CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

THE CAPTAIN OF THE TARZINE SHIP passed the spyglass over to his lord. The prince widened his stance, bracing himself against the roll of the ship, and squinted through the narrow eyepiece.

“That’s him! We have them. Captain, are we on course to intercept?”

“Nearly. Just a slight adjustment.”

“Good. Go ahead and adjust our course.”

The captain turned away to convey these orders, but a startled cry from the prince pulled him back.

“He’s fallen overboard! Devils of the deep! I don’t think anyone has seen him.”

The prince lowered the spyglass and shouted at the captain. “What are you standing here for? Get over there, with all speed you can make, before he drowns in plain sight!” He clapped the glass back to his eye and stared over the waves.

THE OCEAN WAS shockingly cold and far rougher than it seemed from high above on deck. Matthieu was tossed and tumbled as he plunged into the water, the wake from the ship pushing him one way and the oncoming waves another. He managed to hold his breath, though, and when he finally surfaced he was glad that the turbulence had at least tossed him clear of the ship—he had feared being crushed or suffocated beneath the great hull.

But it was such a long way up to the deck, and the crew were distracted by the change of shift and the dinner whistle.

Matthieu tried his best to yell for help, using the moments when the waves receded and he was in least danger of swallowing a faceful of seawater. He yelled and screamed, trying with growing despair to make his voice carry over the wind and cut through the racket of the ship itself. Yet she pulled steadily away, and the merciless sea widened between them. He was lost.

Impossible. It was impossible. His father could not have traveled so far to find him, only for Matthieu to die so stupidly, so close to home.

The water dragged and sucked at him as he treaded water, pulling on his legs, arcing heavy sheets of water over his head. He was so tired already. He tried, between strokes and waves, to kick off his boots. The one floated away easily, leaving his foot light and free. He mistimed the other and got a choking mouthful of salt for his mistake.

He struggled to cough it out, and another wave broke over his head. This is how people drown, he thought. One little mistake after another. One boy against an endless ocean of waves; it was hopeless.

When Matthieu saw the yellow sails looming against the sky, he thought at first that he’d got turned around and it was his father’s ship come back for him. Elation surged in his heart.

But of course it was not his ship. It was the pirates coming after him. Coming to reclaim their plunder.

He wept now, wept with fear and rage, the tears hidden in the seawater that streamed down his face, sobs choked out around the chop of the waves. They were coming for him, and he would go to them. He would go, because he didn’t have the courage to let the waves take him. He would be taken back to the Tarzine lands, and he would be all alone.

STRONG HANDS REACHED out to him, caught first at his billowing shirt and then his arms. He was hauled into a dinghy, gasping and dizzy, black flares in front of his eyes. His belly roiled and he vomited in great coughing convulsions, stomach and lungs both ridding themselves of what felt like pails full of seawater.

Someone was holding his shoulders as he retched, steadying him. When he was done, they wrapped around his chest and hauled him backward, pulling him against a broad warm body. Matthieu tried to fight, weak as he was. He mumbled curses and pulled against the arms that held him. Let them cut his throat for it, what difference did it make?

Then the voice that had been speaking quietly in his ear penetrated.

“Matthieu. Easy, son. Easy. You’re safe now, lad. Matthieu, it’s me.”

Matthieu twisted around to stare at his captor. Thick blond hair whipping in the wind. Blue eyes that twinkled when they teased. A mouth that was almost always smiling—but not now. Now it looked, just a little, like it might be crying.

Matthieu flung himself into his uncle Tristan’s waiting arms and held on tight.

DOMINIC’S SHIP SAILED into Blanchette harbor early the next afternoon with a full escort from Tristan’s new sea patrol: two tubby Krylian merchant vessels and the Tarzine pirate ship they had managed to capture during a raid.

Tristan grinned at Dominic’s surprise. “You didn’t think I’d be sitting around here doing nothing while you were gone? I would have lost my mind worrying about you and driven Rosie to distraction.”

“You did drive me to distraction,” Rosalie retorted, “but it made no difference—we were all crazy with worry anyway.”

“It is one of Turga’s ships, I hope?” asked Yolenka. Tristan shrugged.

“Haven’t been able to find out yet—we need an interpreter. Actually, I was wondering if you—”

“I am yours.” Yolenka offered herself with a dancer’s courtesy.

“Hang on. I thought you said you were mine!” Derkh objected. His dark eyebrows drew down in displeasure.

“Derkh, I mean only...Is not—” Yolenka discomfited was a rare sight, and Derkh enjoyed it. Briefly. Then he relented.

“I’m joking. You’re not the only one who can act a part.”

Dominic hooted with laughter. Tristan and Rosie looked bemused.

“If you had seen what this man suffered,” Dominic explained. “He deserves his revenge.”

“What I do, I do for your children!” Yolenka rounded on him, color rising into her golden cheeks.

“I know it.” Dominic became serious. “Yolenka, I know it, and I want to thank you again. You were magnificent—your dancing and everything else.”

White teeth flashed into brilliance. Yolenka turned to Derkh, her smile triumphant.

“You see? Here is man who understands art.”

MATTHIEU AND MADELEINE were alone at last. The entire DesChênes clan had met their ship at the pier; but Justine and Solange had spirited the two children straight home. There they had been embraced, exclaimed at and wept over, bathed and fed and dosed with “strengthening tonic,” hugged first shyly and then with exuberant glee by Sylvain, questioned and sometimes just stared at with silent hunger by their mother. They had borne it all patiently, happily even.

Now, as Sylvain commandeered his grandmother’s attention and Justine, satisfied at last that her children really were all right, pulled herself away to catch up with Dominic, their eyes met. The smile that passed between them was complicated: a shared acknowledgement that it was good, better than good, to be home—and that home was not quite the same. They were not quite the same.

Neither had any doubt that they would soon be bickering and annoying each other just like before. But they knew now that the bond between them was stronger than any bickering. What they had been through together, how they had stood by each other—that was forever.

The afternoon sun streamed through the sunroom’s skylight, brightening every corner and setting fire to Madeleine’s hair.

“So, Matthieu,” she said.

Her smile grew into a challenging grin.

“Want to play chiggers?”