The Voyage of the Unquiet Ice

by Andrew McGahan

  In the dock, Dow was already shaking his head. Surely no one would credit such nonsense. But the assembly listened without protest, and Dow reminded himself that this trial would not be about what anyone really believed. No doubt most of the other kings knew the truth already. Ferdinand’s purpose here was merely to provide a plausible and official alternative to that truth, so that the real events could then be put aside and forgotten.

  ‘Alas, it seems that Vincente misunderstood the eagerness of our welcome, and responded with uncalled-for hostility. We may never know the reason for his actions, but what is indisputable is that the Chloe fired upon our ships, even as they hurried forward in greeting. Reluctantly, they had no choice but to return fire. They used only grapeshot, mind, and did the Chloe no serious damage, other than to disable it temporarily. Nevertheless, there was regrettable loss of life among the crew.’

  And perhaps, Dow thought, this was why the Valignano delegation had been kept away. For one thing, several hundred witnesses from Haven Diaz could testify that the Chloe had no guns with which to make this supposed attack. They’d seen them being removed!

  ‘And what,’ the high chamberlain inquired of Ferdinand, with an air of impartiality that Dow did not doubt was feigned, ‘of the charges that some would lay that it was your fleet who, in fact, fired first?’

  Carrasco now rose from his chair. He was a grosser, ruder figure than the graceful Ferdinand, but his dark eyes glittered with equal intelligence and guile. ‘If I may speak, High Chamberlain. The suggestion is of course a foul slander. As we all know, my own nephew here was serving upon the Chloe, and in fact was on the high deck at the time of the engagement. I ask you – indeed, I ask everyone here – would any fleet involving ships of my own ever open fire upon my own blood? It’s an impossibility.’

  The chamberlain bowed his head, and murmurs of agreement rose from the Castille and Valdez ranks. Dow’s hands tightened into fists once more; he remembered the glimpse he’d caught of Diego, fleeing below decks the instant the approaching ships were sighted.

  Dow had long since grasped the meaning of that moment. Diego had known. Even before Vincente had set sail for the north, Carrasco and Ferdinand must have plotted to ambush the Chloe upon its return, and Diego – as a cherished nephew – had been warned of the danger. He had known that at the first sighting of any ships, he must hide himself away below, safe from the ensuing battle. He had known that anyone caught on deck – especially the captain – was likely to die.

  Which made Diego a coward, as well as a traitor. And Dow was the only one who knew the truth.

  He glanced sideways now, holding that knowledge in his eyes, but Diego – in expectation of this perhaps – was ostentatiously leaning back in his seat, his head turned away to talk with a dignitary in the row behind him. Dow would have yelled an accusation, but he’d been strictly warned by his guards; one word from him and he would be mercilessly gagged. It would almost be worth it anyway – but Dow was determined to bide his time. He suspected there was worse yet to come, and wanted his voice free at the last.

  ‘And what,’ the high chamberlain continued, addressing Ferdinand once more, ‘of the death of the unfortunate Captain Vincente?’

  Ferdinand raised his hands helplessly. ‘My captains report that they fired only at the Chloe’s rigging and sails, so as to disable the ship, and that they did not fire upon the high deck. Nevertheless, upon boarding the vessel they found that Captain Vincente was dead. At first it was thought by accident – but upon investigation, a more sinister explanation emerged.’

  Here all gazes turned expectantly to Dow. By now, he was sure, there was no one in the hall who hadn’t already been fed the falsehood that was about to be told. And this lie, perhaps, some did believe.

  ‘This youth before us,’ accused the old king austerely, ‘is the one responsible. The very same youth, ironically, that Vincente had so nobly taken under his wing, despite the grave doubts of many. The captain was warned, let us not forget, that a New Island youth was not to be trusted. Alas, Vincente was too generous a soul. And when he quite rightly punished this faithless boy for disobeying orders, the New Islander, it seems, privately swore to be revenged upon his benefactor. He had been summoned to the captain’s presence at the very moment of the engagement – and taking advantage of the chaos, grasped his chance to attack and kill the captain.’

