The Bird of the River

by Kage Baker

  “What ho! You’ve built a baby bunker?”

  “It works,” said Eliss. “Do something for me?”

  “Your servant, my dear. What?”

  “Rig up a sunshade for us? Just a tarpaulin or something.”

  “At once, madam.” Krelan busied himself with a tarpaulin and bits of rope, and shortly had a serviceable awning in place. He leaned on the piled sacks and stared absently at Mrs. Tinware’s baby, who was reducing a biscuit to a mass of crumbs and drool.

  “It would appear that the wreck is somebody’s pleasure-boat,” he said.

  “Really?” Eliss turned around to peer at him. “And it’s been burned. Maybe it was the river pirates.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “How badly is it burned? Are we going to be able to salvage it?”

  “Oddly enough, it’s not very badly burned. So, yes, they’re going to attempt to float it as soon as the documentation is finished.” Krelan waved a hand at the windmill, where the cablemen and some of the musicians were busy hooking up its gears to a device like a large pair of bellows.

  “I hope they don’t find bodies inside.” Eliss picked up Mrs. Ironlatch’s baby, who was determinedly crawling over his sleeping brother. “You’d think the pirates would have burned it completely.”

  “Well, it’s a funny thing: once you’ve set fire to a boat and jumped off it, you really don’t have a lot of control over what it does next,” said Krelan. “Especially if it decides to sink fast.”

  Eliss nodded. Mrs. Ironlatch’s baby fretted and dug his fist into his eye. She rocked him in her arms a long moment, until he abruptly fell asleep with his head on her shoulder. She turned her head as far as she dared to look at Krelan, who was watching her, and quietly said: “Do you think it might be the Fire-Swift?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” said Krelan.

  The divers worked in shifts. While some of them stretched out in the sunlight and drank hot broth, others worked on the wreck, closing up all the holes they could find and attaching cables. When that had been accomplished, a long air pipe of wax-soaked canvas was attached to one end of the bellows. The divers took the other end below and directed it into a tight aperture they had fitted through one of the wreck’s portholes.

  Mrs. Crucible surfaced and waved, and a cableman stationed at the windmill threw a lever. The gears engaged, the bellows began to pump, and the flat canvas serpent filled with air.

  “It’ll come up soon now,” said Krelan. His voice was taut. The river began to churn above where the divers had been working. Carefully, Eliss put Mrs. Ironlatch’s baby down beside his brother and rose to her feet.

  She watched the water doming out, surging and curling, with here and there a few massed air bubbles belching to the surface. The divers were scrambling back aboard. Men waited tensely at the capstans, bars in place. More air broke the surface and then Eliss saw the blackened stump of a mast rolling upward, the thing that had drawn her attention to the wreck in the first place.

  “Capstans!” roared Mr. Riveter. The men went round and round, the cables drew taut and dragged the wreck farther out of the water. Now she bobbed for a moment on the surface, a white-hulled pleasure-craft, fouled with mud and weeds that clouded and waved around her. All her spars and rigging were gone, and the roof of her cabin had been eaten away by fire, but the rest of her was intact. Air gushed from a hole in the side of her hull that had lain mud-downward, missed by the divers, and she sank down again until the cables pulled her hard against the Bird of the River.

  Now the polemen ran forward with grappling hooks and hauled on her, as the capstans kept going round, and slowly the wreck inched upward and onto the Bird’s deck. Black mud poured from her wound, as she groaned like a dying thing. She lay at last with her stern to the Bird’s bow, trailing weeds, and crabs dropped from her and scuttled madly for the water.

  Rigid with tension, Krelan made his way across to the wreck. Eliss watched as he walked about it, stepping around the men who were unfastening the cables. He disappeared behind it for a moment, and Eliss knew he must be looking at the name carved on the wreck’s stern.

  When he reappeared his face was pale. He walked rapidly back to Eliss. She saw that he was trembling.

  “It’s the Fire-Swift,” he whispered.

  Mrs. Ironlatch’s baby woke and began to wail.

  For a long while the wreck just sat there on the deck, as the divers waited for the mud stirred up by her raising to settle, so they could see whether anything remained on the bottom. The cablemen got busy disconnecting the bellows from the gears and hooking up a pump instead. Krelan sat in the baby pen beside Eliss, staring at the wreck.

