The Lady Machinist (Curiosity Chronicles Book 1) (12 page)

“How is it that you were never taught to sew?”

“My mother tried to teach me. I just never learned properly. I was better at making clocks in my father’s shop.”

Her answer gained a scoff from Malcolm. “Can you at least thread a needle?” He made use of a crate as a chair.

Lydia found similar seating and gathered her new set of tools in her lap. After four attempts, she had the thread through the eye of the needle.

“Good.” Malcolm’s tone was unconvincing. “Here’s what we’ll do. The first sail has a tear near the bottom row of seams. You’ll need to make a diagonal stitch to reinforce it. See?” He showed her the work he already started.

She gazed at the cross pattern of stitches until she lost their beginning and endpoints. “Are you sure you want to entrust me with this?”

“Can’t say I do, but the crew has their own share of the work. It leaves just you and me.”

Lydia plunged into her task, remembering to knot the thread first. Once the first seam was done and Malcolm issued no objections, she made progress on the sail’s tear, pulling the thread tight with each stitch.

“No. What are ye doing, lass?” Malcolm’s sudden cry made her prick her thumb on the needle.

“Mending the hole in the sail?”

“You’ll pucker the canvas that way. Make smaller stitches, like so.” He showed her his handiwork on a different sail. “Maybe I should wait for Rhys to finish work in the engine room. He could do this.”

Despite the captain’s absence on deck, there was still no avoiding him. Lydia broke from mending to scour the deck and noticed a man was missing. “Where’s Nikolaos?”

Malcolm’s vision was fastened to the needle and thread that he weaved expertly through the tough canvas. “You’ll have to ask the captain.”

“Is Nikolaos seasick again?”

“I said, ask the captain.” Malcolm’s voice sharpened.

She sat, bewildered by the quick return of Malcolm’s bad temper. All she did was inquire of her unwelcome travel companion.

Malcolm resumed his work. The deck was quiet save for the sounds of boards being hammered. Lydia got the ill sense that something unscrupulous transpired after she went to bed last night. Some crewmembers considered her presence onboard to be bad luck. Maybe they thought the same of Nikolaos, since he was her associate. What did the crew do to him?

#

Rhys had been up since dawn. After checking on O’Neil and visiting the cargo hold to confirm nothing was damaged, he went to aid Smythe with the unclogging of the engine.

“I have most of it done.” The engineer apprentice brought his attention to a tangle of kelp, dead fish, and ocean debris heaped in a putrid-smelling mass on the floor. Smythe stood in front of a disassembled lower half of the engine, parts gathered in tidy piles along the wall.

To Rhys, that sight was worse than seeing the refuse. “How much time did you spend taking apart that engine?”

“Three hours, but it won’t take as long to get it back together,” Smythe promised with the buoyancy and chipper spirit of his twenty-three years.

“Let’s be sure of it. O’Neil is still recovering from that head injury.”

That snuffed some of the flame of confidence from the apprentice’s youthful fire. “I’ll get the engine back.” He hit the structure, and sand fell to the floor in wet clumps. “A good bit of that gumming up the rotors. Must have picked it up when the ship anchored in Aspasia.”

Rhys and Smythe spent the next two hours digging into and hurling insults at the engine. The machine refused to relinquish its store of kelp, hanging onto stringy bits of it that broke off when they attempted to pull it from between the rotors. Every time they brushed sand from it, more got caught between the crevices. Rhys made mind to suggest the COIC’s engineers design a better filtration system on their next line of ships.

Rhys wiped his brow on his sleeve. “I’ll finish up. Come back to reassemble the engine after midday rations.” He wished he could tell Smythe to rest the full day, since his work proved to be the most exhaustive within the past twenty-four hours. But every hand was needed if
The Enlightened
was going to make the journey home.

Smythe reached the top of the stairs. “Should I tell one of the men to come help you?”

Rhys flicked sand from his fingers. “Lady Dimosthenis would be the better choice. Women’s hands are smaller. She’d have this engine cleaned before any of us could. She’ll also help you put it back together.”

“Should I knock on the navigation room door?”

