The Eternal Rose
Unlike most of the stories here, The Eternal Rose is PG level rather than G.
The sails of the galleon Unicorn were buttercup yellow, reversed with cloud white. Arne Halfdane knew about buttercups because Andorie Sorenson, Unicorn’s lady, had told him. Andorie had wed the ship at the same time she wed Unicorn’s master, but she retained vivid memories of her girlhood on the edge of the pixie forest.
So difficult to imagine.
Arne had had seen small forests softened by distance when the galleon stood out from one of the islands, but he would never walk in one. Galleonfee of the fair winds stayed with the fleet for life. In Arne’s twenty years he had been on land only occasionally, on visits to Stella Orris, the jewel of the Star Pin Archipelago. The ground there pitched under his seaboots, although Andorie said that was an illusion.
Arne leaned on the familiar rail, gazing out over waters red with the setting sun. The rest of the fair winds fleet, five galleons in all, sailed in loose formation, so he saw Mermaid’s blue and white sail out of the tail of his left eye.
Arne searched for a different sail, gold-coloured, belonging to the galleon Lobo Dorada. She sailed with the golden fleet, and she carried his future.
Someone touched his shoulder and he turned to face Andorie Sorenson.
‘Not long now, lad.’ She had braided her silver hair, but a few strands blew clear, mimicking the movement of the dancing knotted fringe of her sash.
‘Will it be tonight?’ he asked.
The silver charms on her bracelet flashed and tinkled as she turned her hand palm-upwards. ‘Could be. Could be a week from now. No harm.’
‘No harm.’ He looked down at his hands, white-knuckled on the railing. ‘Mistress—what if she came to Unicorn?’
Andorie shook her head. ‘You have brothers, lad. Mistress Viviana is an only child. You agreed gladly when Lobo Dorada’s master asked for you.’
He twitched his shoulders. ‘That was before.’
‘Before what?’ He was sure Andorie knew, but she was going to make him speak the words.
‘Before I lay down with—with my rose.’ He couldn’t say her name, but Andorie knew.
‘She’s gone, lad. Probably back with her own man…the one who gave her that rose in the first place. She was a passenger, that’s all.’
‘I know, but I miss her. I love her.’ He added, with a spurt of anger, ‘It can’t be right to go to Mistress Viviana as her husband while I miss another woman.’
Andorie laughed, and rubbed his hair, as if he were a little lad instead of a man. ‘Life is about choices. For every choice you make, there are things you’ll miss in consequence. Choose a course, and set to it. Never look back. You can look sideways now and again, but it doesn’t do to run aground on what you might have had. Your rose is land-born, and human. She was fond of you, but she didn’t love you enough to wed the ship. So few do that.’
‘You were a passenger who wed the ship.’
‘I loved Leif enough to leave my other loves behind. I cried buckets over that choice, but I’ve never regretted it. Well, except for maybe during the storms of that first winter.’
‘She might have stayed if I’d asked her.’
‘Neither of you loved enough for that.’
‘I did. I do.’
‘If she’d asked you to break faith with the fleet and walk on land for the rest of your days, you’d have done it?’
‘She didn’t ask.’
‘You didn’t offer.’
‘I can’t forget her,’ he muttered.
‘Don’t then. Love what you had with her, and wish her happiness with someone better-suited.’
Andorie patted his shoulder in a motherly fashion and walked away, leaving Arne to the growing night.
He was seeing his tawny-haired rose in the dark when a light flared far out to sea.
Arne blinked. There was phosphorescence in the water, and sometimes the fleet came close enough to see the lights of land. Must be that.
The light flared again, and then a third time.
He felt his heartbeat pick up as the flares gave way to a quick, impatient flicker that spelled out his name in the galleonfee light speech he read as easily as he breathed.
Arne Halfdane.
The message repeated, and he bent for one of the lanterns set in hatches under the rail.
A quick flick of the tinder brought up the light, and he raised to answer.
Who speaks?
Another flurry of light burst out.
Viviana Dorada.
Arne Lobo Dorada morning, he signalled. He knew the master would not want to transfer him in the dark.
No. The message was brief and emphatic.
Arne rocked back on his heels. His promised bride had doubts as well? Or did she mean she intended to board Unicorn? Maybe she wanted to inspect him before she made an irrevocable decision.
Viviana come Unicorn? he asked.
No.
Well! It was one thing to wonder if marriage with an unknown bride was what he wanted, but another to be rejected before the bride had seen him.
