Saturdays at Sea Read online

  Celie stood in the bow and stared down at the shipyard, trying to figure out what it was. What had made the Castle the Castle? What would make the ship the Ship?

  Her eyes lit on the figurehead.

  “Pogue,” Celie called out.

  “I’m one step ahead of you,” Rolf crowed. “For once.”

  He leaped up onto the rail and balanced there. He clapped his hands to get the attention of the workers. When they were all looking at him, he cupped his hands to his mouth to make the announcement.

  “I know it’s not this way done in Grath,” he said, in his best Grathian. “But we are be needing the head figure on the ship. Right now.”

  “Rolf, you’re a genius,” Lilah said.

  “I thought of it, too,” Celie muttered.

  Pogue nudged her. “Let him have his moment,” he whispered.

  Celie made a face, but couldn’t hold it. She wasn’t really angry. The most important thing was that they get the figurehead in place.

  That they get the figurehead in place, and that they turn out to be right: this would bring the ship to life.

  Because that was the thing, what they’d all been hoping for since Celie had first found the figurehead in an unused room behind the nursery. No one had dared to say it, but they’d all been wishing it to be true, that the ship would become a live thing, like the Castle. It had been so reassuring to sit by the figurehead and watch the building of the ship this past week, but now that feeling of comfort was gone, and Celie was worried.

  Of course, it would take some work to get the figurehead properly in place, but they all wanted to watch. It fitted under the jutting prow, and couldn’t really be seen from on deck, so they filed down the plank to the ground again to wait. Stools were brought, and refreshments, and their griffins flew down to join them. It was almost like a picnic, except no one was talking and all eyes were on the gilded wooden griffin being carefully fitted to the bow of the ship.

  The sky was darkening, and Lady Griffin had already delivered two messages from their mother reminding them to return to the Sanctuary in time to dress for dinner. But at last the final nail was hammered, and the figurehead was in place.

  It was a thing of great beauty: a majestic griffin with wings upraised so that they swept back on either side of the bow. The rich wood was polished to a shine, and there were touches of gilt to bring out the fierce eyes and finely carved feathers.

  “It’s not ugly, it’s beautiful,” Lilah breathed.

  She was right: the piecework look that had hung around the ship before was gone. The griffin completed the ship, though the mast and sails were not yet in place.

  “Now this is being the very! The very ship!” Orlath said. He picked Lilah up and spun her around, presumably because the ship was too big to embrace.

  “Not yet,” Celie said under her breath.

  Beside her, she could hear Rolf also muttering something. Was he counting? Praying? She wasn’t sure. But he didn’t have to count very high, or pray very long.

  A great shudder ran through the ship. They could all see it. Several of the men working on the upper deck shouted and fell to their knees as every plank resettled itself. The figurehead appeared to stretch and then freeze again, looking exactly the same save for a slightly fiercer glint to its eyes, Celie thought.

  “There it is,” Rolf whispered.

  “Like a bird ruffling its feathers,” Celie agreed.

  “Or a griffin,” Pogue said in awe.

  The men were scrambling to get off the ship, but the Glower family and their friends paid them no mind. They all hurried to get on the ship, to see if there had been any changes.

  Though there were no changes to be seen, none of the Glower children were disappointed. It was obvious from the moment they stepped onto the deck that the ship had come to life.

  “It’s like the Castle,” Celie breathed. “We were right.”

  “What wonders!” Orlath cried. “The very nails did dance! Are you feeling a something?”

  They were. It was exactly the way things were at home, something Celie never noticed until it was taken away. It was almost, but not quite, a vibration. Almost, but not quite, a sound. If you’d lived all your life with it, you would never notice it. But having spent the past weeks in the Sanctuary, Celie was acutely aware of the difference between the stones of Lulath’s ancestral home and the planks of the ship’s deck.

  And so was Pogue.

  His face was shining, and he looked around them in wonder.

  “I can feel it,” he said, entranced. “I can feel it!”

