Goddess Tithe

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  “Go to sleep, go to sleep,

  My good boy, go to sleep.

  Where did the songbird go?

  Beyond the mountains of the sun.

  Beyond the gardens of the moon.

  Where did the Dara go?

  Beyond the Final Water’s waves

  To sing before the mighty throne.

  Go to sleep, go to sleep,

  My good boy, go to sleep.”

  Munny breathed again, and the image of Risafeth swam from his mind and allowed his heart to still. Ignoring the hissed curses of Chuo-tuk above, he lowered himself the last few feet to the window and put his ear as near as he dared.

  “Dragons eat it,” he whispered.

  For he heard the Captain’s voice, clear and deep, and he heard the devil-ridden stranger answering, nervous and trembling. But they spoke entirely in Westerner!

  The only words Munny had learned in the Western tongue were “Hello,” “Good bye,” and “Where is the privy?” He wasn’t entirely certain that these were even correct, for Chuo-tuk had taught him, and Chuo-tuk had a wicked sense of humor. For all Munny knew, he could proudly say his words to a Westerner and end up with his head knocked off. So he’d never dared to try.

  Still, he strained his ears to listen in, hoping he might pick up something here and there. But all he heard were names. “Lunthea Maly.” His home city. “Pen-Chan.” The ruling people of Noorhitam.

  Then he heard the stowaway speak a name that was very strange. It was a name Munny had heard spoken only a few times in his life, always in hushed whispers.

  “Ay-Ibunda.” The Hidden Temple.

  Now here was a mystery! What could the brown-skinned foreigner know of the Hidden Temple? And why should he speak of it to the Captain? Munny’s mother had told him never to say the name out loud, and his uncle had grown violent the only time Munny asked him about it. It was a furtive name of secrets and, Munny suspected, evil.

  Surely now the Captain would give the order and hand the devil-man over to his fate!

  Curious, Munny risked putting tentative fingers to the frame of the window and pulled himself closer to peer inside. He saw the stowaway, looking rather the worse for wear (Beauclair blue-crust did not settle well in a stomach unaccustomed to tossing waves) standing across from the Captain, who sat at his great desk, his arms resting upon the arms of his chair, as rigid as a stone king.

  Just then, the Captain stood and crossed his cabin to loom over the foreigner. How great and tall and strong the Captain was, even more so by contrast with the rumpled stowaway.

  Suddenly, the Captain’s gaze flickered to the window. Munny gasped and let go his hold, swinging backwards with the movement of the ship and striking his shoulder hard. He started to climb, hand over hand, his skinny legs kicking at the hull, his heart racing. This would mean more than five lashes! Oh, much more indeed!

  Would the Captain have him thrown into the sea along with the devil-man?

  Galvanized by fear, Munny achieved the railing in moments, and the old man and Chuo-tuk pulled him over and onto the deck. “What did you hear? What did the Captain say?” Chuo-tuk demanded, even as the old man worked to undo the complicated Pich’s Knot.

  Munny shook his head. “They spoke Westerner. All Westerner. I didn’t understand.” He could hardly get the words out and could not bear to say that he had been seen. Perhaps if he did not mention it then he could somehow make it so that it hadn’t happened.

  “Useless maggot,” Chuo-tuk snarled and hastened down the steps to where the boatswain waited at the Captain’s door.

  The old man, to Munny’s surprise, stuck out his tongue at Chuo-tuk’s retreating back. “What did he expect? Foreigners never learn our language. They haven’t the mouths for it, poor fools. There. You’re free.”

  The rope harness slid away, and Munny kicked it across the deck and leaped back from it as if it were a snake. A sudden commotion below indicated that the Captain had emerged once more. Munny went white and grabbed the old man’s hand. “Tu Pich, what if—”

  “Hush,” said the old man, for even then they heard Bahurn’s voice bellowing from below, “Pich! Pich, come here, and bring the boy.”

  “Oh! Oh, dragon’s . . .” Munny gasped, but hadn’t the wits to think of any appropriate draconian anatomy in that moment. Clutching the old man by both hand and arm, he allowed himself to be led to the stair, and they looked down to where the Captain waited below. Beside him stood the stowaway who was, oddly enough, neither bound nor pleading for mercy.

