by Anne Lyle
It was not Kiiren. Yes, the face lacked the tattooed lines of skrayling traders, and when Mal lifted the upper lip, the canine teeth had been removed; but this was not the ambassador. Another Outspeaker, then?
A scuffle broke out away to his left and he sprang up, drawing his sword. Coby’s lantern shattered on the stone floor as she grappled a slight figure who barely came up to her shoulder. More than that, he could not make out in the darkness.
“Kuru tokh nejanaa sjel! Kuru tokh kurut siqirr kith-gan nejanaa sjel, nej nejt adringeth dihaaqoheet-iz aj-an.”
Though Mal could not understand the words, the frightened, pleading tone was unmistakable.
“Hush!” Coby replied. “Friend, no hurt you.”
As Mal’s eyes adjusted to the faint moonlight, he realised she had hold of a young skrayling, probably no older than herself though his hair was already striped with silver like his elders. When he caught sight of Mal, the boy froze and stared.
“Erishen-tuur?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Mal replied, sheathing the rapier. Seeing the boy’s confusion, he racked his brains for what little Vinlandic he knew, and inclined his head in greeting. “Kaal-an rrish.”
“Kaal-an rrish, Erishen-tuur,” the boy replied, bowing back. “Nejanaa Ruviq.”
“Ruviq-tuur.” Mal guessed it was the boy’s name.
Ruviq grinned, revealing his eye-teeth, then looked guiltily back at his dead comrades. Coby said something to him in an undertone and put her arm around his shoulder.
“Come on, we’d better get back to the ship.” A thought struck Mal. “Wait. Help me collect the necklaces from all the bodies.”
“What? Why?”
“Just do it. Quickly.”
It was a grisly task, but Mal’s instincts were correct. After a few moments the boy Ruviq began to help, and they quickly gathered them all into Coby’s satchel.
“I can manage,” Coby said as Mal took the satchel from her and slung it over his shoulder. “It’s not that heavy.”
“It will be if you fall in the sea with it weighing you down. Look to the boy.”
He led them back round the tower and signalled to Youssef. The Moor raised a steel-grey eyebrow at the lone skrayling youth but did not ask for an explanation. Mal’s respect for the man’s professionalism increased, and he wondered if he should bring Youssef into his cadre of regular informants. Perhaps later, when this business was dealt with. He helped Ruviq into the jolly-boat and sat beside him; the boy seemed to take comfort from the presence of a familiar face. Mal smiled to himself. Sometimes being mistaken for his twin brother had unexpected benefits.
At that moment a bell tolled somewhere in the citadel high above them. Rapid footsteps echoed down the long stair leading to the quay, along with shouted Italian. Youssef pushed off as muskets popped and flashed in the dark and bullets whistled overhead. Mal scrambled to help the rowers, whilst Coby pulled the boy down behind the flimsy shelter of the bulwarks. The jolly-boat lurched against the tide, moving agonisingly slowly into the lee of a fishing boat. Soldiers were pouring out onto the quay and boarding the boats. Bleary-eyed fisherman trailed in their wake, swearing at everyone indiscriminately.
As the jolly-boat pulled steadily out of the harbour, the soldiers appeared to be squabbling with the fishermen over who was in charge of putting to sea in pursuit. A few musketeers lined up in the sterns; the rising wind had scattered the clouds and the fleeing rescuers were an easy target. Youssef yelled at his men to row faster as the first fusillade peppered the water around them.
The fishing boats cast off at last, but the wind was in the west and they would have to tack hard to get round to the Hayreddin. Youssef’s men laughed until a lucky shot caught one of their number in the head, sending him sprawling back against the gunwales. Coby pulled Ruviq close, not letting him see the man’s body; she looked as if she was going to throw up herself. The rest of the crew bent to the oars and pulled as if the Devil himself were after them.
They reached the Hayreddin without further casualties, and climbed the rope ladder one by one. Ruviq moved slowly as if in a dream, or a nightmare. Mal beckoned to Coby, and together they took the boy into the small side-cabin in the stern.
