Relics

by Pip Vaughan-Hughes

  Once some sort of order had returned to the Cormaran it became clear that we would have to pay for our jollity. In many ways life aboard a ship resembles that of a monastery, and that perhaps was one reason why I felt so at home on the sea. It is a self-sufficient community of men in which a life of labour is regulated by bells. There is always much to be done, but on ship as in monastery, idle hands are the greatest danger to order and work must be found for them. I spent my boyhood scrubbing floors and polishing wood at the abbey, and now I found that my days passed in much the same way. So it was with mounting panic that we stood, fouled with scales and blood, and regarded the chaos we had wrought.

  The deck was creamy with the trodden guts and mashed corpses of fish. Many survived to be pickled, and the rest went overboard. Fafner emerged from below, his whiskers fairly trembling with excitement. A cloud of seabirds appeared as if from nowhere to feast on the oily, stinking trail that the Cormaran dragged like a slug across the pristine sea. We set to work sluicing everything down with sea-water, then scouring the deck with sand and stones. It was somewhat purgatorial, as the sun heated everything to the rotting point almost straight away, and we laboured in a rich fetor of putrescence. Black slime had to be scraped from almost every surface. In the end we had to scatter lye, which made our eyes water, and wash ourselves down with sour wine, but it was days before the ship - and its cat — lost its pungency.

  Meanwhile, fish had come to feed on the debris in our wake, and greater fish to feed upon the smaller ones. A shout from the steering deck brought me running, grateful for a respite from my scouring-stone. Nizam was pointing down into the water, and Anna, who had wisely taken refuge up here after starting the melee, was bouncing on her bare toes with excitement - or perhaps fear, for when I followed Nizam's finger I saw a strange and wonderful sight. Great silver-grey fish, the size of dolphins, were roiling and thrashing on the surface, seemingly driven mad by the mackerel blood. 'Sharks,' someone beside me said, awe in his voice. Now I understood why sailors fear that beast above all others. I saw little fish disappearing into wide, toothy maws; pointed heads lash at water, at other sharks, even at the seagulls who hovered just overhead. Then Anna let out a scream of real terror and a couple of the crew stepped back abruptly from the rail. A monstrous grey shape had scythed into the churning pack. It seemed as big as two oxen stood nose to tail, and its jaws gaped wide as a door, all studded about with a thicket of curved, needle-pointed teeth. But the monster's eyes were the worst: two black sockets that seemed to open onto night itself. No expression was there, no glimmer, no sign that any spark of life dwelt inside that merciless head. Instead it seemed driven by remorseless hatred for all that moved. It fought briefly with the other sharks, turning the water into a red ferment, and when they had fled or died it turned its appalling eye on us and drove straight for the rudder. There was a thud, the deck shook and Nizam went sprawling. The tiller juddered. Then the monster was gone, sunk to whatever bleak depth it claimed as its kingdom. I turned to find reassurance in a human face, to wipe away the memory of those empty eyes, and saw that Anna, in her fear, had pressed herself close against Will.

  I could not get the memory of it out of my head. All the rest of that long day I scrubbed the deck like a madman, until my hands were numb with the constant grating. But my mind was anything but numbed. So recently dead within my skull, it had awakened and was buzzing like a nest of wasps, yellow as the gall of jealousy I could all but taste upon my tongue. Had I troubled to consult Isaac, he could have told me that the melancholic black bile that had devilled me had been driven out by an excess of yellow bile - so out of balance had my body become that I had begun to swing, like a pendulum, from one extremity to another - and this choleric humour was now driving me helplessly before it. I think he saw us all as a collection of vessels more or less full of foul or fair liquids, to be topped up or drained at his discretion. But foolishly I did not seek him out, and instead allowed the image that had painted clear upon my inner eye - Anna leaning into Will's side - to grow and grow until it became first a glowing Veronica, then a gigantic thing that filled my world as. if it were painted on the sail itself. In truth, what had I seen?

