by Kate Forsyth
‘He willna thank ye,’ Finn said. ‘The captain doesna welcome advice.’
‘Och,’ the sailor replied, ‘who does?’
The fourth mate lifted the spyglass to his eye. Thunder came again, louder and more insistent. ‘The storm comes,’ Bran said with a certain amount of satisfaction, ‘and it’s going to be a bad one!’
The fourth mate sent one of the deckhands running down to the captain’s cabin and eventually both the captain and the first mate came on deck. The rising wind fluttered their coat-tails. Both stared out at the ominous sky with grim expressions. The waves were high now, smashing against the side of the little ship as she rose and fell, rose and fell. Sharp orders were snapped out and Bran and Finn exchanged glances as they ran to obey. Hauling down the sails, Finn said to the sailor beside her, ‘Och, well, there goes your week’s grog!’ and he shrugged and scowled.
Thunder growled and muttered all around them and the dark, heavy sky was lit repeatedly with lightning from horizon to horizon. The sun had set into the clouds and there was only the light of the wildly swinging lanterns to illuminate their work. Torrential rain lashed the decks, hammering upon the heads of the sailors working frantically to fasten down the hatches, secure the cannons and reef the sails.
One by one the great white sails were lashed into place against the yards. Soon only the gaunt shape of the four masts and the delicate webbing of the rigging were left, silhouetted blackly against the stark whiteness of the lightning.
Suddenly one of the sails was torn asunder by the strength of the raging wind. Ropes snapped and the sail was blown away into the darkness, torn into shreds by the force of the gale. The ship keeled sideways, dragged by its weight. Great grey waves swept over the bow of the ship, racing down the deck and sweeping many sailors off their feet. Shouts of alarm rang out. The sailors struggled to regain their footing, clinging to the ropes or grasping the hands of those still on their feet. Finn watched in horror as one was swept over the railing and into the angry sea below. For a moment his screaming face filled her vision. Then he was swallowed by the waves, rearing up for her with hungry white claws. Staggering, she clung to the railing, bitter-cold spray stinging her eyes. Then Jay was beside her, his arm about her waist.
‘Hang on, Finn!’ he shouted above the crashing of the waves and the roar of the wind. ‘We do no’ want to lose ye overboard too!’
She clung to his hand and he dragged her to a safer position by the main mast. The helmsman struggled to control the spinning wheel. Another wave swept over the deck, swirling as high as Finn’s waist. She fell, swallowing water. Jay hauled her to her feet, coughing, her throat raw. Rain beat against them, obscuring their vision. All was grey and furious: grey sea heaving and churning, grey wind screaming in the rigging, grey rain streaming. Every now and again Finn saw the dark figure of a man stumbling and sliding across the deck, or the twisting white shape of another sail tearing loose, but otherwise all she could see was a grey maelstrom as sea and sky spun together.
The sound of cracking wood suddenly brought all heads round with a jerk. There was a moment of horrific groaning, then suddenly the mizzenmast snapped. Down it came in a tangle of rigging and torn sails, smashing into the deck. Men screamed. The ship lurched and keeled over. The sea roared over them hungrily. Finn was dragged down into stinging, roaring, spinning darkness. She was tumbled over and over, limbs flailing helplessly. Then she slammed hard into something, so hard her ears roared and her eyes were filled with fizzing stars. She breathed water, drank fire. Then her foot met something solid and she pushed against it instinctively. Her head broke clear of the water. She coughed and choked, retching up seawater. Someone seized her hand, dragged her higher. Weak and sick, Finn crawled up the sloping deck, grasped a tangle of wood and rope, clung to it.
‘How are ye yourself?’ Jay’s voice asked anxiously in her ear. His shoulder supported her.
‘Just dandy,’ she answered, coughing hoarsely. ‘What do ye reckon?’
‘Ye look as sick as a half-drowned cat,’ Jay answered with a half-hearted grin.
Finn immediately cried, ‘Goblin! Och, no! My poor wee cat!’
She was answered by a pitiful little mew, and stared wildly up into the rigging. There, far over their heads, hung the tiny elven cat, bedraggled and shivering, barely visible in the swirling rain. Sobbing, Finn held out her arms and the cat leapt into them, creeping up to tremble against her neck.