  The old man took the steps slowly, and Munny made every pretense of helping him in order to avoid facing his fate any sooner than necessary. But at last they stood before the Captain, and Munny felt the Captain’s gaze like heated brands upon his face.

  “How may I serve you?” the old man asked, bowing respectfully as a sailor ought to his master. Munny hastily added a bow of his own, his heart thudding the beat of sacrificial drums.

  The Captain addressed himself to the old man, though his eyes never left Munny’s small face. “I have vowed to give safe passage to this man, this Leonard, as he calls himself. In return, he will serve among my crew and earn his keep. I entrust him to you, Pich. Find him some proper clothes and teach him the ways of a seaman’s life. See that no harm comes to him.”

  A hush fell upon the Kulap Kanya. Even the ship herself went silent, her sails still, her timbers scarcely daring to creak.

  But the thought rang as loud as a shout, echoing through that silence, echoing through every living mind.

  The goddess! The tithe! She will demand her tithe!

  “Do you hear me, Pich?” the Captain said.

  The old man bowed again. “I will do as you command,” he said. He beckoned to the stranger. “Come here, brown boy. Come with me.”

  So the devil wouldn’t be cast into the waves. Nor Munny either, apparently. They were spared.

  And they were doomed.

  Both Honor and Curse

  SAILORS SEEMED TO MELT into the walls and floorboards, leaving a clear passage from the deck down to the lower sleeping quarters. In a vessel the size of the Kulap Kanya, privacy was a commodity of which only to dream, never to hope. So it felt strange and eerily wrong to Munny that he followed Pich and the devil-man down hatchways and through narrow doors without once bumping into a fellow sailor coming the other way.

  All of them had fled the company of the stowaway. And now they fled the old man and Munny as well.

  I’m cursed, Munny thought, hanging back so that he would not tread in the devil-man’s shadow. I’m cursed along with him!

  Oh, what would his poor mother say? And Uncle Mokhtar . . . he would never allow Munny to cross his threshold again if he knew! Not that Uncle Mokhtar wanted Munny across his threshold to begin with.

  “The sailor’s boy,” Mokhtar called his nephew, and he said it with as much abhorrence as he could ever say, “The devil’s boy.”

  Even the sleeping quarters were empty. Not a single off-duty sailor lay cocooned in his sheepskin hammock, stealing a few hours of much-needed sleep. The hammocks hung slack and empty, their occupants fled to who knew what dark corners of the ship.

  The old man moved as if he saw none of this, though Munny knew he must be far more aware than he pretended. Could Tu Pich even be frightened? It was difficult to believe that anyone so old remembered the meaning of fear. He certainly didn’t look frightened as he dug out his small satchel of belongings and rooted through it for an extra shirt and trousers.

  The devil-man, by contrast, looked as though he expected to have his throat slit at any moment. The gentlest rise and fall of the hull sent him stumbling and grabbing empty hammocks for support, and his enormous eyes rolled with the effort to look into every corner at once.

  Why would a devil-man be afraid? Munny wondered, hanging back and watching the proceedings from a safe distance. Could devils fear?

  Even devils must dread the goddess.

  “Here,” said the old man, turn
ing to the stowaway, his arms full of woolen garments. “Put these on.”

  The stowaway, not understanding what was being said, looked at the clothes, made a face, and shook his head. He said something in Westerner, something fast that sounded like a protest. “Flying fish-sprites,” the old man cursed, shaking his head. Then he too spoke in Westerner, haltingly but with a certain force. When he had finished, the stowaway grimaced and, however reluctantly, took the clothing. Muttering foreign curses, he moved around to the far side of the nearest hammock and began to remove his outer clothing.

  Munny took the opportunity to slip up beside the old man. They did not speak but watched as the stowaway unfastened a once-fine linen shirt, which was now badly rumpled and dirty. Munny thought perhaps he had seen servants from the fine houses of Capaneus City wearing such shirts. Had the stowaway been a servant once, before he turned to devilry?

