This was Dow’s worst fear – that a ship would be sent, but without him.
He said, ‘It’s true that I have been eager to return to New Island, and so am I still. But Cassandra has always told me that it’s my name that gives my folk the most hope, not me in the flesh; and that will still be so even if I don’t go there this spring. As a soldier I would only be one among thousands anyway.
‘But if I go to Banishment, there I can make a difference. There I can help end the entire war, if the mission succeeds. But it won’t succeed without me.’
‘Why is that?’ enquired Constance Reed doubtfully. ‘Why do you matter so?’
‘Because of Nell.’
The War Master stared alertly. ‘Ah. The scapegoat girl. She is a special friend to you, I’m told. But this is no place for romance, Mr Amber. I will not risk a ship for an affair of the heart.’
‘It’s not that,’ rejoined Dow heatedly, and as truthfully as he could given his own mixed feelings. ‘By your own reports, Nell is the scapegoat of the whole Heretic movement – do you understand what that means? If the prisoners at Banishment are to cooperate with you, they will need her blessing. And if she is to cooperate, then you’ll need someone she knows, and trusts. Someone who knows her. I’m the only person like that you have.’
The War Master considered briefly. ‘Well, Connie, what do you say to that?’
The Mistress Superior shook her head. ‘It’s not enough. There are others who could win the prisoners’ trust. If you insist on sending a ship, do not send Dow Amber as well. It would be a mistake.’
Damien Tender rubbed at his craggy cheek, and fixed his eyes upon Dow once more. ‘I wonder. I agree that the excuses he gives are not strong. But after all, has not fate thrown this youth time and time again into the centre of world events? If that same fate has now set his heart on this course, am I wise to prevent it?’
Dow could think of no further reasoning that would sway the War Master. He could only meet Damien Tender’s candid gaze, and hope that the conviction in his own eyes was enough. And it really was conviction now. He had become increasingly sure that this was the right thing to do; that maybe it was even the fated thing to do. And Nell was the key. He could feel it as a certainty in him, just as he had at their parting two and half years ago; a sense that whatever he and she might achieve in his war, it could only be achieved together. That it wouldn’t matter if Dow did hurry home to lead his own people, or if Nell escaped and led hers in rebellion without his aid . . . it would all come to nothing unless somehow they were in unison.
The War Master’s fathomless eyes seemed to search and search, and maybe they saw the same vision, even as it came to Dow . . . for at last Damien Tender bowed his head. ‘So be it. All is chance in war in any case. I will send a ship, and you on it.’
Dow almost sagged with relief. Constance Reed, however, stiffened in disapproval. ‘War Master, reconsider, please.’ And at her side, Cassandra was staring fixedly at the table, as if deaf to the entire debate.
‘It’s decided, Connie,’ said the War Master, in a tone brooking no dispute. ‘He goes.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Dow got out.
Damien Tender regarded him more coolly now. ‘Don’t thank me, lad. This is no favour I grant you. Whatever I do, I do for the good of the Twin Isles and our cause, nothing else. And don’t think that I’m placing you in command of this mission. You are in no way yet fit for command. I will send a ship, and you may sail on it, but under the usual authority of its commander.’ And here the War Master turned to Captain Fletcher. ‘As to that, what say you, Captain? Is yours the vessel and are you the commander to take on this task? Speak honestly now, for this is not something I would order an unwilling captain to do.’
It was obvious that Captain Fletcher was indeed unwilling; the ex-whaler shifted uncomfortably in his seat and would not meet the War Master’s gaze. But the full force of those hypnotic eyes was focussed on him now, and in the end he had nowhere else to look; and having looked, could not refuse.
‘Of course, War Master,’ he mumbled, ‘I and my ship stand willing to make the attempt.’
‘Excellent. And your officers?’ This was said with a glance to Jake Tooth, as if challenging the harpooner to dare express another doubt.
Jake did in fact seem nonplussed, his brow furrowed about its embedded tooth, as if something about the situation did not make sense to him – but at last he shrugged. ‘It’s all the same to me, sir. I go where I’m sent.’
