The Choir Boats

by Rabuzzi, Daniel

  Well, Tom thought. If this doesn’t top all: a kidnapper is a hero, and the prisoners must stay locked up for their own good, so Uncle Barnabas must be stopped. And Sally sings ships out of the dark.

  The Minders were calling him to the fire for their last baggins on the beach before departing for Yount in the morning. Tom saluted the darkening horizon with his maimed hand and walked down to join the group. Picking up a mug of hot tea, Tom cast one more thought out over the waters: “Sally, sister dear, sing us a song . . . sing us all home.”

  Spent, Sally slept much of the three weeks the Gallinule took to sail from Oos to the Fences of Yount. She dreamed constantly, small dreams only, the kind with no great power beyond the personal. She thought of her dreams during the voyage out of voiceless entrapment as small incidental scenes behind the main subject of a portrait. She saw Mrs. Sedgewick sitting by a fireplace, reading. She saw the cook and her niece in the kitchen at Mincing Lane, polishing the indigo pheasant plates. Twice she saw the African woman in the old sailor’s coat and red neckerchief, standing alone in an alley yard surrounded by tall, drab buildings. Always she hoped for a glimpse of Tom or of James Kidlington, but they did not come to her.

  Most frequently, she saw a woman her own age, in lambent silk, with half-moons dangling from her ears and silver threaded through her gleaming black tresses, walking in a garden.

  Rehana? Sally thought. But then I must be dreaming into the past. I don’t know. Such dark eyes she has, whoever she is. I wish mine were so dark and fierce.

  Only once did she find herself at the Sign of the Ear. The temple-monkeys approached her swishing their prehensile tails, staying just beyond her reach, uttering low “chip chip” noises. She gazed at the little blue flowers, the sela-manri, flower of repentance. With a start just before she woke up, she realized what the flowers were: Bixwort! Just like in the garden at home in Mincing Lane!

  As Sally drifted in and out of her dreams, crew members spoke of almost nothing other than her song.

  “She is a lail obos, a Dolphin-singer,” many said. “A tassna innan-osai, a Moon-finder.”

  “We have not had either for a century, not since the reign of King Brusiminius,” said one of the A.B.s to his colleagues, “The last was Matthias Laufer, who came as a child with the Hamburg Pietists.”

  “Before that, how many?” replied a colleague. “Sippia Sillitate, called the Sibyl of Qua, but she went mad. Deligence Nux, who disappeared in a thunderstorm one night, during the time of Queen Jillenicia, which is nigh three hundred years ago.”

  Some murmured that Sally might even be the sukenna-tareef, the Saviour.

  “Heresy!” exclaimed others. “No human can be the Saviour. Sally is pash, human like us. Only the Mother can save us and the Mother needs first to be wakened at the Sign of the Ear! To say a pash could be the Saviour is the apostasy perpetrated by the enemies in Orn!”

  Reglum spoke to the McDoons about Orn.

  “The Coerceries of Orn occupy most of Nearer Yount, the island east of Yount Major,” he explained. “The four coerceries are each ruled by its own tyrannulet. The Ornish are Rejectarians, because they believe fulgination is a sin and that any attempt to go abroad from Yount is an act against the Mother. The Ornish enslave those who disagree.”

  “Waking the Mother is but one of the necessities: the war between her two sons must also be ended!” the captain added. “And the key must be used to draw down the Moon, so the fajet tindo, the Serpent of Rebellious Despair, can be defeated.”

  “Strix Tender Wurm?” said Sanford.

  “The same,” said Reglum. “Or so we believe.”

  Sanford nodded and murmured, “‘It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father has put in his own power.’”

  At the Fences of Yount, the mist rolled back and there before them was a great warship, as large as an East Indiaman, bristling with cannon. The dolphins accompanying the Gallinule raced ahead to frolic with the dolphins swimming round the warship. A whale flanked each side of the warship, which was called the Saker. One of the whales rolled over, revealing a massive fin. Its companion raised a great tail out of the water, let it fall back with a mighty slap that was more impressive than a cannon salute. There was much halloo’ing as the Gallinule pulled along side. Much-needed supplies of fresh food and water were rowed across to the Gallinule. The Saker’s captain came aboard for dinner, and his ship’s mailbags were given to the Gallinule for delivery. He looked with wonder at Barnabas and the rest of the McDoon party, partly because their pale skin was, well, so pale, but mostly because they bore the key.

