Zypheria's Call (A Tanyth Fairport Adventure) (41 page)

Jameson frowned. “How do you know it was painted after the holes were bored?”

“Paint on the inside of the hole. If the board had been painted before, the drill would have left nice fresh wood, like our friend the rat did with her gnawing. Somebody mighta seen that and wondered why there were air holes in a cargo crate.” He sighed. “I didn’t even spot the holes along the top edge until I had the cover off.”

“Wait, Captain? You think there are rats on the ship?” Jameson asked, his eyes wide.

“It’s a ship, isn’t it? Every ship worth havin’ has rats aboard. They’re too smart to sail on a crappy vessel.”

“All this time, and you knew?”

The captain laughed. “You’d be surprised what I know, Mr. Jameson.” He winked at Mother Fairport.

The ships bell rang eight times.

“And that is lunch, I think. Mother Fairport is probably ready to pass out again from hunger, Jameson. Why don’t you make sure she gets something to eat and bring me back a bowl of whatever foul concoction our poisoner has created today.”

“Skipper? I thought you liked Cook’s food.” Jameson looked aghast.

The captain barked a laugh and clapped Jameson on the shoulder. “Sometimes you take me way too seriously, my lad.”

Tanyth giggled when the captain shot her a wink while Jameson wasn’t looking.

Chapter Twenty-Seven:
Halfway Does Not A Voyage Make

Tanyth settled into the rhythm of the ship. She came to enjoy the regular routine. She rose with the sun and, instead of packing her gear and walking until sunset, she had a comfortable breakfast with Cook and helped him serve the crew. Sometimes she’d make biscuits and once helped with the bread.

After breakfast clean up she retired to her cabin and worked on sorting out the heavy bundle of materials that she’d collected over her many years of travel. In many ways she relived her long trek in miniature as she explored the pile, each new layer of notes and artifacts unfolding a fragile page from the book of her memory. Notes from the earliest days were the hardest to decipher. The pressure and friction of page against page had erased portions, and faded others to near illegibility. Still there was enough to amuse and entertain them for day upon day.

At midday she returned to the deckhouse to help Cook once more. Usually lunch was a hearty affair with bread and a hearty stew or fish soup. By the end of the eighth day at sea, all the food was tinned, salted, or smoked—except for those things like potatoes, carrots, and onions which held up well in storage or foods that could be created from scratch. Tanyth felt satisfied with the arrangement, having some experience with food that had gone past its prime and no desire to deal with it ever again. To make up for the lack of fresh produce, Cook made a series of fruit pasties—small crusty turnovers with a helping of cooked fruit inside. He had a barrel of apples and another of pears that he alternated with some regularity.

After lunch cleanup she returned to her compartment and the seemingly bottomless pile of notes and scribbles. Just peeling them apart could take several minutes because of their age and brittleness. More than once Tanyth found herself muttering, “Good thing I didn’t wait much longer.”

Rebecca smiled and offered sharp young eyes and slender fingers to aid in the process when she wasn’t busy on deck or scampering about in the rigging.

In the evening, she joined the captain and one of the mates for dinner in the captain’s cabin. All three men were delightful dinner companions, and Tanyth could often get them to tell stories of life at sea or along the coast. They took great pleasure in telling stories about each other and took great pains to exaggerate the stories to humorous effect. At times they’d trade off, trying to egg one into telling a more outrageous tale about the other. The two younger men took great delight in this game. Tanyth admired the way the captain managed and directed the talk, always finding a humorous note that was funny but not cruel.

As the voyage progressed, the days became chillier. Tanyth was glad for her warm trousers, heavy coat, and knit cap. The trip from companionway to deckhouse could be very raw early in the morning, although she found occasion to stroll several times around the deck for exercise when the frustration of peeling thin, delicate layers apart became overwhelming.

