[Folwren]

Having ordered signals to be sent, and flags raised, Hereric had gone below to the officer’s room. An open hatch above him permitted light to pour in, allowing him sight as he bent over a map. A pin marked where he and the Gondorian fleet was now, and another where the Umbar ships must lay. But there was a problem there. . .he didn’t know how many enemy ships there were.

With a look of disgust, he threw the last pin down on the map and stood up. From this higher, and direct vantage point he studied the map slowly and carefully. After a moment, his eyes lit up and he sat back down, pulled from beneath this first map another three, glanced at them, and then chose the one he needed and placed it above the first.

This second map was a larger scale and far more detailed than the first of the section of river just above Pelargir. Again he studied in silence, drawing imaginary lines with an empty pen.

“If you please, sir, but the king’s counselor is looking for you up deck.” Hereric lifted his head and turned his eyes to the young seaman addressing him, and then stood up.

“Thank you,” he said. The man saluted and went out. The captain paused again over his maps before turning to follow. ‘The counselor is looking for me, what?’ he thought to himself. ‘There’s an awful jab to his pride. Likely sent by the king.’ An amusing thought, but Hereric didn’t laugh, or even smile. He climbed the ladder and came up on deck and walked towards the quarterdeck where he saw Menelcar waiting.

“Sir?” he said, when he had reached him. This was getting ridiculous. The counselor showed little pretense of respect in either his words or behavior towards him, and yet he must put up with it without a word. Well, so be it. “You were looking for me?” Menelcar turned slowly and half nonchalantly towards the captain.

“Yes. His majesty wanted me to tell you what we had thought up and to see if you had any better ideas.” Ah, so it was the king. His suspicions turned out correct. A smile threatened to turn the corner of his mouth and he looked down brieftly.

“What were the plans?”

Menelcar told him as briefly as possible what he and the king had gone over in their planning together. Captain Hereric followed perfectly, knowing, as he had said earlier, the lay of the river. When the counselor had finished, Hereric nodded and then stood silent for a moment, considering.

“Well? Have you anything to add?” Menelcar asked after a pause.

“That will work. . .provided there are few enough ships,” Hereric said immediately, looking up at him. “I doubt that their entire fleet is being set into this attack and there are only two. . .maybe three. But if there are any more, we will have to consider waiting and landing some of our troops on the ground before going in, and even attacking in darkness. We can only attack with so many ships and no more. Yes, we do have the entire fleet at our back, but we can’t use them all in this river. However,” he went on, once again nodding, “as I just said, I don’t think there are going to be many ships at all, and landing men will be unnecessary.”