“I might be able to help with that,” Queen Celina said, thoughtful. Her fingers danced in the air, almost as if she were knitting. “Stretching or shrinking the doors a bit wouldn’t be too difficult.”
“No!” Master Cathan shouted, his face shiny with sweat. “No magic!”
“Oh,” Celie said. “That’s what you’re afraid of.”
Chapter
3
Celie perched on a stack of Grathian lumber beside the figurehead. Rufus lounged beside her, looking casual, but Celie knew he was watching, too. And what they were watching was not unlike an elaborate play. Queen Celina and Master Cathan were facing each other across a stack of wooden doors, while Rolf and Pogue stood to one side in silence, and Lilah stood on the other side and translated.
Fortunately, Celie’s Grathian was very good, and the pile of lumber and the figurehead were close enough that she could listen in. She draped an arm around the figurehead’s neck, which wasn’t very comfortable, but one of the workmen saw her and gave her an admiring look, so she kept her arm there and tried to look comfortable and royal at the same time, which was no mean feat.
What she heard soon distracted her from the growing numbness in her arm and made both her and Rufus more and more angry. Celie was angry because of the words coming out of Master Cathan’s mouth, but Rufus was just angry because Celie was. Either way, they both finally sat bolt upright on the edge of the stack of lumber, Rufus hissing and Celie glaring.
It seemed that although Master Cathan had treated Pogue with great respect in Sleyne, once he returned to his own land he had demanded to be put in charge of the ship. This seemed to have come after the realization, during the journey, that while Pogue was a knight, he had been born the son of a blacksmith. Master Cathan was of noble family, and was not going to take orders from a commoner.
“Oh, yes, you will,” Queen Celina said through Lilah. She repeated herself in accented Grathian.
Celie was shocked that someone could be so awful, just because they were taking orders from a commoner. And what orders? Master Cathan was the shipbuilder. Pogue was just there to make sure the proper materials were used. And the orders to use the doors and other parts from the Castle had come from King Glower, Celie’s father. Just because Pogue was the one carrying out the orders didn’t make them any less important!
It seemed that it did. Because of the magic. Master Cathan had not liked being in the Castle. It had made him nervous, but Celie hadn’t known he truly feared and despised magic. Now that King Glower wasn’t there to give him orders directly, he had decided that Pogue was too foolishly common to know that magic was dangerous, and any parts that had touched magic should not be included on a ship.
Now Celie and Rufus were both hissing.
“I want you gone,” Lilah said.
“Lilah,” Queen Celina said, turning to Lilah in surprise.
“If you work not with and beside magic, then you work not on this my ship,” Lilah said in Grathian, and then she repeated herself to their mother in Sleynth.
Celie expected their mother to scold Lilah, to tell her to stop being so spoiled. But instead Queen Celina frowned at Master Cathan for a long time. Now he was sweating again, but this time not from the threat of magic.
In a very careful voice, translated as precisely as possible by Lilah, Queen Celina informed Master Cathan that Sir Pogue was a most trusted friend of the royal family of Sleyne, and that his word was to be considered the word of the Glower family. She explained that the ship was a part of Castle Glower, and as such needed to have the magic of the Castle in it. It also, she said with great disdain, needed to have every piece of it treated with respect.
At this she turned and looked directly at one of the men who had been walking over the discarded doors. He turned red and began to stack them more neatly.
“Are you willing to do as we ask?” Queen Celina finished.
Master Cathan looked caught. He glanced around and saw Celie sitting with her arm around the figurehead, her angry griffin by her side. He threw his hands in the air.
“No,” he said in Sleynth. “I am not being this man of which you seek. I am not being a man who greets the griffins and the magic.”
And then he marched off.
Most of the men had stopped working, listening to their master and the queen. About a dozen of them also left, following at Master Cathan’s heels. Rolf gave them a disgusted look, and so did Celie, but Pogue just looked stoic.
Celie wondered, for the first time, if it was hard for him to be a knight. She’d thought he would love it, since he hadn’t wanted to be a blacksmith but had dreamed of living and working in the Castle with the Glower family. But outside the Castle, was it difficult for him? Away from friends and family who were proud of him, did people think he didn’t deserve to be a knight?
He caught her eye and gave her a grim little smile.
“Who’s going to build the ship now?” Rolf demanded. “What do we do?”
“Pogue?” Celie called from her perch. “Do you know how to finish the ship?”
Pogue shook his head. A few more of the men put down their tools, made guilty little bows to the royal family, and then slunk away.
“It seems I am be coming just at the right!” called a merry voice.
A bowlegged, barrel-chested man was striding along the docks, dressed so marvelously that at first Celie didn’t notice what was on his shoulder. He was wearing elaborate layers of tucked and frilled clothing, like any noble Grathian, but his were made entirely of brown leather. Celie had never seen a ruffled collar made of leather before, but when she took her eyes off it to look at the man’s face, she screamed.
On his shoulder there was a strange creature that resembled a person! It was completely covered in gray hair, with a wizened, elderly face, although it was as small as a baby. Celie stared in horror.
The leather-clad man saw her looking, and laughed.
“Having never seen such a monk as this, I am thinking of you,” he said to Celie. He stretched out his arm, and the little creature ran down it, displaying a long tail.
“What is that?” Lilah shrieked.
The man laughed. “It is being only a monk! Of the greenest vining jungles!”
“What does it do?” Celie asked, intrigued. Rufus looked like he was ready to fly or bite, so she stayed where she was with a firm hand on his harness.
“It is being a precious awful pet,” the man said with a shrug. “An only way to say to my family that they are having many of the dogs, and many of the goats, and many of the birds, and many of the ponies, but I am he who is having the only monk!”
“Wait,” Lilah said. “Are you—”
“That is right, my our Delilah,” he said with a laugh that boomed out across the shipyard. “I am being your very new soon brother, Orlath! Prince Orlath! Explorer of jungles! Captain of ships! And builder of many the fine!” Orlath tossed the monk toward his shoulder, where it grabbed hold, and then he put his fists on his hips. “I am the one coming here and the now to make this ship be built!”
“I was not expecting that,” Rolf said faintly.
“None of us were,” Queen Celina said, but then she smiled.
Chapter