Arley smiled, for ever did Pipper pop up with statements that seemed to drive Binkton to distraction. Pipper never seemed to say or ask what he meant to say or ask, and Binkton always took umbrage when he couldn’t follow Pipper’s mental leap-one a dreamer, the other more material.
“Oh,” said Binkton, and he turned to Uncle Arley. “So, what have our ages to do with anything?”
“Just this, buccoes: next spring, as you approach sixteen summers, I think it’s time you put this show on the road and earned a bit of copper for yourselves.”
“Yes!” shouted Pipper.
“Hmph!” grunted Binkton. “I think we were ready last spring.”
“Oh, no,” said Arley, “there’s much more I have to teach you, and this winter is the time to do it. Besides, I can still see places where you need more skilclass="underline" you, Binkton, in opening locks with nought but a wire as a pick as well as working while hanging upside down; and you, Pipper, need more practice in sleight of hand, and your juggling could use some sharpening, as well. And both of you need to be able to perform all things in all sorts of weather, when you are dripping with sweat in the heat and your hands are watery slick, or when your fingers and toes and every muscle in your bodies are numb with chill. You never know when sudden winds will blow or the rains pour down or swirling dust and grit will blind you, and you’ve got to be safe up on the rope or to get out from the trap you find yourselves in.”
“Hoy,” exclaimed Binkton, “you make this sound like a dangerous business.”
Lost in thought, the eld buccan nodded. “Aye, for many a time, I-” Of a sudden, Arley came to himself. “Harrumph. Well, you just never know.”
“Oh, I’ll work extra hard, Uncle Arley,” said Pipper. “I mean, I’ll try to get better at walking a coin across my knuckles-though I’ll never be as good as Bink, of course-and my filching skills need improvement, and I could get better at-”
“Yes, yes, Pip,” said Uncle Arley, interrupting Pipper’s stream of words. “I’ll help you with all of those, and then next spring and through the summer, but especially the winter after-when the harvests are in and the common rooms are brimming with folks-it’s off to the taverns and inns in the Boskydells, where the pickings ought to be good.”
That night, Pipper said, “Oh, won’t this be the very best?”
Exasperated, Binkton asked, “And what thought flitted through your mind just now?”
“That we’ll have our own coppers and silvers and perhaps even a gold or two, Bink,” said Pipper, his eyes reflecting his boundless enthusiasm.
“About time, too,” grumped Binkton. “I mean, we’ve taken enough of Uncle Arley’s money. We need to be on our own.”
“Uncle Arley’s money,” breathed Pipper, looking about as if to see where the eld buccan might be.
“Oh, come on, Pip, you’re not going to bring that up again.”
“Wull, it’s always been a myst’ry, Bink, and-”
“And you just can’t leave it alone,” snapped Binkton. The buccan plumped his pillow and jerked his covers up around his neck. “It’s Uncle Arley’s, and I don’t care where it comes from. Now go to sleep.”
Pipper lay quietly a moment, but then said, “But Finley Tutwillow, down in Rood, says that once every year a mysterious rider, an Outsider, a Human, no less, comes every Midsummer Day and puts a sack of coins in the Bank of Boskydells. And always about that same time, Uncle Arley says his pension’s come. What do you think that’s all about, Bink? I mean, why would some Human-?”
Binkton’s soft snoring was all the answer that Pipper got, as was usual when he and Binkton speculated in the dark about Uncle Arley’s even darker past.
20
ELVENSHIP
MID AUTUMN, 6E1
In the Captain’s Lounge, Long Tom stood beside Aravan at the map table with Aylis at his other side. Nikolai and Brekk and Dokan stood across the board. Tiny Lissa sat atop the table and sipped tea from a thimble-sized mug, as Noddy poured a cup for Aylis.
“Where we be bound, Cap’n?” asked Long Tom.
Aravan stabbed a finger down to the chart. “Here.”
As Lissa got to her feet and strolled across the tabletop to see, all looked, Noddy included, at where the captain’s finger touched the map.
A great strew of specks and dots and irregular loops were scattered across where Aravan pointed, his finger resting upon one of the larger shapes.
“Oi see,” said Long Tom. “One o’ th’ Ten Thousand Isles o’ Mordain, eh?”
“What be we after, Kapitan?” asked Nikolai.
“White tea,” replied Aravan.
Lissa frowned. “White tea?”
Aylis smiled. “Very young tea leaves plucked from the tips of the plant. ’Tis a delicate flavor, much savored in the halls of Caer Pendwyr, or so it was long past.”
“It still is, my love,” said Aravan. “ ’Twill bring a fine price for the crew.” He glanced at Long Tom and Nikolai and added, “More than enough for all the warband and crew, e’en those who sat idle for many long moons.”
An offended look crossed Long Tom’s face and he spluttered, “Sittin’ oidle, Cap’n? Sittin’ oidle? Oi’ll have you know we was trianin’ ’n’ piantin’ ’n’-”
Aravan burst out laughing, as did Nikolai, and Long Tom frowned from one to the other, and then a look of enlightenment crossed his face. “Ah. Oi see. You was havin’ me on, naow, roight? Wull, y’got me good ’n’ well, y’did. Y’got me good ’n’ well.”
There came a soft knock on the door, and Tarley stepped into the lounge. “Captain, we’re entering the Avagon, sir, and leaving the cove behind.”
They turned on a westerly run and aimed for the distant outlet into the Weston Ocean, those waters lying some twenty-nine hundred nautical miles away as a gull would fly, but farther than that on the course the ship would run, all depending upon the wind, which blew toward the northwest at the moment, and so close-hauled the Eroean would fare.
Still the Elvenship was at long last at sea, and throughout the day and until well after sunset much of the crew remained adeck. And as night grew deeper, the crew not on watch was reluctant to bed down, for they were at sea again and reveling in the fact.
And the Avagon herself put on a show for them, for streaming shoals of phosphorescent fish painted the water with light to glimmer within the reflections of the myriad stars above.
That night, for the first time in more than seven thousand years, Aravan and Aylis slept in the captain’s quarters aboard the Eroean at sea. And they made gentle love and whispered dear words to one another, for they were home at last.
In her own quarters, Lissa and Vex slept well, the Pysk taking up residence in the tiny cabin made long past for her mother, Jinnarin, by four of the Eroean ’s crew: Finch and Carly and Arlo and Rolly-carpenter, sailmaker, cooper, and tinsmith. Several times throughout the millennia, Jinnarin had told Lissa of the kindness of these men. .
Belowdecks in an aft cabin given over to Jinnarin and Mage Alamar, Finch crawled back from his handiwork, ship’s carpenter that he was. “There you be, Miss Jinnarin, all done up safe and sound, and a pretty job of it, too, even if I do say so myself.” Although the man spoke to Jinnarin, his shy eyes looked everywhere but directly at her.
“That little bulkhead panel under Alamar’s bunk, it swings both ways, letting you and your fox in and out of the passageway beyond whenever you want. These little dogs. . well twist them this-away to latch the hatch shut should the sea want to enter, and I’ve seen it try, rushing down the corridor outside.
“And once I fasten this wood in place. .” Finch mounted three wide tongue-and-groove boards across the openings left behind when the right-side pair of underbunk drawers had been removed, and he tapped in slender brass nails to hold them in place. “Right. Now you’ve got your own little closed-off lady’s chamber there under the bunk for the privacy you might want, with its own door opening in and out of the passageway, and another door into this here cabin. And, cor, who could use it but you?”