The Bone Ships

by R J Barker

  “Thank you, Deckkeeper,” she said, taking her pasty from him, and he nodded. “We’ll go straight to the fleet dock, see how they treat Tide Child and make sure he is well cared for. From there we go to the hulks in the harbour to find out who our new crew are to be.” She paused in the act of lifting the pasty to her mouth. “Although perhaps we shall run some other errands first.” She turned, walking away and chewing.

  A busy day ahead, he said to himself and followed, quickly finding himself limping as the boots, just as promised, were pinching his toes and rubbing at his heels.

  “I think we must find ourselves charts,” said Meas.

  “I have no coin.”

  “You do not need to keep reminding me of your penury,” she said without looking at him. “I have plenty of money and little use for it.”

  “They did not confiscate your goods when you were condemned?”

  “Only what they could find,” she said. “Charts we will get from the Grand Bothy, whether they want us to or not.”

  “Are you welcome at the . . .” His voice petered out as he realised what he had been about to say would have been unwelcome, but it was too late. Meas’s tone, almost conversational up to this point, became storm dark as she turned to him.

  “You saw how welcome I was when we brought in Tide Child. I imagine it will be similar at the Grand Bothy. Thirteenbern Gilbryn may call us to her if I am seen; you will have to prepare yourself for that possibility.” Before he could reply she was off and he followed, his feet complaining at every step they took over the cobbles.

  The fleet dock was the biggest harbour facility in Bernshulme, taking up a whole side of the island’s inner crescent. Joron counted thirty ships at their staystones and four in dry docks, held up on scaffolds of rock and bone. Only one ship was the black of shame. Tide Child, shunned like a dead chick in a thriving colony, space around him as if he made the other ships uncomfortable. Even those who worked on Tide Child seemed to do so at a slower pace, and with less enthusiasm, than those clustered around the white ships. Where the white ships glistened in the sun and rang with working songs, Tide Child absorbed the light, squatting in silence in his cradle.

  “I thought Karrad said he would make sure they did a good job? They barely seem to be working,” said Joron.

  A roar came from Tide Child.

  “Get on, you slatelayers! Lazy grabarses! So the ship’s cursed? It does not mean you are. You’ll work these bones as well as any other or I’ll have you skinned.” From behind a lean-to of gion leaves came a man almost as wide as he was tall. Dressed in a leather apron and little else, he strode about the base of Tide Child giving orders as Skearith’s Eye rose and the heat of the day began to beat down upon the bones of the ship. Around his shoulders, arms and thighs were wrapped dirty bandages, stained with blood from the sores of keyshan’s rot, a disease that came to all in the boneyards eventually.

  “Bonemaster?” said Meas as they approached. The man turned and Joron saw the black band of the condemned on his arm.

  “You must be the shipwife who treated this poor beast” – he pointed at Tide Child – “with such contempt he has ended up in my loving care.”

  “And by the band on your arm that makes me your shipwife, so some respect is in order, is it not?” The man did not answer, nor did he bring his forearm to his chest in salute nor show any of the respect that was her due. “How did you earn the band?” asked Meas.

  “A bonemaster takes a little for himself, here and there.” He puffed himself up like a bird in a fighting pit the moment before its handlers let it go. “It is normal.” His voice rose and fell, as if to head off any thought she may have that he had done anything wrong in stealing from the shipyard.

  “So says every bonemaster sent to a black ship, ey?” said Meas.

  The man squinted at her.

  “There are many here take far more than me.”

  “Then why do they not wear the band?”

  “Because, Shipwife” – there was a lusty lack of respect in the way he said her title – “they have better friends than poor Bonemaster Coxward, and so they may carry on stealing the Hundred Isles’ wealth, where I will go bleed for it.”

  “Well, it was promised the bonemaster would do a good job on my ship,” said Meas, “and now I see why it was said with such confidence, since you are to fly him with me.”

  “It will be a month before we do,” said Coxward. “Ey, at least a month.”

  “We have a week, and we must also load supplies. So you have four days to get him ready for sea.”

