Open Wardrobes

Another 2000 words today (and a false alarm on the H1N1 front, whew!). Here is today's installment - is this how Charles Dickens felt?




The ale, it seemed, had been flowing plentifully for the past week as the other captains waited for Red Foxx to finally arrive. Howl was well known as the expert on every variation of ale, beer, and mead throughout each of every island in the Coral Seas. He steadfastly refused to have anything to do with such grog on the mainland. The captains had wiled the hours away with drink and all the stories they could think of about the old Captain Foxx. Those exhausted, they turned to song and yet more drink. And now, at last, the hero of the hour arrived.
"It be only fittin', Captain, our Captain," Howl began. Definitely drunk. The cheers drowned Howl out for several minutes more. At last he continued, "It be only fittin', our Captain, to be toastin' ye here at the dawn of yer own kingship. May yer father rest in peace, we loved him to a man, but we have all agreed to pledge here and now our loyalty to thee."
Glasses were raised, more cheers rose, and Red began to think that the plan his father had adopted all those years ago might prove successful after all.
"And what makes you think this captain would be wanting the allegiance of such a motley band of sea dogs?" Red shouted over the din. The Captain have a sly grin and seized the mug Howl now thrust into his hands. Jat had downed one already and was well into a second, but Red knew enough to keep his head with such a crowd as this and drank slowly.
"Ah now Captain, be we so bad a band as that?" Howl slurred.
"Now ye know, Howl," Jat returned, "ye only be sailin' among this lot as ye be too mangey for any other crew to take ye!"
"Look who ye be talkin' to there, Mate Stevens," Howl said, giving Jat a hearty pound on the back. "Ye be the scrawniest slip of a pirate I've ever seen in all me days! It's a wonder this mighty Captain e'en keeps ye on!" Howl turned to Red, sloshing more than a drop of ale all over the mighty Captain. "Ye e'er be needin' a new first fate ye have but a few dozen willing volunteers here. Ain't that right, me boys?"
"As I think it would be most unfair of me to saddle any other crew with this mite of a mate," Red interjected, knowing that once Jat and Howl got into it there'd be no quick end, however friendly their rivalry usually was, "I think I shall keep him on. At least as long as he's able to keep to his feet." A roar of laughter met that one and Red was glad to have the captains in such a ready mood for the news he had to break.
"Now, if I might interrupt the vital business of your daily drink for but a moment," Red continued, "we do have other matters to which we must attend."
The rowdy crowd grew silent, ready enough to put the serious matters out of the way before they returned to their revelry.
"You have all now sworn yourselves to me," the Captain stated, "and I shall hold you each to it, this I swear by my father's name and the Captain's Stone he gave to me." Red looked round the room to each of the captains in their turn. "Many oaths did I swear to my father ere he died, but not the least of these is this: to reclaim for our kingdom the Heart of Destiny. It is the heart of our people, though we have long neglected it since its loss, and spent too much time avenging ourselves on the Admiral's men."
"What else would ye have us do, Captain," Howl asked, feeling more sober than a moment ago, "to those who defiled our sacred place?"
"They shall receive their due punishment," Red promised, "and you might well argue they have received most of that already. Our Isle we reclaimed, which is more than they can say of their Ruined Kingdom."
"We be not to blame for that," Howl pointed out. "Shiver me timbers, we not be e'en knowin' how that thing was done!"
"I think it enough to know the Isle has punished them," Red said. "We shall do the same, I promise you, but first we must repay our Isle for dealing our enemies this blow. We must return the Heart of Destiny to its proper place. Without it in time our kingdom and people shall die, was that not said by Foxx the First?"
The captains murmured an agreement, though many felt the search the Captain urged would not promise enough swordplay for their liking.
"I bear that name and thus I bear the responsibility of safeguarding this heirloom. I intend that under my rule it shall be recovered," Red promised. "Meaning no disrespect to my father," he quickly added, "who did all he could to trace it."
"Aye, that he did," Howl agreed, "for he often spoke to me about it when we sat a' drinkin' in such a place as this."
"Meanin' no disrespect to you, Captain," broke in a voice from the back, one belonging to Captain Longboot of the Blue Thunder, "but what be it about a stone, however illustrious a Foxx that found it, that be so important to ye? Or any of us?"
"Blimey!" Howl exclaimed. "Did yer father ne'er take ye upon his knee to tell ye such tales when ye were a lad?"
"Aye, that he did, Matton," Longboot assured him, "but I be thinkin' he thought them no more than grand stories. Are ye be tellin' me, Howl, ye believe such things?"
"It should be enough that I believed them," Red stated before Howl could answer. "I have it from my own father that such things are, and his word should be enough for any of us." That quieted Longboot. "He beheld the Heart of Destiny," Red went on, "and has made use of its virtues for himself. It was thus he knew to be on hand when the great disaster fell upon the Ruined Kingdom."