  The Gallinule had run out of coal and sailed now with wind only. The Fulginator was turned off, and the fulgination room locked again. For the next ten days they sailed in the way ships do in Big Land, by compass and chronometer. They weathered a storm, harsh but natural. They sighted Yount Major on the second Prannish-day of Cole-month, in the year 351 since the Blessed Encounter, which is to say November 7, 1813 (“Martinmas, how strange to think it,” said Barnabas).

  Everyone rushed to the bow. For the McDoons, it felt like coming home to a place they had never been. Far off in front of them was the tiniest top of what might be a very large mountain, separated by sea. Yet, for all their travails so far, each recognized that their adventures had only just begun, like Palmerin outwitting the crone at the Well at the Edge of the World, or Orlando taming the hippogriff.

  Barnabas held the key, tugged at his vest, now barely recognizable as one of the finest ever made in London, and whispered, “Well, beans and bacon! We’re coming, Tom, my boy!”

  Sanford found the words of the psalmist going through his head: “‘Some went down to the sea in ships. . . . Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out from their distress; he made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.’”

  I feel like Europa pulling her feet up as the bull stormed across the waters, thought Sally, hugging Isaak to her breast. No, that isn’t right: Europa went unwillingly, and I wished myself to go. More like Odysseus arriving at Ithaca. But no, that’s not quite right either since home is Mincing Lane — though arriving in Yount feels like homecoming too. Oh Tom!

  The sun rose over Farther Yount. They would be there soon.

  Chapter 12: At the Sign of the Ear

  Sally held Isaak tight as the Gallinule sailed into Yount Great-Port. The return of a strong ship from a voyage to Big Land was always a scene of celebration because one out of every seven tough ships did not return, and those that did were scarred, their crews haunted. The crowd on the Naval Quay greeting the Gallinule was larger than usual because the city knew the ship had fared forth to bring back a Key-bearer. The crowds swelled as rumours flew that the Gallinule’s crew spoke of another marvel onboard, a Dolphin-singer and Moon-finder. By the time the McDoons had wound their way past the Fort and walked across the University Pentangle, crossed the bridge over Dondil’s Canal, and come to the Royal Palace, the streets were thronged. Yet the crowds were nearly silent, a sea of dark eyes watching the McDoons. A mother might shush a child or a man turn to a comrade with some whispered remark, but otherwise there was no more noise than that of a low wind among the masts of ships at anchor.

  The McDoons barely had a chance to wash the salt from their faces before they were brought to the Queen.

  “Do bring your cat,” said Reglum to Sally. “I meant what I said about cats having high honour in our country. A cat that has journeyed all the way from Karket-soom shall be presented to the Queen as well!”

  Sally smiled, as she did rarely since the loss of James Kidlington. Barnabas noted to himself that those rare smiles came almost exclusively as a result of remarks made by Lieutenant Bammary.

  They waited in the Queen’s anteroom. Sally looked out the one window, down the hill and over the harbour. Many ships moved in the harbour, surrounded by wherries and jolly-boats, lighters and barges. A great river emptied into the harbour, with quays and docks alon
g its length. To a London merchant’s niece, the scene looked familiar, a great comfort after the strangeness of the Interrugal Lands.

  “What’s that?” She pointed at something that one did not see along the Thames: poles as tall as ship’s masts scattered throughout the harbour in a design she could not determine, each with a ragged platform on top. “Do ships tie up to those? Are they mooring pales?”

  “Yes, but they are more than that,” said Reglum. “Look!”

  From one of the pole-top platforms a hawk launched itself and headed out to sea.

  “Ospreys!” said Reglum. “We love them almost as much as we adore dolphins, though the fish-hawk cannot fulginate. They nest on top of the poles.”

  Oh, to be an osprey! she thought, watching another one swoop in, a fish in its claws. To lead a fierce and simple life, hunting, rearing young and then dying, but doing so without doubts or self-recrimination. Just being and doing.

