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SEA DRAGON’S GIFT : Part 32 of 83 : World of Sea

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SEA DRAGON’S GIFT

Part 32 of 83

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

140406 words

written 2007

Reproduction in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the express consent of the author.

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New to the story? Read from the beginning. PART 1 is here

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Chapter 10a: Grandalor : A New Tack

That same night, aboard the Grandalor, a very different council was underway. Barad gazed at his wife in one chair and Master Selked in the other. He made sure that the door was secure. He sat and fidgeted with a Three Dragons die. It was plain that something was bothering him. The others waited quietly for him to speak.

“Selked,” he began at last, “you know the whole plan to strike at the Longin. Please tell Tanlin exactly what the plan is and how it is to be carried out.”

“Is that wise, Captain?” Selked asked carefully. “She has already played a part in the plan but she may do her part best if she remains ignorant of the whole.”

Barad thought a moment, fidgeting with the die. A Dragon turned up. He replied, “It was Kurti who first brought your objections to my attention. Her untimely death and then the turmoil of finding Tanlin drove things out of my mind for a space.

“Now I want to hear you out and, at the same time, inform Lady Tanlin. Whether it is wise or not, she has asked me what the plan is. Mister Morgu and myself are blinded by our separate desires for revenge. I want her to hear it from you because you are opposed to it but have carried out your part. I want to see clear to the horizon on this matter. I thought that I did until I learned of your opposition. Please speak freely. We are friends of old, and I respect your ideas even when I disagree with them.”

Selked leaned back in his chair and steepled his hands as he organized his thoughts. “You must know first that I trust you. I believe that you can carry out your plan successfully or I would have no part in it.”

He turned to face Tanlin squarely. “In short, Captain Barad has a long standing grudge against the Longin.” When she heard this, Tanlin looked stricken. “It was Mister Morgu who proposed this plan for revenge and Captain Barad agreed to it. The plan is a covert murder. An Ord spine is to be pierced into the food of the victim, causing a slow and untraceable poisoning. Morgu chose the girl Kurin as the target because of her importance to the Longin.”

Tanlin started up in angry horror at the revelation but was quelled by Selked’s upraised hand. “Hear me out, Lady Tanlin. I have more to say. I was asked to speak my opposition. Captain Barad rarely asks for other opinions unless he truly wants them.

He turned and faced Barad squarely before speaking, “Briefly, Captain, I believe that you have chosen the wrong action because you have failed to sort out what your grudges actually are. May I elucidate?”

Barad thought that over for a moment before answering. Frowning in concentration, he replied, “Please go on. This plan seemed good but it has bothered me. Perhaps you can clear up my difficulty.”

Relieved, Selked plunged forward. “Sir, with due respect, you do not hate the Longin and never have. Your grudge has always been with Mord Halyn, the Longin’s captain. One person, not a whole ship.”

Barad thought over his many years of hate and looked at the die in his nervous fingers. A skelt.

Selked leaned forward in his chair and said intently, “Mister Morgu does hate the Longin and not any one person of the ship. The Longin’s crew exposed his first counterfeiting scheme and got him voted off his ship. Now, Morgu has made you the tool of his revenge.

“I suspect that you do understand why Captain Mord tried to expose you when you came to the Captain’s Council to be confirmed, so many Gatherings ago. True, he had little or nothing to gain by doing so. He is no fool but he is rigidly honest and fair. He believed your election false and tried to prove it, simply because he believed it wrong.”

Sympathetically, Selked leaned forward in his chair and laid a hand on Barad’s knee as he went on, “I have no wish to hurt you, my friend, by bringing her up, but before your first wife, Teralat, died, you would have understood his opposition. I thought that the feeling part of you died with her. Now I think that you only covered it up.

“I feared for your sanity when you lost Kurti, too, even if you and she could never have married. She had become your keel. Tanlin’s awakening seems to have been a gift of the Dragons that benefits you both. She gave you a clear course through the reefs of your grief and you have preserved her through her memory loss.

“For you, Morgu’s plan strikes the wrong target for the wrong reasons,” Selked went on. “There’s no profit in it for you or our ship. Even by the old Barad’s standard, that’s wrong. We should gain by what we do.

“If you want to hit at Mord, it is fair to hit at his ship as a whole: cost them fishing waters or get a Council ruling that harms their trade. It is spiteful to strike at them through an innocent like Kurin.”

Barad, deep in thought, turned to Tanlin and asked, “What do you think of what Master Selked has said?”

She took a deep breath thinking, Barad ‘asn’t even told ‘is closest friend t’e trut’ about us. Oi must remain Tanlin, even in private. Oi’ve got to’ conn t’is ship by Arrakan t’ought, and replied, “Oi agree wit’ ‘im for a differ’nt reason. Oi only just ‘eard o’ yer grudge against Ca’tain Mord but ‘e wa’ at our Announcement Feast by yer invitation, a public renunciation o’ yer ‘ate. Kurin wa’ also at our Wedding Feast. I’ she were our enemy, she should ‘ave been barred from ‘t. By Arrakan law and custom, w’ich ye claimed for our wedding, ye ‘ave t’ drop t’is.

