The House of the Four Winds: Book One of One Dozen Daughters

by Mercedes Lackey

  David, Captain Sprunt’s cabin boy, remained to act as server. Captain Sprunt ate quickly. It put Clarice in mind of the custom of most royal courts, where no one at the table could continue eating once the ruler had finished. Papa had learned to dawdle outrageously over his food at formal banquets for that very reason, and Clarice hoped ships did not follow the same rules as courts, or she would probably starve. But she saw that Dr. Chapman was in no hurry to finish, even taking a second helping of eggs as the captain drained his tankard a final time and got to his feet.

  When he stood, Mr. Lee jumped to his feet as well, and everyone once again followed suit, settling back into their seats a moment later. Lee remained on his feet, hesitated, grabbed up a sausage and a piece of bread from his plate, and followed the captain from the room, chewing as he went.

  “What a tiresome custom,” Dr. Chapman said, then took a sip of his coffee. “And to think, I thought I had put it behind me forever.”

  Clarice hid a smile. Mr. Foster simply ignored him. Reverend Dobbs glared at him with outright dislike. Dominick and Mr. Greenwell both looked uncomfortable.

  “I suppose the Imperial Navy must have a great many formalities,” Clarice said. Anything to break the charged silence.

  “Traditions, dear Mr. Swann!” Dr. Chapman said cheerfully. “You may think our navy sails on timber and canvas, but it is tradition that keeps it afloat. Why, you might think yourself in Camelot Palace to see the young officers all lined up in their white gloves and silk stockings awaiting the morning inspection. And woe to him who has tarnished buttons or a run in his stocking, for he is doomed to go hungry. Fine customs—for a ship of war. But that puts me in mind of a time when I was surgeon’s mate on the Stormcrow, Neptune bless her, and we had just sailed into harbor in Khitai to pull the Great Cham’s beard…”

  The story that followed was as amusing as it was improbable, and soon Dominick and Mr. Greenwell were smiling and exclaiming at each new twist in the tale. Dobbs, seeing nobody was paying attention to his glowering, threw down his napkin and stalked off, leaving his breakfast unfinished. Foster continued to eat as if he were entirely alone, but at least he gave Dr. Chapman the courtesy of a bow when Foster, too, departed.

  Dr. Chapman drew his tale to a close as soon as the hatch had closed behind Mr. Foster. “Chaplain!” Dr. Chapman said, nodding toward where Dobbs had sat. “What in the Seven Oceans does a ship need with a chaplain? I ask you.”

  “I would not expect—” Dominick said, and stopped abruptly.

  “But who would lead services if we did not carry one?” Clarice asked.

  “Why, the captain, of course,” Dr. Chapman said. “Who else?”

  Dominick’s refusal to finish his sentence suddenly made sense. He does not wish to criticize the captain, and it seems as unlikely to him as to me that Captain Sprunt has any familiarity at all with the Prevailing Book of Prayer.

  “I suppose he feels it more practical to leave such things to an expert,” Dominick said carefully. “And they have sailed together before. Perhaps Reverend Dobbs is his luck.”

  “Do you think so?” Mr. Greenwell asked. “Sirocco—Aglaia—Queen Gloriana—Pride of Londinum—Atlantis … Do you suppose Reverend Dobbs was with him on all of them?”

  Dominick had told her Captain Sprunt had survived several maritime disasters. These must be the names of the ships involved.

  “If he was, then we sail with two lucky men, and that is lucky for us,” Dr. Chapman said firmly, and Mr. Greenwell nodded .

  “Mr. Swann, I am pleased to have made your acquaintance,” he said formally.

  “As I am yours, Mr. Greenwell. But you must call me Clarence. For we are to be shipmates.”

  “And I was churched Richard, but my friends call me Dickon” came the quick reply.

  David came forward—he had been standing in the corner so silently Clarice had forgotten he was there—and began to clear away.

  “Come down to my surgery when you are done with your duties, young Appleby, and I will give you a liniment for those bruises,” Dr. Chapman said gruffly. “I am afraid it is too late to do much for your eye, but a cold compress should take down the swelling a bit.”

  “I fell, sir,” David said, not meeting Dr. Chapman’s kindly gaze. “I am not yet used to the motion of a ship at sea.”

