5She woke up, dazed her head pounding as if an army of miners were inside her head trying to dig their way out. She groaned, and tried to get up, but her arms didn't go where her brain was telling them to. They felt weak and floppy, like dead meat. She rolled over out of the soft bed that was cradling her to fall with a painful thud onto a hard floor. Her whole body felt weak and blurred, a feeling she would later compare to having too much alcohol. Slowly her senses began to clear. She tried to get up again.
Vimal sighed heavily, he could hear from the crashing sounds in the hold below that the girl had woken up and he was dreading what he had to do. How could he possibly justify these actions to her? How could he make her understand that it was for the best and she wasn't in any danger? He wished he could be as calm as his master and mentor, but then it seemed that nothing disturbed Lugh. Vimal sighed again running a bronzed hand through his dark hair. How could Lugh just sit there calmly ropes in both hands steering the boat gently into the breeze as if he was taking a cruise not fleeing from the empire with an heir to the throne gaining consciousness below deck. Vimal had a nasty sinking feeling that this time Lugh's tricks had gone too far, and they would pay with their lives. Breaking into one of the most well guarded islands of all time and vanishing a princess! It seemed the man would never cease to amaze his student. Lugh sat calmly, his rebelliously long black hair blowing in the sea wind with a few days of stubble creeping over his brown face, his dark eyes focused at some point on the horizon that seemed to stretch forever. Lugh was silent as he often was his gymnast's body so relaxed it seemed he would almost melt. He had a mixed, expressive face which was, at the moment, a mask of supreme calm. His dark slanting eyes were half open, salt crystals were forming over his cheeks from the heat of the sun. His nose was flat, his cheek bones chiselled, with a small mouth and thin lips. A strange face that could look almost like a different person with something as simple as expression. Vimal was shorter and stockier, a land person born on the islands and only taking to water later as a necessity. Vimal was a bronzing yellow colour, while Lugh was the stubborn brown of unscrubbed potatoes. Vimal's hair was a dark woody brown, cropped into a practically short style. Lugh's was long black and greasy, left to go as wild as it pleased, it stopped just short of going into dread locks. Both men wore baggy cotton trousers, dirty and salt stained, practically the uniform of anyone who spent most of their time at sea.
The banging was getting louder. Vimal wondered if he had done this on purpose, steered the boat all day so that it would be Vimal that had nothing useful to do and Vimal that had to go below to see how the girl was. It didn't matter. Vimal got slowly to his feet and started walking to the back of the boat. He opened the trapdoor jumping down into the darkness without a second thought. The ladder was broken. The hold was split up into roughly two rooms, if you could call them rooms. The wood of the boat showed through down there, dark and grainy worn smooth with time. The hold was cramped and everything in it was designed to save space. Too many things then was strictly healthy hung from the walls and ceiling. Vimal cautiously approached the door where the banging was coming from, and nervously undid the simple latch. The banging stopped. He peered inside cautiously and was rewarded with a surprisingly hard punch in the face from a scared pale child, who took the opportunity to kick the door open and run past him. He heard the clatter as she ran straight when she should have ducked into several of the objects hanging from the ceiling. She burst upwards onto the deck, leaving a clattering that could make a listener think she had thrown half an orchestra of procussion instruments over a small cliff.
Lugh gazed boredly over his shoulder at the chaos that was quickly breeding around him. His eyes fixed first on the dazed child who was sweeping the deck with quick animal eyes, her mouth a perfect O of surprise, then on his limping cursing pupil who was by now in hot pursuit. Lugh wondered where they thought they were going since there was only a few metres of wood and metal between them and an ocean that stretched almost forever. The girl was clever. She quickly got her bearings and dived at Lugh, who with the same bored expression stepped out of her way, then watched her tumble past. She stopped herself before she reached the edge.
"Let me guess." Lugh said his voice echoing the bemused expression on his face, "You're planning to take me and my not-so-brilliant pupil prisoner, take command of the ship, turn it round and return home? Hmmmmmmmm?"
Astrea didn't respond.
"Well then go ahead." Lugh offered, "take the ropes."
He held them out to her, smiling not unkindly. Vimal groaned inwardly, he knew that smile. The princess glared at him, untrusting.
"Go ahead." Lugh offered again "I'm not going to stop you."
"I don't trust you. You're a criminal." She suddenly spoke.
"Clever child." Lugh said, not without respect, "So how about if I put the ropes down here, and step away then you take them. Will that make you happy?"
He stepped back while his prisoner stepped forward. Those dark animal eyes never left him, as she grasped for the ropes. She froze, as if expecting some calamity to occur. Nothing happened. She straightened up. Nothing happened. Then she stared blankly at the sails which now flapped uselessly in the wind and the loose rope coils in her hands. She tugged on one of the ropes, nothing happened.
