by Rj Barker
“Meas…” he began.
“Don’t,” she said, sharp and bitter, “there is nothing you can say.” He stood there a moment longer, nodded.
“My plan has long been in place, I could let nothing get in the way of it. Not even you.” As he spoke Joron watched Gueste, the woman smirked back at him. “But for what it is worth I am genuinely sorry.” He sounded so contrite, real. As if her torture had been forced upon him. Meas looked up at him.
“What do you want, Indyl?” she said. “I doubt it is me, not after what your pet hagpriest has done. If you ever really wanted me at all.” He stared at her. Considering, thinking.
“I did,” he said, more softly than Joron had ever heard him speak before, and his mask fell away. “At one point, I thought we could rule together, I thought that would be the eventual outcome. Equals,” he said. “Your star was rising. Even though you could not see it, you were the natural successor to your mother.”
“Not without children,” she spat.
“You were only a few years away from control of the fleet. You think children cannot be procured for the powerful, Meas? You think every Bern actually has all the children they claim? There are more young girls come up to the Grand Bothy than ever make it to Bern, have you never noticed that? You think we really let the children of Berncast in to rule?” She stared at him, something like shock on her face though Joron felt no such thing. Why should another layer of corruption surprise him?
“I was never at the bothies to see that, Indyl, I was always at sea.” She stared at him, all challenge, and his concern melted away and Joron wondered whether it was iron control on his part, or if he was simply a good actor. Wearing the face he thought each situation needed.
“Well,” he said, “if you had been a little more attentive maybe you would not be here now, not in this state anyway,” and all handsomeness fled from his face, replaced by a sneer.
“You are angry because I chose the sea over you?” she said. He clearly was, and his anger overcame him, swift and loud and as surprising as a sea squall, shouting loud enough to surprise Gueste, who took a step back.
“I am angry because you ruined everything!” he shouted. “Everything! We could have taken the whole machinery of this place apart if you had succeeded your mother.” He stepped closer. “But you had to run away from a fight you could easily have won. You had to be a coward.” He saw how that cut her. How she flinched at those words and he was willing to bet they hurt her more than any torture. “You ruined everything,” he said. “Then, if that was not enough, there was him.” He pointed at Joron and he found himself, unwillingly, taking a step back just like Gueste had. “The damage he has caused to my fleets. He has brought back ancient magics and creatures that we all know are best left in the sea where they belong. You and he have forced me to become all I ever hated to protect the islands I love.”
Silence after his outburst. Joron felt guilt creeping up on him, for Karrad was right. What he could do, it was better left in the sea. What he had wrought in his desperation to have Meas back had been terrible, as heedless to what he destroyed as the keyshan had been to his ship when it had fought the toothreaches. But not her, not Meas. She had fought hard, for change, for peace. Were they wrong? Was Meas in the wrong? Had they simply made everything worse, only guaranteed another cycle of war and death?
“I ruined your peace?” said Meas, the words sounding bitter on her tongue. “We,” she nodded to Joron, “ruined your peace?”
“Ey,” said Karrad. “And I am glad that is out in the open now. Glad you know what you have done. That you, Meas, and your protégé, lie at the base of all I have had to do.” She bowed her head, spoke.
“I am sorry, Indyl,” she said. Then raised her head. “So allow me to put right what I have wrought.” She smiled, a small smile but one he knew, an echo of her old confidence. “Joron is in touch with the Gaunt Islanders.”
“As am I, you have forced that on me,” said Karrad.
“Well,” she said, “that makes things even easier. Join them. Be the one who joins the Hundred Isles and the Gaunt Islands in peace. Rule as regent, become part of their Bern family. Whatever you must do, do it. You have enough of a fleet left to exact promises from them.” She glanced at Joron. “And you have him. Indyl, you need not even send us off on your ship and pick up our gullaime. You can make real and lasting peace. You could save thousands of lives and be the one who changes the archipelago for ever.” In that moment, all doubt fled from Joron. For here was Meas, putting aside the terrible things the man had done to her, months and months of agony and pain. Charting a clear path, a better course to what could be a real and lasting peace.
