The Shamer's War

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  “Ouch!” hissed Rose, which was quite understandable. We were all in a pile at the foot of the ladder, me and Rose and the one who had come tumbling.

  I didn’t say much myself, being winded from the fall. And the idiot who had knocked us down wouldn’t move. He lay there across me like a fallen log. I pushed at him, trying to free myself. And got my hands all wet. No, not just wet. Sticky.

  He was bleeding.

  Rose wormed her way free of me and the wounded man.

  “Dina? Dina, are you all right?”

  I nodded, but of course she couldn’t see that, what with the darkness.

  “Yes,” I finally managed, still fighting to breathe. “But he’s bleeding, Rose.”

  “Who? Who is it?”

  “I don’t know. Too dark to tell.” I hoped it wasn’t Callan. Or the Harbormaster. Or… were Nico and Davin here, too, fighting in the dark?

  The man stirred, muttering. I couldn’t tell what he was saying, but at least he didn’t sound like anyone I knew. It might be someone from the Sea Wolf. I managed to wriggle clear and got to my feet.

  “I don’t think it’s anyone we know,” I whispered to Rose.

  “Should we… should we do something?”

  Light the lamp, heat water, clean the wound and bandage it. But not now, not while they were still fighting up there on the deck.

  “It will have to wait,” I said. “Come on.”

  But it wasn’t easy, up there on the deck, to tell friend from foe. Right next to the hatch, two men were rolling about, trying to strangle each other, and although it was slightly less dark up here under the skies, I still couldn’t recognize either of them. Once I had made hundreds of men stop in the middle of battle, in the middle of shouting and fighting and dying and killing each other. Surely I ought to be able to end a simple brawl?

  “Stop,” I yelled. “Stop that!”

  But there was not the least bit of Shamer’s edge to my voice, and the brawlers on the deck paid me no notice.

  Callan did.

  He was all the way up by the bow, surrounded by a pack of Sea Wolf men, keeping them off by swinging an oar like a quarterstaff. I recognized him because, well, even in darkness Callan is hard to miss.

  “Down!” he yelled. And the order was meant for me and Rose, I knew. He didn’t want us here, he wanted us to stay below, crouching in the darkness until it was all over.

  But his small shift of attention cost him dearly. One of the sea wolves ducked under the oar and thrust upward with whatever weapon it was he held. And even at this distance, even through the din of stamping feet and grunt and bodies hitting the deck or each other, even in the midst of all that chaos, I heard it—the noise that came from Callan as the thrust went home.

  “No!” I screamed, but it was too late, and no one listened anyway. For a moment the sea wolf and Callan stood close together, almost as if they were dancing. Then the oar clattered to the deck, and the pack closed on Callan, so that he disappeared in a whirl of shoulders and feet and flying fists.

  I didn’t think. I just leaped across the two stranglers, ran across the deck to the bow, and threw myself at them, kicking and yanking and punching, anything, anything to make them stop hitting him.

  “Stop it! Stop it!”

  If only Mama had been here. She could have stopped them. Any decent Shamer could have stopped them. But not me. Once it would have been easy. It no longer was. Now I was too much my father’s daughter, and not enough like my mother.

  One of the men jabbed an elbow in my face, hitting me on the chin. My teeth rattled, and there was a searing pain in my jaw. I curled up on the wet planks of the deck, hugging the pain, looking up at the masts that seemed to be swaying much harder than they usually did.

  I think I passed out for a few moments. Suddenly, the fight was over, and we hadn’t won it. Someone had lit a lantern and hung it on a boom, and the Crow was considering the catch its yellow light revealed: Callan, the Harbormaster, Malvin and six crewmates, and Rose and me. The Swallow had fallen to the foe, and now no one knew what would happen to us. Perhaps not even the Crow.

  Nico was furious.

  “No steel,” he said, and his own voice sounded cold and sharp like a blade. “That was the agreement.”

  “Is that so?” said the Crow. “Perhaps you should have explained that agreement more thoroughly to the Swallow. I don’t think they quite understood it.”

