Part 42 (2/2)

'It's an art? You are trained?' Drawn in despite himself, Noetos sat on the bench opposite her.

'Oooh, yes,' she said, batting her eyelids and wiggling her hips, so obviously coquettish they both laughed. 'Training on the job mostly, and most of it ain't fun,' she said, all seriousness for a moment. 'So your pole don't need greasing?'

'No, Miss Sai, it doesn't. I can't deny I'd appreciate release, but that's all it would be. And you don't even get that, for all your acting to the contrary. I've seen you abovedecks: as much mopping and cleaning for your employer as bedwork, it seems to me.'

'Look at the bright side,' she said. 'I get to make the beds and to lie in them.' Another laugh, but this one was definitely forced.

'Ah well, fisherman, take that pole o' yours off with you; I believe there's a gentleman in cabin cla.s.s who needs his little doggie taken for a walk. I'll see you again, I'm sure.' She smiled at him.

'And I'll hear you about, Miss Sai,' he responded.

Her smile fell, but she nodded politely and made her way up the ladder to the hatch. His last glimpse of her was panties and petticoats. He sighed, and went to find his children.

His relations.h.i.+p with Anomer and Arathe had improved markedly aboard the Conch. He supposed it to be because he was no longer leading; the s.h.i.+p took them to a predetermined destination and there were no decisions to be made, hence no conflict. Problems deferred, not solved, he was honest enough to acknowledge, but he made the most of their willingness to talk with him.

On the seventh day from Sayonae, Arathe sought him out. He had learned enough of her peculiar language that he no longer needed her brother to interpret; conversation was still slow-though not as slow as that awful first day in Fossa. She sat down on the side of the bunk, pulled the curtain closed and began to talk.

As she told him what was on her mind, he found himself looking at her, really looking at her, for the first time in a month or more. His memories of her as a willowy, fair-skinned child would never leave him, he knew, but more recent images of a dumpy, hollow-eyed wreck were gradually being replaced. She had lost weight, her eyes had lost that dark, unhealthy colour, and she again began to approximate the girl he knew, albeit with a maturity not entirely flattering. Not surprising, given how she'd achieved it.

'I'm sorry, Arathe, forgive me, but I wasn't listening,' he said. 'I was thinking about you, and how you've coped with what happened to you in Andratan.'

'I think about that too,' she signalled. 'My'-the next word was difficult, but he interpreted it as 'rememberings'-'my rememberings hurt me, but not as much as they once did. I want to talk about one remembering with you, but now is not the time.'

'Your mother?'

She grimaced, and he knew he'd guessed right.

'Why not now?'

'Because the voice in my head has started speaking again,' she signed.

A feeling of revulsion swept over him. Andratan had stolen his daughter's innocence, and would have taken her life but for her courage. And now it lurked in her mind, not only as awful memories but as an actual voice, trying to steer her to destruction. A voice most probably linked to the G.o.ds who were trying to kill her.

It was so unfair. How could his beautiful daughter, his firstborn, have attracted such a curse?

'What is it saying?' he asked with a heavy heart.

'It talks about Miss Sai,' she said.

This simple statement took many minutes to communicate: the symbols she used to indicate the slattern's name were impenetrable at first, and then for a while Noetos thought the voice was suggesting some sort of unnatural congress. It took him some time to overcome his outrage.

'Why, Arathe? Why would the voice talk about the slattern? What is it saying?'

'I do not know yet. It wants me to observe her. Father, do you have any idea why the voice might make this request?'

'Why haven't you spoken to Anomer? You're closer to him than to me.'

She did not deny the point. 'Because I think Anomer desires her,' she signalled.

'What man aboard this vessel does not?' Noetos replied. 'We are a captive audience, treated daily to a display designed to inflame us. I know of married men who have tried to manoeuvre their families away from their bunks so they can conduct a liaison with Miss Sai. Just last night two men fought over her.' He smiled grimly. 'She's good at her job, it seems.'

'That's what the voice says too. It seems very curious about her. It asks me much the same questions it asked about Lenares.'

Noetos grunted in surprise. 'That's odd. I talked with her a while ago, and was struck by the resemblance.'

'I don't see it.'

'Well, there's clearly no connection. Lenares is from another continent. Besides, she has, shall we say, difficulties getting on with people. I don't see any evidence of that with Miss Sai.'

