Bloodline Rising

by Katy Moran

  Sia tucks the blanket around my shoulder and I half-want to laugh – I am no longer a child. Who does she think I am? But it’s kindly meant, and it is good to be warm. I would be lying here easy were it not for what Sia said before she left me: “They tell me we are nearing the port of Londinium, child, and so soon your journey will start anew.”

  If Sia thinks I shall be meekly sold to some barbarian trader she is sore mistook. I have not spoken to her of my plan to get ashore without any of these fools seeing – how hard can that be, after sailing for weeks with none of them even glancing at me? Sia is kind, I cannot deny that, but I know I should not entirely trust her. Oftentimes the dark-haired overseer comes up here, the one who seems to be chief of the whole boat, and they lie together beneath the night. This is how Sia has survived so long unsold, I am sure. If she would give up her body, what else would she sell at such a cheap price? Loyalty and honour are always the first to go: she’d give me away at once were it to save her life or lessen the burdens she bears. Yes, Sia is kind, but she is not a fool.

  I have already plotted the way I shall do it: I’ve stayed hidden long enough, and I know what a rambling mess it is, moving the slaves anywhere. Even though there are not many of them left, only the ones who did not sell in the southern markets, there will still be a muddle as the traders get them onto dry land. We are bound to sail into harbour as well, this time, instead of anchoring offshore and sending in a skiff. When they are all tangled up with getting the slaves, silk and wine ashore, and hieing off to whichever market they mean to sell them in, I will sneak off this hell-boat once and for all. I’m sure none of the traders truly believes I am still on board, so they are no longer looking for me. Many weeks it has been since we passed by Ephesus, and three whole new moons have risen, waxed and died in the night sky since that time. Never once have I been seen, apart from by Sia, and I am sure she is possessed of some kind of witchery.

  With each moment we grow closer to Britain. Lying on my bowsprit, I watch the shifting grey waters, and as we surge forwards I wonder why Mama and Tasik spoke so scarcely about their homeland. If I’ve kin left alive on the island, where are they? How shall I find them? I’m named for Tasik’s father, but all I know of him is that he’s dead: no use to me.

  Inside my tunic, Tasik’s ring presses against my chest and suddenly I am on the quayside in Constantinople again, and Tasik is leaving with the fleet for the desert. He holds me close, saying, Do you wear this ring for me, little cub. No matter how far the distance between us, it binds you to me, and while I am gone you must look after the girls and your mother. It was given me by a dear friend, and we each spared the life of the other, so it holds power. Wear it for me, my honey.

  And Mama says, Oh, Essa, you and that wolf and your rings! She is trying not to cry and she sounds very young. I look up, catching the secret glance that flashes between them. Sometimes it’s as if they talk without speaking.

  When Tasik had gone, we stood on the quay waving at the ships as they grew smaller and smaller, and I held the ring in the palm of my hand, looking down at it: all I had left of my father. Mama, I said. What did you mean by the wolf?

  But Tecca had started to weep, and Mama just shook her head, saying, Come, it’s time we were gone.

  I cling to the bowsprit, gazing out at the heaving sea, and I curse myself for not asking more questions, for not forcing my mother and father to unravel the secrets of their lives.

  What were they hiding?

  We have left the open water and are rowing against the wind up a slow brown river that grows narrower with each day that passes. But even so it is still a huge vein of water, so wide it must be next to impossible to see from bank to bank on a cloudy day. I had never known there were so many shades of grey till I sailed beneath northern skies. Sometimes I think I would sell my own right hand to feel the sun on my back once more, to lean in the shade of a white-domed church and watch the sun shimmering off the paving stones, and feel the day’s heat beating from a crumbling wall.

  But now at last the time has come. The sails have been taken down, for the wind goes against us, and apart from Sia and me all on board have taken an oar – even the slavers themselves, even the women who have been kept chained below these many months. A couple of them have been brought up to row on the upper deck; they are pale, unearthly creatures with sunken eyes and bone-white skin. They remind me of the fish who used to swim in the waters of my underground palace. They keep time badly, but the slavers need them up here come what may. They need all the help they can get, for the wind pushes us away from the dockside and they shall be lucky to get in.

