Rodrigo had been living off an allowance given to him by his father. After his father’s death, Rodrigo’s older brother became responsible for maintaining the allowance. Fortunately for Rodrigo, his older brother was a good-hearted man who had always been fond of the scapegrace and would, Rodrigo hoped, continue to support him.
“I’ll take a job as a clerk,” Stephano said.
“My dear fellow, I hate to say this, but you wouldn’t last two minutes as a clerk. You are hopeless at bookkeeping and your handwriting is atrocious.”
“Fencing master, then,” said Stephano.
Rodrigo envisioned their home being invaded by small boys with swords.
“God help us!” he exclaimed, shuddering. He laid his hand on Stephano’s shoulder. “Don’t make any rash decisions. Be patient with Miri. She’ll forgive you. She always does.”
“Not this time, Rigo,” said Stephano, sighing. “Not this time.”
He threw himself down in a chair, narrowly avoiding sitting on the cat, who fled with an irate howl. Rodrigo went about the boat making adjustments to the bridging constructs. The sky was lead-crystal blue with wisps of the Breath trailing past like silken scarves. He wondered what sort of money fencing masters earned these days.
Miri appeared on the deck of the Sommerwind. She looked at the Cloud Hopper and called up to Stephano. She had not spoken to him in days. Rodrigo left his work to hurry over to assist in what might turn out to be truce talks.
“Where’s Gythe?” Miri shouted. “She should be at the helm now! Is something wrong?”
“I don’t think so,” Stephano yelled back.
“Go check on her.”
Stephano headed down below. Miri stood waiting, her arms crossed over her chest.
Stephano returned, his expression grave. “Miri, come here at once!”
“What’s the matter?” Miri asked, alarmed.
“Just come!”
Stephano lowered the rope ladder. Miri told Leutnant Baumann she was leaving the ship, then kilted up her skirts and climbed the ladder.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked anxiously. “Is Gythe ill?”
“I don’t know,” said Stephano. “I’ve never seen her like this.”
Miri hurried off, going down below to the quarters the sisters shared.
“What is the matter with her?” Rodrigo asked.
“The door was shut. I could hear Gythe inside. It sounded like she was singing—not those childhood songs she sang when she went away from us that time. I couldn’t understand the words, but her song sounded … angry.”
“An angry song?” repeated Rodrigo skeptically.
“Remember that opera we attended where the baritone tries to seduce the soprano with threats to kill her lover, the tenor, unless she sleeps with him? The soprano agrees, but when he tries to kiss her, she stabs him. She sings a song telling him how much she loathes him, how she enjoys watching him die. That’s the sort of song Gythe was singing.”
“My dear fellow, the end of the second act! You were awake! I’m so proud of you!” said Rodrigo in a voice full of emotion.
The door leading below flew open with a bang, startling Doctor Ellington, who dove for his hiding place beneath the cannon, only to again discover that the cannon was no longer there. The Doctor retreated underneath the table.
Gythe ran onto the deck. Her face was pale, her cheeks crimson. Her blue eyes had darkened to gray. She stood on deck, wildly staring around, then hurried to the rail. Miri came on deck, trying to catch up to her sister. Gythe clutched the rail and stared into the Breath. She then turned back toward Miri and began to make frantic signs with her hands.
“She says they’re coming to kill us!” Miri reported.
“Who’s coming to kill us?” Stephano asked, searching the skies. “There’s not an enemy in sight.”
Miri shook her head helplessly. “She won’t tell me. She’s not rational. I’ve never seen her like this. Stephano, I’ll take the helm. You and Rigo talk to her.”
Gythe shrieked, drawing their attention. She was leaning over the rail, pointing toward the sky below the keel. Rodrigo peered down.
“Is the Breath supposed to be doing that?” he asked uneasily.
Miri looked over the side.
“No,” she said. “It isn’t.”
The lookout on board the Sommerwind must have seen the strange phenomenon, too, because he shouted out a warning. Leutnant Baumann took one look and they could hear him telling a midshipman to go below to summon the captain.