  “Yes,” Dr. Chapman said dryly, when David had turned away. “Sea! We shall reach the Channel in another turn of the glass or so, I wager.”

  “Sprunt hit him,” Clarice said accusingly.

  “And that is his affair. You will do nothing to stop it, nor will I,” Dr. Chapman said. “Nor will any man aboard this ship. The sea is not the land, Mr. Swann. You must not try to apply your landsman’s rules here, or you will come to grief. And now, I shall return to my proper place.” Dr. Chapman got stiffly to his feet. “I shall welcome company, should you find yourself at leisure.”

  “Thank you,” Clarice answered. “I am told I shall have nothing but leisure.”

  Dr. Chapman chuckled. “That is why so many seafarers gamble, you know. Sailors are not great readers, and it is a good thing, for if a ship were to carry enough books to serve her crew, there would be no room left for cargo! Do you play cards, by any chance?”

  “Indifferently. But I have brought with me a chess set. Do you know the game?”

  Dr. Chapman beamed with honest pleasure. “A man after my own heart! Bring your set when you come, and I shall give you a game you will not soon forget!” He moved toward the door, leaning heavily on his cane. His right leg, Clarice noted, was held stiff and did not flex at all.

  “I suppose that is my cue to return to my cabin and immerse myself in a book.” Clarice was oddly reluctant to leave, but Dominick surely had work to do if she did not. “Though I may bring it back here to read. The light is better.”

  “It is better still upon deck,” Dominick answered. “Nor is there any reason you should not go there. Ah, but I forgot! You must have a care for your hat!”

  Clarice retrieved her hat from her knee, where it had rested during the meal, and swatted Dominick with it. “My hat has weathered storms and great battles. It laughs at a mere sea breeze.”

  “Does it?” Dominick’s eyes danced with mirth. “Then perhaps you—and your hat—would like to accompany me on a stroll about the deck?”

  “With pleasure,” Clarice said instantly. “If your duties permit?”

  “What a landlubber you are, Clarence!” he said teasingly. “I am hardly called upon to perform my duties—as you call them—yet. But come, and I will show you how it is done, if you are interested.”

  “With pleasure!”

  After a pause in his cabin to retrieve his instruments—it was no larger than hers, but he shared it with Dickon—they proceeded to the deck, and then to the bow.

  “We tell our direction by the compass, and our longitude by means of the chronometer,” Dominick said. “It is a good enough instrument, but it is not spellset, so it is not entirely accurate. To discover our latitude, we use this.”

  He opened the large, flat case of waxed and oiled canvas and drew out something that bore a faint resemblance to a gigantic geographer’s compasses. It was a long, straight rod with two smaller rods set into it at right angles. Each of the smaller rods bridged the gap between the main staff with wide, curved pieces of engraved metal that had a sliding marker.

  “I have never seen anything like it!” Clarice said.

  “Nor would you have—on land. It is a Davy’s quadrant. With it, I can tell you the angle of the sun above the horizon. From that, and my tables, I can tell our position. Every place on the surface of the earth can be described as the intersection of two points, its latitude and its longitude. Simple enough to determine ashore—and the craft of a lifetime at sea.”

  He took up the quadrant, with the largest curve toward him, and held it up in the manner a huntsman would hold a bow. He put his eye to the sliding marker, then sighted along the long axis for a moment. “There is
a good deal of finicking involved.” He lowered the quadrant with a smile and returned it to its case. “But no matter how good your charts, there are no landmarks to be found at sea.”

  “Except the land itself.”

  “And it is easier to miss than you would think. Now come, and we will take our constitutional.”

  Later, she was to look back upon this as the last moment of unalloyed peace and happiness she was to find upon the Asesino and wonder if anything she might have done could have made a difference.

  2

  THE CRUCIBLE OF TREASON

  IT HAD been spring when they sailed from Albion, but their course had taken them far south in the last seven days, and the noon sunlight was hot. During her first memorable night in open sea, Clarice discovered that a ship before the wind never moved just in one direction, but all of them, and had spent the following day in her bunk, drinking brandy and nursing a headache and an uncertain stomach. But once that had passed, it had been easy enough to fall into a routine. Breakfast, a stroll about the deck, a few hours spent reading in the common room or playing chess with Dr. Chapman.

