Watson, Ian - Black Current 01

by The Book Of The River (v1. 1)

She fanned the pack on the table, still face-down. There must have been a hundred well-thumbed cards in all.

  "Choose nine."

  I did so, quite at random. I had no special instinct for this one rather than that. She stacked the rest of the pack to one side then began to turn up the cards I had selected.

  The first showed waves on water, with a schooner riding in the distance. The picture was in sepia tones, and pink and dirty white— as were they all to be.

  "This is the River. This is you." Her voice was a dull monotone. I nodded, though I shouldn't have done.

  The second showed a spyglass. "This lies behind you. You are observant. You watch, though you don't always understand. But since this is behind you, you will understand more in future."

  The third was of a babe in arms, but it was facing away from me. "This is your family. Reversed, it suggests negative feelings. You sail on the river to escape this." ("Oh no I don't," I said to myself.) "Or perhaps," she added, "by sailing the river you create these negative feelings." Obviously I had given her some facial cue. I decided to keep my features frozen.

  Next was a signal-mirror, hand-held against a backdrop of rolling clouds with the sun just breaking through. Again the card faced away from me.

  "These are your hopes or fears. The light of illumination. If reversed, you fear a message. Or a message has filled you with fear. The clouds are your anxieties, which cloud insight."

  She turned up the fifth card; and I saw a handsome, laughing man, smartly attired. He reminded me of Hasso (of the dandyish flared trousers and striped shirts), though he was differently attired; but he was just as jaunty. Once again the card lay turned away.

  "This is the influence at work: a husband to be sought, a lover. Yet he isn't really for you. Or else he is far away in time or space."

  Number six was a cockerel crowing on a dunghill.

  "Pride," she interpreted. "Indiscretion."

  Indeed? Perhaps it made sense, at that!

  Seven was a bonfire, with another cockerel rising in flames from it, flapping fiery wings. An arrow pierced the bird's chest. I had begun to sweat coldly, because his bonfire stirred hideous memories; but she said:

  "This is the soul. Also, striving—which is betrayed or disappointed. Or else transfiguration which pierces the heart. The meaning is ambiguous." The bonfire certainly wasn't! "That card shows the potential outcome."

  Number eight: three men with staffs sprouting green leaves were fighting with three women similarly armed. A fourth man strode away from the fight, his staff over his shoulder supporting a bundle. A house blazed, behind.

  "Conflict. A husband walking home. Warfare. Alternatively: resolute bravery, success. This is the probable outcome. Again, it's ambiguous."

  She turned the last card over, placing it in the centre of the crossshape she had made with the others. I beheld a river with a black band snaking along it midway. Several fishes gaped out of the water as though to gulp flies.

  "The Black Current, what else? This crosses you, obstructs you. Or maybe ... you will cross it." Abruptly the fortune-teller reached out and grasped my wrist. "What do you know of any of this?" she whispered fiercely. Her grip was tight. Outside, drums were beating, and I thought that they were beating in my heart.

  "Nothing! Let go of me!" With my free hand I quickly forced her fingers open. After months of working boats this wasn't difficult. And this time I did flee, out through the flap of the tent.

  "Hey!" cried Jambi, who was hovering impatiently. "You're missing the show! It's started. Come on."

  Those drums beat louder now, unmuffled by the canvas; and pipes were skirling. Jambi had no time to ask me how I had got on in the tent; neither then—nor later.

  If you want to commit a crime, the best place to do so is in public: in a place so public that dozens of other distractions are on hand.

  How Marcialla actually got into the predicament she did get into, I never saw. Nor did Jambi. If anyone else noticed they must have taken it entirely for granted, as nothing unusual on festival day. When Jambi did spot what was going on, even she didn't at first register anything amiss. But she wasn't privy to the conversation I'd overheard in the Jingle-Jangle—nor had she heard Marcialla's veiled warning as we two chatted at the head of the gangplank.

