Chapter Twelve
I made a new save point as the Mistvale Keep port faded from view, and I turned to the front of the ship to gaze out over the open water of the Eastern Ocean. The gray-blue waves stretched on endlessly in every direction, but far to the southeast I could still see the shoreline as a hazy brown line.
The nose of The Quest pointed to the eastern horizon, and the wooden keel sliced through the waves like a freshly sharpened blade. White foam churned in our wake, and the wind rustled my hair. The sun was just beginning to rise, and the air still had an early morning chill to it, but I was pleased with the conditions.
“Oh, no!” Caelia suddenly leaned over the rail to vomit into the waves, and her face was paler than I’d ever seen before when she finally met my gaze.
“Is she pregnant?” Eva asked with eyebrows raised. “Already?”
I scanned my wife’s face for a sign of jealousy, but I only saw surprise and excitement in her smoky-gray eyes.
“Maybe it is just seasickness,” I suggested.
“I’ve never been on a boat before,” Caelia admitted, but then she turned back to the rail to heave some more.
I rubbed her back affectionately while I waited for her sickness to subside, and I flashed Eva a smile. “I don’t think she’s pregnant.”
“Oh.” The disappointment in the duke’s daughter’s eyes was obvious. “Well, we can fix that soon enough.”
“Absolutely,” I chuckled. “Let me check in with the captain first, though, so we know where our room is.”
I placed a kiss upon Evangeline’s forehead and rubbed Caelia’s shuddering back, but then I crossed the deck to the man at the helm and stuck out a friendly hand for a shake.
“Hi, I’m Bash, the one who chartered your ship.” I smiled wide.
“I’m Trevin.” The man spat to the side as he narrowed his brown eyes at me, but he didn’t remove a hand from the helm to shake mine. His stringy hair was light-brown in color, and he wore a faded navy-blue overcoat.
“It’s nice to meet you, Captain Trevin,” I said, but the man began to bark out cold laughter.
“I’m the helmsman, kid.” Trevin jerked his chin toward a man standing at the back rail facing toward the western horizon. “Captain’s over there.”
Well, I’d made my first blunder of the trip, but fortunately, I had a save point ready for just this purpose. Once I figured out who was who, and what was what, I would reset and amaze the fifty-man crew of The Quest with my abilities.
I crossed the distance to the captain, and I cleared my throat loudly.
“Ah, Your Grace,” the man said as he turned to face me. “I was wondering when we’d get the chance to meet.”
The captain had thick black hair and a course, short-clipped beard of a matching hue, and he appeared to be in his mid-fifties. He wore a wide-brimmed hat at a jaunty angle, and his blue eyes twinkled with merriment beneath the shadows the headwear created. He shoved a callused hand into mine, and his grip was strong, but not overly assertive.
I liked him already.
“Call me Bash,” I insisted with a wide smile.
“Captain Paxton North,” the captain countered. “Most just call me Black-eye, though.”
“And why’s that?” I asked.
“Because I gave every man on the ship a black eye during my first trip away from port,” the captain explained as his eyes twinkled with delight. “I had a mean right hook and an attitude problem as a lad.”
“The name’s stuck ever since?” I chuckled. “I suppose there are worse things to be called.”
“True enough,” Captain North replied. “Now, I’ve given up my cabin for Your Grace’s use. If there’s anything else I can do to make your journey more comfortable, just holler, and I’ll oblige.”
“Show me around?” I requested.
“Sure, sure,” Paxton chuckled. “If that’s all it takes to please a god, then this will be easier than I thought!”
The two of us turned away from the back rail where the rudder churned a foamy wake, and we marched across the deck to a man barking out orders to the sailors climbing the sails. The main mast stretched impossibly high, and I had to crane my neck in order to see the uppermost crow’s nest. A sailor stood in the wooden bucket at the top of the biggest sail, and he held a long spyglass clutched in his fists.
“This is my first mate, Wallace Jags.” Captain North gestured to the man shouting into the rigging.
“Cap.” Wallace Jags was older than the captain, but he dipped his head in deference to his commander as we approached. He had graying brown hair and wrinkles around his deep-set eyes, and he wore a simple blue tunic across his broad shoulders. “This the lord we’re ferrying across the ocean?”
