Zypheria's Call (A Tanyth Fairport Adventure) by Nathan Lowell
“Be right there, Scooter,” she called and began bundling up the papers.
“I’ll deal with this, my dear,” Tanyth said and made little shooing motions with her fingers. “Duty calls.”
Rebecca flashed a smile in thanks and disappeared through the door. Tanyth heard her footfalls pounding up the companionway and onto the deck.
She smiled and slowly gathered the bits of her life back into a neat bundle, letting her fingers trace the occasional drawing or caress a dried leaf.
At four bells she presented herself at the captain’s cabin for their nightly meal.
“Come in, mum. Come in.” Captain Groves answered her knock almost before she made it.
He stood when she entered. Tanyth thought he looked a bit gray in the lantern light. He waved her into a chair on his right hand. “Sit, mum. Please. I’m too tired to stand on much ceremony just now.”
Jameson slipped in and latched the door behind him. “Sorry I’m late, Skipper. Evening, mum.”
“Not an issue, Mr. Jameson. Come in, sit down.”
Tanyth took her seat and found herself grateful for the chair. While she seldom sat on chairs, even when ashore, the shipboard habit of standing up or lying down with little in between tired her. Apparently the captain found it comforting as well. He let out a long sigh before turning to Tanyth.
“So, tell me. How’d you fare in our little blow?” Tired lines creased his face, but he managed to smile and his eyes held more life than she felt.
“I was a bit frightened for a time, Captain, but soon discovered that holdin’ on for dear life takes up a great deal of attention,” Tanyth said with a grin.
The two men laughed with her just as Cook knocked on the door with his cheery, “Dinner!”
“Come in, Cook! What have you for us tonight?” the captain said. “I’m hungry enough for two men, and I think they’re fighting over who gets to eat first.”
Cook brought in a large china tureen of soup and Scooter carried a towel-covered basket and a pile of crockery. “It’s a bit of savory stew, Captain. It should warm you nicely, and Mother Fairport here helped me with the biscuits this afternoon. She’d make a find addition to the crew, if you don’t mind my sayin’ so, mum.”
“Thank you, Cook, but I think I might have trouble if I had to sleep in a hammock,” Tanyth said.
“Oh, I don’t know, mum. Hammock’s not so bad once you get in. Quite comfy as a matter of fact.”
Jameson eyed Scooter and said, “Getting out is sometimes an issue, I understand, mum.”
Scooter colored, but Jameson smiled.
“Thank you, Cook,” the captain said. “This looks—and smells—divine! Just what I needed.”
“Will there be anything else, Captain?”
The captain looked around the table and said, “Is there a bit of tea?”
Cook jumped in realization. “Oh, beg pardon, Captain. I meant to have one of the lads bring it. I got so taken with Mother Fairport’s biscuits, I forgot. I’ll have Scooter bring that right over, sir.”
The captain nodded to Scooter and Cook. “My thanks to both of you.”
They scurried out and closed the door.
“You made the biscuits, mum?” Jameson had the basket and snaked out a biscuit so warm it still steamed, before handing the basket on to the captain.
“Nothing to it, really, Mr. Jameson. Been doing it off and on for a goodly spell.” She accepted the basket from the captain who had found a biscuit of his own. “First time I ever made ’em at sea, but a biscuit is a biscuit.”
The men laughed and the captain started ladling out the rich stew. “Cook tells me you’ve been rather busy in the cookhouse this trip, mum,” he said, handing her a full bowl.
“It helps pass the time, and Cook is certainly agreeable company.”
Jameson snorted, “Well, he’s talkative enough, that’s so.”
“He has his quiet moments, Mr. Jameson.”
“And rather a colorful vocabulary, eh, mum?” the captain asked.
“Not as bad as some drovers I’ve known, Captain, but he can turn a phrase until it’s dizzy.”
“Aye,” the captain agreed, “and his listeners as well.”
