by D Murray
“Sorry.” Crene noticed the condition of those present. “Forgot my manners there. Shock and all at there being visitors. Put a pot on to boil and have some tea. There’s dried fish and vegetables over in the barrels under the window. Fresh bread in the tin box by the flour.”
Cookie grunted in thanks and set off after the provisions, along with one of the Eagles Kalfinar did not know by name.
“As for crew,” Crene continued, “there’s me, and two other seamen. Rest of those that remain are just the homers. Not sea-goers, that lot. But they keep our little world turning.”
“Can three seamen run the ship?”
“Where you wanting to go?” Crene took the pipe from his mouth, hand trembling once again. “Not that anywhere along this coast is kind in winter.”
“East. As close to Hagra as makes no difference,” Kalfinar said.
Crene’s good eye bulged even larger than Kalfinar thought possible, and his mouth hung open, showing the tabac-stained teeth of his lower jaw. “Hell’s catch, four hundred crew couldn’t sail those seas safely in summer, never mind winter.”
“You saw what we're dealing with,” Kalfinar said grimly. “There isn’t a choice. Can you get us close?”
“Dajda.” Crene lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose with his shaking forefinger and thumb. “I’m an old man, but I’m the youngest of the skeleton crew. We’ve lived long, and were meant to die on the brine, so maybe this is Dajda’s way. Aye, we’ll get you close. There’s a stretch of bays past some of the rougher seas that I may be able to put in to. I know some people there. May be they can help you get to where you need to go. But you’ll not be going anywhere the rest of this day, or night. The Swell’s cruel today. Wind’s playing hard on the water, too. No, you and your people best take your rest this night. We may see a kinder morrow.”
Kalfinar felt a flush of frustration, but he swallowed it. “Thank you.”
“Save your thanks. You don’t truly know what’s out there. First things first.” Crene stood up, knees creaking. “You all need better clothes. Follow me. I’ve a fishing fleet’s worth of oiled and lined sealskins for you.” He walked towards a door at the back of the room, leading into the rest of the port house. They each followed on, with Broden falling in beside Kalfinar.
“You know something, Kal,” Broden said as they headed towards the door.
“What?” Kalfinar replied, a welcome smile forming on his lips.
“This might just be my worst fucking nightmare.”
Kalfinar stood on the spray-slick boards of the jetty, sheltered by the west side of the building and its hanging roof. The wind hurled forth its worst, battering the coast from the north, carrying with it briny spray, icy rain, and frigid kisses from the sea. Kalfinar put the end of the unlit pipe between his teeth and looked down at the moisture, rain and sea spray as it beaded against the short fur of his newly acquired sealskin parka. He had thought the oiled fleeces of the Pathfinders to be the best of winter kit, but truth be known, he had never before felt so protected from the elements as they fought to undermine him.
“Boss.” A low, gruff voice sounded behind him, followed by the gentle creak of the spring-driven door to the port house as it swung shut.
“Evening,” Kalfinar replied, turning to see the Eagle approaching him with a tabac pipe in his hand.
“Aye. 'Tis that, I suppose.” The man scowled towards what could be best guessed as the horizon, a swirling mass of white-capped grey waves and a spread of black cloud that stretched across the whole sky. “Reckon it could’ve passed night and come day again, and we’d not be any the wiser.”
Kalfinar smiled at the man, regarding him a moment. He was some years older than Kalfinar, perhaps in his mid-forties, and of average height. He had black hair pulled tight and hanging in a ponytail at the back. His eyebrows were heavy and dark, his black eyes sharp and intelligent. He had a long, pointed nose that rested above a magnificent spread of red moustache and black beard. “See you’ve chosen to stick with your own gear for now?” The man still wore his heavy brown woollen coat, topped with a worn green leather jerkin. Instead of the dark-stained buck-skin trousers of the rest of the crew, this Eagle chose instead to wear the plaid skirts common for those of Ultima North.
The Eagle looked down at his clothing, raising the toes of his knee-high boots. “Aye.” He raised his eyebrows and smiled, revealing well-kept teeth. “Always been loyal to my plaid. More versatile than the leggings you southerners like to be wearing.”
“Should try the parka,” Kalfinar suggested. “That at least is worthy of wearing.”
