The Princess and the Captain

by Anne-Laure Bondoux

  The giant turned, breathless and dripping with sweat. He was still looking for the last sailor, the sixth, the man who had succeeded in escaping his rage. He listened. Zeph’s barking had turned to growls. Babilas made his way over the deck, fists clenched, neck tensed. The growls came from the fo’c’s’le. He ran that way and found what he was looking for behind a pile of barrels: the blind sailor on his knees on the planks of the deck, struggling in Zeph’s jaws. The St Bernard had closed his teeth on the man’s arm, preventing him from going any further.

  Babilas seized the blind man by the throat. In an instant he picked him up, carried him away and flung him into the air like a package. As the man plunged into the waves a second heartrending cry rose from Babilas’s throat. A rasping, hoarse, painful cry echoing on for so long that it seemed to come from the unfathomable depths of time. Finopico and the twins were transfixed.

  The sailors and the Archont were trying to keep afloat in the tumultuous seas breaking against the sides of the Fabula. Spitting water, coughing, shouting, they scrabbled at the hull, calling for help, and their eyes searched the sky as if pleading with the Divinities to aid them. But it was not the Divinities who answered their prayers …

  ‘Look!’ Peppe suddenly cried, pointing to the west.

  The Patrols were arriving in close formation. Babilas joined the others, ready to go on fighting, while Zeph limped to the back of the ship. Malva and Lei, having put the Nokros safely away, emerged from the hatch again.

  As they all watched, the Patrols swooped down between the two ships. Lively and agile in spite of the imposing span of their mechanical wings, they brought down their claws and seized their prey. Letting out dreadful screams, the sailors were plucked from the waves and carried up into the air.

  ‘Not me! Not me!’ begged the Archont, swimming as fast as he could to the rope ladder hanging down the side of his ship.

  The Patrols, who presumably had no reason to bear him a grudge, spared him. Once they had fished the six sailors out of the sea again they rose above the Fabula, circled for a moment in the azure sky, and then flew away at great speed.

  ‘They … they’re going to the Immuration,’ said Hob, shivering.

  A horrified silence fell over the ship again. Babilas slowly came forward, and once more gave evidence of his amazing strength by pulling the hooks of the grappling irons thrown by the Archont out of the deck, one by one. The Fabula was free of the Cispazian junk now, and immediately the space between them widened.

  The Archont, dripping and half dead, was trying to climb back on board his vessel, groaning. Malva watched him for a moment from a distance, torn between a wish to laugh and a wish to cry. She looked down.

  And only then did she see Orpheus. He was lying on the deck, his breath whistling as it left his lungs, his face pale. A puddle of blood was spreading beneath him. She was about to cry out, but Babilas did so first.

  ‘Orpheus!’ said the giant in a grating voice. ‘Orpheus gwisdall esdog!’

  Everyone jumped. By what miracle had Babilas recovered the power of language? Eyes wide with surprise, Lei replied to him in the strange language of Dunbraven.

  ‘Nhot gwisdall esdog! Orpheus crogoil!’ She cast a desperate glance at the others. ‘Orpheus not die! I make medicine!’

  She knelt down beside the Captain’s inert body and carefully turned him over. The Archont’s sword had left a gaping wound in the middle of his stomach.

  33

  Malva’s Journal

  As I write these lines, Orpheus is struggling with Death. We have put him in Lei’s berth. With Finopico’s assistance she has made one of those potions which have already cured me. I had sheets boiled in sea water, and Lei soaked the fabric in a sticky ointment with an unpleasant smell. She used it to put a dressing on his wound. He lost consciousness. Oh, Holy Harmony, Holy Tranquillity …

  Malva wiped her tears away, and went on:

  … let him survive his injuries! If I had known the sufferings ahead when Catabea offered us her dreadful bargain I’d never have accepted her conditions.

