Voyage of the Basilisk : A Memoir by Lady Trent (9781429956369)

by Brennan, Marie

  I attempted an explanation, but soon foundered on my tiredness and lack of fluency. Suhail raised his eyebrows, and when I nodded in gratitude, he explained on my behalf. To them he said, “She seeks to know all there is to be known about creatures like the fire-lizards.”

  The woman’s dark brows rose at his words. Much too late, I found myself wishing I had held my tongue. Our experiences in the Puian regions of the Broken Sea had introduced me to the word tapu, which indicates the restrictions and prohibitions that mark a thing off as sacred. I had not yet encountered any tapu which interfered with my studies, but such things vary from place to place, and it was entirely possible that my interest violated one here. I hastened to say, “Please, do not let that stand in the way of our negotiations. I do not wish to give offense. What matters is that we repair the ship.”

  I do not think the Keongans would have ever refused us outright. Their archipelago is rather isolated—a fact which served us well during the storm, for it meant the Basilisk could run freely before the wind. That isolation causes them to be an insular folk indeed (if I may be forgiven the etymological pun). But they are not so xenophobic as to kill outsiders who are careful to offer them no violence. Indeed, like many people in societies without cities, they place a great deal of importance on hospitality. But Puians are also a trading people, and they recognized that in this instance, they held all the advantage—for we could not leave without their help.

  We might have done without the mizzenmast. Alert readers may recall that it was a later addition to the vessel’s structure anyway; she could sail without it. But she could not sail as well: the captain and crew knew her as a bark, not as a brig sloop, and would need to change their arrangements of sail and ballast and all the rest if they wished to do anything more than limp clumsily along.

  With a mizzenmast or without, however, we could go nowhere while the Basilisk was pinned atop that reef; and likely not for some time after, as the coral had assuredly done sufficient damage to her structure as to warrant repair. We would at a minimum require the hospitality of the Keongans while those repairs were done, and likely some assistance besides. It was for this that Suhail had to bargain, translating the demands of Pa’oarakiki for Aekinitos, and the captain’s counteroffers in return.

  The barriers of language and exhaustion meant I followed very little of this. I can only marvel at both Suhail’s linguistic agility and Aekinitos’ strength of focus, for I doubted the captain had slept more than two winks at a stretch through the storm; and yet he sat there on his bundle with his broken leg before him and haggled like a Monnashire housewife on market day. The result was a payment of cargo and various other oddments in exchange for a beach to live on, some assistance with the ship—and a promise.

  “They are insisting that we remain on Keonga until the repairs are done,” Suhail said to the captain. “Neither you nor anyone else from the ship may travel to the other islands, without his express permission. As soon as the Basilisk is seaworthy once more, we are to sail away and not return.”

  It was an oddly cold demand, for a people who seemed otherwise friendly. (I had the impression Pa’oarakiki could have mulcted us for a good deal more than he did.) Aekinitos said, “What if we need timber or such that cannot be found on this island?”

  “I inquired about that. He said it could be fetched for us, but we may not seek it ourselves.”

  Aekinitos grunted and shifted his injured leg. With so many eyes upon him, he did not permit himself the luxury of a wince. “As restrictions go, that one is easy enough, I suppose. I will make certain my men know.”

  He did not ask after the reason then, nor any time later—at least not directly. I know Pa’oarakiki’s demand roused his curiosity, though, as it did mine. The prohibition might have been a matter of tapu, and in any event we had no desire to pry into the private affairs of the islanders. But it did raise questions, even if we kept them to ourselves.

  * * *

  Although it will put my narrative somewhat out of order, I must first relate what transpired with the Basilisk, for it is the framework that shapes everything else which happened during our stay. We could not leave until the ship was repaired; we could not go anywhere else in the islands while the repairs were conducted; and so we found ways to fill the time. Had we been able to leave sooner, a great deal of what follows would never have occurred.

  The receding flood of the storm had left the Basilisk stranded atop the reef, in a kind of saddle between two higher bits of rock. This was a dangerous position to be in, for every wave that came in shifted her on her perch, and coral is not forgiving. Given sufficient time, the sea would have pounded our ship to pieces.

  Unfortunately, she could not be retrieved at once. Discussion with the Keongans established that the next high tide would not be at all sufficient to float the Basilisk free. Aekinitos would have to wait for the “spring tide,” a higher surge which comes on the new and full moons; and the new moon was not for more than a week.

  For the men still on board the ship, this was dreadful news. By working the pumps they could keep the hold from filling with water—but to man them for a week and more could not be borne. Fortunately, they were able to devise a “fother,” a patch of sail filled with oakum and tar, which is sucked into the breaches by the inrushing water and thus seals them, at least partially, against their doom. Inspired by this, Aekinitos had more such patches made, buying barkcloth and fiber in great quantities from the islanders, which his men then lashed in place where the coral ground worst against the hull. These had to be replaced on a frequent basis, but they preserved the ship against some of the damage she might otherwise have taken.

