The Princess and the Captain

by Anne-Laure Bondoux

  Now and then the darkness was illuminated by bright flashes which left temporary imprints on their eyes. Jolts threatened to throw them off balance. But they stayed there, lying on the ship’s deck, their stomachs flat against its wooden planks, linking hands.

  Suddenly, brighter lights lit up the dark. It was as if torches were flaring on the walls of a grotto. But when they looked more closely, the four survivors of the fall saw that these were no ordinary torches. Humans were being slowly consumed by fire as they hung from the sides of the Immuration.

  The hair of some of them was in flames, the arms or feet of others were burning. There they hung in the middle of nowhere, twisting in pain, lighting the way for passers-by. It was such a terrible sight that Malva, on the verge of nausea, could not bear it and closed her eyes.

  The Fabula went on falling, slowly and steadily now. She passed the successive levels of the Immuration, showing the terrified passengers the torments in store for them. Some prisoners were chained to pulleys, dying slowly of hunger and thirst. Others, buried in earthen cavities, were waiting to die of suffocation. They were in convulsions, opening their gap-toothed mouths like fish out of water. Others again were covered with insects, were being quartered, boiled alive, lacerated by daggers, were bleeding, contorting themselves, praying aloud for death.

  Orpheus looked down and rested his forehead on the deck of his ship, stunned, unable to take any more. So this was the Immuration: a prison to torture souls and bodies until Death came at last. A nightmare, an abomination, a horror.

  The Fabula’s funereal progress went on for a long time, and no image was spared the travellers, who hardly dared breathe, nauseated and brimming over with pity as they were. They waited, still holding hands, for the fall to end and for the worst to be inflicted on them too.

  But suddenly they saw broad daylight.

  Orpheus, Malva, Lei and Babilas raised their heads. Above them, the black hole of the Immuration suddenly closed and disappeared as if it had never been there. Instead, the sky was bright blue, the ship’s sails flew in the breeze and water lapped against the Fabula’s hull.

  Orpheus stood up, supporting Malva as well as he could. He frowned, dazzled by the reflection of the sunlight on the water. Babilas and Lei rose too and turned, limping.

  What had happened? Why this sudden bright light, this sunny day? Was it a hallucination? Yet they had all seen the same thing: the Immuration had suddenly disappeared. Not knowing what to think, they searched the sky for some sign, some kind of clue.

  Then they saw Hob at the top of the mast, his legs caught in the rigging. The poor boy no longer even had the strength to call out or struggle free.

  ‘Yneb dawl!’ exclaimed Babilas, scrambling quickly to his rescue.

  ‘He alive!’ sighed Lei.

  When Babilas had brought Hob down, and the two of them had joined the others on deck, they gave way to their emotions. Tears flowed, but they smiled too, and all their hearts were overflowing like rivers in spate. The Immuration had obviously let them go at the last moment, and all they had done was pass through it from end to end.

  ‘It was Peppe,’ said Hob in a shaking voice. ‘He … he so much wanted to show that he was brave.’ The boy gagged, stopped breathing for a moment, and went scarlet in the face. Then he burst into tears. ‘He thought it was his fault,’ he cried between painful sobs. ‘He couldn’t bear the idea! He threw himself … he jumped …’

  Hob stammered, wept, stuttered out confused words for some time, while the others, mute and helpless, witnessed his grief and couldn’t comfort him.

  Finally Hob sat down on the capstan, exhausted.

  ‘He did that … he did that …’ he kept repeating, his cheeks stained with dirt and tears.

  At last Babilas knelt down in front of him and hugged him. ‘Yvn Peppe oiraim an bardan,’ he whispered. ‘Alch islu gwelchan mabeut. Cosgoaim danrh pobaim.’

  Lei, who had come closer to them, translated, though she was shaking all over. ‘Your brother Peppe save life of you and us. He jump when last drop of acid reach Stone in Nokros. Now we must live to thank him.’

  Hob let the giant rock him in his arms, still murmuring words in his incomprehensible language, and gradually his tears dried up.

  When they were all calm again, Orpheus went over to the battered rail and looked at the ocean stretching out ahead. Malva joined him. She was in a state of shock, but her eyes shone again when they rested on Orpheus. He felt his heart beating violently.