Mal could tell she was eager to question the boy, but he stalled her with a gesture. She took the hint and with signs and a little Tradetalk encouraged Ruviq to lie down and rest. When he was settled, she followed Mal back out onto deck and they stood at the rail, staring out across the moon-limned waves.
“You needn’t have killed him,” she said. “The harbour watchman.”
And here he was, thinking she was worried about the boy.
“Perhaps not,” he said. “But you well know how chancy a business it is, to knock a man senseless. Too hard, and you may kill him anyway; too soft, and you might as well not bother. Would you rather I had taken that chance, and he had raised the alarm before we could rescue the boy?”
“No, of course not.”
He put an arm around her shoulder and she leaned into him, though as much, he suspected, for warmth as any other reason. Still, it eased his own heart a little.
“So what do we do with the boy, sir?”
The note of formality in her voice brought him back to the present, and his duty to his masters in England.
“We take him back to Sark,” he said. “And then we try and find out why the skraylings were here in the first place.”
CHAPTER II
They sailed back to Marseille with Youssef then rode to Mal’s estate near Aix with the boy. At this time of year the roads were so empty of traffic that three travellers on horseback attracted curiosity, so Coby used a little of her stage makeup to cover the tattoo lines on Ruviq’s brow and cheeks and hid the rest of his face with a hood and scarf. Only his amber eyes threatened to give him away, and he kept those fixed on his hands where they rested on the pommel of his saddle.
Concealing Ruviq’s identity from the servants was a different matter. They were only just coming to terms with having an English-born master, and Mal did not trust them to keep quiet about a skrayling visitor, however well-disguised. He therefore rode ahead and ensured the entire household were too busy lighting fires and preparing supper to notice Coby smuggling Ruviq into the house as dusk was falling. She had her own apartments with a lock on the door to keep out prying eyes when she was undressing, so hiding the boy for a short time would be little problem. There were however a few suspicious glances when she appeared later that evening, and not a few mutterings when she asked to eat in her room.
After supper she came down and sat by the fire with Mal. The servants brought mulled wine laced with honey and lavender to aid sleep, and then left them alone. Coby knelt before the hearth and stared into the flames, her hands wrapped around the steaming mug. Mal coughed to get her attention, and she looked up, half her face red-gold in the firelight, the other in darkness. It took all his self-control not to fall to his knees beside her and drink from those wine-hot lips until…
“How are things?” he asked instead, glancing up at the ceiling. One could never be quite certain the servants were not eavesdropping.
“As well as can be expected,” she replied, taking the hint. “But the sooner we leave, the better.”
Mal nodded. “Pack tonight, and we’ll be away at dawn. The days are short enough as it is.”
He drained his own cup, bade her goodnight and retired to his own chambers, before he could do something they might both regret.
“It would have been safer to go by sea,” Coby grumbled one day as they rode through yet another small village where people stared at the three of them as they passed.
“The boy has been through one shipwreck already. I didn’t want to alarm him with another long sea voyage, especially at this time of year. The weather out in the Atlantic is far worse than our crossing to Corsica.”
Coby nodded. She still had nightmares about the storm in which she had lost her parents, on the crossing from Neuzen to Ips
wich. All she remembered was cold salt water coming at her from every direction, and then a chill worse than midwinter snows eating into her bones as everything went black. She shivered at the memory.
“Where do you think the skrayling ship was headed?” she said. “Marseille?”
“Perhaps. Though if they were dealing with the French, why not go straight to Paris from Sark?”
“Mayhap they prefer to trade in Marseille. The markets there are full of goods from Africa and the East.”
“As are those of London. No, they had a reason to come further south.”
“Italy, then?”
“Possibly. Though if they hoped for a warm welcome in Genoa, they were disappointed.”
