I have an oath

The Princess Royal is truly a fair sight.  White sails pile on the rigging, neatly tied now into pillows which lie along gleaming wooden yards.  If loosed, they would billow in the sweet breeze that comes sifting off the sea, and the Princess would glide as if in a cloud out to sea.

"She's larger than the Treader," he tells Marian, who is attentive and interested, though perhaps there are times when smoke-blue eyes watch Caspian when he isn't looking, and an amused smile touches her lips.  He notices not at all, caught as he is in the tour they're being given, despite the fact the midshipman assigned to them stopped talking a good twenty minutes ago and may well have vanished altogether.  "As is proper for a flagship, I suppose, but see the way she's designed, she isn't all bulk or brute force."

Larger, yes: where the Treader had one mast, the Princess has three, and the deck is longer, wider.  She doesn't rise at bow and stern the way the Treader did; she'll cut through wind and wave easier for it, the figurehead at the bow leading the way.  

Marian is all curiosity: if the Princess is larger than the Treader, she dwarfs the Hope, and Caspian details the foremast, the main, the mizzen, explains how this type of rigging will allow the Princess to sail to windward.  The Black Pearl is his other comparison, and though the Princess could never beat the Pearl as a runner, she's sleek and powerful and he suspects she'd give a fair chase.

It's like being sixteen again and seeing the Treader come, piece by piece, into being: the Princess is hardly of Narnian design, but he can imagine, mayhaps, that the great ships of her Golden Age looked something like this: the Splendour Hyaline, for example, which he's seen only in paintings.  The Princess is built for warfare and protection, not exploration or pleasure cruises, and it shows in the efficiency of her design, but Ambergeldar is hardly a sea power, and no war threatens the quiet horizon here, and that shows, too, in the detail and care taken, intricate decorations carved into wood, fine materials, cloud-white canvas and bright ropes.  The captain's quarters are roomy and fair, paneled in polished wood, the galley clean and ready for a hungry crew.

He thinks of cramped nights, caught in the doldrums, heat and lack of wind driving them all to the edges of sanity and temper, and considers that the space available below decks here would have been beneficial then, too -- though the Princess requires a larger crew, more mouth to feed and throats to quench.

Not that he discusses those memories with Marian.  Instead, he tells light stories of the crew he remembers, the ships built after the Treader, the fleet finally in place in his adulthood, the voyages to the Lone Islands and beyond; to Calormen, along the coast.

That turns to finding members of the crew and talking with them of the voyages undertaken, the open sea beyond this harbor, an ocean Caspian has never explored.  He spends a few moments lost at the railing, looking out over glittering gray waves as the wind threatens to topple his hat and gold braid weighs heavy on his shoulders, before a soft voice breaks into his thoughts and a light hand on his arm reminds him that he is not alone, that these voyages are not his to take, that these stories will have to be heard secondhand, which is well and good and how the world moves.

Still, there is, mayhap, a light in his eyes that is not quite laughter or warmth, clear when he watches the horizon and dimmer when he turns in towards shore, though he offers his arm to Marian with impeccable manners and a smile that won't be dimmed.

"Are we off?" she asks, lightly.  "Have you taken your fill?"

"Not I," he laughs, "but I do believe we are expected elsewhere, for the moment."

His hands may itch to take up sheets rather than champagne glasses, but the pull lessens as they leave the deck, and anyway, Amy would almost surely not approve of her brother abandoning shore altogether.

At least, not this evening.

 It's a rather lovely day in Ambergeldar.  Perhaps a bit hot, and the flowers he wanders past in the garden a bit dry, but the sky is a sunny bowl of blue and the wind is cool against his face, and he is so pleased to be here that he puts his hands in his pockets and whistles a bit as he walks.

It hadn't been hard to convince Marta to let him take Merry out for playtime; he'd pointed out, truthfully, that he hasn't yet had enough time with the boy to make up for the years missed, so he'd spent a delightful morning talking with his nephew and building unrefined but surprisingly sturdy fortresses out of blocks, and going to the orchard to see if any apples were ripe (they weren't, but that didn't stop them looking).

But he'd taken Merry back to the nursery a few moments ago, smiling at the weight of a sleepy head on his shoulder and at the way his nephew curled into himself when he was laid carefully down in bed.  Now, there isn't anything for him to do, in particular, until Amy is free, and he'd assured her he can take care of himself.  

Perhaps if he had a three-volume novel, he might sit for a while and read; as it is, he finds himself wandering through the gardens, looking with faint interest at the blooming flowers.  They're quite pretty, though hardly anything he knows anything about.

It was a very fine party, but someone must be sure the horses are fed and watered and that all is set in the stables for chores tomorrow, and so Caspian moves quietly from stall to stall, whispering low words into this flickering ear or running a hand fondly down a rough mane.

It's hazy and warm and the wide doors to the stables have been pushed open to let in some air. It's the sort of night where everything feels a little dreamlike. It reminds him of Narnia, and he smiles to himself.