The Guild of the Cowry Catchers, Book 1: Embers
Page 21
Chapter 17. Aftermath
Paper is used in Wefrivain only for the most ephemeral purposes or for documents never intended to leave a safe, dry place. Paper deteriorates and warps too rapidly in the sea air. Books are never constructed out of paper. They are too expensive, as each one must be copied by hand. Book pages are made of heavy vellum, which can survive brief submersions in salt water and prolonged submersion in freshwater. Vellum is specially crafted leather, which can be made of any creature, but in Wefrivain is most often taken from sheep or zebra skins.
—Gwain, The Truth about Wyverns
For the next three days, Silveo drove everyone on the ship mercilessly. He set the rowers to work, and Gerard heard that one slave in the hold died from the strain of their frenzied pace. It was true that they were tacking into the wind and oars would increase their speed. However, there was no emergency that required it. Silveo snapped at everyone, even Farell, who was normally exempt from his more cutting remarks.
Nothing pleased him. He caught at the smallest mistakes of knotting or sailwork, berated anyone responsible, and sometimes those who were not. He managed to make one of the ship’s boys break down in open tears over a tiny error in sanding the deck. In addition, he did not appear to sleep, but paced the ship at all hours, looking for someone to upbraid.
He’s punishing them, thought Gerard. Because half the ship participated in Alsair’s little stunt. Alsair wisely failed to make an appearance. Without him, Gerard had no way of leaving the ship to relieve the tedium, but at least this time he had Thessalyn. He convinced her to stay in the cabin those first few days, reluctantly outlining what had happened on the pier.
For a long time afterward, she sat in silence. “Poor little foxling,” she said at last, and Gerard heard genuine tears in her voice. “I wonder if something like that happened to Silveo. Is that why he hates griffins?”
Gerard shrugged. “Perhaps.”
She was silent again for a long time. “Alsair is out of control,” she said at last.
“Yes.” Gerard would not have admitted it to anyone else. “Silveo was almost…well, not quite friendly, but we were almost working together. And then this. I think he blames me, may even think I set Alsair up to it.”
“Give him a few days to calm down,” said Thessalyn. “Have you apologized?”
Gerard shook his head. “‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t mean anything to Silveo. I tried to apologize for what I said to him before we left, and he just sneered.” Gerard took a deep breath. “I realized something when I was talking to him at the estate—a lot of his apparently frivolous behavior is actually quite calculated. This pushing for speed, for instance. He wants shelts to think it’s because he’s lost his temper, and partially it is. However, he also wants to work them so hard that they don’t have time for gossip. Ships are gossipy places—nothing else to do. Silveo was humiliated on that pier, and if they have time to embellish the story, he stands to lose a lot of respect. The Watch doesn’t like serving under a foxling, but they respect his wit and they fear his cunning. They’re proud of him in a way. He makes them laugh, makes their enemies look ridiculous. But they’d also turn on him. He knows that.”
Later that day, Gerard cornered one of his old subordinates and demanded to know what the sailors were saying. Silveo had not managed to totally quash talk of the incident. Alsair’s behavior was too sensational not to talk about, and Gerard didn’t need anyone to tell him that the sailors considered him the victor of some kind of contest. He learned from his old shipmate that the general opinion of the lower deck was that Gerard had planned the demonstration and that the threat had been most clever. It had been directed at the little foxling, not at Silveo, though the real intent was obvious.
Silveo has to know at least some of what they’re saying, thought Gerard. Faster and faster they sailed, until four days out, with barely a watch of sleep per night, the sailors were saying very little.
It was Thessalyn who brought things to a halt. She came out of her cabin on the evening of the fourth day, in spite of Gerard’s protests, and set up her harp on the deck. She’d spent much of the last few days carefully oiling it to protect the instrument from the salt air. Her strings had been perfectly tuned and the elegantly curving wood shined to a lustrous gloss. In the dusky light, with blue moon rising over the water, and the ship skimming along like a bird, she began to play. Gerard sat down beside her, where he could actually feel the vibrations of the harp coming up through the deck.
She did not sing, just played a rich and complicated piece that mingled with the creaking of the sails and ropes and the occasional call of a sailor or a sea bird. None of the sailors came on deck to listen. Sleep was too precious, but all superfluous noises ceased as they strained to hear. Silveo had been up in the rigging, and he jumped down onto the deck a few paces from Thessalyn. Gerard thought for a moment he would tell her to stop playing, but then he paced away to the upper deck, down again, around the mizzen mast, down below deck, where he was gone for quite a while.
He kept coming back, though, and finally he stopped leaving and just leaned on the rail to listen. Thessalyn played one song after another—no words, just music. When Gerard looked at Silveo again, the admiral had sat down against the side of the ship, leaned his head back, and shut his eyes. A moment later, he slumped onto his side and curled up, his tail wrapped around his body. Farell came over, saw him, and practically tiptoed away. Gerard heard him mutter, “Thank the gods. Finally!”