by Karen Miller
The Mayor of Westwailing cleared his throat. ‘Your Highness?’
Gar nodded. Turned his face away from the water. ‘Of course, sir. We are ready?’
They were standing on a dais that had been erected at the township end of the harbour’s pier. Darran and Willer stood behind them in the second row, along with the other dignitaries who represented their local communities. An enormous crush of bodies filled every inch of space along the harbour front, the promenade, the streets winding down to the water. Men, women and children, bright and shining in their once-a-year festival shirts and skirts and hats and trews and painfully polished shoes. And their faces, glowing with anticipation. Eerily silent, like one vast, indrawn breath, they waited for the ceremony to begin.
A flag waved. The mayor bowed to Gar. ‘We be ready, Your Highness.’
And so was he. He thought. He hoped. He’d spent enough time studying for this moment. If he wasn’t ready now he had no right to call himself a prince, or the Olken Administrator, or anything but a witless fool. He nodded to the mayor.
‘Then let us celebrate the harvest, sir. And Barl’s blessings on us all.’
The mayor smiled. ‘Barl’s blessings, aye indeed, sir.’
Raising his arms Gar took a deep breath. Then, throwing back his head, eyes closed, expression ecstatic, pierced the waiting air with a single, singing word:
‘Rejoice!’
Like a curlew’s cry the sound unwound into the faultless blue sky. And then the cloudless ceiling cracked as thousands of voices, united, replied in heartfelt joy and wonder:
‘We rejoice!’
The Sea Harvest Festival had begun.
In the king’s bedchamber, restrained pandemonium. ‘You said he was making a fine recovery!’ the queen rages at the royal pothecary. ‘You said we were out of the woods!’
‘We were, Your Majesty!’ Pother Nix replies. ‘But that was before he took it into his mad head to go and make it rain!’ Then he grunts as one flailing royal arm collides with his ribs. Turning on a hapless assistant he snarls, ‘Hold him still, I told you! This is not the king, this is a patient! Hold him!’
‘Gar!’ the king cries, struggling against the loving hands that crush him to the mattress. ‘Sing, my boy! I know you can do it!’
Beyond the chamber’s curtained windows, a tempest. Hail rattles the glass like rocks thrown by a rampaging giant. Fane, newly risen from her own sick bed, clutches at her temples. ‘It hurts!’ she sobs. ‘The energies are all wrong, they twist like snakes and cut like knives! Make it stop, Durm, make it stop!’
Durm shakes his head. ‘I cannot. He has the Weather in his hands and he’ll do with it as he wills. As the fever wills.’ Looming over Nix, he says, ‘Break it, man. Break the magic’s hold on him or it shall break us, and all to tiny pieces.’
Nix quails. ‘I shall do my best, Sir.’
Durm’s lips bare his teeth in a snarling smile. Overhead, a crack of lightning sears pain through every head. ‘Do better,’ he advises. ‘Or you’ll be midwife to the end of the world.’
Drowning in music, Gar clutched the dais railing and marvelled at the glorious sound. He’d long since stopped singing, just so he could listen more perfectly. So many voices … a harmony he’d never dreamed of. There were tears on his cheeks. The fresh salt air couldn’t dry them fast enough, his eyes were over-run with emotion. Why had his father never said? ‘Off to the festival,’ he’d groan with a smile, and ride away and long days later ride back and never once had he said.
There were tears on Asher’s cheeks too. He was still singing, his hoarse baritone melding roughly with the mayor’s rich tenor, the lady mayoress’s true soprano and the motley choir of the other officials. In his face, a fierce exultation. This was his moment, his heritage, his future. He was a sudden stranger.
Beneath the blazing sun the crowd’s united, uniting voice made magic of the air. ‘Rejoice,’ the fisherfolk sang, in descant and harmony, each voice a thread in the marvellous tapestry of sound. ‘Prepare,’ they sang, and ‘Praise the bounteous ocean’; ‘Strength to the fishermen,’ they sang. ‘Plenty to the harvest. Clear skies and calm seas.’ Even the trees bent to listen, or so it seemed. And in the harbour the fish leapt to hear it. Singly at first, a rainbow flash of fin and scale. Then in pairs. In triplets. Flinging themselves boldly towards the sun.