They had probably met as children, but he would have been concerned with keeping his feet on the sand, and his dinner in his belly, on the oddly pitching footing of Stella Orris.
It was his turn to signal. He lifted the lantern and flashed…
Wait.
Waited long already, snapped back the reply.
So? He jerked the light upwards in the signal for exasperation, for the throwing up of hands.
Stella Orris, she signalled.
She wanted them to meet on the island, alone on neutral ground.
When? How?
Now.
Arne found he was smiling. This was a test.
Now, he agreed. Arne Halfdane bids thee farewell and greeting.
He caught amusement in her answer.
Viviana Dorada bids thee hurry.
She made the emphatic Out signal and the light vanished.
Arne stowed the lantern.
The first thing was to discover how far Unicorn was from Stella Orris. He knew more or less where they were, but with no permanent dwellings on the island, there would be no lights. He made up his mind.
Leaving Unicorn in secret was no option. He would never put his folk in fear for his life.
He glanced at the rising moon. It wasn’t late yet, so he walked to the bows to find Leif Sorenson, the galleon master, who stood in his accustomed place watching out over the figurehead. Andorie stood beside him, in the crook of his arm.
‘Master Sorenson…may I take a skiff?’
The master turned unhurriedly. ‘You’re going to the island?’
‘You—’ Arne broke off. Of course Leif knew. Light speech was an open book to whoever knew how to read it.
‘If you wait until sun-up, some of the men will take you in a longboat,’ the master suggested.
Andorie laughed, and gave her husband a hug. ‘Don’t be an idiot, Leif. Would you have accepted being delivered to your fate like an oilskin parcel… and probably tossed ashore?’
‘Seems sensible to me,’ he said.
‘Pft!’ Andorie tossed her hand in the air, bracelets tinkling. ‘There’s nothing sensible about the galleonfee life, my love.’ She turned to Arne. ‘Take the skiff. Mind, we expect a light once you’re landed. Have you had supper?’
‘No.’
‘Good.’
Arne nodded. ‘Thank you, Mistress.’
‘So formal,’ she mocked.
He waited for instructions, cautions, suggestions, assurances. None came. The Master and Mistress of Unicorn turned back to the contemplation of the dark water under the galleon’s foot.
Arne went to his cabin, where his two younger brothers, Ranald and Stian, entertained old Inga by playing My Lady’s Eyes on whistle and fiddle. Inga danced slowly, smiling into eyes no one else could see.
Arne took his satchel from the kist, slung it over one shoulder, and tugged his bed-cloak free of his bunk.
He saw a question in Stian’s gaze, but he merely nodded to his brothers, said, ‘Fair winds to you,’ and went back on deck.
Unlike longboats, skiffs could be handled by one person. Arne chose Danz Damar, the sea-dancer, and winched it down over the side near the stern. He could have used a rope ladder, but he chose to drop his satchel and cloak aboard and make the leap of faith to land lightly in the skiff. He cast loose, and let Danz Damar drift clear of Unicorn.
On the rare occasions he left his home, he stared awestruck at the graceful bulk of it, but tonight he had other things to consider. He belatedly checked the skiff for a lantern, and found two. One, he raised to the cross-beam to light his way and to signal the rest of the fair winds fleet that he was off-galleon. When it was safe, he raised the small sail, yellow and white to match Unicorn’s, and closed his eyes, reaching out with his senses to find the nearest land.
That way. Not far.
He settled by the tiller and turned the skiff away to the wind.
The trip to Stella Orris took more time than he expected. Sailing the night to an assignation with a lady had all the stamp of high romance. The air his brothers had been playing stole into his mind, but the lady who sat beside him in fancy wasn’t the peremptory and unknown Viviana or happy old Inga. It was his lost rose, Thomasine.
He whispered her name for the first time since she’d left on the longboat to land on Summer Isle all those weeks ago.
Thomasine was human, but she wore a pixie tunic and styled her hair as an elf maid might. She was all music, quick, beautiful sketches, warm skin, tumbling hair, laughter, and murmurs of pleasure and encouragement. She wore a braided cord around her neck, hung with a flower encased in a clear substance. She told him it was a miniature rose, which she’d set in resin. It was a gift from the man she’d left behind and it would never fade. It was her eternal rose, as she was his.
‘I’m going back to him when my seven years are up,’ she’d said when he asked why she still wore it.
