The Shores of Spain by J. Kathleen Cheney Page A

She’d hidden in the closet. It was all her own doing, and she was going to keep her wits about her.
    She glanced into the bag and saw a neatly folded pair of linen shirts on top. She picked up one and shook it out. It would be ridiculously long on her, but she exchanged her dirty shirt for the clean one. She picked up the worn garments and laid them aside, set Joaquim’s portmanteau on the floor again, and neatly made up the bunk. There was no mirror to check her hair, but she located a comb lying on a shelf near the ladder. That must be Joaquim’s. She combed out her tangled hair and braided it.
    If she was going to face the morning, she would look tidy while doing so.
    Once she’d climbed the ladder to the deck of the ship, she stood still for a moment, blinded by the morning sunshine. The light reflected off the water, making it worse. She shielded her eyes with one hand and looked out over the deck. Joaquim and João were hauling on ropes to raise a third sail—the middle one—that billowed and puffed as it slid up the mast. The ship rolled on the water as that sail belled out. Full sails meant good speed on their way to the islands. Well, she assumed that was what it meant.
    This ship had two masts, the one toward the front where Joaquim was, and a smaller mast near the back. The sail in the back was already up. Marina spotted a steam pipe protruding from the deck behind the cabin, but it wasn’t belching smoke at the moment, so they weren’t using the engine now. It was a small steam pipe, nothing like the huge ones on the English steamer she’d traveled on. But she’d heard the engine when the ship had first begun to move on the river the previous morning, so they did use it.
    João’s young wife, Aga, brushed past Marina where she stood with her back against the cabin. The lovely girl paused and appraised Marina for a second, and then walked on as if she saw nothing surprising about another woman on the ship’s deck. Likely Joaquim had warned them about her unforeseen presence. Aga went to the back of the ship and began coiling a rope attached to a huge wet mess of canvas on the deck.
    Marina watched all the activity warily. The wisest thing to do is stay out of the way.
    Once Joaquim and João had finished tying off the third sail, Joaquim came back toward where she stood and eased past her. “I need to check our heading,” he said, and then was gone off to the back of the boat.
    Chill air came off the water, so Marina wrapped her arms about herself. João climbed up the front mast, his curly hair fluttering in the wind. He tinkered with something up on the top of the mast—a lantern. Joaquim called out something from his spot at the wheel,and the ship began to turn, slowly listing to one side. Not enough to alarm her, but Marina watched as the water came closer . . . and then the ship began to right itself again, the sails fluttering as João scrambled down the mast.
    Everyone knew exactly what to do, save her.
    Presently the ship was slipping forward again on the wind, and Joaquim called for her to come back and join him. She sidled along the cabin and slipped under the sail’s boom to step down into the small spot on the deck where he stood. Aga had spread out the wet canvas, and abandoned it to head toward the front of the ship.
    Once the girl was beyond hearing, Marina said, “I didn’t know a yacht would be this small.”
    Joaquim’s eyes danced, but he held in his laughter. “This isn’t a small yacht.”
    Marina wrapped her arms about herself. “I’ve only been on steamers, and they were all bigger than this.”
    “Hmm. What kind of steamers?”
    “Oh, the ferries between the islands, and the freighter I came to Portugal on.”
    His brows drew together. “How did you get from the islands to Portugal? I know there are trading ships, but can you buy passage on one of those?”
    “I think so, but taking the ferry to Amado used almost all the money I’d saved up.” She licked her