“Watch your tongue, Jags,” the captain warned in a hard tone. “This is Sir Sebastian, the Archduke of Bastianville, and the bloody God of Time. Don’t be a fool.”
“Apologies, Your Graciousness,” the first mate muttered, but he turned back toward the rigging without another word.
“You’ll have to excuse Jags,” the captain sighed as we continued onward. “He was once a captain of a vessel even grander than The Quest, but he lost it to the drink.”
“How do I get on his good side?” I asked in a curious tone as my gaze flicked back to the first mate.
In order to get one-hundred percent completion, everyone had to like me.
“I wouldn’t waste your time.” Captain North laughed, but the sound held no joy. “He’s only impressed with sailors who’ve spent a lifetime at sea. He’s been on the water his whole life, so that’s all he knows, or respects.”
Challenge accepted.
The captain led me below deck via a few short steps, and I blinked in the dimly-lit hallway that ran beneath the massive wheel. The captain didn’t pause, so I hurried to catch up to him as he ducked inside a doorway to the right. Then we entered a large dining room with wooden tables filling the center. Lanterns hung from rings set into the rafters, and port holes ran along the wall.
Smells of stew drifted from the other end of the room, and my eyes trailed across the space to the open doorway. This was the direction the captain walked, so I followed behind him at a brisk pace. Inside, an incredibly round woman stood over a wood stove with her back to us, and her behind bounced with each rock of the boat.
The woman had an apron tied around her waist, and her curly red hair was swept up into a messy bun at the nape of her neck, so I assumed she was the ship’s cook. I hadn’t expected to see a woman on board The Quest, but then the woman turned around. I struggled to maintain my neutral expression as I took in the multiple moles dotting the surface of her face, and her thick lips were puckered sourly.
Was anyone on this ship happy?
I was glad the captain seemed to be so friendly since everyone else looked like they’d woken up on the wrong side of the bed. I hoped it didn’t have anything to do with my sudden chartering of the vessel, but it didn’t matter either way.
I could schmooze with the best of them.
“Your Grace, this is Patsy Millet.” The captain gestured to the scowling woman. “Our talented ship chef.”
“You ain’t never called me nothing so nice before,” the woman sneered. “Trying to butter me up, Black-eye?”
“No easy task for any man,” the captain replied with a coolly arched eyebrow. He didn’t seem the least bit bothered by the woman’s sour expression or the harsh tone in her voice, and I shook my head in awe at his calm demeanor.
“True,” Patsy snorted, and her unpleasant expression slid from her face like mud being washed clean. “It’s nice to meet you, Your Grace. Does anything make you or your women sick when you eat it? I’d hate to make something that didn’t agree with you so far from skilled healers.”
“Don’t let her fool you,” the captain muttered out of the corner of his mouth, and his blue eyes gleamed in the lantern light. “We have a surgeon on board.”
“That’s why I said ‘skilled,’” Patsy chortled. “Old Hamet ain’t had a patient walk away from his beds in quite some time.”
“Hard to heal a shark bite that big,” Black-eye countered, but then he gestured toward the kitchen door. “Let’s go see him, shall we?”
I followed behind the captain once more with Patsy’s words ringing in my ears. A surgeon who couldn’t heal the injured was all but useless in my book, but it wasn’t my place to say. Not until I met him for myself, anyway.
“Your crew sure is mouthy,” I observed as we crossed the dining hall and reentered the hallway.
The captain glanced at me over his shoulder with a sideways smile, but he didn’t comment. We went to the second to last door before a stairwell led even further below deck, and North knocked heavily upon the wood surface.
“Aye!” a deep voice growled, and the captain pulled the handle.
The two of us entered, and I peeked around the captain’s shoulders to see an exam table covered in metallic silver implements with a grizzly bear of a man standing behind it. He had curly auburn hair and a beard clinging to his sweat-slick face, and big, bushy eyebrows furrowed over brown eyes as he hunched over the table. The surgeon’s head scraped the rafters of the ceiling while his meaty fists cleaned a slender dagger-like-thing, and he glanced up at us briefly before returning to his task.
“Captain.” The large, hairy man jerked his chin in greeting, but then his gaze landed on me. “Is this the Archduke, then?”
