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.

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.”

“If we are not sent away again.”

“I have let my mother push us around too many times. I will do it no longer. I will find some reason for us to stay in Bernshulme and we will search. I did not want it to be true, Joron, but the papers the shipwife showed me, it did indeed look like my mother’s hand.” Her voice drifted away then she shook her head. “And to have so many gullaime, there has always been illegal trade in them, but only in ones and twos, never so many at once. I do not understand. Something is off, Joron, something—”

Her words were cut off by the gullaime storming in. “Windshorn!” it squawked,

“What?” said Meas.

“Windshorn!” it squawked again.

“I do not know what that means, gullaime,” she said.

The creature hopped from one foot to the other, slowly, and it almost seemed as if it hovered in the air for a moment between each step. Then its head orientated towards the corpse in the chair.

“That one not smell sick,” it said.

“What is windshorn, gullaime?” said Joron.

The windtalker clacked its beak at the corpse in the chair before turning back to them. “Some gullaime windtalk. Some gullaime windshorn.”

“Do you mean that they cannot control the weather?” said Meas.

“Wind. Shorn,” it said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“I did not know there was such a thing,” said Joron.

“Humans do not know gullaime,” it said. “Windshorn no use.”

“So,” said Meas, “we have a ship full of the sick and the useless, on their way to somewhere unknown.” If the woman in the chair had not already been dead Joron felt sure Meas would have hit her again – there was exasperation in her every movement. “It sounds like slavery, Joron, you are right. But if this ship really does come from my mother I cannot imagine it. She has many bad qualities but she abhors slavery. The idea someone else may profit from her people infuriates her.” She paced up and down the bloodied cabin floor. “We will return to Tide Child. Decide what to do there and sort out a crew for this ship.”

“Gullaime,” said Joron, “what should we do with your windshorn?”

Painted eyes stared at them.

“Kill all,” it said.