  It was a good three hours later. The main display was already over: the acrobatics, the climbing and abseiling, the ropewalking and trapezing by professional junglejacks male and female who had been practising for a week and more. That evening would see a fireworks display upon the great masts—the fireworks imported, naturally, from smelly Guineamoy. But the period from now until dusk provided full opportunity for those who weren't part of the official performance to show off their own antics. So when the last professional team had swung down sweating to the ground, a whistle blew. Teenagers, and men and women too, swarmed across the field to the tall masts and began to scramble aloft. Some went high up, some not so high.

  "Accidents? Of course there are accidents," Jambi was saying to me as we watched these novices displaying their skill, or lack of it. "Lalo says that someone broke his neck a couple of years back. There are always sprains and fractures."

  "It seems silly."

  "Isn't it better if it happens here than out in the deep jungle?"

  "I don't follow you."

  She gestured. "There's a first aid tent. Bandages, bonesetters."

  "Why should amateurs do it at all?"

  "Oh, Yaleen! If somebody takes a tumble here, obviously they aren't ever going to make it as a real junglejack. The guild won't accept them."

  "Oh, I see. We don't need competitions in mastclimbing, to become riverwomen. We just do it."

  "The river's softer than the ground."

  "Decks aren't. And don't forget the stingers!"

  "Well, that's how they do things here. See: the jungle-guild marshals are watching what goes on, but they won't interfere."

  "It seems a bit barbaric." Was it any more of a peculiar ordeal than having to drink a slug of the black current? A slug which might drive you mad? Less, perhaps. Less.

  We were debating the pros and cons over cups of cool blue perry which we'd bought from a nearby stall, when Jambi broke off. She squinted and shaded her eyes.

  "Isn't that Marcialla up the tree?"

  I stared across the clearing. Marcialla, indeed. High high up, swinging freely to and fro on a trapeze. No safety nets of webvine were hung beneath.

  "Why does she want to show off? Surely she isn't thinking of quitting the water for the woods at her age?"

  Marcialla's posture was . . . peculiar. The tiny distant figure sat immobile, with her fists clenched round the ropes. Her legs and her head weren't moving in proper time with the motion of the trapeze.

  And when the trapeze finally swung to a standstill, Marcialla would be marooned high over a gulf of nothing.

  At that moment I noticed three figures hastening through the crowd over to our left. They were heading away in the direction of the old town. One was blonde and big and very familiar. The other two were hooded. I couldn't distinguish their Port Barbra features, but something about the way one of them moved and clutched briefly at Credence to say something convinced me that she was the fortune-teller. For all I knew she might have been in the Jingle- Jangle too, a few nights earlier! Then the crowd hid the trio.

  In a flash I knew exactly what was going on. (Yes indeed, the signal-mirror had just flashed an urgent message in my mind!)

  "Jambi, don't ask questions—it's too urgent. You must do this for me: run back to the docks as fast as you can. Round up any crew you see—and secure Marcialla's cabin! Whatever you do, don't let Credence into it. Particularly if she has any strangers with her. Women in hoods."

  "Eh? But I can't forbid—"

  "Trust me. Do it!" And I set off at a sprint across the clearing.

  I climbed that dead tree by rope ladder, as far as a notch where the main trunk forked. Here was the platform from which Marcialla must
have been launched, but this was no use to me at all; Marcialla was way out of reach by now. The trapeze came less close to its starting point on each return swing. At least Marcialla hadn't fallen yet: she still sat propped on her seat like a life-sized doll.

  A single knotted rope led higher up—thirty or forty spans higher —to where a lateral branch of considerable girth left the trunk. It was pointing in the right direction, but so many spans above. Craning my neck, I could see more rope lying on the branch, the coils bulging over like a nesting snake. One end appeared to be fastened by snap-link to a wood-piton driven deep into the trunk itself.

  Quite how I managed the rest of the ascent I'll never know. It wasn't like climbing up a mast at all. For me there has always been a certain feeling of elasticity about climbing a mast. Because a mast is rooted in a floating boat. There's a sense that your activities up a mast produce a certain slight reaction in the mast itself. No doubt this is perfectly illusory! Otherwise boats would tip over as soon as a few women swarmed into the rigging. But this tree felt like rock, rooted in rock.