Arathe laughed, a strange, gurgling sound, but it did him good to hear it. She's getting better, I know she is.

Now there was only the matter of Opuntia to deal with, and, once he had sorted it out, he would have his children's hearts once again.

The storm came during the second week at sea. It began as mare's tails high in the sky, followed by a vast radial pattern of cloud emanating from the north. Noetos didn't need the redoubled activity from the crew to tell him what was coming. In the afternoon of the next day he saw a purple bruise on the horizon, one that grew rapidly and spread its mouth widely, dragging the darkness behind it.

'Arathe says it's not a G.o.d-made storm,' Anomer said to Noetos.

'Doesn't have to be,' the fisherman replied. 'Autumn storms from the north are fearful things. Perhaps that is why our pa.s.sage cost so much. Not every captain would risk a journey in this season.'

Privately he wondered whether the storm was entirely natural. Maybe the G.o.ds had become cleverer, and had learned the trick of disguising themselves, now they knew that people were aware of their machinations. Their journey had taken a predictable turn, sounding like every fireside tale of adventures at sea. The fugitive went out on the ocean, and the wind came, and the storm battered the boat until the s.h.i.+p's crew cried out, 'What are we to do?' And the sea G.o.d Alkuon said: 'Throw me the man among you, the man who seeks to escape from me; throw only him and I will let the rest of you live.' So they took the man up and consigned him to the deep; and immediately his head sank below the waves, all was calm and the storm vanished. As the storm bore down upon them now, their election to journey by sea did not seem so sensible an idea.

The storm blew for two full days and into the third. Noetos and Captain Kidson were the only two aboard not to be taken ill: many of the duties done by the crew fell to them. The fisherman found himself out in the worst of the weather, tying down the longboat after it came loose, reefing in the sails on the mizzenmast, attending to a cracked bowsprit, and, most often, wrestling with a recalcitrant wheel. It sometimes took their combined strength to head the Conch into the waves, and one of them had always to be on hand in case the s.h.i.+p should be turned broadside to the tremendous swells.

On the afternoon of the third day the two men slapped each other on the back with relief. The sea still heaved, the rain still fell, but the troughs were not as deep and the rain came at an angle, not horizontally. The worst was over.

Kidson was a sight. His hair was matted with grime and salt, his face red and briny, his clothes soaked, even his oilskin sodden, stuck to his wiry frame. Noetos expected he appeared exactly the same. The man beckoned Noetos to follow him. After a slow and careful transit of the deck, they ended up in the captain's cabin.

'Go rouse the first mate,' Kidson told the cabin boy. 'It's his s.h.i.+p for a watch. Fisherman 'n' me are going to get ourselves drunk. And fetch Miss Sai. Tell her to clean up first.'

The boy rushed off.

'Wish that old son of a goat had stuck to collectin' sh.e.l.ls, not boats,' the captain said, smiling, and Noetos nodded. 'You're some sailor. I know you say you've never been aboard a deep-drawing s.h.i.+p before, but you made yourself useful while those miserable sons o' besoms spent their time decoratin' their rooms with yesterday's swill. I'm grateful, sir, grateful. Here, have a drink.'

Kidson drew a mug from a cupboard and poured a full measure into it. 'Stout stuff, this. Too good for a smuggler like me. You might like it, though.'

Noetos took a sip, partly out of in-bred politeness, but mostly to hide the surprise on his face.

Kidson raised his eyebrows. 'You knew about the smuggling, right? I'm sure you did. No one goes out in the autumn unless the stakes are high. And they're high, all right. Silks from southern Jasweyah, sewn into the most exquisite garments, so I'm told.' He stopped and looked at Noetos's bemused face. 'You didn't know? You came up on deck and risked your life with no expectation of reward?'

The fisherman found himself able to talk. 'The reward I wanted was to see my son and daughter again. I needed no greater incentive, Captain Kidson.'

The captain nodded. 'As you say. Yet I have an offer for you. I've been watching you these past two days, racking my brain, trying to figure out where I've seen you before. I thought it must have been Raceme, on the few times I came to call at that port, but why would a lowly fisherman have come to my attention? Then I pegged it. The Summer Palace. You're as near as spit the image of the old governor. You're his son, aren't you? The sole survivor of the infamous ma.s.sacre.' He sat back, waiting for a reaction.

'You claim to recognise someone from a brief meeting with his father more than twenty years ago?'

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