What time she was not exploring, she spent in the lovely bath. In either case, lest she make another mistake in conversation that would give pretense away, she stayed as far as possible from Mrs. Fentwig, who was an avid talker and a keen questioner.
On the fourth day, quite early in the morning, they left their horses to be used by Fentwig until Garth’s return, and departed onUnlikely as she plowed sturdily away toward the south. After a precautionary lap or two about the deck, wings flapping and voice raised in imprecation against all evils of air, water, or reef, Wigham settled to the wheel. The winds were brisk, and though both Garth and Genevieve were arrant amateurs, their help was needed to set the sails. Genevieve surprised herself by learning first to keep her footing on a surface which tipped in every direction, sometimes in several of them at once, and then by learning what each rope was for and how each of them worked. By afternoon she was able to haul on this one or let go that one at command. So the first day passed swiftly by. Though Genevieve found herself sore from the unaccustomed bracing and bending, reaching, and pulling, by evening she was becoming adjusted to the rocking and pitching of the little boat. By nightfall they were at the southern end of the Tail, ready to run along the Rump on the morning. They anchored in a small bay open to the southeast, and when dark fell, they could see the lights of Eales, where the Covenantor’s Tribunal stood, its watch towers blooming in the southern dark like so many stars.
During the night, Genevieve dreamed of swimming. It seemed to her that she swooped and soared, and she woke with the feeling still strong for the ship was indeed swooping as it moved. With momentary panic, she realized that it was no longer anchored but was speedily going somewhere. She crawled from her cubby into the cabin, where Garth and Wigham lay exhaustedly asleep, and when she went between them and struggled her way onto the deck, she had to cling to the railing for dear life. She could not find the land that had lain close on the evening before. Spray washed over her, wetting her to her skin and the pitching, rolling ship seemed to be determined to go in three or more directions at once!
She opened her mouth to shout for the menfolks and half turned toward the cabin to summon them, but was frozen in place, clinging to the rail, as she stared across a narrow river of water between the ship and something huge and marvelous that paralleled their track. It was golden. It glowed. Though it lay almost entirely within the water, protruding only slightly above the wave-roughened surface, it was many times larger than the ship. It rolled away from her, disclosing amid wrinkled lids one great eye that stared across at her. The eye stared, the boat flew, the night roared with wind, and the long moment slipped by until the golden being rolled away from her and slipped beneath the waves once more, momentarily waving its enormous tail behind it. From below, coming up at her from the planks beneath her feet, Genevieve heard the sound of its singing.
Without any decision at all, from long training in the cellars of Langmarsh House, she leaned over the rail and sang a reply into the night, the sound going out over the water, a higher echo of the sound from below. She stretched across the rail, far, far out, putting out one hand to feel the spray, feeling the call of the depths, wanting to let go, leap out . . .
Then the sail flapped angrily, the boat heeled. Genevieve staggered and shouted in sudden fear. The men, thus wakened, stumbled onto the deck and soon found the broken anchor rope, nibbled along its underwater length and at one point chewed through.
“What did this?” cried Garth.
“DamfIno,” muttered Wigham, not meeting his eyes “Not anything I’ve seen, I’ll tell you. Rope-eaters we have now! It ain’t enough they chew the planks, now they’re eating the ropes.”