The First Protector ec-2

by James White

  The captain looked away and fell into the uncomfortable silence of one who thinks he has talked too much. There was an enthusiasm and a softness about this Captain Nolan, Declan realized, that did not show on the craggy surface. He laughed quietly.

  "1 begin to feel great affection and trust for your misshapen mongrel," he said, and quickly raised a placating hand. "Remember, Captain, those were your words for her, not mine."

  'True, but you will not at any time use them in anyone else's hearing," said the captain, then briskly, "We leave at once. Seamus! Raise the main sail. Stand by to cast off."

  "B-but," Declan stammered, "without your other passenger?"

  Captain Nolan shook his head. "He came on board last night, preferring that as few as possible of the local authorities in Cork know of his presence or business here. You will meet him this evening. But now, Declan, there is much work for the crew to do and you would oblige me by not allowing your large body to interfere with it. Go join your friends at the wagon and remain close to it."

  The wind off the land was light, bringing with it the smells of a city preparing for a new day, so that the slow, regular creaking and splashing of the oars and the occasional shouted command were the only sounds until they were clear of the jetties and wharves of the city and had turned southward past Cobh into the wide, land-sheltered expanse of greater Cork Harbor. There the strengthening northerly caught their sail and made further rowing unnecessary, except when the wind brought them close to the shoreline of the south passage and they had to row themselves clear. But when they passed south of Ballinuska, almost hidden by frosty mist and the wood smoke of its fires, the oars were shipped because ahead lay the open sea and to the west the even-more-open ocean of legendary Atlantis.

  Very soon the long, smooth-topped Atlantic waves were striking the vessel amidships and making it roll alarmingly, except that no other person on board, with the exception of the boy beside him, showed any signs of alarm. Declan wanted badly to talk, about anything to anyone, so as to have something to think about other than a belly that wanted to empty itself when there was nothing in it to throw up. But the pallid-faced and sweating boy was not disposed to talk, and there seemed to be an invisible but very real barrier between the busy sailors he approached and idle passengers like himself, which would not allow anything through it but a few impatient, grunted words. He clenched his teeth and when he felt particularly bad he looked through slitted eyes at the sun, which was the only object he could find that was moving slowly enough not to make him feel sick. Several hours later when it was touching the horizon and throwing wide, orange reflections off the larger waves, a member of the crew came to offer the boy and himself a bannock of wheaten bread and something in a stoppered flask which both of them refused.

  After sunset, Declan transferred his attention to the bright, still shape of the rising moon. He was feeling much better although not yet well enough to eat, but by the time the moon had climbed high and a crew member came to say that Ma'el and his servants should come at once to the captain's cabin for the evening meal, his stomach was complaining of hunger rather than seasickness.

  It was plain from the navigational instruments and rolled-up charts on the shelves behind it that during his working day the captain's table was used for purposes other than eating. Presently it was set for with six places with Captain Nolan at its head, his lieutenant Seamus at his right and the other passenger, Brian O'Rahailley, seated on his left.

  "My name is Brian," he said, smiling as he looked up at Ma'el. "Please, sit by me. I have been told that you are a wizard and a seer of future events, and this is the first opportunity I have had to discuss the subject with one who may be truly versed in the magical arts."

  The manner and appearance of the other passenger came as a complete surprise, Declan thought, as Ma'el took the proffered place while Sean sat facing the captain and he seated himself between the boy and Seamus. He had expected that a court advisor, a well-traveled philosopher and scholar and, according to Seamus the Black, a spy, should be old and wizened with hands gnarled by the twisting stiffness of age and a face marked deeply by long and varied experience. But Brian O'Rahailley showed none of those signs. Instead he could not have been more than a decade older than Declan, shorter and more widely built and with a round and open countenance that smiled readily and gave no appearance of his possession of high rank. It was only his eyes that looked old.

