by Steven Poore
She spent a moment listening, trying to pick out sounds from the rustling of the leaves and the barking of distant dogs. That could be a problem, and she prayed that if the householder owned any dogs they were muzzled and tied up for the night. Then she dropped down into the garden.
The cold grass came up to her ankles. Bending low, she brushed one hand along the ground, searching until she found the telltale pellets.
Yes. Thank you, Ceresel.
Arca had managed to provide her with a few pieces of kindling suitable for building a snare, and she snagged some short lengths of twine from beneath a trader’s stall before leaving the city. It was a simple task to construct the traps, even in the darkness. She had done it dozens of times before. Once they were set, she retreated to the top of the wall and forced herself to wait in silence and in stillness. That wasn’t quite so easy.
It seemed to take an eternity for anything to happen, and Cassia’s mind had time to distract her with hundreds of unpleasant and miserable scenarios. The litany of misfortune ranged from simple failure to total humiliation and several times tears flooded over her cheeks as she cradled her head in her hands and cried into the sleeves of her robe.
But Ceresel must have taken pity on her. A quiet snick, followed by a flurry of panicked movement drew her back to the job at hand. Jumping down, she discovered that both snares had been triggered. One had fallen apart in the process and was empty; the other held a small rabbit, the animal’s free paws digging furiously at the surrounding earth in its desperate attempt to break free. Part of her was surprised she had managed to catch even a single rabbit. It was far easier to kill game than to take it alive, and she felt a thrill of optimism as she bound the animal’s paws together and tied a hood over its head. At least something was going right. Perhaps this was a sign.
The thought lent her determination and vigour, and she ran back to the city with a smile upon her face. The rabbit bounced against her back, twitching and turning frantically inside the bundle she had made of her robe. The first fingers of dawn were touching the sky, illuminating the heavy clouds gathering behind her. Summer was definitely over, those clouds said. It was time to migrate towards fairer weather and more southerly lands.
True to his word, Arca waited on the quays outside the dive they had sat in earlier. When he saw her he shook his head, wonder plain to see on the ruin of his face.
“Girl, you must be touched by the gods,” he said. “How else could you believe this hare-brained scheme will work?”
“Rabbit-brained,” she corrected him with a grin. “It all depends how well he knows the tale.” If he knew it at all, she did not add. She could not admit that possibility to herself. Not now. “Is the ship still here?”
Arca nodded, levering himself away from the wall that supported his gaunt frame. “Away down the main pier,” he said. “With a bright green pennant. You should not miss it. But hurry, the tide’s almost at its highest now.”
She took a step away, then hesitated. “Will you come with me?”
Arca shifted his gaze from her, looking away down the quays. “No, girl. I would only spoil your chances. But take my prayers with you. Now – get gone. Bugger off.”
Cassia leaned in to brush her lips against his cheek. “Thank you. I’ll think of you.”
“That’ll give you nightmares, then,” he said sourly, pushing her away. The corners of his eyes creased as if he was in pain. “And don’t thank me yet. Now, I told you – bugger off.”
She hurried along the road, the bundled robe slung over one shoulder. The rabbit kicked at her, but it seemed to have tired itself out. The city’s dockside workers were already filing out from the alleyways, forcing her to slow and dodge around them, ducking away from carts laden with last minute purchases, supplies, coiled rope and canvas. She wondered if anybody else in the city ever slept. All the while, she scanned the forest of masts to find the green pennant. At first it was too difficult, the sky wasn’t light enough and she was too distracted in her struggle to keep her feet. But then she forced herself to pause, ignoring the curses from behind her, and focused her attention on the banners that flew high above every single ship.
There. That was green, wasn’t it?
And then she saw another cart, a pair of large, brass-bound chests secured upon it, pushed out from a street that led back towards one of the city’s more upmarket districts. Karak strode behind it, the scholar keeping a close eye on his porters. Cassia pushed forward, her pulse pounding. This would be a performance of sorts. And there was much more at stake than a few grubby coins.