  More and more she found herself in Dominick’s company. He sought her out as often as she looked for him. He said as little as he could when the captain was present, but outside those times, he was a merry and cheerful companion.

  Or he had been. At first.

  It’s amazing, Clarice thought bleakly, what a difference a week can make.

  She was not quite certain when she noticed the temper of the ship begin to change. A few days out, crewmen who had greeted her with smiles and teasing questions as she walked around the deck began to turn away silently as she approached.

  She had already formed the habit of departing the captain’s mess as quickly after dinner as she could without giving insult. She knew it was the custom on ships such as these for passengers and those officers who did not have other duties to entertain one another with games or stories each evening after dinner, but Sprunt’s malign, toadlike presence made that unthinkable. When the table was cleared and the smoking lamp was lit, Sprunt called immediately for brandy; one such evening spent in his company had been more than enough to make her decide there would not be two.

  For a few days, she had spent her mornings or her afternoons in the common room, for it was deserted between meals—at least it had been until the Reverend Dobbs began to make it his special mission to relentlessly seek her out. He seemed to have only two topics of conversation: Mr. Clarence Swann’s history, family, upbringing, and prospects, and the sinfulness of everyone who was not an adherent of the New Church.

  He also took quite an ungodly interest in her finances, pointing out several times that she had not yet paid the balance of her fare. She ignored such remarks completely, save to say Captain Sprunt would be paid in full before she went ashore. She knew her quarters had been searched more than once in her absence, but a caution learned in months of travel ensured that every item she did not carry upon her person was safely locked in her sea chest. Its stout lock had so far defeated all attempts to force it.

  As Dominick grew more silent, she relied more heavily upon Dr. Chapman’s company. She had taken to him instantly, sensing in him a kindred spirit, and had spent many hours in the Asesino’s surgery playing chess with him. He was an expert player and delighted to find she could give him a good game. In addition to its other charms, the surgery was one of the few places she could be sure neither Sprunt nor Dobbs would come: Dobbs, because of his unwavering enmity to Dr. Chapman; Sprunt, because he, like many others of the crew, believed a place where men had died was unlucky, if not outright haunted.

  The surgery had delighted her from the first moment she had seen it, for it was fitted out with the neat complexity of a piece of furniture, its bulkheads fitted with cunning drawers and shelves and a small desk and chair tucked into a corner. Light filled it not merely from its open windows, but through the latticed hatch cover in the ceiling, for the surgery was situated on the deck below the main deck. The center of the room was dominated by a large table, its surface covered with a sheet of tin. Thick, ominous leather straps dangled from its edges at six points, ready to be buckled into place over a struggling patient.

  But despite the grim stains and scratches of the operating table, the cabin was oddly cheerful. Its floor was scrubbed white with sand and lye, and it even possessed windows. Dr. Chapman had told her that on the rest of the deck, these were not windows but gunports, for the merchantman carried eight cannon to defend her.

  She had retreated once more to its sanctuary, for the mood on deck was ugly. Freeman Lee ruled his kingdom by intimidation and did not hesitate to use his fists. He had called all three watches up on deck—the crew was divided into four parts, one of which was asleep at any given time, so that a portion of the crew were always awake—and had them drilling in the rigging, running up the ropes to the main brace and back down as quickly as they could. Any who slipped or fell or merely begged for a moment’s rest could expect to be struck by the first mate’s huge fists.

  She reached the doorway of the surgery and peered in.

  “At his tricks again, is he?” Dr. Chapman said, setting aside the book he had been reading. “Come in. It is just as well for you to be out of sight until he tires of it.”

  “But it is cruelty!” Clarice burst out. “Why do you not stop it—if Sprunt will not? He beats David for no reason—you saw those new bruises today as clearly as I did—and you say nothing! All you say is that no one can do anything. I do not believe it. Those men are being mistreated—”

  “And a sailor’s life is a hard one. There have been no floggings yet, but I expect one soon. Sit down, and I will explain to you why there is nothing to be done but endure.”

