James White - The First Protector

"Your silent forbearance does you credit," he said, and gave a wry smile as he gestured toward the weapons Declan carried. "In many ways we are all robbers in that we steal many of the things that have been used against us over the years by enemies, and improve on them and use those same weapons to fight back. You have a Norseman's long-axe, specially weighted and improved to your needs, your sword is a well-tried Roman gladius and the shield we found for you, only that is Hibernian because there are few known to us that better it in lightness and strength."

He paused for a moment to watch Ma'el enter the wagon, the tenting of which had been firmly lashed down, and Sean climb onto the driving bench that no longer had its canopy in case a strong wind should blow it away. The boy stood on the bench, holding onto the nearby rigging and staring all around him with the bright-eyed, fearful, yet excited look of one who is viewing such surroundings for the first time.

'This is why honest men like myself become robbers, too," Captain Nolan went on. "We steal not just the goods and weapons of attacking seafarers but their sailing and ship-handling methods as well. This…" he gestured all around and above him, "… is a vessel completely lacking in beauty of line or proportion. She is a misshapen mongrel of a ship. But she has qualities that a stranger and land-dweller like yourself might not see. She has a very shallow draft, almost flat-bottomed, and with a narrow keel and rudder that enables her to move close inshore into waters where other vessels would run onto reefs or beach themselves. She has many other useful qualities, but suffice it to say that in a favoring wind Orla can outrun any other ship that I have met or learned of by hearsay. If there is an adverse wind she can even…"

The captain looked away and fell into the uncomfortable silence of one who thinks he has talked too much. There was an enthusiasm and a softness about this Captain Nolan, Declan realized, that did not show on the craggy surface. He laughed quietly.

"1 begin to feel great affection and trust for your misshapen mongrel," he said, and quickly raised a placating hand. "Remember, Captain, those were your words for her, not mine."

'True, but you will not at any time use them in anyone else's hearing," said the captain, then briskly, "We leave at once. Seamus! Raise the main sail. Stand by to cast off."

"B-but," Declan stammered, "without your other passenger?"

Captain Nolan shook his head. "He came on board last night, preferring that as few as possible of the local authorities in Cork know of his presence or business here. You will meet him this evening. But now, Declan, there is much work for the crew to do and you would oblige me by not allowing your large body to interfere with it. Go join your friends at the wagon and remain close to it."

The wind off the land was light, bringing with it the smells of a city preparing for a new day, so that the slow, regular creaking and splashing of the oars and the occasional shouted command were the only sounds until they were clear of the jetties and wharves of the city and had turned southward past Cobh into the wide, land-sheltered expanse of greater Cork Harbor. There the strengthening northerly caught their sail and made further rowing unnecessary, except when the wind brought them close to the shoreline of the south passage and they had to row themselves clear. But when they passed south of Ballinuska, almost hidden by frosty mist and the wood smoke of its fires, the oars were shipped because ahead lay the open sea and to the west the even-more-open ocean of legendary Atlantis.

Very soon the long, smooth-topped Atlantic waves were striking the vessel amidships and making it roll alarmingly, except that no other person on board, with the exception of the boy beside him, showed any signs of alarm. Declan wanted badly to talk, about anything to anyone, so as to have something to think about other than a belly that wanted to empty itself when there was nothing in it to throw up. But the pallid-faced and sweating boy was not disposed to talk, and there seemed to be an invisible but very real barrier between the busy sailors he approached and idle passengers like himself, which would not allow anything through it but a few impatient, grunted words. He clenched his teeth and when he felt particularly bad he looked through slitted eyes at the sun, which was the only object he could find that was moving slowly enough not to make him feel sick. Several hours later when it was touching the horizon and throwing wide, orange reflections off the larger waves, a member of the crew came to offer the boy and himself a bannock of wheaten bread and something in a stoppered flask which both of them refused.

After sunset, Declan transferred his attention to the bright, still shape of the rising moon. He was feeling much better although not yet well enough to eat, but by the time the moon had climbed high and a crew member came to say that Ma'el and his servants should come at once to the captain's cabin for the evening meal, his stomach was complaining of hunger rather than seasickness.

It was plain from the navigational instruments and rolled-up charts on the shelves behind it that during his working day the captain's table was used for purposes other than eating. Presently it was set for with six places with Captain Nolan at its head, his lieutenant Seamus at his right and the other passenger, Brian O'Rahailley, seated on his left.

"My name is Brian," he said, smiling as he looked up at Ma'el. "Please, sit by me. I have been told that you are a wizard and a seer of future events, and this is the first opportunity I have had to discuss the subject with one who may be truly versed in the magical arts."

The manner and appearance of the other passenger came as a complete surprise, Declan thought, as Ma'el took the proffered place while Sean sat facing the captain and he seated himself between the boy and Seamus. He had expected that a court advisor, a well-traveled philosopher and scholar and, according to Seamus the Black, a spy, should be old and wizened with hands gnarled by the twisting stiffness of age and a face marked deeply by long and varied experience. But Brian O'Rahailley showed none of those signs. Instead he could not have been more than a decade older than Declan, shorter and more widely built and with a round and open countenance that smiled readily and gave no appearance of his possession of high rank. It was only his eyes that looked old.

Brian talked freely and in a manner that was friendly, amusing, and interesting, so much so that even Sean looked at ease in his company and was sparing more attention to him than to the wine he was drinking. But Declan noticed that the other was somehow able to talk continuously while saying nothing of great importance, particularly about himself. Instead he was trying, with words that were subtle questions, to draw information from Ma'el.

Only gradually did Declan realize that the old man was doing precisely the same thing to the other passenger and that he seemed to be winning the contest.

It was Brian who was first to lose his patience as well as his politeness.

"Come, come, Ma'el," he said quietly, but with an angry edge to his voice. "Shyness sits ill on a magician who is, or at least should be, an entertainer. Perform for us, if you will, a few of your tricks. Tell us of the success that will attend our endeavors

…" he looked aside and smiled knowingly at Captain Nolan and Black Seamus, "… for I doubt that you would spoil our evening by foretelling death and destruction. Perhaps you will tell me of the next lady I shall meet, and whether or not she will bestow her favors or even, after many unsuccessful endeavors throughout my life, if I will find true love with her?"

Ma'el looked at the other for a moment, his smooth features seemingly as impassive to insults as they were to all other acts of threatened verbal or physical violence. "I do not perform tricks," he said, placing his hands palm downward before them in one of his fluid and almost ritualistic gestures. "But by using my mind and my eyes and my experience of the past and present, I can often see how future events will transpire." His gaze moved slowly from Brian to rest in turn on the captain and lastly on Black Seamus. "There is one here who will not find true love in his lifetime, and one who needs not the love of a woman because he. loves only the sea, and another who has already found the true and undying love he hungers for, but is as yet afraid to admit even to himself that this great good fortune is already his."