“Then tell me, are there any other ships herein named after the winds?”
“Certainly none currently in port as great as the Higashi No Kaze, though there are three others who might sail in one day soon.”
“What about ships that are not as great, yet named after the winds?”
“Why is it you want to know?”
Camille sighed and said, “I search for my true love Alain. He is gone to a place east of the sun and west of the moon, or so did Lady Sorciere say. And I was given a riddle to solve, a riddle which will lead to him, or so it is I hope.”
Jordain sighed. “Your true love, eh?”
“Indeed. I love him more than life itself.” Camille’s voice dropped. “It is my fault he is missing.”
“There is a tale here to tell,” said Jordain, “and I would hear it. Yet the riddle first.”
Camille glanced up at Jordain then said:
“There are winds that do not blow,
But flow across the sea;
A master of one might know
Where such a place doth be.”
“Ah,” said Jordain. “Now I see why you seek ships named after the winds. Let us go to the harbor office, and we shall see what ships are harbored that answer to such.”
Registered in port there were currently nine ships with names, some of which needed to be translated, that evoked the winds- Breeze, Windsong, Squall, Little Cyclone, Sea Breath, Gale, Storm Runner, Villion’s Bluster, Wind Walker- and a tenth craft named Puffer, though Jordain thought this last but a small boat named after a fish.
Over the next two days, Camille and Scruff visited every one of these craft, yet none of the masters knew where the place she sought did lie.
“I thought not,” said Jordain. “Most were coastal runners, and not ships that sail across the five oceans and the seven seas.”
“That many?” asked Camille. “-Oceans and seas, I mean.”
“Those are the ones in Faery I know of,” replied Jordain, “though ’tis said there are more-some claim nine oceans in all, and as many as eleven seas.”
Camille stood silent for a while, looking over the harbor, and then she said, “When first we met, you spoke of three other great ships named after the winds, ships that might come.”
Jordain nodded. “Aye, they are the Hawa Kibli, and Aniar Gaoth, and the Nordavind. Fear not, Camille, if any come across la Grande Mer-the Great Sea-and into port, I will send a runner to fetch you. Where are you staying?”
“At the Le Marlin Bleu, but any runner you send must at times find me elsewhere-at mapmakers, for example. Yet I will tell the clerk at the Blue Marlin where I am bound, and the runner can ask him. Oh, and in the evenings, the runner will find me at La Lanterne Rouge, where I will be singing.”
Jordain’s eyes widened in surprise. “The Red Lantern? But, Camille, it is quite an unruly place, and though there are women who work there, I think they are not your sort.”
Camille said, “I will only be singing, Jordain, not, um, not, well, you know. Besides, I have been told that every ship’s captain and crew sooner or later comes to the ’Lantern, and as I did in Les Iles, I shall ask each audience if anyone knows whither lies the place I seek.”
“Bu-but-” Jordain began to protest, yet Camille stopped him with a thrust-out palm.
“As I said, Jordain, I will simply be singing.”
Jordain sighed. “When do you begin?”
“This very eve.”
Jordain shook his head and turned away, peering out over the water. Then he pointed. “There goes the Higashi No Kaze.”
As she watched the red ship tack toward the harbor entrance, Camille frowned and said, “Her sails are not like the other ships I’ve seen leaving port.”
“Aye, they are not,” said Jordain. “But for that matter, the whole ship is different, her bottom is quite flat with but a small keel, and the rudder is long and angles out, somewhat like a lengthy oar. Her sails are called lugsails and have four corners down the outside border; they’re made of coarse cotton and braced flat by long wooden strips running from the haul to the edge. And she’s equipped with oars for the crew to use when the wind does die. No, not like other ships is she, yet quite seaworthy in all, they say, though I myself wouldn’t want to be aboard her in a heavy storm.”
They watched as the great ship made her way to the mouth of the harbor and then on out to sea, where she turned to the larboard and soon vanished behind the up-sloping hills to the headland, her strange sails the last to disappear.
Camille sighed. The East Wind was gone, along with her yellow-tan crew.
There came a soft tap on the door, and when Camille opened it, a huge man filled the frame, his hat in hand. “Miss Camille?”
“Yes?”
“Ma’am, I’m t’ go with y’ t’ th’ Red Lantern.”
“Sieur?”
“I’ll be waitin’ down below.”
He turned to go, but Camille called out, “Wait!”
The big man turned back, brushing the shock of red hair out of his pale blue eyes.
“Who are you, and why are you going to the Red Lantern with me?”
“I’m t’ see that no one does y’ wrong, Miss Camille.”
“Does me wrong?”
“Aye. ’At’s what th’ harbormaster sent me t’ do.”
“Jordain.” Camille’s word was a statement, not a question.
“ ’At’s right. Mister Jordain.”
“And if I need no protection…?”
“Oh, you will, miss,” averred the big man. Then his mouth formed an O, as if he just remembered something. “And, miss, my name is John, though most know me as Big Jack.”
“Well, Jacques, I-”
“No, no, miss. Not Jacques. Jack. And it’s Big Jack at that.”
“Well, um, Big Jack, tell Jordain that I thank him for his offer, and I thank you as well, but-”
Jack held up an admonishing index finger. “No, no, miss. He said you’d like as not try t’ say no, but he gave me instructions, he did, and I’ll not take a no.”
Camille sighed and said, “Well, Jack, er, Big Jack, I suppose it can’t harm if you tag along.”
After the melee at the Red Lantern was over, and after the three men who had tried to carry Camille up the stairs had been smashed unconscious by single blows of one of Big Jack’s massive fists, Camille no longer objected to him being about. In fact, after but two nights, his very presence meant that when Camille took the stage a quiet would descend, for Big Jack would stand up in the center of the throng and glare all ’round; and a hush would fall over the boisterous crowd, each person there wondering if he was the one Big Jack was getting ready to maim. And then Camille would begin to sing, and Big Jack would smile and sit down, to a great sigh of relief. And her singing brought laughter and tears to the eyes of captains and crew alike, and even the ladies of the Red Lantern would pause to listen, some weeping softly. And now and again, as she had done in Les Iles, Camille would sing to a wee sparrow.
As before, at the conclusion of every performance, she would ask if anyone there knew of a place east of the sun and west of the moon, and though sailors and masters looked at one another, none could tell her where such a place might be…
… And thus did eighteen days pass, eighteen blossoms withering to vanish since Camille had been in Leport. Twenty-one blossoms remained on Lady Sorciere’s staff, new splinters and cracks yet riving the stave with the coming of each new day.
“Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle!” cried the lad. “The harbormaster sent me to fetch you. He says to tell you the South Wind has come.”
