Read by Asclepius

Chapter Five. Missed Meetings.

“EEEEEEEEeeeeeEEEEE” With a squeal of delight Jenny Hawkins’s emerald eyes gleamed out the tiniest slits of her freckled eyelids. She squinted through the early-morning sunshine toward the dock below.

 

Earlier, with a whoop of delight, she had leapt from her small roughly-hewn bunk in the belly of the Sea Byrd and now stood steady beside the worn wood rail of the ship, her grip tight on the ropes above her. The ship had arrived in Jade Valley only a couple days ago. Without leaning over too far, Jenny could see how much of the cargo and baggage remained before they set sail. It looked as if they would be leaving today! Finally! She was getting off the ship at Etcetera, the next port of call, and going back home. It had been years since she left, and she now ached for the familiarity of her family home.

 

Catching a glint of sun off the shine of gold from the dock, Jenny observed their passenger dressed in dark flowing robes give a coin to a lad that immediately skipped off toward the village with a small envelope. The mage stood in the shadow of the ship. He seemed pale and unsteady on his feet even on the dock but not as sick as he was when he arrived.

 

Jenny knew he was staying in the fancy berth on the main deck. She had been trying to get a glimpse at him all the way from Laketown, where he stumbled back onto the wharf and tossed a hefty pouch of coins to the captain. Jenny knew the captain needed the gold and that’s why he was allowed back on board after the damage he did on the way there from the Mistrendur. She knew how badly the ship had been battered just trying to get to Ironhall let alone the damage on the way here from there and, sure enough, he was given continued passage after the repairs; even if it was his terrible mistake during a magic spell that caught the main sail on fire in the first place.

 

She hadn’t seen him out of his berth since Ironhall, but it didn’t take long for him to look straight up at her now, his gaze piercing and searching.  She stepped back from the rail and out of sight just as she could feel the swell of the tide lift the ship a little. Even moored, the ship reacted to the constant movement of the ocean below and so creaked and groaned as it rolled with the incoming tide. And after years of practice, Jenny instinctively moved naturally and gracefully without thought back into the shadows, hidden…and breathed. He was INTENSE. Maybe it was alright that she hadn’t seen him before this after all.

 

She’d seen mages during her travels but this one did not seem kind or friendly like the others had been. She had learned intricate beautiful music from the elven mages she had encountered in her travels. The music was moving and haunting, too. The human one she had met had shown her some small magic tricks to entertain her friends…but this mage gave her a creepy feeling all up her spine and she was pretty sure he didn’t play any music at all or know any party tricks either.

 

She didn’t understand why her friend Aslinne, the ship’s cook, looked all glassy-eyed when he was mentioned in their whispers at the end of the day. In the evenings when the young women sat together at the rough-hewn table below deck and discussed life aboard the ship, he was one of the subjects that Aslinne would not talk about. Aslinne was the repository of the gossip on the ship and Jenny was the only one that Aslinne would tell anything about her own feelings and experiences but she never ever would talk about either the mage or what any of the others told her. Jenny wished she would.

 

There were gossips to be had in the kitchen if one were a fly on the wall. That little galley heard many a whispered secret between sailor and cook. She made it a point of honor to know all the comings and goings of her shipmates and Jenny was constantly trying to get Aslinne ...