26

A Ship as Fleet as Could Be

Joron felt despair: once the adrenalin had drained away, once the mutineers were locked below, once he was back on the rump of the ship. To see Tide Child in such disarray felt like he had travelled backwards through time and once more become the man he had been so long ago. This was his fault. Had he paid more attention, had he thought more, had he been more attentive then he would have stopped this happening. But he had not. He had let Meas down. Let the crew down. Let the ship down.

A hand on his back, a brief brush, the smallest breeze.

“It is not your fault, Joron.”

He turned to find Dinyl, stood behind him at a respectful distance, the touch gone and his arms behind his back.

“I am Deckkeeper, Dinyl. It was my job to be aware and—”

“You were hurt, Joron. Sorely hurt, and then sorely tried. Meas does not expect miracles from us . . .”

“She deserves them.”

“Well,” he smiled, “she definitely believes that, but we cannot undo what is, Joron. We must work with what we have.”

Joron took a deep breath. Surveyed the ship before him: the blood, the bodies, the badly stowed rigging, the gallowbows whose beautiful scrimshaw had been graffitied over by the mutineers, the bottles lazily rolling across the deck.

“Right, you slatelayers,” he tried to roar, his voice betrayed him. But still, he was heard. “I’ll not have the decks in this state for when we meet the shipwife, get you to work. Clean up the rubbish, swab the blood away. I’ll have no sign of Cwell and her scum left on my ship.” He glanced into the sky, at scudding clouds kissed bright red as Skearith’s Eye broke the horizon. “Bring me the courser and bring me the gullaime. Set me full wings; we have a rendezvous with the shipwife and I’ll be no later than I must be!” And immediately all was action, no complaint, no raised voices. There were smiles and activity and women and men doing as he ordered. He saw Farys collecting weapons and taking them down to the armoury, saw Karring bringing up mops and buckets and behind him came Aelerin, who had remained below while the fighting took place, as was proper for a courser. And behind Aelerin came the gullaime, yarking and snapping at the windshorn who followed meekly behind it.

“Deckkeeper,” said Aelerin, “you wanted me?”

“Ey, Courser,” he said and there was none of the curiosity, none of the discomfort he had felt around them before. “I require your expertise and I require it quick. Do you know where we are?”

“Not exactly, D’keeper.” Was there enthusiasm, buried deep in their quiet voice? “But I have a good idea.”

“And how long have we been under the sway of the mutineers?”

“Six days, D’keeper.”

“So long,” he said. “I did not know.” A pain ran through him, a twinge from his back that caused an involuntary shudder and sweat to start from his forehead. It felt as though Tide Child lurched beneath him, but the sky continued to change slowly from red to pink and the black wings of the ship remained slack and windless.

“D’keeper?” said Aelerin, and he felt Dinyl stand closer, take his arm. He shrugged him off.

“Not in front of the crew, D’older,” he said under his breath. Dinyl nodded, stood away and it was as if the coldest of winds wrapped themselves about him. “I am fine, Aelerin. How long for us to reach Meas? How late will we be if the winds are good?”

“Seven days at best, Deckkeeper,” they said, “but I confess I dream only slight winds for us, and little hope of anything else.”

Joron nodded, felt the short hairs on the back of his neck beneath the thick tangles of his hair stand up, as if caressed by an icy breeze.

“Gullaime,” he said.

“Jo-ron Twin-er.” That slow, door-opening creak of a voice. Then the gullaime span on the spot and snapped its beak at the windshorn who followed it, keeping so low to the deck as to be almost flat. “Not want! Not want!” The world felt as though it spun around Joron, took on pastel colours and he took a step – one, two – so he could lean against the rearspine. “Joron Twiner?” said the gullaime softly. It took a step toward him. He held up a hand.

“I am well,” he said, but he was not well and he knew it. “Just tell me, how long can you keep us flying without hurting yourself?”

“Long on long,” it said, the noise of the words strident and loud, its head tilting from side to side as it spoke. It repeated, more quietly, “Long on long.”