  In a way it should have been a relief to see Nico still free to act with some kind of authority. In my mind’s eye I had seen him often enough as a chained prisoner deep in the Sea Wolf’s belly. But what I felt wasn’t relief. More like betrayal.

  How could he?

  Nico. Nico had agreed to the raid on the Swallow, Nico had taken part in the planning of it. And now Callan lay on a make-shift mattress of sailcloth with a wound in his side that wouldn’t stop bleeding. We didn’t even dare try to carry him below. No steel? Look more closely, Nico. That wound wasn’t made by a fist.

  Nico’s face was so pale it was almost the same color as the sails of the Swallow. He couldn’t even make himself look at Callan. But I felt no pity for him. How could he? How could he let the Crow attack a peaceful ship, how could he agree to men hitting other men, even without “steel”? Hadn’t he thought how that might end?

  “You can’t play patty-cake with people like this,” said the Crow. “You don’t get a man like Callan Kensie to lie down by patting him gently on the cheek. What did you think?”

  Nico glared furiously at the Crow and made no answer. And Davin stood by the railing, staring at Callan with a sick look on his face. Had he been part of the raid too? Probably he had, even though I hadn’t seen him. He certainly looked guilty enough.

  The Swallow crew was sitting or lying on the deck, most of them tied up. Only Callan and Malvin’s friend Hector were so badly hurt that the Crow hadn’t found it necessary to tether them.

  “Row ashore,” said the Crow. “We’ve wasted enough time. Put them ashore, sink the ship, and let’s get out of here.”

  There was a roar from the Harbormaster. In spite of his bound hands, he struggled to his feet.

  “Sink her? Would ye sink my ship?”

  “Sorry,” said the Crow. “We haven’t enough crew to man them both. And if we left her here how long would it take before you were on our tail again?”

  There was a look on the Harbormaster’s face that made me cold with fear, although it wasn’t even me he was staring at.

  “If ye sink the Swallow, I’ll keep looking till I find ye.”

  He meant it. He would do it, and when he did, I wouldn’t want to be in the Crow’s shoes.

  The Crow returned the Harbormaster’s stare with complete lack of expression.

  “Some men think they are kings,” he said. “Some men think they are kings because they have been allowed to prince it in a backwater town just a little too long. I’ll sink your ship if it pleases me. And if you don’t shut your trap, you can join her on her way.”

  But the Harbormaster was too angry to keep silent.

  “If ye so much as touch her, if ye so much as scratch her planks—”

  The Crow raised his hand, but Nico caught at his arm.

  “No,” he said. “The ship, yes. I regret the necessity, but we must. But I am not going to stand here and watch you hit a bound man.”

  “Close your eyes, then,” hissed the Crow. But Nico wouldn’t yield. And in the end, the Crow lowered his arm.

  “Get them into the dinghy,” he said. “We need to get out of the cove before the tide changes.”

  I was terrified that Callan’s wound would tear. He might look like he was built from rock and iron, but no man could bleed as he had done and not be in danger of his life. I had been afraid to let them take him below, and now they were proposing to lower him over the side to the dinghy, bobbing next to the Swallow, in order to be rowed across the troubled black waters to the small, bleak, stony beach of Troll Cove.

  “Caref
ul,” I told the men who were guiding his descent. “Watch out!”

  One of them gave me an irritated glare; the other growled, “All right, all right,” and continued to let out his rope. Callan didn’t make a sound, though I could tell he was still conscious.

  When I wasn’t holding my breath with terror, I was entertaining murderous thoughts toward the man who had used his blade on Callan. And toward Nico. Well, maybe not murderous, but…

  I didn’t understand. Nico, who was always so careful to think matters through and do the right thing. Nico, who hated swords and violence. What had happened to him? I had never seen him like this before, so pale and determined, so clenched with purpose. Haunted, almost. As if he was seeing something the rest of us were spared. And whatever it was, it made him do things that were alien to him. Acts I would never have thought he could agree to, let alone commit. The raid. Callan. The plan to sink the Swallow. And now this. What did they think would happen to us if they left us stranded here in Troll Cove, where no one lived and the way to the nearest friendly place was treacherous and rocky and several days’ long at the best of times? What would we do for heat and food? How could I look after Callan here? Had Nico no thought for that?