  They shout to keep the rhythm and it sounds like the beating of a drum: heave, heave.

  “You grow careless again,” Sia says to me.

  I shrug and, gazing upon the slaty, glittering water, I think of nothing and slip away from her. She mutters beneath her breath as I slide from sight, away behind the now empty oat barrels. I have been living beyond the reach of men’s eyes so long I sometimes wonder if I have truly earned the name I bore when I was the greatest thief in the known world: the Ghost of Constantinople, Lord over the City of the Rising Moon.

  I have not seen Tecca in so long, though. I miss her, although I should not, for Sia is right: she is gone, and there is no having her back. She will never take me by the hand again – not in this world, anyhow. I believe Sia is a witch. I wonder if the tale she told of being stolen from her sandy homeland is true, or if she ran, hunted like a wild creature by Christian folk afraid of the way she sees what others do not.

  I think on this as I lie belly down on the bowsprit. We are near alongside now, and I can see men on land, shrunken by distance. I feel a strange thirst to drink in their faces with my eyes; apart from Sia, the slavers and their captives, they will be the first folk I have seen in months. I am so close, so close to the homeland of my father and mother, so near to freedom. For what kind of life is this, to be always hiding, sneaking? It holds all the demands of thievery and none of the rewards.

  We are much nearer the shore now. There is shouting both on board and ashore, and the youngest slaver, the one with the spots, runs forward till he is but an arm’s length away from me. I could reach out and touch him. Kneeling, he rapidly uncoils a rope and clambers onto the rail, holding it. Looking over my shoulder, I see Ginger-beard doing the same down in the stern.

  There is not very much water between us and the shore now. Brownish waves lap at the slimy quayside, which has been shored up by a fence woven out of whip-thin branches. Spot-face has the rope in a coil; leaning landward, he is ready to throw it. I am amazed he does not slip overboard, balancing the way he is, but for a moment I am forced to forget my hatred for his trade and admire the way he moves so adept and swift with the dromon, as if he is part of her.

  And then, oh Lord – I feel a hand close around the top of my arm, and a voice says roughly, “You have evaded me too long, little shadow.”

  I whirl around, afire with fear, and there he is – it’s the dark-haired slaver, the chief, the one who decided so long ago that I was too skinny to sell in the slave market at Ephesus. His face is alive with laughter, and he is deaf to the shouting ’tween those aboard and the men on shore. I watch, half-dazed, as Spot-face throws the rope ashore. It makes a graceful arc through the air before one of the shoremen catches the loop and wraps it fast through an iron ring set in the ground. The rest of the crew all rush to fend off from the quayside, and the great dromon is brought quiet to rest, after all these long weeks at sea.

  I hardly feel it as the chief hauls me backwards off the bowsprit.

  “Quick!” he hisses. “I want no one to see you – they all think you are dead, and that your spirit wanders this boat, and I need no fuss as I get the cargo ashore.” He pulls me along with him so fast I stumble; where do we go? He is trying to hide me somewhere, but I am damned if I’ll allow him to lock me up or bind me.

  How can I have escaped his eye for so long, only to let myself be caug
ht just as I’m so close to freedom?

  There is a doorway in the tower, and the chief shoves me within to a dim chamber. A shuttered window looks out across the great river, away from the shore, away from freedom. He follows the line of my gaze and says, “I hope you do not think of swimming, boy; there are tides here that will pull you under before you’ve time to scream your last prayer.”

  My mind’s darkening: I cannot breathe as I should. Tides? What are tides? Some kind of sea creature that stalks the river bottom? How can he have caught me; why did I allow him to see me? He pulls the door shut, bolting it, and snatching a tinderbox from a table wedged into a shadowy corner he lights a lamp, looking at me all the while. My nostrils fill with the stink of burning oil, pulling me back into myself. My eyes prickle and for a moment I think I am going to weep, but I do not.

  “I wonder what kind of unchristian powers you must toy with, to have escaped me so long,” the chief says. “What price does a little witch-boy fetch?”

  “You’re the one whose soul’s in the devil’s hands,” I hiss. “I do not deal in human flesh.”