  Brian talked freely and in a manner that was friendly, amusing, and interesting, so much so that even Sean looked at ease in his company and was sparing more attention to him than to the wine he was drinking. But Declan noticed that the other was somehow able to talk continuously while saying nothing of great importance, particularly about himself. Instead he was trying, with words that were subtle questions, to draw information from Ma'el.

  Only gradually did Declan realize that the old man was doing precisely the same thing to the other passenger and that he seemed to be winning the contest.

  It was Brian who was first to lose his patience as well as his politeness.

  "Come, come, Ma'el," he said quietly, but with an angry edge to his voice. "Shyness sits ill on a magician who is, or at least should be, an entertainer. Perform for us, if you will, a few of your tricks. Tell us of the success that will attend our endeavors

  …" he looked aside and smiled knowingly at Captain Nolan and Black Seamus, "… for I doubt that you would spoil our evening by foretelling death and destruction. Perhaps you will tell me of the next lady I shall meet, and whether or not she will bestow her favors or even, after many unsuccessful endeavors throughout my life, if I will find true love with her?"

  Ma'el looked at the other for a moment, his smooth features seemingly as impassive to insults as they were to all other acts of threatened verbal or physical violence. "I do not perform tricks," he said, placing his hands palm downward before them in one of his fluid and almost ritualistic gestures. "But by using my mind and my eyes and my experience of the past and present, I can often see how future events will transpire." His gaze moved slowly from Brian to rest in turn on the captain and lastly on Black Seamus. "There is one here who will not find true love in his lifetime, and one who needs not the love of a woman because he. loves only the sea, and another who has already found the true and undying love he hungers for, but is as yet afraid to admit even to himself that this great good fortune is already his."

  Brian began to laugh, softly at first and then more loudly before his face became serious again and he said, "Ma'el, you are indeed a trickster, but with words, and for a frail old man you placed yourself at great risk." He smiled, waved a dismissive hand and went on, "No, not from me, because your telling the company that I would never find true love was, I suspect, but an angry and well-deserved response to my earlier bad manners toward you for which, Ma'el, I now beg your pardon. And telling us that Captain Nolan's greatest love is the sea was a safe forecast, because there is not a man who serves in the fleets of Dalriada who would not use the same words about Mm. But telling the ugliest… My apologies, Seamus, you are a good man in a fight but we both know the description is regrettable but true… telling the ugliest man in that same fleet that he has found the true and undying love of a woman is… If you had been a younger man, Ma'el, I think by now you would have felt the fist of Black Seamus in your face."

  Everyone including his captain was looking at the ship's Ionadacht whose eyes were regarding Ma'el from beneath lowered brows. All other expression was concealed by the thick blackness of his beard. But to Declan's surprise his mouth was closed and remained so for he neither moved nor spoke a word. Around them the quiet and almost unnoticed sounds of a ship at sea began to seem loud.

  "You are a pleasant, educated, and interesting table companion, Ma'el." said Brian, breaking the long silence, "who will doubtless help us shorten the monotony of this long voyage but, alas, a wizard and magician you are not."

  The bottom of Sean's drinking beaker slapped loudly onto the t
abletop, without spilling any wine because there was none remaining in it. Speaking with the careful clarity of one whose mind is befuddled and his tongue reluctant to do his bidding, he said, "Ma'el is a wizard. He is not a trickster. I-I have seen him do great works of magic."

  "In vino Veritas," said Brian, using a phrase of scholar's Latin, a language he would not expect servants to understand. He smiled again as he looked from the boy to the old man and went on, "My compliments, Ma'el, you have a loyal servant who has complete belief in you."

  Declan cleared his throat and, looking steadily at Brian, said in a quiet voice, "He has two."

