Sunday, 17 Halar.
Felthrup has been stabbed. It was a light wound to his shoulder and he will certainly live; already he is hobbling around the stateroom, reminding us all that he has been through worse. More troubling is that his attackers were ixchel. They had secreted themselves inside a cannon on the lower gun deck. When Felthrup passed this evening they leaped down, crushing Felthrup to the deck and pinning him there beneath their swords.
‘Who have you told of our whereabouts, vermin?’ they demanded. ‘Speak quickly or die on our blades!’
Felthrup’s first response was to cover his eyes with his paws and beg the men to leave. ‘You’re in terrible danger,’ he said. ‘Trust me, run away!’ When this tactic failed, he began to chatter wildly about the difference between telling and implying. Still they pressed him, leaning into their swords. Felthrup then announced that he had come to the conclusion that time was ephemeral, and that no one could predict the shape tomorrow would take, or even the shape one would take on the morrow, by which he referred not only to one’s physical body (‘lest we forget the lesson of the caterpillar’) but also the values that define us, the ideas that will outlive us, the philosophies that pass like a germ from one mind to another, didn’t they think so, and how he had read incidentally that the philosopher who first argued that moral conviction was the signature of the soul had also called for an end to the persecution of ixchel, as well as a vegetarian diet, though he did in fact ask for pork on the night of his execution, but had to settle for lamb chops as a certain parasite had decimated the local hogs, and then one of the ixchel stabbed Ratty in the haunches just to make him shut up.
That was when Sniraga pounced. The great red creature had been trailing Felthrup at a distance, slinking in and out of shadows as cats will. Lady Oggosk has made her Felthrup’s guardian, and she never shirks that duty. But Felthrup too has made his wishes known these many weeks, talking to the red cat, scolding her, imploring her to be ‘peaceful and loving’. It’s a wonder the beast has not gone mad trying to square that circle. Fortunately for Ratty, his request only delayed her but so long.
The attack was lethally precise. The ixchel who had used his sword was bitten through the head and neck and died at once. The other one stabbed at her bravely. He was a better fighter by half than his kinsman, but all the same Sniraga hooked him with a claw and flung him high into the air. He came down fighting, but she rolled on her back and met him with four paws this time and mauled him badly. He only just managed to fight out of he grasp. Then he must have realised that his kinsman was dead, for her began to fight a blazing retreat. Sniraga let him go, crouching and hissing beside Felthrup, looking for further attackers.
None came, but Marila did. She had been expecting Felthrup, and came out at last to look for him. She took one look at rat, cat and ixchel body and let out a cry. Felthrup squealed that she must hurry and hide the corpse, but it was too late. Sniraga, knowing her guardianship was done for the time, took the ixchel in her jaws and sprang away.
What will she do with the body? Deliver it to Oggosk? Devour it? Toy with it awhile and leave the remains in plain sight? If the latter occurs there will be a new fear stalking the Chathrand, and Marila and I will be questioned savagely, perhaps even by Ott.
As for Felthrup, he has promised us that he will not budge from the stateroom. ‘They meant to kill me as soon as I complied with their demands,’ he said, ‘and then they’d have tried to kill the ones I named — kill you, Mr Fiffengurt, and dear Marila, expectant mother though she is! So terrible, so mean! And we do not even know what they will do when we reach Stath Balfyr.’
‘You were brave, there, Ratty,’ I said. ‘And brave to go to them, in their stronghold, on a mission of peace.’
He gazed up at me from his little basket, puzzled. ‘They have never believed me,’ he said. ‘All I ever wanted was a good conversation.’
12
Loyalty Tests
15 Modobrin 941
Eberzam Isiq awoke to the laughter of the witch. She was in the next cabin, Gregory’s cabin, and so was Gregory himself. Isiq could hear them plainly; the interior walls on the Dancer were as flimsy as the rest of the boat.
