Part 29 (2/2)

The word was scarce out of his mouth when the cannon boomed. We threw ourselves flat, as a ball screamed from the Sanguine Sanguine, bashed a hole in the mids.h.i.+p rail, carried off part of the mainmast shrouds & continued right over the deck, to drop into the waves on our starboard flank. There were men on the whaler yet! Uskins snapped out of his madness & yelled for Byrd & Tanner, who let loose with the most cacophonous broadside I have ever heard or hope to, & from my place by the mizzen I saw the little Opaltine craft slashed open, like a fish by a gutting knife, right along her middle deck. And still Uskins was shouting: 'Reload ! Haul in and reload! Tanner, are ye blary deaf?'

We were all half-deaf, of course - & then our own smoke billowed up & draped the topdeck like a shroud. Rose sent his clerk running into it, & I followed on the man's heels. Gasping & retching I saw the man at Uskins' elbow, making cease-and-desist gestures. The first mate understood & somehow croaked out a Stand down. Stand down.

The smoke lifted & I turned to the rail. All over: there was no deck on the Sanguine Sanguine from which to fire at us, no man in one piece to attempt it. She was toppling our way, bubbling, sinking; inside of five minutes her mainmast lowered at us like an accusing finger; in another five she was no more than trash & splinters & a smell of burning whale. from which to fire at us, no man in one piece to attempt it. She was toppling our way, bubbling, sinking; inside of five minutes her mainmast lowered at us like an accusing finger; in another five she was no more than trash & splinters & a smell of burning whale.

I set about getting the gawkers off the deck. Drellarek watched me with a hand on his sword-hilt. As if he expected some trouble from me, broken old coward that I am. Captain Magritte had regained consciousness & stood weeping between his guards. Chadfallow & Fulbreech staunched wounds. Pazel Pathkendle looked at me & said simply, 'Why?'

'Clear off, lads, clear off.' I made my way along the rail, now & then persuading a Turach to put his blade away. Ahead of me Bolutu was scribbling in his notebook. When I drew near he looked up suddenly & held it out for my inspection. I read: Every outrage plays into his hands. Every outrage plays into his hands.

Our eyes met. 'Rose's hands, you mean? Or Arunis'?'

Bolutu shook his head. A quick scrawl. Sandor Ott's. Sandor Ott's.

'The spymaster ? He's still hiding in the gutters of Ormael, ain't he?'

Bolutu just looked at me.

'Anyway,' I went on uneasily, 'how does a crime like this work to his favour? Weren't you paying attention? Our men were fit to mutiny!'

More scribbling. But they didn't. But they didn't.

'Well that's just fear,' I said. 'But it can't last forever. We'll see how things stand when they're more afraid of the Nelluroq than they are of Rose or Arunis.'

Bolutu considered me a moment, his eyes perplexed. Then he tore out a page, wrote until his pencil snapped, whipped out another & finished the message off. He gave the page to me.

They should fear Ott. First he made them lie. Then he made them seem to perish. Today he makes them murderers. Tomorrow he will make them believe. And they will do so. They will have no other purpose in living but the cause.

Rose is Ott's tool, sir. And Arunis you must leave to us. We will fight him when the time comes. To fight him now would be to fight with shadows merely.

'Us?' I said.

Before I could answer Mr Latzlo blundered up & pawed at my elbow. He looked deeply affronted. 'The oil!' he cried, 'All that precious oil! It's a humiliation! Why didn't we pump her dry first, Quartermaster?'

I barked him off the deck in a voice I hardly knew was in me. Then I came back to Bolutu, still wanting an answer to my question. But the black man was finished with me. The horror of what we had done was back in his eyes, which looked skyward & past me. I turned around & saw the great plume of our cannon-smoke, rising higher & higher as the wind swept it south. The cloud's heart was ink-thick, & seemed like it would go on rising forever, a dark balloon bearing word of our crime to the heavens. But the tail of the cloud was stretching, paling, dwindling to near invisibility. Even as I watched it was gone, & with it a dozen-odd living souls, hope & memory & will & love & struggle, all ended in a moment, so that the heedlessly alive might forget them & rage on.

