“Well then my dear Cindra”, Lisbet clasped her hands as she spoke, a gleeful grin spreading across her face, “I think you and I both know your time has come”.

“But Lisbet!”, Cindra cried with an exaggerated shiver, “it is so very cold outside tonight and here I am with nought but a flimsy nightgown”.

“Would you be so very cruel as to send me out on a night like this”, she battered her eyelids with her most endearing look, clasping her hands beneath her chin for added effect.

“Very cold my big fat belly!”, Lisbet retorted.

“Oh!”, Cindra cried in mock dismay, “oh how can you say such terribly crass things. I would not have expected it from a lady such as yourself. I shall feel ashamed to be seated in your company”.

They could not hold in a snigger at this, thinking about the earlier altercation of the day. That Nyawe really was too much.

“Now Cindra, there is no escaping your duty tonight… you have already made every excuse under the sun and it is positively barmy outside this evening. So you better hike up the skirts of that flimsy nightgown of yours and get going around the ship on your pretty little ankles”, she looked down appraisingly, “which are decidedly not swollen and for that very fact you should be exceedingly glad. Oh to run again…”.

“I on the other hand, am going to go inside, rest my dreadful ankles on something soft and watch your progress through the window”.

“But Lisbet!”, Cindra quickly scrabbled around for an excuse she had not already used, “it is so dark. What if I fall and twist one of these pretty little ankles? What will we do if we only have one lovely ankle between the two of us. Someone needs to draw the eyes of the menfolk, else they be continuously focused on the slender ankles of a certain black-haired hussy. And to be honest with you, I just don’t think one will be sufficient”.

“Oh Cindra… truly, you are killing me. Enough with the excuses. You lost the bet. I won. Therefore the end result is you, this ship and three times a nightgown clad run”.

“Beside”, Lisbet gazed upwards, “There is a full moon tonight so I think those ankles of yours are safe”.

“Now my lady, do you think you are up to the task or must I admit that my friend is a coward who cannot keep her promise”.

“Now, now Lisbet, don’t be too hasty to bring out such words. There is not a doubt that I am braver than most, I simply had a few concerns that needed to be dealt with. Do I not look like I am up to the task”.

She paused, lifting her arms in the air in mockery of their husbands posing before an arm wrestle, “Can you not see these bulging biceps”.

“Yes dearest, but I don’t expect you to walk on your hands so what use is a bulging bicep to me”, she giggled as Cindra began to grab a the hem of her nightgown, “No no! Put your skirt down, I am sure you have strong thighs, you are already indecent enough as it is without displaying any more skin”.

“Now off with you and I don’t want to see you again until you have been thrice around the entire ship”.

Cindra began an awkward run down the stairs hearing Lisbet’s giggle behind her. Laugh as she may Cindra was a Baroness and she would run like one. Unfortunately her short stature and the lack of a corset to hold in her jiggly bits were making it a little more awkward than she had anticipated.

Also the waterlogged floorboards were really quite cold under her barefeet despite the warmth of the spring evening, meaning that she felt disinclined to leave them there for too long. This had an undesired effect on turning what would have been a graceful gallop, into a clumsy trot.

She wondered what Garrick was doing. Probably in the galley drinking again. She would wake up after some dreadful dream about his dead sister to find him snoring, stinking of ale. She was so involved in scowling that she wasn’t paying attention as she ran up the stairs and she almost ran into a shadowy figure leaning over the railing.

A large portion of the shadowy figure suddenly detached and she heard both a female and male gasp. Then Alexis and Nyawe were standing before her with sheepish grins.

She stood fixed to the spot in shock. She and Lisbet had whispered many things about Nyawe but they had never thought of her and Sir Hwratar. In fact they had never had any proof of their imaginings at all and so, she realised, this was a moment to be savoured.

“Oh… oh your Ladyship”, Alexis said still unconciously gripping the arm of the steward’s wife, “How fortunate you are here”, his gaze wandered downwards to the buttons along the front of her nightgown, “taking some exercise in your… err… night attire”.

She stared haughtily at him until his eyes moved back up to hers, “I… I was just trying to help Mistress Elmvarn. She… she has something in her eye”.

Nyawe tore her arm from Alexis’ grasp and began to rub furiously at her eye for effect, “Yes.. ow.. it’s really hurting. I can’t think what on earth it might be”.

Cindra desperately tried to keep a straight face and not come up with helpful suggestions as to what might have accidentally lodged there. They stood before her, faces flushed, hair dishevelled, their eyes wide in the moonlight. It really was too perfect.

“Do you have any suggestions”, Alexis asked with a winning smile.

Cindra pretended to consider for a moment while he shifted feet awkwardly.

“Why yes Sir Hwratar. I have always thought that perhaps in such moments, the application of one’s tongue to the mouth is perhaps the least useful method of removal of the offensive object. You might have better luck asking Goodwife Cade for help”.

She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively although she was unsure they could see it in the moonlight, probably a good thing on second thought since she suspected she may have looked ridiculous.

“I’m sure she will try a different method. Lord knows how many times the tongue-in-mouth procedure has been employed without a significant result. But really you weren’t to know that it was out of fashion”.

She turned on her heel, scampering down the stairs and onto the lower deck. When she was out of site, she nigh exploded with pent up laughter, leaning against a mast for support.

Really it was too much, to watch them floundering before her, to have her revenge against that woman who had flirted so outrageously and openly with her husband.

She laughed until her sides ached and she was bent over, clutching at her shaking belly. She couldn’t wait to tell Lisbet. But first she had to make it twice more around the ship.

Arwaduhn, Elmvarn, Hwratar, Tadhgar