He felt a pang of hard-edged jealousy when he looked at the rose.
‘Give something as nice to your Viviana when you get together.’
‘We’ll exchange rings,’ he said.
‘Of course, but she’d like a gift as well. You galleonfee wear jewellery, don’t you? In fact, I know you do. Andorie has all those charms, and your lovely mother has shells in her ears and sparkly things in her sash. She’ll miss you when you go to Viviana.’
‘Yes.’ He’d looked at her helplessly.
He still saw her smile, affectionate, rueful, and holding regret.
Do you miss me, my eternal rose?
The island bloomed out of the night, dark and mysterious.
Stella Orris was an uncanny place, full of the magic of land and ocean; a place where times merged, and where seasons came at their own whim. It was a place where the galleonfee met occasionally to dance, to converse, and to ask futures for their children, galleon-to-galleon; fleet-to-fleet. It was a place where a tired lad or maid, overcome with new faces, ideas and sights, might curl up to sleep on a heathered bank and wake on sand.
The uncanniness let the galleonfee come ashore there, for it was forever fluid, and so might be accounted part of the sea as much as of the land.
Arne sailed around the skirts of the island, seeking a place to beach the skiff. He had never done this before, although he’d used the skiff to visit other galleons in his own fleet. He heard the waves breaking, and saw a glow from the rocks by a shallow bay.
Firelight.
He brought down the sail and lifted the second lantern, flashing a high signal back to the watchers on Mermaid.
Arne ashore. It was almost so.
Viviana must have seen his approach, for she started in right away without preparatory flares.
Arne Halfdane.
He replied quickly.
Viviana Dorada.
Come.
‘Coming,’ he muttered.
He rowed the skiff to the beach, not trusting sails in the dark.
The crunching jerk as it grounded made him sway, but he shipped the oars and rose to his feet to toss the anchor up onto the sand.
‘Hiy!’ The exclamation came out of the dark, more protest than greeting.
She added, ‘Don’t throw that, ninny. I don’t want a hole in my head.’
‘No harm,’ he said in haste.
‘Hmph. Give me the rope. I’ll help you pull that craft up safely.’
Arne tossed the rope; a feeble throw because he couldn’t see her. She obviously saw him, for he stood illuminated by the lantern on the mast. He was reaching up to remove it when the skiff jerked forwards, and he tumbled ingloriously over the gunwale and into the sand.
The ground heaved.
Arne squirmed into a sitting position and watched the skiff, relieved of his weight, glide farther up the beach. An emphatic crunch suggested an anchor well-planted among stones.
‘You brought a cloak-coverlet. That’s forward of you.’
Arne dusted sand off his face and looked up to see a woman, smaller than he’d expected, advancing. A hand shot out and he divined it was intended to help him up.
He took it from courtesy, and got gingerly to his feet.
The ground rocked.
The woman retrieved the lantern from the skiff where it had tumbled and adjusted the glow so both of them were illuminated.
Arne saw a fierce face with red lips, large dark eyes, and a commanding nose. Instead of the trews, blouse, or many-pocketed tunics the women of Unicorn wore, she had on a full red skirt, and a low-necked top of dull gold. Hoops of seagold hung in her ears. Her hair, black and lustrous, was dressed high with ringlets falling on her bare shoulders.
‘No need to look so startled, hombre,’ she said tartly.
‘I’m not. I’m…um…greet you,’ he managed.
She frowned. ‘Not what you were expecting, eh? You’re not what I expected, either. I knew you’d be lanky…all the fair wind men are until they get some years under their sashes. Or so my pappa says. I knew you’d be straw-haired. I didn’t expect you’d be so—’
‘Gormless,’ he suggested.
She pursed her lips. ‘No. So real. I’ve had you in mind as an idea, ever since your galleon master and mine put their hands to the deal, but I never could remember which one you were.’ She flung up her hands. ‘I saw so many of you straw-haired lads that day.’
‘I was the one tossing my dinner up on the sand,’ Arne said ruefully.
‘Ah. That one. You’re not tossing now.’
‘I had no supper. Hence, nothing to toss.’
She gave a couple of sharp nods. ‘Then you’ll not want the wedding breakfast I brought.’
He smiled. ‘Now who’s being forward, Viviana?’
‘You were forward first. Come to the fire. It’s in the mouth of a cavern.’
Arne took up his bed-cloak and satchel, and followed Viviana unsteadily towards the fire. They settled on the sand with the cave at their backs and the sigh of the sea before them.