"Aye, now I did wonder how he should happen to be on hand for such a thing as that," Longboot acknowledged. "Then the tales be true?"
"The tales are true indeed, Longboot," Red said. "The Heart gives one great foresight into all things now and still to come, if you are of the stuff to master it."
"Yer father certainly was that, to be sure," Howl mused and drained his glass. "I've no doubt ye be of the same stuff, Cap'n."
"Thank you, Matton."
"Still, them be mighty tall tales, Captain," Longboot put in, "but if ye believe them..."
"When we reclaim the Heart I shall show you enough to quell all your doubts, Longboot," Red Foxx said to the captain. "Is that enough for you?"
"Aye, Captain, it's just..."
"Out with it, Longboot."
"It be nothin', Captain," Longboot assured him, "just wondering all about that story of the old Foxx, how he being there when the Ruined Kingdom got what was comin',"
"What about it?" Red had a strange feeling as Longboot ruminated over his thoughts. He had never though much about why the Heart had shown Grey Foxx that place to be when at that moment there was none more dangerous. Now it seemed to Red Foxx that a powerful reason there must have been, and yet the old Foxx had not once spoken of it.
"What was he there for, that's what I'm wonderin'" Longboot continued, echoing Red's very thoughts. "It be a mite strange that of all places..."
"If I could say, I would," Red interjected, suddenly not wanting to speak of this a moment longer, though for no reason he understood. "Yet I do not, and now that my father has passed, I can think of no way to answer that without first finding the Heart."
"Aye, Captain," Longboot agreed and fell to his own thoughts amid another round.
It was strange, Red secretly agreed, though if it had been of great importance surely the old Foxx would have said? Yet why did Red now feel that the smallest of cracks had formed in this, his best-laid of plans?
Howl soon turned the talk away from this particular matter and brought forward a question for which, thankfully, Red had already been prepared for with an answer.
"Well it would be, Captain," Howl began, "to bring back the Heart of Destiny to our Sacred Isle. If nothin' else, it be showin' that ye truly be the master of the seas, the islands, and if I may be so bold, all the Five Kingdoms."
Red saluted this thought with a lift of his glass.
"Yet," Howl proceeded, "if yer illustrious father could not find this thing in all of twenty years, then how is this mangey lot to be about the task?"
"An excellent question, Matton," Captain Foxx put forward and all leaned in to hear what he would say. "An excellent question, indeed. We all know well how King Ottotorious, may his kingdom never rise again, stole this thing from us. He brought it first to his own palace, but fearing the vengeance of our people..."
"As well he should!" put in one captain especially given to drink.
"...but fearing our vengeance he soon sent it to a secret place, lest we sack his palace and recover it. For my father knew that Ottotorius never had the will to master the Heart and see things in it for himself."
"And where would it be that he sent the Heart?" Howl asked, curious.
Red's lip curled in the hint of a laugh. "If that my father knew the Heart would now be on the Sacred Isle. But what was known to him was that King Ottotorious had sent the Heart under under the protection of a trusted lieutenant. Surely the king meant to send for it again once we scurvy folk had been dealt with, but by the hand of providence he never had the chance."
Long had Grey Foxx sought this elusive trail. For twenty years he labored at it, traveling from island to island to eke out what faded clues remained. If the Admiral though the old Foxx had thoughts only for him, so much the better. Still it took these score of years for Grey Foxx to at last find the first sold foothold in this mystery.
"There is a map," Red announced, "a map made by he who guarded the Heart after the Ruined Kingdom's fall and held it in hope of that kingdom's restoration."
Jat forgot his drink and listened close. This had been a secret between the two Foxxes alone.
"It is a map in two pieces," continued Red, "for when the king's man knew his time was at an end he knew not who to trust. And so he devised with all his cunning a hiding place for the Heart and map to it a map, a map he tore in two and gave to the two folk he felt he could trust most. Neither knew the name or the face of the other, and in that protection the king's man put the Heart."
"But if neither of they knew the other, "Longboot asked, drawn into this new tale, "how be it that e'en they could find the Heart again if they desired?"
"So wondered my father," Red Fox answered, "and the answer I think can only be that in the restoration of the Ruined Kingdom these men would come together and the Shipwright's Kingdom, renewed, would take up the trail and wield the Heart of Destiny again."
"A pretty thought," Howl grinned, "yet not a moment I think like to come."
"Certainly not," Red agreed, "if we find the Heart first."
This was a tale much to the pirate folk's liking. Red had hoped for this, that by drawing out their interest in such a mysterious tale that they would be wont to find the Heart and put aside their desire for bloodletting. Even Jat had found himself most intrigued and thought that perchance the Captain was right after all to put this matter before all others.