  “Are you all right?”

  Krelan nodded. “It appears I was not quite ready for this,” he said, with a weak-sounding laugh.

  “But you knew your lord was dead,” said Eliss, offering a wooden doll to Mrs. Ironlatch’s baby.

  “I know. I didn’t like Encilian. I wasn’t surprised to hear he’d been murdered. But the Fire-Swift . . . it wasn’t even his boat, you know. It belonged to the Family. He must have ‘borrowed’ it, the way he ‘borrowed’ so many other things, and just took off on a pleasure sail. Everyone thought he’d vanished just to evade certain responsibilities he had. And months went by and nobody heard from him, and then his body came home in its box of salt . . . and you’d have thought the world had ended. Nobody missed him, but what an insult to the Family!” Krelan flexed his hands nervously as he spoke.

  “But you’re not a Diamondcut,” said Eliss. “Why do you care?”

  “Because . . . you don’t understand. Seeing something of theirs wrecked like this”—Krelan pointed to the Fire-Swift—“it just doesn’t feel possible. All my life I’ve lived at the edge of the power and the grandeur of the Diamondcuts. They might as well be gods to us. It’s one thing to kill a Diamondcut, but that someone would dare to do this . . .”

  Eliss shrugged. “But they aren’t gods. And somebody did dare. Probably river pirates. They wouldn’t care if your lord was a Diamondcut or a nobody, as long as he had something they could steal.”

  “You’re right.” Krelan knotted his hands together. “Well, they’ll care now. The Diamondcuts will come after them. The earth will shake. The river will run with blood.”

  “Good luck. Getting rid of pirates is like trying to kill cockroaches,” said Eliss, not unkindly. “I wonder if your lord’s head is in that cabin? Or maybe the servant’s body?”

  “The head wouldn’t be.” Krelan sat up, making an effort to throw off his shock. “The head would have been a trophy, probably. Maybe one of the Family’s enemies commissioned the pirates to take it. Oh, oh, and if that’s the case it will start the old clan wars again. Gods below, I hope it wasn’t one of the Fireopals. Please, gods, no. Anyway. Maybe the servant’s in there. I’ll have to look.”

  “Anyway, you finally know what happened.” Eliss wondered if he would leave the Bird now.

  “Maybe. I know where it happened, anyway. I’ll have to get a message back to my brother.” Krelan rubbed his face with both hands.

  There came a hail from the far side of the river. A fishing boat was making her way upstream, under every scrap of sail she had. At least . . . Eliss squinted at her. She looked and smelled like a fishing boat, but armed men stood on her deck. One came to the rail and called again.

  “Bird of the River! What’s the wreck? Who did it?”

  “Looks like pirates,” Mr. Riveter called back. He went to the wreck’s stern and peered at the name. “She’s the Fire-something. A rich man’s boat.”

  Someone on the fishing boat swore.

  “What’s it to you?” asked Mr. Riveter.

  “How long since you passed Silver Trout Landing?”

  “Not a week. What’s happened?”

  “The place has been sacked,” the fisherman cried. “Boats looted and sunk. Hotel burned, bank robbed, all kinds of gentry killed or taken for ransom.”

  Mr. Rivete
r stared, openmouthed. Eliss felt chilled, as though a shadow had passed over the sun.

  “They didn’t do this.” Captain Glass’s voice boomed out over the water. “This wreck is months old.”

  “Was it pirates?” Mr. Riveter found his voice again.

  “Shellback,” called the fisherman, walking aft to shout over the stern as his vessel passed the Bird. “Renegades and demons. They came from the woods. Maybe working with some pirates too. The hostages were taken off inland though. You want to be careful! Arm your deck watch!”

  “The fox caught the swans after all,” murmured Eliss.

  Nothing else was found where the wreck had lain, and so the divers came back aboard. The water pump was attached to the canvas hose and sucked up water, which one of the cablemen played over the Fire-Swift, sluicing off mud. He aimed the water into the boat next. Water, and more mud, began to run from the hole near her keel. Krelan, biting his knuckles, climbed out of the baby pen and stood as close to the wreck as he could, watching the water gush forth.

  Mrs. Ironlatch, wrapping her hair in a towel, came aft and peered into the baby pen. “There’s my big boys! Did you miss Mama? This is a good idea,” she added, nodding at the pen as she scooped up first one and then the other baby.

