The Bird of the River

by Kage Baker

  “I know. But these are our greenies. We see them all the time,” said Wolkin.

  “What did he say to you?”

  “He told me to stop touching his harp,” Wolkin replied proudly. “Did you see it up close? It’s beautiful. Lots of curly carving and musselshell pictures on it.”

  “I haven’t been close enough,” said Eliss. “Why is it all right for them to sell us things and . . . come to our parties up here, when nobody would think of it downriver and along the coast?”

  “I don’t know,” said Wolkin. “That’s just the way it is. So, is Alder going to go live with them now? I wish I could.”

  “No, he isn’t!” Eliss was startled at how angry the question made her. “He’s just learning things about his—about his father’s people, that’s all. It’s good for him.”

  Wolkin took a step back, startled too. He reached out and took her hand. “Don’t be sad,” he said. “You want to come have some cake? They’re putting the food out now.”

  The sunlight glowed in the west a while, making the lake a broad sheet of untroubled fire. As the glow faded, the lake reflected the first star, and then many stars, and finally the slow moon when it came shining over the eastern mountains. One by one, the colored lamps were lit aboard the Bird of the River. People milled about, helping themselves to food and greeting guests from the other barges. Plates of food and pitchers of beer were sent up to the musicians.

  Finishing a long drink of beer, the tattooed fiddler took up his instrument, set it in the crook of his neck, and took a few experimental swipes with his bow. Satisfied that his fiddle was in good order, he began to play one of the wandering, circular dance tunes Eliss heard every day from the masthead. The bass fiddler set down the dish from which he had been eating plumcake, and began to plunk out an accompaniment. One of the boxhorns took up the melody line. Salpin joined him on the concertina. The old Yendri with the harp seated himself and moved his fingers over its strings, adding notes like a soft-voiced singer.

  As though they had been waiting for him to go first, the other Yendri joined in, with drone-pipe and drums. People on the deck stopped talking, and began to sway with the music. Then the bright-haired girls joined in with their fiddles and flutes and it was as though smoldering coals had burst into flame: the music soared, couples reached for each other and swung out on the dance floor, moving round and round in the lamplight. The moon rose higher. Moonflies began to wake up in the trees, tiny winking lights like white stars among the oak leaves.

  Eliss, swaying where she sat, looked up in surprise as Alder sat down next to her.

  “Where’s your Mr. Moss?” she asked, raising her voice over the music. Alder pointed to the rail, where Mr. Moss stood watching the musicians with evident enjoyment.

  “He says I’m leaving you all by yourself too much,” said Alder glumly. “He says you’re my family too.”

  “Well, thank you, Mr. Moss,” said Eliss, but the music and the night were so beautiful she didn’t want to waste time being angry.

  “You got here!” Wolkin sat down on the other side of Eliss and leaned around her to peer at Alder. “Has he been teaching you stuff?”

  “All kinds of stuff,” said Alder, grinning. “There are defense moves.”

  “Thank you, gods!” Wolkin threw up his arms. “You have to show me tomorrow!”

  “And that’s not all. Some of them fight, only Mr. Moss doesn’t because he’s a disciple of the Mother, but there are these men who . . .”

  Eliss ignored them and watched the dancers. It was a slow dance, romantic. Mr. and Mrs. Riveter circled by, his hands on her hips, her hands on his shoulders. There too went Mr. and Mrs. Crucible, and Mr. and Mrs. Nailsmith, and some of the polemen and their wives—Eliss still hadn’t learned all their names—and then, as Eliss watched, a Yendri man walked up to Pentra Smith where she idled at the table, and touched her shoulder. She turned, smiling, and they embraced. She led him out on the dance floor.

  Eliss was too surprised to make a sound. Alder, however, grunted in astonishment. He pointed. “They’re dancing!” Wolkin, who was busily eating from a dish of jelly, looked up briefly.

