The War of the Four Isles

by Andrew McGahan

  A shaken Agatha Harp offered a tot of rum all round, then asked, ‘So what now?’

  Dow didn’t hesitate. He’d known what he must do the moment he’d heard the truth about New Island and his family. All the rest of it – Cassandra, the War Master, Oliver – as horrific as it had been, was irrelevant, except to serve as a lesson; in a brutal world, he could no longer afford innocence, or timidity.

  He said, ‘We have to sail for New Island. Immediately. I’m going home.’

  The captain frowned at his tone. ‘Need I remind you, Dow, I command here, not you. And our course will not be set for the sake of one—’

  ‘No!’ said Dow, not a shout, but letting all his rage and bitterness into the word. The captain fell silent. ‘No. As has been made clear to me now, in my entire time serving upon this ship I have been a slave to someone else’s purpose. The disgrace of that is mine, I know. But no more. I say it: we are going to New Island. And if you wish to prevent me, Captain, then you’d better kill me, because that’s the only way you’ll do it. If you set any course other than New Island, I’ll mutiny against you. You might not see any danger in that. I’m only one person. But as you have pointed out yourself, I am Dow Amber – I’ve done all those famous things – and your own crew will wonder, why does Dow Amber oppose our captain? Some of them will side with me, enough of them, and then I’ll take this ship off you, just as you took it off Captain Fletcher.’

  She stared at him in wonder. Johannes, his mouth round with shock, gave a cough at last, and turned to the captain. ‘Agatha, the man has been lied to beyond bearing by our side – he must at least discover what’s happened to his family. We owe him that much.’

  ‘The cub has teeth after all!’ Jake Tooth marvelled. ‘But the impudence! I say throw him overboard, Captain. Or lock him in the brig. Or hang him from the yardarm for a mutineer, and a prize arrogant fool too.’ He scratched his stubbled chin. ‘Or failing that, do what he asks. Our purpose here has failed, and it’s a long voyage home via the Wilderness. Why not go via New Island instead? It might even salvage something from this wreck.’

  Agatha Harp took a deep breath. ‘Sail to New Island, you all say. How? We are still only one ship, and the very reason we came by the Outer Ocean in the first place hasn’t changed. The Middle Sea between here and Dow’s home is thick with enemy patrols. And it will be even more crowded in the coming weeks, for the Ship Kings armada will soon be setting sail for the same destination. New Island will see battle this summer. Would you sail among them, and hope somehow we are not seen?’

  It was the outsider, Nell, silent through all that had gone before, who now spoke. ‘There is a better route, Captain.’ Her voice was level, the grief for her dead companions veiled. ‘If you continue north beyond Great Island, and then north further still, almost as far as the icy latitudes, you would strike winds and currents that take you west. The armada will not go that way when it sails, for the southern way is warmer and quicker. You would still face dangers. There are patrols in the north, though fewer than elsewhere; the weather will be foul and cold, and it would take you several weeks longer than the south way. But you would gain New Island.’

  The captain frowned. ‘North, you say. By any chance, is that because such a route would take us closest to your home shores? What of you, Scapegoat, and your fifteen countrymen? What is to be done with you?’

  Dow studied Nell, aware, amid his new resolve, of a strange coldness in himself. She had been witness to the unmasking of all Cassandra’s deceptions and to his utter humiliation, proving indeed that the slanders spread about him were true. He had no idea what she thought of him now, or what she intended to do next, or where she planned to go – and he should want to know these things. Only hours ago, when he’d been fighting for her life, she had mattered more than anything else. But now? Now there was room in his heart only for his own people; for New Island, and his family, if they yet lived.

  She said, ‘I have consulted with my fellows, Captain. Among the survivors, few of us are of any great rank compared to those dead; so many kings and princes, my dear friend Benito among them, and my own uncle, the last of my family. Their loss is incalculable and devastating. We last few can see no hope now for the Heretic cause in the Kingdoms, so totally cheated of all its leaders.

  ‘Nevertheless, my companions do ask that they be allowed to return to their lands, even if they must live a life of hiding there. At least that way they can bear testimony to what happened here, and bid our folk to cease resistance and make do as best they can under Castille and Valdez. It is a cruel irony. Had Ferdinand and Carrasco dared to kill so many of us, there would have been rebellion all throughout the Kingdoms, leaderless or not. But as it is you Twin Islanders who have done the deed, now there will be only heartbreak and confusion.

