by Tim Stead
Jud stopped trickling the potion into Duro’s mouth.
“Me?”
“Of course you. Without you we can do nothing on Cabarissa. It would be a wasted trip. The man who sprung the planks will be looking for another way to stop us, and you’re his best bet. We’ll stay with you in shifts.”
Jud turned back to the pouring. “Then I have nothing to worry about,” he said.
20 The Laughing Gull
They could not catch him. They rode hard for an hour, and at the end of it their mounts were played out and they still hadn’t caught another glimpse of the rider. Taranath gave up when they came to yet another wide dry valley, fully a mile from crest to crest and there was no sign of anything on the road ahead.
“He rides fast,” Worrel said. “You wouldn’t think it of a man who’s been up all night going around us.”
“We’ve lost him for sure,” Taranath said. “I’m not going to kill the horses for another glimpse. We’ll rest here and go on when we’ve recovered.”
So they camped for an hour or so, the horses grazing and the men lying in the grass nearby. The sky became streaked with thin white cloud and skylarks sang high above them. Taranath liked skylarks. They’d not had them on High Green and he thought them artists of the air, their song a kind of animal enchantment that kept the weather fair. He knew it was a boyish sort of conceit, but liked it all the same.
About an hour before noon he got the party back on their horses and they set off riding eastwards once more.
They came to the first village about an hour after that. It was small, a little ramshackle, but reasonably prosperous. The people looked happy enough and there were squads of chickens roaming the few streets, pigs in muddy pens, dogs sleeping on sunny porches. The village’s chief citizen, a plump greybeard, came out to meet them.
“Your business in my town, Aki?” the man asked.
Taranath smiled at the word ‘town’. He swung down from the saddle. “Nothing more than words,” he said. “We seek news of other travellers who have passed this way.”
“There have been too few,” the headman lamented. “We have goods to trade and haven’t seen a trader in weeks.”
“I’m more interested in sailors,” Taranath told him. “Three men on foot. They must have passed this way two weeks ago, perhaps longer.”
“You’ll be looking for men from that wreck in Short Hill Bay, I’m thinking.”
“Wreck?”
“Aye, a ship down the coast fifteen miles, came in between the headlands by luck I’d say. She was holed, but they pulled her ashore and they’re trying to fix her up, word is.”
“And the crew?”
“Lost or dead. None on board that could claim her, at any rate, or so the tale goes. I’ve not seen her myself, but there’s a few here who’ve travelled so far.”
“How far is this bay?” Taranath could feel the excitement rising. Another part of the tale would be revealed. He would be one step closer to the truth.
“Fifteen miles, as I said,” the old man said. “It’s a long day’s walk there and back, but I suppose you’ll be there by nightfall with yon horses.”
Taranath fished in his purse and produced a silver coin. “The city of Samara thanks you, Aki,” he said. Almost at once he was back on his horse, wheeling back towards the road. “It’s the Laughing Gull,” he said to Ansel and Worrel. “I know it is.”
They rode a little harder after that. Fifteen miles was a good distance, but Taranath’s urgency found its way down to his horse’s legs, and in the end they covered the distance in little more than two hours.
Short Hill Bay was guarded. Two men stood on the cliff top watching them as they approached. Taranath rode up to them and stopped a few paces short, but he had no eyes for the villagers. It was what he saw in the bay below that held his gaze.
A ship lay there, dragged up the sand until it lay clear of the water and trapped in a spider’s web of ropes that seemed to reach out to every rock and tree in the bay. A group of men worked about the bow, which still showed signs of the damage she had taken coming ashore.
“The Laughing Gull,” he said.
“And she’s ours,” one of the men guarding the cliff top said. They were armed, but crudely, with sharpened poles and sickles. Any one of the king’s men could have overcome them, Taranath reckoned.
“We’re not here to steal your salvage,” Taranath told them. “We are lawkeepers from Samara, come to learn something of the ship. Her captain died in our city.”
“Well, then,” the villager said, seeming somewhat more relaxed. “The man you would speak with is Torgan. He’s down on the beach there.”
Taranath swung down from his mount.
“Worrel, you stay here and keep a sharp eye. Ansel, you come with me.”
He led the way down the path. It switched to and fro’ briefly down the cliff face until it led them out onto the back of the beach. The men working around the bows looked up and one of them came to meet them.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “What do you want?”
Taranath repeated his explanation. “We want to examine the ship,” he added, “to see if anything left on board might lead us to the truth.”
“There’s nothing,” the man said. “We took it all off, and buried the bodies back at the village.”
“Bodies?”
“Aye, four men, all killed before she came ashore,” he said.
“I need to speak to Torgan,” Taranath said.
“And so you are.”
“You found her, then?”
“I did. It was pure luck. I was on the coast road and saw her out beyond the heads, sails loose and ropes flying. It was clear from the first that she had no hand on the tiller.”
“It was a remarkable feat, to bring her in with so little damage,” Taranath said.
“Luck again,” the villager said. “And every man in the village.”
“She’s quite a prize.”