“I’ we’re forsworn, we must part an’ can never remarry.” She buried her face in her hands, rich brown hair cascading down about her as she said in a shaking vioce, “I’ ye gae forward, I must find ot'er quarters an’ anot'er ship. Oi donnae won’t t’ lose ye, ‘Eart o’ Mine!” Startled, she realized that both her thoughts and words had framed themselves in Arrakan. Oi wonder i’ Oi’ll ever forget t’at Oi wa’ once anot’er?

Barad looked at her, amazed. “You have both gone to the point immediately. There is high risk and no profit. I have always tried to be direct rather than maliciously spiteful, Selked. You are right.

“As to your point, Tanlin, you are also correct. I did claim Arrakan custom for our marriage. I had forgotten that part of the Arrakan custom of Announcement Feasts. If I don’t put aside my whole rancor toward Captain Mord, who was an invited guest at our feast, then all of our vows at that feast will be forsworn.” He regarded her for some time before going on. Tanlin now clings to Arrakan ways and behavior so firmly that she might actually take this the whole way to its end. He saw a Dragon tide pulling the safe water from under him leaving only hard, jagged coral under his keel. Suddenly, he said decisively, “Tanlin, our love is more important to me than any hate. This plan is done.”

Tanlin leaned back in her chair in relief and asked, “Wa’ picking up t’at crazy boy, Silor, an’ sinkin’ ‘is boat like t’at part o’ t’e plot?”

Barad, glanced at the die in his now calm hand. A Wide Wing. Looking to be at ease with his decision, answered, “It was. I’ve known him for the last five Gatherings and milked him for information about the Longin. Where Kurin is concerned he’s so far onto dry land that the horizon hides any sight of water.”

“W’at’ll we do wit’ ‘im now?” asked Tanlin with genuine concern.

Barad considered carefully before he answered, “Now, I guess, we will have to help him sell his indenture to the Arrakan fleet. Once he’s away from Kurin, he should be OK.”

“Ye’re t’ good, m’ Luve. T’wad be easier an’ safer t’ repair ‘is boat an’ put ‘im bock on ‘is way t’ t’e Pollant fleet.”

“True, but I have known him for Gatherings and he is basically a good sort. He deserves the best chance that I can give him for the help that he has given me.” Barad smiled wryly, “It’s your influence on me, Lady of my Heart.”

“Still,” Selked remarked, “we need to inform Mister Morgu that the plan is off. And we need to make it impossible to carry out. Many have guessed that we meant to do more with that Ord than try to catch Strong Skins.”

“A wise precaution. I will make this a logged event with formal standing orders.” Barad stood and offered Tanlin a hand up. “Tanlin, my dear, will you assemble the officers and Masters in the Mess, please? I will address them this morning at 10:00.”

Tanlin left at once to notify everyone of the meeting. W’at kind o’ mon ‘ave Oi married t’at could ‘arbor t’is monstrous plot? Then she answered herself, T’e kind o’ mon t’at could drop a costly venture t’e instant t’at ‘e believed ‘t t’ be wrong, t’at’s w’at kind o’ mon ‘e is!

She found First Officer Timms on the quarter-deck, off duty, quietly watching sea glitter in the light of the rising Wohan. Long thin clouds glowed around their edges. The pale golden light of the early part of the moon-rise gilded the masts and yards of the sleeping fleet about them. “Tis beautiful, is ‘t nae, Mister Timms?”

“Aye, that it is. I’m in charge of the Day Watches, so I don’t get to see the sight as often as I would like,” he said quietly. “I wager that you came for a different reason, though.”

“Oi’m only newly come t’ t’is ship, an’ ye know m’ so well,” she said wryly.

“No, Ma’am, but I do know Barad and you’ve been closeted with him and Master Selked this last hour.”

“Little escapes yer eye,” she said, leaning comfortably on the rail. “Ye an’ all yer wotch officers are needed in t’e mess for a meeting wit’ t’e Ca’tain. New standing orders. T’will be at 10:00 A.M.”

“Aye, Ma’am. We’ll be there,” he responded smartly.

She went on with her rounds of the shops and crew. She ended at the Captain’s cabin for some much needed rest.

Her dreams were troubled. Two seabirds squabbled over a fish. And she was the fish. Children played at tug-o-war and she was the rope, frayed and near to breaking. She whimpered in her sleep. An arm gripped and held her gently. She calmed and smiled in her slumber. Safe now.

TO BE CONTINUED

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#SEA DRAGON’S GIFT #Part 32 of 83 #World of Sea #Written by De Writer

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