“Culver Hamet,” the captain said as he gestured between me and the surgeon. “Meet Sir Sebastian, Archduke of Bastianville, and the God of Time.”
The captain emphasized these last words pointedly, and the grizzly surgeon cleared his throat.
“I meant no offense, Your Grace.” The healer bobbed his head apologetically, but his fingers continued to move across the sleek blade in his monstrous hands. “It’s not often we have to play nice with the nobles.”
“I get that.” I grinned. “I’m not like most nobles.”
“We’ve heard the tales.” Culver nodded absently, but I could hear the doubt in his voice.
No worries. I’d make them all Bastians before the end of the day.
The surgeon’s explanation made sense, though. This ship was accustomed to sailing long distances with only the same crew members day in and day out to talk to. I imagined they had their own inside jokes and lingo, and I was determined to learn it all before I allowed time to stretch into a new day. I’d melt the ice on the crew’s tongues, and I’d vanquish the doubt in their voices once and for all.
All it would take was a few chimes.
After the captain and I exchanged a few more words with the ship’s medical staff, we returned to the upper deck where the sunshine was out in full force, but storm clouds danced along the northern horizon. I had to blink my eyes to adjust to the change in lighting, and when I refocused, the captain was already crossing the wooden planks. The black-haired older man waved his arm above his head to signal to a man standing near the front of the ship, and I quickly trotted over to them.
The man the captain approached looked around my age, maybe a little older, with sand-colored tendrils pulled into a long ponytail, but his green eyes smiled more than his lips as Black-eye introduced us.
“Kipper, meet Sir Sebast--” the captain began.
“Sir Sebastian, the God of Time,” the man cut off his commanding officer with an amused twinkle in his eyes, but his lips remained in a thin white line. “The deckhands have been going crazy whispering about it. They’re quite distracting.”
“I’ll have a word with ‘em,” the captain promised, and then he turned back to me. “Kipper here is our navigator. No man’s better with a map and a compass that I know of.”
“It wasn’t always so,” the younger man said. “I was once a lowly cabin boy, but I worked my way through the ranks so I could touch the maps.”
“I’ve practically raised him myself,” the captain informed me, and he clapped his navigator on the shoulder in a good-natured manner. “The son I never wanted.”
Kipper’s lips twitched into a smile. “Hardly.”
“Sounds like family,” I chuckled. “How long have your crew members sailed with you?”
“I sailed with Jags on The Melancholy when I was a lad,” Black-eye explained. “The rest were assigned by Lord-- er, Duke Quin when The Quest was built, so ten years ago now. We’ve seen our fair share of water together since then.”
Some younger men ran up and skidded to a halt roughly ten paces away from us, and the looks of excitement on their faces were plain to see. The three looked no older than sixteen, and they wore brown overalls over stained blue shirts. They looked expectantly at their captain, but not a word left their lips.
“Alright,” Black-eye sighed in answer to the unspoken question hanging in the air. “Your Grace, these are some of my deckhands. Meet Thurlow, Kelsey, and Witby.”
“Pleased to meet you, Great One,” the three boys said in unison as they all folded at the waist into a stiff-backed bow.
“Hi,” I chuckled as I stuck out my hand to shake theirs.
Their eyes widened as they each took my hand reverently, but none of them had the grip of a man. At least someone was happy to meet me on the first run through. After a short while of conversing with the younger men, I was eager to move on to learning the skills necessary to sail the ship, and I was just about ready to reset back to my save point when Eva and Caelia joined me and the captain at the front rail.
“This boat is so pretty,” Eva breathed as her smoky-gray eyes turned toward the ocean waves ahead of us. “And the ocean is… breathtaking!”
“I just wish it didn’t make me sick.” Caelia’s face was indeed still pale, and she clasped her hands together in front of her stomach.
I needed to get her into bed with a bucket nearby, so I turned to the captain with a soft smile.
“Black-eye, meet my wife Evangeline Bullard, and my fiancée, Caelia Stone.” I wrapped my arms around the two women’s shoulders before I jerked my chin at Caelia. “She’s getting seasickness, so if you wouldn’t mind showing us to the captain’s quarters?”