  Back home at the Castle, only the Glower family could feel the Castle, and it reacted only to them. Celie knew this was a blow to Pogue and others who spent a great deal of time there, and who respected and loved the Castle and the Glowers. She had assumed there was something in her family’s blood that made them part of the Castle.

  But the look on Pogue’s face said it all: he could feel the ship.

  “This is amazing!” he said. “I can’t believe it! I’m feeling the ship!”

  “Well, I am not,” Orlath said, sounding just a little cross. Then he grinned with pride. “But to be sure: it is a fine, fine ship.”

  “It’s not a ship,” Celie corrected him, also grinning. “It’s the Ship.”

  Chapter

  7

  Do you think the Ship will be ready to sail by the night of the betrothal celebration?” Queen Celina asked, strolling across the deck the next morning.

  “It is my thinking so,” Orlath said. “But only for the very short sailings. Will these many parts be in harmony? I am not knowing—not at the first,” he hastened to add. “It will be having small cruises of the harbor before there is the larger undertaking.”

  “Celie, aren’t you excited?” Lilah whispered. “The Ship is almost finished!” She patted her hands together. “Lulath will be so happy when he gets back!”

  “Um, yes . . . ?” Celie said, drawing her mind back to the present. “It’s very nice.”

  “Nice?” Lilah arched an eyebrow. “It’s a Ship. Can you imagine the look on Lulath’s face when he feels it?”

  “I know,” Celie said, moving restlessly around in the bow, picking up and putting down a belaying pin. She hadn’t slept well since Lulath had left to find the griffin rider village, though Lilah seemed to have moved from worry about him to anticipation of his return since the figurehead of the Ship had been put in place. “I—I just—”

  “I know,” Lilah said.

  “You do?” she asked. “Oh, well, of course you do—”

  “You’re thinking I’ve forgotten about our quest,” Lilah went on. “But I assure you I haven’t! As a matter of fact, I have everything planned out.”

  Celie was baffled. “Our . . . quest?”

  “To find the unicorns,” Lilah said with impatience.

  “Oh,” Celie said.

  “Listen,” Lilah said, lowering her voice. “Have you noticed how Mother never mentions that anymore? How she only talks about building the Ship and then going back to Sleyne?”

  Celie nodded. Although, really, from the beginning it had always been Lilah’s quest, and no one else’s.

  “Well,” Lilah said, drawing Celie even closer to the rail, “I’m not going to let my dream be set aside. We have plenty of time to go to the Land of a Thousand Waterfalls,” she told her, using Larien’s older, more romantic, name.

  “All right,” Celie said, not feeling even slightly romantic.

  “What I’m planning,” Lilah continued, not noticing Celie’s lack of enthusiasm, “is to take the Ship out for one of these little harbor cruises that they’re talking about, and then we demand that the Ship take us to Larien!”

  Lilah tossed her hair back and waited for Celie’s answer, but Celie didn’t know quite what to say. It sounded like Lilah wanted to steal her own ship. But was that stealing? It was Lilah’s and Lulath’s ship together, to be exact, but would Lulath go along with this plan?
/>   She asked this last question out loud.

  “Lulath will do whatever I ask,” Lilah said airily, but Celie thought she looked slightly worried.

  “So you want to steal the Ship?” Celie said.

  “It’s not stealing if it belongs to me,” Lilah said, answering that question at least—albeit in a very roundabout way. “And I’m not going to steal it. I’m just going to make sure we have everyone and everything on board that we’ll need for the journey, and then when we’re out in the harbor, I’ll simply command it.”

  “I see,” Celie said.

  “Don’t you dare get cold feet,” Lilah warned her.

  “Me? This isn’t my plan!” Celie protested.

  “But you want to find the unicorns, too,” Lilah said. “Don’t you?”

  Celie paused, but she wasn’t really thinking about the answer. Of course she wanted to find the unicorns. She wanted to know that the griffins hadn’t killed them all. She wanted to prove that they could live peacefully in Sleyne with the griffins.

  And, to be honest with herself, Celie wanted to know what it would be like to have a pet unicorn.

