“Your tone betrays the good which you cannot cover,” Celestine said, coming onto the deck. “Or you do not even wish to cover it?” She placed her hand on her sister’s shoulder.
Silence, then, “You were not lax in preparing a greeting, Meredith,” the blond Fardy said, pointing to the channel, where the fleet was coming onto the ocean single file.
“I did not order it,” Meredith said, “And there is barely enough men to sail them. Captain Koon is a presumptuous man.”
“Yet the sea is calm: men are not so necessary.”
“Perhaps, but I will still rebuke Koon for moving without my orders. A true navy would not be run in such a manner.”
“Is it a false navy?” Celestine asked. “And is not a true man worth a dozen veteran sailors?”
“You rebuke me!” Meredith said. “But look, we will see their purposes soon enough, for they come at a speed which this wind would not seem to sanction. I misjudged their seamanship.”
They stood in silence, waiting as the grand vessels drew near. The figures on the deck were obscured by the sun and sails and could not be identified. The foremost ship – The King’s Arm – purposely sped past the Timber, then came about in a tight circle and stopped directly alongside the deck.
“Ho! You are not a petty officer, Captain Koon,” Meredith called out.
“Nor am I,” returned a gruff, old voice.
“Demons and devils!” the monk stepped backwards, “Admiral Stuart!”
“Whom did you expect? The devil has come, as you say, and my demons with me. But come aboard, for Gylain is on the move and we must join him in that.”
As he spoke, Cybele closed her eyes and pressed her lips together.
“Do not fear him,” Celestine whispered, “For he is father.”
“Yet as he says, he is also the devil!”
Chapter 73
“Meredith!” called the Admiral as he stuck his head over the rail to see and be seen. “Meredith, why does the commander leave his post?”
“To see the Fardy brothers returning gallantly on their water castles!”
“That is well in times of peace,” the Admiral spoke slowly, “But in war it is weakness, and weakness is rewarded only with defeat. Remember this.”
“I had not forgotten.”
“Very good, then. Yet the Fardys have loosed the lion. Gylain is on the hunt. If your Marins cannot break fifteen knots down the coastal stretch, we will tow them.”
“They cannot,” the black Fardy answered.
“There, Barnes!” and the Admiral turned shipward, “Attach this Marin to The Hare and The Tortoise , and the other to The Merry Forester and The Sheathed Sword . The King’s Arm will stay unharnessed, to maneuver in case of an ambush.”
“Yes, sir!” though the young man could not be seen on the towering deck.
The Admiral returned his face to the Marin. “Celestine, why are you here? You should be with Alfonzo, for he needs you in his endless toil.”
“Yet my sister is here.”
“Your sister by blood but not in it; she serves another. I do not know her as a daughter, but as the Queen of Saxony; and the queen of Saxony does not dwell within my heart.” He paused. “She has come in war, and meant to attack Thunder Bay alongside Gylain – so my spies have said. Do you even deny it?” His voice was a glacier.
“Not in the least,” and she returned his cold glance without emotion.
The Admiral grabbed onto the rail of the ship – fifteen feet above the Marin’s dock – and swung himself over and onto the platform below. He landed in front of Cybele, raising himself to his full stature and locking her into a melee of the eyes. To Meredith, “Bring forward the chains, Commodore. She is an enemy commander and not to be treated with leniency.”
“Father!” Celestine cried, and she stepped back to separate herself from the act which she abhorred. “Have you no heart? No love for your own daughter?”
“I am a soldier.”
“But a soldier still has a heart, for he is a man before a soldier.”
“Silence, fool!” Cybele hissed, “I am a soldier, as well. To be captured is weakness and for a soldier weakness is death. I was gloried in strength. Thus I must be mocked in weakness. Let it be!”
“Meredith, chain her,” the Admiral said, ignoring the conversation between his daughters.
Meredith did not do it, partly from wonder and partly because he had no chains.
“Forgiveness, father!” Celestine continued. “Are not the ways of God above the ways of man?”
“I am not God!” the Admiral turned and looked her over. “What has happened? For your face is marked with the whip.” His voice became involuntarily tender. He held her chin in a fatherly embrace.
“The toils of the journey,” she whispered.
“She lies,” Cybele said, her voice broken. “She is indeed marked by the whip, and by my orders. I faced her as it was done, even as our mother faced you!”
The Admiral struck her across the face with an open palm. “The devil in a woman’s skin! Has your mother been reincarnated, in beauty and in sin?” To his ship, “Barnes! Prepare the galley for a rowing slave!”
“Sir,” a voice returned, “A single oar will break our current, and there are no other prisoners.”
Celestine did not leave time for the Admiral to speak, “Barnes, I will join her.”
“Sir?” and Barnes Griffith’s face appeared over the rail.
“If she is a fool, let her be foolish.”
“Yes, sir!” and the lieutenant disappeared.
The Admiral was silent, flying up the rope ladder that had been dropped from the side of The King’s Arm. His daughters followed, each with vigors of a different origin. Celestine was passionate for her sister, Cybele for evil. Meredith and the Fardy brothers followed as well and the very moment the blond Fardy threw his legs over the rail the Admiral ordered, “Heave away!”
The sailors were a strangely efficient force. The Admiral had set the sails against each other as they came about, and while they stood at the Marins, the ship did not move. But as he called out, a group of sailors jumped off their perch on the cross-trees of the main mast and launched themselves toward the mizzenmast. They landed firmly on its ropes. The force of their impact caused the mast to rotate in its base – at that time unfastened. The masts were set in brass cauldrons and could be rotated in a complete circle. It was a unique characteristic of Atiltian ships, one that was lost with its inventors. Several notches were crafted into the mast and when these notches aligned within the cauldron the mast was as sturdy as a static mast; yet, when unlatched, they could be rotated to optimally catch the wind. As the mizzenmast reached the correct position, two men standing at its base dropped the brass fastener, which brought it to a stop in the desired notch. An ordinary sailor, perhaps, could not have executed such a dangerous operation as using the force of a leap between the masts to swing one about. But these sailors had been born into the canopy and the air was better known to them than the ground.
“The ropes are prepared?” Barnes was asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good. Take these women below and treat them as you would any other prisoner. Mercy, for a man of arms, is cowardice.” His eyes were no longer cold, since even that much emotion had left them.
Barnes hesitated, but Cybele and Celestine went below without him. Seeing this, he hastened to escort them.
“Come to me,” the Admiral said after a pinch of silence. He stood at the starboard bow, watching over the ocean with a father’s eye. The wind beat against his face, but to him it was a soft linen nestled against him. He was speaking to Meredith and the Fardy brothers. They came, albeit in silence: awed by his determination, but not surprised. He was a fierce sailor whose only fault was his blind and unwavering loyalty to his country – to the trees and the foliage and the mountains, rather than to the nation – above man or beast. To him, the forest was god.