‘Behold they come!’ the fisherfolk proclaimed, as they raised their hands in welcome and thanks. ‘The ocean’s bounty, our lives, our living!’
Slowly, slowly, the harbour began to boil.
As the king thrashes insensible upon his pillows the queen anchors her fingers to Pother Nix’s arm. ‘Do something! He cannot continue like this much longer!’
Princess Fane slumps in a corner, her face blotched with tears, her eyes slitted with pain. Durm sits with her, an arm about her shoulders. In his set face rages a promise of death, or worse. Nix turns away from the mage’s terrible eyes, shuddering, and rests trembling fingers on Her Majesty’s hand. Another second and her nails will draw his blood.
‘I dare not give him more heartsease, Majesty!’ he protests. ‘As it is I have exceeded the proper dosage by some half again … one drop more and it may be fatal!’
‘Whereas these seizures are a very bromide?’ Her Majesty retorts. Her face is frightening. ‘What good will your caution do us if he dies in delirium?’
Nix presses a hand to his sweaty forehead. They are all looking at him: the queen, the Master Magician, the princess, his apprentices, all desperate for an answer, an ending in smiles and laughter. The stout palace windows rattle and shake as the king’s storm lashes without mercy. ‘Majesty,’ he implores, ‘we must wait a little longer before we essay more potions! In conscience I cannot allow otherwise.’
The queen draws breath to argue, but before the hot words can scald forth an ominous rumbling fills the air, shaking the weathered stones of the palace walls. Princess Fane leaps to her feet, a startled fawn.
‘What is that?’ she whispers.
Now the furniture itself is dancing, and the hand-woven rugs beneath their uncertain feet ripple as though afflicted with unnatural life. The small table beneath one window jumps, pinpricked, and beyond the closed chamber door the sound of screams and unbridled fear. Nix flings out an arm for balance, is steadied by an underling, who must needs clutch a twitching curtain to keep them both upright.
‘Barl save us!’ the queen says, and takes her child into her arms. ‘Is the Wall falling down around our ears then?’
Durm staggers to a window and looks outside. ‘No,’ he replies, and even he cannot quite mask his fear. ‘But the ground moves as though it were alive … never before have I seen the like.’
Drawn like magnets, every gaze swivels to the epicentre of their lives.
Oblivious and sweat-soaked in his bed the king shakes and shakes, and all around him fair Dorana echoes his wild trembling.
In all his life Gar never imagined he would see a sight like it: the harbour seething with fish, thousands of Olken united in song and hope, the air itself alive with the strength and joy of it. He thought his heart might burst from the beauty.
The Harvest Hymn reached its crescendo. Soaring on wings of worship the massed choir of fisherfolk opened its glorious throat and exalted the final note, the final word, in a multitude of harmonies, the men, the women, the children, hands joined, hearts joined, eyes clear and wide and focused on the future … Rejoice … the music poured forth, unstoppable, inexhaustible, to fill the sunbright space between sea and sky …
Nix cowers as the Master Magician raises clenched fists to his face.
‘Fool!’ he thunders as the windows crack and splinter to the floor and dislodged roof slates smash to smithereens on the heaving ground outside, so far beneath them. ‘Must I lay hands upon His Majesty and choke him to stillness before the fabric of the world is torn to pieces and the Wall itself comes tumbling down?’
The queen is bruised and bloody from being thrown agai
nst the fireplace. ‘Do something, Nix!’
Wild rain drives into the chamber, guttering the glim-fire and ordinary candles. Nix cries out in pain as razor-edged hail lays open one blanched cheek. ‘Do what?’ he snaps, nerveless fingers fumbling through his box of remedies. ‘This fit is beyond anything I—’
‘Master Nix!’ an apprentice shouts. ‘The king!’
Thrashing in his tangle of blankets and sheets, Borne opens his eyes. His mouth stretches wide, split lips peeling back. He looks demented.
‘Rejoice!’ he bellows, voice cracked and desperate, rising in a wild despairing scream. ‘Rejoice rejoice rejoice rejoice rejoice—’
Beyond the jagged gaping windows green and purple clouds writhe in mortal combat. Scarlet lightning spears the ground. Hailstones like hens’ eggs pulp the streaming gardens and the felled trees’ foliage, gouge great holes in the lovingly tended lawns of the palace grounds. Unleashed rivers pour from the sky.