  The chief turns away and for a moment I feel a flash of victory. I have riled him now, I know. “Their souls are lost anyhow,” he says, and his voice drops lower. “They are none of them People of the Book.”

  I throw him a scornful look; Amin was a follower of Mohammed, and I have heard others mutter prayers I recognize. Why doesn’t he just tell me bold-faced that he cares not whether he deals in Christians, Jews, Mohammedans or the damned? It’s worse that he tries to excuse himself. Any moment now I shall be out of this prison and away on to the quayside. Just as soon as he looks away … here’s my chance…

  Shaking his head, the chief goes to the door, draws back the bolt, puts out his head and shouts, “Gregorios – I need you!”

  Ginger-beard comes in – he must have been near – and there’s no chance I can slip out now: he’s closing the door behind him, blinking in the gloom like some kind of foolish beast.

  I am scared now there’s two of them. How am I going to get away? Calm, I must be calm; if they take me to a market, more than likely there’ll be a chance to escape on the way, or when we get there. But where will I go in this strange land? Time enough to think of that later.

  Gregorios looks at me, his eyes widening. “But – but, sir, that boy went overboard weeks ago!” He can hardly spit out the words. I can see the whites of his eyes now, and a quick flame of satisfaction flares in me – I’m glad I’ve scared him. Does he think I’m a ghost returned to pay him out for those long weals on my back that I shall bear for the rest of my life?

  The chief smiles thinly. “Well, Gregorios,” he says, ever so softly, “you can see that the boy is very much alive. Feel his arm if you do not believe me – he’s as solid as you or I.”

  “But – but how’s he not been seen all this while?” Gregorios cannot keep his eyes on me – every time they turn my way he looks away with the next breath, as if he is afraid the sight of me will burn him. He certainly does not want to touch me.

  The chief shrugs in one long, loose movement that reminds me of the cats I used to slink with on the roof-tops of Constantinople. “The boy’s a thief,” he says lazily. “Or that’s what my man told me. Said he’d got on the wrong side of the Emperor and that’s why we had him. No doubt he’s used to sneaking and hiding.”

  I wonder if he means that coward Constans, or my long-ago master. I had nearly forgot about the Emperor of Thieves.

  Gregorios is shaking his head, blinking. He thinks that next time he looks, I will be gone, and this is all some unpleasant daydream.

  “The question is, my man,” says the chief to Gregorios, “what do we do with the brat now?”

  “Bind it,” Gregorios answers without pause, and I feel the sickness rushing up my throat. I thought that after being chained so long I would have bettered this old fear of confinement, but if it has not gone now, it will never go. I draw in deep, quiet breaths, trying to steady myself. There is a way out of this. I have not hidden so long only to be sold bound hand and foot to some fat old barbarian merchant’s wife.

  “Bind it,” Gregorios says again, “and sell it quick. By the time its master knows what a sorry handful he’s got for his coin, you and I shall be long gone.”

  He is already looking about for rope, and the chief has tightened his grip on the top of my arm as though he is afraid I will melt away. But that kind of magic is found only in fireside stories. Oh no, the chief has me surer than a frog in a barrel, and that’s the truth.

  But if I cannot get out of this by force, I must let them have the full strength of all the silvery talk I can muster. “Wait,” I say, and they both stare at me. They were not expecting me to bargain with them. I suspect not many of their slaves think it worthwhile, but I am past caring if they slice my skin with a whip. “Wait. How much will you get if you sell me as a slave? A few coppery coins? Maybe some silver if you’re lucky. I’m but a scrawny brat after living as your guest these many moons.”

  The chief smiles, but his eyes are colder than stones at the bottom of a drain. “Is that so?” he says. “You must accept my apologies that our table was not quite up to its usual standard. And what else do you suggest we sell you as, if not a slave?”

  This is it: if this does not work, I’m finished. I suck in a long breath and reach inside the ragged remains of my tunic, pulling out the ring, clutching the leather cord so hard the veins in the back of my hand stand out. The gold shines in the dim light.