“My cabin is the last door at the end of the hall,” Captain North explained. “Just past the med ward.”
“Thank you kindly,” Caelia murmured with a one-handed curtsey.
“Yes, thank you very much for the accommodations,” Evangeline added, and she mirrored the shopkeeper’s respectful gesture.
“It’s the least I could do to make the God of Time and his two lovely ladies comfortable,” the captain said as he swept into a low bow.
I started toward the stairs leading below deck, but that was really all I needed to know, so I reset back to my save point with a wave of my willpower.
Chime.
I watched as Mistvale Keep slid from view, and I inhaled the salty sea air deeply before I turned to Caelia and Evangeline.
“Let’s get Caelia into bed before she starts to throw up,” I suggested with a wide smile.
Eva’s eyes widened, but she knew me well enough not to question me, and she quickly put an arm around Caelia’s waist to support the shopkeeper a moment before the dark-skinned beauty lunged for the rails.
“Too late,” the duke’s daughter chuckled as she rubbed Caelia’s back.
The shopkeeper’s spasms subsided, and she stood back up while swiping the back of her hand across her mouth. “There’s a bed for me?”
“The captain’s own,” I said, and I gestured toward the stairs leading below deck. “This way, I’ll show you.”
I had yet to actually enter the captain’s quarters, but I was confident I could find it well enough from his directions after seeing the rest of the ship. We passed by the savory aroma of stew rolling out the open dining room door, but I pressed onward to the end of the corridor.
The sound of Culver grumbling to himself echoed through the closed door to the medical bay, and the two beauties at my side looked questioningly toward the sound.
“The ship’s doctor,” I explained. “I’ll have him look at Caelia later.”
Then I pushed open the door to the captain’s cabin, and I struggled to maintain my composure as I took in the lavish apartments. Navy-blue carpets covered the entire floor, and a giant four-poster bed was situated in front of a window that spanned the entire back wall. The ocean view was breathtaking, and the sunlight reflected off the surface with the Mistvale Keep port nothing more than a dark line on the horizon.
“It’s beautiful!” Caelia gasped as she inspected the room.
“Worthy of a god,” Eva agreed. “You picked our ship wisely, husband.”
“Nothing but the best for my babes,” I chirped, but I quickly moved to the bed and pulled back the lush blue crushed velvet bedspread. “Here, Caels. Get comfy, and I’ll find you a bucket.”
“I hate to be a bother,” the shopkeeper murmured as she bit that juicy bottom lip.
“You could never bother me,” I assured her.
Caelia climbed into the bed, and she sighed as she leaned back against the pillows. Eva had a sideways smile tugging on her lips as she came over to tuck in the dark-skinned goddess, but it gave me time to fetch a bucket from behind a privacy screen nearby, and then the two of us stood back to admire our handiwork.
“Are you comfortable?” I asked, but I could already tell the answer from the contented smile upon my lover’s lips.
“Oh, yes,” Caelia sighed again. “Thank you, Bash.”
“Do you mind if Bash shows me around while you rest?” Eva asked with a worried frown. “I don’t want you to get bored or lonely…”
“Don’t fuss over me.” Caelia shook her head, and then she sank even lower into the bedding. “I’m almost asleep already.”
“Good,” I chuckled, and I slid my arm around Evangeline’s waist as I turned toward the door.
The duke’s daughter leaned her head against my shoulder as we returned to the upper deck, but I made sure to point out the spots of interest to her along the way. Once we stood in the light of day again, Evangeline rushed to the front rail as her eyes danced across the open waters.
“Oh, Bash, it’s beautiful!” she gushed. “And so big!”
“Ain’t much that’s bigger than the Eastern Ocean,” Captain North observed as he joined us on the rail. “She’s a beauty and a beast all wrapped up in a mystery.”
“Sounds like some women I know, Black-eye,” I said with an amused tone, and the captain’s eyebrows jumped up beneath the brim of his hat.
“Your reputation precedes you, Great One, but it does not do you justice,” the captain said, and he stuck out his hand for me to shake.
“Good.” I shook his hand firmly as my face split into a grin. “I like to surprise people.”
