But Shawn was not at all angry. "I say, you cannot share in prizes, but while aboard you will be fed and clothed like the others, and for this perhaps you might make some return in labor, if only for Artemis' sake?"
"I suppose I must, as a captive slave, if I wish to live. But I will do no act of piracy, I will do no violence to anyone except in defense of my life, and I will escape you when I can. I believe any slave has that privilege."
"Then I'll require of you no act of violence, only the labor of a foremast hand—can I say more? You have my word on it. And tell me something—have you ever spoken in this fashion to any man before?"
"I never did. I never had cause."
"Knowing quite well that by a lift of my finger I could have you put to death? Human life is nothing to these men, you know. And there'll be muttering a-plenty because you haven't signed."
"Knowing that, of course."
Shawn's hand swung out and gripped Ben's upper arm, not with intentional cruelty, Ben guessed, but he could feel the nerves of his forearm going numb. "Ben, Ben, do you not also hear a voice, sometimes behind your shoulder as it were?—saying now for instance, 'Resist old Shawn, resist him even if you die for it!'" Shawn shook him impatiently. "Is there not such a voice?"
"I don't understand you."
"Tell me the truth!"
"I hear my own mind—heart, conscience, whatever you wish to call it. It serves me as well as it may, and I listen to it."