Free The Hell of It by Peter Orullian Page A

instantly to his son. Malen hadn’t been able to afford to send the boy to lessons of any kind. Not even the new schools opened by the League, which accepted anyone for a two-plug tuition. After Marta had gone to her earth … he’d struggled.
    â€œI can work for less,” he offered. “Please, Captain, I’ll take part of my pay in fish.”
    Lowell gave a wan smile. “You already do, Malen. It’s how I’ve kept you working as long as I have.” He paused. “I know you have a son … I’m sorry. When the fishing picks up again, I’ll take you back. I have hope that the spring season will come with full nets.”
    â€œI can work for fish alone,” Malen countered.
    The captain shook his head. “I’ll need every pound weighed for market, and that wouldn’t be right, besides. Your work deserves compensation. I’d feel the cheat.”
    Malen stared back, his panic and desperation mounting. He’d made only one promise to Marta when her womb had continued to bleed well after Roth had been cleaned and swaddled.
    See that he grows up right, my love. I want him to be honest and fair. I want him to work hard and follow his heart. I want him to be like his father.
    She’d reached up a cold hand and caressed his cheek. He could no longer remember how long his love had lived after giving birth to their son. An hour. A day. A week. It all blurred together now.
    The only grace he felt was that she couldn’t see how he’d failed her request. He worked and lived in the Wanship slums along the wharf. And though he hadn’t the courage to ask his son, he felt sure the lad had begun to beg and hustle— wharf games , they called it—with the alley kids he called friends. Roth was only ten. Dear abandoning gods.
    Malen got down on his knees, a sharp pain rising in his bruised bones. “I beg you, Captain. Please. I’ll do more for less. I’ll prepare the bait. I can move the catch to market for you. Tell me what I can do.”
    Captain Lowell looked across his small desk at him, his eyes apologetic. Before he spoke, he scanned his ledger one last time. “The excise … I’m sorry, Malen. I can scarcely afford deckhands. I’d take you on there, but every hand’s got to turn twelve nets an hour or I’ll lose my ship. Your net days are well behind you.”
    But Malen heard little of his captain’s explanation. He was seeing the man he’d just passed moments ago. The Leagueman. It was the League that had pressured the mayor to impose the new levies. And helped enforce them. He bristled with anger and confusion over it. The League liked to be seen as a champion for the wharf-poor. Mostly, their reform efforts meant taxes for men like Captain Lowell. Malen’s hands clenched into fists. What they all needed was another Cutlass Sea—a storied revolt of the sailors and fishers that had given So’Dell its realm mark.
    â€œThat isn’t the end of it,” the captain said, drawing his attention. “I don’t even have coin for your last day’s labor.” A note of shame crept into the man’s voice. “I’ll ask you to take fish for payment.”
    Malen looked down at his hands, the skin still puckered from so much time in the wash pail. His fingernails held grit and fish blood. He saw only his failure to make good use of his hands to provide for his son. Not simply because the captain had no work for him, but because the best he’d been able to do, in these later years, with these hands … was scrub a deck. And he’d known (even if he’d never admitted it to himself) that he couldn’t raise his son doing this thing.
    I’ve failed you, Marta. What do I do now?
    *   *   *
    Malen stared down into the bowl of mash he’d prepared for supper. Across the kitchen table from him sat his son, head bowed and eyes shut,