“Aye, she is, and she’s ours.” A note of caution had crept back into Torgan’s voice.
“She’s yours sure enough,” he agreed. “Tell me about the men you found.”
“They were below decks – might have been asleep for all I know, but each of them was stabbed once, and through the heart.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“Of course. We sent word to Darna with a traveller, but we’ve heard nothing from them.”
“I’ll be going to Darna,” Taranath volunteered. “I can carry your claim and a report of these men’s deaths if it suits you. It might have more weight carried by a law keeper.”
“Aye, it might at that, and I’d count it a favour.”
“It’s no trouble,” Taranath assured him. “Did you find any papers aboard?”
Torgan shook his head. “There’d been a fire in the stern cabin,” he said. “ I’d guess someone did that to destroy what you seek, but we did find a portion of a book – perhaps the ship’s log.”
“You have it still?”
“Aye, back at the village.”
While they had been talking Taranath had been watching the villagers work on the Laughing Gull’s bow. The planking was fairly done, but they had much to learn about waterproofing a ship.
“The Gull,” he said. “You plan to re-float her?”
“Aye. We’ll get her round to Darna and sell her if we can.”
Taranath walked across to the bows and examined the caulking on the planks. It was a fair effort for men who knew nothing, but it wouldn’t do. The ship would most likely founder long before it saw Darna’s harbour.
“Are you going to tar the hull?” he asked.
“We have no tar,” Torgan said.
Taranath picked at one of the seams with a finger nail, hooked out a thread of cloth and pulled at it. About a foot of caulking came with it. He peered into the gap he’d made. The planking was all right, a good overlap existed, and you needed that in a clinker-built vessel like this. He guessed they’d simply cop
ied the rest of the ship.
“What are you doing?” Torgan sounded worried.
“If I can pick this out in a minute the sea will do it in ten,” he replied. “You need to re-do this work.” He expected the villager to bristle, but Torgan surprised him.
“You know about ships,” he said.
“Aye, it’s true. I apprenticed as a shipwright and I’ve sailed as mate aboard a ship bigger than this.”
“Then you can help us,” Torgan said.
“I can give you advice,” Taranath offered. “But my job’s lawkeeping and I’ve got to be on to Darna.”
“It’s four days by road, two by sea,” the villager said. “If you can get her seaworthy in two days you can sail her to Darna and we’ll give you a twentieth share of her price.”
It was more than a fair offer. They were offering him at least five gold for four day’s labour. But Taranath had taken an oath when he’d joined the lawkeepers, an oath to work for no other man or place, save the city of Samara. Even so he found the challenge attractive.
“It’s a lot of work,” he said.
“A tenth share, then.”
“I’ll not take your money,” Taranath told him. “But to get her ready in two days is a mighty task, and you’ve nothing but green hands to sail her.”
“Willing hands, and the whole village will help if that’s what it needs.”
“I need to look her over,” Taranath said.
Torgan waved at a ladder set against the Gull’s side. “As much as you like,” he said.
He needed to look at the ship anyway, and at the book that might be a log. Who knew what answers it might hold? He climbed the ladder and stood on the ship’s sloping deck. There was some damage here, but it was not fatal. The port rail needed fixing in two places, three or four planks would have to be replaced in the decking, but she was in good shape considering what she’d been through.
Ansel climbed over the rail and joined him.
“It looks battered,” she said.
“Nothing that can’t be fixed,” he replied.
“In two days?”
“We’ll see.”
He left the deck and went down the stern companionway, looking for the captain’s cabin. It was easy enough to find, filling the stern of the ship from side to side beneath the wheel. The steering linkages were visible here and he inspected them. They looked sound enough.
“Go on deck and turn the wheel a quarter turn each way,” he said. Ansel went, and he waited half a minute. The mechanism turned easily both ways. He opened the rear window and looked down at the sand.
“Again,” he called. The rudder moved to and fro more or less as he would have expected. “Come down,” he said.
When Ansel appeared again he was rifling through all the cupboards and hideaways.
“Anything?” she asked.
“No. Torgan was right, they’ve stripped her. We’ll have to go back to the village.”
“Are you going to fix the ship?”
“It can be done,” he said. “Maybe. I need to look at the hull from the inside.”
The Laughing Gull was a small ship, and ten minutes later Taranath was back on deck. Torgan was waiting for him there.
“Well?” the villager asked.
“Do you have oil?” he asked.
“Cane oil. It’s what we cook with.”
“You need to boil it down, to thicken it. It’ll do instead of tar. You need to dip the fibres you’re using for caulking in it before you hammer them in, and pack them tight, really tight. When that’s done you need to paint the hull with the thick oil, as much as you can. It won’t be as good as tar, but it’ll hold until we get her to Darna.”
“You’ll sail her?”
“Aye, I will, and you need to pick out a crew of six. I’ll teach them what I can while the rest of you caulk her and seal the hull, and there’s planks on deck need replacing. Have a man do that.”
Torgan grinned. It was the first time he’s seen the man smile. “Aye, captain,” he said.
Taranath watched him climb down from the deck and begin to shout orders to the other villagers.
