‘My own father survived the war, it is true, but he had not the knowledge, for he was no officer. A mere cook’s assistant he was, and the art of way-finding was not taught to one such as he, nor to any common sailor. It was a learned thing, for learned folk. But just once he did speak to me, in private, of what he’d witnessed of navigation at sea, little though his words explain.
‘Listen now, for this is what he told me. There was a glass device, he said, that was kept on the high deck, close by the ship’s wheel, set in a special stand of wood and brass. The officers would stare into that glass and somehow from it they would learn their whereabouts upon the ocean, no matter the weather, no matter the darkest night. And hence they would know which course to steer.
‘It sounds fanciful, does it not? But there must be truth in it, for haven’t I seen myself – as a girl, in the days before my sight was taken away – on the vessels the Ship Kings send, a stand set close to the wheel, just as my father described. The secret glass is kept there I don’t doubt, and wondrous it must be to look into it and have the whole ocean revealed to you at a glance.’
The old woman raised her whisky and licked her lips.
‘Indeed, this I foretell – on the day that a New Islander finally looks again into such a glass, and learns its mysteries, then the time of our long suffering will be over, and the day of our redemption will be at hand.’
And with that Mother Gale upended her glass, drank it empty, then slammed it down on the bench beside her and called for another. Discussion burst forth all about the bar, a flurry of arguments running this way and that, for many had heard similar tales of such a magical instrument, and everyone had their own theory as to how it might work or whether such a marvel could even be real.
But Dow no longer gave heed. He was lost to a sudden memory – of the moment the Chloe had slid by him to enter the Stone Port gate, the moment that he’d stared up at the young officer whom he’d mistaken for the captain. That officer had been posed forward of the ship’s wheel, calling commands up to the rigging. One of his hands had been raised, trumpet like, to his mouth. The other, however, had been resting upon an object made of brass and wood; a stand of some kind, about four feet high, at the top of which there had glinted glass.
Mother Gale was right. The device existed; it stood in plain view. With access to such a wondrous thing, a man would be free to sail fearlessly across the great ocean beyond sight of landmark or sounding!
Dow swigged from his mug again, but he knew that no matter how much ale he drank, there would be no peace or sleep for him tonight. He would be too tortured by thoughts of escape – escape from the safe, challenge-less waters of the Claw, escape from Nathaniel’s constrictions and hatred, escape from the drear life of a fisherman. The mysterious way-finding glass could make it all possible. But even though it was so achingly close at hand, there upon the Chloe, it was forbidden to one such as he, as out of reach to him as were the stars.
Unless, that was, he climbed up to the deck of the great ship, docked now in Stone Port for weeks to come, and looked for himself.
The rest of the Ship Kings fleet arrived two days later. Nathaniel and Dow were out fishing at the time, so they missed the grand sight of so many ships appearing at the Heads and then passing through the Stone Port gate. But when they entered the harbour themselves late that afternoon, they found that the docks were now jammed to capacity with great vessels lined up stern to bow, the multitude of their masts as thick as a forest.
Nathaniel had said there would be eleven ships, but in fact Dow counted thirteen newcomers, in addition to the Chloe. Nathaniel, it transpired, had been referring only to the number of merchantmen in the fleet. There were indeed eleven of these – square, hulking craft that were near as large as the battleship in sheer size, but which possessed none of its lean grace, and none of its menace either, being quite unarmed. Their purpose was simply the carrying of cargo, safe and sure and slow. Already labourers were swarming about them, the work begun of loading all New Island’s tribute into their accommodating holds.
The other two newcomers, however, were warships. They were frigates, to be exact, which meant that each was somewhat smaller than the Chloe, with only two gun decks instead of three – but they looked deadly nonetheless, possessing the air of swift hunting dogs set in charge over the docile herd of merchantmen. Both had visited Stone Port before, according to the gossip on the docks, and were named the Severe and the Conquest. And there was no mistaking their martial intent. With the Chloe stationed at one end of the wharves, the Conquest berthed at the other, and the Severe positioned in the middle, the three warships had all the harbour, and indeed the town itself, covered by the sweep of their guns.