  And then, much to Munny’s surprise, a garment of brilliant colors all jumbled together in a haphazard manner fell out from the front of the stowaway’s unbuttoned shirt and landed on the floorboards. Even in the dim light of the one swinging lamp, Munny could see that the fabric was very fine, brilliantly dyed, but completely mad somehow, like a dye-master’s nightmare.

  The stowaway quickly picked it up, folding it and tucking it under his arm awkwardly even as he continued to strip and pull on the old man’s ill-fitting garments. When he had finished, he stuffed the brilliant shirt down the front of his new tunic, then tightened his belt an extra notch to be certain nothing fell out.

  “What is he, Tu Pich?” Munny whispered to the old man as they watched this odd display.

  “He is our responsibility,” the old man replied. “That is all we need know.”

  “But Risafeth will—”

  “Never mind what Risafeth will or won’t,” the old man said and pinched Munny’s arm to silence him. “Our Captain has entrusted the stowaway to us. It is an honor. Captain is a Pen-Chan, and yet he gave this work to me and to you, who are but Chhayans. It is an honor,” he repeated, as though to convince himself.

  The stowaway, finished with his costuming, pushed his way back between the hammocks and stood before the old man and the boy. He caught hold of two hammocks, one in each hand, and used them to steady himself. His dark skin was slightly green-cast, but somehow, despite everything, he flashed the two of them an enormous smile.

  “Well,” he said, “it looks like we’re stuck with each other for the time being at least. I do hope your shirt isn’t quite as, um, occupied as it feels. I suppose I won’t get lonely on this voyage, heh heh. So what are your names?”

  But of course Munny understood none of this. And he thought to himself, We’re all going to die.

  Climb to the Sky

  THE FIRST TIME THE STOWAWAY tried to scrub the galley floor, he ended up being sick all over it, more than doubling Munny’s work. The old man just laughed and tossed Munny an extra rag. Munny, however, decided it was an evil sign and glared daggers at the stowaway’s back as he stumbled from the galley and out to the deck, there to hang pathetically over the railing until his innards stopped trying to become his outards. Back during his first, stomach-churning days as a cabin boy, Munny had been able to hold his own innards down, even when faced with the grime and stench and rotted leftovers to be found littering the galley floor. Uncle Mokhtar would surely have declared his iron constitution a sign of his “natural-birth.” But his mother, Munny knew, would have been proud.

  What a limp, nectar-sipping butterfly the stowaway was!

  In due course, the brown young man (looking more green than brown) slumped his way back to Munny’s side and collapsed on his knees beside him. “Sorry about that. The smell, you know. Never liked the smell of sardines, and rotted sardines don’t tickle my fancy much either. Did you already clear it all up? Good fellow; what a champion. I hope I can do the same for you someday . . . well, rather, not so much. Lumé love me, I hope never to see even a crumb of Beauclair blue-crust the rest of my born days!”

  Munny glared at the devil-man, his small face managing to contain a whole world of disgust. But the stowaway didn’t seem to notice and went on talking to himself even as he ineffectually ran a dirty rag over the section of flooring Munny had already scrubbed.

  Munny turned to the old man. “Why does he keep chattering like an idiot bird?”

  The old man laughed again. He sat on a stool with his arms crossed, enjoying one of the few advantages that old age brought his hard, sea-seasoned life: the opportunity to direct those younger than he and supervise them as they worked. “He’s frightened. He thinks if he talks fast enough, he’ll talk away his fear.”

  This sounded indescribably foolish. Munny glared at the stowaway again. Now the great idiot was wiping too near the brick-wrapped stove without looking where he went. He bumped right into the fire-warmed bricks, smacking his head hard. “Iubdan’s beard!” he shouted, and the smell of burnt hair filled the small room. The stowaway’s eyes went wide, and his face paled. “Iubdan’s beard and . . . ugh . . .”

  The next moment he was staggering out the door again, making for the rail with all speed.

  Munny watched this exhibition with enormous loathing. Shaking his head, he muttered, “Why doesn’t Captain do what he should? Why doesn’t he—”

  He didn’t realize how loud his voice was until he felt the back of the old man’s hand on the side of his head.