  “Speaking of dolphins,” said Barnabas, pointing to one of the many paintings and prints on the walls of the anteroom. “Look at this one, like the pictures at the Piebald Swan.”

  Reglum said, “It depicts a story from Karket-soom, in honour of our voyages to your world: the story of Melicertes, whose mother threw him into the sea when they were pursued by his father, who was made mad by the gods. Little Melicertes — see, there he is — was saved by a dolphin, who carried him ashore.”

  At that moment the double-doors opened, a bell rang, and two guards stepped into the waiting room. They said: “By the Trees and the Nurturing Mother, you are called to meet Her Highness the Queen.”

  The Queen’s audience-room was small. The McDoons’ surprise at the modesty of the room was superseded by a much greater shock: the Queen was wearing trousers.

  They had no time to register their shock, however, because it was followed by yet another: the Queen bowed to them. Six others were with her in the room. They each bowed. Reglum and Nexius each brought his fists together in front of himself and bowed. The McDoons did the same.

  The Queen bid everyone sit at the oval table that was the sole piece of furniture in the room, except for some chairs along the walls. The two guards stepped outside and shut the door.

  “Greetings,” she said in English. “I am Queen Zinnamoussea Hullitate of Yount Major, sixth in succession of the dynasty that led Yount Major to victory one hundred and twenty-five years ago in the War of Affirmation, the war that ended with the destruction of the Temple at the Sign of the Ear. We of Farther Yount, of Yount Major, affirmed our abolition of slavery. The Ornish did not. I bid you welcome with the greatest of respect and what I hope will become affection as our acquaintance grows and prospers.”

  She paused and took a breath.

  “So much of a speech I put in my head,” she said with a smile. “My English is good for listening, but I beg our pardon, not so good for talking,” said the Queen. “I ask the Lord-Chancellor, whose English is goodest, to translate. I know too that the Marines have good English, from trips to Karket-soom.”

  I wonder if Queen Elizabeth was like this! thought Sally. Oh, if only Mrs. Sedgewick could be with me now.

  Trousers! thought Barnabas. Beans and bacon! Trousers on a woman! On the other hand, they are very well-made trousers, I must say. I might enquire about that material — it must be coloured with more of those tar-based dyes Salmius told us about. Hmmm, I wonder if she notices my vest?

  The Lord-Chancellor introduced herself and then the other five in the room: the head of the Chamber of Optimates (“Roughly, the Speaker in Parliament,” whispered Reglum), the Arch-Bishop of the Sacerdotal Corps (“Makes him the Arch-Dean of the Learned Doctors,” said Reglum), the Major-Captain of the Marines & Army, the Chief Councillor & Protonotary of the Collegium for Agriculture, Husbandry, & Commerce and, lastly and off to one side, the representative for the resident Karket-soomi in Yount under Crown protection. This last person seemed to be there mostly on sufferance or as a direct request of the Queen that none of the others could talk her out of.

  “That’s the Rabbi of Palombeay,” said Reglum to the McDoons, but he was interrupted before he had time to say more.

  “One other introduction remains before we begin our serious discussion,” said the Lord-Chancellor. “We have heard about a cat that has travelled with you, one known as the tes muddry, the golden claw. We’ve not met a cat that came from Karket-soom. Would you bring her to us?”

  Sally reached down and unclasped the wicker box at her feet. Out sprang Isaak in new-scrubbed golden glory, her plumed tail a banner waving in the air. Isaak jumped onto the table and investigated each person.

  “Cats know no sovereign but themselves and thus make even sovereigns think about their position,” said Dorentius Bunce, first in English and then in Yountish. “An old saying in Yount.”

  The Queen laughed and said something in Yountish.

  “All of us must be cats, acting with control and grace, otherwise we become mice who get eaten,” said Dorentius. “Another old saying here.”

  When Isaak had curled up in Sally’s lap, the Queen signalled to the Lord-Chancellor, who said, “It is time. Show forth, please, the key.”

  Barnabas, making a slight demonstration of reaching for the key so as to show off his vest, brought it out of his pocket.

  The Lord-Chancellor said to the Arch-Bishop: “Is this the key in truth?”