“I’ll heed you.” The man closed the distance between them and leaned against the wall of the building, seemingly none too fussed by the wicked weather about him. “No doubt that’ll be a comfort on the water.”
“You’re of the north?” Kalfinar asked.
“You wanting that lit?” the man asked, nodding towards the unlit pipe in Kalfinar’s hand.
“No, thanks. Just a habit. I don’t smoke it anymore.”
“Shame. That old lad has some fine leaf. Aye,” the man replied to the earlier question, as he opened his small ember case and tipped the contents into the pipe bowl. He sucked in a breath, his nose and eyes lighting up in a red glow as it came to life with a puff of white smoke that plumed, then was stolen away by the wind. “Gerloup.”
“I’m sorry,” Kalfinar reached out his hand, “I didn’t get your name.”
The man clicked his pipe between his teeth and shook Kalfinar’s hand. “Ferdus. Ferdus Brunsa.”
Kalfinar’s pulse quickened and he forced himself to smile. Brunsa. He’s kin to Arrlun. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Pleasure’s mine, boss.”
“Your name.” Kalfinar let the smile fade from his face, noting the sober appearance of Ferdus before him. The wind buffeted him in the back as he stood, causing him to sway, correcting his stance and preventing himself from being blown over. “I’ve heard the name before. I travelled from Hardalen with a young officer named Brunsa.”
“Aye.” Ferdus drew long on his pipe before spilling forth a cloud of smoke, dissipated in an instant by the wind. “Arrlun was my sister’s boy. They killed him at Apula.”
He doesn’t know. How would he? “I’m sorry, Ferdus. I was fond of him. He was a fine soldier. I was proud to know him.”
Ferdus took another draw on his pipe. “No doubt knew him better than me.” He looked past Kalfinar, out to sea, and then turned his head back to regard the few lights in the windows of the houses in the town. “Hadn’t seen him since he was a cub. But he was a good child. Big. Always a big brute of a boy, but gentle with his size. Didn’t know if the Pathfinders was really for him when my sister wrote to me. But he must’ve done all right.”
“Aye. He did more than all right. Be proud of him.”
Ferdus looked back to Kalfinar, holding his gaze with his dark eyes. “Oh, I’m proud of that lad, believe me. I volunteered so I could give my sister blood for her blood.”
Kalfinar placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. “There will be blood.”
Ferdus nodded, his lips pursed. “Aye. There will be.”
The door behind creaked open and Broden’s head craned through. “Kal, the old man says the townsfolk will be down in ten minutes. They’re putting on music and sorts.”
“Shit. We need the crew to rest, not get foggy heads.” Hypocrite. How many times did you fog your head when you should have been clear?
“Excuse me, sirs.” Ferdus nodded to Kalfinar and Broden, then walked back into the port house.
“Kal, they need this. So do you.” Broden stepped out, allowing the door to close behind him. He grimaced in the face of the weather and folded his broad arms over his chest. “What’re you doing out in this, anyway? It’s bloody freezing.”
“That man, the Eagle.”
“Ferdus?”
“Aye, Ferdus Brunsa.”
“Fuck off?”
“He
’s Arrlun’s uncle.”
“Dajda!” Broden unfolded his arms and scratched the back of his head with one hand. “Reckon he’s steady?”
“Aye. But I don’t want him to know it was Bergnon. Reckon it complicates the grief a bit too much. Let’s keep him steady.”
“I’ll say nothing.”
Kalfinar nodded and moved to step beyond Broden and back into the port house.
“Hold on.” Broden placed one broad hand on Kalfinar’s chest.
Kalfinar frowned down at the hand barring his path, and then back up into Broden’s dour face. “Fine. They can have tonight. But if anyone gets too far gone with the drink, I’ll see that you are in the crow’s nest in the morning.” Broden’s hand dropped, allowing Kalfinar to step past him.
“Now that would be my worst fucking nightmare.”
“Best behaviour, remember?” Kalfinar patted Broden on the back as the big man turned to watch the townsfolk filter into the port house.