  Outraged muttering now swelled about the chamber. Yes, observed Dow, this concoction made for a more convincing tale. And what a neat bow it tied of the last untidy threads for the new Ship Kings rulers; Vincente – the captain most likely to oppose them – safely dead, and his death laid at the foot of an already-hated foreigner.

  ‘His sentence for such a crime,’ Ferdinand continued, ‘will justly be death. But murder is not this rebellious boy’s only misdeed, nor has he always acted alone. I will unveil to you now evidence that he is involved in something far worse – a conspiracy against us all!’

  Dow stood straighter. Conspiracy? That would require fellow conspirators. And that could only mean …

  Ferdinand was warming to his theme now, his thin chest swelling with indignation. ‘My fellow Kings and Lords, a strange event took place during the voyage to the Unquiet Ice. At the furthermost point of the expedition, a boat was launched in mysterious circumstances, with a very peculiar crew on board, to venture through a chasm in the ice to reach the final resting place – at the very pole, no less – of the last sailors of the Lost Fleet. The report brought back by that boat is of immense consequence to all here. Or should I say, it is intended to be of immense consequence, for the report is of course a lie, and its intent is to sow discord and disharmony amongst us.

  ‘Who, you ask, was aboard this boat, and what report did they bring back? Well, one of those involved was none other than this murderous New Island youth, Dow Amber. Two of the others on board were also foreigners: the Chloe’s blacksmith, one Johannes, and his apprentice Nicholas, both natives of Red Island, and both currently residing in our dungeons below.

  ‘Three outsiders – do you begin to see it? Now, to be sure, there were also four other crew in the boat, honest seamen of our own folk – and perhaps if they were here today they could tell us more of the truth. But, very conveniently, one of those men died at the pole – and the other three, alas, were killed during the lamentable engagement between the Chloe and our own fleet.’

  Dow could not help but gape at that; he knew for a certainty that the three seaman mentioned had not died during the attack. He’d seen Antonio and the two others alive and well, below decks after the battle, as he was being escorted down to the brig. The question was – had they been murdered since? Or merely packed away where they’d never be heard from again?

  And why had Ferdinand not mentioned Nell?

  ‘Suffice to say,’ the king of Castille went on, ‘this was not a loyal crew. I care not about the veracity of their claim to have reached the pole in their boat, and to have found a great cauldron of fire burning there amid the ice. The only part of their tale that concerns me is that involving the fate of the former Lord Designate. For what would they have us believe? This: that Nadal did not perish with the rest of his fleet – the wreckage of which the Chloe clearly witnessed upon the so-named Camp Island – but instead set sail for the Barrier Doldrums, there to try to find a way through to the southern hemisphere.

  ‘Do you see how cunning is their lie? None knows better than I the grief that the former Lord Designate’s disappearance has caused to the Sea Lord and to us all. It’s only recently that we’ve all finally accepted his death, and moved on, as the living always must, no matter how dear the departed. The Sea Lord himself has graciously adopted a son and daughter into his family, so that the succession may be peacefully assured.

  ‘But now we have three sworn enemies of our people – one New Islander, and two Red Islanders – attempting to raise doubts. Nadal died not in the Ice, they say. He went voyaging to the southern parts of the globe, they say, whe
re he may – and this is the cunning part – be voyaging still! Alive, for all that anyone knows.

  ‘Think of what uncertainty and discontent such a tale could cause, were it to be widely spread and believed. These three would have us at each other’s throats once again. But thankfully we’ve seen through their falsehoods. Did they bear any proofs with them back from the pole, if indeed that’s where they went? Of course not. I believe, in truth, that all they found were the sad remains of the Sea Lord’s son; but, rather than honour his loss, they devised a different tale to their own advantage. I can only hope, as a loyal subject of the Sea Lord, that they did not defile Nadal’s remains into the bargain.’

  Again, Dow almost had to shout out in protest. The lies were so bald as to be nauseating. There had indeed been proof, for Nell had borne with her from the pole Captain Altona’s log, which had in turn been stored away safely by Vincente. What kept Dow silent was his certainty that the log had since been destroyed – just like his own commission papers, no doubt. Also, he wanted to save his voice yet, suspecting that even this was not the worst of what he would be forced to hear today.

