Chapter 17
Nora Finn? Lia’s mind was spinning. Wasn’t she one of the missing girls Notchnose mentioned at The Bloody Kraken?
Julian motioned to the woman on Nora’s left. “This is Leech-” He paused, then glancing at Tyrell, said. “Sorry, ladies, we have a noble present. I should use your proper names.”
All three women roared with manish laughter.
“This is Molly Leechweed and Jeanie Watertide,” he amended.
There it was, the name of the other missing girl Notchnose had mentioned—Jeanie.
Although calling these women “girls” was hardly appropriate.
The youngest of them was at least ten years Julian’s senior.
The two beside Nora had gray streaks in their hair.
Nora, for her part, had hair of a vibrant red which she kept out of her face with a black bandana.
“Captain Julian, I demand an explanation!” Tyrell cried, his voice still slightly shaken.
Nora put her fists on her hips and said, “Good luck with that. The Captain never has been one for explaining anything to anyone.”
Julian chuckled.
Lia snapped her gaze back to him—his brows were arched and he was almost grinning. Was terror and confusion the only thing that brought that man delight?
“Then why don’t you explain it to them, Nora?” Julian suggested. “While I show them Leviathan Hall.”
Nora opened her mouth to speak, but as she did, a strange inhuman echoing wail blasted through the open door.
“Oh dear, little Chunky is awake,” Jeanie sighed.
“Let’s calm him down, girls,” Nora ordered with a sharp clap of her hands.
“Can we do the Whaling Song?" Jeanie yelled over the mysterious noise.
“Fine,” Nora replied.
The woman turned and began marching toward the glowing portal that opened into Leviathan Hall, all clapping their hands in rhythm.
“Slash him, slice him, stab him with a spear,” Nora sang.
“Make the brute regret his birth, cripple ‘im with fear!” came Jeanie.
“Use the bow to break his bones, and with a fury, grim!” Molly chimed.
“We’ll boil away his oily flesh and make an end of him!” they all finished.
“How is this song in any way calming?” Tyrell asked.
“It’s really more about the rhythm than the words,” Julian shrugged.
The wailing sound quieted as the Whaling Song continued, with each line becoming progressively more disturbing. Lia had not heard many shanties in her life, but she could not help wondering if all of them were so pointlessly morbid or only those sung in Manor Salamar?
As Lia finally passed into the hall, she was momentarily blinded by the bright lights. When her eyes adjusted, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
The hall, once a splendid gathering place for nobles, still flaunted high arched windows, chandeliers, and white walls with golden trim. However, most of the floor had been replaced by a deep pool of foamy seawater.
None of this was what made Lia question her vision though.
It was the creatures she saw in the pool that gave her pause.
The two . . . animals looked like they had been taken directly from the tapestries in the corridor.
The larger was poking its head up above the water as a seal would while eying the shore.
Its blobby head looked like it belonged to the child of a catfish and a walrus.
Lia might have been horrified if it weren’t for the whiskers and sad brown dog-like eyes. These combined with the fat-blubbery body made the . . . thing sort of endearing in a strange way.
It had flippers like a seal, but the tail was like that of a dolphin except scaly instead of smooth. Twisting its body into a U-shape, it brought both its head and tail above water at the same time, then with a great slap of its flukes, submerged all at once.
The smaller creature popped its head up a moment later. It looked just like the other, except with larger eyes and a pudgier face. It was a baby . . . um, thing. The little one threw its head back and released that strange wailing sound.
“Give us a moment, Chunky,” Nora sighed. “My voice is getting sore.”
“You ladies sound lovely,” Julian complemented. “You must sing something for our wedding.”
Tavia responded with the squeak of a cornered mouse. The poor princess was drinking in the scene with her mouth slightly open, and her tiny eyebrows arched all the way up into her hairline.
Lia probably looked much the same. Whatever she expected to find in Julian’s forbidden hall this . . . this was not it.
“Well, we ought to be good! He never lets us stop,” the speaker was yet another woman, who was strolling toward them from the opposite side of the pool.
Her skin was blotchy from decades of sun-damage, her long silver hair was frizzy at the ends.
She had what looked like a white choker necklace on her throat, but Lia realized it was just a tan-line.
She glanced around the room again, noticing two other women — one carrying a bucket of fish and another was sitting by the far wall repairing a net. That made six women, she started to look for number seven but her gaze snapped back to the women mending the net.