Three dozen or so had turned up, bringing with them stools, fiddles, earthenware jugs and wooden casks. Some brought candles, and others baskets of twisted branches and logs for the fire. The townsfolk were a mix of young and old, men and women. They spread their stools about the room and shared their belongings about Kalfinar’s troops. A middle-aged woman, pretty of face but sad of eyes, handed a clay bottle to Kalfinar.
“Whisky for you.” She smiled. “Enjoy it.”
Kalfinar nodded his thanks and offered a small smile.
“You going to drink that?” Broden asked. “Only polite.”
“You just want me to get drunk.”
“Want you to loosen up.”
Kalfinar twisted the cork with a squeak and a plonk, and smelled the spirit. It had a nose of sweetness and brine. He looked across at Broden, who nodded, and then back at the woman who had gifted him the bottle. He lifted it up in both hands with a smile, and put the bottle to his lips, drawing a small sip from it. One of the townsfolk tested the strings of their fiddle as the heat touched Kalfinar's lips and tongue. The whisky slid down his throat with a velvet warmth before a rising air of smoke and earth rounded him from the swallow. He coughed once, and then laughed a little, passing the bottle to Broden. “Good stuff. Enjoy.”
Broden took the bottle. “I will!” The big man laughed as Kalfinar walked across to where the woman sat in front of the fire, uncasing her fiddle. She smiled at Kalfinar as he stood before her.
“You’re meant to use a cup for your whisky,” she said.
“I’m sorry.” Kalfinar grinned. “I wanted to thank you. It’s kind of you to share it with us.”
“It’s not a kindness,” she replied, confusing Kalfinar. “It’s a blessing. Crene told me where you want to go. I’ll not see more take to that sea without a blessing. I lost my man to the Swell fifteen summers past. Take your whisky, enjoy the music, be warm, be well and smile. For the sea is cruel, and she’ll steal away the warmth of your blood.”
Kalfinar took on board the woman’s words for a moment and watched as she worked the tuning pegs. “Well, my thanks for your blessing.”
“Thank me with a dance or two.” She looked up with a smile, mischief in those sad eyes causing laughter lines to appear.
Kalfinar wondered if it had been fifteen years since she’d laughed.
“What’s your name?”
“Maura. I like the fast dances.”
“The fast ones.” Kalfinar dipped into a little bow, holding the woman’s eyes. She still held on to the beauty of her youth, framed with age and sadness, but she held on to it still. “You tell me the dance, and mind your toes.”
“I shall.”
Kalfinar turned and stepped away, before turning back as Maura called, “A cup each, for you and your big friend.” She handed two white enamelled mugs to him, the blue glaze around the rim chipped over time.
“Thanks, again.”
Broden took the bottle from his lips as Kalfinar re-joined him.
“Have a cup.” Kalfinar handed one over to him.
“Very civilised,” Broden quipped.
“Try to adapt.”
Some of the townsfolk had cracked open the wooden casks of ale, and uncorked more clay bottles of whisky. They passed them about their guests. Others tested their instruments: fiddles, circular skin drums, spoons, and accordions.
Crene stepped in front of the stove and banged a wooden spoon on an upturned pot, drawing the murmur of conversation and testing of instruments to a hush.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thanks to you for coming out on this foul night to greet our visitors.”
“Shut it, Crene!” an elderly man with one eye yelled out. “Don’t let that old bastard kid you on. We always play on sixth day!”
“Hell’s catch, Dernis. Would you ever just–”
“Nevertheless,” Kalfinar interrupted, “we’re grateful for your hospitality.”
“Aye, well,” Crene said, grappling for his words. “Let us come together and celebrate the sea. She can be a thieving old whore, just as she can be the kindly mother to us. Let us celebrate her tonight, and enjoy an evening of music, dancing and drink!”
“Not too much drink!” Kalfinar added. A shrill chorus of whistles and jeers rose from his troops, their dissenting voices mixed with laughter and high spirits, ably supported and supplied by the townsfolk. He raised his cup to his troops, and then swallowed the whisky.
The music started fast, with two fiddlers – the woman who had presented Kalfinar with the whisky, and a small stooped man whose bent body shape perfectly complemented his dark-wood fiddle. They played a reel that had old Crene dancing with an older woman, whooping and yipping as they spun in circles, hand in hand. He kicked out in front with one foot, and his partner followed suit. After observing the whirling dance for a few beats, Murtagh grabbed hold of the nearest man to her –a bewildered Cookie – and dragged him onto the floor, his plaintive eyes cast back towards his laughing companions.
