The Silver Swan (3 page)

The
Mermaid
set sail the next evening, just on sunset. We said our goodbyes on the beach, and Mama, Lucas and I stood in the shallows and waved, as the boys and Papa rowed to the ship.

Then I waited another half an hour until the light grew dim and Papa would be too busy to notice the little dory sculling out towards them. It had taken Max and Miller only a few hours to bang the
Swallow
into ship-shape.

Moggia peeped over the rails as I came alongside, and threw me a rope. It uncoiled noiselessly down the side of the ship. I fastened it to the bow of the dory and then clambered up. The Vella brothers tiptoed over to help lift the boat aboard, while I crouched low on the deck and looked around.

Papa was halfway down the hatch, calling below to the men stowing his gear in the hold.

May as well get this over with, I figured, so I stood up straight and strutted towards him. Papa looked up and stopped talking in the middle of a sentence, staring at me with his mouth still half-open.

‘What in Hades are you doing here?' he said at last.

‘I'm coming with you,' I said, firmly.

‘Over my dead body.'

I shrugged it off. ‘I don't think that will be necessary.'

‘This is none of your affair, Lily.'

‘It's my ship,' I said. ‘I go where she goes.'

‘Not any more,' he replied. ‘Those days are over. Your place is at home with your mother.'

‘Fine one you are to talk about home,' I scoffed. ‘How come you get to sail off on an adventure again and leave me behind?'

He glanced around uneasily. Most of the boys had retired to a safe distance, and were hauling on the ropes to bring my boat up onto the deck. Only Miller was standing by, listening, with a grin splitting his blood-red beard.

‘This is neither the time nor the place to discuss private family matters,' Papa whispered.

I didn't bother lowering my voice. ‘The time for keeping secrets is over, Papa.'

‘Lily, please, it's simply not safe for you to accompany me.'

‘It's too late for you to start worrying about that. You've happily put me in the path of danger plenty of times before.'

‘This is different,' he began, but I wasn't listening.

‘Jem!' I called out. ‘I think we're ready to weigh anchor.'

‘Steady on,' Jem grumbled. ‘We're just stowing this boat of yours. It weighs a ton.'

‘I see, this is a conspiracy,' said Papa. ‘I should have guessed.' He stepped forward. ‘Have you thought of your poor mother?'

‘She doesn't mind,' I could say quite truthfully. ‘I said goodbye.'

‘But what will Lucas say when he sees you've stolen his precious
Swallow
?' he asked. ‘After all the work he's done on that boat.'

I smiled up at him, confident I was winning the argument if he had to resort to that kind of blackmail. ‘It's half mine. I'll just borrow his half.'

‘No, I will not have it.' Papa stamped his bare foot in frustration, and I bowed my head so he couldn't see me giggle.

‘Miller,' he shouted, ‘get that boat back in the water and have Lily rowed in to shore immediately.'

‘Say “please”,' said Miller.

Papa's hand went to his dagger.

‘Settle down, matey.' Miller tried to calm him. ‘Listen, I find it's always easier to let Cyg win the argument. If you don't let her come with us, she'll just find a way to follow you. Anyway, she's right. She belongs here with us.'

‘She belongs here in Santa Lucia,' said Papa, exasperated.

‘The
Mermaid
is my home,' I said. ‘Not that big fancy house.'

‘Weigh anchor!' Jem's voice boomed along the deck. ‘Ready to make sail.'

‘Oh, for pity's sake,' said Papa. ‘I give up.'

He stamped off below decks, too preoccupied to notice the two hooded figures clambering out of
the
Swallow
and slipping unseen down the forward hatch.

Miller winked at me. ‘Can't wait till he finds out what other surprises you have in store for him!' He gave me a quick hug. ‘Welcome home, Cyg.'

It took ages to get under way. Papa eventually came back on deck and stood in the stern, staring at our house on the shore. There were no lights showing tonight.

I kept my distance until Jem waved me closer. ‘Come on, I'll introduce you to the new fellows.'

There were two of them, as different from one another as you could ever imagine, but obviously close friends all the same: Gideon, a tall African man with scarred cheeks and powerful arms; and his mate, Ahmed, a wiry, muscular Moroccan who flashed me a quick smile.

