The Wand & the Sea (16 page)

“It has been too long since I have sailed,” he said at last, opening his eyes.

“Gawks!” Rowan hollered. “The spanker to leeward, and with a will.”

An old scowling sailor only nodded, adding, “To leeward, aye,” and pulled the sail into the wind.

“They don't cause any trouble, do they?” Everett whispered. “I mean, taking orders from—well, a girl.”

“I should say not,” said Almaric. “Punishment is swift on Morgan's crew, I've heard.”

“It's just, you don't see it much, do you? Women captains.”

Almaric raised his eyebrows. “I daresay I'm no expert on the subject, but I have never heard tell of any other type. 'Tis rare to see so many men on a ship like the
Sea Witch
. Sailing is quite sophisticated work, you know.”

Everett knew that, though he didn't have much experience on boats. Still, he and Ben offered to help out where they could. The captain, wanting to be mostly shut of them, said they could join the two-hour dogwatch in the late afternoons alongside Gawks and Frigg. Rowan and Kailani, who alternated as officers of the watch, assigned the boys duties like swabbing the decks or repairing the ship's lines. The helmsman—or helmswoman—often hollered for sails to be furled or loosed, as need be; and then someone would clamber up the rigging and fight to tame the flapping spanker or topsail. Ben said he was glad that wasn't their job.

Oggler, despite his gruff manner, showed them how to yank on the braces to turn the sails. He and his friend Quelch told them seafaring tales, and Oggler even gave Ben a spyglass to use while on board.

When he wasn't learning what he could from Oggler, Ben liked hanging around the galley to scrounge whatever food there might be. The second day at sea, he and Everett found Cook frantically pushing aside the boxes and jars in his tiny galley.

“How'm I supposed to make the captain's chicory?” he said in a trembly voice. “Or anything else she wants?” His goggling eyes opened even wider than usual.

“What's the matter?” Ben asked.

“The tinderbox. I can't find it noplace, nor me extra one. She'll hang me from the yardarm if they're gone!”

For the first time since they'd left the castle, the gold locket trembled against Everett's skin beneath his shirt. He pulled it out.

“What's a tinderbox?” Ben was asking.

“Little metal box for lighting the cook fire. About so big.” Cook held his fingers out in a three-inch spread.

The locket vibrated again, and a shape glowed on its surface. The teardrop.

“That's the fire symbol,” Ben said, suddenly interested. “Why's it doing that?”

“I haven't any idea,” said Everett. “But it's done it before, outside the Chamber of Maps.” He held tight to the locket. Now that he knew it was something special, he didn't want Ben to take it. The chain tugged at his neck, straining toward the floor as if magnetized.

“What're you doing?”

“The locket's pulling me.” It yanked so hard that Everett dropped to his knees.

“Whatever it is, can you do it outside my galley?” Cook said. “I got to find the—”

“Tinderbox?” Everett held up the little metal box containing the charred cotton and flint. He had plucked it from the edge of the galley door, where it had gotten wedged.

As soon as he laid his fingers on it, the locket went dark. The uncomfortable pulling sensation stopped.

Cook nearly shook his arm off in gratitude. He said the boys were welcome to the choicest bits of whatever he made, puddings and what all, and clapped Everett on the back so hard Everett wished he hadn't found the tinderbox at all.

And, he realized, he hadn't. The locket had.

In all the excitement of putting to sea, and learning the pitch and roll of the ship and how not to stumble across the deck, and reassuring Ben that the creaks of the wood and the rigging were not evidence of poor seaworthiness, it was a full twenty-four hours later before Everett even thought about Avery, the crowned prince heir of Anglielle, who huddled in the brig somewhere belowdecks. In fact, if he hadn't seen Darcie carrying a tray of food up from one of the lower holds, he mightn't have remembered him at all. He felt a stab of guilt as he stopped Darcie on her way to the galley.

“Is that for the prince?”

“Was, you mean,” said the cabin girl, tossing back her single black braid. “He ain't touched a crumb since yesterday. Puttin' on airs and all. Well, I ain't forcin' it down his gullet, am I?” She grinned. “More fer me, I reckon. D'ye like some yerself?”

“No, thanks.” Everett let her pass, then slipped down into the hold.

He had to descend another level below their quarters to find the brig. He passed through several rooms filled with barrels of drinking water and rum, wine casks and dried beans, and wood stored up for Cook's fire. Another room held stores of arrows and crossbows, cutlasses, and other weapons. But tucked off in a corner, he found something he had never expected to see.

It was a barrel like the rest, but instead of food or water, it was filled with black powder. Next to it was a satchel containing twisted bits of paper. He had seen the like before, somewhere, and when he shined his lantern into the dark corner, he remembered. For there, set up in a wooden rack, were half a dozen Brown Bess muskets.

Where on earth, Everett wondered, would Angliellans get
guns
?

A hacking cough startled him. Avery. Everett left the gunpowder and muskets and crawled through the main hold. Finally, just when he thought he must be beneath the bow of the ship, he came upon three damp-looking cells. Only one was occupied.

Avery sat on the floor, his head hanging between his knees, shielding his blue eyes with his arms. His blond hair was dirtier and more unkempt than Everett had ever seen, and his fine clothes were muddied and torn. The cell reeked of filth, and nearby Everett could hear the bilgewater sloshing about and rats squeaking.

“Avery,” said Everett. He felt the need to whisper, though he couldn't say why. “How's it going?”

Avery's pale face jerked up at once, then fell when he saw who it was. His cheeks were dirty and streaked as if he'd been crying. “Who art thou to ask such a thing of me?”

“I just wanted to see if you were all right,” Everett said. “Getting enough to eat and all.”