  ‘I think we’ve left the Archipelago,’ he said in a neutral voice, still numbed by too much grief. ‘Peppe did a terrible thing, but thanks to him we’re back in the Known World.’ He fixed his eyes on Malva’s, and took a deep breath before he ventured to go on. ‘What do you want to do, Princess? Now that we’ve survived so many trials, I suppose anything is possible.’

  ‘Anything?’ repeated Malva. She sighed. No doubt Orpheus was right. After seeing some of their friends die and others suffer, after feeling such fear and urgency, the travellers’ natures had probably become harder. Their priorities were not the same as before. Some things that had seemed important now appeared derisory. Etiquette, politeness, the demands of a comfortable life – none of it seemed to have any point now. So yes, anything really was possible.

  Malva put her hands to her temples. The blood was beating in her skull. At that moment her decision seemed obvious to her. She raised her head.

  ‘I would like,’ she said, looking steadily at Orpheus, ‘I would like to go back to Galnicia with you, Captain.’

  PART THREE

  Coming Home

  42

  The Twin Stars

  When night fell, Orpheus stood on deck to observe the sky. The stars were back in their familiar places: Proximedes shone in the east, Aldebagol in the west, and at the zenith Orpheus saw the constellation of Oriopaea.

  ‘Come and look,’ he told Hob, who was still looking helplessly at the bowl of food that Babilas had brought him. It had gone cold long ago. However, he raised his head, hesitated briefly, and then joined the Captain. He lay down on deck beside him, looking up at the vast night sky.

  ‘See that?’ said Orpheus, indicating a luminous point in the heavens. ‘That’s Alphius, the brightest of them all. And there’s the constellation of the Allicaitor. You can see the stars Betelrig and Vegeb beside it.’

  Hob followed Orpheus’s finger, more interested than he had expected by the beauty of the firmament. Each star was like a flower. And to Hob, who had never been taught anything at all, knowing their names was like possessing a treasure. Orpheus told him all he knew: the names of Altares, Ichab, Tolimuk, Hyperades. It was as if he were singing a lullaby. Finally he pointed to two stars, very close to each other and shining brightly.

  ‘Those are twin stars,’ he explained. ‘Their names are Astor and Olux.’

  Hob shivered. Twin stars? Were they really identical?

  ‘From Earth,’ Orpheus went on, ‘they look almost stuck to each other, but they’re really thousands of kilometres apart.’

  ‘Like Peppe and me, then,’ the boy murmured. ‘We’re thousands of kilometres apart, yet we’ll always be together.’

  Orpheus nodded, and there was silence. Hob’s eyes were fixed on that part of the sky where the twin stars shone.

  ‘Every time I want to think about my brother,’ he said, ‘every time I miss him badly, every time I need to talk to him, I’ll talk to those stars. It will be as if Peppe were there looking down on me.’

  A faint smile touched his lips, and at that moment Orpheus knew that sooner or later Hob would manage to live his own life, and Peppe’s absence would not be too much of a burden on him in his passage through the world.

  ‘Do you really think the fortune-teller was making fun of us?’ Hob suddenly asked. ‘Peppe believed that story of being princes so much. He really thought we could marry Mal—I mean the Princess.’

  ‘What about you?’ asked Orpheus gently. ‘Did you believe it too?’
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  The boy’s mouth drooped slightly with disappointment. ‘You’re the one she loves, though, aren’t you?’ he sighed. ‘You’re the one she’ll marry.’

  Orpheus could not repress a wild leap of his heart. He didn’t know exactly what Malva felt about him, but she had flung herself into his arms, had let him kiss her several times without objection, and then there was that intensity he felt between them when they looked at each other. He didn’t know anything about women, but intuition told him that they had forged a very strong bond. He skilfully dodged Hob’s question.

  ‘Malva hasn’t been through all those trials and ordeals just to find herself going into the Sanctuary with a husband on her arm yet again, has she?’

  ‘She’s free,’ admitted Hob gravely.

  ‘Free as air,’ Orpheus repeated thoughtfully.

