Saturdays at Sea

by Jessica Day George

  Celie frowned, not reassured.

  “Oh, come on, Cel!” Rolf chided her. “What are the odds that the Ship won’t let you catch back up? It could have dumped all of us long ago, if it really wanted to go to Larien on its own!”

  “All right, all right, I know,” she said, mollified.

  They said their good-byes and then climbed onto the backs of the griffins. Dagger was keen to join them, so Rolf had to keep both hands on his harness to stop him from leaping off the rail. Lulath’s girls tried to climb up Lorcan and get in the baskets slung from his harness, so Queen Celina put one under each arm, and Orlath did the same, much to the disgust of his monkey, which climbed into the rigging, muttering to itself in protest.

  “We’re not as close as we could be,” Orlath said. “But if you leave now, by the time you’re done bartering, we won’t be just a speck on the horizon, either.”

  And on that cheery note, they lined up their griffins and pointed them toward the harbor, and the griffins surged into the air. Down below them on the deck, Dagger screamed with frustration, and the girls began to bark.

  It was glorious to be flying again, and such a distance. They’d flown a great deal of the way from Sleyne to Grath, but since arriving at the Sanctuary most flights had been loops over the gardens or short jaunts down to the shipyard. It was terrifying to fly over the open sea, but also very exhilarating.

  Celie had never fallen off Rufus before—not while he was flying, anyway. And she could swim, though she’d never been in the ocean before. So she clung to the harness tightly, but held her head high and let the wind whip her hair back and bring tears to her eyes. She looked over at Lilah and saw that her sister was grinning, and so were Pogue and Lulath.

  Pogue called something to Arrow, and Arrow dove down until his talons dragged in the waves, then soared back up again. Pogue let out a cheer. Then they all joined in, skimming the tops of the waves and rising back up again, hooting.

  Celie loosened her grip on the harness, and even took one hand off to wave at the fishing boats they began to pass. The fishermen all stopped, nets trailing from their hands, and stared. A few waved, but most just stood with their mouths open. One man lost his grip on the net and it drifted into the water. The other fishermen on that boat began to shout and wave their arms, berating the hapless man who had lost the net.

  Without even needing a signal, Rufus dove after the net. He had to put all four legs right into the water, which also splashed Celie, soaking her skirt and shoes, but he managed to snag the net with three of his four claws. Wings flapping, he struggled to raise it out of the water, however, and Celie realized that it was full of fish.

  “Pogue,” she called.

  Pogue and Arrow were there immediately, and so were Lulath and Lorcan. They all swooped in and grabbed some of the net, hauling it up out of the water and over the narrow deck of the low fishing boat.

  “Drop it,” Celie called, much as she would have for a ball during a game of catch, and the griffins obliged.

  With a sound between a thump and a splat, the laden net landed on the deck. Long blue fish began to flop and writhe everywhere. The men cheered, and then set to work scooping the catch into baskets.

  Celie gave them a jaunty salute, and they continued on to the harbor.

  Chapter

  14

  NeiMai Harbor was not as busy or as large as the harbor in Grath, but it was a lot more fascinating.

  For one thing, the harbor had been divided right down the middle. On the left side, the docks were for the fishing fleet, and past the docks were sets of scales and baskets and things clearly meant to weigh, measure, and market the fish. On the right side were the larger docks for the enormous merchant ships, and beyond them were a series of booths containing all manner of supplies. There was a great pyramid of water barrels, and other smaller barrels that held things like flour, salted meat, and beer.

  The Neirans all wore clothing in shades of blue that reminded Celie of the sea. Both men and women wore long, straight skirts that seemed to be just large rectangles of cloth wrapped around and around the waist and held up with a belt. The women wore sleeveless bodices and necklaces of red and orange beads, while the men wore nothing above the waist but the same beads.

  They landed on an empty length of dock on the right side, near a large Grathian ship called the Dragon of the Sea. Everywhere sailors and merchants alike stopped what they were doing to gawk at them, and Celie wished her mother had come after all.

  But Lulath was a suitable replacement.