“Sir!” she called out. To her embarrassment, her voice came out as a cross between a wheeze and a squeak, immediately lost amidst the clamour. She had to reach him before he boarded the ship. She imagined Karak would not wait on the ship’s deck, such an important passenger would have a private cabin. If he took to his cabin, the captain would not dare to call him out just to speak to a lone, desperate girl.
The porters manoeuvred their cart to the bottom of the gangplank, wheeled it around and began dragging it up. A few of the ship’s crew joined in, Karak directing their efforts from the quayside. Cassia called out again, but he didn’t seem to have heard her. To mirror her frustrations, the rabbit began to buck again, throwing her off-balance for a few steps.
Finally, as the two chests were hauled aboard, Karak looked across at her. His face was blank for a moment, and then he straightened in surprise.
“Sir! Please, let me speak with you!”
Karak held up a hand to forestall her. “I have no time. The wind is with us, boy. The captain has called his lines.”
She dodged around a barefooted sailor who leaped past her onto the gangplank. “Sir, please, just one moment. My friends—”
A large man, even taller than Meredith, leaned over the ship’s rail and shouted down. “My lord, the pilot is ready to tow us out. You must come aboard now.”
Karak looked at her and shook his head firmly. “No more, I’m afraid. I need no apprentice, Cassia. My work is not of that nature.”
“But, sir,” she started forward in desperation as he ascended the gangplank, “I don’t need to be your apprentice. I only want to go to Corba! My friends have gone ahead without me!”
He turned at the top of the ramp, and for a moment she thought she saw disappointment in his eyes. By his side, the captain muttered into Karak’s ear, and Karak made a gesture with one hand. The captain wheeled and barked a series of half-incomprehensible orders to his crew.
“But I can be useful!”
“My captain has a full complement,” Karak told her. “There is no room for passengers. Girl, this is no trader’s scow.”
She took a deep breath. This was where her plot stood or fell. It depended on how well Karak knew his folklore, and how well his captain took her next trick. “Sir, do you have aboard anyone who can catch rabbits?”
The captain looked irritated, his attention spread between this and his crew’s attempts to reel in the lines that held the ship fast against the dockside. Karak tilted his head and regarded her with a thin, piercing gaze. She might have been wrong – it was so hard to interpret his expression – but she thought the corner of his mouth turned upward. A twitch, perhaps.
“What?” The captain shouted. “Of course not!”
“Then let me aboard, sir! I can catch rabbits!”
Karak’s smile was obvious now. He knew what was coming. But the captain, and those of his crew close enough to catch the exchange, only burst into laughter.
“You ridiculous child!” The captain shouted. The ship creaked, and a pair of sailors knelt to take hold of the gangplank, ready to haul it back aboard. When that was gone, it would take her chance with it. “There’s no bloody rabbits on this ship!”
Oh Ceresel, I love you!
She had already slipped the tied bundle onto one end of her staff. Now she raised her arms and whirled the staff in a looping circle as though it was an oversized sling. She only had one
chance. If she judged the arc poorly, the bundle might fly over the entire deck and splash into the Castaria.
One last heave, and the bundle, rabbit and all, sailed through the air. She watched it turn end over end. In mid-air, the loose knot that held it together finally came free. The rabbit, hooded and tied, skidded over the deck. Sailors shouted and leapt aside to avoid being hit by the twitching missile. Stunned, the poor beast must have managed to work free of the bindings, because there was uproar, a cacophony of shouts as the crew fell over each other in their attempts to seize it.
“There is now!” Cassia shouted up in triumph to Karak and his captain. The two men appeared torn between apoplexy and crippling laughter. The ship’s deck was in absolute disarray, the crew abandoning their posts to chase the confused rabbit. A small part of Cassia was appalled at the chaos she had caused, and she hoped it wouldn’t make matters worse. The captain might refuse outright to give her passage now, and she would not blame him. She shifted her feet, her calves tense as she prepared to flee the scene.
