"My servants," the old man broke in gently, "know nothing of my deepest secrets, nor are they required to report to me everything they see, hear, do, or think. I reward them for the work they do for me, but I do not own their minds. Declan did not mention the conversation to me so it is obvious that he did not think it important. You were curious about my map?"
Before Brian could find his tongue, Captain Nolan slapped the top of the table. "And I, too, am curious about your map," he said. "Not about the magical how and why it came into your possession but simply to consult it as an aid to saving your lives and my ship…"
"Not necessarily in that order of importance," Seamus murmured.
"… Please, Ma'el," the captain ended, ignoring his first lieutenant, "tell me that you have it on your person now."
Ma'el inclined his head in affirmation, produced the map, and tapped it until it had unfolded to cover the table.
'This is a different map!" the captain burst out, excitement raising the tone of his usually deep voice. "We see only the coastline around Finisterre and nothing of Britain or Gaul-"
"It is a closer and enlarged view of the scene you saw yesterday…" the old man began when the captain interrupted him.
"Indeed it is closer," he said. "And there is a narrow, uneven ribbon of whiteness that follows the coastline that must be, although I can scarcely believe it, the sea breaking against the cliffs. But beyond the white line there are patches and points of a pale grayness that shades into black in deeper waters. What means that? Where are we on this chart, and why do we see none of your great, slow-spinning storm clouds?"
"The pale grayness shows the position of rocks close to the surface," Ma'el replied, "which you will want to avoid. At the center of the map there is a small point of gray that is our position. The storm clouds cover us but the picture uses a special light which enables us to look through them."
The captain's eyes began to shine with the wonder of a small child. He said, "If what you tell me is true, and I have no reason to doubt that, with this I can navigate past the most dangerous of reefs, in the darkness of a starless and moonless night, with complete safety. But what of the storm? Does your magic tell us if or when it will abate?"
Sharply Ma'el tapped an area of the map again. Around the table there were grunts of surprise as the image began to shrink rapidly until the coasts of Iberia and Gaul crawled into view followed quickly by the land outlines of the whole of western Europe. The fat double spiral of their storm was again visible. It was Ma'el who spoke first.
"As I have already told you." he said, "the forecasting of weather changes depends on many things and can never be wholly accurate. I have been told that the movement of air displaced by a bird's wing on the other side of the world can, in time, contribute to major changes in the weather an untold distance away. The storm whose lower edge is covering us will, I feel sure, move northward and thence into the Arctic wastes. Two or perhaps three days will elapse before this happens. The storm will be replaced by a high-pressure continental air mass, that is a large area of dry and calmer weather, which will produce gentler but very cold winds from the northeast. This wind direction will favor you…"
"Yes, yes, it will," the captain broke in. "I still don't understand some of the strange words you use, old man, even though I believe them. But…" he pointed to the tiny coastline east of Finisterre, "… I can't use this to navigate safely among inshore rocks."
Ma'el tapped the map gently and the original image returned. The captain gave a huge, relieved sigh. Brian, who had never taken his eyes off the map since Ma'el had begun speaking, licked his lips.
"Ma'el," he said, nodding toward the chart, "as I mentioned to Declan earlier, my principals in the Kingdoms of Tirconnel and Dalriada and, indeed, the ruler of any other seafaring nation, would reward you handsomely if you were to provide them with such maps. This is a secret more valuable than any I have ever uncovered in my years of spying. If you were to reveal the secret of the workings of such maps, you could have wealth beyond your wildest dreams."
"Regrettably," Ma'el replied with a gentle shake of his head, "there is but one map and only I know how to use it."
Captain Nolan exchanged looks with his lieutenant, then they both stared hard at Brian. "In that case," said the captain, "we must ensure that no harm of any kind comes to our magician navigator, either to his person or his property, for the remainder of this voyage. Do you take my meaning, Brian, old friend?"
For a moment Brian looked uncomfortable, then he nodded but made no other reply. Seamus showed all of his crooked teeth in a wide smile.
"Of course he does, Captain," he said, then went on in a sardonic voice, "Like us he knows nothing about our magician navigator who, for all we know, may already be rich beyond the dreams of avarice."
Captain Nolan smiled and in a moment their heads and that of Ma'el were again bent over the map. Brian watched the three of them without a word or an expression of any kind on his face until the conference was over and the captain was wishing his passengers a comfortable night. He also asked if he could retain the map overnight so as to help him steer a safe course among the reefs that stretched out from the base of the passing cliffs, and Ma'el surprised everyone by giving his permission.
While Declan was swaying and rolling about in his hammock and listening to the rain beating against the tightly stretched skins of the shelter, the expressions and conversation he had seen and heard around the captain's table came back to him. Brian, he thought, was easy talking, slippery, and untrustworthy and should be watched closely but not, he was sure, the other two. It was a very strange thought indeed, but just as the fatigue of stroking oar all day drew him into sleep, he wondered if in the dour captain and his ugly, straight-talking first officer Ma'el had found himself two new servants.
By the next morning the rain had stopped and the sun showed from time to time between scudding clouds. With the aid of Ma'el's chart, the captain guided the ship among the sunken rocks in safety under the high cliffs that sheltered them from a wind that howled far overhead and left them to contend with little more than a stiff breeze. They followed the twisting coastline, using relays of oarsmen or sails when their course made the wind direction favorable, towards a bay that they expected to reach before nightfall and where they would be able to anchor and rest their tiring seamen. Declan was greatly relieved when Seamus, showing his teeth in a particularly wide, snarling smile, said that their situation was neither dangerous nor urgent so that the passengers need not volunteer to row.
Ma'el spent most of the day aft in with the captain, where he was instructing the other in the use of the magic chart to navigate the shallows. Sinead remained outside her shelter and seemed disposed to talk to Declan, until he made the mistake of calling her "boy" which made her angry. When he explained in a low voice that lacked all semblance of an apology that there were seamen within hearing and did she want everyone on the ship to know that she was a young woman, she became even angrier and stopped speaking to him altogether. When Brian appeared and began talking to her in his easy, amusing fashion and making her laugh from time to time, Declan spent the rest of the day feeling even angrier without knowing why.
They were rounding a tall headland whose upper slopes were still lit by the setting sun when he saw movement and called to Seamus, who came to stand behind him so as to follow the direction of his pointing finger.
"Two, no, three men," said the Ionadacht. "You have good eyes, Declan. I must tell the captain about this without delay. But the light is fading. Keep watching them for as long as you can."