“Wear your . . .” Cahanny looked at him, then at Anzir. A smile crossed his face. “Well, let it not be said Mulvan Cahanny organises an unfair fight or passes over a chance for real amusement. Anzir, put on his boots.”
“They are too small,” she said.
“Do I need to cut off your toes then, so you know to obey my orders?”
She shook her head, hooked her sword on to her belt and took the boots from Joron. He watched as she sat down and forced her feet into them – it was plain they were a poor fit. He felt Meas behind him.
She whispered into his ear.
“I have always taught that if you cannot fight well, fight clever. This is cleverly done, Joron, but she will still be dangerous, so do not be overconfident. Force her to move a lot and when she falls, that is your moment.” He nodded. “One more thing.” He looked round at her and she slapped him hard across the face. “A little pain is good for clearing gossle from the system, Twiner, and you are plainly under its influence. Now, go to it. Fight well.”
Anzir stood and took a couple of steps, her balance off. Everything in Joron screamed at him to attack her straight away, the way he had with Meas when they first met. But she had not even drawn her sword yet, and he was sure that to attack before she was ready would mean neither him nor Meas ever left Boneship’s Rest.
“Unhook your blades,” said Cahanny. They obeyed, Joron’s arm feeling like something alien to him as it took on the weight of the curnow.
Opposite him Anzir unhooked her blade but did not move, only planted herself and waited, short blade in one hand, small shield on her other arm. He was tempted to test her, but Meas had moved around the circle so she stood behind Anzir, and as he took a step forward she shook her head. So Joron took a step back and waited. It was not a long wait. The expectant silence of the spectators changed to something else. First catcalls, then jeers as the two combatants stood, unmoving.
“Hag’s tits, Anzir,” came the shout from a woman in the crowd. “Finish him. It’s plain he barely knows one end of a sword from the other.” Anzir did not move, she simply watched him from deep blue eyes. Her hair was shorn close to the skull apart from three braids falling from the top of her head. The crowd started to chant her name.
Cahanny looked bored.
“Kill him, Anzir,” he said. “We do not have all day.” Anzir swallowed, and Joron knew she did not want to move, that she felt unsafe in the unfamiliar boots. But she had been given an order and, like any good soldier, she obeyed.
The woman went for a straight attack, reckoning on Joron’s lack of skill to let her in close to finish him. And she would have been right to do so – usually, but fear inhabited Joron, it set his nerves jangling and his legs and arms felt like they would jump from his body while at the same time he could not move. He was rooted to the spot, not by the woman’s advance – and she came on as death, deadly as the Hag’s judgement – but by Meas’s gaze.
Anzir’s sword came up.
Joron felt the Hag’s breath on the back of his neck.
The noise of the room rushing in his ears.
Meas’s mouth opened, and the command “Move!” danced in the air, a song between them.
That word gave permission to his frozen body to do what he wanted, as if it were the wind that made him fly. He leaped to the side. Anzir’s sword punched through the space in the air he had left, and she staggered forward, trying to right herself only to be betrayed by the boots. She could not keep her balance. Joron, with the speed fear lent him, was on her, bringing his curnow down on the back of her neck, but, at the very last, he pulled the stroke and used the flat of the blade rather than its edge. The impact knocked Anzir to the floor, and then his blade rested on her neck. The crowd’s screams for blood faded as Mulvan Cahanny started to clap – slow, single handclaps.
“Well, finish her then, Deckkeeper.”
“There is no need,” said Joron. “I have won. My father once told me a senseless death will follow you right to the bottom of the ocean for the Hag to see. So I will not cause one.”
“I will have a crowd with me when I meet the Hag then,” said Cahanny. “But this is your victory. Take it how you will.”
“I will have my boots,” he said to the woman on the floor. She rolled over, looked up at him and nodded. Joron turned to Mulvan Cahanny. “And now you will bring Black Orris to my shipwife. As you promised.”
“Aye.” Cahanny smiled. “Bring Black Orris then,” he said.
A man vanished into a back room and when he returned there was a large black bird on his arm.
“What is that?” said Joron.
“Black Orris,” said Meas.
“Hag’s tits!” squawked the bird.
They left Boneship’s Rest and made their way back to Fishmarket, Black Orris perched on Meas’s shoulder.
“I risked my life for a bird,” said Joron, an anger simmering within him as he pushed past the women and men of Bernshulme, eager and impatient to be about their business.
“Not just any bird, Twiner. Black Orris. Mevans would tell you he is lucky.”
“Arses,” said Black Orris.
“A foul-mouthed bird.”
“Your arses,” said Black Orris.
“Oh indeed,” said Meas. “None more foul-mouthed. He is a corpsebird, from the far northern isles. We picked him up when the Arakeesian Dread stopped there. Mevans taught him to talk, and the entire crew considered Black Orris a symbol of their ship.”
“It is just a bird,” said Joron.
“Arses.”
“Never, Joron Twiner, underestimate what morale can do for a crew. You look at Tide Child’s crew and you fear them. Rightly, I may add.” Meas threaded her way through the crowds. “They had no respect for you, still mostly don’t. But Black Orris will make those who believe a bird can be lucky – and many do – fight all the better. And among those of my old crew, though they may not be many now, when they find out you fought to bring Black Orris to them, well, they will feel much kindness towards you.”
“And how will they know?” said Joron. “I cannot tell them. It would be like I boasted, and all deckchilder hate a boaster.”
“Have you forgotten that we trail a new crew member?”
Joron glanced over his shoulder. He had indeed forgotten about Gavith; the boy barely spoke.
“He was outside.”
“No, he was not. The two on the door had no wish to miss a fight and brought him in with them. I am sure the boy will not be slow to tell the story of how he came aboard the ship, and of the fierce battle his deckkeeper fought to save Black Orris. How, despite most would think him outmatched, he fought anyway and won through his wits.” Meas stopped and turned to the boy. “Ey, Gavith? Will you do that?” The boy swallowed and nodded. “You do understand what I mean?”
“Yes, Shipwife. I am not to tell but I am to tell.”
“That is it,” she said. Then leaned in closer to him. “But if you ever speak of things you hear around the great cabin without my permission, I will have the skin corded from your back. You understand that too?”
The boy’s eyes widened. “Aye, Shipwife.”