“He’ll make a fine mate,” he said.
Ansel was poking a loose board with her toe. “Is this really a good idea?” she asked.
“We’ll not lose any time, and we might just gain some, and besides, can you think of anything else that might win the villagers over so quickly?”
“I cannot,” Ansel admitted. “And you’re sure this wreck won’t sink as soon as we get out of the bay?”
Taranath smiled. “Sure as I can be,” he said.
*
The village was swollen to twice its natural size. The king’s men and Taranath’s lawkeepers made up a small part of it, but it seemed that good fortune had won friends, and many had come over from the neighbouring villages to celebrate the new found wealth of their kin and acquaintances.
Taranath himself was something of a guest of honour. They’d given him a chair beneath a large, spreading oak and seemed happy to provide him with anything he wished for. But Taranath didn’t want wine and flatbread. He wanted whatever they had salvaged from the Gull.
They brought it to him, of course. He was their saviour, their captain. The ship, once sold, would make their village wealthy and without him it could all be for nothing.
The book was a disappointment. Taranath had almost forgotten that the captain of the Laughing Gull could not write, but what remained of the log made that apparent. It was mostly burned away, but the fragments that had survived bore a collection of symbols and words, the latter in an educated hand that was not the captain’s. The bottom three quarters of the book was ash, and the top held little more than a single word on each page.
He flicked through the charred remnant. Some pages had a destination written at the top, and others had what he could only describe as a map, a sketch of harbour walls and piers. He recognised some of them at once. He had seen these ports more than a few times as a ship’s mate. Here was Darna, a long, straight strand with two piers at one end and three at the other, the third slightly bent to the east. It was unmistakable. And on the next page he saw Pek, the curved bay, the row of piers at the western end protected from the strong easterlies by the headland.
He flicked through the pages more quickly, coming at last to an empty page. He turned back one page.
This page was brown with fire damage, but at the top was a map, and it was a place he didn’t recognise. Every one of the maps was drawn north south, oriented like a proper chart, but on this last page that didn’t make sense. The harbour seemed to face the east. There was a long bay within the arm of a southern headland and a single pier, longer than any he knew, reaching towards the east. It wasn’t Yasu and it wasn’t High Green, and those were the only east facing harbours he knew. Most of the rest faced south.
Could it be Jerohal?
He’d never been there. Nor had anyone he’d ever sailed with. In Pek, perhaps, he might have found a sailor who’d been there, but not in Darna. He looked across at Dorcas Sloepicker, the mayor of Pek’s agent. He caught her eye and beckoned her over.
“Jerohal,” he said when she sat beside him. “Your people have been there.”
“Reckless traders,” she replied.
“Have you spoken to them?”
“Some. It’s not my job to interrogate fools, just criminals.”
Taranath turned round the charred book and pointed to the sketch at the top of the page.
“The captain couldn’t write. Instead he drew a sketch of each port he visited. This is the last in the book. Does it look familiar?”
“It’s a map,” she said.
“Of sorts. There’s a long bay, a headland to the south and a single, long pier.”
She shook her head. “There’s a pier at Jerohal, that’s all I know.”
Taranath looked at the simple map again. It had to be Jerohal, and if it was then this burned fragment of a log was evidence that it was Th
e Gull’s last port.
“What’s that?” Dorcas asked, pointing at the page. He looked. It was a spidery scratching close to the book’s spine on the line below the map.
“I can’t make it out,” he said.
She took the charred remnant from him and flicked back through the pages. “Here it is again,” she said.
Taranath looked. It was clearer this time: a circle above a cross above an inverted ‘V’. “It’s a man,” he said. “A head, two arms, two legs – a child’s drawing of a man.”
“There are two of them,” Dorcas said. “Passengers.”
The lawkeeper took the book back and flicked forwards to the singed remains of the last page. He stared at the scratchy figure of the stick-man. That was the killer, the first proof that he was on board and perhaps, if the map was what he suspected, proof that they went to Jerohal.
He would have to send more men back to Samara, but that would wait a couple of days. He didn’t want to send anyone down the road with the killer still out there. They could travel by ship from Darna, but first he had to repair The Gull and sail it to Darna with a shipload of green hands.
“I’ll have a cup of wine now,” he said.
21 The House on Conner Lane
Summer had abandoned Samara for a day, or so it seemed. A cold southerly battered at the docks and, funnelled by the eastern cliffs, swept fiercely up the streets from the harbour. The market on Market Street was shut down and rain slanted across streams that formed temporarily in the sloping streets of the city.
Sam sat in his office and looked across at Gulltown through the rain-haze. At least this sort of weather kept the cutpurses at home – there being so few citizens abroad in the city. On a fine, sunny day Gilan would have brought in half a dozen petty thieves, but today there would probably be none.
He had to admit that business was slow. The cells were empty. The only outstanding crime of any note had taken Arla to Cabarissa and Taranath to Darna and left him to mind the shop. He was bored.
He would have gone home but for a sense of duty that kept him at his desk until evening, and the certain knowledge that he would be just as bored in his modest rooms.