Once upon a Spring morn

13

Hazard

In the early-morning light, Captain Chevell stood on the bow of the Sea Eagle and stared at the horizon and brooded. He glanced down at the map in his hands and then called up to the lookout, “Anything, Thome?”

“Non, My Lord Captain,” called down the man in the crow’s nest. “But for Low Island, the sea is empty to the rim.”

Chevell again glanced at the chart, and then strode to the stern and said, “Gervaise, bring her to a course three points sunwise of sunup. Destin, set the sails two points counter.”

As the helmsman spun the wheel rightward, the bosun piped calls to the crew, and men haled the yardarms about. The Sea Eagle heeled over in response to the brisk breeze. As soon as she came ’round, Gervaise straightened the wheel, and the ship now cut a new course through the waves.

Lieutenant Armond stepped up from the main deck and said, “My Lord Captain, what have you in mind?” Chevell sighed. “The pirate Barlou has a long lead on us, and his ship is swift, and even though we are swifter, still he will make port ere we can o’erhaul him. Yet he sails a course to take his ship ’round the Iles de Chanson. ” Chevell tapped the map. “We have just passed Ile Basse, and so the Iles de Chanson lie along the course we now sail. If we fare through them, then we might intercept the corsair before it sails into Brados.”

“But, my lord, isn’t that a perilous course to take?”

“Oui, but it seems the only chance to seize the corsair before it reaches safe haven.”

“But, my lord, what of the legends?”

“Legends?” asked Celeste, as she and Roel stepped onto the fantail.

“Good morning, my lady,” said Chevell. He acknowledged Roel with a nod.

Roel nodded in return, and Celeste said, “Good morning, Captain, Lieutenant. And what’s this about legends?”

“Princess,” said Chevell, “in hopes of intercepting the raider, I have changed our course, and it will take us through the Islands of Song.”

“Ah,” said Celeste. “I see.”

“I don’t,” said Roel. “What are these Islands of Song?”

Celeste said, “Lore has it that Sirenes at times dwell therein.”

“Mermaids?” asked Roel.

“Oui.”

Roel turned up a hand in puzzlement.

“It’s their singing, Chevalier; they enchant men with their songs,” said Chevell.

Roel looked at Celeste, and she nodded in agreement and said, “So the stories go.”

Armond said, “It is told that the Sirenes sit on rocks and comb their long golden hair and sing, and men go mad with desire. Sailors leap overboard to be with them; ships founder; entire crews are lost to the sea, drowned in their own desire, drowned in the brine as well.”

“Why not simply plug up the ears?” asked Roel.

Armond shook his head. “Contrary to an old legend, that does no good whatsoever. It seems the spell of the singing depends not on hearing at all, for even deaf men are enchanted.”

Roel frowned and turned to Chevell. “Then, Captain, is this a wise course to take: sailing among these islands?” Chevell smiled. “Some of what Armond has said is true: the Sirenes do sing, and men, deaf or no, are entranced by their songs. Yet heed: when I was a freebooter, I spoke to a raider whose craft sailed those perilous waters to evade one of the king’s ships. He said the crew was indeed spellbound, but they did not leap overboard. Before they entered the isles, they lashed their tiller, and the course they had set carried them on through much of the perilous waters. When they could no longer hear the songs, they came to their senses just in time to avoid disaster and sailed on. The king’s ship, though, did not think to do this, and so with her tiller unlashed and unmanned she foundered on the rocks and sank. The freebooter who told me this does not know what happened to the king’s crew.”

“Ah, and you plan on lashing our tiller?” asked Roel.

“Non, Roel. I plan on the princess guiding us through.”

“Me?” asked Celeste, surprise in her eyes.

“Oui, my lady, for the songs of Sirenes do not affect the fairer sex.”

“But Captain,” protested Celeste, “I know nought of piloting a ship.”

“Princess, ’tis likely that no Sirenes will be at the isles, but if they are, then we’ll need you to steer. Helmsman Gervaise will teach you what you must know to maintain a course, for there is a rather straight run through the Iles de Chanson with but a single turn; it is shown on my charts and supports what the freebooter said.”

