1 - CASPIAN

Content note: Contains frequent strong language, sensual (not explicit) scenes, tobacco use, medical emergencies, blood and injury, violence and drowning peril, and references to death.

1

CASPIAN

The woman standing in my infirmary disliked me before she even introduced herself.

“Unbelievable,” she said. “Using surgical instruments to pick a lock.”

I worked the little brass catch again.

Captain Arseil's confiscation box was a bastard to open.

He had bought it in Tacitra after the old one proved insufficiently secure against men like me.

“What is in the box?”

“My property. Cigarettes.”

Her mouth tightened.

“You are a physician!” she shouted.

“And a grown-ass man.”

The lock clicked.

I lifted its lid to retrieve my cigarettes.

My forceps had finished their criminal duties, so I dropped them into a tray marked NOT FOR PATIENTS.

Her attention settled on the tray.

“Go on. Find another damn reason,” I said.

Outside the porthole, Port Shimmer shone in the morning sun. Pale stone houses climbed above the harbor, their balconies crowded with flowers and clean laundry.

A pleasure boat drifted past under striped awnings. The Galleon’s damaged foremast creaked overhead.

The Iridescent Sea had tried to take the ship apart three nights ago. Fourteen years of carrying cargo through Saltwake had made the old ship stubborn. The captain aboard it was worse.

I'd been enjoying a breezy morning until this woman came aboard wielding a tablet.

“Your name?” she asked.

“You boarded my ship without knowing it? It is Doctor Caspian Agare the Second. Caspian will do.”

“I will decide what will do.”

“All right, Barnacle.”

Her eyes narrowed behind rectangular spectacles.

“I am Doctor Kiarla Dimini, and you will address me as such. The civic health office has asked me to assess your medical stores before the Galleon returns to service.”

“Holy shit. I just figured it out. Wait, don't tell me. Feiramerian?”

“Arigan, to be exact. And the profanity is unnecessary.”

That explained the tablet, the shiny coat, and the insufferable way she lengthened her sentences.

Her brown hair was twisted into a tight-ass knot at the back of her head. It suited her. She wore tiny pearl earrings. They were beautiful. Those did not suit her.

I caught myself looking at the skin beneath her earring. Had a brief, filthy thought about putting my mouth there, then made myself look her in the eye.

She set a folded document on my table.

A temporary practice permit with the port seal on the front. It even included the local supervisor’s signature.

I had been hoping to send her away for lack of one of those. Feiramerian doctors had a habit of arriving with empty sample cases and leaving with Saltwake in them. Blood, tissue, somebody else's recipe.

They called the last one standardization.

This one had gone to the trouble of doing things properly. Legally and with the correct signatures. How tedious.

“I am here for a six-week study of waterfront injuries,” she said. “This inspection is an additional assignment.”

“Please go on. I’m having a lovely day with you around. The longer, the better. Why not?”

“Your ship will remain in port until the discrepancies are corrected.”

“Our foremast's broken. We weren't planning to sail, ma’am.”

I made sure to draw out the last word.

“Medical clearance can take longer than repairs, Agare. Particularly when the physician is obstructive.”

There it was. A beautiful little threat.

What a goddamn nuisance.

“My patients live,” I said.

“Some might prefer a higher standard.”

I stopped smiling.

The passage door swung open.

Naero, the deckhand, stood in it with one hand against the frame. Nineteen years old, all elbows, and capable of making a bad idea sound good.

Today he couldn't stand straight.

“Doctor,” he said. “Think I need to sit.”

I crossed the room at once.

“Good thinking. You ought to try it more often.”

His skin was hot. Sweat shone along his neck, but his lips were cracked, and his pulse skipped under my fingers.

Kiarla put her tablet down.

“How long?” she asked.

“Since last night.” Naero swallowed. “Thought it was the drink.”

“Boy, you best not have been drinking from my stash.”

He tried to laugh. His knees buckled instead.

We lowered him onto the cot together.

“Any injury? Anything unusual to eat?” Kiarla already had an instrument ready.

“Scraped my hand unloading crates. Needed coin. Washed out the blood at the old pump house.”

“Which tap?” I asked.

“Yard one.”

He turned toward the washstand.

“Dr. Caspian, why's the floor moving?”

His toes curled as though he were trying to find a grip on wet boards.

“You're on the cot,” I told him. “Nothing's moving under you, son.”

“I feel strange.”

Kiarla took his uninjured wrist. “Focus on me, Naero.”

The bowl on the washstand rippled.

The Galleon had not moved at all.

I covered the bowl and shut it in an empty compartment across the passage.

When I returned, I left the infirmary door open.

Naero stopped trying to pull his feet beneath him.

“Same yard supplies our washbasins,” I told Kiarla.

Her instrument gave an alert.

“Severe fluid loss,” she said. “That much perspiration cannot account for it.”

I pressed a dry cloth into Naero's scraped palm. It had been wet when he arrived. Already his breathing sounded easier.

“Keep it dry,” I said. “Stay with us.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Caspian, boy. The captain’s uglier. You're not so ill that you can get away with actin’ stupid.”

Kiarla ordered clean fluid from the sealed medical stores. I went and got it.

