by Anne Lyle
He lay back down, the space between them now a chasm. For a moment he considered apologising to Ned, perhaps even trying to explain, then thought better of it. He rolled over, wincing as a piece of straw stabbed through the mattress into his hip, and prayed for the room to stop moving.
Ned leant against the windowsill, basking in the warmth of the newly risen sun. Back home it would still be cold at this hour, and summer only a distant promise. Mal’s estates were somewhere north of here, he recalled, on the mainland. No wonder Mal was so tanned, and Hendricks so sunburnt.
Thoughts of Hendricks only served to remind him of last night. He didn’t know who he was most annoyed with: Mal for rejecting him, or himself for making such a dog’s dinner of the whole thing. He was out of practice at seduction, that was the trouble. Not that he regretted devoting his attention to Gabriel these past two years, but Gabe was home, security… routine. With Mal around, anything could happen, and usually did. Admittedly it had been rare for their lives to be in serious danger like this, but even the most trivial escapade had lent a delicious edge to their carousing.
He cursed softly. That was why Mal couldn’t give Hendricks up. Surely they must have had far narrower escapes together than he and Mal ever did – and yet she denied him the celebration of life he craved. Uptight little puritan! She hadn’t changed a bit. Not that he could entirely blame Mal for desiring her. He himself had been fooled into trying to kiss her once, back when he still thought her a boy – though she had responded by biting him, the venomous bitch! If God had not ordained it, surely no man of sense would choose to consort with women.
Mal stirred and rolled over.
“Who’s there?” He sounded wide awake already, and in no good humour.
“It’s only me.” Ned held up his hands as Mal groped for his blades. “Good day to you too.”
“Why’s the window open?”
“You opened it last night, remember? Besides, I thought we needed some fresh air in here. Even your would-be footpads aren’t going to be attacking us in broad daylight.”
“Dawn is one of the best times,” Mal said, sitting upright and retrieving his breeches. “Your victim is drowsy, the light dim and shadowless…”
“Another of Walsingham’s lessons?”
“Something I learned on campaign.”
“How’s your head, by the way?”
“Don’t ask.” Mal finished dressing and strapped on his sword belt. “Come on, let’s find a serving wench. I need breakfast.”
CHAPTER XIII
Coby spent a sleepless night considering and discarding half a hundred plans for escape. Unfortunately most of them depended on the ship being in harbour, and there was no way of knowing how near or far that day might be. Even if the skraylings were taking them back to London, it could be another week or more. And the alternative, that they were being taken to the New World, did not bear thinking about. Her body already ached in every joint from being immobilised; how she would endure days or weeks of it, she did not know.
Her own suffering was a small thing, though, compared to Sandy. Late in the evening two of the sailors had come down to the hold to check on the prisoners and give them a little water to drink. As they had lifted Sandy’s head to try and force some water between his lips, Coby had caught a glimpse of metal at his throat. The spirit-guard. She had seen what happened when he wore it for more than a few hours a night. And now he was likely to be wearing it for weeks. She had failed in her duty to Mal twice over.
By the time the sun rose, she was dizzy with hunger and lack of sleep, but still determined to find a way out of their predicament. When she heard movement above and feet on the ladder, she instantly roused. To her left, Gabriel stirred against his own bonds. She waited, heart pounding.
Half a dozen skrayling sailors entered the hold, came straight over to the two younger prisoners and began untying their bonds. Coby would have fallen if one of them hadn’t caught her, wedging his shoulder under her armpit and wrapping both of his arms about her waist. Even as she slumped with her chin on the skrayling’s shoulder, a small part of her mind reflected that this would be a good opportunity to relieve the sailor of his belt-knife. Of course it would be a lot easier if she had any feeling in her limbs.
The sailor tried to walk her to the ladder, but her legs were not her own and refused to obey. He gave up and sat her on a pile of empty sacks with a growled warning not to move. It was hardly necessary. She lay sprawled like a discarded doll, biting back tears as the feeling began to return to her limbs in a flood of fire.
She looked across at Gabriel, who was being led up and down the deck with his arms round the shoulders of two of the skraylings. They looked like a trio of drunks on their way home from the alehouse, and she would have smiled if it had not been for their dire situation. Instead she chafed her hands and feet and endured the pain.
One of the other sailors brought them cornbread and watered aniig. By the time Coby had broken her fast, her strength was beginning to return. The skraylings appeared to have anticipated this, however, and stood ready with staves to beat the prisoners back. They had still not untied Sandy, she noticed, though they had attempted to feed him; not an easy task since he was the best part of a foot taller than any of them.
A shadow fell across her lap and she looked up to see a skrayling standing over her. She recognised him by the pattern of beads in his hair as the one who had supported her weight when she was untied. He held out his hand.
“You walk,” he said. “See sky.”
She was not about to turn down a chance at a walk in the fresh air, so she reached out and let him help her up.
“Thank you.”
