The cannon ball hit the water with a loud splash, sending water metres into the air and rocking the rowboat wildly. Otto and his dragon disappeared without a trace, weighed down by the heavy gold ingots in his pockets.
Roana and Lily screamed.
Carl immediately turned his concentration back to sailing the Owl. He steered the ship deftly to port, so the next cannon ball narrowly missed its target.
‘Get up here now,’ he yelled to the stunned occupants of the rowboat. ‘All hands on deck.’
They leapt to obey. With Fox incapacitated and Otto gone, they would need every one of them to sail the Owl.
Carl’s return to concentration gave the Owl a much-needed spurt of speed, which put her back in the race. The dark smudge of the Nine Isles grew steadily closer. The Owl neatly flew out of cannon range once more. Ethan played his pipe again, but there was no sign of Merrow – no sign of help.
Jack, his burnt arm still in a sling, and Carl worked to plan the best strategy for sailing the Owl out of trouble. As they neared the lee of the land, the breeze became fluky.
This favoured the more manoeuvrable Owl over the heavier Sea Dragon. The Owl could also skim close to land, while the Sea Dragon had to keep its distance from the shallower channels.
They could now smell the warm, loamy scent of the land and the rich aroma of exotic blossoms. They could see the white glimmer of seabirds wheeling and diving around the grey rocks. Dark shapes wallowed on the rocks, the fat bodies of black seals sunning themselves.
Still, the Sea Dragon was very close and would not give up. A clumsy tack put the Owl back in firing range. This time the Sea Dragon’s cannon ball found its mark. A boom snapped and tore like matchwood, dragging down the sail with it.
The Owl slowed down drastically, dragging its broken wing through the water like a lame seabird.
‘They’ve got us,’ yelled Carl in despair. ‘We have no chance of outrunning them now.’
‘Why aren’t they shooting again?’ asked Roana.
‘I think they mean to board us,’ Carl shouted in response. ‘They are avoiding sinking the Owl outright. They could blow us to smithereens in a moment if they wanted to.’
Ethan dug his hands in his pocket in frustration. His bow and arrows would be no match against a fully armed Sedah warship with twenty-eight cannon and an army of soldiers armed to the teeth with cutlasses, dirks, pike staffs and swords.
Once more he felt the pipe hidden there. Once more he pulled it out. The pipe was carved from several branches of pure white coral, engraved with strange symbols of dancing porpoises and spouting whales.
Ethan played the delicate Merrow pipe again. This time he put all his energy, his heart, his soul into playing. An exquisite haunting, whistling melody rang out over the water.
Lily listened, enraptured. She remembered the night she had first heard the Merrow pipe playing at Smuggler’s Cove, and then the thrilling starlit ride on a dolphin’s back, escorted by the magical Merrow folk. She rubbed the Merrow pearl at her throat. It filled her with calmness and hope.
The music played on. This time there was a response.
‘Look,’ called Lily in excitement.
To starboard, two beautiful exotic faces had broken the water. Clouds of green tresses floated out on the surface of the water like velvety dark seaweed.
One face was that of the Merrow maid, serious and questioning. The other was her solemn, bright-eyed sea baby, with spikes of green all over his head, and his thumb stuck firmly in his mouth.
The Merrow maid opened her mouth to speak in her soft singsong voice.
Lily listened carefully and subconsciously rubbed the Merrow pearl at her throat.
At first the gentle voice sounded like rolling waves, a warm soft breeze and fish leaping in delight. But then the words separated in Lily’s mind and began to make sense.
‘Greetings, son of the earth,’ the maid began. ‘My name is Serena and this is my babe, Hagen. Why have you called me through the ocean?’
Ethan did not reply because he could not understand her.
Lily knelt down on the side of the Owl. Mellifluous sounds bubbled up from her throat.
‘Greetings, Serena of the sea,’ Lily replied softly. ‘I am Lily. We desperately need your aid. The ship behind us, the ship of the Sedahs called the Sea Dragon, seeks to destroy us. Is there anything at all you can do to help us?’
A look of fury crossed the face of the Merrow maid.