  “Four?” The bonemaster’s teeth almost leaped from his mouth in horror. “Sooner break a keyshan’s heart than let him out in four.”

  “It is what the fleet calls for.”

  He stared at her then shrugged.

  “The fleet often calls for the impossible from us poor souls, hagspit upon them who give out orders not knowing what they mean.” He put his hands on ample hips and turned to look at Tide Child. His voice dropped a tone, became flatter, more serious, the voice of a professional considering his charge. “The mainspine I can fix. The hull also. Much of the rest of the damage is superficial, the rails and such.” He waved towards the ship. “That can be fixed at sea if you give me a few hands to do it. But the keel, see, that is a different matter.” He turned back and a spark of mischief glistened in his eye. “A ship was never meant to go on the land, you know, Shipwife.”

  “I am aware of that.”

  “Well, we can set it, we can glue it. But the glue needs to dry, and that takes time. It cannot be hurried. If we fly to your timetable—”

  “Which we must.”

  “Well then, Shipwife” – again, such obvious discourtesy but Meas did not seem bothered – “the keel will be weak, and there is little we can do about it. You must command your ship with that knowledge and nurse it as much as you can, otherwise the keel will break and our dark fellow will capsize. Then the Hag will have her due from poor Coxward.”

  “Thank you, Bonemaster,” she said. “I know I ask a lot.”

  “Not as much as I shall ask of these.” He raised his voice and pointed at the bonewrights around the ship. “Slate-laying wyrms! Get on with you.” He walked back to the ship, ignoring Meas and Joron.

  “Why do you let him be rude to you?” said Joron.

  “Because he is a skilled man and good at what he does. He will be a credit to the ship, and his skills will keep us afloat. Bonewrights are often eccentric; the glue does strange things to their minds, and he has the signs of keyshan’s rot. It sends those afflicted mad eventually, so I allow such people some slack. Only a little, mind.”

  “And what of the keel?”

  “Oh, he is entirely right in what he says: the keel will be brittle. We will treat Tide Child as kindly as events allow and hope he treats us well in return.”

  These were not words that filled Joron with confidence.

  From the fleet dock they made their way up the Serpent Road to the spiral bothies. At each turn of the road there were fewer common people and more seaguard, the clothes of the people became finer, the fishskin that hugged their bodies better cured, the feathers that decorated them longer, the paint on their faces more elaborate and colourful, their bodies more whole and less Berncast, their ignoring of Meas Gilbryn more ostentatious.

  “There are many places in the town that sell charts, Shipwife,” said Joron, not for her benefit, but because the increasing richness around them made him uncomfortable.

  “Oh indeed, Joron. But if I go somewhere other than the Grand Bothy my mother will hear of it and will think I avoid the spiral bothies because of her, because I am ashamed. Before I was condemned I would have demanded charts from the Grand Bothy. I will not let her think she can force shame on me.”

  At the arch that marked the entrance to the Grand Bothy the guards let them through but turned away as Meas bent to dip her fingers in the red and blue paint. She flicked the paint over the stones, adding to the
thick riot of stringy colour built up over generations. Inside no one approached or spoke to her. She walked through the welcome hall, cleaning her hand on a cloth she took from her pouch, and although she was not acknowledged it would not be true to say she was ignored. The women and men of the bothy, almost without fault, stopped to stare, to whisper, to point.

  Joron felt their interest like a weight, and if he felt it that way he wondered how much heavier the attention weighed on her. Meas showed no sign it concerned her. She strode through the bothy, her boots clicking on the slate floor and echoing from the stacked stones of the walls. There was nothing soft in the place to absorb the sound, and the whispering of gossips whirled around them – a malicious zephyr. Meas walked on, taking a landward path down into the tunnels that ran from the bothy into the mountain. Like all the main isles Shipshulme was given to earthquakes, so the tunnels were shallow, skirting the base of the mountain. Down here were all manner of small rooms: armouries, smithies, stores and the chart rooms.