  He immediately waved to the sailors on the Dragon of the Sea and called out in Grathian that he hoped they had had good luck in their trading.

  “You will soon be home,” he told them. “And all is well there!”

  “How do you know they’re returning to Grath?” Celie whispered.

  “The flag,” he said, pointing. It was the Grathian red-and-gold check with a blue crown in the middle, which hung from a flagpole mounted on the rear of the ship. “It hangs from the aft of the ship on the way home, but the top of the mast on the way out.”

  “Ah.”

  A man with close-cropped gray hair and skin browned and roughened by a lifetime on the sea approached them. He had a small board with a sheet of paper attached to it under one arm, and wore an open blue vest with his blue skirt. He bowed to them, and they all bowed back.

  “Grathian?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Lulath said. “I am Prince Lulath of Grath, and this is my betrothed, Princess Delilah of Sleyne; her sister, Princess Cecelia of Sleyne; and the good knight of Sleyne, Sir Pogue.”

  The man went pale beneath his tan. “It’s true,” he said, almost as though he were speaking to himself. “Griffins!”

  “Yes, good sir,” Lulath said politely. “And they are griffins in dire need of supplies, if we are to get where we are going!”

  “They flew so far?” The man began to slowly walk around the group. “From Grath?” He raised his shaggy eyebrows.

  “Only from our Ship,” Celie said politely. “But the Ship will not stop, even for supplies; it’s . . . eager to stay on course.”

  He gave a baffled look, but then his eyes were drawn back to the griffins. But if he was this astonished by the animals, she really didn’t want to overset his brain by explaining the truth about their Ship.

  “Are you the harbormaster?” Lulath asked, distracting him.

  “What?” He blinked, then looked down at his writing materials as though he’d never seen them before. “Yes, yes, I am.”

  He licked his upper lip, then produced a pencil from behind his ear and began to scratch something on the paper. Their names, presumably. This was confirmed when he asked Celie and Pogue to spell their names for him. Celie was ready to translate for Pogue, but he immediately supplied the information, even pronouncing the letters in the Grathian way. Lulath beamed at him.

  “My brother Orlath is a fine teacher, is he not?” Lulath asked, and Pogue just nodded.

  “Purpose of visit?”

  “To supply our Ship,” Lulath said. He produced both the purse and a scrap of paper with their shopping list on it.

  “Very well,” the man said. Then he paused and looked at the griffins again, and an expression of mild panic came into his eyes. “Are you going to tie those beasts here?” he asked.

  “No, no,” Lulath assured him. “They will stay with us.”

  “Ah, that seems wise,” he said. He licked his lip again. “Do they, can they . . . how will they carry the water?”

  “We are not in need of water,” Lulath said. “We have plenty.”

  This made the man gape as much as when he’d first seen the griffins. Freshwater at sea was more precious than gold, and infinitely more useful. Celie was willing to bet they’d never had someone come to NeiMai whose first item of business wasn’t getting their water barrels refilled.

  “Very good,” the harbormaster said, and he finally stepped aside. “Welcome to NeiMai.”


  They all thanked him and strolled past with their hands on their griffins’ backs. Some of the bustle and talk had come back to the marketplace, but it was somewhat stilted, and Celie was convinced that most of the talk was about them.

  “I didn’t know you spoke Grathian so well,” Lilah said to Pogue as they approached a miller’s stall.

  “Well, I wanted to finally understand what Lulath was saying,” he joked.

  Lilah looked offended, but Celie and Lulath burst out laughing.

  “Time for this haggling,” Lulath said in Sleynth. “I am not finding myself good for such things, but will bravely try!”

  “Allow me,” Lilah said sweetly.

  She stepped up to the plank table in front of a giant pyramid of flour barrels. Celie held her breath. Lilah was very good at finding bargains when it came to clothing, but flour? And her Grathian was not as good as Celie’s. She got ready to intervene on her sister’s behalf.

  “Good day to you,” Lilah said, and her accent was not too bad. “We are in need of four barrels of flour.”

