It had been clear to Lisabeth for quite some time that she was on board a ship. The rolling motions had made her dizzy but not yet seasick. She was able to look through the little hatch when she received her rations and she had heard the crew singing their shanties while doing their work.
She guessed that this was the ship which had bombarded her Crystal Castle and that she had been taken prisoner, although she couldn't actually remember any of this.
Surprisingly, she now found herself standing in front of a lady, dressed in a British Naval Officer's uniform.
"Welcome aboard the Stormy!" said the unknown lady with a mocking smile. "It took a little while, but I had a few problems with my men. I had urged them not to sing those stupid songs any more but yesterday there was still one who liked to chant 'There was a young maiden, she headed for sea'.
"I heard that", said Lisabeth. "But what's the problem?"
"You don't know the song, otherwise you would not ask such a stupid question", declared the woman as she began to fill two glasses.
"Rum", she said, "I hope you like it".
"No, I don't. The stuff is only good for window-cleaning", replied Lisabeth honestly, "It burns your throat".
The woman looked at Lisabeth in surprise.
"You are a fool", she said slowly. "It tastes very good" and she emptied her glass in one gulp.
"Sit down!" she ordered pointing to a chair in front of her desk, while sitting herself behind it. "You know we are on a secret mission?"
"Of Course! The British fleet doesn't belong in the Black Sea especially not armoured ships!", answered Lisabeth.
"Very good", said the woman. "You even seem to know a bit about international affairs".
"Why shouldn't I know?" asked Lisabeth.
"I don't know. I know as little about you as you know about me", said the woman, examining Lisabeth very carefully.
"Who told you that I dont know you?" continued Lisabeth without a pause.
The woman burst out laughing. "That's a good one! Apart from the first mate, even the crew don't know who I am. They call me 'her' or 'she' because they don't know my name".
"I do!" said Lisabet taking the glass that was filled for her. "Your name is Mary O'Lein!"
It was Lisabeth who had to restart the conversation after a few seconds. "This really is awful", she said. "How on earth can you drink this?"
"Why do you think that is my name?" asked the lady, ignoring Lisabeth's opinion about her favorite drink.
"Because we've been warned about you, that's why!" said Lisabeth. "It's turning into a real madhouse, but if things are as we believe, then you must be Mary O'Lein!"
"A traitor!" shouted Mary O'Lein. "Tell me who warned you and I'll hang him from the highest yard. No, first I'll let him be keelhauled and then I'll hang him. No, first he'll be whiplashed, than I'll have him triple-keelhauled and then I'll triple-hang him!"
"Save your breath", Lisabeth said quietly, "It was written in a bundle of letters."
Mary O'Lein looked defeated. "Traitors in the highest ranks", she finally said. "You cannot even trust your own superiors. So what's the use?"
"There's none", replied Lisabeth. "But why am I on board anyway?"
"You know everything and yet you don't even know that?" asked Mary O'Lein in surprise.
"Oh well, I can guess, but I won't tell you until later", said Lisabeth. "We have to go on for a long while yet, for this adventure has only just started".
"I don't know what you're referring to", said Mary O'Lein. "You speak in riddles".
"Well then, I'll make myself clear in another way", said Lisabeth. "Anne-Christine did put her letters in Govert's calculating machine and used the law of inertia as if it were a cantilever on two columns. Out of all these letters, only one message came up and that was that we should beware of a certain Mary O'Lein".
"So you took a chance", said Mary. "You were not sure it was me".
"Yes, I took a chance", confessed Lisabeth. "But the combination of facts is odd. We were in a Crystal Castle on rails that was destroyed by a British man-of-war and on board is a woman who is responsible for doing so".
"That's right", said Mary sounding a bit guilty. "But I didn't do it on purpose. I really came to stand siege to Sebastopol, but I was attracted irresistbly to that Crystal Castle which you were talking about."
"So there had to be skirmishes!" Lisabeth said, "I was right from the beginning".
"That was the order, yes... skirmishes", admitted Mary. "It was not meant to take very long so we only took our summer uniforms".
"I've heard that before", said Lisabeth.
"You know so much, but you still didn't say who you are", Mary said, pouring herself a new glass.