  We’re all worn out. I am worried about Lei. The sailors from Dunbraven knocked her about so badly that she has bruises on her arms and forehead. She’s so busy looking after others that she forgets to care for herself. The twins are badly shaken by their confrontation with the Archont. Just now they were showing off a little as they told the tale of how they bombarded him, but I could see that they were still trembling. Finopico, usually so talkative, isn’t saying anything. He’s entrenched himself in his galley, where he’s reading his books about fish! I suppose it’s his way of dealing with the shock. As for Babilas, it’s a mystery … what with all that’s happened, we’ve hardly had time to think about him, but one thing’s certain; he’s talking. The trouble is that he only speaks the language of Dunbraven now. He’s forgotten Galnician, though it was his mother tongue, and has adopted the language of the sailors whom he threw into the sea. It was his fianceé’s language as well … should we see this as a kind of cure?

  Malva stopped writing and leaned over Zeph, who was stretched at her feet. She patted the St Bernard’s warm flanks. The animal’s company did her good.

  ‘You’re a hero too,’ she whispered to him. ‘I hear you bit one of those men stealing the Nokros.’

  She sighed, and looked at the Killer of Time, which was now standing on the shelf in her cabin. As it fell, the hourglass had cracked. A little more and it would have broken … Malva shuddered to think that then their fate would have been irreversibly sealed.

  The amount of morbic acid had already decreased a good deal. By the following evening there would be only five Stones of Life left, and just ten days to find the gates through which they could leave the Archipelago. She put her pen to paper again.

  Our trials aren’t over, far from it. If Orpheus lives I think we shall hold out. But if he dies? I can’t imagine the rest of the voyage without him; without his vigour, his courage, his kindness and intelligence. I can’t bear to lose any more of those I love. In the face of these torments, even my dream of Elgolia gives me no strength. It’s all very well for me to shut my eyes when I lie on my bunk and conjure up the images of Mount Ur-Tha, the Bay of Dao-Boa and Lake Barath-Thor. But I can hardly manage to picture them now. It’s as if I have lost the power to dream.

  When I saw the Archont so close to me just now, such terror came over me that Lei had to drag me away to shelter. Later, I was alone on deck watching the sail of his ship drifting away. Babilas had lashed the tiller of the Fabula on course, and we were sailing west. I felt calmer. Before I came down here again, I went to look once more, but night had fallen and I saw nothing. All I want is for the Archont to be thrown into the Immuration.

  Malva felt cramp in her hand, and had to stop writing. She was nearly dead with fatigue anyway. Without even taking the trouble to fold the paper, she staggered to her bunk and let sleep overcome her.

  34

  The Island Beyond the Mists

  Only Lei did not sleep that night. She sat up beside Orpheus, silent and attentive, changing his dressings every hour, making him drink a decoction of boiled plants and roots that she had collected on Jahalod’s island.

  At dawn she saw that he seemed more peaceful, and deduced that he was no longer suffering pain. The bleeding had stopped, the wound was clean, so Lei rubbed his face with marguerilla stalks, left the cabin and went on deck to greet the sunrise. The healers in her distant country thought that when a wounded or sick patient survived the first night it was a good sign, and you must pay your devotions to the natural world by giving thanks.

  When she emerged from the hatch the deck was enveloped in an extraordinarily thick mist. She could hardly see her hand in front of her face. Lei took a few cautious steps, trying to reach the rail. It was cold. Moisture was already soaking into her clothes and making her teeth chatter.

  It was useless leaning over the side of the ship; she couldn’t make anything out. The Fabula seemed to be wrapped in
cotton wool. She would have to wait to pay her devotions to the sun.

  Annoyed, Lei went back down to her cabin. Still shivering, she searched everywhere and finally found a dry blanket in a corner of her berth. She wrapped it around Orpheus. In his present state any chill could be fatal to him. Particularly since, as Lei had already noticed, the slightest draught seemed to give Orpheus a cold. Once she was reassured about her patient’s condition, she wondered how to cover herself. Most of their clothes had been spoilt in the baggage at the bottom of the ship’s hold. Then she saw the quartermaster’s jacket that she had taken off Orpheus the night before so that she could tend his wound. The thick canvas had a slit a dozen centimetres long where the sword had slashed it, and worst of all it was still badly bloodstained. But the air was suddenly so cold! Lei no longer hesitated; she put on the jacket, which was much too big for her, turned up the sleeves, and left the cabin again. Between decks, she saw Finopico. He was searching all the chests and crates.

  ‘It’s so cold!’ he was complaining. ‘Let’s get out of this cursed Archipelago as quickly as we can!’