Twilight, the Gulf flat and still. They stood becalmed off the Haunted Coast; the last stage in their journey to the Empress would happen in the dark. Isiq was obeying an old dictum of the Service: When there is no task before you, your task is sleep. He’d been a champion napper since his tarboy days; he could sleep through combat drills. So why had Suthinia Pathkendle’s laugh woken him so easily, cutting through his sleep like a knife through muslin? She was laughing at her husband’s yarn, something about a dog and a dairy maid. At Isiq’s bedside, the dog from Simjalla City gave a low, offended growl.
‘Did you hear that? “Lazy cur”, indeed! Lazy notions about all things canine, more like.’
Suthinia laughed again, and Isiq experienced a moment of ridiculous jealousy. They were sounding very much like a couple, that former couple. And now they had apparently retreated to the captain’s tiny chamber to wait for nightfall.
The dog stared in the direction of the voices. ‘Every time he speaks of someone low or despicable, it’s “The dog!” or “That stinking dog!” Well you’re no rose garden yourself, Captain. You smell like old socks, dead fish and someone’s nappy shaken together in a bag.’
‘He doesn’t mean it,’ said the little tailor bird, standing in the open porthole. ‘In fact I think he’s fond of you. He beamed when you told him you wanted to come aboard. Only don’t expect too much of him. He’s not an educated man like our friend Isiq.’
The dog scratched behind an ear. ‘If he says “lazy cur” once more. I’ll give him a mouthful of education.’
Isiq sat up and groped for his boots. ‘Dog,’ he said quietly, ‘you know human nature, and how to survive on human streets. That is fine knowledge, and hard-earned to be sure. But you know nothing of life at sea. There is a code we must keep here, because it governs our own survival. Respect the captain, even a captain you hate — and never speak idly of rebellion. It will be no idle day if ever you are forced to stand by such words. Now let’s get above.’
Nothing had changed on the topdeck save the light, which was failing fast. The clipper was surrounded, as before, by mist: great rafts of white mist, so thick in places that one could imagine parting them like curtains. They were famous, these mists of the Haunted Coast: ambulatory mists, Gregory had called them. And it was true that they seemed to wander this part of the Gulf like flocks of sheep, independent of the winds and one another, capricious in what they obscured or revealed.
Just as well that they had anchored six miles out. For when the mists did part, one could catch a glimpse of the sprawling graveyard between the Dancer and the shore. Men had perished here in untold numbers — upon the jagged reefs, the shifting sandbars, the countless rocky islets that loomed suddenly out of the mists. The rumours were many and fantastical: rip tides so powerful they could tear a ship free of its chains. A black mould in the seaweed that turned one’s flesh to grey slime that sloughed off the bone. And sea-murths, naturally, directing all these calamities, and more.
He looked down at the grey-green waters. Sea-murths, right below them? Half-spirits, elementals, a people of the depths? Could they have provided the “help” Thasha had spoken of, when Pazel and the other tarboys probed these waters for the Nilstone? Were they the guardians of the Coast?
Isiq believed in murths, but only in the way he believed in the monstrous sloths and lizards whose skeletons graced the museums of Etherhorde: creatures from long ago, creatures who had made way for the advance of humankind. Yes, strange beasts remained in Alifros; he had seen a few in the Service, in the more distant stretches of sea. But here, sandwiched between the Empires, so close to the world’s busy heart? He didn’t like to think so. It made civilisation appear fragile, like a scrim that might fall at any time. But something kept sinking those ships. Something more than wide reefs and poor sea
manship.
He stood and watched the dying light. He could still hear the booming of guns, distant and sporadic; the massive engagement had concluded one way or another. He thought of the wreckage and the death behind them, the corpses in the water, the poor sod or two (or ten or twenty) lost overboard, still breathing at this minute, still clutching at a fragment of his ship.
So familiar, so shamefully comforting. War was a state of affairs he understood — a state he liked, admit it, for the razor it took to social pretence: minced words, delicate non-promises, games of maybe and speak-with-me-tomorrow. Not in wartime, not for soldiers. You lived or died by your good word, by the trust you generated, by aspects of character that could not easily be faked.