  And it was to the chart room that Meas took Joron. Down a dark tunnel, barely lit with wanelights, to a room that to Joron first seemed pitch-black. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust as the sole light was down to the dregs of its oil, no one having seen fit to refill it. The chart room’s single occupant sat amid a riot of gion shelving on a stool of varisk and slate, his long white hair falling around his face, his clothes old and careworn and his eyes white with blindness.

  “Meas,” he said, his voice quiet as an early-morning breeze. “They said you would never come back. I knew you would.” Nearer, Joron could see the smooth skin of old burns across the old man’s face, and where his nose should have been was only a gnarled lump of flesh.

  “I will always come back, Shipwife,” she said and reached out, gently taking the man’s hand. He had only two complete fingers, the rest stumps.

  “Do not call me that, Meas. I am not a shipwife any longer and have not been that for many years. Just Yirrid the chart keeper now.”

  “Always Shipwife to me.”

  He smiled at her words.

  “Too loyal and too stubborn. You always were. I shouldn’t be surprised you ended up on a black ship.” He shook his head but his voice was full of warmth. “Now, why are you here?”

  “Charts,” she said, “I need a full set. The ship I was on lost them.”

  “Sold for drink by some fool who did not know their worth, no doubt,” said the blind man, and Joron felt himself blush. “But charts we have plenty of. I am meant to palm off old ones on the black ships” – he slipped from his stool – “but half the shipwives who come through here would not know a good chart from a bad one, so I will give you my best.” He walked, trailing his two fingers along the shelves, feeling at the pegs stuck in below each shelf that told him what he would find there. “Here.” He stopped. “The newest ones from the coursers, by Clenas, who is an artist with a chart, I am told. They certainly sound like they know their business when they visit.” He took out a sheaf of rolled charts. “These were meant for the Dread. Hastin has it now.”

  “I cannot grudge him it. He is a good shipwife, if an unimaginative one.”

  “Your sither, Kyrie, has the new five-ribber Hag’s Hunter. No doubt her reward for helping to put you on the black ship.” He passed over the charts, and as she took them he reached out, grabbing her wrist. “Be careful, Meas. You play a dangerous game.”

  “I know.”

  “Be as careful of your allies as you are of your enemies.” Yirrid sounded resigned, saddened.

  “I know that too.”

  “Yes,” he said, letting go of her hand, “I imagine you do.”

  “I will return to see you again, Shipwife.”

  “I hope you will.” Yirrid turned away, going back to sit on his stool and staring into nothing as Meas led Joron out of the room.

  Outside stood two seaguard. They came to attention, spears cracking on the stone in unison, making Joron jump at the unexpected noise.

  The taller of the two took a step forward.

  “Shipwife Meas Gilbryn, I come in the name of Thirteenbern Gilbryn, ruler of the Hundred Isles, protector of the Berncast, grandmother of the fleet, scion of the seaguard, high priest of Mother, Maiden and Hag, and wellspring of our fertility.”

  “I know who my mother is,” said Meas softly, but the guard gave no sign he heard her.

  “I am to bring you before the mother of all.” The thought of being brought before the ruler of the Hundred Isles almost unmanned Joron. He felt his knees weaken, his stomach flutter.

  “I am grateful for the invite but I am afraid have a ship to prepare and the tide waits for none.” Meas made to walk past him, but the guard stepped forward, using his spear to bar the way. Unlike most seaguard he wore no armour; his clothing was more akin to that worn by Kept Indyl Karrad, an arrangement of leather straps designed to show off his oiled muscles. “You are a toy, not a soldier, Tassar,” said Meas to the man. “Do not obstruct me. I have business.”

  “I think you will find I am both toy and soldier, Meas. Now, follow me.” He turned.

  Meas watched him for a moment as he made his way up the gloomy tunnel, light burnishing his bronze skin. She waited, for long enough to make it seem like she made up her own mind to follow, though in Bernshulme no one turned down the invite of the Thirteenbern, not even her daughter.

