‘Nobody’s going to catch up with me, Master Cluff.’ The captain laughed. ‘I’ve got the fastest ship on the Inner Sea. Besides, it’s obvious that you don’t know very much about seafaring etiquette Nobody boards another man’s ship at sea unless he’s prepared for a fight. It’s just not done.’
‘Oh,’ Sparhawk said. ‘I didn’t know that. We’ll stroll around the deck, then.’
‘Bridegroom?’ Sephrenia murmured as they moved away from the captain.
‘It’s a long story,’ Sparhawk told her.
‘There seem to be a fair number of these long stories cropping up lately. Someday we’ll have to sit down so that you can tell them to me.’
‘Someday perhaps.’
‘Flute,’ Sephrenia said quite firmly, ‘come down from there’
Sparhawk looked up. The little girl was halfway up a rope ladder stretching from the rail to the yardarm. She pouted just a bit, then did as she was told. ‘You always know exactly where she is, don’t you?’ he asked Sephrenia.
‘Always,’ she replied.
The transfer from one ship to the other took place in mid-river some distance downstream from Lycien’s wharves and was concealed by a great deal of activity on both ships. Captain Sorgi quickly bustled his passengers belowdecks to get them out of sight, and then the two ships proceeded sedately downriver, bobbing side by side like two matrons returning home from church.
‘We’re passing the wharves of Madel,’ Sorgi called down the companionway to them some short time later. ‘Keep your face out of sight, Master Cluff, or I may have a deck full of your betrothed’s cousins on my hands.’
‘This is really making me curious, Sparhawk,’ Sephrenia said. ‘Couldn’t you give me just the tiniest clue?’
‘I made up a story,’ he shrugged. ‘It was lurid enough to seize the attention of a group of sailors.’
‘Sparhawk’s always been very good at making up stories,’ Kurik observed. ‘He used to lie himself in and out of trouble regularly when he was a novice.’ The grizzled squire was seated on a bunk with the drowsing Flute nestled in his lap. ‘You know,’ he said quietly, ‘I never had a daughter. They smell better than little boys, don’t they?’
Sephrenia burst out laughing. ‘Don’t tell Aslade,’ she cautioned. ‘She may decide to try for one.’
Kurik rolled his eyes upward in dismay. ‘Not again,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind babies around the house, but I couldn’t bear the morning sickness again.’
About an hour later, Sorgi came down the companionway. ‘We’re clearing the mouth of the estuary now,’ he reported, ‘and there’s not a single vessel to the rear. I’d say that you’ve made good your escape, Master Cluff.’
‘Thank God,’ Sparhawk replied fervently.
Tell me, my friend,’ Sorgi said thoughtfully, ‘is the lady really as ugly as you say?’
‘Captain Sorgi, you wouldn’t believe how ugly.’
‘Maybe you’re a bit too delicate, Master Cluff. The sea’s getting colder, my ship’s getting old and tired, and the winter storms are making my bones ache. I could stand a fair amount of ugliness if the lady’s estate happened to be as large as you say. I might even consider returning some of your passage money in exchange for a letter of introduction. Maybe you overlooked some of her good qualities.’
‘We could talk about that, I suppose,’ Sparhawk conceded.
‘I need to go topside,’ Sorgi said. ‘We’re far enough past the city that it’s safe for you and your friends to come on deck now.’ He turned and went back up the companionway.
‘I think I can save you all the trouble of telling me that long story you mentioned earlier,’ Sephrenia told Sparhawk. ‘You didn’t actually use that tired old fable about the ugly heiress, did you?’
He shrugged. ‘As Vanion says, the old ones are the best.’
‘Oh, Sparhawk, I’m disappointed in you. How are you going to avoid giving that poor captain the imaginary lady’s name?’
‘I’ll think of something. Why don’t we go up on deck before the sun sets?’
Kurik spoke in a whisper. ‘I think the child’s asleep,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to wake her. You two go on ahead.’
Sparhawk nodded and led Sephrenia out of the cramped cabin.
‘I always forget how gentle he is,’ Sephrenia said softly.
Sparhawk nodded. ‘He’s the best and kindest man I know,’ he said simply. ‘If it weren’t for class distinctions, he’d have made an almost perfect knight.’
‘Is class really all that important?’
‘Not to me it isn’t, but I didn’t make the rules.’
They emerged on deck in the slanting, late-afternoon sunlight. The breeze blowing offshore was brisk, catching the tops of the waves and turning them into sun-splashed froth. Captain Mabin’s vessel, bound for Jiroch, was heeling over in that breeze on a course almost due west through the broad channel of the Arcian Strait. Her sails bellied out, snowy white in the afternoon sun, and she ran before the wind like a skimming sea bird.
‘How far do you make it to Cippria, Captain Sorgi?’ Sparhawk asked as he and Sephrenia stepped up onto the quarterdeck.
‘A hundred and fifty leagues, Master Cluff,’ Sorgi replied. ‘Three days, if this wind holds.’
‘That’s good time, isn’t it?’
Sorgi grunted. ‘We could make better if this poor old tub didn’t leak so much.’
‘Sparhawk!’ Sephrenia gasped, taking him urgently by the arm.
‘What is it?’ He looked at her in concern. Her face had gone deathly pale.
‘Look!’ She pointed.
Some distance from where Captain Mabin’s graceful ship was running through the Arcian Strait, a single, densely black cloud had appeared in an otherwise unblemished sky It seemed somehow to be moving against the wind, growing larger and more ominously black by the moment. Then it began to swirl, ponderously at first, but then faster and faster. As it spun, a long, dark finger twitched and jerked down from its centre, reaching down and down until its inky tip touched the roiling surface of the Strait. Tons of water were suddenly drawn up into the swirling maw as the vast funnel moved erratically across the heaving sea.
‘Waterspout!’ the lookout shouted down from the mast. The sailors rushed to the rail to gape in horror at the swirling spout.