Call of the Bone Ships

by Rj Barker

  It was not something Joron found tolerable.

  “Gullaime,” he called out, “attend me on the rump of the ship.” It turned to him, tilting its head, hissing, then hopping up to join him.

  “What want?”

  “You are not acting in an officerly fashion, Gullaime.”

  It stared at him, the painted eyes on the mask focused on his face.

  “Officerly,” it said.

  “Ey. Shipwife Meas has expectations.”

  “Bad shipwife,” it squawked.

  “Would you wish to tell her that? Deckchilder are corded for such talk.”

  The gullaime cooed, then bent its head to preen at the long feathers that sprouted around the single claw on the elbow of its wing, the rest hidden beneath its robe.

  “Shipwife needs Gullaime. Cannot hurt.”

  “But she can make your life more inconvenient,” he whispered. “No more pretty rocks or soft rope for you. No more clean robes.”

  “Traitors,” it hissed. “Traitors die.”

  Joron leaned in close, letting the sand and heat scent of the gullaime surround him, fighting the drift of his mind, the scintillating cascades of notes that such closeness to the windtalker always brought on.

  “All who are brought on this ship, Gullaime, are criminals, are lost and unwanted and hated by others. Meas says Tide Child is a new start.”

  “Hate them.”

  “As you hated me,” said Joron.

  The gullaime took a step back. Its beak opened and shut.

  “You do not have to like them. But you must treat them in an officerly fashion for the ship to run.” The beak, so wicked, opened and shut again. The windtalker hissed. Then cocked its head to one side, aggression replaced by curiosity.

  “Officer Gullaime?”

  “I suppose so,” said Joron, unsure quite what he had promised.

  “Get shiny badge? Get dye for feather?”

  “I am sure it can be arranged.”

  The gullaime trilled, a high-pitched fanfare of delight. Then it span in a circle.

  “Officer Gullaime!” He heard a chuckle from behind him and turned to find a familiar face. His shadow, Anzir, was at the steering oar, as she often was when he did not require her direct protection. She grinned at him.

  “That’ll cause trouble, D’keeper,” she said. He nodded and turned to shout after the gullaime.

  “Only an Officer over the others of your kind,” added Joron, “not the ship.”

  But the windtalker’s dance did not stop – the gullaime had found some joy and did not intend to lose it and so it danced, whirling and spinning and squawking up and down the deck of Tide Child while they set their course, toward Safeharbour. Toward war. Toward death.

  9

  A Home to Only Heartbreak

  They travelled for twenty days, the rhythm of the sea matching the rhythm of the ship, The constant shifting movement of water and crew made it easy to lose track of time as each day aboard ship was essentially the same: wake, eat, work, eat, work, eat, sleep and round and round it went. Sometimes the flying was easy, following winds pushing them across the waves, and sometimes it was hours and hours of painful tacking across the wind in huge zigzags, only to make small headway. All their work made harder by the great brownbone they still towed, and when Joron asked why they had not sent it with Brekir, Meas simply shrugged.

  The only exception to their routine being Menday, when Meas would read the Bernlaw and then all aboard would set to fixing and mending their clothes and equipment. Deckchilder would bring out games, cards would be played and the officers would turn a blind eye to the gambling as long as it caused no trouble. Good-natured games were played on boards chalked on the slate deck – and yet still, even on this relaxing day, the ship must be served. The wings must be furled and unfurled, the gallowbows greased and checked, the decks cleaned, the bone hull inspected for leaks; the work on a ship was never-ending. Sometimes he found himself watching the courser, Aelerin, as they measured the angle of Skearith’s Eye, listened to the stormsong and communed with clouds. Found himself a little jealous of their easier life.

  Meas kept to herself on that long passage. The entire journey was one of curt orders, of her standing on the rump, transfixed by something in the distance. Once he would have taken this as an insult, or worried that he had displeased her somehow but now he knew this was simply her way. The running of the ship, the day-to-day activity, that was for him and for Dinyl, and while the two men shared no love they marked the log accurately and exchanged all the information needed – though Joron could never quite meet Dinyl’s accusing eye, nor ever quite forget that the reason the deckholder’s writing was almost unreadable was because Joron had taken his good hand.