On a normal day, Rodrigo would look down into the Breath and see, far below, a mass of pinkish orange clouds that seemed so thick he always fancied he could lie down on them, as on a feather bed. The sight was deceptive, of course. The Breath at that depth was made up of nearly impenetrable fog. Rodrigo remembered the time the Cloud Hopper had been hit by gunfire and drifted down into the cold, gray mist.
At that depth, the Breath was rarely disturbed; the wind, if it blew at all, was light. Slight swirls sometimes ruffled the top. Today the Breath was an ugly mass of churning, boiling black clouds. Strange green lightning glowed among the dark clouds or streaked from one to another.
“Is that a wizard storm?” Stephano asked, referring to the magical disruptions in the Breath that sometimes seemed to come out of nowhere.
“A terrible one! The green lightning is contramagic,” Rodrigo said, unable to control the tremor of fear in his voice. “The clash of the magic in the Breath and the contramagic is creating a wizard storm worse than any normal wizard storm, and a normal wizard storm almost sank us!”
Gythe stood transfixed, staring into the boiling clouds, her body rigid, her face white.
“Rigo, take her below!” Miri ordered. “Stephano, slip the towline. We don’t want to be tethered to the Sommerwind in gale-force winds.”
Rodrigo tried to persuade Gythe to come below. She pointed to the storm and then made a slashing motion across her throat.
“She says again they’re coming to kill us,” said Miri. “I’m afraid she’s right. If we’re caught in the storm, the winds will tear the boat apart.”
The clouds were rising, bubbling upward, congealing in a gloppy mass like some hideous pudding about to boil over. The wind was strengthening, blowing east toward Rosia.
“We can’t escape it,” said Miri, her voice straining to be heard above the shrieking wind. “We’ll have to ride it.”
Houseboats such as the Cloud Hopper were not meant to withstand the force of hurricane winds or wizard storms, one reason Trundlers usually sailed close to the shoreline, where they could shelter when necessary. If the boats were caught in the Breath during a storm, they would attempt to “ride the storm,” outrunning it by riding the leading edge of the wind.
Rodrigo looked over at the Sommerwind. Captain Leydecker was on deck, shouting commands while hobbling about with a crutch, his leg in a splint. The sailors were running to put on more sail. The maneuver was tricky; the amount of sail had to be calculated just right. If they set too much sail the wind might carry away spars or blow down a mast; too little, and they’d risk the storm overtaking them.
“Rigo,” Miri said, casting him a pleading glance, “you have to keep the magic working!”
Rodrigo shook his head. “Those clouds are crackling with contramagic, Miri. A single strike could destroy every magical construct on this boat. If that happens…” He didn’t finish the sentence.
Gythe was still staring, mesmerized, into the roiling clouds. The Cloud Hopper soared through the air, riding the storm winds. The Sommerwind was doing the same, keeping abreast of the Cloud Hopper. The storm moved rapidly, surging up from below, as lightning flared and thunder boomed.
Stephano tried to drag the Doctor out from under the table, intending to take him to the storage closet for safety. The terrified cat clawed him, leaving a bloody streak on his wrist, then dashed off, with a swearing Stephano in pursuit.
“Never mind the cat,” Rodrigo told
Stephano, stopping him as he was going below. Rodrigo felt a strange, unnerving calm. “We’re not going to be able to outrun it.”
The heavy greenish black clouds bubbled like viscous soup, bubbled upward, spreading out, filling in the sky below, turning everything black beneath the Cloud Hopper’s keel. The sun, shining above them, was untouched by the storm spiraling up from Below and made the clouds that much darker by contrast.
The wind that had been blowing the Cloud Hopper and the Sommerwind toward the safety of the shore suddenly shifted direction. The sails emptied, and flapped helplessly. The wind veered again, the boat heeled and rocked. Rodrigo lost his footing, and Miri was thrown sideways, and had to fight to maintain control of the helm. Aboard the Sommerwind, every hand was on deck, even the cook, battling to save the ship.
Gythe had stopped singing. Her lips were parted. Her breath hissed between her teeth. Her face was livid, and her blue eyes seemed almost as bright as the lightning. Her hands gripped the rail tightly, the knuckles white.