But did he have the character of a peacemaker? When this righteous fire burned out, would he be emptied, useless as an old gunner, the kind who retired with weak eyes and weaker hearing and any number of fingers blown off over the years? Before the Chathrand sailed, he had told Thasha that even old men could change. That he had become an ambassador and would work for a better Alifros. That he had, once and for ever, hung up his sword. He had underscored the point by thumping the table and turning red in the face.
‘Peaceful out here, ain’t it?’
Gods of death, there was a boat alongside! A slender thing shaped like a bean pod. A canoe. Just two men aboard her, large ruffians, grinning like boys. They had glided out of the fog in perfect silence.
‘Bosun!’ snapped Isiq.
‘Don’t shout, Uncle,’ said the second man. ‘Didn’t Captain Gregory make that clear?’
He had, of course: no shouting, no loud noises of any kind. In short order Gregory himself appeared, still buttoning his shirt. The newcomers touched their caps, and Gregory answered with a nod and his wolfish grin.
‘You rascals. Not dead yet?’
‘Can’t die when we owe you forty cockles, can we, sir?’ said the man in front.
‘Forty-two,’ said Gregory. ‘Interest.’
‘What’s moving today, Captain?’ asked the other.
‘No goods,’ said Gregory, ‘but there’s a package for you about here somewhere, I expect.’ He twinkled at them, then turned to Isiq. ‘Get your things, old man, and be quick. You’re going with Fishy and Swishy here.’ He pointed at the men. ‘Fishy here’s a Simjan, rescued from a felonious past by our brotherhood. Swishy’s a halfwit from Talturi.’
‘Those aren’t our real names,’ said the Simjan.
‘And your passenger here has no name, see, so don’t ask him,’ said Gregory. ‘Keep calling him “Uncle”, that will do. And see that he stays out of trouble all the way to the Hermitage. Your word as gentlemen, if you please.’
Hermitage? thought Isiq.
The newcomers looked him over dubiously, but they gave their word. Then Gregory smiled and declared that their ‘Uncle’ had just paid off their debt, and Mr Tull came forward with a bundle of tobacco for each.
Isiq turned aside and muttered in Gregory’s ear: ‘Are we truly to visit the Empress in a hollow log, like savages?’
‘Savages!’ said Gregory. ‘That’s blary perfect. We depend on such ignorance from Arqualis, don’t we lads? Now grab your things, duffer! I won’t tell you again.’
Isiq had few things to grab. His weapons from Oshiram, his boots and jacket, the purse of gold that was presumably forty-two cockles lighter than when he came aboard. The dog and the bird watched him anxiously.
‘I would welcome your companionship,’ he told them, ‘but I do not know what is to come. If you go with me now there may be no chance of your returning to Simja for a very long time. Nor can I be sure that the ones who will receive me are — how did you put it, Tinder? — educated. They may not know how to relate to woken beasts.’
His words added greatly to their distress. ‘I will go with you regardless, friend Isiq,’ said the tailor bird at last. ‘My brainless darling has forgotten me, as she does every spring. Let her nest with someone else, someone better suited to matrimony. I have other things on my mind.’
‘And I will stay on the Dancer,’ said the dog, ‘if you will ask Captain Foulmouth to return me to the city at his earliest convenience. The witch has said enough about your cause to make me want to help. But Simjalla is the place I know. Her streets, her smells, her gossip. That is where I can be of use to you, if anywhere.’
‘Then go well,’ said Isiq, scratching his muzzle, ‘and see that you don’t bite the captain.’
‘No promises,’ said the dog.
On deck again, Isiq faced the great indignity of needing to be helped into the canoe. His knee did not want to support him on the rope ladder, and the crew had to improvise a sling and ease him down the Dancer’s side. Isiq knew he was scarlet. He thanked the Gods that Suthinia had stayed below, and then felt perfectly desolate because she had. Apparently he was unworthy of a goodbye.
Gregory leaned down the side, trying not to smile. ‘You’re a force of nature, Uncle,’ he said. ‘We’ll meet again, I’m sure of it.’
‘On the battlefield,’ said Isiq, ‘if we live that long. Today I can only thank you for your deeds. They were strange but well executed.’
Gregory humbly dipped his head. ‘Need a job done, call a freebooter,’ he said.