‘Rejoice!’ the king commands.
His Majesty’s bowed body lifts off the wrecked bed. In concert the palace seems almost to lift off its very foundations in one final upthrusting convulsion. The queen, the Master Magician, the princess, Pother Nix and his three witless apprentices are thrown to the heaving floor.
‘Gar!’ the king screams. ‘Gar!’
A mighty crack of thunder explodes directly overhead. A flash of white and scarlet light blinds every uncovered eye. The king collapses unstrung to his waiting blankets. The restless earth is stilled.
Stunned almost to gibbering, Nix raises himself on one throbbing elbow to look outside. He sees the clouds streaming south like a river in springmelt flood, leaving innocent blue sky in their wake. Sunshine glitters on rain-washed grass and shattered glass. A warm and gentle breeze stirs the curtains. His ears ring with silence. Smothering a small sob of pain, Nix gathers his scattered wits and climbs to his feet. He is a man of medicine. There are patients …
Chalk-white, stone-still, the king sprawls in a welter of limbs. Bright scarlet flecks his lips, his beard, the rumpled, tangling sheets.
‘Your Majesty?’ Nix whispers. Around him the stir and mutter of the others as awareness returns. ‘Your Majesty?’
The king does not reply. Beneath his white skin a delicate tracery of blue. His eyes, heavy-lidded and almost closed, stare without comment at one limply folded hand.
Nix begins to tremble. His fingers flutter, helpless as limed birds. The room is swimming before his eyes.
‘Your Majesty …!’
Loud enough to crack the sky, the gathered multitude of fisherfolk erupted into raucous cheering. Hats sailed exuberantly into the air, and feet stamped the cobbled ground in excited liberation.
Battered with exhilaration Gar caught Darran’s eye, remembered his protocols and gestured for the mayor to lead them off the dais and on to the next stage of the festival. Puffed with pride, the three-man crew for the festival boat was waiting for them at the end of the pier. Introductions were made, hands were shaken and greetings exchanged, and then it was time.
Gar took a deep breath and hoped against all hope that he appeared, if anything, slightly bored. Sailing? Oh yes. Nothing to it. He sailed all the time back home in Dorana.
‘After you then, Captain Kremmer,’ he invited. Kremmer, a grizzled veteran of some forty festivals, touched his salt-stained cap, collected his crew with a nod and boarded the perilously fragile-looking fishing boat.
‘All aboard who be comin’ aboard, Yer Highness,’ Kremmer called. ‘They fish’ll be leavin’ the harbour directly!’
Tradition mandated that the reigning king or queen – or an appointed representative – joined the festival fishing crew in collecting the harvest’s bounty from the ocean. Heart pounding, Gar looked at Westwailing’s politely attentive mayor and his colleagues, at Darran and Willer but not at Asher, then finally at the plank of wood linking the pitching boat deck to the solid pier.
It was so narrow. Couldn’t they have found a fatter tree?
Asher said under his breath, ‘You’ll be fine. A jaunt about the harbour, is all, fetching up a few net loads of fish. You’ll be back on dry land afore you know it. And I won’t let nowt happen to you on board, I promise.’
Diverted, he glanced at Asher. ‘And what makes you think you’re coming?’
Asher blinked, and the edged sympathy in his eyes froze. He leaned close. Whispered. ‘Only a petty man’d make me stay behind.’
He whispered back. ‘You’ll pay for that.’
As Asher’s eyebrows rose, derisive, Captain Kremmer rang his shiny ship’s bell. Darran cleared his throat. ‘Your Highness …’
He got on the damned boat. And so did Asher, along with all the fishing village mayors. Darran and Willer stayed behind. Within moments of boarding, the fisher men had their sleeves rolled up and were doing incomprehensible things with ropes and anchors and tarry, stinking fish nets, their salt-scoured faces alight with vigour and purpose and a pure uncomplicated joy.
‘Set yourself here,’ said Asher, pushing him without ceremony to stand by a stout mast, ‘and don’t touch nowt.’
