by Rj Barker
“Garriya. . .” the name creeping from his mouth.
“Aye, that is me.” She mumbled to herself as she stared into his face, lifted his eyelids. “I have medicine for you to drink. All those fools and their foolishness opened the wound in your back again. All my good work undone. And you with so much work to do.”
“How long?” So thirsty, the words a light breeze.
“Two, three days maybe? The ship moves, your windtalker squats on the deck day and night, bells ring and disturb my sleep.” She moved away, shuffling across the white of the floor and only then he realised he was in Meas’s cabin. Panic seized him and he tried to move. But Garriya was quick across the floor, her old, gnarled hands pushing him back onto the hard bed.
“No, this is Meas’s . . .”
“Hush yourself, boy.” She patted his cheek. “I needed the room to work and if you think she would mind then I reckon you do not understand the woman at all.” Garriya stared down into his face. “She’s a practical one, aye?” He nodded. “She needs you, Joron Twiner, and so you will lie back and drink this.” She held up the cup and then leaned in close to him. “And I have other medicines for you, Caller, for I have seen the marks on your skin.” Shame burned within him. “I cannot stop the keyshan’s rot, boy; none can, nor its madness. But I can slow it.”
He nodded. “Tell no one.” The words burned hot in his mouth, brought tears to his eyes. “They will never trust an officer with the rot, will start to question every order I give if they know.”
Garriya stared into his eyes, her face a road map of age, her eyes almost buried within the weathered folds of her face.
“Do not underestimate them,” she said.
He grabbed her, his hand around her arm. It felt as thin and delicate as a bird’s wing.
“Tell no one.”
“As you wish, Deckkeeper,” she said. “Now drink this and rest.”
And he did, and he did.
When he awoke it was from a sleep so deep it had been dreamless, a loss of his entire consciousness to the deepest depths; and if he had seen the Hag, or drifted in that massive and powerful dream body, as he had done in dreams before, he had no memory of it. Neither did he have any memory of being moved to his own cabin, which had been whitewashed like the shipwife’s, the bowpeek propped open so he could see the grey water that Tide Child flew through. He ached, but it was not the burning ache of infection and when he moved he did not feel as if his back may rip open at any point. Even the sores on the tops of his arms seemed to itch a little less.
He wore a white shirt.
It was rare to see white clothes on a ship where every garment, no matter how colourful, seemed to exist on a trajectory toward the same grey as the sea. But his shirt was as white as the highest cloud on the warmest day – and just as soft. He slid his legs from the hammock, took a moment to test them, see how much of his strength had returned, and when he was sure they would take his weight, he stood. Groaned. Took a step.
The door to his cabin opened and Garriya stood there. Behind her in the gloom of the underdeck stood Farys and another deckchild, Karring.
“Up?” said Garriya. “About time.” He saw Farys’s eyes widen at the way the old woman spoke to him. “Well, will you laze about here or go check on your ship?”
“Yes,” he said. “I mean yes, I must check on the ship.”
“Your jacket, D’keeper,” said Farys, and she slipped into the cabin, presenting Joron with his blue uniform jacket, pressed and scrubbed and sewn with new feathers that caught the light. She slipped it onto Joron, waiting patiently as her deckkeeper hissed, feeling twinges in his back as he stretched to get his arms into the sleeves.
“You’re not good as new, Caller, so remember that,” said Garriya. “But you’ll heal now if you don’t do anything foolish.”
“I will try,” he said. He looked around him in the bright white cabin, past the cabin door the gloomy underdeck, lit by flickering wanelights. He felt that something was missing. He touched his hip, the space where his sword had been, but it was not that. That was an annoyance right enough, a thing to be avenged. This was different, a gap within him. A space beside him where something was missing. “Anzir,” he said to himself, and on saying it knew it was true. They had never really spoken much, never really shared anything of themselves. But she had always been there, like an arm, or a leg. Something ever present, but which you did not think about until you needed to use it. He coughed to clear the painful lump in his throat. “Farys,” he said, “thank you for bringing my jacket, but I will also need my boots.” Farys nodded. “And
my trousers,” he added with a small smile that seemed to take as much energy from him as standing had.
