I said, “There are four of us.”
She shrugged as if the number didn’t matter. “The hammocks are big enough to hold large men. Anna and I will share the top. Since you are larger, you will share with little Emma.”
The solution was understandable and probably the only one we could reach. However, there might be others. Of the two that came to mind, the other was sleeping in shifts and sleeping on the deck if it was allowed. “I’m going to take a walk around the ship.”
“Take Emma with you. Until we get off, she’s your shadow.”
Kendra’s imperial tone displayed her inner anger and frustration at our circumstances, not me. I said, “Emma,” in the way of Kondor, “Come with me.”
I took her hand and pulled her along the narrow passage to the ladder. Her clothing, like that of her sister, was sturdy and a poor imitation of ours. The pants were a tad long, her blouse made of the same thick material, and the stitches tiny which indicated care or cost. She climbed up first. At the top, I pointed to the door leading to the outside, and clean air. Once out there, a crewman muttered as he coiled ropes, “Passengers to the rear.”
There were at least a dozen people crowded into a small space at the stern where they were out of the way of the working crew. The Gallant was still tied to the pier, but the air above decks was clean and breathable if the smells of tar, salt water, and too many people in too small a space were ignored. The ship was fairly new, perhaps a few years old. My mind wondered what stenches would fill the decks below on ships ten years old.
Emma still had hold of my hand. There was little enough room to move about, but she clung to me like the last peach of the season on a low branch. Elizabeth was not in sight. She had probably taken the captain’s quarters for herself, and therefore had a cabin ten times the size of ours. If she and the girls, or one of them, moved in with the princess, the tiny cabin we had would seem almost spacious.
My second idea was to locate the officer who called himself a purser. He was the one who had directed us to our cabin. Despite his arrogant and rude ways, if the ship sailed and someone failed to board in time, there might be an empty cabin we could buy.
The number of people on the pier had fallen to a handful. Men stood beside the ropes as large around as my wrist, ready to cast them from huge pilings and free the ship. Sailors rushed around the deck, some had already climbed the masts, and others stood ready to perform whatever duties came their way.
As for me, I’d never been on a boat of any kind, not even one on a lake. The only ships I’d ever seen were within sight of me now. The ship Kendra and I arrived on when children if we’d arrived in Dire on a ship, was an unknown mystery and lost to time, so I excluded it.
Emma squeezed my hand to draw my attention. I glanced down at her innocent face. She furrowed her eyebrows in a comical expression and tilted her head to one side, indicating I should look in that direction.
Curious, I turned casually. A man, another passenger, stood there. His eyes had been centered on me. In a guilty fashion, he abruptly turned away when he noticed me looking at him. Even more curious, he rudely shouldered his way past a woman and disappeared behind another door I hadn’t noticed.
“Thank you,” I said to Emma, smiling as I did. She returned the smile.
My experience with children was minimal—actually I didn’t care for them, to be honest. They were loud, silly, not very smart, and often dirty. Emma impressed me as a child who was different. She’d noticed the man watching me and had let me know of his interest in a way that let me see him before he bolted. She didn’t talk all the time, but she didn’t speak my language, so maybe that didn’t count, but my feelings said that if she could speak, she wouldn’t.
While thinking about those things, I kept a sharp watch for others on the ship with an interest in me or my actions. The sense about the passengers was of expectation, and I realized most of the sailors were now at their stations, waiting for orders so they could spring into action. A tension had built. The captain emerged from a doorway and stalked his way from the stern to the bow, checking this, looking at that, and ordering the men with waves of his arm and curt shouts. Other activity had been suspended during his inspection, then suddenly increased as a signal was sounded via a shrill whistle, and more orders were shouted. The lines were slipped from the pier and men pulled the dripping lines onto the ship and coiled them neatly. A single sail was dropped into place, the breeze filled it, and the ship slowly swung away from the pier as if in no hurry. An open boat with eight men at the oars pulled us into the current of the river before that line too was slipped.
The Gallant was free to roam the great ocean.
The motion of the ship subtly changed, the activity level of the sailors never slowed, and as more breeze filled the sail, and the ship leaned to the left and moved slightly faster than the current. We were on our way. My heart raced. Wherever the ship carried us, our lives had just changed, and I knew it.
CHAPTER TEN
I t should not have been unexpected. If I’d have had the presence of mind to think about it in advance, I’d have known, but the great dragon suddenly flew past our stern, her head turned to us as if she was searching for Kendra, which I was sure she was. The sight drew not only my attention, but that of the other passengers standing on the small deck, and that of the sailors. A buzz on talk broke out, excited but subdued chatter where hardly a single word was clear. Most of them had never seen a true dragon before, and probably most had never even seen a more common snakelike Wyvern.
That was an unfair criticism, I chastised myself. Wyverns were not to be taken lightly. They were the size of houses. Until the very day we departed Crestfallen Castle, I’d never even seen a Wyvern. My first had held me as spellbound at the people around me who watched the true-dragon fly past. It appeared nearly as large as the ship instead of a house, so their reaction was normal and should have been expected.
“Beautiful,” an older woman near me muttered, her hands held to her mouth in wonder.
A man beside her growled, “It won’t be so beautiful if it attacks and sinks this ship.”
“Oh, my,” she said, her voice fearful. “Do they do that?”
I caught her eye and shook my head. The great beast was flying closer, still searching intently. I reached out with my small magic and gave the woman the impression a mosquito had landed on her neck. Her hand slapped, and she examined her palm to see if she’d gotten it. That tiny action raised my spirits, and I felt like giving a wave to the dragon as thanks for allowing me to use her magic powers.
Emma had moved closer—and behind my leg. She wrapped both arms around my thigh and peeked out at the dragon as I watched the banks of the river slowly pass by. People on the shore paused at their activities and most waved. The ship picked up speed, and two other ships slowly sailed up the river. The same venturesome crowds stood outside and watched and waved to the other ships where most returned the action. It seemed a custom, or requirement to recognize people on ships. Perhaps it was a wistfulness to exchange places and go where the ship sailed from.