  Another silence settled between them. In the sky above, more stars were coming out all the time: constellations, nebulas, galaxies. Compared to those distant powers, the iniquities of the human heart seemed unimportant. A thousand things could happen on Earth: there could be storms and tempests, war and famine could ravage nations, love could be born and die, but none of that would prevent the stars from following their course across the sky. Observing it, Hob and Orpheus felt soothed.

  ‘Those stars will guide us back to Galnicia,’ murmured Orpheus. ‘And once we’re home we shall only have to look at them to remind ourselves of what we all went through together.’

  ‘Like a knot in a handkerchief!’ said Hob, almost smiling.

  Two days later the Fabula crossed the path of a vessel from the kingdom of Norj on its way to the Orniant. Its captain, a tall, fair-haired young man, offered to take the survivors of the Archipelago on board his ship, but with his companions’ consent Orpheus declined the offer. They all wanted to make for Galnicia as fast as possible. The captain of the other ship did not try to make them change their minds. He gave them food, two barrels of drinking water, a fishing net, and a few elementary navigational instruments: a map, a compass and a sextant. He couldn’t help asking the exhausted travellers what had happened to them, but Lei, acting as interpreter, was very evasive. She told him about the storm and their shipwreck on an island, but she didn’t mention the existence of the Archipelago and the Immuration. Everyone on board the Fabula was aware that it wouldn’t be easy to explain their passage beyond the boundaries of the Known World. For the time being, it was best to say as little as possible about it.

  During the last dinner they ate on board the Norjian vessel, they asked their host for news of Galnicia. He didn’t seem to know anything about the disappearance of the Princess, how her marriage had been called off, or the diplomatic consequences. Galnicia, he said, was a country that kept to itself. It was secretive, and so unwelcoming that no stranger had set foot in it for a long time.

  These remarks troubled Orpheus a great deal. It was about a hundred days since he had set off aboard the Errabunda as quartermaster, not a remarkable length of time for such a dangerous expedition. Had the Coronador lost hope as he waited? Had he been deposed by conspiracies and intrigues? If not, what accounted for the way Galnicia had so suddenly shut itself and its misfortunes off from the rest of the world? The Norjian captain, who had been at sea for several weeks himself, was unable to answer these questions.

  Malva also felt deeply uneasy when she heard the news. The vision of her country that she had seen as she sat astride the branch of the thousand-year-old tree on Mount Ur-Tha came back to her: the funeral procession, the bare trees, the disturbing silence reigning over the Citadel … it looked very much as if there had been some disaster.

  And yet when the Fabula put to sea again the next day the five members of the crew found themselves in quite a cheerful mood. Well fed, wearing clean clothes and provided with sea charts, they enjoyed sailing over familiar seas. They could take their bearings again, and the dangers lying in wait seemed insignificant compared to those they had already overcome. So when the sails were hoisted and Orpheus took the helm, crying, ‘On course for Galnicia!’ his companions’ faces lit up. Orpheus smiled at them. He was happy to be going home too, although at heart he thought how odd that was. He had hated Galnicia, and dreamed only of leaving it – how could he be impatient to set foot in the country again? When he saw the Upper Town once more, wouldn’t his ghosts come back to haunt and torment him? Wouldn’t he immediately regret the sea and his adventures there?

  From the stern of the ship, he watched Malva clambering nimbly around in the shrouds. He banished his gloomy thoughts. With Malva beside him he felt strong, able to face down any ghost.

  It was several weeks before they saw the coastline of Sperta at last. Malva stood on the fo’c’s’le, one hand shielding her eyes. She seemed nervous and melancholy. Lei noticed, and joined her.

  ‘Do you see that line of white rocks over there?’ Malva asked her.

  ‘They like skeleton bones,’ said Lei, shuddering.

  ‘They’re reefs, and very dangerous. That’s where Philomena and I were shipwrecked on board the Estafador.’

  The Princess’s eyes darkened. She gazed at the shapes of the reefs, and remembered it all: the prow crashing into the sharp rocks, she and Philomena plunging deep beneath the water, and then drifting on rafts made from the covers of the hatches until the terrible moment when the nameless creature …

  ‘It was here that my leg was bitten,’ Malva added. ‘We were swimming, hoping to get close to shore, and suddenly …’

  She grimaced and jumped; it was like a reflex action. Then she turned pale, her breath came fast and she had to sit down.

  ‘You very sensitive,’ remarked Lei, unbuttoning the collar of Malva’s jersey to help her breathe more easily. ‘Wound cured now. Nothing to fear.’

  As if to reassure herself, Malva rolled up her trouser leg and uncovered her calf. There was still a long white scar on her skin.

  ‘If Finopico alive, he tell you what beast live in this sea,’ said Lei sadly. ‘Then at last you know name of nameless creature!’

  Malva was absorbed in gloomy contemplation of her scar for some time. Then she said, ‘Finopico left us his books. Why don’t I look at them?’

  It suddenly seemed a very good idea. She went down to the galley, and behind a jumbled heap of fallen shelves and empty jars she found the books that had once been Finopico’s. She shut herself in her cabin for the rest of the day.

  At nightfall, as the Fabula was slowly entering the channel linking Tildesia to the marshlands of Eastern Armunia, Orpheus began to feel anxious about the Princess’s prolonged absence. He handed the helm over to Babilas and went to knock on her cabin door.

  Malva was sitting on her bunk surrounded by a mountain of open books. Frowning with concentration, she was studying the engravings and descriptions of fish by the light of a candle.

  ‘You ought to come up and get some fresh air,’ suggested Orpheus. ‘It’s pleasant up there, and you’ll ruin your eyes reading all that small print.’

  Malva gave him a vague look. It was obvious that she hadn’t heard a word he had just said.

  ‘I didn’t know there were so many species of fish in the world. Do you think Finopico knew about them all?’

  ‘He knew much more than I’d ever have thought,’ replied Orpheus, remembering their conversation just before Finopico’s death. ‘He was mainly interested in rare species. He dreamed of being admitted to the Maritime Institute with the other specialists.’

  ‘Poor Finopico,’ sighed Malva. ‘I still can’t quite believe that he’ll never come back. I sometimes think I hear him scolding the twins … or Zeph.’

  Her voice shook. Orpheus went over to her, and when he sat down on the edge of the bunk he saw the tears that threatened to brim over and fall down her cheeks.

  ‘We’ve lost so many friends,’ she said. ‘I feel … I feel it’s not right for us to be still alive, while they …’

  And now her tears flowed. Orpheus took Malva in his arms to comfort he
r. Until now they had all carefully avoided calculating the cost of their voyage to the Archipelago. Finopico, Peppe and Zeph were missing from the crew – and from the hearts of the survivors. But the days had gone by, full of work and anxieties. They had to hold their course, hoist the sails, repair damaged parts of the ship and feed themselves, and all of this helped them to keep sadness at bay. But when she opened these books, Malva was opening old wounds too. Every page, every word made her think of those who had been lost.

  ‘When we’re back in Galnicia we’ll pay tribute to them,’ said Orpheus, stroking Malva’s black hair. ‘Every Galnician must know who and what they were.’

  Malva was sobbing, her tears falling on Orpheus’s hands.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said brokenly, ‘I don’t know what I’ll do when we arrive. It just seems so … so far off, so … impossible.’

  Orpheus held her close.

  ‘I’m here, I’m here,’ he repeated, letting her abandon herself to her grief.

  They stayed like that for a long time, in each other’s arms, their hearts beating fast and their fingers intertwining. Orpheus dropped kisses on Malva’s forehead, her cheeks, her hair. He wasn’t afraid of feeling as he did any more. Gradually Malva calmed down.

  ‘I was looking for the name of a sea creature,’ she finally explained, suddenly moving away from Orpheus. She told him about Vincenzo’s treachery, the wreck of the Estafador, and showed him the scar on her leg.

  ‘Lei healed it when we were in Temir-Gai’s harem, but I shall bear the scar for the rest of my days.’

  Orpheus picked up the candle and brought the flame close to Malva’s bare leg. He looked at it for a long time, placed a finger on it lightly and traced the white mark.

  ‘The creature had fearsome jaws,’ he murmured. ‘Those parallel marks suggest that it had two rows of teeth.’

  He touched her skin again.

  ‘There … and there,’ he said. ‘Two rows of pointed teeth.’