"Why do you take prisoner someone you don't even know?" asked Lisabeth.
"As you told yourself a few moments ago: the combination of facts was odd. A Crystal Castle on rails which requests for its own destruction. And in the garden lies a girl in a beautiful gown. You could have been at the wedding of the Tsar!"
"That's right" admitted Lisabeth. "I was there, but what about this request?"
"Well, the light signals were clear enough! The Crystal Castle had to be destroyed. Only the British Admirality Code was missing, but I didn't make a fuss about that".
"I certainly can fulfill prophecies in that way too", said Lisabeth.
"What are you talking about?" asked Mary, not knowing if she had heard correctly.
"Well, some people tried to make me believe that one can predict the future and that one can even travel to the future and the past. But every time, there is a nasty smell there", Lisabeth spoke in an exited way. "You cannot even trust your own friends. So what's the use?"
"There's none", answered Mary O'Lein. "But can't we change the way this discussion develops?"
"Oh, I am not complaining" Lisabeth said.
"Right, but still it is strange that you guessed my name right away", said Mary O'Lein. "At least this is correcty predicted in these letters of that Anne-what's-her-name".
"Anne-Lise", clarified Lisabeth. "But still...., what's in a name? Your name, my name, you can say any name you want and who cares? There's no-one to confirm or deny it".
"That's true", said Mary O'Lein, "this point of view is new to me. Do you always have such a constructive way of talking?"
"Yes, it's part of my vocation", said Lisabeth proudly. "I've already had a lot of jobs in my young life. I was a servant, a lady in a castle, an archeologist, a civil engineer, a Grand-Duchess and a Ts....."
"And a Tsarina?", queried Mary O'Lein.
"Only for a very brief period", said Lisabeth indifferently. "I left my husband the Tsar at once, just like I left the Grand-Duke before. I had the latter killed because of his dreadful table manners. But with the Tsar it was better in that respect. I only had to send him to Archangel before the wedding was over because...."
Before she knew what had happened, Lisabeth was back in her own cabin. She thought herself lucky: "That was a narrow escape! Next time I must think twice before I say anything. Who knows, one day she may really start believing me".
Two days later she was facing the captain again. "I have thought carefully about past events", she said. "First it seemed all bloody nonsense to me and I started to doubt my own thoughts".
"Which thoughts?" asked Lisabeth wishing to be sure about it.
"That you weren't married to the Tsar", said Mary O'Lein. "You don't look stupid and your clothes seem to fit that story but the timing doesn't make sense. You ought still to be in Moscow so soon after the wedding, or at least on your honeymoon with the Tsar".
"Oh, that's just talk. I talk too much. Just let it go".
"That seems an excelent idea", replied Mary O'Lein's. "I'm in no hurry, for I told the first mate that I'm the one who gives the orders, so he'll do his duty without a problem for as long as I want". On these words Mary stood up and picked up a whip that lay on her desk, in order to put it away in a long box.
"This is called a cat-o'-nine-tails", she said as she closed the box.
"How funny, I adore cats", exclaimed Lisabeth cheerfully, as she made herself comfortable. "What is it you want to know?"
"Everything", said Mary O'Lein., "Just start at the beginning".
"That won't be easy, for I don't even know exactly who my parents were, but the good times started when I first met Anne-Christine a few years ago".
"Well then, let's start there", suggested Mary.
Lisabeth felt uneasy and filled her lungs with a long, deep breath.
"Once upon a time I was a servant with mister Penninckx. The doorbell rang. I opened the door and there was Anne- Christine on the doorstep. She was dressed like a servant too, for she had been my predecessor, but she had turned into the lady of a castle."
"How can that be?" asked Mary O'Lein with great interest.
"Oh, you don't know Anne! Her father's castle was to be sold to pay his gambling debts, but she locked up the sole buyer in the dungeons and bought the castle herself for only one guinea!" she said, happy to have avoided the difficult questions so far.
"That's a good girl!" cried Mary delighted. "I definitely could use her aboard this ship. But why was she standing at the doorstep?"
"Because she wanted to steal Pennickx's mugs", said Lisabeth. "He had inherited some Attilla-mugs which he would never willingly give up. But she wanted to possess them in order to decipher their inscriptions, not for herself but for Govert Gosseling, who is an historian".
