“Lords and Ladies of the Sea, no!” Haroyld laughed. “This map has been made using hundreds of other maps. You see, twenty years ago I travelled to all the towns along the Northern Sea and sat down with their navigators. Then, together we shared the spots where whales have been caught. I even found some maps in an old chest at the back of the Sinking Eel not two nights before it burned down.”
“Really?” Oona’s interest in the map suddenly grew. She wondered if one of the stars secretly marked the spot where a nardoo had been sighted.
“You like maps?” Haroyld asked as he watched Oona’s eyes race back and forth across the parchment.
“I think so,” Oona said. Truth be told, this was the first map she had ever seen.
“Would you like me to show you some more when we get back to Nordlor?”
“More maps of the North?” Oona said. “Yes, please.”
“And maps of the South and the East and the West. I’m a bit of a collector. Got maps of all the places that have ever been travelled to and even maps of empty spaces where no one has yet to go.”
At this last bit of information, Oona’s eyes widened with curiosity. “You mean, there are some places in the world where no human has ever been?”
“The world is a big place, Oona Britt. You could travel your whole life and not live to see it all.”
“Is that so?” Oona said slowly. A glint of excitement shone in her eyes.
“Steady yourself, Oona,” Haroyld said with a chesty cough. “You’ve got to finish one adventure before you start another.”
*
Though Trine had known about Oona’s journey north, it took her other five sisters three whole weeks to notice Oona was not with them.
“Where’s Oona?” Sissel said as their carriage bounced and cluttered along the road. They had crossed the border into the South eight days ago, and the roads had been getting rockier ever since.
“Perhaps she is in the back with the trunks,” Ina offered.
“Or perhaps she is up front with the horses,” Berit sniggered.
“Only she isn’t,” Sissel said, pulling her wobbling head back into the carriage. She had just looked to the front of the carriage and to the back, and her younger sister was not there.
“I haven’t seen her since we left Nordlor,” Onka said.
“That’s right,” Plonka agreed. “Maybe she drowned in the harbour. She was always spending time down there. She probably jumped in and forgot to jump back out.”
“Stupid girl,” their mother said with a sad shake of her head. “Sea-squelch for brains, she has. The night she was born was the saddest night of my life. Your father’s life too.”
Oona’s mother was still shaking her head when a sea robin flew through the window of the carriage and smacked her in the face.
“Ah, here it is,” she said when her nose had stopped bleeding. The robin had been dazed by the impact and was now lying on the floor of the carriage surrounded by seven pairs of smelly feet. “It’s the map I ordered.” She untied a piece of parchment from around the robin’s leg and laid it across her lap. “Now, girls,” she said, “where in the South should we go?”
Oona’s sisters raced to their mother’s side. The sudden redistribution in weight made the carriage veer sharply to the right. The horses let out a pained cry, but their driver kept the carriage upright.
“Um…” the girls said in a chorus. Though they looked at the map, they had no idea what it said. Unlike their youngest sister, none of them could read.
“Driver?” their mother yelled. “Pull over. We need your help.”
The man did as he was bid. He turned the two horses off the main road and came over to the window. After two weeks on the road, most of the decorations added to the carriage were ruined. The lace curtains had torn, a few of the cushions had flown out the window and within a day of leaving Nordlor the glitter on the wheels had fallen off. Now, if anyone entered Nordlor from the south, they did so upon a path paved in glistening gold.
“Look at this map,” Missus Britt said. She thrust the map in the man’s face. “And choose some place nice.”
“Er…” The driver looked confused. “I’ve never been south before, Missus Britt,” he said. “How do I know if a place is nice?”
“By its name,” the captain’s wife said with a roll of her eyes. “Nice places have nice names. Now, choose one.”
The man looked at the map and said, “Summer Land sounds nice.”
“Ooh, I like the sound of that too,” Missus Britt said. “Where is it?”
“Down here.” The driver pointed to a spot right at the southern tip of the map.
“No. No.” The captain’s wife shook her head. “That won’t do. It’s too far away. Choose some place closer.”
The driver studied the map again and pointed to a spot slightly higher. “How about Berry Hill?”
“I do love berries,” Missus Britt said.
“But I hate berries, Mother,” Sissel cried.
“Yes, we hate berries,” her sisters agreed.
Their mother sighed and turned back to the driver. Without asking, he studied the map for a third time. Eventually, he spotted a place that he knew the Britt ladies would love.
“Princetown,” he said. “That sounds like the right place, doesn’t it? And it’s only one week’s ride away.”
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Missus Britt said. She snatched the map off the driver and pushed him towards the reins. “Get a move on. Giddy the horses up. We don’t have all day.”
The driver jumped back into the front of the carriage and took hold of the reins. When the horses didn’t move fast enough, Missus Britt stuck her foot out of the carriage and kicked one.
“Get a move on!” she cried. The sudden noise startled the sea robin and it shot up off the floor and flew out the window. Missus Britt smiled as it flew away. Things were going very well, very well indeed. A place called Princetown was sure to have a lot of princes. Her daughters would be able to have one each. They would all be married by the end of the week. And if her daughters married princes they would become princesses and that would make her a queen.
