The following night, face still throbbing, Martin prepared to go on watch. As he wandered down the deck of the cannon chamber towards the main hatch, he suddenly found himself swept off his feet by the collar.

A deckhand, thick ribbons of tattoos decorating his head and neck, pinned him to the wall by his throat.

'Fresh bastard. Just because you get your face a little cut up, I have to give up a nice bed and a good whore?'

Martin had stared wildly around for anyone to help, but deep in the bowels of the hold, there were only deckhands, gunners and weevils. At best, some of the crew present would have just turned a blind eye to what was happening, but most of them would have wanted Martin to resist or retaliate. They were always spoiling to see a fight.

'Get off me!' Martin struggled.

'Captain's bloody pet.' The tattooed deckhand tightened his grip on Martin's collar. 'Slightest whimper of discomfort from you and the Captain's has us scurrying off with our tails between our legs. Is that it? The Hell is that fair?'

'I-it isn't?' Martin stammered. 'But I-.'

'You're damned right it's not fair. What is fair is that I am paid what I'm due for that whore; she was none too cheap and neither was the bed. It's your fault I had to leave, so it's you who'll have to pay. Now, cough it up, scar-boy. A pound ought to do.'

Martin cursed. Had he not given his last peso to Boatworm, he might have satiated his attacker's hunger for coin. Now, it was hopeless. 'I don't have that kind of-.' Martin yelled as the sailor pinned his head to the wall by his hair, tugging at the roots. He held his hand under Martin's nose.

'Less talk, more coin.' The deckhand must have known he didn't have that kind of money on him - no sailor did. He was just looking for an excuse to blow off some steam. In fact, he seemed to be eagerly anticipating Martin's refusal.

'Leave him be, Ostrid,' a voice had groaned behind the tattooed hand's shoulder.

He turned to see Schleckt resting against an upturned barrel with Jennes, Jacobi and Young. They had halted their game of cups and dice and stared up at the pair in the shadows. Schleckt took out his knife and started peeling the rind off an apple.

'It's no more his fault than yours. If you've got to take it up with anyone, take it up with the Captain.'

Ostrid grumbled, released his grip on Martin's hair and snarling at Schleckt, just as he had reached the end of his coil of apple.

'You think I'm a bloody moron? Captain's fault or not, no one in their right mind would... He'd shoot me on the spot-.'

'So, because you're too much of a coward to face him, you pick on the boy instead?' Schleckt slid the ribbon of red skin into his mouth with a triumphant glint in his eye. 'Have some self-respect, man.'

'I'm no coward,' Ostrid had spat. 'Insult me again and you'll find that out for yourself. As for you,' he turned to Martin, jabbing a finger in his face. 'You'd better have my money next time I clap eyes on you, or I'll take my knife and carve pieces off you to sell by the pound like butchered bacon.' With that, Ostrid had stormed off into the dark of the hold.

Martin, backed against the wall, looked over to Schleckt. The wave of relief that washed over him was broken by the look in the topman's eye. It was a look Martin had seen before plenty of times.

On the street, most of the people that looked down on him would either avert their eyes, or only spare a momentary glance at the cap at his feet before reaching into their pockets and emptying them of a few coins. Occasionally, there would be one who would look at him directly in the eye, and in their glassy-eyed stare, Martin would feel the weight of their pity, a hot brand pressed against his chest which burned away a piece of his soul with every second that passed.

As Martin caught Schleckt's eye, he saw that same glassy-eyed stare, only this time he felt the brand pressing against his cheek instead.

'S-sorry, kid.' Schleckt shrugged. That word was worse than anything Ostrid could have said.

***

Martin wrapped his worn jacket a little tighter around himself and hugged the steaming mug of bitter, black coffee close to his chest. The midnight wind was picking up, beginning to ruffle his mousey hair as he straddled the empty main boom. His eyes wandered out into the pitch black of the sea, a lake of pure night reflecting the moon and a second Scourge riding beneath them. A second Martin stared up from the surface of the coffee rippling in his tankard.

Without wanting to, but compelled by some twist in his heart, his hand reached out towards his face, his twin in the dark water mimicking his movements. His fingers touched his darkened cheek. The cragged skin split just under the cheekbone where a smooth valley of pink, shining scar-tissue was growing like moss between black stitches. As his fingers ran the length of the wound, a flash of steel pierced his thoughts. He flinched, almost toppling over the side as the memory of the sailor's knife hacking into his raw flesh stung him. He lowered his hand, then tucked it under his arm to stop it trembling.

A shivered trickled down Martin's spine as the wind picked up again. Wrapping his jacket tighter around his shoulders, he brushed his scarred cheek in some vague hope that the mark would be wiped away like chalk. When it didn't, he resolved to take his mind off it by burying his nose in his tankard and letting the earthy aroma of roasted coffee beans flood his senses and blot out all other thoughts.

After he had taken a swig of warm coffee, feeling that familiar buzz at the root of his jaw, he rested his head back against the mast. The rock of the ship gently swaying him from side-to-side was easing him down into the realm of sleep when he heard footsteps.

They were not the soft, measured footsteps of someone trying to sneak around; neither were they the fast, clumsy bombardment of panicked running; they were the slow, heavy steps of someone deep in thought.

The light of the moon shimmering onto the deck was broken by a pair of long, slender legs wrapped in ill-fitting boots. A figure, clad in a sailcloth shirt, a leather jerkin and a pair of baggy, brown breeches, ambled across the quarterdeck. Its face was turned towards the sea away as Martin sat up for a better look.

The figure cradled something like a child in its arms, and as it approached the starboard-side railing behind the helm, it sat down and rested the object on its lap. It was only when it let out a deep, heaving sigh, that it turned its head away, the face eclipsed by the moon, a lock of curled red hair springing down and dancing in the dim light.

It was Emily, the tattered blue dress discarded for sailor's rags.

She wore an expression of wavering spirit, her lip trembling and her eyes glassy. She passed a shaking hand over the cover of the book on her lap, the fresh leather page glowing like bronze, the gold letters sparkling back up at the stars. With trepidation rattling her slim fingers, she carefully lifted the cover from the first page. She sniffled as she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt, and as her eyes absorbed the words within, a warm, happy smile appeared on her lips.

'Are you alright?' The words fell out of Martin's mouth before he had time to check himself.

'Jesus!' Emily slammed the book shut and clapped her hand to her mouth. 'Martin? What did I tell you about sneaking up on people?!'

'S-sorry,' Martin stammered, though he was of half a mind to tell her that he had been there first. 'It's just... you looked sad. I wanted to know if you-.'

'I'm not sad!' Emily snapped. She sniffled again and dried her eyes. 'Just thoughtful. It's not polite to interrupt someone thinking. You should be asha-.' Her eyes flashed over to his face, meeting his eyes at first, but then Martin felt her gaze flick over to his cheek. She blanched and her face glowed bright pink in the dark, her lips paling. Swallowing back the words she was prepared to spit in his face, she instead tucked a lock of her hair back behind her ear. 'Well... I-I'm alright. Thank you for asking. And don't worry about interrupting me. I've forgotten it already.'

Martin felt his hand on his cheek again, the warmth he had just managed to reel in suddenly floated away and was replaced by an icy coldness. Urged on by Emily's shame, Martin's fingers traced the increasingly familiar path of his wound. The experience was almost unbearable.

'You don't have to feel guilty about it, you know,' he said for lack of anything else. 'About the fight. It wasn't your fault.'

'Of course, it wasn't,' she folded her arms across her chest and averting her gaze back out to sea. 'You had no right following me. If you hadn't, those men wouldn't have attacked you.'

Martin bit down on the words: If I hadn't, you'd be dead in a ditch.

'You're right,' Martin said, somewhat more sourly than he had hoped.

Martin caught Emily stealing a look at him through the corner of his eye before she gazed back out to the shimmering blue path the moon cast over the water. She tucked another copper curl back over her ear and cleared her throat.

'But... thank you... f-for looking out for me. I never got the chance to... I don't know what would have happened if you didn't... so, um... thank you, I guess.'

Martin felt the flush of warmth return, a lopsided smile distorting his already disfigured face.

'You're welcome, Miss Morton.'

'You can stop calling me Miss Morton like a servant, too. Call me Emily.'

'Um, well... thank you, Emily,' he chewed her name like a strange, unfamiliar morsel of food that had just been offered to him, trying to find the best way to internalize it.

Emily scoffed in genuine amusement, her name on his tongue seeming as foreign to her as it did to him.

Martin found himself chuckling along, though the lurching pain in his left cheek forbade him from getting too enthusiastic. As he soothed his cheek again, the glint of gold glittering from the embossed letters on the front of her book caught his eye again.

'What are you reading?' Martin asked, more to fill the silence as he massaged his cheek than anything else.

'Oh, you know,' Emily answered, just as glad to fill the silence. 'Just something I picked up for the journey. It was all they had, since there was only one bookstore in Nassau not looted for kindling. Thankfully, it happened to be my favourite. The Odyssey translated into English. Father used to read it to me every night to help me fall asleep.'

'The what?' Martin scoffed. 'Say that again.'

'The Od-y-ssey,' Emily drew out each syllable. 'You know? The story about the seafaring warrior at Troy who fights his way home after ten long years at war? Have you never read-?' She cut herself short. Martin flushed pink. 'Oh... I'm sorry, I forgot.'

'It's alright.' Martin smiled, in a sense relieved to be embarrassed about something other than his face. 'So, um... what's it about? A man who sails home for ten years?'

'No, of course not.' She shook her head, mildly irritated but mostly amused. 'It's so much more than that. It's got monsters, and mystery, and friendship, and romance, and it's just...' She almost seemed to flutter as she hugged the book to her chest, rubbing her cheek against its spine. She sighed as she floated back down to the deck.

'Sounds wonderful. You'll have to read it to me sometime.'

'Oh, but it's not a story to just be told. It needs to be lived. Absorbed. It needs to infuse your soul. Become a part of who you are.' She sighed again, this time sounding a little more melancholic. 'That's only really something you can do by reading it. It's a shame you can't-.' There was a glimmer of something in her face, then she broke into a self-satisfied smile. 'Well, here's a thought... I could... always teach you.'

'Teach me to read?' Martin asked. 'You'd really do that?'

'Why not?' Emily turned to face him directly. 'I'm a great teacher, and I'd take any opportunity to share this with anyone, even if it means starting them from square one.' She budged along the railing and patted the railing beside her. 'Come on. It'll be fun!'

***

After two or three near-sleepless nights spent on the weatherdeck flicking through the yellowed pages of the book, repeating the same letters and the same words over and over again, the only thing Martin had felt he'd learned was that Emily's definition of fun was very different from his own. All the time he had spent on duty watching the flat horizon remain flat seemed about as fruitful as Emily's efforts to teach him how to read. Nothing seemed to be going in, and he agonized over how heavy his head felt.

'You're doing really well,' she would say to him every time he grumbled, ruffling his hair then pointing him to the next word. 'What does this say?' After, he would stumble over the word for another twenty minutes. He could tell she was getting annoyed at him, but she hid her impatience remarkably well for someone who Martin believed rivalled Black Hal for temper.

On the fourth day, there was a momentary panic when sails were spotted at the stern, but as the ship drew closer and became a sloop, the Quartermaster announced that she was flying British colours. After that, things seemed to return to normal, though Captain Percival was still on a knife's edge.

Even after the hysteria, Emily still insisted on meeting on the fourth night for more practice. Martin was sure that she was teaching him more for her sake than his, but he didn't complain. The journey was long, and unlike the luxury she had grown accustomed to on the Saint George, there was not much comfort to be found aboard the Scourge, and there was even less to do to pass the time. Boredom was a common disease among sailors, to which Emily was not immune either.

On this night, however, as the little sloop on the horizon grew closer, and a small cluster of sharp-rocked islands burst out of the ocean ahead of them, Martin finally felt as if he was getting somewhere in his reading. He'd mastered a single passage of about four or five lines on his own. Emily had smiled and squeezed his shoulders as she pressed in close to him, then pointing him onto the next paragraph, the size of which punctured his over-inflated confidence.

'"Many...c-cities of men he saw",' He began, pausing between each word as if he were counting them out into a bailiff's hand. '"And learned their minds, many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea, fighting to save his life and bring his... his..."'

'"Comrades", Martin.' Emily rested her chin on his shoulder, sharing his view of the book as he stared intently down at the page. 'Sound out the word piece by piece. Com-ra-de-s. Now, say it all together.'

'Com... ra...de...s. Com... Comrades.'

'Brilliant!' she exclaimed, then tapped the page. 'Keep going, you're almost finished.'

'"...bring his comrades home. But he could not save them from dis-a-st-er, hard as he strove. The re-re-ck-less-ness of their own ways destroyed them all." Did your Pa really read this to you?' Martin turned his head and caught Emily's icy blue eyes, which sparkled like morning frost. 'It's so tricky. How could you have read this at twenty, let alone at ten?'

Emily smiled warmly, tearing herself away from Martin's eyes to gaze with lids half-closed at the book he held in his hand.

'Father found a way to make it live for me, even at that age. He'd tuck me into bed, take out the book, and read to me, acting out every character himself and giving each of them their own voice. In another life, he'd have made a fine one-man acting company. Then, when he'd finish and kiss me goodnight, I would ask him: "Is that how it really happened?" And he would always laugh and say: "One day, you'll be able to decide that for yourself."'

She dashed to catch the tears ready to well up and roll down her cheeks, giving a short sniff before returning her gaze to Martin and offering him a short half-smile.

Martin smiled back.

'He... he sounds like an amazing man, and a great father.'

Emily sniffled and nodded.

'Yes. Yes, he was. Is, I mean. I meant to say "Is".' She blushed and cleared her throat, then rested her head on his shoulder. 'Martin... I just wanted to thank you for everything.'

'What do you mean?' Martin was slightly taken aback. 'I haven't done anything.'

'You've kept me company, and you've stopped me from going mad with boredom,' she giggled. 'And you're doing all of it in spite what your crew think. I've seen the way they look at us when we sit here. I've seen the way they speak to you, like you're not even human. They don't treat you as one of them, do they?'

He was sure she was speaking rhetorically, so he only dipped his head and stared down at his boots.

'It's not fair. You deserve better. If only they'd see that.'

'People like me don't get far on a vessel like this, but it's still the only true home I've ever known. Every family's got their issues, right? Every litter has its runt?' Martin snorted. He turned to her, a smile spread across his face, which hurt a little less than it had done a few days ago. 'Thank you for keeping me company too, Miss... uh, Emily. And for teaching me how to read.'

'It's alright. We've only just started, really,' Emily smiled, brushing the loop of hair that had fallen over her face back behind her ear. 'I had to repay you somehow for looking out for me.' Her eyes wondered over to Martin's cheek again, but before the smile on Martin's face had a chance to vanish into a self-conscious frown, she reached out and put her hand to his cheek, running her thumb carefully down the ridge of the long, deep scar. 'Don't be embarrassed about it. I think it makes you look handsome.' She reassured him. 'Like a fearsome pirate.'

'We're not pirates, we're priva-.'

'Yes, yes. I know all that,' she chuckled. 'Taking compliments isn't something I can teach you. You'll have to learn that yourself.'

As the pair shared a soft snigger, it was cut short by a clap that rolled across the waves like thunder. The sounds of whistling and whooping growing closer and closer.

Martin's eye's widened with horror, thick sweat poured from his brow and gummed up his palms. His heart seized.

'What was-?' Before she had time to complete her sentence, Martin grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her to the deck, his hands over his ears as the broadside gunwale exploded, sending fragments of metal and splintered wood hurtling around them like a blizzard.

His brain rattled inside his skull as a cannonball roared over their heads.