"So many names!" Lucy whispered as two more crew members knelt to kiss her hand - awkwardly, she noticed, with a rustic uncertainty a million miles removed from the suave confidence with which their captain had saluted her the previous day. "How are we ever going to remember them?"
"Stay near to Drinian," Caspian muttered from her other side. "He has no difficulty."
"They are my crew, Sire," the other pointed out mildly, dismissing the men to their interrupted tasks. "Now, if we want to eat later in the day, I suggest we leave the galley men to their duties; that blessed mouse is clinging to the dragon's ears again; gives the lookout inside the mouth someone to talk to, keeps him awake. If Your Graces would care to climb up…"
"Oh, yes please!" Eustace snorted, the sound ending in a squeak when Edmund's foot came down on his. Lucy dashed from the heat of the ship's kitchen, sucking in a great gulp of clean air. "I could never be a ship's cook."
"Nor I, Ma'am; I can burn water," Drinian agreed, swinging himself up onto the broad base of the prow. "You see halfway up, there's a hole cut through? Down there stands our forward lookout. Peridan!"
"Aye, Captain?" A ginger head popped immediately through the opening, a freckled face creasing in concern until bright green eyes registered the friendly grin on the commander's face. Drinian tossed a jovial salute.
"Their Majesties wish to inspect your platform; no, Queen Lucy, I'll go first. Master Eustace, if you choose to remain on deck, His Majesty will accompany you."
"I jolly well - oh, that His Majesty." Edmund pulled himself up short. "You'll have to excuse Eustace; he's a Republican."
"He is a poltroon, though it pains me to speak ill of Your Highness's relation."
"Enough, Reep." Drinian's tone was stern, but the look he cast up to the mouse in its precarious balance was approving. "Now, Your Majesty, there's a fair step down; take my hand, that's right."
"Goodness!" Lucy swayed back, thankful for the firm grip he kept on her fingers. "It's like being suspended over the sea! I shouldn't like to be here in a storm!"
"We have handholds, Ma'am." Peridan jerked a thumb toward a large metal staple held deeply in the wooden column of the prow. "An' waterproofed cloaks."
"Surely you won't see land on the horizon from here?"
"Not afore the chap at the fighting top, Your Majesty, but without a man here casting the lead, we might run aground…"
"It must be time for a sounding; no, Peridan, allow me." Drinian reached behind them, snapping a long cable knotted at regular intervals along its length. "A captain has few opportunities to be a sailor on his own ship, Queen Lucy. If you'll be kind enough to climb out, King Edmund might care to play lookout a while."
"Yes, shift out, Lu!" Edmund's head blocked the sunlight from above. Lucy stuck out her tongue at him.
Peridan goggled. Drinian cast him a stern look, and he subsided.
Edmund squeezed into the corner, watching the young captain as he swung out the long line, letting it trail ahead of the ship and sink its lead weight toward the seabed. As the last of the knots vanished beneath the light swell, he nodded, beginning to haul the rope in. "No bottom at fifty fathoms," he called, coiling the cable onto its hook. "Comfortable, Sire?"
"I wouldn't go that far," said Edmund, who was beginning to turn slightly green. "Tell you what, never mind during rough weather; I wouldn't have this station during a battle for anything in this world or the other!"
"We'd never waste a man on lookout duty in action, Sire." Drinian vaulted up the ladder as if there was something safe, not an ominous drop into the ocean beneath him. "My thanks, Peridan. Erlian will relieve you at noon."
"Aye, Sir." The man respected his captain, Edmund noticed, but did not cower from him. Young as he was, Captain Drinian knew his business; one could tell that from the most ignorant glance around his ship.
From the forecastle they descended into the darkness below decks, where two sets of oars (for making small progress through flat calms and manoeuvring the Dawn Treader into harbour only) lay ready beside long, low benches. "Ugh!" said Eustace. "A galley! How barbaric!"
"P'raps we can chain you to an oar, idiot!" Edmund hissed.
"He doesn't understand, you see," Lucy added, alarmed by the ominous darkening of two Narnian brows.
"Eustace will take his turn at the oars, as and when we need them, with the rest of us - except Lucy and Reepicheep, of course." Caspian stated firmly.
"If he's as flabby and feeble as he looks, Sire, the mouse may be more use," Drinian added sharply. "Mind your head, King Edmund! That's tomorrow's beef you almost knocked down!"