  “Good day to being with you, gentlewoman,” the miller replied. His accent was slightly worse than Lilah’s, which was reassuring. “What bold creatures you bring!”

  “Thank you,” Lilah said. “They are very dear to us. And they love cakes.” She nodded at the barrels. “We are short on time.”

  “I understand,” the man said. He signaled to an apprentice to roll out some of the barrels. “That will be two gold, Grathian or Neiran, please, gentlewoman.”

  Pogue made a choking noise. “Is that normal here?” he whispered to Lulath in Sleynth.

  Celie realized the other drawback to having Lilah negotiate: Lilah had never bought flour or sugar or eggs in her life. Lulath and Pogue would have to tell her if she was making a bad bargain. And Celie just hoped Lilah would listen and not get stubborn.

  “It is the robbing of babes,” Lulath said in Sleynth. He stepped forward.

  “Thievery,” Lilah said loudly in Grathian. “And I am not this gentlewoman you say—I am a princess!” She sighed as though she’d never been so disappointed in her life. “We need flour. For our royal party. And the griffins. I’d thought to get it here, but someone else must have flour.” She began to look around.

  The man gave her a shrewd look. He might or might not believe she was a princess, but he clearly respected her ploy.

  “One gold, twelve silver,” he said. “Because I would hate for griffins to hunger.” He leaned over the counter to have a look at the animals.

  “One gold,” Lilah said. “Oh, look.” She pointed off to the left. “Someone sells flour right there! A nice fat man,” she added. “His flour makes very good cakes indeed!”

  Pogue made a sound that was probably a laugh, but he managed to turn it into a sneeze. Celie just marveled at her sister. The miller they were dealing with looked like he’d been sucking lemons.

  “One gold, two silver,” he said.

  “Hmmm.” Lilah drummed her fingers on the plank. She was still studying the other merchant. “Do his casks look fuller to you?” she asked Celie. “I hate to be cheated.”

  “One. Gold.”

  “Done,” Lilah said crisply.

  Lulath put a fat gold coin down on the table. The man swept it into a pocket without looking at it while his boy rolled the four barrels around to them. Pogue and Lulath got to work figuring out how to hang the barrels from the griffins’ harnesses. They finally settled on putting one on each side of Lorcan and one on each side of Arrow, but agreed that they would move them around so that there was just one barrel on each griffin once they had something to act as a counterweight.

  “Can I?” the miller said, right in Celie’s ear.

  She jumped, and Rufus squawked. The man leaped backward as well, then started to edge back around the plank.

  “Can you what?” Celie asked when she recovered.

  “Can I touch one?” the man said in a rush.

  “Oh,” Celie said, blinking. “Of course!”

  He crept back and held out one hand to Rufus. Rufus sniffed it, then swiped his head over the man’s palm. The man let out a surprisingly youthful giggle.

  “So soft,” he exclaimed.

  “Yes,” Celie said with pride. “They’re lovely, aren’t they?”

  She and the man shared a smile, and then they moved on to the next booth, where Lilah managed to get them a barrel of salted pork, and then one of salted beef, for a price that Lulath assured her was thievery on their part.

  They started to gather a crowd, mostly of children who wanted a closer look at the griffins. Some of them also dared to come up and touch. The griffins bore it stoically, much as they bore the weight of the goods being tied to them. This made Celie even more glad they hadn’t brought Dagger: he would have snapped at anyone who tugged at his wings the way a small girl had just tugged at Lorcan’s, but Lorcan just gave her a look that made her back away. Then she grinned and ran off to whisper with her friends, undaunted.

  “I do wish we’d brought Lady Griffin,” Celie fretted as they went to the final stop, a stall that sold fine blue and gray fabric. “I think this is getting too heavy.”

  “I wish there was a way we could signal,” Pogue said. He shielded his eyes and looked out beyond the harbor. “Do you think a ship could carry us some of the way out?” He poked Celie in the shoulder with his other hand. “Do you see that?”

  “No, what?” she asked in dread, also looking.

  The sun was beating down on them, but the afternoon was turning toward evening, and Celie was starting to feel anxious. How far away was the Ship now?

