The Bone Ship's Wake

by Rj Barker

  “One thing?” said Meas, by her tone Joron thought Farys’s words had surprised her.

  “Ey, and only one. I am not far from when the child is due, weeks at most,” she said. “And some of the deckchilder have told me that, in times past, a deckchild who took a babe upon her could choose death by the blade when the babe came. Cut their child out of them so the babe would live and not suffer death for the mother’s crime.” Still she stared straight ahead, as calm and as sure as if she spoke about the weather. “I ask that to be my punishment.”

  “Meas,” said Joron, and he felt his voice crack, “please…”

  “Deckkeeper,” Farys said, used the same voice she would have used on deck to get his attention. “I broke the Bernlaw, knowing a price may have to be paid.” She took a breath. Did not waver and he marvelled at her iron will. “This is a ship of the dead, sentence was passed on me long ago. Only the day was undecided.” Then she looked at him, met his gaze with her own. “I am thankful for everything you have given me,” she said, “but this must be. It is for the good of the ship.”

  Then silence.

  Only silence, and he knew that, though he may wish to defend her, she did not want it. Just like Meas, she was raised in the Bernlaw and on the rules of the sea, it was part of her.

  “The good of the ship,” said Meas and paused, as if to let the words hang in the air. “And yet,” she took a deep breath, “is it?” She sat back a little in her chair. “Is it really for the good of the ship?”

  “I want no favouritism,” said Farys.

  “We have fought the Bern,” said Meas, and she opened her book at the Bernlaw. “But, as Joron told me, we unthinkingly continue their rule, follow their laws.” She looked up. “They did this to me,” she pointed at the ragged bandage over her missing eye. “What honour do they deserve?” Then she put her damaged and twisted hand on the first page of the Bernlaw, pressed down, pulling her fingers in and slowly ripping it from the book. “You have knowingly broken the rules of the ship,” said Meas, “and that cannot go without punishment for there must be discipline. The ship will not run without it. But not death, I am not the Hag and will not take a life simply because you brought one into being.” She let out a long breath. “Both you and the father will be broken to the lowest rank, stonebound, and you will also be confined to the brig until the child is born. That is your punishment.” She turned to Joron and he gave her a small nod, trying not to smile, trying to hide this sudden elation that washed over him. “Now, Farys, name the father and all this can be over with.”

  “No,” said Farys.

  “Farys,” said Joron, “you must.”

  “I will not name him,” said Farys.

  “Farys,” said Meas, “please.”

  “I know what you are trying to do,” she said, and now Farys’s careful composure was starting to come apart. “I know you see this as a kindness. But the crew will not accept this, Shipwife.” She rubbed a tear from her eye. “I will be outcast. I will be hated. This is not the way of the sea, they will consider me forever unlucky and I could not bear that.”

  “We all know it was Gavith,” said Meas. “Confirm his name, Farys, and this is over.”

  “No,” said Farys and stood straighter. “I will not.”

  “If you disobey a direct order,” said Joron, “you leave the Shipwife little choice in her sentence. There must still be discipline.”

  “I know,” said Farys and hung her head. “I know. She must condemn me. She must.”

  No one moved.

  No one spoke.

  They were trapped in a web spun by generations of expectations, traditions and superstitions. He wondered if he and Meas were fools. Did they fly the sea in service to dreams of a better world no one wanted? His thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of commotion on deck. Shouting and braying, and the drumming of feet on the slate. A moment later there was a hammering on the door.

  “Shipwife!” Aelerin’s voice. “You must come on deck now, Shipwife!” And all Joron’s thoughts – of the world they lived in and the one Meas hoped to create, and whether that was even possible – were washed away by the call to action and the way it filled his body with energy, with a need to strike out. Then he was following Meas out the cabin through the underdeck and up into the light on Tide Child’s slate. And there he found tragedy, not action. The commotion and call was not from ships on the horizon, or ships attacking, it was for the deckmother, Solemn Muffaz. The man who should have been stood outside Meas’s great cabin while sentence was imposed on Farys, indeed, had been.

  But was no longer.

  Solemn Muffaz stood upon the rump of Tide Child shouting at the top of his voice, “Listen all! Listen to me!”

