The House of the Four Winds: Book One of One Dozen Daughters Read online

  “I, for one, will be glad of my bed,” Dr. Chapman grumbled, turning toward the door.

  “Let me assist you to your cabin,” Dickon said cheerfully. “It is a difficult thing for a one-armed man to move about a ship.”

  “Puppy!” the doctor growled. “I was wise in the ways of the sea when your greatest frontier was your mother’s knee.”

  Dickon laughed, and even Dominick smiled, though Clarice could see that he looked tired.

  “That’s it for us, too,” Kayin said. “I’ll just make sure everyone’s settled, then see if I can find my new bunk.”

  Dominick was not the only one to have moved today; Kayin had moved his sea chest to Freeman Lee’s cabin, and Geordie had taken over Simon Foster’s.

  “Clarence, if I could beg your company for a moment longer?” Dominick asked as good-nights were being said. “There is a bit of unfinished business I would like to take care of before bed.”

  “Of course,” Clarice said, smiling.

  * * *

  The experience was as odd as any she had had since leaving Swansgaarde—being alone in a bedroom with a man who was preparing himself for bed and giving her no more notice than if she were another item of the furniture.

  No. It is not that. He is treating me as if I am precisely who I appear to be: Clarence Swann, gentleman adventurer.

  Dominick flung his coat onto the nearest chair. His vest and shirt quickly followed, though he winced a little when he pulled off the shirt. The bandage, Clarice was relieved to note, was still white and clean.

  “It feels good to have those off!” he said with a laugh. “Whoever laundered that shirt last had a heavy hand with the starch!” He smiled at her, inviting her to share the joke, and Clarice found herself smiling back.

  “Surely you didn’t invite me here just to complain of your laundress?”

  “No. I meant to ask you … is the talisman safe?”

  Clarice reached into the pocket of her coat and produced it, holding it out to him. But Dominick did not take it.

  “I know I should take it,” he said with a sigh. “It is why I asked you here. But now, seeing it once more … I think I would prefer you to keep it—if you are willing.”

  “Gladly,” she said, dropping it back into her pocket. “But why?”

  “It is bespelled,” he said simply. “And I have less experience of the thaumaturgical arts than you, I wager. Besides … if I wear it, it will cause talk, and I cannot simply keep it in a pocket, for if I were to go aloft, it might fall into the sea and be lost. Nor is my cabin an entirely private place.” He nodded toward the chart table.

  “And Dobbs will probably assume I’ve already given it to you,” Clarice observed. “But won’t you need it?”

  “Not to take us to the place Sprunt meant Asesino to go. I have already plotted our course. But if it is needed once we get there … I should like to have it in hands I can rely on. I know of no one I trust more than you.”

  The simple statement, its praise offhand and matter-of-fact, warmed Clarice in a way she had not expected. She smiled, hoping the sudden rush of blood to her cheeks would be taken for the effect of the wine. “You may always rely upon me, Dominick.”

  “Then that is well. And now I shall bid you good night, friend Clarence, and we shall each seek our bed. Spirits and Powers grant that tomorrow will be a quieter day than this has been.”

  “Quiet and peaceful both,” Clarice answered quietly. “I bid you good night.”

  But as weary as she was, it took her a long time once she had reached her cabin to fall asleep.

  And when she did, Dominick’s face followed her into her dreams.

  5

  FAIR WIND AND FOLLOWING SEA

  THE NEXT day, Dominick called a captain’s mast, held just before breakfast, the one time of day when all four watches were gathered on deck.

  Dr. Chapman had told Clarice that captain’s masts were not usual aboard a merchant vessel, but they had become a daily feature of life under Samuel Sprunt, for it was then, the whole crew gathered before him, that he had announced new punishments and restrictions.

