The Voyage of the Unquiet Ice

by Andrew McGahan

  Indeed, as he watched, a venerable figure rose there, shaking his head cholerically; one of the kings. His advisors sitting around him urged – in obvious alarm – that he should sit down again, but he waved them off and called, ‘High Chamberlain! High Chamberlain.’

  A surprised silence fell over the hall. On the dais, the high chamberlain glared at this unwelcome interjection, and said, ‘Your Majesty, King Felipe of Argive – there is something you wish to say?’

  ‘There most assuredly is!’ Felipe had none of the urbanity of Ferdinand, nor the authority of Carrasco. He was a haggard old man, red-faced – as if from too much wine – and with an evident temper. ‘I’ve taken this charade of a trial for just about as long as I can. Oh, what’s done is done, I know that, and there’s little we in Argive can do about it. I can’t stand in the way of history. And I’ll say nothing of Valignano’s absence from this assembly, indictment though that is. But this now … the mockery of this girl – it’s unnecessary!

  ‘What – I ask – has happened to this council? Where is its dignity? Where is its courtesy? And why is it me, and not the King of Othrace, who must make this protest.’ And here Felipe turned to glare to the partition next to the Valdez section, and at an impassive bald-headed king who was patently the monarch in question. ‘The girl is his subject, after all, and the daughter of one of Othrace’s most notable families. But there he sits, silent, in obedience no doubt to his Valdez overlords. Well, not I!’

  New shouts were sounding now, some in support of the objection, many against. Carrasco, Dow saw, was exchanging a meaningful look with his fellow king, Ferdinand, across the hall.

  ‘These two children are guilty, we’re told, ’ Felipe continued, ‘and maybe they are. Or maybe it has been arranged that way, so as not to embarrass others, especially those who hide behind the throne. So be it – but I will ask this. The Sea Lord, we are told, still rules. We are told that the succession has been peacefully arranged without coercion or treachery. Very well, let it be proved. I ask for the Sea Lord’s judgment on this matter – and I ask that his judgement be the final word. For does he not rule? Or do those who say he still rules lie? Have they made him their cipher? Or is he our sovereign still? Sea Lord? Will you answer me? What of the fate of these children?’

  ‘Yes,’ cried Carrasco quickly, ‘what of their fate, my Lord Ibanez? For of course the decision rests with you. You indeed rule here, as you always have. I can only find King Felipe’s accusations puzzling. For who has ever questioned your authority? Not I. So yes, my Lord, pass your judgement without fear of reprisal or retaliation. What reason for fear could there be, here upon your own ship? Tell us your ruling. Is it to be death for the New Islander, and Banishment for the scapegoat girl? Or is it not?’

  A tense silence now descended, the assembly recognising the crux that had suddenly been arrived at. How would the Sea Lord respond? Would he defy his new masters? Or would he remain cowed?

  The silence stretched out, Ibanez motionless in his chair, staring at his lap as if he had not even heard the question. In front of him his two heirs sat likewise unmoving in their thrones, their young faces smooth and somewhat bored. They did not, Dow was amazed to see, even seem to be aware that a struggle for power was happening right around them. Not that power was truly in doubt, for the Sea Lord had long since lost it. Even so, he could yet claim a small victory here, and in doing so embarrass those who had taken it from him.

  For an instant Dow dared to hope. But then Ibanez lifted his head, and all Dow saw was a frail old man who had lost all the certainties of his life; whose son was dead, and who had been roused at night from his own bed – in his secure palace, upon his invulnerable great ship – and then been manhandled and threatened by attackers he could not resist. Dow saw an old man who was afraid, and who had no reason or strength to fight his fear.

  The Sea Lord shook his head. ‘The sentence, of course, is death. As for the girl, she must go to Banishment.’

  And the sound that came from around the hall was half a hum of victory, and half a mutter of despair.

  ‘Take them below,’ ordered the high chamberlain.

  The marines advanced in response. Dow – knowing he must say something now, or never – waited only to glance at Nell, to see if she might speak before him. But she remained unprotesting. For an instant he wondered why, and then thought of her family, and the kinds of threats that might have been levelled at them, to ensure her silence.