  ‘But so it must be. One of us is from Malmonte, and knows the secret landing place for which we were making. If you go the north way to New Island, it will not be too far from your path.’

  Nell was looking at Dow now, a meaning in her eyes, but whether it was an invitation or a dismissal or something else again, he couldn’t tell. And it wasn’t in him to ask what he should ask.

  Instead, Agatha Harp did it. ‘And you, Scapegoat? I only wonder because you speak of your followers as if they were apart from you.’

  Nell’s gaze went dark, and she looked away. ‘My own course I do not yet know, except that I am no longer fit to lead anyone, even as scapegoat. Against all better judgement, I urged my fellow prisoners to board this ship and accept whatever risk that may entail, and because of me, almost all of them are dead.’

  Another long silence fell. Dow felt eyes upon him, as if the others were waiting for him to say something in Nell’s defence, but again, even though he knew he should speak, nothing came.

  At length, having sat in thought, Agatha Harp stood. ‘Very well. We sail north, and then west for New Island. On my order. Let there be no talk of mutiny or discord between us any longer. For once, we must be a united crew. Are you satisfied, Mr Amber?

  Dow bowed his head.

  Johannes said, ‘There is one matter yet to be settled. What of Cassandra?’

  The captain’s face went hard. ‘Her guilt is clear and uncontested. Over a hundred unarmed prisoners murdered in cold blood. There can be only one sentence for such barbarity.’

  Johannes frowned unhappily. ‘She was wickedly deluded by those above her.’

  ‘It makes her no less dangerous, as we have seen, for she is deluded still. Even in the brig, who knows what deadly arts she may wield yet? No captain could allow such a threat to remain upon a ship. My duty is clear.’

  Johannes glanced in last appeal to Dow. But just as Dow had no room in his betrayed heart for Nell at this moment, nor did he have any room for the laundress. He said nothing, she only looked away.

  The blacksmith sighed. ‘So be it.’

  *

  A sombre sunset completed the awful day; a day of burials. One by one, the dead had been wrapped in canvas and weighted, and then dropped over the side and into the sea. First the Ship Kings, then the Twin Islanders, then the last to die, Colonel Oliver. Now, with that grim task complete, the ship was sailing due north under full sail, the western sky red, but a canopy of cloud sweeping slowly up from the east, bringing night upon the ocean.

  The hour had come. The crew gathered to bear witness to the day’s final act.

  Under heavy guard, Cassandra was brought up from the brig and bound at the foot of the mainmast, her canvas shroud spread open on the deck, ready to receive her. Captain Harp stood stiffly at the high deck rail, waiting to pronounce sentence, and below on the main deck Jake Tooth slouched on a hatch cover, awaiting the order that would come, the whale’s tooth in his forehead gleaming in the sunset glow.

  Dow, standing with the other officers behind the captain, watched on stonily. Around his neck, on the same cord on which he still wore his Able Seaman’s bronze coin from his days on the Chloe, he wore now also the po
ison vial of Emmet Bone. Exactly why he’d put the deadly thing there he couldn’t have said – only that it seemed right; a grim token of a night that had stripped him at last of all naivety.

  Nell stood next to him, silent and pale. They still had not spoken, and he had not summoned her here now; nevertheless, she had come.

  ‘Cassandra Usher,’ announced the captain. ‘Sentence of death has been uttered upon you for your crimes. Do you have anything to say?’

  The laundress lifted her head to gaze up at the captain. She was even further dishevelled after the fracas of killing Colonel Oliver, her hair all pulled down and hanging ragged about her face. Nonetheless it seemed to Dow that she was saner now, some of her madness drained away, leaving an exhaustion and almost a serenity.

  ‘May I speak to Dow Amber, Captain?’

  Agatha Harp gave a startled glanced at Dow, then shrugged. ‘You may.’

  For an instant Dow wondered if the laundress was going to beg for her life, implore him to intercede with the captain. Even now, he knew, he could probably convince Agatha Harp to suspend the sentence. But no part of Dow wanted to do so; her betrayal was too vast. He could pity her, but not forgive her.

