“Sorry, I have no idea what that means.”
“It means that a man is tested by the praise he receives. A slathering of flattery produces either a puffed-up sense of self, or a melancholy sense of remorse.”
Ward’s eyes dropped to the tabletop.
“And I see in you the latter. You feel in your heart that what you did was not unselfish.” Now the priest’s smooth voice was a mellifluous, penetrating instrument, a device both musical and surgical. “You feel something within that whispers to you, saying you did not act to save your nation, but to protect yourself. To hide from your responsibilities.”
Ward’s eyes were withdrawn and distant. He was listening, and as he listened he looked deep within and found only a vacuum. It was as though all his thoughts were being pulled into that vortex, which led down into the seat of his greatest fears about his own nature.
Usher Fell continued. “What does it mean to act unselfishly? Does it not mean to bow to the will of God and the laws of man? To allow one’s own shortcomings to be tested in the light, to be burned away in the fiery furnace of trials, trials which one was born to bear? To humble oneself before God and man and accept the mantle of responsibility, knowing the Almighty works His will through the institutions He has established on earth? Would not this be truly unselfish?”
Ward’s eyes were closed as he took these arrows to his heart.
Usher Fell continued to fire his darts. “Selfishness on the other hand, wraps itself in its own fears and protects itself in dark places, soothing itself as best it can…in dark places such as this, perhaps.”
Ward came back to the moment, and looked at his mug of ale. It had lost its allure. Life was so much simpler when the will of God was not a part of it. He thought about Packer speaking from the top of the general store about what God could do, and would do. He wondered what it would be like to have that kind of faith. And then that thought startled him awake. “Wait, though,” he said to Usher Fell. “Packer Throme is clearly God’s man of the hour. Don’t you think? I mean, surely you saw what happened today. What happened three days ago on the Green.”
“A man with sensitivities to divine leading is a rare man,” Usher Fell said, as though he were agreeing. “And yet God’s ways, while mysterious, are not impossible to understand. One must study His mysteries, drink deeply of them. Packer Throme was unable to do that. He did not complete his studies at the seminary. He barely began them. Did you know that? He was released from the Seminary of Mann because he insisted on taking his own path, refused to submit to God. In fact, he was defiant in the face of Church discipline.”
“I heard he was expelled,” Ward said, trying to make it sound like this was just another conversation over a mug of ale. “I never knew why.”
“But I can tell you precisely why.” The priest hesitated for full effect and then began the tale. “Packer Throme came to the Seminary of Mann hungry to make himself great. He understood the words of Christ, that the greatest are those who serve. This was his motivation for entering the priesthood. He was looking for a path to greatness. But the path of humility was not one he could walk. He would not submit. And as his life has proven from that day to this, he is a man of action, taking what he wants.”
“But surely there was some offense? This wasn’t a summary judgment against the true nature of his soul.”
“Of course. He attacked a priest. An old man who had no hope of defending himself. And he did that in order to divert attention from his own sins. He had conspired to cheat on an exam. Again, unable to accept that he was unprepared, unable to humble himself.”
“He hit a priest?” Ward suppressed a smile. That took some gall.
“He hit me.”
Ward’s amusement vanished.
“I found him out, you see, and cornered him. He had conspired with another student. The other student had a young wife who worked at the seminary as a cleaning woman. This is not unusual. She entered my cottage to clean it. Or so she said. I returned unexpectedly, and found her writing down the answers to the next day’s test. Packer Throme was the lookout, and when he saw me enter my own cottage and heard me accusing her, he rushed in. From there, it got very ugly. But suffice it to say that rather than submit and repent, he struck me, once, in the jaw. He knocked me unconscious. To this day he has not shown remorse for his deed.”
Ward looked at his mug, shaking his head. It was hard to believe. In fact, it was almost impossible to believe. And yet, Packer had certainly been expelled for something. “I think he’s softened quite a bit in that regard,” Ward suggested. “I don’t find him ambitious in the least. In fact, I believe he would give up the crown in a moment, if I asked him.”