For a moment, Indyl saw it too. Joron could tell from the look on his face, he saw a way forward that would change everything. He saw a pathway toward the peace that Meas definitely dreamed of, and maybe he once had.
Then he shook his head.
“You would have me beholden to a woman once more? Give up everything I have fought for? The work of years, and pass it over to a Gaunt Islander?” He looked down on her, then turned to Gueste. “Get them to the ship,” he said, and as he left he added, “And have the floor of this room cleaned.”
37
Toward the End
Gueste led them, with Cwell and a contingent of seaguard, through the gion forest and over the island.
“What is she doing here?” said Joron, staring at Cwell. “I would have thought you would leave her in Bernshulme.”
“That was the plan,” said Gueste. “But then it occurred to me, we will need to make contact with your people. I cannot send you, obviously. So it would be useful to have a friendly face for them.” Joron nodded, as it had been part of their plan for Cwell to seek help once they were gone. But he and Meas had thought Cwell would be taking a fast ship, and an explanation, out to where the black fleet taunted the Hundred Isles ships. Now their plans must change. He turned to Cwell.
“Traitor,” he said. She only stared in return and Gueste laughed.
The great gion plants were at their height and the huge leaves caught any moisture in the air, most of it funnelling back into the plants but a fair amount of it falling through the canopy. It did not have the rhythmic consistency of rain, not persistent enough to let you get used to it. Just an arrhythmic dripping of water with a talent for finding its way down the backs of necks or through gaps in clothing. Some quality of the contact with the plant caused the water to leave behind an unpleasant, greasy feel upon the skin; and should it get into your mouth a faint and rank taste that never quite went away.
It was an annoyance to Joron, but nothing more, he had weathered storms and ice and gallowbow shots, so an unpleasant walk was little to him, even one-legged and tired as he was. But as they made their way up the hill, it was plain to Joron that every step Meas took pained her, that her strength, once so bountiful, had fled. That her time in the cell and under the care of her torturer had stolen it from her.
“We should get you a litter,” he said quietly.
“No,” she said.
“You have been sore treated, and by them – they cannot expect you to carry on as if it was not the case.”
“No,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I’ll not show weakness, and especially not in front of Gueste.” She wiped a spot of liquid from her face and it left a silvery smear. “She would enjoy it too much. There is something very wrong with that woman.”
“I will not disagree on that. But lean on me if you need it.”
“Get help from a crippled man? She would enjoy that even more.” The words stung despite her forcing a smile as she said it, despite knowing she meant it in jest.
“Do you trust Cwell?” she said.
“We have little choice,” he replied. Meas stared at him, put a hand on his arm. “But yes, I do.”
“Good,” she said, “so do I.”
It took them most of the day to wind their way to the top of the hill, and on their way they stopped at the la
myard. Joron had never seen Shipshulme Lamyard before. It was named for the island not the town, for the town wanted as little to do with it and its inhabitants as possible.
He heard it before he saw it.
He felt it before he heard it.
The song of the island growing in intensity. The long and mournful howl of something trapped and sleeping, deep within the rock. That song amplified by the presence of so many gullaime. After the song within came the song without. A mixture of the gullaimes’ musical chirping, whistling, clicking, fluting language and the more guttural squawks and caws and sounds of surprise and annoyance and insult that Joron was well used to from his friend on the ship. But these gullaime were nothing like his friend. They filled the lamyard cages, which were huge things, built as squares, the insides spiked to stop gullaime climbing. Between the cages were aisles where human guards walked, and often they were accompanied by what Joron now knew must be windshorn. Within the cages Joron could barely see the ground for gullaime. This was not like the previous lamyards he had seen, and far from the places they had set up for their own gullaime, where design had come from the gullaime themselves, and space and air and vegetation were the key. This was a place of intensive breeding, not dissimilar to the battery cages Joron was used to seeing on the farms where they bred kivelly for food, too many creatures in too small a space. The air stinking, the nearness of it unpleasant and claustrophobic with unthinking cruelty.