  At last I reached the branch which I was aiming for, and scrambled on to it, legs astride, beside the waiting rope. I was relieved to see other pitons set at intervals along the branch; otherwise I don't know how I could have tied the rope to it, given its girth. Unclipping the snap-link, I hoisted the coils over my head on to my shoulders. All coiled up, that rope was quite some weight.

  Shuffling my thighs forward as fast as I dared, I soon arrived at a piton positioned above the midpoint of Marcialla's swing, and attached the snap-link again.

  She was only swaying to and fro quite gently by now. The wooden bar of her seat was hardly a very substantial one; and I feared that she was in even more danger. While she had still been swinging fairly vigorously, sheer force of momentum may have adjusted her balance and even lessened her apparent weight. Soon there would only be gravity pulling at her. Pulling down.

  Down. Much too far below the hard ground waited. . . .

  How did one abseil down through mid-air? I'd watched enough junglejacks doing it that very afternoon! One of them had gripped the rope with his feet and had slid down while standing upright. Another had wound it around one thigh; and a third fellow around both thighs, with the free end tossed over his shoulder. Those two had descended as if they were sitting in a chair. The fastest junglejack of all, a woman, had simply slipped the rope through her crotch, under one buttock and up over her neck.

  I settled on the double thigh rappel. It had looked reasonably safe, and within my ability. Laying the coil across the branch before me, I let out spare rope and looped this around my thighs and over my shoulder.

  I realized that I couldn't just toss the rest of the coil overboard. I might knock Marcialla off her perch, and so undo everything. So I paid the rope down; and it was just as well that I did. By the time I had let it all down I knew that the weight of it, tumbling all at once, could easily have yanked me off my branch.

  The end of the rope was fairly near the ground; though from as high up as this it was hard to gauge "fairly near". Ten spans short? Fifteen, even?

  Then I went over the side.

  Almost, I tipped backwards out of the rope; but I recovered myself. And now the rope squeezed me like a tourniquet. It gripped my breeches so tightly that far from tending to slide down like greased lightning, to my surprise I could hardly move at all. But then I recalled how the junglejack using this particular rappel had seemed to hump himself up "in the saddle" when letting out slack, so that he lowered himself jerk by jerk. I did so too. Down I went, bit by bit: dropping, jerked to a halt, dropping again.

  It wasn't too far to the trapeze seat. I caught hold as gently as I could, steadied it, transferred my hold to Marcialla.

  I was face to face with her, staring right into her eyes. She hardly blinked at all. Her pupils were dilated. Her lips moved slightly but she said no words—she only uttered a long moan. Perhaps this was a word, after all. But she was taking too much time over it.

  I said slowly, "I'm taking you down. Let go of the ropes. Let go."

  For a while she seemed to be holding on as tightly as before.

  "They gave you the fungus drug," I said. "The drug that stops time. I know they did. Let go. You'll be safe." No doubt this was a wildly optimistic promise. But there was no alternative.

  Not at the time. It did occur to me later on that a better and less adventurous bet might have been to persuade some of the jun- gleguild marshals that what was going on up the tree was far from ordinary; and so have them send experienced climbers aloft. But at the time I was remembering what Jambi had said about marshals not interfering. Besides, I knew what had been said in the Jingle-Jangle; they didn't. And then again, this seemed to me to be a riverguild matter.

  Slowly Marcialla's grip did slacken. Maybe she had been sending signals to tell her fingers to unlock ever since I reached her. At last she came away—and thank the River that she wasn't any heavyweight! I hauled her awkwardly across my lap. The rope kept her pressed to my chest and tummy.

  Now I had to heave our combined weight up while paying spare rope over my shoulder. When I slid, my right hand had to act as brake and anchor overhead.

  It took a long time to descend. And it was a descent into worse and worse pain.

  By the time we reached the bottom of the rope I could have screamed. My right arm was almost out of joint. My hand was rubbed raw and bloody; it hurt as if I'd held it in a fire. If Capsi had felt one half of this pain throughout his body ... I put the thought away.

