by Dana Marton
“I will,” I assured him. “I might look the same.”
He chuckled, and I smiled into the darkness. Despite my misgivings, having food in my stomach again made me feel a little better, a little warmer.
The spirits be praised, Batumar’s stomach did not heave up the milk. Maybe the camel merchant had been right and the milk did have some medicinal value. I hoped I could ask somebody about that again someday.
“Will there be camels where we are going, my lord?”
“There will be camels aplenty.”
Reassured of that, I tried to sleep some, but sleep was impossible.
“How do you feel?” Batumar asked after a while.
I opened my eyes. “As if someone had stuffed me in a barrel and rolled me down a mountain.”
I feared we had not seen the worst yet. I feared what would happen when we did.
Then a loud banging came on our door, and Pek shouted, “Up on deck! We have a loose sail.”
Batumar went at once, leaving his fur cloak with me.
“I shall go too.” I tried to move after him, releasing the restraints that held me in place.
“No.”
“I am a good climber.”
But his voice hardened. “I will not allow it.”
The door opened, then closed. I dropped back onto the potato sacks and prayed to the spirits to keep him.
I no longer tried to sleep. Every time I heard footfalls nearby, I hoped he was returning. But a full day passed before he came back to me, wet and half-frozen, shaking with exhaustion.
He drank the rest of the camel milk and ate some bread and cheese. I held him close to my body afterward to warm him.
From then on, he spent more time on deck than he did in our cabin, and each time he came back more drained. He had a potato bag open and was lining up potatoes on the small square of floor that stood empty. He kept track of the stars every time he went up at night and was trying to map our journey by them, in case he could not buy the Ishafi pirate to lead the Landrian navy on the way back.
We spent some time memorizing the potato jumble, not easily done, as the potatoes rolled around, then disappeared each night when the rats came to scavenge. Then I had the idea to stitch the map into the lining of Batumar’s cloak. That way we could take it with us when we left the ship.
Ten days of misery did we spend in the storm, growing weaker and weaker in body and spirit. I despaired for ever seeing the sky again. Then suddenly, on the morning of the eleventh day, the storm noticeably quieted.
Leaning on each other, we staggered up on deck. I was hoping to see land, but we saw no such thing, just endless gray waves.
Most of the pirates were on deck. The captain was inspecting the ship for damage. We had two loose sails, and some rigging was missing.
“How many men?” the captain snapped at his second in command, a one-eyed man called Grun.
“Twelve overboard.” Grun shrugged. “And Drunkard Pete.”
“He was half a man, anyway,” another pirate joked.
But the captain did not laugh. He ordered the men to hasten the repairs. “The storm will hit us again.”
The tiger roared below deck. Then I heard a goat’s bleating, and soon after, the tiger quieted.
The merchant and the children did not come up that first day, but we saw them the day after. Once again, the little beggars huddled around their master. They looked worse than before, if possible, sitting on the deck listless and beaten. But the little girl no longer coughed.
The merchant was looking at the damaged rigging the pirates were busy fixing. He was probably wondering, same as I, whether repairs could be made in time. The loose sails still had to be rolled tightly back up before the storm returned, or the winds would shred them and possibly tear the ship apart in the process.
At least the sail hung flat at the moment. The wind had died completely. The captain paced the length of the schooner, his hands folded behind his back, his face to the sky, his eyes searching the horizon without rest.
He stopped by us for a moment, and I hoped for some encouraging news, but instead, he said most gravely, “We’re in the lull, the dead wind. Aye. Breaks apart more ships than the storms. Some get stuck fer a mooncrossin’ or more. Men starve. They go mad.”
Chapter Eight
(The Lull)
The schooner sat in the lull for twelve long days, adrift. The potato sacks disappeared one by one to feed the crew. When we were down to the last quarter, the captain ordered the rationing of food and water.
The men growled and snapped. So did the tiger, whose last two goats the crew ate.
We could have slept now, the sea smooth, but we were too hungry. And at night, the rats attacked. We had but dry bread and some apples left and were determined not to lose them. Batumar guarded our food sack like gold treasure.
One night, he killed a full dozen rats with his dagger. In the morning, I fed them to the tiger. Two pirates saw me and looked at me with such hate that I shrunk back.
In another two days, we ran out of the last of the food. Two days after that, we ran out of water.
“There are fewer and fewer rats,” I said to Batumar one morning. He had caught only three during the night.
“The crew is eating them,” he said.
As my stomach growled, I could not blame them.
The captain ordered the empty oak barrels brought on top so we could catch any rain should it come, but the spirits did not send any clouds our way.
The men talked of sacrificing the tiger to their sea god. The captain forbade it. They shouted at each other in one language, then another. Then punches swung. At the end, the captain ran one of his men through with his curved sword. The others stalked away, leaving the body where it lay.
By the next morning, the body was gone. Most of the men were abovedecks. I counted fifty-five or so as they came and went. The storm had taken over a dozen.
Three more days passed. The tiger roared without stop. I no longer had rats to feed her.
