THIRTY SIX

His stories of the royal feast were much requested back aboard. Drinian measured every word with care, determined his nightly tot should not summon events in the rose garden to his tongue through their placid cruise north toward Narnia. "Your waters are infested with villains nowadays," Ram remarked on the seventh evening, lounging against the taffrail during Drinian's post-dinner watch. "To the extent even the coward Miraz takes action! Two brigs are called the Royal Fleet of Narnia, though where he's found 'em Lion alone knows."

"Mortain did begin work on two small brigs at my father's orders, a year before the usurpation," Drinian remembered, a fond smile quirking his mouth at the memory of the wizened little shipwright and his countless dusty drawings. "Royal Telmar for defence against piracy, and Etinsmere as a trading ship for Father's use. If they've been laid up six years, Sir, they'll be rotted through: and how will he man them?"

"Criminals, from all accounts. I heard of it from Par, the captain of His Majesty's ship, while you were gadding about court. Fellow named Solivar is placed in command. Know of him?"

Drinian snorted rudely. "A cousin of Father, and the most liverish lubber imaginable."

"Aye, well he commands the Great Miraz and Lady Prunaprismia against the marauding hordes, so long as the poor fools sailing 'em don't ram each other leaving port. By commands, of course, I mean waves them off from the shore."

"Be surprised if they could drag him onto the beach!" Still Papa's ships were being manhandled from their abandoned anchorages, and at least one of the poor wretches tossed aboard might learn to cherish the sailor's life. The proud little Etinsmere, though, renamed for a usurper or his obstreperous wife! He would have to see her restored to her proper title one day.

"All hands to witness punishment!" The strident boom of Marix's bass echoed the length of the hold, turning every man from his bed. Drinian tugged his shirt straight, teeth grinding as he strove for calm. Tiger had been summoned home to port for this, and every man would have sooner been any where else. Captain Ram had issued the necessary orders in a steady voice, but the tautness of skin pulling over the bump of his nose had betrayed his own distress eloquently.

Keel-hauling. The Old Man had seen it done, he said, many years ago. The last time a drunken sot of a presser had dared raise hand against an officer of King Nain's fleet.

Determined to ignore the chains jangling in his belly he climbed through the aft hatch, following Dorix to their station amidships. Across Barwell Roads the companies of twenty vessels matched them, anchored like ducklings around a central galleon. Anvard. Kolin's command, about the waist of which a thick rope had been thrown like a giant's belt.

On deck the prisoner stood bound at hand and foot, secured at the middle to the main rope. "Least they're doin' it amidships, not stem to stern," Wat grunted, shuffling uneasily at Drinian's shoulder. "By Aslan! Many a time I'd've swung for the bugger meself… lucky I'd mates to restrain us!"

"Aye." Dorix's knuckles cracked noisily. "Sorry. Look at him! Never saw such a miserable scrap of a mutineer in my life!"

"Not that you keep company with rebels, I trust." The Captain's dark tan could not conceal tension's underlying pallor. "All hands! Atten-shun!"

Two guards hefted the prisoner over the port rail, his splash drowned out by the groans of his shipmates hauling for all they were worth on the girth rope. Drinian clamped his lips tight, pressing his fingers together in a rhythmic count. One second. Two. Three. Four. How long did it take to drag a dead weight the width of a galleon?

The shouts from the Anvard redoubled. Time slowed. "He must be drowned!"

"If he's lucky." Dorix, unfazed by battle, sounded as if he might be sick. "Might have his head sliced off by a barnacle; Anvard's not been careened for a year or more."

"Look!" Ripples disturbed the water in the galleon's lee. The chain around her shuddered and strained. "He's up!"

Inch by agonised inch a bloody, misshapen lump scraped up the ship's near side. What must be the criminal's head lay twisted at a grotesque angle toward the left shoulder. Drinian's stomach lurched as if he had been struck by a hurricane's swell.

Willing hands stretched from the maindeck to heave the victim (he could think of the condemned man no other way) aboard, leaving his trail of blood and snapped barnacle like a monstrous snail's down the planking. Men lunged forward to carry what remained below for treatment which, Marix muttered, would likely be worse than the wounds themselves. The clang of a gong reverberated around the anchorage, and a sigh broke loose across Barwell Bay.

"Man the capstan!" The Old Man's caw wound like a relieving spell around petrified limbs. "Drinian, take the conn and set course for the river mouth the moment she's free. Now, not next week, you laggardly devils, we've a long journey to Brenn before us!"

"Aye, that's distance enough 'twixt us an' this damned place," Berix lumbered forward to plant his chest against the capstan's bar, more eager to leave the land than Drinian had ever believed he might be. "Thought them dark devils was cruel, but this…"

Assent rumbled from stem to stern. Wrapping his fingers around the wheel's smooth rim Drinian watched the same bustle break loose across the anchorage, until only the Anvard remained moored. "We must have discipline, my boy," Ram murmured, leaning over on the pretext of checking the binnacle lamp. "However arbitrary it may seem."

"A rebel against his King on land would be hanged, Sir." Or decapitated by axe if his very decency threatened a pretender to the crown, he amended with a mental shudder. "Is such a death not punishment enough for the sea?"