“Don’t know what they're laughing at,” Broden whispered to Kalfinar, observing the townsfolk on the other side of the room. “Some of them women over there are positively licking their lips.”
“The boys don’t know what they’ve got coming to them.” Kalfinar smirked and sipped at the whisky. “Good stuff, this.”
“Lendal looks like he’s seen his own death coming.” Broden nudged Kalfinar and nodded in the direction of the younger city guardsman.
“Handsome boy like him?” Kalfinar laughed as he watched Lendal avoid the hungry glower of several of the townsfolk. “He ought to be used to the attention by now.”
“Doesn’t mean to say he can handle it. There’s at least four there after a dance with him.” Broden puffed out his chest, placed down his cup, and straightened his jerkin. “Maybe I’ll show him how it’s done.” Broden stepped across the makeshift dance floor, avoiding the spinning Crene and partner, and sidestepping the flailing Murtagh and Cookie. He approached the laughing knot of women and bowed.
Kalfinar could not hear what Broden said, but it yielded him a partner, and so he began the spinning himself, just as the music sped up another level.
“That one hardly looks much built for dancing.” The growling voice of Ferdus sounded beside Kalfinar.
Kalfinar nodded in greeting. “He isn’t. Truth be told, the only things Broden is built for are drinking, fighting, fooling, and shitting.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Ferdus raised his cup, “To a soldier’s life.”
“A soldier’s life.” Kalfinar swallowed the whisky, draining his cup.
“Try some of this.” Ferdus offered a small round leather-clad bottle from a cinched leather pouch that hung off the belt around his waist. “Whisky from Gerloup. Very rare.” He unscrewed the top and poured the light gold liquid into Kalfinar’s cup. “It can only be made once every ten years or so, when there’s enough meltwater in high summer.”
“Thank you,” Kalfinar said as he smelled the rich, sweet spirit.
�
��No, thank you for seeing to my sister’s boy. I’m grateful he had good people about him.” Ferdus poured himself a measure, finishing the contents of his bottle.
Kalfinar’s eyes found Maura. She had taken the fiddle from underneath her chin, and it now rested on her lap. Old Crene started up a tune beside her on his own fiddle, slow and melodic. The cry of the fiddle strings rang a baleful tune, and Maura’s eyes closed as she tipped her head back a little. She began to sing. Her voice was gentle, neither high, nor low. The words of her song were in the true Noehmian tongue, a language now only spoken in the Lihedan Isles, and some enclaves along the north western parts of Noehmia and Ultima North. Her words followed the flow of the fiddle, like the graceful rise and fall of waves. Her closed eyes tightened as her voice rose higher on the sorrowful notes. She began to sway as one of the other players started to drum a low tattoo on the flat, stretched skin of the drum.
Kalfinar leaned his head closer to Ferdus, not taking his eyes from Maura as she sang. “You know her words?”
“Aye,” Ferdus replied. “The song is called ‘The Widows o’ the Sea.’ These women, they’re all widows of the sea.”
Kalfinar turned from the hypnotic and sorrowful sight of Maura singing and looked towards the women on the other side of the room. Each had their eyes cast towards the age-worn floorboards of the port house. Of course they seemed excited by the presence of the visitors, but as he looked closer he could see it. They each grieved. He realised he had seen it on their happy faces, even; that nod to loss that hides sullenly at the edge of a smile. Maura’s voice caressed another verse, and then played over the last round of the chorus, her throat straining those beautiful, unknown words. Perhaps it was fatigue that caused her voice to crack, perhaps it was emotion. Kalfinar could not tell, but it did not diminish the sad loveliness of her singing. He remembered his own loss, and swallowed it down to the dark hole he kept it in. Now was not the time to wallow.
The music stopped, and Maura opened her eyes. All in the room remained silent for a long moment, awestruck by the power of the song and music. The sea was entwined in this place; the maker, the taker, the celebrated, and the cursed. Ferdus broke the silence as he clapped and said something to Maura in the words of the north. She smiled at him, and bowed her head a little.