At least two dozen men had lines in the water, but so far, nobody had caught a single fish.
The pirates stopped talking about sacrificing the tiger. They started talking about eating the tiger and sacrificing one of the children.
“Give us the little one,” the one-eyed man, Grun, demanded loudly as he stood in front of the merchant. At least a dozen pirates stood behind him, their faces and stances brimming with menace.
“No,” Batumar said under his breath next to me before I could have pushed to my feet. We were sitting by the empty barrels, with me leaning against him for heat. His arm, a band of steel, came around me to hold me in place.
I could but watch as the merchant unfolded his long frame and stood in front of his merchandise. Instead of a broadsword like Batumar’s, he had a narrow rapier at his side, about the length of his arm.
He pulled it from its scabbard, the metal glinting in the gloomy light. “The little beggars are mine.”
The one-eyed pirate was the largest of the bunch, heavyset. Muscles bulged from under his worn wool tunic. He stepped toward the merchant and attacked without warning.
His great curved sword was much heavier than the rapier, and far more deadly looking. But the merchant danced out of death’s way over and over again as they fought.
More pirates gathered around to watch, while others stayed at the side of the ship with their fishing lines, holding out against all hope, half-mad with hunger.
As the merchant fought on, I could feel Batumar’s muscles tighten, relax, tighten again, as if he too was fighting.
I wanted him to help the merchant save the little girl, even if the merchant’s motive was less than noble. He was only protecting his profits. But if Batumar joined the fight on the merchant’s side, the rest of the pirates would join their mate.
Just the two men fighting was the best we could hope for. The merchant and Batumar could not kill all the pirates. And if they did, there would be nobody to sail the ship
once the storms circled back to us again.
The little fair-haired girl looked at me with fright in her eyes.
I smiled at her with encouragement and reached out toward her. Come.
She broke away without warning and scampered to me, stopping quickly before we would have touched, huddling down by my feet. Then the rest of the children followed a moment later, all in a frightened bunch, as if indeed they were roped together.
That gave the merchant more room to move, and the fight picked up speed.
I glanced toward the captain. Would he not stop the fight? But, in the prow of the ship, he seemed otherwise occupied, looking at his charts and instruments, calculating something.
The two men kept on hacking at each other as the children watched with wide-eyed fear. None came close enough to me to touch, but close enough to place themselves under our protection, should the swordplay turn out badly for the merchant.
Since I could not help the duel or the children, I turned my attention to the men fishing. Maybe I could at least cause a distraction. I closed my eyes and reached out with my spirit, looking for the spirits of the fish under the water.
I did not find any.
I reached farther, sending my silent song along the waves. Oh little sisters, oh little brothers, hear our plight. We are starving, little friends. Will you not help? The sea feeds you. Please give us nourishment today. We beg you for this noble sacrifice. Little sisters, little brothers, come to us, please.
I sang my song over and over while swords clanged and clattered a short distance away.
And then suddenly a man shouted, “Fish!”
Then another. “Fish!”
In but a moment, they were laughing and cursing, yanking silver fish up on deck one after the other until they had enough to fill a barrel.
The fight stopped as Grun abandoned the merchant in favor of food. Both men were bleeding, but neither was mortally wounded. My first thought, of course, was to heal.
Batumar flashed me a hard look.
I flashed my best hard look back, but he was right. I was so weak from hunger, had I taken any injuries upon me, I wouldn’t have lived. If the captain ordered, I would have to help, but the captain, like his men, was too distracted by the sudden appearance of food.
Some of the fish were eaten raw, the men mangling them like animals. Then, after the first rush, they began gutting them and skinning them, frying the meat on the braziers that were brought up on deck and lit.
During the storms, we had no fire on the ship, but now, with the calmer seas, the captain had allowed heat once again.
We had nothing to trade for food, but he allowed us some fish nevertheless, his eyes narrowed as he watched me. His one tooth flashed black as he spoke. “I’ve ne’er seen fish in a lull.”
I smiled at him innocently, as even Batumar looked at me with suspicion.
The merchant had taken his charges belowdecks and carried food to them, one whole grilled fish wrapped in an empty potato sack. They did not return for the remainder of the day, but they came up again the day after that.
Fish kept coming. I thanked them for their sacrifice, and thanked the spirits as well for their kindness.
But by the end of that following day, I was beginning to think that calling the fish might not have been the wisest act. The small fish—the size of a man’s arm—were followed by the bigger fish that hunted them. Dark fins filled the water.
Then the big fish were followed by even larger fish that hunted those. They jostled our ship almost as badly as the storm, as if the Doomed was a mere boat. They crashed into us so hard at times in the feeding frenzy that I worried they would break the hull. Even the captain was casting concerned looks toward the water.
I did not think matters could get much worse, but then, in the dim light of dusk, the great fish came.
Its glistening black bulk, many times the size of a whale, rose out of the water slowly, like an island. If Rabeen had indeed been built on the back of a fish, it was one like this, I thought, dazed.
