27 - Captain Lucy
Nalis stood on the deck of The Phoenix beside Lucy, lashing his tail. On her other side stood Darius, grimly watching the water ahead. Before them ran the two Selbarani ships, blown on the mysterious wind that steered The Phoenix even in a dead calm.
The badger from the sunken Luna eyed the centaurs, his posture hunched nervously. For the two days they'd been sailing, he seemed to be waiting for an explosion, and no wonder. Since her return to the ship, none of the three had let her out of their sight. (Darius had gone so far as to post himself outside the captain's quarters at night.)
Lucy suspected Nalis had only avoided an outburst at the loss of Edmund because he didn't want to lose his temper in front of her. That, and he must have seen on her face how distressed she was. Nalis had been through many adventures with Edmund, and his stern expression echoed her own disquiet with unsettling similarity.
Steering the ship was a minotaur, the next in command after Van (still missing, she guessed, since Arrow had not returned yet from his search). Lucy kept reminding herself that the creatures aboard this ship were loyal to Edmund, but without him or Vandelar, she worried constantly if their alliance would hold. She, the badger, Nalis, and Darius would be alone against many times their number, if it came to mutiny.
You must trust him, Asha had said of Edmund. Lucy looked ahead to the Selbarani ships, and prayed that if trouble arose, the dryads would notice and come to their aid. After the betrayal of Kamus, though, the possibility of another traitor ran rampant in her mind.
Oh, stop worrying so! she told herself. You sound like Susan. Oddly, the reminder of her fussy sister made her smile. Besides, this crew needs to see competence, or they will most certainly mutiny. On that thought, she raised her spyglass and looked astern over the water. The ocean behind them was a clear, flat, blue-grey canvas of water. Lucy marveled at the speed of The Phoenix under its full wind. She chivvied the Selbarani ships before her like a dog herding sheep.
"Quick, she is," the minotaur rumbled. "We'll be to the Windless Boundary any time, and then Narnia in a week all told, if we can keep this speed."
Lucy looked to her feet. The deck sparkled with frost, even after a recent scrubbing. "How do we keep this speed? What makes it freeze so?"
"Dunno," said the minotaur. "I'd have said she were cursed, but ain't a cursed ship anywhere reels in the booty we get."
Lucy swallowed her discomfort. "Have you attacked Narnian ships?"
The minotaur grunted, then gave her a sidelong look before clearly deciding honesty would be best. "Some o' them. We ain't been much choosy where our gold comes from ... Y'Majesty," he added, as if he just now remembered her rank.
She took a deep breath. "And what happened to them?"
"Taken whole to the Faeries' Gate," he replied. "No good letting a ship sink with its loot if you can capture it intact."
Lucy opened her mouth to ask what happened to the ships after that, but then she spotted a dark speck on the western horizon, coming fast. Turning her spyglass on it, she gasped. "The Splendour Hyaline! Do we have any friendly colors to run up the mast?"
The minotaur nodded to the empty masthead. "We have no colors, Y'Majesty."
"Who do we have on board that's capable of flight or a fast swim?"
"All earthbound creatures," the minotaur said.
Lucy frowned. In Narnia, ships were not allowed to leave port without crew members who could fly, swim, walk, or all three. One never knew what talents one would need on the high sea. Ed had probably not needed or wanted the extra mobility (no one would want to communicate with a pirate ship, if they could escape it instead), but Lucy found herself wishing he'd employed at least one flightworthy creature.
She needed colors. The Selbarani ships flew in advance of The Phoenix, but at this speed, the Splendour Hyaline might assume they were trying to outrun The Phoenix and open fire before the dryads could intercept them to explain.
Assumptions in wartime were a very bad thing, indeed.
"We need colors," Lucy murmured, thinking fast of any large swaths of cloth they might have aboard, aside from the plain canvas sheets of their sails. "Mister Badger, come with me." To Nalis, she added, "I'll only be gone a moment."
- # -
Ridriken, the satyr first mate of the Splendour Hyaline, squinted to the three ships approaching the Windless Boundary. Belowdecks, a brace of crew rowed with all their strength, but passage through this cursed stretch of water was limping at best. "It's The Phoenix," he said to the captain, Oren, a man of Galma. He frowned. "Running two Selbarani ships ahead of her, looks like. Should we get men to the guns, sir?"
Oren lifted his spyglass to his eye. "By the Lamppost, what sort of flag is that?" He handed over the glass.
Ridriken put it to his own eye, then gave a grunt of surprise and confusion.
At the masthead of the forward-surging Phoenix flew a billowing brocade dress.
- # -
When the Selbarani ships neared enough to make it possible (Almost cannon range, too—how smart Lucy was, using that dress! Asha thought with approval), Asha changed into a flurry of leaves and raced over the water to the Splendour Hyaline. No sooner had she landed on deck and changed back to her human form than the crew gave murmurs of surprise.
The captain approached her and bowed. "Your Majesty. It's good to see you safe."
Pointing to The Phoenix, Asha said, "As is Queen Lucy. She's captaining that ship, sir."
"What?" yowled a voice. Crew stumbled aside as an enormous wolf barged between them. "She's alive?"
A clatter sounded on the deck, and Asha recognized Faun Tumnus. Teary-eyed, the elderly faun clasped Asha's hands. "L-Lucy? Queen Lucy's alive? Oh, thank Aslan, thank Aslan ..." He dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief. "And thank you, Your Majesty, thank you. You'll never know how relieved I am ..."
With a smile, Asha disregarded the old faun's use of Lucy's name in the familiar sense. She knew of his close friendship with Lucy, and it warmed her heart to see how happily he took her news. To their captain, identifiable by the fine cut of his tunic, she said, "The Witch is on her way with a brace of Calormene ships and a group of Dreadken. We've come to aid you. There's too much to explain right now, but you must know The Phoenix is an ally to Narnia."
The wolf shoved a dwarf aside and rushed up to Asha with heartache clearly in her eyes. Asha knelt down, recognizing the look. "Hello, Leina."
Leina's ears sagged. She jumped forward and pressed her muzzle against Asha's cheek. Asha hugged her back. "He's well," she murmured, and Leina gave a faint whine. Asha stroked the wolf's coarse ruff. Or he should be, Asha thought, seeking her soulbound connection to him and finding it still whole. She wouldn't be convinced of it until she saw him standing on his own two feet before her.
When she and the wolf parted, Asha stood up again. The captain closed his spyglass and handed it to a sailor. "Tell us as much as you can, then we'll turn her around and row with you."
"No need to row, Captain," Asha said. "The Phoenix carries its own wind. She'll drive us before her, right across the Boundary and back to Cair Paravel."
The captain turned back to The Phoenix, now galloping toward them over the flat expanse of the Windless Boundary. "I'll be a one-winged albatross," he murmured. "All hands, bear this boat homeward!"
A general cheer rose among the crew. Asha signaled to her ship by switching briefly into a cloud of leaves, then turned back to her human form and prepared herself to explain that Narnia was about to come to full-scale war.
Leina stayed close by, her yellow eyes still full of worry. "Where is he?"
Asha swallowed. Be strong. He needs you to be strong. "Queen Lucy took over the ship from Edmund," she said. Everyone within earshot snapped their head around to stare at her with rapt attention and breathless silence. She struggled to control her fears. "Right now, he's with Jadis, and using every trick he has to keep her from getting to us, before we get to Cair."
The satyr manning the wheel swore, loud and colorful enough to cause Asha to blush to her ears.
"Once a king or queen of Narnia ..." said Tumnus with admiration in his voice.
She smiled at him. "Always."