Voyage of the Owl (9 page)

Far, far to the north a child slept in a narrow truckle bed, in a small dark cell. The child whimpered and cried in his sleep. He tossed and turned, bunching the coarse sheets in his small fair hands.

‘Mama. Mama,’ he whispered as he woke. But Mama was far, far away and could not help him now.

A slow, desperate tear ran down his pale cheek. He did not know which was worse. The nightmares of sleep, or the long, slow, cold drudgery of day.

The room was freezing. There was no fire in the tiny grate. When he finally got up, the water in the jug had a thin film of ice glazing its surface. He had to break the ice to sip the water and splash his face. He had not had a proper bath in weeks. His white hair stood up in clumps. His ice-blue eyes, which had once sparkled with mischief, were now dull and lifeless.

Through the tiny window he could see nothing but white snow stretching into the distance. No sign of life. Spring would not come to the mountains for many weeks.

His breath left a misty patch on the window. Once he would have been entranced by snow. By the endless possibilities of cold, fluffy flakes. Snowballs. Snowmen. Snowfights. Snowsleds.

Not any more. Snow was prison.

He sighed and dressed in long black robes. Every bone in his body ached with sadness and loneliness. The tears sat just below the surface, waiting to rise.

But he would not let them see him cry. Once he had been a royal prince. Once he had been Prince Caspar of Tiregian. Now he was just Boy.

A sharp knock sounded on the door. A sallow, sharp face poked around the corner.

‘Aaah, Boy. You are already up and dressed,’ said the priest. ‘Good. It is time for breakfast and then lessons. Today we are going to study the Nine Laws of Krad, then History of Sedah, followed by Etiquette in Emperor Raef’s Court. I am pleased with your progress. We are finally making some headway.’

Prince Caspar felt a little thrill of happiness. A word of praise. It was the first kind word he had heard in weeks. Then he shook himself mentally. No. This man was his enemy. The Sedahs had murdered his family. He could never be friends with this black-robed priest.

‘Now here is your medicine.’ The priest offered Prince Caspar a small silver cup filled with a brown bitter brew. ‘Drink it all up, Boy.’

Prince Caspar knew from experience it tasted disgusting. He glugged it down obediently. It burned his throat going down.

Every morning and evening he had medicine. At night, it helped him sleep and kept the nightmares away for a while. During the day, it blunted the memories and the pain. Sometimes it almost made him feel happy.

For the first couple of weeks he had fought the medicine. He had fought, and spat, and gagged, but always the priests had held him down, holding his nose until he had swallowed it all. Now he knew there was no point in fighting them. They would win in the end. There were too many of them, and he was just a child, completely alone.

‘Good, Boy,’ said the priest, taking the cup and checking it was empty. ‘Now come to breakfast.’

The boy obediently followed the priest down the stairs to the hall. At least there was a fire there. And breakfast – usually dry, stale bread. Another dreary day had begun.

Towards the middle of the afternoon, Fox called Lily, Ethan, Roana and Saxon down into the cabin. He spread out a creased map on the table. Mia climbed down his arm and sat on the table staring at the map with great interest, as though she were puzzling out the shapes and symbols.

To the north was Tiregian. To the south was Sedah, and in between was a scattered line of islands and rocky outcrops – the Nine Isles – pointing like a crooked finger towards Tiregian.

‘By my calculations, the
Sea Dragon
probably left Tira this morning on the ebbing tide,’ Fox explained. ‘They will be roughly twelve hours
behind us. The ship will be heading south here to the major harbour near Emperor Raef’s court.

‘If we sail south for eight days, with good winds, we will be deep in the Sedah Sea. The following night we can patrol back and forth about here. We will aim to intercept the
Sea Dragon
somewhere here at about three o’clock in the morning.

‘Most of them will be asleep then,’ Fox continued. ‘They will be close to home and feeling confident. They won’t be expecting any trouble. Now do you have any idea where they might be hiding this thing you are after?’

