by Tim Stead
“My brother’s killer had fled to Samara. I mean to follow him.”
The captain shook his head. “Will you come to my cabin, take a glass of wine with me?”
“You will not dissuade me,” she said.
“And yet I do not think it wise to chase this man. The trading mission is now yours, and your father’s wealth is in your hands. Your family will be most concerned. They will want you at home, and with good cause. Samara is not a gentle place if you have no friends. They may be forced to mourn you both.”
“How much must I pay you to take me to Pek, then? Or should I seek another ship?”
The captain caved in.
“I will take you, because a reluctant friend is better than an eager stranger. We sail an hour before dawn on the tide. Be aboard before then. I will take you as far as Pek and arrange transport from there to Samara. I will do this because your brother was my friend, and because your father still is, though I can only hope that he will remain so after this.”
“I will be here before dawn. I will send my baggage.” She turned and walked from the ship, not really noticing how offensive her abrupt departure might be, though she would remember it later.
She walked back through the town to the camping grounds, still towing Kendric. She continued to ignore him and went back into her tent. In her mind she now held tightly to a sense of purpose. There were things to be done. She must pick up the warrant from the Kalla House. She must arrange for the wagons to go back to the Scar. She must pack and prepare for the voyage to Pek and onwards. She began to cast about the tent, looking for what she might need. She laid the leather outer skin of her baggage roll on the bed and began to lay clothes upon it. She picked out only what was simple and functional. She had heard that Samara was hot; hotter than Yasu or the Scar, and so she took that into account, though she still put a thick coat onto the pile.
“Miss Felice?”
It was Kendric. He was standing almost apologetically in the entrance with one foot in and one foot outside the tent. His face was torn with concern and worry. She had never seen Kendric look like this before. Her anger dissipated.
“What is it, Kendric?”
“Your brother, Miss Felice…”
The shutters came down again. “Is dead,” she replied.
“The … body…”
She sat down abruptly, her mind suddenly blank. No matter how she tried to think nothing came into her head. No words presented themselves to be spoken, just the image of Todric without life, no light in his blue eyes, no movement in his lithe limbs and no smile on his beautiful face. She sat for about a minute, unable to move or speak.
“What shall we do, Miss Felice?”
“You must take him home,” she said.
“We cannot. The weather is too hot.”
She shuddered at the idea. “Then what is the local custom?”
“There are three,” Kendric said. “The guardsmen here burn their dead. It is the custom with guardsmen everywhere. The sailors give their dead to the sea, and the practice is adopted by many of the people here. Some lay their dead in the earth and mark the spot with a carved stone.”
She considered them briefly. Somehow she did not think of it being Todric that they were going to dispose of. It was a part of him that he had left behind. She did not want to bury him in the ground. Todric was gone, and a stone bearing his name would be no comfort, certainly not here. When people died they were no more and it was the way of things that life moved on. The dead were remembered, even honoured or avenged, but that was all. Neither did she like the idea of the sea. It was an alien element – not familiar to her or her family. Todric would not have wanted to lie in the sea, to be eaten by its creatures. He should have gone home to be farewelled by his family and friends, to have tears shed over him, to lie in the ground with all his line and be part of the Scar which had given him life.
“We will burn him, Kendric,” she said. “We will burn him tonight.” Burning, she knew, left bones, and the bones could go back to the Scar. They would make the journey well enough. It rankled that he had been killed by a guardsman, and burning was a guardsman’s way, but is was not important. The murderer would have a less respectful end.
“Very well, I will see to it,” and he was gone.
She sat still for a moment, not thinking, her eyes filled with the off-white canvas of the tent, and her ears deaf to the noises outside. She shook herself, and idly picked up a mirror, studying her face in it. She did not feel shock at the sight of the scar. It was angry and red, running from her brow just above the left eye, down her cheek, touching the left corner of her mouth and ending on her chin. It had been stitched, presumably by the doctor before she had awoken, and it looked as though an apprentice seamstress had been working on her face. It was certainly a thing to scare young children. The eye patch, however, had a sinister look, hinting at terrible things concealed. She did not lift it to inspect her damaged eye, but left the tent.
Kendric had unloaded two of the wagons, and she could see them on the road into town. Picking up wood, she guessed.
Now the Kalla House. Now the warrant.
She walked into town again. She felt stronger this time, and paraded her terrible injury all the way through the streets of the town without a sideways glance, though she was aware of people stopping and staring. It was strange that she had not noticed this the first time she had come this way. She had been too occupied with her own struggle, her own pain and weakness, to see what others were doing.
The lieutenant was waiting for her. Now that she had seen what she looked like she was amazed at the man’s self control. He did not stare at her, or grimace, or attempt to commiserate. It was as if he was unable to see the wound that disfigured her face.
“I have the warrant as you requested, Trader Caledon,” he said.
She wanted to speak to him, to ask him questions about Karnack, but somehow it didn’t seem appropriate, so she stood awkwardly for a minute.
“Thank you,” she said, finding her voice at last.
