Magic At Sea, page 1
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Magic At Sea (Marrying Men)
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Magic At Sea | by Hollis Shiloh
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Story copyright January 2023 by Hollis Shiloh. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without written permission from the author. All characters and events are fictitious, and any similarity to real people or events is coincidental. Image content is being used for illustrative purposes only and any people depicted in the content are models. Cover by Bayou Cover Designs.
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ABOUT THE STORY:
When Captain Reynard gets a magician assigned to his sailing ship, he's resigned to the worst. He's a fighting man of the King's Navy, and magicians are a nasty lot. But something about Jessop is irresistible.
Magician Jessop, small, grumpy, extremely touchy and on edge, has been deeply damaged by life. Touch is not easy for him, strangers are not easy for him, but against all odds, the crew takes him under their wing, and most of them are very kind to him. The captain especially turns out to be a gentle man, and his warmth undoes something in Jessop.
The captain falls in love with his magician—but does not dare speak those words aloud. The magician feels things for Reynard, as much as he's able to for anyone. Perhaps they might work their way to a satisfactory conclusion, commitment and happiness and a life together. But war is a dangerous time for love...
36,000 words
Content warnings: contains references to a character's sexual trauma
Magic At Sea
by Hollis Shiloh
It is well known that the use of magic stunts one's growth. For this reason, natural height is prized greatly among those who dislike magic. A fine, strapping girl has a better marriage prospect than a shorter girl, no matter how pretty her features or taking her carriage. It is simply the way of things. And in some ways, it is worse for men. Even if he is born of a short family, people will think he has magic, and many will refuse to hire him for that cause alone. If he does not have a familial occupation, or some actual magic with which to improve his lot, there is little for it but to go to sea.
Captain Valient Reynard was not a tall man, but neither was he short. He towered over the crew, most of whom had gone to sea because there was little else they could do, and the pay was much better, and here, one's height did not matter. There were no fussy rules about not using magic onboard the ship. Indeed, with the latest war, the government was specifically issuing gentlemen of magic to ships, to be used in battles. ‘A great new weapon!’ the press had proclaimed.
Reynard had been around long enough that he was not quite convinced. While he had nothing against magic—such learning was all very well in its place, no doubt—he was not entirely sure he liked the idea of taking such an explosive (and human) weapon along with him to sea. Reynard had been in command for nearly three years, and in that time he had distinguished himself, his crew, and the series of ships he had gone through. As a new captain, the ships he'd been issued had nearly always been the sort of disreputable, moldy, always-bilge-pumping, half drowned rats of His Royal Majesty's service. He had gone through the most decent ones at an indecent pace, as well, since he'd had the good fortune to get into quite a number of battles, earning himself a few scars, and his men quite a bit of prize money.
It was all very good, but the admiralty could not but tsk and shake their heads about a captain who would be so improvident as to lose nearly three whole ships. The Goliath didn't count; she had, indeed, made it to shore, with all hands pumping, and hadn't sunk till partway through the nearly hopeless attempt at repairs, at which point the admiralty had decided she ship should be hauled away and used for target practice, after the salvaging of the one useful mast left unbroken, and a few other bits and pieces of note. Everything else had to go.
And so Reynard could consider himself both lucky and unlucky, though he could never of course let the second word leave his mouth, having a seaman's superstitious fear of drawing the evil eye upon his next voyage and dying at sea. Even this, he would perhaps not mind, if it was done in glory and honor, but the evil eye did not much allow for glory and honor, and would be more likely to lead to an ignominious death by plague, or kraken, or drowning, or mutiny.
He thought that the new policy of sending along war magicians would end up something the same, both lucky and unlucky. It would no doubt be very fortunate to have a magician in the middle of a battle, someone who could shoot great pillars of fire at the enemy...but no doubt the enemy would have the same, and it would be far more uncomfortable to face magic than to face the most intense battering from broadside after broadside of more conventional weaponry.
The fact that he was to be carrying "quite an experienced fellow" did little to comfort his soul. He braced up and tacked into the wind, however, for never let it be said that Captain Valient Reynard did anything but live up to his name. Whatever his private misgivings, he was a stalwart, stolid and unimaginative captain (outside of battle), and especially when it came to following the admiralty's orders.
With his latest ship being watered, provisioned, scraped, and patched (for naturally, the Gallivant already had her fair share of leaks even before he took command), he set out wearing his finest uniform (brushed to perfection by his fierce and grumbling manservant, Felix, and only slightly moth-eaten), and headed to the admiralty's office to collect his magician.
He arrived in full dress uniform to pick up the magician fellow, not wanting to give offense. Whatever his private feelings, when he did something, he did not go about it by halves. He was a first-rater, a whole cloth man, and there was nothing for it but to welcome the merlin and give him honor among the crew, so that they would all treat him well (and there would be no mysterious fires breaking out in the rigging in revenge, for instance).