“The boy might know.” She looked over her shoulder. Ruviq’s pony had stopped and was tearing mouthfuls of grass from the roadside. Ruviq seemed not to have noticed; he slumped in the saddle, his face hidden by his hood. Coby reined her own mount to a halt and clucked to the pony.
“I asked him, back in Provence,” Mal said, “but he just mumbled something in Vinlandic and would not say any more.”
“Perhaps he needs more time,” she said. “After everything that’s happened to him… to find himself amongst strangers who do not even speak his tongue… I remember how horrible that was.”
“You ask him, then. He may confide in you.”
She turned her mount and trotted back down the road. Ruviq looked up in alarm, as if he’d quite forgotten where he was. Coby gave him a reassuring smile and reined in beside him, then they rode knee to knee for a while, out of earshot of Mal. At first Coby made small talk, asking Ruviq how he liked the horse and apologising for their campfire cooking. When he seemed at ease, she brought up the subject of the voyage.
His expression instantly became guarded.
“I do not know.”
“You must have overheard someone say something, surely? I remember when I was a child, I used to crouch on the stairs, listening to my parents talking to visitors–”
“No. There were qoheetanisheth on the island, but I was too young.”
“Co-what?”
“Elder talk. In here.” He tapped his temple.
Coby raised a hand to the cross at her throat. It sounded like more witchcraft to her. She kicked her pony’s sides gently until it caught up with Mal’s gelding.
“So,” she said, after relating the conversation, “we are no wiser than before.”
“For now, at least. But we have the advantage of a true friend amongst the Vinlanders. If anyone knows what the skraylings are up to, it’s Kiiren.”
The island of Sark had been given to the skraylings of Vinland by Queen Elizabeth in return for their services in keeping the Narrow Sea free of pirates. The fact that the island had itself been a haven of pirates played no small part in its selection. That and it annoyed the French, who also liked to lay claim to Sark and its larger neighbours.
Still it was now to all intents and purposes an independent realm, a little piece of the New World tacked to the edge of the map of Christendom, and English ships were only slightly more welcome than those of any other Christian nation. It took Mal a whole morning of negotiation to persuade a Cherbourg fisherman to sail them the forty miles to the island. Whether he would return in two days to take them back to France remained to be seen.
As they got nearer, Coby realised she could still see no sign of buildings apart from the crumbling harbour wall, which must have been constructed long before the skraylings’ arrival. Within it a copse of masts sprouted, yardarms bearing the square reddish sails typical of skrayling vessels, most of them tightly furled against the spring gales. The only other sign of the Vinlanders’ presence was a cairn at the seaward end of the harbour wall, out of which thrust a great branch of driftwood hung with yellow and blue ribbons and strings of shells that rattled in the sea breeze. Some of the ribbons were faded to colourlessness by the salt air, whilst others were as bright as spring flowers. The fisherman muttered and crossed himself as they passed this heathen-looking monument, and his passengers were barely given time to scramble ashore before he turned the boat around and headed back out to sea.
They were greeted by a stout, elderly skrayling with white shell beads woven into his braids. He bowed to them in the skrayling manner, arms at his side with palms facing forward.
“My master desires to visit the Outspeaker,” Coby said in Tradetalk, after the introductions were over.
“Of course. The brother of Erishen-tuur is always welcome with us. Kiiren-tuur’s tent is over the next ridge, downstream from the hendraan.”
“Hendraan?” Coby asked. Another Vinlandic word to add to her vocabulary.
“Place of staying, with many tents,” the harbourmaster said.
She thanked him, and conveyed the directions to Mal. As they left she could feel the harbourmaster’s eyes boring into her back. He must be curious as to what a boy of his own people was doing in the company of two English visitors, but evidently the outspeaker’s business was not his to question.