They had discussed this very question during the day. For something as valuable as the Moon Pearl and the Star Diamonds, they thought it could only be kept somewhere in the captain’s cabin.

‘The plan will be to try to get as close to the stern of the
Sea Dragon
in the dark as we can,’ Fox said. ‘We will use grappling hooks to tie a rope between us and the ship.’ He looked curiously at the children. ‘Are any of you handy with those bows you carry?’

‘Ethan is brilliant with a bow, but we can all shoot reasonably well,’ replied Lily.

‘Good.’ Fox grinned. ‘I have arrows that are designed to pull a light but strong rope. Ethan, I will
need you to shoot it into the
Sea Dragon
’s stern when we are close enough. Then we will use the rowboat to surf along behind them.’

The children grinned at each other in excitement.

‘The five of us will sneak on board the
Sea Dragon
from the rowboat, gain access to the captain’s cabin and search for your possession,’ Fox continued. ‘Hopefully there will be something there to make it worth my while as well. We will slip back to the rowboat, cast off and get picked up later by my crew. What do you think?’

‘It sounds perfect,’ said Ethan, his eyes shining. ‘Do you really think we can do it?’

‘No,’ said Fox bluntly. ‘There are so many variables – whether we find the
Sea Dragon
at all in this vast ocean, whether we can catch them, whether they see us, what the weather is like.

‘We had all better pray for some cloud cover to hide this moon or they will see us kilometres away. But I promised to help you, the Lady only knows why. And this is the best plan I have come up with. So try and get lots of sleep between now and the night we find them. In the meantime, if we all want to eat tonight you had better get busy and catch us some fish.’

The four found some fishing rods and lures stowed in a locker. The lures were made to look like squid, with fat white bodies, huge black painted eyes and lots of purple and white trailing tentacles, with the hook hidden inside. The four of them sat on the stern, trailing fishing lines into the churning, white wake behind the
Owl
.

After ten minutes, Ethan was nearly hauled off the boat by a huge jerk from his fishing rod. Saxon dropped his rod and held onto Ethan, hauling him back onto the deck. Ethan started reeling the fish in, but it was much harder than he expected. The fish was fighting. He teased the fish, slowly hauling it in, then gently letting it out a little as the fish below struggled and floundered.

‘It must be a big one,’ cried Saxon in excitement. ‘It’s putting up a fearsome fight.’

Ethan nodded, his eyes shining in exhilaration, and his brow furrowed. Saxon wriggled and jiggled in anticipation, longing to help Ethan. Roana and Lily abandoned their own lines to watch in interest.

‘It’s so strong,’ gasped Ethan. ‘It feels like I’m pulling against a bucking horse!’

‘Let it out some more,’ encouraged Saxon. ‘You don’t want the line to snap.’

After fifteen minutes, the trapped creature was
obviously tiring, and Ethan had hauled it close to the stern.

‘Look at its head,’ Saxon cried. ‘It’s a real beauty.’

As its silver head reared out of the water, the fish struggled in a furious frenzy. Ethan slipped and dragged and hauled, the fishing rod straining in a tight curve. The huge fish arced up, closer and closer, until Saxon grasped its flailing body and helped drag it on board. It flipped and flopped on the deck, fighting to return to the sea.

‘Come and see what Ethan caught!’ yelled Saxon, causing Jack, Carl, Fox and Otto to hurry to the stern. The animal was over a metre long, with a pale white belly, a darker silver back and delicate fins of shiny yellow. Its huge eye stared up at Ethan accusingly.

Ethan felt a mixture of elation and sadness. It was the most beautiful fish he had ever seen, and now its life force was ebbing away on the deck.

‘A yellowfin tuna,’ whistled Fox, admiringly. ‘It’s a good size too. Not bad for your first catch. We’ll have a feast tonight.’

Ethan grinned shyly. ‘I never caught anything quite like that in the river at home,’ he said. ‘I thought it was going to drag me to the bottom.’