  "Enough!" said the captain, slapping his open hand on the table. When the eating utensils had stopped rattling he went on, "This voyage will be a long one, and with enough dangers as it is without them being worsened by ill feeling among this company. I have no wish for, nor will I tolerate for a moment, fighting among my passengers regardless of whether their stations in life are highborn or lowly or, indeed…" he gave a small nod toward Brian, "… the part one of you played in providing the excellent food and wine we have all enjoyed this evening. Verbal warfare only will I allow, provided it is polite and, above all, entertaining, and it does not extend beyond this table. As the captain of a vessel at sea may I remind you that I am the sole and ultimate authority on board, the dispenser of high, middle, and low justice. This must be understood by everyone here present. Is it?"

  He looked around the table until all had either spoken or nodded their heads in assent, then he smiled.

  "Good," he said. "Providing the wind and weather favor us, and no other agency real or magical deems otherwise, we will dine here tomorrow evening.

  "You have my permission to withdraw."

  CHAPTER NINE

  By the following evening all of the diners seemed to be in a particularly good humor. This, Declan decided, was because the sun had risen and set in a sky totally without clouds, the wind had continued light but steady from the north and the Atlantic swell was smooth and regular enough not to inconvenience the stomachs of any of the passengers. His last view of Hibernia before the sunset mists rising from the sea had covered it had been as a gray line too thin for the southern mountains to show, while as yet too indistinct to be seen by moonlight. The tip of the long peninsula that the Britons called Land's End lay fine off the port bow. Under a favoring nor-noreasterly wind stiff enough to make the use of oars unnecessary, the end of the third day saw them passing the tip of the great peninsula of Gaul that projected westward into the Atlantic.

  That evening the meal went well. Again there was much verbal thrusting and parrying between Brian and Ma'el, but it was too good-humored and friendly for anyone to feel insulted or angry, and not once did the captain remind them to behave themselves as he had had to do on the first evening of their voyage. It was plain that Brian was still trying to draw out and, if possible, discredit Ma'el, but he had changed his strategy.

  Instead of asking questions he was volunteering information about himself, usually in the form of amusing anecdotes in which he did not always come off best, in the hope or expectation of Ma'el returning the favor. Many times he had the company hanging on his every word, with Sean in particular paying close attention and, respectfully, asking questions at every opportunity. Occasionally the boy could not help letting slip past incidents involving Ma'el's past.

  Brian was a subtle and persistent man, Declan thought, who would elicit the knowledge he desired from lesser sources if the greater was closed to him. Unfortunately, the stratagem did not work where Declan was concerned because he had not known Ma'el long enough to let anything slip.

  Unlike the first evening, which had given the boy a sick stomach and a very sore head for the rest of the following day, Sean had been merely sipping at his wine. But he was bright-eyed and excited and the convivial company seemed to be all the intoxication needed to loosen his tongue, as now, when it threatened to stray beyond the limits of good manners into matters personal.

  "With respect, sir,'' he said, "you have recounted many of your adventures in far places, among strange people whose customs are even stranger, and have brought back knowledge of them that must be beyond price to the learned of our homeland. I truly envy you the things you have done and the life you live. As a person you are gifted and resourceful and daring, although modestly you try to discount your own bravery…"

  "You are well versed in the art of flattery, young Sean," said Brian, smiling, "as well as that of healing. Your words go around my heart like a warm blanket. Pray continue."

  The boy continued, and it was clear that he was choosing his words with care as he said, "You are easy and gentle of manner, regardless of the lowliness of the company you keep, such as a servant like me, and it is certain that you do not look the part. But I have a curiosity that will not let my mind rest…" Sean did not so much as glance toward Seamus, who Declan knew to have been the recent sayer, "… But I have heard it said of you that…Why are you called a spy?"

  They were all staring at the boy: Ma'el with his customary lack of expression; Seamus with his expression hidden behind his hairy mask; and the captain, his face deepening in color while he slowly filled his lungs for a shout of anger that would have carried the length of the ship. Brian's features were still and pale for a moment, then they relaxed into another smile as he gazed intently into the boy's eyes, nodded, then spoke.

  "It is because 1 am a spy," he said.

  The heads around the table turned as one toward this new center of attention, but it was Captain Nolan, the earlier anger toward Sean fading from his face, who spoke first.

