by Rj Barker
“I got it from Mevans’s pack, and painted it black so it will attract less attention.” He took it from her.
“Thank you, Cwell.” She nodded.
“You should come out,” said Mevans, “look down the hill.” Something in his voice that Joron could not place and did not like.
“You do not make it sound like I will enjoy the view,” said Joron. Mevans shrugged.
“I will wait for you on the ridge to the east,” he said. Joron nodded, then smeared the honey on his stump and re-wrapped it in bandages before strapping on his spur and standing. Testing his balance, finding the spur as welcome as a familiar friend, someone you could slip right back into conversation with after a gap of years. Though, hadn’t Meas told him, an age ago now, that people like her, like him, had no friends?
He stood, feeling maudlin. Rubbed at his shoulder, missing the weight of Black Orris who so often came to perch there and he wondered how Farys and his crew managed, and how the Gullaime was; did Madorra’s influence over it grow? Was it miserable without him?
“It seems I miss Tide Child,” he said, grunting as he stood, “and those aboard, as much as I miss my leg.” He made his way out, through a camp breaking down and women and men eating a thin broth that he found he had no stomach for; no doubt he would regret that later. More of the area around the camp had been cleared during the night, and now to the east the edge of a cliff had been revealed and it was there that Mevans stood. A black figure against Skearith’s Eye as it rose from the sea. He walked over, wincing a little where the spur rubbed his stump – though it was a magnitude more comfortable than the peg leg he had used up until then.
“Mevans,” he said as he came to stand by him.
“Deckkeeper,” said the man and Joron looked out. From here he could see the whole inner curve of the island. The Grand Bothies, the tenements, the winding streets and the great deepwater harbour of Bernshulme. And slowly, and surely, the horror of what he had wrought sank into him. His first thought, whimsical, was ah, now the smell makes sense. He almost laughed, so light and frivolous was that thought compared to what was laid out in front of him.
Filling the deepwater harbour was the corpse of the keyshan. The head was pulled up onto the shipdocks, the huge beak slightly open to show long teeth. Behind it the body swelled and at the point of the two light towers on the end of the piers it blocked the harbour completely. The creature was rotting; bone shone on the head and at the centre of the beast, while between the piers, the flesh had rotted far more quickly, almost as if it had been burned away, and the massive curving rib bones, the same bones that would be straightened and bonded for the lower hulls of boneships, stuck out stark – not white, but yellowed on top, darkened below also as if burned. Through the harbour entrance he followed the vast body of the keyshan, hidden below the water, a pale shape that gradually vanished into the depths.
Within the harbour were four ships. They must have been trapped there when they towed the keyshan in. Now they floated empty, dead and spattered with a million dots of skeer guano, though no birds sat along the spars of the ships, or picked over the massive rotting corpse of the keyshan. Nothing moved at all. There was a huge three-quarter circle where something was not right spreading out from the harbour – it took in the drydocks, Fishdock and the tenements of the poorest. The circle’s borders passed through some areas and took others in whole and Joron was not sure what it was that made this strange difference between one part of the town and another, what demarcation there was.
Not at first.
Slowly, he realised what he saw, or rather did not. It was a stillness, a halo of inactivity. He squinted down at the town and Mevans passed across his nearglass. Joron raised it, focused it. Found the edges of the still area and through the magnification of the lens he found another demarcation. Rags were tied on sticks and ropes, following a circular line through the streets. Outside those sticks he saw people moving around, though not many, but inside those lines nothing. He followed a woman carrying a heavy basket and watched her take a long way round, even though she was struggling with the weight of her cargo, rather than pass through the rag markers. He changed his focus to inside the lines, saw that upon the doors of almost every house and tavern and shop and building was the Hag’s mark, the mark of the dead. Many of the buildings were boarded up, even the expensive ones, the best ones at the highest points of the circle. Then he saw his first body, a pathetic, sad rotten thing in an alley. Once he had spotted one he started to see more – some adults, some children, some women, some men, some poor, some rich, though he could only tell through their clothing as the bodies were so far gone as to be unrecognisable. But, just like the ships, they were not picked over by scavengers. They remained untouched by any life, slowly melting into nothing where they fell. He took the nearglass from his eye.
“I did this,” he said.
“It is war,” said Mevans matter-of-factly.
“But you wanted me to see what I have caused.” Joron felt like the air had thickened, become almost unbreathable and the smell of the rotting keyshan, now he knew what it was, threatened to overwhelm him. Mevans looked at him, a flicker of concern moving across his open face. Then he realised how this must seem to his deckkeeper and shook his head.
“I do not blame you,” said Mevans. “Only thought this a good place for you to see how the ground has changed is all. We must make our way through the town, but it is not the town it was.”
“No,” said Joron, and once more he looked at Bernshulme, once so busy and now laid low by his own hand, “it is not the town it was.”
30
The Dying Town
The journey down through the gion forest took them all day though it was a far easier journey for Joron; with his bone spur once more strapped to his leg he felt more real, more himself.
