Meas shook her head. “I cannot fault loyalty, however mistaken,” she said. “Hag embrace you, Shipwife Golzin.”
She turned from the corpse. “Now, Joron, let us see what Golzin has in her hold. Let us see what was worth dying for.”
Tide Child’s crew were outside the cabin, menacing those left of the Maiden’s Bounty’s. Joron did a quick count of his crew to find how many had been lost, found three deckchilder from Meas’s ship of the dead who had now had their sentence completed. Their corpses lay cooling on the deck.
“Coughlin,” Meas said, “find some black material and make armbands. These women and men do not know it yet but they have volunteered to join us. Their shipwife is dead, and as of now so are they.” As she walked past the crew of the Maiden’s Bounty, she stared at them. “And the dead belong to me,” she said.
Joron followed his shipwife across the deck and to the main hatch of the merchanter. A hefty lock was in place on the hatch and the smell, ever-present on deck, was noticeably stronger here.
“Mother’s mercy,” said Joron. “Do you think she died to protect a shipment of rotten food?”
“No,” said Meas quietly. “I think I know what she ships, and why she did not want me to have her charts.” She turned to Narza. “Find me something for the lock. I have no wish to break my good sword.” The smaller woman nodded and walked away.
“What do you imagine it is?” said Joron.
“I’ll not sully Golzin’s name without knowing,” said Meas, “but if I am right I will take back my wish for her to rest with the Hag.”
Narza returned with a gallowbow bolt and placed it within the hasp of the lock, pushing her weight onto it and using it as a lever to break the metal with an audible crack. “Lift the hatch, Joron,” said Meas, “but before you do, we should get torches, and something to cover our faces with.”
“Why cover our faces?”
“You will find out.”
3
What Lies Beneath
It was dark in the underdeck of the merchanter, not even lit by the weak glow of wanelights. He found that lack of the small glowing bird skulls disquieting. But he did not think about it for long, because the smell hit him with its full force. It was a thing with a presence, a hard wall of stink that he had to fight not to reel away from. Instead he pushed the borrowed cloth harder against his mouth and nose, fought the vomit rising from his gut, pinched his nose shut and tried to breathe through his mouth – though that was almost worse. This was a stench so pervasive he was sure he could taste it, and it felt like he imagined it would to drink bilge water, that concoction of rotten bone water, sewage and refuse that collected at the bottom of every ship. He coughed, held up his guttering torch, illuminating the overbones of the deck above and the walls close around them. They were stood in a small room with three doors leading from it.
“They have shut off the hold,” said Joron. “Would that not make it hard to load cargo?”
“It depends on what the cargo is,” said Meas. She reached for the door to landward of them – like the whole boat it was ill-kept and stiff and took all she had to open it.
Behind the door a scene that Joron felt sure not even the Hag would visit on those she punished. The stink thickened the air around them. It took a moment for Joron to make sense of what he was seeing in the flickering light of his torch, and when he did his stomach threatened to rebel again.
“Mother’s mercy,” he whispered.
The cargo deck ran the length of the Maiden’s Bounty and was separated into three levels of shelves, each about the length of Joron’s forearm and hand above the one below. This strange deck was filled with a low moaning, and now he heard it Joron knew it had been present on this ship since the moment he had stepped aboard. He had presumed it to be the ship, the old bones, the tortured varisk, but it was not. It was the cargo.
People. Women and men stacked on the shelves with barely any room to move or breathe. The head of one by the feet of those next to them and on throughout the hold, nose to tail the length of the ship. Joron brought his torch nearer to the body closest to him – a corpse, one that had clearly been dead for a long time, weeks maybe. The feet next to its head moved weakly and that horrified him more. Imagine, being here in that confined space in the pitch black for weeks on end next to a corpse. Did they know that body rotting beside them? Was it once a friend, a lover even?
“Hold fast!” shouted Meas into the moaning deck. “Those who put you aboard are no longer in charge, I am. We will have you freed as soon as we can, so hold fast.” Did her voice shake? There was little response from the people on the shelves and Meas pushed Joron back, opened the seaward door and said the same to those there.
“What is this, Meas, slavers?”
“I do not know, Joron. I suspected it at first because of the smell. That was why I doubted the papers, my mother would never allow it.” She stared in once more before closing the door. “But even slavers treat their foul cargo better than this.” She turned and opened the last door, the central one, into the smallest of the three holds and in there found something different. No shelves, just a wide space and in the centre, cowering back from the torchlight, were gullaime. All masked, as was right and proper, but smaller than the gullaime aboard Tide Child, Joron was sure of it. When they moved he heard the clink of chains and saw metal gleam in the weak light. Meas repeated her words to the crowd of windtalkers, told them they were safe and then shut the door of this hold as well. The sight of them seemed to bother her even more than the humans. “Go over to Tide Child, Joron, bring our gullaime to speak to its people. I doubt they will trust me nor any other human after being kept aboard this ship.” She took off her hat, ran her hand through her hair before putting the hat firmly back on her head. “No wonder Golzin burned their charts, something truly wicked is happening on this boat.”
“I shall arrange to have the deckchilder questioned,” said Joron. Meas nodded.
“Have Solemn Muffaz do it, though I doubt he shall learn much. Did any of the ship’s officers survive the fight?”
“I do not know.”
“Well,” said Meas, and she started up the ladder, “it would be best for them if they have not. I will not look kindly upon them.”
When they were back on deck and Joron could take in great lungfuls of the cleaner air, Meas gave out orders. “Coughlin, belay those armbands. Instead, bind this ship’s crew and put them in the flukeboat. Joron and Berhof will take them over to Tide Child and they will not join my crew just yet. Then find axes, food and water. There are women, men and gullaime cruelly chained in the holds below. Start with freeing the women and men, and treat them kindly. You will see why when you get there. Pick those of your seaguard with the strongest stomachs.” A pause. “You will find many dead in the hold. You are to lay them out before you throw them overboard. They may have loved ones among those on the ship who wish to say goodbye. Joron will bring back our gullaime.” She turned to him. “And bring the hagshand, Garriya, to see to those this ship carries.” Meas took a step toward Joron, standing close to him so she could whisper. “Make sure Garriya brings all her medicines, Joron, especially those that will kindly let a woman or man leave this world.”