Chapter 3: Sailing

I had never been on a long ocean voyage before.

I’d travelled a couple times on ships when we had gone to visit the southern properties, but the open ocean was a whole different experience I’d not had. So far, I’d never been seasick. I think my merman genes had a lot to do with that.

I had also discovered there was something new I could do with my magic. My fourth discipline was Physics. I could shape liquids and move air. I had a plan to make the voyage more pleasant. In one of the jewellery stores in Horn, I found a broach that had the crystal that stored energy in it.

It wasn’t real pretty, and the gem obviously wasn’t considered worth much. I, however, knew very different. It didn’t cost me much to purchase. Not that I really had to worry about coin. I had the extra bags in my magic box and had worked out that I was quite rich.

I had found a spell in the second book I had that let me make a ship’s travel shield. What this did was effectively smoothed the seas around the ship and keep a constant breeze in the sails to increase its speed. The captain simply altered direction and the breeze altered with the ship. You could even control the speed.

By placing the spell on an item with a crystal in it, I didn’t have to keep creating the spell and exhausting myself. I could just tap on the device to turn it on or off or increase or decrease the wind. It took surprisingly little effort to make.

Cavil wanted me to head to the ship and make sure it was set up how I wanted it. He told me the Captain was a friend and amendable. I had less than three days to get it ship shape before the bighorns turned up. The plan was to drive them on, and as soon as the tide was right, the ship would leave.

I had noted the ship had two masts. I decided that the fore-mast was the best place to put the device. I nailed a small brass wall lamp to the front of the mast. Using the silver wire I had purchased, I tied the broach in place. I placed the spells on the lamp and the broach.

I applied enough energy to the door so the brass melted into the frame and it couldn’t be opened. I also placed a spell on the lamp so it couldn’t be removed from the mast. I tapped the lamp and felt the wind change, and the ship moved forward. I tapped it again, and the breeze slowly realigned to its original path. I was delighted that it had worked.

I paid Captain Hail to have his crew help me scrub out the pens. He had a pump that could be used to hose down the decks with seawater, and I checked it to make sure it would last the voyage and added a little repair spell that I’d found. For fun, I added a keep clean spell on the floor, so the manure washed off more easily.

I could also take up to fifteen animals, a pen full, on the top deck, weather permitting, so they got some sun. I was responsible for keeping this deck clean as well as the pens, once we were under way. I asked if I could alter the hold, where the hay was to be stored. They tended to pile the hay on one side and the water barrels in the other. I wanted to install several rows of hooks to hold nets.

I had the men store the water and molasses barrels to one height only, taking up the floor space. The farmer, who was supplying the hay, had done as I asked the first day I talked to him. Instead of leaving the hay loose, he raked it into one meter wide rows, and he rolled the hay into meter high bales for me squashing down the hey tight as he went. He then tied them with twine.

I had purchased every old net I could find. I hooked one side of the net in place and then as the crew rolled the bales in and filled the space, we used ropes to lift the other side of the net, so the bales were up off the barrels and kept dry and aired.

The farmer told me when he delivered the bales that he liked my new method. It was a lot easier to move the hay once it was tied up even if a little effort was required to roll it initially. It even took up a lot less space so he could store even more in the future.

He told me some farmers tried stuffing it into big bags, but the customer paid twice as much and often got less hay. My method was easier on the farmer’s nose as well. The crew also preferred the bales. Getting hay aboard was often a messy and dusty exercise. They liked just rolling them down the ramp to the crew below.

I suspected I had a lot more hay than I would have had otherwise. Compacted, the hay took up less space, and I was able to purchase more. My farmer friend helped his neighbour roll his hay, anticipating I would be back for more. I was happy with the purchase price, and they were happy to keep rolling up the rest to sell and store.

Since I was taking fewer animals, I decided to bring Red with me. Cavil was going to keep King happy as he has some siring work for him. He was going to make some damn fine foals. King promised to behave for Greta. She was the only other person he would allow to handle him.

I made one other alteration. On the fore deck, I placed six barrels. I removed the tops, so they were open. I’d had a metal shaper make me six round trays. They were half as wide again as the barrels and had 20cm high sides with a locking ring under them. The trays were to fit over the barrels snugly but still be able to be lifted off.

