Winds of Fate [Books I-III]

Chapter 128: Farewells (Part One)

Breakfast came and went, faster than she'd like. Eleanore taps her fingers on the table, counting the men again and glancing at the guests. She could swear someone close is missing, his name at the tip of her tongue. They are just waiting for the rest to clean up after themselves, and then they can commence with their morning bell gathering.

From the gun holes, the cold blue light has slowly brightened into soft, pale yellow of the morning watch's coming last hour. Beside her, Anton stacks their almost pristine plates together. But before he can even stand, tiny Puck appears at his other side and offers to take their dirty utensils himself. Anton thanks the sailor, a bit surprised.

Someone clears his throat at her other side.

Eleanore swivels and faces James, who grasps a mug and nods her way, white fringes bouncing over his forehead. "You or me?"

She glances at the crew again, then at the fugitives quietly awaiting at the other side, their meager belongings in sacks by their feet or on their lap. Eleanore takes a deep breath.

Today of all days, she has sparse words to share, what with her twisting gut and head full of thoughts. She stops her dangerous thoughts right there.

"I will," Eleanore softly says, "give me one moment."

"Alright. No worries." James lets out a little laugh. "Your call, Captain."

Eleanore smirks. She clasps her hands on the table, running through her list of tasks and assignments in mind.

But... every now and then, laughter and jokes would puncture her quiet thinking. She peers carefully at the crew assembled to their own disarray about the deck. Sailors besting each other with their tall tales.

At the other side, the newly freed men and women discuss among themselves too, some wearily glancing her way... some looking around to find the stairwell. A grandmother - easily identifiable by her curly white hair - defty points her way and to the sack of clothes on her lap.

Eleanore swallows, averting her eyes that instant. Ben couldn't resist after all. He still said it was her gift... or maybe the grandmother is just too perceptive since she never visited them again after being ashamed of her own finery, coat, and hat feathers that a baby had wanted to touch.

Baby. Eleanore smiles, peeking at their way, where the same child with unruly, springy brown hair has burrowed his face on his mother's bosom. She is a slender lady, the mother, with her flock of ebony curls brushed back. Eleanore dreads to know how she birthed the child with such a frail constitution.

More than that, how she could have survived it all under the yoke of slavery, and still have the strength to go on.

Absentmindedly, she presses her fingertips on her belly. The pain has quieted now, but the sickness hasn't fled that she hadn't even eaten as much as she needed. And these are one of those days when she seriously considers surrendering the position to either Anton or James, or whoever the crew deems fit to act as Captain.

A hand clasps her right wrist. "What is it?" Anton asks, for probably the fifth time this morning. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." She takes a sharp breath and leans back. "Just a little sick."

"Only that?" he asks, still studying her from head to toe. Anton had every reason to doubt; he had seen what Mama could be like now... and after all the tears she had cried to him last night, he must be worried she is once more despondent.

But if anything, she has known how to deal with Mama's temper -- unlike the Sea-Devil, Mama loves her, even if she has her odd ways of going about it.