But the occupation of Stone Port – as Dow came to regard it in the days that followed – was not just a matter of the fourteen ships. The fleet also brought with it close to five thousand sailors – five thousand sea-weary men who were due for shore leave. The officers, much fewer in number, were given the run of the Stone Port fortress for their rest and relaxation, at the governor’s pleasure; but not the common seamen and gunners. These thousands of men, in their off watches, were loosed upon the alleyways, inns and bars of the lower town.
It was an invasion that transformed Stone Port, cramming its byways with the exotically garbed Ship Kings crews and filling the air with their accented shouts and laughter. The New Island folk (Dow could not help but notice how drab and small they suddenly looked in comparison) could scarcely move in their own streets, or drink in their own inns, so great was the crush. And yet Stone Port bore the inundation without complaint. There were no mutterings against the visitors, no harsh words, no brawling. The war had been lost long ago, and whatever the townsfolk might feel in their hearts about being overrun, they kept it well hidden.
And anyway, the Ship Kings brought with them one thing that all New Islanders welcomed unreservedly. That thing was news – news from the lands across the sea; a treasure to a people no longer able to travel. Dow, to his regret, seldom had the chance to hear such news direct from the sailors themselves, for his visits to Stone Port remained brief. But as the days went by and the crews roamed the town, the stories they told began to circulate all about Stone Port and eventually reached even across the channel to Stromner, where the villagers repeated them eagerly each night over their drinks in the inn.
There was, for instance, much talk of the Ship Kings’ homeland. Dow soon learned that he’d been taught truly as a child; the Kingdoms did indeed consist of eleven separate realms, ruled by eleven kings, with one Sea Lord reigning over all. Alas, whether or not the Sea Lord really lived on a giant ship which never saw land, no one could say, for the visiting crews did not speak of it.
Despite their alliance, however, it seemed that old rivalries still lingered between the Ship Kings. That was why there were always eleven merchantmen in the fleets that came to Stone Port; each kingdom, jealous of its share of the tribute, sent a ship of its own to collect that share. Rumours spoke too of more urgent troubles. The current Sea Lord – the sixth in the line – was apparently old and unwell, and there was debate among the kings about the succession.
There was news also of the other two of the Four Isles. All his life, Dow had heard little of them beyond their names – Red Island and Whale Island, sometimes called the Twin Isles, as they were close neighbours. The most he knew was that they lay many weeks’ voyage to the west (whereas the Kingdoms lay far to the east) and that they had fallen under the rule of the Ship Kings in the same war that had seen New Island conquered.
Now however he learned of the strange wonders to be found in these two distant lands. Red Island it seemed was a place of boiling lakes and burning mountains, where men dug deep in the earth in search of metals, or toiled in smithies to cast cannon for the Ship Kings. And Whale Island was a mass of jungle and swamp, where bizarre plants grew and where peculiar spirits were brewed, while the ocean all about was crowded with reefs, between which swam the great
sea beasts that were hunted for their oil, and which gave the land its name.
It was even stranger to hear about the peoples of these islands. Peoples with their own ways and customs, and with their own cities and ports. Peoples who had fought alongside New Island during the Great War, and who laboured now, likewise, under the Ship Kings’ sway. Peoples Dow would never meet. Were they content, he wondered, those faraway folk? Did they ever resist, or seek to rebel? Or were they as the New Islanders were – compliant in their defeat?
But of all the Ship Kings’ news, of greatest interest to Dow was news of the sea. For although their merchantmen sailed mainly to carry cargo, and their warships sailed mainly in search of battle, still the deepest love of the Ship Kings was to sail for sailing’s sake. Ever and again, it seemed, they would assemble a fleet and venture off into the wilds of the farthest ocean – far beyond the travelled waters that lay between the Four Isles – risking limb and life and ship, for no other reason than to explore to the very limits of the habitable world.