“We should wait for true night to fall before we enter,” said Mevans. Cwell grunted her assent behind him. “And I reckon it is more important than ever that we keep who we are secret. I had thought we could contact Cahanny but now I have seen the town…”
“Ey,” said Joron, “there’ll be little forgiveness for the Black Pirate here. But I still think we should try and reach Cahanny, if we can.” He looked over his shoulder and beckoned Cwell forward.
“I know I slow you, Cwell,” he said. “I want you to go ahead and find us somewhere to stay, see if you can make contact with your uncle.”
“My place is with you,” she said, glancing around at the porters. “Who knows if we can trust these people?”
“You employed one.”
“Ey, and that one I trust, for she depends on us for her wage. But they gossip like stonebound.”
“Mevans is with me.”
“He can go into town,” she said, and he saw that stubbornness that had made the woman hate him for so long, now twisted round into a fierce loyalty.
“We will need to speak to Cahanny if we are to find the shipwife, and there is no guarantee he will see Mevans, or if he does, no guarantee he will ever let him return.”
“So you send me into danger instead,” she said, and though she sounded sullen there was the ghost of a smile on her face.
“In my experience, Cwell, there are few more likely to come out of danger than you.” She grinned at him and touched the bone knife at her side.
“Very well. Stay where the gion thins before the town outskirts and I will find you. If I am not back before morning then I suggest getting off the island as quickly as you can.”
“You intend to betray us?” grinned Mevans, though the joke did not quite land; the trust was not as total between them as it had become between Cwell and Joron. Cwell shook her head.
“I mean to be real, Hatkeep,” she said and that mocking tone that was almost a part of her was gone. She was serious, cold. “My uncle, he…” She stopped, looked up between the gion leaves to the sky. “Family counts for something, that is true. But his ambition counts for more. Should he decide that he wants y
ou more than he cares about me, or that he holds a grudge for what we have done to the town… I am not a fool. He has people skilled in pain. If he wants information I will not hold out for long, no one can.”
“That will not happen,” said Joron.
“It won’t?” said Cwell.
“No,” said Joron, “why would your uncle waste time torturing you, when you are going to bring me to him anyway?” She grinned.
“If I do not feel I can trust him, I will not bring you,” she said. Then she turned away and started to jog down the hill, taking a far steeper and more direct path toward Bernshulme than Joron could, or the porters with their heavy bags.
The rest of the journey continued in silence, Mevans occasionally having to help Joron. Eventually, they started to hear something that was not the noise of the forest, not the constant creaking and chirruping and chattering that filled the air, but a sound that had been absent from Joron’s ears since they had left the Keyshan’s Eye on the other side of the hill. Human voices, chattering and speaking and running together into a hiss of sound. For a second he wondered if a hoard of Bernshulme’s people were waiting, vengeful and furious for the architect of their sorrow. But as the gion forest thinned he saw it was not the case, and felt foolish. How would they know? Gathered at the edge of Bernshulme, huge bothies rising beyond them, were hundreds of people, all the ragged and misshapen and broken of Bernshulme in a city of tents and lean-tos; and, for a people displaced by plague, for a people who had lost loved ones and homes and everything, the atmosphere was strangely merry.
“They seem happy,” said Joron and their porter turned.
“It is market day,” she said. “The days we come down from the mountain are always market day. They hope to trade with those who have goods and to fleece those who are desperate out of their coin.”
“This is not good,” whispered Mevans. “Since we had hoped to slip quietly into the city.” He turned to the porter. “Is there another way?”
The porter shook their head.
“Only route in is through the ragged market.” Mevans nodded at the woman and then took Joron’s arm, slowing him.
“That place will be full of spies,” he said.
“And the Bern’s seaguard,” said Joron. “I can see three from here.”
“We can’t go in that way,” said Mevans.
“No,” said Joron, “we can’t.” He took Mevans’s arm, holding him still while the small line of porters and their clients walked onwards, then Joron sat in the mulch of last year’s dying season and unstrapped his bone spur as the last of the travellers passed. “Here, take this,” he said, handing the spur to Mevans, and he also unwrapped the scarf from his face so once more the sores of the rot were there for all to see. Then he took handfuls of the mulch from the forest floor and rubbed them on his face and on his clothes, much to the horror of the hatkeep. “No one looks at a beggar, Mevans,” he said, “and none in Bernshulme would ever consider the idea that someone as grand and terrifying as the Black Pirate would lower themselves to beg for scraps in a market of the lost, eh?” Mevans grinned. “I will find a place over by the walls of the town and beg for what scraps these poor souls here can spare.”
“They won’t all be poor,” said Mevans. “Where there is misery someone’s always getting rich, and you can bet they’d be the last to throw scraps to the needy.”
“Well,” said Joron, “that is true indeed. I am thankful I do not really need scraps to eat.”
He hopped forward, using Mevans as a crutch and feeling foolish and small and useless – though was that too bad, considering what he intended? Maybe small and useless would be a helpful mindset, since that was what he wanted people to see. “Go, Mevans,” he said. “I would not have us seen together. Sell our chest and its contents, we may need the money,” Mevans lowered him gently to the floor.
“What if you need help?”
