Using every remaining drop of stamina, Manfried held on to the gaff with both arms, Hegel limping as fast as he could to his brother’s aid. The woman went berserk on the end of the pole, her left arm skewered by the barbed hook. She dangled in the water up to her waist, her other arm pulling on the gaff to drag Manfried down with her. Then Hegel reached them and grabbed his brother around the waist, tugged him away from the edge. Eyes tightly shut from her surprising weight, Manfried opened them only when he heard her flop over the edge of the railing.

Her bright lips again parted to release her song, her soft eyes meeting his hard ones, but Manfried could not hear her music over his own scream. Having finally pummeled Barousse unconscious, Lucian, Raphael and Giuseppe looked up and joined the Grossbart chorus while the Arab began laughing the desperate, howling laughter of the deranged. Below, Sir Jean dropped the box he held, bursting gems and coins and jewelry onto the floor beside the concussed Rodrigo. Martyn stopped praying and withdrew a bottle, guzzling what he thought might be his last taste on Earth.

The thing writhing on the bow resembled the woman they had brought through the mountains from above the navel, but even here differences were legion. Her small teeth had lengthened, sharpened, and multiplied, several rows of them glittering in the moonlight as she snapped at them. Several gashes had opened on either side of her throat, and water bubbled out of these as they descended upon her with pick and mace. Their weapons tore through the webbing between her fingers, smashing her hands down into her face and chest. Her blood proved red, thankfully, but they kept screaming, mashing her skull and driving her ribs out through her back.

Even with her song forced back down inside her she flopped around, her sinewy body slapping on the planks. The smooth skin of her stomach appeared translucent where it met the scales coating what had been her legs, the new and shimmering eel-like appendages tapering to splayed fins. This abominable region of her body continued twitching even after they used hatchets to remove her arms and head, and Manfried carved out her heart with his knife.

Giuseppe and Lucian retreated below, sallow and shivering, under the pretext of locking up the mutinous Arab in the storeroom. Raphael swayed aimlessly on the deck, gibbering to himself in his native tongue. A sound slap from Hegel set him a little straighter, and he assisted in transferring her prodigious remains to the hold lest they reform in the again-dark and calm sea and she return to life revenge-minded. In the hold they found the dazed Leone, who passed out as soon as he saw what they carried. They dragged him out and shoved her in, then bore the sailor under.

Sir Jean had eventually calmed after the ship stopped creaking and swaying, and realizing he had struck Rodrigo unconscious, surreptitiously made his exit. Finding Martyn dozing on the floor, the knight liberated him of his bottle and righted one of the chairs. Giuseppe and Lucian found him there, and after shoving Al-Gassur into the storage room without noticing the still-prone Rodrigo they picked up their own chairs and word-lessly joined him in drinking. Worrying he had perhaps erred, Sir Jean did not mention his exploits in the storage room, and the sailors did not mention their adventure above.

Manfried came down next, and Hegel lowered Leone until the sailors could catch him and set him in a bunk. Raphael remained on deck securing Barousse’s arms and legs with rope after he had determined the captain lived. Binding the man’s bleeding forearm, Raphael looked up to see Manfried and Hegel emerge with bottles under their arms. The Grossbarts advanced on Raphael and sat on the loose rigging between him and Barousse.

“Didn’t make those too tight?” Manfried asked.

“Tight secure.” Raphael stared at the tilted bottle at Hegel’s mouth.

“But not tight enough to wring new harm out a him?” Manfried insisted.

“Mine ownself is capable adept of tie a man,” Raphael snapped.

“Tone, boy,” Hegel growled, handing him his bottle.

“Mine thanks.” Raphael tipped the bottle.

“Wise a you not usin a blade on’em,” said Manfried. “Weren’t no fault a his, and what made him that way’s dead, so’s when he awakes he’ll be right in the brainpan again.”

Manfried could not know how wrong that statement would prove. They made no pretensions at working the ship, and had they run aground the Grossbarts would not have known it. The three put a powerful drunk upon themselves, Hegel insisting to the others that the worst was yet to come, for his bones told him and they never lied. On this matter, the Grossbart had the gift of prophecy.

Al-Gassur slept in a corner, his mind reeling through subterranean oceans with his new brother and their nameless wife. Barousse and he were now closer than kin, as wedded to one another as they were to their mutual intended. Her song bonded the three of them eternally, and in the darkest depths with worlds of ocean above, and that mounted by worlds of earth to further block out the light of sun and moon, Al-Gassur knew he had finally found a home where he would not be judged for his appearance.

Awoken from his dreams by shouting, Al-Gassur rolled about chortling with sleepy laughter. Having pressed an ear to the door the previous night he knew what they were about above deck, and fully approved of the plot. The ruckus brought Rodrigo back around as well, the young man’s head pounding and every fiber of his body sore from the involuntary sleeping posture Sir Jean’s fist had granted him.

Blearily gaining his feet, Rodrigo demanded to know what had transpired the previous night but the Arab responded with a fairly convincing imitation of Rodrigo’s deceased brother and Al-Gassur’s former master, Ennio. Making for the smaller man to wring the truth from him if need be, Rodrigo startled Al-Gassur into action. The shouting above them grew louder, Rodrigo intent on his purpose, but even with one leg his quarry eluded him.

“They’re hanging them!” Al-Gassur finally hooted as the two danced about the tiny room. “Death to the Grossbarts! Death!”

“What?” Rodrigo paused. “What does Barousse think of this?”

“Bound and beaten! Those bastards killed her and now they’ll kill him and then me!”

“The Grossbarts?” Having spent the night crumpled on the floor, Rodrigo could perhaps be forgiven for not intuiting the events that had transpired after Sir Jean knocked him out.

“Death to the betrayers! Justice meted out for their crimes! For Six-Toed Pietro, cut down in the street! For my brother Barousse and for our wife! Justice!” Al-Gassur closed his eyes, and Rodrigo resisted the urge to strike the former tenant of the Barousse stable.

“Shut your mouth or you’ll wish the Grossbarts had gotten you,” Rodrigo spit, but his dramatic exit was foiled by the realization that the door was blocked from outside. Cursing, he drew his sword and hacked at the door.

Hegel’s dreams cautioned him of what came next but when he opened his eyes and mouth to warn his brother the treacherous mate Giuseppe had already slipped a noose around Hegel’s neck and the crippled Leone lay on the hold, a crossbow pointed in Hegel’s face. Sir Jean had gotten a loop over Manfried’s head and Lucian’s cutlass poked the Grossbart’s belly. The Brothers exchanged a glance but did not move, recognizing the nervousness of their captors as potentially lethal. Now that it had occurred, being taken while asleep on the deck of the ship struck them both as being a rather embarrassing and avoidable circumstance.

Raphael lay bound and bleeding beside Barousse, the conspirators’ plan to enlist him thwarted by Sir Jean’s wrath. The knight insisted the young man would remain loyal to the Grossbarts as an excuse to soundly beat him, and hopefully worse. The nooses stretched over the crossbeams, but all agreed it would be better to humiliate the Brothers first.