  “I used to make pillow forts when my brother was little.” Eliss glanced at Krelan.

  “We ought to make some pillows and build a permanent one. I’ll ask my man.”

  “That would work,” said Eliss, just as a shout came from the direction of the Fire-Swift. A mass of something had blocked the hole. Krelan ran forward.

  “I’ll climb aboard and see what it is, shall I?” he cried.

  “There could be something nasty in there,” said Mr. Riveter.

  “Let him,” Captain Glass said. “He’s nimble as a rat. Aren’t you, Stone?”

  “Yes, sir, thank you, sir!”

  Mr. Riveter shrugged. He bent and made a stirrup of his hands for Krelan, who vaulted up and over the Fire-Swift’s rail. Eliss heard him skidding on her tilted deck, and thumping and splashing as he moved around inside.

  “Are you all right in there?” called Mr. Riveter.

  “Fine, thanks.” Krelan’s voice echoed hollowly. “I see the blockage. It’s a cushion.” A moment later the rotted mass vanished back inside the hull, and muddy water streamed out.

  “Any, er, bones?”

  “Not that I can find, sir.”

  Mr. Riveter grinned, and a couple of the cablemen raised their fists in triumphant gestures. Dead men were bad luck, and worse: they tended to complicate salvage rights.

  “What is in there?”

  “Nothing much. Bedding. Looks like some clothes. She was scuttled.” Krelan’s voice was thoughtful. “You can see the chisel marks all around the hole. Here’s the chisel, in fact.”

  “So they looted her, scuttled her, and set fire to her,” said Mr. Riveter. “It was pirates, all right.” He patted the side of the Fire-Swift. “Stupid pirates. Look at all that fancy brightwork! That’ll bring a good price.”

  “I suppose. I’m coming out,” said Krelan shortly.

  Eliss heard more skidding and staggering, and then Krelan reappeared above the Fire-Swift’s rail. He tossed out a sodden mass of stuff, which hit the deck with a slap, and climbed down.

  “You may resume hosing her out,” he said, and stalked aft to Eliss.

  “Oh, I may, may I?” grumbled Mr. Riveter, but he waved his hand and gave the order.

  Krelan sat down on the deck and watched the river while Eliss handed off their babies to Mrs. Crucible and Mrs. Firedrake, both of whom complimented Eliss on the baby pen. When they had gone, and Eliss was taking down the sunshade, he got up to help her.

  “It wasn’t pirates,” he said.

  “How do you know?”

  “They left too much.” Krelan was still pale, but with anger now. “Anything valuable and loose seems to have been taken, but real pirates would have taken everything. All the ornamental brass and the stained glass window. The bedding was fine stuff before it rotted. They left a chair that belonged to old Lord Diamondcut, a beautifully carved antique. Ruined now, of course, but the rest of the salvage is going to make the Bird a handsome profit, I can tell you.”

  “So somebody wanted to make it look as though pirates had done it,” said Eliss. “But they didn’t do a very good job. They just wanted to get rid of the Fire-Swift.”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Maybe your lord wasn’t even killed here. Maybe it happened upriver and they sank the boat here.” Eliss looked upriver and down as she folded up the tarpaulin. “We’re nowhere near a town. Nobody would have seen.”

  “That’s a possibility.”

  “And the dead servant wasn’t on board, was he?”

  “He wasn’t.”

  “Have you thought that it really might have been the servant who killed your lord, after all?”

  Krelan was silent a moment, stacking the sacks of rice. “I suppose I’ll have to entertain that possibility,” he said at last. “Give me a hand getting these back below?”

  Despite the fact that Mr. Riveter was itching to take the Fire-Swift apart, they had to wait for submitting a formal report, and she had to be inspected by an officer of the law. So she sat on the Bird’s deck for two days, while the Bird fought her way upriver to the next town.

  They pulled into Latacari at nightfall on the second day. Latacari was a mining town, with a huge open pit beyond the city walls. Her smelters glowed red through the night, with patient lines of priests working the bellows, and iron ingots were piled before the city’s temple for anyone to help himself to the holy metal.

