‘I am not the man I was, Mr Urquart.’
‘No, sir.’ Urquart seemed to share Arflane’s sadness. ‘But you’ll find yourself on this voyage. You’ll recover your faith, sir.’
Offended for the moment by the intimacy of Urquart’s remark, Arflane drew back. ‘Perhaps I don’t need that faith any more, Mr Urquart.’
‘Perhaps you need it most of all now, captain.’
Arflane’s anger passed. ‘I wonder what has happened to me,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Three months ago . . .’
‘Three months ago you had not met the Rorsefne family, captain.’ Urquart spoke grimly, but with a certain sympathy. ‘You’ve become infected with their weakness.’
‘I understood you to feel a certain loyalty - a certain protective responsibility to the family,’ Arflane said in surprise. He realized that this understanding had been conjecture on his part, but he had been convinced that he was right.
‘I want them kept alive, if that’s what you mean,’ Urquart said noncommittally.
‘I’m not sure I understand you . . .’ Arflane began, but was cut short by Urquart turning away from him and looking distantly towards the horizon.
The silence became uncomfortable and Arflane felt disturbed by the loss of Urquart’s confidence. The half-savage harpooner did not elaborate on his remark, but eventually turned back to look at Arflane, his expression softening by a degree.
‘It’s the Ice Mother’s will,’ he said. ‘You needed to use the family so that you could get the ship. Avoid our passengers all you can from now on, captain. They are weak. Even the old man was too indulgent, and he was better than any that still live . . .’
‘You say it was the Ice Mother,’ Arflane replied gloomily. ‘I think it was a different kind of force, just as mysterious, that involved me with the family.’
‘Think what you like,’ Urquart said impatiently, ‘but I know what is true. I know your destiny. Avoid the Rorsefne family.’
‘What of Lord Ulsenn?’
‘Ulsenn is nothing.’ Urquart sneered.
Impressed by Urquart’s warning, Arflane was careful to say nothing more of the Rorsefne family. He had already noted how much involved with the three people he had become. Yet surely, he thought, there were certain strengths in all of them. They were not as soft as Urquart thought. Even Ulsenn, though a physical coward, had his own kind of integrity, if it was only a belief in his absolute right to rule. It was true that his association with the family had caused him to forsake many of his old convictions, yet surely that was his weakness, not theirs? Urquart doubtless blamed their influence. Perhaps he was right.
He sighed and dusted at the rail with his gloved hand. ‘I hope we find the Ice Mother,’ he said eventually. ‘I need to be reassured, Mr Urquart.’
‘She’ll be there, captain. Soon you’ll know it, too.’ Urquart reached out and gripped Arflane’s shoulder. Arflane was startled, but he did not resent the gesture. The harpooner peered into his face. The blue eyes were alight with the certainty of his own ideas. He shook his harpoon. ‘This is true,’ he said passionately. He pointed out to the ice. ‘That is true.’ He dropped his arm. ‘Find your strength again, captain. You’ll need it on this voyage.’
The harpooner clambered down from the bridge and disappeared, leaving Arflane feeling at the same time uneasy and more optimistic than he had felt for many months.
From that time on, Urquart would frequently appear on the bridge. He would say little; would simply stand by the rail or lean against the wheelhouse, as if by his presence he sought to transmit his own strength of will to Arflane. He was at once both silent mentor and support to the captain as the ship moved rapidly towards the edge of the plateau.
A few days later Manfred Rorsefne and Arflane stood in Arflane’s cabin, consulting the charts spread on the table before them.
‘We’ll reach the edge tomorrow.’ Rorsefne indicated the chart of the plateau (the only detailed map they had). ‘The descent should be difficult, eh, captain?’
Arflane shook his head. ‘Not necessarily. By the look of it, there’s a clear run down at this point.’ He put a finger on the chart. ‘The Great North Course, your uncle called it.’
‘Where he was wrecked?’ Rorsefne pulled a face.
‘Where he was wrecked.’ Arflane nodded. ‘If we steer a course northeast by north by three-quarters north we should reach this spot where the incline is fairly smooth and gradual and no hills in our way. The ice only gets rough at the bottom, and we should have lost enough momentum by then to be able to cross without much difficulty. I can take her down, I think.’