“And you trust this man?”

“Oui, for he was my mentor as I worked my way up through the ranks.”

“And who is this mentor?”

Chevell sighed and said, “Caralos.”

“The same man the pirate captain said is the one who seeks the map?” asked Roel.

“Oui. He is now leader of the corsairs.”

“And he is a friend of yours?”

Chevell shook his head and said, “Not any longer. We had a falling-out when I and my crew all became king’s men. Before we left, I told him what we planned. He became furious and attacked me. I defeated but did not slay him. Instead I bound and gagged him and left him alive, but always have I known that we would meet again, for even in defeat he swore he would kill me one day.” Chevell shrugged. “Perhaps that day draws nigh.” They stood for a moment, none saying ought, but finally Roel said, “Captain, I am well trained in strategy and tactics, and if we do not intercept the raider, then we will need a plan for recovering the chart, for without it the princess and I cannot carry on our own quest. I would have you speak to me of this safe haven where the raider goes. Mayhap I can help in laying out how we will go about retrieving that map should it reach Caralos.”

Chevell nodded and said, “Come, we will go to my cabin, for there I have charts of the isle, as well as drafts of the corsairs’ hold.” He turned and said, “Princess, if you would, let Gervaise begin your lessons now, for though we might not need you at the helm, still ’tis better to be prepared.” The princess grinned and sketched a salute and said, “Aye, aye, My Lord Captain,” and she turned to Gervaise.

As Chevell and Roel stepped from the fantail and turned for the captain’s quarters, Celeste overheard Chevell saying, “Brados is an island with a sheltered bay with a raider town lying along its arc. Above the town sits a high-walled citadel, and in the center of that fortress sits a tower-Caralos’s seat-and that’s the most likely place where the map will be found, assuming the corsair reaches him. . ” They stepped through the door to the passageway below, and the princess heard no more.

“Ahem.” Gervaise cleared his throat.

“Yes, Helmsman,” replied Celeste.

“Steering, m’lady, now, this be the way of it. . ” That evening Celeste and Roel and Chevell sat at dinner in the captain’s cabin.

“Today I handled the wheel,” said Celeste.

“The training went well?” asked Chevell.

“Oui and non: there was a steady larboard wind, and so I had little practice at helming a ship. Even so, I learned much of the way of it. And Gervaise took relief from Helmsman Lucien and walked me the length of the ship, showing me the halyards and sheets and naming the sails and telling me what each one does, Bosun Destin accompanying us and adding a word now and then.”

Chevell nodded and said, “My lady, Second Officer Florien tells me that the wind is shifting to the fore, and tomorrow we will be tacking. That should give you practice aplenty.”

“Well and good, Captain. Well and good.” They ate without speaking for long moments, but finally Celeste ran her fingers through her pale tresses and sighed. “Ah, me, Roel, but the fact that we fled without any gear other than what we were carrying is dreadful. I mean, I need a bath and to wash my hair. .

and I believe I would kill for a comb. Too, I would clean my leathers, but I have nought to wear while they are airing.”

Roel laughed and said, “For weeks on end during the war Blaise and I and all the men, we did not bathe nor change clothes whatsoever. Our leathers became stiff with sweat and grime and other matter. Rank we were, indeed.”

“Nevertheless. .,” replied Celeste.

Captain Chevell smiled. “My lady, I can provide you with salt water to bathe in, and then a small amount of fresh to wash the salt away. As for a comb and clothing, perhaps we can scare up some such.”

“Oh, Captain, I would much appreciate that.” Celeste hesitated a moment and then added, “I will also need a bit of clean cloth for. . hmm. . other needs. Perhaps I will see Chirurgeon Burcet for that.” Concern flooded Roel’s face. “Beloved, are you wounded in some manner?”

Celeste smiled and said, “No more so than other women.”

Roel frowned, and then enlightenment filled his features. “Oh. .,” and both he and Chevell became totally absorbed in cutting up their salted haddock.

Celeste shook her head and smiled to herself and cut at her fish as well.

The following day, dressed in cabin-boy garb, Celeste stood at the wheel, Helmsman Gervaise at her side, Bosun Destin standing nearby.