  “I’ll not hear you mutter ill of the Captain,” the old man said, leaning back and shaking his hand, which was not as sturdy as it had once been. “I’ll not even have you thinking it. He’ll do what he must at the right time. You’ll see. You’ll see.”

  So Munny swallowed his ire and focused instead on the task at hand. Scrub up, scrub down. Scrape the leavings, the rot, and the refuse into a pile. Scoop it with his own two hands into the pail. When the pail was full, haul it to the rail and feed its contents to the fish. Feed the fish and don’t look into the waves, don’t look beneath the foam.

  Don’t see the shadow of the goddess, following, following. Ever following.

  The stowaway sidled up to Munny at the rail, wiping his mouth and wobbling a little. “Sorry about that, my friend,” he said, smiling wryly even in the face of Munny’s highly visible dislike. “I’ll get the better of it eventually, I’m sure. I’ve never been to sea before.”

  Somehow it felt appropriate that the devil-man would jabber without meaning, so Munny didn’t bother trying to understand. Swinging his bucket just hard enough when he turned that it grazed the stowaway’s leg, Munny made his way back to the galley. The old man met both of them at the door.

  “Good enough in there. Cook’s next meal won’t kill us, at least. It’s time you practiced your knots again, boy.”

  Munny sighed. After hours of bending, scraping, scooping, and pouring, he had hoped the old man would send him to his hammock for a rest. But he perked up when the old man said, “I think it’s time you started to learn Pich’s Knot. What do you say to that?”

  “Yes, Tu Pich!” Munny said, delighted, his tiredness suddenly melting away. He had not thought the old man would trust him with this great secret for . . . well, years at least! Possibly never! After all, he had only just mastered his twenty-first knot, and he had a long way to go before reaching the hundredth knot that would make him a true sailor. Of such an honor he had never dared dream, to be taught the secret of Pich’s Knot by Pich himself!

  But Munny’s excitement died a quick and irksome death when the stowaway fell into step behind them, following them from the galleys to a quiet place amidships where the great casks of Milden’s Vineyard were lashed down and covered in canvas for safekeeping. Normally, casks such as these would be stored below, but the Kulap Kanya had stocked up on a much finer collection of Baie d’Où reds that would fetch a better price when at last they reached Lunthea Maly. So Milden’s Vineyard was relegated to the deck.

  The old man took a seat on the cask that had become his accustomed throne f
or these knotting tutorials. And Munny sat cross-legged at his feet and scowled at the stowaway, who sat cross-legged opposite him. “Does he have to be here?” Munny demanded sourly.

  “Yes,” said the old man, and no more. He did not need to explain. The shield of solitude that followed the unlikely threesome about the various decks of the vessel was answer enough. The other sailors refused any contact whatsoever with the stowaway and maintained their distance from the old man, the boy, and the devil. Munny could not guess what mischief might befall his unlucky companion should he wander far from Pich’s watchful eye, Captain’s orders notwithstanding.

  The old man produced one length of rope and then another. These were not quite as large as the ropes Munny would someday attempt to work with, but they were better for learning the rudiments. “You know a basic hitch by now,” the old man said.

  Munny nodded. He glanced across at his dark companion, who was watching both him and the old man with interested but uncomprehending eyes. Were the devils inside him concerned with learning this secret too? And the old man, would he, without so much as a shrug, share his great gift with a devil-ridden foreigner?

  Munny sank into a sulk so deep that he could scarcely listen to the old man’s instructions. Indeed, anyone watching the trio would have assumed the stowaway was the student, so intently did he watch Pich’s hands fly. But it was to the boy the old man spoke, and it was the boy who at last took the rope and tried to mimic his master’s movements.

  He knew how a basic hitch knot worked, and he’d learned the principles of Double Hitches and Cradle Hitches as well. But when he tried to make his fingers work the magic the old man made look so easy, they stumbled and dropped lengths of rope when they should have gathered them in, and gathered others when they should have dropped them.

  At last he held up something that he thought looked, at least, very like what the old man had showed him. But the old man reached out and, with a simple tug, brought the whole thing flopping down across Munny’s knees.