‘Bran, ye must do something!’ Dide shouted. ‘Canna ye calm this wind?’
Bran shook her head. She was clinging to the main mast, her lip crimson where she had bitten it. ‘I do no’ ken how!’ she shouted.
‘Ye must be able to do something!’ Dide cried. ‘Are ye no’ the NicSian?’
She sobbed aloud. ‘I never had anyone to teach me the proper way o’ doing it! Only my auld nurse …’
‘I thought ye said ye had the Talent,’ Finn said. ‘Ye felt the storm rising long afore we could see it.’
Bran’s hair was plastered against her face, her clothes wet through. ‘Sensing a storm coming is nothing!’ she cried. ‘Anyone with a pinch o’ weather sense could do that. Even whistling up a wind is no’ that hard, but calming a storm like this is something else again!’
‘Canna ye try?’ Jay said desperately. ‘Else we’ll all drown!’
Bran clung to the mast with one hand and fumbled at her waist with the other, at last managing to undo her sash. Holding one end in her left hand, she succeeded in tying a knot in the sash with her teeth.
‘Thou rushing wind that art so strong,
With this knot I bind thee,’ she chanted.
Still the wind roared about the ship as the sailors fought to bring her upright again. Bran tied another knot, chanting:
‘Thou pouring rain that art so wild,
With this knot I bind thee.’
With a groan, the ship slowly regained an even keel as the sailors managed to shift the ballast in her hull. The wind still screamed in her ropes, however, and the rain lashed their faces with slivers of ice. ‘It’s no’ working,’ Finn whispered.
Bran tied a third knot in her sash, chanting loudly:
‘Thou thunder that roars so loud,
With this knot I bind thee!’
She then lifted the knotted sash to the turbulent heavens, shouting:
‘I command thee, hailstones and rain, hurricane and wind, sea waves and seafoam, lightning bolt and thunder, obey this, my will! By the powers o’ air and fire and earth and water, I command thee! With these knots I have bound thee!’
They all stared out into the storm. The waves still rose high on either side, turbulent and white with foam. The wind roared in the rigging.
Bran’s face was screwed up with tears of disappointment. ‘I told ye, I canna do it!’ she cried.
‘I do no’ think it rains so hard,’ Jay said after a moment.
‘I canna hear any thunder,’ Dide said. ‘And look! The ship does no’ roll as far.’
Bran pushed her wet hair out of her eyes. ‘Really?’
Slowly the waves gentled and the wind dropped till the ropes no longer screamed with the strain. Slowly the mad headlong pace of the storm-driven ship slowed. The helmsman was able once more to control the wheel, bringing the ship back under control. Although the sea all about was still wild and white, waves no longer sought to drag the little ship down. Gradually the storm blew over, and they could see stars above the ragged clouds.
‘I kent it would be useful to have the NicSian along!’ Dide said with a smile, clapping Bran on the back. She blushed and smiled, dropping her lashes over her eyes so that Finn had to hiss at her, ‘Stop acting like a silly lass, Bran, ye’re meant to be a lad, remember?’
The next morning, the Speedwell limped to safety in the bay of a small island. They rested there for close on a week while the ship’s carpenter laboured to mend the broken mast. All were glad of the chance to rest and recover, and set foot on dry land once more. Finn was amazed to feel
the sand rocking under her feet, as if the island were afloat upon the restless sea and not their storm-battered little craft.
The island had a spring of fresh water to replenish their water barrels and plenty of birds to catch and small crustaceans to gather. With nothing to do but rest and eat, Ashlin regained some of his vitality, though Enit remained frailer than ever.
Freed from her usual duties, Finn practised her cartwheels and tightrope walking, her rope tricks and dagger throwing, and pestered the crew with questions about every aspect of the repairs. She grew more accurate than ever with her crossbow, for the birds of the island were small and quick and very nervous, and Finn was very tired of fish.
As soon as the mizzenmast was repaired, a good number of feet shorter than it had been originally, they set sail once more. They had been blown many leagues off course and Alphonsus the Sure spent a great deal of time peering through his cross-staff, and scribbling equations on paper. Having to tack against the wind, the Speedwell nonetheless lived up to her name, bringing them within sight of the coast of Tìrsoilleir by the time the sun was setting the next day.