Scooter returned with the teapot and mugs. “Here you are, Captain. Sorry for the delay.”
“Fresh tea is worth the wait, my mother used to say,” the captain said with a grin. “Of course, I was mostly interested in the sandwiches that went with the tea in those days.”
Scooter grinned, and even Jameson relaxed enough to smile in the captain’s presence.
“Anything else, sir?” the sailor asked.
The captain looked across the table and at each of his dining companions in turn. “No, thank you, Scooter. I think we’re ready to get underway here now.”
“Very good, sir. Enjoy your meal.” The sailor started out the door, but the captain called him before it closed.
“Oh, Scooter?”
“Yes, Captain?” He stuck his head back around the door.
“Tell Cook I said he should give you two.”
Scooter’s grin lit up the passageway and he nodded. “Aye, aye, Captain. Two, it is.”
The captain chuckled and tucked into the spicy stew with gusto. The stew was hot from the stove and the spices that Cook used brought the heat level up so that Tanyth gasped and waved a hand.
“A bit warm, it is, mum?” the captain asked.
“A bit, Captain, but very good.”
“You’ll appreciate the warmth, the further we go north, I suspect.”
With that warning, Tanyth tried another small bite and enjoyed it with more temperance than temperature. “Did the storm blow us off course?”
The captain shrugged. “Can’t tell yet, mum. It was too rough and too cloudy to get a good reading at noon today. We’ll know better tomorrow.”
“The wind was from a good quarter, and the strength of it gave us quite a kick,” Mr. Jameson said, “But we won’t know until we can get a fix whether we were going in the right direction or not. Even a small change in course can add up to a large error at the end of a voyage.”
“There’s a lot of time yet, mum, and nothing out here to run into.” The captain said with a cheerful grin. “With a little luck and some clear sky, we’ll know soon enough.”
Tanyth nodded, although she really didn’t understand how they knew where they were in the middle of the ocean. The only thing to see was water, the ship, and the occasional bird.
They finished the tureen of soup, hot and spicy though it was, and the captain and Jameson both lavished praise on the biscuits. “Anytime you want to make biscuits, mum, you just tell Cook to stand back,” the captain said, slathering butter on the last biscuit in the basket.
Even Jameson gave her a wink and a nod across the table.
Dinner broke up at six bells and the captain stood while Jameson escorted Tanyth back to her room.
When they got there, Tanyth placed a hand on Jameson’s arm. “A moment, if you have it, Scott?”
“Yes, mum?”
“If I understand, fire’s a real danger here.”
“Mum, you’re afloat in a craft made of wood and cloth and it’s coated in tar to keep the water out. There are few things in this world more likely to go up in flame than a sailing ship, even though we’re surrounded by water.” He looked at her curiously. “Why? Something concerning you about fire?”
She bit her lip and gave a little shrug. “Would somebody ship a cargo that included a lantern?”
Jameson gave his head a shake as if to rattle something loose. “A lantern, mum? Of course. People ship lanterns all the time.”
“Lighted ones?”
Jameson stood very still. Tanyth could almost see the thoughts swirling in his head. “I don’t even know how you’d ship a lighted lantern, mum.”
“In a crate.”
“It wouldn’t burn, mum. The air would run out and the flame would smother if the lamp oil didn’t run out first. Or
“So, if there was a lighted lamp in a crate, that would be odd?”
“I’d say all but impossible, mum.”
Tanyth frowned and tried to remember the dreams. It had been a few days since the last one, but the bumpy ride had her wondering what else might have jarred loose in the ship.
“What if there was holes in the crate?”
“Holes, mum? You mean like air holes?”
She nodded. “Along the bottom.” She held up her fingers in a ring about the size of a gold crown. “That big.”
Jameson looked at her and scrubbed the back of his neck with a hand. “Mum? You’re asking some pretty hard questions and I don’t like the way they’re going. You know something you’re not telling?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, Scott. I get these dreams sometimes. I see things in ’em.”
