“What be our course, My Lord Captain?” asked the helmsman.
“A point sunwise of sunup, Gervaise. That’s where we last saw the third corsair.”
“Aye, aye, My Lord Captain,” replied the helmsman, taking a sight on the sun.
Chevell turned to the bosun. “Pipe the sails about to get us free of this raider, and then catch the best of the wind.”
“Aye, aye, My Lord Captain,” said the bosun, and he set whistle to lips and signaled the crew; the men swung ONCE UPON A SPRING MORN / 101
the yards about, and the Sea Eagle began moving away from the corsair, and as soon as she was free, again the bosun piped orders, and once more the crew haled the yards ’round. . and the ship slowly got under way.
Eyeing the wind pennants and the set of the sails, Chevell nodded his approval, and soon the vessel was running full.
Now Chevell turned to Lieutenant Armond. “The chirurgeon is tending the wounded, but I would have you see to the dead. Canvas and ballast: we’ll bury them at sea.”
As Armond moved forward to fetch the sailmaker, Chevell now stepped to where Roel and Celeste stood at the taffrail and gazed aft at the corsair ship just then getting under way.
“I wonder,” said Celeste, “if the pirates will merely flee or sail back to Port Mizon to face the king’s justice.”
“Were it knights instead of corsairs,” said Roel, “they would be honor bound to do so.”
Chevell said, “They pledged in the names of the Three Sisters, and if they value their lives, they will keep their word, for the Fates have ways of punishing those who break their vows.”
“Oh, look,” said Ensign Laval, a blond-headed youth of twenty summers or so, “they’ve cut away the corpse of their captain.”
In the distance the body fell and plunged into the waters, even as the dhow turned sunwise and picked up speed.
“Oi, now, wait a moment,” said the helmsman, shading his eyes against the low-hanging sun, “that’s not the course to take them to Port Mizon.”
“Maybe they’re tacking,” said Celeste.
“Nay, m’lady,” said Ensign Laval. “The wind’s in our forelarboard quarter, and if they were going to Mizon, the breeze would be off their starboard aft, and they’d just ride it all the way to port. Nay, they’re heading else-wise.”
“Ah, me,” said Celeste, shaking her head, “this in spite of their oath to the Three Sisters.”
“There are those who know not the power of pledges and hold no belief in oaths, Princess,” said Chevell, “and these rovers seem to be among them.” They watched moments more, and it appeared the pirates were jettisoning cargo. “What are they doing now?” asked Celeste.
Chevell sighed. “Throwing their dead overboard.”
“Captain,” asked the ensign, “won’t that put blood in the waters, attract things up from the deep?”
“Aye, lad. That’s why we sew our own in canvas, along with a ballast stone. It would not do to have sharks and things worse following the ship and waiting for a meal.”
“Oh, Mithras!” cried the lookout from the crow’s nest. “My Lord Captain, dead ahead, something dreadful comes.” Chevell stepped to the starboard side rail and leaned outward and peered ahead. He frowned and moved forward and again leaned outward. Then he ran to the bow and but an instant later cried, “All hands, ready weapons!” Celeste whipped her bow from her back and set an arrow to string. Roel took up his shield and drew Coeur d’Acier. They both moved forward and leaned out over the side rail to see what-
“Oh, my!” exclaimed Celeste. “What is it?” A great heave in the water raced toward the Sea Eagle.
“I know not,” said Roel.
But then, even as men took up bows and arrows, cutlasses and cudgels, the lookout cried, “A serpent, Captain. I can see it now. ’Tis a terrible serpent of the sea.” Onward hurtled the great billow, the monster driving the wave before it in its rush through the water.
Ensign Laval stepped to Celeste and in a voice tight with stress said, “We’re in for the fight of our lives, m’lady. Best you go below, for I think arrows will only anger it.”
Her heart hammering in dread, Celeste replied, “Nay, Ensign, I’ll not cower while others fight.” Roel turned to her. “If we do not survive, Celeste, know this: I love you.”
Before she could reply the ship rose up as the leading edge of the billow reached them. “Hold fast!” shouted Chevell.
With her bow and its nocked arrow in her left hand, Celeste grabbed on to the side rail with her right, as up rode the ship and up, heeling over to the larboard side, rigging creaking under the strain. And the boiling wave passed alongside, part of it flowing under the Sea Eagle, and Celeste espied in the waters aflank an enormous creature hurtling past, its eyes like two huge round lamps, its body massive and long and dark emerald with spots of pale jade down its length, and running the full of its back stood a raised, translucent yellow-green fin held up by sharp spines. On sped the immense sea serpent, fully twice or thrice the length of the ship; on it hurtled and on, driving the water before it. And then it was beyond the Sea Eagle, the vessel left bobbing in its wake.
Her heart yet pounding with residual fright, Celeste resheathed her arrow and slung her bow across her back. Then she turned to Roel and slipped past his shield and sword and embraced him and in a delayed reply said, “I know, Roel, I know. Just as I do love you.” And she took his face in her hands and kissed him, even as tears of relief slid down her cheeks.
Laval wiped a shaky hand across his sweating brow and said, “I thought we were deaders for certain.”
“Nevertheless you stood fast and ready, Ensign,” said Roel. He looked past Celeste and in the direction of the racing heave, and said, “Hmm. .”
Celeste disengaged herself and turned to see what had caught Roel’s attention. The wake of the serpent boiled toward the corsair.
Aboard that ship, pirates pointed and shouted, and then some began haling the sails about to catch the wind abeam and add haste to the vessel.
But then, without losing speed, the serpent lunged up and hurtled across the deck of the corsair, the creature’s massive weight plunging the ship down. Across the craft and down and under and then back up and ’round the serpent coiled, the vessel now in its grasp. Wood splintered, the hull burst, masts shattered, and sails and rigging fell to ruin. Pirates leapt into the sea, and the water about them roiled and turned red, and fins sped to and fro as men screamed and screamed, their cries cut short in a froth of scarlet.
And then the ship was gone, masts and sails and rigging and hull dragged down into the depths below, the sea serpent vanishing as well. And all that was left behind was a frenzy of shark fins racing through a crimson swirl of water, and then that was gone, too.
“Well,” said Chevell, taking a sip of wine, “if the map was somehow hidden beyond our search of that vessel, it’s now lost.”
Lieutenant Florien-a tall, long-faced man-
shrugged and said, “My Lord Captain, well did we search, and no map was found.”
Armond nodded his agreement. “Sir, the men did a thorough job. I truly believe the map was not there.” Celeste broke off a piece of fresh-baked biscuit and dipped it in among the beans on her plate. She peered at it a moment and sighed and looked across the table at Roel. “We can only hope it is on the last of the corsairs.” Roel nodded and cut another bite from his slice of smoke-cured ham and said, “Yet if it is hidden on the first ship captured, then we are sailing in the wrong direction.”
“And if on the second ship, it’s gone,” said Officer Burcet, ship’s chirurgeon-short and rather foxlike of feature, with reddish hair and pale brown eyes.
They sat ’round a table in the captain’s quarters: Chevell, Armond, Laval, Roel, and Celeste, along with Florien and Burcet.
“Me,” said Armond, “I believe the rover captain was telling the truth, and the map is on the last of the three raiders.”