  But Cassandra did not beg; not for her life, nor for forgiveness. ‘Dow,’ she said, ‘you won’t believe me now, but I took your part as much as I could. When my superiors sent me to you, they hoped that you would fall for me, but in truth it was I who fell; and maybe in some other world it could have been. But your fate has intervened, and that fate lies with your Ignella. You have saved each other from death; there could be no clearer sign.’ Her gaze shifted minimally to Nell. ‘So rest assured, Ignella of the Cave, enemy though you are: his heart was never really with me. It only slept a while, until he was called to you.’

  Dow glanced uncomfortably at Nell, but she in turn only stared expressionlessly down at the woman who had tried to kill her, and who had killed all her companions. Cassandra could not meet that gaze for long.

  ‘Are you done?’ Agatha enquired.

  ‘Almost, Captain.’ The laundress sounded only weary now. She gazed about at all the unfriendly faces on the main deck. ‘But I will say this, with the clear mind of one about to die. I see no hope for this peace that you seek. I take no joy in that. I was loyal to my father, but I am not one of those hungry for war. Even so, peace will not come. The hatreds that have been stoked and unleashed in these last years cannot be chained again for generations. You have seen it in Colonel Oliver. You have seen it in the Ship Kings sergeant we captured. Men like those will savage each other endlessly, until nothing is left.’

  As if summoned by such a description, Jake Tooth had arisen now, his grin vacant and quite without mercy, and moved to stand some five yards in front of the laundress.

  Cassandra ignored him, looked up to the high deck. ‘War will leave no part of the Four Isles untouched, and there is no land that can offer you sanctuary. So where will you run? There is nowhere left on this earth. I know it.’

  With that, she gazed briefly and yet with piercing intensity out to sea, and to the setting sun, and then to the great wings of cloud that were darkening the sky. ‘Oh, get on with it,’ she sighed.

  Jake bent to lift something that lay ready on the deck beside him. Dow had wondered how it would be done, and for a terrible instant thought that Jake was raising a harpoon to perform the deed. But no, it was only a musket. He took swift aim, fired, and the laundress crumpled against her bindings.

  It was only as they cut her down and wrapped her in the shroud that Dow realised he’d been hoping for something without knowing so, and that it hadn’t happened. The shame and anger in him were not sated at all by seeing Cassandra dead; they simply turned cold in his chest, frustrated, for now there was no one even to hate, only an empty body, a mass of flesh, heavy and awkward to the handlers.

  And perversely, the very lifelessness of her corpse only reminded him of how vividly alive she had been. He remembered her smile suddenly, and all the freckles on her round face, and the heat of her kiss on his lips . . . and no, it hadn’t all been a lie.

  Something tottered in him then, afraid, and a blackness seemed to swarm at him from everywhere. What was the point of any of it, if it all ended up as dead weight, wrapped in canvas?

  Nell touched his shoulder and led him aside to the rail, looking west over the sea. ‘I see how it was now,’ she said, ‘and how you were so misled. I had despaired of you, hearing those tales of you and her, but I was wrong. She loved you, that is clear. And of the paths she saw for you amid the intrigues of her superiors, she thought she had chosen the best. Little wonder then she could convince you of her sincerity, and win your trust. So don’t believe the slanders of yourself, Dow. You’re no blind fool. To mistrust her would have been to trust no one at all. And at least you are free of her now, and your life is your own again.’

  Silent, Dow looked at her – amazed that amid her own sorrow she could seek to offer him comfort, and that she could speak of Cassandra with anything other than hatred – and felt the coldness in him dissolving. Yes, everything ahead was unknown now, and they had both been cheated and betrayed, Nell even more than he, far more, but they need not be alone at least. Cassandra was right about that much.

  He said, ‘Do you truly see no hope for yourself or your cause in the Kingdoms?’

  She shook her head, calm, but beneath that calm, quietly desolate. ‘Others may rise one day to rebel there, but not in time to affect this war; the bloodshed must run its course now. ’

  ‘Then come to New Island,’ he said.

