The First Protector

CHAPTER NINE

By the following evening all of the diners seemed to be in a particularly good humor. This, Declan decided, was because the sun had risen and set in a sky totally without clouds, the wind had continued light but steady from the north and the Atlantic swell was smooth and regular enough not to inconvenience the stomachs of any of the passengers. His last view of Hibernia before the sunset mists rising from the sea had covered it had been as a gray line too thin for the southern mountains to show, while as yet too indistinct to be seen by moonlight. The tip of the long peninsula that the Britons called Land's End lay fine off the port bow. Under a favoring nor-noreasterly wind stiff enough to make the use of oars unnecessary, the end of the third day saw them passing the tip of the great peninsula of Gaul that projected westward into the Atlantic.

That evening the meal went well. Again there was much verbal thrusting and parrying between Brian and Ma'el, but it was too good-humored and friendly for anyone to feel insulted or angry, and not once did the captain remind them to behave themselves as he had had to do on the first evening of their voyage. It was plain that Brian was still trying to draw out and, if possible, discredit Ma'el, but he had changed his strategy.

Instead of asking questions he was volunteering information about himself, usually in the form of amusing anecdotes in which he did not always come off best, in the hope or expectation of Ma'el returning the favor. Many times he had the company hanging on his every word, with Sean in particular paying close attention and, respectfully, asking questions at every opportunity. Occasionally the boy could not help letting slip past incidents involving Ma'el's past.

Brian was a subtle and persistent man, Declan thought, who would elicit the knowledge he desired from lesser sources if the greater was closed to him. Unfortunately, the stratagem did not work where Declan was concerned because he had not known Ma'el long enough to let anything slip.

Unlike the first evening, which had given the boy a sick stomach and a very sore head for the rest of the following day, Sean had been merely sipping at his wine. But he was bright-eyed and excited and the convivial company seemed to be all the intoxication needed to loosen his tongue, as now, when it threatened to stray beyond the limits of good manners into matters personal.

"With respect, sir,'' he said, "you have recounted many of your adventures in far places, among strange people whose customs are even stranger, and have brought back knowledge of them that must be beyond price to the learned of our homeland. I truly envy you the things you have done and the life you live. As a person you are gifted and resourceful and daring, although modestly you try to discount your own bravery…"

"You are well versed in the art of flattery, young Sean," said Brian, smiling, "as well as that of healing. Your words go around my heart like a warm blanket. Pray continue."

The boy continued, and it was clear that he was choosing his words with care as he said, "You are easy and gentle of manner, regardless of the lowliness of the company you keep, such as a servant like me, and it is certain that you do not look the part. But I have a curiosity that will not let my mind rest…" Sean did not so much as glance toward Seamus, who Declan knew to have been the recent sayer, "… But I have heard it said of you that…Why are you called a spy?"

They were all staring at the boy: Ma'el with his customary lack of expression; Seamus with his expression hidden behind his hairy mask; and the captain, his face deepening in color while he slowly filled his lungs for a shout of anger that would have carried the length of the ship. Brian's features were still and pale for a moment, then they relaxed into another smile as he gazed intently into the boy's eyes, nodded, then spoke.

"It is because 1 am a spy," he said.

The heads around the table turned as one toward this new center of attention, but it was Captain Nolan, the earlier anger toward Sean fading from his face, who spoke first.

"Have a care, Brian," he said quietly. "Seamus and I know well what you do and this is not the first time we have helped you do it. But with respect, this is a stupid and dangerous admission for you to make in public. I advise you to say no more on the subject"

"Rest your mind, Captain," Brian said with a reassuring gesture of one hand while he used the other to take a long draught from his goblet He smiled again and went on, "This is scarcely a public place and I trust the discretion of all those here, including the trusted and loyal servants of our magician, not to add substance to the few rumors that may be circulating about some of my activities."

Ma'el looked slowly from Sean to Declan and nodded his head, signifying that in this matter their lips were to remain sealed.

"Spying is generally thought to be a profession practiced by avaricious and unprincipled men and women who are without honor or morals," Brian went on, looking only at Sean, "and dangerous to those who do the work badly by revealing either themselves or their intentions. Without false modesty, I can say that I do my work very well, by appearing to reveal everything about myself and thus disarming all suspicion.

"As the captain knows," he went on, "this will be my second voyage to Rome and Athens and Alexandria, and wherever else in the Mediterranean that present knowledge of local political, commercial, and military matters was or is of interest to my employers. But the interest I show while visiting those great cities is open and unfeigned, the natural curiosity of a far-traveling scholar and seeker after truth who is impractical with respect to the realities of the world, who appears to be without guile and who has a reputation for revealing all kinds of interesting information when the wine flows freely-"

… In Egypt under the Pharaohs, he went on, it had been the custom to provide important visitors-and Brian admitted to being neither reticent nor completely factual while describing his own importance-with accommodation, servants, and a pension suited to their station in life together with invitations to the court functions and entertainments. Since the time of the Caesar, Julius, when Egypt's power and influence waned and it had become a mere province of Rome, the quality of the entertainments had diminished, but they were still lavish indeed by Hibernian standards.

