“South and east,” the man replied. “Bristole by name. A town built for fixing and supplying the boats and not much else. She’s not too far outta me way.”
“I would be obliged,” the monk answered.
So they were off again, after a hearty breakfast, supplied for free by the goodly townsfolk. Only when the wagon began rambling down the road did Master Jojonah comprehend how much better he was feeling physically. Despite the bumpy nature of the ride, his breakfast had settled well. It was as if the news of the previous night, the implication that things were darker by far than he had ever imagined, had pumped strength back into his frail body. He simply could not afford to be weak now.
Bristole was as small a town as Jojonah had ever seen, and seemed strangely unbalanced to the monk. The dock areas were extensive, with long wharves that could accommodate ten large ships. Other than that, though, there were but a few buildings, including only a pair of small warehouses. It wasn’t until the wagon pulled into the center of the cluster of houses that Jojonah began to understand.
Ships going up-or downriver would need no supplies at this point, since the trip from Palmaris to Ursal was not a long one. However, the sailors might desire a bit of relief, and so the ships would put in here for restocking of a different nature.
Of the seven buildings clustered together, two were taverns and two were brothels.
Master Jojonah said a short prayer, but was not overly concerned. He was an accepting man, ever willing to forgive the weakness of the flesh. It was, after all, the strength of the soul that counted.
He bade farewell to the generous driver, wishing he could give the goodly man more than words for his efforts, and then turned to the business at hand. Three ships were in; another was approaching from the south. The monk walked down to the riverbank, his sandals clapping against the extensive boardwalk.
“Hail, good fellows,” he called as he neared the closest ship, seeing a pair of men bending low behind the taffrail, working hammers on some problem he could not see. Jojonah noted that this ship was in stern first, an oddity, and, he hoped, an omen that it would soon depart.
“Hail, good fellows!” Jojonah yelled more loudly, waving his arms to get their attention.
The hammering stopped and one old sea dog with wrinkled brown skin and no teeth looked up to regard the monk. “And to yourself, Father,” he said.
“Are you heading north?” Master Jojonah asked. “To Palmaris, perhaps?”
“Palmaris and the Gulf,” the man answered. “But we’re not heading anywhere at all anytime soon. Got an anchor line that won’t hold; chain’s all busted.”
Jojonah understood why the ship was in dock backward. He looked around, back at the town, searching for some solution that would get this ship sailing. Any worthy port would have held the proper equipmenteven the meager docks of St.-Mere-Abelle were supplied with such items as chains and anchors. But Bristole was no town for ship repairs, was more a place for “crew repairs.”
“Got a new one sailing up from Ursal,” the old seaman went on. “Should arrive in two days. Are you looking for passage, then?”
“Yes, but I cannot delay.”
“Well, we’ll take you, for five pieces of the King’s gold,” the old man said. “A fair price, Father.”
“Indeed it is, but I’ve not the gold to pay, I fear,” Jojonah replied. “Nor the time to delay.”
“Two days?” the sea dog balked.
“Two days more than I have to spare,” Jojonah answered.
“I do beg your pardon, Father,” came another voice, from the ship next in line, a wide and sturdy caravel. “We shall be sailing north this very day.”
Master Jojonah waved to the two on the damaged vessel and walked around to get a better view of the newest speaker. The man was tall and lean and dark-skinnednot from the sun, but from his heritage. He was Behrenese, and, given his complexion, likely from a region of southern Behren, far south of the Belt-and-Buckle.
“I am afraid that I have no gold to pay,” Jojonah replied.
The dark man flashed a pearly smile. “But Father,” he said, “why would you be needing the gold?”
“I’ll work for my passage, then,” Jojonah offered.
“All on my ship could use a good prayer, Father,” the Behrenese man replied. “More, I fear, after our little stop here. Come aboard, I beg you. We were not to leave until late in the day, but I’ve only one man out and he can be retrieved easily. If you are in a hurry, then we are in a hurry!”
