4
Master Cathan had been right: the ship was magic. But it was the kind of magic that Celie and her family were familiar with, the magic of Castle Glower. The ship truly was a part of the Castle, as they had hoped, and it had let them know that it wasn’t happy. Unlike the Castle, it didn’t seem to be able to grow a new room or make itself bigger or smaller, but apparently what it could do was make the entire Glower family testy and prone to fighting.
“But now I feel like a new man,” Rolf marveled again, nearly a week later, picking up a basket of nails and staggering toward the ship.
“One day you will be the new man,” Orlath said. “But today you are still I think the old boy.” He laughed and took the heavy basket from Rolf and hooked it to a rope for one of the men to haul up the side of the half-built ship.
Rolf blushed and muttered something, and Celie and Pogue exchanged grins when he wasn’t looking. But Orlath just clapped him on the shoulder and laughed again.
“It is good, to be being feeling so better,” he said. “It is good to be doing of a thing that someone is having in love.”
“What?”
“It’s good to have a passion in life,” Orlath said in Grathian. “Like myself and ships, or Lulath with his wars.”
“That’s still being much weird me,” Rolf said in Grathian. “Lulath being this battle expert.” He shook his head in bemusement.
“Why else would he name his griffin Lorcan the Destroyer?” Orlath said, shaking his own head.
“Who was Lorcan the Destroyer?” Celie asked with a grunt. She was sitting in her usual spot atop a pile of lumber under the watchful eye of the figurehead and trying to master a series of knots that Orlath had showed her with a piece of rope.
“My brother will having the telling to you,” Orlath said. “I would rather be talking of the ship and the sea!” He made a sweeping gesture, a smile splitting his face from ear to ear.
“I don’t know that I have a passion for all ships,” Rolf said, getting back to their earlier conversation. “I’m mainly interested in this one.”
“Ah, but that is what I meant,” Orlath explained, switching to Grathian. “Your passion, your life, it revolves around your beloved Castle Glower. You are the keepers of the Castle, the scholars of its history, and when you are far from it, you are unhappy. And when the ship, made from its very bones, is displeased, then you are the only ones who can guess this!”
“I am supposing this we are,” Rolf said, looking pleased. “Aren’t we so, Cel?”
“Mm-hmm,” she said, still trying to get the knot right. She pulled one of the ends, and the whole thing fell apart. “Drat!”
“Like this,” Pogue said, setting down the long curved piece of wood he had braced on his shoulder. He took the rope from her and held it up. “Over, under, around, and through, that’s the way we like to do,” he chanted, and then showed her the finished knot.
“Did you really just say that?” Rolf said, and burst out laughing.
Pogue turned red under his tan. But Celie took the rope, studied the knot, and then managed to do it herself, saying the rhyme under her breath. She mutely held it up to show Rolf, and to make him stop laughing. He clapped when he saw, but he was still laughing.
“Of a sureness I should be knowing that Sir Pogue would have the gift of it,” Orlath said with enthusiasm.
Yet another nice change was that Prince Orlath thought Pogue was astonishing. He had sung his praises to the skies upon hearing that this noble knight, trainer of griffins, builder of ships, had been born in a blacksmith’s cottage. He had been quick to share stories of sea captains he had known, and heroes of Grathian legend, who had risen from humble beginnings to greatness.
Orlath listened to everything Pogue said, and carefully considered each piece of the ship they had brought from Sleyne, making it clear that he wanted to use everything they had. He wanted to know the history of the Castle, of Hatheland and the Glorious Arkower, and it was Pogue he wanted to hear it from. Celie and Rolf translated, but Pogue was picking up Grathian very quickly. He had already begun learning the important ship-related words from the Grathian workmen, and Orlath wasn’t the only one impressed by how quickly Pogue was soaking up words and whole phrases.
“Now, Celie, once you figure out the knots, we will teach you the lines and rigging, and what the various sails are for,” Orlath said in Grathian. He had also expressed great delight and admiration for Celie’s mastery of his language, and usually addressed her directly in it. “But that will have to wait until there are sails in place!”
“Maybe I could learn to use a hammer?” Celie asked eagerly. “I would really like to hammer some of the parts of the ship!”
“That would to me be the alarming,” Rolf remarked.
“I am sure nothing would please the ship more than to have all the family help,” Orlath said. “We shall teach them many things about building a fine ship, Sir Pogue!”
“But not now,” Celie said with a sigh.
She pointed up the road from the Sanctuary. A royal coach was coming toward them. A footman leaped down from his perch on the back of the coach as soon as it stopped, but the door burst open before he could reach it. Out poured four familiar small dogs—Lulath’s own dogs—followed by their master and Lilah.
“What joys, friends!” Lulath exclaimed. “What growth of the ship!”
His mouth was smiling, but Celie could see that there was no smile in his eyes, and Lilah looked like a thundercloud. The dogs milled around, yapping and causing problems, until Rufus led them over to a pile of lumber to play hide-and-go-seek, and then the people were free to talk.
“Are you being coming to look at this, the growth of your ship?” Orlath said. “Will this my fair sister see her gift?” He held out an arm to lead Lilah toward the ship for a tour, but she shook her head.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you’re all working hard, but really we came to—well, I wanted to ask Rolf and Celie to—”
“To be speaking of the sense into my brain,” Lulath said, cheerfully enough. But Celie still thought his eyes looked shadowed.
“What is it?” Pogue asked. “What’s happened?”
“It is being no large thing,” Lulath said.
“It is!” Lilah protested. “It is being—I mean, it is a very large thing!”
“Just stop being coy and tell us what it is, then,” Rolf said in frustration.
The frustration was partly because Dagger had tried to hide with Nisi in the lumber and gotten stuck. Celie helped pull the small griffin out, while Lilah collapsed atop a barrel of nails.
“Lulath is going to lead an envoy to the village by the sea,” Lilah said, her tone heavy with meaning.
Celie and Rolf looked at each other, faces blank. They were standing right by the sea themselves. Most villages in Grath were by the sea.
“The village by the sea,” Lilah said with even greater emphasis.
Celie was still confused. It didn’t help when Lilah pointed up the shore, to the east. It really didn’t help when Lulath gently took her arm and moved it so that she was pointing more toward the south.