“But—”
“You saw it down there, Joron, smelled it. The stink of death and rot. The slightest wound in those conditions will fester, the slightest crack in a mind will be broken wide open. I would wish such imprisonment on no one and will prolong the suffering of none.”
“What will we do with them, Meas?” he said. “There must be hundreds of them and we are in these waters to find a raider.”
“We shall stay here long enough to see how many of those in the hold can be saved, then put a crew on this ship and send it to Safeharbour. The rest of us will continue in our hunt for the raider, though I doubt we will find anything. ’Tis all smoke and mirrors to keep me away from Bernshulme and embarrassing my mother.”
4
The Unwanted
On Tide Child Dinyl waited with Cwell, who now shadowed his every move, two pairs of resentful eyes meeting his. Behind them stood Sprackin, who had once been purseholder until Meas removed him. Now he made himself a thorn in Joron’s side. The man had been deckchilder long enough to know just how close he could walk to the line of insubordination before attracting the wrath of Solemn Muffaz.
“The shipwife would have you take those aboard my wingfluke and put the black armband on them,” said Joron, “but hold them apart from our crew and keep them bound, for now. I am to return to the merchanter with the gullaime and Garriya; there are many sick aboard the ship.”
“And why do you need the gullaime also?” said Dinyl. They had been shipfriends, lovers, once, but that close friendship had been cut away by Joron, along with Dinyl’s hand – and now, just like the hand, nothing of it remained. Dinyl, Cwell and Sprackin had formed a friendship through their dislike of him that cut Joron every time he saw them together, which on a ship the size of Tide Child was often.
“Because the shipwife asks for it, Deckholder,” said Joron, and he was aware he held his body as stiffly as his language. A cold formality had replaced the heat of the emotions they had once shared. Behind Dinyl, Cwell smirked, she had never liked Joron, and liked him less the more he grew into his rank. She in turn, with her vicious nature, frightened him. Though he could never admit that. He felt sure that both Cwell and Dinyl judged his every move. Sprackin simply sneered and watched for any opportunity to trouble him.
“It is our duty to give the shipwife what she wants, ey?” smiled Sprackin, but there was nothing pleasant there. Dinyl ignored him and stepped forward.
“Cwell, do your duty, bring up the hagshand and the windtalker,” he said, cold and formal. “Then take these women and men and stow them in the brig until they are ready for duty.”
Joron turned away. He did not fail to notice how often the word “duty” fell from Dinyl’s mouth, and from those around him. It was his sense of duty that had cost him his hand, and Joron’s sense of duty that had caused him to take it. In their own way both men had been right to act as they had, and as such Meas had kept Dinyl in his place on the rump of the ship even though he had threatened her life. But each day they stood together Joron felt this was a mistake, and he suspected Meas did too – though she would never admit it. “A shipwife only ever moves forward,” she had said. “I’ll not look to the errors in my wake, Twiner, not once I have set my horizons straight by ’em.”
Joron did not stay long on board, the atmosphere was too chilly on deck. He left Dinyl to sort out the new crew and rowed back to Maiden’s Bounty with the gullaime and Garriya. The old woman sat huddled up in the bottom of the boat between the rowers. She was brought on as one of the stonebound, the lowest rank on a boneship, as she knew nothing of the sea, however she had shown herself to be a skilled healer. This was a rare thing for a ship to have, and almost unheard of on a ship of the dead such as Tide Child. Now she held the rank of hagshand. Like Dinyl she also made Joron uncomfortable, though in very different ways. When they first met, the woman had named him “Caller.” And then, months later when all seemed lost and death had become inevitable, he had sung and an arakeesian had come as if called to that song. The last, vast and mysterious sea dragon had saved them from complete destruction, and although Joron was sure it was not his doing, he could not help wondering if he lied to himself. Because he had heard its songs and felt its presence in ways no one else seemed to.
Except the gullaime.
The windtalker had got over its terror of the Northstorm and reverted to its usual mood of being interferingly curious. At the moment it was fascinated by the rowers. The deckchilder, as they rowed, took in the gullaime’s curiosity with good grace. Where most crews were frightened of the windtalkers, the crew of Tide Child had accepted theirs and looked upon it with the same fondness they reserved for Black Orris, the foul-mouthed corpsebird that nested in Tide Child’s rigging.
“What for these?” It pointed at the oarlocks.
“To rest the oar in,” said Farys from her place at the rump of the boat. “So it is easier for the deckchilder to row.”
“Why row?” said the gullaime, its sharp beak opening and the words tumbling out from within its throat, rather than being formed by lip and tongue as was proper and right. “I make air.” It pointed at the furled wing of the ship with the claw that tipped the elbow of its own wing, hidden within colourfully painted robes.
“Save your strength, Gullaime,” said Joron. “The deckchilder row because speed is not important right now. Your magic may be important later and it would be foolish to use it up.”
“Joron Twiner is foolish,” squawked the gullaime and it hopped down the centre of the craft, scrambling up so it stood before Joron on the pointed beak of the small boat. It orientated its whole body toward the merchanter rising from the sea before them. “Bad things,” it said. “Bad things start here.”
“What bad things?” said Joron.
“Raise your voice, Caller,” said Garriya from the bottom of the boat where she squatted with her bag of herbs. “What was long buried is being unearthed.”
“What do you mean?” Her words were curious things and they swam around him. He felt that he existed separately in the boat to the deckchilder heaving on the oars. The sounds of the shifting sea receded, the brightly coloured clothing faded and there was only the voice of Garriya in his ears.
“Keyshan rising, Joron Twiner, keyshan rising.”
The rushing back in of sound and sense and the old woman was in the bottom of the boat, burrowing through her bag as if she had never spoken.
Had she spoken?
Once he would not have doubted it, but recently he had become unsure of his own senses. Whether it was the long hours and constant wakefulness or something else that had changed him, he did not like to think about it. He scratched at the top of his arms where the skin was sore. Keyshan’s rot, he was sure, but at the same time he hoped it was not and he dare not share his worries, for first it brought sores and in the end it brought madness. Increasingly he was given reason to doubt his world, doubt his eyes and ears and sense.
Could it come upon a man so quick? The bonemaster Coxward had it, and he had for years. But was it different in each case?
“’Ware below!” was shouted from before them and Joron shook himself as a rope came down from the merchanter. He tied on their flukeboat and climbed the side of the bigger ship. As he did the gullaime effortlessly scaled the side of Maiden’s Bounty without need for rope or ladder, its clawed feet and wings made for climbing. They were not creatures of the open sea, the gullaime, and Joron felt sure they never had been. If they had not possessed the power to control the winds no one would ever have brought them out here, where most gullaime suffered sickness, neglect and ill-use. And the work they did, controlling the winds, only brought them more pain, through draining whatever strange force was within that let them do their magic. This gullaime, the one they thought of as theirs, still needed to visit land and charge at a windspire, but it held more magic than any of its kind and, unlike any other gullaime, it still had its eyes under its painted mask. A secret shared only with Joron, for gullaime were blinded when they were young to stop them straying.