“The wind, she be blowing straight from the course we would like to follow,” said Gervaise. “But we can’t sail directly into the teeth of it. Instead, we tack on long reaches and run a zigzag toward the way we would go-

in this case, the isles. We are about to alter course-to zig the other way-and head on a larboard tack; to make that change, well, it’s called ‘ready about.’ ” Gervaise went on to explain to Celeste exactly how

’twas to be done. She listened intently and got the general gist of it, even though Gervaise used a plethora of terms- headsheets, jibs, spilling, luffing, aweather, let go and haul, mainsails, foresails, mizzen sails, halyards, helm alee, aback, and the like-most of which Celeste remembered from the lessons of the day before.

When he was finished, Celeste smiled and said, “Gervaise, if what they say about the Sirenes is true, there won’t be men to hale the yards about, and I alone cannot handle the entire ship.” Gervaise scratched his whiskery jaw and said, “Well, if ye were runnin’ on nought but jibs and staysails ye might, though ye’d have to tie the wheel while ye ran fo’ard and adjusted the sheets.”

“Would I have the strength to do so?” Gervaise looked at her slim form. “Well, m’lady, the Eagle’s jibs and stays are quite large and usually require two men on each sheet, but one alone could handle them, though it’d be a strain. Now that ye call it to my attention, I think it’d be too much for a slip of a demoiselle such as you.” Celeste laughed. “Ah, then, Helmsman, we can forget about me dealing with the sails on my own, eh?” Gervaise scratched his whiskery jaw and nodded, and Celeste said, “Still, if we are to-how did you call it, ready about? — let us get on with the doing.”

“Aye, aye, Princess,” said Gervaise, and he glanced at Lieutenant Armond, who nodded to him and the bosun.

“Prepare ready about!” shouted Destin. He put his pipe to his lips and blew a call, and men adeck leapt to the halyards and sheets and waited. And Celeste caused the Eagle to fall off the wind a little to make all sails draw better to increase speed, and then the second part of the maneuver began.

As Celeste learned what she might need to know about helming a ship through the Iles de Chanson, a knight and a former thief studied drawings in the captain’s cabin in the event the Sea Eagle did not intercept the raider.

Chevell shook his head and said, “This outer fortress wall is sheer; my men are good at climbing ratlines, but not vertical stone.”

Roel looked at the sketch. “Yet the walls are scalable, oui?”

“Oui, to one skilled at free-climbing.”

“I am so skilled,” said Roel.

“As am I,” said Chevell. “Valeray taught me back in our thieving days.”

Roel sighed and said, “As he taught his daughter.”

“The princess can free-climb stone?”

“Oui,” said Roel, harking back to the day he had asked Celeste if she would have him as a husband, when they had in fact free-climbed a sheer stone column named the Sentinel.

Chevell made a swift gesture of negation. “Ah, we can’t let her go on such a perilous venture.”

“Captain, do you imagine you can stop her? I know I can’t.”

“No, Chevalier, I can’t stop her either.After all, she outranks me. Do you suppose we can slip away unnoticed?” Roel simply shook his head.

“She is quite a handful, eh?”

“I would not say she’s a handful, Sieur, for that somehow implies I should be her master. Non, a handful she is not, yet headstrong she most certainly is. Even so, she has the skills we need, and I would not try to gainsay her. I love her, Captain, headstrong and all. We are betrothed, and plan to marry when we get back from our quest.”

“If you get back,” said Chevell.

Roel raised an eyebrow, a slight grin on his face. “If?”

“My boy, you are speaking of venturing into the realm of the Lord of the Changelings, a place from which few, if any, ever return.”

The next morning the sky began to darken. “We’ve a storm approaching,” said Lieutenant Florien. “I ween it’ll be upon us by midafternoon.”

“Good!” exclaimed Chevell.

“Good, My Lord Captain?”

“Oui, Lieutenant. It means we’ll be running through the Iles de Chanson in foul weather. I think the Sirenes will not be singing this afternoon and eve.”

They sailed onward, the skies ever darkening, and finally Chevell shouted, “Hewitt!” Cabin Boy Hewitt came running aft. “My Lord Captain?”

