His grip was so strong that it paralyzed, but he did not for the moment attempt to go further. Scream? Would she be heard above the rocking wind? “No,” she said, “no. Ser Brog will hear. The Captain.”
“It is the watch to daybreak. No one aboard will ever know.”
“No, no, I will not,” replied Lalette, (feeling all her strength melting), though he did not try to hold her hands or to put any compulsion upon her but that of the half-sobbing warm close contact, (somehow sweet, so that she could hardly bear it, and anything, anything, was better than this silent struggle). No water; she let a little moisture dribble out of her averted lips into the palm of one hand, and with the forefinger of the other traced the pattern above one ear in his hair, she did not know whether well or badly. “Go!” she said fierce and low (noting, as though it were something in which she had no part how the green fire seemed to run through his hair and to be absorbed into his head). “Go, and return no more.”
The breathing relaxed, the pressure ceased. She heard his feet shamble toward the door and the tiny creak again before realizing; then leaped like a bird to the heaving deck, night-robed as she was. Too late: even from the door of the cabin, she could see the faint lantern-gleam on Tegval’s back as he took the last stumbling steps to the rail and over into a white curl of foam.
A whistle blew; someone cried: “A man lost!” and Lalette was instantly and horribly seasick.
II
“I will tell you plainly, demoiselle,” said Captain Mülvedo, “that if it were not for Ser Brog saying how he saw with his own eyes that this young man moved to the rail without your urging, I should have been most skeptic. As things stand, I must acquit you of acts direct. As for others, as employment of the Art, they are a matter for a court of Deacons, and since you are bound to Mancherei, you’ll be beyond such jurisdiction.” He stared at her gloomily. “As captain of this ship, and therefore judge in instruction, I must ask you to keep your cabin until we reach port.”
Lalette looked at the moving gullet of the first mate as he stood by the Captain beside the bed, and even this sight seemed to make her the more ill. Said Brog’s voice, dry as a ratchet; “Aye. You have my word for it. The little demoiselle never touched a hand to him as he went over. But he came from her cabin.”
“No more rehearsing of things known. We know all except what she will not tell us,” said Mülvedo. (Her body ached all over from lying in the one position.)
“Aye.” It was Brog again. “Yesterday he was all quick with life, maybe a little hasty, but a kindly, helpful young man, and now the fishes are tearing pieces of his guts out.” Brog’s face wrinkled in what might have been a smile, had there been any mirth in it.