Hush

by Donna Jo Napoli

  William is sitting with one of the children on his lap. He’s playing some sort of hand-clapping game. His breath makes smoke in the air. The child’s head bends toward that smoke.

  “The boy we picked up in Saxland is called Markus. The Irish boys are Morc and Nyle. The girls are Kacey and Riley.”

  Markus I can pick out—he’s the one who led the cow. But for the Irish children, I wonder which ones go with which names. I will continue to call the child who helps everyone Patrick, even if he turns out to be a girl.

  “We have a name for you,” says Maeve.

  I already have a name. But that doesn’t matter so much. I move my face toward her curiously.

  “Aist.”

  I flinch. I remember Clay Man repeating that word the night Brigid left.

  “Ah, so you recognize it,” says Maeve. “It’s Russian. Adopt it and you’ll be saved.” She stands up. “Now, shall we clean you?”

  Saved? The word has little meaning.

  Maeve pulls me up by the hand. Our hands are free. Have they been since the night Brigid left?

  She leads me to a wide bucket of water. It’s iced over on top. I realize I’m shivering.

  I look over the ship’s side.

  We’re near a shore to our right. A sandy beach stretches far inland toward towering trees. Sunlight shimmers on the frost in the highest needles of the evergreens. A small cove lies ahead. The little lagoon within it is ice-covered. Ice on salt water. We must be very far north if there’s ice in the sea so late as March.

  “Don’t look too long,” says Maeve. “It will discourage you. The Russians call this the Baltic. It’s the East Sea. A strange sea. Here” She breaks the ice in the bucket with her fist. It doesn’t crack; it slushes apart. She scoops with a cupped hand and brings water to my mouth. “Taste. Put your head back and I’ll dribble it over your gag.”

  Maybe she is crazy.

  But I do as she says. The water soaks through and around my gag. It is foul, but that may be my own sour tastes.

  “See? It’s hardly salty.”

  That’s true. The Irish Sea is much stronger.

  Some of the crew are watching now. Leering Man, Club Fist, Thick Neck, and, of course, Clay Man. He’s always watching me. Two others, the ones who seem to have nothing to do with us prisoners, are playing a game with what look like colored pebbles. And some crew members are missing. Three?

  “Gormlaith,” calls Maeve, “come help.”

  Gormlaith’s face is drawn. Her hair stands out like a wild thing’s. She favors her right side as she approaches. She moves like an old woman. But I know she’s not. I remember how she was when I first saw her.

  William and the children watch.

  “Treat her like you’d like to be treated,” says Maeve in a scolding tone.

  The Irish children go to the front of the boat. William and Markus follow. They sit as a group, their backs to us, a blanket stretched across them.

  Maeve and Gormlaith stand on either side of me and pull my tunic up.

  I fight to hold it down. I look around at the crew.

  “Forget their eyes,” says Maeve. “They’re animals.”

  That’s exactly my fear. I sink to my haunches and hold the hem of my tunic to the deck and I realize that my rib doesn’t hurt nearly so bad now. The body heals on its own—perhaps in spite.

  “They won’t touch you,” says Maeve. “They won’t dare. Not with him looking on. Not with what he believes.” She jerks her chin toward Clay Man. “And you’ll get sores and fever and delirium if you don’t clean up.” She beckons. “NyIe, come help.”

  Nyle turns out to be my Patrick. He comes running.

  “Stand wherever you can to block the view of her. You’ll have to change positions as we move. Just do the best you can.”

  Again Maeve and Gormlaith reach for my tunic.

  I close my eyes.

  When Nuada was little, we’d play hide-and-seek. I was two years older than him, and I won. But, in fact, anyone could hide better than Nuada. He didn’t go behind anything. He simply closed his eyes, believing that if he couldn’t see you, you couldn’t see him. Once he finally figured things out, the game was no longer fun. He was quick and quiet and he won all the time.

  I open my eyes and force myself to lift my arms over my head.

  They pull off my tunic and sink it into the bucket water. Then Maeve lightly slaps my own sopping tunic on my belly.

  The shock of the freezing water makes me jump.