  The chief reaches out and snatches the ring from around my neck. I want to shout at him to give it back, but I cannot, for I must keep my head. He holds it up by the leather string and lets it swing before his eyes. I have to clench my fists to stop myself snatching it. “How was this bauble not found when the boy was taken?” he demands, glaring at Gregorios. “You know the rules.”

  “You may ask Leonides that, for I never laid eyes on the brat till it was in irons,” says Gregorios.

  The chief spits on the floor and shoves the ring into a leather bag hanging from his belt. I have betrayed my father again – I swore I would keep that ring and I have just let it go into the hands of a stranger. But it is my only chance. I turn and look at the chief. Strange it is that he’s quite a pretty man – I have always been taught that beauty means the bearer is blessed by God, as my mother is, and the chief has got to be one of the devil’s own.

  “Sir,” I say – I may as well lay it on thick – “my lord, you may sell me as a slave, but think how much you will get for a hostage.”

  “What is it talking of?” Gregorios says. “We should get him ashore, sir, with the others, afore he slips away again.”

  The chief ignores him. “What say you, brat?” He is smiling now, but there is no merriment in his eyes. “Spare me the thief’s tale – I have no desire to hear some legend you’ve woven about a ring stolen from a market stall.”

  He has met my eyes now: a mistake on his part. I gaze full into them, whispering, “Only, if you please, sir, it is no thief’s tale. Stolen I was from this island when I was too young to recall it, stolen from the arms of my mother – a princess of the royal house.”

  I hear Gregorios laughing, scornful – but the chief does not laugh. “Which royal house?” he says briskly, and for a moment he has me. Not for the first time, I wonder why Ma and Tasik would never speak of their life in the north.

  But then I recall the time I dreamt of Tecca, and the words she whispered in my ear. “The House of the Serpent,” I say softly, not letting the chief avert his eyes. You will not sell me, slave-man. I will be the one who got away.

  The chief stares at me a long while, our eyes fixed on each other’s. I know I have him now – even if I were lying, I would have him now. No one can ever see past my words once I look them in the eye. My gaze befuddles and freezes people, as if I were some offspring of Medusa, who could turn men to stone with just a glance.

  I wonder how much the chief knows about
the kings of Britain – he’s all tangled up in thoughts and memories now, I can tell – and then he says, “Northumbrian, then, are you, child?”

  “Yes,” I say in Anglish.

  The chief’s eyes narrow even further. “Well enough,” he says. “Well enough. We shall see if you are telling the truth or not – a pity it is for you that my ship has docked in the port of Londinium. You’d have been best off a slave, boy.”

  A cold thrill of fear passes through me. What does he mean? I do not think it shall be too long before I find out.

  The Devil’s Cub

  MY LEGS are useless on dry land, buckling beneath me as if the bones have melted. There is a throng of people, but this place is nothing like Constantinople – I can feel gravel somewhere beneath my bare feet, but I am up to my ankles in such claggy thick mud it is near impossible to walk, and the chief drags me so fast I keep stumbling. The streets are much wider than at home, but clustered with buildings all of wood and what seems to be dried mud plastered over woven twigs; I have seen a few crumbling, overgrown walls but they seem not overmuch fond of stone here. Their preference seems to be for mud.

  My hands are bound together, and the chief walks on ahead so fast with the rope I am sure my arms are about to be torn from their sockets. The folk look unnatural, too, some of them tall and pale with long hair – even the men! – and others slighter and darker. No one is wearing decent clothes, and hardly any of the women cover their hair. Some of them even have bare arms as the poor do at home, even though the air is so damp it feels like walking through a sea-fog. A woman shoves past me – she is pudding-faced, but her hair is the colour of fire, and my eyes burn for a moment as I think on Tasik and Tecca.

  This place, this Londinium, it even smells different from my city – there are no lingering scents of rose-water and ginger buns mingling with the stink of dung, and thick, woody smoke hangs everywhere. A little girl no older than Tecca walks by, balancing a basket on her head. I can just see inside: it writhes with long, worm-like fish. It’s been a long time since Sia spared her last bowl of food for me – how strange and sad that I shall never lay eyes on Sia again. I wonder what will befall her? I am hungry, but I’d liefer starve than eat those wormy fish.