The lead lines were stowed as the Morganse came hard about and flashed out her sails, their ivory glowing in the starlight.
Cate might not have been much of a seaman, but she had sense of direction enough to know that they had made a U-turn and were now backtracking. The Morganse was heading north, judging by Polaris over the forestays, while the Valor was assumed to be still on her southerly heading, the string of islands now between the two vessels.
Time. It wasn’t always one’s friend. Late into the night, Cate laid across the bunk. She didn’t bother to undress, for sleep was an unlikely prospect. An ever-so-slight disturbance in the ship’s easy motion brought her up from her bed. On deck, she was met with the sight of sentinels of rock on either side. Jagged with palm trees, they towered over the masts. She glanced up to see Artemis roosted on a foreyard.
“Barely a biscuit toss,” murmured Mr. Pickford in awed admiration as land slid past. “The Cap’n knows his waters.”
“Calypso’s hand is in this,” said Ogden over his shoulder. The snake tattooed on his head glared down as he canted it toward the bow. “There she is now, a-leadin’ us.”
Cate looked forward. Indeed, there was a flash of silver, but it appeared more like a cavorting sea hog.
There was another hesitation in the Morganse’s motion, as her keel brushed the sandy bottom. A bit later, there was a vibration, felt only through a hand on the rail, as she skimmed a reef. Then she shot out into open waters.
“The wind holds,” Nathan declared, lifting his face. “Master Pryce, let’s fly all she will bear.”
“Now what?” Cate asked, feeling quite bleary-eyed. Impending dawn was a lavender blush at the line where water and sky met. She had no idea when Nathan had last slept, but his spirits and voice were buoyant.
“The good Captain Prichard awakes to his Officer of the Watch bidding him joy of the morning and informing of a ship larboard astern. There will be no doubts as to the who,” he said with a smug glance toward the red-crowned sails overhead.
“After a certain amount of arguing over coffee as to how we managed to achieve such a commanding advantage, he’ll commence to maneuvering for the weather gauge—to windward, to put us in his lee,” he explained to her confused scowl. “Toward those islands over there,” he added with significance.
Islands had a staggering tendency to all look the same, but those to windward were easily recognized, for they were the same strand she had stared at all day. In the pre-dawn, when the world became one-dimensional, only the gleam of white sand defined their shape. The Morganse was where she had been earlier that day, except the Valor was now ahead of them.
The mouse had just become the cat.
Nathan rocked on his heels in expectation of her next query. “And then?” she finally asked.
The first rays of the sun broke on his face as he waggled his brows. “All good things come to he what waits.”
The Morganse flattened and ran like a horse with the bit in its teeth. The song of canvas and rigging was lost in the rush of the water down her sides, her cutwater slicing the deep blue. Her decks took a severe pitch once more. Readings from the log lines were called out from the leeward chains. Ten. Ten and two fathoms. Eleven. Eleven and four. Twelve and three.
Nathan laid aloft on a topgallant yard and there remained. To Cate’s mind, there was a grand difference between chase and being chased. Nathan’s half-smile and gleeful spark suggested he took a greater joy in the latter, outwitting his enemy as opposed to besting. Some hours later, he slid down a backstay, landing as a fairy might on a toadstool, and said “Sail ho!” with a beaming flash of gold and ivory.
Cate felt pity—only a modicum, but pity nonetheless—for the faceless, hapless Prichard. The Valor had to be suffering a certain amount of confusion, if not outright concern, as to how she had kept pace with the Morganse earlier, but now was being so handily outpaced. Eventually the Morganse was obliged to spill her sails, ever so slightly so that never a shiver nor flogging sail was seen, sure signs of a ship deliberately slowing. Cate was put to mind of that cat having now caught the mouse desired to play with it.
Nathan was in the mizzentop. His attention fixed well ahead of the