21 - No Hope Without Courage
The Phoenix was almost ready to go. Van wasn't even close.
Too many questions rattled around in his brain. Was he wrong? Had he made a terrible mistake? Edmund was the best captain he'd ever had, but was he really ready to follow another man into the hellfire certain to come? The Witch had Narnia in her frosty grip. Other lands would follow. It was already happening. He'd received word from his father (reluctantly—the Faelings had conveyed to Selbaran a letter for him, unopened until now) that Ettinsmoor, and now two of the Seven Isles, were under her spells. Even the sea routes had begun to falter. When he brought that news to Edmund, his captain nodded and confirmed Van's fears: they were being pushed to the brink of existence, and would be forced to join her, or be obliterated. Hiding was no longer an option.
Van carried a bundle of cloth and lacing up a sternward flight of steps, mulling over his predicament, when a metallic, slightly oily scent reached his nose. Hag's blood. He tensed.
A hag crouched at the edge of the landing, holding her bleeding hand close to her body. "What happened?" he demanded.
She hissed at him, and he recognized her as the hag he'd ordered to fetch soil for the dryad. The blood from her hand smeared onto her robes. A lot of blood. How badly was she hurt? Van steeled himself and laid his bundle down. "What happened?" he asked, softer.
"Caught it in the ropes," she said. "We were hauling cargo aboard."
He crouched and held out his hand, and then realized he didn't know her name. Didn't know any of the crew, really—only their rank. After a distrust-laden pause, she held her hand out. "I can still work," she snapped.
He hesitated. She probably expected to be ordered off the ship. Crew injured at sea had to be tended. There was no choice in that. Crew injured while a ship was at port could be exchanged for able-bodied, healthy replacements. The practice was common enough among pirate ships. The injured crewmember would lose the pay, of course, and maybe the opportunity for another voyage. It was the ship's surgeon's job to determine who stayed and who was discharged due to injury. The ogre in charge of The Phoenix's doctoring was lazy enough to name almost every injury unworthy of sailing, this close to port.
She'd skinned it deep. She might not have the use of it for a time. Maybe never, if she didn't get it looked after properly. "Where is your herbal?"
"Used. On an injured boggle, after the Faeries' Gate," the hag said. "I can't resupply it. The main herb grows in Ettinsmoor."
With a regretful curse, Van opened the bundle of cloth, and then drew his throwing knife and a paper packet of herbs from his coat. He cut a length of material and opened the packet.
The hag watched him, clearly recognizing the herb as the one she'd mentioned—bloodweed. Rare, hard to obtain, and incredibly effective at healing wounds. He shook a little onto the cloth and tied it around her hand, all without meeting her beady-eyed gaze. "I saw you heal the griffin," she said.
He said nothing.
"You have the visions, too?"
This time, he brought his gaze up sharp to meet hers.
She tilted her head, studying his eyes, and he remembered Lucy's comment about them. After a long, uncomfortable pause, he nodded.
"Raised by humans?"
Prickly now, he could only manage another nod as he finished tying the knot of her makeshift bandage.
"A Haggish herbal is made of bindcloth. It preserves the herbs better," the hag said. When he released her tended hand, she pulled a piece of yellowish, fine-woven cloth from a pouch at her belt. "You may sew pouches into it with any other fabric, and then roll it shut. The outside layer is what seals air and light out of the herbal." She pressed the cloth into his hand.
He flinched at the touch of her gnarled skin on his, but remained where he crouched and ordered himself to relax.
Kindness. From a creature he'd never thought to look twice at.
"What's your name?" he asked.
Another long pause followed while she studied him. "Yaré," she said.
He fingered the scrap of bindcloth. "Thanks. Yaré." He gathered his bundle again, and stood to leave.
"Sir," she said as he was about to go up the stairs.
He turned around.
The hag had tottered to her feet, and eyed him some more. Sharp-eyed as it was, a hag's gaze could make anyone uncomfortable. But Yaré seemed to see right through his guard to the chinks that had always been there. "Herbal skill is prized among the Haggish. As is courage ... just as it is in any other race." She gave him a solemn look.
He hesitated, gave her an awkward nod, then continued on his way.