  “Here,” Pogue said. He bent down and put his arms around Celie’s legs so that he could hold her up high. “Look southeast.”

  It made her feel odd to be held like this. He had her hoisted almost up to his shoulder, with his cheek against her hip. She tried to concentrate on what he’d seen. It wasn’t hard, though, once she saw it.

  “Celie, what are you doing?” Lilah asked in shock when she turned around with several bolts of cloth in her arms. “Pogue Parry, you put her down!”

  “All right, let me down,” Celie said to Pogue. “But one of us should stand on a barrel and wave.”

  “What are you talking about?” Lilah demanded.

  “Lady Griffin,” Celie said. “She’s on her way across the harbor!”

  “Well, praise be,” Lilah said. “I think poor Juliet is going to fall over!”

  They moved to the seawall where Lady Griffin could clearly see them and began to unload the other griffins. Celie hopped up on the wall and waved both her arms until she was sure that the griffin queen was heading directly toward her.

  Some of the fishermen coming in to dock waved exuberantly back at first, sure that she was signaling them. Celie felt like an idiot, trying to point and signal that it was nothing to do with them. Finally Lilah told her she was just making things worse.

  Lady Griffin, who had been asleep in Queen Celina’s cabin when they’d left, preened herself and accepted their gratitude as if it were merely her due. They were almost afraid to suggest putting the cargo on her, but she gazed into the distance and stood very still while they tried, and they set to redistributing the goods with great cheer.

  Since Lady Griffin didn’t have a rider, they were able to get all four flour barrels on her harness, plus strap the fabric across her back. Then Lulath managed to balance a large basket of bright orange fruits on top of that.

  “You’re wonderful,” Celie told her again.

  She fed Lady Griffin one of the spiky green fruits that a couple of the children had given them. The griffins adored it, but Celie and the others were afraid to eat it. The spikes didn’t seem to bother griffin beaks, but Celie thought they looked too sharp to put in a human mouth.

  “Lady? Gentleman?” It was the other miller, the round one they hadn’t bought their flour from. The harbormaster was hovering at his side . . . well, slightly behind him.

 
“Yes?” Lulath looked up from testing the balance of the salt pork on Lorcan’s shoulder. “What can we help you fine gentlemen with?”

  They’d been tying the large things in front of the wings, right alongside each griffin’s neck, which seemed to be working. They’d see once they got in the air, though. Assuming they could fly at all.

  “You have five griffins?” the rotund man asked.

  “Yes,” Lulath said. He gestured to them all. “Fine beasts, and loyal.”

  “Of that we have no doubt,” the miller said with a smile.

  Celie didn’t like his smile. Neither did Rufus, who clumsily moved in front of her. The small cask of honey at his side smacked into something else, and she tightened the cord around it to make it more secure.

  “And you paid the tax?”

  “The tax?” Lulath frowned. He looked past the man to the harbormaster. “Was there a tax, sir? You did not say!” He reached into his coat for the purse, now much lighter, but thankfully not empty.

  “Well,” the harbormaster said when the other man prodded him forward. “It’s to pay for the docking of a ship, and you don’t have a ship to dock.”

  “True,” Lulath said. “But if there is a toll of some kind, please allow us to pay it.”

  “Something’s wrong here,” Lilah said in Sleynth, in a light singsong. She had a smile fixed on her face, but it was her royal smile, the one used for boring parties with boorish guests.

  They all waited. Pogue put a hand to his hip, but he wasn’t armed. Instead he moved between Lilah and Celie, his fists ready.

  “We want . . . we would consider . . . ,” the harbormaster said. He stopped and licked his lips and then looked to the miller for guidance. “Lord Mayor?”

  “A griffin,” the miller, who was also the mayor, apparently, said. “You have five. We have none. It seems a fair trade. We will take one of your griffins.”

  Chapter

  15

  Trade?” Lilah squawked, and Juliet moved restlessly beside her. “Why do we need to trade anything with you? We’ve spent our good gold and silver here at your port. Why would we need to give you a griffin, too?”