“Very generous, good sir”
“Al’u’met,” the man answered. “Captain Al’u’met of the good shipSaudi Jacintha.”
Jojonah cocked his head at that curious name.
“It means Jewel of the Desert,” Al’u’met explained. “A bit of a joke on my father, who wished me to ride the dunes, not the waves.”
“As my own father wanted me to serve ale, not prayer,” Jojonah replied with a laugh. He was more than a bit surprised to find a dark-skinned Behrenese in command of an Ursal sailing ship, and even more surprised to see the man pay so much respect to one of the Abellican Order. Jojonah’s Church was not prominent in the southern kingdom; indeed, missionaries had many times been slaughtered for trying to impose their vision of divinity on the often intolerant priestsyatolsin the Behren tongueof the deserts.
Captain Al’u’met helped Jojonah over the last step of gangplank, then dispatched two of his crewmen to go and find the one missing sailor. “Have you bags to bring aboard?” he asked Jojonah.
“Only what I carry,” the monk replied.
“And how far north will you be sailing?”
“Palmaris,” Jojonah replied. “Or across the river, actually; I can ride the ferry. I am needed at St.-Mere-Abelle on most urgent matters.”
“We may be sailing past All Saints Bay,” Captain Al’u’met said. “Though you will lose a week at least traveling by sea.”
“Then Palmaris it is,” the monk said.
“Exactly where we were going,” Captain Al’u’met replied, and, smiling still, he pointed to the cabin door leading under the poop deck. “I have two rooms,” he explained. “Surely I can share one with you for a day or two.”
“You are Abellican?”
Al’u’met’s grin widened. “For three years,” he explained. “I found your God at St. Gwendolyn of the Sea, and as fine a catch as Al’u’met has ever known.”
“But another disappointment for your father,” Jojonah reasoned.
Al’u’met put a finger to pursed lips. “He does not need to know such things, Father,” he said slyly. “Out on the Mirianic, when the storms blow high and the waves break twice the height of a tall man above the forward rail, I choose my own God. Besides,” he added with a wink, “they are not so different, you know, the God of your land and the one of mine. A change in robes would make a priest ayatol.”
“So your conversion was one of convenience,” Jojonah teased.
Al’u’met shrugged. “I choose my own God.”
Jojonah nodded and returned the wide smile, then made his slow way toward the captain’s cabins.
“My boy will show you your quarters,” Al’u’met called after him.
The cabin boy was just within the shelter of the room, throwing bones, when Master Jojonah opened the door. The lad, no more than ten years of age, scrambled frantically, collecting his dice and looking very guiltyhe had been caught derelict from his chores, the monk knew.
“Set our friend up, Matthew,” Captain Al’u’met called. “See to his needs.”
Jojonah and Matthew stood staring at each other, sizing each other up for a long time. Matthew’s clothes were threadbare, as was the lot for anybody working aboard a ship. But they were a fine cut, better than the attire of most crewmen the monk had met. And the boy was cleaner than most cabin boys, his sun-bleached hair neatly trimmed, his skin golden tanned. There was one notable blemish, though, a black patch on the boy’s forearm.
Jojona
h recognized the scar, and he imagined the pain the boy must have felt. The patch had been caused by the second of the three “medicinal” liquidsrum, tar, and urinekept on the sailing ships. The rum was used to kill the worms that inevitably found their way into foodstuffs, to kill the aftereffects of bad food, and simply to forget the long, long, empty hours. The urine was used for washing, clothes and hair, and as disgusting as that thought was, it paled in comparison to the liquid tar. This was used to patch torn skin. The boy, Matthew, had obviously gashed his arm, and so the sailors had applied tar to the wound to seal it.
“May I?” Jojonah quietly asked, reaching for the arm.
Matthew hesitated, but dared not disobey, cautiously holding the arm up for inspection.
A fine job, the monk noted. The tar had been sanded flat with the skin, a perfect patch of black. “Does it hurt?” Jojonah asked.
Matthew shook his head emphatically.
“He does not speak,” came Captain Al’u’met’s voice, the man having moved up right behind the distracted monk.