Rorsefne smiled. ‘You seem to have recovered your old self-confidence, captain.’
Arflane resented the suggestion. ‘We’d best set the course,’ he said coldly.
As they left his cabin and came out on deck they almost bumped into Janek and Ulrica Ulsenn. She was helping him towards the entrance to the gangway that led to their quarters. Rorsefne bowed and grinned at them, but Arflane scowled. It was the first time since the voyage began that he had come so close to the woman. She avoided his glance, murmuring a greeting as she passed. Ulsenn, however, directed a poisonous glare at Arflane.
His legs very slightly weak, Arflane clambered up the companionway to the bridge. Urquart was standing there, nursing his harpoon and looking to starboard. He nodded to Arflane as the two men entered the wheelhouse.
The helmsman saluted Arflane as they came in. The heavy wheel moved very slightly and the man corrected it.
Arflane went over to the big, crude compass. The chronometer next to it was centuries old and failing, but the equipment was still sufficient to steer a fairly accurate course. Arflane unrolled the chart and spread it on the table next to the compass, making a few calculations, then he nodded to himself, satisfied that he had been right.
‘We’d better have an extra man on that wheel,’ he decided. He put his head around the door of the wheel-house and spoke to Urquart. ‘Mr Urquart - we need another hand on the wheel. Will you get a man up here?’
Urquart moved towards the companionway.
‘And put a couple more hands aloft, Mr Urquart,’ Arflane called. ‘We need plenty of look-outs. The edge’s coming up.’
Arflane went back to the wheel and took it over from the helmsman. He gripped the spokes in both hands, letting the wheel turn a little of its own accord as its chains felt the great pull of the runners. Then, his eye on the compass, he turned the Ice Spirit several points to starboard.
When he was satisfied that they were established on their new course, he handed the wheel back to the helmsman as the second man came in.
‘You’ve got an easy berth for a while, sailor,’ Arflane told the new man. ‘I want you to stand by to help with the wheel if it becomes necessary.’
Rorsefne followed Arflane out on to the bridge again. He looked towards the quarter deck and saw Urquart speaking to a small group of hands. He pointed towards the harpooner. ‘Urquart seems to have attached himself to you, too, captain. He must regard you as one of the family.’ There was no sarcasm in his voice, but Arflane glanced at him suspiciously.
‘I’m not sure of that.’
The young man laughed, ‘Janek certainly isn’t, that’s certain. Did you see how he glared at you as we went by? I don’t know why he came on this trip at all. He hates sailing. He has responsibilities in Friesgalt. Maybe it was to protect Ulrica from the attentions of a lot of hairy sailors!’
Again Arflane felt uncomfortable, not sure how to interpret Rorsefne’s words. ‘She’s safe enough on this ship,’ he growled.
‘I’m sure she is,’ Manfred agreed. ‘But Janek doesn’t know that. He treats her jealously. She might be a whole storehouse full of canvas, the value he puts on her!’
Arflane shrugged.
Manfred lounged against the rail, staring vacantly up into the shrouds where one of the look-outs appointed by Urquart was already climbing towards the crow’s nest in the mainmast royals.
>
‘I suppose this will be our last day on safe ice,’ he said. ‘It’s been too uneventful for me so far, this voyage. I’m looking forward to some excitement when we reach the edge.’
Arflane smiled. ‘I doubt if you’ll be disappointed.’
The sky was still clear, blue and cloudless. The ice scintillated with the mirrored glare of the sun and the white, straining sails of the ship seemed to shimmer, reflecting in turn the brilliance of the ice. The runners could be heard faintly, bumping over the slightly uneven terrain, and sometimes a yard creaked above them. The mainmast look-out had reached his post and was settling himself into the crow’s nest.
Rorsefne grinned. ‘I hope I won’t be. And neither will you, I suspect. I thought you enjoyed a little adventure yourself. This kind of voyage can’t be much pleasure for you, either.’
The next day, the edge came into sight. It seemed that the horizon had drawn nearer, or had been cut off short, and Arflane, who had only passed close to the edge once in his life, felt himself shiver as he looked ahead.