‘The Merrow hate the Sedahs,’ she cried. ‘They hunt and kill the great wild whales and our gentle friends, the dolphins. They take what is not theirs to take. They take more than they need, and they leave insufficient for the other creatures of the world. I will help you. You might want to stop your friends’ ears.’
With that the Merrow maid dived underwater and disappeared, with her gorgeous wide-eyed baby.
Ethan, Roana and Saxon stared at Lily in wonder.
‘What was that all about?’ asked Roana. ‘You were making the strangest noises.’
‘I can talk to her,’ breathed Lily in wonder. ‘I couldn’t last time we met them, but I can understand her now. Perhaps it is the pearl she gave me. It forms a kind of special bond.’
‘What did she say?’ asked Ethan.
Lily related the conversation.
‘What does she mean by “stop your friends’ ears”?’ asked Roana.
‘I don’t know but whatever she’s doing, I hope she does it fast because the Sea Dragon is putting down boarding craft, and they look like they mean business,’ Saxon added grimly.
They all turned to look. The Sea Dragon was only fifty metres away and had turned broadside towards them. Swarms of armed soldiers were busily launching boarding craft and preparing grappling hooks. A troop of archers gathered in the bow. They shot a volley of arrows.
‘They are shooting way too high,’ snorted Ethan in derision.
‘They are not shooting at us,’ retorted Carl. ‘They are aiming for the rigging. They want us totally disabled.’
True enough, the arrows sliced through the rigging, cutting through ropes and sheets as they flew. Ethan picked up one of the arrows that had fallen nearby. Instead of the usual pointed arrowhead, this one had a head shaped like a sickle moon, with its edge as sharp as a razor. The arrows sliced through the ropes of the rigging as if they were fragile spiderweb.
Another sail crashed to the deck, bringing the Owl to an almost complete stop. Five longboats were now brimming with black-armoured soldiers and rowing speedily towards the Owl.
Ethan and Roana strung their bows and stood watching anxiously, an arrow nocked ready to fly. Saxon, Carl and Jack had armed themselves once more with their daggers.
Lily had run down to the cabin. The phrase ‘Stop your friends’ ears’ rang in her head. Down in the cupboard in the galley she found a block of beeswax, which was used for polishing the timber-work until it shone.
Hot coals still burned in the stove from breakfast time. She gently warmed the beeswax until it was malleable. Up on deck she could hear shouts and yells. The longboats must be very close now. She pulled off pellets of soft, warm wax and melded them between her fingers as she ran up on deck.
Carl had the small cannon from the Owl and was firing at the longboats. Ethan and Roana were shooting arrows as fast as they could draw them. Saxon tried to steer the crippled Owl away from the longboats. Jack, one arm in a sling, was valiantly trying to reload the cannon.
The five longboats rowed on relentlessly. Now they could see each lethal soldier quite clearly and count each one of their terrible weapons.
‘Come on,’ whispered Lily. ‘Come on.’
Softly, slowly, above the sound of weapons clashing and men yelling, Lily could hear a gentle melody. At first nothing happened. No-one else seemed to hear.
Then gradually the longboats slowed their rowing. The men fell silent, and the music rose sweetly and hauntingly.
The music was irresistibly sad. A song of love and loss.<
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Lily was entranced. So too were the others on the ship. Ethan had dropped his bow and arrow. Saxon had let go of the steering wheel so they were drifting uselessly on the current.
Carl let the cannon muzzle drop and was meandering over to the railing, trying to get closer to the music, closer to the rocks. He reached over the side as if he was going to drop into the sea to swim to the source of that magical music.
Lily smiled. How sweet! Saxon wandered over to the side of the ship too and leant far over the side.
Sitting on the cruel jagged rocks in the golden sunshine was an entrancing figure. From the waist up she appeared to be human, with long flowing green hair, decorated with shells and pearls. From the waist down, she had a long, slim tail glittering silvery green in the sunlight. The Merrow maid played on her white coral pipe, and this was the source of the entrancing music.
Lily could see the Merrow maid more clearly now, with a babe by her side, as they drifted towards her rocks. Lily could not believe how irresistibly beautiful she was. Nor could anyone else who could hear that Merrow music.