  “Oh! Them. They’re sweethearts or something. See, she does what she likes because she’s the cartographer? And that’s really important? So nobody says anything? And anyway they see each other twice every run. So everybody’s used to it. And he’s a nice gr—Yendri. And anyway they have to dance together because, well, do you see any Yendri ladies here? You don’t. And the reason that is, is because their ladies go around with their—” Wolkin looked around to see where his parents were. He lowered his voice. “With their boobies bare. So they can’t come around any of our men. Because our men would go crazy if they saw them.”

  “That’s what Mr. Moss said too,” said Alder, eyes wide. “Only he said it different.”

  “They couldn’t help themselves.” Wolkin nodded solemnly. “No man could. That’s what I heard. And they have to protect their women.”

  Eliss, staring at the graceful couple, thought only: All those years we were hounded from one place to another, all those people who spat on Mama for what she’d done . . . and up here no one even cares. How unfair.

  In time the slow music wound to its close. More beer was handed up to the musicians, and some of them lit pipes filled with pinkweed and passed them around. People milled about, ate and drank, and then a men’s dance tune was struck up, quick-paced. The men formed lines, shuffled and stamped, flexed their muscles and strutted. Women catcalled from the sidelines. The drums thundered, the bass fiddle boomed, the whistles shrilled a raucous melody. Someone passed the men barge-poles and they struck the deck with them in unison, paired off in mock battles, wove in and out in figures, marched like a phalanx of spearmen.

  Next a women’s dance was played, sinuous fiddles with a throbbing bass line. The divers lined up and went through the movements of the Diver’s Round, scarcely moving their feet. Their shoulders, their hips, their arms and graceful hands wove and described circles in the warm air. It was bawdy and at the same time delicate as water ferns, lewd and tender all together. On either side of Eliss, Alder and Wolkin fell silent, staring.

  There were some songs after that, tunes everyone knew and could follow in the chorus. Salpin stood and demonstrated that he had a rich voice, as well as one that carried.

  “Little girl among the nets, mending your father’s nets,

  By the wall where the sea pinks bloom

  You have caught me in your nets, my heart among the nets

  By the wall where the sea pinks bloom.

  “But your father watches you, so sharp he watches you

  By the wall where the sea pinks bloom

  That I cannot speak to you, I cannot come to you

  By the wall where the sea pinks bloom.

  “Little lizard, go to her father, tell him his boat is on fire

  Little gull, fly to him, tell him his house is on fire

  Little crab, crawl to him, tell him the tavern’s on fire

  Little girl, have pity on me! My heart is on fire

  By the wall where the sea pinks bloom.”

  There was laughter and applause afterward. Salpin smiled and held up his hands.

  “Thank you! Thank you. Now. It’s become a tradition to present a new song every year. Last year my esteemed Yendri colleague Wind-willow honored us with The Lady and the Demon. This year the silver plectrum has passed to me. Here is my offering. This is The Ballad of Falena.”

  He looked straight at Eliss and smiled. Then he seated himself, took up his concertina and began to play the melody he had composed, that day weeks ago on the mast platform. Eliss sat motionless, stunned. She looked at Alder, but he had been whispering with Wolkin and hadn’t heard Salpin’s introduction.

  One by one the other musicians joined in, even the Yendri, who listened intently and began to improvise grace notes and harmonies. The music swelled, became something as exquisite as a tapestry. Down on deck people
stopped chatting by the table full of treats and turned to listen, their mouths open.

  Salpin began to sing. There was a beautiful girl named Falena, he told them, a child of the sea, and no mermaid was ever more beautiful. Her fair body cut through the green depths, bringing up pearls, bringing up rare shells and lost treasures, but no treasure was so fair as she herself was. He sang about a storm on the sea, that drove a ship onto the rocks while everyone on shore lamented and wrung their hands. But Falena had not feared the storm; she’d swum out to the wreck and seen a handsome sailor in the arms of the Sea Queen, struggling even as she drowned him.

  In the next verse, as the melody shifted into major key, Salpin told how Falena had caught the sailor in her strong arms and pulled him up to the surface. She and the sailor had looked into each other’s eyes and known they were true lovers in that moment, as they clung together. The Sea Queen sank down, but sent her curse after Falena: All men are faithless, once I hold them in my arms! He will come down to me again. But Falena and her lover had felt the sand under their feet, and came safe ashore.