Merlin was the polite and official title of the magicians who had passed a certain level of training and certification, much as doctor was both a title of certification and respectful address. As he awaiting his turn, Reynard reminded himself sternly that he would address the magician as merlin, and not the coarser vocabulary so frequent at the docks, or among anyone who feared, resented, or just generally did not like magic. One could so get words stuck in one's head, though, and he was dreadfully afraid that he would say the wrong ones, the harder he tried not to. This had happened once at a party, on quite another subject, and it had been deeply embarrassing. He had been shipped out the next day on a very long voyage, returned with lauded triumphs nearly a year later, and it had probably been forgotten. But he was not sure it had entirely been forgotten, and he did not want to be the captain who said rude things to magicians, and then had unlucky fires burning his ship to the water. It was a legitimate concern, he felt sure. Perhaps, he decided, the best thing to do was say as little as possible. He could smile genially, shake hands, and perhaps bow. He could hum quite a bit, respond in the shortest possible terms, and let his underlings handle everything he didn't absolutely have to do himself.
One would have to eat with the fellow, however. It would be impolite not to invite him to dine with the captain regularly. Inwardly, he groaned at the thought. For to be always watching one's words was more wearing for Reynard than an engagement with the enemy, forty-pounders firing past his head, the wind in his hair, and a knife clutched between his teeth as he readied to board.
There was glory and cleverness and often a great calm certainty and creativity in battle: there was roaring blood and shouts and all the men rushing together, working together as never before. But watching one's words was politician's work, and he had no head for it, and would begin to feel miserable and half-sick as he found he was digging himself in deeper and deeper with someone he had certainly never meant to offend.
Never a great entertainer, he had begun to stick more and more closely to ship and crew, for they did not take offense easily, nor did he have to speak to most of them as equals. The ones whom he did address often were far too used to his ways to take easy umbrage at something he had not meant offensively. He had an evil genius for saying the wrong thing in the wrong way, and not meaning it in the least.
Those who knew him might cut him off at the pass before he said something really foolish, but strangers tended not to be so understanding. He thought miserably of the time he had managed, in one ill-timed conversation, to insult a man, his wife, and their daughter. It was just as well that the arranged marriage had not come to fruition, as he found he was not quite the type for that sort of marriage after all, but he could not but look on the incident with shame that it had happened through his own bumbling words. There must be people who never misspoke, who never implied the worst things they could have implied while thinking they were saying something entirely different. There must be, but he wasn't one of them.
Kicking his heels at the admiralty, he passed the time of day with several other unhappy looking captains, who were far too well-bred to say what they thought of merlins (at least in the possible presence of admiralty spies), but they all exchanged sympathetic looks at one point or another. Reynard felt particularly sorry for young captain Oates, whose father was well known in the government, and took a strong anti-magic stance whenever he possibly could. He had clearly not been able to go against the tide of using merlins as war weapons, as the vote had been five hundred for, thirty-eight against. That his own son should end up with a magician on his ship would no doubt be
Reynard could only hope that someone in the admiralty would show some compassion (if they knew such a thing even existed) and not give Oates the least agreeable magician they had available. It would be no good thing for the war effort to punish father through son, and possibly cause an outcry against merlins, the war, or both, should anything befall him through one's presence. His father would never let it rest, if anything happened to him through magic, however obliquely, and the man had enough friends in high places to make things deeply unpleasant. The tide was presently against him, when it came to outlawing magic, but tides, Reynard knew, had a way of turning. Practically like clockwork. Whatever one thought of the whole embroiled mess, he would hate to see a good captain used as a pawn in the middle of it.
It was with these cheery thoughts he was occupying himself when the first magician was ushered out. A pleasant-looking fellow, of nearly regular height, with sandy-red hair and an expression on his face that said he was eager to befriend, to be pleasant to everyone. It heartened Reynard to see that the admiralty had used such good judgment (for once, he silently and treacherously added), when choosing for its captains. Though the magician was assigned to someone else, Reynard sat up a little straighter and began to feel excited rather than uneasy. A fellow like that would be quite welcome at the captain's table, and would likely not take offense, at least not if one remembered to apologize promptly for every slip of the tongue.
Give me the company of sailors, he thought. For a sailor will not take offense where none is meant, and will likely laugh even if it is. Though perhaps I have been lucky in my crews.
Indeed, Reynard was convinced that he had had the best of good luck, of always serving on a happy ship. In his youngest days, as a stripling learning the ropes, it had not been so: he remembered hungry days, and captains whose wrath was colder than the poles, bitter and grotesque, punishments and lashings, hunger and pain and fear. But as he rose in the ranks, those days were happily behind him, and he found the ships happier and happier as he rose in rank. It occasionally and vaguely occurred to him that this was because he had more authority and did not need to see the unhappiest side of things as often, which troubled him a little.