The slope was actually fairly gradual, but from where he was positioned it looked as if the ground ended and the ship would plunge to destruction. It was as if he had come to the end of the world. In a sense he had; the world beyond the edge was completely unknown to him. Now he felt a peculiar kind of fear as the prow dipped and the ship began her descent.
On the bridge, Arflane put a megaphone to his lips.
‘Get some grappling lines over the side, Mr Petchnyoff!’ He shouted to his first officer on the quarter deck: ‘Jump to it!’
Petchnyoff hurried towards the lower deck to get a party together. Arflane watched as they began to throw out the grappling lines. The barbed prongs would slow their progress since all but the minimum sail had been taken in.
The grapples bit into the ice with a harsh shrieking and the ship began to lose speed. Then she began to wobble dangerously.
Hinsen was shouting from the wheelhouse. ‘Sir!’
Arflane strode into the wheelhouse. ‘What is it, Mr Hinsen?’
The two hands at the wheel were sweating, clinging to the wheel as they desperately tried to keep the Ice Spirit on course.
‘The runners keep turning, sir,’ Hinsen said in alarm. ‘Just a little this way and that, but we’ve having difficulty holding them. We could go over at this rate. They’re catching in the channels in the ice, sir.’
Arflane positioned himself between the two hands and took hold of the wheel. He realized at once what Hinsen meant. The runners were moving along shallow, iron-hard grooves in the ice caused by the gradual descent of ice flows over the centuries. There was a real danger of the ship’s turning side-on, toppling over on the slope.
‘We’ll need two more hands on this,’ Arflane said. ‘Find two of the best helmsmen we’ve got, Mr Hinsen - and make sure they’ve got muscles!’
Kristoff Hinsen hurried from the wheelhouse while Arflane and the hands hung on to the wheel, steering as best they could. The ship had begun to bump noticeably now and her whole deck was vibrating.
Hinsen brought the two sailors back with him and they took over. Even with the extra hands the ship continued to bump and veer dangerously on the slope, threatening to go completely out of control. Arflane looked to the bow. The bottom of the incline was out of sight. The slope seemed to go on forever.
‘Stay in charge here, Mr Hinsen,’ Arflane said. ‘I’ll go forward and see if I can make out what kind of ice is lying ahead of us.’
Arflane left the bridge and made his way along the shivering deck until he reached the forecastle. The ice ahead seemed the same as the kind they were on at the moment. The ship bumped, veered, and then swung back on course again. The angle of the incline seemed to have increased and the deck sloped forward noticeably. As he turned back, Arflane saw Ulrica Ulsenn standing quite close to him. Janek Ulsenn was a little further behind her, clinging to the port rail, his eyes wide with alarm.
‘Nothing to worry about, ma’am,’ Arflane said as he approached her. ‘We’ll get her out of this.’
Janek Ulsenn had looked up and was calling his wife to him. With a hint of misery in her eyes, she turned back to her husband, gathered up her skirts, and moved away from Arflane across the swaying deck.
It was the first time he had seen any emotion at all in her face since they had parted. He felt a certain amount of surprise. His concern for the safety of the ship had made him forget his feelings for her and he had spoken to her as he might have spoken to reassure any passenger.
He was tempted to follow her then, but the ship lurched suddenly off course again and seemed in danger of sliding sideways.
Arflane ran rapidly back towards the bridge, clambered up, and dashed into the wheelhouse. Hinsen and the four sailors were wrestling with the wheel, their faces streaming with sweat and their muscles straining. Arflane grabbed a spoke and joined them as they tried to get the ship back on course.
‘We’re travelling too damned slowly,’ he grunted. ‘If we could make better speed there might be a chance of bouncing over the channels or even slicing through them.’
The ship lurched again and they grappled with the wheel. Arflane gritted his teeth as they forced the wheel to turn.
‘Drop the bolts, sir!’ Hinsen begged him. ‘Drop the heavy anchors!’
Arflane scowled at him. A captain never dropped the heavy anchors unless the situation was insoluble.
‘What’s the point of slowing down, Mr Hinsen?’ he said acidly. ‘It’s extra speed we need - not less.’
