In Which the Adventure Appears to be Over

From the diary of Dulcie, Crown Princess of Bentlefay:

(continued from here)

As soon as we reached the upper deck, Masters swaggered over to us – I can really put it no other way – looking almost suffocatingly romantic. His coat was off; his shirt was open at the neck; his long black hair was tied back in a queue with one lock tumbling effectively over his forehead. He ignored me completely and went straight up to Lynde.

“Mistress,” he said, still breathing hard from the fight, “you are unhurt?”

In her place I would have been unable to produce any sound but a watery giggle, but she bore up sturdily and gave him a crisp nod.

“Her majesty and I are perfectly safe,” she said and then wavered. “…thanks to you.”

They gazed into each other’s eyes.

“It is my privilege,” he said, and after a moment’s hesitation she gave him her hand, which he kissed in a way which bore no resemblance to the sterile salutations of the court.

I would cheerfully have stood there watching them until they became aware of me, which honestly looked likely to have been hours, but Long Bob cleared his throat with a pointed rumble and they glanced up at him, still handfasted.

“I surely am sorry to interrupt you,” said Long Bob, and he really did sound sorry, “but the Sad Sarah was the closest to Norhammer’s bowshot, and you may want to signal your watch to make certain all is secure.”

Masters looked out toward his ship and then back at Lynde. “Yes,” he said, “I must go. But surely we will meet again?”

“I – I don’t know,” Lynde stammered. “I go where I am needed, you know. Needed by the princess, that is to say,” she added in a hurry.

“Ah.” He raised her hand again, and this time kissed the palm, in a way that made my knees go wobbly just watching it and Lynde herself sway as though in a stiff breeze.

“You will be hearing from me,” he said into her hand, and after a last meaningful look he strode away.

“Young Jock is an excellent earner, and altogether a most rising young man,” observed Long Bob casually to the world at large. “He has no attachments of which I am aware.

“However,” he went on, having made his point, “take a peep over there at all that remains of your enemy.”

Darkness had fallen over an hour ago, but there was a moon, and the burning hull of one of the three vessels provided sufficient illumination to view the scene. The other two enemy ships were already off for the horizon. The Porteous, the Sad Sarah and the Blood Wind hadn’t a scratch on them, and I supposed that the Golden Gull’s cannon had a greater range than whatever Norhammer had planned for us.

I was struck as an afterthought by the fact that we could see no people – just the two ships disappearing into the dark, and the ruined bulk of the third.

“I would have liked to see what they looked like, at least,” I said. “There must have been some survivors of that ship.”

“It’s true that troubles me slightly,” admitted Long Bob. “A cannonball may blow a hole in the hull but it do be physically impossible to kill everyone on board with the same strike. I wouldn’t use them if it did,” he added virtuously. “We must just take extra care – Norhammers are a tricky people at sea, I’m told. Ah, well,” he went on, “I’ll have your men fetched to you. We’d better get you back to your beauty sleep after the day you’ve had.”

He strode off with purpose and I turned to Lynde.

“Now that the whole thing is over, I wish I’d paid a little more attention to it,” I began, but she did not hear me. She was gazing dreamily at Masters in the bow, ordering together the contingent for the Sad Sarah.

I gave it a moment before I spoke again. “You know, when the battle started I had no idea you’d end up one of the casualties.”

She sighed and came back to earth. “It would be very uncomfortable living on board a ship,” she said, “but I admit this whole affair will be nicer to remember than I would have thought a quarter of an hour ago.”

I took her arm and squeezed it. “He did say you’d hear from him,” I said to tease her. “Come, let’s get back to real life before anything irrevocable happens.”

It took a little time, but the four men of our escort finally assembled, breathing hard from the excitement of the battle and rather inclined to wink raffishly and roll their gait. One of them even had his hat on the side of his head. Obviously fighting with pirates agreed with them.

“Sure, your Majesty,” said their leader out the side of his mouth. “We’d better get you back to the Porteous before the old man takes it into his head to do something simpleminded. He must be itching like a bed full of fleas.”

He was unconsciously speaking in a shadow of Long Bob’s brogue, and I grinned. “Aye aye, mate,” I said. “You and the fellows drop our boat off the port stern while I have a chinwag with himself here.”

The escort shuffled their feet and smiled shyly while Lynde cast her eyes ostentatiously toward heaven, and then she shepherded them away and Long Bob and I were alone.

I made my prettiest curtsy and held out my hand. “It’s been a rare privilege to share your table, Captain Langstrom,” I said. “And if the sequel was not according to expectation it was at least more interesting than most after-dinner hours I’ve spent in my time.”

He shook his massive head and looked mournfully at his feet.

“I take it on myself that they managed to sneak up on us like that; I surely do. I’ve got ears in every port in the Nine Kingdoms, and it’s a sore, sad day when Long Bob Langstrom has to face an enemy he hasn’t seen coming.”

He looked so pathetic that I laid my hand on his arm. “But it worked out though, didn’t it?” I pleaded. “Your cannon were just as big a surprise to them as they were to us.”

“Maybe,” Long Bob acknowledged, “but the time will come when we’ll all have cannon, every ship on the sea, and then it’s the old-fashioned ears that will save us in times like these.”

“Well,” I said, not wanting to coddle his mood any longer, “if you insist on borrowing trouble, you’ll never get out of debt – or so my mother says.”

He grinned like the sun coming out. “And a higher authority I can’t imagine.”

There was a companionable silence, unknowingly breached by Lynde, who arrived just then.

“The boat’s down,” she said, “and we’re just waiting for you. If you’re done.

“Please don’t hurry,” she added in the tone that means the opposite.

I was beginning to feel terribly sleepy – a reaction from my hysterics, I suppose. Lynde and the escort got me down the ladder and into the boat, and although the row across to the Porteous can’t have taken a quarter of an hour I believe I actually nodded off.

We were all relieved the thing was over and our escort made the boat fast and nipped thankfully up the ladder with no ceremony at all. It was up to Lynde to boost me up to the deck, and I suppose our guard was thoroughly down because we got all the way up to the deck without the slightest sense of danger before a harsh, grating voice I had never heard before stopped us in our tracks.

“Welcome to my new ship, your majesty,” it said, and my blood turned cold. “I was beginning to think you would never join us.”

(to be continued)