Things just haven't been quite right in the St. Loomis shipyards lately. After a springtime surge in construction on the new galley -- the ship that carries all Innithel's hopes upon it -- work has since slowed back to a crawl, for reasons no one can quite explain... or at least, that no one seems to want to talk about outside the shipyard. But rumors and gossip trickle out, as rumors and gossip do...
It started just after Midsummer, everyone says.
No, it happened after the ship's naming ritual, a few correct them, wisely. Only a few nights later, this was, when some of the new crew and passengers-to-be, even the foreign prince -- that is, the Prince Regent -- gathered in the yard to greet the ship, and wake it up.
Well, of course there's nothing so wrong with that. Every sailor and shipbuilder knows that you've got to treat ships properly, and go about these matters with the proper sense of ceremony and respect. But...
But what about those eyes?
To be sure, there's nothing wrong with an eyed ship, of course not -- a Yehani thing, yes, but Yehani know ships, and have been building and sailing ships out of St. Loomis for time out of mind, and even good Kalentians know that the prettiest-eyed ships are the luckiest ones.
Yes, but-- Kalentian sailors also know that the Yehani always paint the sleeping eyes first, and only later paint them open, so why does this one have them painted open from the start?
Well, as for that, the Yehani say....
All right, as it happens the Yehani themselves don't say much about it, close-mouthed bunch that they are. But it's rumored that even they look upon the galley with some amazement, and murmur in wonder about how it's awakened so swiftly. Not that ships really wake up, obviously, that's just the excessive Yehani fondness for their ships. But it's still curious, isn't it?
No, it is not at all curious, it is absolutely absurd and what difference does any of this nonsense even make? These are the irate rumblings of the mercantile class of St. Loomis, who really could not care less about eyes and names and even strange rituals that might be rather unkalentian if anyone looked too closely at them, though no one does of course since it's only silly sailingfolk superstition and not worth bothering about. But why is work on the ship taking so long all of a sudden? What is the hold-up?
The reason for the hold-up is in fact widely mumbled around, if not in fact discussed, exactly. The ship, say the shipbuilders, is unhappy.
That is not a real reason and it is really a gross affront that you should expect any sensible person to believe this, is the answering grumble from the merchants, and now the town councilors besides. Just as ships do not actually wake up, neither are they "unhappy". This is clearly just an excuse for laziness and incompetence, and a demonstration of the deplorable fact that after Midsummer celebrations no one ever wants to just buckle down and work anymore, they only want to frolic away the balmy days. Can these people not be persuaded to exert themselves!
We do want to work, retort the shipbuilders and their allies. But the Sea Lynx doesn't want us to work on her. She wants...
Well, no one is really sure what she wants. But everyone involved in the project is tired of losing their tools, having their buckets of pitch overturned, finding the pegs have rolled off behind and underneath things, discovering their planking has warped overnight, finding the scaffolding bindings have become dangerously loosened, and experiencing all manner of other mischief whenever they try to push the job along.
Maybe she just wants to be in the water, some venture hopefully. Maybe once we've got the timbers down and rolled her all the way out to the bay, and launched her proper upon the sea there, then she'll settle down and the rest of the work can be completed in peace.
Yes, that must be it, the general consensus spreads around, hopes buoyed up by desperation. The ship will be launched out in the harbor right away, where all the work that remains can be completed with only a small bit of extra trouble. She was going to go out on the sea sooner rather than later anyway, right? So a little sooner even than that makes no difference. It will be done before the month is out.
It would have been nice if this had been the last gossip to ripple out from the shipyards and through the town, except perhaps for subsequent expressions of general joy and hopefulness to see things going so well again. But no.
The latest rumor from the shipyard, in disbelief and despair, is that with all the rollers laid down, the hawsers tied fast, all able-bodied men reporting and every strong back put into it... the galley will not budge.
And why not?! the merchants and councilors demand to know.
Because, all shipfolk say. The Sea Lynx is unhappy.