  Brigid jumped into freezing water. As snow fell.

  They scrub me with that dirty tunic. They scrub me everywhere. I turn under their hands like I did under Delaney’s hands the night we rushed back from Dublin, when Nuada’s hand was cut off.

  They scrub my face. They wash my hair.

  I shiver violently. My jaw tries to chatter. I taste blood as the corners of my mouth rip on the crusty edges of the gag.

  They wrap me in the second blanket.

  “Now you,” says Maeve to Gormlaith.

  Gormlaith takes the wet tunic and washes her face and hands and feet.

  Maeve nods to my Patrick.

  He washes obediently.

  “Come for a wash,” calls Maeve.

  All the others scrub themselves with my dirty tunic, Maeve last of all.

  Then she scrubs my tunic in the bucket and stretches it over a chest to dry.

  She dumps the brown, filthy water over the side of the ship. Then she lowers the bucket by the attached string and brings it back up full again. And the water is brown again. It wasn’t my filth that made it that color.

  This is a brackish sea. With hardly any salt. How strange everything is here. Nothing is as it seems.

  Maeve comes over and snakes her hand inside the blanket and pinches me hard.

  I gasp.

  “You are right to keep your voice to yourself, Aist,” she says into my ear. “Hush. You’re the one who started this silence—you have to keep it up. Or you lose yourself. He’ll just snuff you out.” She makes a puff of hot air that warms my brain. “Like that, like a lamp flame. A slave life counts for nothing unless the slave finds a trick. You’ve found yours. Stick to it. Hush.”

  I don’t understand. But I will hold my tongue. The last person who told me to hush was Mother.

  Travel is slow. We pass rivers that empty into this sea. Many. That must be why this water is so nearly sweet. But I have no explanation for why it is so brackish.

  At the mouth of almost every river, we stop and anchor nearby. The crew take turns going ashore—two or three at a time. They bring back barrels of fresh water. They bring back river fish. They bring back game that they roast on the beach. They bring back jugs of beer, though where the people are that they get that beer from, I do not know.

  They share it all with us. The first time we feasted, Maeve mumbled to me, “They’re fattening us up. There must be a slave market ahead within a half moon at the most. Otherwise they’d never do this. Fat slaves bring more money than skinny ones, because they don’t drop dead on you right off.” The very next day Clay Man finally gave a shirt to William. Maeve hissed in my ear, “So he’ll be warm enough to put on a little flesh. Hogs before the slaughter, that’s what we are.” Clay Man pinches the upper arms of the children each morning, clearly measuring their fat with his fingers. Sometimes we eat so much, I think my belly will split.

  It is bitterly cold. Each morning I wake with dread that a child will have succumbed to the chill overnight. No one does. Somehow the abundant food sustains us, down to the weakest, who is Kacey.

  I spend daytime standing as close to the shore side of the deck as I can get. I watch the land.

  It’s been twelve days since I started counting. And I started counting the day Maeve washed me.

  I stand and watch the land and see four children. Out in the open. Like flowers waiting to be plucked.

  Clay Man’s shout interrupts my thought. I wince. He must be constantly scanning for prey to be so qu
ick about it. A serious predator.

  As soon as we have passed the next curve of shore and are out of the children’s sight line, we drop anchor. Of course.

  My head spins.

  Five men hold spears pointed at us.

  Four men go over the side of the boat and run back along the beach. Four. One per child.

  Oh so soon, they are back, carrying trussed children on their shoulders, like sacks of meal.

  These children fight less than Markus or William did. They fight less than Brigid and I did. Maybe that’s because Clay Man talks to them as they are dumped into the ship. They appear to understand his language. At least somewhat. He says things and they act as a unit, clearly following directions.

  By nightfall their obedience has so mollified Clay Man that he has their blindfolds removed and hands untied. But they stay gagged like the rest of us—except for Maeve.

  We eat. As the gags come off, people talk to one another. Even William and Markus join the talk, though no one else speaks the language of either one of them.

  Maeve sits beside me. She barely moves her lips as she speaks softly. “Silence, Aist. It will pay off in the end. You’re smart enough, I can tell” And she pinches me hard enough to bring tears.

