The First Protector

CHAPTER TWELVE

The meal in the captain's cabin that evening was a hurried one for two reasons; the ship was rolling and pitching so violently that their platters and the food on them were continually threatening to slide onto the deck, and the captain was mentioning with increasing impatience his need to consult Ma'el's enchanted map again. Declan and Brian ate awkwardly because of the soothing ointment Sinead had smeared on their hands and the tight bindings that held it against the blisters. They did not look at or speak to each other or anyone else, and it was plain that the other was uneasy regarding the things Declan might have told the old man about their conversation while they had been on the oars together. It was Brian who spoke first in an obvious attempt to reduce the verbal damage he might have done to himself.

"Ma'el, you are a unique person in my experience," he began smoothly, "and earlier today I was trying to satisfy my curiosity by asking Declan about your powers, your thoughts and your magical devices, and no doubt he has already told you about our conversation. I trust you will forgive the liberty…" he laughed quietly, "… and that you will not think that I was trying to wrest your deepest secrets from a servant…"

"My servants," the old man broke in gently, "know nothing of my deepest secrets, nor are they required to report to me everything they see, hear, do, or think. I reward them for the work they do for me, but I do not own their minds. Declan did not mention the conversation to me so it is obvious that he did not think it important. You were curious about my map?"

Before Brian could find his tongue, Captain Nolan slapped the top of the table. "And I, too, am curious about your map," he said. "Not about the magical how and why it came into your possession but simply to consult it as an aid to saving your lives and my ship…"

"Not necessarily in that order of importance," Seamus murmured.

"… Please, Ma'el," the captain ended, ignoring his first lieutenant, "tell me that you have it on your person now."

Ma'el inclined his head in affirmation, produced the map, and tapped it until it had unfolded to cover the table.

'This is a different map!" the captain burst out, excitement raising the tone of his usually deep voice. "We see only the coastline around Finisterre and nothing of Britain or Gaul-"

"It is a closer and enlarged view of the scene you saw yesterday…" the old man began when the captain interrupted him.

"Indeed it is closer," he said. "And there is a narrow, uneven ribbon of whiteness that follows the coastline that must be, although I can scarcely believe it, the sea breaking against the cliffs. But beyond the white line there are patches and points of a pale grayness that shades into black in deeper waters. What means that? Where are we on this chart, and why do we see none of your great, slow-spinning storm clouds?"

"The pale grayness shows the position of rocks close to the surface," Ma'el replied, "which you will want to avoid. At the center of the map there is a small point of gray that is our position. The storm clouds cover us but the picture uses a special light which enables us to look through them."

The captain's eyes began to shine with the wonder of a small child. He said, "If what you tell me is true, and I have no reason to doubt that, with this I can navigate past the most dangerous of reefs, in the darkness of a starless and moonless night, with complete safety. But what of the storm? Does your magic tell us if or when it will abate?"

Sharply Ma'el tapped an area of the map again. Around the table there were grunts of surprise as the image began to shrink rapidly until the coasts of Iberia and Gaul crawled into view followed quickly by the land outlines of the whole of western Europe. The fat double spiral of their storm was again visible. It was Ma'el who spoke first.

"As I have already told you." he said, "the forecasting of weather changes depends on many things and can never be wholly accurate. I have been told that the movement of air displaced by a bird's wing on the other side of the world can, in time, contribute to major changes in the weather an untold distance away. The storm whose lower edge is covering us will, I feel sure, move northward and thence into the Arctic wastes. Two or perhaps three days will elapse before this happens. The storm will be replaced by a high-pressure continental air mass, that is a large area of dry and calmer weather, which will produce gentler but very cold winds from the northeast. This wind direction will favor you…"

"Yes, yes, it will," the captain broke in. "I still don't understand some of the strange words you use, old man, even though I believe them. But…" he pointed to the tiny coastline east of Finisterre, "… I can't use this to navigate safely among inshore rocks."

Ma'el tapped the map gently and the original image returned. The captain gave a huge, relieved sigh. Brian, who had never taken his eyes off the map since Ma'el had begun speaking, licked his lips.

