5. The Scientist

The lagging fishing boat was closing slowly, every pair of eyes willing them to close back into the illusory comfort of the tiny fleet.

Angelica split her attention between the little ship and the dawn, if such a muted occasion still merited the term. The orange smudge on the horizon had grudgingly changed to a muted yellow, and just as the bright rays promised to break through the fuming clouds fought back with sheets of ash obscuring the far horizon entirely.

The light was different now, but still dominated by the unnatural horror that shone though everything, burning with the intensity of a furnace. Not even the falling ash could draw a curtain over the gruesome spectacle.

"We made it through the night" Olga offered gently "perhaps you should go below?"

"No, I am needed here." Angelica replied stoically.

"You will likely be needed far more tonight" the older girl replied quietly, her words hidden from other ears beneath the creak of the ropes and splash of water on the hull.

"You can't make me." came the meek reply. "I don't want to sleep."

"Neither do I. But sleep you must. Do you want to take the risk of staying awake today?"

Angelica paused, measuring the weight of the words. She nodded. "I'll be fine. If needed I can retire this afternoon."

Something has changed. Something is missing.

Overcome by sudden unease, Angelica looked about, seeking what it was that was up. Olga quickly picked up the mood, whispering urgently "what?"

"Ah". Angelica spun, looking to Tol Varus's little ship. "The 'bell'. It stopped."

As jarring as the improvised bell had been, the comfort it provided ended with the silence. Try as they might, neither Angelica nor Olga could work out why it was no longer sounding. The little ship seemed to be in good order; no cries or yells for help, nothing had broken. Perhaps it was simply light enough that they did not need to continue?

"M'Ladies, excuse me please." one of the young soldiers drew them from their mystery, as he held out two jewel encrusted golden goblets resting between the fingers of his right hand.

The sharp intake of breath escaped Angelica before she could catch herself. They were goblets off the High Table, her Mother's and Father's. Her hand shaking slightly, she reached out and accepted her Mother's cup. "Thank you" she remembered herself, as Olga took the other goblet.

"Water or wine?" the young man asked simply, holding forward an unopened green glass bottle with a green wax seal for their inspection as the young female soldier beside him held showed them the open water cask she carried, lifting the cloth she had over it to keep the ash out.

Angelica paused, staring at the wine. There would never be more than what they had on board. The gentle flavours from the very best wines grown in the County of Victoria, by their best vinter, Rachel. Only the best years were given the green wax seals, marking them as reserved for the Court.

The soldiers waited, motionless.

"A taste of wine and water please" Olga held out her goblet. At a gentle nod from Angelica, the young man peeled the wax off the bottle and pulled out the light wooden stopper, pouring freehand into first Angelica's goblet then Olga's.

Even now, even here, rank mattered. Perhaps it mattered more now? Perhaps it was simply that she was closer.

"I am sorry, I missed your names last night" Angelica recovered her decorum.

"Alexandras" the young man replied with a smile.

"Liva" his companion added, as she used a silver soup ladle to fill their cups with water.

"Please share the wine with your peers" Angelica added.

"M'Lady" they both replied in the eerie unison of soldiers carefully trained.

As they moved off sharing out water, Angelica pondered quietly. "Soldiers? Why are they sharing out water? Would not the crew or some of the others do that?"

"They wear their swords." Olga whispered back over the top of her goblet. "You know the answer."

Wait, how do I know the answer? I asked because I ... oh.

Angelica looked about at the children huddled on the deck, more upon the middle part of the ship, and yet more crowding the front deck up by the bow. There were some animals aboard as well, in the cargo hold... perhaps even more folk down there as well. She watched more carefully ... the bottle of wine had vanished from sight, replaced instead by a handful of wooden goblets, and the soldiers waited while those they had given water to drank it, took back the goblets and moved on.

No-one asked for more, most of the children were either looking petrified or were simply lost in their own private stupor from the night before. Everyone got the same amount of water.