  Meas talked more to the courser than any other in those weeks, and plainly the courser had her trust, not that it made Joron any more comfortable around them; never showing their face, never staying long enough to enter a conversation, always slinking off to their cabin and hiding away. Of all the crew he felt like he knew Aelerin the least, though if he was to tell the truth to himself he might admit that maybe of all the crew, he had tried the least to get to know them.

  On a couple of mornings Solemn Muffaz rigged the grates and there were cordings of particularly recalcitrant deckchilder, mostly among those new crew taken from Maiden’s Bounty. Once of Sprackin, emboldened by Joron’s laxness with him, who had ended up answering back and being rewarded with ten strokes of the cord. His punishment delivered by Anzir, while Solemn Muffaz looked on approvingly. Sprackin swore revenge with every stroke but Joron ignored him. The man was all talk and while Sprackin cursed Joron wondered whether he would lose his shadow one day. He felt sure that Solemn Muffaz was grooming her to take his place should the deckmother fall. Joron approved, as he thought Anzir may make a good deckmother one day, maybe when Joron had his own ship.

  All these things were the normal workings of a fleet ship, and the passage of Tide Child was as uneventful as the arrival at its destination was likely to be eventful, and that in the extreme.

  Joron did not know how Meas chose the place to drop the seastays and furl Tide Child’s wings. As deckkeeper he ran the ship – occasionally Meas would ask him for help in navigating as his numbers were good and his instincts sharp, or so she said, but there had been no need this time, and when the orders were given they were as much a surprise to him as to the deckchilder around him.

  “Now it begins, ey, D’keeper,” said Farys, the girl’s burned face stretching with her smile as she stowed the great gallowbow she had been lovingly polishing. “Pay them Hag-cursed souls back for Arrin soon, ey?”

  “Ey, Farys,” he said, and he was proud that his voice did not tremble at the thought of the trial to come. “Now our work begins, but we must wait on the shipwife to tell us what that work is and how it will be done.”

  He closed his eyes and tried to push away thoughts of the violence to come. Saw in his mind’s eye that moment when his father’s strong body was crushed between the hulls of two ships – the constant reminder that strength counted for naught in the Hundred Isles, that the Hag would have her way. He tried not to shiver, tried to give himself up to the inevitability of death. Clamped his hand around the hilt of the sword Meas had given him, but he must not have hidden his shudder as well as he thought. “There’s kivelly-fuzz jerkins in the hold, D’keeper,” said Farys. “I hid some in a place where they are kept dry and will give you one if you are cold.”

  He shook his head, smiled at her.

  “A passing glance of the Hag is all, Farys,” he said. She gave a quick nod and made a sign of protection against her chest.

  “Oh, D’keeper.” He turned to find Gavith, the cabin boy, evidently surprised to run into him. He was hardly a boy now though.

  “Can I help, Gavith?”

  “No I . . .” He looked stricken and Joron wanted to laugh – he knew all too well what it was to be nervous around an officer, though he had thought Gavith over
it. Maybe he was still embarrassed over nearly losing his arm to the rope when they saved the Maiden’s Bounty.

  “I was just leaving, Gavith. I will let Farys find something for you to do.”

  “Deckkeeper,” came the call from Meas, “my cabin. I would talk.” He followed her voice, out of the cold light on deck and below to the underdecks where the smell of damp was ever present, through into her great cabin where the rear windows of Tide Child showed the endless shifting sea and once more filled the world with light.

  As soon as he was through the door Meas started talking. “I need to meet with Brekir and whatever ships she has, and I need to know what awaits us at Safeharbour. I cannot do both myself.” She sounded somehow as though she had let him down, by not being in two places at once.