The ground shifted again under Arne, and he swallowed.
Viviana tended a kettle she had set above the coals and then cast him a sideways grin. ‘If I’d known you were this land-shy I wouldn’t have suggested meeting on the island.’
‘Why did you?’ He took the mug of tea she handed him with a nod of thanks.
‘Can’t you guess?’
‘Not really.’ Unless it was to prove to me you were my master.
She chuckled. ‘If you came over to Lobo, we’d be under every eye. If I came over to Unicorn…’
‘The same.’
‘I said yes when this match was proposed. You must have, too. But that was years ago and just in theory. So—’
‘You thought we should look one another over in private.’
‘Exactly. And if we decided it was a poor idea we could part—in private.’
He put down his mug. ‘Is it a poor idea?’
‘Not from my perspective. But you’re the one who has to fleet-shift. You’ll leave a lot of love behind.’
‘I know. I can find more. I—know how to do it.’
Viviana laughed. ‘I should hope you do! Too much blood-tie for you in your fleet though. Passengers?’
‘One passenger.’
‘Just the one? Goodness, how restrained of you.’ She gestured backwards into the cavern. There’s a place to sleep in there. Someone else has been using it…I found charcoal sticks. Bring the lantern.’
Bemused, Arne got up and followed her into the cave. She’d made up a heather couch, so she must have been on the island before him. She pointed to a niche in the rocky wall. ‘The charcoal is there… and a few other oddments. We might look in the morning but for now...let’s have that bed-cloak.’
Arne almost handed it over, but so far everything seemed to be going Viviana’s way. He considered his options, and then he shrugged and spread the cloak. ‘After you, my lady,’ he said.
Viviana unwrapped her sash and tossed it over his neck. Then she reached for his.
In the morning, they ate the breakfast she’d brought. They walked along the shore. A scud of rain sent them back to the cavern, and Arne opened his satchel to find a dry tunic. He saw the charcoal sticks Viviana had mentioned. Something else caught his eye, and he picked up a braided cord. Swinging from it was a tiny flower encased in something clear.
His heart stung for a moment and then he put it back where he’d found it.
So Thomasine had lost her eternal rose.
He hoped she might find something that suited her better…just as he had.
The sails of the galleon Unicorn were buttercup yellow, reversed with cloud white. Arne Halfdane knew about buttercups because Andorie Sorenson, Unicorn’s lady, had told him. Andorie had wed the ship at the same time she wed Unicorn’s master, but she retained vivid memories of her girlhood on the edge of the pixie forest.
So difficult to imagine.
Arne had had seen small forests softened by distance when the galleon stood out from one of the islands, but he would never walk in one. Galleonfee of the fair winds stayed with the fleet for life. In Arne’s twenty years he had been on land only occasionally, on visits to Stella Orris, the jewel of the Star Pin Archipelago. The ground there pitched under his seaboots, although Andorie said that was an illusion.
Arne leaned on the familiar rail, gazing out over waters red with the setting sun. The rest of the fair winds fleet, five galleons in all, sailed in loose formation, so he saw Mermaid’s blue and white sail out of the tail of his left eye.
Arne searched for a different sail, gold-coloured, belonging to the galleon Lobo Dorada. She sailed with the golden fleet, and she carried his future.
Someone touched his shoulder and he turned to face Andorie Sorenson.
‘Not long now, lad.’ She had braided her silver hair, but a few strands blew clear, mimicking the movement of the dancing knotted fringe of her sash.
‘Will it be tonight?’ he asked.
The silver charms on her bracelet flashed and tinkled as she turned her hand palm-upwards. ‘Could be. Could be a week from now. No harm.’
‘No harm.’ He looked down at his hands, white-knuckled on the railing. ‘Mistress—what if she came to Unicorn?’
Andorie shook her head. ‘You have brothers, lad. Mistress Viviana is an only child. You agreed gladly when Lobo Dorada’s master asked for you.’
He twitched his shoulders. ‘That was before.’
‘Before what?’ He was sure Andorie knew, but she was going to make him speak the words.
‘Before I lay down with—with my rose.’ He couldn’t say her name, but Andorie knew.
‘She’s gone, lad. Probably back with her own man…the one who gave her that rose in the first place. She was a passenger, that’s all.’
‘I know, but I miss her. I love her.’ He added, with a spurt of anger, ‘It can’t be right to go to Mistress Viviana as her husband while I miss another woman.’
