“Ahem.” Gervaise cleared his throat.
“Yes, Helmsman,” replied Celeste.
“Steering, m’lady, now, this be the way of it. . ” That evening Celeste and Roel and Chevell sat at dinner in the captain’s cabin.
“Today I handled the wheel,” said Celeste.
“The training went well?” asked Chevell.
“Oui and non: there was a steady larboard wind, and so I had little practice at helming a ship. Even so, I learned much of the way of it. And Gervaise took relief from Helmsman Lucien and walked me the length of the ship, showing me the halyards and sheets and naming the sails and telling me what each one does, Bosun Destin accompanying us and adding a word now and then.”
Chevell nodded and said, “My lady, Second Officer Florien tells me that the wind is shifting to the fore, and tomorrow we will be tacking. That should give you practice aplenty.”
“Well and good, Captain. Well and good.” They ate without speaking for long moments, but finally Celeste ran her fingers through her pale tresses and sighed. “Ah, me, Roel, but the fact that we fled without any gear other than what we were carrying is dreadful. I mean, I need a bath and to wash my hair. .
and I believe I would kill for a comb. Too, I would clean my leathers, but I have nought to wear while they are airing.”
Roel laughed and said, “For weeks on end during the war Blaise and I and all the men, we did not bathe nor change clothes whatsoever. Our leathers became stiff with sweat and grime and other matter. Rank we were, indeed.”
“Nevertheless. .,” replied Celeste.
Captain Chevell smiled. “My lady, I can provide you with salt water to bathe in, and then a small amount of fresh to wash the salt away. As for a comb and clothing, perhaps we can scare up some such.”
“Oh, Captain, I would much appreciate that.” Celeste hesitated a moment and then added, “I will also need a bit of clean cloth for. . hmm. . other needs. Perhaps I will see Chirurgeon Burcet for that.” Concern flooded Roel’s face. “Beloved, are you wounded in some manner?”
Celeste smiled and said, “No more so than other women.”
Roel frowned, and then enlightenment filled his features. “Oh. .,” and both he and Chevell became totally absorbed in cutting up their salted haddock.
Celeste shook her head and smiled to herself and cut at her fish as well.
The following day, dressed in cabin-boy garb, Celeste stood at the wheel, Helmsman Gervaise at her side, Bosun Destin standing nearby.
“The wind, she be blowing straight from the course we would like to follow,” said Gervaise. “But we can’t sail directly into the teeth of it. Instead, we tack on long reaches and run a zigzag toward the way we would go-
in this case, the isles. We are about to alter course-to zig the other way-and head on a larboard tack; to make that change, well, it’s called ‘ready about.’ ” Gervaise went on to explain to Celeste exactly how
’twas to be done. She listened intently and got the general gist of it, even though Gervaise used a plethora of terms- headsheets, jibs, spilling, luffing, aweather, let go and haul, mainsails, foresails, mizzen sails, halyards, helm alee, aback, and the like-most of which Celeste remembered from the lessons of the day before.
When he was finished, Celeste smiled and said, “Gervaise, if what they say about the Sirenes is true, there won’t be men to hale the yards about, and I alone cannot handle the entire ship.” Gervaise scratched his whiskery jaw and said, “Well, if ye were runnin’ on nought but jibs and staysails ye might, though ye’d have to tie the wheel while ye ran fo’ard and adjusted the sheets.”
“Would I have the strength to do so?” Gervaise looked at her slim form. “Well, m’lady, the Eagle’s jibs and stays are quite large and usually require two men on each sheet, but one alone could handle them, though it’d be a strain. Now that ye call it to my attention, I think it’d be too much for a slip of a demoiselle such as you.” Celeste laughed. “Ah, then, Helmsman, we can forget about me dealing with the sails on my own, eh?” Gervaise scratched his whiskery jaw and nodded, and Celeste said, “Still, if we are to-how did you call it, ready about? — let us get on with the doing.”
“Aye, aye, Princess,” said Gervaise, and he glanced at Lieutenant Armond, who nodded to him and the bosun.
“Prepare ready about!” shouted Destin. He put his pipe to his lips and blew a call, and men adeck leapt to the halyards and sheets and waited. And Celeste caused the Eagle to fall off the wind a little to make all sails draw better to increase speed, and then the second part of the maneuver began.
As Celeste learned what she might need to know about helming a ship through the Iles de Chanson, a knight and a former thief studied drawings in the captain’s cabin in the event the Sea Eagle did not intercept the raider.
Chevell shook his head and said, “This outer fortress wall is sheer; my men are good at climbing ratlines, but not vertical stone.”
Roel looked at the sketch. “Yet the walls are scalable, oui?”
“Oui, to one skilled at free-climbing.”
“I am so skilled,” said Roel.
“As am I,” said Chevell. “Valeray taught me back in our thieving days.”
Roel sighed and said, “As he taught his daughter.”
“The princess can free-climb stone?”
“Oui,” said Roel, harking back to the day he had asked Celeste if she would have him as a husband, when they had in fact free-climbed a sheer stone column named the Sentinel.
Chevell made a swift gesture of negation. “Ah, we can’t let her go on such a perilous venture.”
“Captain, do you imagine you can stop her? I know I can’t.”
“No, Chevalier, I can’t stop her either.After all, she outranks me. Do you suppose we can slip away unnoticed?” Roel simply shook his head.
“She is quite a handful, eh?”
“I would not say she’s a handful, Sieur, for that somehow implies I should be her master. Non, a handful she is not, yet headstrong she most certainly is. Even so, she has the skills we need, and I would not try to gainsay her. I love her, Captain, headstrong and all. We are betrothed, and plan to marry when we get back from our quest.”
“If you get back,” said Chevell.
Roel raised an eyebrow, a slight grin on his face. “If?”
“My boy, you are speaking of venturing into the realm of the Lord of the Changelings, a place from which few, if any, ever return.”
The next morning the sky began to darken. “We’ve a storm approaching,” said Lieutenant Florien. “I ween it’ll be upon us by midafternoon.”
“Good!” exclaimed Chevell.
“Good, My Lord Captain?”
“Oui, Lieutenant. It means we’ll be running through the Iles de Chanson in foul weather. I think the Sirenes will not be singing this afternoon and eve.”
They sailed onward, the skies ever darkening, and finally Chevell shouted, “Hewitt!” Cabin Boy Hewitt came running aft. “My Lord Captain?”
“Hewitt, ask Princess Celeste and Sieur Roel to join me in my quarters.”
“Aye, aye, My Lord Captain.”
Hewitt dashed away toward the bow, where Celeste and Roel stood and watched dolphins racing the Eagle and leaping o’er the bow wave, then circling about to leap o’er the wave again. And every now and then, the two caught glimpses of swift swimmers among them-
neither dolphins nor fish, but small finny folk instead, mayhap half human in size. Pale green they were, and some bore tridents, yet they used them not.
“What are they?” asked Roel.
“They are the Couvee de la Mer-the Sea Brood. ’Tis said they often use dolphins as men use dogs.”