“Do you swim, Oarturner?” Joron said, and he knew the moment the words had left his lips he sounded hesitant. She glanced at him, then took the two steps needed to be just that little too close.
“No, Deckkeeper,” she said, “I do not, but Karring there” – she pointed at a man who looked more bone than flesh – “he swims like he was born in the water.”
“Thank you, Oarturner,” he said. Barlay nodded, and was it his imagination or was there a little less hatred in the woman’s fleshy face? “Barlay, there is a girl, a friend of Old Briaret.”
“Farys, aye. I know of her.”
“Well, it seems Old Briaret and Hilan were her only friends, and now they are gone. She could sore do with a friend, I think.”
“Do you order it?” said Barlay, her words as still as slacktide. Joron wondered what to do. He should order it – to not do so was to give away some of his authority, and Meas had warned him he spoke for her.
But she had also told him he must navigate these waters himself.
“No,” he said, “I do not believe a friendship can be forced.”
Barlay stared at him then took a step back.
“I have the rump of the ship to clear,” she said.
“Of course,” replied Joron, feeling he had somehow failed again.
Then Barlay glanced back him.
“I’ll look to the girl,” she said. “But Briaret may yet survive. She’s a tough one.”
“She lives?”
Barlay nodded, some faint condemnation there that he did not know this?
“Ey, she is in the hagbower with the hagshand. He says she may live.”
He nodded, as if he knew.
“Thank you, Oarturner.” He approached Karring. “Barlay says you can swim like you were born to the sea.”
“Ey, D’keeper.” The man did not look at him. He wore only loose trousers and a scarf wrapped around his head which hid his hair. The skin of his body was as dark as Joron’s own.
“From the Broom Isles, are you?”
“Ey D’keeper.” The man still did not look at him.
Joron wondered why but did not pursue it.
“Well, they breed good swimmers there, I have heard. The shipwife wants to know how fast we are held. Could you look for her?”
“Ey,” said the man, but the look of terror that crossed his face gave Joron pause.
“You do not wish to do this?”
“I will swim happily, fer the shipwife, D’keeper, happy as the Maiden’s lovers, but ’tis the beakwyrms, see. They hang about a ship and there’s longthresh too.” At the mention of the predators he swallowed, looked away. “With all these corpses about, see. They will be down there.”
Joron took a step back, the thought of being under a ship, in the dark and unable to breathe while being attacked by beakwyrms or longthresh, filled him with terror. Could he send a man to do something he would never do?
“D’keeper.”
He turned. Another deckchild, a woman he did not know.
“Yes?”
“On Shellhulme we gather shells for decoration, and they fetch a good price.”
He stared at the woman, unsure of why she told him this.
“And?”
“Well, D’keeper, the beakwyrms and longthresh often gather where the best diving is, see.”
“So you have to deal with them?”
“Aye.”
“And how is this done on Shellhulme?”
“We kill one, D’keeper, or wound it badly. The others fall upon it and you will have time to send down your swimmer.”
“Well, gather some spears then,” he said, “and some deck-childer. We have a beakwyrm to kill.”
“We may not need to go that far, D’keeper,” said another deckchild, “with all the bodies in the water. If we chop up a few away from the ship, the blood will bring the beakwyrms.”
He turned back to the woman from Shellhulme. “Will that work?”
“Should, I reckon. A beakwyrm don’t care what it eats as long as it eats.”
“Like you, eh, Torfy?”
Joron ignored the speaker and the laughter that followed. “We should bring aboard any bodies near Tide Child, and leave the ones further out floating; it would be good to damage them a little more though.”
“Ey, the more blood the better, we will still need the spears, ey? Get ’em good and bleeding?”
He gathered a small group and handed out spears for them, and it seemed to Joron that puncturing the corpses of the raiders brought a disproportionately large amount of joy to his crew. It was not long before the beakwyrms appeared from under the ship, spinning through the water toward the blood, and following them came longthresh, sinister white shapes swimming away from the shadow of the ship.
He turned to Karring.” Right, over the other side. Quick as you will.” As the man climbed the rail Joron stopped him, holding him by the top of his arm. “Get as much information as you can. The shipwife is not one for a job half done, but all know that, right?” He heard a chorus of “ey” from around him. “But if you see the wyrms or the thresh, forget it and come back up with what you have. The Hag has had enough of us today. Understand, Karring? I have no wish to annoy her by crowding her pyre any further.”
The man nodded, gave him a brief grin and went over the side. Joron turned back to the group of spear throwers feeling like he had done well and saw Meas at the other end of the ship, watching him, unsmiling.
He made his way up the ship towards her, any joy within him withering as he walked.
“We lost twenty-two, Shipwife,” he said. “I have sent a man over the side to check the keel and see how hard fast we are.”
“It’s too many,” she replied. “We can’t crew a ship this size with only fifty, and the boneglue is cracked right across the hull. We’ll need to work the pumps day and night if we’re to make it back to Bernshulme.”
“We go to the capital then?”
“Where else would we go? This ship will need work to make him seaworthy and crew to make him fly. Bernshulme has the best of both.”
“Shipwife,” he said, wondering how she could not have realised the truth of her position, “we are a ship of the dead. Maybe in a quiet port with little work we may get some repairs, but Bernshulme? The whole fleet will stand in line before us.”
Her eyes were as grey as a sky before rain.
“I still have some friends, Deckkeeper.”
“But . . .” He did not finish because her eyes would not let him. The fury that he had felt burning within her, contained by her muscular frame, was ready to leap from her. He did not want to be the one that was scalded.
“Of course, Shipwife.”
She nodded.
“Joron Twiner, is there some reason you have no wish to return to Bernshulme?”
“No, Shipwife.” And bitter words slid from his mouth: “You own me. You command the ship, and I go where you say.”
“Good,” she said. “Good.” And then she turned away from him.
Of course, he had very good reasons for never wanting to set foot in Bernshulme again, and he could not shake the feeling she knew exactly why. He wondered what she would do with such knowledge. What she would do with him.