  “I’ve spent too much time around Lulath,” Celie muttered.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Lilah said with a huff.

  “It means, yes, I’ll help you,” Celie said.

  Lilah squealed and hugged her.

  “Calm down,” Celie said, worried that someone would see and ask what Lilah was so excited about. “You don’t want to let the cat out of the bag.”

  “The unicorn out of the bag,” Lilah said gleefully.

  “Unicorns?” Pogue asked, coming out of the hatch near their feet. “What unicorns?” He put a hand over his eyes for a moment. “Do I even want to know?”

  “It’s none of your concern,” Lilah snapped.

  “Lilah!” Celie said, as Pogue’s face turned red.

  “Oh, I would say that it is Pogue’s concern,” Queen Celina said. “I would say that it’s all of our concern.” She arched an eyebrow at Lilah. “First apologize to Pogue, and then tell us what this is about unicorns.”

  Chapter

  8

  They fell into a routine over the next few days. In the mornings they would train their griffins in the garden, and in the afternoons they would go to the Ship and help wherever they could. Lilah developed a keen skill at coiling ropes, Celie learned how to hang doors on their hinges, and Rolf hammered anything that had not yet been hammered into place.

  The griffins were kept out of trouble by having them fetch and carry things in baskets. The Grathian workers didn’t like it at first, but they soon got used to the griffins, and even began to politely ask them for specific things in halting Sleynth.

  “We should have this done right on schedule,” Pogue told Celie as they hung the last door. “And Lilah will have her fireworks and her Ship together.” He said it with a surprising lack of bitterness.

  Celie looked at him. Before Lulath and Lilah had started whispering in corners and then declaring their undying love for each other, Pogue had hung around the Castle mostly to flirt with Lilah, and occasionally to get Rolf into (and then usually out of) trouble. When they’d been in Hatheland, Pogue had definitely been jealous of Lilah and Lulath’s budding romance, but now he seemed indifferent.

  Pogue saw the way Celie was looking at him and shrugged.

  “Why shouldn’t she marry Lulath and be happy?” he said. “I like Lulath.”

  “Everyone does,” Celie agreed. “It would be hard not to. But—”

  Pogue shook his head. “It was fun to be in love with Lilah,” he told her. “But I don’t actually love Lilah. I mean, not like that.” He made a face. “I mean, she’s much smarter than I think we all give her credit for. But she’s a princess. She needs to marry a prince like Lulath, and not a blacksmith turned knight.”

  “Turned griffin rider,” Celie said, slotting the last hinge into place.

  “Thank you,” Pogue said. “Yes, and a griffin rider.”

  “Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t have cared if it had been you and not Lulath who wanted to marry Lilah,” Celie told him, though she wasn’t entirely sure about that.

  Maybe they would have. They had been awfully pleased that Lilah was marrying into the wealthy and powerful Grathian royal family. But it didn’t matter now.

  “I’m just happy for Lilah that she’s going to marry someone she loves,” Pogue said, picking up the spare odds and ends and putting them in a basket. “I hope you get to do the same.”

  Celie didn’t have a reply for that. She hadn’t ever thought about it much, although she knew Rolf had. Everyone knew that her parents had been sealed up together in a room by the Castle itself, in order to steer them into a betrothal. Celie wasn’t sure which worried Rolf more: that the Castle would choose a wife for him, or that their parents would do it.

  But now she was worried about herself. What if the Castle chose someone for her whom she didn’t even know? Or what if the Castle didn’t? Would her parents choose someone for her? Some unknown prince from Bendeswe? A distant lord from Sleyne City?

  “Forget I said anything,” Pogue said, looking at her in alarm.

  “Why would you say that to me?” Celie demanded as they returned the basket of bits and pieces to the head carpenter and waited for another assignment. “I’m never going to be able to think of anything else!”

  “Why, what are we thinking about?” Rolf said, putting down his hammer and stretching. “Is it that weird, spongy sea-something that was in the soup last night? I know I can’t stop thinking about how often they serve that, and whether there’s a polite way to refuse.”