“Good,” said Joron. “We must head toward the shipwife.” Was a storm coming? Was the world becoming darker? “We must meet her, she . . . She may need us.” A wave, a black wave that washed over the ship, blocking out the light, and when it passed and light returned he was on his knees.

“Joron,” said Dinyl, then he was shouting: “Farys! Barlay! Help me with the deckkeeper, call Garriya!”

Joron grabbed Dinyl’s arm. “Keep Tide Child on course.” Each word tore at his throat, his back burned, the sores on the tops of his arms itched. “Do not use all the gullaime has.”

“I hear your orders,” said Dinyl.

“Not orders,” said Joron, the darkness closing in. “A request of my friend,” he said. Then he knew nothing else.

“Caller?”

To move beneath the sea.

He dreamed unmoving beneath the sea.

Dreamed of a desperate want to glide through the water. Of frustration. Of being bound. He tried to fight, to punch his way free, to chew his way free, to escape the darkness which held him so tightly. Bound him so tightly. If sleep was the ocean he was drowning as surely as any deckchilder lost overboard in a storm.

“Caller!” A sharp sting against his cheek and the darkness receded, washed away like the tide down a beach, like water through pebbles. “Don’t you run from me, Caller,” said the voice. “I said events repeat themselves. Warned that you would find yourself here again. You have work to do, Caller, no running away for you.” The claustrophobia receded, the sound of waves washing against a beach became the sound of his breath, wheezing in and out of burning lungs.

“Garriya. . .” the name creeping from his mouth.

“Aye, that is me.” She mumbled to herself as she stared into his face, lifted his eyelids. “I have medicine for you to drink. All those fools and their foolishness opened the wound in your back again. All my good work undone. And you with so much work to do.”

“How long?” So thirsty, the words a light breeze.

“Two, three days maybe? The ship moves, your windtalker squats on the deck day and night, bells ring and disturb my sleep.” She moved away, shuffling across the white of the floor and only then he realised he was in Meas’s cabin. Panic seized him and he tried to move. But Garriya was quick across the floor, her old, gnarled hands pushing him back onto the hard bed.

“No, this is Meas’s . . .”

“Hush yourself, boy.” She patted his cheek. “I needed the room to work and if you think she would mind then I reckon you do not understand the woman at all.” Garriya stared down into his face. “She’s a practical one, aye?” He nodded. “She needs you, Joron Twiner, and so you will lie back and drink this.” She held up the cup and then leaned in close to him. “And I have other medicines for you, Caller, for I have seen the marks on your skin.” Shame burned within him. “I cannot stop the keyshan’s rot, boy; none can, nor its madness. But I can slow it.”

He nodded. “Tell no one.” The words burned hot in his mouth, brought tears to his eyes. “They will never trust an officer with the rot, will start to question every order I give if they know.”

Garriya stared into his eyes, her face a road map of age, her eyes almost buried within the weathered folds of her face.

“Do not underestimate them,” she said.

He grabbed her, his hand around her arm. It felt as thin and delicate as a bird’s wing.

“Tell no one.”

“As you wish, Deckkeeper,” she said. “Now drink this and rest.”

And he did, and he did.

When he awoke it was from a sleep so deep it had been dreamless, a loss of his entire consciousness to the deepest depths; and if he had seen the Hag, or drifted in that massive and powerful dream body, as he had done in dreams before, he had no memory of it. Neither did he have any memory of being moved to his own cabin, which had been whitewashed like the shipwife’s, the bowpeek propped open so he could see the grey water that Tide Child flew through. He ached, but it was not the burning ache of infection and when he moved he did not feel as if his back may rip open at any point. Even the sores on the tops of his arms seemed to itch a little less.

He wore a white shirt.

It was rare to see white clothes on a ship where every garment, no matter how colourful, seemed to exist on a trajectory toward the same grey as the sea. But his shirt was as white as the highest cloud on the warmest day – and just as soft. He slid his legs from the hammock, took a moment to test them, see how much of his strength had returned, and when he was sure they would take his weight, he stood. Groaned. Took a step.

The door to his cabin opened and Garriya stood there. Behind her in the gloom of the underdeck stood Farys and another deckchild, Karring.

