Zypheria's Call (A Tanyth Fairport Adventure)

by Nathan Lowell

  “All right, then.”

  Scooter slipped in past Cook, grinned at Tanyth before grabbing the bucket and disappearing again. He was back in a flash, trading the empty bucket for a sweet and scampering back on deck.

  He was no sooner out of the cookhouse than the door opened and Jameson walked in with the captain right behind him. “I know, Skipper, but we’ve still got at least another week of bumping along. I think it would be a good idea to make sure that nothing’s broken loose down there,” he said.

  “I’m not arguing with you, Scotty,” the captain said. He turned to Cook. “A cup of tea for a pour old man, Cook? Perhaps a stale biscuit...?”

  Cook laughed poured two mugs of fresh tea, handing one to each of the men. “Hold on a minute, Captain, and I’ll find you a moldy crust to chew on.” He pulled a biscuit out of the morning’s basket and, expertly splitting it, slathered a bit of butter on each half and placed them butter side down in the heavy skillet full of onion. “Mr. Jameson? A moldy crust for you, sir?”

  Jameson chuckled and shook his head. “Tea is fine for now, Cook. Thank you.”

  The captain turned back to Jameson. “Tell you what, we’ve got a waypoint coming up this morning around four bells. It should give us a bit better position on the rollers and maybe they’ll even subside a bit by then.”

  “Thank you, Captain. Sounds like a plan.”

  The captain sipped his tea and nodded to Tanyth. “You keeping Cook in line, mum?”

  “I’m not sure who’s keeping who in line, Captain, but he finds little things for me to do that fill my empty days.”

  Cook grinned and handed the captain a browned biscuit. “Try that, Captain. You can just eat around any moldy bits, I think.”

  “Ah, thank you, Cook. I may survive after all.” He turned to Jameson. “See me after we come about, Mr. Jameson.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain. Thank you, sir.”

  The captain grunted and left the deckhouse, trying to juggle his tea and catch the jam dripping off his biscuit without spilling either on his frockcoat.

  Jameson gave Cook a nod and shared a look with Tanyth before taking his tea and following the captain out onto the deck.

  “Well,” Cook said. “I need to make some gravy and you need to make some biscuits. I think we’ve got about two bells before Mr. Jameson gets a chance to look in the hold and see how good your dreams are, mum.”

  She shivered and hoped, this time, the dreams were wrong, then she pushed up her sleeves again. Regardless of what Mr. Jameson found in the hold, the sailors would need a good lunch. While she couldn’t do much about the first, the second she knew how to help with. “How much flour do you want me to use, Cook?” she asked, and got down to work.

  Tanyth finished the biscuits in almost no time and soon had three full sheet pans in the oven.

  “That oughta keep the lads in gravy for a while, mum.” Cook looked around and shrugged. “I think that’s it for this morning, mum. Thanks for doing the biscuits for me.”

  “You’re welcome, o’course. I’m gonna go lay down and read for a bit.” She snaked a mug off the shelf and poured herself some tea to take along. With a nod, she stepped out onto the deck, closing the door behind her with a snap.

  After the overly-warm cookhouse, the open deck felt clean and fresh. The chill wind tried to blow the tea right out of her mug, but she found that she’d developed enough skill to walk, balance tea, and even hold her coat together with her free hand. “You might make a sailor yet,” she muttered. The ship took a particularly steep wave that had Tanyth flexing her knees and trying to stay upright as the seesaw movement up and then down again jarred the ship. “If you can keep from fallin’ overboard,” she muttered.

  A flash of white to her left caught her eye and she saw a single seabird apparently suspended alongside the ship. The bird’s golden eye peered at her and she shook her head, hoping she wasn’t going to start flying with gulls next.

  She resumed her walk to the cabin, feeling quite proud that her path weaved only slightly back and forth with the rolling of the ship. A last stagger got her down the companionway without incident and out of the wind. She treated herself to a sip of tea. The interior of the ship always felt so quiet, even muffled, after being out on deck. She knew it wasn’t true, but by comparison to the heavy winds always blowing in her ears, the relative silence struck her each time.