"Ma'el," he said, nodding toward the chart, "as I mentioned to Declan earlier, my principals in the Kingdoms of Tirconnel and Dalriada and, indeed, the ruler of any other seafaring nation, would reward you handsomely if you were to provide them with such maps. This is a secret more valuable than any I have ever uncovered in my years of spying. If you were to reveal the secret of the workings of such maps, you could have wealth beyond your wildest dreams."

"Regrettably," Ma'el replied with a gentle shake of his head, "there is but one map and only I know how to use it."

Captain Nolan exchanged looks with his lieutenant, then they both stared hard at Brian. "In that case," said the captain, "we must ensure that no harm of any kind comes to our magician navigator, either to his person or his property, for the remainder of this voyage. Do you take my meaning, Brian, old friend?"

For a moment Brian looked uncomfortable, then he nodded but made no other reply. Seamus showed all of his crooked teeth in a wide smile.

"Of course he does, Captain," he said, then went on in a sardonic voice, "Like us he knows nothing about our magician navigator who, for all we know, may already be rich beyond the dreams of avarice."

Captain Nolan smiled and in a moment their heads and that of Ma'el were again bent over the map. Brian watched the three of them without a word or an expression of any kind on his face until the conference was over and the captain was wishing his passengers a comfortable night. He also asked if he could retain the map overnight so as to help him steer a safe course among the reefs that stretched out from the base of the passing cliffs, and Ma'el surprised everyone by giving his permission.

While Declan was swaying and rolling about in his hammock and listening to the rain beating against the tightly stretched skins of the shelter, the expressions and conversation he had seen and heard around the captain's table came back to him. Brian, he thought, was easy talking, slippery, and untrustworthy and should be watched closely but not, he was sure, the other two. It was a very strange thought indeed, but just as the fatigue of stroking oar all day drew him into sleep, he wondered if in the dour captain and his ugly, straight-talking first officer Ma'el had found himself two new servants.

By the next morning the rain had stopped and the sun showed from time to time between scudding clouds. With the aid of Ma'el's chart, the captain guided the ship among the sunken rocks in safety under the high cliffs that sheltered them from a wind that howled far overhead and left them to contend with little more than a stiff breeze. They followed the twisting coastline, using relays of oarsmen or sails when their course made the wind direction favorable, towards a bay that they expected to reach before nightfall and where they would be able to anchor and rest their tiring seamen. Declan was greatly relieved when Seamus, showing his teeth in a particularly wide, snarling smile, said that their situation was neither dangerous nor urgent so that the passengers need not volunteer to row.

Ma'el spent most of the day aft in with the captain, where he was instructing the other in the use of the magic chart to navigate the shallows. Sinead remained outside her shelter and seemed disposed to talk to Declan, until he made the mistake of calling her "boy" which made her angry. When he explained in a low voice that lacked all semblance of an apology that there were seamen within hearing and did she want everyone on the ship to know that she was a young woman, she became even angrier and stopped speaking to him altogether. When Brian appeared and began talking to her in his easy, amusing fashion and making her laugh from time to time, Declan spent the rest of the day feeling even angrier without knowing why.

They were rounding a tall headland whose upper slopes were still lit by the setting sun when he saw movement and called to Seamus, who came to stand behind him so as to follow the direction of his pointing finger.

"Two, no, three men," said the Ionadacht. "You have good eyes, Declan. I must tell the captain about this without delay. But the light is fading. Keep watching them for as long as you can."

'That should be easy," he replied, shading his eyes and squinting at them through half-closed lids. "I think they're building a fire."

Already on the move, Seamus turned his head around to shout, "I was afraid of that."

He continued to watch the figures around the tiny, flickering point of orange light that grew brighter in the deepening twilight while the ship rounded the headland to drop anchor in a small bay whose narrow beach showed dark gray against the blackness inland. Another and larger fire was being kindled on the sand as he watched. One of the seamen came to ask that Sinead, Brian, and himself go to the captain's cabin at once. Ma'el and the captain were waiting for them there, but as soon as Declan entered he knew that tonight they were not being invited to dine.

