Dunham

Chapter 22

22

Fury sighed.

Elliott heard the feet running toward Fury's cabin, so the subsequent pounding on her door was not a surprise.

"Cap'n!"

"Aye! Aye!" she croaked. "I'm coming."

The only answer was the receding sound of those same feet. "She's fixin' her voice, mates!"

Another roar of approval and what sounded like people rearranging themselves.

Elliott listened as she cleared her throat.

And again.

Thrice before she began to hum, low in her throat. Hoarsely at first.

Then she pushed away from him and stood whilst beginning to sing the scale. She stepped out of the tub, went to her door, and opened it.

"FRESH WATER!" she bellowed.

With the scales, her voice gradually cleared in the time it took for her to enrobe herself in her kimono and tie it closed with the gold sash. A pitcher of water was brought by a crewman with a half-wild grin.

She chuckled at him, then tipped the pitcher back, drinking as if she were dying of thirst, water spilling out of either side of her mouth. She finished half of it, then fetched her box of herbs. She withdrew a small flat pot, pulled off the top, dipped her tongue in it (which stirred Elliott's desire for something other than her voice), and tilted her head back to work it down her throat.

"What was that?"

"Honey."

She put it away with the same sort of ritual she did all her small tasks, then finished off the water and thumped it down on the table with a satisfied sigh. It was when she began to sing the scale, louder and louder that Elliott realized he was listening to a woman he would have paid to see perform.

As her voice grew louder, the men and women above began to cheer and the instruments began to play the scales with her, to tune to her voice. Whilst she sang, she checked her chronometer and sang the time: four of the morning.

Then she stopped singing and looked at him. "Come," she murmured. "You wanted to know why Skirrow never molested me. I will show you."

Elliott arose and exited the tub, accepting the towel she proffered him, then pulled on his breeches. "I thought 'twas your navigation."

"Half," she conceded, holding her hand out to him, leading him out the door, down the hall, and to the hatch. "He thought I was a witch, that I could bring down the wrath of Satan upon him at any time just by opening my mouth." She grunted as she attempted to pull her kimono out from under foot where she had caught herself. "On the other hand, my crew believes me to have the power to protect them from evil."

"Do you?"

"Do I believe it or do I have it?"

"Aye."

She chuckled. "I am an educated woman, Sir, so neither. But the superstitions themselves have always served me well, thus I do not discourage their notions."

If Elliott had thought the clamor was great when he lay in Fury's cabin, it was deafening now, akin to that of a battle, without the sound of cannon fire or stench of brimstone. And when she emerged from the hatch ... 

"God almighty," he whispered, coming up through the hatch after her to see nigh seven hundred fifty men and forty women gathered across the three ships, all bathed in the cool light of a full moon and the warm light of hundreds of lanterns hanging from all the lower yards.