Even Mia the monkey came up from Fox’s cabin, the first time she had left his side since his injury. She climbed up into the rigging, swaying to the music and chattering softly to herself.
Aisha alone was not bewitched. She howled and howled. Aisha ran around the deck trying to distract her humans. Finally she jumped up on Lily, knocking her flying to the deck. The ball of soft beeswax flew from Lily’s hand and rolled along the deck.
‘Naughty Aisha,’ murmured Lily without much conviction. Her bottom hurt where she had fallen. She stared at the beeswax rolling across the deck.
Why had she been carrying beeswax? Why had she been kneading it? Suddenly Lily remembered the Merrow maid who was singing the song of enchantment from the rocks. Suddenly she remembered the maid’s words: ‘Stop your friends’ ears.’
The spell was broken. Lily ran first to Carl, leaning out so dangerously over the sea. She hauled him back from the edge and crammed beeswax in his ears. At first Carl fought her. He wanted to hear. But the combination of fighting Lily and the muting of the music by the wax broke the spell for him too.
He realised the Owl was drifting helplessly towards the rocks. Carl swore strongly and leapt to the helm once more.
Lily ran to Saxon, then Ethan, stuffing plugs of beeswax in their ears. Once they could no longer hear the music, the spell was broken and they helped her stop the ears of Roana and Jack, and Fox down in his cabin.
The crew of the Sea Dragon did not stop their ears. The longboats drifted across the water, away from the Owl and towards the sharp rocks guarding the Nine Isles. Men fell from the decks of the Sea Dragon and swam towards the source of that mystical music.
As if in a dream, the Sea Dragon itself was moving slowly but inexorably towards the shallow channels and hidden rocks.
Carl tapped Ethan on the shoulder and pointed to the bow of the Owl. He picked up his dagger and mimed a sawing action, and then with his arms mimed a gathering action and a flying action.
Ethan looked where Carl pointed and saw the Owl with her broken wing, the sails and rigging dragging in the sea. Ethan distracted the others and they all set to work once again, dropping the shredded sail and dragging in the broken boom and its tattered rigging.
Carl kept the Owl’s nose pointed up into the wind, to keep her still while they worked. The sails flapped and argued angrily. At last the job was done. Carl gently pointed the nose away from the wind and the Owl set sail once more – battered, injured but, slowly and painfully, moving away from the enemy.
Everyone looked back to the south. The scene was one of total chaos.
The great Sea Dragon drifted until it smashed into a mass of lichen-covered rocks. Waves pounded it on the rocks again and again. Seagulls wheeled and mewed curiously. A great hole crunched in the ship’s hull, near the bow. Seawater poured in, filling the hull in moments.
Then as suddenly as it began, the music stopped. Sedah soldiers found themselves inexplicably struggling in the ocean when a second before they had been about to board the Tiregian pirate ship.
The captain of the Sea Dragon woke up to find his deck tipping at a dangerous angle. There was a sickening crunch. He realised his worst nightmares had come true. His ship was sinking.
‘Abandon ship!’ the captain screamed. The men needed no second invitation. They ran for the lifeboats, scrambling and fighting. Many of them made it.
Slowly and relentlessly, the Sea Dragon sank to the sea floor, taking everything left on board.
In Tira, the royal prisoners were once again enjoying the sunshine and fresh air of the herb garden. They were now allowed to stay out for an hour a day. Most days, Governor Lazlac stopped by for a short chat. Queen Ashana tried her best to be civil to him, knowing that the future of her son, her subjects and the other prisoners depended entirely on his whim.
Sure enough, Governor Lazlac soon arrived to pass the time of day. The soldiers on guard seemed more relaxed.
‘Good morning, Lady Ashana,’ said Governor Lazlac, twitching his face into a grimace that passed for a smile. ‘I bear good news.’
Queen Ashana smiled politely but her heart beat more quickly. Did he bring news of her son, Prince Caspar, or perhaps of Princess Roana? Not a waking moment passed when she did not think of her two distant children and wonder if they were safe and well.
