Mistress of the Storm Read Online Free PDF Page B

said. His clear blue eyes crinkled mischievously. ‘Not sure many young men could, if truth be told.’
    At the top of the headland Verity stood next to Henry and stared in wonder. The rain was so heavy it was like a sheet of water – dragging on their eyelashes, creeping into their mouths, running up their noses. Verity’s hair was plastered to her skull but she scarcely noticed.
    ‘That’s why everyone is here,’ Henry shouted over the wind, pointing down to the quay. ‘The
Storm
is incredibly famous, and she hasn’t visited Wellow since the Gentry disbanded. No one knows why.’ He grabbed Verity’s arm and pointed to the upper deck behind the mast. ‘Is that the man you met in the library?’ he asked.
    Verity gasped. It
was
him. The tall stranger.
    ‘His name’s Abednego,’ said Henry. ‘He’s the captain of the
Storm
. Must be terribly old now.’
    The man looked ageless. Holding his place on the quarterdeck – the control centre of the ship – he shouted out the occasional order while the crew whirled in frenzied activity around him. His stillness made him seem, if anything, all the more commanding. It was as if they had worked as a team for so long they no longer needed mere words to communicate.
    In the hands of a less skilled captain, the
Storm
would have been pitching about like a cork on Wellow’s perilous lee shore by now. There was so little sea room; no margin for error.
    ‘He’s searching for the spot,’ yelled Henry. Verity didn’t understand. ‘There’s only one place where the
Storm
can anchor on this piece of shore,’ he explained. ‘Abednego’s looking for it.’
    Aboard the
Storm
, a crew member swung a long rope – marked with cloth and leather strips and weighted with a waxed piece of lead – into the sea. After pulling it up to determine whether the sea bed was of sand, shingle or rock,he threw it back in again. Now at last he seemed to have found what he had been ordered to seek out. The word went back to Abednego.
    The captain gave the command to reduce sail. The euphoric cries of the wild-eyed crew were deafening: they scrambled up the precarious web of ratlines and shrouds that gave access to the rigging, and set about furling the sails. They balanced on the yards that extended from the masts – hundreds of feet above the sea – terrifying in their fearlessness.
    The
Storm
slowed down. With skill and care Abednego steered his vessel into the wind, to the point where she could do nothing but stand still. He gave the order, and the best anchor was lowered on the starboard side – the crew letting out just the right amount of chain to hold her fast.
    As the anchor bit into the sea bed, the
Storm
snapped to a halt, then slowly settled to point in the direction of the tide. Like an angry child who has finally run out of steam, the foul weather stopped just as abruptly as it had started. The wind ceased howling through the rigging. The merciless noise of straining wood, the slapping and banging of loose sheets and blocks ended. The churning waves that had washed the decks subsided back into a steady rolling mass. Only the rain continued to pour down relentlessly.
    In the harbour the stunned crowd cheered and applauded. Above them, on the downs, Verity and Henry began to make their way back to town, skidding and slipping on the water-soaked ground. The harbour buzzedwith the bustle of crewmen starting the formidable task of provisioning. Verity couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder at the
Storm
. Like many others in Wellow, she was irresistibly drawn to the magnificent galleon. Little did she know that the
Storm
would bring change – rippling out in a circle like the wind from a terrifying explosion. Verity may not have understood what she had seen, but there was no doubt that she would be amongst the first to feel its effects.

Chapter Four
    Home at last, Henry walked into the Twogoods’ kitchen and slipped off his sopping wet coat. The room was hot with cooking and