“Your work?” Jojonah asked, indicating the arm.
“Not mine, but Cody Bellaway’s,” Al’u’met answered. “He serves as healer when we are far from port.”
Master Jojonah nodded and let the issue dropopenly, at least, for in his mind the image of Matthew’s blackened arm would not so quickly fade. How many hematites were locked away in St.-Mere-Abelle? Five hundred? A thousand? The number was considerable, Jojonah knew, for when he was a younger monk, he had done an inventory of just that stone, easily the most common stone returned from Pimaninicuit over the years. Most of these soul stones were of far less power than the one the caravan to the Barbacan had taken along, but still, Jojonah had to wonder how much good might come of these if they were given to the sailing ships with one or two men on each vessel taught how to bring forth their healing powers. Matthew’s wound had been considerable, no doubt, but Jojonah could have easily sealed it with magic, not tar. With hardly an effort, much suffering could have been avoided.
That line of thinking made the master wonder on a grander scale. Why weren’t all the communities, or at least one community in each general region of the kingdom, given a hematite, with their chosen healers trained in its use?
He had never discussed such a thing with Avelyn, of course, but somehow Master Jojonah understood that Avelyn Desbris, if the choice had been his, would without hesitation have distributed the small hematites to the general populace, would have opened up St.-Mere-Abelle’s horde of magic for the betterment of all, or at least distributed the most minor hematites, stones too weak to be used for diabolical purposes such as possession, stones too weak to be used in any real malevolent way.
Yes, Jojonah knew, Avelyn would have done it if given the chance, but of course Father Abbot Markwart would never have given him the chance!
Jojonah patted the mop of Matthew’s blond hair and motioned for the lad to show him to his room. Al’u’met left them then, calling for his hands to ready the ship for departure.
Saudi Jacinthaslipped out of Bristole soon after, her sails fast filling with wind, pushing her against the considerable current. They would make good time, Al’u’met came and assured the monk, for the south winds were brisk, with no sign of storm, and as the Masur Delaval widened, the pull of the water was not so strong.
The monk spent the bulk of the day in his cabin, sleeping, gathering the strength he knew he would need. He did get up for a short while, and with a friendly nod convinced Matthew to play dice with him, assuring him the captain wouldn’t mind if he took a short break from his chores.
Jojonah wished that the boy could talk, or even laugh, in the hour they spent throwing dice. He wanted to know where the lad had come from and how he had wound up on a ship at so tender an age.
Likely his parents, poverty-stricken, had sold him, the monk knew, and he winced at the thought. That was how most ships acquired cabin boys, though Jojonah hoped that Al’u’met had not been the one to purchase him. The captain claimed to be a religious man, and men of God did not do such things.
A light rain came up that night, but nothing that impededSaudi Jacintha ‘sprogress. This crew was well-trained and knew every turn in the great river, and on the ship plowed, her prow spray foaming white in the moonlight. It was at that forward rail, in that same night after the rain had stopped, that Master Jojonah fully accepted the truths that were forming in his heart. Alone in the darkness with the splash of the prow, the croaking of the animals on the bank, the flutter of the wind in the sails, Master Jojonah found his course come clearer.
He felt as if Avelyn were with him, hovering about him, reminding him of the three vowsnot just the empty spoken words, but the meaning behind themthat supposedly guided the Abellican Order.
He stayed up all through the night and went to bed again right before the dawn, after coaxing a sleepy-eyed Matthew to go and fetch him a good meal.
He was up again at dinnertime, dining beside Captain Al’u’met, who informed him they would reach their goal early the next morning.
“You might not wish to stay up all the night again,” the captain said with a smile. “You will be back to land in the morning, and will not travel far, I will guess, if you are asleep.”
Still, later on that evening, Captain Al’u’met found Jojonah again at the forward rail, staring into the darkness, looking into his own heart.
“You are a thinking man,” the captain said, approaching the monk. “I like that.”