“That would be good news,” Usher Fell assured him. “Very good news indeed. I wonder, though, should he not prove so flexible, what you will do?”
“What do you mean?”
“What role might you play? What career might you choose for yourself?”
“Career?”
Furrows appeared on Father Fell’s forehead. “I mean, should things stand as they are, what would you do, no longer being a prince?”
“No longer being…”
Father Fell’s look was sad and cruel at the same time. “You are a Sennett, my dear man.” Fell was the essence of patience. “Today you are no more a prince than your father is a king.”
Ward took another long pull, but again paid the ale little mind.
“However, things need not stand as they are,” Usher Fell confided. “All can be made right, with God’s help.”
Ward closed his eyes. Darkness was falling. The ale felt warm within him. He had been hiding, he knew that. He had been fleeing. He had turned the kingdom over to Packer Throme out of fear, not out of righteousness or selflessness. All these things were true. As the ale went to his head, a sense of familiarity, of comfort within the darkness fell over him.
He felt as though he were coming awake after a long, strange dream.
CHAPTER 8
The Flotilla
Though the Trophy Chase and her crew were unaware of the events ashore, their ignorance fell somewhat short of bliss. They prepared for war. But as battle formations go, theirs was not among the most threatening in the history of Vast naval engagements.
Their decorated admiral, John Hand, had entertained visions of turning these merchant ships into a small, agile squadron that could appear and disappear quickly, strike and retreat, led by the nimblest, quickest ship ever built. Over the last few days such visions had drained away like a keg of bad cider, leaving nothing but a bellyache and a bad stench. He could neither coerce nor cajole his little flotilla of ships into any type of synchronized action, much less a coordinated attack. So he came up with a new strategy: give up trying.
Instead of predators on the prowl, his ships would float like carved and painted ducks, decoys awaiting the Drammune. With a day or two of hard work, the Chase sailing back and forth madly, John Hand pacing her quarterdeck, fuming and cursing, his flagman sending signals until his arms ached, the trap was finally set. The Vast ships were positioned in an enormous U-shape, several thousand yards across, and double that distance from top to bottom. If they would but stay put and maintain a relative distance from one another, Hand could sail the Chase in search of the Drammune Armada, bait a ship or two, and lure them back within the U. Then, with fortitude and daring and a whole lot of luck, several ships of his hapless Fleet might manage to close in and do some damage.
This strategy had some strengths, and it had some weaknesses.
Among its strengths, standing orders were very simple: Sit and wait. Then, attack any Drammune warship that ventured inside the trap. Another positive: It also required that Hand’s captains do nothing much that resembled skillful sailing. They needed only to heave to, matching just the right amount of canvas to the wind so as to minimize drift, and await the enemy.
Among its weaknesses, however, these captains were now expected to follow specific orders over a ve
ry long stretch of time. They were doing their level best to adopt a military mind-set, their admiral firmly believed, but such discipline did not come easily to Vast merchant captains. Careful analysis, decisive action! These were the hallmarks of command, the form and substance of a captain’s pedigree. Blind obedience? That was for deckhands. Their admiral had put the utterly competent captain of the Marchessa, Moore Davies, firmly in command, but once the Trophy Chase disappeared over the northern horizon to range the seas, perhaps as far as the mouth of the Bay of Mann, there was no telling what might happen.
The other key weakness was that if the trap worked, his ships would, eventually, need to close in on an enemy. They would need to aim and fire their guns. Admiral Hand would not allow himself to imagine the heights of ineptitude that might be scaled when all his captains decided at once to move in, each taking his own tack toward eternal glory. So instead he worried, even as he sailed away, that those captains of more independent spirit were already planning to sail after Drammune warships themselves. And he worried about the distinct possibility that his little flotilla would be discovered and attacked in force while he was gone.
And that was in fact what happened.
It took the Chase twelve hours to find suitable quarry, a red-sailed vessel poking around the seas just off Hangman’s Cliffs, well out of any formation, far from its Armada. The Hezza Charn was a small ship, and even though its name translated as Firepower, it was not built for fighting. John Hand knew instantly by her keel and her beam and her waterline that this was a scout ship, quick and light, built for reconnaissance.