Saxon and Ethan gutted and scaled the tuna, slicing it up into thick steaks. There was plenty to feed the whole crew, as well as Aisha and Charcoal.

As the sun sank into the west in a blaze of riotous colour, Ethan and Lily, Roana and Saxon sat on the deck eating buttery fish straight from the pan. When it was dark, they all lay on the deck looking up at the stars.

‘Mmmm, that was good, thanks, Ethan,’ sighed Lily. ‘I think that was the best fish I’ve ever eaten.’

‘It was exciting to watch you haul it in, too,’ added Saxon. Ethan smiled at the memory, flexing his sore and blistered hands.

‘Look, a shooting star,’ called Ethan.

‘There’s another one!’ exclaimed Saxon.

‘It is so beautiful,’ Roana breathed softly. ‘It is almost like a fireworks display. The stars were never this bright in the sky at home in Tira. I suppose it is because it is so dark out here in the middle of the ocean.’

‘There are no lights or lanterns or fires for kilometres,’ Lily added. ‘It feels like there is nothing else in the whole world except us on this tiny boat and a million stars!’

When they finally got up to go to bed, Saxon noticed a luminous green streak surge through the
black sea. There was another, then another. The others crowded around to watch.

‘It’s phosphorescence,’ offered Jack from behind the steering wheel. Jack was the ship’s apprentice, not much older than Saxon and Ethan. ‘It looks magical, doesn’t it? Things that move through the water, like fish and dolphins, glow with a ghostly light. It’s mighty weird till you get used to it.’

They watched the glowing green streaks until their eyes ached with tiredness. In a few moments they were all asleep, curled up in their cosy nests of sail.

The next day was as beautiful as the day before. The children ate, dozed and soaked up the warmth of the spring sunshine as the
Owl
flew across the blue, blue sea.

It was a strange feeling to be in the middle of a vast azure world, with nothing as far as the eye could see except white-capped waves and the odd glimpse of strange sea creatures gliding under the surface.

In the late morning, Lily woke up from a light doze. The sun glittered off the sea like shards of broken glass. A large dark shape broke the endless blue. Lily blinked. It was gone. There was nothing. She looked again. Once more a large black shape
breached the water for a moment and then was gone.

‘Hey, look,’ Lily called. ‘There’s something out there.’

The others all woke up sleepily from their sail bag cushions. They looked where Lily was pointing.

‘It’s a whale,’ cried Ethan.

‘It’s two whales,’ added Roana. ‘A mother and a baby.’

The whales came up together, blowing up spouts of water, like white fountains. They seemed to be playing, leaping out of the water, then crashing back with an enormous splash. The mother dived, leaving her tail upright in the air, like a giant signpost. The baby cavorted, waving its flippers and rolling over.

The children watched, mesmerised.

‘And to think the Sedahs kill those beautiful creatures to make lip balm!’ exclaimed Lily in disgust. She fingered the beautiful pearl at her throat, which the Merrow maid had given her as a gift after saving her life.

The days and nights slipped by, broken into shifts by the four-hourly tolling of the ship’s bell, which told the crew the time. The crew worked four hours on, four hours off. In their off time, they slept in the hammocks or played cards.

Sometimes Jack played the harmonica – lively dance reels and sad, sad songs of loss and death that rang out over the ocean like the singing of Merrow folk.

Mia the monkey loved Jack’s harmonica. One afternoon when Jack had been playing, Mia gambolled over, snatched the harmonica and scrambled up the rigging as quick as lightning. She sat up on one of the spars sucking and blowing, trying to make music. Jack stood for an hour below, begging and pleading with her to come down.

She finally grew tired of trying to make music and ran away, flying through the rigging like a circus trapeze artist, clutching the harmonica in one wrinkly paw.

Finally, she came down the mast right where Aisha was curled up asleep in a sail bag. Mia jumped on Aisha’s back and Aisha woke from her sleep in a fright, jumped up and ran, Mia clinging to her back like a jockey.