"While we have the opportunity to talk undisturbed," the captain began without preamble, "I intend to discuss and assign your fighting positions and duties…" he glanced at Sinead "… or lack of them during the coming attack. Declan, Seamus tells me you have good eyes. Did you see anyone around or close to the large fire on the beach?"

"Yes, Captain," he replied. "At first I saw upward of fifteen, maybe twenty men carrying fuel and heaping it onto the fire, then all of them withdrew into the surrounding darkness. I thought that strange but…"

"Your pardon, Captain," Ma'el broke in gently. "I am inexperienced in these matters as you know, but is it not possible that the fires on the headland and beach were lit as acts of friendship to guide us into a safe anchorage?"

Seamus gave a scornful laugh that was silenced with a look from his superior officer.

"That is possible, Ma'el," the captain went on, striving to put patience into his voice and failing, "but it is much more likely that they are wreckers and robbers, or worse.

Having failed to lure us onto the submerged rocks around the entrance to the bay, thanks to your magic map, they will now try to capture the ship instead of pillaging the wreckage that would have washed ashore of its valuables, including any survivors who could be sold as slaves…"

Ma'el held up a hand and broke in gently. "You said that they might be wreckers and robbers, or worse. What is your meaning of worse?"

The captain nodded. 'That unnecessarily large and unattended fire on the beach," he said, "and the speed with which it was built and kindled after the first signal fire on the headland was lit, suggests a situation where many persons are acting rapidly and in concert. It is, I feel sure, a tactic aimed at attracting our eyes to the flames and thereby reducing our night vision while an attack takes place out of the darkness on our flanks. If I am right, and I usually am in these matters, rather than a rabble of badly armed robbers and wreckers we will be facing an attack by well-disciplined Roman soldiery. Seamus."

"Captain."

"We may have little time to prepare," he went on quickly, "so many things must be done at once. Ship the oars all but for two on each side. Man these with two men each and use them with blades level to sweep the air at head height above an attacking craft, or to jab a hole in its hull if it is small and skin-covered. Raise the nets and make them loose enough to hamper rather than aid attacking boarders. Ready the arbalest, but warn that it must not be used until an enemy craft can be clearly seen close by, and certainly not if one of our own crew is standing in the way. If a target becomes visible and it should be a skin-covered coracle or curragh, aim for the waterline. It is better to sink the craft and force the weaker swimmers to discard their weapons than to waste such a heavy bolt to spear one man.

"The wind and sea are making noise enough to hide ordinary conversation," he continued, "but during the fighting warn everyone to speak softly and continuously to each other in Gaelic. This will aid the identification of friend from foe in the darkness. The Roman soldiers are recruited mostly from peasant stock and speak nothing but their native language, so anyone who talks Latin will be an enemy and should be killed without hesitation. No lights are to be shown by us at any time or for any reason. In case some of the attacking craft lose sight of us, we don't want to show them our position."

Seamus nodded and was turning to leave when the captain raised a restraining hand.

"Wait," he said, then looking straight at Ma'el he went on, "Can we expect any magical assistance during this endeavor?"

Ma'el shook his head slowly. "I can provide you with a few moments of bright light," he said, "but that would be unhelpful because you say that darkness is necessary to your defense. Regrettably, I am forbidden from killing or using violence on any other person…"

"Who by?" Brian interrupted sharply, a mixture of impatience and fear coloring his voice. "A magician greater than you are?"

Ma'el's features were without expression but there seemed to be a hurt in his large eyes as he said, "Once in the past I interfered and the result was many, many deaths of innocent people. I will not do so again."

Declan cleared his throat and said quietly, 'There was the leader of the robbers who attacked your wagon, and he died. With respect, the situation here is fraught with much greater risk."

"It was you, not I, who killed him," said Ma'el quietly.

The captain shook his head angrily. "This is not the time for a religious or philosophical debate," he said, "and after all that Ma'el has already done for us I cannot insist that he perform miracles. Seamus, you know what has to be done. Do it. The rest of you, apart from Ma'el and the healer, will do as I say…"