Need it be so? I ask myself (it is late, I am wretched, the day's blood stains these final thoughts). Need I wait for the next such outrage? I'm the quartermaster. Rose doesn't trust me, but he's not yet stripped me of rank & privileges. They'll admit me to the powder room with no questions asked. Should I bring the era of the Chathrand Chathrand to an end? to an end?

Sat.u.r.day, 14 Freala 941. Well into the Rekere Current. Orange heat lightning all night: the Bramian Beacon, as it's known. Thursday dawn picked up the autumn westerlies & doubled our speed.

Midmorning today (warm, mild, cloudless yet) I let Miss Thasha and her tarboy friends persuade me to inspect a part of the orlop deck, just astern of the live animal compartment. 'Bring a bright lamp, Mr Fiffengurt,' they pleaded, & I did so. Lady Thasha in particular was spooked by the darkness: strange, that, for she is as far from cowardly as any soul on this vessel. I should like to know what they were after. We found very little of note: just a deep axe-mark on a stanchion, a souvenir from the ancient days. The mark fascinated Lady Thasha, somehow. Could I explain it? she asked.

I could, in fact. I knew what legend made of that mark. It came from a dark time in Chathrand Chathrand 's history, when the Yeligs leased her out to Jenetran slave traders. They were in the Nelu Vebre in the far north-east, & it was winter, & the slaves were dying of cold. Well, one girl grew so thin she slipped her irons, & hid away for weeks. And when they found her she ran, cursing them & crying out for help. And just as they seized her another girl appeared, her mirror image, pale where the slave-girl was dark. A spirit-girl, if you please. She fought like a devil, though, & cut one man's gut wide open, & set fire to the deck. When the men quelled the fire they searched high & low, but they never saw that girl or her protector again. They'd vanished as if they never were. 's history, when the Yeligs leased her out to Jenetran slave traders. They were in the Nelu Vebre in the far north-east, & it was winter, & the slaves were dying of cold. Well, one girl grew so thin she slipped her irons, & hid away for weeks. And when they found her she ran, cursing them & crying out for help. And just as they seized her another girl appeared, her mirror image, pale where the slave-girl was dark. A spirit-girl, if you please. She fought like a devil, though, & cut one man's gut wide open, & set fire to the deck. When the men quelled the fire they searched high & low, but they never saw that girl or her protector again. They'd vanished as if they never were.

'And this mark was made by one of those Jenetrans, who took a swing at the devil-girl with his axe. That's the story. And there's hundreds more, if you like that sort of thing.'

They were staring at me as if I'd grown three heads & a tail. And then Miss Thasha took my hand in both of hers & asked if the crew-member had died. 'Well the story ain't that specific,' I said with a laugh. At that she turned right around and faced the wall.

No, I cannot kill them yet. Not those boys, & not dear Thasha, who has given me this new journal & a safe place to keep it here in her chambers, beyond the reach of Uskins, or Stukey, or whatever the fool's real name is. There is some new hope in the faces of those three youths: I see it when they look at Hercol, as if at a man they had never before seen clearly. And the Tholja.s.san too has the look of one girding himself for battle. Imitate them, Fiffengurt. You may save your honour yet.

19.

On the Bowsprit

19 Freala 941 128th day from Etherhorde

Less than a week after the sinking of the Sanguine Sanguine, her captain's prediction came true. At first the only sign was a pea-green cast to the waves. 'The mark of the true tropics,' Mr Druffle informed a small audience of tarboys. 'We're crossing the warm belly of Alifros, my dears.'

Other signs followed: a pod of sea turtles, a lonely frigate bird, a sharp eastward bent to the current. Then, just as Fiffengurt completed the noon measurements of speed and compa.s.s heading, it appeared: a dark line on the southern horizon, stretching away east and west as far as the eye could see. Mainland, thought a few with wonder, but it was nothing of the kind.

Mr Elkstem advised the captain, and received a quick reply: a sc.r.a.p of paper on which was scrawled ESE.128deg30', tgs - w.w ESE.128deg30', tgs - w.w. Such were Rose's abbreviated orders: a new east-by-south-east heading, and a spread of sail up to and including topgallants, 'as weather warrants.'