“Can’t even think why you like these filthy things,” said Gueste.
“They’re not filthy if you let them clean themselves,” said Joron. Gueste looked at him.
“Filth,” she said, “takes more than a wash to get rid of. I can still smell the streets on you.” If Gueste had thought the insult would wound Joron she was disappointed. Instead he smiled at the shipwife.
“Had you ever had to work for a thing, Gueste, rather than just be handed it because of who you are, maybe you would recognise the sweet smell of honest sweat.” Her hand went to her blade but Cwell stopped her, holding Gueste’s hand on the hilt.
“We need him, remember,” said Cwell. “Kill Karrad’s hopes of using the keyshans as a weapon and I imagine it’ll go badly for you.” Gueste nodded, breathed in through her nose and made a pained face, though whether it was because of the smell or because of Joron, he did not know.
“Let the seaguard deal with them, then,” said Gueste, and stalked away from the lamyard to wait at the forest edge. Cwell watched her go and turned to Joron. Gave him the smallest nod of acknowledgement and walked away as the seaguard officer approached. Joron found the man who approached familiar, though it took a moment to place him. Tassar, one of the Kept who had been close to the Thirteenbern. When Meas had first brought him to the bothies Tasser tried to goad him into a fight he would undoubtedly have lost.
“I had hoped never to meet you again,” said Joron.
“And I you.” He stood closer, words coming in a whisper. “I’d love to see you hanging from a scaffold for what you have done to Bernshulme, but I am loyal to the Thirteenbern. She said you matter and I must help you if I can.”
“How was she?”
“Fine, then.” He straightened up, his body gleaming with oil, and his face struggling to contain emotion. “Shortly afterwards they hung her, as a traitor to the Hundred Isles. Said she knew what the keyshan was, that she brought the plague in deliberately.”
“My mother?” said Meas.
“I walked her to the scaffold myself,” said Tassar, and he looked genuinely pained. “She went bravely, Shipwife, despite that the people she had spent her life protecting mocked and laughed at her.” Meas stared at him, taking in what he said. Then she walked away. Tassar turned back to Joron. “I made the Bern a promise. She asked me to get you safely to the ship and that I will do, as it was her wish. But when that task is done expect nothing more from me. I blame you for all this, Twiner, and given the chance for revenge I plan to take it.”
“Then I will just have to ensure I stay unthreatening for as long as we are together, ey?” Joron said. “Shall we pick up our gullaime? That is why we are here, is it not?” Tassar nodded.
“I will go see the yard master,” he said, “hopefully she will be ready and we will not have to stay here too long.” Tassar turned and Joron watched him walk into the lamyard. As he walked down the muddy lane between towering cages his passage was followed by flapping and crowing and fury as the gullaime registered the presence of a human. Though when Tassar stopped and turned his gaze toward the cages the gullaime there, even in their blindness, must have sensed it as they quickly quietened, lowering themselves to the ground in subservience. And a wave of bowing white figures marked his passage as if he were a rock and they the surf breaking around him.
“It is not right.” He turned and found Meas.
“What?”
“That,” she pointed at the bowing gullaime. “Once I would not have thought twice about it. Now I think if any saw humans doing the same they would name the one all bowed to as a tyrant.” She touched the bandage that covered her empty eye socket.
“We have been their tyrants for many years.”
She watched, her eyes very far away. “No wonder Madorra wants us all dead,” she said.
“You do not blame it?” he asked. She shook her head.
“No, but neither can I allow it.” Meas stood a little nearer to him, and he could hear her breathing, ragged, hurting. “And I will not allow Madorra to murder our gullaime either.”