  “Of course not, Shipwife,” he said. Meas ran her hand across the top of her desk.

  “You will take the wingfluke, dirty yourself up so you look like a trader and go spy out the place for me.”

  “Go into the harbour?”

  She shook her head. “No, I do not think that would be wise. Get near enough to look at what is there.” She took the nearglass from her jacket and placed it on the desk before him. “See what awaits us and return. Take Aelerin with you.”

  “The courser?”

  “Ey, I need to know how the wind will blow around Safeharbour and the nearer you take them the better their dreams will be.” She tapped the top of the nearglass. “And take Cwell, also.”

  “Cwell?”

  “I know she has no love for you, nor you her, but you are her officer and she will obey you. Staff the rest of the crew with your true people – Farys, Anzir and the like.”

  “But why Cwell, Shipwife?”

  “To get near enough to spy out the harbour you will no doubt be seen yourself. If they intercept you then you must pass yourself off as traders. Cwell knows the trader’s cant, she was raised on the trade docks of Bernshulme, and if any of us can pass as a trader who strayed too far she can.”

  “If she does not simply give us up.”

  “It is a risk, I grant you. You will have to ensure she does not.” Meas took her hand off the nearglass and reached into her desk for one of her many books.

  “Shipwife,” said Joron, picking up the nearglass as she looked up and raised an eyebrow. “If we may be chased, then the gullaime would serve me better than Cwell, surely. Give me the winds and I’ll outrun whatever they have.”

  “Tell me Joron,” said Meas, “how many wingfluke traders do you know that have a gullaime on board?”

  He waited, as if he was thinking about it even though he immediately knew the answer, “None, and if they spot the gullaime then they will know something is afoot.”

  “Ey, Joron, ey,” she said, and opened her book. “You may leave now.” He started to turn and she added, “But in future, try not to ask questions to which you already know the answer.”

  10

  What Is Given May Be Easily Lost

  It was a surly boat that headed out for Safeharbour from Tide Child, rigged to look like a trader rather than the flukeboat of a ship of war. Though Joron had given up his clothes and hat of command, he kept the sword Meas had given him after they had freed the wakewyrm. It had become too much part of him, a piece of metal that proved his value to Lucky Meas, and though he felt he should not need such a simple thing, he did. Especially with Cwell in the boat.

  At the tiller was his shadow, Anzir, and Farys was in the small cabin in the rump of the ship sorting rope while Cwell – unhappy, sour, violent Cwell – glowered at Joron from where she sat, carving slices from a gnarled fruit with one hand. The remainder of the crew was made up of Tarin and Vosar, two of the seaguard, and if they were not exactly shiply men they had at least been with Tide Child long enough to know how to handle a rope and wing and to take an order. For the purposes of their journey, and because she spoke the trader’s cant, Cwell wore the brown birdleather coat of a trader’s master, though she showed scant sign of mucking in with Joron and the crew as they worked the boat, as any true trader’s master would.

  The sea about them was grey and eternal, a continuous shifting of waves that gently jostled the little boat as it coasted across the sea, wings full of the storm’s gift and the sky above as blue as promises.

  Cwell only continued to glower.

  As Joron took measurements of the sun’s shadow so he could estimate their place, Cwell glowered. As Aelerin matched their charts to the sea, Cwell glowered, and as Anzir leaned into the steering oar and Farys pulled taught the spinestays, Cwell glowered.

  You hate me, thought Joron. You once thought me a joke and I have risen above it, risen above you and you hate me for it. He wondered if Meas had sent her in the hope Joron may find some bond between them, as he had done with the gullaime, as he had done with many of the crew, but he knew that would not happen. Cwell’s hatred was implacable – she hated officers, hated being consigned to the black ship and she hated Joron the most, and he knew why. What was he to officer over her? A fisher’s boy, not even trained in the Grand Bothies at Bernshulme, where she was blood to Cahanny, Bernshulme’s crime lord.

