CHAPTER 79: [79] FOR YOUR OWN GOOD

The examination was thorough but hurried, Doctor Reyes moving around Pierre with the cautious efficiency of a man who had learned that speed was often the difference between competence and catastrophe. His hands remained steady despite the slight tremor that betrayed his nerves, his questions clinical and appropriate. He checked Pierre’s ribs with gentle probes, listened to his breathing through a worn stethoscope, examined the healing cuts on his arms with the kind of attention usually reserved for defusing bombs.

But when Valerio shifted closer, leaning against the doorframe with deceptive casualness, the doctor’s breathing grew shallow. His responses became more clipped, each word chosen with the care of a man who knew that the wrong phrase could have consequences far beyond a medical consultation.

"Well?" Valerio’s voice carried the weight of judgment day, smooth as honey but with an undertone that made the doctor’s shoulders tense.

"The patient has suffered significant trauma," Doctor Reyes said, his words measured like a man walking through a minefield. He kept his eyes focused on his leather medical bag, hands busy organizing instruments that didn’t need organizing. "Internal bleeding, severe bruising, possible rib fractures. The healing is... progressing, but slowly. Very slowly."

He glanced up at Pierre, then quickly back to Valerio, as if seeking permission for each syllable.

"And your recommendation?"

The doctor’s eyes darted to Pierre again, a flicker of something—apology? warning?—crossing his weathered features before returning to the shipwright. "Complete bed rest. At least three weeks, possibly four. Any strenuous activity could cause a relapse, internal hemorrhaging, possibly fatal complications."

Three weeks. Pierre felt the walls of the beautiful room closing in like the sides of an ornate coffin. The silk hangings suddenly seemed less luxurious and more like curtains drawn over a tomb. "Doctor, I feel much better than yesterday. Surely a few days would be sufficient—"

"I must insist!" Doctor Reyes’ voice cracked slightly, the professional veneer slipping to reveal genuine alarm. "The risks are too great! Master Valerio, surely you understand the critical importance of complete rest for such severe internal injuries?"

His plea was directed at Valerio, but his eyes kept returning to Pierre with an intensity that felt like a man trying to communicate through a locked door.

Valerio’s smile was radiant, warm as sunlight on water. "Of course! The good doctor knows best! We cannot risk our dear guest’s health, can we? Your recovery is far more important than any minor inconvenience."

The way he said ’guest’ made it sound like ’prisoner,’ wrapped in velvet but no less binding.

After the doctor left—practically fleeing the room with his bag clutched tight and his shoulders hunched like a man expecting a blow—Valerio turned that brilliant smile on them again. "I thought you might enjoy seeing the harbor! Your ship is receiving the finest care, of course, but I know how sailors worry about their vessels. Consider it a brief constitutional—good for the healing process!"

They walked through Porto Veloce’s streets like a royal procession, Valerio at the center of an invisible sphere of deference that bent everyone around him into perfect, choreographed submission. He waved to merchants and craftsmen with the casual magnanimity of a king acknowledging his subjects, called cheerful greetings to children who responded with bright smiles that didn’t quite reach their eyes, dispensed casual orders to workers who jumped to obey with the alacrity of well-trained dogs.

The town was undeniably beautiful—white stone buildings climbing terraced hills like frozen waterfalls, gardens bursting with flowers in impossible profusion, fountains carved from marble that gleamed like fresh snow. The kind of prosperity that came from centuries of careful cultivation, each street and square planned with artistic vision and unlimited resources.

It was also wrong in ways Pierre couldn’t articulate, like a painting where every brushstroke was perfect but the overall composition made his skin crawl. The smiles were too quick, appearing and disappearing with mechanical regularity. The bows were too deep, too rehearsed, performed with the kind of muscle memory that spoke of endless repetition. The laughter was too sharp, too bright, echoing off the stone walls with a crystalline quality that felt more like shattering glass than genuine mirth.