Lugh smiled. "Well that's interesting; it doesn't seem to be working. But since you know all about boats I expect you can fix it, can't you?"
She looked at him blankly and slowly shook her head.
"Oh. Well you at least know how to steer the boat don't you?"
Another shake of the head
"Do you know how to navigate? Do you know where we are and what direction we're going in? How to get food and fresh water in the middle of the sea? Do you even know how to swim?" He paused diplomatically, waiting for an answer.
None came.
"Well I know how to do all those things and more so I think you'd better give those ropes back."
He stepped forward and putting an outstretched hand in front of her. Eventually she let go of the ropes and handed them to him.
"Good." Lugh commented with a smile. "Now since we haven't been properly introduced, my name is Lugh, and the boy with a very colourful and diverse range of swear words you heard just now is my assistant Vimal. You must be Princess Astrea."
"You kidnapped me." She stated blandly, the glare still fixed on her face.
"Yes so I did." Lugh replied looking bored again as he tied the ropes down.
"My father won't give you any money."
"Well then it's a good thing I don't want his money then isn't it?" He said calmly as he turned to examine the main mast.
"He won't give you land either." She pressed
"Why would I want his land when I have this beautiful boat and the whole wide ocean?"
She frowned frustrated; everyone wanted land or money, if the kidnapper didn't want one of her father's islands to live on, or his money then why was she here?
"He won't give you anything." Astrea warned
"Good. I don't want it." He replied over his shoulder. "I think the jib rope is stuck on the main sail. We'll have to tac in a minute."
"You don't want anything?" She asked, now thoroughly confused
Lugh paused as he started to free the ground ropes from the jaw like clasps on the deck. "Well actually there is one thing I want."
"Yes?"
"I want to get that rope free."
"Why did you kidnap me?!" Astrea practically screamed in frustration.
"A much more sensible question. Vimal if you'd care to fill her in…"
Lugh kicked off his decaying mould coloured shoes and in two swift movements was climbing the mast with agility that would make a monkey envious. Vimal stared wistfully after him; once again he'd been left to break the bad news.
"Because," He started slowly, keeping as out of range of the child "your father is attacking the Tiber Monasteries."
"Yeah, Father said the monks are just pirates who don't kill people. They steal from the empire and waste islands building temples to things that don't exist." She paused frowning. "You're monks?"
Vimal nodded glumly.
"So then you've kidnapped me because….." She never got to finish her sentence
Above them Lugh had untangled the ropes, the sail suddenly free to move, had caught the wind again.
"TAC!" Lugh yelled from above.
The next thing Astrea knew she was being rugby tackled to the floor, as the sail swung round like a striking snake. The heavy bow of the sail whistled over them inches from the deck as the whole boat tilted dangerously to one side sending up a monsoon of spray. And suddenly they were moving. The wind filled the free sails sending the ship gliding over the water, in the wrong direction. Lugh jumped free from the sail, landing silently on deck without making it so much as rock. He dived for the ropes which were slithering quickly away like vicious sea snakes.
"Don't just lie there! Grab a rope!"
They obeyed almost without thinking and before long all three were wrestling with the stray ropes and heavy a sail to avoid being pulled over board, or worse capsized.
"Vimal let that jib go! Someone get that bloody rudder! We need to kill speed!"
The monks rushed around, pulling in stray ropes and forcing them back into their clasps. The princess gripped the mast for dear life. In between shouting at each other the monks managed to bring the ship back under control. The main sail came steadily in towards the deck, they slowed down, and drifted slowly back on course.
Lugh yawned, and sat down, calm again steering ropes wrapped around his hands. Astrea eventually uncurled herself from the mast. Vimal leaned back against the mast, his legs stretched out in front of him and his head resting just below the pivot joint that joined the mast to the main sail.
"You don't look like monks." Astrea said cautiously breaking the silence.
"And what prey tell are monks meant to look like?" Lugh asked, not moving.
"Well….You're meant to be bald, and wear orange all the time and have charms stuck through your ears like the gypos do. And you're meant to have tiny slit eyes and light skin because monks never work if they can avoid it."
"Does anyone work if they can avoid it?" Lugh didn't offer any explanation for their apparently non-conformist dress sense.
She scowled at him. "You're meant to be lazy."
"Really? And I suppose a princess who lives underground all her life, who never has to do anything to earn her food, or clothes, or the roof over her head isn't?"
Astrea sighed finally realising she would never get a straight answer from Lugh. "Where are we going?"
"North to Tiber." Vimal said simply, and the deck descended into silence again.