Dark Heart (Husk)

by Russell Kirkpatrick

  It took no magical powers for Arathé to sense trouble coming.

  Northward progress was slow. No wind was worse than a slight head wind, and Noetos had every reason to want a swift passage to Malayu. But the smuggler’s ship stayed well out to sea, avoiding coastal patrols and certainly not docking at any ports. Nearer the coast, sea breezes would see the ship make progress, but the captain valued secrecy more highly than speed.

  After a week in which the Conch made very little headway, whispers of food shortages began to circulate. The rumours translated into reality for the steerage class on the fourth week of the journey. Water was rationed, as they had received no rain since the third night of the storm, and they were fed nothing but weevil-infested ship’s biscuit. The first mate appeared at what was laughably called the ‘evening meal’ to explain the situation.

  ‘You’ve heard we’re short on rations,’ he said, scratching his bald head as he spoke. ‘’Tis true. Captain is thinking of putting in on the coast, perhaps at Long Pike Mouth, to bring on supplies. He’ll only do this if we make no progress in the next few days.’

  ‘Will he put off passengers?’ one of the single men wanted to know.

  ‘There’ll be no forced disembarkments, but if someone wants to leave, I guess that’s two problems solved.’

  ‘How long until we get to Malayu?’ asked an older woman.

  ‘Look, ma’am, this ain’t like riding in a coach. Arrival times can’t be predicted. Were we to get a following wind, we could get to Malayu in a week. But at the current rate o’ progress we’re more likely to end up back in Sayonae.’

  ‘But I’ve got a sick mother in Malayu,’ the woman said angrily. ‘I paid as much money for my single berth as I paid five years ago for my whole family to sail north. Surely something can be done?’

  ‘No, ma’am, it can’t,’ Noetos said. ‘We are at the mercy of the elements. The crew no doubt know some tricks to get a little extra from the ship, but beyond that we must all be patient.’

  The woman continued to complain as the first mate took his leave. As he reached the base of the ladder, he beckoned Noetos over.

  ‘Listen, friend,’ he said into Noetos’s ear. ‘Not all of us approve of what the captain’s doing with regard t’ Miss Sai and yourself. Some of us think that if she wants to talk to you, well, she should be allowed to. So, if you’re prepared to help ease the passengers’ concerns regarding ship’s progress, I won’t say anything if I see you and she talking in the upper cargo hold in the hour after dusk tonight. And neither will none of my men. We ain’t forgotten what you done for us, fisherman. Fair enough?’

  Noetos kept his face straight and his voice level, though he wanted to shout and leap with happiness. ‘It’s fair,’ he said. ‘But how do I know Miss Sai will be there?’

  ‘’Cos I’ve already arranged it,’ the first mate said, scratching away at his ear. ‘She’ll be there. She looked about as excited as you do, and she fooled me about as well as you are.’

  ‘Aye, well, since I heard the captain’s view I’ve been careful,’ Noetos said. ‘And thank you, friend. If we are discovered I will not mention you.’

  The man nodded. ‘Go to the smaller hatch a few minutes after dusk. Knock once and give my name. Tell them Rafe sent you. Old Three-tooth will let you in.’ He winked at Noetos. ‘An hour ought to be long enough.’

  Noetos wanted to protest, to explain that it wasn’t like that, he and Cylene were not going to…but he held his tongue. The man wouldn’t have understood.

  Miss Sai made her circuit of the ship, and Noetos heard her footfalls as she passed close by. He forced himself to face out to sea, focusing on the glowering sun setting in a cloudless sky. The bell rang, and the steerage passengers made their reluctant way below decks. Noetos went too, but slowly, ensuring he was the last to approach the hatch. He cut left, finding the small door that led to the upper cargo hold: the two sailors watching both smiled widely at him. The first mate had no doubt hand-picked those on duty this evening.

  He knocked on the smaller door, and it swung open at his call of ‘Rafe’. The old sailor smiled at him, a sight to frighten small children. He let Noetos in, then climbed out of the hatch and closed it behind him.

  ‘Hello, fisherman,’ she said.