  The next verse followed a long run of harp notes, and then the story went on: Falena and her true love had lived together in a house on the shore, happy, and had soon had a little daughter. But the sailor felt the pull of the sea, explained Salpin, and so he signed on to a crew. He promised Falena to return with a silver comb for her hair; he promised that after this one voyage he would take her inland and settle down, in a place where the yellow wheat grew to the horizon. Six months went by, and Falena walked the white sea strand with her child in her arms, asking of every stranger whether he had seen her true love’s ship.

  Dark and ominous chords now, and back into minor key: a stranger in a boat-cloak told Falena she need not wear out her shoes anymore on the white sea strand. His ship was wrecked, I saw your sailor sinking down; the Sea Queen took him to her bed, in her palace under the green water. Falena wandered the world with her child then, from harbor town to harbor town, and in each place she’d dive down into the Sea Queen’s country to search for her true love. But every time she came back up to the land, she left a little more of her soul under the green water, and a little more of her strength. The years went by and at last there was only a shadow of beautiful Falena walking in the world of the living.

  Oh, how beautifully the music swelled now. Salpin lowered his voice, leaned forward to sing: Falena lost herself in the inland, in the places where the yellow wheat grew to the horizon, and begged there for her bread. She was far from the Sea Queen’s curse, but the greenwood couldn’t comfort her; the stones of the earth wore out her shoes. One day she came upon a river, and threw herself into the green water. At last, Salpin sang, at last the water was kind to her again, the Sea Queen relented of her cruelty and unsaid her curse; for Falena’s true love met her there, and carried her away under the water. Their souls walked away together under arches of waving water-plants, into a garden of unfading lilies, and there they remain beyond the reach of all sorrow.

  People were weeping when the music droned to its close. Eliss sat there, uncertain what she ought to feel. She looked over at Alder and saw him watching her, blank-faced. It was the most beautiful song she had ever heard and it was all in honor of her mother, but . . . it wasn’t true. It left out all the bitter ugly parts of Falena’s life. It was all about a brave and strong Falena, who had loved one man so deeply she had been faithful beyond death. Eliss’s real mother had loved a dozen men.

  But people were weeping. People were applauding. The other musicians were crowding around Salpin, asking him to write down the words, asking him to show them the chords. Even the Yendri were asking him. A strange excitement hung in the air, and Eliss somehow couldn’t share it. All she felt was embarrassment.

  “Are you all right, Eliss?”

  She looked up and saw Mrs. Riveter kneeling down beside her. Eliss nodded and tried to say she was fine. To her horror, she burst into tears. Mrs. Riveter put her arms around her and held her as she wept. It was a relief, in a way, to let everyone think she was crying for the beauty of the song.

  Salpin was so mobbed by other musicians busily noting down chords that it was awhile before the music started again. The musicians played a courting dance, slow and passionate, and now the deck was crowded by couples embracing, circling around and around. Pentra Smith and her lover joined the throng. They held each other tenderly. Pentra’s face was wet with tears. Eliss watched them in numb wonder, to think that Falena’s hard life could inspire so much romance.

  When the dance ended, the musicians struck up a quick merry tune. The young men on deck jumped forward, formed a line and stamped to the beat. People clapped in time. The boxhorns blared, the drums thundered. And then—

  There came a happy roar from the companionway. All heads turned to watch as Captain Glass hauled himself up on deck. His stare was fixed and glittering. He stood there swaying, his jar of brandy under one arm. The other dancers backed away from him. Wolkin gave a whoop of laughter, quickly stifling it with both hands.

  “Captain’s really drunk now!” he said.

  The music fell silent, in an uncertain discord. After a moment the captain noticed and turned his head to peer up at the afterdeck.

  “What’d you stop for?” he bellowed. “I want my music! Play my music! G’wan!”

  Drogin cleared his throat. “Which tune, Captain?”

  “Give me a tune I can dance to!” The captain had a drink. “Like this! Dah dah da-dada DAH!” He slammed the deck with his heel. The musicians looked at one another and struck up a tune, approximating as closely as they might what the captain’s bawling had suggested. Drogin put his boxhorn up and began to improvise. The fiddlers joined in. It was a wild and reckless melody, ungraceful, but Captain Glass grinned wide.