FISH BONES
Things weren’t going well for those on board the Plucky Leopard. Despite Freydis’ prediction, the weather held no signs of winter. If anything, the season resembled summer. No ship had ever left for the Great Hunt when it was this hot. At this rate, they would be bobbing in the ocean for an extra two months as they waited for winter to catch up.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. Without knowing, one of the men had carried a sickness on board. On land the sickness had been a simple cold: the kind that spreads each year and then leaves without incident. But trapped in the sweltering heat below deck, the sickness had morphed into something far more sinister.
It started much the same as it did on land: with a cough and then a sniffle. If the coughs and sniffles didn’t clear up in a day, the men were struck down with a fever. Soon, it wasn’t just the ship that sweltered but also the men inside. The fever would burn hotter and hotter. The men would sweat and cry and scream in their sleep. Most would survive the first night, but if their body didn’t cool they would not be strong enough to survive the second.
Along with the sickness, fear spread throughout the ship. Icebergs and whales weren’t the only things that could sink a boat. Once, a sea sickness spread so quickly on board the Frosted Deer that it killed the entire crew in a day. Maureen the cat had to guide the ship back to harbour. The villagers only knew what had killed the crew because they were still lying dead in their bunks when Maureen put down anchor. It was the only time in history that a sea cat outlived the crew.
For the first time since she snuck on board, Oona was glad none of the men, apart from Haroyld, spoke to her. And she was also glad that she had to sleep alone in the storeroom. The less time she spent around the men, the less chance she had of falling sick.
Within two days, ten men had fallen ill. Three did not su
rvive and were buried at sea. On the third day, Olf fell sick and it was up to Oona to run the galley. Her first task was to cook dinner. The menu said fish stew. Oona had never cooked fish stew before, but how hard could it be?
“Ugh!” One of the men in the mess hall spat out his soup and guzzled a cup full of water.
“What is this rubbish?” asked another. He pushed his bowl halfway across the table where it smashed into two others that had already been discarded.
“I thought women were meant to be good cooks,” said a third as he glanced towards Oona, who was peering out from behind the galley door.
Even Haroyld looked disgusted by the meal, though he was trying his best not to show it.
Oona knew the soup hadn’t looked great, but she had hoped it would taste OK once she added the salt. Her mother always added salt to her meals, and Oona’s father gobbled them right up. So, what had she done wrong?
As the men continued to complain about the meal, one amongst them coughed. With so many men confined to their quarters, it was easy to see the source of the cough. It was the captain.
The men sitting nearest to Oona’s father quickly moved away. The captain coughed again. This time, louder than the first. Soon, a tumble of heavy coughs racked his chest. Then, the sound of coughing stopped. But something was wrong. The captain’s face was growing red and he was grasping desperately at his neck.
“Oh, Lords and Ladies of the Sea!” one of the men yelled. “The captain – he ain’t sick. He’s chokin’.” The man jumped to his feet, ran over to the captain and pounded him on the back.
The force of each blow made Captain Britt’s eyes bulge. His face turned from red to a worrying shade of blue. All colour drained from his skin and he dropped to the floor with a heavy thud. The captain did not move.
A silence fell upon the ship. Even the sea outside stilled. Though they had already lost three men at sea, none of the crew were ready to lose the captain. What would they do without him?
While the men worried about losing their captain, Oona worried about losing her father. She didn’t want him to die: not now, before he had seen all that she could do, and not ever. She wanted to save him. But while she may have taught herself how to swim and tie over one hundred types of sea knots, she had not taught herself how to save someone’s life.
As some of the senior crew were plotting their own swift rise to captaincy, a cat stepped forward.
Barnacles brushed his tail against the navigator’s leg and sauntered over to the captain. He pushed a furry paw into the captain’s mouth and plucked out something small and white. Barnacles threw the object on the floor. He scratched the captain across the face, and Oona’s father woke up.
“Captain!” one of the men cried. “You’re alive!”
The captain slowly rose to his feet. It took a few minutes for his face to return to its normal shade. When it did, he leant down and picked up the object Barnacles had pulled from his throat.
“A fish bone?” the captain said. “A blasted fish bone! How in Fisherman’s Hell did that get in there?” The captain’s eyes turned to Oona.
“I – er … I don’t know,” Oona said. She had checked the soup three times before sending it out to the men. Maybe she should have lit another candle to help her see. It was dark in the galley.
“What’s wrong with you, girl?” her father yelled. “I put you down in the galley because I thought even you couldn’t stuff that up. But you can’t even make a half-decent soup or debone a single fish!”
“I’m sorry,” Oona said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I must have been … preoccupied.”
“With what?” her father thundered. “You only have one job: to debone the blasted fish! Get out of my sight!” And then, he sent Oona to her room without dinner.
Even though Oona was banished to a room full of food she was too afraid to eat any. What if her father somehow found out and got even more angry? What would he do to her then? Lock her in the hull of the ship until they got home? Tie her to the highest mast and make her stay outside all night? Or maybe he would just throw her into the sea? Oona knew she was being dramatic – her father would never do that – but she still did not touch any of the items stored around her.
