolerate, when his actions are paid for by all of us,” she said. “I am willing to aid the cause, Maryam. To act and pay and lend, because slavery is a fundamental evil and it must be ripped out root and stem. But I have a right to offer this aid on my own terms, and not those of a former pirate I neither know nor trust.”

Her jaw clenched. That was always the way it went, wasn’t it? If you couldn’t question the act you tarred the name of the man who’d done it.

“And if I agree with that former pirate?” Maryam said.

“Hear hear,” Hooks smiled.

“Do you?” Song softly asked. “Do the two of you agree not only with what he did but how he went about it, what it might yet cost us? Knowing what you do about your friends who have trusted and aided you, do you genuinely agree?”

Maryam seethed, her sister echoing it across the veil. Of course she didn’t want the Unluckies out on the street. Half of them had enemies that would be out to kill them. But Song was echoing every polite, scholarly soul who’d ‘gently’ told her that there was a right way to do things, that the Izvoric must be patient and amiable and not so unruly as to lose the sympathy of those who felt for them, lest their support for abolition fray. Like sympathy was worth a single copper.

“If it’s done only when it’s convenient, it’ll never be done,” Maryam bit out. “You know that, you just said as much.”

“I also know that this is reckless flailing, and it being done in the name of a good cause does not make it any less reckless or flailing,” Song snapped. “What was the plan, Maryam? For the aftermath. The fundamental principle that all dignities are equal is not charity. It demands as much care be shown to ours as to theirs, and what I see here is a man who assumed he would have his ass wiped by us after running headlong into trouble.”

“You think he shouldn’t have done it,” Maryam quietly realized, fingers clenching.

“And here I thought the Watch was supposed to be against slavery,” Hooks darkly said. “And you, for that matter.”

“Abolition is not the reason the Watch was founded,” Song flatly replied. “And when that cause gets in the way of the war it truly was, it will always be set aside. You’ve known that from the start.”

“What’s the point of gaining authority if you never do anything good with it?” Maryam hissed.

“Then do good with it,” Song said. “Without using your friends as fuel for the furnace.”

She rose to her feet, pushing down her cane.

“I do not want to go to Admiral Zokufa,” Song said. “I find the notion of returning free men to bondage repellent. But if the only alternative is becoming the creatures of Marshal Camaron, then that is what will be done.”

She shook her head.

“My duty is to the Thirteenth Brigade first, and you two are not the only people in it.”

Maryam swallowed the answer on the tip of her tongue, because if she spoke it there would be no undoing that. Song’s cool silver eyes found hers, and it felt like they were seeing right through her. Dissecting her thoughts and find them wanting.

“I failed you on our first year, when it came to Angharad,” Song acknowledged. “I let you down. And I have been trying to repay that debt, however I can. But enough is enough, Maryam. The only plan I have heard of you is to spend us and that is not a plan, it is following your guilt off a cliff.”

Song’s face tightened.

“One last thing. Allow me to be perfectly clear, as I will be with the man himself: if Orel Bolic ever again commits crimes on our behalf, I will put a bullet between his eyes as is my right and duty. He is officially out of chances.”

And without another word, Song Ren walked away. Maryam watched her, feeling too exhausted to weep, and wondered how many times she was going to watch the back of the Unluckies as they left behind.

Her sister slunk back into her shadow, the two of them feeling like beaten dogs.

—

Maryam stayed on the bench for a long time, looking at the sea.

Only when the cold wind had seeped into her bones, slipping past the cloak and the uniform, did she muster the will to move at Hooks’ prodding. She did not get far, barely ambling past the edge of the row of warehouses before stopping by a broken fountain like a lost child. Close to the Triangle, she recalled, but not quite there. There wasn’t a soul around at this time of the day – the students were in Scholomance, the soldiers on assignment – so she stayed there staring blankly crumbling houses of Port Allazei.

Until someone came to find her, anyway. Part of her had been hoping for Song’s return, or that the rest of the Thirteenth would somehow leave their morning class to find her, but that was not who came. It was Orel Bolic instead, humming at the sight of her. He did not wear black, but with loose grey trousers tucked into boots and dark green waistcoat over a white shirt he did not seem out of place in Allazei. He even had a small toque in a green almost matching his waistcoat’s and a sword at his hip.

“There you are, princess,” he smiled. “I looked for you at the Rainsparrow, but was told you had yet to return.”

He really was handsome, Maryam thought, with that sharp face and those dark eyes. And he was in a way that reminder her of home – the clothes were all local, but put together in a way that reminder her of Volcesta. Or at least Dubrik.

“I needed to have a conversation with Song first,” she said.

A shiver of anger and betrayal on the veil, Hooks’ finger clawing across it.

“The captain did seem none too pleased,” Bolic said. “I hope she did not give you too much trouble on our behalf.”

Maryam had no intention of discussing that with him, so she cleared her throat.

“The newcomers, they are settled?”

“Making themselves comfortable already,” he assured her. “Steady lads, they are. They’ll be eager and ready in a few days, once the shock of freedom has entirely worn off.”

“Good,” Maryam mumbled.

Freedom should never come as a shock.

“Most of them are debtors from Dubrik,” Bolic told her, “but there’s two floodlanders as well and they have some experience with river barges. It will be easy to make proper sailors out of them.”

He cleared his throat.