  He couldn’t help it: his heart surged at her voice, and he hurried over to where she sat as though he was a boy about to begin his first courting. So foolish. He was sure he cut a ridiculous figure.

  ‘Hello yourself, Cylene,’ he said, and was astonished at how shy his voice sounded. ‘May I sit?’

  In answer she patted the blanket beside her. As he sat, Noetos took a look around them. By the light of a lamp he saw boxes of silk, but also mountains of other goods: tools, elegant furniture, machinery of some kind, including a lathe, and various other things he could not identify in the poor light. All things that attracted a high duty.

  He took a steadying breath and brought his mind back to the girl beside him. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you,’ he said, ‘but the captain warned me off.’

  ‘He warned me off too,’ she said. ‘And I’ve been worried my continued employment would offend you.’

  ‘How could it? What other choice do you have?’

  ‘None,’ she said, ‘but since that night, I have come back to life. And it hurts, fisherman, it hurts. Every time now I’m with a man, I’m with him, and I can’t stand it.’

  ‘Your father?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said fiercely. ‘It felt so right as a child, but so wrong now. Noetos, I’m breaking into pieces and it’s your fault. Can you fix me?’

  He looked into her troubled eyes, so like those of the cosmographer who had made him so uncomfortable, yet with a subtle difference. These eyes were equally intense, equally perceptive, but they saw a different kind of truth: hearts, not numbers. She shared her twin sister’s rare gift of seeing things as they really were, but used it differently.

  ‘No, Cylene, I cannot fix you,’ he said, hoping the words he chose were the right ones. ‘But I might be able to help you fix yourself.’

  She bowed her head. ‘So it must be,’ she said softly. ‘No short paths. One of the things I most like about you, fisherman, is you coat nothing with sugar.’

  ‘Wouldn’t know how,’ he said.

  She smiled. ‘Answer me a question. I’ve told you what I did. You know what I am. Why would you wish to help?’

  Because I know what you do not, he wished to tell her. I know your father did not kill your sister, but sold her into slavery. I know she became a crucial part of a great empire. I know, Cylene, she is still alive. And I know that if I have anything to do with it you and she will meet, will be reconciled, and all the happiness stolen from you by a selfish man will be returned to you. And, Cylene, I want to be there to see the smile on your face and the happiness in your eyes.

  He said none of these things. Instead, as he composed his reply, his eyes wandered over the cargo. He saw a stack of boxes with food labels on them: roe, saffron, Agakoussa cheese, burnt toffee. He’d heard of the cheese—Agakoussa was only a day’s walk inland of Fossa—but none of the other foods. They had to be expensive in order to be worth a smuggler’s while. With the rationing as it was, though, he couldn’t help taking a moment to wonder whether the captain could supplement the low food stocks with one or two of these boxes.

  Her eyes were on him, and he had no doubt she knew he held thoughts back from her. He hoped she would take note of his good intentions and the depth of his regard for her.

  He took a calming breath. ‘Let me answer this way. I was much older than you when my own sister was murdered before my eyes, along with the rest of my family. I believed I was responsible for it somehow: why, otherwise, would my family’s killers have let me go? I carried that burden for many years, more years than you have been alive, until a day when a woman unlocked my heart. That woman allowed me to see I bore the blame for something not of my doing. Is that same woman now asking that man to ret
urn the favour?’

  She sat very still, her eyes wide. ‘I know,’ she said, and her lip trembled. ‘I know, logic is so easy. I was only a child; how could I have been responsible for the unnatural lusts of my father? But some horrible thing in me wants me to die, fisherman, to balance what happened to my sister. The only option I can see is to give in to it.’

  ‘I could supply you with another reason to live,’ he said, his voice husky with emotion.

  ‘Ah,’ she said, smiling wanly. ‘You are going to declare your love for me. It’s not enough, fisherman.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ he agreed. ‘And I wasn’t going to say those words, Cylene, because they are not true.’

  She drew back from him, her face shocked into woodenness. ‘You do not?’ she asked, and it was as if death hovered over her heart like a knife.

