The Choir Boats

by Rabuzzi, Daniel

  Maggie mulled this on her way home, scanning the street for possible trouble. In the cellar by candlelight, she read another chapter in the treatise on fluxion and listened to her mother’s troubled breathing. She listened too for footsteps on the stairs. Squaring her shoulders, she thought, Let them come. We’ve faced worse. We’ll fight force with force.

  Chapter 11: Dreams Are the Daughters of Earth

  “Just wondering how you was getting on,” said Billy Sea-Hen to Tom late in the afternoon of their first full day in Sanctuary. “And whether you might care to join us for a spot of tea, what Tat’head and the other northerners like to call ‘baggins.’ So this would be ‘baggins on the beach,’ if you are partial.”

  A cluster of cottages sat on a shingle jutting into the cove some ways down from the house with the flagpole. On the beach the four other Minders had made a fire from kelp, and were boiling tea and frying some rabbitty-looking creatures that one of them had caught in the heath behind the dunes. (“No game laws here! We can hunt as we wish and not be called poachers,” said the Minders.) Slivers of potato fried with the meat.

  “Where are the sailors?” asked Tom.

  “Oh,” said Tat’head. “They do not much like tea — not a Yountish taste, I reckon. Not that we haven’t invited them many a time.”

  “They’re good blokes, though,” added Billy, to which the other four nodded in agreement. “Strong and quiet, knows their jobs, sticks to it. No fuss, you can depend on it.”

  “No whittie-whattie either,” said Tat’head. “‘Straight on,’ says their captain, and that’s that, straight on, it is.”

  “So, the sailors are Yountish, are they?” said Tom. “I wondered, but never could get a word with any of them. I just assumed they were dashedly shy, that’s all. Do they stay on the ship then, when you come here?”

  “No,” said Billy. “There, look, see a smittick farther down the beach? You can just see the tops of chimneys — those are their houses.”

  “Some of ’em have wives there, most I do believe, and children too,” said Tat’head. “So they wanted a bit of space for their own.”

  “And none of you has a wife?” asked Tom.

  “No,” said Billy, as the other Minders looked into the fire. “Since we joined with Him and put our feet on the Road to Redemption, we have sworn ourselves to go without wives.”

  “Our only wife shall be the imperishable Crown of Glory,” said Tat’head.

  “The immarcesible Palm of Heaven,” said Billy self-consciously.

  “By the sweet fancy Moses,” said Tat’head. “That’s a word for us all!”

  “Immarcesible,” repeated Billy. “I learned that word off His Grace, the Cretched Man.” The others nodded.

  Someone said, “Amen.”

  Billy poured the tea. One of the Minders produced a tiny snuff box filled with sugar. He offered it first to Tom, who stirred a pinch into his tea, and then passed it to the others.

  “’Tis only smouch,” said Billy. “Old tealeaves used thrice over, with this wee snip of sugar, but it is as close to paradise as we are like to come within the next hour.”

  “Too true,” said Tat’head. “And here is our rabbit, to make this real baggins.” As the afternoon shadows lengthened, and the surf washed on the shore, and the wind rustled in dune and heath, Tom and the Minders had their baggins and felt — for a while — content. The fire was burning low and dusk upon them, when Tom turned the conversation to the Cretched Man.

  “By Wee Willie Hawken,” said Billy Sea-Hen. “He is as different from us as chalk and cheese, there is no denying.”

  “What do you reckon he is?” asked Tom.

  “Hard to say, harder to know,” said Billy. “He is as He is.”

  “Besides, it signifies little what we think,” said Tat’head.

  “The point is, Master Tom,” said Billy, with the fire reflected in his eyes (Tom thought again that Billy looked like somebody Tom had known in London). “The point is that He is leading us on a righteous road. It’s like this, isn’t it, lads? Most folks is blind or greedy or both, and just take orders and follow leaders like tantony pigs. It’s not like that with the Cretched Man, is it, boys? He is seeking along with us, and He speaks with us before we commit to any kind of action, and He never asks us to do anything we don’t think ought to be done. It’s that simple. Sort of a House of Commons the way it ought to be.”