“Because our plan hinges on it?” She looked up at him, the briefest of smiles and Joron wondered how he would get the Gullaime’s egg away from the windshorn.
“Ey, that, and more. It is part of our crew, it is one of us.” Her one eye scanned his face. “Too many have died.” He nodded.
“I am sorry about your mother, Shipwife,” he said. She bit her bottom lip, holding it between her teeth for a moment before letting go.
“There will be a time for grief, Joron, but it is not now.”
Before she could say any more they were interrupted by a squawking and a row like he had never heard before. Above it the high crack of the whip followed by the pitiable sounds of gullaime, frightened and in pain. He turned, saw a gaggle of gullaime approaching, a small crowd of windtalkers, all chained together, and around them a larger number of windshorn. Walking in front was Tassar and to the side a hagpriest, it was she who held the whip and she who wielded it. And it was she who Meas was now heading toward as fast as she could walk. Joron swiftly followed. The hagpriest raised her whip again and the crowd of gullaime tried to flow away from her, but were hemmed in by angrily screeching windshorn.
The whip never fell.
The hagpriest’s hand was held firm in Meas’s grip, maybe not as iron as it once was, but iron enough. The hagpriest turned on Meas. A woman of a similar age, though not as scarred, not as tried by life.
“Who are you to dare lay hand on me?”
“No more whips,” said Meas.
“Pain is all they understand.” Almost before she had finished speaking Meas’s other hand came up, a bunched fist to the face of the hagpriest and she fell like a rotten gion. The whip left in Meas’s hand.
“No more whips,” said Meas.
“How dare you,” said the woman, hand coming up to her bloodied nose. “It is forbidden to lay hands upon us.”
“No more whips,” said Meas again. “Do not make me teach you this lesson again, for in my experience pain is all you understand.” The priest stared at her, until Gueste, Cwell and Tassar ran up. Meas backed away. “Just laying down some rules,” she said, and dropped the whip in the mud before walking away.
Cwell and the Kept helped the hagpriest up as Gueste watched. Joron was pleased to see the whip left where Meas had dropped it in the mud.
The gullaime were taken by Tasser and their handlers a longer way around, expected to walk through the night. The humans made their way up through the forest, winding through brightly colour
ed trunks and cutting through writhing varisk vines as thick as an arm, until they found the porter’s campsite where Joron had stopped on his way to Bernshulme.
“We stop here,” said Gueste. “No doubt the shipwife needs a rest.”
“I can carry on if you wish,” said Meas, though it was plain to Joron she could not.
“Well I am glad of the rest,” said Joron. “It is hard for a one-legged man to walk up such steep hills.” Meas glanced over at him, and was there thanks there, in her one good eye? Suddenly he could not bear it, could not stand to see her this way, could not cope with the fact that when he looked upon her his first emotion was pity. He turned and walked to the edge of the hill so he could look down on Bernshulme. In the dying of the day lamplighters were working their way through the town, a stark circle of darkness showing where the dead keyshan’s poison had made Bernshulme uninhabitable. He could just make out the massive corpse lying in the harbour, stretching out into the deeper sea. The once great keyshan slain by one of its sither, brought here by humans, by him in part, slowly rotting away, darkness seeping from it to kill anything that came too close. He felt Meas come to stand by him. Heard her steps, not as confident as they once were. Not as strong as she once was.
“What horrors we wreak, eh Joron?” she said quietly.
“I have tried not to think about it, but ey, what I did fills me with loathing. I see it, and do not know how I can ever put it right.”
“You cannot, Joron. You made a decision in the heat of the moment. Right, wrong, we never know.”
“I knew.”
“But you did not bring it here.” She stared down at the harbour. “They could have left the corpse. When they realised their deckchilder were dying, they could have taken it to the flensing yards on the other side of Shipshulme.” She let out a long breath. “You put events in motion, right enough. But you did not control them, and the fact this haunts you? Well, that is a good thing in itself.”