“Hewitt, ask Princess Celeste and Sieur Roel to join me in my quarters.”

“Aye, aye, My Lord Captain.”

Hewitt dashed away toward the bow, where Celeste and Roel stood and watched dolphins racing the Eagle and leaping o’er the bow wave, then circling about to leap o’er the wave again. And every now and then, the two caught glimpses of swift swimmers among them-

neither dolphins nor fish, but small finny folk instead, mayhap half human in size. Pale green they were, and some bore tridents, yet they used them not.

“What are they?” asked Roel.

“They are the Couvee de la Mer-the Sea Brood. ’Tis said they often use dolphins as men use dogs.”

“Ah, but they are swift.”

Hewitt came breathlessly to the bow. “Princess, Sieur Roel, My Lord Captain sends me to fetch you.” Shortly, both Celeste and Roel reached the captain’s cabin. Chevell stood at the map table with a chart spread before him. He looked up. “Ah, Princess, Chevalier, good, you are here.” As Roel looked down at the map, Celeste said, “Yes, Captain?”

“My lady, the Iles de Chanson lie dead ahead,” said Chevell. “I will need you standing by the helm.” Celeste grinned and said, “Aye, aye, My Lord Captain.”

“These islands,” said Roel, “what are they like?”

“Ah, formidable: tall, rocky crags, little vegetation, no potable water, but for rain collecting in hollows. Not a place for man or beast.”

“But fit for Sirenes,” said Celeste.

“Oui, though only sometimes are they there.”

“Then let us hope this is not one of the times,” said Roel.

“Indeed,” said Chevell. “Yet if any are nigh this day, I deem the oncoming storm will drive them into the depths.”

“Is that likely to happen?” asked Celeste.

Chevell shrugged, and then tapped the chart. “I would show you our intended route.”

Celeste glanced at Roel and then looked at the map.

“These are the islands: a long chain stretching some hundred sea leagues or so.”

“Hmm. .,” muttered Roel, “there must be a thousand here.”

“More like twenty-three hundred,” said Chevell. “A veritable warren with rocks to hole a hull and tricky winds channeled by the crags. Yet the Sirenes are the greatest danger.”

“Are they that deadly?” asked Celeste.

“Perhaps not, though the tales say they lure men to a watery grave.”

“I thought your onetime mentor said none of his crew leapt overboard.”

“Aye, he did. Yet the king’s ship foundered, and those men probably drowned. . or died of exposure.”

“I see.”

Chevell pointed at the depicted islands. “Here the archipelago is narrowest; see how it necks down? It is the quickest way through, and a fairly straight run at that, though there is a larboard turn needed”-he jabbed a finger to the vellum-“right here, a total of three points to port.”

Celeste nodded but said, “Oui. I see. But only if the wind is favorable-astern or abeam-yet if head-on. .?”

“Then we’ll come through here,” said Chevell, “and the turn will be a single point larboard.” He traced the alternate route. “But at the moment, the wind is off our larboard stern, and not likely to shift greatly through the narrow part of the chain.”

“Captain, did you not say the winds therein are tricky? Are they not likely to shift?”

“Oui. But we will run mainly on the topsails, for they are up where the air is less affected by the isles themselves.”

“Ah. I see.”

“And though I don’t think we’ll need you at the helm, Princess, before we enter the chain, we’ll set all the sails for you to get us through in the event we do get entranced. With the sails fixed-no men to hale them about and take advantage of the shifts in the air-it won’t be the swiftest run, but it will get us through.” Celeste nodded and said, “Captain, what if the wind comes about such that it’s head-on out of the turn?”

“Then you’ll need sail this way,” said Chevell, tracing a third route. “Three points to starboard, and then bring her back on course right here. But heed: you’ll need to make that decision before reaching the larboard turn; else we’ll founder on these shoals.”

“I see. The blue lines indicate shoals?”

“Oui.”

“Oh, my, but there are so many through this. . what did you call it? An archipelago?”

“Oui.”

“Captain,” said Roel, “who made this map?”

“Women sailors in small crafts, Roel.”

“Ah.”