  Ferdinand, at least, seemed to be nearly done. ‘How far does this conspiracy extend? Recall – this same youth was also aboard the Chloe on the night of the attack on the fleet at Stone Port. Captain Vincente afterwards came to believe that this attack was orchestrated by someone other than the New Islanders themselves. And who, I wonder, convinced him of that? In part, no doubt, this boy. However, he did not act alone – as King Carrasco will now explain. We can only be thankful that this council saw through that lie too, and did not go chasing to the Twin Isles after fanciful magic boats.’

  A clamour of agreement and approval rose throughout the hall at this, and with a gracious bow, the king of Castille lowered himself to his seat once more. Dow gazed about the chamber in exasperation. How could they be so wilfully blind, even to the point of ignoring threats to themselves? As Vincente had said only moments before his death – the strange sail-less boat was real, and whoever had built it hated the Ship Kings and was determined to attack them. But no one here cared. And Dow could only hope – with a growing hatred of his own – that one day they would be made to pay for it.

  But now, on the opposite side of the hall, Carrasco was once again heaving his oily bulk upright.

  ‘My Lords, I thank my esteemed fellow king for unveiling the truth about Vincente’s mission to the north. It is my sad duty now to reveal the full extent of the conspiracy that has been thus unmasked. For although Dow Amber was aboard the boat that supposedly journeyed to the pole, he was not in command of that expedition. And although he doubtless was in league with the attackers at Stone Port, it was not he alone who convinced Captain Vincente that someone else was responsible. No – only a close advisor to the captain could do that, one of his own folk, included in his private councils.’

  And at last Dow saw how it was going to be – that the final and greatest lie was about to be told, and that it wouldn’t be about him at all. He glanced to Diego, and saw a hungry anticipation there. And Carrasco’s pious expression of regret masked a gleeful satisfaction.

  ‘Of whom do I speak? I speak of one that none of us would ever have before suspected. I speak of one with a hallowed role aboard the Chloe. I speak of the scapegoat girl, Ignella of the Cave.’

  The murmur that rose was different, Dow thought, to those previous; more disturbed, more genuinely surprised. Heads were craning to see something, and he turned too – then stared in shock.

  Nell was being led down onto the main floor by armed guards – but she was not as he had seen her only a short while ago. Then, sitting in the boat, she had been attired in her usual officer’s gear. But in the intervening period she had been reclothed – and not willingly, Dow was certain, for what she wore now was never something she would’ve worn by choice.

  It was a dress, but nothing like the only two others he’d ever seen her wear. Those garments had been plain in cut and severe in style, fully covering her arms and neck – but now her arms and neck were bare, and the dress itself was a clinging, silken, brazen thing of red and gold, dripping with jewels, and plunging openly from her shoulders.

  And her scars! Never, not even in those hours upon the volcano, had Dow seen them displayed so. They writhed about her arms and shoulders like a mass of snakes. But it was those revealed by the neckline of her dress, the scars about her collarbones, and about the swell of her breasts, that were the most shocking, for they were far larger and more livid than the others; great deep slashes in her skin. Dow even understood what they meant – that as she lay upon the razor-sharp floor of the cave, it was her torso that had borne most of her weight, and so bitten down most deeply upon the Ribbons.

  Appalled, he raised his eyes at last to meet hers. She was walking straight and proud between her guards, but he knew her well enough now to recognise the humiliation and fury that burned there.

  They placed her beside him in the dock, and Dow bowed his head a moment in shame. Not because of the insult of her dress, but because of his own mistrust – for the truth was he’d doubted her in these last days. Locked away in the Chloe’s brig, beset by a thousand uncertainties, he’d regretted the great secret he’d confessed upon the volcano’s slopes: the truth about his heritage. It had given Nell such a potent weapon against him. Dow had only to glance to the Great Hall’s ceiling – to the scene of his ancestor’s capture – to be reminded of how hated was the name Honous Tombs to the Ship Kings. Whatever her supposed crimes, Nell could surely have bought her freedom by unmasking him – and he had suspected her in his thoughts of doing exactly that. But obviously she hadn’t, for otherwise she would not be here, standing silent and defiant at his side.