He made his way through the ship full of trepidation. How would he be received? He had shown weakness, made mistakes that had nearly lost the ship to mutineers, and had left loyal deckchilder dead or wounded. Then he had betrayed them all by letting Cwell live.
As he walked, with each difficult step, he thought of how he had proved Cwell right. He was no officer. He was simply a fisher’s boy, out of his depth on the deck of a fleet ship. Ill and weak. A man who had failed. What would Meas be thinking now? As she waited, her ship not where it should be? Her running out of stores, cursing her deckkeeper for failing her?
Out of the gloom, and onto the slate.
“Officer on deck!”
The words rang out and all action stopped. No scrubbing, no fixing, no painting, no oiling. Every face on the slate turned to him. What shame he felt. Dinyl, who had called out those words, was stood on the rump with Aelerin. Solemn Muffaz before them, Barlay at the steering oar. Could Dinyl know what a mockery it felt like to hear those words? Did he do it in purpose?
Joron took a step forward. The topwings flapped and chains jingled, but all else was silence. Another step forward. The deckchilder to either side of him stood, rope axes in their hands. They brought their arms across their chest in salute.
“D’keeper,” they said, heads bowed. And as he walked down the length of the ship their words and actions were echoed. Some avoided his eye. Some looked shy. Some smiled. Some looked proud and when he came to the rump Dinyl moved to one side.
“I have been minding your place, Deckkeeper Twiner,” he said. “I am right glad you are back. The ship is yours once more.”
He looked down the deck. Knew what Dinyl said was right. This crew – oh, not as many as there had been, barely enough to work the ship. But, Mother bless them all, they really were his. He remembered how he had sworn once that he would take back command of this ship from Meas. Remembered the sand burning and cutting his feet. Remembered the shame he felt at having his command taken away. And as he stood there on the rump between Dinyl and Aelerin, he knew what Dinyl said was true. The mutiny, his wounds, these had not cost him respect – instead they had built him up. This crew would follow him. He was not sure when it had happened but he had become, in their eyes, a truly worthy officer, and though he searched for them, there were no sly looks, no sneers.
“Thank you, Deckholder,” he said, and turned to the women and men on deck. “Well, what are you standing around for? I’ll have no slatelayers on my deck. The shipwife is expecting us. Set all the wings, make all speed.”
His words were met with a roar of approval and the crew sprang to their job. Black wings fell to catch the wind, the gullaime was called from below and it sprang onto the deck, yarking and calling and spitting at the windshorn that followed it. With the gullaime came more wind and a sense of purpose. Black Orris fluttered down to perch on Joron’s shoulder.
“Arse!” called the bird and Joron found himself stifling a laugh as joy bubbled up within him and Tide Child pushed through the ocean, his beak cutting the waves as if he had found new life and new purpose.
27
Reunion
The winds were, in the end, good to Tide Child. The Eaststorm was kinder than Aelerin had dreamed. Nine beakwyrms rode the wake and the ship pointed
his beak forward, the seas parting before him. Joron stood on the rump, in his mind he saw their place on the ocean, and he knew from his conversations with Aelerin that they were late for meeting Meas by eight days. Despite the kindness of the winds he was tempted to ask the gullaime to bring even more, to push the ship harder. Once he may have done, foolishly worrying what Meas would think. But not now. Their gullaime was strong but it was not inexhaustible, and who knew when they would need it? Or when they would next set foot on land for the gullaime to visit a windspire? Not only that, but the stronger the wind the harder the ship was to handle and he was sore underhanded. What if he wore out the crew handling the ship under the gullaime’s wind and then a storm hit?
No, though the itch not to let Meas down was worse than the itch from the sores on his arms, he knew he must trust her to look after herself. And if anyone could look after themselves it was his shipwife. He would bring her the ship and he would make sure that the ship he handed her was as ready for whatever she may need it for as it was possible to make it. She may feign anger at lateness, but she would rather have a strong ship than a timely one. So he stood on the rump and he pretended he did not feel, in every bone of his body, that he should be pushing harder and faster.
