“Who can trust the word of a corsair?” said Chevell.
Celeste looked at the captain and smiled. “Did I not hear you mention you were once a freebooter?” Chevell laughed. “That was long past, Princess. I’ve since become a king’s man, and now my word is my bond. Your sire, Valeray, helped me to understand that.”
“My sire?”
“Oui.”
“When was this?”
Chevell glanced ’round the table and raised his left eyebrow and said, “This goes no further.” All the men nodded, including Roel, and Princess Celeste canted her head in assent.
Chevell lifted his glass of wine and held it up and looked at the ruby liquid, glowing with lantern light shining through. Then he took a deep breath and said,
“Many, many summers now long gone, Valeray and I were partners. We were on a, um, a bit of a task, one requiring lock-picking skills. We had just managed to liberate what we had come for, when we were discovered.
It was as we were escaping over the rooftops that I fell and broke my leg. The watch was hard on our heels, and I could not go on. Valeray, who had the. . hmm. . the items, dragged me into hiding and said if they found me, he would make certain to set me free. Then he fled on.
“Well, they found me, and threw me in gaol. A chirurgeon came to set my leg so that I would be fit when hanged. To my surprise, the ‘chirurgeon’ was Valeray.
He did set my leg, and then, with a cosh, he stunned the jailor and managed to get me free. He had a horse-drawn wagon waiting, grunting pigs in the stake-sided wain. He slipped me under the floorboards, where I lay in a slurry of pig sewage, and drove right through the warded gate.” Chevell burst into laughter. “The guards, you see, only glanced at the wain and backed away holding their noses and waved the pig farmer on. And even though I was retching as we went out the portal, my heaves were lost among the grunts of the swine.” Celeste broke into giggles, and the men at the table roared in laughter.
When it subsided, Chevell said, “We got quit of that city, and I asked Valeray why he had risked all to come back for nought but me. ‘My word is my bond,’ he replied.” Chevell took a sip of his wine. “Later, we parted our ways, and soon I became a freebooter-rose to captain my own vessel. But always Valeray’s words echoed in my mind: ‘My word is my bond.’
“Up until then I had not had much experience with honorable men. Yet that set me on my course. I gave up freebooting and took my ship and a good-hearted crew-one I had been culling from among the corsairs-and joined the king’s fleet. It was only long afterward I discovered Valeray himself had been a king’s thief, working for a distant realm.
“Some time after that, there was that dreadful business with Orbane, and I hear that Valeray was key to that wizard’s defeat.” Chevell looked at Celeste. “Sometime, Princess, you will have to tell me how ’twas done.” There came a tap on the door. “Come!” called Chevell.
The door opened and a skinny, towheaded cabin boy said, “Beggin’ your pardon, My Lord Captain, but the sailmaker says all is ready.”
“Thank you, Hewitt. Tell the watch commander I’ll be out at the mark of eight bells. Have the crew assemble then.”
Roel looked at Chevell. “The funerals of those lost in the battle?”
“Aye,” replied Chevell.
They ate in silence a moment, and then Officer Burcet said, “Damn the corsairs. I spent a goodly time sewing up gashes and bandaging heads. Two died under my care. Would that I could have done something to keep them alive.”
“The duties of a chirurgeon must be dreadful,” said Celeste, “dealing with the aftermath of violence as you do.”
“Oui. Even so, there are rewards as well.”
“That’s what Gilles says, too.”
“Gilles?”
“One of the healers at Springwood Manor.” Suddenly Celeste’s face fell. “Oh, I hope he is all right.” When the officers at the table looked at Celeste, questions in their eyes, Roel said, “Gilles was one of those with us when the Goblins and Ogres and Trolls attacked.”
“Ah, I see,” said Chevell. “We can only hope if the men in your band did cross the twilight border, they did so at a place other than where you crossed.” A pall fell upon the table, and from the deck a bell rang six times, the sound muted by the cabin walls.
Finally, Roel said, “How does one cross an unknown border?”
“Very carefully,” said Chevell.
Celeste looked up from her plate. “In the Springwood, in fact in all of the Forests of the Seasons-even the Winterwood-we ask the Sprites to help us. They fly across and back, and report what is on the other side.”
“Why did you single out the Winterwood, cherie?” asked Roel.
Celeste smiled and said, “Sprites do not like cold weather, for they wear no clothing. And in Borel’s realm it is always winter. Even so, we don special garments, with places within where the Sprites can stay warm.
Then we bear Sprites ’round the bound and they help us note what is on the far sides. In the other three realms, no special garb is needed.”
“Ah, I see,” said Roel. “But doesn’t that take a long while to map out a bound?”
Celeste nodded and said, “It is a long and tedious process, and we place markers signifying the safe routes, or note natural landmarks to do so.” Roel nodded. “I see, and there was no marker where we crossed.”
Celeste frowned a moment and then brightened. “Ah, Roel, that works to the good. If men of the warband survived the attack-and they are most likely to have done so, since the Goblins and such followed us-they will be cautious when crossing over. Can they find one, they will fetch a Sprite to help, or rope a scout to cross over. And if we left tracks, they will most likely think we have drowned, for the Sea Eagle has borne us away.” She grinned ruefully. “And here I was fearful for them, when instead they are almost certainly mourning us.” Ensign Laval said, “But won’t that mean your brothers and sister and your parents will be in mourning, too?”
“Oh,” said Celeste, her voice falling.
“Fear not, my lady,” said Chevell. “As soon as we return to Mizon, we will send word of your survival.”
“Ah,” said Celeste, her voice rising.
With her spirits lifted, Celeste set to her meal with gusto. Roel grinned and said to Chevell, “You can report that, thanks to the Three Sisters, the Sea Eagle was at the right place at the right time, and the word of our demise premature.”
“Hear, hear,” said Second Officer Florien, his long face breaking into a smile. He raised his glass in salute.
“Aye,” said Chevell. “I ween we can also thank the Three Sisters for sending the second corsair to the bottom, yet if the map was hidden thereon-” Celeste shook her head. “Non, Captain. Although I do believe the Fates sent that serpent-for those corsairs broke an oath taken in the Sisters’ names-I do not believe the Fates would have done so if the map were aboard.”
Chevell cocked an eyebrow. “Why is that, Princess?”
“Because, Captain, somehow the Fates are tied up in this quest of ours, and Lady Skuld has given me a rede.”
“Lady Skuld!” blurted Ensign Laval. “You spoke to Lady Skuld?”
“Oui.”
Wide-eyed, Chevell looked at Celeste and said,
“Princess, you will have to tell us of this quest you and Chevalier Roel follow.”
Celeste looked at Roel and said, “ ’Tis your tale to begin, cheri.”
Roel nodded and said, “Some summers back my parents arranged a marriage for my sister, Avelaine, one she did not welcome. . ”
“. . and that was when the Goblins and such attacked, the crow flying above and calling for revenge,” concluded Celeste.
“Where is this crow now?” asked the ensign.
“Skewered,” said Roel. “I believe Captain Anton slew it with a crossbow bolt.”
“Then if it was the witch shapeshifted, she’s dead.
Right?”
Roel looked at Celeste, revelation in his eyes, and said,