Emmaline wandered the length of the ship, following the ropes with her eyes and trying to fathom what each one did. Most gold wizards were also artificers of a time and she had to admit that she found the system to be rather fascinating. So adsorbed was she in the activity that she all but walked into a group of sailors idling on the forecastle deck between the timbers that secured the bow sprit.

"Easy there lass," one of the men called, "Don't want to go tumblin' overboard." One of his fellows snorted and leaned back to blow out a stream of pipesmoke from between his lips.

"Let her fall I say, bad luck to have a woman aboard," another advised.

"Or really good luck," a lean looking man with a pronounced hatchet of a nose, thrusting his hips forward lewdly to the approving cackles of his mates. Emmaline rolled her eyes.

"How you gentlemen pass the time below decks is none of my business," she told the thespian archly. Color stole into the fellows cheek as his mates roared with laughter and slapped the decking with approval of the jest.

"Why don't you come over here and keep us company darlin'" the first man who had spoken invited.

"Want to know what a real man is like?" he leered.

"Why do you know any?" Emmaline asked sweetly and it was the other sailor's turn to hoot and jeer at their fellow.

"You are wasted on that limp Araybian," one of them observed. The fact that Amal and Emmaline were sharing a cabin had not gone unnoticed among the crew, who, naturally enough, made assumptions. Emmaline knew his effette satrap role wore on Amal and besides she did like to tease.

"I'm the one who should be limping," she suggested slyly, "he hasn't given me a wink of sleep in days." That comment bought them all up short. Until the leader scoffed.

"Please I walk by their every night for my watch and haven't heard nothing," the man quibbled.

"He gags me with a silk scarf first," Emmaline explained, a comment with ensured that several sailors trousers were obviously tented when Amal climbed up the stairs to the forecastle.