  Nothing more than the simplest urge for protection against an all-devouring fear, and had I not felt the same thing myself? But the grand Veronica of my jealous fancy was my work and mine alone, and like any painter I began to add details: had Anna's hand reached for Will's? In my mind's eye it had. Anna's face: had she turned it to Will, helpless, beseeching? Certainly. Had a look passed between them, secret, complicit? Yes, hell's shark-toothed mouth swallow them both, yes.

  I laboured through another white-hot day, then another, and dreamed bitter dreams each night. Finally I woke to cooler weather with a steady wind out of the west, and caught my first sight of Corsica to starboard. As we drew closer, the island seemed a great wall of stone topped by a head of white cloud. By midday it had resolved itself into a jagged collection of mountain peaks, among which the vaporous clouds seethed and twined. Towns lay under those peaks, apparently, although the thought of living in such a forbidding place made me shudder. Nizam pointed out Calvi and the Red Isle, and with some difficulty we turned our course north-north-east.

  'The wind is fickle in this sea,' Zianni told me. Like many of the crew, Zianni had lived the life of a pirate before chance brought him aboard the Cormaran. He came from a noble Venetian family but had killed a magistrate in a brawl and had fled from the Doge's executioner. He had robbed his way up and down the Italian coast with a gang of Istrian corsairs, fought with the Catalan mercenaries in the islands we had sailed past a few days before and cast in his lot with the Cormaran after dabbling with honesty in Valencia had reduced him to beggardom.

  'The wind at our backs is the libeccio,' he said now. 'It blows through here like a bastard this time of year. See those clouds over the island? We'll have thunder tonight, for certain, and then enough wind to blow us to Pisa and half-way over the mountains beyond.'

  He was right. As we coasted up towards Cap Corse, the sea grew darker and the clouds seemed to boil over and fill the whole sky. It was after midnight when we rounded the cape, the whole crew on deck, and a few minutes later the sky caught fire. I had never seen such lightning. It spun across the sky like the spokes of an infernal cartwheel and stabbed the sea all around us. I felt the thunder from the soles of my feet to the teeth that rattled in my head. The wind hit us so hard that the Cormaran heeled over to starboard, and those who did not have a tight hold on rope or spar were sent flying into the bilges. We scrambled in the deep darkness - lit every few seconds by light that seemed brighter and fiercer than the sun - to reef the sail, and soon we were flying on a broad reach across the seething waters. The lightning flailed above us, bursts of light freezing us in the midst of our frenzied work, branding fleeting impressions onto my eyes so that, whether they were open or closed, I saw wild faces, pale madmen bathed in blazing quicksilver.

  There was no sleep that night, nor the next morning. We had only twenty or so leagues to cover from Cap Corse to the mouth of the Arno, and again Zianni's prediction came true. On our broad reach, the libeccio screeching onto our port side, we raised the Italian coast soon after ten bells. But soon after that, the wind dropped and the storm pulled its rags from the sky. By this time we were near enough to land to see the reedy mouths of the Arno and, beyond it, the distant outline of the city itself. We were not alone on the sea: ships of all description were plying in and out of the river, and I could not help noticing a new, tense vigilance in the faces of the Captain and Gilles. I was just wondering if I could snatch a few minutes of sleep when Gilles beckoned me to his side on the steering deck.

  'Do you wish to see Pisa? Good, for you are coming ashore with us,' he said, leaving me no time to protest. 'Find your friend and make the gig ready.' He must have caught sight of something in my eyes, for he went on: Tour friend Will. He will be coming as well.'

  I did not care whether I saw Pisa or no, but I k
eenly did not want Will's company. Nevertheless I gritted my teeth and dragged myself over to where he sat, helping Dimitri in his endless task of keeping the salt sea from devouring our weapons. It did not improve my mood to see the look of almost doggy pleasure he gave me at the news.