Andorie laughed, and rubbed his hair, as if he were a little lad instead of a man. ‘Life is about choices. For every choice you make, there are things you’ll miss in consequence. Choose a course, and set to it. Never look back. You can look sideways now and again, but it doesn’t do to run aground on what you might have had. Your rose is land-born, and human. She was fond of you, but she didn’t love you enough to wed the ship. So few do that.’
‘You were a passenger who wed the ship.’
‘I loved Leif enough to leave my other loves behind. I cried buckets over that choice, but I’ve never regretted it. Well, except for maybe during the storms of that first winter.’
‘She might have stayed if I’d asked her.’
‘Neither of you loved enough for that.’
‘I did. I do.’
‘If she’d asked you to break faith with the fleet and walk on land for the rest of your days, you’d have done it?’
‘She didn’t ask.’
‘You didn’t offer.’
‘I can’t forget her,’ he muttered.
‘Don’t then. Love what you had with her, and wish her happiness with someone better-suited.’
Andorie patted his shoulder in a motherly fashion and walked away, leaving Arne to the growing night.
He was seeing his tawny-haired rose in the dark when a light flared far out to sea.
Arne blinked. There was phosphorescence in the water, and sometimes the fleet came close enough to see the lights of land. Must be that.
The light flared again, and then a third time.
He felt his heartbeat pick up as the flares gave way to a quick, impatient flicker that spelled out his name in the galleonfee light speech he read as easily as he breathed.
Arne Halfdane.
The message repeated, and he bent for one of the lanterns set in hatches under the rail.
A quick flick of the tinder brought up the light, and he raised to answer.
Who speaks?
Another flurry of light burst out.
Viviana Dorada.
Arne Lobo Dorada morning, he signalled. He knew the master would not want to transfer him in the dark.
No. The message was brief and emphatic.
Arne rocked back on his heels. His promised bride had doubts as well? Or did she mean she intended to board Unicorn? Maybe she wanted to inspect him before she made an irrevocable decision.
Viviana come Unicorn? he asked.
No.
Well! It was one thing to wonder if marriage with an unknown bride was what he wanted, but another to be rejected before the bride had seen him.
They had probably met as children, but he would have been concerned with keeping his feet on the sand, and his dinner in his belly, on the oddly pitching footing of Stella Orris.
It was his turn to signal. He lifted the lantern and flashed…
Wait.
Waited long already, snapped back the reply.
So? He jerked the light upwards in the signal for exasperation, for the throwing up of hands.
Stella Orris, she signalled.
She wanted them to meet on the island, alone on neutral ground.
When? How?
Now.
Arne found he was smiling. This was a test.
Now, he agreed. Arne Halfdane bids thee farewell and greeting.
He caught amusement in her answer.
Viviana Dorada bids thee hurry.
She made the emphatic Out signal and the light vanished.
Arne stowed the lantern.
The first thing was to discover how far Unicorn was from Stella Orris. He knew more or less where they were, but with no permanent dwellings on the island, there would be no lights. He made up his mind.
Leaving Unicorn in secret was no option. He would never put his folk in fear for his life.
He glanced at the rising moon. It wasn’t late yet, so he walked to the bows to find Leif Sorenson, the galleon master, who stood in his accustomed place watching out over the figurehead. Andorie stood beside him, in the crook of his arm.
‘Master Sorenson…may I take a skiff?’
The master turned unhurriedly. ‘You’re going to the island?’
‘You—’ Arne broke off. Of course Leif knew. Light speech was an open book to whoever knew how to read it.
‘If you wait until sun-up, some of the men will take you in a longboat,’ the master suggested.
Andorie laughed, and gave her husband a hug. ‘Don’t be an idiot, Leif. Would you have accepted being delivered to your fate like an oilskin parcel… and probably tossed ashore?’
‘Seems sensible to me,’ he said.
‘Pft!’ Andorie tossed her hand in the air, bracelets tinkling. ‘There’s nothing sensible about the galleonfee life, my love.’ She turned to Arne. ‘Take the skiff. Mind, we expect a light once you’re landed. Have you had supper?’
‘No.’
‘Good.’
Arne nodded. ‘Thank you, Mistress.’
‘So formal,’ she mocked.
He waited for instructions, cautions, suggestions, assurances. None came. The Master and Mistress of Unicorn turned back to the contemplation of the dark water under the galleon’s foot.
