DragonKnight (19 page)

“I did,” answered Bardon.

“There are more than six.”

The squire nodded. “I counted. There are fifteen, not including the baby.”

“I can explain,” said Granny Kye.

“I’m sure you can.”

“Please do,” encouraged the magistrate, not bothering to keep the amused smile from his face.

“The six children had brothers, sisters, and friends.”

“I’m a cousin,” piped up a curly-headed moptop.

“And cousins,” added Granny Kye.

The same child tugged on the granny’s sleeve. “I think I am the only cousin.”

“And one cousin,” the old emerlindian corrected.

“And,” said the magistrate, “when torrents of rain made the day uncomfortable on the streets, they broke
into
jail.”

“You are so right.” Granny Kye beamed. “You must be the magistrate, since you are the one with such a clear way of thinking.”

Inkleen nodded his head wisely. “And the other two men who have come to your rescue are known to you, so they could not be the magistrate.”

“Yes, that too.”

“Granny Kye, I hereby bestow upon you the charge of these children.”

The emerlindian’s smile grew wider.

“But—,” said Bardon.

“You,” interrupted Magistrate Inkleen, “are a resourceful young man. You’ll manage.” He stood. “There now, that is settled. I wish you a pleasant journey.” The man left.

Bardon’s posture remained rigid as he recounted the children.

N’Rae picked up one of the smallest urchins.

Holt leaned against the wall and howled with laughter.

         
23
         

S
AILING

The children all wore bright red or yellow shirts. The girls wore blue skirts. The boys wore tan britches. Most of them raced hither and yon over the deck of the
Tobit Grander.
N’Rae, who had never been on an ocean-going vessel, seemed to think they were all in imminent danger of falling overboard. Granny Kye, who had chosen the outfits so the children could be easily spotted, seemed to think that no disaster could befall her charges. Bardon stood somewhere in the middle of the two views.

Granny Kye sat on the deck, holding the baby and watching the activity around her with glowing eyes. N’Rae held the hands of two small children and roamed the deck, urging the boys to be more cautious. Holt had looked over the situation and decided the mapmaker would be a better companion than anyone who remotely had anything to do with children. The marione and the tumanhofer sought the ship’s navigator and the blessed peace and quiet of studying maps.

As the ship rounded the last point of land and moved into the open sea, the wind caught the sails with a snap. N’Rae and some of the girls squealed. As the sails billowed, cracking with each shift, the young emerlindian gathered the more timid children and hustled them down below.

A seaman hollered at another lad, snatched him from off the rigging, and none too gently shoved him down the hatch. Bardon caught two younger boys and dragged them below.

As he passed the captain, he said, “There are five older boys left on deck. I won’t object to any duties you assign them.”

The captain grinned, tipped his hat, and nodded. “I’ll see to it right away.” He continued through the passageway with a light step, whistling a sea ditty.

Ignoring the pleas for freedom from his captives, Bardon watched the captain’s departure.

You’ve got to admire that man. He took on a party of four that expanded overnight to twenty-one. He doesn’t seem to be weighed down one bit by the extra bother. Of course, his purse is heavier and mine quite a bit lighter. That could be the source of his contentment.

Bardon trudged deeper into the bowels of the ship, hauling his recalcitrant burdens. He had marched with outstretched arms while holding weighted bags as one of the exercises for sword training. The torture produced muscular arms and stamina. Bardon thought he might write a letter to his old sword master, suggesting they substitute squirming boys for the heavy bags.

The ship could not provide cabin space for so many. Between bales of cotton, barrels of blackstrap molasses, and crates of fruit, Granny Kye had arranged pallets. She and N’Rae intended to sleep here with the children. Toward the back, she had the older boys push together a pen of sorts, made out of bits and pieces of cargo. Here she kept the goat she’d acquired to give milk for the baby.

Bardon glanced at the goat and her crowd of admirers. One raven-haired little o’rant girl brushed the nanny. An older, heavily freckled marione girl handfed her. Another girl, a tumanhofer, had her arms draped around the gray animal’s neck and appeared to be singing in the goat’s ear.

That’s going to be one spoiled nanny goat by the time we dock in Annonshan.

He set the boys on their feet, and they scrambled toward the hatch ladder. Bardon snatched the backs of their shirts, twisting them around to look him in the eyes. “You are forbidden to be on deck until further notice. If you behave, I’ll take you up myself. If you don’t, you won’t see the sun or the moon and stars again until we dock at Annonshan. Understand?”

The boys nodded. As soon as Bardon let go, they scampered over a pile of crates secured by heavy ropes and disappeared.

He found N’Rae sitting with several children as they arranged brand-new rag dolls on a secondhand blanket from the inn. “Will you be all right down here, N’Rae?”

“Oh yes, I like taking care of children. And this place feels cozy to me. Ropma cave dwellings felt much like this, dark and musty moist. And their huts were sparsely furnished with crates and logs.”

I can’t imagine living in a ropma hut. How different her life must have been from mine.

He opened his mouth to ask a question but heard Granny Kye calling from behind him.

“N’Rae! N’Rae! Where are my paints?” She swept past Bardon without a word to him and handed the younger emerlindian the baby.

“My easel, my palette, my paints,” she muttered as she rummaged through the bundles lined up and stacked against one bulkhead. “Here! Here!” she exclaimed as she grabbed a duffel wedged in among heavier parcels. “N’Rae, help me pull it out.”

Bardon saw N’Rae looking for a place to put the baby, and he stepped forward. “I’ll help, Granny Kye. Stand over here a little bit.”

“That one.” She pointed unnecessarily. “The one with hard sides covered with blue canvas. Yes, that one.”