All manner of consumables hung from hooks along the low roof; behind the benches were stowed numerous barrels of water and some of wine, roped together against the roll of the ship. At the farthest end of the great hold stood the partition which offered some privacy to the two kings and their companion; small enough luxury, but significant, when the rest of the crew slung their hammocks above the benches on settling for the night.
Drinian sniffed, his nose wrinkling in disgust. "Those bilges need pumping," he muttered.
"On our ships - proper ships - no water seeps in," Eustace announced. Nobody took any notice.
"That ladder takes us up to the masthead, Your Majesty," Drinian informed Lucy. "If I might lead the way…"
"By all means, Captain." Remembering she was Queen Lucy the Valiant, not plain Lu Pevensie, was becoming easier. "Can we climb up to the - I always start to call it the crow's nest, but that's not the term is it? I mean the fighting top, don't I?"
"Crow's nest's a landsman's term, Ma'am." Drinian stood aside to allow her out into the sunshine. "Here, Pittencream! Fetch my telescope from the quarterdeck, if you please. If we're to go aloft, Your Majesties, we might as well go prepared."
The sailor named Pittencream, a lanky individual who rolled with the movement of the deck like a true sailor, scuttled to do his bidding. Drinian cursed under his breath.
"I forgot, Rynelf has the wheel," he muttered. Caspian clapped him on the shoulder.
"There'll be no uproar, my Lord; Masters Pittencream and Rynelf have not forgotten the fine lecture you issued at Terebinthia!" he promised. To the children, he added, by way of apologetic explanation, "There is a little history between those two stout sailors. The Captain and I were summoned from our dinner the day after we quitted Terebinthia to separate them on the poop deck."
"Oh, dear!" said Lucy.
"Wasn't it known before they came aboard?" said Edmund.
Eustace only sniggered.
"Ah." Caspian blushed. "Yes, King Edmund, as a matter of fact, the unfortunate connection had been mentioned in our deliberations - we might have found four Dawn Treader crews from the volunteers who came forward for the voyage - aye, even knowing the risk of vanishing into the Great Eastern Sea. However, few of those eager volunteers were proven sailors. Rynelf and Pittencream were amongst them, and - well, when Drinian pressed on me the urgent need to avoid dissension within the crew, I - ahem! - Royal Prerogative, you understand."
It seemed to Lucy that the sailor Pittencream was rather pale when he returned, a fine, polished telescope in his hands which he extended, as if it might bite, toward his captain. Drinian thanked him with a preoccupied air. "I'll lead the way," he said, tucking the tube under one arm. "None will think the worse of any passenger that chooses to stay safe on deck," he added kindly.
"I'm coming up!" Edmund exclaimed hotly. "Oh," he added, spying the relief on Caspian's face. "Sorry. You weren't thinking of me, were you, Drinian?"
"Best not to name names, Sire." Agile as a monkey, he was halfway up the solid mainmast beam. Made from a single Narnian oak, it could flex against the wind and withstand the buffeting of all but the mightiest seas. More slowly, Edmund and Lucy followed, taking care never to look down until they were safely within the stout-sided wooden bucket that wrapped around the mast, above the giant purple sail.
The two men taking their turn on watch carefully shifted around to allow the noble party room and privacy. "What happened with those two men?" Edmund asked, low voiced. Drinian sighed.
"Our Master Pittencream is at least as practised a swindler as a sailor, Sire; one of his victims being Rynelf's sister. We looked into the histories of every man that applied to serve. Casp - His Majesty concluded that, of necessity, the villain and his victim's kinsman would manage together."
"Rather silly of him," Edmund remarked.
"Our want of experienced seamen weighed heavily on His Majesty." Drinian remained sternly neutral, inwardly annoyed with his half-slip. "Oh, Narnia has few sailors, Your Majesties; for centuries the heirs of the Telmarines feared the very element that brought their ancestors to this world. Only now do we begin to exert ourselves as a maritime power again.
"Rynelf and Pittencream, to summarise, were brought together on board at His Majesty's insistence; both pledged to live neighbourly. And, for the first two weeks, they did.
"Then we quitted Terebinthia; by some oversight on my part, they were placed on deck together. As we sat to dinner, words were spoken. Before we know it, a rare ruckus has broken out; it took Rhince and myself to pull them apart, and two more men each to carry them down to the hold. Look, Queen Lucy! See, over to the nor'-east, a Galleon Gull. We'll sight land on the morrow, I'd wager my last Lion on it!"