‘Good. Good. Then we—’
‘War Master,’ came a soft voice. ‘I do not want to go.’ Amazingly, it was Cassandra, her chin raised now and her expression pale but determined as she stared at her high commander. ‘If it is volunteers you seek, then I want no part in this enterprise.’
Constance Reed reared back. ‘Be silent, child! Of course you will go! An ambassador from the War Master must be present throughout this affair, and who else would it be? You are familiar already with the Snout and its crew; you are by far the best suited.’
‘The best suited?’ Cassandra echoed. ‘I am the worst suited to do what you ask.’
‘What’s all this now?’ queried the War Master, with a gentleness that was itself arresting. ‘Cassandra Usher – I’ve watched over your progress since you were a child in the Laundresses’ care, the brightest of all our foundlings. You would baulk now and refuse this task?’
Cassandra bit her lip in indecision. ‘Sir . . .’ she began, but could not finish, drawn inexorably to meet the War Master’s expectant gaze.
‘We’d never force you, of course, girl. But stay a moment when this meeting is done, and we’ll discuss it, you and I, just the two of us. Tell me what’s troubling you. And if you truly think that another should be sent in your place, then so it will be.’
Cassandra hesitated a moment longer, and it seemed to Dow, watching on in surprise – for it had never occurred to him that Cassandra would not want to come with them – that she was both repelled and attracted by the idea of being with the War Master alone. And in the end her nod was one of near helplessness.
Damien Tender smiled, satisfied, and looked at everyone. ‘Then it is settled. The mission shall depart as soon as possible. I will appoint a pilot to accompany you, and you shall go west across the Outer Ocean, and so come to the Banks from the east.
‘The odds against you are long, no doubt, but the prize is a great one. Success could mean the end of the war without further bloodshed. But do not despair if you fail. Come summer, I will be in New Island with the fleet, and if the Ship Kings armada appears there despite all your efforts, I will be ready for them. And I shall prevail. One way or the other, I aim to win this war.’ He swept them with his immutable gaze. ‘You and your officers are dismissed, Captain.’
The Snout crew all rose.
‘And as for you, Dow Amber,’ the War Master added, ‘perhaps you should thank me indeed. I gather that you are a mariner who craves to sail for sailing’s sake – and here you have been dispatched on a long voyage across a rarely travelled sea. I almost envy you all the adventure. Few ships in these grim days of war are given leave to roam so far and so freely.’
‘I am grateful, sir,’ said Dow.
And yet strangely, as he filed out with the others, even though he had indeed been granted all that he had asked for, Dow wasn’t sure he felt any gratitude at all to the War Master. Obscurely, he felt instead that it was Damien Tender’s desires that were being gratified, not his own. Yet how could that be, when it was Dow himself who had demanded this role?
He glanced back, just as the doors to the War Room were being closed behind them. Only Damien Tender and Cassandra remained within now, the War Master settling intimately into the chair at the young laundress’s side. His expression was only of concern . . . and yet Dow felt a chill on her behalf, as if maybe Cassandra, by agreeing to stay, had fallen into a trap.
And as if, on no evidence Dow could name, he had walked into one himself.
The Snout made ready to depart the next day, but not before there were several arrivals on board.
The first was Cassandra. She appeared shortly after dawn and reported to Captain Fletcher on the high deck. Dow – on duty and watching from nearby – thought the laundress still looked untypically haggard and pale, but to his relief she announced that she would be remaining on the Snout after all.
Captain Fletcher eyed her sourly. ‘Well it’s nice of you to grace us with your presence, I’m sure. The War Master convinced you then? He has a honeyed tongue, I know that much.’
Cassandra straightened, her eyes flashing despite her weariness. ‘We are all of us honoured to have the War Master’s trust – or at least we should be.’ She raised a heavy envelope that she held in one hand. ‘Captain, I have special orders here to be delivered to you once we are well clear of land. Until that time, I will retire to my cabin. Please have my meals sent to me. Otherwise I request that I not be disturbed. By you—’ and here her gaze, as if against her will, strayed towards Dow, ‘—or by anyone else.’ And with that, quite ignoring the questions brimming in Dow’s stare, she went below.