  No such threats could be applied to Dow, for as far as the Ship Kings knew, he had no family, other than the dead Nathaniel. And as the guards seized him, he knew suddenly what he must say. Amid so many lies he could not hope to counter with the truth. There was no time to explain it all, and no one would believe him anyway. Instead, he told a lie of his own, the one lie that might yet make a difference, and he told it to the one person who might yet – if given a good enough reason – save Dow’s life, and Nell’s name.

  ‘Sea Lord,’ cried Dow, ‘your son is alive!’

  There were swift shouts of fury from the Valdez and Castille partitions, and the marines immediately grappled at Dow’s mouth and began to drag him away – but not before he had the satisfaction of seeing Ibanez’s head jerk up, to glance piercingly his way.

  ‘Nadal lives!’ Dow managed to get out, his eyes locked with the Sea Lord’s. ‘I have proof of it!’

  Then a gag was jammed in his mouth, and through the tumult he was lifted off his feet and carted away below.

  14. THE BLACKSMITH’S SECRET

  Dow formed no clear impression of the location of the Twelfth Kingdom’s brig, only that it was set somewhere deep below the palace. He was hauled down many stairs, and at length they passed beneath an upraised iron grate to arrive in a dark passageway – posted at each end with armed guards – off which opened many stout wooden doors. Dow’s escorts opened one of these and shoved him through into a square cell; he had only moments to glance around before the door slammed behind him and blackness unrelieved dropped like a blindfold.

  For a time Dow merely stood, panting in the darkness. Then, too full yet of anger and hopelessness to sit down, he began to pace out the boundaries of his prison, groping blindly with his hands. The cell, he discovered, was about eight feet square in total, and apart from a thin mattress on the floor, and a bucket, was quite without adornment; a larger cell, actually, than he had endured upon the Chloe, but one much darker, and much more final.

  A death cell, in fact.

  But no, Dow would not allow himself to think about that, not yet. He turned his mind to his friends. Were they here too? He knocked experimentally on one of the walls. When a tapping came back he called out, and was heartened to hear, faint through the thick timbers but unmistakable, Johannes calling back, and Nicky too. They all shouted a few more times, but it was difficult to understand each other, and in any case there came a sharp rap on Dow’s door, and an order from a guard to be silent.

  Dow paused a while, then knocked on the opposite wall. No tap came in reply, and Dow didn’t shout, but the silence from the other cell did not seem to him to be an empty silence. He felt strangely convinced that Nell was in there, only a few feet from him, refusing to answer.

  But what did it matter, even if she was there? It might as well be several miles as several feet. The same applied to Johannes and Nicky. None of them could help each other. Even if Dow could somehow break down his cell door, there was the iron grate waiting at the end of the passage, not to mention the marines on guard, and of course, the entire five-thousand-strong crew of the Twelfth Kingdom. No, there was no hope of escape.

  Dow cast himself down and sat staring at the darkness, suddenly very tired. A long, slow time passed, his thoughts dulled and drifting. There was nothing to see, and little even to hear. Sounds reached him only dimly through the thick walls; the slow tread of the guards patrolling the passageway, and an occasional muted comment when they spoke to each other. Otherwise all was quiet. In the Chloe’s brig there h
ad still been all the normal creaks and clatters of a ship at sea – but not here. So vast and solid was the Twelfth Kingdom that he might have been in some stone dungeon buried deep in the earth.

  No, there was no hope at all of escape.

  The only hope was rescue.

  It was rescue, Dow realised eventually, that he was listening for as he sat in the blackness. Almost unconsciously, his ears were attuned to every small sound, trying to divine if, against all odds, someone was coming for him – if his lie to the Sea Lord had had the effect that he’d hoped. Ibanez obviously did not dare defy his new masters for his own sake – but would he dare it for the sake of his son, for the chance that Nadal still lived?

  It was a fanciful notion, Dow knew, a desperate last folly. But he had nothing else to cling to, and so he listened.