  "Have a care, Brian," he said quietly. "Seamus and I know well what you do and this is not the first time we have helped you do it. But with respect, this is a stupid and dangerous admission for you to make in public. I advise you to say no more on the subject"

  "Rest your mind, Captain," Brian said with a reassuring gesture of one hand while he used the other to take a long draught from his goblet He smiled again and went on, "This is scarcely a public place and I trust the discretion of all those here, including the trusted and loyal servants of our magician, not to add substance to the few rumors that may be circulating about some of my activities."

  Ma'el looked slowly from Sean to Declan and nodded his head, signifying that in this matter their lips were to remain sealed.

  "Spying is generally thought to be a profession practiced by avaricious and unprincipled men and women who are without honor or morals," Brian went on, looking only at Sean, "and dangerous to those who do the work badly by revealing either themselves or their intentions. Without false modesty, I can say that I do my work very well, by appearing to reveal everything about myself and thus disarming all suspicion.

  "As the captain knows," he went on, "this will be my second voyage to Rome and Athens and Alexandria, and wherever else in the Mediterranean that present knowledge of local political, commercial, and military matters was or is of interest to my employers. But the interest I show while visiting those great cities is open and unfeigned, the natural curiosity of a far-traveling scholar and seeker after truth who is impractical with respect to the realities of the world, who appears to be without guile and who has a reputation for revealing all kinds of interesting information when the wine flows freely-"

  … In Egypt under the Pharaohs, he went on, it had been the custom to provide important visitors-and Brian admitted to being neither reticent nor completely factual while describing his own importance-with accommodation, servants, and a pension suited to their station in life together with invitations to the court functions and entertainments. Since the time of the Caesar, Julius, when Egypt's power and influence waned and it had become a mere province of Rome, the quality of the entertainments had diminished, but they were still lavish indeed by Hibernian standards.

  On these occasions the usual diplomatic games would be played, with the visitor being wined and dined and encouraged to talk about his homeland, its concerns and
ambitions, as well as the lands and cities he had visited and the dress, customs, and achievements of the people he had met on his epic journey from Hibernia. The majority of his listeners would have no interest in the matters he described, but his lightest word would be examined for content of a commercial or military nature by the merchant princes and the generals who were present, while at the same time he would be trying to extract the same kind of information from his hosts. In this game neither party was expected to tell the truth, but due allowances were made for the obvious fabrications and misdirections, just as a high level of exaggeration in the related exploits was accepted for no other reason than that it made the tales more entertaining.

  As a visitor Brian was popular as a teller of tales but disappointing as a source of commercial and military intelligence. Whenever he had imbibed too freely of the dark and deceptively potent wines of Egypt and Gaul, which was nearly every evening, he would relate shocking and highly scandalous gossip concerning the unrecorded activities of the rulers and the other highborn of the courts and palaces he had visited-tales of a kind which, had they been told of the person or family of the local ruler, would have cost the teller his head.

  But from Brian they never seemed to learn anything useful, anything that was not already known, because he did not seem to know or display other than the polite curiosity that was required by good manners about matters that they themselves considered important. And the reason given for this large area of ignorance in an otherwise intelligent and cultured person was that Brian professed himself to be a seeker after knowledge for its own sake who had no interest in the coarser pursuits of martial conquest and the acquisition of wealth. Although there had been many occasions when the ladies of a court would have been pleased to broaden his education, he seemed to have only three abiding interests: the sampling to excess of the local wines; consorting with others of a similar turn of mind to his own; and browsing in the greatest libraries of the known world where he was most likely to find these intelligent and impractical people, people who unknowingly had much practical knowledge that they were unaware of giving, away… .. As you will already have observed," Brian went on, raising a deprecating eyebrow at Sean, "I am such a simple, friendly, outgoing man that not one of the jaded sophisticates of the many courts I have visited ever suspected that I was better at playing their games than they were themselves."