  “What is the meaning of this, Solemn Muffaz?” shouted Meas, striding up the deck, the crowd of deckchilder parting around her.

  “I stand up here, Shipwife,” he shouted, “so that all know what I did to Deckholder Farys!”

  “You?” said Meas, the confusion on her face as apparent to Joron as the confusion he felt within. “You are her lover?” Solemn Muffaz shook his great head.

  “No,” he said. “I was never her lover, but it is my child!” Joron saw Gavith before him in the crowd. Staring up at the big man. “All know why I am on this ship, ey?” He looked from woman to man, man to woman, his eyes wild. “I murdered my wife. Committed a crime against the Hag. And I did not learn my lesson and have committed another crime just as foul. I forced myself on the girl.” As he said that, Joron looked about for Farys. Found her standing at the back of the crowd, the word “no” forming on her mouth, tears in her eyes. “There is only one crime, here, Shipwife,” shouted Solemn Muffaz, “and it is mine.”

  Meas stared at him, wrong-footed for just a moment.

  “Is there a witness to this?” she said. Turned, scanned the crowd. “Farys, is this true?” And all on the deck knew it was not. As Farys opened her mouth to say so, Solemn Muffaz raised his own voice. No longer wild, but sure, and slow and dangerous.

  “If any here,” he said, “wish to call me a liar, then they may draw their blade and I will meet them on the slate and the Hag can sort this out.” For a moment Joron could not speak. He was overcome, for he knew Solemn Muffaz, giant, silent, Solemn Muffaz must have heard what went on in Meas’s cabin. Realised the situation, and seen a way out for the woman he had taken under his wing.

  Joron cursed, as before him he saw Gavith take a step forward, as if to call out the deckmother, but the deckchilder around him were quick to act. One grabbed his shoulder, another grabbed his one arm and they held him, all the while whispering intently to him.

  Solemn Muffaz stared down at the gathered crew.

  “This crime is mine,” he shouted. “And I will be punished for it. Farys should live for she did naught wrong.” Meas stepped up to the rump, followed by Joron, and they stood before the deckmother. Meas spoke so quietly only Joron heard the exchange of words.

  “Solemn Muffaz,” she said, “you tried to help her. This is not your fault and will not win you forgiveness for your crimes at the Hag’s fire. She cares nothing for bravery or sacrifice. She does not forgive.” Solemn Muffaz smiled sadly.

  “Ey,” he said, “I know that. I have lived a life, Shipwife, and taken one I should never have.” He glanced at Farys. “I do this for our future. Look after her.” Meas locked gazes with him. Nodded.

  “Very well,” she said. Stepped back. Raised her voice. “Deckholder Farys, you have committed no crime. Deckmother Muffaz. Your crime is unpardonable. The sentence is death,” and she added, but only Joron heard, “but you knew that.” Muffaz nodded.

  “I need no accompaniment, Shipwife,” he said. “And you can save your shackles. I go to this willingly.” Meas let out a breath.

  “Ey,” she said. As she spoke Farys pushed through the crowd, ran up to the Deckmother.

  “Muffaz…” she said, and the small woman reached out a hand to the huge deckmother. He took her hand in his, patted i
t, then gently pushed it back down to her side.

  “It is for the good of the ship, lass, you know that,” he said to her. Then smiled. “The good of the ship is what matters.” He raised his head, looked at the assembled crew but said nothing. Had nothing to say, the deckmother was there for discipline and never a popular figure. He just gave them a simple nod and, in return, those who wore hats removed them, those who did not bowed their heads and Joron thought he saw a smile cross Solemn Muffaz’s face at that. “Shipwife, Deckkeeper,” he said. “Sentence was passed. The day is decided.” He turned to the side of the ship and without looking about him or back at the crew he climbed the rail. Paused a moment, looking out over the scintillating sea, and stepped out into the air.

  A splash.

  A strangled sob from Farys.

  Meas stared at the spot where Muffaz had gone over the side, then without another word made her way back through the crew, down into the underdecks.

  Joron made to go to Farys but she turned away from him, went to the rear of the ship to stare out at the sparkling wake and Joron left her with her grief. As the crew started to disperse he could not help thinking this was a poor start for Meas’s return, and a bad omen for their future. As he stood there he felt a presence at his shoulder, turned to find Cwell.