  The Arch-Bishop examined the key, and said, “Yes. This is the key.”

  The Queen said in English, “To go to our temple at the place of the Ear and off-lock the door, with the key?”

  “Yes,” said Barnabas without hesitation. “And to get my nephew back.”

  The Queen nodded. She leaned forward and for a moment was just a person, a woman, not a ruler of millions with the fate of a world in her hands.

  Looking right into Barnabas’s eyes and speaking again in English, she said, “Thank you. I know about your boy. I know about children who get took and lost. We will help you get him back to you.”

  “Thank you,” said Barnabas.

  The Lord-Chancellor brought her arms together so her palms met, and said, “We all thank you, we who represent the recognized bodies of Yount Major. We have heard you and we will help you, since doing so helps ourselves.”

  “That’s that then,” said Barnabas, as the audience concluded. “Let’s get ready to handle ’em!”

  “One more thing,” said Sanford. “And not wanting to appear too forward, but the letter — your first contact with us, Your Excellency — spoke too of help we might find here to recover Barnabas’s heart’s desire. How might that be achieved?”

  “We will help as we can,” said the Lord-Chancellor (the Arch-Dean shifted in his seat). “Accept our word on that. Let us conclude first and quickly the opening of the Door and the return to you of your nephew. Then we will make good on our promise.”

  As they bowed their goodbyes and walked out of the audience room, Sally realized that the only person — besides Fraulein Reimer — who had said nothing was the Rabbi of Palombeay.

  His eyes were keen enough, she thought. He followed everything, at least those bits in Yountish. I wonder what he is thinking.

  Sanford thought, Not at all what I would have expected in a Queen, but then again this isn’t England. Very level-headed. I like her measure, even if she is wearing trousers. Still, their game and ours are not completely consonant — will bear watching, though I do trust Nexius and the others from the Gallinule, most especially young Bammary.

  Barnabas whistled and thought to himself, So that’s an audience with royalty. Seemed more like bartering on the Exchange. I don’t much care for that Learned Doctor, brrrr, a chilly fish. Queen seems a lovely woman, and she cared about Tom, that’s clear, though I cannot know why she would beyond politeness. She’s a queen, after all, has millions of subjects to think about, and Tom’s not even one of them.

  Back in their own quarters, the McDoons heaped questions on their shipmates.

  �
��Trousers?” asked Barnabas.

  Reglum smiled. “I should have thought to tell you, being one who knows English ways so well. Yes, trousers. Here in Yount, we think nothing of women in trousers. To speak plainly, your attitudes about dress never cease to astonish us. Here women go in trousers because women do whatever men do and more.”

  Sanford and Barnabas were in clarifying stances.

  “How so, sir?” said Sanford.

  “As I said, women do all the same work, hold the same situations, as men,” said Reglum. “Our Lord-Chancellor is a woman — you’ll note that she too wore trousers.”

  “Women as merchants, for instance?” said Barnabas.

  “Of course,” said Noreous, amused.

  “University professors?” said Barnabas, looking at Sally.

  “Yes,” said Reglum, his smile widening. “Yes to any occupation you can think of.”

  “Soldiers?” asked Sanford, with a confident look.

  “Yes,” said Nexius. “We all fight here, as necessary. Like Sally’s cat.”

  Even Sally was taken aback at that news. Women as soldiers! But then she looked at Fraulein Reimer and remembered the fraulein pointing a pistol at the ruffians on the night of the housebreaking.

  “But,” she said. “There were no women on the Gallinule.”

  Reglum’s smile faded.

  “True,” he said. “But that is a recent event. The Queen decreed that no women were to go forth on the tough ships any longer, though they can still serve in the navy within Yount.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she lost her only daughter when one of our tough ships, the Merganser, went missing with the princess serving onboard.”

  “Oh!”

  “Yes, it is sad,” said Reglum. “The Princess Zessifa was much loved and would have made us a fine queen.”

  “The Merganser disappeared near a place in the Between-Lands that we call Lizard-Home,” said Nexius. “We sent out three search ships but could not find our missing colleagues. Gone, off into the . . . well, now you know where they were lost.”