Betrayal by Lady Grace Cavendish

that I was just using a jakes on progress, and at last I managed to do what I had to do.
    When I had got the laces done up again and heaved myself off the plank, I saw Masou waiting for me. “Never, never, never tell anyone …,” I whispered through gritted teeth.
    “And have the Queen clap me in irons, throw me in the Tower, and then take my head off?” Masou replied, chuckling and shaking his head. “Never fear. But I wish you could see your face.”
    We went back to painting in the Great Cabin, with Masou still snorting with laughter every now and then. I don’t know how sailors can bear it, I really don’t.
    A minute later the Boatswain came in and tapped me on the shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “Time for vittles.”
    “I’ve got to clean the brushes first,” I told him. Then I wiped them on the rag I’d been using to rub things out, and looked around for soapy water. The Boatswain pointed to another pot of bad-smelling stuff, so I dipped the brushes in that, and the paint did come off quite well. Once they were clean I left them to dry, and followed him and Masou back onto the deck.
    “Well, he ain’t lying about painting, at any rate,” said the Boatswain to Mr. Newman. “He’s done handsomely on the Captain’s picture. Reckon they’ve both worked hard enough to get fed, now.”
    That was a relief. My stomach was so hollow it was making very strange
squeak-bubble
noises.
    Mr. Newman nodded, so we went down steps and then more steps, down and down to the bilges where the Cook was. He was a scrawny man in a filthy shirt and jerkin and when I said “sir” to him,remembering what Masou had told me, he snorted. “You call me Cook, boy, that’ll do. Squat over there to eat.” He pointed to a space between two beer barrels. Then he slopped something that looked like vomit into two wooden bowls and gave them to Masou and me, along with a hunk of bread each and a big leather beaker of ale.
    I drank my ale down at once, then looked at the stuff in the bowl. Masou was already hunkered down on his haunches, next to a barrel, throwing bread into his mouth. There wasn’t room for us at any of the benches, and all the men were ignoring us.
    “What is this?” I whispered, squatting next to him.
    “Bacon and pease pottage,” he whispered back. “As I am a Mussulman, I should not eat it, for the pig is unclean, but there is nothing else.”
    “Oh.” I looked at it. I don’t think I’d ever had it before. I tried a bit, and found it was very salty and strange tasting, but I was so hungry I ate half of it. Then somebody barged into me from behind and knocked me flying, so the food went on the deck.
    “Watch where you’re going!” I shouted, furious that my bit of bread was now on the dirty floor.
    It was the sullen-looking boy again. “You watchwhere you’re sitting,” he sneered. “You’re in my way.”
    “No, I’m not,” I defended myself. “You just did that on purpose—”
    “You calling me a liar?” shouted the boy.
    One of the men laughed, and tapped his neighbour. “Temper, Tom!” he called. But instead of doing something about the boy, they settled back to watch. Another man put down some pennies, and then another, and I suddenly realized they were laying bets on us.
    Tom lifted up his fist and waved it under my nose. “I’m older’n you and I’m a sailor and you’re not. So you do what I say.”
    Masou could see I was tempted to answer back and elbowed me hard. “Leave it,” he whispered in my ear. “We don’t want to get into a fight.”
    But then Tom kicked Masou’s bowl over and shoved him flying into a barrel!
    “What did you do that for?” I shouted at him.
    “’Cause I choose,” he spat. “’Cause I’m better’n you and that slave boy, and you better remember it.”
    I slapped him hard across the face. How
dare
he call Masou a slave?
    He roared, and then hit me so hard on the side of the face, I fell to the ground. Tom had punched me! Me! A Maid of