  'Let's get to it, then,' I said briskly, in case he tried to talk to me. Turning on my heel I stalked off aft climbing up on the rail to skirt the stern castle. The gig would be full of water from the storm and heavy, I thought, angrily. I already had hold of the painter and was pulling at it, watching the gig bob happily in the Cormaran's wake and noting that it was, indeed, much heavier than usual, when Will dropped down beside me and clapped his hands over mine. We gave an experimental heave.

  'She's a heavy one,' said Will brightly.

  'How surprising,' I returned, so coldly I wondered I could not see my breath.

  'So lay on, Patch!' he chattered. 'Lay on! It is a beautiful day - God's nails, that storm! — and we are going ashore in sinful Pisa. Is Pisa sinful? I hope so. All cities are sinful, somewhat, eh, Patch?'

  'For fuck's sake stop your prating and pull the sodding rope!' I snapped.

  What's wrong with you?'

  'Nothing's wrong. We need to shut up and work. I don't want to do this, so let us get it over with.'

  'No, wait, Patch. You have been acting like a basket of bad eggs since we came through the Pillars. What is going on?'

  Will had both hands on my shoulders. I cringed, and loosened my hold on the rope. It shot through my hand, burning it, before I snatched it away with a curse and turned back to my torturer.

  'I do not understand why you had to come back at all,' I yelled at him, spittle forming on my lips. Why did you? You have . . . you have pushed me aside!'

  'How? How have I pushed you aside, Patch, and from what, pray?'

  'From the life I had made for myself here. From my friends. I feel like a corpse - no, no, I feel like your bloody shadow, you bastard!'

  'Shadow be fucked. I ask again: pushed you aside from what? No, let us rather say, from whom?' 'From the Captain,' I muttered. 'No, that is not it. Try again.'

  'I don't know. Gilles. Dimitri. My friends - everyone!' 'Everyone? Is there anyone in particular whom you feel I have . . .'

  I slammed my hand down on the rail, and turned to him, teeth clenched in fury. 'Look, Will, you know who I mean. You certainly know. Don't make me fucking say it!'

  'I'll say it for you. Anna.'

  I believe my hand would have gone to Thorn at that moment, but Will knew my mind better than I knew it myself, and laid his hand gently over mine on the rail. If I had expected to see triumph in his face I was disappointed. He was watching me soberly, carefully. Then he held up a finger and kept it there between our two faces.

  'Anna - yes? I am right, and please don't say anything. You think too much, brother. You always did. Back at college you were always thinking, while I was out fucking or brawling. You envied me, and I confess I envied you somewhat too. Patch, we both should have fucked and thought in equal measure, but we did not, alas: look where it's got us. And yes, you know my ways and suspect the worst. But you are wrong. Wenches . . . wenches like me because, mostly, they don't do too much thinking and they like a lad who tends to put his dick before his brains. And that's always served me well. But I am not the fool you imagine me to be. Not quite. Your Princess Anna ... I like her very well, boy. But she is not, Brother Petroc, what I would call a wench. She thinks all the time! And although she likes me well enough - I make her laugh, fiddlededee! I make her blush, for shame! - it is something of a sisterly affection.'

  He laughed with no trace of humour. We were staring into each other's eyes like two tomcats ill-met on a roof. Still his finger did not waver before my face.

  'Do you understand what I am telling you?' he said, finally.

  'She won't let you fuck her,' I answered, every word soaked in livid yellow bile.

  Will took a deep breath and bit his lip.

  'She doesn't want me to fuck her, you little shit. She wants—' and suddenly his finger was stabbing into me below my breastbone. You. She wants you. Is that clear enough?'

  'She doesn't! She does not!' I heard my voice rise to an unpleasant shout. 'She dodges me like a leper! I might as well be ringing a fucking bell! But you, she's all over you, isn't she?'

  Yes, and do you know what she talks to me about? Day in, day out? You. Bloody Patch this, that and the fucking other. I am so happy that you are miserable, brother, for I am just as miserable as you, and Anna, sweet Anna, is more miserable than the two of us put together. I am going off my head, Patch! My life ... I am living under a great grey rain cloud that drenches me day in, day out with its pitiful bloody sorrow.'