Jagged green bolts flashed, perilously close. Thunder boomed.
“There is evil in that storm,” said Rodrigo.
“Contramagic isn’t evil!” Stephano yelled over the gusting wind. “It’s a force of nature! Remember?”
“Contramagic isn’t evil,” Rodrigo agreed. His lips were stiff. He could scarcely move them to speak. “Yet there is evil magic creating this storm. I feel it. And so does Gythe.”
As the clouds closed in around them, stinging rain blasted them and lightning crackled, coming ever nearer. The thunder was only three or four heartbeats behind the bolts. They lost sight of the Sommerwind in the gray sheets of rain, though they could hear the creak of the timbers and sometimes shouted commands.
“Rigo, take Gythe and go below!” Stephano ordered. “I’ll stay with Miri!”
Rodrigo lurched across the deck. He was soaked to the skin, with water dripping into his eyes. Gythe was standing in the rain and wind and sizzling lightning, her eyes raised to heaven. Her lips were moving: she was singing.
Rodrigo thought she must be in some kind of shock, that perhaps she had retreated to her childhood again as she had done the last time they faced danger. Perhaps it was for the best, he thought. When the end came, she wouldn’t know it …
“Gythe, dear,” he began.
Gythe shook her head vehemently. Her hair was plastered to her face. Her lips were still moving, and her voice grew louder. Rodrigo tried to take hold of her, to force her to come with him out of the storm.
Gythe rounded on him, her eyes blazing, and she struck him in the chest with both hands. Astonished, he stumbled backward, lost his footing on the slippery, rain-swept deck and went sprawling. When he tried to get back to his feet, the wind knocked him down.
He managed to pull himself up by grabbing on to a rope. Through the lashing rain, he could barely see Stephano helping Miri at the helm, both of them struggling to remain upright in the whipping wind. A green lightning bolt streaked past, so close to the Cloud Hopper that Rodrigo could hear it sizzle. The thunderclap was almost simultaneous, and half deafened him.
Gythe was not holding on to anything. She stood tall and surefooted on the canting deck, her hands raised, her voice audible clear and pure above the howling of the wind. Rodrigo recognized the song.
She wasn’t singing Trundler songs at all. She was singing prayer chants, such as he’d hear the priests sing on those days when his mother had forced him to attend holy services. But how did Gythe know such chants? Trundlers didn’t go to church. Trundlers didn’t believe in saints, or in God for that matter. How did Gythe come to know a prayer to Saint Castigan?
Gythe was sopping wet. The wind swirled around her, yet seemed not to touch her. It was as if she were standing in the eye of the storm. Her hands were still raised to the heavens, and as she continued singing, the wind began to die down. Lightning flickered angrily among the gray clouds, and thunder rumbled, but from a distance.
“I think the storm’s moving off,” said Stephano in disbelief.
“We’ve had a lucky escape,” said Miri.
Rodrigo opened his mouth. He was going to say something to them, to tell the truth of what had happened, when Gythe turned to face him. Her eyes were as clear as the blue sky that was clearing above them.
“You did that,” Rodrigo said, awed.
She placed two fingers on his lips.
“Say nothing!” she was telling him.
Gythe’s eyes darkened. She touched his forehead, and drew back her fingers, stained with blood. She pointed to the blood and then to the receding storm clouds.
“Blood magic,” Rodrigo said, suddenly understanding.
Gythe gave an emphatic nod.
“Gythe—” Rodrigo hesitated. “You weren’t singing Trundler songs. You were chanting a prayer. A prayer to Saint Castigan!”
Gythe blinked at him in bewilderment. She pointed to herself, as if to say, “I was?”
“Didn’t you understand what you were saying?” Rodrigo asked.
Gythe shook her head.
“Then where did you learn the prayer? From that priest, Father Jacob?”
Gythe shook her head, and a dreamy, faraway look came into her eyes. She made a circle with both her hands around her head, as of hair cut into a tonsure. Her eyes smiled.
