Pirate By Blood

Chapter 21: Ship

CHAPTER 21

Ship

Jozan couldn’t believe what he had done.

He wasn’t exactly ashamed of it, but there was a feeling inside of him that was trying to tell him something. Trying to explain why he felt this way, what it meant and how he could get rid of these feelings that he didn’t understand.

But he ignored it all. He had what he wanted now, and that was all there had been to it. It had been easier than he had assumed it would be; taking the amulet from Maleen. She hadn’t noticed at all.

Sarah, on the other hand, had.

Yet Jozan had been surprised with her reaction too.

Instead of pointing it out, like she usually would have done, Sarah had just glanced at Jozan as he was taking the amulet from Maleen’s pocket – taking no more interest in it whatsoever.

But, even though it was reassuring that she hadn’t told Maleen about what he had been doing; Jozan had a feeling that it would come back to haunt him sometime soon – that Sarah had seen something in his actions that meant she could get some kind of profit from it.

And, knowing Sarah as well as he did, he presumed that that would be the case.

It was nothing he could dwell on in that moment though. There were bigger, more important issues at hand other than what Sarah was up to. Jozan could only hope that it would be something he could handle.

Maleen had stood and watched as Sarah walked away, amazed and confused at how everything had ended. It had seemed quite abrupt – they were in the middle of an argument and suddenly she turns on her heel and walks away; maybe from defeat, maybe because of something else. Maleen couldn’t be certain.

But the only way she could find out why Sarah had suddenly left would be to follow her and ask her – and Maleen didn’t quite feel up to that at the moment. It was far too much effort in order to find out a small insignificant answer to a small insignificant question. Maleen just didn’t have the energy; or enough curiosity to be bothered by it.

And, as it so happened, she had more important matters on her mind. There were things that needed to be done – decisions that needed to be made – all quite quickly if she could help it.

“So, what do you suppose we do now?” Jozan asked her, as Maleen turned around to face him; about to ask the exact same question.

“I’m not entirely certain,” She answered, leaning against the building next to her. Golden light seeped through the open door way of the structure, “I was about to ask you.”

“I don’t think there’s any point in asking anyone else if we can come aboard with them,” Jozan said, looking about the dock and counting how many people he could see; how many ships that were actually preparing to set off in the next few hours, “What Sarah was saying about payment – I think every one of the captains here are going to want something in return – it’s just the way people are around here – and it’s just not worth the hassle of arguing with any more of them. Plus...from what I can see, there doesn’t seem to be many others who will be making sail soon.”

Maleen looked around herself, and found that, actually, he was right.

“We have no other choice then, do we?” She said, fussing Fido who was sitting by her feet; ready to go wherever he was asked to.

Jozan gave her a confused look, expecting more information.

“I did say that there was a possibility that we might have to be stowaways for a little while,” She said, looking back up at Jozan with a mischievous grin on her face, “It looks like my accusation had been correct after all.”