  “What explanation could possibly convince me?” Clarice demanded bitterly. “I thought you a humane man, a man of healing, but—”

  “Mutiny,” Dr. Chapman said simply. “Now sit, my hot-blooded young fighting cockerel, and learn from one who has stood where you stand now.

  “I was twenty-one years of age when I saw my first man flogged. Newly graduated from the Physician’s and Surgeon’s College, bound to serve ten years in the navy to repay the cost of my education, and surgeon’s mate aboard the Gallowglass. I thought myself a very fine fellow indeed, ruler of all the ship, for there are some instances in which the ship’s surgeon can overrule the captain, and I thought myself above such trifling rules as applied to lesser men. And so, when the captain ordered forty lashes given for a cause I thought unjust, I stepped in front of the first mate and told him not to do it.”

  “What happened?”

  “This.” He rose to his feet and removed his coat and weskit, then pulled his shirt from his belt, pulled it up under his arms, and turned his back.

  His back was covered with fine white scars.

  “I got ten lashes that day for insubordination. The captain was a fair and forgiving man: I could have gotten sixty and a hanging to follow it, for it wasn’t insubordination I’d committed, but mutiny.”

  “Mutiny!” Clarice exclaimed. “But—”

  “I had tried to overturn the captain’s order.” Dr. Chapman tucked his shirt back in and reclothed himself. “That is what mutiny is. It is treason, for the captain of a ship is the monarch of all who sail in her. And so it is penalized as harshly as if someone were to raise his hand against the Queen herself.”

  “But is there nothing that can be done?”

  Dr. Chapman smiled coolly as he turned to the liquor cabinet and pulled out a long, black bottle. Whiskey was both food and medicine aboard ship—and sometimes anesthesia as well. Dr. Chapman had told her many tales of operations he had been forced to perform, both during and after a battle. Without the resources of a land-based hospital, amputation was often the only way to save a sailor’s life. He drew the cork and poured a generous measure into each of two silver cups, then handed one to Clarice while he downed the other in a single gulp.

  “Nothi
ng,” he said, refilling his cup and gesturing for her to drink. “The ship is Samuel Sprunt’s to rule over as he sees fit. Have I ever told you of how ships such as these gain their crews?”

  Bemused at the abrupt change of subject, Clarice shook her head silently. She raised her cup and sipped its contents.

  “Well, the way of it is this. As I have said, the captain’s word is law on a ship under sail, and some captains are, let us say, easier to please than others. To sail with an unknown captain is a risk every sailor takes when he signs aboard a ship, as he well knows, and for that reason, your common seaman will sign only with a master he knows, or upon the word of others who know of him. It is common practice for a captain or his first mate to recruit a crew upon the strength of their own reputation. That is, for many, as great an asset as any skill of seamanship. I think you might find, did you care to inquire, that a full third of the crew we set sail with are old cronies of Captain Sprunt or Mr. Freeman. A ship’s roster is filled by hearsay and by reputation. To my great regret, I knew few of my shipmates this voyage.”

  And if word is spread of how Captain Sprunt and his officers behave, no one will sign with them again. That is what he wishes me to understand.

  It was poor comfort.

  “Do you think Captain Sprunt’s employer also takes … reputation … into account?” Clarice asked carefully.

  “I know little of Barnabas Bellamy, who owns the Asesino, save that he has half a dozen ships and sails none of them himself. But I promise you: Shipping is a business like any other. A hired captain who can bring a cargo to port at the least cost to the owner is a man who will never lack for employment.”

  “That sounds ruinous!” Clarice exclaimed. “It is as if—as if a man were to lease a farm and then go traveling, leaving behind himself a hired overseer with orders to squeeze every last penny out of the land!”

  “A landsman’s simile, but apt,” Chapman agreed. “I know not what countinghouse or academy disgorged you, young Mr. Swann, but permit me to enhance your education. A ship owner who has bid upon a lucrative route, such as ours—and been confirmed in its lease by the Sea Lords—must do all within his power to earn back not only the money he has spent upon the bidding, but to take a profit while he can. His ready capital goes into his hulls, and hire-captains sail his ships, for it is more economical to hire a captain at a flat wage and thus retain all the profits of any voyage.”