The crew felt his need. And Joron knew that. Solemn Muffaz had come back too quickly from the hagbower, his back so badly lashed he could not wear clothes and the mass of red, lacerated flesh was on show for all to see. Aelerin was constantly revising their routes, desperate to find some quicker way through the shoals and currents and islands. Dinyl was that bit sharper with those he did not think jumped to their tasks as quickly as they should. Every member of the crew worked that little harder, moved that little quicker and Joron wanted to say “No! Save yourselves for when it matters,” and yet he could not. He could not steal this from them. They worked for her and they worked for him and he could not deny them that.
“We make good speed, ey, Deckkeeper?” said Dinyl.
“Ey, we do,” said Joron. He felt a hand on his back. The briefest of touches.
“We can do no better,” said Dinyl, quietly.
“I know. And tomorrow we should arrive at our rendezvous.”
As the ranking officer on the deck of Tide Child Joron could not say, “I hope she is there.” But it was what he thought.
Morran was yet to break as Tide Child arrived at his rendezvous in a huge and placid sea lake. A glass-flat expanse of water between four islands, where the placing of the land conspired to create a mere, a great body of calm water. The ship creaked and groaned as he was brought to a stop, the staystone dropped with a splash loud enough that the skeers on the far islands rose into the air, cawing and croaking in complaint at this loud intruder to their world.
The sea mere was empty of any other vessels.
“Topboys!” shouted Joron. “Tell of the sea!”
“Empty, D’keeper,” came the reply. Joron took a deep breath. What now? Explore the sea around the islands? Or wait?
He decided to wait.
Meas would surely appear. In sea time nine days was not a great deal of time to be late by. A lost spar, an unexpected calm or any one of the many misfortunes that could fall upon a ship could delay a vessel by far more than nine days.
So he would wait. He could do nothing else.
And they did. The waiting was hard. Skearith’s Eye crept across the sky and dipped beneath the skyline. Nothing changed. No wings breached the horizon. Joron found work for his crew, sent them rowing to the islands in the flukeboat to find water and food, set them to fishing. On the second day of waking, an eyefish rose from the water. A vast roundness, almost as big as Tide Child, and covered in white scales. Like Skearith’s Blind Eye it glowed, its many diaphanous fins and streamers floating in the air as if in water and Joron heard echoes of the windspire song. The gullaime appeared on deck, hopping over to join Joron on the rump to stare at the eyefish. The windtalker seemed hypnotised and from its mouth fell a quiet, mournful song. Joron heard talk of hunting it from the deck, of the price its oil could bring, but he clamped down hard on that. An eyefish hunt was a hard thing, the creature able to spit burning oil, and many would die. With so many of the crew dead and the mutineers locked in the hold he needed every one of his loyal deckchilder. Besides, he had no appetite for the death of the creature. He would fill his stomach on its beauty, and he quieted the crew’s dreams of filling their pockets with its bounty. The song of the gullaime died away and the eyefish submerged once more, vanishing beneath the waters of the mere to be on its way to wherever eyefish went. Joron silently wished it well.
“A good omen,” said Solemn Muffaz, “to see an eyefish. That’s what my old shipwife always said.”
“And a shipwife is always right on their deck,” said Joron, “so a good omen it will be.” He turned to the deck and raised his voice. “Do you hear, my girls and boys? Solemn Muffaz tells me an eyefish is a good omen, and for the crew who does not hunt it? How much more blessed must they be? I reckon the Mother smiles on us and we’ll see the shipwife any day.”
But Skearith’s Eye crept across the sky and dipped beneath the skyline and they did not see the shipwife, nor on the next day or the next. Joron felt he was running out of ways to keep his crew occupied. He dreaded hearing from his underdeck officers that questions were starting, of when the ship should move on, and where it should look for the shipwife next.
“Ship rising!”
Before the words were fully out of the topboy’s mouth Joron was up the spine. When had his feet become so much surer on the ropes? Oh, he was no Meas, never that. But he no longer fretted that his boots would slip with every step as he scaled the spine. In the topboy’s nest he found Karring, pointing in the gap between two flat islands.