Arne went to his cabin, where his two younger brothers, Ranald and Stian, entertained old Inga by playing My Lady’s Eyes on whistle and fiddle. Inga danced slowly, smiling into eyes no one else could see.
Arne took his satchel from the kist, slung it over one shoulder, and tugged his bed-cloak free of his bunk.
He saw a question in Stian’s gaze, but he merely nodded to his brothers, said, ‘Fair winds to you,’ and went back on deck.
Unlike longboats, skiffs could be handled by one person. Arne chose Danz Damar, the sea-dancer, and winched it down over the side near the stern. He could have used a rope ladder, but he chose to drop his satchel and cloak aboard and make the leap of faith to land lightly in the skiff. He cast loose, and let Danz Damar drift clear of Unicorn.
On the rare occasions he left his home, he stared awestruck at the graceful bulk of it, but tonight he had other things to consider. He belatedly checked the skiff for a lantern, and found two. One, he raised to the cross-beam to light his way and to signal the rest of the fair winds fleet that he was off-galleon. When it was safe, he raised the small sail, yellow and white to match Unicorn’s, and closed his eyes, reaching out with his senses to find the nearest land.
That way. Not far.
He settled by the tiller and turned the skiff away to the wind.
The trip to Stella Orris took more time than he expected. Sailing the night to an assignation with a lady had all the stamp of high romance. The air his brothers had been playing stole into his mind, but the lady who sat beside him in fancy wasn’t the peremptory and unknown Viviana or happy old Inga. It was his lost rose, Thomasine.
He whispered her name for the first time since she’d left on the longboat to land on Summer Isle all those weeks ago.
Thomasine was human, but she wore a pixie tunic and styled her hair as an elf maid might. She was all music, quick, beautiful sketches, warm skin, tumbling hair, laughter, and murmurs of pleasure and encouragement. She wore a braided cord around her neck, hung with a flower encased in a clear substance. She told him it was a miniature rose, which she’d set in resin. It was a gift from the man she’d left behind and it would never fade. It was her eternal rose, as she was his.
‘I’m going back to him when my seven years are up,’ she’d said when he asked why she still wore it.
He felt a pang of hard-edged jealousy when he looked at the rose.
‘Give something as nice to your Viviana when you get together.’
‘We’ll exchange rings,’ he said.
‘Of course, but she’d like a gift as well. You galleonfee wear jewellery, don’t you? In fact, I know you do. Andorie has all those charms, and your lovely mother has shells in her ears and sparkly things in her sash. She’ll miss you when you go to Viviana.’
‘Yes.’ He’d looked at her helplessly.
He still saw her smile, affectionate, rueful, and holding regret.
Do you miss me, my eternal rose?
The island bloomed out of the night, dark and mysterious.
Stella Orris was an uncanny place, full of the magic of land and ocean; a place where times merged, and where seasons came at their own whim. It was a place where the galleonfee met occasionally to dance, to converse, and to ask futures for their children, galleon-to-galleon; fleet-to-fleet. It was a place where a tired lad or maid, overcome with new faces, ideas and sights, might curl up to sleep on a heathered bank and wake on sand.
The uncanniness let the galleonfee come ashore there, for it was forever fluid, and so might be accounted part of the sea as much as of the land.
Arne sailed around the skirts of the island, seeking a place to beach the skiff. He had never done this before, although he’d used the skiff to visit other galleons in his own fleet. He heard the waves breaking, and saw a glow from the rocks by a shallow bay.
Firelight.
He brought down the sail and lifted the second lantern, flashing a high signal back to the watchers on Mermaid.
Arne ashore. It was almost so.
Viviana must have seen his approach, for she started in right away without preparatory flares.
Arne Halfdane.
He replied quickly.
Viviana Dorada.
Come.
‘Coming,’ he muttered.
He rowed the skiff to the beach, not trusting sails in the dark.
The crunching jerk as it grounded made him sway, but he shipped the oars and rose to his feet to toss the anchor up onto the sand.
‘Hiy!’ The exclamation came out of the dark, more protest than greeting.
She added, ‘Don’t throw that, ninny. I don’t want a hole in my head.’
‘No harm,’ he said in haste.
‘Hmph. Give me the rope. I’ll help you pull that craft up safely.’
Arne tossed the rope; a feeble throw because he couldn’t see her. She obviously saw him, for he stood illuminated by the lantern on the mast. He was reaching up to remove it when the skiff jerked forwards, and he tumbled ingloriously over the gunwale and into the sand.