  Kayin, Geordie, and Dr. Chapman stood beside Dominick, and he had asked Clarice to join them. Whether it was out of friendship or from a desire to remind the crew she was a valued ally, she did not know, but she was glad of it. Both for the chance to show her support—and because it gave her an excellent vantage point. The medallion Clarice now wore beneath her shirt seemed suddenly heavy; when she’d returned to her cabin last night, she’d found that someone had searched it, but though its lock sported several new scratches, her sea chest remained unopened.

  I wonder if it was Dobbs? It would have been a busy day for him—trying to pick my lock, skulking about in the hold … I imagine he took his imprisonment as quite the vacation!

  But he had been released from his confinement to attend the captain’s mast. Dressed in his storm-crow black, Dobbs was easy to spot. He stood at the center of a small knot of sailors. Clarice did not know what he was saying to them, but she was willing to bet they were the devil’s dozen who had supported his bid to become captain.

  “Gentlemen!” Dominick said, stepping up to the rail. “I know you all have many questions, and I, or any here, stand ready to answer them. As you know, one of my first acts as captain was to order an inventory of our stores”—the men who had gone hungry for far too long cheered and laughed—“and I regret to say that Mr. Foster did no more than we might expect of him and sold off many of our supplies before they were loaded—”

  “We will all starve!” someone shouted from the back. “The food is gone! And the water!”

  Confused and angry muttering rose at that, and Dominick was forced to gesture several times for quiet before he could continue, “No! We have enough food and water to make landfall without anyone going either hungry or thirsty. You may ask Geordie or Kayin—we have two weeks of food, at full rations, for all on board. You are all men of the sea and know as well as I do that we cannot raise Cibola in that time—and you also know we dare not go there as mutineers. I have called you together to tell you I know of another place we can drop anchor. Upon my review of the log and our course, I found evidence that Captain Sprunt was making for that destination. I believe he had visited it before and meant to provision there.”

  “If he could do it, we can do it!” Kayin shouted, stepping up beside Dominick. “Fresh water, fresh fruit, pigs and goats—and no busybodies asking questions!”

  There was another cheer at that, though not as loud as before, and Clarice could see many worried faces in the crowd below. The men who had been standing with Dobbs were working their way through the crowd now, whispering in ears.

  “We are mutineers now,” Dominick said. “There is nothing to be done to change that, for it is a fact. When we drop anchor, we shall have a breathing space to consider what that means, and what we shall do. For the moment, I am your captain, and I shall do all I can to keep all of us safe.”

  He nodded to Kayin, who stepped back and rang the ship’s bell to dismiss the company. The men began to disperse, gathering in small groups to discuss what they’d just heard. Geordie and Kayin headed down to the main deck.

  “Dobbs means to make another mutiny, Dominick,” Dr. Chapman said quietly as Dominick stepped back to join him.

  “I know,” Dominick said. “And I know he has supporters. But I do not think he can do it in a week’s time, and by then we shall have reached landfall.”

  “And what then?” Clarice asked quietly. It was strange, she reflected, how calm she felt. Even lighthearted. It was as if their danger had still not sunk into her mind enough to bring alarm or even panic. Perhaps it was that Dominick seemed so certain that the “danger” would be little more than an inconvenience, and she was reacting instinctively to his surety.

  “I do not know,” Dominick said. “Marooned, if we are lucky. Shot, if we are not. It will depend on what we find.”

  “And how many of the men bel
ieve whatever scandal-broth Dobbs is brewing,” Dr. Chapman said grimly.

  “And that is a matter entirely beyond my control,” Dominick said lightly. “So I will not worry about it until—and if—that day comes. For now, I am hungry for my breakfast. Let us go and see what wonders Mr. Emerson has performed today.”

  * * *

  If not for the Reverend Dobbs lurking everywhere like a bird of ill omen, the next days would have counted as among the happiest of Clarice’s life. Dobbs had not chosen to rejoin the Asesino’s aristocracy in the common room. When questioned, Mr. Emerson rewarded Clarice’s curiosity by saying that the reverend ate with the crew. Let him eat what he chose where he chose to and try to spread his poison as he chose as well—as Dominick said, there was nothing to be done about it. So she did her best to emulate his easy way of living only in the moment. Having made friends with Mr. Evans, the ship’s carpenter, she persuaded him to craft her a pair of wooden swords and began to give Dominick the promised fencing lessons.