Reynard was not a man overly given to introspection, so he never pursued the matter further, but if he had, he would have rejected the diagnosis, for he did have quite a finger on the ship's pulse, and, although not sleeping under decks with the men anymore, he certainly visited every sickbed, wrote every death-letter, said every service for a man killed in action or through accident, and was well aware of the stores of provisions, perhaps more than anyone aboard excepting the ship's steward, and perhaps sometimes even him.
Reflecting upon that unusual luck further would have convinced a vainer man that he was the variable in every case, that ships where he had some authority were far happier than where he had none, and that he had always tried to be a decent captain and a fair man, that he never punished unduly or unfairly, and never starved or overworked his men. That he was a fair captain, an inspiring captain, and someone that, indeed, a great many people looked up to and were proud of, would not have occurred to him, and if someone else had mentioned it, he would have thought it nothing but vanity and peacocking to even consider the idea.
At any rate, it was in no self-congratulatory mood that he awaited his turn to be assigned a magician.
One by one, the admiralty presented captains with magicians of all shapes and sizes. It was a continual surprise to Reynard that many of them were no shorter than the average height, and he found himself wondering why that would be. Surely they had all trained with magic; surely it had some effect. What good was knowing magic stunted one's height, if you couldn't tell a merlin at a glance?
Then there were only two captains left, waiting on tenterhooks for their assigned magicians, and it was, of course, himself and Oates. Oates cast him an anguished look. It was easy to see he was being put through the wringer, and Reynard felt for him, though he could do no more than give him a sympathetic grin. As for why he was second-to-last, he could only hope it was the luck of the draw, and not that he was to be taught a lesson—or used as an example of what happened to captains who ran through ships rather too freely.
Reynard's magician appeared, a pretty fellow with golden curls, a handsome, unlined face...and a height nearly matching the captain's own. Reynard stood up and went to shake the soft-looking fellow's hand. The magician was wide-eyed when introduced, and said he was very, very pleased to meet Reynard, and he hoped he would not be inconveniencing the captain unduly, and he hoped he should do his duty by crown and country.
It was a pretty speech, and it affected both captains (Oates looking positively sick with envy), and the magician was quite ready to leave in the instant. "For I know your ships and boats can't wait for time or tide," he added, clearly pleased to have come up with a suitably nautical expression for the situation.
And Reynard was taking his leave, he surely was, but just then the magician assigned to Oates was there, and he had to stop. It would be like looking away from a ship's sinking, if one turned away now.
Oh dear, he thought. Oates's face was a picture of dislike and repugnance. Now, here at last, was a magician who matched the assumption of height. He was a little man, a bit over five feet, but not much.
He was small and ill-made, with a hostile, unkempt air about him, as if he was expecting to be punched at any moment and was quite ready to give as good as he got. He had clearly forgotten to comb his hair, and if he had changed his waistcoat above a fortnight ago, it would be to Reynard's everlasting surprise.
Despite the man's dirty and hostile air, Reynard saw something in his eyes when he looked between the two remaining captains, trying to see to whom he belonged now. It was not the look of a man who meant to be disobliging. He caught the flash of feeling in those green-gray eyes, eyes the color of a storm at sea, and recognized the pang of emotion: Oh dear, I've done something wrong again, haven't I?
For Reynard, it was the inability not to put his foot in his mouth at the worst possible moment. For this man, it was probably the inability to present himself as a gentleman, or anything short of a filthy beggar. It was a strangely hopeless look, and, mixed with the look of outrage and resignation and pain that tinged Oates' features, Reynard could not but intervene.
This was the worst possible way for both men to meet one another, and they would not work well together. For Oates was very particular about dress and how one presented oneself. He insisted his ship be whitewashed every week no matter the climate or state, and was generally thought of as a ship-proud man who loved ribbons and uniforms and trim rigging all over his commands. He was an excellent captain, but no one could say he would overlook slovenly habits for any reason whatsoever. That Oates should be assigned this magician was a direct slap in the face, and the magician would likely be no happier working with a man who despised him and all he stood for. Reynard could not let this happen if he could prevent it, and so he spoke up.
"I believe you're meant for me, sir," he said, casting his hand out and pushing it onto the small magician's, giving him a handshake before he could quite take it all in. "I'm sorry, I think there was a bit of a mix-up. He cast the other magician a look of regret and apology, and caught Oates' speaking look of relief and thanks, and then he smiled down into the green-gray sea eyes, and said, "I am Reynard. I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance, mister..."
"Merlin," said the small magician. "Merlin Jessop. At your service." He released the handshake and executed a pretty bow that would not have shamed an officer.
"Very true," said Reynard, unaccountably flustered. "Right this way, Mister—er—Merlin Jessop." He hustled the small magician from the room before the admiralty could make a fuss. No doubt wiser heads would prevail and not make a problem for them over the switch, once everyone was safely at sea. Did the admiralty really want to set Jessop and Oates up for abject failure—or was it a small-minded bureaucrat sticking his oar in, as they were so good at doing?