A smile played across Angelicas face. "Look" she said softly to Olga "they are giving the young ones pieces of sweet biscuit". They were famous and delicious, a rich biscuit of butter honey or sugar and very finely milled flour baled in a stick the shape of a finger. The castle had rooms full of them as well as barrels of salted meats as part of their siege supplies. If the harvest was good, and they had been able to trade sugar from the warmer climates or made with honey if the winds had not been kind but the bees were, new biscuits would be made and the oldest given out at the great harvest festival.

"Antaryon, M'Lady" another soldier presented himself, offering up two full biscuits. Olga took one, snapped it into thirds so that it was the same portion that the children were being given, handed back the largest piece, and without any ceremony handed a piece to Angelica. With a smile the soldier was lost into the drifting ash, continuing his duty.

"Oh it's fresh!"

The biscuit melted in her mouth, falling apart slowly with a burst of sweet flavour. Part of her craved more, yet she knew all too well from five harvests back one could easily eat far too many of them, and end up regretting it the next morning. They would keep hunger at bay for a long time though, something the cooks added made the flavour linger for as long as the cooks wanted it to.

They gave us the best of the siege supplies. Angelica mused. She studied the goblet still in her hand, her finger tracing over Mother's crest beautifully worked into the metal with different shades of gold. How long had it taken to make this goblet? Whose were the hands that shaped it? She traced the deep blue sapphires worked into the metal around the top of the goblet, so carefully set that they would not ever touch the lips of the one who drank from the cup, yet still boldly set to catch the light. Where did they even come from?

She stared at the cup with detached curiosity, the endless list of unknowns flowing past her as a stream of babbling noise blocking out for a while the truth that still cast its fiery glow over them.

Olga looked briefly at the other goblet in her hand, the mirror of the other but with Ruby gems, and tucked it away safely in the inner pocket of her cloak. She gently guided Angelica to the side of the deck, where another soldier had rearranged the packs so that they formed an effective couch with the ship's bulkwark to lean on. The younger girl was totally entranced by something, so Olga simply arranged the pillows, had her sit and lean back against the wall with another pillow behind, and after exchanging quick hand signals with their ever present guard closed her own eyes.

Eventually, Angelica would fall asleep and drop the goblet. There was literally no chance it would reach the deck, as Liva handed off the barrel to another guard and sat down on the opposite side of Angelica to Olga, her hands free as she patiently waited. Antaryon signed the words "rather you than me!" to Liva, and grinned. If Angelica fell asleep and leant on Liva, she would stay there until Angelica woke up. Fortunately, the military handsigns included a lively array of insults, and Liva planned to use them all on Antaryon. And maybe make up some new ones if she was here all day.

------------//-------------

Angelica woke with a start as something damp fell on her.

"Sorry" Antaryon blurted "M'Lady" he rushed to append. He stood above her, holding a large piece of canvas as sailors bustled around to the directions yelled by Zalari.

My hands are empty ... why is that not good? she thought foggily.

Sudden fear clawed its way into her lower back, and she started to search about her for the goblet.

"M'Lady" Liva offered up gently, holding the goblet in her gloved hand extended slightly toward Angelica to indicate she did not keep it as her own "are you thirsty?"

"No, I am fine thank you Liva." Angelica replied, knowing that the question was certainly to catch her attention and elicit an answer, and had precious little to do with thirst. Such polite dances were simply part of life at Court, however their origins were such that they would likely never be set aside. Liva tucked the goblet away in the satchel she now wore.

Olga was snoring gently, leaning against another guard who had joined their little quartet so that Olga had someone to lean against as well.

"What is going on?" Angelica looked about, still confused. The light was more muted, but everything retained the hues from the fire.

"It is starting to rain M'Lady" Liva replied "the Captain is changing the set of the canvas covers to try to catch water rather than just keep the worst of the ash off us." Her eyes flicked to Antaryon and her discrete hand signal was "you had ONE job!" followed by a less easily translated insult.

Antaryon's eyes flashed momentarily, but he quickly hid his thoughts and did not allow another drip.

Angelica touched her hand to her face, and looked at the resulting mess on her fingers. Ash and water had combined into a small blob of grey sludge. "It would be nice to get enough to wash away all the ash. Do you think it will?"