It was slow, painful going, climbing first one ladder to the gun deck and then a second to the weather deck, and by the time she emerged into the sunlight she was shaking like a man with the ague. She slumped against her guide once more, squinting against the brightness and trying to take stock of her surroundings. Beyond the ship’s rail, dark blue waters stretched as far as the eye could see. She turned her head, but the view was no different. No chance of escape here.
After a short walk around the deck and a visit to the jakes – a tiny, well-scrubbed cabin in the bow – it was time to go back to the hold. At the bottom of the ladder she shook off her guard and stumbled over to Sandy. His eyes were unfocused, and he was mumbling under his breath.
“Sandy?”
His eyes sought hers. “Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days, and let them give us pulse to eat, and water to drink. Then let our countenances be looked upon before thee, and the countenances of the children that eat of the portion of the King’s meat: and as thou seest, deal with thy servants.”
“Which servants?” It was a verse from the Old Testament, she was certain, but she could not place it.
“And the King said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream.”
“Daniel,” she cried. “You speak of King Nebuchadnezzar, in the book of Daniel.”
Sandy lifted his head, staring fixedly at the underside of the deck above.
“And at the ninth hour,” he said, his voice rising to a wail, “Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’”
“Hush, Sandy, be still!” She glanced back over her shoulder, expecting the skraylings to haul her away any moment. “He hasn’t forsaken us. Sandy, trust Him. We will be delivered, like Daniel. I swear it.”
Sandy ceased his moaning, subsiding into glazed-eyed silence. With a heavy heart she allowed the skraylings to lead her back to the wooden pillar.
“Need I talk to high-fellah,” she told them as they secured her once more. “Erishen-tuur is sick, go die soon.”
The nearest skrayling cocked his head, tattooed brow creasing.
“He die?”
“Aye. Hurry!”
It was an exaggeration, but she couldn’t think what else would persuade them to giv
e her the chance she needed. A chance to talk some sense into Captain Hennaq, before Sandy was beyond her help.
Slow hours passed, and the sun was approaching its zenith by Coby’s reckoning before the skraylings returned. There were only two of them this time, and neither was her friend from breakfast. Perhaps it was mere chance, or perhaps his small kindnesses to the prisoners had been noted.
She stumbled a little as they removed the ropes binding her to the upright beam, and noticed that they stepped backwards as if expecting this to be the first feint in an attack. They waited for her to steady herself against the pillar, then closed in and bound her wrists in front of her. Quite what they thought one lone youth could do against a shipful of men, she could not imagine.
On cue, Gabriel shouted after them, just as they had planned.
“Where are you taking her?”
The skraylings ignored him. Coby wondered how much English the sailors understood, and whether they had noticed that Gabriel had revealed her true sex. She hoped so. It would lend weight to the argument she was about to unfold.
Her escort led her up onto the weather deck as before. The sun was dazzling now, and hot as an English summer day. Coby squinted at the horizon, but it was as empty as ever. She wondered how far they were from land. Too far, that was for certain.
The captain’s cabin was as dark as a cave after the sunlit deck, and she stood blinking for several moments as coloured shapes swam across her vision. Voices spoke in Vinlandic; the captain questioning her escort, perhaps? At last her vision cleared, but the sight that met her eyes was not encouraging.
Captain Hennaq stood on the opposite side of the cabin, his pose one of extreme formality: arms by his side, palms turned forward in a greeting that was barely more than an acknowledgement of her presence. One of the sailors pressed her shoulder, and she knelt on the matting. The captain gestured to his men, who backed off but did not leave.
“You asked to speak to me,” Hennaq said in Tradetalk, his accent heavier than normal, as if deliberately straining her comprehension.
“Yes, sir. As one leader to another, I ask that you show mercy to my men.”
“Your men?” Hennaq gave a hissing laugh. “You are but a boy.”
“No, sir.” She looked him in the eye. “I am a woman of my people.”
She got to her feet and made a formal curtsey as best she could. It would hardly pass muster at court, but the skraylings were unlikely to know the difference.
“A woman?”
“I am sure you have searched our belongings by now. Did you not find women’s clothing amongst them?”
“One of your party is an actor. How am I to know the clothes were not his? And if you are a woman, why do you not dress like one?”
“I…” She took a deep breath, and then another, as she had seen the actors do before going on stage. “Your physician, if you have one, may examine me to find the truth.”
The captain gestured to one of the men, who left the cabin. The other sailor spoke to the captain. Coby wondered if he was relaying Gabriel’s words. Perhaps so, since Hennaq nodded and looked at her more closely.
“Even if this is true,” the captain said at last, “it is no proof you are their leader. I am not ignorant of human custom, here or in the New World.”
“You concede that we English are ruled by a queen?”
“Of course. But no other woman sits on your great councils.”
“True.” She thought of Lady Frances Sidney. “But women serve our country in many ways, not always openly.”
“Women like you.”
“Yes.”
“Is this why you pass yourself off as a man?”
“It is safer when travelling, especially in strange lands where I have few friends.”
The cabin door opened, and the sailor entered with an older skrayling in dark blue robes, carrying a wooden workbox. The newcomer spoke to the captain in low tones, both of them eyeing Coby from time to time. She swallowed and pressed her shaking hands together. The physician.