“Prisoners do not get the choicest cuts from the table.”

“Not if they don't eat them.”

Avery dropped his head again. “It matters not. I am to die here, or be strung from the yardarm.”

“No, you're not.” Everett didn't like to think about the captain stringing up anyone. “I reckon you'll be ransomed, won't you? A prince and all.”

“Aye.” Avery gave a short, cheerless laugh. “His Majesty values me so highly.” He shielded his face, and it looked as if he were toying with something Everett couldn't see. “I dare not hope for ransom. 'Tis my life in exchange for Iona's, the captain's missing first mate.”

A faint glow came from the dim cell, illuminating Avery's face for a moment.

“What's that you've got?” Everett asked, peering through the bars.

“Leave me in peace, Sir Everett, I beg thee.”

“Come on, show us.” The glow on Avery's face changed color from white to blue.

When Avery didn't answer, Everett kicked at the cell bars, which hurt his toes quite a lot. He was tired of everyone second-guessing him. Holly was helping find the Adepts, Ben spent most of his time with Oggler, and no one else on this boat needed him. Avery had no right to act all stuck-up at this point. “I'm trying to help you, though I can't see why, seeing as you nearly
killed
my friends and me.
Twice
.”

“I did not betray you to my father,” Avery shot back, standing up. Something clattered to the floor behind him.

“You led us straight to him!”

“I thought him abed!”

“And what about last year? Was that just a mistake too, setting the whole wood on fire? I don't know why I bother.” And just then, Everett
couldn't
see why he bothered, except that for some reason, he still sort of liked Avery. All the same, he gave the cell bars another (gentler) kick for good measure and turned around to head back to his cabin.

“Wait!” Avery called. Everett wouldn't have stopped if the prince's voice hadn't broken in the middle of that one lonely, fragile word. But he took his time walking back.

“What is it?”

“I—I did not mean to harm thee afore. Nor the squire.”

“Ben.”

“Aye. Ben. Not even the Adept—”

“Holly.”

“The Lady Holly. Quite.”

Everett hadn't said
lady
, and he didn't see why Avery needed to add it. But he said nothing.

“I was of more tender years then,” Avery added. “And my father is a man of great power. He said you wouldst betray me, and I believed him. It was—foolish of me.”

It was the closest the prince had ever come to an apology, in Everett's experience.

“I will show you what I have,” Avery went on eagerly. He turned around and brandished something. “See here, Sir Everett!”

Avery held up a long, thin wooden stick.

Everett's wand.

Everett gazed at the tapered mahogany stick, at the dragon faces and tails curling around it. “What . . .” he spluttered. “But how?”

“I didst find it in the moat! The captain searched me for weapons, but I hid it well within my cloak.” Avery grinned at his success. The wand was still wrapped around with the scrap of red silk, which looked dirty and bedraggled.

“And you still have the scarf—the lady's favor.”

“I cannot do much,” the prince admitted. “But I do set small bits of paper ablaze, for warmth.”

“I can't believe it still works,” Everett said, as if the wand were an old motorcar shut up in someone's garage. He knew that, as a stolen wand, its talents were erratic at best, unless imbued with the power granted to it by the lady's favor. And Sol, the fiery little fairy who had granted that power, was long gone, back to the Realm of the Good Folk. “It just seems odd.”

“Odd or nay, 'tis something thou and I couldst master together.” Avery's voice fell to a whisper. “Only think on it, Everett. Mayhap we could learn to conjure great beasts, or rule the oceans with such a tool!”

“I don't know about that.” The thought made Everett's stomach queasy. He'd done wondrous things with the wand before, but they weren't the sort of things that made him feel all warm and fuzzy. Still, who knew what they were sailing into now? Anything could be out there. This wasn't his world.

“We must be able to defend ourselves,” Avery said. “We sail with a savage captain, after all. She is comely, but she is no sweet damsel. Nor are her crew.”

He had a point there.

“I will share this wand with thee, Sir Everett. It would be just for the twain of us. Together shall we come to know its powers.”

“But what about Ben? And Holly?” It wouldn't do to forget them. They were also sailing with a pirate captain.

“They have the Adept's own wand, nay?” Avery pressed his face close to the bars. “And if we tell them of it, would not the Adept surely take it for her own? Perhaps give it to her allies?”

“But . . . her allies
are
our allies. Or mine, anyway. I can't tell whose side you're on.”

“Thine, as ever, Sir Everett,” Avery assured him. “But the Adept wishes to gather all the magicks to herself, and is mayhap blinded to the good others could do. Is it not so?”

Everett couldn't deny that Holly was awfully keen to hoard the magic. She never let anyone else even touch her wand, let alone give it a go. And if Avery wasn't being up-front with him, what difference did it make? He couldn't go anywhere. He was locked up, and they were at sea.

“Show me what you can do with it,” Everett said finally.

Avery grinned, forgetting his haughty persona for a moment, and grasped the dirty red scarf around the wand's shaft. “I have essayed fire a few times,” he said. A small spark glowed at the tip, and when Avery waved it in the air, it left a golden afterimage.

“Are you mental?” Everett cried. “We're on a boat made of
wood
. You'll set the place on fire.”

“I have control of it,” said Avery loftily. “I have only lit flames inside the chamber pot.” He crossed the cell to pick up a large urn.

“Ew, that's okay—I believe you. Pour that out, why don't you?” He pointed to a large jug of fresh water that Darcie had left in the cell.

Avery did as he asked, then set the jug on the floor. He and Everett sat down in front of it, the cell bars between them.

“It be but a wee spark,” Avery said nervously, holding the wand over the jug.