“I’ll see if she’s indisposed.” After last night, Rhys intended to give Lydia her distance, but necessity called for them to be together in order to get the engine repaired. Once they reached New Britannia, she’d have all the space she needed away from him. The notion left a sour feeling in the pit of his stomach as he followed Smythe to the top deck.

The late morning sun heated the deck and the backs of the men as they repaired the splintered boards. Smythe ran off to find a shaded corner to rest. Rhys filled a cup with water from a standing cask and drank his fill of the lukewarm liquid. His empty stomach gnawed in protest.

Finley crossed Rhys’ path before he reached the quarterdeck. “The navigational equipment is working again.”

“Good. Did you find our heading?”

The navigator hesitated to answer. “We veered off course.”

“How far?”

“Some thirty knots from the Balearic Islands. You can thank the storm winds for that.”

“Then we’re still a good week’s journey from our destination if the weather and machinery agree with us.”

Finley nodded. “How is the engine?”

“Still getting it operational. Was Lady Dimosthenis in the navigation room with you?”

“No, she and Malcolm are repairing the sails.” Finley directed Rhys to the flurry of white canvas partially obscured by the broken mast. “I don’t think it’ll do much good. The wind isn’t strong today.”

Rhys knew his navigator and bosun didn’t get along. Finley’s remark indicated they had another tiff. “Until we get the engine working again, it’s worth the attempt. None of us want to be caught in the doldrums.”

Rhys left Finley and found Lydia outside the navigation room, swathed in a mountain of sails. Malcolm sat across from her, equally shrouded. Rhys watched Lydia as she jerked her right hand in the air, carrying with it a slender thread. The thread drew taut and snapped.

Malcolm groaned. “You broke it again.”

She huffed. “I told you I’ve no business sewing.”

“You pulled the thread with too much force. You’re using a needle, not driving a nail,” he clucked at her. Rhys bit his tongue to keep from laughing.

Malcolm removed his gully knife from his belt and gave it to Lydia. “Break the seam and start again.”

Rhys intervened before Lydia could do more harm to herself. “If your pupil can tear herself away from her mending, there’s another task we need her for.”

Lydia stopped removing the thread and glanced upward. Her eyes were bright in the sunlight, the irises rimmed in deep gold. “Does it involve needlework?”

“No, but it requires a woman’s touch. The engine needs unclogging and none of us have fingers small enough to complete the task.”

She looked at Malcolm.

“Go.” He waved her off, grimacing at her crooked stitches.

She politely thanked him for the sewing lesson and returned his knife. In the midst of removing the sails from her lap, she stuck her finger with the needle. “Ouch.”

Rhys chuckled again. She heard him and shot a scathing look as she applied pressure to her index finger.

He addressed her when they went below deck. “I checked the cargo hold this morning. The automatons seemed to have weathered the storm, but you’ll need to determine any damage.”

Lydia nodded, her face neutral. Did she forget about last evening already?

They stopped at the cargo hold and Lydia inspected the automatons with great care, checking their metal plating for rust and their wires for corrosion. “You’re right. They don’t seem damaged. But the windup model needs to be repositioned.”

Rhys glanced at the automaton, where it leaned a little too far to the left. “I’ll fix it later. We need to get the engine running as soon as possible.”

She threw the canvas back over the automatons. “To the engine room, then.”

“Yes.” His voice turned stilted and mechanical. Was this the way it was going to be between them for the next week or more? The awkwardness was stifling.

Lydia picked up a brush when they got to the engine room and proceeded to scrub sand from the engine cylinder. “I was told to ask you of Nikolaos’ whereabouts.”

“I separated him from the crew.”

She stopped scrubbing. “Where is he?”

“He’s still alive and on the ship.”

“No, that won’t do. Something took place last night after you and I ki—after you left. I would like to know where Nikolaos is, and what transpired to put him there.”

Rhys really should have known that offering a veiled answer would do little to deter Lydia. “He’s detained in the brig for refusal to aid a distressed crewman. He’ll remain there until we reach New Britannia.”

Her eyes challenged him. “His actions were deplorable, but you can’t jail him for that.”

“I won’t let Nikolaos run roughshod over my crew because he has diplomatic immunity. He also tried to go sleep in the navigation room, knowing you were in there.”

Disgust crossed her face, which pleased him. “But what if he tells the COIC what you’ve done?”