“Ain’t much that surprises me anymore,” the captain laughed. “I saw you heading below deck. Did you find your way to the main cabin well enough?”
“Yes, thank you for the use of your personal cabin during our voyage,” I said with a dip of my head. “Where are you staying?”
“With the crew in the bunk room.” Captain North shrugged. “I’m more accustomed to that, anyway. I only recently moved into the cabin, and the bed’s way too soft for my liking. I was going to replace it in Mistvale, but then I got the orders, and I didn’t have time.”
“It won’t be too soft for us,” Evangeline assured him.
“My lady, I don’t believe I’ve ever met such a lovely Archduchess before.” Black-eye swept into a low bow. “It is truly an honor.”
“You humor me,” Eva giggled, and she flashed me a pleased smile. “I like him.”
“Me, too,” I chuckled, but then the first mate approached with a grim expression on his aged face. I nodded to the new arrival, and he bobbed his head. “Good to see you, Jags.”
“You know me?” The first mate’s expression shifted to one of shock in an instant, but he quickly schooled his face back into white-lipped tension. “Who’re you?”
“I know everyone,” I informed him in a casual tone. “How could I not remember a name like Wallace Jags, after all. You were a captain once, were you not?”
“Aye,” the first mate growled, but he considered me for a moment. “You’re the God of Time, ain’t you?”
I laughed out loud. “Sharp as a tack.”
“Never thought I’d meet a god.” Jags shook his head in amazement, but he continued to glance at me out of the corner of his eyes as he turned to the captain. “What’s our destination, sir?”
“East.” Captain Paxton “Black-eye” North swept his jacket away from his hips and placed his hands firmly upon them as he gazed out at the ocean.
“Aye, but Kipper says ‘east’ ain’t enough to chart a good course across the wind flats. We need to know where we’re going.”
“To the Zaborial Isles,” I supplied. “To the Grand Occulta Athenaeum.”
A tense silence followed my words, and the captain exchanged a look with his first mate.
“What?” I asked, but I mentally prepared to reset back to my save point.
“That journey will take at least a month, sir,” the captain explained. “If not more. We’ll have to stop to resupply.”
“Is there someplace to do that?” I arched an eyebrow.
“Aye,” the first mate growled. “But they don’t exactly take kindly to Sorreyal ships.”
“We’ll have to disguise ourselves as pirates,” the captain said, and his brow knitted with a frown. “The islands between here and them priests are rife with the buggers.”
“You trade with pirates?” I struggled to conceal the shock in my voice.
I’d wanted to meet a real pirate ever since playing Assassin's Creed Black Flag, and it looked like I was going to get the perfect opportunity.
“When we must.” Black-eye nodded.
“Isn’t that illegal?” Eva asked.
“That’s why we only do it when we must,” the captain countered as he flashed my wife a good-natured wink.
“I understand.” Eva frowned slightly, but she smiled graciously at the captain. “Traversing the wide-open sea must be full of unknown obstacles.”
“You don’t even know the half of it, ma’am.” Black-eye straightened his jacket across his chest and turned to his first mate. “Tell Kipper to plot for the Restless Island.”
“Aye, aye, cap,” Jags replied with a dip of his head, and the first mate jerked his chin in my direction. “Pleasure to meet ya, Your Grace, Archduchess.”
Then, without another word, the older man turned toward the helm of The Quest where Kipper and Trevin stood next to the humongous spiked wheel used to steer the ship.
I could tell I hadn’t completely won over the first mate yet, and I considered resetting back to my save point, but I decided to wait until I learned more of the skills needed to sail this type of vessel. I could impress him with my skills before the day was through, and I cleared my throat to get the captain’s attention.
“I’d like to learn to sail from the ground up,” I said with a decisive nod. “What is the lowest crew position on board The Quest?”
“Your Grace!” Black-eye’s eyebrows disappeared into his hat again. “You want to swab decks with the lads?”
“If that’s where a new crew member would usually start.” I grinned. “I want to learn it all.”
One-hundred percent completion.
“I must admit.” The captain scratched his short-cropped black beard. “I almost expected you to know all about sailing. The stories about you are quite exaggerated, I imagine.”
“No, they’re all true.” I grinned even wider. “Next time, I’ll impress you with my skills.”
