My Dearest
by
Susan Sizemore
"Come to bed, woman."
Having just started the letter, Megere finished writing the salutation - "My Dearest Mother" - before she answered. "Is it love, or are your feet cold, my dear?"
"Both," Adrew Osprey, Admiral of the Fleet and Lord of the North answered without hesitation.
She did not put down her pen and fly to his side, even though she found his reply endearing. She did not even turn from her place at the folding desk to look at the bunk behind her. "An albatross leaves the Ironbound for Ang in the morning," she reminded the man whose flagship the Ironbound was. "I wish for at least one letter to my family to be in the mail packet on board that courier boat."
"Considering the size of your family you could be up all night."
"True. But my correspondence will not take up as much cargo room as I might wish on board your albatross. I write to my mother. She may spread the news that I yet live through the massed population of Cliffs and Owls, and all their friends, neighbors and in-laws."
He grunted. Then after a moment said thoughtfully, "Your mother. Your mother the cleric. Your mother the professor of theology and philosophy. Your mother the author of sermons and books concerning ethics and all other matters pertaining to the moral fiber of the Ang Empire."
"That mother, yes," she replied.
She heard him sit up, and his bare feet hitting the deck.
"Put on your socks," she said.
He padded across the cabin to stand over her, putting his hands on her shoulders. "Are you planning on discussing matters of an esoteric sort in this letter to your admirable mother?"
Megere turned her head to gaze up at North's sharp-featured face. To her he was a most handsome man, especially when his wide mouth arched in a smile. His touch warmed and distracted her, as he knew it would. She bumped her head back against his flat stomach.
"Skinny fellow," she said.
"I am all wiry muscle."
He was.
"If you wish me to join you in our warm, comfortable bunk, let me get on with this. You know I will not be distracted when I have a pen in my hand."
He drew her up out of the chair and took the pen from her. He tossed it onto the desk and put his arms around her, drawing her against his wiry frame. The thin material of his nightshirt left no doubt of his arousal. "Let us make love, my dearest." His hands caressed her back.
Megere sighed, more with contentment than frustration at being thwarted. No matter what difficulties might occur aboard the Ironbound the relationship between the two of them in the privacy of this cabin remained strong and stable.
Which was something she wanted to tell her mother.
She looked up and met his gaze. His blue eyes were full of mischief, and the hunger that always aroused a heated response from her. "You do know that I will make such strenuous love to you that you will be asleep soon after, and then I will continue my correspondence."
He spun her around, and onto their bunk. "We shall soon see which of us is more weary and sated when we are done, madam."
Several hours later Megere woke from a brief, happy slumber. She turned her head toward the man sleeping beside her and kissed his cheek. She found her nightgown at the foot of the bunk, drew it on, and pulled a blanket over North's long, lean form before returning to the desk and the task she had set herself.
The moss in the lamp had gone dormant, so Megere took a second globe of glow moss out of the lights cabinet and put the other lamp in the dark for a renewing rest. She took up her pen and put it to paper.
The sea is quite calm tonight, and the weather warm since we are far south of where I penned my last letter to you. Though that letter was sent in haste to let you know we had survived the violent encounter with the Framin fleet over possession of a large iron stone. Since my brother Alix's ship was one of those dispatched to bring the iron meteorite we won to the smelting facility at the port of Seyemouth, perhaps he is home on leave at last and has told you more of that adventure than I can relate in a few words.
Megere glanced up, and her attention was caught by the night sky beyond the cabin's octagonal side port. Not only was the sea calm, as she had told her mother, it was an absolutely beautiful night. She rose to look out the thick glass pane. Two of the three moons were high in the sky. Gray Moon was half full, much larger Green moon was on the wan. Green Moon had a misty sheen to it tonight. She peered intently at it, knowing she could make out no details without a spyglass, and even then she'd only be able to see the faintest of swirls that might be clouds on the distant moonscape. Some said there was life on Green Moon. Why else would the surface be green? Some astronomers, looking through large crystal lenses, claimed that they could sometimes make out lights on the moon, but most people scoffed at these claims. Megere had not thought much about the moons - other than that they were always there and Red Moon's pull on the tides made the seas dangerous for navigation every dozen generations or so. They were safe from the danger of Red Moon for her lifetime, at least.
She went back to her letter.
I was just looking at the sky arching grandly over the middle of the ocean. I have not thought much about what goes on over our heads until recently. I have voyaged out on the wide seas before, but it is only within the last few days that I have seen the vision of infinity that we only have to look up to encounter. You often speak of the Infinite, and the All, but I am only beginning to realize the hugeness these concepts encompass.
Megere put the pen down. She read what she had just written. For a moment she was tempted to scratch the words out. She was tempted to start the letter over altogether. She was tempted to tell all she had seen and experienced in the last several days.
Which was exactly what Lord Adrew Osprey, her commander as much as her lover, did not want her to say.
She put pen to paper again.