“Over there, Deckkeeper,” Joron wished he had Meas’s nearglass, so much more powerful than the one he had. But he did not and must make the best of what he had, raising the nearglass to his eye, scanning the line between sea and sky.
“I do not . . . Wait, yes. There. A spine without doubt. And white wings.” He felt cold. That was not Meas, that was a fleet ship.
Was Tide Child hunted now? Was that why Meas had not arrived? Was she caught? Oh, indecision was the Maiden’s child. What to do? He watched through the grubby circle of the nearglass. The spines growing as the ship came over the horizon. A two-ribber, a few corpselights floating above, though he could not make out colours. What would Meas do?
Wait.
Something else in the circle of the nearglass. Smaller.
A flukeboat.
Wings up, running from the two-ribber but being reeled in as he watched. Hag curse this nearglass, the filth at the edges had hidden the smaller boat from him, and though he could not tell, for sure, in his gut he knew that it was Meas.
“Give me all the wings!” he shouted down to the deck. Immediately all was action and bustle and speed. Joron put the nearglass back to his eye. Hundred Isles flags on the two-ribber. He did not recognise the ship. He could not make out those in the flukeboat. “Clear for action!” But you could never be too prepared, he knew that. Then he was climbing down the spine, still a little wary going down, still overly careful about where he placed his boots, but as soon as he hit the deck he was shouting again. Feeling the words cut into his throat. “Bring me the gullaime!”
“Is it the shipwife?” said Dinyl.
“I do not know for certain.” Joron stood on the rump, straightened his jacket. “It is a flukeboat, pursued by a fleet ship. It could be nothing of course. But if it is her I would rather be prepared to defend her than not.”
“Ey,” said Dinyl, “you chart the right course there.” As he said it the black material of the wings fell from where they were tied and the gullaime joined them, hissing and yarking at its unwelcome consort.
“Jo-ron Twiner,” it croaked.
“Ships coming from the east, Gullaime. I reckon it may be the shipwife and she is pursued. Can you give us wind?”
�
��Wind!” it shouted and crouched down on the deck, a shiver passing through its body. It lifted its beak and called out to the sky, a lonely shout. Warmth passed over the deck of Tide Child and the winds followed it. First soft, then harder and faster, filling the ship’s black wings and pushing them through the sea. Clouds of skeers lifted from the islands around them, a thousand wings, beating against the air.
“Steer us east, Barlay!” The oarturner leaned into the steering oar and Tide Child groaned as he came about. Deckchilder pulled on ropes, making constant small changes, the better for the wings to catch the wind – and then, when the black ship was settled in its course and leaping forward in a shower of salt spray, Joron took his place upon the rump, arms behind his back. He watched the sails, the rigging, the crew. Seeing it all as one great machine focused on catching the wind and smashing through the waves.
“Tide Child’s got some speed on him, D’keeper,” said Solemn Muffaz.
“He has indeed, Deckmother, now let us keep it. Let is see if we can outrun our beakwyrms.”
“Ey, I’ll cord any Hag-cursed who slatelays, I shall.” And Solemn Muffaz made his way down the deck, his raw back still weeping, though he did not flinch when the salt spray washed over him.
“D’keeper!” The call came from the topboy.
“Tell of what you see, Topboy,” shouted Dinyl, walking to the base of the mainspine. Joron gave a nod of thanks for that, for saving Joron’s painful throat from more shouting.
“Ey, D’older, they’re loosing at the flukeboat!” Dinyl looked over his shoulder at Joron and he knew they shared a thought. He gave a nod and Dinyl grinned back at him.
“Unfurl the flying wings!” he shouted. “Let’s see what Tide Child can do if we really let him loose!” With that there was much excitement. The spars were extended from the mainspine right out over the sea on both sides of the deck and the flying wings, massive black squares of material, were unfurled on either side of Tide Child, and Joron felt the whole body of the ship shudder as if with joy, as he caught the wind and leaped forward.