She was the oldest of the lot but her silver hair still maintained a hint of .
. . Blue. Lia shot a glance at Julian’s beard, then back at the woman’s hair.
While still processing this, a loud splash echoed through the room as woman number seven emerged from the water and pulled herself out onto the poolside.
“I’ve opened the hatch!” the sopping newcomer called as she pulled the wet hair away from her face.
As she did so, Lia noticed she also had a white tan-line across her throat. Did any of the others have that? Nora did and . . . Lia squinted. So did the blue-grey lady in the corner. Chokers necklaces must have been the fashion here at some point.
“Has she been under water this whole time?” Tyrell sputtered, gaping at woman number seven.
Julian shrugged.
“You could hold your breath too, if you just practiced,” Nora pointed out.
“Not for twenty minutes!” Tyrell cried.
“You forget,” Jeanie grinned at Nora. “Men of his station don’t like wetting their dainty toes.”
“Ooof,” Nora shook her head. “You’re right. Poor dears.”
From beneath the surface, the mother creature released an echoing song. It was similar to the baby’s wail, but deeper, controlled, more lovely. The baby swam to her side, then they both poked their noses up for a breath, submerged, and disappeared somewhere on the far side of the pool.
Lia gently covered her nose with her hand. At least this explained the smell.
“There’s a tunnel at that end,” Julian mentioned, squeezing Tavia’s shoulder and pointing with his free hand. “They go back to the sea at night. No one troubles them when it’s dark.”
“What are they?” Lia breathed.
“They are baleacanis,” Nora said.
“But you killed the baleacanis, Julian!” Tavia exclaimed.
“No,” Julian sighed. “I wounded it.”
His expression darkened so that he looked like his usual broody self. “The king sent me to slay a sea monster, but when I harpooned the thing and brought the whaler up beside it, a monster isn’t what I found.”
Lia reflected on the animal in the pool—the whiskers, the sad eyes, the pudgy face. Certainly, if she had only seen the tail or the fins or the little spines on its back she might have taken it for a monster, but a look at the whole thing proved quite the contrary.
“I found a docile being, pleading for her life.” Julian shook his head. “And when I noticed the way her sides protruded, I realized I’d wounded a mother.”
Lia, Tyrell, and Tavia listened in complete silence, trying to reconcile the tidal wave of new information as it crashed across their previous assumptions.
“I had my men net her and drag her to the harbor where we did what we could for her,” the Captain continued. “And she healed up just fine, only trouble is now she won’t leave me alone.”
He sighed. “Every year she has a new baby, and returns to the harbor hoping I’ll spare her a fish or two.”
He paused and sent a peculiar glance across the room to the blue-grey lady in the corner.
“‘Never close the door on a mother in need,’ my parents always say,” Julian continued. “I doubt they were thinking of baleacanis when they said that but . . . Well, this home has been a refuge for all kinds of mothers over the years, I’m not that particular.”
“Julian hired us to build this place,” Jeanie added. “So Carmilla (that’s her name, isn’t it cute?) has a refuge of sorts. We take good care of her.”
Tyrell glanced around the room at each woman in turn. “You hired them to—”
“Well, Lord Salamar doesn’t approve of women sailors and we needed work,” Nora put in. “Our husbands sail with Captain Julian and we look after the hall.”
“They’re not . . .” Tyrell mumbled. “Your fiancees?”
All the women roared with laughter.
“You think we’re baby snatchers?” Molly howled. “I’ll keep my grown man, thanks!”
“Could you imagine!” Nora gasped. “Most of us are married to his crew! There’d be a mutiny if he tried anything.”
“They’d pick up little Julian and toss him overboard!” squeaked Jeanie.
Lia felt her heart crashing to the floor—she had thought . . . she had said . . . the rumors she had spread about a man whose only crime was being rude . . .
“Why didn’t you just tell us?” Lia gasped. “In the lighthouse!”
Julian twisted his lips as he tried to contain a tiny smile. “I’ve a busy life, precious, I take pleasure in the little things. Your assumptions were just so entertaining.”
Lia scowled and clenched her fists, sympathy subsiding slightly. Employing outcasts, saving sea creatures . . . Perhaps Julian had the deeds of a saint, but his manners remained those of a scoundrel.