It was a stark, desolate landscape, the cliffs towering hundreds of feet above the rocky shore, and strange contorted rocks rising high out of the sea. Alphonsus the Sure was visibly relieved to have familiar landmarks once more to set his course by, and the wind swung round to the right quarter so that the Speedwell was able to sail confidently up that inhospitable coast.
‘Hard to believe that on top o’ those cliffs is some o’ the best farming land ye could hope for,’ one sailor confided to Finn and Bran. He was a tall brown young man called Tam, who had been kinder with the novices than many of the other sailors. He had taken the time to teach them all the different kinds of knots and to explain the use of the lead-line and the log-line.
‘I was dragged up along here somewhere,’ he continued, ‘until I was pressed for the navy. One minute I was a farmer lad, thinking o’ jumping the fire with the lass from the apple orchard, the next I found myself in the service o’ the General Assembly, setting off to war against the witches.’
‘That must have been awful,’ Bran said.
‘Aye, that it was, Bran,’ Tam said. ‘I cried like a babe when I woke, a day out o’ Bride Harbour and a million miles from all I kent. I be content now, o’ course, and do no’ think o’ Bessie o’ the Apples any more, at least no’ often.’
‘How do ye feel about us going back to Bride?’ Finn asked, the elven cat on her shoulder cocking her head at exactly the same inquisitive angle.
Tam grinned. ‘Terrified, lad. And so should ye be. If any elder should see ye wi’ that cat o’ yours, they’d think ye a witch for certain.’
Finn went white and shrank a little, the cat hissing and arching her back.
‘I be no witch,’ she said, rather shakily.
‘Och, lad, I’m no’ accusing ye. If anyone is to burn, it will be that auld witch with her voice full o’ sorcery, and those lads with their fiddles and pipes. In Bride, the playing o’ tools like that would be enough to see ye charged, let alone the ensorcelling o’ the sea demons, marvellous as that be.’ There was wonder and fear in the young sailor’s voice.
Finn was suddenly aware of dangers that she had not yet worried over. She exchanged a fearful glance with Bran and made some light-hearted comment that fooled the young seaman as little as it deceived herself.
Cape Wrath was the eastern-most point of Eileanan. A great jutting peninsula, it was renowned for its ferocious storms and a dangerous passage between tall abrupt cliffs on one side and a series of towering pinnacles of rock on the other, ominously called the Teeth of God. The only way to avoid that narrow stormy passage was to sail weeks out of the way, for all the sea here was broken up with islands and reefs that tore the water up into contrary waves, whirlpools and rips.
With all hands on deck, the helmsman steered the little caravel through that dangerous passage. Alphonsus the Sure hunched over his maps, the sand trickling through the sand-glass by his side, the bosun shouting out the length of the log-line. As the navigator shouted out his instructions, the ship gybed from side to side, narrowly missing one cruelly sharp rock after another.
At last the Speedwell had sailed safely through the Teeth of God. Finn had no sooner taken what felt like her first real breath in hours when she realised they now had to circumnavigate the great spinning whirlpool called the Devil’s Vortex. This was the last great obstacle between the caravel and its destination, the harbour of Bride. Again all the sailors were lashed to the ship and many calculations of time and angle were taken, Alphonsus bending to peer through his cross-staff again and again.
Finn had been frightened many times during their danger-fraught journey. When she saw the great dark whirlpool, however, its breathtaking headlong speed, the churning of the sea all about, the terrible central vortex where the ocean was spun into a mouth of sucking air, her knees just gave way beneath her. She squeezed her eyes shut and put her head on her knees.
The ship was caught and spun like a child’s whirligig. Finn’s stomach flipped, the ropes cutting deep into her arms and legs as the centrifugal force dragged at her body. The elven cat struggled desperately to be free, drawing blood as she dug her claws deep into Finn’s forearms. Finn held onto her tightly, though, holding her securely between her body and her bent legs. Her ears were buffeted by a deafening roar as if a thousand lions sought to tear the ship to shreds. Spray lashed her body, wetting her to the skin. She clutched Goblin closer, wishing she had kissed her mother goodbye.
Much, much later, it seemed, she heard Jay’s voice in her ears, and felt his arm about her shoulders. ‘It be grand, Finn, I promise; we are all safe; everything is grand.’