  The strange thing was, he had. I knew he thought about it, and that it was tearing him apart. He made the Crow part with a tinderbox, some blankets, and what extra food they had. But they still left us there.

  But the strangest thing of all happened when they were ready to row back out again. Nico gave a firm nod to two of the sea wolves, and they grabbed hold of Davin.

  “What—”

  Davin never finished his question. Suddenly he was flying through the air, fighting and yelling, to disappear into the shallow waters just a few paces from dry land.

  He came up spitting like a mad tomcat.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Discharge,” said the Crow, smiling thinly. “Thank you kindly for your services, but this is where you get off.”

  “Nico!”

  But Nico perched in the boat, pale and alien and distant, and would look at neither Davin nor me, and least of all at Callan.

  “No,” he said. “I won’t take you with me.”

  The men were already running out the oars. Soon it would be too late.

  I made my decision.

  DAVIN

  Whelp

  I couldn’t believe it. There was Nico, perched in the bow of the dinghy, regarding me calmly while the oarsmen made the boat glide farther and farther away from me, out into the narrow cove.

  No, calm might be overstating it. His face might be expressionless, but he was as pale as a sheet. Annoying, superior, unfathomable, yes. But calm he was not.

  I yelled at him. I knew it would do no good, but when you stand knee-deep in cold water, dripping wet, while your friend is sailing away from you on his way to—only the gods knew where he was going, and how it would end.

  “Nico! You idiot bastard. Come back!”

  But of course he didn’t. All I had for my pains was the sight of the Crow’s smile growing wider and more triumphant. Finally I shut my big mouth and waded ashore. There wasn’t much else I could do, and this water was very cold.

  “Take off your wet things,” said Rose, handing me a blanket and somebody’s sweater. “You’ll catch your death, else.”

  She wasn’t kidding. The chill air was nipping at my skin, sucking the warmth out of my body like some alien ghost, and my feet were pale blue with cold. I pulled off my wet shirt and dried myself with the blanket as best I could. Some of the Swallow’s crew had already gathered a pile of dry seaweed and were attempting to coax a spark from the tinderbox. But most of the men were standing stock-still, staring out to sea at the dinghy that was even now approaching the bulk of the Swallow.

  “They’ll not do it,” said one. “Will they?”

  “Oh, they’ll do it,” said another, spitting as he spoke. “That Crow will kill ye as soon as look at ye.”

  The Harbormaster said not a word. He just watched, his hands clenched into fists, his arms hanging helplessly.

  And then we heard the sound of blows, hammer blows against heavy oak planks. It didn’t happen all at once. Very slow, it was, at least at first. The Swallow listed a little to one side. Then a little more. And then, clumsy as a calving cow, she keeled over on her side and sank.

  “They did it,” said the man who hadn’t wanted to believe it. “Those evil devils really did it!”

  His crewmate made no answer. He merely spun on his heel and hit me flat handed, but so hard that I fell over sideways in the sand. Rolling, I leaped to my feet and swung at him, but the blow was slow and halfhearted, because in a way I understood him better than I liked. In his eyes, I was one of the “devils” who had just sunk his ship, and thanks to Nico, I was right here in front of him. In front of him, and his six crewmates. Not exactly the stuff of wistful dreams. If they really decided to hurt me, there wasn’t much I could do.

  “Stop that, Malvin,” said the Harbormaster. “What good is it? And we’ll need all the hands we can get to get us out of this. Even his.”

  Rose looked as if she thought the Harbormaster was letting me off too lightly.

  “Get that fire going,” she said. “Some of us must stay here to look after Callan while the rest go for help.”

  And then she suddenly seemed to miss something. She looked around. And looked around again. Then she leaped to her feet.

  “Davin,” she said, “where is Dina?”