“I’ll deal with it. I have a crew to look after.”

Footsteps pounded. Duncan’s voice boomed as he reached the bottom stairs. “Captain, the sails need raising.”

“Malcolm’s finished mending them?”

“Aye, he says we need to jury rig the bowsprit to replace the broken mast.”

A dangerous task, but one Rhys suspected they would have to do if the engine wasn’t operational in time. “Wait until I get there.”

Duncan grunted an assent and turned to go topside.

Rhys stretched his sore back in preparation for the rigorous activity of climbing the bowsprit. “I’ll send Smythe down to help you put the engine together.”

“But—”

“I’ve said all I will about Nikolaos. He stays locked up.”

Lydia brushed sand from the engine with force. “He’s supposed to act as my guardian. This will only worsen things diplomatically.”

“Don’t defend him. I’ve kept you safe, as I promised your father. When has Nikolaos done anything to protect you? ” Rhys stopped as he registered how jealous he sounded. He couldn’t explain the need to guard Lydia from Nikolaos’ influence, but it ran deeper than he could contemplate or dare say to her.

He left her staring after him as he exited for the top deck. Rhys passed through the sublevels, barely glancing at the rooms and corridors still littered with fallen items. He leapt over an empty water cask at the foot of the door leading topside.

On deck, the men waited. He strode towards the toolbox chained next to the longboats and lifted an axe from its contents. “Four of you hold the ropes of the bowsprit once I take it down. Two on each side.”

Thomas did not run to the prow like the other men. He made his way to Rhys instead, still limping slightly on his injured calf. “Captain, is this ill turn of fortune the woman’s fault? The men say it’s magic she wields.”

Being a sailor all his life, Rhys knew all of the superstitions. He even entertained a few of his own upon occasion, but Thomas’s frank question issued to his face was a surprise. “Magic?”

The deck hand bobbed his head in all seriousness. “
The Enlightened
sailed fine and true all the way to Aspasia. Then a week after we leave, things start to happening. Bad things.”

Rhys played devil’s advocate with the weak-minded Thomas. “If you truly think Lady Dimosthenis a conjurer of sorts, why would she risk her own life by causing the ship to nearly go under?”

Thomas tilted his head left and right as though he were earnestly giving thought to the logic.

Rhys marched to the bowsprit. “Enough with these superstitions. That goes for all of you. These old fishwives’ tales are unbecoming for a crew commissioned by the COIC.”

Duncan’s voice rose above the murmurs of the crew. “Not all of us got training in diplomacy.”

Malcolm sniffed. “That’s got nothing to do with keeping a ship afloat. Get to work or you’ll see diplomacy.”

Was Malcolm defending Lydia’s reputation? Rhys wondered. Perhaps she softened up the old crusty sea dog. Why couldn’t she be equally as charming around him instead of arguing at every opportunity?

The amusement that swept over Rhys was replaced by soberness again. “We will complete our mission. There will be no more time wasted with idle talk of bad luck. Is that understood?”

“Aye,” the crew uttered. Duncan and Thomas had the least enthusiasm.

Rhys grabbed a part of the rigging that extended out to the bowsprit. It held taut. He climbed over the guardrail of the prow and gingerly set his feet down on the narrow base on the other side. The ocean churned up a white froth. If he fell, he’d be swept under the ship.

Behind him, half of the crew kept murmuring about omens and witches. He made one coarse shout at them. They desisted and fell back into order.

Rhys held his axe above the heel of the bowsprit. Perhaps the greater danger did not lie in falling into the sea.

Mediterranean Sea, near Balearic Islands

Though Rhys had gone topside half an hour ago, the tension from his last words stayed in the engine room with Lydia. Rhys’ ship, Rhys’ rules. There wasn’t a thing she could do about it.

“Mmph,” she grunted, hefting a large engine rotor off the floor.

“Midday rations.” Malcolm came into the room, delivering her lunch. The steam rising from the bowl smelled almost as bad as the components that clogged the engine.

“What’s the fare for this afternoon?” Lydia asked while attempting to quell a rising in her stomach.

“Salmagundi with salted beef tongue. Best to use the perishable ingredients left over in the pantry before they rot.”