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him on the shoulder in satisfaction.
    No sailing ship could possibly maintain a set course, especially under these conditions. Indeed,it took all four of the men on the wheel to hold any course. The best they could do was keep the ship on roughly the designated heading, and the senior helmsman wasn’t even going to be looking at the compass card. His attention was going to be locked like iron to those staysails, being certain they were drawing properly, lending the ship the power and the stability she needed to survive the maelstrom.The senior of his assistants would watch the compass and alert him if they started to stray too far from the desired heading.
    Yairley gave the canvas one more look, then swiped water from his own eyes and beckoned to Garaith Symkee, Destiny ’s second lieutenant.
    “Aye, Sir?” Lieutenant Symkee shouted, leaning close enough to Yairley to be heard through the tumult.
    “I think she’ll do well enoughfor now, Master Symkee!” Yairley shouted back. “Keep her as close to an easterly heading as you can! Don’t forget Garfish Bank’s waiting for us up yonder!” He pointed north, over the larboard bulwark. “I’d just as soon it go on waiting, if you take my meaning!”
    Symkee grinned hugely, nodding his head in enthusiastic agreement, and Yairley grinned back.
    “I’m going below to see if Raigly can’tfind me something to eat! If the cooks can manage it, I’ll see to it there’s at least hot tea—and hopefully something a bit better, as well—for the watch on deck!”
    “Thank you, Sir!”
    Yairley nodded and started working his way hand-over-hand along the lifeline towards the hatch. It was going to be an extraordinarily long night, he expected, and he was going to need his rest. And hot food, cometo that. Every man aboard the ship was going to need all the energy he could lay hands on, but Destiny ’s captain was responsible for the decisions by which they might all live or die.
    Well , he thought wryly as he reached the hatch and started down the steep ladder towards his cabin and Sylvyst Raigly, his valet and steward, I suppose it sounds better put that way than to think of it as the captainbeing spoiled and pampered. Not that I have any objection to being spoiled or pampered, now that I think of it .
    And not that it was any less true, however he put it.

.III.
    HMS Destiny , 54, Off Sand Shoal, Scrabble Sound, Grand Duchy of Silkiah
    “Master Zhones!”
    The miserable midshipman, hunched down in his oilskins and trying as hard as he could not to throw up—again—looked up as Lieutenant Symkee bellowed his name. Ahrlee Zhones was twelve years old, more horribly seasick than he’d ever been in his young life, and scared to death. But he was also an officerin training in the Imperial Charisian Navy, and he dragged himself fully upright.
    “Aye, Sir?!” he shouted back through the howl and shriek of the wind.
    “Fetch the Captain!” Zhones and Symkee were no more than five feet apart, but the midshipman could barely hear the second lieutenant through the tumult of the storm. “My compliments, and the wind is backing! Inform him it—”
    “Belay that, MasterZhones!” another voice shouted, and Zhones and Symkee both wheeled around to see Sir Dunkyn Yairley. The captain had somehow magically materialized on the quarterdeck, his oilskins already shining with rain and spray, and his eyes were on the straining staysails. Despite the need to shout to make himself heard, his tone was almost calm—or so it seemed to Zhones, at any rate.
    As the midshipmanwatched, the captain took a turn of rope around his chest and attached it to one of the standing lifelines, lashing himself into place almost absently while his attention remained focused on the sails and the barely visible weathervane at the mainmast head. Then he glanced at the illuminated compass card in the binnacle and turned to Symkee.
    “I make it south-by-west, Master Symkee? Would youconcur?”
    “Perhaps