Aquamancer (mancer series Book 2) by Don Callander

Author:Don Callander
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Mundania Press LLC
Published: 2016-06-19T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Two More Players

Donation came about smartly, her head now into the wind. Her movement slowed dramatically until she was virtually dead in the water.

At a shouted command, her best bow anchor roared down into the water of the Choin harbor, which was surrounded on three sides by gentle, wooded hills.

The sound stirred thousands of gray-and-white seabirds into raucous, excited flight. Few ships anchor here, they cried to one another. What fun! A chance to sample foreign food when the ship’s cook empties his slop pails over the side after evening mess!

“Secure the stations!” ordered Captain Caspar Marlin. “Set the anchor watch!”

Seamen rushed from task to task, hauling on this line, casting off that. It seemed a scene of total confusion, except that things were quickly and efficiently accomplished. The great Wayness square-rigged ship came to rest with hardly a ripple, tugging only gently on her anchor chain and swinging slowly to the breeze.

Caspar watched from the break in her poop as hatch covers were lifted away, a shade awning was rapidly rigged amidships, a table and chairs set out. Sails were neatly furled about their yards, stoutly lashed yet ready to break out at a moment’s notice.

Her sailors were sent below, watch on watch, to change into clean, freshly pressed uniforms, blue-striped open shirts, and dark blue trousers. They returned to fall in by divisions, toeing cracks between deck boards to form perfectly straight ranks. They tried manfully not to grin and caper in their boylike anticipation of new things to see and do in a strange port.

“Junk approaching, sir!” reported the Officer of the Deck, in a loud, carrying voice.

“Very well!” responded Captain Caspar Marlin.

He ran an approving eye over the ship and crew. Even the Emperor of Choin could not help but be impressed by this show and substance, he thought. And the Imperial Governor, now preparing to climb aboard Thomwood Duke’s flagship from his smaller vessel, was said to be a nephew of the distant Emperor.

He took the chance afforded by the wait to study the Imperial Governor’s junk, now hove to a cable’s length off on the mirror-smooth surface of the beautiful but empty harbor. The Choinese were famed around World for their silks, yet the sails of the junk were of poor-quality canvas, ragged, patched, and stitched together. They were patched with lighter, cleaner pieces ranging in size from a few square inches to square yards. They hung untidily from their steep-slanting yards, looking like Monday morning’s wash hung out to dry.

“Mustn’t judge without information,” Caspar said aloud to the Officer of the Deck, a tough young Waynessman named Pride. He, too, had been studying the Imperial Governor’s high-sterned ship.

Just as the Imperial Governor’s head appeared above the level of the deck, a bo’sun’s pipe shrilled and six sideboys snapped to salute.

“Welcome aboard Donation, Excellency!” said Caspar, bowing from the waist. Wouldn’t do to be too subservient, no matter what this Governor expected.

“And most welcome to the Great, Endless Empire of Choin, the Land

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