  “It is a sword, not a bludgeon!” she called as Dominick trudged across the deck, once again, to retrieve his fallen weapon.

  He was stripped to the waist, for the day was warm, and his soft brown hair had darkened with sweat, breaking into a riot of curls. The cut Sprunt’s cutlass had inflicted the night of the mutiny had been no more than a deep scratch, and he had stopped bandaging it two days before.

  “Oh, I know that—if it were a bludgeon, I might be of some use with it!” Despite the faint red marks along his forearms and shoulders where her attacks had struck home, he was laughing as he retrieved his practice sword and brandished it theatrically. He trudged back again to face her, straightening himself with a conscious recollection of her lessons, and made a sketchy salute. “Ready when you are, maestro.”

  Clarice shook out her sleeves as she returned the salute. Though Dominick could strip to the waist for this exercise, she certainly could not. Fortunately for her, this lesson did not involve much exertion—on her part anyway. He was flailing away, wasting energy and strength, while she was countering him with a few lazy movements of her sword arm. Administering counterblows was even simpler. She hadn’t even worked up a single drop of sweat.

  Now she knew how Count Albrecht had felt during her first lessons.

  “This time, try to remember not to block with your free arm,” she advised. “It is not a good habit to have when you are facing live steel. Attention!” she said formally, and Dominick raised his weapon to the guard position.

  Once again she called out the positions she wished him to take—the five basic parries that were the foundation of swordsmanship—as she attacked. Though she moved slowly enough for him to parry, she struck with her full strength.

  He retains his grip on the hilt by strength alone. His wrist is far too rigid. As soon as he tires …

  Just as she predicted, once she began to speed up the moves, she quickly knocked the practice weapon from his hands—again. It fetched up against the railing—again.

  “You are still holding it as if it is a belaying pin!” she cried in exasperation.

  “I am a sailor, not a marine!” He strode quickly toward the rail, but this time he did not pick up the sword. Instead, he kicked off his shoes as he unwound a rope from a bight on the rail. With a fluidity of motion Clarice had in vain tried to get him to use with a sword in his hand, Dominick wrapped the rope around one wrist and ankle, and then, to her astonishment, he flew up into the air. In moments he was standing on what she now knew to call the mainsail yardarm.

  “You’ve called me clumsy all morning,” Dominick called down, laughing. “Come up here and say that!”

  “You think I won’t!” she shouted back, suddenly angry. Idiot! What’s he trying to prove?

  She sat down on a barrel to pull off her boots and set them aside, along with her coat. The full-skirted weskit should be enough to conceal her corset and protect her secret. She turned to the nearest ratlines and began to climb.

  It was easy enough—like climbing a fishing net strung taut between two points—save that the farther from the deck she got, the more pronounced the movement of the ship seemed to get.

  Oh, Papa always told me my hotheadedness would get me into trouble, and I am very much afraid he was right.

  Within moments her flare of temper had subsided, for though Clarice angered easily, her anger cooled just as fast. By then she had climbed so far that a fall to the deck would have disastrous consequences—if not death, then certainly the unmasking of her deception. She gritted her teeth, forcing herself to look up instead of down, and met Dominick’s eyes.

  The expression of delighted shock on his face made it all worth it.

  He did not expect me to take his dare! she thought in sudden glee.

  He reached out and grasped her wrist. She grasped his in turn, and he lifted her the last few feet to the beam. He was holding to one of the buntlines for safety, but his whole manner was as easy as if he stood on the deck so far below. To her great relief, he shifted his grasp from her wrist to her arm and gestured her toward the comforting haven of the mast. With something solid—though hardly still—to cling to, Clarice turned her gaze outward.