  Even at the bottom of the rope I was still too high. Not too high to stop me from jumping and landing springily—if I'd been on my own. I wasn't. First I would have had to drop Marcialla like a sack of potatoes.

  Luckily by now someone had realized that this wasn't just a spectacular display of amateur treetop-rescue. Marshals appeared beneath, stretching out a web-vine net.

  "Let go of her! We'll catch!"

  I did. And they did too; then they hurried the sagging net aside. I hung slumped in the rappel, letting my agonized right hand relax at last. Quickly they bundled Marcialla out of the net and stretched it again, for me.

  "You, now! Drop!"

  So I paid the last few spans over my shoulder, and fell. They caught me, lowered me quickly.

  They had laid Marcialla on the ground. A marshal was kneeling by her, feeling her pulse. He looked puzzled that she was so obviously wide awake, but didn't move. A whole crowd had gathered round—foremost among whom I now spotted Lalo and Kish.

  "Your friend over there," began one of the marshals, nodding in Lalo's direction, "she—"

  Lalo ran forward.

  "Thanks, Lalo!" I cried. I would have embraced her, except that my palm was running with blood.

  "It's one way of making contact in a crowd, I'll say that! Your poor hand, Yaleen. What's it all about?"

  "No time to tell! I must take Marcialla back to her boat, right now."

  "It's the first aid tent for you," insisted the marshal.

  "No!" Then I really looked at my hand. "Yes. I suppose so. Will you two come with me?" I asked Lalo. "Will you help me get her back to the riverfront?"

  Naturally enough, there were questions from the officials. But I bluffed my way through these as best I could while they were busy cleaning and anointing and bandaging me. Someone mentioned drug trances, but I pointed out that Marcialla obviously wasn't from Port Barbra. She was given to crippling attacks of vertigo, I said—which explained nothing: neither how she could possibly be a riverwoman, nor how she had got up the tree in the first place. However, they let me get away with my blatant lies. I think they had plenty of other business to attend to.

  Briefly Lalo, Kish and I debated the best way to shift Marcialla: borrow a stretcher, carry her between us, or what? I couldn't help much with my bandaged aching hand. Finally Kish hoisted Marcialla and slung her over his shoulder in a fireman's lift.

  So, though not as swiftly as I would have like
d, we returned to the old town. On the way there I swore Kish and Lalo to secrecy, and satisfied as much of their curiosity as I dared.

  When we did at last get back to the Spry Goose, about an hour later, we found a strange situation indeed. Jambi had had the wit to pull up the gangplank—something which I hadn't thought of in the heat of the moment. She and two other crew members were guarding the gunwales with belaying pins clutched in their fists; though it did look as though their confidence was waning rapidly, as the prospect loomed of an ignominious beaching for life. For boatswain Credence was berating them from the dockside, as were three other crew- women who had turned up in the meantime. These were innocent of what was really going on; to them it looked like a mutiny. And meanwhile the two Port Barbra women slunk in the background shadows, scarved and hooded. It was growing dark rapidly. Lamps had already been lit along the waterfront.

  The situation clarified itself almost as soon as we hove in sight. Kish set Marcialla down, though he still had to balance her. The Port Barbrans whispered to one another, then took to their heels. After some hesitation—teetering between the chance of brazening it out further, and the prospect of what would realistically happen once Marcialla had regained her faculties—Credence shrugged and strode away; though with a show of dignity, I'll give her that.

  The gangplank rattled down again on to the stone quay. Jambi and her two stalwarts looked mightily relieved.

  We helped Marcialla slowly back on board her command. Shortly after that, the first rocket exploded high above the jungle, showering red and silver stars.

  By midnight the distant pyrotechnics were all over, but ours were just commencing. Marcialla had speeded up. She rushed around her cabin, chattering, peering out of the porthole, pulling things out of drawers and stuffing them back in again, unlocking and relocking cupboards, scribbling illegibly on sheet after sheet of paper. We had to take the log-book off her to stop her from defacing it.

  She sat down, she leapt up. She demanded hot snacks and more hot snacks, which a groaning cook provided, bleary-eyed, and which Marcialla wolfed down.