In the centre, he cut out a 10cm hole, and he soldered a 25cm high cylinder over the hole. We attached four posts 40cm high in the corners of the tray. I added an inverted conical cover that was just wider than the tray and only 10cm high from base to point. We had soldered on bits of pipe that fitted over the posts. The point aimed at the hole in the central column. I filled the trays with seawater.

If it rained a small hole at the bottom point of the lid, let the rainwater drain into the barrel with the condensation from the sea water in the bottom tray. You can never have enough fresh water. I was interested to find out just how much condensation I would collect each day. Every extra litre helped.

I was happy the ship was ready and rode out to meet the herders bringing the bighorns in on the appointed day. I cast my eye over the animals and gently cut out the twenty I was leaving behind. It wasn’t a hard decision. Cavil had included ten steers and ten older cows knowing I’d planned to sell them. It saved him bringing them in later.

I left Red to guard them as I stopped to have a cup of tea with the herders. One of the women I knew of as Beth was in charge of the herd. She was Greta’s mother and Cavil’s number one spouse or dame. I knew he was very fond of Beth and her room was beside his in the big house.

“Hey, handsome,” she greeted me. “You sure did a number on my girl. She is tickled to finally be pregnant. Though she ain’t real happy with her daddy sending you off. It seems she likes what you dangle between them legs.”

“I’m kinda partial to it, myself,” I replied. The rest of girls giggled, and I could feel quite a few of them staring. It didn’t help with all their eyes on my crotch. I felt very self-conscious. I found a seat beside Beth. “So you ladies stopping to shop or heading straight back?”

“Stopping to shop of course,” she replied causing more giggles.

“Figures,” I said. It must have been a gene that I had missed out on. I only shopped if I knew what I wanted. I’d noted the shifters who tended to prefer male form didn’t seem to have this gene either. It must be a dominantly female thing.

I sat and talked to the girls for a bit. Eventually I said I had to get my bighorns sold while the rest were loaded on the ship. I whistled Red, and she headed over to me. I mounted up, and we went and nudged the bighorns to start moving.

I was chuckling as I headed off. The last comment I heard from the girls was, “How the fuck does he do that?” My bighorns were walking down the road two by two, and Red and I were meandering after them.

I corralled the bighorns and walked around them making sure they were all in good health. Happy they hadn’t had a hard trip I went into the auctioneer’s office to register them. We had planned for me to have them here today for the auctions that were held every five days, over the autumn months.

You couldn’t send in large herds, as there wasn’t a big enough market for them. However, a regular supply of animals ensured the local butchers had something to buy. Some of the Bulls kept small pastures just out of town and only topped up the sale pens once a fortnight.

It looked like I had picked the off day, as the competition was sparse. I noticed my grandfather’s sale pen was empty. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen any livestock in the pasture he used either.

“Hey Fred, I got some gorgeous hooves for you,” I said as entered the office and took off my hat.

“Bron! Wow! I haven’t seen you for near on a year. What did you do piss your grandfather off to not be in town for so long?”

I shrugged, “Buggered if I know. I ain’t seen him in over five months.”

Fred frowned at me, “Then whose cows are you selling?”

“Lord Cavil’s. The old bastard sold me to him.”

Fred gaped at me, “Shit! Five months did you say? Did you know the sickness came back? Bull Bellows and your grandfather have been having a hard time. They have both lost a few cows. The Chief Vet had to quarantine both properties until Doc Boots gives the all clear.”

“That’s why I was surprised you had cows to sell. As far as I know, they are still quarantined.” He got up and headed to the door with me to look at what I had so he could set a minimum price. Just as we got to the corral, Pete Butcher hauled up beside us. “Hey Fred, they for sale?”

“Yep!”

“They don’t look sick,” Pete said glancing at me.

“That’s because they ain’t sick. These are Bull Cavil’s stock,” I informed him.

“Oh! I heard he got himself a new boy to monitor the health of his stock. Is that you?” Pete asked with interest.

“These bighorns have been up on the high ranges all summer and are all healthy as can be,” I told him avoiding the question.

He squinted at me. “You look a lot happier Bron. It was a mean thing your granddaddy did to you.”