  No sign came. The hours stretched out, unmeasurable in the dark. How many had passed since the door slammed shut? Was it even still the same day? Or was it night now? And if it was night, was it his last night? Did they mean to execute him at dawn? And how would they do it? Would he be shot? Or hung? Or killed some other horrible way? He’d been told nothing ...

  At some point he may have slept, although it was hard to tell, for there was no difference between having his eyes closed or open. But all the while his ears were pricked for some hopeful sound, until finally from the strain he began to hear phantom noises, like far-off laughter, and footsteps running, and for a while he was certain that someone somewhere was singing … but as soon as he turned his attention to any of these sounds, they ceased.

  And so when he first heard, from far away, a faint but booming report, he could not quite trust his own ears. Had he dozed, and only dreamed it? He listened in the ringing silence. For a time indeed there was nothing, but then it came again, reverberating through the decks.

  Cannon fire. From the Twelfth Kingdom’s own guns.

  Dow fought down a surge of excitement. Perhaps it was just a ceremonial firing, to mark sunset or dawn or some other ordinary occasion. But no, louder now, there came a rapid fusillade of detonations, unmistakably an entire broadside. The capital ship’s guns were firing in anger. And nearer to hand – in the passage beyond the door of his cell, and from the decks above – there came a flurry of raised voices and hurried footsteps.

  Dow climbed to his feet, listening raptly. The cannon fire continued, a crackling tattoo that scaled upwards in volume as more and more of the Twelfth Kingdom’s guns joined in, until it seemed that the full one thousand must be engaged. It was a battle, there could be no doubt anymore. But who was it between? Was this yet another of the Ship Kings’ own fleets come to seize control of the capital vessel, a fleet still loyal perhaps to the Sea Lord, here to overthrow the usurpers? The fleet of Valignano, maybe? But what chance would it stand against the combined armadas of Valdez and Castille?

  The firing did not abate. Dow paced back and forth. How maddening it was, to be locked away in ignorance at such a time. Nevertheless, his spirits only rose the longer the battle continued. Anyone who was an enemy of those aboard the Twelfth Kingdom, Dow surely had to count as his friends, and it seemed that these friends were unrelenting in pressing their assault.

  Johannes knocked on the cell wall and called to Dow. His muffled words were lost in the din, but it sounded as if the blacksmith shared Dow’s exhilaration. Dow laughed and hammered on the wall in return. It did occur to him that they shouldn’t really be laughing, for locked away as they were, they would drown if the Twelfth Kingdom was sunk in the battle. But then he laughed again. Not all the cannon shot in the world could sink the capital ship. It would float if holed a thousand times and more.

  Then a different sound intruded over the cannon fire, shocking because it was so much closer by.

  Musket fire.

  A rattle of shots came, followed by yells and screams – at first from a short distance off, then from right outside Dow’s cell. There were more shots, and a loud groan, and something heavy falling. And then, as Dow stared unbelieving, a key rattled, and his door swung open. An orange light poured in, and outlined in the doorway stood a marine, his musket held in one hand, still smoking at the barrel. ‘Dow Amber?’ he enquired.

  Dow nodded numbly. The marine stepped back and another figure took his place, bent and ancient and robed in finery.

  Ibanez, the Sea Lord.

  The old man ignored the body of a guard that lay dead and bloodied on the passage floor – his rheumy eyes, brimming with sadness, saw only Dow. ‘I will ask you once. Does my son truly live?’

  Dow did not hesitate; he knew that having lied this much, and having achieved the miracle, he must lie no more. ‘No, sir.’

  The Sea Lord’s head fell, and one withered hand tightened in seeming anger upon the doorframe.

  Dow hastened to add, ‘But he did not die in the ice of the north. That I know for certain.’

  Ibanez lifted his head once more, and glanced behind him, as if suddenly aware of their situation. ‘Hurry – tell me what it is that you know. The ship, as you hear, is under attack. The tumult has given me and those loyal to me this chance to reach you, but our time may be short.’

  ‘But who is attacking?’

  ‘A strange fleet – from where it comes or to who it belongs I do not know or care anymore. Only tell me of my son!’

  So Dow – fighting his impatience – told as quickly as he could the full story of Nadal and the lost fleet.