  When he saw Lei he calmed down. ‘How is Orpheus?’ he asked, still searching the chests.

  ‘He not so ill,’ said Lei. ‘Blood stop flowing. I think he live.’

  ‘For a Greenhorn, I must say he has guts,’ Finopico remarked. ‘And for a foreigner,’ he added, raising his head and smiling at Lei, ‘I must say you have guts too!’

  ‘Thank you!’ she murmured.

  ‘Ah, here we are!’ exclaimed Finopico, laying hands on a worsted jersey. He buried his nose in it, made a face, and then, shrugging his shoulders, put it on. Then he rubbed his arms vigorously before saying he would make some good hot soup for everyone.

  ‘I don’t know what in, seeing as all my pans went flying at the Archont or dropped into the sea, but I’ll find something. What filthy weather!’

  As Lei was about to go up on deck again, Malva opened her cabin door and called to her. ‘What’s going on? I’m frozen!’

  ‘Mist,’ replied Lei, indicating the deck outside with her chin.

  Malva joined her on the steps. Her lips were blue with cold. She asked how Orpheus was, and when Lei had reassured her, Malva smiled. But suddenly she looked annoyed.

  ‘Is that his jacket you’re wearing? Orpheus’s jacket?’

  ‘Oh … yes,’ said Lei. ‘I no find any warm thing to wear.’

  Malva looked disapprovingly at her.

  ‘If you like, you take jacket,’ added Lei, annoyed. ‘I find something else.’

  ‘No,’ snapped Malva. ‘Keep it. I don’t want that jacket. Philomena always told me it’s unlucky to wear anything bloodstained.’

  She turned on her heel and closed her cabin door crossly. Lei sighed, vaguely understanding why Malva was in a temper, but decided not to bother about it. Her main aim was to reassure herself that Babilas had taken the helm of the Fabula again. It was essential to be on their guard in this mist.

  Up on deck the milky uniformity of the mist hovered heavy and silent. When she breathed in, air tasting and smelling of dead leaves seemed to trickle into her mouth and nostrils. Lei drew the jacket together over her breast and took a few steps towards the stern of the ship. She thought the deck was sloping slightly, and it struck her as odd. There was no wind, and so no reason for the ship to tilt.

  Babilas wasn’t there. The tiller, still lashed into place, was taking them on course … all the same, Lei did not think this very prudent. She glanced first to port and then to starboard. At that moment she saw shadows through the curtain of mist.

  Her heart sank as she went closer, squinting to see. No, it was not an illusion! There really was something there, very close to the ship! Had the Archont managed to follow them? She stood motionless, on guard. And suddenly the gap in the mist widened … to reveal an enormous rock. Lei went pale.

  ‘Reefs!’ she shouted.

  She raced towards the hatch, catching her feet in the coiled ropes on deck as she ran.

  ‘Reefs! Reefs!’

  All the other members of the crew except, of course, for Orpheus, heard her cries. Finopico and Babilas were the quickest to react. They came up through the hatch and found themselves face to face with Lei, who was still shouting at the top of her voice.

  ‘Brogsgin!’ she told Babilas in the language of Dunbraven.

  The giant made straight for the tiller and freed it from its lashings, but when he tried to manoeuvre it he couldn’t.

  ‘Hufeneth gwar!’ he gasped.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ asked Finopico anxiously.

  The twins, wrapped in blankets, had just emerged on deck with Malva. She had found an old knitted cardigan with holes in the elbows, and put it on over her jersey, but she was still shivering. She wished she had the oryak-skin coat that Uzmir had given her, but Temir-Gai’s preunuchs had taken it.

  ‘Tiller no respond!’ Lei translated, desperate.

  They all ran to the ship’s rail, expecting to hear a crash and feel a violent shock.

  It never came. The silence seemed to last for ever. They couldn’t even hear the familiar sound of the backwash of waves retreating from the reefs. Not a murmur, no sound of lapping water, nothing.

  After a moment the seafarers relaxed. They exchanged baffled glances and then began searching the fog, which was still dispersing here and there.

  ‘There!’ cried Malva suddenly, leaning overboard. ‘Sand! There’s sand under the ship!’

  The others leaned over the ship’s side too, and saw with amazement that she was right.

