The Wind and The Dark Guard-Chapter One

One

"The Wind Whore, we call her" Sammael stood on the dock, his cloak an ashen black. It was a windless day to be docking the Wind Whore. Her great bleached sails and hemp rigging lay heaped on the deck, her crew scurrying from Port to Starboard then back again hauling gangline.
"Lord Barrow wanted this ship sailing yesterday" Sammael said, looking down at the man. The sailor was big, but not so big as himself, he was well over six foot, yet only part way through his fourteenth year. His skin was dark and smooth whereas the sailors was red and sanded with freckles, a few creased lines of skin crossed his face as dried leather. And his nose was large, hooked and ugly. "M'lord there is no wind" the sailor tried to explain
"Then we'll row" Sammael began before another's voice cut him off.
"His lord Barrow will have to wait, like every other man" a girl had managed to eavesdrop on their conversation, she was small with a common face and clothes befitting a deckhand more than a lady, the sailor's face became furious and redder as he turned to scold her.
"The Lord will have what he asked for, yet I did not hear him asking for you" he raised a hand, rough as ground beef.
"Is she your daughter?" Sammael asked turning from them to face the sea, azure and emerald. And orange and ruby too with the setting of the sun.
"No m'lord" the sailor hesitated, taking his hand away of the girls face "a deck hand's daughter, a bastard too, sired on some minstrel's wife"
The sails were hoisted into the air. "She's not yours to discipline, sailor, just as I am no Lord" it vexed him, the word lord, it vexed him because that word was everything he hated, yet everything he yearned to be.
"Sorry" the man swallowed in an effort to refrain calling him lord. "You use the words is all, the words of lords and ladys".
"If my words make me a lord, every drunkard should be crowned king and that girl would be a bastard, and not some poor wretched child"
With that the sailor gave him a nod and left, the girl too, slinking off quietly below deck.
The sea was all the colour of milky tar when they finally set sail, the moon large on the horizon.

His people had been men and women of the sea once, their skin as dark and beautiful as his own.
They had made great ships of wood, pale as bone, their cities carved from marble and embellished with shells the colour of pooled crimson and purple.
Every boy and every girl was made to carve an oar from solid oak and row deep into the belly of the sea for two weeks before returning, only then was she a woman and he a man.
The sea was their home, their salvation and wrath. Yet it was also their doom.
Now his home was the Barrow fields deep within the burning lands, the home to the burnt king. A boy of age with himself.
"So if I'm not to call you Lord, what am I to call you?" The girl appeared at his side.
"Sammael" he replied stiffly.
She gave a droll "ohhhhh" then laughed "no last name then?"
"No last name" he was curt and gruff through gritted teeth.
"Are you going to ask me my name?" She had a smug smile moored to her face "or is chivalry not a thing in the castles of lords and ladies?"
"Ok" he said facing her "what's your name?" her questions were intended to vex, and they were working.
"Merilla" she replied happily "no last name, just like yourself"
He smiled to himself and his frustration seemed to drown, she may be born common, but that wit was not.
"You should be careful with that tongue girl" he still bore a grin "many lords will not take it kindly".
"It's never kind to take someone's tongue, and I'm as old as you" she had a smile full of teeth "though you said yourself, you're not a lord".
She was the girl of sorts that would displease lord Barrow. Derisive, insolent and insubordinate. Sammael wondered at the idea of them meeting.
"Would you like to come with me when we land?" He asked, "once in lord Barrows hands, this vessel will be no place for a woman"
She gave him a look "there is always a place for a woman on the Wind Whore" she snapped
Barrow meant to use it for a troop transport galley, his lord had been moving man after man to the pirate isles for a year now.
He hadn't thought of it before, but those men could be restless, a month at sea without their wives and with nobody to stop them. Merilla would have a bastard child in her before long, and those men wouldn't let a babe be evidence of a rape. No, she would be murdered and not one of these sailors would do anything.
“What is there here that would make you stay?”
“No one knows the water like me, that means something here, regardless of what i have between my legs” her eyes held a sullen blue gaze. “What could you possibly offer me, are you going to make me your wife?”
“No” he managed, falling over his words “but it won't be safe here, soldiers will board and they’ll kill you, maybe not at first. But after a thousand men have been through here, i promise you that one will have slit that throat of yours”
“If I’m not to become your wife, what will happen to me? That’s if i decide to come”
He sighed, “There's plenty of work in the kitchens, as a maid or servant, maybe you’ll serve my lord’s daughters”
She didn't look pleased “Sounds dull”
“Sounds safe” he said. It would be dull, a man could be a warrior and venture the world. A lady could leave her lands, once, maybe twice a year. A servant girl would never leave. “Think on it, its a week's sail to the Dark Guard”