  “Dina! Diiiiina.”

  I called. Rose called. But I think we both knew we would get no answer. Dina was no longer at Troll Cove.

  “I’ll kill her!” hissed Rose. “If she disappears on me again or gets hurt or dies or something, I’ll bloody well kill her!”

  “Strictly speaking, she hasn’t disappeared,” I said. “I mean, we both know where she is, don’t we?”

  Rose bit her lip. “With Nico.”

  “Yes. What I can’t quite figure out is why.”

  Rose shook her head. “Why is easy. But how? How did she do it? When Nico wouldn’t even take you?”

  “He didn’t see her,” I said.

  “Didn’t see her? Come on. It’s broad daylight! And that dinghy is not much bigger than a bathtub.”

  I didn’t answer. I felt very tired, and not at all like explaining to Rose about Sezuan and the serpent gift. Couldn’t she work it out for herself? She had heard it as often as I had, the bit about “only seeing Sezuan when he wants to be seen.” That my little sister was just like him—that wasn’t something I really felt like talking about.

  “What do you mean, ‘why is easy’?” I asked instead.

  Rose looked at me gaugingly. “Surely you’ve worked that out.”

  “If I had, would I ask?”

  Her lips tightened. I couldn’t tell if it was a smile or a grimace. I often felt like that with Rose.

  “If you don’t know, then I won’t tell tales.”

  “Rose!”

  “Yes?” She gazed at me so innocent-sweet it nearly made my teeth ache. I gave up.

  “If you don’t want to tell me, then don’t. I’ll work it out.”

  “I’m sure you will. Sooner or later.”

  This time it was definitely a smile. And definitely, the joke was on me. Nothing new in that, and nothing I could do about it. And much, much better than that cold it’s-all-your-fault glare. But why was I such a constant source of secret amusement to girls and women? Carmian had laughed at me too.

  Carmian. Nico had thrown me overboard, but her he had kept. Did he really think she was more use to him than me? Granted, I had never seen a woman handle a knife as well as she did, not even Rose. But still.

  Unless he just wanted her to himself? Perhaps it wasn’t her knife he was really interested in.

  “The idiot,” I muttered.

  “Who?” asked Rose.

  “Nico.” She had very long hair, had Carmian. And even though sh
e usually wore trousers, I couldn’t for the life of me understand how I had once believed that she was a man.

  “What are you thinking?”

  I shot her a quick look. Maybe it would be best not to mention Carmian. Rose took offense at the funniest things sometimes. But at least Dina would not be the only female aboard the Sea Wolf.

  “Oh, nothing much.”

  Carmian had called me sweet. But she had said it in the way one would talk of a kitten or a little boy.

  “Dina will manage, Davin. She… she is good at so many things.”

  I nodded. Rose was right, but Dina was also…. Most people thought she was strong and maybe even dangerous because of the powers she had, but she was also just a little girl sometimes, a girl that needed looking after. I didn’t like to think of her aboard the same ship as the Crow. And I could hardly bear to remember that almost the last thing that had passed between us was the slap I had given her.

  We walked back to the beach. The fire had caught at last, and the seaweed was burning rapidly, with loud pops every time the bladders burst. It smelled terrible, but we needed the heat. Callan most of all.

  Callan. That was another thing I could hardly bear to remember. But there was nowhere to hide, and no way I could run, so in the end I crouched next to him, staring at my hands.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  His eyes were ice.

  “Where is your sister?”

  It wasn’t that he didn’t know. I think he had figured it out even before I did. So at first I didn’t answer, but he wasn’t about to let me off the hook.

  “Where is your sister?”

  And so I had to answer.

  “Gone. With Nico.”

  He nodded—once, and a very small nod only. I didn’t think he had much strength left right then.

  “This time, boy. This time you can tell yer mother.”

  That was all he said. It was more than enough.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Troll Cove really was a backwater. The cove was too narrow for bigger vessels, and very few of the smaller ones ever came here. Why should they? There was nothing here. Only rocks and seaweed and two small freshwater springs.