I knew my Grandfather had tried to spread the story Cavil had heard, but I also knew a lot of people around here knew the truth. Pete was married to a cousin of mine. She was the daughter of one of my grandfather’s sisters that had been sold when he took over the Herd. I shrugged, “Well, I have a good boss now.”

Pete nodded and looked at the stock again. “They sure are carrying some muscle mass, and them steers are just the right age for prime. This is going to cost me, isn’t it?”

Fred and I grinned at him, and he sighed. I knew how much I needed to recover the cost of what I spent, from the bag of coins Cavil had given me. I was surprised I had spent so little. I was more than happy with the price we agreed on. I could have asked for more, but I wasn’t greedy.

When I arrived at the ship, I mentioned to Beth that they might want to run the next lot of longhorns into town, as things were tight. Cavil had been holding back on selling a lot of stock since he was looking to expand. Since he had the new paddocks cleared, he could afford to hold them over winter.

Greta and I had rounded up another fifty head of lost longhorns, so he had a few spares to send to town. Beth agreed it was probably well worth it if the Horns and Bellows didn’t have stock and would pass on the message.

We said our goodbyes and I boarded the ship.

To say I was excited to be going to Federation was an understatement.

Captain Hail had been making the trip twice a year for about five years. If he didn’t have a commission from a Bull or orders from a townie, he did his own trading and didn’t always ship livestock. Cavil used him whenever possible.

I knew that many of the people who lived on Federation had also come to this planet from the same spaceship as my people did. Every so often, a Bull would head to Federation and look for a couple of spouses and some new livestock.

While the Bulls preferred spouses that could shift to bighorn, every so often they brought back one that shifted to some other form. It just meant that while the mother couldn’t shift to bighorn, the kids could so that was all right in the long run.

The spouses were mostly collected as breeding stock too. Too much inbreeding caused delivery problems and stillbirths. It was surprising how many spouses died as my mother had. Warh had lost four spouses and five calves that I knew off since I had been born.

I suspected he didn’t always record the parentage of his calves correctly. He hated to pay for new spouses and preferred to use his daughters. I knew one of the girls that had died in childbirth was a granddaughter and a not a daughter. He was a real bastard as far as I was concerned.

The contract Bull Cavil has is with a man called Domo Ethan. He had been ruling the city called Garson for about five years. It was located on the southern side of a great river that ran for nearly 1500km from the sea to a mountain range. It was over 350km wide at the mouth. They called it the Slit.

The best way to get to Federation was to travel east. The Captain said that he rounds the land owned by Cavil and then sails due east and doesn’t deviate until he hits land. He informed me that he often got goods winds as long as he didn’t stray too far north. This took three weeks if the weather bad two and a half if good.

He then followed the land around the horn, setting his compass to the south-east and sailing until he hit the next outcrop of land. He would follow that around and then sail down the great Slit until he reached the twin cities.

This part of the trip took about seven weeks depending on whether he stopped for water or not, and how good or bad the weather he encountered. Travelling nearer the land could also slow the trip if you didn’t navigate away from the bays and the winds depended on which side of the horn you were on, and the time of year.

It sounded simple enough but then considering how far we had to go we were sure to run into some problems. I watched the land as we sailed out into Horn Bay. Once we hit the deeper water, he turned the ship to follow the shore.

I gave the lamp a tap, and we picked up speed. The ship stopped wallowing so much, and the sailing became really smooth. I didn’t increase the speed too much while we were still so close to land as they did have to navigate several reefs.

As the ship settled into its routine, I was more than happy to just daydream. I had big plans for when I got back. I’d be nineteen, and I felt I could challenge my grandfather. I was bigger, stronger and had very good reasons; Greta and my daughter.

By the sounds of what I had learnt before I left Horn City, I’d have a lot of work to do to get the herds back in good health. I hoped he didn’t lose too many. I also planned on diversifying some more. This was as much my shopping trip as it was for my boss.

With the aid of the ship shield, the next two weeks were uneventful. Several of the sailors grumbled that it wasn’t quite natural how we always seemed to have the wind with us. They are a superstitious lot. Tom, the cabin boy, was fascinated with my water collectors.