“Be careful,” he said.
She nodded, but there was nothing more that she wished to say, and so she left the Kalla House and began the walk back to the tents. She must finish packing. It was only a couple of hours until dark, and then there would be the fire, and the farewell to Todric.
And tomorrow there was the ocean.
5. The Sea Swift
She had boarded the Sea Swift in darkness. The mate had conducted her to her cabin, though she had barely seen it, barely seen anything at all so tired had she been. There had been the sound of a man quietly singing in the night, words that she did not understand. She had stumbled on the stairs that led below the darkened deck, and was grateful for the mate’s help. The burning had been much harder than she expected, and it had started late, when she was already tired and the weakness of her injury was overcoming her will to be strong.
She remembered every minute of it, and knew that it would not leave her for the rest of her life. The wood had been stacked and dressed with flammable oil. It was not a huge pyre, and Todric’s body had been placed no more than shoulder high and she could see his face in profile. She had insisted that he be dressed in his finest clothes and that his face be uncovered. He had faced everything that life had offered him, and she saw no reason why he should not be bare faced in death.
They had given her the torch to light the pyre, and that was the hardest thing. Up until that point Todric had still been alive, somewhere inside her. As she approached the body it had borrowed the torch’s ruddy warmth, and looked merely asleep. She had to fight the urge to reach out and shake him, to wake him from this offensive and untimely sleep.
And she had wept. For the first time since waking back in the tent she had allowed herself the luxury of grief. They had all stood in silence, under the cold stars, and watched her. There were more people than she had expected. The drovers, of course, but there were people from the Sea Swift, merchants who had greeted them
in the street, and she even recognised the landlord of the Red Sail, hands folded and head bowed, standing among the others in the light of stars and torches.
So she had stood, for the moment unable to move, weeping before her brother’s body, and she had sensed a presence at her side. It was Kendric. He had stepped softly out from the assembly and stood quietly beside her.
“If you cannot…” he whispered.
The words had been enough, and she had nodded, oddly grateful to him for his subtlety, his ability to do just the smallest thing at the right time. It was not what she had expected of him. After all, he was a drover, a man who sat on the bench of a wagon for a living. She stepped forwards and pushed the torch into the wood near the base of the pyre. It burned swiftly, flaring upwards and sideways as it sought out the oil. She had stepped back and watched, forced herself to watch as the flames consumed her brother. She had expected this to be the hardest part, but it was not, in the end. As she watched the pyre burn she had grown calm, almost serene. Perhaps it was exhaustion.
When the fire had died she had given Kendric his instructions; to take the wagons and the trade goods back to East Scar, to tell her father all that had happened here, and that she had travelled on to Samara by ship to seek out the murderer. She gave him a letter that briefly stated the facts so that her father would see the words in her own hand. Kendric had not wanted to do as she wished. He argued that he should go with her, that she would need help.
“Kendric,” she had said to him. “You must do this for me because you are the one that I trust to do it. Take Todric’s bones to my father. It is a cargo of grief that I cannot carry. Do this one thing for me.”
He was unable to refuse her, and so she went to the ship and he began to organise the wagons to depart in the morning. She looked back once at the sound of his voice, surprised that it sounded angry as he shouted orders to the other drovers, and saw that he was looking in her direction, silhouetted against the torches and the embers of the fire. He seemed to have grown larger. She saw him turn away and walk towards the tents. The way that he walked reminded her of Todric, of his ease and certainty.
* * * *
She awoke to the sounds of the sea. She could hear it caressing the hull of the ship just by her head, whispering through the planking in a language she did not understand. She got out of the bunk and found her clothes. It was a small cabin made smaller by the curve of the hull against which her bed was set, and the way in which it narrowed slightly. It seemed strange to someone who was used to square rooms and square houses.
Dressed, she went on deck and looked around. She could see that it was a fine day, and a breeze filled the ship’s great sails which strained above her head, looking crisp and clean against the blue sky. She heard the creak of the masts, the swish of the water, and the hum of the ropes held taut and played by the wind like so many strings on a giant lute. Men talked and from time to time an order was called out.
“Miss Felice.”
She turned at the sound of her name. Captain Pelorus was standing close to the stern of the vessel, close to the great wheel. He stood with legs spread, comfortable in the motion of the sea. His eyes were bright and he smiled broadly. She realised that she was seeing him in his natural environment for the first time. He was happy here, a happiness that was not family, not the love of another. This was something she had never seen.
“Captain, it seems a fine day,” she said.
“Indeed,” he replied. “If it stays like this we will be in Pek’s fine harbour within six days.”
She looked around, letting her eyes travel beyond the ship to the ocean. It seemed flat; flatter than any land she had seen; featureless and benign. But when she turned to the other side and looked out she saw the same, and that shocked her.
“Where is the land, Captain?” she asked.
“To the west,” he pointed. “It is thirty miles distant, and you cannot see it. You will not see it again until we turn to approach Pek itself.”