Karak shook his head, but at least he was smiling. “Even Gelis herself was not so brazen,” he called down to her. “Her rabbit was dead!”
She had not known that. A familiar flush settled at the base of her neck. “Sir, will you at least return my cloak?”
Karak glanced over his shoulder. It seemed that her furry invader was still on the loose. “Can you catch this blessed thing?”
Cassia nodded eagerly. Her heart was fit to burst.
“Well, then, don’t just stand there, girl. Lift those feet. Hurry, now, before the pilots tow us clear.”
She was already halfway up the gangplank.
q
The last she saw of Hellea was the view from the rails of the ship’s hind deck. Obscured by a floating wall of masts and hulls, canvas drawn in irregular curtains across the scene, Hellea already seemed more than a world away. The ceaseless clamour of the streets was gone, swept from her ears by the morning breeze, and the sour taste of the air came only in brief waves. The towers of the temples stood bright in the dawn, highlighted against the horizon, and the palace itself peered from between flapping sets of sails. Just a place now, a name and a history, rather than a collection of individuals and a set of hurts and bruises. Memories.
She said a swift prayer for Arca, to thank him for his help. He deserved better. One day perhaps I can come back and thank you properly. But for now this will have to do. Ceresel, please intercede on Arca’s behalf – bring him better luck and the path he deserves.
Catcalls and laughter rang across the deck. Not aimed at her, she guessed – the rabbit, finally caught, was caged in a wire-fronted basket that hung from the central mast, and the crew appeared to have adopted it as a mascot. Two of the men hung from the rigging next to it, baiting the poor beast with handfuls of grain. It looked to be a contest to see which of the two would be bitten the least. They had even called it Cass. She wasn’t sure how she should take that.
Karak had not stayed to watch the games, disappearing into the cabin beneath the hind deck as soon as the pilot tug had disengaged. That left Cassia alone again, but it was a feeling she was becoming used to now. And, besides, it was probably a very good thing the crew wasn’t paying her too much attention. She’d failed to realise how confined the space aboard a ship might be, or that she would be the only girl aboard. She had assumed there would be other passengers, also bound for Galliarca.
She wrapped one arm around the rail and watched the sailors as they grew bored and agreed to call the contest a draw. They compared the bites they had received as they descended, as proud of them as of battle scars. What a strange story this would be, when she finally came to assemble it.
The captain thumped towards her, his face fixed in the half-scowl he had worn earlier. “Don’t know what your game is,” he said without preamble. “Or his, for that. But you better keep out the way.”
“I will. I’m sorry about the rabbit, sir.”
He glared down at her for a moment. “Anybody tries that again, I’ll lash ’em to the anchor. How good are you, then?”
The abrupt change of tack confused her, until he pointed at her cloak. Frayed, and stained with the rabbit’s droppings and urine, it was still the mark of a storyteller. It lay bundled at her feet, all she had left of her old life.
“Fair enough,” she said. “My father was Norrow of Keskor, the best storyteller of the North. Have you met him?” There was nothing to lose now, so she might as well try to impress the man.
“Never heard of him,” the captain said.
Cassia shrugged. The words felt wrong upon her tongue. “But now you can say you met his daughter.”
The captain continued to stare at her, as though waiting for her to wilt and look away. She willed herself to stand firm, and at last his mouth cracked into a dry smile that did not touch his eyes. “Keep those guts, girl. You’ll need ’em for this crew.”
He waved one hand at the deck, where a few sailors had gathered to sit and pull cups of water from a barrel. Cassia watched them for a moment before she realised what he meant. He wanted her to recite for them? For her passage?
The ship lurched through the water, leaving her stomach a few feet in the opposite direction. Cassia gripped the rail again, as though it was the only thing keeping her safely aboard. The only thing she could think of was Gelis’s escape across the sea. It might be a good idea to find some quiet corner and sleep for a little. The day, after all, had only just begun.
q
She woke with dried lips and a peculiar warm ache beneath her ribs. She shifted to one side and dug into her robe, pulling out the stone charm. She turned it over in her hand uncomprehendingly. Why was it so warm? Was that supposed to mean something? She had prayed upon it several times over the last few weeks. Could Pyraete really hear her prayers? Oh, mercy, what if he has? What should I do?