  She found Rebecca standing beside her bunk, the surface of her blanket covered with the papers from Tanyth’s bundle. Rebecca flashed her a bright smile. “G’mornin’, mum. Got Cook squared away?”

  Tanyth shook her head and gave a small laugh. “G’mornin’, yourself. And it’s gonna take more than one poor old lady to get him straightened out. How’s life as a deck hand?”

  Rebecca grimaced. “I think they’re takin’ it easy on me ’cause I’m a girl.”

  “Show me your hands.”

  Rebecca turned roughed palms up to the light. “The liniment helps some. I shudder to think of what they’d look like without it.”

  “No blisters?”

  “No, mum.”

  “Well, if this is takin’ it easy on ya, my dear, you prob’ly want to thank your lucky stars because much more and you’d have ground beef where your fingers should grow.”

  Rebecca peered at her own palms again and nodded. “Maybe it’s just ’cause I’m new.”

  Tanyth shrugged and crossed to look over Rebecca’s shoulder at the scattering of papers. “Findin’ anythin’ interestin’?”

  “Lots. Mostly your notes about the plants and such.”

  “I didn’t have paper to waste on the weather,” Tanyth said her eyes raking back and forth across the tidy arrangements of documents.

  Rebecca gave her a one armed hug. “No, mum. I s’pect you didn’t. There’s some odd stains on some of these.”

  Tanyth leaned down. “Where? Water damage?”

  Rebecca shook her head and pointed. “Those there have a kind of rust on ’em. Just on the edges like.”

  Tanyth saw the pages in question, narrow arcs of dark eating into the margins of her notes. The date on the top page was over a decade old. Tanyth sighed. “Yeah. After that I started wrappin’ them more careful.”

  Rebecca cocked her head and picked up one of the pages. “What is it, though, mum?”

  “Blood,” she said with a small shrug. “The pile was a lot shorter then, but it’s blood.”

  “Yours?” Rebecca seemed scandalized.

  Tanyth sighed again and shook her head. “No.”

  Rebecca started to ask another question, but the look on Tanyth’s face stopped her. She put the page back on the bunk and folded her hands on the rail.

  “You’re keepin’ them in order?” Tanyth asked after a moment.

  “Yes, mum. Seemed sensible. Since you’ve been buildin’ from the bottom of the pile—’cept for those over there that have diff’rent dates—I kept them in order as I peel them apart. These here are the newest,” she pointed to the papers closest to the rail. “They get older in that direction.” She waved her arm along the length of the bunk.”

  “That’s a lot of paper to carry,” Tanyth said. “I guess I never gave it much thought.”

  “You spent a winter with somebody named Willowton?” Rebecca said, picking a loose page off the blanket.

  “Alice, yes. Alice Willowton. Not sure how many winters back now.” Tanyth leaned in to look at the spidery writing on the page. “Woman was sure I’d forget how to distill oils so she wrote it all down.”

  Rebecca held the page up to the light and frowned at it. “Is that what this is?”

  Tanyth joined her in peering at the page. “I believe so. Problem is the woman couldn’t write so you could read it. Ever. But she wrote and wrote and wrote and always claimed that she could read it. Yes, look there, that word is ’heat’ and I think that’s ‘leaves’ or maybe ‘loaves.’”

  Rebecca cast a sidelong glance at Tanyth. “You sure this isn’t a recipe for brea
d?”

  Tanyth shrugged. “Could be, but Alice Willowton wasn’t much on bread bakin’. She did like her still, though.”

  Rebecca caught something in Tanyth’s tone and gave her a curious look.

  Tanyth chuckled. “Most of the women I wintered with had something they made or grew or whatever. Just a little something to get a few coins, you know?”

  Rebecca nodded.

  “Mother Willowton distilled strong drink. She made the best spirits in the valley.”

  Rebecca laughed and held up the canvas-shrouded bundle. “And I haven’t even gotten to the oldest stuff yet. You wrote more then.”

  “Di’n’t know I was all that wordy,” Tanyth said with a grin of her own.

  “You didn’t write anythin’ last winter, mum? Nothin’ about your time in Ravenwood?”

  Tanyth shook her head. “Didn’t learn anything new there. Nothin’ to write down.”