A year ago I was not certain I would take up the duties of a ship's surgeon. The surprise Framin attack on Seyemouth resulted in my being pressed into service on board the Ironbound and I have not regretted this despite the complications it forced upon our family at home. Though I had no doubt of my medical abilities before circumstances put me in my current positions, I was not sure I had the strength of character to act as the advisor and conscience to the commander of the ship I was assigned to. Well, I have learned that I can dispute as strenuously as is necessary in the line of duty as I must.
Technically, I do not report to Captain Ram, the master of the Ironbound, but am assigned to Admiral North's flag staff. But since I am the only accredited surgeon on board, the sickbay is mine. Dr. Vine has the care of Captain Ram's conscience in his purview. I work well with Dr. Vine - who tells me he is a relation of the admirable Mr. Vine, who you will recall designed our best gowns for the Seeker Season. I also have an apprentice I am training in surgery - this is the position I held myself not so long ago on my tour of duty aboard the Moonrunner. I sometimes think I am living a dream, what with all the sudden changes in my life
The last few days had certainly had a dreamlike quality at times, Megere reflected as she paused to rest her wrist for a moment. A scratch on the door between the bedroom and the Admiral's office caught her attention. She went to the door to let in her terrier, Star. While Lord North was nearly as fond of her pet as Megere, he preferred the humans be alone when they went to bed. He claimed having Star watching them make love put him off. Since one or the other of them was likely to get up during the night, due to the call of duty or the call of nature, Star rarely spent the whole night in her basket in the office.
Megere sat back at the desk, and Star immediately jumped into her lap. A cold nose and a paw patting her cheek followed instantly. Star's persistence made it evident there
would be no more writing for her mistress until the dog had a thorough petting.
After a while Megere's hands moved automatically, running through Star's fur, patting her head and belly. the petting was comforting to them both, and Megere's thoughts drifted back to the extraordinary incident which had filled the last days.
It started with a dinner party, which was not the normal way for a crisis to commence on board a warship. But it was hardly an ordinary crisis, now was it?
Megere held up her black lace frock, critically studying the embellishments of jet beads that had been added to the bodice. The Ironbound boasted a tailor and a seamstress, a married couple. They and their assistants manned a fifty-pounder during battles as the cannon crew. She had liked the dress very much in it's original form, but since her father had been promoted to the minor noble rank of esquire, she now needed to adjust her wardrobe to match her family's new rank. The beading had turned out quite well, she decided.
She was happy for the chance to wear something besides her contractor's uniform, practical though it was for day-to-day wear.
"Fanatic to fashion as I am, why did I take up a profession that doesn't allow me finery?" she asked.
"It likely has something to do with your unladylike enjoyment of rooting around the exposed insides of your fellow humans," Lord North responded.
He was rather brutally correct in his assessment. Female doctors were not allowed to practice surgery in civilian life, but their skills were developed, honed and valued by the military branches of the Ang Empire. Hence, she spent much of her life deprived of fashionable clothing.
North was already wearing his dress uniform, along with an appropriate selection of his decorations and medals.
"You look splendid," Megere told him, but couldn't help a teasing, "The light that shines from you is nearly enough to blind one in the small space of this cabin."
He arched a brow, glanced at the bunk, then to her wearing only her underthings. "Hmmm..."
Megere swiftly pulled the black dress over her head. She turned her back to Lord North. "I'll need you to do up the bodice buttons."
This time he humphed rather than hmmed. "You need a lady's maid," he told her.
He'd made the suggestion before, but she would have none of it.
"What about that apprentice of yours, Dr. Ratcatcher? It would keep her humble, and give her something else to sneer at you for."
"Dr. Redcat," Megere corrected.
That young woman had openly made the assumption that the surgeon she'd been assigned to study under held her position on the Ironbound due solely to her relationship with Admiral Lord North. Megere confessed that she would have felt the same had she been in RedCat's shoes. North was not so understanding.
"Don't keep chiding the girl," Megere told her lover. "She learned quickly enough that I know my business once we were dealing with bloodied bodies and smashed bones. It's a good thing to acquire knowledge under fire."
"Didn't she hide in a corner screaming for a while?" he asked.
"You were not supposed to learn of that."
"I know what happens on my own ship." His fingers caressed the back of her neck in between fastening buttons.
"It was the cannon fire that unnerved her. It happens to many the first time in battle. She recovered soon enough."
Talk of work in the sickbay reminded her of one of her concerns.
"What would happen to me if you were forced to move your flag to a different ship?"
"If that were necessary, the Ironbound would be sinking and we'd all have to abandon ship," he replied sternly.
"But if it were not sinking and you still had to go? What if I was needed in the sickbay?"
He was even more stern in his response. "There are other physicians on board. Where I go you go."
"But--"
"If you were to marry me there would be no questions of your being at my side wherever I am. As it is, I suppose I would have to toss you over my shoulder and bear you where I will."
