Minerva's Voyage by Lynne Kositsky Read Free Book Online

had tied my long hose on with string purloined from one of the crew. But my gorge rose at the thought and certainty of the worms, which had gone down my gullet hanging onto the meat like sailors clinging to a barrel after a shipwreck. I felt a feathery movement in my throat. My mouth filled with grease, vomit, and drowning maggots.
    I pushed by Fence, by chickens and voyagers and lumpy fardels, and sped up the ladder to the deck, spewing the meager contents of my belly over the side.
    â€œSorry you’re sick. But cheer up. It’s raining. That should cool us down,” Fence announced as he joined me.
    Raining it was. After days and days of burning weather. Still hot as Hades, despite what Fence said, but raining. Mist obscured the hot eye of the sun and the other ships as the warm and welcome drops fell on my upturned face. The relief, however, didn’t last long as the sea was beginning to roil. During the night, feeling sickish for a second time as the sea grew rougher, I stole a last look at the cipher by candlelight, making sure I knew every x and y of it. The small guttering flame went out as we hit a large wave. I tucked the cipher under my shirt to return it to the chest, but could not for the moment, as there was too much hurly-burly in the hold. The sea quietened some at last, and the voyagers quieted also. Too tired to move, I drifted to sleep where I was, every so often waking as damp entered through crevices in the deck above, cramping my knees.
    â€œI couldn’t return the bloody thing,” I told Fence the next day. I was rubbing my calves and trying to stretch my legs back out to normal. The wind was rising again. “I’ll put it back between the timbers.”
    â€œBetween the timbers?”
    â€œIsn’t that what I said?”
    Fence could have his annoying moments too.
    â€œNo, Robin, don’t do that. Keep everything important to you right close about. A huge storm is coming. I feel it here.” He pressed the front of his head. There was a pinched look to him, as if the devil had caught his nose and twisted it around and around.
    â€œKeep everything important to you right close about,” mocked Mary. I hadn’t realized she was standing behind us. “Keep everything important to you close about, young cowards, lest we sink.” She tweaked my ear. “Ha ha ha. Skin and bones toad like you will drown in the blink of an eye if the ship goes down.”
    â€œFat fish like you will sink to the bottom of the sea and drown first.” But I shuddered.
    â€œFishes don’t drown.” Mary stalked away.
    â€œNo more do toads,” I yelled after her, trying to be brave.

C HAPTER 10

P ELTED BY M ARY AND R AIN
    The rain continued. The ship reared up to the roof of heaven and down to the depths of hell.
    â€œDon’t worry, this be’ant dangerous,” Piggsley said, as he went upstairs to the deck. “I’m to my bed. I’ll take the dog with me so he don’t go overboor.” This was the ship’s dog, who had of late been following me around like I was a meat bone. Even hard shoving didn’t deter him. He could stand his ground without so much as a baring of teeth.
    I loved animals for the most part but I hated dogs, filthy, wormy creatures. They’d taken a bite out of my rear end often enough in Plymouth, and they were notorious for pinching food from barrows that could have gone into my own belly. Ma Oldham had two hugely fat, bad-tempered lapdogs whose names were Trusty and Ruffles, or Rusty and Truffles, I could never remember which. Neither of them was averse to taking a nip out of my ankle, too short they were to reach my bum. So I was glad to see this one disappear, at least for the moment, especially as he did his business wherever he happened to be. And I kept stepping in it.
    I was still thinking about tempests, about dogs and their villainous ways and their confusion of names, when something sharp sped