  ‘No, I do not,’ he said gently. ‘Not yet. But I think I soon will, dear one. Forgive me, but I do not want to burden you with lies. My dead wife was only a few years older than you when I first met her, and we rushed into an arrangement that satisfied neither of us. But what I can say, Cylene, is that I have only ever met one person remotely like you. She, like you, is a precious gift to the world, an exquisite crystal glass fashioned to hold the rarest of wines, but used by unthinking men to quaff stale beer.’ He reached out and took her chin in his hand. ‘Even that is not enough. You were not made for others to use: my own daughter has suffered that. You exist for your own sake, and you must find your value independently of what other people want of you, even of those who might soon fall in love with you.’

  He was so close to her now he could see twin reflections of his own earnest face in her eyes.

  ‘Cylene, I want to spend every moment of every day talking with you, learning everything there is to know about you, and telling you everything about myself, the good and the bad. You know, I am sure, there are many things I have not yet told you about myself and my friends. But I cannot open my heart to a dead woman. I lived like that for years, and fear it more than anything. I am afraid, deeply afraid, that you will choose to go back to your living death, and I will lose you before I even find you.’

  ‘But it hurts, fisherman,’ she whispered, her lips barely moving.

  ‘So does every birth,’ he replied. ‘All you need is someone to help you through the pain.’ He took her in his arms and met her lips with his.

  The knock sounded all too soon. ‘Miss Sai,’ came the voice of the toothless old sailor. ‘Miss Sai, hour’s up. Come out.’

  Noetos released her from his embrace with a sigh. She’d offered, as she would, and he’d refused, as he must. It was the right decision, though it had been so difficult to make. But that kind of comfort was not, he judged, what she required.

  ‘Goodbye, Cylene,’ he said. ‘I hope to speak to you again before voyage’s end.’

  She smiled at him. ‘I will try to live a little longer,’ she said. ‘I want to see if this man I know will fall in love.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said, and helped her to her feet.

  The sun hung in the sky like a circle of brass. Day after day it leached away the strength of those aboard the Conch, until Captain Kidson made his decision. ‘We head to shore,’ he announced, and the passengers and crew breathed a collective sigh of relief.

  But an announcement from the captain of a ship does not of itself enable that ship to move, and passengers and crew alike had to endure three more days of hunger, heat and boredom before finding an easterly breeze. It was a scant thing, this breeze, but enough to bring them closer to shore, where they picked up a cool northerly wind that promised to deliver them to Long Pike Mouth three weeks late and two hundred miles from their destination.

  When the first mate announced the ship was a day out from Long Pike Mouth, Noetos sought out the captain. They sat on boxes directly beneath the main mast, with two crewmen keeping other passengers away.

  ‘You have five minutes,’ Kidson said. He’d positioned himself so the mast partly obscured his face. Noetos had to lean to the left to get a good sight of him.

  ‘Five minutes are all I need,’ he replied. ‘I did what you asked and stayed away from Miss Sai. If her work was less than satisfactory, it is not I who is to blame.’

  ‘I’ll save you the trouble of coming to the point,’ Kidson said. ‘You want to make an offer for her. The answer is no.’

  ‘No? You refuse before you hear what the offer is?’

  ‘Of course I do. You think having Miss Sai on board is all about business?’

  ‘No, I think it is about status. By holding on to her you continue your reputation as the premier shipping line on the Inland Sea, and you cock a snook at the descendant of the man your family humbled itself to in order to start this venture. What is mere money compared to that?’

  ‘We understand each other then,’ Kidson said, and made to leave.

  ‘Two things,’ Noetos said quietly.

  ‘And they are?’

  ‘First, my offer was going to be the exclusive right to ship cargo from Aneheri. You never heard my tale, Captain Kidson, and you do not understand that should I claim Neherius, there is no one who can stand against me. A fortune for the ages, Captain, and you have turned it down.’

  The man’s neck went red. ‘You are certain your claim will be entertained?’

  ‘A hundred or more of the Neherian court died under my sword,’ Noetos said, leaning forward and fixing the captain with his most intense stare. ‘There is no one left to oppose me.’