  She was looking out to the horizon, and for a long moment said nothing, as if she hadn’t heard him. Then, ‘I told you once, when we were trapped on the volcano’s slopes, in the Ice, of how I came to be on the Chloe. How I gave up everything, and took on even these scars, so heartsick was I to go sailing. And yet, for the last three years I’ve put all that aside, because there were more important things to do. Or so it seemed.’ Finally, the grief swam nakedly in her eyes. ‘I’ve scarcely been on a ship in all that time. But I’ve never forgotten the sea.’

  ‘Then sail with the Snout.’

  She resisted yet. ‘I won’t be scapegoat. Not to this ship. Not after what has happened here. My days as scapegoat, for ships or causes, are done.’

  Unbidden, the memory came to Dow of the creature Axay, and the words the Twelfth Kingdom’s scapegoat had uttered to Nell long ago. A true scapegoat you shall become. And he knew, like a touch of ice, that there was no escaping that foretelling, no matter what Nell might want.

  But he said, ‘Then just come as a common sailor. But either way, come. With me.’

  A ghost of a smile rose amid her sadness. ‘Are you so sure of fate then? For all that it throws us together, we barely know each other as yet. We might not even like one another, given the chance.’

  ‘There’s only one way to find out,’ he said, taking her hand.

  And together they went below.

  14. HOMECOMING

  They did like each other, as it turned out.

  It took twelve weeks in all to reach New Island, going by the long northern route, including the detour to the empty coastline of Malmonte to deliver home the surviving Heretics. And though the Snout trailed death in its wake, and though only uncertainties lay before the bow, for Dow and Nell those weeks were an interlude of peace and privacy to be savoured – and one they would not easily find again.

  It was not a voyage without incident. The landing at Malmonte on a moonless midnight was perilous, and one of the ship’s skiffs was lost in the surf, though thankfully no lives. And a few days north of the Kingdoms a cold dawn revealed enemy sails on the eastern horizon; three sets of them, a Ship Kings patrol. It was only luck that saved the Snout, for the enemy was outlined against the unrisen sun, but the Snout was invisible to them in turn, being lost in the lingering night. So there was time to turn and flee west before full daylight could break.

  Then they entered the Latitude of S
torms. It being mid-spring by this time, conditions were not as violent or cold as Dow remembered from his voyage with the Chloe – but they were violent and cold enough, and the Snout was not a ship made with the icy regions in mind, nor were the crew well fitted with clothing for the cold. Also, food supplies were running low, so long had they been at sea. The fresh fruits and live animals had been consumed months ago, and the dry goods of biscuits and salted meats were becoming monotonous to eat. Even the rum ration was reduced. It all made for a wet, shivering, miserable passage.

  But for all that, the Snout was a happier ship than it had been for some time. Agatha Harp proved a capable captain, and the crew gave no rumblings of disloyalty or discontent; sailing, as they saw it, to put right the wrongs of murder and treachery that had stained the honour of their vessel. And in Dow’s cabin, in his off-watches, he and Nell huddled under the blankets against the cold, and talked.

  Of nothing in particular. The topics of war and rebellion were too big, and anyway, they could be put away for now, out at sea. They spoke instead of their families – Nell in mourning, for she had lost all of hers, Dow in anxiety, not yet knowing the fate of his; and of their homelands, for each had seen so little of the other’s; and of their shared memories of the voyage to the Ice, and of the further wonders they had seen while wandering the world.

  And slowly they came to know each other; not as the famous rider of the maelstrom, or as the mysterious scapegoat girl, but in the smaller ways: such as that Dow was the heavier sleeper of the two, and snored, and that Nell rolled tempestuously all night, stealing the blankets; that Nell – to her own shame – was addictively fond of sweet foods, and that Dow was morbidly afraid – as was proved when one invaded the cabin – of the ship’s rats.

  They became teachers to each other. Nell, on hearing that Dow was learning to read, took up his neglected tutoring. (Not without a pang, on Dow’s part, in memory of Cassandra.) And in return Dow began to instruct Nell in basic seamanship – for though she was no stranger to sailing, she had never before performed active duties upon an ocean-going vessel. And it was indeed something to witness her first climb to the tip of the mainmast, her diminutive figure – all but swallowed by an overlarge anorak – clinging fast to the shrouds as they swung in the grey sky.