“I am not incapable,” snapped Joron. “Go.” Then he sat there in the mulch, watching Mevans walk out through the edges of the forest to join the throng of people. As soon as he was among them he was surrounded by children, all holding up their wares and offering him the best prices for what they had, food and trinkets. Mevans must have said he had nothing and they swiftly vanished once it became clear he was not buying. When he was out of sight Joron counted to one hundred, letting the numbers move through his mind in the rhythm of waves lapping on the shore. When he had finished counting he made his own way to the bazaar of the lost and homeless, dragging his body along using his forearms. Unlike Mevans he attracted no children with trinkets, and those who cast their gaze his way quickly found another direction to look in. To his right Mevans was once more assailed by those wanting to sell him things, his way blocked completely by a noisy gaggle of fish sellers. It seems I may have the easiest job of all, he thought as he pulled himself forward through stinking mud toward the edge of a bothy that had become part of the town wall. A pair of feet appeared before him and he looked up into the face of a woman. People seemed like giants from down here.
“Go around me, rot-cursed,” the woman hissed, “we don’t want your disease among us. We have enough to suffer.”
“Ey, I will,” he said.
“Don’t speak to me, go around.” He bowed his head and did as asked, all the time clenching his teeth for inside he wished nothing more than to lash out, that someone should dare speak to him so. But he could not, so he crawled, the muscles in his back and biceps complaining at such unfamiliar work. Arm over arm, dragging himself forward while people to seaward of him laughed and joked, no doubt many at his expense, to landward the forest continued pushing its way through aching land. Eventually, his journey ended and he found a place among the beggars sat against the wall, between an old blind woman and a man with only one arm and no legs.
“You have no cup,” said the man with one arm.
“If you have no cup, none will give,” said the blind woman.
“I am not…”
“Here,” she said, producing a cup from behind her and placing it in front of him.
“You are new to this, I reckon,” whispered the one-armed man. “It is best not to speak, just sit here quietly, none take too kindly of being reminded they are uncharitable.”
“Thank you,” said Joron, and he sat back against the wall. Across the market Mevans had found a stall and was haggling over the sea chest and its contents. After a price was struck Joron watched as he found a place among a throng of women and men who stood near the largest street heading into Bernshulme. Occasionally someone would come out looking for workers and Joron watched as Mevans slunk to the back of the pack in an effort not to be chosen, though he need not have feared it – the women workers went first, then the largest of the men. There were clearly far more people looking for work than there were jobs. Bitterness was written large over the faces of those overlooked. Joron turned away. Had these people always been here, or had he brought this fresh misery? Certainly, he was sure he had done nothing to help.
He sat among the beggars for most of the day until a whistle made him look up, mostly because it sounded like Black Orris, though the foul-mouthed bird was far away with Farys on Tide Child. He looked for the source of the call and found Cwell, she gave him a nod and vanished into the shadows between two buildings further into Bernshulme. He waved at Mevans. As the hatkeep walked over Joron saw he had somehow acquired a bag slung across his back for Joron’s spur. Joron took the four coins that had appeared in his cup in the hours he had sat there and gave two to the blind woman and two to the one armed man. “Thank you for your kindness,” he said. Mevans lifted him up and helped him walk away from the ragged market and into the space between the buildings where Cwell waited.
“We have a problem,” she said. Joron saw there were bruises across her cheeks.
“I can see.” He pointed at the bruises. “Cahanny intends to betray us?” said Joron. She shook her head.
“I am sure he would be considering his angles,
but he is in no position to. My uncle is dead.”
“What?” said Mevans. “He was a clever man, I would not’ve thought his rivals could take him down.” He put Joron down on the stone step of a building. Joron’s stomach sank with the news.
“They didn’t. Him and half of the gangs in Bernshulme were lost to disease. I saw one of his lieutenants. A woman called Fedal, she is one of many fighting for the scraps of his organisation. She thought I was here to take over.”
“I doubt she took kindly to that,” said Mevans as he strapped the bone spur to Joron’s leg.
“No, but she does not care about me any longer, and will be telling none we are here. And if we see Shipwife Ansiri again I’ll leave her bleeding slow in an alley.”
“Why?”
“She sold me out, warned Fedal I was coming.”
“Ha,” said Mevans, gesturing at Joron, “and here was us worried about ’im.”
“I think the deckkeeper’s secret is safe,” said Cwell. “But I do not know where we go from here.” Joron’s thoughts raced. Contacting Cahanny had been his great hope. The man was well connected and cared for little but money and his family. He let out a deep breath.
“Then we have little choice,” said Joron. “I do not like it and neither will you.”
“What do you mean?” said Mevans.
“Indyl Karrad, the Kept. We must see him.”
“If he will see you. He hates you,” said Mevans.
“I do not need to be reminded. But he has seen me before and this is about Meas; he cares for her, deeply, I think.”
“Hate is more powerful than love,” said Cwell. “All who grow up in the Isles know that.”
“We must confront him when he is weak. He does not know I am here. Maybe the shock will be enough to wrongfoot him and have him make us promises. If not, then I will offer him my life in return for Meas.”
“No,” said Mevans. The word coming out too fast, too hard.