‘I have decided to release you from your prison cell,’ Lord Lazlac announced pompously. ‘It is no place for a lady of noble birth. I have ordered that the servants prepare a simple cottage in the grounds of the palace where you may dwell with your ladies-in-waiting.’
Queen Ashana nearly gasped in shock.
‘Will you return my son to me?’ she asked immediately.
‘No,’ retorted Lord Lazlac. ‘As you know, it pleases Emperor Raef to have your son sent to Sedah soon. It is only as regards to you that our plans have changed.’
‘What of the gentlemen who share our cell?’ Queen Ashana asked. ‘Will you release them also?’
‘No,’ replied Lord Lazlac. ‘The gentlemen stay where they are. I prefer to have them safely under lock and key.’
Queen Ashana said nothing, turning this development over carefully in her mind.
‘At this point, it may behove you to thank me,’ Lord Lazlac barked sulkily.
Queen Ashana sighed inwardly. Her own comfort did not concern her as much as the welfare of her children. Yet she must keep playing the game. Perhaps if she charmed the odious Lazlac with her wit and guiles, he would consent to Caspar coming home again.
Queen Ashana smiled prettily, sweeping a shallow curtsey.
‘Of course, Lord Lazlac,’ Queen Ashana simpered. ‘I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I was simply overcome with emotion. It will be delightful to sleep above ground once more.’
The gentle irony was lost on the Sedah governor. He bowed deeply, grimacing once more.
‘I will send one of the servants to show you to your new abode this very morning. I will call on you there in the next few days to see how you have settled in.’
‘Thank you, Lord Lazlac,’ replied Queen Ashana with a nod. ‘But you must not trouble yourself. I understand that you must be very busy with the tribulations of running a kingdom.’
‘No trouble. No trouble at all,’ replied Governor Lazlac. He bowed and left, nodding briefly to Lord Mortimer.
Lord Mortimer’s heart sank, his face pale and gaunt with black rings under his eyes.
‘My lord,’ Lord Mortimer cried out pitifully, ‘I must speak with you. I beseech you.’
Lord Lazlac walked faster.
‘Good day, Mortma,’ called Lord Lazlac over his shoulder. ‘No time to talk. Affairs of state, you know.’
It was Cookie herself who came to escort Queen Ashana and the ladies to their new cottage. It was a simple gardener’s cottage, only four rooms square, but had been scrubbed and cleaned. Cookie had placed vases of fresh flowers in every room
and furnished it with little luxuries that she thought might comfort the queen.
Once the ladies were installed in the cottage, Queen Ashana begged her ladies-in-waiting to leave her alone with Cookie and Marnie in the small sitting room. Queen Ashana hugged Cookie warmly, who flushed deep red with delight.
‘Cookie,’ Queen Ashana murmured, ‘I must thank you for the food and the notes. I am sure we may well have died in those dreadful dungeons without your help. Would we not, Marnie?’
Cookie humbly demurred, her eyes bright with pleasure.
‘Tell us, please, dear Cookie,’ Queen Ashana begged. ‘What of Princess Roana and the other children? Please tell us what you know.’
So Cookie whispered all that she knew of the children’s flight from the palace in the garbage cart, their secret stay at the White Horse Inn, their close escape from Sniffer at Ainsley and their rendezvous with the smuggler Fox, before sailing away on the Owl.
Queen Ashana and Marnie went pale with fright at the adventures of their precious children.
‘At least they are safe now,’ Queen Ashana cried. ‘Thank the Goddess they are safely away from that terrible Sniffer and the Sedahs. After all, what could possibly happen to them on a ship?’
Together the three women wept a little with fear and relief and hope. Cookie promised to let them know if she learned anything at all, and she left the queen and Marnie to enjoy their new comfort and space.
No longer flying, the Owl limped away from the scene of the wreck, under reduced sail. To the east were scattered a finger of small islands and rocky outcrops.
Jack sat on watch, searching for a suitable cove to anchor. After a few kilometres they found another rocky island, with a small cove, sheltered and narrow, that was well hidden from the sea and protected from above by steep cliffs.
The anchors were lowered. Carl and Jack made a thorough tour of the Owl, taking note of all the damage and making lists of tasks to be done.
Voyage of the Owl Page 16
