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Gem had woken around mid-day, the babies and her Mistress gone. She found the privy and used it and then went to the deck to try to find her Mistress and take charge of the children. The children were there, but her Mistress had not been.
A few raised words had come from Gem, but the sailor who had charge of the babies would not say where their mother was. Sable had reacted badly to Gem yelling and had started to cry. Ash took up the sound and Gem and the sailor both had a baby in their arms to comfort and quiet.
He had been competent. They had been fed and cleaned, cloths around them but not the little tunics that had been brought. Sable liked the sailor and would make her sharp cry if he went more than a pace away, Gem smiling at the sigh the man had.
Some food was brought to Gem by the sailor she had talked to before, a mug of hot tea and some sliced bread with a sweet jam already spread on it. She smiled and thanked the man, catching that his name was Tom. She took a sip and then looked at the mug and bread.
She had not tasted the aftertaste of the drug until the sip of tea. It was subtle, but it was there. The sailor with the babies avoided her eye. Tom stepped away and into the shade of the lower decks. They all knew that she and her Mistress had been drugged. She put the offered food on the deck and stared at the man Sable had latched onto. »Read More