Serial Sunday: Tranquillity, Part III
By Paul Leone.
Captain’s Log
April 23, AD 1529
It is Saint George’s Day today. Friar Mateo marked the occasion with Mass and a thoughtful lecture on the glorious crown of martyrdom. It was perhaps not a topic I would have chosen for a crew likely to meet battle soon enough, but I am not a preacher. The men seemed roused by his words, and I am glad for that. There is a certain monotony to long æthereal voyages, especially during the daylight hours when so little can be seen through the golden mists. Duty provides some relief, of course, although it also provides much of the monotony.
The men keep a ceaseless watch over the aeolipile to make sure the constant influx of more energy than it customarily uses does not strain the device too greatly. Reaching Mars’ trail a day faster will do us little good if the device explodes and leaves us at the mercy of the currents.
My uncle Francho, a soldier of some experience, once said that campaigning was nine tenths tedium and one tenth terror. It is much the same with sailing between worlds. For the moment, we are shrouded beneath the cloak of the demon Tedium, but Terror’s shadow is not far ahead of us. I do not look forward to our meeting with the Doloire and its captain. We are not a ship-of-battle, no matter how skilled Emma is and how excellent a teacher, nor how stout (and sharp) the men are. But I do not think Captain Langley will surrender his prize, at least not for any price I can offer him.
I do my best to provide diversions for my men, although it is Emma, Friar Mateo and Yim who must be recognized in that regard. Sword play, sermons and songs are more enticing than philosophy, curiously enough. Easter is not long past. The chapel is no cathedral, but Friar Mateo did his part, and indeed more than his part, as he usually does. I cannot help but wonder if we will see another Paschal feast, though.
Letizia exhaled sharply, signed the entry and then set her quill back in its place before stowing the logbook away, too. She had long since recognized that she had a dangerous habit of putting her thoughts to paper, only to find the process had intensified those thoughts instead of exiling them. A complete diversion was called for.
She stood, smoothed out her skirts and then climbed up to the main deck. Just in time, too. The Sun was disappearing behind distant, unseen Earth and the rosy æther was darkening to purple as the constant stars began to shine through it. Letizia leaned against the deck rail and stared out into the darkling heavens. There, distant off to port, was Venus, bright and pure, the heavenly heliodor. Beyond it, closer to Earth but farther from the Tranquilla, was Mercury, mottled red and grey. None of the other wandering worlds could be seen at the moment, but Letizia knew they were out there, steadily sailing across the heavenly sea. She could see Taxiarchos, though, almost dead ahead of the ship. Taxiarchos, Stella Michaelis, was one of the six Guiding Stars that shone more brightly than all the others of the Firmament. God had placed it on the plane of the cosmos to light the way of the worlds as they spun around and around without ceasing.
Letizia’s eyes lit up as she gazed out at the darkness and the stars that shone within it, and she clasped her hands tightly together to give honor to He that made the stars and the darkness alike. “Alia claritas solis, alia claritas lunae, et alia claritas stellarum. Stella enim a stella differt in claritate.”
When night came to the æther, it came with a glory scarcely dreamt of on Earth. The stars here shone steady and brightly, not twinkling pinpricks but celestial lanterns clearer than any lighthouse’s glowing flame, small though they were. Their dark canvas, too, was unlike that of Earth. No poet or painter could have imagined such a deep black, nor any miner one so welcoming and fear-less.
There was a telescope on the Tranquilla’s forecastle, but it served better for ship spotting than stargazing. Letizia rarely used it for the latter purpose, and tonight was no exception.
The ship was on a heading towards Taxiarchos, in whose quarter of the firmament Jupiter and Io were passing through this month. With the telescope, Letizia would have been able to see Io. Without it, she could make out Jupiter well enough. It was not the moving worlds but the fixed stars that had her attention tonight, thought.
Letizia looked up at the great celestial sphere and traced the constellations with her mind’s finger, a steadier thing than the one on her hand. There were Ursa Major and Lancea with its five-fold shaft of blue stars and flame-red tip, and, close together, Hegemon, Astrape, and Holkades, and above them all, Polaris, the summit star and crown jewel of the firmament.
“From the glory of the firmament to the straw of the stable, God’s power and love is never hidden,” Letizia murmured as she gazed upon Polaris for a moment. An old legend, one claimed by both the Elves and the Woses (rivals in this, as in so much else) as theirs, said that Polaris was the first star to be set in the firmament. Letizia thought it more likely each star was set in place at the same time on the second day of creation, but who could say?
Letizia suddenly frowned. There was something moving in the dark heavens far ahead of the Tranquilla. The cosmos bounded by the firmament was almost unimaginably vast, but almost all worldship travel took place along the ‘surface’ – the same plane that the worlds orbited Earth on, the one towards which all other things fell or rose. Thus, it was not at all impossible to come across another ship in your æthereal travels, and less impossible by the year as more and more humans took to the other worlds. But it was unlikely this far from another world, far more unlikely than two ships sailing Earth’s Pacific Ocean to come across each other far from any shore.
Letizia frowned and was about to whistle to catch Emma’s attention, but her first mate had already spotted the ship even in the midst of her swordplay exercises on the ship’s stern deck.
In the time it took Letizia to run from the forecastle to the stern deck, the other ship had drawn close enough to make out a few details, all unsettling to her. It was slightly larger than the Tranquilla, its masts taller and their crystal discs accordingly larger. If the aeolipile was correspondingly larger, it would be faster than the Tranquilla, too. More importantly, it had six cannons jutting out of its starboard side instead of the four that armed each of the Tranquilla’s sides. Most important of all, it flew a white saltire on a black field – the flag of pirates.
That banner, all too familiar to Emma, was all she needed to see. “To arms! To arms!” Emma yelled as she rang the warning bell twice at a time.
clang clang
The other ship drew nearer, slicing its way through the æther with silent grace. Letizia could see its æthereal crystal was emerald, not the cheaper and less efficient aquamarine.
clang clang
While her crew hastened to battle formation, readying the ship’s cannons and their own arquebuses and pikes, Letizia studied the pirate ship. Unlike most, it had a motto painted on the bow – Caveat dolabra. ‘Beware the axe.’ Letizia’s lips curled in disdain even as her eyes widened in realization.
clang clang
“It’s the Doloire!” Letizia cried out. She crossed herself and hurriedly uttered a psalm of battle. “Benedictus Dominus Deus meus, qui docet manus meas ad praelium, et digitos meos ad bellum.”
clang clang
Paul Leone is an author who, among other works, wrote the book In and Out of the Reich for Sea Lion.
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