"Tori-Anna found a lad who was a scientists apprentice, he believes it will rain heavily, and long, because the heat from the fire will have lifted a great deal of water up into the heavens. It will not stay there once it gets cold. Did you wish him to attend you M'Lady?" Liva asked quietly.

"Interesting. No, that will not be required. However it is fascinating. Who came up with all that in the first place? It sounds remarkable, if it is correct."

"Oh apparently they worked it out because the old castle forge was steaming up the windows in the guest room in the East Wing, especially if they doused the forge with water rather than just letting it burn out. There was water in the air, but there was rain in the room above. Years ago the lad said."

Angelica's eyes went wide, and she stifled a laugh not wanting to wake Olga. "Do you remember that horrid Baron last year who would not stop complaining about the amount of lilies in the pond at Harrowmead?"

Liva nodded with a smile. Everyone remembered him.

"On his last day he complained bitterly that it had rained in his room, and everyone thought him either mad or cursed by the gods" Angelica smiled "he was in the East Wing."

Liva choked down a laugh. It was improper for her to poke fun at a Baron, even a stupid one. A cloud came over her, as surely as one had just fallen over Angelica. A dead one.

A ragged cheer rose over the fleet, and they could hear the sound of rain approaching. Rather than the odd drop the tempo of the patter of rain increased, and then lifted again. Shortly after the rain was pelting down, loud on the canvas about the ship. Angelica watched in awe as the light ash was simply brushed from the sky, struck down by the unstoppable rain.

She looked to the horizon hopefully ... but the fires still burned fiercely, even though they were masked at times by the rain.

A young boy was yelling something in a panicked voice, shrill and unclear. Tori-Anna rushed over the slippery deck to him, and after a moment the yelling ceased. Angelica could not hear what they were talking about, but watched fascinated as Tori-Anna rushed to the side, put her hand out into the rain, and then pulled it back and touched the tip of her tongue to the water she had collected in her palm. She spat it out quickly, stood, and in her best battlefield voice yelled "do not drink the water!"

The sailors preparing to top up the water barrels from the bounty of the sky froze what they were doing, looking at Tori-Anna in shock and confusion.

"Don't drink the water! It is acid rain!" she yelled again, followed by others as her cry was taken up and relayed across the whole fleet.

Angelica looked in awe at the little boy who had just quite possibly just saved them all. "I think I would like to meet him."

Without rising Liva signaled to Tori-Anna, who calmly fetched the lad over, talking quietly to him on the way. The extra canvas rigged to stop them getting soaked, Antaryon had moved aside. The ship was moving less predictably in the wind and rain, and Olga's gentle pressure on Angelica's arm silently removed any option to for her to take any chances.

The lad bowed formally, and after Angelica had acknowledged him with a nod he began "Grav, M'Lady. I was apprenticed in the experimental section of the Great Library."

"Grav we shall not forget what you have done for us this day, and if it please you some day you are to ask a great boon of us, and if we can grant it we shall." Angelica formally spoke for them all, not just herself.

The young lad knelt on one knee, and after a moment replied "M'Lady my master was also my friend, and mentor. He once said 'for science we labor on, for our children may find a better world yet'. I would have us all hold true to that idea, and when we can, build a university."

"So it shall be" she said formally, committing them all to the goal.

Grav stood and withdrew, not really knowing what to say but also delighted She had simply agreed.

------------//-------------

Angelica looked out at the sheets of rain running in and drumming on the canvas above them, watching the rain, allowing the tableaux to imprint on her memory for all time.

Loudly enough that Olga and Liva could hear, with icy anger in her voice she finally spoke. "The Gods permitted this" she gestured through the poison rain at the furnace on the horizon "to happen. That it continues means they obviously have no idea what to do about it" she paused in thought "so yes, let us embrace science instead. Let us labor on, and make that better world Grav spoke of. For all our children."

She looked at the children huddled together in groups, hiding as best they could beneath canvas from the stinging cold rain and spray carried on the wind . "But first we need to live".