“You can tell such things simply because I am standing out here alone?” Jojonah replied. “I might be thinking of nothing at all.”
“Not at the forward rail,” Captain Al’u’met said, taking a spot right beside the leaning monk. “I, too, know the inspiration of this place.”
“Where did you get Matthew?” Jojonah asked abruptly, blurting out the words before he could even consider them.
Al’u’met gave him a sidelong glance, surprised by the question. He looked back to the prow spray and smiled. “You do not wish to think that I, a man of your Church, purchased him from his parents,” the perceptive man reasoned. “But I did,” Al’u’met added, standing straighter and looking directly at the monk.
Master Jojonah did not return the stare.
“They were paupers, living near St. Gwendolyn, surviving on the scraps your Abellican brothers bothered to toss out for them,” the captain went on, his tone deepening, growing somber.
Now Jojonah did turn, eyeing the man severely. “Yet this is the Church you chose to join,” he stated.
“That does not mean that I agree with all of those who now administer the doctrine of the Church,” Al’u’met calmly replied. “As to Matthew, I purchased him, and at a handsome price, because I came to think of him as my own son. He was always at the docks, you seeor at least, he was there at those times when he could escape his wrathful father. The man beat him for no reason, though little Matthew had not seen his seventh birthday at the time. So I purchased him, took him aboard to teach him an honest trade.”
“A difficult life,” Jojonah remarked, but all animosity and hints of accusation were gone from his voice.
“Indeed,” the large Behrenese agreed. “A life some love and others loathe. Matthew will make up his own mind when he is old enough to better understand. If he comes to love the sea, as I do, then he will have no choice but to stay aboard shipand hopefully he will choose to stay with me.Saudi Jacintha will outlive me, I fear, and it would be good to have Matthew to carry on my work.”
Al’u’met turned to face the monk and went quiet, waiting until Jojonah looked at him directly. “And if he does not love the smell and the roll of the waves, he will be free to go,” the man said sincerely. “And I will make sure that he has a good start wherever he chooses to live. I give you my word on this, Master Jojonah of St.-Mere-Abelle.”
Jojonah believed him, and his return smile was genuine. Among the tough sailors of the day, Captain Al’u’met surely s
tood tall.
They both looked back to the water and stood in silence for some time, save for the splashing prow and the wind.
“I knew Abbot Dobrinion,” Captain Al’u’met said at length. “A good man.”
Jojonah looked at him curiously.
“Your companion, the wagon driver, spread word of the tragedy in Bristole while you were seeking passage,” the captain explained.
“Dobrinion was indeed a good man,” Jojonah replied. “And a great loss it is for my Church that he was killed.”
“A great loss for all the world,” Al’u’met agreed.
“How did you know him?”
“I know many of the Church leaders, for, given my mobile profession, I spend many hours in many different chapels, St. Precious among them.”
“Have you ever been to St.-Mere-Abelle?” Jojonah asked, though he didn’t think Al’u’met had, for he believed that he would remember this man.
“We put in once,” the Captain replied. “But the weather was turning, and we had far to go, so I did not get off the docks. St. Gwendolyn was not so far away, after all.”
Jojonah smiled.
“I have met your Father Abbot, though,” the Captain went on. “Only once. It was 819, or perhaps 820; the years do seem to blend as they pass. Father Abbot Markwart had put out a call for open-seas sailing ships. I am not really a river-runner, you see, but we took some damage last yearpowrie barrelboat, for the wretched dwarves seemed to be everywhere!and were late getting out of port this spring.”
“You answered the Father Abbot’s call,” Jojonah prompted.
“Yes, but my ship was not chosen,” Al’u’met replied casually. “Truthfully, I think it had something to do with the color of my skin. I do not believe that your Father Abbot trusted a Behrenese sailor, especially one who was not, at that time, an anointed member of your Church.”
Jojonah nodded his agreement; there was no way that Markwart would have accepted a man of the southern religion for the journey to Pimaninicuit. The monk found that notion ironic, laughable even, given the carefully planned murderous end of the voyage.
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