“Up?” said Garriya. “About time.” He saw Farys’s eyes widen at the way the old woman spoke to him. “Well, will you laze about here or go check on your ship?”

“Yes,” he said. “I mean yes, I must check on the ship.”

“Your jacket, D’keeper,” said Farys, and she slipped into the cabin, presenting Joron with his blue uniform jacket, pressed and scrubbed and sewn with new feathers that caught the light. She slipped it onto Joron, waiting patiently as her deckkeeper hissed, feeling twinges in his back as he stretched to get his arms into the sleeves.

“You’re not good as new, Caller, so remember that,” said Garriya. “But you’ll heal now if you don’t do anything foolish.”

“I will try,” he said. He looked around him in the bright white cabin, past the cabin door the gloomy underdeck, lit by flickering wanelights. He felt that something was missing. He touched his hip, the space where his sword had been, but it was not that. That was an annoyance right enough, a thing to be avenged. This was different, a gap within him. A space beside him where something was missing. “Anzir,” he said to himself, and on saying it knew it was true. They had never really spoken much, never really shared anything of themselves. But she had always been there, like an arm, or a leg. Something ever present, but which you did not think about until you needed to use it. He coughed to clear the painful lump in his throat. “Farys,” he said, “thank you for bringing my jacket, but I will also need my boots.” Farys nodded. “And

my trousers,” he added with a small smile that seemed to take as much energy from him as standing had.

He made his way through the ship full of trepidation. How would he be received? He had shown weakness, made mistakes that had nearly lost the ship to mutineers, and had left loyal deckchilder dead or wounded. Then he had betrayed them all by letting Cwell live.

As he walked, with each difficult step, he thought of how he had proved Cwell right. He was no officer. He was simply a fisher’s boy, out of his depth on the deck of a fleet ship. Ill and weak. A man who had failed. What would Meas be thinking now? As she waited, her ship not where it should be? Her running out of stores, cursing her deckkeeper for failing her?

Out of the gloom, and onto the slate.

“Officer on deck!”

The words rang out and all action stopped. No scrubbing, no fixing, no painting, no oiling. Every face on the slate turned to him. What shame he felt. Dinyl, who had called out those words, was stood on the rump with Aelerin. Solemn Muffaz before them, Barlay at the steering oar. Could Dinyl know what a mockery it felt like to hear those words? Did he do it in purpose?

Joron took a step forward. The topwings flapped and chains jingled, but all else was silence. Another step forward. The deckchilder to either side of him stood, rope axes in their hands. They brought their arms across their chest in salute.

“D’keeper,” they said, heads bowed. And as he walked down the length of the ship their words and actions were echoed. Some avoided his eye. Some looked shy. Some smiled. Some looked proud and when he came to the rump Dinyl moved to one side.

“I have been minding your place, Deckkeeper Twiner,” he said. “I am right glad you are back. The ship is yours once more.”

He looked down the deck. Knew what Dinyl said was right. This crew – oh, not as many as there had been, barely enough to work the ship. But, Mother bless them all, they really were his. He remembered how he had sworn once that he would take back command of this ship from Meas. Remembered the sand burning and cutting his feet. Remembered the shame he felt at having his command taken away. And as he stood there on the rump between Dinyl and Aelerin, he knew what Dinyl said was true. The mutiny, his wounds, these had not cost him respect – instead they had built him up. This crew would follow him. He was not sure when it had happened but he had become, in their eyes, a truly worthy officer, and though he searched for them, there were no sly looks, no sneers.

“Thank you, Deckholder,” he said, and turned to the women and men on deck. “Well, what are you standing around for? I’ll have no slatelayers on my deck. The shipwife is expecting us. Set all the wings, make all speed.”

His words were met with a roar of approval and the crew sprang to their job. Black wings fell to catch the wind, the gullaime was called from below and it sprang onto the deck, yarking and calling and spitting at the windshorn that followed it. With the gullaime came more wind and a sense of purpose. Black Orris fluttered down to perch on Joron’s shoulder.

“Arse!” called the bird and Joron found himself stifling a laugh as joy bubbled up within him and Tide Child pushed through the ocean, his beak cutting the waves as if he had found new life and new purpose.