A steep path led up from the harbour to the interior of the island. Steps had been cut into the cliff face, but like the harbour wall they had not been maintained well. Several times Coby lost her footing on the weathered stone and had to steady herself by grabbing a handful of the coarse weeds that had sprung up by the path. At last they reached the top, where they were buffeted anew by the powerful westerly winds that swept the island. A dry, dusty track led across short turf peppered with rabbit droppings. In a sheltered hollow about half a mile to the west, the skraylings’ striped tents rose out of the surrounding bracken and gorse like an unseasonal flush of toadstools.
“Take the boy to the camp and see if you can find his kin.” Mal gave her the pouch into which they had gathered all the intact necklaces. “I’m going to look for Kiiren.”
She nodded, guessing it was his brother Sandy he really wanted to see. If it had been her own lost brother waiting in the next valley, no amount of curiosity about the skrayling expedition could have kept her from him. She waved Mal away, then set off towards the main camp.
As they drew nearer, she could hear the sounds of raised voices. She glanced at Ruviq, but the boy only grinned and quickened his pace. Coby hurried after him, wondering what could be causing such a commotion amongst the normally peaceful skraylings.
On the seaward edge of the camp a wide circle of ground had been stripped of its turf and dozens of skraylings were clustered around the perimeter, stamping and cheering. Through a gap in the crowd Coby could make out two figures within the circle, locked in a wrestling hold. Patches of dust stuck to their grey-and-pink skins, adding to the mottled effect of their natural colouring, and their long hair was tied back with coloured ribbons like the ones on the harbour monument. Both were naked as savages. A blush rose from her suddenly tight collar and she made to turn away; too late. She stared in horrified fascination at the stubby, hairless tail extending from the base of the nearest wrestler’s spine until her view was thankfully blocked by the shifting crowd.
She shuddered. There were rumours, of course, but she had dismissed them as ignorant gossip like all the other tall tales circulating back in London: that the skraylings bound elemental spirits into bottles, sacrificed human infants to their dark gods – though to Coby’s knowledge the skraylings acknowledged no gods, heathen or Christian – and that they had no females and were born from the bark of trees, which was certainly nonsense. Master Catlyn had explained that skrayling females preferred the safety of their island cities and did not wish to undertake the long and hazardous journey to Europe.
Her train of thought was interrupted by a roar from one of the wrestlers, followed by the thud of bodies hitting the ground. A few moments later the crowd erupted into whoops of victory on one side and groans of disappointment on the other, and the match was over.
The spectators began to disperse, only to come to a halt when they caught sight of the new arrivals. Or rather, Ruviq. Coby realised they we
re all staring at the boy in surprise and alarm. One of them, whose facial tattoos were almost identical to Ruviq’s, pushed through the crowd and threw his arms around the boy, exclaiming loudly in Vinlandic. Others crowded around them, their tone of voice questioning.
She tried to explain in broken Tradetalk what had happened, but when she came to the part about finding the bodies, her throat closed around the words and tears began to stream silently down her cheeks. She held out the pouch.
“These are all?” one of the skraylings asked.
“Yes.” The word came out as a croak. She swallowed and tried again. “Yes. All.”
Ruviq said something to the others in Vinlandic, miming pulling at his throat.
“It was your necklace we found,” she said to him. “I think Mal – Catlyn-tuur – has some of the beads. Do you want them back?”
“Blue-stones?”
“No, only the lodestone ones.”
He shook his head sadly. “Only the blue-stones were given to me by my father. I must make new.”
“He would be proud of you,” Coby said, patting him on the shoulder.
Her business completed, she bade farewell to the skraylings and set off to look for Mal. The light was already fading, and an icy wind whipped the waist-high bracken into a dark, rattling sea. Behind her, the skraylings’ voices rose in an eery song of mourning.
The harbourmaster’s directions proved easy enough to follow. Mal skirted the coastward edge of the settlement and soon found a little stream, swollen now with winter rains, cutting through the thin skin of earth to reveal the island’s rocky skeleton. Soon it descended into a narrow defile that opened out into a sheltered dell looking out to sea. A single tent stood well back from the cliff edge. Sheltered behind it from the constant winds, fist-sized stones ringed a circle of ash.