For the rest of the morning, he spoke little to anyone as they prepared to be off. He had too much to think about. Not the least of which was that he now had an answer.
Yes, he'd been wrong. But it was the answer to a question he hadn't expected to ask.
- # -
At midday, Lucy stared at the gathered crew on the deck of The Phoenix. The way everyone stood around Edmund following his announcement, gaping, she worried for his life. He had revealed his name and his kingship. And the response was a quiet so shattering, she thought she could hear a mouse breathing in the ship's hold.
They had placed Darius, Nalis, the badger, and Arrow at strategic points around him. She and Van had climbed into the shrouds on either side of the ship, the better to signal to the Selbarani ships if the news of Edmund's alliance provoked trouble.
"We are still landed," Edmund called. "Any who wish to leave will be escorted to the main port in Selbaran. You have all served this ship faithfully, and I respond in kind by giving you the choice to bow out of the coming confrontation with no ill will."
A knot of dwarves began to whisper among themselves.
"Speak freely," Edmund said. "I have never prevented you from sharing your concerns before, and I would know your mind on this."
A rough-looking dwarf stepped forward with a scowl. "How do we know you won't deliver us to Cair Paravel's dungeon after all this is over? Narnia's never looked kindly on piracy." Muttering followed this statement.
Ed nodded. "A fair question, and true. We will not condone piracy in our waters, nor those of any country we hold friend." He smiled. "But I feel Narnia might well be in need of a papered privateer."
Still more muttering. The hags at the fringe of the group gave restless hisses, and it looked like the boggles might leave. A minoboar felt for the ax at his belt, as if testing the weight prior to drawing it. Lucy tensed for a fight.
Van was staring into the group of hags, frowning. At last, he leaped down onto the deck. "Are you all cracked?"
The muttering stopped, and many of the crew rounded on him with offended looks.
Lucy swallowed hard. "Van, what are you doing?" she whispered.
Stalking in front of them, Van eyed them, each and every one. "Bleeding Underland, the man's asking you to receive pay for something you already do freely. Without pay, unless we plunder it ... and without the protection of a kingdom at your back."
He jabbed a finger toward the hags. "I'm part hag. You know this."
One of the hags hissed at him. The one in front, a weathered old creature with a bandaged hand, eyed Van with something that might be called pride. She snapped at the first hag, then turned her attention back to Van.
A louder murmur rippled through the crowd, but Van interrupted them. "We get visions of the future," he said to the crew. "Ask the hags, they'll tell you. Flashes of premonition. But I don't even need that to see where this is going."
He stalked back and forth. "What I see is our freedom from persecution for being what we already are. Outcasts, half-breeds, exiles! Scavengers on the edges of society, living off the scraps we peel from others' tables." He sprang back into the shrouds and pointed to Edmund. "He led us ... as one of us. And he never led us wrong." His voice rose and carried across the ship. "He knows the sea's our rightful home. The White Witch will take it from us and hunt us until every last one of us lives under her subjugation. There will be no free people. Anywhere. Every land, every sea, every creature will be under her boot. I see that, too."
Wide-eyed, Lucy watched Van sweep his arm over the gathered crew, including them all in his gesture. "We. Are. Free. No matter where we came from, or what we are now. Are you going to let the Witch take that from you, or are you going to show her the courage of The Phoenix?"
A rumble went through the crowd. Lucy and Edmund shared an astonished look, and then the minoboar raised his ax and shook it. In his low, grunting voice, he said, "For Captain Ed. To war!"
A cheer rose from the crew. Van leaped down from the shroud and stalked back to Edmund's side. With a fierce look, he raised one of his sai into the air. "To war!" he shouted, joining the cry.
Lucy noticed his gaze meet that of the hag with the bandaged hand, and with shock, she saw the hag nodding with open admiration.
The crew hurried to weigh anchor and make for the open sea. Still stunned, Lucy joined Ed and Van on the way back to the captain's quarters. "Nice rally, Van," Ed rumbled, slanting a grin at him. "How much of it was the truth?"
"Most of it," he said with a frown of affront. "But I might have bruised a little pride admitting to it." With a wry look, he stuffed his sai into his coat.
Lucy groaned. "Aslan help us."