The ground heaved.
Arne squirmed into a sitting position and watched the skiff, relieved of his weight, glide farther up the beach. An emphatic crunch suggested an anchor well-planted among stones.
‘You brought a cloak-coverlet. That’s forward of you.’
Arne dusted sand off his face and looked up to see a woman, smaller than he’d expected, advancing. A hand shot out and he divined it was intended to help him up.
He took it from courtesy, and got gingerly to his feet.
The ground rocked.
The woman retrieved the lantern from the skiff where it had tumbled and adjusted the glow so both of them were illuminated.
Arne saw a fierce face with red lips, large dark eyes, and a commanding nose. Instead of the trews, blouse, or many-pocketed tunics the women of Unicorn wore, she had on a full red skirt, and a low-necked top of dull gold. Hoops of seagold hung in her ears. Her hair, black and lustrous, was dressed high with ringlets falling on her bare shoulders.
‘No need to look so startled, hombre,’ she said tartly.
‘I’m not. I’m…um…greet you,’ he managed.
She frowned. ‘Not what you were expecting, eh? You’re not what I expected, either. I knew you’d be lanky…all the fair wind men are until they get some years under their sashes. Or so my pappa says. I knew you’d be straw-haired. I didn’t expect you’d be so—’
‘Gormless,’ he suggested.
She pursed her lips. ‘No. So real. I’ve had you in mind as an idea, ever since your galleon master and mine put their hands to the deal, but I never could remember which one you were.’ She flung up her hands. ‘I saw so many of you straw-haired lads that day.’
‘I was the one tossing my dinner up on the sand,’ Arne said ruefully.
‘Ah. That one. You’re not tossing now.’
‘I had no supper. Hence, nothing to toss.’
She gave a couple of sharp nods. ‘Then you’ll not want the wedding breakfast I brought.’
He smiled. ‘Now who’s being forward, Viviana?’
‘You were forward first. Come to the fire. It’s in the mouth of a cavern.’
Arne took up his bed-cloak and satchel, and followed Viviana unsteadily towards the fire. They settled on the sand with the cave at their backs and the sigh of the sea before them.
The ground shifted again under Arne, and he swallowed.
Viviana tended a kettle she had set above the coals and then cast him a sideways grin. ‘If I’d known you were this land-shy I wouldn’t have suggested meeting on the island.’
‘Why did you?’ He took the mug of tea she handed him with a nod of thanks.
‘Can’t you guess?’
‘Not really.’ Unless it was to prove to me you were my master.
She chuckled. ‘If you came over to Lobo, we’d be under every eye. If I came over to Unicorn…’
‘The same.’
‘I said yes when this match was proposed. You must have, too. But that was years ago and just in theory. So—’
‘You thought we should look one another over in private.’
‘Exactly. And if we decided it was a poor idea we could part—in private.’
He put down his mug. ‘Is it a poor idea?’
‘Not from my perspective. But you’re the one who has to fleet-shift. You’ll leave a lot of love behind.’
‘I know. I can find more. I—know how to do it.’
Viviana laughed. ‘I should hope you do! Too much blood-tie for you in your fleet though. Passengers?’
‘One passenger.’
‘Just the one? Goodness, how restrained of you.’ She gestured backwards into the cavern. There’s a place to sleep in there. Someone else has been using it…I found charcoal sticks. Bring the lantern.’
Bemused, Arne got up and followed her into the cave. She’d made up a heather couch, so she must have been on the island before him. She pointed to a niche in the rocky wall. ‘The charcoal is there… and a few other oddments. We might look in the morning but for now...let’s have that bed-cloak.’
Arne almost handed it over, but so far everything seemed to be going Viviana’s way. He considered his options, and then he shrugged and spread the cloak. ‘After you, my lady,’ he said.
Viviana unwrapped her sash and tossed it over his neck. Then she reached for his.
In the morning, they ate the breakfast she’d brought. They walked along the shore. A scud of rain sent them back to the cavern, and Arne opened his satchel to find a dry tunic. He saw the charcoal sticks Viviana had mentioned. Something else caught his eye, and he picked up a braided cord. Swinging from it was a tiny flower encased in something clear.
His heart stung for a moment and then he put it back where he’d found it.
So Thomasine had lost her eternal rose.
He hoped she might find something that suited her better…just as he had.