  Dragging her free of the reef required tremendous effort from not only the sailors but also the Keongans, who tied cables to their canoes and paddled mightily to haul the Basilisk clear. At that point we faced new problems, for deprived of that support, however destructive it may have been, the Basilisk promptly began to sink in earnest. It was a race between the sea on one side and the rowers on the other (not to mention the fellows manning the pumps belowdecks) as to whether they could get the ship to safety before she foundered irretrievably. This meant bringing her along the fore reef until there was a gap through which she could enter the lagoon, and then drawing her as far onto shore as Aekinitos dared, without beaching her so thoroughly she could never be removed again. This is called careening, and in the absence of a dry-dock, it was the best we could do.

  His carpenter and other skilled men dove into the water to investigate the damage; the rest of us had to wait until the tide went out to see it. When the ship’s hull was exposed, I shuddered at the sight. I had not known before that the Basilisk, like many ships, bears a “false keel” and a sheathing of thin boards over the keel and hull proper; these protect the structural fabric of the vessel from shipworms and other troubles, collisions with the seafloor included. The reef had torn away much of the false keel and a good deal of the sheathing, cracking the planks beneath. Aekinitos swore for a full ten minutes after he heard the report, in a medley of languages that impressed even Suhail. Even for a linguistically inept landlubber such as myself, the message was clear: we would not be going anywhere any time soon.

  ON THE BEACH

  That simple fact dominated our thoughts throughout our enforced stay on Keonga. It could hardly do otherwise; the immense hull and tilted masts of the Basilisk towered over our encampment, heaved first to one side, then to the other, while the men worked to make her seaworthy once more. It was an inescapable reminder of our misfortune, and our hope of returning home.

  * * *

  We knew that we were in the Keongan Islands; we knew very little more.

  That part of the Broken Sea was but very poorly charted by Anthiopean sailors; indeed, few other than Puians knew the secret of reaching it, for doing so required a vessel to thread a maze of shoals and reefs and underwater mounts whose treacherous currents could easily sink the unwary—unless the unwary happened to be r
iding the surge of a storm. Aekinitos’ charts, rescued from his cabin, showed the type of vague markings that said the draughtsman had no idea how many islands were in the chain, much less their size and individual coastlines.

  The Scirling Geographical Association would have given several left arms for accurate charts of the archipelago and its surrounding waters; alas, Pa’oarakiki’s interdiction meant we could not oblige them. Judicious questioning of the islanders taught us there were eleven islands that merited settlement, and several more that were barren volcanic rocks, waterless atolls, or otherwise unfit for human habitation. The largest of these was the neighbouring Aluko’o, which lies to the northeast of Keonga, and is the direct domain of the archipelago’s king.

  The island upon which we had wrecked ourselves is the one known properly as Keonga. It gives its name to the chain courtesy of a mythology that attributes great religious significance to the two volcanoes that make up its bulk. These stand a little distance apart, and must originally have been two separate islands, but their ejecta have run together in the middle, leaving a saddle of lower-lying terrain in between. Owing to the orientation of this saddle, which lies parallel to the prevailing winds, the area receives a great deal of rain and wind, and is the breadbasket of the archipelago (so to speak—Keongans cultivate no grains, but only tubers, fruit, sugarcane, and some vegetables).

  In ancient times the island chain was divided between a number of chieftains who amounted to petty kings, but for the last few generations they have been under the rule of a single man. We had no direct dealings with the king until shortly before our departure; we could not go to Aluko’o to present ourselves, and we were not important enough for so august a personage to greet. “Bigger fish to fry,” Tom said to me, during the days before the Basilisk was freed and then careened. “Do you remember that Raengaui pirate-king Aekinitos mentioned? Waikango? It seems he’s been captured by the Yelangese.”

  “He does not rule here, does he?” I asked. I knew he had been extending his reach, but I did not think it had yet encompassed this outlying archipelago.

  “No,” Tom said, “but the king’s wife is a cousin of Waikango.”

  Then it was easy to guess why the people here did not like the Yelangese. But what had my countrymen done to offend them? I thought of Princess Miriam’s embassy, which ought to have arrived in Yelang some time after I was deported. The news-sheets had blown a lot of hot air about how her visit was to “deepen the bonds of amity between our two great nations,” but everyone knew that was a polite way of saying she was there to see if Scirland and Yelang could be induced to get along. If they had, perhaps the Puians of the Broken Sea had taken it as a hostile sign. But I could hardly imagine the princess had worked so quickly in establishing rapport; was it merely the fact of her visit that had offended them?

  I could not ask. The people we dealt with had no reason to follow such matters, and the chief and his close retainers avoided us as much as they could. In the meanwhile, of course, we had our own affairs to address.

  Much of the work in dealing with the Basilisk, first on the reef and then careened on the shore, was carried out under the supervision of Mr. Dolin, for the breaking of Aekinitos’ leg greatly hampered his movements; but the captain was up and about before we were ready to leave. He took very badly to the limitations of his injury, and was a tyrant in the beach camp. All of his supernumerary passengers were pressed into service on such tasks as we were fit for—even Jake.

  “He is crew,” Aekinitos growled when I protested. (Virtually everything he said in that time came out as a growl, for enforced sedentism had made him a bear.) “If he wishes to sail from here on the Basilisk, he will work. As for you, Mrs. Camherst—there is no time to chase after dragons when my ship is wrecked. Much less ancient ruins.”