  I didn’t need the reminder. “Hush” has become my internal chant. It drums in Mother’s voice like a heartbeat. I eat with my gaze lowered.

  Then we are gagged again. Except for Maeve.

  Night comes. We move into a circle around Maeve. She calms us with stories. Tonight’s story is of the gods. Last night’s was of the heroes. She alternates. They aren’t in disguise anymore; they are our traditional Irish tales. I look forward to them.

  Riley climbs onto my lap. This has become her habit. I am almost sure that Morc and Kasey are brother and sister. And maybe Patrick-Nyle is their brother too. They are far enough apart in age for that to be possible. But Riley seems to be alone on this ship, and she latches on to me at storytime.

  The four new children listen, rapt. Though they cannot understand the words, somehow they understand that these are stories. Somehow they enjoy them.

  As Maeve talks I grow rapt as well. But in a different way. I ride a current of fantasy. This is not Maeve who speaks. This is Nuada. We are not on this Russian slave ship. We are in Downpatrick. The child on my lap is not Riley, but Brigid.

  And I am not Aist. I am, once more, Melkorka.

  This current is wonderful.

  When Maeve finally stops, the Irish children and Markus pile together under a blanket. Maeve and Gormlaith and William pile under our other blanket. I watch the four new children.

  Their clothing is warmer than ours. But I cannot ignore the fact that the night wind off the water stabs like an ice pick.

  I go over to the crew’s pile of blankets and take a third one.

  Clay Man rushes over. I knew he would. I knew he was watching me. He’s always watching me. I hear his clumping feet.

  I spin around to face him, to meet his blow head-on.

  He shouts at me.

  But I am still in the haze of Maeve’s storytelling. I am still Melkorka, the princess of Downpatrick. If I didn’t have this gag on, I would shout back. I rip at the gag.

  His eyes open wider. He appears enormously surprised. He grabs my arm and turns me around and works at the knot on my gag. He’s going to unleash my tongue himself. He wants me to shout at him.

  The gag comes away.

  “Aist,” shouts Maeve. “Aist”

  “Aist?” says Clay Man. It’s a question.

  Hush, says Mother inside my head.

  I face Clay Man.

  “Aist?” he asks.

  I walk past him, clutching the blanket to my chest. I give it to the tallest of the new children.

  The new children lie down together in a pile under the third blanket.

  I go over to Maeve and nestle in beside her, and I realize that the movement brings only a muted, distant hurt, almost the memory of pain rather than the thing itself. My bones grow strong again.

  “You did good,” she says in my ear. “The children from Vendland will sleep. You did good. You sleep now too, Aist.”

  Maeve knows that the land we picked those children up in is called Vendland. Maeve knows a lot. This fact comforts me.

  CHAPTE TWELVE: THE VOW

  Freezing rain thumps on the blankets that we hold overlapping above our heads like a tent. The rain’s so solid, it bounces on the deck. It cuts the backs of my hands where I clutch blanket. It darkens this midday to almost night.

  Maeve and Gormlaith and William and I are the pillars of the blanket tent. Nine children crowd underneath, pressed so close together, it’s a wonder they can breathe. The fronts of our bodies are under the blankets too, but our backs receive the pelting rain. I feel oddly euphoric. My body shields these children. It is a small thing, but it’s mine, and it makes me glad.

  A child manages to squirm around and grasp Maeve around the waist. It’s Morc.

  As the rain finally eases a little, Maeve sings to him. It’s a lullaby about a baby named Ula. Maeve puts in Morc’s name instead.

  The children sway to the tune. It’s so hideously cold, but they sway as though everything is normal, life is how it should be. My heart applauds them.

  Now Maeve sings the song again, but she puts in Kacey’s name. Then Nyle’s—my Patrick. Then Riley’s. Then Markus’s.

  But she doesn’t put in the names of the four new children. The ones who were stolen yesterday. We don’t know their names. When we ate this morning, those children sat silent. The gloom of a new slave.