Finn opened one eye and then the other. Above her the proud spread of the Speedwell’s sails billowed white against the sky. The sea creamed under the caravel’s bows. ‘Grand as a goat’s turd stuck with buttercups,’ Finn said, releasing her clutch on the squirming cat. ‘I canna believe it.’
‘Alphonsus says he has navigated the Devil’s Vortex five times now. That is more than any other living man,’ Jay said.
There was no sign on his face that he had faced the possibility of his own death, as Finn had. Since the singing of the song of love, Jay had been haloed by an aura of grandeur and invincibility that Finn recognised and was humbled by. She was not the only one. The sailors all gave him the deference due only to an officer, and Bran had been all shy, admiring lassie, causing Finn to frown at her several times.
Once clear of the Devil’s Vortex, the caravel made quick progress up the coast, the land gradually gentling down into smooth green hills, a tall pointed spire marking every village.
‘They be the steeples o’ the kirks,’ Tam told Finn and Bran. ‘They all build them as high as they can, to give all honour to Our God the Father, who dwells in the sky.’
The sea rounded into a wide firth that lay blue and gentle between green headlands, each guarded by a tall lighthouse. In the mouth of the firth was a tall peaked island, its cliffs as steep as any castle wall and more than five hundred feet high. An ugly square fortress was built at the very pinnacle of the rock. Finn swallowed when she saw it, knowing without being told that was the prison compound frowning down upon them.
The Speedwell sailed past the prison into a long wide harbour, near as well protected as the Berhtfane. There the city of Bride nestled into a fold of the downs, tall slender spires of golden stones rising into the sunset sky. With all the towers and buildings built square, unlike the roundness of the Coven’s architecture, the city had a foreign look about it that had them staring.
‘Why, she be a bonny city,’ Ashlin said, leaning on the rail between Finn and Bran. His bony, long-fingered hands were more nervous than ever, pleating his shirt-tails together.
‘Hell’s bells, the city be large,’ Finn said, unable to help remembering the sailor’s warning about witch fires. ‘What do we do now?’
‘Lower anchor,
’ the young sailor Tam said, ‘and wait for the harbour master to come. It’ll be too soon for me.’
They dropped anchor some distance from the shore and all were given a double ration of rum to celebrate their safe arrival. All were tense and jumpy, feeling the weight of uncertainty now the journey was at an end. Finn was jumpiest of them all, the sheer height of the island’s cliffs reminding her what a time it had been since she had had to climb a wall.
It did not take long for the harbour officials to row out to the resting caravel. It was suggested, without much subtlety, that Enit and the others should take the opportunity to rest below decks. They agreed with alacrity, hiding in one of the storerooms until the officials had gone.
‘They have ordered us to appear afore the General Assembly tomorrow, to explain how we come to be here and to assure them we are free o’ any form o’ heresy or witch-taint,’ Captain Tobias told a tense and silent little group. ‘Ye have one night and one night only, to do what ye came here to do. Tomorrow we flee, regardless o’ your success. Trust me when I say none o’ us wish to appear afore the General Assembly.’
‘But why do they mistrust ye?’ Enit asked, her dark-skinned face as pale as it was possible to be. ‘Should they no’ be welcoming ye wi’ open arms, a captain with the courage to flee the Rìgh’s fleet?’
‘They do no’ think it is possible for us to have sailed the Skeleton Coast without witchcraft,’ the captain replied tersely. ‘And though I tried, I fear my eyes fell and my cheek whitened. I am no’ used to lying.’
They waited until night had fallen. Dide sat and strummed his guitar as if nothing could go wrong, but the others found it hard to endure the hours. Ashlin gnawed his knuckle raw, Bran fiddled with her short blonde pigtail, and Dillon bent his head over the shaggy white dog and said not a word, while Finn paced back and forth like a caged wolf.
At last all was dark and still. The prison loomed over the ship, more impregnable than any building Finn had ever seen. Now that she was here, the cat-thief was prey to gnawing doubts. Despite the dark, heavy presence of the magic cloak in her pocket and the warmth of the elven cat around her neck, Finn was cold and light-headed with fear. Dide had worked out every step of the operation, every variable, every trick Lady Luck could play, but still Finn could not sit still. We have come so far, she thought. I could no’ bear it if I was the one to fail …