  ‘We ran ashore during the night!’ said Finopico. ‘The Fabula is stuck in the sand.’

  At that moment a great swathe of mist drifted away to reveal the rocks, tall and dark, trickling with moisture. They were so close to the hull that it was a miracle the ship had avoided them.

  ‘Rocky cliffs, sand,’ murmured Malva. ‘This is another island in the Archipelago.’

  The mist was parting into long wisps now, striping the scene with white. Trees appeared, then rows of neatly trimmed bushes and paved roads winding up the cliffside. This was not the work of nature; they had obviously come to an inhabited island.

  ‘Let’s go ashore,’ suggested Hob.

  ‘We ought to cut wood and make a fire,’ added Peppe. ‘If this goes on I shall die of cold.’

  As he spoke, a ray of sunlight pierced the thick clouds. The passengers on the Fabula looked up at the sky. And suddenly the mists rose entirely, like a curtain rising in the theatre at the beginning of a show. And what a show!

  The whole island was now revealed to the dazzled eyes of Malva and her companions. It was conical in shape, with the cone eroded at sea level and almost pointed at the top. It rose so high that the travellers had to crane their necks to see the summit. The rocky cliffs led to huge meadows full of flowers, then the meadows gave way to a ring of trees, and finally a town of red-brick houses rose in terraces to the peak of the island. Roads with low walls beside them criss-crossed each other, dividing up the landscape and making it look neat and well-ordered. Right at the top of the island, above the town and the sea, rose the tall shape of a lighthouse. It was like a candle on an enormous cake.

  ‘Kigchupen!’ said Babilas.

  ‘My word!’ exclaimed the twins in unison.

  The incongruous beauty of the island took their breath away. In the sunlight the tiniest details stood out as if outlined by a fine brush: here a bed of mauve flowers, there a wash-house under a thatched roof, a freshly ploughed field, an ox-cart, animals in an enclosure, and higher up streets and squares with fountains in them.

  ‘The people of this island seem to be perfectly civilised,’ said Finopico happily. ‘They make use of every corner of their land.’

  ‘No doubt,’ said Malva, ‘but … where are they?’

  ‘They perhaps not like mist?’ suggested Lei.

  ‘It’s all gone now,’ Hob pointed out, letting his blanket drop at his feet.

  Sure
enough, the sun was gradually warming their bodies and cheering their minds.

  ‘It’s even getting hot,’ added Malva, with a pointed look at Lei, who had not taken off Orpheus’s jacket. Setting an example, she took off the moth-eaten cardigan she had found, but the daughter of Balmun paid her no attention. She stood there looking at the island.

  ‘I want explore,’ she said. ‘I certainly find more herbs here to treat Orpheus.’

  ‘You told me he was better,’ objected Malva.

  ‘Better, yes. But he not well yet. Good medicine need bromella leaves, buflon milk and scorpiphore shells. Maybe here …’

  ‘Let’s all go!’ suggested the twins. ‘Zeph can stay with the Captain.’

  Malva, Babilas and Finopico still hesitated, though these shores seemed welcoming. Looking at the landscape, they felt an irresistible urge to walk beside the streams and wander through the meadows, to refresh themselves at the fountains, sit in front of the houses, lean against the low stone walls and warm themselves in the sun.

  ‘Come on!’ cried the twins impatiently. ‘What’s the risk? The inhabitants of this island must be nice people!’

  ‘Jahalod-Rin was a nice man too,’ Malva intervened. ‘Are you so bird-brained that you haven’t learnt your lesson from the last places we’ve visited?’

  The twins sighed.

  ‘We’re not bird-brained,’ they pleaded, ‘but we’re tired of being suspicious all the time!’

  ‘We don’t necessarily have to have enemies everywhere in this Archipelago!’ said Peppe.

  ‘Catabea mentioned treasures,’ argued Hob. ‘If you ask me, this island is one of them. It reminds me a little of Galnicia.’

  Suddenly Babilas pointed to the houses with their red-brick facades, and said something which Lei translated as, ‘See shutters! They opening!’

  One by one, the houses were coming to life to greet the new day. It was impossible to see the faces of the inhabitants from the deck of the Fabula, but life was indeed beginning to stir in the town. Somewhere a bell rang, and the sound of wheels jolting over the paved roads could be heard.