On an impulse, Isiq tossed the purse of gold back up onto the Dancer. ‘Take what you need to rebuild your house,’ he said.
Gregory looked abruptly chagrined. ‘Oh, as for that-’
‘He took it already.’
Suthinia was there, bending to snatched the purse from the deck. She was wearing her sea cloak, and a headscarf of fine black lace, and before Isiq’s startled eyes she threw one leg over the rail. Astride it like a jockey, she looked her husband in the eye. Isiq knew he should turn away, but didn’t. Suthinia moistened her lips.
‘Hopeless,’ she said.
The captain grinned. ‘We figured that out a long time ago, didn’t we?’
‘Not us, Gregory. Just you.’
‘Now that is unfair. From a woman in your position.’
‘There’s only one position you care about.’
She leaned nearer, eyes half-closed; she placed a hand on his chest. ‘Brush your teeth, next time, darling,’ said Gregory. Suthinia turned away, furious, groping for the ladder with her heel.
They sat like cargo in the bottom of the canoe, the witch and the admiral, enemies and allies. Suthinia, in front, gazed fixedly at the Talturin in the bow. Isiq’s knee ached. He wondered if he could ask her to soothe it with a touch, as she had done the night they met.
Then he heard her spitting oaths, soft and venomous. Perhaps later, he mused. Perhaps in a week.
The young men paddled in silence. They did not aim for shore but zigzagged in the growing darkness, as though pursuing a wayward thought. The Gulf was still remarkably flat. It was very weird, to be gliding soundless among the fog-blanketed shipwrecks, the coral knobs and giant fist-like rocks. The men showed no fear of the shipwrecks, and threaded a course so close among them that Isiq could have leaned out and touched the rotting hulls.
‘We’re no closer to shore than when we started,’ said Suthinia, breaking her silence at last. ‘Are you lost, or is this a tour of the Haunted Coast?’
The young men glanced at each other, suddenly uneasy. ‘We’re not lost,’ said the Simjan, who sat aft. ‘Just waitin’ on the signal.’
‘Whose signal?’
The men shuffled uneasily. ‘I imagine they have more secrets to guard than the one Gregory asked for, Lady Suthinia,’ offered Isiq.
‘How piercingly clever you are.’
She had a knack for asphyxiating conversation. They glided on. A crescent moon began to wink at them between the clouds. Isiq put a hand to his vest pocket, felt the trembling of the tailor bird. The distant cannon had stopped booming at last.
They were passing between a reef and the black shell of an Arquali frigate when Suthinia asked suddenly, ‘Will you start again with the deathsmoke?’
&nb
sp; At the bow, the Talturin fumbled his paddle. Furious, Isiq gripped the sides of the canoe. How dare she. In front of strangers. If she knew what the fight had been like! The months of terror, the racking pain, the mind squeezed in a tourniquet, squeezed like bread in a fist. . And to think that this poisonous witch had inspired fancies in him. Longings. That he had imagined them together, someday, when the fighting was done. He should tell her to go rot in the Pits.
‘No deathsmoker ever intends to start again,’ he said through clenched teeth.
‘That’s right, Uncle!’ said the Simjan. ‘But to answer your question, Lady Suthinia: I don’t know. I look for the Tree of Heaven every night, and send my prayers up to Rin. Two good months I’ve had, but you know I’ve kept off the drug this long before.’
Isiq stared into the darkness, abashed. The witch had not even been speaking to him.
‘You must stay strong for your little ones,’ said Suthinia to the addict. ‘Come see me at the Hermitage, as you did last year.’
‘Oh, Lady-’
‘Don’t thank me yet; the charm may not help. And it will not, unless you fight on.’ She twisted about now, pulling the headscarf back to let her see the Simjan. ‘You will fight on, I’m certain. You’ll make us all proud, and what’s more you’ll win your own pride back — with interest, as Gregory would say.’
Isiq wished someone would strike him in the face. He had nearly exploded at this beautiful witch. Even now she had the courtesy not to notice, not to mock his error; why had he imagined her cruel? She had not been cruel, she had been honest. As bluntly honest as any warrior, any man.
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