The second arrival was a more daunting figure; a Twin Islands army colonel, at the head of a dozen stony-faced soldiers, each of them laden with muskets and powder and bags of other gear.
‘Colonel Kurt Oliver,’ the officer announced to the somewhat startled Captain Fletcher, thrusting official-looking papers forward. ‘My orders, sir, direct from the War Master. My men and I are commanded to voyage with you, and assist in the attack upon Banishment, should those shores be reached. The War Master thinks it wise that you have some military specialists on board.’
The captain perused the documents between uneasy glances at the colonel – an unease Dow quite shared; the army officer looked an intimidating passenger. He was middle-aged, but taut and compact, with ginger hair shaven to a sharp stubble, and a red sinewy face that bulged as if the man had just come from the exertions of battle; and yet his manner was icily controlled.
‘Only twelve of you? Against all the guards of Banishment?’ Fletcher asked at last, in a faint attempt at humour. ‘You’re that good?’
The colonel did not smile. ‘We will, of course, be working with your own crew. Our information is that the prison garrison is not numerous. A hundred or so of your sailors, working under our instruction, should be enough to take control of the isle. That is, as I said, if its shores can first be reached.’
The captain let out a sigh. ‘Very well, Colonel, welcome aboard. Tell your men to stow their gear on the main deck for now. Space will be made for them below, and of course a cabin will be put at your own disposal in the officers’ quarters.’
Colonel Oliver gave a short nod. ‘The laundress has reported already? She made mention of bearing special orders from the War Master? Good. I too must be present when those orders are opened.’
Captain Fletcher stared all the more unhappily, but said only, ‘As you wish.’
The last arrival of all, with the ship ready to cast off, was Emmet Bone, the pilot who had steered them in through the Labyrinth. It was he who would now take them out again – and further, it was he who had been assigned by the War Master to sail with the Snout beyond the Corridors, and to assist in the attempt upon Banishment.
He did seem pleased about it. ‘Whose fool idea is all this?’ he demanded as he mounted the high deck, already knowing the answer, for his scornful gaze was upon Dow. ‘Across the Wilderness and then over the Banks? Why, I may as well drink up now—’ he was fingering the vial about his neck ‘—and be done with it!’
Captain Fletcher sized up the pilot with a certain spiteful pleasure. ‘What – afraid of life beyond the Labyrinth, Master Bone? I’d have thought you’d be glad of the chance to sail upon open water.’
‘It’s not the open water I’m worried about; it’s what lies underneath it. But as our War Master commands. Prepare to cast off, Captain. If our deaths await, let’s by no means delay!’
And so they set sail.
*
To go west, they must first go east, backtracking through the Labyrinth as slowly and bewilderingly as they had entered it. Emmet Bone navigated faithfully enough, but he cut a grim and brooding figure at the wheel. His curt commands aside, he spoke not a word to anyone for the entire three days of the voyage. And their other new passenger, Colonel Oliver, was an even more forbidding presence, communing with his twelve men at times, but with no one else.
The mood among the Snout’s command staff was not much brighter. Captain Fletcher remained a reluctant adventurer, and made it quite clear, through his barked orders and glares at Dow, who he blamed for the ship’s predicament. Likewise, Commander Harp’s manner to Dow was more cold and distant than ever, and Jake Tooth, whenever he happened upon Dow, gave him the same savage leer, as if to say, ‘Are you satisfied now?’
Then there was Cassandra. Having withdrawn to her cabin, there she stayed in the days following. And Dow, for all his bafflement at her new attitude – and yes, even his hurt, if he was honest – felt quite unable to bring himself to defy her request for privacy.
Only Johannes remained as cheerful and friendly to Dow as ever. ‘You should’ve told me what you had in mind,’ the blacksmith said on the night before they left port. ‘This mission sounds a desperate throw, but the prize is a precious one: an end to the war. And Nell is a fine girl. The others don’t understand, is all. They weren’t with the two of you in the Ice. They haven’t seen the wonders me and Nicky have seen in your company. But they may soon enough, if we are truly to cross the Outer Ocean, and then endeavour to thread the Banks . . .’