  But he could do nothing about her thoughts, so for long hours he worked the ship and lost himself in rope and knot.

  “D’keeper.” He turned to find Aelerin next to him, the wind plucking at their white robe. “We should be in sight of Safeharbour within the hour.” It amazed him how still the courser managed to be, hands clasped together within the sleeves of the robe despite the rocking of the boat.

  “Thank you, Courser,” he said, “and how long until they can see us?”

  “Half that time, maybe, it depends whether they use the lookout tower on the top of the island or not.”

  Joron nodded, unsure why he had wanted to know that. His mouth had moved and he had said the words because he thought they were the sort of words an officer would say in this position.

  “Smoke,” said Farys, pointing southward of them. “It seems Safeharbour still burns, D’keeper.”

  “Ey,” he said and lifted the nearglass to his eye. Nothing to be seen yet but the greasy tower of smoke turning in the wind. He placed the nearglass carefully back into his jacket, noticed his hand trembled. It was not the column of smoke that made him shudder. It was that he knew if Safeharbour dispatched a ship with a gullaime aboard he could not escape it. The wind was kind for him travelling toward Safeharbour but to return to Tide Child he must go against it, and that meant hours of painful tacking. Zigging and zagging back and forth to make their way forward. A ship with a windtalker aboard had no such problems, it would cut through the sea to intercept them, and then his life, all their lives, would be in the hands of Cwell. Joron would not even be able to show his face, he would have to hide in the small hold or behind the doors of the cabin in the rump. It was unlikely he would be recognised, very unlikely, but at the same time he had been ashore in Bernshulme many times, carried out business at the boneyards for Tide Child and unlikely was not impossible, so it was best he was not seen.

  Which meant trusting Cwell not to give them up, and why would she not? The woman was a seething ball of hatred for all those around her – outside of her little clique, and Dinyl.

  But Meas must know that.

  She must.

  The wind carried the windfluke on, and Joron let his mind drift a little. The small craft was so similar to the boat his father had owned, he should name it. But not after that boat, as that would only be ill-starred. Maybe he would ask Farys to name it; she had a knack for such things.

  “Here, D’keeper, land should be in sight now,” said Aelerin and Joron nodded.

  “Hide yourself away, Courser,” he said, “a courser aboard marks us a rich merchant if nothing else, and we should attract as little attention as we can.” Then he climbed the short spine, and how alarmingly it swayed compared to the sturdy spines of Tide Child, how flimsy it felt. He lifted the nearglass to his eye, the horizon jumped and jittered until
he found himself a more comfortable perch, felt the rhythm of the sea below the hull and managed to focus the glass on Safeharbour.

  Poor Safeharbour. No longer any streets, no longer any houses or varisk and mud, no slowly rising, rounded bothies, for the governance of the island. All smashed now and destined to remain unfinished, bar the first one, the grandest bothy. Joron had travelled to many places, but Safeharbour had been the first to feel like he had found a home again after the death of his father. Meas had often sent him ashore to do the jobs an officer was needed for, and his visits and familiarity had bred a fondness within him for it. Awful that the town was still smouldering, even now, so long after it had been taken. He wondered if this was deliberate, if they smeared the ground with hagspit which would burn and smoulder for months as it scorched and sucked out all the life in the ground beneath it. He saw people moving – it was difficult to tell from such a distance, they were so small, but he did not think them deckchilder; a deckchild had a certain way of walking, their bodies used to the roll of a ship beneath them, and these figures did not. They carried barrels between them and he saw a couple of people struggling to tip over a barrel and pour the contents onto the ground, then a man – an officer, definitely – came and lit the ground and more greasy smoke added itself to the lofting pyre.

  “Ah, Safeharbour, they make sure you can never be used again,” he found himself saying under his breath. Then he stopped. This was not why he was here. Not here to watch the plight of those still there, not here to watch the town burn or wallow in his own sense of loss. He was here to see numbers and positions so his shipwife could form a plan. He moved the nearglass to focus on the harbour.