Joron had always believed what he had been told, that this was done to keep them safe.
But so much of what he had been told was lies. Was there any reason to believe this was different?
On the deck of Maiden’s Bounty Meas had already started bringing women and men up from below. These people were broken, little more than skeletons, their bodies covered in sores that Joron recognised – the tops of his arms itched abominably – and they had wild, frightened eyes. He watched the huge deckmother, Solemn Muffaz, discretely sorting those brought up from below. Some went to landward but the vast majority went to the seaward side of the ship. They were people of every creed and colour the Hundred Isles possessed, and he could make no sense of it: this was not the fruit of some raid where all were of one type, more like a deliberate gathering of all the island’s peoples.
Meas intercepted Joron on his way with Garriya to the sick and infirm, gently leading them both aside. “Garriya,” she said, “I trust Joron told you to bring what drugs you had that would let a poor wretch slip away?”
“Aye, Shipwife. Though I will save those I can.”
“Well, there may not be many. Solemn Muffaz has sent to landward those he thinks may survive, the rest, well” – she bit on her lip – “it is kinder to let them go than make them suffer.”
“Why kill—” began the gullaime but Meas’s hand shot out, closing round its beak.
“Squawk quiet, Gullaime,” she said. “I’ll not risk those that may live hearing what I say. They may not see it as the kindness it is if they have loved ones among those I send to die.” She let go of the gullaime’s beak and it twitched its head so it sat at an angle. Then, just above the rise and fall of the sea, Joron could hear what he thought were tiny squawks leaking from its beak.
“I don’t mean you have to be silent, Gullaime,” said Meas and the creature let out a cry of frustration, drawing all eyes to them.
“Strange creatures! Strange creatures. First be silent. Now be loud. Make no sense.”
“She does not wish the ill people to hear you, Gullaime,” said Joron, and the predatory curved beak whipped round so the painted eyes on the creature’s mask were fixed on Joron.
“Why bring Gullaime?”
“Because I need your help,” said Meas. “Now come, we will talk more below.”
As they entered the underdeck Joron and Meas once more tied cloths around their faces.
“Why do that?” asked the gullaime.
“The smell,” said Joron.
“Humans smell bad,” it said. Then they were down the stairs in the darkness and the almost unbearable stink. Meas swore, left them and returned quickly with a torch, and Joron wondered what had happened that she should forget something she needed. It was not like Meas.
“In here,” said Meas, pointing at the door before them, “are some of your people, Gullaime. They look as healthy as can be expected in this place, but I do not know why they are here.”
“To fly ship,” it said without looking at her.
“There’s a lot of them, for a ship like this,” said Meas. “And if that is the case, why were they not on deck when the ship was in trouble? No, there is a mystery here, Gullaime.” She held out the torch.
“For me?” it said.
“Yes. Judging by the way the humans have been treated on this ship I cannot imagine the gullaime have been treated any better, or will be too trusting of us. But seeing one of their own may help.” The windtalker curled its wingclaw and took the torch from her. Then it extended its neck so its head was directly in front of Meas’s face.
“Kill gullaime too?”
“They are your people; you will know when suffering is intolerable for them. So their fate is your decision.”
The gullaime kept its head utterly still and the flames licked around its neck, the air tainted with the smell of singeing feathers. If anything, an improvement.
“My people,” it said, and retracted its head to roost between its shoulders.
“Joron and I will be in the ship’s cabin on the deck, come to us when you are ready.”
The gullaime let out a squawk, almost deafening in the small room. “Go!” it said. “Not scare my people. Go!”
They turned and climbed the steep ladder back up the deck, Joron following Meas towards the cabin. The sides of the ship were now filling with bodies, many simply lying inert, eyes closed. Those with their eyes open stared blankly, as if blinded. It was small solace to Joron that the wind stole the smell of them away, and he pulled off the mask from his face. He had seen the poor and sick on the streets of Bernshulme, but they were not like this. They fought for life, just like all had to in the Hundred Isles. But these? Their fight was gone. The underdeck of this ship would forever be his image of what awaited those denied the warmth of the Hag’s bonefire, and he knew he would do anything to avoid such a fate.
Anything.
“In here,” said Meas, pushing open the ill-kept door of the shipwife’s cabin. Within, a woman was tied to a single chair, the shipwife’s desk had been pushed to the side and the white painted floor was spotted with blood.
“This is, or was, Caffis,” said Meas, “deckkeeper of the Maiden’s Bounty.” The woman was slumped forward, the front of her clothes black with blood.
“She was wounded in the fight?”
“Ey.” Meas did not look at him as he lifted Caffis’s head – a broken nose, smashed lips, bloodied and cut around the eyes. “But it was the beating that killed her.” She let time pass, its gentle waves lapping between them. “The beating I gave her, before you ask the obvious question.”
“Why?”
“Information,” Meas said. Left a gap in her speech for him to jump into, but he did not. “And anger,” she added, and he could hear it in the word. “Fury at what this ship had in its hold, at what she was part of.”
“I understand that, but you always say all lives are precious, crew is necessary.”
“I do.” She put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him backwards, gently. She let go of Caffis, her head falling forward, hiding her broken face.
“I would have thought you had seen slavers before. I know it is not allowed but . . .”
“This is not a slaver, Joron,” she said. “A slave, or a sacrifice, is valuable in the places that will buy them. Too valuable to transport like this.”
“Then what is this ship transporting?”
“I do not know. I had hoped she did,” Meas said, pointing at the corpse.
“But she didn’t?”
“No. She knew nothing. Her shipwife had all the details. They have made this journey twice before. They take these unfortunates from one ship, meet another at a different island each time. Any that still live are taken away onto that ship, the dead go overboard.”
“It sounds like slavery is the intention.”
“You have seen those on the deck. How much use would they be for work?” She did not wait for him to reply. “No, what they are being transported for, and why, remains a mystery.”
“What do we do now then?”
“We do one more sweep for this raider and then head back to Bernshulme. Answers will be there; the answers are always there. Indyl Karrad will know something; his spy network is far reaching.”