He gave her a small nod. “Go on, mum.”
“Sometimes those things are true.”
Jameson blinked. “Ah, mum? That’s hard to believe, you’ll pardon my saying so.”
She barked a bitter laugh. “Tell me about it. I’m the one’s havin’ these dreams and I ain’t any too happy about it myself.”
“All right, mum. You had a dream about a lantern in a crate?”
“Somethin’ like that, yeah. A crate in the hold with something warm in it and a faint light.”
“You dreamed about a crate in our hold?”
She nodded.
“And it’s warm inside and has a faint light in it.”
“Sounds mad, I know,” she said. “Even to me.”
“And it has holes in it?”
She nodded again. “At least three of ’em. Along the bottom edge.”
Jameson’s face took on a look of sympathy. “Mum, are you sure you didn’t get tossed out of your bunk? Maybe bang your head?”
Tanyth smiled at him. “Not really, no. But I don’t have any bumps or sore spots on my noggin. I didn’t find any dents in the deck in here.”
“But you think maybe somebody’s shipped a lit lantern in a packing crate, and it’s in our hold.”
She shrugged. “I can’t think of what else it might be. It’s a faint light, and it’s warmer inside the crate than out. There’s a sharp smell, like lamp oil.”
“You smelled lamp oil in your dream, mum?”
“Something like it.”
“Anything else, mum?”
She couldn’t tell if Jameson believed her or was just seeing how far she’d go with the story.
“Well, there was one more thing.”
“I hesitate to ask, mum.”
She smirked. “I can’t say as I blame you.” She paused for a moment then said, “It clicked.”
“It clicked?”
“Yeah, like metal on metal. A kind of click happened kinda regular—slow. Very slow, but regular.”
“I see, mum.” He looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. “And when did you say you had this dream?”
“First time I saw the crate was a couple of days ago.”
“And you’re just bringing it up now?”
“Well, it’s not the kinda thing an old lady like me can really just up and say, now is it?”
He frowned and pursed his lips in thought. “Good point, mum. It does sound a bit mad.”
“I’m not mad.” She must have said it with a bit more feeling than she intended because Jameson stepped back a half step.
“I didn’t say you were, mum. Just that it sounds mad.”
She huffed a laugh. “You have no idea how it sounds to me.”
“You have these dreams often?”
Tanyth gave a small shrug and looked the young man in the eye. “I had a few of them back at Ravenwood, but haven’t had many since. Only since comin’ aboard I’ve had two or three.”
“Really, mum?” Jameson cocked his head. “They always about cargo?”
She shook her head.
“What else have you seen?”
She gave him a little smile. “You know them critters that the captain says we have none of?”
Jameson’s eyes grew wide.
“Yeah. They’re quite fond of the big open place below deck. One of them found an apple core down there. They like to find things to shred for their nests there, but they’re careful not to come out when there’s people there. Or other things that can hurt them.”
Jameson stood still as an iron rod. His eyes fixed on Tanyth in something akin to horror.
She sighed. “I’m sorry, Scott. I know it sounds like I’m just bein’ a foolish old woman, but I’ve had these kinds of dreams before. I don’t understand why I’m havin’ them now but—”
“No, mum. You don’t understand.”
She stopped and looked up at him.
“While we were loading the last of the stores aboard for Cook, we loaded a barrel of apples. He gave us all an apple for our trouble. He does that.”
She nodded. “The candies. I’ve seen ’em.”
“We all sat around the hatch coaming and ate our apples, but Ferguson dropped his. It bounced into the hold and rolled behind one of the crates.”
Tanyth shrugged. “Maybe it’s just a dream, but can you go look? See if there’s something in the hold?”
He shook his head. “It’s not that simple, mum. The hold is sealed. We’d need the captain’s permission to get in there. I’d need help just to get the hatch cover off. It’s not like I can sneak in and look.”