Mary O'Lein shivered, waited for a second and then asked: "And did she succeed?"
"What..? In stealing or in deciphering?"
"First things first", said Mary.
"Well, in the end, Anne decided it was better to buy them and after that we tried to decipher the inscriptions, but we got lost on the way. The mugs were to lead us to a place where a treasure was to be found, but we only managed to dig up a bundle of rusty knives from Attila's age and a Crystal Sphere".
Mary filled two glasses with rum and put one in front of Lisabeth. She emptied her own with a feeling of pleasure.
"Go on", said Mary, "and will it take a long time before we reach the Crim?"
"A very long time", said Lisabeth honestly. "I've been through so many adventures with Anne and Govert, you cannot even imagine".
"Then just tell me what you were up to near that Crystal Castle", said Mary O'Lein who seemed to be in a hurry after all.
"Well, that is quite simple. I was on the run because of your grenades and I threw myself in a bomb crater where I must have become unconscious."
"And when did you regain conciousness?" asked Mary O'Lein, who seemed startled by Lisabeth's words. "Aboard this ship", said Lisabeth. "Oh no, I can also remember having seen Anne and Govert talking at the edge of my crater".
Mary O'Lein sat on the edge of her chair. "You can recall what they said to one another?" she asked, carefully srutinizing Lisabeth.
"Exactly!", said Lisabeth. "Because I heard them using the very same words the day before!"
"Why's that?" asked Mary O'Lein, reaching absently for the bottle to fill her glass.
"Because they weren't Anne and Govert, or yes, perhaps they were, but they were yesterday's Anne and Govert looking at their own death today. They had seen that the day before and then I saw it from that side; but now it was a day later and, for the first time, I saw it from the other side. And I saw them dissolve into thin air, the moment they returned to the previous day!"
Mary O'Lein remained silent a moment. "All right, so they returned to the previous day", she said in a reflective mood. "You didn't touch your rum, so that's no explanation".
Still thinking things over, she went to the door and yelled an order which Lisabeth didn't understand, but which she had heard on several occasions during her voyage. After a short while an officer arrived.
"My first mate", said Mary to Lisabeth. "It's his first trip on the Stormy, too".
"Pleased to meet you", said Lisabeth.
"Mate, what do you think of her?" asked Mary. The officer started to gaze at Lisabeth. "She doesn't know where she is", he finally said. "But she does feel she's far away".
"So it seems to me", said Mary O'Lein. "Just take her with you, but give her a better cabin this time. I'm almost beginning to like her".
"You are becoming too sentimental for this kind of work", he murmured.
"That's no business of yours", cried Mary, who had overheard this remark. "I can take a lot of things but not an insult like that. Tonight, you'll get your touch of the cat again!"
Lisabeth saw the officer's face grow pale.
"That was not my intention, believe me captain, honestly", he stuttered, but Mary only added: "directly after your watch, here in my cabin!"
"Mary knows what she wants, doesn't she?" said Lisabeth as she was guided to the deck.
"Mary doesn't really exist!" said the first mate. "She's a nightmare!"
Lisabeth didn't understand. "She doesn't exist? And you are still scared to death of her? How come?"
"Everyone is afraid of things that don't exist", he said and that finished the conversation, for Lisabeth had entered her new cabin and could hear the door being locked behind her.
"Everyone is afraid of things that don't exist" were the words that Lisabeth would repeat during the next two days, until Mary O'Lein came to visit her.
"This is a better cabin than the first one you had, isn't it?" she said after she had firmly locked the door.
"But it is still a nightmare to be locked away", said Lisabeth looking expectantly at Mary O'Lein.
"It's just what you make of it, a nightmare or a dream", said the captain lightly, as she sat down on a couple of blankets which Lisabeth had piled up. "But I've got good news for you; tomorrow you may walk around freely on condition that you tell me one of your stories once more".
"Tell me what you want to hear", said Lisabeth with some relief.
"Maybe you can tell me more about that time travelling", thought Mary O'Lein. "That was the craziest of all so far".
"I have to disappoint you but that's something I do not believe in myself", said Lisabeth.
