Eyes green as the sea and nearly as deep peered up at him. “Every day?” she inquired meaningfully. When he nodded slowly, she sighed and turned her gaze back to the panorama of sweeping liquid slopes and calm surface. “Ordinarily I have no time for landsmen, not even one who knows as much of the sea as yourself. Terious now; ayesh, there’s a man!”
“A fine fellow,” Ehomba agreed, perhaps a shade too quickly.
She noticed, and cut her eyes at him. “Do I make you nervous, herdsman?”
He composed his reply carefully, but sincerely. “Captain, until recently I would not have thought it possible for a flower to survive with only seawater to nurture it. Yet it not only survives, but blooms as brightly as any land-based blossom.”
She smiled. “That’s the difference between you and your friend.” She indicated the longboat from which a chortling Simna ibn Sind and lightning-fast Ahlitah were hauling in all manner of edible fish. “I’ve always preferred the artful to the impertinent.” Pushing back from the railing, she faced him squarely. “I have to go and supervise the repair work. I’ve known many men who, at the drop of a sailmaker’s needle, will extol the surpassing virtues of their home port until a listener’s ears grow numb. When those same men find themselves far from home in strange and stormy waters, they are grateful when a calm and inviting harbor makes itself known.”
He smiled. “Though no mariner, I consider myself an experienced navigator in such matters.”
“Then you should know that when in uncharted seas and hoping for a good night’s rest it’s the smart sailor who seeks a tight berth instead of a loose mooring.” With that she brushed past him and descended to the main deck.