  “Stand still,” Mrs. Riveter scolded. “It’s caught on your ear.” She adjusted Mr. Riveter’s chain of office. He stood before her in his best clothes, wringing his hands.

  “I should comb my beard.”

  “You don’t need to comb your beard. It looks fine. Eliss, may I have the sash?”

  Eliss handed it to her, as Mr. Riveter fretted.

  “Mr. Crucible! Organize a loading detail. They’ve got wheat for us on the dock. After that’s loaded on we need iron. Two barrows’ worth.”

  “Working on it, Mr. Riveter!”

  “And I’ve still got to get the captain’s drink,” Mr. Riveter murmured, half to himself, as Mrs. Riveter tied his sash.

  “Send someone else to do that,” she told him, standing back to survey the overall effect of his official splendor.

  “I suppose I could. You! Mr. Stone!” Krelan, who had been trudging aft with the grease bucket, turned.

  “Sir?”

  “Here’s money.” Mr. Riveter fumbled in his pouch. “Go ashore and get a keg of the best whiskey that’ll buy, and bring it back for Captain Glass.”

  “Yes, sir.” Krelan slipped the coins in his own pouch and looked inquiringly at Eliss. She nodded, eager to go ashore.

  Mr. Riveter was seen off for his visit to the Temple of the Law, clutching Pentra’s finished drawing of the wreck of the Fire-Swift. The wreck still sat, securely lashed down, on the Bird’s deck, though two of the polemen had had to be posted on more or less permanent guard to prevent children from climbing on it.

  “I’ve got the afternoon off,” Krelan told Eliss as he hurried up the companionway. “And a lot to do. Do you mind if we take care of a few things first?”

  “No.” Eliss threw her shawl around her shoulders. “I thought we might go to the temple too.”

  “Why not?” Krelan took her arm. “Come along then, Mrs. Stone.”

  Eliss smiled as they went down the gangplank together. “Who’s Mrs. Stone?”

  “Mrs. Stone is the beautiful young wife of the miserable kitchen lackey Mr. Stone,” said Krelan. “Or, as his master Pitspike is forever correcting him, galley lackey. Mr. Stone is a wretched feeble thing with absolutely no wealthy connections whatsoever, and completely unlikely to draw the hostile attentions of anybody intent on carrying out a vendetta.”

&n
bsp; “How did he get a beautiful wife, then?”

  “He has no idea, but is desperately grateful.” Krelan looked around through the pink smoky light. “Where’s a map board?”

  They found the location of the nearest runners’ house and went into the Sending office. Eliss waited patiently while Krelan wrote a letter and slipped it into a tablet case. He carried it to the window, where a bored-looking clerk inspected the label.

  “You need it sealed?”

  “Please.” Krelan fished a signet ring from the depths of his hood while the clerk melted wax for him. She poured it into the lock and he sealed the tablet. Eliss, watching, saw that the signet emblem was a dagger.

  I shouldn’t be surprised, she thought. I shouldn’t forget what his family does for a living.

  “Special rate for speed and she needs to wait for a reply. Reply to be forwarded to Karkateen,” said Krelan as the clerk rang for a runner. She looked at the address label and raised her eyebrows.

  “Two gold crowns, then,” the clerk said.

  Krelan paid without so much as a wince and they walked out together. “There we are,” he said. “I’ve reported about the Fire-Swift and you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve asked about the manservant.”

  “I just think it’s important,” said Eliss. “Have you got any more money?”

  Now Krelan winced. “A lady never asks that, you know.”

  “I’ll never be a lady. I was going to say that if you do have more money, you ought to buy yourself some nicer clothes. I mean, here we are in a city.”

  Krelan looked around in distaste at the sooty shop fronts. “Here? I don’t think I can find any tailor-made custom-dye-lot rough silk ensembles such as I’m accustomed to wearing.”

  “Buy something off the shelf, then! It’s bound to be better than what you’ve got on.” Eliss looked down at Krelan’s tunic, which was showing its age and also a great deal of kitchen grease he had been unable to scrub out. He sighed.

  “Undeniably true.”

  They found a shop that sold perfectly serviceable formal wear, even if it wasn’t anything the wealthy lords of Mount Flame would care to be seen in, and Krelan managed to find something in his size. As he was paying the shop owner, he asked casually: “Could you tell me the name of the best hotel in town?”