On the tenth night underway, Tanyth knocked on the door but failed to receive the customary “Enter!” as response. She could hear their voices as a low rumble, but couldn’t make out the words through the door. After knocking again, a bit louder, she poked her head in, and found the two Groves men in heated discussion over a chart pinned down to the captain’s charting table.

“Am I interruptin’?” she asked. “Cook will be here with dinner soon.”

They looked up, the captain with a look of consternation on his face, the younger Groves with a look of jubilation.

“No, no, mum. Come in,” the captain said. “Sorry for that. We were just discussing the navigation.”

They took seats just before Cook bustled in with a pair of sailors in tow. He performed his customary delivery and, with a nod and a wink, closed the door on his way out.

“And is there somethin’ wrong with the navigation?” Tanyth asked after they’d broken biscuits and addressed a bit of Cook’s stew.

The younger Mr. Groves kept giving his father little looks, nudges with his eyes as if encouraging him to bring up a subject. The captain steadfastly addressed his stew with uncharacteristic single-mindedness.

Finally, with a sour look at his son, the captain tossed his spoon down. “It’s our position, mum. According to the fixes we’ve been getting, we’ve been moving along quite smartly.”

“Is that a problem?” Tanyth asked.

The captain shook his head, and bit his bottom lip. “The
Call
is a grand vessel, mum, but she’s no sea hound. She gets us there in comfort and with a goodly-sized cargo to make getting there worthwhile.” He paused to peer at her.

“But there’s a problem, isn’t there, Captain?” Tanyth said, more statement than question.

He gave a half shrug. “In a manner of speaking, mum.”

He looked so glum, she jumped to the obvious conclusion. “Oh, no, don’t tell me we’ve slowed down.”

The captain sighed even though Tanyth thought that the younger Groves might pop a seam in his excitement. “No, mum,” the captain said, “we’ve actually sped up.”

Tanyth took a bite of her biscuit and considered the captain’s expression. “You don’t look pleased by this, Captain.”

“Under normal circumstances, mum, I’d be delighted.”

Tanyth looked across the table but young Mr. Groves wouldn’t meet her eyes. “But...?” she prompted.

“But it’s too much,” the captain said. “According to our daily fixes, we’re going almost twice as fast as we should be.”

“Is that bad?”

The captain shot another sour look at his son. “Well, mum, this one thinks we’ve found a new current. That would explain the difference in position. We can’t explain it with winds. We’re not moving through the water that fast, so the water must be carrying us.”

“You don’t sound convinced, Captain.”

He shook his head. “That’s a very far-fetched explanation, mum.”

“What else could it be?”

He shook his head. “All I can think of is the tables we use to translate our position from a sun sighting to an actual chart location. If the tables have some kind of consistent error, we have no way to know where we might really be.”

“But, Father, what if it is a new current? We’ve never been in this particular part of the ocean this early in the season. It could be a winter current that hasn’t subsided.” His enthusiasm had him almost bouncing in his chair.

The captain shook his head. “It would be wonderful, Benjamin, of course. Even if it’s only for this one trip, but if it’s not, then we could be Father-knows-where.”

“I’ll concede the point, sir, but we’ll know in a day or so whether it’s real or an error.”

“How’s that?” Tanyth asked.

“If we’re really where the fixes say we are and we keep moving at this rate, we’ll spot land in another day, day and a half,” Captain Groves said.

“And if not?” Rebecca asked after a short pause.

“We don’t know when—or where—we’ll make landfall.”

“Well, it’ll happen sooner or later, Father. If we keep sailing north, it’s not like we can sail past the northern provinces,” Mr. Groves said, his grin threatening to break free and float around the cabin.

“True enough,” the captain conceded, “but I still don’t like it.”

“Just think of how far ahead you’ll be over Malloy,” Benjamin added, dunking his biscuit in the broth and nibbling the wet edges off it.

The captain shook his head. “Or not. He could be on the way back before we even get there.”

“If it’s a current, what’s to prevent him from arriving quickly, too?” Tanyth asked.

The two Groves looked at her—the younger with a frown and the older with a thoughtful consideration.

