Sebastian Darke: Prince of Pirates (16 page)

It was quite some time before they managed to prise themselves away from the ship's rail and venture down the swaying stairs that led to the captain's cabin. The first time they tried it, they both had to dash back up on the deck for another bout of coughing and retching, but eventually, when there was nothing left in them to bring up, they found themselves sitting, pale-faced and weary, at the round table down in Jenna's cabin, Cornelius perched on his usual stack of cushions to bring him up to the right height.

Behind them, the windows in the ship's stern afforded a fine view of the churning wake flowing out behind the ship but, for the moment at least, they didn't have much inclination to look out.

Jenna was eating a ripe red pommer. She was either oblivious to their delicate condition, or determined to make them feel even worse. Lemuel entered the cabin, carrying a large wooden bucket. He closed the door behind him, set the bucket down between Sebastian and Cornelius and took a vacant seat at the table.

Jenna smiled at them. 'You two quite finished?' she asked them. They both nodded, but without much enthusiasm. It was evident that either of them might succumb to further bouts of sickness at any moment. Jenna pointed to the bucket. 'Use it if you have to,' she told them. 'And ensure a good aim – I like to keep a tidy ship.'

They nodded at her, their faces two pictures of misery.

'Now,' she said expectantly, 'if we are ready . . .?'

'Hmm?' grunted Sebastian.

'The map!' she said.

'Oh yes.' Cornelius nodded. He reached beneath his breastplate, pulled out the ancient sheet of paper and unfolded it across the table.

Jenna pulled it closer and examined it carefully in absolute silence. Then she lifted her head to look at them. 'It certainly looks authentic,' she said. 'This is undoubtedly very old parchment, and there are proper co-ordinates written here.' She indicated a near-indecipherable scrawl, inked in blood on one corner of the page.

'It's somewhere south of Lemora,' muttered Sebastian, who still wasn't convinced he'd finished vomiting. 'Do you need to know any more than that?'

'Of course,' said Jenna. 'That's not enough information to find an island. It's a very big ocean. It would be like looking for a tiny seed thrown onto a massive blanket. If we don't plot our course perfectly, we could easily sail right past it. One thing's for sure: whoever put this map together knew a thing or two about sailing.'

Cornelius struck Sebastian on the elbow. 'What did I tell you?' he said excitedly.

Now Jenna and Lemuel busied themselves with their charts, consulting the scribbled notes from time to time.

'There are lines of latitude and longitude here,' continued Jenna, 'so plotting a course shouldn't be that difficult. We'll take readings at noon and midnight.'

'Where did you learn to do that?' Sebastian asked her, not really that interested but wanting to give the impression that he was.

She glanced up at him. 'From my father, of course. He's sailed these waters all his life, and that was in the days before we had the quarterstaff.'

Sebastian frowned. 'What's a quarterstaff?' he asked Cornelius, but the little warrior just shrugged his shoulders.

'It's a wooden instrument that helps us find our way across the ocean,' explained Jenna. 'We use it to take readings from the sun and stars.' She indicated the charts spread out before her. 'These were my father's,' she said. 'He drew them up himself, every last one of them. And when I was a little girl, he taught me how to use them.'

Cornelius forced a smile. 'Unusual for a young lady to move into such a profession,' he said.

Jenna shrugged. 'I think it's no secret that he would have preferred a boy. But my mother could never give him one, and I suppose I showed no interest in the fripperies that most girls care about – dolls, dresses, that kind of thing. So he got a tomboy instead and had to make the best of it.'

'So . . . what happened to your father?' asked Sebastian.

'Oh, he's still around,' said Jenna. 'But he's not able to captain the ship any more.' She looked sad. 'He was on a voyage down to the Southlands four summers ago when a man fell overboard. My father went over the side to try and help him and . . . there were kelfers in the water.'

'Kelfers?' Sebastian was mystified. 'What are kelfers?'

'Hideous sea creatures,' said Lemuel. 'The deadliest, fastest beasts in the ocean. One of them took the captain's legs before we could haul him back aboard. Took 'em both off with one snap of its jaws.'

Sebastian blanched and felt his face drain of colour once again. 'How . . . terrible,' he said.

'Aye, it was that.' Lemuel shook his head and his one good eye looked misty, as though he was reliving the incident. 'It's a miracle he didn't bleed to death, but we had a good ship's surgeon and he managed to staunch the blood with boiling tar.'

Sebastian winced, imagining the agony it must have caused.

'When we got back to Ramalat, I was faced with a difficult decision,' said Jenna. 'My father had survived, but it was obvious he could never captain the
Sea Witch
again. He gave me a simple choice. I could sell the ship or I could take his place. And I knew that selling her would break his heart, particularly as he hated the man who wanted to buy it.' She extended her hands in a pantomime of helplessness. 'It was no choice at all, really. It was difficult at first. There were many of the crew who felt that I couldn't handle it . . .' She glanced accusingly at Lemuel and he held up his hands in playful surrender.