  To ascend the Grand Bothy was to enter the light. The higher you went, the more elaborately the bothy was constructed. On the lower levels the walls were patterned with specially chosen stone, the colours within making glittering gold, green and red spirals that ran around the building. Joron and Meas ascended the ramps that ran around the outside, up and up and up, walking behind the two seaguard. Further up, the bothy became more delicate. The Gaunt Islanders made their buildings from blocks of stone fixed together with a mixture of sand and chemicals that the Hundred Isles regarded as ugly and utilitarian. The Hundred Islanders built their bothies from small stones, each fitted together by the stonewrights without recourse to any form of glue, the weight of the buildings keeping them up. The spiral bothies were the finest exemplars of the stonewrights’ art and the Grand Bothy the greatest of them all. By the time they reached the highest level, the sixth, the bothy was a spider’s web of artfully constructed stone ribs with gion – bleached, treated and thinned until it was hard as iron and as clear as the air on a fine day – stretched between them.

  Beneath this web, bathed in light, sat Thirteenbern Gilbryn, proud of what she was. Her hair was grey now, and she wore no colour in it – a break with tradition, but she was a woman who did not feel the need to advertise her authority. She wore a skirt, and her flat breasts hung down to her navel, almost covering the stretch marks across her belly, which had been painted in bright colours, the scars of her battles there for all to see: the marks of her power. There was no denying the strength in the Thirteenbern’s body, and that was why she showed it. She flaunted her fertility. This woman was the bringer of thirteen perfect children to the isles and claimed title as mother of all. Her skirts were of iron, laced together with birdgut and enamelled with stylised fish which danced across her lap. Like Meas she wore long boots. Unlike Meas, who stood upon a ship of shame, she sat upon on the throne of tears, a seat of polished and bonded varisk carved into the semblance of firstborn children, each child weeping as they held up the weight of the Thirteenbern and through her carried the weight of the entire Hundred Isles.

  Gilbryn shared a face with Meas: imperious, eyes that could silence with a look, mouth thin, though it looked to Joron as though she longed to laugh. Maybe she did; maybe he only thought this so he felt less uncomfortable before her. Tassar walked to the seaward side of the Thirteenbern. Apart from him and those before her throne, the well-lit room was empty. There was nothing here: no tools, no papers, nothing. Thirteenbern Gilbryn had no need of possessions, because she owned everything in the Hundred Isles and all answered to her.

  “What is he doing here?” Gi
lbryn pointed at Joron, and he wished he could vanish into the grey slate of the floor.

  “Twiner is my deckkeeper.”

  “Uh,” she said. An amused sound. “You raise up a simple Berncast fisher boy, have the weak-blooded share your deck.” Joron could feel his face burning with embarrassment, but Meas did not so much as look at him. “I thought, maybe, the certainty of death would make you less likely to stack the odds against yourself. It seems not.”

  “It is not I who stacks the odds against me,” said Meas. Something crossed her face, a salt spray smile. “Is it, Mother?” she added.

  The amusement on the the Thirteenbern’s face vanished and she was standing. From relaxed to fury in one movement, face contorted with anger.

  “You do not get to call me that.” Cold words like an ice floe.

  “It is what you are,” Meas replied.

  “You are my curse. Every day I ask why the Hag took nine of my children in war but never so much as touched you.” She glared at Meas, letting silence settle like sediment in shipwine. Then she sat once more. “Tassar, take her plaything down a level; I would speak to my daughter.” She made the confirmation of their relationship into something mocking. “And I shall speak to her alone.”

  The Kept stepped forward and motioned to Joron to follow him, which he did. They walked down the ramp to the level below, and behind them was only silence; Gilbryn had no wish to share her words with such as him.

  Tassar openly stared at him. “It is unusual,” he said, “to see an officer who is neither Kept nor Bern brought through the spiral bothies, but I suppose Meas has little quality material to choose from among the dead.” Tassar’s eyes wandered down Joron’s body until they came to rest on the blade at his hip. “Do you even know how to use that?” He stepped a little closer to Joron. “Would you like me to give you some lessons?” He put his hand to his mouth. Touched his lip. “I could teach you how a man uses a sword.”