“And I could be mad.”
“No, mum. You’re not mad.”
She laughed again. “You sound like you believe that more’n I do.”
He chuckled. “Maybe I do.” He bit his lip in thought and gave Rebecca a glance. “Lemme see what I can do, mum. That was a good blow, maybe I can get the captain to let me check the cargo during the day tomorrow if it’s calm enough.”
“What if it’s not calm?”
“We can’t take the hatch cover off.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because if we take a big breaker across the bow, the water could fill up the hold and we’d go straight to the bottom.”
Tanyth shuddered at the thought.
He nodded and reached over to pat her arm. “I’ll think of something, mum. Don’t worry.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Now if we just have some good weather for awhile...”
“If you know any prayers, this would be the time to say ’em, mum.” He knuckled his forehead and nodded once. “Good night, mum.”
Tanyth crawled into her bunk and pulled the covers over her. The wheel of the year was turning toward summer, but the temperature felt colder the longer she was on the ship.
“Just bein’ an old woman,” she muttered and wondered if she knew a prayer for calm weather.
The temperature in the bunk seemed to shoot up and Tanyth found herself fanning the covers to release some of the heat her body generated. She sighed. “Ya had to pick now for your own private heat wave did ya?” she grumbled.
Eventually the spell passed and she wrapped the bedroll around her to capture some of the heat against the night chill.
Above her the bell rang eight times and she heard Rebecca returning from her stint on deck as she drifted off to sleep.
The horrible shaking and banging was over and the babies slept. She needed to find food to keep them going. She pattered out to explore. Sometimes after a shake like that, the sharp edges in the Big Place fell over and broke. Sometimes they held things for the nest, and she could find some new warm things to bring home.
Sometimes there was food. One time there was so much food that she ate until she could barely crawl back into the nest.
She pattered out of her next and through the narrow part, up out of the hole. The male sniffed her again, but she ignored him. It wasn’t her time. She watched the Big Place. It was still dark, still dim, but enough light came through the cracks for her to see. Some things were wet. A bit of water sloshed in the bottom, but she st
An odor came to her, then. Food, it was, and nearby, but not in the Big Place. She followed her nose and slipped through a wet crack to the Small Place. The Small Place was more dangerous because there were others there more often. The Big Ones came there. They yelled at her and threw things and sometimes left metal with things that were good to eat but dangerous to touch.
She stayed very still. Smelling the food and sniffing for the others. There was food, but the scent was so strong she didn’t smell anything else. She cast about in the dark, looking for the food. She found a round edge laying on its side. Food spilled from the top and across the ground. Big food. Enough for her and her babies for a very long time. She started nibbling at the hard, crunchy food. It tasted good and it filled her belly quickly. She ate her fill and then a little more, then crawled back through the wet crack to the Big Place.
The strange sharp edge was there. She waited and listened and heard it click. She remembered the click and scurried over to see. The holes in the bottom were there, but a little soggy now from the water that leaked in and sloshed. She stood in the damp and sniffed in the holes. The sharp smell was still there and it was still warm. The warm felt good on her face and her wet fur. She worked some more on the holes. A few more times and she’d have a hole big enough to crawl in. She’d see what made the light and what made the sharp smell. As she chewed, the thing clicked over and over.
Once she heard the ding-ding sound, but she often heard that. It didn’t mean anything. She stopped anyway and looked about. Sometimes the others snuck up on her and yelled or threw things at her and she didn’t like that. She didn’t see anybody and went back to chewing the wood.
Eventually she had to give up. Her babies would wake and want their food. If she didn’t feed them and they made too much noise, the male might eat them. She wanted to feed them.
She scurried back to the hole and found the male and one of her sisters in the hole. He wasn’t sniffing her, but mounting her. It was her time. She slipped by them and down into the nest. Her full belly and her chewing made her tired. It would be good to be with her babies and sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Five: