by R J Barker
“Aye, Shipwife,” he said, staring at the floor. “Only, on my last ship I were oarturner, and you have Barlay on this ship.”
“And you wonder on your place?”
“Ey, Shipwife.”
“Your place is in my crew, Muffaz,” she said not unkindly. In the background Joron noticed Barlay had drifted nearer, looking equally nervous. “I have given Barlay that place, and as long as she serves well in it I will not go back on that, for it is not my way. Any who have served with me will tell you my word is good.”
Solemn Muffaz nodded and behind him Barlay seemed to straighten slightly, as if freed from a weight she had not known sat upon her shoulders. “I need a deckmother, Muffaz, someone to enforce my discipline,” she said. “You have been around boneships a long time, from what I hear, and I know it is not a popular task, but I will need someone strong for it.”
He nodded.
“Then I will do this thing for you, Shipwife.”
“Good, and though Barlay is strong she does not yet truly know the task of oarturner, so I would also put you to helping her understand her duties.”
Muffaz nodded again. “We have already spoken of her task and how to approach it, Shipwife.”
“We are reborn on this ship, Solemn Muffaz, understand that. We leave our crimes behind on land. Keep that in mind.” She turned and shouted, “Mevans! To me.” The little man did not run to her, as most would, but walked quickly enough not to seem as though he disobeyed. He had a strange gait, bobbing his body as he moved as if avoiding the overbones of an invisible underdeck. “Mevans, I shall need a seakeep to keep Tide Child in good order and make sure everything aboard runs as it should.”
“Fogle, she’s be good for that, knows a ship backwards does Fogle,” he said.
“I was talking of you,” said Meas.
“I’m a hatkeep, Shipwife,” he said. “I mean, I will do whatever you say, only that I think there are those better suited.”
Meas looked hard at him for a moment. “Very well then. You can tell Fogle she is seakeep, but if I find her drunk, even once, she is back to deckchild.”
Mevans nodded.
“She won’t let you down.”
“I hope not. But, and you will not turn this next task down. The purseholder on Tide Child, Sprackin, is as corrupt as they come. You will take his place and there is no argument about this.”
Mevans shrugged.
“Well, I am a man skilled in the keeping of your valuables, so to keep the whole ship’s is not much of a stretch. I cannot fault your choice.” He smiled, but the smile fell away as he noticed something behind Meas. She turned.
Emerging on to the dock was a line of men. All were big and six were carrying boxes, two to each box. The man leading them wore his blonde hair long and strode up to Meas. He towered over her.
“You are Shipwife Meas?” Behind him the men carrying the boxes put them down. They were clearly heavy and far longer than they were wide, almost like coffins.
“You are from Mulvan Cahanny?”
“That we are,” he said. “The boxes need to be stacked safe in your hold, somewhere they will not get wet or damaged.”
“What is in them?”
“That is not your business,”
“He is my ship,” she said.
“What is in the boxes is Mulvan Cahanny’s business.” As he spoke Joron counted the men with him: fifteen strong bodies in all when Cahanny had only promised ten.
“I must know the contents of these boxes do not endanger my ship in any way.”
“They do not, or I would not go aboard with them. I am Cahanny’s second.” Meas stared at him, then gave a small nod.
“What is your name?”
“Coughlin.”
“For now, Coughlin, I must find a safe place for your cargo on—”
“Cahanny said to put it on your ship.”
“Do not interrupt me.” Her words cut him dead. “Cahanny has placed you under my command.”
“In battle,” said Coughlin, and he stared off towards Tide Child. “Otherwise we are here to guard the cargo and nothing else.”
“That was not my agreement,” said Meas.
Coughlin shrugged. “That is not my concern. I do as Cahanny tells me. Now, Shipwife,” he said, turning away, “get my cargo aboard.”
Meas’s hand shot out, iron-hard fingers grabbing the man’s massive arm. He turned back, trying to look as if this was a mere inconvenience, but he was plainly surprised by the strength of her grip.
“I am going to presume you have never been on a fleet ship before because I know you are a man of the rock.” If Coughlin was offended by this, he did not show it, though it was possible he did not know the disservice Meas did him. “So I shall let the insult you have just offered me go this once. I am shipwife. My word is law. What I decide rules your life from the moment you board Tide Child. You respect me and do as I say, or you die. It is that simple.” She let go of his arm. “Now, when the time comes, I shall have my crew load your boxes. When the time comes, and my crew because loading a ship is a skill in itself and one I doubt you or any of your men have. But from now on, you will do as I say, you understand?”
He nodded.
“I hear what you say,” he said. It did not escape Joron’s ears that Coughlin was not agreeing with her or admitting she commanded him. “But the time to load them is now.”
“I am not well liked, Coughlin, and there are those who would love nothing more than to see my veins opened to the sea. So I imagine my ship will be searched before we leave. I have no wish to die for Mulvan Cahanny’s cargo, and I am sure Mulvan will be displeased if it is impounded.” She turned to Mevans and leaned in close, pointing at the boxes before turning back to Coughlin. “Mevans will see your cargo hidden, and before we leave I will have my crew load it for you.”
“As you wish.” He walked away, joining the rest of his men, glancing back at Meas with eyes as deep and cold as the sea in the north, where great islands of ice float through the night, waiting to wreck the unwary.
“Mevans,” said Meas quietly, “I am not sure I have made my best decision in bringing Cahanny’s men aboard my ship. If ever a gift struck me as poisonous it is this one.”
“Don’t you worry, Shipwife,” said Mevans. “They’re all men of the rock for sure. The minute they get on the sea they’ll be too busy suffering the Hag’s curse and throwing up over the side to cause trouble. You’ll see.”
Joron watched the men as the crew went back to their business and could not help doubting Mevans’ words. They did not look like they would be brought low so easily. And Meas was clearly not sure about them either.
“Are you sure about Muffaz, Meas,” he said as Mevans left to arrange the hiding of Cahanny’s cargo. “The crew will have a hard time accepting a wife killer.”
She nodded.
“You are right. But deckmother is a lonely position. It is the best place for him, and did you see the look in his eye when we said he could be crew?”
“Ey, Shipwife.”
“Gratitude, Deckkeeper. He is a man who wishes to make amends for something that can never be forgiven. I have taken him on board and given him a place. He will die before he disobeys me, mark me at that.” Joron watched as she walked away, realising she could see things that he could not, and was prepared to use people in ways that would never occur to him.
The next surprise turned up as Tide Child’s wings were being hauled into position on the newly lifted spars: a small man with a slight limp, though he was wide and well muscled and had a pleasing face. The brightly coloured stripes of command ran through his hair, and he dragged a heavy sea chest behind him. Meas called Joron to her and they went to meet the newcomer.
“Can I help you?” Meas asked.
“Ey. My name is Dinyl Kiveth, and I am sent by Kept Indyl Karrad to be your deckkeeper.”
Joron was shocked, although he should not have been. Karrad was vindictive, and as all Joron had was his pla
ce on Meas’s ship that was what the Kept had decided to take from him.
“You have been through the spiral bothies?” said Meas.
“Ey, and served on the Mother’s Wish and the Welcome Breast.”
“Then you well know, Dinyl Kiveth, that if you join Tide Child and put on the black armband, you may never take it off.” Joron though, on the edge of despair at the thought of losing the slowly growing pride within him, saw a mirror of that despair in Dinyl’s face.
“I am beholden to Kept Karrad,” he said. “His money put me through the bothies, and now he sends me to this ship to do his work. Give me the armband” – he put out a hand – “and I will wear it.”
“You should know I have a deckkeeper, Dinyl Kiveth, and I will not have him usurped,” she said. “If you come on to Tide Child you come on as deckholder, no more.” Joron did not think it was possible for the man to look more miserable, but he found a way at this demotion.
“What choice do I have?” he said, a picture of despair. “I cannot go back to Karrad having disobeyed his orders. I am fleet.”
Meas nodded and from a pocket produced a length of black material which she wrapped around Kiveth’s bicep.
“Let the Hag know, you are now beholden to me.” Dinyl stared sadly at the rag around his arm. “For what it is worth, Dinyl,” she said quietly, “I am sorry. Now take your chest and load it on to Tide Child. Find Solemn Muffaz, our deckmother, and he will tell you how I wish the ship’s stores stacked in the hold.” Dinyl nodded and walked away. As he left, Coughlin and the rest of Cahanny’s men watched from where they lounged on the dock in front of the ship. “First I take on pirates, and now a spy,” said Meas quietly.
“At least we know who the spy is,” said Joron.
“That one at least,” Meas replied. “But I suspect he is a distraction. Karrad will have others on board, and my mother will have those loyal to her too.”
“Your mother, I understand,” said Joron, “but I thought you and Karrad were allies.”
“We share a common cause, Joron,” said Meas. “But I see freedom in it, where Karrad sees power. So I am not sure we share that much at all.”
It took them two further days to balance the spines, tie in the spars and web the rigging, and all the time Meas was like a woman possessed, glancing up at Skearith’s Eye as if its progress across the sky was a personal insult. Always she was there – “Work faster, work harder, work better’ – and the crew knew no respite. Joron continued a twilight existence, falling into bed and waking, barely rested, to more labour. He mostly managed to avoid Dinyl Kiveth but could not help pangs of jealousy when he saw the easy and knowledgeable way the man had with the ship and the crew.
As Meas had suspected, the ship was searched. The evening before they were due to set out seaguard came aboard. All the good work done in stowing the cargo was undone. Crates were thrown over, water barrels smashed, and all the chaos that could be caused was caused. As they wrecked, Meas followed the seaguard and Kept Tassar, who headed them, keeping up polite conversation.
When they were done, hot and angry at finding nothing, Meas was all apologies.
“Such hard work, Tassar. Generally I would have Gavith, my cabin boy, bring you water or anhir, but sadly my barrels seem to have been damaged in your search. Tell me, were you looking for anything specific?”
“We will be watching you, Meas,” said Tassar.
“Shipwife Meas,” she corrected, “when you are on my ship. I am sure you would not wish to break the Bernlaw.”
“We know who you consort with, Shipwife Meas,” he said, then turned his oiled back on her and led his guard off the ship.
That night the crew worked through the darkness to right the mess, and under the wan glow of Skearith’s Blind Eye Cahanny’s cargo was brought on, though Joron could not help noticing there was now one box extra, the hiylbolts that Karrad had spoken of.
Another day and it was finally done. Tide Child was towed out into the harbour and they dropped the staystone while the remaining crew were brought from the hulks. Meas retreated to the great cabin with the courser and left Joron and Dinyl to assign posts to those brought aboard.
It was a dull job and Joron had little to do. He and Dinyl stood behind Mevans and Solemn Muffaz, who sat at a desk on the deck, rating each woman and man by experience: deckchild for those with plenty, bowsell for those they thought may have talent with the ship’s weapons, right down to stone-bound for those who knew nothing of the sea, though only the boy Gavith and old Garriya were ranked so low. Joron could not meet the old woman’s eye – something about the frailty of her mind made him uncomfortable – though she was keen to meet his, grinning at him while Mevans took down her details, her experience and any family she had.
Joron turned away, pretending to study the harbour and the horizon. They had an almost clear view now as Hag’s Hunter had left.
“Clench the muscles in your legs,” whispered Dinyl to him.
“What?”
“It is an old trick to ease the ache of standing still for long periods, Deckkeeper. Wiggle your toes, clench the muscles in your calves, then your thighs. None can tell, and you will not look like you are fidgeting.”
Joron did this, often, in the long hours of rating more than a hundred men and women.
“Thank you, Dinyl,” he whispered as the line came near to its end.
Only when the gullaime was brought aboard did Meas appear. The creature was brought to the ship on a top-heavy ungainly-looking flukeboat by a crew from the lamyards. The gullaime’s cage was suspended from a crane above the boat, and the beast screamed and shouted its displeasure, both in the language of the Archipelago and in its own atonal squawks.
The commander of the ship called over as they approached,
“This is yours?”
“Ey,” shouted Meas, leaning over the rail. “Why is it caged?”
“Almost killed one of my women trying to escape.”
“Kill all!” screamed the gullaime.
“Maybe you should take it back with you then, get us a different one,” shouted Meas.
“Hag’s tits no. It’s your problem now.” The crane swung, bringing the cage over Tide Child’s deck, and then, none too gently, unspooled the cord that held it so it crashed on to the slate, making the gullaime renew its squawking with even more fury. Black Orris deserted his perch and flew up into the rigging, swearing all the way.
“Kill you all!” shouted the gullaime. “Drive you on rocks. Smash you with wind.”
Joron stared at the creature. He had never before thought of gullaime as dangerous. They were a gift to the people of the Archipelago from Skearith. He was used to seeing and thinking of them in that way, watching them pass in their filthy robes, blind heads bowed as their handlers took them to the ships, or seeing them from afar, standing on decks in small groups as they controlled the wind and sang their songs. But as this gullaime threw itself against the bars of its bell-shaped cage, he saw the curved claws that sprang from the elbows of the wings hidden within its robe. Saw the much larger, scythe-like claws on the creature’s feet. And how could he never have noticed before that their beaks were those of a predator, curved and sharp and shaped for tearing at flesh?
Meas stepped nearer the cage and took one of the small crossbows that dangled from her clothes, loaded it and pointed it at the gullaime.
“No one wishes to be on this ship, Windtalker,” she said. “But you are the only one aboard who could wreck us if you wished it. So give me one reason not to kill you here and now.” Joron heard the whole crew gasp at her words; to even threaten such a thing was unheard of.
“Ill luck,” squawked the gullaime. “Ill luck to kill gullaime!” It climbed up the inside of its cage, wingclaws and feet scraping at the bars. Joron fancied he could smell its dry and dusty stink, one that stuck in your nose and refused to leave. “Ill luck!” it squawked again.
Meas shrugged.
“I’d rather have ill luck than a
creature that will summon the wind to run us on to a lee shore, or drive us on to rocks. Much rather have ill luck than that.” She raised the crossbow, aiming it at the bird’s blind head. From the rigging came Black Orris, fluttering down to land on Joron’s shoulder, where he started to preen his feathers. The gullaime’s blind head flicked round as though sensing the corpsebird. Its beak opened and closed slowly, its body language changed.
“Would not do that thing.” It almost purred the words.
“Why should I believe you?” said Meas.
“Gullaime cannot swim. Cannot fly.”
“Well, Gullaime,” she said. “Then you must be crew. And if you are to be crew you must be useful. So, tell me, can you be useful? For if not I will send you back to the lamyards, whether they want you or not.” The creature hissed at her, its beak opening to reveal the cave of sharp spines and the long thin tongue within.
Joron found himself stepping forward, Black Orris fluttering at his ear as words came into his mouth, springing into being without volition or question.
“What do you want?” he said.
The crew, gathered to watch the spectacle, held their breaths, not only because he had interrupted the shipwife, but because the gullaime was now orientated on him, opening and closing its beak as if confused.
Or interested.
“Want?” it said eventually.
Joron nodded. “These women and men of the crew, they get food, they get drink, they get paid even though this is a ship of the dead. The money is sent to their families. That is why they serve.” Joron felt his throat and mouth drying as he realised everyone was staring at him. “What do you want? What would make you serve?”
The gullaime’s head recoiled on its long thin neck, as if to better take in a world that had abruptly changed in a way it found most surprising. Though of course there were no eyes behind the brightly painted leaf mask to take in the sparkling water, the bright eye of Skearith above, the shocked deckchilder gathered on the slate or the calculating gaze of Meas Gilbryn as she watched her deckkeeper. The beast’s eyes would have been removed soon after it hatched, for if that was not done the creatures wandered and hurt themselves.