  “He was a brave man,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Joron.

  “Sounds like you are not so sure.”

  “Oh I am,” he replied. “It is only that I always expected him to fall in battle.”

  “What makes you think he didn’t?” she replied. Then turned and walked up the ship, stopping to stand by Farys. Gently placing a hand on her shoulder and that small gesture almost crippled Joron, almost had him break down upon the deck.

  He spent the afternoon on the slate, charting the course of Tide Child with Aelerin, all the while aware of the way the crew moved around him. Not as quick as usual, not as whip-smart as usual. On another day he would have called them on it, had words, had the deckmother threaten to cord a few but this was not another day, and the deckmother was gone. He watched a deckchild grease the for’ard seaward gallowbow, his actions oddly languorous, then made his way back up the ship to the courser.

  “The mood on the ship, Deckkeeper,” they said as he came to stand with them by the bell, “it is not good.”

  “No,” said Joron, “it is not. Hold this course, Aelerin, I will go and see the shipwife.” The courser nodded and Joron, with a call of “The courser has the deck,” left to go below. Down through the dim underdeck, the atmosphere somehow more oppressive than ever. He stopped outside the door to his cabin. No, not his, not any more. Hers now, hers once more and just as it should be. He took a deep breath, and as he was about to knock she called out.

  “Come in, Deckkeeper.” He let out the breath he had been holding and opened the door. Going from the dark of the underdeck to the light of her cabin. The sea stretching away behind them. Skearith’s Eye just low enough that he had to squint and Meas and her desk turned into a silhouette, a dark, flat shadow in front of the large windows, writing in her journal.

  “Shipwife,” he said. Unsure whether to sit or not. She put down her quill and looked at the book. Let out a sigh as she scattered sand on it to dry the ink.

  “I will never be a scribe now.” She raised a damaged hand. He did not know what to say, she had always had beautiful handwriting. Meas stood. Closed the book. Turned around to look out to sea. “Solemn Muffaz,” she said, “he should not have died.”

  “Farys should?” he said, sharper than he meant to. Not as sharply as he would have liked.

  “By the Bernlaw, and her own want, yes,” said Meas quietly, “she should have.” She put a hand on the window. “I have been in here, wondering if made a mistake in listening to you. In trying to put aside what the crew of this ship have always known,” she said. He was about to speak but she held up a hand, fingers curled and gnarled. “I did not. We need discipline, that needs to be enforced and I will not apologise for that. But to do it the way it has been done…” She let her words tail off, the way Tide Child’s wake faded from white to grey until it was once more part of the ever-shifting sea. “I have been away too long, maybe I was too eager to put my stamp back on the ship. And you were right when you said we are not the Hundred Isles, not the Bern; our ways are different. I should have handled it better.”

  “It is your ship, Shipwife,” he said. Stiff. Formal. “To be commanded how you see fit.” She turned, walked over to him. Looked him up and down and he felt as if the keyshan’s rot that ran wild over his body had all started to itch at once.

  “It is one of the great skills of a good deckkeeper, you know,” she smiled sadly at him, “to express great disapproval through only the tone of voice.” Once he would have jumped in there, to tell her she was wrong. But she was not, and he did not. “For what it is worth, I am immeasurably sad to have lost Solemn Muffaz, though it is tempered a little by the fact we did not lose Farys. I think if my…” She stopped. “If my miscalculation had cost her life, then it may have caused damage between us that could never be fixed.” She was staring at him, hard. “I am hoping that is not the case.”

  He was angry with her. And yet, as that anger burned he could also hear a voice, his own voice, wrapped in the songs of the windspires and the great sea dragons. Can you not see she takes off her mask? And the anger was tamped down as her misery washed over him. He had stood where she was. He had commanded a vessel and made hard decisions. He had made wrong decisions and had got people killed, good people.

  “It is the fleet way, Shipwife,” he said. “Even when the damage seems beyond repair, we will make do, somehow.” She walked around the desk to him. Put a hand on his arm and squeezed gently.

  “Thank you,” she said. The ship creaked alarmingly. He saw another worry register on her face. She may have been away from Tide Child for long upon long but she knew her ship. Knew that noise for the sort that was not healthy. “This ship has been through a lot while I was away,” she said, and walked back to the window, placing her hand on the bone frame. Patted the substance of the ship as if to reassure the bone hull, or maybe to seek reassurance from it. “We all have. I look upon the deck and there is barely a face I know. They do not speak to me like I am a shipwife, half of them seem terrified of me.”