Papa greeted them courteously in Arabic, bowing slightly to Ahmed, one hand on his heart. Ahmed's smile grew wider, and soon he and Papa were chatting in several languages at once, like old shipmates. Perhaps they were.

Gideon stood to the side, shy, balanced on one foot. I moved closer and put out my hand.

‘Al salaam.' I hoped it sounded like the words Papa had used.

Gideon grinned. ‘How d'you do?'

‘You speak English?' I asked.

‘Of course,' he replied. ‘I spent many months on an English ship.'

‘In the Navy?' I asked, eagerly. ‘Or was it a merchant ship?'

‘It was a slave ship.' He blinked. ‘I was part of the cargo.'

‘I'm sorry,' I said. ‘I didn't know — Jem told me you'd been a prisoner of the Maltese Knights.'

‘I have been a slave to many men, and none,' Gideon said. ‘Arab traders carried me from my home, then Englishmen put me on a ship of death and sold me in the flesh markets of Algiers. The Barbary corsairs chained me to a galley oar for three years, until the Knights of Malta took our ship. We thought we would be freed, but instead they put us in their own slave crews.' His eyes seemed to fog over as he stared out to sea, but then he smiled. ‘I was chained to Ahmed for seven months. That alone is enough of a trial for any man.'

‘But now you are free,' I said softly.

Ahmed had moved closer to us. ‘The French set us free when they took Malta from the Knights.' He smiled affectionately at Gideon. ‘Just in time, too, because this layabout had lost the will to live.'

‘It's true,' said Gideon. ‘Ahmed saved me from despair. I would have lain down and never risen again, but he kept teasing me until I got so angry I had to prove him wrong. And so we survived.'

‘We are brothers now.' Ahmed patted the timber of the
Mermaid
's mast. ‘We will go on sailing.'

‘Yes, indeed, I have been a slave to many men,' said Gideon. ‘But Ahmed and I have sworn an oath — we will never be enslaved again.'

Even Ahmed's cheerful face was suddenly serious.

‘I was a slave once,' I told them. ‘Pirates stole me
away from my home — evil pirates.' I pointed at Jem. ‘That one there, actually.'

‘He looks pretty evil to me.' Ahmed laughed, his solemnity forgotten. ‘But you must have forgiven him.'

‘Jem never really treated me like a slave,' I admitted. ‘But I won't ever forgive his captain.'

‘I can never forgive any of them,' said Gideon, quietly.

‘I understand,' I said, and I did, with my whole heart.

The other boys were larking around, showing off and pushing each other over, while the
Mermaid
danced at anchor in the twilight. Gideon and Ahmed ran to join them.

‘Will you lot haul on that bloody halyard!' shouted Jem, but the others just chortled.

‘What am I supposed to do?' Jem asked me. ‘They've all gone to Bedlam.'

‘They're happy, that's all.'

As the canvas finally began to bite into the breeze, I felt happy too. Running forward to feel the ship cut through the swell, I wanted to laugh, with the thrill of the night air on my skin and salt-spray sprinkling my face. I stood again — at last — on the deck of the
Mermaid
as she sailed out into open water.

I was still happy when I woke up the next morning in my hammock, in my cabin. My great sword still hung on its hook, and the cloak given to me by Carlo's mother was flung across the back of the chair, just the same as that horrible day I'd
left it all behind. My memory floated gently across everything that had happened to me since: the confrontation with Diablo; the days spent under scorching sun afloat in a small boat with the man who turned out to be my father; our hilarious, tearful return to Santa Lucia, when Mama and —

Mama and Lucas! I shot out of the cabin as fast as I could, scrambled up the ladder, and emerged on deck to find Papa and Jem standing together near the tiller, peering through their telescopes in the hope of sighting the distant coast of Malta.

They were oblivious to the fact that Mama stood a few paces behind them, waiting. She was standing steadily on the swaying deck, bare feet planted firmly on the boards, like a real sailor. She was dressed as I remembered her in my earliest memories, in a simple blue dress that puckered and shimmered in the ocean breeze. Jem saw her first.

‘Bloody hell!'

Papa whirled around, one hand on his sword.

‘Good morning, dearest,' said Mama sweetly.