Elkstem, concluding that the weather did warrant, promptly gave the signal for general quarters. The drums sounded, the lower decks roared to life, and four hundred men poured up through the hatches and took their positions at spar, brace and halyard. Frix and Alyash ran the rails, lieutenant to lieutenant. 'Free that downhaul. Where's the clearance, Bindhammer ? Compose your team, sir, for the love of Rin!'

Elkstem put his weight on the wheel. 'Heave!' went the simultaneous orders along the five masts, and hundreds of men complied, and the wheel spun, and the vast mainsails turned into the wind. The Chathrand Chathrand swung east, degree by hard-won degree, until she ran parallel to the dark Bramian sh.o.r.e. swung east, degree by hard-won degree, until she ran parallel to the dark Bramian sh.o.r.e.

All day they kept their distance. Rose wanted them no closer until they rounded Bramian, knowing (better than most captains in Alifros) how her cliffs gave way here and there to tiny beaches, hidden footholds on her jungles, boundless and wet. An ores.h.i.+p, a pirate sloop, a slaver exchanging pots and trinkets for human lives: any one of these might be anch.o.r.ed off such a landing. Rose did not intend to be spotted again.

They beat a weary path around the giant. For three days they held the same course, until finally the lookout perceived the island's southward curve. Even then Rose kept them east, all that day and night, as if making for Kushal or Pulduraj. Only on the fifth morning, with Bramian nearly out of sight behind them, did the order come. Ware away! West by south-west! Ware away! West by south-west! - a hairpin turn, and such an agony of effort that the men recalled previous course changes almost fondly. The topgallants had to be furled, the mainsails double-reefed, the fore-and-aft sails braced to the fine work of running close-hauled to the wind, which now battered their faces and begrudged them every westward mile. No trim would serve for more than three hours; no sailor could long be spared for rest. - a hairpin turn, and such an agony of effort that the men recalled previous course changes almost fondly. The topgallants had to be furled, the mainsails double-reefed, the fore-and-aft sails braced to the fine work of running close-hauled to the wind, which now battered their faces and begrudged them every westward mile. No trim would serve for more than three hours; no sailor could long be spared for rest.

Dusk on 19 Freala found the crew limp with exhaustion. The wind had s.h.i.+fted in their favour, but by now they were too tired to rejoice. It was a strange, quiet evening: the sun was still above the horizon, but a sickle moon hung already in the east. The sky between them was convulsed with racing clouds.

Pazel stood on the footropes beneath the bowsprit, that great spear thrust out in front of Chathrand Chathrand. He was in a dark mood, and had hoped being here might dispel it. Every few seconds the bow leaped skywards, then plummeted again towards the waves, whose cold spray just managed to graze Pazel's feet as they shattered on the keel. In normal times Pazel was in his glory here. Only high on the masts could one be flung about as thrillingly by the motions of the s.h.i.+p.

Of course in a storm both mast and bowsprit were living nightmares. Pazel had never experienced those particular miseries. But his spider-monkey confidence on the ropes had been hard-won, and he didn't mean to lose it just because he was no longer a tarboy. When Neeps suggested they crawl out and lend a hand with the jibsails he had quickly agreed.

The sailors, however, had brushed them off: 'No thank you, lads, we'll manage somehow. Mind you, there's always cable to sc.r.a.pe.' The men were afraid, of course: afraid of getting mixed up with 'them two crazy monkeys.' But it had stung to have their offer of help thrown back at them, and Neeps had left in a huff.

Pazel gazed off to portside. The Nelluroq. He was seeing it at last. Even at this distance he thought he could detect a change in the waves: grander swells, a deeper and more sombre blue. Maybe that was just his fancy. What was certain was that a s.h.i.+p could sail twice the width of Arqual in that direction and find no land.

Or rather, the Chathrand Chathrand could. could.

Or rather, she could try.

The sailors had finished setting the jibs. Pazel climbed up beside the Goose-Girl's figurehead to let them slip by. Some glanced at him with fear. The last, Mr Coote, just looked embarra.s.sed. He had known Pazel longer than any sailor aboard, having served on the IMS Swan Swan, where Pazel's life as a tarboy had begun.

'They mean no harm,' he muttered, pausing at Pazel's side. 'Just not sure of their footing, if you follow me.'

<script>