  “Look,” said Tom. “I don’t mean to press you, and will respect your answer if you tell me I press too far, but I feel I must ask. How do you know he is what he says he is, or what you think he is? That he can offer redemption at the end of your road?”

  The sun’s last rays shone off the waves as Billy answered: “As I said, on this road we walk not as blind men or greedy, but as ones what have thought things through, often in a very rough school.”

  Tat’head said, “We know what the Book says about false apostles and how Satan can appear as the Angel of Light.”

  “So we won’t be fooled,” said one of the other Minders from the other side of the dying fire. “We are forewarned.”

  “The Book talks of healing as a powerful sign of righteousness. Just look how He cured you, made you as right as you could be after the monster bit your poor fingers off,” said another Minder.

  “And don’t the Book talk of the releasing of those in bondage as another sign of holiness?” said yet another Minder. “Why, that’s what the Cretched Man has done — for us and, most of all, for the sailors who were all slaves once, slaves of the wicked Ornish in Yount, before they escaped to Sanctuary and got protected by His Grace. No longer slaves but brothers beloved, both in the flesh and in the Lord.”

  “You see,” said Billy. “Please, Mister Thomas, do not think that red, raw hands and slow speech means ignorance and no book-learning. We can all of us read, and have all learned that one book, if nothing else.”

  “I see,” said Tom. “And you know I meant no disrespect, asking only from concern and curiosity. You’ll allow that my own manner of joining this company was, shall we say, a little less voluntary than your own?”

  All the Minders nodded in assent.

  “Still,” said Billy. “We are right proud to count you as one of our own, if you wish, and maybe whether you wish it or not, Tommy Two-Fingers. Without you, Tat’head here might be dead, and maybe those two Yountish sailors, and maybe more of us. We know a test when we see one, and you, sir, met that fortune with the best of character.”

  The others murmured “huzzah” and “Amen.” Tom waved his bandaged hand as if to say he’d sacrifice the fingers from his other hand to save any one of them a second time, and was surprised to realize that he would do just that, and that they would do the same for him. At that moment, a slender moon rose over the sea.

  “Ah,” said Billy. “The moon. Another reason why we call this place Sanctuary. First moon we have seen since we left our own world. Few places on the bent and mazy roads have a moon. Yount has no moon.”

  From the houses farther down the beach, where the Yountish sailors and their wives and children lived, came a burst of song. No one around the baggins fire needed to know Yountish to feel the joy expressed in that song. “They’re singing to the moon,” said Billy Sea-Hen. “Come on, lads, let’s sing out too!”

  So they did, with Tom joining in. Out over the waves and into the silvery dark arc’ed the song:

  The Man in the Moon

  Has carelessly strewn

  The pack from his back.

  Where can it be?

  Oh, where can it be?

  Like a fish or a dolphin it fell in the sea,

  That’s where it be, oh

  That’s where it be!

  Like a fish or a dolphin it fell in the sea!

  He’ll climb down now. . . .

  Backwards and seawards and over his head

  To fish for his pack and his lacy-full sheen

  In the dark and the coldness of ocean and sea

  The
Man in the Moon used ankle and knee

  To swim for his pack in the dark and the deepy and briny-full sea.

  Like a fish or a dolphin it fell in the sea,

  That’s where it be, oh

  That’s where it be!

  Like a fish or a dolphin it fell in the sea!

  He’ll swim through now. . . .

  Backwards and sidewards and under his tread

  To fish for his pack and his glowing-full beam

  In the dark and the coldness of ocean and sea

  The Man in the Moon met cuttle and weed

  To search for his pack, his unhoused pack,

  In the dark and the vasty and briny-full sea.

  Like a fish or a dolphin it fell in the sea,

  That’s where it be, oh

  That’s where it be!

  Like a fish or a dolphin it fell in the sea!

  He’ll swim home now. . . .