“How do you know where you are?” She was certain that the captain knew his trade, but being out of sight of land seemed dangerous.
“I have sailed these waters all my life. I know the winds, and I know the land that you cannot see. I see it still, here,” he pointed to his own head. “In my mind’s eye I see each headland and bay passing as though it were a short mile off the bow.”
She nodded uncertainly.
“And there is a reason to be so far from shore?”
“There is. The time of year. It is a season of quick storms that come out of the east, and I would not be caught without the sea room to weather them.”
“And how far is it that we sail?”
“A thousand and a half miles. It is fully half the span of the world for a sailor.”
“And what is out there?” She pointed to the east.
“The sea,” he replied. “Storms, dreams, death. It is all the same. Nobody has ever sailed out there and returned to tell us.”
The looked again at the calm ocean, at the east. It was so like looking into the future. No eye could see better than a few miles, a few hours ahead. No human eye, at least. She had heard stories of a race called the Shan, those with whom the captain’s friends had traded for the flower wood. They were supposed to see better than men, to see the hidden possibilities beyond the horizon.
She became aware that she was in the way. Sailors were altering their courses to pass her, and so she joined the captain on the raised deck at the back of the ship. She found the view of the ship better from here. She could see the sails clearly, and almost all the confusion of ropes that seemed to hold up the masts and brace the sails against the wind. She stood, rapt with fascination, as she watched Pelorus sail the ship. He stood and felt the wind, each change causing him to reappraise the setting of the sails and the course they cut through the water.
“A touch more to larboard,” he said to the helmsman. “Bring that mainsail a couple of hands in, lads,” he called down to the deck. Every word caused a burst of activity, but it was always neat. If ropes were adjusted then the slack was always coiled away. There were no mistakes or tangles.
“Do you feel the ship?” he asked her. “How she rides cleanly through the water, balanced as she should be?”
She shrugged. “Have you ever tasted a crack nut, captain?”
“No,” he was puzzled, but there was amusement in his voice.
“So if I gave you one could you tell me if it was a fine specimen or a poor one?”
“No, Miss Felice. I take your point, of course.” He smiled. “You will just have to believe me when I say that this ship runs most sweetly through the water. Her balance is superb.”
“I am happy to take your word for it,” she replied.
For two days the sailing was easy and the sea was ruffled by friendly winds that bore them swiftly southwards. On the third day the wind dropped to a whisper and Felice noticed that the clean line of the eastern horizon had disappeared so that it was difficult to see when the sea ended and the sky began. Pelorus paced the deck with a nervous energy, sniffed the wind and went below to look at charts on several occasions.
“Something is wrong?” she asked him when she could bear the building tension no longer.
“A storm,” he said. “The swells are getting longer, and what wind there is smells of rain. It may pass to the north of us. I hope it will. There is no port that we can run to on this coast. Not with this wind, at any rate.”
“But we have…” she searched for the phrase. “Sea room. Surely there is no danger?”
“There is always danger in the sea, Miss Felice,” he replied. “The best ships and the best sailors will perish if the sea turns against them, but we have a good ship and a good crew, and the storm may yet pass to the north.”
Their luck did not hold. Over the next five hours the swells grew steadily larger and the wind rose, ripping water from the crest of each great wave, hurling is across the deck. Pelorus still stood with ease, riding th
e motion of the ship, but lines were being strung at hand height all over the spaces where the crew worked.
Felice was scared.
“You should go below,” the captain said. “You cannot help here, and I am loath to loose you overboard.”
“It will get worse?”
“Much worse.”
She went below. Lying in her bunk she could now feel the shock of the waves as they struck the ship. They felt like hammer blows, and she wondered how long the hull would withstand them.
Pelorus was right. It got much worse. She clung to the bed at first, understanding now why it had a lip to it, but eventually even the lip was not enough, and a couple of times the ship wrenched her free of the shelf she clung to and threw her to the floor. She tied herself to the bed and held to the ropes with the strength of terror.
It was difficult to believe that the ship could stand the blows of the sea for so long, but hour after hour it did so. Felice became accustomed to the violence of the motion, the intensity of the noise. She heard the orders shouted on deck, and sometimes the feet of men dashing across the tilting planking above her head, and her confidence in Pelorus and his ship was rediscovered. Even the sound of the sea washing down the stairs from the deck did not disturb her. It was a small amount that entered, and this was a large ship.
She almost slept, but it was a feverish kind of waking sleep, haunted by a terrible sense of absence and feeling that something was wrong, and she began to sweat. Her face burned and yet she shivered and began to feel thirsty. Waves of nausea added to her misery.
It came as a surprise when the flimsy door of her cabin was ripped open and she was faced by the figure of a sailor, soaked to the skin and clearly exhausted. The man had braced himself across the corridor outside the cabin.
“What?” she demanded? “What is it?” She could hear the anxiety in her own voice.
“The captain asks that you come on deck,” the man said, having regained his breath. He did not wait for an answer, but swung away out of sight, riding the motion of the ship as a skilled horseman sits on a wild horse.