'Not me, missy! I always knew you could do it.'

She smiled. 'True enough, not Lem. But many of the others took some persuading. Luckily my father had taught me everything he knew. He still
is
teaching me, and I've added a few ideas of my own.' She smiled proudly. 'I've been running the ship for three summers. I don't think any of the crew have a problem with me now.'

'Apart from the fellow we saw you arm wrestling,' said Cornelius. 'How did a slight thing like yourself become so strong?'

'Oh, it's a tough life aboard a ship. Muscles become powerful. But I'll let you into a secret about Cassius. He's much stronger than I am. And he could beat me at arm wrestling, there's no doubt of that.'

Sebastian was puzzled. 'Then how . . .?'

'He's sweet on me, of course. He thinks that constantly losing to me will make me feel the same affection for him. But of course, the effect is quite the opposite. No woman wants that which she can have too easily.'

'I . . . don't understand,' said Sebastian.

'She's talking about playing hard to get,' Cornelius told him. 'The more a man shows disdain for a woman, the more she wants to win his heart. Everyone knows that.'

Sebastian frowned. He still wasn't quite getting this. 'So the way to win a woman's heart is to be . . . horrible to her?'

Jenna grinned. 'Not too horrible,' she said. 'Just disdainful enough to make her work harder.' She laughed and Cornelius laughed with her, as though the two of them were sharing some kind of private joke. Sebastian looked from one to the other and wondered what they found so funny; he was way out of his depth here. Jenna looked at Lemuel, who was still fussing with the charts, making measurements with a metal compass.

'Looks like we'll be heading out over the Angel's Lair,' he told her.

'What's that?' asked Sebastian.

'Oh, that's something you'll need to see for yourself,' said Jenna. 'I'll give you a call when we come to the place. Should be some time tomorrow. People who've never seen it before are usually astonished by it. We'll also be passing very close to the pirate stronghold of Lemora,' she added. 'Hopefully, if we keep our sails full and our heads down, it shouldn't bother us too much.'

'We've fought off enough pirates in our time,' said Lemuel fiercely. 'They should have learned by now to give us a wide berth.'

'Perhaps,' she said. 'But some of them take a lot of convincing.' She threw another mocking look at Sebastian. 'Mind you, why should we worry? We have the Prince of Pirates with us. I'm sure he'll protect us!'

But Sebastian hardly noticed the jibe. 'You know,' he said thoughtfully, 'you've succeeded where I've failed.'

Jenna looked puzzled. 'What do you mean?'

'Your father wanted you to captain his ship and you've done that – very successfully by the look of it.' He sighed. 'My father wanted nothing more than for me to succeed in the role of jester. I tried after he passed away, but sadly I had no talent for it. I failed him.'

'But I thought you said you were Court Jester to King Septimus?'

'I was, but only for a day. Then I was sentenced to death.'

'Goodness me, you
must
have been bad!'

'Oh no, that's not why! It was a little matter of the disappearance of the king's niece, which he thought I had a hand in. But, if I'm honest about it, I
was
pretty dreadful.'

'I think you're being a bit hard on yourself,' said Cornelius. 'You weren't
that
bad.'

'How do you know? You weren't even there – you were fighting fifteen Brigands in a barn at the time.' Sebastian looked at Jenna. 'That's why I'm on this ridiculous expedition. Trying to discover what I
am
good at.'

Jenna put a hand on his and he almost flinched away in surprise. 'I'm sure you'll find something,' she assured him.

'That's easy for you to say,' he muttered. 'You're a sea captain. And Cornelius here, he's just about the finest warrior that I've ever seen. All I've managed to do on this trip so far is throw up and have an enchantment put on me.'

'An enchantment?' Jenna was intrigued.

'Yes,' said Cornelius. 'That was courtesy of a shape-shifting witch back in the forest of Geltane—'

'I keep warning you – stop calling her a witch!' yelled Sebastian.

'You see?' Cornelius spread his hands. 'He can't help himself. She's put some kind of love spell on him and he can't shake it off.'

'A love spell?' Jenna's lips curved into a smile. 'And what's it like, Sebastian, being enchanted by a strange woman?'

He gazed back at her across the round table. 'It's . . . weird,' he admitted. 'I don't know why, but whenever she's mentioned I want to . . . protect her . . .
be
with her.'

Jenna was still holding his hand. She squeezed it gently. 'You poor thing,' she said. 'We must see what we can do to distract you.'

Sebastian and Cornelius spent a fitful night in their cramped cabin, but at least the sickness seemed to have left them, and by the following morning they felt recovered enough to stomach a little breakfast. But the bowl of thick salty porridge, served up by the ship's cook, Thaddeus, down in the stinking, damp confines of the galley, did little to encourage them to eat.