It wasn’t hard for Oona to ignore the food. She wasn’t very hungry. She had been so scared that her father would die and then so happy that he had lived. But her father had just been angry. She hadn’t meant to hurt him. She had been trying to help.
To keep her mind occupied, Oona pulled out one of her books. She had been so busy since boarding the ship that she had not had time to do any reading. She hoped she hadn’t forgotten how to do it. She was about to open the book when someone knocked on the storeroom door.
“Can I come in?” a man whispered from the other side. It was Haroyld the navigator.
“Of course,” Oona said.
Haroyld opened the storeroom door and stepped inside. He held out his hand and opened it. On his palm lay two small rock cakes. “I thought you might be hungry.”
“But won’t you get in trouble?” Oona asked.
“What’s your father going to do? Lock me in my room as well? If he did that, we’d probably hit an iceberg, or he’d steer us south instead of north. Now, here you go.” He held the cakes out towards her. “My wife made them. Always bakes me a batch before I go to sea. Between you and me,” he whispered, “she’s a far better cook than Olf.”
While Oona ate the cakes Haroyld kept an eye out from the door. She was just eating the crumbs that had fallen on her coat when the navigator spotted the book lying beside her.
“Which one is your favourite?” Haroyld asked, nodding to the book. It was the one about northern sea tales.
“The one about the nardoos.”
“Why, that’s my favourite tale too.”
“Have you ever seen one for real?” Oona asked.
The navigator shook his head. “But I did meet a man in the town of Islo who swore he saw one soaring over his ship and diving into the water on the other side. He said it was beautiful. No. That wasn’t the word. Wonderful. No. That’s not it either.” Haroyld paused for a moment and closed his eyes. “Ah, magical. That’s the one. The man said it was the most magical thing he’d ever seen.”
Haroyld was about to retire to his cabin for the night when a rumble of thunder rolled across the ship. Through the porthole, Oona saw a bolt of lightning shoot down from the sky and electrify the water. Then, the Plucky Leopard tossed and turned violently in the sea.
“What’s happening?” Oona asked.
“Just a little storm,” Haroyld said. “Nothing to worry about. The Leopard has survived over one hundred of them. I’m sure she’ll survive another.”
Despite his own reassuring words, the navigator looked worried. Oona did too.
“Here,” he said, sitting down on one of the crates beside her. “I’ll read you a story to help you fall asleep. By the time you wake up the storm will have passed and there will be clear skies ahead. Now, let’s see.” Haroyld took the book from Oona’s hands and opened it to the last chapter. Then, he began to read.
“Thousands of years ago the entire world was covered in ice and everywhere was as cold as the North…”
By the time Haroyld reached the bit about the nardoos changing the currents in the sea, Oona was fast asleep. That night, instead of worrying that her father was angry with her, Oona dreamed that he was proud. He was proud because, while he had been hunting for a whale, Oona had found him a whole constellation of nardoos. The creatures had left the sea and flown above their ship. Their fins had been adorned with feathers that twinkled like stars, and when she and her father had looked up, the nardoos had smiled down at them.
A DEATH IN THE SOUTH
As the North prepared for one of the biggest storms in decades, the South prepared for a heatwave.
“I miss the snow,” Ina whined as the carriage bounced along a dusty road. It was hot in the South, even hot at night.
“I m
iss the cold,” Sissel said. The silk of her dress stuck to her skin like glue. She had never been so uncomfortable in her life.
“I miss silence,” the driver mumbled from where he led the carriage. The Britt sisters and their mother had not stopped complaining since they left the North. Half of them even complained in their sleep. Just the night before he’d been woken by Missus Britt yelling, “She was meant to be a boy. She was meant to be a boy!”
“I miss Oona,” Trine moaned.
A silence fell upon the carriage. All the Britt ladies looked at Trine like she was going mad. While they may have all missed the weather up north, it appeared only Trine missed their youngest sister.
“I mean,” Trine hurried on, “I miss the darkness in winter that never lifts.”
“Hush now, girls,” their mother said. “Look. I think we’re there.” She pointed beyond the carriage window to a wooden sign that said Welcome to Princetown. While she couldn’t read the sign herself, the last word looked very similar to the place the driver had pointed to on their map.
The driver led the horses off the main road and they plodded down a smaller one. Soon, buildings rose around them.
“Oh, Mother,” Plonka said. “It’s perfect.”
The grass was green, the houses were made of new wood, not old planks that had been warped and swollen by the Northern Sea, and fragrant flowers bloomed everywhere. But when they reached the main square they found the buildings draped in black and people wailing and crying in the streets.
“What’s going on?” their mother asked a woman from the window of the carriage. All the townsfolk, just like the buildings, were draped in black. It looked like the saddest market day the Britts had ever seen: like the stall owners sold tears and tales of sadness instead of wine and cheese.
“Haven’t you heard?” the woman said between sobs. “The prince – he’s dead!”
“Dead?” the captain’s wife said. “But what about the others?”
“What others?” the southern woman asked.
“The other princes. There must be hundreds in Princetown.”
The Girl, the Cat and the Navigator Page 7