  That last, of course, was directed at Suhail, who had not protested at all. I resented the captain a great deal for his declaration, but he had the right of it: restoring our ability to travel took precedence over anything else. I was not much use in anything ship-related, nor things that required physical strength, but I sighed and joined Abby in making our beach camp a habitable place. If we were to be there for as long as it seemed, I had rather our quarters be something other than makeshift.

  I cannot pretend our situation was entirely comfortable. (For one accustomed to the life of a Scirling gentlewoman, anything that does not involve padded armchairs cannot be termed “comfortable.”) But the climate of Keonga is exceedingly agreeable, and after more than a year cooped up in that snuff-box of a cabin, the freedom to stretch out my limbs was a positive delight. I acquired a particular fondness for the ceaseless rush of the waves upon the shore, which I believe to be the most soothing sound in the world. It is because of my time on Keonga that I have made a habit of spending time on Prania in my later years—now that I can afford to do so.

  We attracted a great deal of interest from the Keongans, of course. Much of our official cargo had gone in the bargain for supplies and assistance, but all the sailors had possessions of their own, and there was soon a brisk market between them and the islanders, each craving what they saw as exotic from the other. Tobacco pipes, penny whistles, and broken pocket watches were soon to be found in the proud keeping of the locals, while the sailors competed with one another to see who could obtain the most splendid flower wreath or shark-tooth club.

  I took little part in this, as most of what I had with me was either scientific equipment I needed or specimens I had collected for my work. I did, however, converse with the islanders as much as I could, cudgeling my brain into accepting the sound changes and subtleties of grammar that differentiated their tongue from the trade pidgin I had previously learned. And, as you may imagine, I asked them about dragons.

  My interest was divided between the sea-serpents I knew must be in the region and the fire-lizards I had seen with my own eyes. At first the locals could not understand my words; then, once the words became comprehensible, they did not understand my purpose; then, the more I questioned them, the more they retreated from me, their friendliness draining away.

  “Am I giving offense?” I asked Suhail, knowing his command of the language far outstripped my own. “I know they have many customs I am not familiar with, and I may have violated one. Is it wrong for me to ask about dragons?”

  He shook his head, brows knitting in thought. “Not that I have heard. There are things that are forbidden to talk about, at least for the likes of me—but they make it clear when that is the case. I can try to find out, though.”

  “Please do.” I did not like the thought that I might, out of sheer ignorance, close the doors that needed to be open for me. I could not heed tapu if I did not know where its boundaries lay.

  Out of habit, I glanced up the slope of the nearby mountain. Once again, small figures were circling in the air: a flight of fire-lizards. I wanted to observe them, but until I cleared this matter up, it would be better for me to pretend they were not there … however much of a wrench it might be.

  Turning away from the fire-lizards, I saw someone partway up the path that led to the village. It was the woman from the chief’s entourage; I had learned her name was Heali’i. She had been lurking about our camp for some time now, watching us.

  Or rather, watching me. I was sure of it now. Her eyes remained on me as Suhail went down to the water’s edge. I nodded to her, reflexively polite, and she laughed—I could see the motion, though she was too far for me to hear the sound. Then she turned and began climbing the path, vanishing into the growing dusk.

  TWELVE

  Heali’i—The hostility grows—Keongan etiquette—Ke’anaka’i—Matters of marriage—Bowing to necessity

  Heali’i was a point of great gossip among the sailors. As I noted before, her appearance was not quite like that of other Keongan women, with her tattoos and her exaggerated clothing. She was said to live with her husband partway up the slopes of Homa’apia—the volcano at whose base we crouched—but somewhere
in the course of things, a rumour started that her marriage was in some fashion peculiar. The men took this in predictable directions, and so whenever they encountered Heali’i (which they did often, on account of her tendency to lurk about camp and watch me), they greeted her with increasingly unsubtle propositions, all of which she laughed off with a flirtatious but unyielding refusal.

  She did not seem to engage in the routine life of Keongan women. They spend some time in garden cultivation, and a great deal more making textiles: rope, twine, and above all barkcloth, which among them is a high art. (Larger-scale agriculture, hunting and fishing, canoe-making, and most aspects of warfare are the province of men—along with cooking, which I initially found to be a charming reversal, as I have never learned to love the task.) She did not quite seem to be a priestess either, though. As in many societies, the clergy of Keonga are drawn from particular bloodlines closely allied with those of the chieftains and the king, and they spend their time in activities such as the interpretation of omens and the conduct of rituals. They also dwell close by their leaders, in houses whose support posts and ridge beams were grandly carved with images of great significance. None of this described Heali’i, either.

  Indeed, had I been forced to choose a single word to describe her status, it might have been “outcast.” Her husband—a fellow named Mokoane—was a bit solitary, but seemed to be accepted well enough by Keongan society. Heali’i, by contrast, fit in nowhere. And yet she was not shunned, either. When islanders encountered her, they always greeted her with careful respect—unlike our own sailors. I could not make sense of it, and I could find no graceful way to ask why she was watching me.