They shared a look before Benjamin said, “It would depend on the width of the current and where they were in it. We may be in the middle, they might be on the edge. There could be a large difference in charted movement even if both ships are moving through the water at the same rate.”

Captain Groves cocked his head and squinted his eyes at her. “You don’t happen to know anything about this, do ya, mum?”

The question startled Tanyth. “Me, Captain? What could I have to do with it?”

He raised his eyebrows and said, “You did rather a good job on the storm. Anybody who can erase a storm could change the flow of the oceans.”

“I didn’t erase a storm, Captain.” Tanyth felt a flutter of uneasiness in her stomach.

“Somebody did, mum,” the captain said, a small smile curving his lips. “You were the only one waving around a stick.”

The observation made Tanyth sit back in her seat. “I didn’t mean to,” she said, and realized how silly that sounded. “I mean, I s’pose I meant to, but I don’t know any magic or such that could do anything like that.”

“And you know how to see a firebomb in the hold?” the captain asked.

“Well, no, Captain, but that just sorta happens in my dreams.” Tanyth felt flushed and flustered. She took a spoonful of stew to gain some time. “I didn’t set out to find a bomb. It just...happened.”

“So you don’t get to pick what you dream about, mum?” the captain asked, genuine curiosity on his face.

She shook her head.

“Is there any kind of commonality in what you dream, mum?” Captain Groves asked.

Tanyth pondered the question for a moment. “I get two kinds of dreams that I know of, Captain. One is a kind of prophecy. I see things that happen in the future, I think. So far I’ve had two of those. One’s come true. I’m watchin’ for the second.”

“And the second kind?” Benjamin asked.

“Those have been pretty specific and gen’rally have to do with threats and warnin’s.”

“Do you have just regular dreams, mum? The normal ones, I mean?” Mr. Groves asked.

She shrugged. “I have my share of normal dreams, sure. The kind that make no sense if you can remember ’em at all. The special dreams. Those I remember.”

With a glance at his father, Benjamin asked, “What was the last dream about?”

Without thinking about it Tanyth said, “Cook’s put a trap down in the stores hold to try to catch a rat.” As soon as she said it, it jarred her to her bones. “Oh, no.”

“What is it, mum?” the captain asked, looking up from his stew.

“He’s set a trap!” Tanyth rose from her chair. “I’ll be right back.”

She ran down the passageway, up onto the deck, and into the deckhouse without stopping. She found Cook cleaning up a bit, the evening meal nearly run its course.

“Mum? Are you all right? Has something happened to the captain?”

“You set a trap? Get it out of there. Now!”

He blinked in astonishment. “Trap? For what? Where?”

“By the wet crack. You set a trap. I has a bit of...” she had to close her eyes and remember it in order to figure out what he’d used for bait. “A bit of bacon?”

Cook’s eyes bugged out a bit, and he said, “Oh, aye. A gob of bacon fat.”

“Get it out of there now. She may step on it and die.”

“She? She who, mum?”

“The rat! The one who visits your stores hold. The one that saved the ship!” she said. “You can’t kill her. Not now. It wouldn’t be right.”

Cook held his hands out in a placating gesture. “All right, mum. All right. I’ll go get it right after dinner.”

“No! Now.” Tanyth said. “You get it or I will!”

She started scrabbling around on the deck for the pull ring she saw him use before.

Behind her the first mate pushed into the crowded galley. “Is everything all right, mum?”

Tanyth straightened and pointed at Cook. “He’s set a trap for the rat. The one that saved us. I want it removed. Now.”

Mr. Groves eyed Cook with one raised brow.

“All right!” he said “All right, mum! Step back so I can get it.” Cook waved her back into the corner and pulled up the ring on the deck. He latched it into place and dropped down into the darkness. After a moment, Tanyth heard him bark a laugh and he emerged with the offending trap in hand. He handed it to her. “There you go, mum, but it looks like you didn’t have to worry.”