On these occasions the usual diplomatic games would be played, with the visitor being wined and dined and encouraged to talk about his homeland, its concerns and ambitions, as well as the lands and cities he had visited and the dress, customs, and achievements of the people he had met on his epic journey from Hibernia. The majority of his listeners would have no interest in the matters he described, but his lightest word would be examined for content of a commercial or military nature by the merchant princes and the generals who were present, while at the same time he would be trying to extract the same kind of information from his hosts. In this game neither party was expected to tell the truth, but due allowances were made for the obvious fabrications and misdirections, just as a high level of exaggeration in the related exploits was accepted for no other reason than that it made the tales more entertaining.

As a visitor Brian was popular as a teller of tales but disappointing as a source of commercial and military intelligence. Whenever he had imbibed too freely of the dark and deceptively potent wines of Egypt and Gaul, which was nearly every evening, he would relate shocking and highly scandalous gossip concerning the unrecorded activities of the rulers and the other highborn of the courts and palaces he had visited-tales of a kind which, had they been told of the person or family of the local ruler, would have cost the teller his head.

But from Brian they never seemed to learn anything useful, anything that was not already known, because he did not seem to know or display other than the polite curiosity that was required by good manners about matters that they themselves considered important. And the reason given for this large area of ignorance in an otherwise intelligent and cultured person was that Brian professed himself to be a seeker after knowledge for its own sake who had no interest in the coarser pursuits of martial conquest and the acquisition of wealth. Although there had been many occasions when the ladies of a court would have been pleased to broaden his education, he seemed to have only three abiding interests: the sampling to excess of the local wines; consorting with others of a similar turn of mind to his own; and browsing in the greatest libraries of the known world where he was most likely to find these intelligent and impractical people, people who unknowingly had much practical knowledge that they were unaware of giving, away… .. As you will already have observed," Brian went on, raising a deprecating eyebrow at Sean, "I am such a simple, friendly, outgoing man that not one of the jaded sophisticates of the many courts I have visited ever suspected that I was better at playing their games than they were themselves."

A long silence fell around the table. It was plain from the stillness in the faces and bodies that the captain and his lieutenant had received further confirmation of something they had long known. Sean's mouth was open and his eyes shining with excitement at the revelations, and Ma'el was as inscrutable as ever. But Brian was beginning to show his impatience again.

"We are alike in many ways, old man," he said, turning to Ma'el. "You collect knowledge of the past and present to chart a course into the future, and if your charting is accurate this can be valuable in many ways. But I think you have other talents besides and it is these which interest me. There is a strangeness, a feeling of certainty about you, and an even stranger lack of fear in you that does not go with your frailty of age. I have an odd feeling about you, old man, and my feelings are rarely wrong.

"You are in possession of knowledge of great importance," he went on, "and secrets greater and more valuable, I feel sure, than any of those I glean in the course of my travels. Come, Ma'el, play the game with fairness. I have told you everything of importance about me, it is now for you to oblige us with the same information regarding yourself."

Ma'el inclined his head for a moment, but he was looking at the captain when he spoke. "There is a small but very important secret, a piece of knowledge I had intended to impart," he said quietly, "when an opening in Brain's very interesting account of his work allowed it…"

"I know I talk too much, old man," Brain broke in, an irritated edge to his voice. "But we don't want your small secrets, we want matters of substance, and especially not the paltry little secret of whose existence we already know. The captain and Black Seamus saw through it at once, but of course said nothing about it, at their first meeting with you. I myself learned of it during the first evening's meal. It is a small matter, and of no real interest or importance to us, that you employ a female servant who pretends to be and dresses as a boy…"

"What!" Declan broke in, his voice rising almost to a shout. "Brian, the wine has rotted your brain. That is a stupid thing to say. I have traveled with Ma'el and the boy since…"

"Even your other servant, it seems, was unaware of this small secret," said Brian, ignoring Declan and keeping his eyes on Ma'el. "Strange. But the personal perversions of an old man are of no interest to me, it is your other…"

"No!" said Sean, his face turning deep pink with anger and embarrassment. "I was little more than a defenseless child. He rescued me, hid and protected me, and saved my life. But at no time did he try to…"

The words were cut short as Declan jumped angrily to his feet, or at least tried to until the cabin's low overhead deck timbers cracked against his skull and further added to his mental confusion. Ma'el held up both hands palms outwards for silence, one directed at Sean and the other at Declan.

'This is a matter of small importance," said Ma'el, "which we will discuss fully at a later time, if there is a later time for all of you." He turned to divide his attention between the captain and Brian and went on, "I wish to perform a necessary act of magic or, to be precise, an accurate foretelling of the future stretching over the next three days…"

"Mere fortunetelling," Brian scoffed. "No magic, just trickery with words. I want more than that from you, old man."

"… To you it will be magic," Ma'el went on in his high, gentle voice that was somehow able to silence all others, and he regarded everyone in turn before his eyes came to rest on Captain Nolan, "which requires that you follow my instructions exactly. You must guide your ship southeastward so as to round the point of Finisterre and then run for the nearest bay that will give shelter from a high wind. It is best that you do this without argument or delay.

"I am using a form of magic that will save all your lives."