He was not pleased. He could certainly lure the thing into his trap, but he doubted any ship but the Chase herself would catch her. Still, the thing was Drammune, and like a mother lion teaching her young to hunt, he felt a strong pull to take this prize back to his flotilla. Owning the weather gauge, he gave orders to fly into cannon range, fire, and flee.
But before his cannon could take the measure of his adversary, the flag of truce unfurled above the Hezza Charn’s mainmast, a gray silk triangle with a long, whipping tail that was unmistakable at almost any distance. Not only the admiral, but the officers and crew watched it undulate lazily above those blood-red sails, astonished. The Drammune at war, wanting parley? In all the history of naval warfare John Hand had ever heard, experienced, studied, or taught, he could not remember a single time when the Drammune had initiated a truce on open sea in time of war. They were known to honor white flags offered by their adversaries, though they distrusted the practice entirely, believing it a ruse ten times out of eleven. But to unfurl it first? That was considered Unworthy.
The deception of Scat Wilkins was still fresh in every crewman’s mind, and the rain of Drammune grappling hooks raw in every memory, but John Hand was more dumbfounded than suspicious. He sailed his vessel within hailing distance.
Stil Meander, the bosun with the booming voice, shouted, “Do you surrender?”
“No, truce!” came the reply in broken Vast. “Orders peace!” The Drammune sailors lined the gunwales, watching impassively, as though those words were comprehensible.
The admiral exchanged glances with his first mate, the unflappable Andrew Haas. Then he ordered Stil to try again.
“Do…you…surrender?”
“Cannon no, ship yes!” came the call in return. “Shoot now stop not!”
Hand sighed. “Let me have a try.” He didn’t have the vocal pipes of Stil Meander or even Andrew Haas, but he had the vocabulary. He took a deep breath.
“Azu enahai?”
“Nagh!” Came the answer back. “Zai karchezz sko tachtai Drammun!”
John Hand stared hard at the ship. Waves slapped gently against the glittering scale-covered hull of the Trophy Chase. The men looked down from the rigging, up from the decks, waiting. “Lower the boat,” the admiral said simply. “It’s a parley.”
“But what did he say, Admiral?” Andrew Haas implored.
“He says we’re no longer at war.”
“Now what?” Delaney asked no one in particular. Mutter Cabe and Marcus Pile were both within earshot, one on either side of him. The three stood in a row, perched like seagulls on the standing rigging along the foresail yard, the breeze rustling their clothing like flags, cutting through their hair, blowing Marcus’s mop like dandelion seeds.
Mutter’s bald head felt no disturbance, but his distressed look darkened further as he watched the admiral bobbing in the tiny shallop, two oarsmen sculling it into the shadow of the enemy craft. “No good will come of this,” was all he said.
“This is a strange one,” Delaney agreed. He didn’t need to elaborate. Mutter and Marcus and every other sailor aboard understood instantly.
“Aye,” Mutter responded. “Strange and evil.”
“Not evil,” Marcus corrected. “Just…odd.”
They were talking about the voyage. It had gone bad from the beginning. Ever since they had shoved off from the docks of Mann in such a hurry, everything had seemed askew. The crew had fumbled for lines, misheard orders, and then almost run the Chase’s prow into a ship at anchor in the bay. A ship called The Omen, no less. Then there was the flotilla’s complete incompetence, running aground, catching fire. No one ever felt at ease. Everything was harder than it should be. The porridge was rancid. Stitch Doreo, the surgeon, was ill with the ague. Even the Trophy Chase, the great cat, was not herself. She moved like lightning and leaped like no ship has a right to leap, but to veterans of her decks she seemed agitated, nervous, hard to control. The more superstitious among them, Mutter Cabe at the fore, believed her heart just wasn’t in it.
“This ship wants that boy.” It was not the first time Mutter had said those words. “Whatever spirit is in him, breathed by a witch or breathed by God Hisself, that’s what she’s missing.”