She scrambled up to her knees and was about to push the charm over the raised edge of the ship’s bow when she hesitated, coming fully awake. Gods? Sending messages to her? When she thought of it like that it sounded ridiculous. This was no godly artefact, just a charm from the wall of a tavern. Gods sent messages through dreams, or by golden animals or fish that could speak. Or they sent great weapons of power . . .
“So this is where you got to.”
She almost dropped the charm again. Karak had appeared without warning, although in truth she had been engrossed in her thoughts. She pulled herself upright and looked about. It was difficult to judge, but if the ship was still headed east, she had slept through most of the day. There was a haze over the horizon ahead, the accumulated smoke and dust indicating a town in the distance. In the west, the sky was dark with storm clouds. Summer had ended for Hellea, and the winds blew the ship freely before them. There was no need for the sweeps when the weather was this favourable, so the crew also seemed relaxed. Cassia was sure that wouldn’t be the case once the river ejected them into the sea.
“My captain is none too happy with you,” Karak said. Cassia flinched, but there was no real anger in the words. If anything, the scholar sounded amused. “Oh, have no fear. He’ll not throw you overboard. Unless your tales are truly horrendous, of course. But the crew have taken a liking to your pet.”
“He’s not a pet,” she said.
“That’s just as well, as you’re unlikely to get him back. Unfortunately, they now want to rename the ship, for luck.”
She had believed that nothing could be more embarrassing than having the rabbit named after her. Little wonder the ship’s captain was upset. She hunched her shoulders and looked down at the deck so Karak could not see her face. “I don’t know if they’ll listen to me, if I ask them not to.”
“Oh, I should not worry,” Karak said. “The captain will come around to the idea eventually. Perhaps he will even paint the letters onto the hull himself.”
The humiliation was absolute. Cassia wondered if she should just throw herself over the side now, to save everybody els
e the trouble later. Then Karak laughed.
“Rabbit, girl, Rabbit. You must admit, it sounds a thousand times better than Warlock.”
She thought she preferred the latter, but there was most likely no chance of convincing the crew to change their minds.
“We will be at Corba early tomorrow morning,” Karak said, his tone brisk and remote again. “If you confine yourself to this part of the deck, you will not be in the way. As far as payment for your passage, Sah Ulma asks you entertain his crew this evening.”
She had expected it, but she felt as though the ship had leapt high from the water and taken her stomach with it. All she could trust herself to do was nod, and that none too firmly.
Karak turned away, but paused before he left her. “I would not try the Call to the North,” he advised dryly.
q
The deck was lit with braziers, the canvas of the sails lifted high to prevent them catching alight. The captain, Sah Ulma, had brought the ship back across the Castaria and closer to the shore, and now the newly renamed Rabbit was anchored not far from the low sandstone cliffs. Cassia had thought they would sail on through the night, just as the great ships did in all the stories she knew, but one of the sailors had set her right. That might be fine on the open seas, but the Castaria was only a lake, after all. Nobody wanted to risk running aground or smashing into the cliffs. For a few minutes Cassia stared nervously into the dusk, watching to make sure the cliffs were not coming any closer.
The crew gathered around the braziers, sat on tasselled cushions and bales of cloth hauled up from below deck. The ship’s stores of fresh food were still full, so they ate from plates of cooked meats and fruit from wicker baskets. There was wine too – watered down heavily, Cassia realised. With neither Baum nor her father to watch disapprovingly, she poured a large mug and sat back against the curved rail to enjoy herself.
She wasn’t sure what Sah Ulma had said about her to his crew, but her fears remained unfounded. She caught a few grins, and she was certain at least a few muttered comments were about her, but the sailors left her in peace and did not bother her until the end of their meal.