Some of the pirates stared with mouths agape; others ran down below. One man jumped into the sea on the other side of the ship and tried to swim away from us. His screams echoed off our limp sails as the finned predators of the sea devoured him.
No one paid his death struggle any attention. We were all transfixed by the great fish that rose from the waves until he was taller than our ship, its two monstrous eyes staring at us unblinking.
Then suddenly the pirates ran, all toward the hatch that led below deck, some still with sword in hand, beating others out of the way, some of their mates tossing their swords and cowering.
I stood still, my limbs frozen by the sight of the giant monster in the sea, my mind furiously churning. I had reached out to the little fish. Could I reach this one?
I tried to feel what it felt, see what it saw, think what it thought. I tried to feel the cold water that half submerged its great body, as if I was submerged myself. I tried to feel the intermittent, slight breeze on my back, tried to see our ship the way the monster saw us as he stared blankly at us.
Since I was in the prow of the ship, I was closest to him. Batumar stood with his sword drawn next to me. On my other side, the merchant came up with the children, his rapier in hand.
I sang silently in my heart to the monster. Oh great lord, forgive us for disturbing your kingdom. Great lord, please let us pass in peace. I sang and sang, putting my very heart into every word.
I could heal men and animals with my spirit, but I could only reach animals with my spirit songs. Animals were pure in spirit, knew no hate or treachery. They wanted to eat, and they wanted to live. For the most part, their hearts were quiet. Not so with men drawn forward by all the things they endlessly wanted. They wanted those things so much and so loudly, they could not hear my spirit songs.
I hoped and prayed fervently that the great monster could hear me.
And maybe he did, because he suddenly sank into the sea, splashing up a wave so tall it nearly overturned our ship. We all fell to the planks and hung on to each other, Batumar to me so I would not be swept overboard, while I clung to some of the children, and their master hung on to the others.
By the time we scrambled to our knees, sopping wet and freezing, the great monster had vanished.
And the other fish went with him.
But that night, we had some rain, enough to fill a handful of water barrels when poured together.
For many days, our fortunes were restored and peace ruled the ship. But the wind would not rise, and soon days of hunger came again. Men were fighting, arguing night and day.
“They will turn against the captain soon,” Batumar said as we lay in our cabin one night, starved again and weak. “If there is a fight and something happens to me, stay close to the merchant.”
This I did not promise. Nothing was going to happen to Batumar. If he was injured in a fight, I would heal him, even if I had to give my very life for his.
And I would never put myself under the power of the merchant. Never.
In any case, mutiny was averted. The next morning, the hardstorms returned. We were once again all too busy, from one day to the next, fighting for survival.
I prayed that the spirits would let us see the end of our journey.
Chapter Nine
(Back into the Storm)
Days passed, nights, sometimes with Batumar, sometimes without. Once again, he helped abovedecks as much as he could. We were all weak from hunger, but at least his shipsickness diminished.
I lost track of time. Most days were as dark as the nights. The roar of the storms was near constant. In the rare pauses, sometimes I could hear the tiger roar or a child scream.
I feared the children were sick, so while Batumar was abovedecks, I tripped and rolled myself to the merchant’s cabin one day, banging on the door until he opened it.
I had heard the children call him Graho up on deck, so I greeted him as such.
He gave a small bo
w. “My lady.”
“Mistress Onra.” Courtesy demanded that I give him my name.
His head was uncovered at last, and, for the first time, I could see his face, although not much of it. Barely any light came through the porthole, but I saw enough to know that he had a terrible face, all hard lines, his eyes rimmed with dark circles, his chin too sharp, his nose too big.
The front of his shirt was covered in vomit, although what he or the children could heave up, I did not know. All we had was rainwater we had collected, but we were running out of even that, back on water rations.
“Do you need my help?” I asked. “I freely give it.”
“They are frightened,” he said after a tense moment. “They cannot sleep from the hunger and the storm. And when they can sleep—” He looked away. “They sleep poorly.”
I looked at the missing ears and the cut-off fingers, the burn scars. A little boy of seven or so was missing an eye. The children had plenty of material for nightmares. I blamed the merchant for all their afflictions, which, in the interest of him letting me stay with the children, I did not say.
Even in my miserable state, I was so angry at him, I could barely look at him.
I wanted to step by him with my head held high, but as I stepped inside the room, the ship rolled and tossed me to the floor. I did not bother to rise.
The children gathered around me, some even close enough this time so their arms or legs touched against mine. I was sure they missed their mothers. I was a grown woman, and I missed my mother still.
“Do you have a candle?” I asked the merchant.
He shook his head. “We had tallow candles. We ate them.”
I nodded. We had eaten ours when we had found them at last. Tallow was animal fat. During the storms, the ship tossed by waves and battered by winds without stop, the candles could not be lit anyway.
“Do you have a water flask?” I asked next.
He nodded and handed it to me.
I added the right herbs to settle stomachs, then handed the flask back to him. “Warm it against your skin.”