  The deck below them had dwindled to mere table size, and the rocking motion of the ship placed open sea beneath their feet every few seconds. But if the position was precarious, the view was worth it. No wonder a seaman will not give up the sea, she thought suddenly. To relinquish all this would be as if one were to give up an entire kingdom.…

  The sea stretched sparkling to a horizon that had to be miles and miles away. In the distance, she could see a bright line of foam against the water. It appeared as if things were leaping into the air from it from time to time. Like very distant fish leaping from the water—except at this distance, they must be large fish indeed! She pointed toward it questioningly.

  “Dolphins,” Dominick said. “They mean good luck. They like to play in the bow wave—once they notice we’re here, they’ll probably accompany us for a while.”

  She bit back an exclamation at their beauty—such a response belonged to Princess Clarice of Swansgaarde, not plain Mr. Clarence Swann—and took a deep breath. “I still say you handle a sword as if it were a club.”

  He grinned in unfeigned delight. “Why, if you say that after following me up here, I am forced to believe it. I present myself to you in all humility and ask your pardon.”

  To Clarice’s horror, he swept her an extravagant bow—and slipped from the beam. But he had never released the buntline he held, so he merely swung a few feet out into space before regaining his perch. Laughing the whole time.

  “You fool! You cannot risk your life so!” The words burst out of Clarice before she thought.

  Dominick’s expression quickly sobered. “I … You are right, of course. I am no longer a mere member of the crew.”

  “I—” Clarice began, not knowing what she was about to say. Apologize for destroying the merry mood of the day? Confess that the outburst had not come from any consideration of Asesino’s future—but from the realization of how she would feel if she saw his body broken upon the deck below?

  A fine time to think of yourself as Clarice instead of Clarence! she scolded herself.

  But was it that? Princess Clarice had exchanged kisses with the handsome young men at her father’s court. She had learned to flirt just as she had learned to dance and had done a good deal of both. But those partners had been acquaintances, not friends. It had all been in fun.

  She had never expected friendship.

  Dominick was perhaps the truest friend she had ever made. He was honest and open with her, taking her at face value and enjoying her company as much as she enjoyed his.

  But she was not being honest with him, and that had gone from a simple fact, to a minor annoyance, to a nagging irritation. She wanted to be as straightforward with him as he was with her—and she could not be.

  What if she told him she was not Clarence, but Clarice? Would they s
till be friends? Companions? Comrades?

  Or would he only see that she had lied to him? Deceived him?

  She glanced to the deck. It was a long way below. But there was more than one way to fall.…

  Movement caught her attention. Reverend Dobbs had stepped out onto the open deck and was looking up at them.

  Dominick saw him, too. “Let us go down,” he said quietly.

  “Yes,” Clarice answered, low. “Let us go down.”

  * * *

  Clarice was still brooding over the matter when she retired to her cabin that night—after dinner, after a merry evening of playing cards in the common room, after a last stroll on the deck with Dominick.

  In the short weeks the Asesino had been at sea, he had become a good friend.

  No, she thought stormily. He and Clarence Swann have become good friends. But Clarence Swann is a shadow, a figment. A mask I hide behind. And, oh, it did not chafe until …

  Until today, when she had looked at Dominick and wanted him to see her, not the mask she wore.

  She’d never felt this way before. Not this combination of nervous and self-conscious and giddy and terrified. Dantan’s birth had freed her from the tyranny of having to live for Swansgaarde … but she had given no thought to living and loving for herself. Not until now—when the situation was more tangled and hopeless than when she had spent her days knowing she must marry Swansgaarde’s next prince.

  Not because she was aboard a ship full of mutineers who had little choice in their futures save to turn pirate. And not because they sailed toward an unknown destination filled with possible dangers that was likely only the first step on an even-more-peril-filled journey.

  No.

  The situation was hopeless because Dominick Moryet had absolutely no idea she was a woman.

  And so she had absolutely no idea if he could come to care for her, too.