‘What on earth?'

Lucas skipped along the deck to greet him. ‘Hello, Papa. Guess what? We're coming too!'

Papa looked, incredulous, from one to the other, and then at Jem, who seemed just as stunned. He slammed his telescope shut.

‘No,' Papa said, resolutely. ‘No, no, no, no!'

‘We're going to have an adventure,' said Lucas.

Papa raised his face to the sky. The veins in his temples seemed to quiver. I wondered if he might actually explode.

‘McGuire,' he said, his jaw clenched tight. ‘Get ready to come about.'

‘What?' wailed Jem. ‘Where are we going now?'

‘We have to deliver this ridiculous family of mine back to Santa Lucia.'

‘I thought the British needed reinforcements,' Miller joked. I glanced around — all the boys were standing in a semicircle behind me.

‘You lot all knew about this, didn't you?' said Jem. ‘I thought it was just Cyg who was coming along.'

‘It's been one of my major problems in life,' said Miller. ‘I've never been able to say no to a woman.'

‘Really?' said Papa, sarcastically. ‘Allow me to teach you.' He turned to Mama and Lucas. ‘No!' he shouted. ‘You are not coming to Malta. I forbid it.'

Mama flinched at the anger in his voice, but kept the smile on her face. ‘But you are only one vote against three, darling.'

‘What is this? Parliament?' Papa growled. ‘Who in hell made this family a republic?'

Mama moved closer to him. ‘I promise to keep out of your way. I won't even leave the ship.'

‘Do you have any idea what we're sailing into?' he said. ‘This is a small part of the greatest war of our time.'

‘Precisely.' Mama's smile had vanished now. ‘Do you have any idea what it's like waiting for your husband — or your daughter, for that matter — to come home? I will not go through that again, Rafe. You can't force me.'

They stood facing each other, only a yard apart, like strangers who had just been introduced. It
seemed as if they were both desperately trying to understand someone very dear and familiar but completely different from the person they knew.

‘Are we there yet?' asked Lucas.

‘Allah, have mercy on me,' said Papa, forgetting who he was for a moment.

‘Don't worry so much,' Miller reassured him. ‘Malta is safe enough, now the French are locked up in the city. They never try to leave, and nobody else can get in. The rest of the country is free. So long as we don't sail under their guns into the Grand Harbour, we'll be safe as silver.'

‘You see?' I said, reassuringly. ‘There's nothing to worry about.'

Papa snorted.

‘I'm going to help you,' said Lucas. He tugged on Papa's hand. ‘We brought the
Swallow
, too, in case you need her.'

Papa looked down at him and smiled. ‘Good lad.'

I couldn't for the life of me figure out how Lucas was a good lad when I'd just been in serious trouble for doing the same thing, but at least it was progress of a sort.

‘All right, then, Swann family,' said Papa, relaxing at last. ‘If you're going to be part of this crew, you can help us figure out what on earth to do next.'

‘Let's just attack the fort,' Lucas suggested.

‘We might need to think of a more subtle approach, darling,' said Mama. She settled herself down on the deck hatch. ‘Come sit beside me while we talk.'

Lucas snuggled in close to her. The boys all gathered around, just like it used to be, except now my whole family was with us, too. Almost everyone I cared about in the whole world was in one place, on our beautiful ship, sailing into an unknown adventure. Soon I would be seeing Cookie, too. I suddenly felt as if my brain might burst, like fireworks, with all the pride and excitement building up inside me.

I was a little scared, too, but no more than usual. Being scared is just a few breaths away from being excited. That's what I'd realised a lifetime ago, in the Golden Grotto. Everyone gets scared some times — even Miller, even Papa. But mostly you have to keep going, no matter how much fear is inside you. I'd figured out that all you had to do was try to breathe your way from scared to excited, so if the fearful part of you got too heavy, it didn't stop you from doing what had to be done.

‘Them Maltese are a brave lot,' Jem was saying. ‘They've been hurling everything they've got at those bastions to get at the French.'

‘It is very difficult,' said Francesco. ‘We Maltese know better than anyone — you can't break down the walls of the harbour city. The stone is a mile thick.'

‘Two miles,' said Ricardo.