  ‘This,’ denounced Carrasco in a booming voice, ‘is the greatest tragedy of the whole conspiracy: that one of our own – a treasured scapegoat, no less – could be seduced away to disloyalty, and work in league with our enemies. For this girl, too, would repeat the lies about Nadal that the other conspirators would spread to sow discord among us. What’s more, she thinks herself immune from all consequence of those lies. She deems herself secure, as a native Ship King, and as a scapegoat; for of course none may raise their hand against a scapegoat.

  ‘But, fellow Lords, I ask you, is she a scapegoat?’

  Dow stiffened in new alarm. What did Carrasco mean by that? Had he learned, somehow, of the true nature of Nell’s injuries? Dow had to force himself not to turn to her, then and there, to deny the implication out loud, for she would surely be thinking, in her own moment of doubt, that it was Dow who had betrayed her secret. For who else knew about it?

  ‘A shocking question, is it not,’ observed the king of Valdez. ‘But consider. Scapegoats, as we all know, occupy positions of immense privilege aboard our ships. They are trusted to behave with decorum and gravity. And because we make no distinction in the sex of our scapegoats, a special responsibility falls on those who happen to be female. For them is made the only exception against the general prohibition of women going to sea. And part of that exception is the understanding that they will not make of themselves a temptation to the crew, nor dally with any of the officers with whom they live in close quarters. So it has always been. A scapegoat, a female scapegoat, must above all things be honourable and chaste.’

  He paused to stare overtly at Nell, inviting the assembly to do the same, to consider her clinging dress, her exposed breasts. Dow felt both relief and revulsion. Carrasco did not know of Nell’s secret, so at least that shame was spared her. But otherwise the intention was clear …

  The king’s voice went low. ‘According to the reports of those who served on the Chloe, this Ignella has been anything but chaste. She has been known to wantonly display herself to crewmembers, and to wander the lower decks unaccompanied by any escort. It would have been bad enough if she had entangled herself with an officer – how much worse is it that she sought out only the lowest and most brutish of the seamen on board.�
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  Again he paused to look her up and down, and Dow tasted bile through his anger. The hypocrisy of the man! Nell’s only involvement with anyone on the Chloe had been with Diego, Carrasco’s own nephew!

  Indeed, what was Diego himself making of this? Dow glanced across, but the lieutenant was gazing levelly at Nell with no more apparent interest than he would have shown in a complete stranger.

  It spoke of an immense hatred. Dow quite understood by now that it was to the new regime’s benefit to discredit Nell, because of the awkward truths she knew. But there were other ways it could have been done – and Diego could have spared her the worst, if he’d wanted.

  Instead, this attack, although voiced by his uncle, laid bare a hunger in Diego to wound Nell as deeply and personally as possible, to punish her for some terrible offence on her part. And Dow could think of only one offence terrible enough to invoke such rage; at some point since the pole, Nell must have rejected Diego and his marriage proposal, finally and utterly.

  ‘All this we might have been able to forgive,’ Carrasco concluded, ‘even if it meant accepting that she is unsuited to the role of scapegoat, and that she should be returned to her family. But it seems that in the end she went further than mere dalliances with lowly seamen. Instead, it seems that she has given her body, which is an unworthy act, and her loyalty, which is treachery, to this murdering youth with whom she now stands.’

  Outrage sounded from about the hall.

  Was it time for Dow to speak at last?

  To refute, at least, this one lie?

  He stared around the assembly once more – and noted in surprise that while the Castille and Valdez delegations were vociferous in their condemnation, not all the crowd was of a similar mood. Towards the rear of the hall, dignitaries from the lesser kingdoms sat watching in silence. There was something resisting and uncomfortable in their faces, it seemed to Dow – as if this shaming of a scapegoat was a step too far for them.