Read Chapter 22: The Steward's Choice

The whaleboat was half in the water when Harlow crested the pressure ridge. His boots slid on the ice crust, and he went down hard on one knee, the lantern swinging wild in his grip. The flame caught two shapes—one hunched at the bow, the other braced against the hull, shoving.

“Pence.” Harlow’s breath came in white bursts. “Step away from the boat.”

The steward froze. Behind him, the second man turned, and the lantern light washed over his face—Morris, the sailmaker’s mate. The same Morris who had been in the galley when Pence started muttering about the captain’s madness, the same who owed Pence money from a card game gone sour in the Davis Strait.

“Mr. Harlow.” Pence straightened, adjusting his coat with theatrical calm. The lamp swayed between them, and the ice groaned beneath their feet. “You’re a hard man to slip past.”

“You didn’t slip.” Harlow took a step forward. The lantern light caught the whaleboat’s hull—freshly patched, provisioned. A cask of water. A folded sail. “You planned this.”

“I planned to live,” Pence said. “You’re steering us into a dead man’s dream. That smoke isn’t a rescue—it’s a trap. Mercer set it. You’d walk us right into it and call it salvation.”

Morris shifted his weight. His hand drifted toward the boat hook at his feet.

“Morris,” Harlow said, not looking at him. “You going to let a steward hang you for his debt?”

Silence. The wind cut across the basin, and Harlow heard the ice grind somewhere distant. Then Morris’s hand fell away from the hook.

“He said he’d clear my slate,” Morris muttered. “I just wanted to go home.”

“So do we all.” Harlow lowered the lantern a few inches, softening the light. “But you’re not going to make it home in a patched whaleboat across this basin. That ice behind you is closing. You push off now, you’ll be frozen in by morning, and then you’ll walk back to us with frostbit fingers and no boat.”

Pence laughed—a short, bitter sound. “And stay? Stay to hear you confess that Mercer’s alive, that he tricked us all, and still follow your compass into his camp?”

Harlow met his eyes. The truth he’d meant to speak to the whole crew sat heavy in his chest, but here, in the dark, with ice beneath them and open water behind, it came out smaller.

“You want the truth, Pence?” Harlow took another step. “I don’t know what’s in that camp. I don’t know if Mercer is waiting for me or if that smoke is a dozen Inuit who’ll trade us food for nails and leave us to the freeze. But I know the Discovery can’t hold much longer. That leak is gaining. The ice behind us is solid. And if there’s anyone alive out there who can help us—anyone who knows this water—I have to reach them.”

“Or die trying,” Pence said.

“Or die trying,” Harlow agreed. “That’s the choice I’ve made. Now you make yours.”

He set the lantern down on the ice. The flame settled, casting long shadows across the boat, the two men, the ridged snow.

“You can stay,” Harlow said. “Come back to the ship. I’ll speak the truth to the crew tonight—all of it, Mercer and the compass and what I know. You’ll hear it from my mouth, not from whispers. And Morris—your debt’s cleared. I’ll see to it. Pence can’t hold it over you anymore.”

Morris looked at the boat, then at the black water beyond it. Harlow could see the calculation in his face—the cask of water, the patched hull, the thousand miles of open unknown between them and any rescue. Finally, he exhaled and stepped back from the hull.

“I didn’t want to go,” Morris said. “He said you’d throw me off the ship if I didn’t help him.”

Harlow shook his head. “I don’t throw men away. Johansson taught me that.”

The name hung in the air. Pence’s face flickered—something like shame, quickly buried.

“And what if I refuse?” Pence asked softly. “What if I say I’ll take my chances in the boat?”

Harlow gestured at the frozen basin around them. “Then I’ll give you the boat. And you’ll take it.” He paused. “But you’ll do it alone. Morris is coming with me. And I’ll tell the crew you deserted—that you chose a patched skiff over the men who sailed beside you. They’ll remember that when they’re choosing who to trust in the weeks ahead.”

Pence’s jaw tightened. The lantern guttered, and Harlow saw the steward’s hands twitch at his sides—the hands that had once served the captain’s table, that had known every man’s weakness and every secret on the ship.

“That’s not a choice,” Pence said. “That’s a sentence.”

“No,” Harlow said. “It’s a chance. Stay with us, work off what you owe, and I’ll give you a place on this ship. Not as my keeper’s whisperer. As a crewman. When we get home, you walk off with the rest of us, and no one has to know you tried to run.”

The wind shifted. Somewhere behind them, Harlow heard the Bosun’s voice calling across the ice, searching for him. Pence heard it too, and his shoulders dropped a fraction.

“Why?” Pence asked. “Why would you give me that?”

Harlow picked up the lantern. The light rose, illuminating the steward’s face—the hollow cheeks, the fear in his eyes that he’d never let show at the captain’s table.

“Because I’ve spent my life reading charts,” Harlow said. “And I’ve never seen one that predicted a man’s heart. You can be the steward who mutinied, or you can be the steward who stayed. I’m giving you the pen to write the ending.”

Pence stared at him. The pause stretched long enough that Harlow thought he’d lose him—thought the steward would turn, shove the boat into the water, and disappear into the dark. Then Pence stepped back from the hull.

“You’ll tell them the truth?” Pence asked. “About Mercer?”

“Tonight,” Harlow said.

Pence nodded slowly, like a man settling a weight on his shoulders. He reached into his coat and pulled out a small leather ledger, worn at the edges, and held it out.

“Then I’ve got something to give you,” he said. “Every debt on this ship. Every man who owes, and who they owe. Some of them aren’t loyal to you, Mr. Harlow. They’re loyal to Cummings. And they’ve been listening to me longer than you know.”

Harlow took the ledger. It was warm from Pence’s body. The pages were soft with handling, and he could see columns of names in neat, precise handwriting—the steward’s account of every weakness and obligation aboard the Discovery.

He looked up, and Pence was watching him with something new in his face—not fear, not scorn. A kind of wary waiting, as if the steward had just placed his own fate in Harlow’s hands and was bracing for the blow.

Harlow tucked the ledger inside his coat. “Let’s get back to the ship,” he said. “Before the Bosun sends a search party for the both of us.”

Pence nodded and turned toward the ridge. The snow creaked under his boots, and Morris fell in behind him. Harlow lingered a moment, looking down at the whaleboat—still provisioned, still ready, still waiting at the water’s edge.

The ledger pressed against his ribs like a second heart.