People moved through the streets like dancers following choreography they’d learned by heart, each gesture polished to perfection through countless performances. A merchant arranging his wares with obsessive symmetry. A woman hanging laundry in lines so straight they could have been drawn with a ruler. Children playing games with rules that seemed to change whenever Valerio’s attention turned their way.

The harbor spread before them like a jeweler’s display case, each vessel positioned with aesthetic consideration rather than practical necessity. Ships of every description rode at anchor—sleek merchant vessels with hulls that gleamed like wet obsidian, fishing boats arranged in formation like toy soldiers, even a Navy frigate flying the blue and gold flag of the 47th Branch. All of them gleaming, all of them perfect, all of them somehow diminished by their very perfection, like museum pieces rather than working vessels.

And there, at the main dock, sat the Crimson Sparrow.

Pierre’s heart sank like a stone dropped into deep water.

She was covered in scaffolding like a patient on an operating table, her proud lines obscured by a skeleton of wooden beams and rope ladders. Workers swarmed over her red sails, her mahogany deck, her brass fittings with the organized efficiency of carrion birds. They moved with the mechanical rhythm of clockwork, each man focused entirely on his assigned task, none of them meeting Pierre’s eyes despite his obvious approach.

"Magnificent, isn’t she?" Valerio’s voice carried the deep satisfaction of a master craftsman admiring his own work. "A ship of her caliber deserves nothing less than a master’s touch. I’ve taken the liberty of assigning my very best team to her restoration."

"What restoration?" Raven’s voice was dangerously quiet, each word dropping into the conversation like stones into still water. "She was in good condition when we arrived."

"Oh, my dear child!" Valerio’s laugh was like thunder rolling over calm water, deep and resonant and somehow threatening despite its warmth. "The naked eye misses so much! A vessel may appear sound to the casual observer, but a true shipwright sees deeper. Stress fractures in the mainmast invisible to the untrained gaze, subtle wear in the rigging that could prove catastrophic in a storm, salt damage to the hull that compromises her structural integrity."

He gestured toward the Sparrow with the pride of a surgeon explaining a delicate operation. "Nothing immediately dangerous, of course, but these things have a way of becoming fatal problems at the worst possible moments. Better to address them now, in the safety of our harbor, than to risk disaster on the open sea."

Pierre watched a worker carefully remove perfectly good rope, examining each strand with the intensity of a scholar studying ancient texts before replacing it with rope that looked exactly the same. Another man polished brass fittings that already gleamed like captured sunlight, his movements slow and deliberate as if each stroke of the cloth required divine inspiration.

"How long?"

"For such meticulous work? Three weeks, perhaps four depending on what we discover as we delve deeper into her bones." Valerio’s hand landed on Pierre’s shoulder again, heavy as an anchor and twice as inescapable. "But please, don’t worry about the expense! Consider it a gift from one sailor to another. A proper welcome to our little family."

"You’re too generous," Alyssa said, but her voice carried the hollow ring of someone reciting lines from a play she’d never auditioned for.

"Generosity is the very foundation of civilization!" Valerio beamed at them like a proud father showing off his children to visiting relatives. "Besides, what are friends for if not to help each other in times of need?"

Pierre looked at his ship—his beautiful, perfect, utterly trapped ship—and felt the weight of Valerio’s hospitality settling around his shoulders like chains forged from silk and gold. The workers continued their unnecessary repairs with mechanical devotion, their movements synchronized and purposeful, transforming the Sparrow into something that would never quite be the same vessel that had carried them here.

In the distance, a church bell tolled the hour with bronze-throated authority, its voice carrying across water that reflected the afternoon sky like polished glass. Porto Veloce spread around them in all its manufactured perfection, beautiful and welcoming and wrong as a smile painted on a corpse.

Valerio’s hand squeezed Pierre’s shoulder with gentle, paternal affection, and his smile never wavered for even a heartbeat.

"Welcome to the family, my boy."