6 - Suspicions
Lucy and Van heard shouting as they approached the stern of the ship, interspersed with terrible shrieks. "Arrow," Lucy whispered. She rushed forward, only half-hearing as Van gave a surprised shout and hurried behind her.
A half-circle of men, boggles, dwarves, hags, and other creatures less recognizable held Arrow at bay with drawn weapons. The griffin stood dripping on a capstan, with his wings spread over a cowering badger, Kamus the faun, and a dryad. The griffin shrieked again at The Phoenix's crew, daring them to come closer to the remaining passengers of the Luna.
"Stop!" Lucy cried. "Lower your weapons!" She pushed between a pair of surprised hags, and spun toward the crew of The Phoenix. "Lay down your weapons, I said! These are my charges!"
"Do it," said Van. The crew gave him disappointed looks (Lucy thought he returned the scowl when the hags eyed him), but they backed off. Van stepped into the breach and approached.
Arrow drew in a deep breath as if smelling the air, then gave another shriek. "No farther!" When Van didn't stop, he leaped to the deck at Lucy's side and hissed.
Van stopped short and held out his hands. "Tell your overgrown parrot I'm not hurting you."
Arrow shrieked again and started to lunge at him. Lucy laid a hand on the griffin's tawny side. "It's all right, Arrow."
The griffin lashed his tail. The feathered tip gusted her hair into her face. She brushed it away and said, "Van is ... ah ..."
The man stood stiff as bricks. "First mate aboard The Phoenix. You're welcome for the rescue."
The griffin ignored him. "Are you hurt, my lady?"
"I'm well." She put her arms around the griffin's neck to hug him, a gesture which clearly surprised him, but the close quarters allowed her to whisper in his ear. "King Edmund is aboard, but the crew doesn't know who we are. I'll explain later."
The rest of the Luna's survivors came closer, and Lucy greeted them all with relief. No others? she thought sadly, but she refused to dwell on the thought. The survivors needed her courage. She turned to Van. "I'd like to see them to suitable quarters."
"It's the middle of the night. Captain's expecting you to return to your bunk," Van said.
"Not until my crew are safely quartered," Lucy insisted. She glanced around at the gathered crew of The Phoenix.
Van must have read her apprehension, because he nodded and showed the survivors to their accommodations. To the badger and dryad, he gave space in one of the unused forward bunks. "Do you have any soil aboard?" Lucy asked.
"Soil?" Van echoed.
Lucy stepped closer to him to murmur discreetly. "The badger may subsist on vegetable matter. Kamus can eat whatever you or I do. The griffin-Arrow-will want meat. But a dryad needs soil, or she will starve. How close are we to land?"
"Another week to ... Selbaran ... if we bear southward. That's up to the captain."
She wondered why he hesitated, but pulled her mind back to the current problem. "He'll agree," Lucy said. That may be too long, she fretted silently.
Van narrowed his eyes. "Tell me who you are."
She raised a brow. "That's up to the captain."
- # -
Van found places for the faun and griffin. The faun, he put belowdecks with crew he trusted to treat the creature with civility. The griffin, however, refused to be quartered inside, and took a spot instead on a foremast beam. Exasperated with the feather-and-fur nuisance, Van stalked to his cabin. He'd have maybe an hour's sleep before the ship's bell roused him.
He found the captain carrying a hammock toward the cook's supply closet. "What are you doing?"
"Sleeping elsewhere while the lady takes my bunk. I believe you heard me discussing it earlier." The captain gave him a sardonic look. "You didn't expect me to put her with the crew."
Van didn't expect females on the ship. He didn't expect to lose a night of sleep over a squawking griffin. He didn't expect his captain to be so unorthodox as to give up his sign of authority to a woman, while he slept with sacks of onion and dried meat. "Who is this woman?" he demanded. "Whatever she is, it's not Lady Kirke."
The captain's expression hardened then, into something dangerous that even Van dared not trifle with. "That's the only name you're going to get from me, and I suggest you don't pry. Good night, Van." He started off, but a second later he stopped and went rigid. His nostrils flared, even though Van couldn't smell anything on the breeze. "Who did we bring aboard from the wreck?"
"A faun. A badger. A bad-tempered griffin, who I'd really like to make into a feather bed. Another, too, a-"
The dryad appeared as if summoned, rushing up the steps in a swirl of oak leaves that stayed in a human-shaped mass in spite of the wind. Seeing the captain, she halted. "I had to see," she breathed. "If it was really-"
"Be silent!" the captain snapped.
The dryad lunged backward. She and Van both stared at the captain, whose face had gone blank-the same expression, Van knew, that the captain used when sailing unfriendly waters. "Go back to your bunk," the captain said to the dryad. "Any message you have may be carried to me by your lady."
The dryad-if Van read her features correctly-looked crestfallen, but she retreated. It occurred to Van again how little he knew of the captain under whom he sailed. Not even his name. "Captain" had always been sufficient for Van, a man concerned only with hired wages.
Man. Even that was a farce. Van had no right to quibble about hidden identities, when he never disclosed his own. But there was more to the captain than it seemed, just as there was more to Lady "Kirke" than either of them let on. Van stared after as the captain continued on toward the cook's supply closet. The captain played his hand discreetly, but the evidence was clear that something didn't add up. The more Van thought about it, the less he thought he was looking at the average pirate sailor when he looked at the captain. Manners didn't lie. The captain carried more authority than the usual shipmaster, and the lady bore herself with the air of a courtier.
Van's first thought was of his own skin. It might be more than his life was worth to learn the pair's true identities, especially if he found himself on the wrong side of this battle of country against country.
Man. Van wondered if the captain were any more a man than he was. For what man in the world could scent a dryad?