‘Come back before I wring your neck, you blasted monkey,’ shouted Jack, chasing the escaping monkey mounted on Aisha. Aisha ran faster round the perimeter of the deck. Saxon, Roana and Carl all tried to grab Aisha as she passed, but she was too fast.

Ethan and Lily ran up from below deck, alerted by the cacophony of shouts, barks, swearing and excited monkey chatter. They both burst out laughing to see the pained look on Aisha’s face and the mischievous face of the wicked Mia.

Aisha ran to Ethan and Lily in relief and rolled at their feet, trying to dislodge the tenacious jockey. Mia was too quick and leapt off, tweaking Aisha’s black ear as she fled.

‘Poor Aisha,’ soothed Lily, stroking Aisha gently. Aisha rolled over onto her back to have her white tummy tickled.

Mia scampered straight down the ladder into the cabin, and a few seconds later escaped through the forward hatch, this time with empty paws.

Everybody searched the
Owl
from bow to stern, but there was no sign of Jack’s precious harmonica. Saxon found it that night when he curled up on his sail bag and discovered something hard and sharp wedged inside.

The children were fascinated by the
Owl
and keen to learn all they could about sailing. Fox was happy to teach them to fill in the time as they skimmed southwards.

The
Owl
had two masts of equal height, with a mainsail, a foresail, two head sails and a square
topsail. The winds were currently light, so they used a set of old sails, patched and mended. Two sets of spare sails were kept in the sail hold, where they slept. These included a set of strong, new sails to be used in heavy winds and storms, and another set that Fox affectionately referred to as his invisible sails, though he hadn’t explained why.

Sometimes Otto, the bo’sun, sat on the deck basking in the sun with his shirt off, patching a torn sail or splicing snapped ropes. His job was to do running repairs on the ship and keep everything in tip-top shape.

The children noticed in amazement that he had a large creature tattooed in vibrant red, green and blue across his back, shoulders and arms. On closer inspection they realised it was a dragon. Its head and fiery breath snaked down his left arm, its body, claws and wings flew on Otto’s broad back, while its long tail wound sinuously down his right arm. As Otto worked, his muscles rippled under the skin, making the dragon shimmer and tremble as if it were truly alive.

The tattoo seemed very sinister. Lily felt as though the dragon’s blood-red eye were following her as she moved around the ship, as if Otto were spying on her through the creature. She mentally
shook herself and concentrated on her chores.

Every day the children had to sluice the timber deck with canvas buckets of seawater to keep the timber clean and swollen tight. They helped Jack measure the
Owl
’s speed using the log line. The log line was a long rope knotted at regular intervals that was rolled onto a reel. The line was attached to a small wooden triangle, which Jack threw into the sea behind the
Owl
.

Saxon and Ethan held the reel, feeding out the line. When the first knot hit the water, the sandglass was turned over. The sandglass took exactly twenty-eight seconds to empty. When the sandglass was empty, Jack would count how many knots had been let out. Each knot indicated how many nautical miles the
Owl
sailed per hour.

Another job was to regularly record the water depth with a lead line. The line was thrown over the side with a lead weight to drag it to the bottom. The lead had a hole filled with wax that picked up fragments from the ocean floor, to indicate whether they sailed over sand or rock.

Even days spent in his company did not make Otto any friendlier. He scowled every time he saw them, especially when he saw Lily cuddling and stroking her black and white kitten. He often made
a sign against evil, his three middle fingers curled into his palm, and his thumb and pinky pointing out like horns. Lily tried hard to ignore him and stay out of his way.

Otto’s surly behaviour was the only sour note in the first week of their voyage, which passed like a lovely relaxing holiday, full of sunshine, splashing, eating, joke telling, sharing chores, card playing and music. Of course, holidays cannot last forever. This voyage had a very serious purpose, which drew ever closer.