Marcus swallowed hard and Delaney rolled his eyes. “Looky here, Mutter,” Delaney said flatly. “You need to read your Scriptures more and your tea leaves less. Some prophet or apostle is always goin’ on about how no stick a’ wood carved by the hand a’ man has life nor spirit in her.” His brow furrowed. “I mean, in it.”
“This ship,” Mutter answered as though from far away, “misses Packer Throme.”
Delaney shook his head, unconvinced. “He’s just a regular man, Mutter. Sure, he learned some things when he went off to senem…to sermer…to priest school—”
“Sermonary,” Marcus offered helpfully.
Delaney’s brow furrowed. “You sure that’s the word?”
“Aye, it is.” Marcus looked hurt. “Sermonary. Where you learn to preach sermons.”
Delaney nodded, convinced. “Anyhow, I don’t think it’s the ship that misses Packer. It’s just all of us.”
Mutter shook his head, watching the Admiral of the Fleet climb a rope ladder onto a foreign vessel. Just then a gust of wind slapped the sails of the Hezza Charn, and Admiral Hand’s foot slipped. He held on tight, but his shoulder jammed against the red hull. Then the same gust rocked the Chase, and each sailor in the rigging tensed, gripping lines more tightly. Marcus hugged the yardarm in front of him.
“Tell me that was just all us, missing Packer,” Mutter concluded, his eyes narrowed.
From far below the waves, from a darkness so deep that daylight was but a faint bluish glow high above, the Firefish came flying. It was alone. It was angry. And it was hungry. It spotted this pack of surface creatures, storm creatures like Deep Fin, and a strong pang shot through it. Coals now flared up, fire coalescing into memories. The longing returned, the pain of being left behind, watching at the high shallows, waiting at the shore. Hunger and longing merged. It watched, it circled.
But the Deep Fin was not among these.
Anger burned hot. It wanted to attack. But its instincts would not let it. These creatures behaved oddly. They banded together, but they did not move in a pack. They fanned out. They sat still.
The beast had no reference for this behavior, no point of comparison. Storm creat
ures were predators, and yet this behavior was not predatory. No pack gathered in a circle and then remained there, docile. The feel of them was not at all fierce. Not like the great pack that had chased the Deep Fin. Nothing like Deep Fin itself.
And yet their behavior was not like prey, either. A school of fish would travel together, tightly grouped for safety, always moving, ever ready to disperse, to flee. Rays would hide themselves for protection. But this group did neither. It sat, each distant from one another, too distant to aid. Never hurried. This had no precedent in the beast’s mind. If it could have known about land creatures, it might have compared such activity to a herd, grazing. But as it was, the Firefish could not comprehend.
Was this a predatory arrangement, or was it merely an inconsequential grouping?
The same question had already formed in Moore Davies’ mind. He would learn the answer soon enough. The flotilla’s glorious flagship had been absent just over twenty-four hours when Drammune sails began appearing on the horizon to the northeast. Remarkably, the Vast ships were holding something close to the formation in which their admiral had left them. The more outspoken captains, conferring by signal flag, had decided to give John Hand’s plan a day or two’s test, to see what might develop. The U was a bit skewed now, as though italicized, and the spacing was not what it once was, with larger gaps here and smaller ones there, but it was still recognizable and it still opened to the north, and the Marchessa still held point on the upper right-hand extremity.
Captain Davies heard the shout from the crow’s nest. “One, two, three, four…seven ships in all! Sailing abreast, from the nor’east!” It was high noon and the weather was clear, with a light breeze steady from the southeast. Every sailor understood that these ships were sailing across the wind, approaching at maximum speed. To escape, they would all need to turn and run the same direction.
“Signal the others,” Davies ordered his flagman. “Seven Drammune warships, northeast! Stand by for orders!” He had fifteen ships against their seven, but Davies found no comfort in the math. At seven abreast, the enemy formation was almost as wide as his own fleet’s. Worse, the Drammune weren’t headed into the mouth of the U. The Marchessa and the two ships just south, Gant Marie and Forcible, would take the brunt of the attack, three against seven. Three Vast merchants against seven Drammune warships. They would overwhelm the trap. Like pouring water from a bucket into a shot glass.
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