  ‘I hear the truth of it,’ groaned Ibanez, when Dow was done. ‘I’d almost hoped that your tale would indeed be all falsehood, as Carrasco and Ferdinand claim. But I believe you. And what a cruel honesty, that you would save my son from the Ice only to condemn him to an even slower death in the Doldrums. How could he be so foolish as to think the Barrier might be breached? Ah … but he always gave too ready an ear to dreamers who spoke of the southern reaches of the globe, and the wonders to be found there …’

  ‘Sir,’ Dow interrupted, his ear to the frenzy of the cannon fire, ‘what do you intend to do with me now?’

  The old man sighed. ‘Tell me one last thing – did you kill my loyal friend, Captain Vincente?’

  ‘No. He died in the battle with the fleet of Castille and Valdez. He did not fire first. They were waiting in ambush, and attacked him.’

  Ibanez nodded, as if this only confirmed a known truth. He straightened with sad dignity. ‘Then I’ll not punish you for deceiving me about Nadal. I suspected it to be a deception – but as you no doubt hoped, I had to be certain. In any case, I have no authority to punish anyone anymore. You’ve seen how I’ve fallen. But this much I can still do. I can set you free from this brig. Whether you can escape this ship is another matter.’

  ‘Sir, my Twin Island friends are in the next cell. And Ignella – the scapegoat girl – is also here, I think. They too are unjustly condemned.’

  Ibanez nodded, and gestured to his marines. There were eight of them spread along the passage, loyal to the Sea Lord, it seemed, to the very death. ‘Open the doors. They are no enemies of mine.’

  Johannes and Nicky were released first. The normally stoic blacksmith seemed unaccountably excited, even beyond the fact of being so suddenly freed. ‘Sea Lord,’ he demanded eagerly, ‘did I hear you describe the fleet that attacks now as a strange fleet?’

  Ibanez considered him. ‘You did. It consists of ships unlike any I have seen before. They are certainly not of the design of our own shipyards. And they have launched curious weapons.’

  Johannes’s eyes blazed. ‘It’s begun at last,’ he said to his apprentice. Then he turned to Dow. ‘We must get off this ship.’

  Dow nodded, not understanding the blacksmith’s fervour, but agreeing with the fact – they could not stay on the Twelfth Kingdom. The marines meanwhile had opened the door on the other side of Dow’s cell – and to Dow’s unsurprise Nell stepped silently forth. The dress in which she had been displayed was gone – perhaps its true owner had wanted it back – replaced by her usual gear. But ang
er still radiated from her.

  ‘We have to go,’ Dow said.

  ‘Go where?’ she asked coldly. ‘And how? Or will you swim all the way to your home, New Islander?’

  It was not a question he’d expected, logical though it was. Why was she angry at him? He wasn’t the one who’d humiliated her and thrown her into a cell – he’d secured her release! But there was no gratitude in her, let alone anything more. Dow found it impossible just then to believe the kiss between them had ever happened.

  But Johannes said, ‘If we can get clear of this monstrosity and make our way to the attacking fleet, we’ll be picked up, I promise.’ Everyone, the Sea Lord included, stared at him in amazement, but the blacksmith addressed only Dow. ‘Trust me! I don’t have time to explain it all – only come with me and you’ll see soon enough.’

  Dow turned to the Sea Lord. ‘Sir, is there some way off your ship other than the main hatchways?’ Hatchways, Dow had not forgotten, which opened directly off the gun decks – currently firing.

  Ibanez nodded. ‘There is a private dock in the stern.

  My personal launch is kept there – although it has been held under lock and key, I’m told, since the coup. But smaller boats are stowed there as well.’

  ‘Can one of your men show us the way?’

  Ibanez nodded, then commanded two of the waiting marines. ‘Take them there – and give them any aid you can.’

  ‘Sea Lord,’ said Johannes, his round face troubled and yet resolute, ‘this is not a warning I should give, but I owe you this much debt at least for freeing Nicky and me. If this attack is what I think it is, then the Twelfth Kingdom may not survive. You should flee.’

  Ibanez laughed. ‘Not survive? This ship may be captured – who knows it better than I – but destroyed? Never.’