Legends of the Vengeance : The First Adventure (9781310742866) by Chautona Havig

current one for this
one—just cut it down a bit. It’d be work, but we could do them one
at a time. We’d just replace the big one, use this as it is, and so
forth.”
    “They’ll need replacin’ before we head west
anyway, Jaime. The lad makes sense.”
    “It’ll only be a few days before we get
there,” Sebastian argued. “Even with bad wind and leaving off the
oars, it would be less than a week, wouldn’t it?”
    “To Formentera? That sounds right. You have
a good sense of time and direction.” Jaime kicked behind his knees,
making them buckle, and pushed him toward the gangway. “Go down to
the galley and see if Filipe needs help with our Spaniard. The man
is touchier than a girl.”
    Dismissed, Sebastian hurried down to the
galley, curious about the man’s injuries but uncertain if he really
wanted to see them. He wasn’t fond of gory sights. He’d seen too
many men lose an eye, an arm or leg—one even sliced in half by
rigging. He shuddered at the memory. Life is gruesome on a
ship, Sebastian mused.
    Moans grew louder as he neared where Mac and
Filipe took turns ripping large and small splinters from the man,
the largest still lodged in the right cheek. After each one, he
took a swig of rum. Mac grinned at the look of disgust on
Sebastian’s face.
    “Our new man is not keen on pain. The rum is
makin’ it a bit more bearable.”
    “Does Papa know he’s drunk?”
    “Aye, I think yer papa is more understandin’
of a man’s pain at a time like this.”
    He turned to leave, but Filipe called him
back. “We will need you in a minute. You’ll sit on his legs so he
can’t move while we take out the big one.”
    “Nooooooooooo!” Hector cried, sobbing now at
the thought of what pain it would mean.
    “It has to come out. Yer ugly enou’ wi’out
it. You wouldn’t want to be frightening the wee ones wi’ it, now
would ye?”
    After a few more swigs of rum and another
dozen protests, Sebastian seated himself on Hector’s knees and
leaned his upper body on the man’s feet. “I’m ready.”
    Mac tied a rope around Hector’s upper body,
holding down the man’s arms and then went to hold his head. “Ok, I
canna hold ‘im for long. Ye be swift about it, man.”
    “On three. Uno, due, tre!”
    Hector’s scream filled the galley, rose to
the decks, and sent men scrambling to see what had happened. Mac
stuffed a rum-soaked rag in the cheek and poured a bit more rum
down Hector’s throat. When the room filled with men, all crowding
to see, he shooed them back again.
    “Ye be gettin’ outta here. Can’t ye see the
man is half-dead? Give ‘im some peace or I dinna ken that I’ll be
inclined to cook anymore today.”
    “That’d almost be a relief,” one man
muttered as he left the room.
    “Ye’d think they didn’t appreciate my fine
cookin’,” Mac teased.
    “Well, if you didn’t try to kill us once or
twice a week, they might not have anything to complain about,”
Filipe shot back, winking at Sebastian.
    “Someone has to keep ‘em on their toes. They
get lazy.”
    Hector groaned again and Mac called back a
few of the stronger men. “Come get this whinin’ dog off my table.
I’ve got some meat to cook before you lot complain it’s gone
rancid.”
    Sebastian watched as they wriggled out of
the galley and carried the wailing man to his bunk. “Sometimes I
think Papa is crazy for taking on these fools. He just makes more
work for the rest of us.”
    “Don’t be criticizin’ yer papa. He’s a good
man, Captain Nicolo is. Takes care of people—helps them when no one
else cares. If it weren’t for yer papa, I’d be a dead man.”
    “And if it weren’t for you, we’d never have
to worry about becoming one,” Filipe retorted. “Get the fire going.
These men want food. It’s been a hard morning with nothing to fill
their bellies.”
    Mac grumbled good-naturedly about people and
their lack of appreciation as he added wood to the stove, poking it
with a small stick. The