Celeste frowned. “Then why not carry some females aboard every ship, Captain?”

“Ha!” barked Chevell. “My lady, having one woman aboard is somewhat of a strain on a crew. Can you imagine what having an entire bevy would do?”

“Pssh,” said Celeste, but made no further comment.

There came a tap on the door, and Hewitt entered bearing a tray with three mugs of tea. “Beggin’ your pardon, Captain, but Cookie said you would be needin’

this.”

“Ah, my thanks, Hewitt. Thank Master Chanler for me.”

“I will, Sieur.” Hewitt scurried away.

As she took up her tea, Celeste said, “Well, then, Captain, tell me the landmarks so that I’ll know when to execute the turn, as well as those if the wind is unfavorable.”

“Well, my lady, you’ll need to be counting islands, first this one and then. .”

In midafternoon, the wind running before the storm shifted to the larboard beam, the crew shifting the sails in response.

“Will we have to tack?” asked Celeste.

“Mayhap, m’lady,” said Lieutenant Armond. “Though

’tis now on our beam, should it come ’round a bit more, aye, tacking we’ll need do, and we’ll approach the cluster by another route.”

“So the captain said,” replied Celeste.

The wind strengthened, the gusts now bearing spatters of rain forerunning the oncoming tempest. Hewitt came darting, bearing an armload of slickers. He peeled off the top one and, glancing at Chevell, he gave it over to Celeste. “My lady.”

“Merci, Hewitt.”

Then the cabin boy doled out the other slickers, Captain Chevell first, Lieutenant Armond second, Roel next, followed by Lieutenant Florien, then Bosun Destin, Helmsman Gervaise, and finally himself. The captain smiled at Hewitt’s rankings, but said nought.

“My Lord Captain,” said Armond, glancing at Celeste, “given the storm, the darkness, and the isles, is it wise to hazard the crossing during a blow?” Chevell barked a laugh. “Wise? Is it wise? Mayhap not, yet it is the only chance we have of catching the raider ere he makes port. And as to the darkness, we should reach the far side of the archipelago just as full night falls.”

Reluctantly, Armond nodded, and they all stood on the fantail and spoke not a word of the risk before them.

On drove the Sea Eagle, the day dim under the stygian overcast, and off to the larboard gray rain and whitecaps came sweeping o’er the deeps. And finally, dead ahead and dimly seen, a great scatter of tall, stony crags, stretching from horizon to horizon, rode up o’er the rim of the world.

“There they be,” gritted Lieutenant Florien.

“They look dreadful,” said Celeste.

“My lady,” said Gervaise, “if need be ye at the helm, steer a clear channel ’tween each and we’ll all be safe.

The Eagle’ll take care o’ the rest.” Now the full fury of the storm struck: icy rain came driving on a wailing wind, and lightning flared among the stone pinnacles, thunder following.

“Destin, the wind be off the larboard beam. Maintain the topsails full. Reef down half and goosewing all others on main, fore, and mizzen. Strike the stays and jibs.

And set the sails for aft-to-larboard winds.”

“But my lord,” said Florien, “that means we’ll be in the isles longer, and if the Sirenes are therein-”

“I know, Lieutenant, yet I’ll not run in full in a storm in dismal light among islands of stone.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Now the bosun piped the orders, and as sails were struck and reefed and winged, and the yardarms were haled about, Gervaise said, “My lady, should ye have to take the helm, remember, keep the wind anywhere in the quarter from stern to larboard beam. Anythin’ else and the sails’ll either be luffin’, or the wind’ll be blowin’

us hind’ards.”

“I remember, Gervaise,” said Celeste.

Roel reached out and took her hand, her fingers icy.

He squeezed her grip, and she smiled at him with a bravery she did not feel.

And in shrieking wind and driving rain, the Sea Eagle clove through heaving seas and toward the massive blocks of stone, the great crags a blur in the storm, lightning stroking down among them, thunder riving the air.

“Stand by, Princess,” said Chevell.

“Aye, aye, Captain,” replied Celeste, her heart hammering against her ribs.

And in that moment the Sea Eagle drove in among the jagged monoliths.