On their fourth morning out, the Snout passed by Pilot Reef and its dour little fortress, and so was officially free of the inner Labyrinth. Emmet Bone, his duty fulfilled for now, returned command to Captain Fletcher then descended austerely to his cabin, as if – like Cassandra – he intended to remain there the rest of the voyage. The Snout, meanwhile, turned north, picking its way through the outer reefs of the maze. Two days later they reached open sea.
But even now they did not turn west. The fact was they were not yet ready to attempt a voyage as harbourless as a crossing of the Outer Ocean. They would first need to take on stores of fresh food, and as there was little to spare of such supplies at Black Sands, it had been decided that the ship would detour briefly to its home base of Port Best, on Red Island. There they would resupply in full order, and only then embark finally into the Wilderness.
So they held north, and three days after clearing the reefs they sighted land dead ahead: Whale Island, the southern of the Twin Isles.
It was not a dramatic shore, for Whale Island was a flat and featureless land, green with jungle and sugar cane, or brown with muddy rivers; but it was a populous isle nonetheless, and as the Snout sailed north along its east coast in the following days, they passed by many towns, and two major ports. The southern, Brightwater, was a trading city famous for its spices and rum; the northern, Port Green, was home to the whaling fleet.
But the Snout paused at neither, and after three days’ sail reached the strait that separated the southern island from its northern twin. Ahead now, Red Island rose like some stony-humped leviathan of the deeps. It was the opposite of its sibling, not green and flat, but mountainous and rust-coloured; shaped on a map like some leaping animal with limbs of outflung ridges all spread wide. It was a land that boasted only one resource: iron, mined from the bare hills in quantities unmatched anywhere else in the world.
Port Best was its capital, a great industrial city situated on a splendid harbour that opened beyond two imposing headlands. It had been the residence, during the Ship Kings occupation, of their governor. Now the port was base and yard for the Twin Isles battle fleet, and it was here too that the Snout berthed between patrols.
They reached the harbour at day’s end, and were warped into the dock by nightfall, and then spent two busy days resu
pplying. Around them, at sidings and in coves, were packed some sixty battleships, all in various states of disrepair after the campaigns of the previous summer; close to half the fleet in all, being made ready for the battles of the summer to come.
But the Snout was berthed well away from the other ships, and took no visitors. Nor was any shore leave granted to the crew, who could only grumble in their mystification. They had not yet been told the destination of their voyage; nevertheless, so strict was the need for secrecy, it was thought best to keep them away from the city’s many inns, lest a drunken word betray their purpose.
On the third morning – the upper decks now crowded with pens holding live chickens and pigs and goats, and the hold crammed with crates of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as dry stores for a full year’s voyage, if need be – the Snout set sail again.
Now they turned west – but they were not yet upon the open sea. For another three days they skirted along the northern shores of Red Island, and it was only on the third evening that they bid farewell finally to the last northwest extremity of land.
It was an ominous leave-taking, for vast clouds rose here to spread a pall in the sky; hot ash, from Red Island’s renowned volcanos, several of which were in slow eruption along the west coast. The mountains stood low and rounded in shape, and could not compare in grandeur to the cauldron of ice and fire that Dow and Nell had beheld in the north; nevertheless, they made for sombre sentinels as the Snout pushed on into the sunset.
Darkness fell, and behind them the volcanos glowed red against their own ash long into the night, and rumbling pursued the ship over the water. But at length the sounds faded, and the reflecting clouds sank away beneath the horizon. When morning came, clear and pale, there was no land visible over the stern, and beyond the bow lay only the sea, wide and grey and empty.
They were truly embarked at last. Across the next ten thousand miles and more, nothing awaited them but wind and wave and watery deep, with not a single landfall anywhere therein to offer refuge; the Outer Ocean, the long way around the world – or, as it was also known to mariners, the Blue Wilderness.
The War of the Four Isles Page 10