And what marvels they encountered! There were tales of storms that rose like fire-filled titans over the sea, and which set the waters sizzling and steaming, so furiously did they trample the ocean with lightning. There were tales of storms which blackened the entire sky and shrieked and howled for days on end, and which conjured waves that reared as high as the tallest masts. There were tales of storms that draped giant funnels down to the ocean, funnels that twisted and turned and danced enticingly around ships before devouring them.
There were tales of monstrous creatures in the deeps, as big as the biggest ship, and bigger still – some that, for all their size, were as slow and gentle as oxen; but others that were grappling, vicious things, attacking ships and dragging them to their deaths. And there were things that perhaps were not creatures at all, but which were just as feared. Tales spoke of glowing mists that hunted purposefully above the waves and engulfed ships, and which sent entire crews mad – or if not mad then overcome, sleeping one and all for days, so that when they awoke again they had drifted far from their course and were lost.
Even worse perils awaited those ships which voyaged the most distantly. If they ventured far enough north they met a permanent winter and entered the realm of the Unquiet Ice, where the sun scarcely rose and the skies were everlasting grey; where sails set solid and where giant platforms of ice rolled sullenly, and where eventually the ocean itself froze into a jagged mountain range that would crush any ship that strayed into its endless fjords. Some spoke of a warmer land and even cities that waited beyond the icy ranges, gained by some narrow passage, and others said they had seen fantastic lights glowing from across the mountains. Ah, but many were the craft that had been lost, seeking after such visions.
But most perilous of all, so the stories went, was to sail south. The sun rose higher there and the air grew ever warmer. For a time perhaps the sailing might be pleasant and the crews could work shirtless under the blue sky, but soon enough the sun would grow hot and men’s skin would start to burn and peel, and there were no clouds and no rain, and a ship’s water would run low. And if still a vessel pushed southwards, the winds would begin to weaken and fail. Faint-hearted captains – or perhaps they were wise – would turn their ships about at this point, for those that pressed on found eventually that they had sailed beyond the wind, and were becalmed. They had entered the Barrier Doldrums.
It was a name known to Dow even during his childhood. For although the Scribes taught that the world was round, and that by sailing east or west a ship might one day come back to where it began; they also taught that the same ship could not circle the world by going north or south. In the north there was the ice, and anyway, all paths narrowed northwards, for it was the top of the world. It was in the south that the paths widened as the globe grew fatter, but there all progress was blocked by the Barrier Doldrums, a region of never-ending calm and stultifying heat through which no ship had ever sailed. For how could one sail where the wind never blew, and where no current ever rippled the oily waters?
Oh, said the stories, many ships had sought to pass through over the years. But those that returned brought only horrid reports of heat and starvation and thirst, and of long weeks trapped unmoving upon a sea as heavy as molasses, or caught in vast swamps of seaweed that choked the surface, stinking unendurably. Crews had resorted to launching their boats to tow their ships back into zones where winds blew. Others, it was said, had towed their ships deeper in, hoping to come to the other side. But of these, none had ever been sighted again. What lay beyond, what lands, what wonders, nobody knew. The doldrums circled the waist of the world all the way around and hid forever the southern half of the globe.
It was to stories like these, and more besides, that Dow listened, rapt, as he ate and drank in his corner of the Stromner inn. They transported him completely, away from the smoky shadows of the bar and off to the wild open places where great storms raged and where fantastic monsters writhed and roared, to where freezing seas crackled and where pinnacles of ice toppled and fell, or to where the ocean turned as torpid and deadly as syrup. But the stories brought him suffering too, for the more of them he heard, the more the sea longing throbbed and ached in his chest, until it was like an actual pain, wringing at his heart.
