Free Scattered Seeds by Julie Doherty Page B

deserve it, but he considered whether he should sell the torc to pay for her fare. He was about to suggest it when the hatch banged open and Thompson thundered down the stairs.
    “McAdams!” He headed straight for them.
    Father met him nose to nose in the aisle, his fists balled and the glint back in his eyes.
    Thompson gave him a shove. “Oh, you’ll fight me, will you? Go on then, lay a single slap on me an’ I’ll ’ave your son in irons afore your knuckles is done fumpin’.”
    Father clenched and unclenched his fists, but said nothing.
    “I ’ear you been belly-achin’ like a little old fishwife. Full fare or not, if I was you, I’d keep my norf an’ souf closed, I would.”
    “Only a coward says naught while good folk suffer. I demand to speak wi’ the captain!”
    “You demand, do you, you baldy, foul-mouthed, Oirish bog-trotter? I’m the law on this ’ere brig. Demand away, an’ see where it gets your laddie ’ere.”
    Father glanced at Henry and said no more.
    “You don’t look like you’re suffering none. I wonder if you’re the filthy jack who broke into the cook’s store an’ stole the rum last week.” He jabbed a tar-stained finger into Father’s chest. “An’ there’s some raisins and apples missing, too. Mayhap those ill-begotten victuals is what’s keeping you ’ealthier than other folk.”
    Father glared. “How could I lift anything from the cook’s storeroom when I’m locked doon here in this filthy hellhole, ye stupid bastard?”
    Henry suffered no shock at his father’s foul language, only delight that he’d put Thompson in his place.
    Thompson, who must have realized the idiocy of his accusation, turned the color of beetroot. He looked at Henry, who stood. “I’ll open that ’atch when I’m good and ready, you understand me, laddie boy?”
    Henry could barely hear Thompson over the roaring in his ears. His fingernails dug into his palms, and he fought the urge to strike the first mate. He couldn’t risk being stripped for lashing; Thompson would discover the torc.
    “Aye, sir,” he said, shaking with repressed fury.
    “Right then.” Thompson spun on his heels and marched away. “The ’atch stays battened down an’ I’ll ’ear no more of it!”
    But the hatch didn’t stay closed. During the fourth and fifth weeks at sea, it opened repeatedly, delivering the dead—including James Patterson—into the fresh air that would have saved them.

Chapter 10
    Henry tossed and turned, seeking comfort and finding none, his hips and shoulders bruised from weeks of lying on the hard berth. No amount of his father’s pleading brought Mary and her things to their berth. Henry wondered if her decision to stay away had anything to do with the English bollocks next to her. Had the lad convinced her that he was of no mean account? Surely, she could tell by his attire that he no longer belonged to high society. No matter how posh he talked, his tatters exposed a father’s condemnation. No gentleman sent his son away in rags without reason. For all they knew, the lad had slit his family’s throats and run.
    “Father,” Henry muttered to his father, who lay next to him, barefooted and stripped to his open shirt and breeches. “Are ye sleeping?”
    “Canny. Too bloody hot.”
    “What do ye make of the lad in the berth next to Mary’s?”
    “Donald? The English fellow? Dunno. Seems like a sound enough skin. Why do ye ask?”
    “Nay reason.”
    Henry stared past his own bare toes to a row of stockings hanging on a line in the aisle. A few hardy women pegged them there yesterday after using precious water and their last bits of soap to clean the berths and launder what they could. Their men—those few still strong enough—spent the same hours emptying buckets and discussing the possibility of an uprising.
    “Father?” Henry picked up the sack that once contained Thomas’s raisins and tossed it against the berth above him. He caught it on the way down.
    “Aye,