  Rebecca scoffed. “Didn’t think to write down about your raven dreams?”

  Tanyth shot her a frown. “Not exactly learnin’, is it?”

  Rebecca shook her head. “No, mum, but keepin’ track of all that’s happening now might be useful later when you get to Mother Pinecrest’s. You’ll be able to tell her ’xactly when stuff happened.”

  Tanyth nodded and thought of the new blank book and pen in her pack. “That’s not a bad idea, my dear. ’Specially now.”

  Rebecca cocked her head. “The momma rat, you mean?”

  Tanyth gave a half shrug but didn’t answer.

  Above them, they heard men shouting and feet running across the decks.

  “What is it, mum?” Rebecca asked, eyes wide.

  “Just comin’ about, I ’spect” she said. “New course again. You’ll want to get your gear on. They’ll be collectin’ ya soon.”

  Rebecca shook her head in wonder. “How do you know more what the ship’s doin’ than I do?”

  Tanyth pulled her coat off its peg and started shrugging into its heavy warmth. “I don’t, my dear, but hangin’ about in the cookhouse, I hear the odd bit of this ’n that.”

  “Lemme just bundle this back up and I’ll be up in a minute. If you see Scooter or the bosun?”

  “I’ll tell ’em.” Tanyth nodded and finished buttoning her coat. She remembered to take the mug with her at the last minute and headed up to watch the ship come about, tea in hand and feeling like a real sailor.

  When she got on deck, she didn’t see the men holding on to the lines and levers they needed to bring the ship about as she expected. What she saw was the full complement of sailors in the tall rigging, each one working at some activity or other that involved the sails.

  The bosun saw her standing there gazing upward. “Mum, we need Becca now!” he shouted.

  “She’s on her way.”

  He waved and turned back to the crew in the rigging, bawling orders that Tanyth didn’t understand but moved men from here to there. As she watched, the big canvas sails seemed to evaporate as they were gathered, reefed, and in some cases actually taken down.

  Rebecca pushed up onto the deck and stepped around Tanyth.

  “The bosun’s lookin’ for you, my dear,” Tanyth said.

  “I s’pect he is, mum,” she said and dashed across the deck to where the bosun stood, legs apart and gazing upwards.

  He turned at her approach and clapped her on the shoulder, pointing forward and saying something in her ear that Tanyth couldn’t hear above the sound of the wind buffeting past her ears.

  She walked forward to the cookhouse and, in its meager protection, up-ended her mug, letting the last of the cooling tea pour into her mouth. When she brought the mug down, she saw the heavy, dark clouds working across the western sky. A flicker of lightning generated no thunder that she could hear over the roaring of the wind in her ears, but she doubted that would last very long. Even as she stood there, the mass seemed to expand, stretching gray fingers across the deep blue sky. She could make out sheets of rain hanging like some strange moss.

  With an effort, she pulled her eyes away and wrenched open the door to the cookhouse and slipped inside. There she found Cook busily lashing things down. “Ah, there you are, mum. Looks like we won’t be getting a peek into the hold today after all.”

  “Is it bad?”

  Cook shrugged and didn’t stop his preparations. “Bad enough, I wager.” He paused to consider his handy work and then turned to the stove. He opened the firebox and stuffed two more sticks into it.

  “I thought you had to secure the fire when there’s stormy weather?”

  He shot her a smile over his shoulder. “Aye, we do, but she’s not storming yet and this hunk of iron will hold heat for hours. If I can get her hot enough before the storm hits, we’ll have fresh, hot beans at midnight if we need ’em.” He nodded at the trays of biscuits. “Mum? If you’d pull them off the trays and fill up them hampers?” Two covered baskets rested on the deck. “We’ll be able to put some hot food in their bellies before it hits, I think.”

  She used a towel to hold the still hot baking sheets and dumped the biscuits unceremoniously into the baskets, throwing a bit of fresh towel in on top and slapping the lids closed. “What about the trays?”

  Cook pointed to a narrow slot. “In there, turn the toggle and they’ll stay in.”

  She found a flat bit of wood with a spike driven through the middle that allowed the wood to turn. She slipped the empty trays into the slot and turned the wood, which formed a bar across the opening. “Clever.”

