it was done, even as our mother faced you!”
The Admiral struck her across the face with an open palm. “The devil in a woman’s skin! Has your mother been reincarnated, in beauty and in sin?” To his ship, “Barnes! Prepare the galley for a rowing slave!”
“Sir,” a voice returned, “A single oar will break our current, and there are no other prisoners.”
Celestine did not leave time for the Admiral to speak, “Barnes, I will join her.”
“Sir?” and Barnes Griffith’s face appeared over the rail.
“If she is a fool, let her be foolish.”
“Yes, sir!” and the lieutenant disappeared.
The Admiral was silent, flying up the rope ladder that had been dropped from the side of
The sailors were a strangely efficient force. The Admiral had set the sails against each other as they came about, and while they stood at the Marins, the ship did not move. But as he called out, a group of sailors jumped off their perch on the cross-trees of the main mast and launched themselves toward the mizzenmast. They landed firmly on its ropes. The force of their impact caused the mast to rotate in its base – at that time unfastened. The masts were set in brass cauldrons and could be rotated in a complete circle. It was a unique characteristic of Atiltian ships, one that was lost with its inventors. Several notches were crafted into the mast and when these notches aligned within the cauldron the mast was as sturdy as a static mast; yet, when unlatched, they could be rotated to optimally catch the wind. As the mizzenmast reached the correct position, two men standing at its base dropped the brass fastener, which brought it to a stop in the desired notch. An ordinary sailor, perhaps, could not have executed such a dangerous operation as using the force of a leap between the masts to swing one about. But these sailors had been born into the canopy and the air was better known to them than the ground.
“The ropes are prepared?” Barnes was asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good. Take these women below and treat them as you would any other prisoner. Mercy, for a man of arms, is cowardice.” His eyes were no longer cold, since even that much emotion had left them.
Barnes hesitated, but Cybele and Celestine went below without him. Seeing this, he hastened to escort them.
“Come to me,” the Admiral said after a pinch of silence. He stood at the starboard bow, watching over the ocean with a father’s eye. The wind beat against his face, but to him it was a soft linen nestled against him. He was speaking to Meredith and the Fardy brothers. They came, albeit in silence: awed by his determination, but not surprised. He was a fierce sailor whose only fault was his blind and unwavering loyalty to his country – to the trees and the foliage and the mountains, rather than to the
“Do not think me incapable of feeling,” he said, still staring into the ocean’s abyss. “Do not think that I have no love, that I am not human. For I am, and that is my failing.” He hesitated. “The ways of men are a narrow thread that keeps the world from ending. Yet the same thread, if made too strong, hangs those we would help. If we are conquered, Atilta will lose its claim to freedom, as will the Three Kingdoms. The mainland will not be long in following. The torch passed from Rome will be swallowed by the sea. Yet even if we are victorious, danger still lurks underfoot, waiting to destroy us. For a beloved king can be as harmful as a tyrant. But I meander. You have come through safely, friends, but what of old Clifford?”
“He is safe,” the black Fardy said, “Though not as patient as me and my brothers: he could not wait for our arrival in Thunder Bay before making his escape. At the moment, he naps in the Timber,” and he pointed to the Timber that had hauled the second Marin.
“Ah, the old man!” William Stuart laughed out loud. “And he will need the rest, ere this battle has played out.”
Meanwhile, Celestine and Cybele were chained to their oars on either side of the otherwise empty galley. It was the bottom of the ship – but for the two foot deep water tank beneath – and stretched the length of the ship, curved at the sides along the hull’s contour. Barnes Griffith had stayed with them for a time, pressured by his good nature to comfort them and by his orders to discomfort them. But Cybele had mixed thoughts for the man she had known as a young girl as her father’s servant, and at last bellowed at him to begone. He raised his eyebrows, muttered something inaudible, and limped away with a cluttered countenance. The two sisters were alone in the room.
They rowed vigorously. Though supremely beautiful, neither was weak, but inured to hardships. Celestine had been for fifteen years a prisoner of the man who lusted after her, and who had done the same to her mother. Every day she held her love for her husband and endured the suffering by looking over the forest canopy, in which her beloved Alfonzo labored endlessly to free her and the people of Atilta.
Cybele had been raised from youth to be a powerful queen. Her mother was bitter, though she only warred against herself: her love had soured and with it her whole person. Cybele was thus in daily communication with manifested misery. She was still young when her mother’s death placed her on the throne, but she was not ruled by the legions of officials who thought to govern in her stead. Rather, she burned even from the womb with a passion for power that had not smoldered with age. By this time, she was twenty and her rule as uncontested as her beauty. The latter was that of youth, of newness, of spring. Yet the whiteness of her hair and the strange determination of her spirit gave her the beauty of old age, of life, of wisdom, of winter. These two sources of beauty were married in her and she was left a goddess. She was in every sense a woman.
As they rowed, the two did not speak, nor did their faces express their thoughts. Their countenances were as silent as their tongues.
Chapter 74
A man stood in front of the window and another was motionless on the bed several yards to the left. Twilight came through the window. A lamp hung by the door. The room was made of stone, though the walls were covered with tapestries and the floor with a rug. Outside the windows was a castle, beyond that a small town; beyond the town lived an expansive meadow, stretching for a mile in every direction until it struck the edge of the forest. To the north was Thunder Bay, upon which busy men could be seen.
“Alfonzo,” said the man on the bed. He spoke weakly, on the verge of sleep or death. “Tell me, in my final hours, what is passing in my world.”
“Milada!” Alfonzo entreated, “You will not be killed so easily, will you? Why are you so eager to quit the battle?”
“Because, friend, I am not fooled by your supposed optimism. Look,” he gestured to his stomach, “The wound eats my strength.” He paused. “As I said, give me the last glimpse I will have of Atilta.”
“We are building defenses around the castle. The rebels are gathering here in constant streams. The king is in France, but we have heard nothing of him.”
“Perhaps we were wrong,” Milada said slowly. “If he had stayed, his presence would have strengthened our ranks. Instead he searches for a cure for an useless old man!”
“Do not say such things, Milada. We cannot change what has been set in motion. We can only commit our fate to God.”
“You are as lightheaded about such things as my daughter.”
“We will see.”
“You will, at least,” Milada moaned, “For I will not live. Go, and leave me to my fate.”
Alfonzo looked over the dying man, then left the room, leaving the plans he had drawn sitting on the table. No one greeted him in the armory and the guards below were not at their posts. He passed through the room without seeing anything, absorbed in the deluge which surrounded him. It was not until he reached the door that the spell was broken by a windy voice.
“I am a patient man,” it said, “But what is this? Can you pass by your friends without even an acknowledgment? By the patent sobriety of my kin, I am outraged, Alfonzo of Melborough: outraged and incensed!” The speech could only have been more fervent if the speaker had not broken into a laugh at the end, leapt from his chair, and charged toward Alfonzo with open arms – a strange appearance, for he was an oddly shaped man.
“The Fardys!” Alfonzo cried, grasping the blond brother by the hand.
“And they are not alone,” Meredith said, advancing to his old friend. The two embraced.
