"Yer rhenish, sir?" Aspinall inquired, cleaning his hands on the fresh white apron he wore. "A glass o' claret tonight, then?"
"Brandy, Aspinall," Lewrie decided grimly. "Big'un!"
"Aye, sir. Best for what ails ya, says I," Aspinall rambled on cheerily, as he poured three fingers-worth into a snifter. "Sad it is, sir. That little tyke? But, a stout measure o' something always bucks a body right up, sir."
Toulon came slinking out of hiding, into the cheery light from the overhead lanthorns, wailing a welcoming "Maa-ahh-awr!" with even more urgency and enthusiasm than he usually showed. And that was not insubstantial, to begin with. Greeting his master (as much as cats may be said to have the concept of master down pat) with a desperate show of affection. Or a desperate need of it, himself.
Never known to be a particularly doting tribe, except when it suited them, still… Toulon seemed to empathize as he climbed Alan's chest, patted and kneaded furiously, and reclined on his shirtfront finally, little head butting under Alan's chin, licking and purring in remarkable, commiserating ardor.
"You feel it, too, Toulon?" Lewrie asked softly. "Scare you, too?"
"Maiwee?" was the ram-kitten's shuddery reply, as he turned himself boneless, to flatten his body even closer.
"Scared the Devil out of me, let me tell you," Lewrie confided to his creature. He stroked Toulon down from forehead to tail-tip, in thankfulness that there was somebody there to give him comfort at least. "Was it even real, puss? Did it really happen like I think it did? God!"
Should it ever come my time, Alan thought, cringing at the very idea; that's one way to escape the Devil and his fires. A back gate for the damned-become a selkie!
"Wouldn't do you a bit of good, would it, Toulon?" Lewrie told the ram-cat. "Can't abide your sponge-down now, much less a swim."
"Moi," the cat sang under his jaw, paws working as he slinked higher toward his collars.
"Christ, what use is a selkie who can't swim?" Lewrie snorted, forcing himself to chuckle. Like most good English seamen, he could not swim a single lick. If a ship went down, most of them said that trying to swim only prolonged the inevitable. Or saved one just long enough to be eaten by something, right after one got one's hopes up, and…
"Damme!" Lewrie sighed, taking another refreshing draught of his brandy, shoving another fey feeling away.
Poor little Josephs, he pondered, instead; barely got his sea legs, and bam! Maybe it is best, that… that Lir took him? Just for a bit, say. Chub might be happy to be a seal, for a while. Happier'n he was 'board this ship, at any rate!
A lad about Sewallis's age and size, Lewrie mourned with infinite regret; dreams shattered, terrified-started!-heartbroken, then dead, long 'fore his time!
There came the faint sound of a fiddle tune from the gun deck. Slow, lugubrious, and atonal, like what Captain Ayscough aboard Telesto had delightedly told him was the "great music" played on bagpipes.
But this was one he recognized-the funeral song played for Stuart hopes, and the dead of Culloden, after the '45: "The Flowers of the Forest." His eyes pricked with remorseful tears. He thought, for an instant, of ordering the fiddler to cease, but…
Toulon climbed to his shoulder, to snuffle at his ear. Lewrie felt him stiffen, heard him chitter, as he did at the sight of a seabird. Claws dug into his shoulder, and the little ram-kitten's tail, which lashed before his nose, bottled up to double-size. He made his chatter again! A seabird, this late in the evening? he wondered.
Or a selkie in their wake!
"I'll not look!" he whispered, keeping his gaze firmly ahead, and taking another deep draught of brandy. "I don't want to know!"
And he didn't, though Toulon continued to knead and shiver his little chops, quavering, and would not get down. And lashing his tiny tail, thick as a pistol swab brush, in a frenzy. Lewrie did turn his head just enough to see Toulon's neck, his whole body, straining aft, intent as only a cat may be intent, upon something astern, almost as if in yearning… or silent, beastly communion.
"Rot!" Lewrie muttered harshly. "Rot, I say! Has to be!"
"Muumhh?" Toulon said at last, sounding disappointed, as his body lost its lock-spring tension. Then, he was amenable to a rub on his flank, to turn (clumsily) and drop down to Alan's lap to knead a new nest. And rasp his rough little tongue on Alan's hand.
Purring like anything.
Book II
Anceps aestus incertiam rapit;
ut saeva rapidi bella cum venti gerunt
utrimque fluctus maria discordes agunt
dubiumque feruet pelagus haut aliter meum
cor fluctuator.
A double tide tosses me, uncertain of my course;
as when a rushing tide wages mad warfare, and from
both sides conflicting floods lash the seas and the
fluctuating waters boil, even so is my heart tossed.
MEDEA Book II, 939-944
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
CHAPTER
1
A quick inventory, a circular course for his jittery right hand along his uniform. Cuffs shot, waistcoat tugged straight, hat set on just so. Wash-leather purse full of guineas still safe, and, a blank note-of-hand snugly ensconced in a coat pocket… well, then.
A deep, spine-straightening breath before he rapped on the door. As he waited for someone within to answer, Lewrie experimented with a range of expressions on his face. Smile? No. Frown? That wouldn't do, either. Something in-between, perhaps? Though he suspected that "something in-between" would resemble a gas attack, or a pair of too-tight shoes. He was striving hellish hard for Ambivalent!
And why the Devil'd she remove herself to this set o' rooms? he asked himself with a quick, fleeting scowl; her old'uns were nice enough, and not that dear. She have a comedown, 'spite of the money I left her? Waste it all on fripperies, or gamblin'…?
"Yessir?" A mob-capped oldish maidservant inquired of him as the door opened with a rusty creak, at last.
"Commander Alan Lewrie…" he flummoxed out, not sure exactly what sort of expression his phyz wore, then. "Come to call upon Mademoiselle Phoebe Aretino. Is she in?"
"God be praised, sir!" The square old crone cried in delight, clapping her hands together, and raising enough noise to wake the entire neighborhood. "You're her Navy fella, come back at last! Come you in, sir! Come you in\ Let me take your hat, Commander Lewrie… have a cane, an'… no? Mistress]"
She bawled that with the door standing wide open. Cartmen and vendors were stopped dead in their tracks in the narrow, steep little street that straggled uphill from the Old Moles. A curate and his wife out for an invigorating uphill stroll, both clad in old rusty-black dominйe ditto, were frowning heavily as Lewrie sought some way short of strangulation to stifle the old mort's bellows.
"Mistress Phoebe!" the woman halloed upstairs. "'Tis Commander Lewrie! He's come, ma'am! Hurry!"
At least he could use his foot to slam that heavy old door, to keep their reunion somewhat private, as a delighted shriek came from above, quickly followed by the patter of petite feet on the carpet and floorboards and stairs. Lewrie's lips twitched as he attempted to regain the composure of his face anew. And trying to recall just exactly which demeanor he'd thought most suitable.
"Alain!" Phoebe cried breathlessly-almost brokenly, as she appeared on the tiny middle landing of the narrow pair of stairs. Her brown eyes were fawn-huge and lambent, as if suddenly aswim with tears of joy, and her cheeks flush with emotion.