  “No,” Celie said.

  “Yes,” Pogue said at the same time. “We’re talking about food,” he added.

  “What was that last night?” Rolf said, making a face. “It wasn’t a fish. It wasn’t a bird. It was all squishy and . . . chewy.” He shuddered.

  “I fed mine to JouJou,” Celie admitted, glad to change the subject. “I feed a lot of my food to JouJou.”

  “That’s ingenious,” Rolf said. “I’m going to have to get a dog to sit in my lap during meals!”

  “That shouldn’t be hard,” Pogue said. “Plenty to choose from.”

  “Why do you think JouJou likes me so much?” Celie said with amusement. “I’ve been doing this since Lulath came to the Castle!”

  “You little sneak,” Rolf said in admiration. “But what do you eat?”

  “Well,” Celie said, “this may be the reason why the kitchen staff at the Castle—and now the Sanctuary—think griffins live on bread, cheese, apples, and custard.”

  “My hat goes off to you,” Rolf said. “If I had a hat, it would, that is.”

  “Have you not a hat?” Orlath came over to them. “Is it being stolen?” He looked anxious.

  “Um, no . . .” Rolf said. “I just . . . it’s just a saying, I suppose.”

  “Ah, well, my Jocko is being the worst of thieves,” he said, feeding a nut to the monkey on his shoulder. “If ever you are having something stolen, please be telling me. I will see if this bad boy has it.”

  “The griffins love shiny things,” Celie told him. “So if it’s jewelry and it’s not Jocko, we’ll check the griffins’ beds.”

  “So like being birds,” Orlath marveled as they watched Arrow soar overhead, bringing a bucket of tar to one of the men.

  “I can’t tell how much of their behavior is like a lion’s,” Celie said. “I’ve never seen a lion in real life.”

  “Well,” Orlath said, “be coming with me on a journey, and there will—”

  “Is that Lady Griffin?” Celie said, interrupting him.

  She didn’t mean to, and she apologized a second later, but by that time they could all see Lady Griffin winging her way toward them. They all paused to watch as the queen of the griffins landed neatly on the deck just in front of them. She turned her back to them and looked over her shoulder, so that they could see a scroll tucke
d into her harness.

  Rolf took it and unrolled it.

  “Lulath’s back,” he said.

  “Is he all right?” Celie asked.

  “It just says he’s back,” Rolf said.

  They all exchanged looks.

  “Lilah!” Celie shouted. “Lilah! Lulath’s back!”

  They heard a squawking that sounded like something that might come from a griffin, and Lilah came up from below deck. She looked around wildly.

  “He’s at the Sanctuary,” Rolf explained.

  “Juliet!” Lilah cried.

  Instantly her griffin was there. Lilah leaped onto her back. Celie and the others all whistled for their griffins and followed her.

  They flew straight for the courtyard, where there were horses and coaches milling about. In the middle of it all stood Lulath, in perfect health.

  As soon as Juliet’s talons hit the pavement, Lilah was off her back and leaping at Lulath. He caught her easily, laughing, and they kissed. Then he put her down, and they stood there blushing while everyone else gathered around.

  “What did they say?” Rolf demanded.

  Lulath’s brow clouded. “They are saying to me nothing.”

  “They still wouldn’t talk to you?” Pogue frowned. “Did they let you into the village?”

  “There was no person to stop our going in,” Lulath said. “Of the village there is only houses, empty as shells on this very beach.

  “The people, they are being long gone.”

  Chapter

  9

  By the night of the betrothal celebration, they still hadn’t found any sign of the villagers. From what Lulath and the others of his party could tell, the village had been abandoned a year ago or more, and any tracks had long since been washed away.

  Celie had been having nightmares that the missing villagers were watching them from within the walls of the Sanctuary, as Wizard Arkwright had been in the Castle. King Kurlath had assured the Glower family that there were no hidden passages in the Sanctuary, but still Celie felt every wall and floor tile in her room. She poked every inch of every ornamental doorway and pulled the books off every shelf, but it seemed true that there were no secret passages.