As if he needed to be told that. What did Asher think, that his prince harboured secret ambitions to dance about the deck of this tiny wooden bath tub singing jolly sea songs? Ha! It was all he could do not to throw his arms tight about the mast and bellow for his mother like a foal at weaning …
… but after a few minutes that urge mercifully passed and he stopped thinking about the fathoms of water beneath his unsteady feet and the rapidly retreating harbour behind them and the fact he was on a boat, on the ocean, Barl save him. Began instead to notice the sharp, clean tang of the snapping breeze and the laughter in the fishermen’s faces, in Asher’s face, as they shouted in their foreign fishermen’s tongue and tossed the nets overboard with practised ease and an enviable springiness of wrist and arm.
One of the crew squeezed past him to haul on a lever. The middle section of the deck unhinged and dropped inwards, revealing the boat’s dark belly and releasing a stomach-rolling whiff of old fish. He felt his face contract in horror and slapped an appalled hand over nose and mouth. The man laughed at him, and he found himself laughing back.
‘You be right there, prince?’ the fisherman asked, still chuckling. ‘Fine day for sailin’, eh?’
‘Oh yes, fine, fine,’ he replied, answering both questions, and laughed again. ‘I’m having a wonderful time.’
‘Course you be,’ said the fisherman. ‘Sailin’s a wonderful thing. Mind yerself now, ’cause we be bringin’ in the catch.’
And so they were. Muscles straining, the crew hauled the nets back on board, bulging with flapping fish. It was like a dance the way they moved together in unison, perfectly poised, perfectly balanced on their toes and heels, no need to ask questions or look to see where the next man was or what he was doing. Seamless, bred and born in their bones and perfected over years and seasons.
Stabbed with jealousy, wrenchingly reminded of the solitary life from which Asher’s friendship had rescued him, and to which he must now return unwilling, Gar leaned against the mast, heedless of stains, of splinters, of everything except this extraordinary brotherhood of which he could never be a part.
But Asher could. Asher was. This was his life, his true life, the life he’d been born to and wanted back again. And who in all honesty could blame him? To be sure he had a fine and fancy life back in Dorana City. He had a good job, one with purpose and value. He had friends. But he didn’t have this. And this was Asher’s blood and breath, as any fool with eyes could see.
The first takings of the festival catch streamed into the boat’s hold, four net loads in all. Sweat-streaked and panting, hilarity lighting his face in a way Gar had never seen in twelve months and more of dry City living, Asher wiped tarry fingers on his good breeches and called over, ‘You be right there, sir?’
He couldn’t speak, could only nod and offer a smile, because he knew now he had lost the battle, if it was a bat
tle at all, if one man’s life and the way he wanted to live it could actually be fought over.
Jinking in a strong gust of wind, the boat swung suddenly about so he had to grab at the mast to stay upright. ‘Hang tight,’ called Asher, grinning wide enough to split his face. ‘You bloody landlubber!’
He opened his mouth to say something insulting in return, something to show that he understood now, that it was all right, really, and no grudges at all … but there was another gust of wind and a sudden convulsion of the deck beneath his feet. On the wind, a terrified crying of voices.
‘Barl save us! Look!’ Captain Kremmer shouted, and pointed a shaking hand back to port.
Staggering, sea legs nonexistent, Gar shuffled around till he could see Westwailing Harbour, so far behind them. ‘The Wall protect us,’ he whispered, and felt his heart seize fast in his chest.
The cloudless blue sky over Westwailing was gone, consumed by a terrible writhing of purple and black. Scarlet lightning flickered like a snake’s tongue. The shrieks and moans of panic-stricken fisherfolk swarming desperately to reach shelter carried over the agitated harbour. As Gar and the crew watched, dumbstruck, thunderbolts tore gaping holes in the tumultuous storm clouds and struck the unprotected ground below. A moment later they heard the booming concussion and the agonised screams of people unable to escape.
Aggressive with fear, Asher navigated the lurching deck to grasp Gar’s arm. ‘This ain’t a sea-born storm, it’s come from inland. What’s goin’ on?’
Gar pressed a fist to his lips. ‘I don’t know.’
‘We got to get back there,’ said Asher, and let go of Gar’s arm to turn on Kremmer. ‘Captain! Get us about! We got to help those folks!’
‘Help them?’ Kremmer demanded. The boat plunged through a wave and he was thrown to one knee. ‘How? Reckon we’ll not help ourselves now! Reckon we won’t make it off these waters alive! Look!’