  ‘So why are you not there now?’

  ‘Because I wish first to speak with the Undying Man. I have every reason to believe he will support my claim.’

  The captain rubbed at his chin. ‘I do not believe you,’ he said, though Noetos could hear the doubt in his voice. ‘Were you the natural inheritor of the Neherian rulership you would be in Aneheri now, consolidating your position. I think you would be slain if you showed your face there, fisherman.’

  His gambit had failed. Even the most despotic ruler would not be able to allocate such rights without consultation with the merchants and traders of the land. And Kidson was right. After slaughtering the Neherian court he’d receive a knife in the back should he ever try to claim the southern power for his own. He’d failed, but he’d needed to try.

  ‘The second thing,’ Noetos continued, ‘is that you are sitting on a box of dried meat. Why did we suffer such short rations when you had ample food in your cargo holds?’

  ‘It’s not just dried meat,’ Kidson replied, ‘but venison from the Saysch Valley high in the Weyan Massif. I expect to sell this to the Malayu consortium that supplies Andratan. It’s not for distributing amongst passengers.’

  ‘I thought as much,’ Noetos said. ‘One box, man, that’s all we needed. Three children are sick down below, and one is unlikely to survive the night. Better food might have made the difference. How do you sleep with such a cruel heart?’

  Kidson smiled, though Noetos could tell he’d made him furious. A mistake. He’d thought merely to unsettle the man, but he could see the captain closing to him.

  ‘I sleep with the help of the woman you cannot afford,’ Kidson said, biting off each word. ‘Now, unless you care to offer me the official customs position at Aneheri, along with the kingship of Jasweyah and the throne of Andratan, our conversation is at an end.’

  He stood and made a two-handed gesture, flicking his fingers forward. Immediately the two sailors came and stood either side of the fisherman, a cudgel in their left hands, a dagger in their right.

  ‘What is this?’ Noetos said.

  ‘Exactly what it looks like. I have something you want and, if you are to be believed, you are a dangerous killer. Why should I leave you at liberty to plot against me?’

  ‘You’re going to put us off at Long Pike Mouth?’

  ‘Of course,’ Kidson said. ‘But don’t worry: I’ll refund you a portion of your fare. You ought to be pleased, as you’ll be solving both shipboard prob
lems at once. Miss Sai will be able to concentrate on what she does best, and the other passengers will have more food to go around. An elegant solution.’

  ‘Elegant for you—’

  Noetos had been watching for a signal from Kidson, but if there was one, the fisherman never saw it. He glimpsed movement from his left and swung around to face it, providing a clear target for the man to his right. The blow blossomed red and he went down in an unknowing heap.

  Noetos awoke in a dark, foetid world. He groaned in pain: his eyes felt as though they were about to explode in his head. There was something on his face, a cloth…no, a sack on his head, stinking of sheep dung. He tried to take it off, but his hands were bound behind his back.

  ‘He’s awake,’ someone said.

  He tried to turn his head towards the sound. His stomach suddenly rebelled and he vomited into the cloth. Someone said something, but all sound faded.

  Father, wake up. Wake up. An insistent voice picked at him. Wake up, wake up, Father.

  I am awake, he replied, then realised the conversation was taking place in his head.

  You weren’t breathing. We thought you’d choked on your vomit.

  That’s me I smell, isn’t it.

  Not just you. Dagla is badly hurt, and has messed himself. He’s making noises but doesn’t seem able to talk.

  Where are we, Arathé?

  We think we’re in the brig.

  How many?

  She knew what he meant. All of us.

  This is my fault, Arathé. I thought I could persuade Kidson to let Miss Sai go.

  That’s what Anomer thought. He’s awake, in case you wondered.

  You’re angry I mentioned her name before his?

  He would be.

  Noetos cleared his throat and spat something foul out of his mouth. ‘Anomer, are you all right?’

  Arathé smiled in his mind.

  ‘Yes, Father.’ His voice was muffled and faint. ‘And you? You’re fine?’

  ‘Not exactly, but I’ll mend. Are we all wearing sacks?’