“This is Elder Gaoh,” the captain said. “He will examine you, as you have offered.”
The old skrayling knelt down on the mat at her feet and opened his workbox. From it he took a bulbous glass flask, into which he poured a little liquid from a sealed ceramic bottle, and swirled it around. The liquid began to glow like a miniature sun. Lightwater, but stronger than any she had seen before. He held the lamp up to Coby’s face and examined her skin through a lens set in a bone handle. Coby hardly dared to breathe. He lifted her upper lip to examine her teeth, and ran a thumb up and down her throat until she could not help but cough.
Next he unbuttoned her doublet. She trembled, fearing he was going to strip her, but he merely unfastened the neck of her shirt and lent close, sniffing delicately at the exposed flesh. Coby felt a blush rising from her throat at this strangely intimate gesture. Gaoh hummed to himself and refastened her clothing.
At last the physician gestured for her to show him her hands. He turned them over, examining front and back minutely, though for what she could not imagine. He said something to the captain in Vinlandic and put away his instruments. Coby breathed a sigh of relief, hardly able to believe she had avoided a more intimate exploration.
“It appears your story is true,” the captain said. “Please, sit.”
Coby inclined her head and obeyed.
“You said you were the leader of the two men,” Hennaq went on. “The pale-haired one I concede is no leader, though I am told he is a fine actor. But Erishen-tuur is one of our qoheetajeneth, and has seen many lifetimes. I cannot believe he would submit to the leadership of any human, even a female.”
“He is not himself, sir,” she replied. “Indeed, this is the matter on which I wanted to speak to you.”
“Ah, yes.” Hennaq scratched his chin. “You told my men that Erishen-tuur was going to die.”
“I… Perhaps it was not the right word to use. But he is very sick, as I am sure they have told you.”
“I shall have Elder Gaoh attend him.”
“This is not a sickness of the body, sir. The lodestone necklace upsets his mind.”
Hennaq frowned at her.
“How is that possible? It is meant to protect, not harm.”
“I don’t really understand it myself. But you have to take it off, or he will get worse.”
“I cannot. It would not be safe for anyone on board.”
“You think he would attack you with his… sorcery? I will gladly vouch that he would not.”
A lie, and she feared the captain could see it in her eyes. She was not at all confident that Sandy would listen to her, not after this.
“Do you know what he can do?” Hennaq asked.
“Some of it.” She shivered, remembering Suffolk’s man hacking one of the other servants to death. What had that been, if not bewitchment? “Will their own spirit-guards not keep your crewmen safe?”
Hennaq’s expression hardened. “And why should I punish my own men for his transgressions? No, I will not do it.”
“Punish them? I don’t understand.”
“No, you do not. I cannot expect a human to understand our customs. And I cannot free Erishen now that he knows my purpose.”
“What purpose?” A sick feeling roiled in her stomach.
“I am taking him back to our people, to answer for his crimes.”
“His crimes?” She leapt to her feet, not caring any more about etiquette. “It is you who have lied to us, stolen him away–”
“And your people stole ours away. You and your companion are descendants of the Birch Men, no?”
“No.”
“I think yes. You look just like the Birch Men in the old tales, and England was part of their domains, was it not?”
“Yes, but–” She broke off, trying to marshal her thoughts. “You can’t take us all the way to the New World. It’s not fair.”
“I am sorry,” the captain said, “but I have made my decision. Erish
en will stand trial.”
One last try. She would not give up on Mal.
“For what crime?” she said, trying to keep the anger and frustration out of her voice.
“For leading my heart-mate and others astray.”
“How? He has been locked up in a sanctuary for the sick of mind since he was a boy. Or is this some more recent crime, since he was taken to Sark?”
“No, I speak of long ago, when Erishen was one with our people.”
“When he was a skrayling.”
“Yes.”
“But…” She was out of her depth now. “But the man you have captured did not commit those crimes. He has a new life now.”
“Nonetheless, he is still Erishen. The soul is accountable, as well as the body.” Hennaq spread his hands.
A desperate thought struck her. “If you want to try Erishen,” she said slowly, “you need the whole man, not half a one.”
“What do you mean?”
“Erishen has a brother. Lord Kiiren’s former bodyguard, Maliverny Catlyn.”
“I know of this man. He is the one whom Kiiren-tuur brought before the council of elders. What of him?”
“Have you not heard? They are not merely brothers, they are twins.”
Hennaq muttered something under his breath in Vinlandic. “You are sure?”
“Certain. That’s how Master Catlyn found the skrayling captives on Corsica. He and Sandy are two halves of a fractured soul. They are both Erishen.”
“This complicates matters,” Hennaq said, shaking his head.
“Yes it does. You need both of them if it is to be a fair trial.”
“And you know where to find this other brother?”
“Of course. He is going to Venice.”
Hennaq laughed, setting his beaded hair rattling. “Oh, very clever. You think you can trick me into taking you to Kiiren?”
“It is the truth, I swear. Do what you will to me, let your sorcerers probe my secret thoughts if you must. But I swear in the name of all that is holy, I speak the truth.”