‘Stop the ship altogether, sir - knock out the emergency bolt as well. It’s our only chance. This must be what happened to Lord Rorsefne’s ship when it was wrecked.’
Arflane spat on the deck. ‘Heavy anchors - emergency bolts - we’re as likely to be wrecked using them as not! No, Mr Hinsen - we’ll go down under full canvas!’
Hinsen almost lost control of the wheel again in his astonishment. He stared unbelievingly at his skipper.
‘Full canvas, sir?’
The wheel jumped again and the ship’s runners squealed jarringly as she began to lurch sideways. For several moments they strained at the wheel in silence until they had turned her back on to course.
‘Two or three more like that, we’ll lose her,’ the hand nearest Arflane said with conviction.
‘Aye,’ Arflane grunted, glaring at Hinsen. ‘Set all sail, Mr Hinsen.’
When Hinsen hesitated once more, Arflane impatiently left the wheel, grabbed a megaphone from the wall, and went out on to the bridge.
He saw Petchnyoff on the quarter deck. The man looked frightened. There was an atmosphere of silent panic on the ship.
‘Mr Petchnyoff!’ Arflane bellowed through the megaphone. ‘Get the men into the yards! Full canvas!’
The shocked faces of the crew stared back at him. Petchnyoffs face was incredulous. ‘What was that, sir?’
‘Set all sails, Mr Petchnyoff. We need some speed so we can steer this craft!’
The ship shuddered violently and began to turn again.
‘All hands into the shrouds!’ Arflane yelled, dropped the megaphone and ran back into the wheelhouse to join the men on the wheel. Hinsen avoided his eye, evidently convinced that the captain was insane.
Through the wheelhouse port, Arflane saw the men scrambling aloft. Once again they barely succeeded in turning the ship back on her course. Everywhere the sails began to crack down and billow out as they caught the wind. The ship began to move even faster down the steepening slope.
Arflane felt a strong sense of satisfaction as the wheel became less hard to handle. It still needed plenty of control, but they were having no great difficulty in holding their course. Now the danger was that they would find an obstruction on the slope and crash into it at full speed.
‘Get on to the deck, Mr Hinsen,’ he ordered the frightened second officer. ‘Tell Mr Urquart to go aloft with a megaphone and keep an eye out ahead!’
The ice on both sides of th
e ship was now a blur as the ship gathered speed. Arflane glanced through the port and saw Urquart climbing into the lower yards of the foremast.
The huge ship leaped from the surface and came down again hard with her runners creaking, but she had become increasingly easier to handle and there were no immediate obstacles in sight.
Urquart’s face was calm as he glanced back at the wheelhouse, but the crew looked very frightened still. Arflane enjoyed their discomfort. He grinned broadly, his exhilaration tinged with some of their panic as he guided the ship down.
For an hour the schooner continued her rapid descent; it seemed that she sped down a slope that had no top and no bottom, for both were completely out of sight. The ship was handling easily, the runners hardly seeming to touch the ice. Arflane decided he could give the wheel to Hinsen. The second officer did not seem to relish the responsibility.
Going forward, Arflane climbed into the rigging to hang in the ratlines beside Urquart.
The harpooner smiled slightly. ‘You’re in a wild mood, skipper,’ he said approvingly.
Arflane grinned back at him.
Before them, the ice sloped sharply, seeming to stretch on forever. On both sides it raced past, the spray of ice from the runners falling on deck. Once a chip of ice caught Arflane on the mouth, drawing blood, but he hardly felt it.
Soon the slope began to level out and the ice became rougher, but the ship’s speed hardly slowed at all. Instead the great craft bounced over the ice, rising and falling as if carried on a series of huge waves.
The sensation added to Arflane’s good spirits. He began to relax. The danger was as good as past. Swinging in the ratlines, he hummed a tune, sensing the tension decrease throughout the ship.
Some time later Urquart’s voice said quietly: ‘Captain.’ Arflane glanced at the man and saw that his eyes had widened. He was pointing ahead.
Arflane peered beyond the low ridges of ice and saw what looked like a greenish-black streak cutting across their path in the distance. He could not believe what it was. Urquart spoke the word.
The Complete Ice Schooner Page 12