She had placed her case where it wouldn't block the door, opened only what she needed, and begun asking questions that mattered.

Despite our professional arrangement, I still disliked her.

That didn't mean I had to be stupid about it.

“Where are you?” I asked Naero.

“Silver Galleon.”

“Who owes you three days' wages?”

“Captain Arseil.”

“Excellent! Remember, the asshole will take advantage of you if you lose consciousness.”

His mouth twitched.

Kiarla stared at me, then at the boy's steadier pulse, and let the joke pass. I thought she was going to say something brutal to me for that one!

I looked back at Naero.

I'd seen something like this once before.

A net-mender who came aboard thirsty enough to drink a barrel and kept insisting a finger-deep puddle would swallow her.

We took her inland, treated the fluid loss, and she recovered.

Three months later she stole my shirt after a night I did not regret.

Entirely separate business.

I hadn't been her doctor by then, and she certainly wasn't behaving like a patient.

I'd never found out what made her sick. That bothered me now.

“Dry linen,” I said. “Upper cupboard. Leave the laundry sacks shut. They came from the quay.”

Kiarla opened the cupboard.

“You have a bottle labeled Burn.”

“Disinfectant. Proper label's on the back.”

“The proper label should be on the front, Agare.”

“First, I want the deckhand well. We will discuss it later, Professor.”

“Address me as Doctor. You are so rude.”

“Help me save him now, and bill me for the title later. How’s that sound?”

She handed me the linen with a look that could strip paint.

I ought to have found it discouraging.

Naero tried to apologize when I changed the cloth beneath his hand.

“For what?”

“Making trouble.”

“You haven't the strength. Save it for when I discharge you.”

His gaze went to the open door. He was listening for the captain, worrying about work while his pulse behaved like a drunk falling downstairs.

“No one's sending you back out,” Kiarla said.

She shifted the treatment line clear of his elbow before he could bend it. I reached for a folded towel to support his arm and found her already holding one out.

“This?”

“That'll do.”

She watched his face while I tucked it into place. The reader sat beside her, where she could see it without turning away from him.

Naero swallowed twice. I reached for the basin.

“Turn toward Caspian,” she told him. “I'll keep your arm steady.”

He retched hard enough to shake the cot. She didn't let the line pull. I held his shoulder until he could breathe comfortably again, then wiped his mouth.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

“Expensive word, that. You're using up your supply.”

Kiarla passed me a fresh cloth.

“Tell us before you try to sit,” she said. “We can help.”

He nodded. Her voice had changed since she'd come aboard. Still firm, but there was room in it for him to answer.

She checked the basin against her reader’s measurements and recorded what he’d lost.

No wasted movement. No lecture while my hands were full.

Damned inconvenient qualities in a woman I wanted off my ship.

For forty minutes, we worked. She measured his fluid loss and adjusted the treatment. I watched his breathing and kept him answering. Neither of us had to explain a thing twice.

By the time his pulse settled, Arseil was at the foot of the cot.

“What happened?” he demanded.

“He's been working at the lower quay. Don't let anyone else near its wash water.”

“Don't let them do what? Am I to nail them to the deck?”

“Start by paying them more. Then they won't need to work elsewhere.”

“I pay my crew well, Caspian. You should know that better than anyone.”

“Wonderful. And here I am, am I not?”

“And stop stealing your goddamn cigarettes back,” the captain whined.

Kiarla looked between us.

“Are you serious? Which of you is in command?”

“I am Captain Arseil,” he said.

“I am Doctor Kiar—”

“Caspian, why was I not informed about this woman?” said Arseil.

“Don’t be fuckin’ rude, Arseil. The lovely doctor is introducing herself, and you interrupted her! How uncouth of you.”

Kiarla stood up straight and re-introduced herself with a look of pure ice.

“My apologies. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” the captain said.

“Is this ship full of jackasses? I don’t particularly like you either,” she said bluntly, looking him in the eyes.

Damn, she had fire in her blood. Regardless, she still grated on me more than I admired her.

“Anyway, Barnacle, Captain Arseil is in charge of the ship,” I told her. “As you know, I am the one that keeps its crew alive.”

“I won’t hesitate to fire you again, Caspian. You’re on thin fucking ice,” he snapped.

“Captain, won’t you please make yourself useful and call on a deckhand to sit with Naero? He needs supervision.”

Arseil looked at the boy. The argument left his face.

“I’ll go find someone.”

There were a million things we could fight about that would make me open a bottle of rum and enter a tiny fit of rage.

Naero was not one of them.

A harbor messenger walked into the treatment room with a note for Kiarla. She read it once.

“The waterfront dispensary has another patient. Same symptoms of thirst and dizziness. She cannot remain conscious.”

I took my coat from the hook.

She caught my sleeve on the steps.

“You recognized this, didn’t you? Why didn't you tell me?”

“It was a similar case. Improvement inland and no confirmed cause. I didn't have a name for it then. Still don't.”

Her attention shifted to the scar beneath my left eye.

I turned before she could study it properly. Old habit. I didn't mind people looking at most of me, but she was different.

“Your case, Barnacle. Bring it with you. We’ll need it.”

“If you call me that in front of a patient, I will make you regret it.”