“I’ll be impressed to see an Archduke swabbing a deck with the boys,” Black-eye chuckled. “That’s not something a man sees every day.”
“I’m not your average noble,” I laughed, and then I turned to my wife. “What do you say, honey, want to swab some decks with me?”
“Um, sure?” Evangeline’s eyes widened, but she nodded nonetheless. “I’ll do anything if it’s by your side, my love.”
I tweaked her nose affectionately, and she wrinkled it in response, but after our little routine was complete, the two of us joined the deckhands as they mopped the deck clean.
“Captain says, ‘cleanliness is the most important part of running a tight ship’,” Thurlow informed me as he flicked his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes.
I mopped as hard and as fast as I could, but the boys still pointed out spots I missed or streaks of grime caused by my dirty water. I worked at the task until my stomach growled in complaint, but I only paused briefly to shovel food into my mouth before I went back to it. By the time the sun was setting, the deckhands looked on in utter amazement and confusion while I swabbed over the already clean deck a third time.
“Whatcha practicing for?” the keen-eyed Kelsey asked with a furrowed brow.
“My next life,” I replied honestly. There was no point in lying to anyone when I already planned on resetting anyway, and besides, the look of awe and bewilderment was entirely worth it.
“Your what?” Witby wasn’t as bright as Kelsey, but he was a nice enough kid.
“He’s the God of Time, idiot,” Thurlow reminded Witby as he elbowed the youngest of the three deckhands in the ribs. “He can go back and forth through time itself!”
I smirked, but I said nothing to either confirm or deny his observation, and Evangeline’s gray eyes narrowed in my direction.
“Is that true, Bash?” my wife asked. “Can you travel through time?”
“Something like that,” I chuckled, and I waved a dismissive hand.
After the sun began its descent toward the horizon at our backs, half the sailors on the rigging climbed down and went below deck, but then a few more appeared from below to hoist themselves up into the sails. I eyed the massive expanse of fabric hanging over my head, and I itched to tackle the challenge of the crow’s nest. I was determined to work my way from the bottom to the top, though, so I set my sights on the sailors working with long spools of rope beneath the masts.
Wallace Jags worked beside the crew, and his arm muscles bulged as he wound rope in a circle around his forearm.
“Care to show me the ropes?” I smirked.
“If that is your wish, Great One.” The first mate eyed me curiously as he handed the strand of thick woven rope over to me. “Let’s see what you got first.”
I tied the only knot I knew and held it up for his inspection, and the older man scoffed. It was hard to see his face in the growing darkness, but his tone made his opinion obvious.
“That bad, huh?” I chuckled. “Alright, show me something, old man.”
The first mate proceeded to teach me some basic sailing knots, and soon my fingers were blistered from the coarseness of the rope. I ignored my discomfort, though, since I knew healing myself was as simple as resetting back to my save point. After I’d memorized three knots, I presented them to Jags for inspection, and he grunted in approval. My chest puffed out in pride at the excessive display of emotion from the older man, and I turned to show Evangeline my accomplishment.
The sailor in the crow’s nest suddenly whistled shrill and loud, and everyone’s heads instantly snapped to the northern horizon. I followed their gaze as Eva’s hand met mine, and my jaw nearly fell open when I saw what had caused the call of alarm.
Ships. And lots of them.
Huge, three-mast vessels dotted the horizon, and while I couldn’t make out a lot of details from this distance, I easily spotted the skull and crossbones painted on the black flag above the crow’s nest.
Pirates.
The ships drew steadily closer, and the crew of The Quest scurried into action. Jags began to bark out orders in a voice so loud it could have broken glass, and Captain North rushed to the rails to peer out at the approaching enemy.
“This close to land?” Eva asked as her gray eyes locked onto the distant ships. “We’re less than a day from the boundary of Sorreyal!”
“Get below deck, Your Grace!” Black-eye hollered in my direction without looking back at me, but I wasn’t about to do any such thing.
I considered this my ship, and I wasn’t about to let some pirates take it away from me when I’d just begun to learn how to sail it.
They’d face my judgement.
I gazed up at the rising moon to mark its position, and then I reset back to my save point as I saw the crew mates drawing their weapons.
Chime.