  “That’s the way!” He began shifting his big body from foot to foot, and for a man of his size he was weirdly light on his feet. He kicked out and bounded forward. The deck boomed when he landed. Weaving from side to side, he held out his brandy jar and began to dance with it. He circled it, he tossed it in the air and caught it, he juggled it from hand to hand and balanced it on his head. He crouched, he twisted, he leaped back. The jar became prey he was stalking, a lover he was cajoling, a child he was rocking in his arms. He drank from it with relish, even as his feet pounded out rhythms underneath him, and never spilled a drop. Sweat gleamed on his body in the lamplight. So huge and savage was his merriment, Eliss didn’t know whether to laugh or cower in terror. She rubbed her eyes and stared. Was the brandy jar levitating? Was it floating in the air, or was Captain Glass actually making it dance and hover by some trick of his fingertips, to partner him in his dance?

  The Yendri began to drum for him. Captain Glass threw back his head and shouted in incoherent delight. He snapped his jaws. His muscles rippled, his gigantic legs blurred with movement. Eliss felt the Bird of the River trembling like a living thing. People had come to the shore of the lake, and out on the decks of the other barges, to stare.

  The music reached a crescendo. Captain Glass threw the jar into the air. It rotated, too fast at first for anything to come out, but as it descended it seemed to hang in the air, bottom-up, and a stream of brandy rained down. Captain Glass managed to be in exactly the right spot to catch the brandy in his open mouth as the drums crashed. He batted the empty jar away like a leaf. It flew out over the rail and smashed on the prow of the next barge over.

  The music stopped. Captain Glass’s eyes rolled back in his head. He flung out his arms and staggered briefly before falling to the deck with a crash. He lay there on his back, motionless.

  It seemed that everyone had been holding their breath until that moment, for the mass-exhaled gust fluttered in the captain’s beard. Mr. Riveter ran out and waved his arms.

  “Polemen! Make a stretcher! Captain goes down to his bunk!”

  As he was shouting orders, Mr. Moss came up and knelt beside the captain. He felt for his pulse and frowned. He rose and spoke qui
etly to Mr. Riveter, but Eliss was sitting close enough to hear.

  “I am afraid your captain has died.”

  “What?” Mr. Riveter turned and looked over one shoulder at him. “Oh. No, he’s all right. He’s done this before.”

  “But he has no pulse.”

  “No, he never seems to, when he gets this drunk. Don’t worry! He’ll sleep for a day and a night and then he’ll be fine.”

  Mr. Moss drew back, profoundly dubious, and watched as Captain Glass was loaded onto a makeshift stretcher and hauled down the companionway by eight men. Meanwhile the musicians, who were a little unnerved, called for more beer and pinkweed, and spent several minutes restoring a state of calm before beginning another tune.

  The moon traveled across the sky. After a while some of the women carried sleepy children belowdecks—Tulu was sound asleep with her head on Mrs. Riveter’s shoulder as they vanished down the companionway, and beside Eliss, Wolkin kept nodding off and then sitting upright with a jerk. When Mrs. Riveter came to fetch him, he gave only a token protest before allowing himself to be led below. The musicians began to play slower, softer tunes, and the intervals between the dances grew longer as people smoked or went down to the table to eat. Alder began to yawn.

  “Where are we sleeping tonight?”

  “In the Riveters’ cabin. They have room on the floor.”

  “Oh.” Alder rubbed his eyes. “Mr. Moss says Yendri trevanion—that’s, like, holy men and ladies—can sleep standing up if they want.”

  “So go sleep by the mast, then.”

  “I can’t.” Alder looked hurt. “You have to study for years and years before you can do that trick. I think. Why are you so angry?”

  “I’m not angry,” said Eliss. “Or maybe I am. I don’t know. What did you think of that song about Mama?”

  “It was pretty,” Alder said cautiously.

  “Yes, it was, but . . . why make her life like some kind of fairy tale?”

  “It would have been nicer if it was. I think the song would have made her happy.”