  Homewards but sadwards and slowing his tread

  No luck for his pack and his shiniest beam

  In the dark and the coldness of ocean and sea

  The Man in the Moon met bad luck and worse

  Deep down it sits now, his unfounded pack

  In the dark and the vasty and briny-full sea.

  Tom and the Minders sang this and other songs, which mingled with those of the Yountish sailors and their wives, echoing back down the strand to disturb the sleeping gulls. Jambres, the Cretched Man, sat alone in the house with the flagpole, deep in his thoughts. Once he looked up and out the window of the unlighted house, thinking he knew the words to one of the songs he heard in the distance, but then the song ended. He went back to his meditations, his coat wrapped close around him, pulsing in the dark.

  Several weeks passed in Sanctuary. Every day in the late afternoon, the Minders had Tom to baggins. Sometimes a Yountish sailor or two would join as well, overcoming their uncertainty about tea. Their wives and children would accompany them from time to time, bringing home-made breads and stewed vegetables, products of the gardens they kept. Then Billy Sea-Hen and Tat’head and the other Minders were “on their best” as Billy put it, bringing chairs to the beach for the women, and offering solemn toasts to the Yountians. Invariably the meal ended with a song as the stars came out, a particularly rousing one if the moon rose early. Billy would chuckle and say to Tom, “We don’t always know what we are saying to one another, us and the Yountish, but we always understand each other just the same.”

  Every morning Tom and Jambres shooed away the gulls and had breakfast together. Reaching for a fresh-caught sprat (the cove was rich with fish, and the sailors were very good fishermen while on shore), Tom said one day, “Billy and the other Minders believe in you. They think you’ll lead them to salvation.”

  “And won’t I?” said Jambres, arching one perfect eyebrow.

  Tom said, “Your reputation with the Yountians in London hardly accords with the faith the Minders put in you. You cannot be surprised if I assemble some doubts. I harbour concerns for the men’s well-being.”

  “Concerns for their well-being?” Jambres interrupted. “Well meant, I am sure, but what might you know of their well-being? You cannot claim to know their situation. I know something of their suffering.”

  “But salvation . . .” said Tom.

  “Anything is better than their lot in England,” the Cretched Man said. “Their children, those that live at all, have chalk-blue teeth and papery skin. I’ve seen children down on all fours in an alley, hungry enough to eat mouldy bread and spoiled potatoes. Women fight like rats for scraps cast off from rich men’s tables, and are hanged for stealing a handkerchief worth one shilling. Or are transported to Australia, which might be worse.”

  “I cannot deny . . .” Tom started.

  “But you must witness,” said Jambres. “Your magistrates in England, your justices of the peace, nothing intenerates their hardened hearts to pity. Like alchemists trying to cerate base metals into gold, they use the prisons and the workhouses to mould and press the poor. In England, the poor such as Billy and his colleagues are worth less than the two sparrows sold for a farthing. They deserve much better.”

  Tom shook his head and said, “I do not dispute you. But Billy speaks of a war. In Yount.”

  “Salvation never comes without struggle,” said the Cretched Man. “In Yount are forces that must be overcome before the covenant of mercy can be fulfilled.”

  “You speak again in riddles,” said Tom.

  “Riddles, mysteries and, most of all, ironies,” said Jambres. “Listen to me, Thomas. Yount is no monolith. Far from it. Like the British and the French, the Yountians nourish enmities amongst themselves. The Yountians known to you, the residents of the Piebald Swan in London, represent the majority. But there is a minority that holds very different beliefs. The two sides clashed over a century ago in a great war. One side calls it the War of Affirmation and calls their enemies Rejectarians. Your Salmius Nalmius and Nexius Dexius — do not be surprised, of course, I know their names — are on the side of the Affirmation. The other side — from a place called Orn — calls it the War Against Errant Authority.”

  “Who won the war?” asked Tom.

  “Neither side,” said Jambres. “They exhausted themselves in strife. They ruined their temple, defiled the omphalos, the centre of their world.”

  “What is that?”

  “The place where we are to meet your uncle and get the key,” said Jambres. “At the Sign of the Ear.”