  I stare down at the top of the head of the child pressing against my chest. This poor soul. He needs a lullaby too. Even if his ears don’t know what the Gaelic words mean, he can take courage from the sound of his own name. Markus certainly doesn’t understand, yet he turned his head toward Maeve when he heard his name. He looked at her with all the naked need to be cared for that children have. The new children should have a lullaby too.

  My cold-stiffened fists tighten on the blanket edge painfully. The rain gradually stops. I’m still shaking.

  The crew members crawl out from under their own blankets. They hoist the sails again and man the oars. Mustache Man and Thick Neck hang the crew’s blankets from the lower parts of the masts to dry.

  William carries our blankets over to hang them, too. Thick Neck yells at him. But our blankets have to dry. Otherwise we’ll freeze tonight.

  William attaches one blanket to the mast.

  Thick Neck punches him in the back, knocking him to the deck.

  I race over and pull him up by the elbow.

  Thick Neck yells at me and the vessels in his neck stand out like ropes.

  Clay Man comes barreling over, shouting. I close my eyes and brace for a blow. But he’s shouting at Thick Neck, not at me.

  And somehow I’m not really surprised. Somehow I knew that blow wouldn’t come.

  I let go of William and attach our second blanket. And then the third blanket. I feel Clay Man’s eyes on me. I don’t look at him.

  I walk over to one of the new children. Clay Man’s eyes bore through me. I untie his gag. It’s slow, because the knot is truly complicated. And it’s damp. But I get it off and I throw it over the side of the boat.

  Many eyes are on me now. I see them peripherally.

  I walk to another of the new children and untie his, too. And throw it away.

  Leering Man pulls in his oar and shouts. Club Fist shouts as well. Then Leering Man gets up and comes toward me, screaming.

  Clay Man moves between Leering Man and me. They argue. Clay Man puffs out his chest. His hands close into rocks. And I remember what Maeve said when she was trying to get me to take off my tunic so she could wash me. This crew won’t dare touch me with Clay Man looking on.

  He protects me. How far, I wonder. I’m already untying the gag of the third new child. Then the fourth.

  Now I turn to the Irish children. Patrick-Nyle
first. But his gag is much harder to undo, because it’s much filthier. I don’t see how the crew can undo it so quickly at meal times. They should thank me for getting rid of these gags; it’s one less chore for them.

  And, really, who are we going to shout to out here? Even if we saw people, how could they help us? It would take a dozen men to overcome this ship. A small army. It doesn’t matter if we wear these gags or not. It matters only to us. Perhaps they will see this reason. Perhaps I will not pay for my actions.

  I untie Morc’s gag, and Patrick-Nyle unties Kacey’s gag.

  Club Fist runs at Patrick-Nyle. He’s the one who hurt Patrick-Nyle before.

  I fly between them.

  And Club Fist winds up sending me careening across the slippery deck—crack—into the corner of a chest. My tunic goes instantly red at the shoulder. The dull ache of my broken rib now turns to a knife stab again. Even the slight movement of breath hurts.

  All I can think is that I was wrong; every action costs.

  Clay Man and Club Fist shout at each other. I watch them from the floor of the deck. My powerlessness over what is to happen next gives me a heady clarity. We are flimsy people compared to this crew. But they are remarkably stupid. They go through all this trouble to steal us and fatten us up, but they can’t sell us if we’re dead. That’s what Patrick-Nyle tried to point out to Mustache Man back when they were starving Maeve. How is it that dunces become masters and children as bright as Patrick-Nyle become slaves?

  Clay Man shakes my gold teething ring at Club Fist. He touches the feathers on his head. The word “aist” comes up often in his shouts.

  Club Fist looks at me suspiciously and backs off.

  Clay Man picks up Morc’s gag where I dropped it and dips it into the bucket of seawater we always have available. He comes toward me.

  I raise my hand to stop him. A pathetic gesture, hardly more than the breath before a prayer.

  And he stops. That huge man stops.

  Clay Man holds out the wet rag to Patrick-Nyle and says something.

  “What do I do?” sobs Patrick-Nyle.

  “Come to me,” says Maeve.

  He runs and buries his head in her belly.