No sooner had Bardon shifted the other luggage and pulled that piece free than Granny Kye had her hands on it. She laid it on its side and undid the latches. The children crowded close, waiting to see what was inside.

“What are you going to paint?” asked N’Rae.

Granny Kye answered absent-mindedly as she opened the lid. “Everything. The sky. The sea. The sails. Everything.”

She set aside several brushes and a box containing bent tubes smeared with dried paint. Next she lifted out a flat square wrapped in cloth. Inside, blank canvas stretched over a wooden frame. Granny Kye’s face beamed as she looked at the grayish white surface. She held it up for all the children to view.

“What do you see here?” she asked.

“It’s blank,” said one.

“Sorta white,” said another.

“Nothing,” said the smallest boy.

The granny snatched that child into a tight hug. “No, no, no.” She laughed, then turned him around to sit in her lap and look at the blank canvas. “Quite the contrary, young man. You say there is nothing here? No, no, no. This picture is not empty, but full of possibilities.”

She gathered her painting tools, handing various items into small, eager hands. Those children who were allowed on deck trailed behind her, helping to carry her equipment. She set up her easel and canvas in a place somewhat protected from the wind. Most of the children lost interest as she went through the long preparation of getting the canvas ready.

In the days that followed, Bardon’s party took up a routine. The younger children played among the crates in the hold with N’Rae supervising. Holt swapped stories with the seamen and harassed the mapmaker for tales of his adventures. Bromptotterpindosset preferred to spend his time with the officers of the ship or the captain’s maps and logs. Granny Kye painted.

The older boys discovered Bardon doing his forms, the morning exercises that most warriors repeated daily to keep in fighting shape, on the deck early in the morning. He did several sets of a fixed order. The procedure for muscle toning that prepared him to use his body as his weapon looked almost like a ceremony. The ritual generally bored most of the boys except one. Ahnek, an o’rant of about ten years, stood beside the squire and mimicked his motions, quickly picking up the intricate positioning and rhythm of the exercises.

The next set required Bardon to roll, leap, balance, and perform acrobatic feats. More of the boys joined him for this, and he ended up instructing the most eager ones. Not only the boys, but also the sailors enjoyed watching Bardon parry and thrust with an imaginary opponent as he went through his last regimen for the day. By the second morning, all the boys had acquired roughly made wooden swords so they, too, could fight the unseen enemies.

Each morning, after Bardon finished the serious business of his scheduled regimen, he good-naturedly coached the boys. He even instructed some of the small ones on how to best use their weapons. He brought out his darts, and they set up a makeshift bull’s-eye.

“Are darts really a weapon?” asked Ahnek.

“Yes, they are.” Bardon hefted the slim wooden dart, then tossed it. Even with the wind and the roll of the ship, he hit the center of the target. “They won’t bring down a bisonbeck or a grawlig, but they can be used to distract the enemy. Worry them. Get them off balance.”

Bardon divided the boys into age groups and set up a tournament. They had to move their game to a hold below to avoid the wind, but the children threw their hearts into the competition. Even the girls decided to play. Again Ahnek showed the most promise.

Two of the boys took to their sea duties with a passion. Bardon figured when they reached the next port, the boys would ask permission to serve on the ship. And, according to the captain, they would be accepted as cabin boys.

Each evening, Bardon stood on the forecastle with the ship’s navigator. Most nights they could measure the progress of the Wizards’ Plume. On the nights that cloud cover obscured their view, Bardon stewed.

The navigator chided him over his impatience. “The comet will not move but a few degrees each night.”

“Each night it moves toward the death of noble knights. I cannot relax my vigil.”

Each morning, Granny Kye set up her easel. By the third day, Bardon resented the time she spent at the canvas. N’Rae looked paler than usual and haggard. The baby didn’t take to the sea or the goat’s milk. N’Rae didn’t know which. Jue Seeno offered advice, and the tea they brewed for the infant seemed to help some of the stomach distress. But the minneken also made problems for N’Rae. Mistress Seeno insisted that no one know of her existence. Consequently, Bardon had the small friend in her basket hidden in his cabin most of the time.

In the afternoons, the squire took some of the younger children by turns up to the deck. He watched them run wild with excess energy fueling their helter-skelter games. Even as they plummeted past the old emerlindian granny, she scarcely noticed. The unfinished work before her claimed all her attention. To Bardon’s untrained eye, the picture held no particular splendor, just white puffy blobs for clouds and odd, curving lines at the bottom in a muddy green hue. A mess of darkness in the middle might have been the ship. But Bardon couldn’t imagine how she could paint the vessel she was sitting on.

On the fourth afternoon, he took below the last three children he’d been watching for their hour of freedom. He didn’t bother listening to their vehement protests. He knew from previous days that a couple of crackers, a drink, and a blanket would provide enough comfort to have them snoozing in a matter of minutes. The rocking of the gentle waves provided a cradle effect.

Before he reached the temporary quarters in the cargo hold, he heard the baby’s wails. He passed into the dim light and saw N’Rae gently bouncing the little one as she paced back and forth in the restricted area. Shuddering gasps broke into the babe’s cries. Bardon knew that meant he was winding down and would soon, out of sheer exhaustion, sleep.

The squire gave the three he’d been watching a drink and the crackers. He shooed them to their own pallets and, because he had once made the mistake of singing to them, had to meet their incessant demands to do so again.

He didn’t know many lullabies or nursery songs, so he sang ballads he’d learned mostly from Sir Dar. He liked the way the bulkheads of their small quarters made his voice sound rich and more resonant. His mentor’s songs represented the best of Amaran folk tunes and also some classical music.