“Mister, you’re a captain, right?”
When I went to the harbor late that morning, the boy approached me as though he had been waiting for me. His grimy face made it hard to be certain, but he could not have been older than fourteen. His hair was a mess, his clothes were little better than rags, and his shoes were so worn out that his toes were nearly visible. He was the same boy who had begged from me.
“Are you thinking of hiring anyone, by any chance?”
I had come only to check, without any great expectations, but the boy managed to pique my interest with a single sentence. Part of it was his use of the word hiring, which did not seem like something that should come from a child’s mouth.
“Why did you ask if I was a captain?”
There had been a vague guess behind the boy’s question. I had neither docked a ship at the harbor nor recruited sailors at the Trading Post. How had he deduced that I was a captain?
“Uh, I saw you buying a lot of swords at the weapons shop this morning.”
“That sounds more like the kind of thing a low-ranking worker would do, not a captain.”
“But you chose the swords.”
I had picked out the cutlasses. Since they were secondhand, I had to sort through them for good ones.
“Lower-ranking people follow orders. If someone tells them to buy something, they buy it, but they don’t choose it. Choosing and deciding are the roles of people above them.”
“I chose the swords. Is that all? I could have been a mercenary.”
“Oh. I also saw you carrying a whole lot of things needed to clean a ship.”
Had I run into the boy then, too? Since I barely remembered it, I must have seen him only in passing.
“You have a ship, and you’re someone who makes choices. But you did minor work yourself that you could have had sailors do. So I thought you were a captain short on crew. Or a fussy captain who has to choose everything himself before he’s satisfied. Even if it was the latter, coming to the harbor at this time means you’re looking for sailors.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as suspicious? What if I’m a pirate?”
“If you were a pirate, you wouldn’t have given me alms.”
He remembered even that? The boy’s face and clothes were dirty, but his eyes were full of life. More than that, every one of his judgments had a basis. He was not merely clever.
“What’s your name?”
“Lorenzo. Lorenzo Bernal.”
“I’m Howell Crave. As you said, I’m a captain. And I’m looking for crew.”
I held out my hand to Lorenzo. He stared at it, seemingly quite flustered, then hurriedly rubbed his palm against his clothes and shook my hand. His hand was very small.
“Lorenzo, would you like to try working as a trainee on my ship?”
“Ah. I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’ll work. I’m aiming for a higher position.”
It was exactly as I had heard at the tavern. Some sailor, apparently thinking that things had to be quite difficult for a child to want to go to sea, had tried to hire Lorenzo as a trainee sailor. Lorenzo had refused.
“A higher position? What position?”
“Navigator.”
A navigator. The head of a ship, the one who determined its course. Looking at Lorenzo, I felt as though I were seeing myself from a few days ago. Lorenzo’s eyes sparkled.
“Why a navigator?”
“Because they make a lot of money!”
“……What?”
“Money!”
I had expected an answer about romance, ambition, or dreams. Instead, Lorenzo gave an answer that did not suit his age at all. Looking again, his eyes seemed to gleam gold.
“Hmm. How much do you need?”
One thing puzzled me. Why had Lorenzo, who displayed his unusual qualities so openly, become an object of ridicule? The reason was not simply that he wanted the high position of navigator.
“Two gold coins a week!”
I did not know whether it was right to describe a child this way, but Lorenzo was mad about money.
***
I did not dislike honest people. The absurd wage he wanted had left me numb for a moment, but I reconsidered. What mattered was something else. Was Lorenzo demanding a value that matched his ability?
‘It’s true that navigators earn far more than other sailors. That’s because they have that much more to do.’
A navigator was known as the busiest position on a ship. But it was hard to believe that Lorenzo had the ability to carry out all those duties. What navigators needed was not the ability to reason, but specialized knowledge, and that knowledge was generally accumulated with time.
‘Even so, two gold coins for a kid.’
From what I had heard in Semeln, an ordinary sailor earned about one gold coin a week. Lorenzo was demanding twice that amount, an enormous sum. Of course, navigators held a high position among sailors and deserved high wages, but things were different for an inexperienced child who was just starting out.
‘This is interesting.’
What amused me was that Lorenzo did not seem to be a child incapable of judging things properly. He had observed the smallest details and correctly realized that I was a captain looking for hands. Would a child like that place so little value on himself?
“No one will hire you, right?”
“……That’s true, but.”
“Have you never thought of negotiating over yourself?”
To prove his value, he first needed a place to prove it. I wondered whether Lorenzo understood that. He answered,
“But I need money.”
“If you don’t get hired, you won’t earn that much in the end.”
“Maybe it was my mistake to look for an adventurous captain in a little village like this.”
I answered his provocation with one of my own.
“Or did you come to this little village because it didn’t work out in Semeln?”
Lorenzo’s eyebrows twitched upward. He pretended to stay calm, but the look on his face showed that I had struck a nerve. Perhaps to hide it, he changed the subject.
“I may be young, but I’m really good at finding routes.”
“You’re good at finding routes? What use is that on a sea without paths?”
I thought Lorenzo would not be able to answer my question easily. But this impudent boy answered without the slightest hesitation.
“A navigator’s job is to find a route on a sea without paths.”
There was not a trace of unease in his voice. After thinking for a moment, I spoke.
“Then do you want to find a route for me?”
“I’m not your navigator, though.”
“You said two gold coins a week, right? Then would this be enough to hire you for a day?”
I took Lorenzo’s hand and placed two silver coins on his palm. But Lorenzo did not close his hand around them.
“What I need is a captain bold enough to hire me for good.”
“I’ll hire you for a day first, then decide whether to hire you for good. You said choosing and deciding are a captain’s job, didn’t you?”
I added one silver coin to his palm. Lorenzo’s golden eyes wavered. When I placed a fourth silver coin there, he swiftly snatched them up.
“Where shall I guide you?”
“Not now. Let’s meet in front of the farmland on the outskirts of Lindana after the sun sets.”
Lorenzo raised a question.
“What if I run off with this money? Wouldn’t it be better to give it to me then?”
Four silver coins were not a small sum. Considering Lorenzo’s character, with his single-minded pursuit of money, he really could run off with them.
“Then you’ll lose the job.”
If Lorenzo was only that kind of person, then it would not be Lorenzo’s greed that was to blame, but my own judgment. Lorenzo looked at me strangely before hurrying away.
***
I loaded large items onto a handcart and transported them. They included oak barrels full of water and simple furniture to place in the captain’s cabin.
‘I don’t know whether I’ll hire Lorenzo, but I should at least prepare furniture for one crew member.’
Even if Lorenzo proved his ability and I hired him, I thought he might see my ship and run away.
‘No matter how much he acts like an adult, he’s still a child.’
Even so, I did not want to offer him an empty cabin if I hired him, so I furnished one cabin, cramped though it was. As I moved the items, the time we had agreed on drew near.
“All right. Let’s go.”
With Salkenia draped over me, I headed for the farmland where I was to meet Lorenzo. But Lorenzo did not appear even after I waited for several hours.
[Captain.]
“What is it?”
[I suggest that we return now.]
Lorenzo did not appear until midnight drew near. The logical conclusion was that he had run away with the silver coins. But I stayed where I was.
“I said we would meet after the sun set. The sun hasn’t risen yet, has it?”
The clouds hid the stars, leaving only the moon to shine dimly. I stood alone in the darkness, brightly lit by my lantern, so Lorenzo could not have failed to find me. He did not appear until nearly dawn.
“Mister, I’m sorry I’m late.”
“Hm? It’s fine. I’m the one who said we should meet after the sun set.”
I had not named an exact time because I assumed Lorenzo would not have a clock. Even so, it was right to give him a warning.
“But.”
“Yes, mister.”
“Right now, I’m not ‘mister.’ I’m your captain. From now on, for one day, I’m your captain.”
“……Yes, Captain.”
“Good.”
Salkenia had been the only one to call me Captain, and having one more person call me that made me feel good. I headed into the forest with Lorenzo. Lorenzo, who had followed me without a word, asked a question.
“Have you been waiting all this time?”
“Well, I’m here because I waited.”
“I’m really sorry. I tried to come early, but something minor came up.”
There were still-wet mud stains on the hem of Lorenzo’s clothes. It did not look as though he had simply fallen. It seemed something had happened, but he did not seem inclined to explain it.
“You already apologized. I said it was fine, too. So you don’t have to keep dwelling on it.”
I truly was not very concerned, nor did I think it was something for which he needed to apologize. Yet Lorenzo was clearly sorry.
“If you’re truly sorry, then work enough to earn your day’s pay.”
“Yes!”
Once I gave him a way out, he seemed much more at ease. We walked down the forest path, which had become familiar to me, and arrived at the marked rock. When I showed him the darkness that swallowed light by putting the lantern inside, Lorenzo went pale.
“……That’s the Unknown.”
“That’s right. You know about the Unknown, too?”
“I’m trying to become a navigator. Of course I do.”
I, who had wanted to become a captain, had heard of it for the first time only after coming to Semeln.
“I’m going to enter it.”
“You’re going into the Unknown?”
Lorenzo’s eyes shifted uneasily, as though he thought it was not a very good idea. I agreed with him.
“You can find a route where there is no path, but it’s impossible to find a route when you can’t even see it.”
“I can show it to you for a moment.”
“For a moment? So you’re asking me to find a route in that time. The Unknown doesn’t seem to accept light, but you can show it to me?”
“There’s a way. But it really will only be an instant. You’ll have to find the route and memorize it. Can you do it?”
Lorenzo did not ask how I could show him the path. Instead, he hesitated briefly, let out a long breath, and said,
“I’ll do it. I’ve already been paid, so I can’t back out now.”
“Good. Then follow me.”
After saying that, I held my breath and climbed down through the crevice with Lorenzo. Then, as before, I used Salkenia’s ‘Hiding’ to light up the darkness for a moment. The dimly lit path was revealed only briefly. Soon, darkness returned to its place.
“Did you see it? I can show it to you again in a few hours, though.”
Salkenia’s ‘Hiding’ could not be used consecutively. In other words, to check the path again, we would have no choice but to wait or return the next day.
‘No matter how smart he is, it would be difficult to memorize a complicated path accurately after seeing it only once, and only dimly, for a few seconds.’
I did not have high expectations, so if he was not sure, I was prepared to turn back without hesitation. But then.
“I memorized it all.”
Lorenzo was certain.