"The fellow may survive." Unlikely, and both knew it. "And the laws of the Fleet are as old as the waves themselves. Oh, I'd wish for an enlightened service such as you imagine, Drinian: every man a cheerful volunteer, with a captain's authority supported by naught beyond meritorious character and respect for the rules. Should the day ever come we man our ships from upright citizens, not the leavings of prison and tavern, such barbaric practises may cease: not in our lifetimes, I'll wager! Now, steady on the tiller. The lady's yours to guide between the sandbanks and that damned infernal archipelago of windswept rocks; a better test of your seamanship you won't find in charted waters!"

The next time he thought of the keel-hauling, six days into his leave on Brenn, it was with mild displeasure in his own callousness. The miscreant might be dead: his cruel fate might have triggered the very mutiny it was intended to prevent, and he had given it not a thought in more than a month.

"Must be as hard-hearted as a Calormene – or a captain," he mused, pausing to gaze into a baker's window midway down Redhaven's sprawling main street. The sun was sinking, staining the lapping waves at the wharf bloody as a pulped corpse and the shutters were being pulled across the fronts of the more reputable businesses farther from the sea. On a heavy sigh, Drinian ambled into the middle of the cobbled street, idly kicking a rotting cabbage down the gentle slope. Hands thrust into his jerkin's empty pockets, he picked his way seaward, careful not to step on the mud-filled cracks between cobbles.

Intent on his new game, he missed the first raucous halloo from the doorway of an especially dingy hostelry perched on the crossroad between port and town. "Shore leave's s'posed to be fun, lad!" Darin slurred, stumbling over the low threshold. "C'm an' join us, we're even seein' to it Berix enjoys 'is liberty better 'n you!"

Drinian eyed the tumbledown structure with its loose roof slates and its missing window pane for an instant. "Why not?" he heard himself exclaim, giving his friend a genial push in the right direction as he entered. "Where is Berix, by the way? I thought he had leave so long as he remained in company with a trusted officer. Good evening, Marix."

"Drin." One arm around a tankard, the other encompassing a buxom brunette, the Boson gave him a genial nod. "Thought you was seekin' word o' your countrymen with the Old Bugger."

"Captain's gone to Muil, and I know all seven passed safe this far." He couldn't drag his eyes from the Boson's hand, meandering over the square neckline of his companion's garish sacking gown. Darin slapped a tankard onto the stained table before him. "Started reading minds?" he asked, taking a grateful glug.

The coarse red wine warmed his innards, but did nothing for the odd dryness about his mouth. As his eyes adjusted to the tobacco-stinking gloom, he could make out a dozen small tables, each occupied by a party like his: a few muscular fellows, sailors all; and bright-painted, scarce-dressed girls flaunting creamy bosoms and puckered mouths.

His skin began to prickle pleasantly. This was surely one of those dens of iniquity Aunt could barely bring herself to warn against.

He sensed her presence behind him the instant before her slender fingers curled through the hair lying against his neck, her breath falling clammy against his ear. "A handsome shipmate you've brought to our table, Marix! Don't start, young master. I bite only when asked to – ain't that so, Boson?"

"Gentle with the lad, Elisa, the Old Feller'll have our 'ides if aught befalls our Drin." Ungallantly pushing his lady friend from his lap, Marix stretched to plant a smacking kiss on the newcomer's upturned lips. Daintily pulling a handkerchief from the lace trim around her plunging neckline, Elisa flicked a cascade of fiery copper curls into his face.

"Marix and I are old friends – Drin," she drawled, leaning forward until a full breast's soft weight rested on his shoulder. "Move along the bench like a gentleman and give me room to sit. Your first visit to Redhaven? I should remember a face as handsome as yours had you moored here before."

"Y-yes." How was a man supposed to converse when a woman's fingers were wandering at will from his nape and down? Vainly hoping his smirking friends would miss the trembling in his fingers, he seized his drink and sucked greedily. With a slanting smile, Elisa pried it from his grip.

"Well, I trust it shan't be your last," she murmured, using the pad of her finger to wipe a last drop of wine from his top lip. "How old is this fine gentleman, Marix?"

"Sixteen – or thereabout." Marix's honest answer came from a great distance that made the words hazy. Drinian allowed his hand to be picked up and placed against the woman's cool white flesh.

Elisa loosed a throaty chuckle that sang through his head until he could hear little above its melody. "Quite of an age to keep company," she purred, raising herself until his hand fell, boneless, against her heaving chest.

He heard Marix guffaw, and Darin whoop; felt himself stand, though the stone floor felt soft as cotton wool beneath his boots. Her rich, musky scent surrounded him, the rustle of gown and hair drowning the raucous din of the inn.

Cool air fanned his cheek as she pushed open a broken down door and urged him through. One last desperate, coherent thought flashed through his brain as her arms locked around him and her mouth came down, hot and hungry onto his.

Ugh! They're smoking fish in the yard!

Author's Note: First, thanks to those of you sticking with the story (and reviewing!) This chapter explains why it's getting so long: Drinian keeps taking over. The Royal Fleet of Narnia seems unlikely, but it will (eventually) have a payoff; and surely Drinian and the lost seven lords can't be the only Narnians not petrified of the sea!

Keel-hauling is one of the nasty things Drinian called up for Reepicheep when the Sea People made their appearance, and I had to work out how a Narnian would have come across it.

Finally - the last part is as close to the knuckle as I go, but for realism's sake I felt I had to include it. Please let me know what you think!

Lizzie