  “You are not a shipwife to them,” he said, “you are a legend.”

  “A legend,” she spoke more to herself than him. She turned. “Joron, we need something before we meet Indyl Karrad. I need to give the crew something to make up for the loss of Solemn Muffaz. But I do not know what…” She sounded desperate, almost lost.

  “I may do, Shipwife,” he said. “Leave it with me.” She nodded, a brief look of relief washing over her.

  He left the great cabin and went up on deck. Looking about for the deckchild he needed.

  He found Gavith near the beak of the ship, tying knots with his one good arm.

  “You are very dextrous,” said Joron.

  “Ey,” he said, not looking up. “What Solemn Muffaz did…”

  “Speak no more of it, he made a decision for the good of the ship. Do not make it a wasted life, Gavith.”

  “It was my fault. If I had—”

  “It was not that simple. Learn from it. Solemn Muffaz wanted you and Farys to live. So live, and do not spend your life looking back at what could have been.”

  “As you say, D’keeper,” he said. He wiped at his face with his arm. Joron leaned in closer.

  “That other business I set you to, how are you doing with it?”

  “I think I have found the thing you seek,” he said, still not looking at him. “But the windshorn keeps moving it.”

  “A different place each time?” asked Joron. Gavith shook his head, used one hand to tie a complicated knot and Joron found that oddly pleasing. In the midst of the tension and the pain there was pleasure in watching someone do a simple task well.

  “The bird has certain places
it likes, the same ones.” He sat back from his knot. “Mostly, anyway.”

  “Mostly?”

  “Occasionally it finds a new place, and that can take me a while to discover.” Joron leaned in closer.

  “Find it, Gavith,” he said. “Then bring it onto the deck when we gather there, you will know when.”

  “The bird will try and stop us,” he said.

  “The bird will be otherwise occupied,” said Joron.

  44

  The Court of Birds

  Early next norning, he knocked on Meas’s cabin door. She opened it in her full dress uniform, best coat, adorned with feathers and trinkets, black lines around her eyes, metallic colours across her cheek and dye in her grey hair. He was sure she had been waiting, dressed just so, since he had told her what he intended. She was probably as unsure as he was whether this would work, though she would never show it. Just as he had come to realise he did not show it either, though the mask covering half his face made it easier.

  “Are we ready?” she said.

  “As we can be.”

  At the steps to the deck she turned and he saw her catch herself before she shouted out a command. Usually she would have relayed any request through Solemn Muffaz, but no longer, and he saw the habit break on her face like waves on a rock. “You,” she said to a passing deckchild, “Benlir?” The woman smiled at being recognised. “Ask the Gullaime to come up on deck if you would. Please tell it that the deckkeeper wants a word.”

  “Ey, Shipwife,” she said, and vanished into the gloom.

  “Come then, Joron,” said Meas, “let us act. I will be on the rump.”

  As he followed her he could only hope that Gavith would come through. Only hope the crew would react how he believed they would. Only hope that events would turn out as he wished. And all he knew was that there were no guarantees. He would wish for success and if it did not come then Tide Child would fly on under a cloud of misfortune and, Joron thought, it may also carry on without its deckkeeper, for he was under no doubt of the danger in what he was intending to do. Today he would challenge Madorra and, as he knew, the windshorn’s reaction was likely to be a violent one. He had been careful to avoid coming in between the two gullaime before, knowing that the windshorn had some hold over his friend. But he could stand it no longer. He touched the sword at his hip as he came onto the deck. Skearith’s Eye was bright, the wind brisk and the crew hard at work. He could feel how they did not sit right, how Solemn Muffaz’s death had affected them, and despite the brightness he felt as though a squall were about to break aboard the ship. That some important piece had been taken from the board – not so much the loss of Solemn Muffaz himself, though Joron had liked the man and would miss him keenly, more the way it was done. That all the crew knew he had sacrificed himself for Farys, and though there was no doubt the crew’s mood would have been the same if Farys had gone, that would have been, in that odd way of the fleet, correct.