  My head was spinning, and I could feel the wine I had drunk and how it was weighing me down. I did not want to listen to Will any more. I could not bear to listen to what he was telling me. For if he was right, then my own actions ... I tried to clear my head. Will's face came into focus as if for the first time in weeks. He looked dreadfully tired and old. I felt ancient myself. All at once the bitter humours that had been choking me drained away like vinegar leaving a broken keg. I was myself again, feeling my skin like a long-abandoned set of clothes. I felt a bit sick, and worse, much worse, I knew I had made a complete, unforgivable and unredeemable idiot of myself. My burnt hand stung, but I grabbed the painter and tugged at it feebly. I could not bring myself to look at Will, so instead I began to mumble, watching the gig merrily defy me.

  'She can't possibly want me, brother,' I began. 'But thank you for saying she does. It . . . anyway, a noble attempt, and I am in your debt for it.'

  Will sighed heavily. He leaned far out over the rail so that I was forced to meet his eyes again.

  'Listen to me,' he said. 'I do not know - much less care, you understand - what has passed between you two sour creatures. But I do know women a little, and it is plain that there has been a misunderstanding. Or rather more than that, I'll grant you. The truth of it is, she does not hate you, but she is certain - deathly certain - that you loath her, and that is the canker that gnaws at her. How fitting that it should gnaw you as well.'

  'Oh, Christ,' I moaned.

  ‘You have been cold towards her since the fight in Bordeaux.'

  'No, no, she has been cold to me! Since she came to me, all bloody when I was trying to wash myself. . .' Suddenly everything was horribly clear. I beat the rail with both fists, and the gig sped backwards through the wake yet again.

  'Ah, ha. She disgusted you.'

  'No!'

  'Understandable, all stinking and covered with blood like that. But that—' and he was smiling now, '—that is the only thing that I do understand. She is . . . she's a fucking princess, Patch, and she is arse over tit in love with you, you worthless Dartmoor sheep-shagger. That, my brother, is the greatest mystery of all.'

  I fear I overwhelmed Will with the force of my embrace and the hot tears that soaked into his tunic, but he was good enough not to say anything, except to stifle my litany of contrition. I believe it was then that he truly returned to life for me, and as we finally mastered the gig and made it fast alongside the Cormaran we were both cackling and chattering like tannery sparrows.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I

  barely noticed as we tied up among the grey marble buildings of Pisa, and Zianni slipped ashore to disappear into the crowd. Gilles had to grab us both to break into our merriment, telling us to arm ourselves and put on our best clothes. It was time to find out what awaited us on shore. There was some great and mysterious scheme afoot, it was plainly written in the tension with which the Captain and Gilles held themselves. They paced the deck like two great coursing hounds waiting for the off, and remained distracted and close-lipped as we rowed towards the bustling quays of the Republic. I was a little surprised when the Captain clapped a filthy old travelling hat on Will's head and sent him off ahead of us.

  I should have been swept away by the noise and
the energy of this city and these people, who chattered away like starlings as they bought and sold, strutted and embraced. As we hurried across the Campo dei Miracoli I should have gawped at the marble cathedral and the odd, half-collapsed building shrouded in scaffolding which was either being shored up or knocked down. But I was far too happy - I who had not felt happiness for an eternity of bitter, angry days - and Gilles and the Captain strode so quickly through the midst of these wonders that we were soon into the narrow streets beyond. Night was falling and the lamps were being lit when we ducked under an arch of flowering vines and made our way up a blind alley to the house at the end. It was an inn, the Taverna dei Tre Corvi, and three carved ravens brooded over the door, which opened to reveal Zianni, who nodded in response to a whispered word from Gilles, slipped past us and made off down the alley. We paused on the threshold, Gilles staring at the alley's mouth until he was satisfied. He nodded to the Captain, who led Will inside.