  “You speak of ironies, but I do not grasp them,” Tom said.

  “Because I have not made myself clear,” said Jambres. “I would lead my rogue’s crusade against Orn. The Ornish are slavers — they remain wedded to slavery. Those of Farther Yount, Yount Major, renounced slavery long ago: slavery and freedom were entwined in the Great War.”

  “Still, I don’t see . . .” Tom turned his hands palm up in confusion.

  “I would side with Yount Major,” said Jambres. “I am an ally of your Nexius Dexius and Salmius Nalmius, if only I could make them see that, make them accept me as one.”

  “How could that be? You oppose them even as we speak . . . here I am!” Tom said.

  The Cretched Man bowed his head for an instant. His coat shifted as he said, “You will find this hard to credit, Thomas, but I am not their enemy. So far from wishing them harm, I wish them an end to their punishment. How could I not? My release depends on theirs.”

  Tom said, “If you are not their enemy, but they see you as one, what does that make you?”

  Jambres smiled bitterly, “Ah, the gall in my own potion! I was sent to Yount as part of my penance, to watch over the Yountians, to guide them. Instead I have become their jailer. And what prisoner does not despise his jailer?”

  Tom nodded but less forcefully than he might have. He asked, “What could the Yountians have done to deserve such a punishment? Ripped from their home and condemned to exile?”

  “Truly Thomas, I know not,” said the Cretched Man. “That mystery is shielded from me, though I have tried to pierce its veils. It is sufficient to say that I was appointed to the role of gatekeeper and tutor. I have barely succeeded at the former task, and wholly failed at the latter.”

  Jambres fell silent. Moody wavelets rippled across his coat. The gulls, sensing their chance, crowded in. Tom stood up. He tried one final question: “What about Strix Tender Wurm?”

  Jambres sat still as marble. His coat seemed to shrink upon him. Slowly the Cretched Man turned one cockatrice eye at Tom and said, “Of him, do not speak.”

  More weeks went by on Sanctuary. The Minders hunted and combed the beach, the sailors fished, the sailor’s wives and children harvested beans, aubergines, and gourds from their gardens. Frost appeared on the heathlands, and sea-ducks came into the cove to escape the coming winter.

  “Something has happened,” the Cretched Man said one morning at breakfast. “Your Uncle Barnabas is delayed.”

  Tom put down his teacup, spilling a little
, and said, “They would never be late if they could help it!”

  “You are right, Thomas,” said the Cretched Man. “Something untoward has occurred. I lost them some time ago. I have been searching but I cannot find them. Come, I will show you.” He led Tom into the house, up the stairs to a small locked room that was right under the flagpole on the roof. The room held bookshelves full of books, a table with many maps and, at the one window, a telescope.

  “No ordinary telescope,” said Jambres. “An ansible-scope, if you will. Based on the same principles as the ansible but enabling far-sight. To do with sable-glass and refractored lenses and tuning for coroscular forces, if such interests you. With this I can, with practice, time, and discipline, scan the interstitial lands as well as peer back to Earth and onwards to Yount.”

  Tom put his head to the eyepiece. At first all he saw was the Seek-by-Night at anchor in the cove, but swiftly the scene shifted. He looked at a deep-green valley with mist flowing along its ridges. Just as quickly the scene shifted again and the colours changed. In rapid succession he saw an eyrie filled with roseate eagles, then streaks of blues and yellows in a roiling sky, and then a bottle-green film descended over the view in the eyepiece. His eye hurt and he looked away.

  The Cretched Man laughed. “It is no toy! An untrained eye will only get random images, spewed forth by the xantrophicious waves in the void.”

  Tom was not easily deterred. He returned to the eyepiece. Images flickered across the screen once more. Tom could not identify any of them. He was about to give up when an image leaped into the frame and stayed there.

  “A dolphin!” said Tom. Its eye was very bright and it was frantically waving its flippers.

  “Not unusual,” said Jambres. “Dolphins are highly receptive to — ”