  “Oh, we sailors are nothing if not clever, mum. Gotta keep gear from flying away, or rolling over the side, or falling on our heads every time there’s a little blow. Simple is good, mum. And when you’re dealing with sailors, it better be darn simple. All-Mother knows we surely are.”

  “Are what, Cook?”

  “Simple, mum. Every blasted one of us for being out in this.”

  Tanyth saw his face for the first time since getting into the cookhouse. His eyes were wider than normal and his skin carried a waxy pallor.

  “Anythin’ else I can do, Cook?”

  He looked around the galley, checking off things methodically as his gaze traversed each wall. “Well, mum, we’re gonna serve up some grub here in a minute, but if you happen to know any prayers to calm the winds and flatten the seas, now would be a tip top time to say ’em.”

  She looked at him, but he seemed to be serious, even if a bit distracted by trying to simultaneously get a meal ready and tie down anything not in use in the galley. “First time for everythin’, I suppose,” she said. “Can’t hurt.”

  She headed for the door.

  “Where you goin’, mum?”

  “Gonna say a prayer.”

  He interrupted his frantic scanning and fussing to look at her, a look of surprise on his face. “A prayer, mum?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “You just said if I knew any prayers, now’s the time to say ’em.”

  He barked a laugh. “And you can’t say ’em in here, mum?”

  She looked around the cookhouse. “Oh, prob’ly.” She ducked her head to peer out of the small window at the approaching storm. “But I got a feelin’ I’ll need my stick for this one.”

  Tanyth left the cookhouse and made her way across the deck. The dark clouds grew closer by the second and the wind blew stronger than it had when she’d entered the deckhouse. Every once in a while, she felt a single drop of water blow into her face. “There’ll be more where that came from, I ’spect,” she muttered.

  She made her way back to her compartment and staggered as the ship took a lurch just as she opened the door, nearly tumbling onto the deck with the sudden movement. Tanyth pulled her staff out from its slot beside her mattress and leaned on it for a moment, gazing out the port at the sunny sky that still showed on that side of the ship. Just the heft of it in her hand made her feel better. She took a moment to button up her heavy blue coat but left her head bare.

  Staff in hand, she clambered back up on t
he deck and stood in the open near the center of the ship, just behind the huge main mast, and just in front of the raised bridge in the stern. It was the steadiest part of the ship and would give her the best footing. The small triangular sails at the tops of the masts had already been furled, and the three large sails that usually graced the bow of the ship had been reduced to one rather small one. The main sails were gone, wrapped and secured to the booms that held them. Above her the wind sang through the nearly naked rigging, making every line vibrate in a horrific symphony.

  Out of the corner of her eyes she saw Cook come out of the deckhouse and stare at her. All around her, sailors stopped their work to gawk at her. She stood there, iron-shod staff grounded on the smooth, wooden deck. She glanced up to find the sun just before the advancing fingers of gray wrapped it in a fist of angry gray. She saw Rebecca clinging to the rigging high above her. She gazed straight down at Tanyth, but instead of fear, the girl’s face radiated strength and determination. Tanyth saw her set her jaw and nod once at her before she returned to her task high above the rolling deck.

  “Oh, Mother, this better work,” she muttered and turned to face directly north.

  The wind’s passage through the rigging grew into something more akin to a howl and she knew there was very little time before the storm fell over them. She took a deep breath and was just about to start when she heard the captain shouting behind her.

  “What in the name of Farnsworth’s flaming flatus are you doing out here, mum?”

  She turned to see him leaning over the rail above her on the bridge. “Sayin’ my prayers, why?”

  “Mum, you need to get below!”

  “Tell me somethin’ I don’t know. Gimme a minute and I’ll get out of your way.”

  “I’m not sure you’ve got a minute, mum,” he bellowed.

  “Tell me about it,” she muttered.

  “What?”

  She ignored him and turned to face north once more. Her feet found the place they needed and her body found the rhythm. She lifted her staff in both hands and began.

  “I call on the Guardian of the North, Bones of the World, to give this ship and her crew the strength of stone to withstand the tempest before us.”