It was on her tongue to flippantly answer that this was why she had not yet wed him, but there was nothing flippant about their complicated situation. Only, Adrew North did not see it as complicated at all. His argument was that they had wooed as Seekers during the Season. Seeker Season was all about finding a marriage partner. They had found each other and should fulfill their Seekers' vows.
Her practical, sensible, political arguments about all their differences in class and status and ambitions - their own and other peoples - did nothing to sway him from this opinion.
She did love him so for it. And for many other reasons.
"Your buttons are done," he said, and kissed the back of her neck. Which sent pleasant warmth racing down her spine.
She'd done her hair up in a high twist held in place with mother-of-pearl combs. Her only other adornment was a necklace of a single large pearl that had been a gift, in a roundabout way, from the man whose hands were now resting on her shoulders.
"We best go," he said. He stepped back to pick up and drape a fine gray shawl over her shoulders. He then offered her his arm.
They stepped onto the main deck as the last glow of the setting sun sank beyond the horizon.
She breathed in the fresh sea air, delighted at the peace surrounding them. It was not always so, and moments of calm were to be appreciated, and marked. "I am very happy tonight," she said.
"I am almost perfectly content myself," he answered. He patted her arm with his free hand.
A stir of laughter and excitement issued from the command quarterdeck. Megere and Lord North observed Ensign Flint surrounded by all the off-duty midshipman and ship's children. She and her escort went up the stern stairs to find out what this entertainment might be. After Lord North returned everyone's brisk salute he told the children to be at ease and asked what they were about. The midshipmen kept their attention on the admiral, but the other youngsters went back to pointing and talking about the lights which had appeared in the evening sky. They seemed to swim rather than flare and arc, Megere observed, somewhat different than the meteor showers she was used to.
"The Passing has started, sir," Flint answered North. "I was just showing the children, and telling the old tale we have about it on my home island." He held his spyglass out to Megere. "Would you like to take a look, Dr. Cliff?"
Megere peered at the lights moving across the faces of the moons. "The Passing between Green Moon and the world is real? I thought it was only a folk tale."
"Many people think that," North said. "Since the Passing only happens every other generation or so, it is almost forgotten and relegated to children's stories, until the sky fills with the lights again."
"It is not a cyclical meteor shower," Flint added. "No evidence has ever been found of one of the Passing Ones falling on land or sea, or burning up in the high air."
"Passing Ones?" Megere asked.
"There's a tale we tell at home, that those who are Passing are wayfarers journeying across the sky," Flint said.
"Tell us more!" one of the ship's children said. Others added their voices instantly.
Megere lifted the spyglass to her eye and concentrated on the distant lights. All she could make out were fuzzy blobs of color, of course, for they were very very far away. She could not make out if the light was reflected or came from the Passing phenomena. She handed the glass back to the ensign.
"Thank you very much, Mr. Flint. We must be on our way. Enjoy this lovely show," she said to the children. "I hope we are not late for Captain Ram's dinner," she said as she and North walked away.
In answer he arched an eyebrow sardonically at her. For how could the Fleet Admiral be late on his own flagship? Her sense of polite behavior was somewhat stricter than his.
"I will be a civilizing influence on you yet," she said.
"Doubtful."
At least they turned out not to be the last guests to arrive at the Captain's table. That turned out to be Cleric Flox, who claimed he'd been lost in prayer t
hough everyone knew he'd been lost in bed with bosun's mate Fisher, who had a very active love life for a one-legged woman nearing sixty. There was a great deal that could be learned from such an experienced woman, and Megere planned to take her aside some time and ask her some questions.
They stood and bowed their heads for the blessing. Which was a long prayer, as Cleric Flox was a firm believer in the multiplicity of the gods. Each person at the table was asked to call upon the protection of their patron god. Only at the end did he add a fillip to modern theology when he said, "The deity of all gods together bring harmony upon us."
When all were seated around the table, Lord North rose once more to propose a birthday toast to Captain Ram. After many congratulations and blessings bestowed on Captain Ram, the first course was brought in and the party was underway. The food was good for ship's fare, the wine flowed freely, the conversation was pleasant. It was a lovely evening.
Then the octopus bell rang.
Star brought Megere back to the present when the dog abruptly jumped off her lap. Star crossed to the bunk and made herself comfortable at Admiral Lord North's feet. Megere yawned, and considering getting into bed herself, but recalled that she had yet to finish the letter to her mother. She took up her pen again.
Nothing is quite so shocking to those new to sailing the deep seas as an encounter with the octopi. We had a meeting with the rulers of the underseas a few days ago. The captain of the first ship I served on eagerly sought out contact with the octopi, but it turns out that Captain Ram finds the necessity of stopping whatever his vessel is doing to send crew into the water to have their minds read by "creatures" most annoying. Well, that is too bad, as Lord North insists on strict adherence to the agreement we have with the octopi. Mind you, I hoped that I would not be required to take to the sea. Not that I would be too frightened, having been examined by an octopus once while aboard the Moonrunner.
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