“Brother Barnaby,” said Rodrigo, bewildered. “But how…”
Gythe touched her heart, then her ears, as if to say “He talks to me. I talk to him.”
She put her hand on Rodrigo’s lips again. She glanced over at Miri and looked back at him sternly and lifted her finger in warning.
“You’re right,” said Rodrigo. “Best Miri doesn’t know that you are communing with Brother Barnaby. I’ll keep your secret.”
Gythe kissed him lightly on the cheek, then ran off to find Doctor Ellington. Miri called after her, but she pretended not to hear, as she disappeared down below.
Rodrigo saw Stephano talking earnestly to Miri. His voice was too low, Rodrigo couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he hoped his friend was trying once more to ask Miri to forgive him.
He was doomed to disappointment. Miri turned her back on Stephano, spoke to him over her shoulder. “Go check for damage. And tell Rigo to make certain the magic is holding.”
She brushed her wet, straggling red hair out of her eyes and went back to her duties at the helm.
Stephano looked at her a moment, then walked despondently over to inspect the hull near where Rodrigo was standing.
“We were damn lucky,” Stephano told his friend.
“You don’t look as though you consider yourself lucky,” Rodrigo said.
Stephano shrugged. He glanced at Rodrigo. “You’re bleeding.”
Rodrigo dismissed this as unimportant. “Listen to this passage from the books of the saints, my friend: ‘And it is written that the four saints came together and stood in the full fury of the storm and raised their arms to heaven and cried to God for mercy. And the storm ceased to rage…’”
Stephano stared at him. “Good God, Rigo! Don’t tell me you’ve found religion!”
“I am not sure what I’ve found,” said Rodrigo.
* * *
In the days to come, with steady winds and fair weather, the Sommerwind sailed safely to Evreux, arriving at the docks about midday. The Cloud Hopper had detached itself from the merchant ship and was now preparing to travel to the place where Miri and Gythe usually docked. The time for parting had come. Stephano and Rodrigo were going to their house in the city. Miri and Gythe were staying on the boat.
The four stood on the deck of the Cloud Hopper, all of them uncomfortable. Stephano’s trunk, with his few belongings, stood on the deck.
Gythe gave Stephano a kiss on the cheek and a sad and wistful smile. Miri stood with her arms crossed, her expression cold and forbidding.
“I’ll let you know when I hear from Dag,” said Stephano.
Miri flashed him a look that made him feel as if
he’d been turned to stone. She walked off, stepping on Doctor Ellington’s tail, who screeched in pain and protest.
“Welcome home,” said Rodrigo.
23
With the king’s declaration of the disbanding of the Dragon Brigade, our service to our country comes to an end. The deeds of glory and valor of both men and dragons now belong to the past. I am honored to have served with you. I am honored to have been your commander. Though we are disbanded, I will keep my oath to defend our country and I know each of you will do the same, for we are the courage of a nation. We are and forever will be the Dragon Brigade.
—Sir Stephano de Guichen, lord captain of the Dragon Brigade
Stephano had always liked his modest dwelling, located in a comfortable, merchant-class neighborhood of Evreux. The three-story house, with six windows on both the second and third floors facing into the street, and one window and an arched door on the ground floor, was not particularly beautiful. It looked very much like every other house on the block. But on the morning of their return to Evreux, when he saw his house, tears filled his eyes. He would not have traded his house for the Sunset Palace.
He and Rodrigo had come home straight from the Cloud Hopper. When Stephano asked Miri what her plans were, Miri said shortly she didn’t know, and she would have to think about it. She told him she would drop by his house later to discuss the matter and visit Benoit to make certain he was all right.
Stephano had thanked Captain Leydecker and Leutnant Baumann for their assistance. Captain Leydecker was profuse in his praise of Mistress Miri, saying he would be forever in her debt, firmly believing she had saved his life. Stephano and Rodrigo had shaken hands and taken their leave.
They had ridden in a hansom cab, Rodrigo declaring he could not be seen walking the streets of Evreux in what was left of his fine clothing.
“I would be ruined,” said Rodrigo. “Simply ruined.”
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