For surely this was why he had left his home; to voyage as the Ship Kings voyaged, to see and experience the world’s wonders for himself. It could not be that he was meant to rot the rest of his days in Stromner, while the Great Ocean waited through the Heads with such immense rewards for those brave enough to sail upon it. A way must be found to go there, somehow.
But in fact it had never looked less likely. Nathaniel – since their fight – barely spoke to Dow anymore, and had abandoned even the pretence of training him in sea craft. Worse, when they went fishing, they no longer set off alone into the emptiness at the centre of the bay, but ventured only to the nearest fishing grounds, where they trawled alongside the other Stromner boats. It was a punishment that stole away the one pleasure the work had ever held for Dow; those few moments sailing free across the Claw. Now he had nothing at all to look forward to in the day, only the dull grind of hauling nets, and then the slow run into Stone Port.
If only, Dow found himself daydreaming. If only he had a boat of his own. Then he could simply set out through the Heads by himself to explore the world. Or – as mad as it sounded – if only he could go with the Ship Kings when the fleet set sail, to serve as a hand on one of their vessels.
But it could never be. The Ship Kings would not take him. It was not allowed. No New Islander, as far as Dow could discover, had served aboard their ships in decades – not since the prisoners of the Great War had been returned home, some seventy years previous, Nathaniel’s father among them.
As for a boat of his own – well, even if, in his final extremity, he stole a boat and launched off, he would be lost as soon as he left sight of land. He knew not the secret of navigating across the open sea.
And that, it increasingly seemed to Dow, was the heart of the matter. Navigation. Consider the Ship Kings. They held dominion over the world by the force of their battleships, yes – but surely navigation was their true power, for what mattered the winning of battles or the exploration of distant oceans, if a ship could not find its way home again? If Dow was ever to escape the prison that Stromner and Nathaniel had built around him, navigation must be his key.
Oh, to be granted one glimpse of that mysterious way-finding device that the Ship Kings held on their high decks. Day by day, Dow became ever more convinced that if he could only steal a look at one of the secret instruments, then the ways of the ocean would be opened to him. He would not need Nathaniel then, or anyone else. He would need only a boat, and then he could be free.
Every afternoon, while unloading the daily catch in Stone Port, he studied the Ship Kings fleet. The loading of the tribute went on apace, and a constant stream of labourers toting barrels or bales would be trooping up the many gangways, as abo
ve them cranes groaned to stack on board the great highland timbers, destined for the Ship Kings’ far-off shipyards. Amid so much activity, Dow reckoned, it would surely be possible for him to find a way, unnoticed, onto a ship.
But he could also see that the high deck of every vessel was cordoned off from the lower decks, and guarded by watchful soldiers – Ship Kings marines, no less. A troop of them had arrived with the warships, and they looked far more formidable than the New Islander guards who manned the gate of the Stone Port fortress. Dow would have to find a way to get past them, before—
Then he would catch himself. What was he thinking? Was this just another daydream, or was he really prepared to sneak aboard one of the Ship Kings craft to snatch a glimpse of the forbidden device?
No, he would have to admit. No, he wasn’t . . .
Then one evening he and Nathaniel returned to Stone Port late from their fishing, and by the time they had tied up at the wharf it was full night. Looking the fleet over, Dow was intrigued to note that by such an hour the labourers had all gone and the cranes were silent. The great ships rode in quiet repose, deserted even by their crews for the pleasures of the town’s inns.
They were still guarded, of course. Marines stood at every gangway, forbidding admittance to strangers. But – Dow observed with a thrill – the soldiers were only on the gangways. There didn’t seem to be any particular watch kept on the decks of the ships themselves. So if someone was to, say, swim to the side of a ship, the side facing away from the docks, and climb up there, hidden from view, then there was a chance that such an intruder might be able to gain access to the high deck – and to its secrets – without being observed.
The Coming of the Whirlpool Page 12