"And a few days ago you told me about your friends, who switched between yesterday and today as if it was just around the corner!" replied Mary, beginning to clean her nails with a long knife she wore in her belt.
Lisabeth understood what Mary meant. "Gosseling started", she began rapidly. "He could travel by means of deep concentrated thoughts, only he never knew where he would arrive. But Anne had discovered that one can see images which are contained in the Muscovite Crystal and so one can see where one's going".
"And why don't you believe that?" asked Mary. "I only believe in real things I can actually see, and except for that last time, I've never really seen them travel."
"But you do see this ship?" wondered Mary, who stopped manicuring her nails and put her knife back in her belt.
"Of course, with everything that belongs to her!" said Lisabeth rather surprised.
The answer didn't please Mary too much. "That will change", she said. "When you see the rainbows shine in the spray water".
"What the hell is spray water?" wondered Lisabeth for the rest of the evening. "Has it something to do with perfume or with gardening?"
Almost the whole night, she couldn't get to sleep because of this and other questions which kept her tossing and turning. "Why will I think differently when I see the rainbows? They are real, aren't they?"
She felt her doubts steadily growing and finally she knocked on the wooden sideboard of her berth, to make sure that everything around her was real. She heard the sound and her fingers were hurt by the touch of the wood. Reassured, she finally fell into a short, dreamless sleep, from which she was awakened when the the lock of her door was noisily openend. She received her breakfast from the usual elderly taciturn sailor and this time the only difference was that she didn't hear him lock her in when he left.
"If no-one comes in, I'll try and take a look outside", she thought when she had finished her breakfast. And so she did.
The door opened very smoothly and at once she stood in the bright morning sunshine. Almost instinctively, she followed the tall masts with her eyes and was surprized by their sizes and by the full-blown sails which drove the ship forward at a magnificent speed. When her eyes returned to the deck, she noticed there was not very much activity. A few sailors prepared to climb into the rigging; Lisabeth kept on looking and wondered how they managed to set yet another sail without speaking to one another.
"What is spray water?" she asked the first sailor when he was safe on deck again, but he didn't answer. Neither did the others when she asked the same question. They didn't even seem to notice her and, for Lisabeth the only alternative was to try to find Mary O'Lein or the first mate.
After a short while she found the latter standing on the aft port of the ship next to the helmsman, who seemed to look right through her, like the other sailors had done.
"Good morning to you, sir", she said carefully. He touched his cap without looking at her.
"Maybe it is a silly question, but where can I find the spray water?" she asked when she realized that at least he could hear her.
"That is the flying water that wets the deck at the bow- end of the ship", said the officer and, right after that: "one point starboord!"
"One point starboord", repeated the helmsman and with all his strength he started to turn the large wheel.
Lisabeth knew enough by now and walked to the front of the ship. Halfway there, she stopped to look over the bulwark at the fast-moving water. From the corner of her eye, she saw that Mary O'Lein had accompanied the first mate and the wind brought parts of their conversation to her. "Spray water", she could hear him say and Mary O'Lein answered with something like "rainbow" and "portside".
The deck became narrower, more chaotic and wetter as she found her way to the bow. At regular intervals, she was struck by a sudden shower of sea water. "Spray water", she knew by now. "But I can see no rainbows!"
Suddenly she knew why: "the sun doesn't shine here at this side of the ship, I must go to the other side". She searched her way between the Manila ropes and very soon she received her sprays of water again, sprays through which she did see the sun shine brightly this time. The arcade of colours in which she stood reminded her of her adventures with the Muscovite Glasswork. She even began to see some images when she looked to the aft-deck. She saw Anne negotiating with Govert; sometimes they came nearer and sometimes they disappeared just as quickly.
"It must be an optical illusion", she thought and she wanted to step out of the showers of sea water to see reality again. But the deck was wet and she slipped; she felt only a bump and then dropped into an endless fall....
"What a relief, you're back again", said Govert who seemed to have caught her out of the sky. He carried her in his arms over a gravel path in a fierce storm. "We were afraid you would never return to us, but finally we found you in the water underneath the cliffs". "Mary O'Lein", said Lisabeth with great difficulty. "I met her in another world".