“Ey, Shipwife.” Quiet words spoken by a man with a crooked smile on his face, as if remembering long-ago glory.
Meas shook her head.
“Mevans,” she said to her hatkeep, stood at the end of the line nearest to her. “Did that sound like a crew who wishes to loose its bows?”
“It did not, Shipwife.”
“If you would like to loose the bows,” said Meas, louder, “then I need to hear it. Do you want to loose the bows?”
“Ey, Shipwife!” Now they all called; even resentful Cwell looked interested.
“Shout it like you mean it!”
“Ey, Shipwife!” thundered across the deck, and as they shouted they smiled, glancing and grinning at one another.
“Good. Now, Joron, you will join Dinyl, Barlay and Farys. Barlay, tie off the steering oar – we are unlikely to run into anything out here.” She went among the deckchilder, choosing three other teams and sending the rest of the crew to mind the ship and keep the wings trimmed. “While you work,” she shouted to those disappointed souls who were not chosen, “do your best to watch as it will be your turn later, and I will expect you to be ready.”
She returned once more to the rump of the ship and addressed the six bow teams. “The bow before you is tied down – we call it trussed. You may hear a trussed bow referred to as a bird. There are three commands to untruss a bow. ‘Knot!’ is the first. You untie the ropes that tie the bow to the legs. We call the bow and loosing-shaft the body. Be careful, for the body is heavy, the winding mechanism and loosing triggers are not balanced and are as dangerous as any club used in anger. When I shout, ‘Knot!’ one of you will untruss the body. Two, and I advise the strongest two, will hold the body.” She glared up into the fierce light of Skearith’s Eye as if waiting for a sign, but none came and she continued. “The next command is ‘Lift!’ After the trigger and winder on the body you will see there is a bulge – that is the socket. Those holding the body will pull it up, bringing the winding mechanism and trigger up and over the legs. Let the weight of the body pull it down. The next-strongest member of your team should be ready to catch the heavy end and help until the socket lies over the gimbal at the top of the legs.” She smacked the gimble joint that sat at about the height of her chest. “Then pull the body down so the socket locks over the gimbal. This brings down the locks around the gimbal and forces the arms out. Once the retaining pins” – she held up two varisk pins, each about as thick as two fingers – “are in, the bow is in place and balanced. You understand?”
The woman and men watching nodded.
“Good. The last command is ‘String!’ You run the cord from the seaward arm through the spinner, through the trigger mechanism, making sure the grippers bite, then to the landward arm. Lock the cord in the cincher and twist it tight. Generally these commands will come from your bowsell, but today we make it a race so you jump to my command. Are you ready?”
“Ey, Shipwife!”
“Then to your bows.” She waited until the four teams were standing at each of the great bows on the landward side of the ship.
“Knot!”
Joron let Farys dart in while Barlay and Dinyl grabbed the main shaft of the bow. The knots came loose easily in Farys’s nimble fingers, and she pulled the rope free. From the corner of his eye Joron saw the look of surprise on Dinyl’s face as the body seemed to come alive in his hands, its great weight eager to crash down, but with the assistance of Barlay he held it steady.
“I had forgotten how heavy they are,” said Dinyl, sweat starting on his brow.
From further down the deck Joron heard a dull thud, and as he took the rope from Farys, winding it around the keeper at the bottom of the legs, he glanced down the slate to see a woman laying supine on the deck, blood pooling round her head.
“Someone get her to the hagshand below,” shouted Meas. “You will lose people in battle, so this is not a reason to stop. We carry on.”
The next order came.
“Lift!”
Barlay and Dinyl pushed up the body of the bow, bringing the winding and trigger mechanisms over while Farys kept low and Joron, his stomach aching at the thought of the damage the weapon could do to him if he mistimed his actions, made a grab for the end of the bow. The handles on the spinner moved aimlessly with the body’s movement, making Joron’s job harder, but he managed. When the main part of the bow was almost flat, he let it slide towards him until the socket lay above the gimbal ball, but it did not click into place as Meas had promised.
Barlay glanced at Dinyl, unsure what to do.
“There is an old trick, Oarturner.” Dinyl grinned. “If we pull the bow arm out a little then get in so we can put our backs to the bow and push out, it will slip on to the gimbal far more easily. But we have to do it together.”
“Be quick,” said Joron. “It’s heavy.”
They nodded, counted to three and, together, pulled the bow arms out and slid in behind, using all their strength to push the arms out until they locked behind the holding pins. Joron felt the body shudder as it fell and the locks engaged around the gimbal. Farys slipped in and fixed the retaining pins. At that moment the bow turned from something wild that could lash out and smash bones and bodies into something tame. Balanced on the gimbal it could be guided with one hand and would stay exactly where it was aimed.
“String!”
This was the command that had tripped them at Corfynhulme. But without the panic of battle and with the ship stable beneath them, it was relatively easy. Joron stepped back; Dinyl passed the cord to Farys, who quickly threaded it through the spinner and the trigger mechanism before passing it to Barlay, who slipped it through the other arm of the bow and cinched it tight so the two arms of the bow quivered, ready to loose at the enemy.
“Now,” shouted Meas, “we do the same but backwards. Watch your hands as we do this. It is an easier task to put the bow to sleep, but even a sleeping beakwyrm bites.”
And that was how they spent the morning. Ever-changing teams practising the routine of trussing and untrussing the gallowbows until their palms bled from the run of the cords and their shoulders ached from the weight of the firing shafts. But it felt like good work. And when it was coming up on time for them to eat, Meas set them in races against one another, and Joron was pleased to find that, although his team did not win, they came in the top six and so would be one of the first to loose in the afternoon.
Earlier he had wondered what they would loose at, but the longer Coxward and his crew of bonewrights worked with the flotsam on the deck the more obvious it became.
They were building a target.
They ate pinstew, named for the bones of the dried fish that was its main ingredient. The fish was heated over peat in a gelatinous gravy made from boiled bird bones and root vegetables, served with a piece of hard black bread as big as strong man’s fist and a cup of anhir watered with the juice of the vin fruit.
Once they had eaten and the tables were stowed away, the decks were cleared as if for action. The bonewrights busied themselves in the underdeck, removing the many screens that cut it up into compartments to give some privacy to the underdeck officers; hammocks were rolled up and tied against the inner sides of the hull to provide some protection from flying bone shards; and as all of this went on the sense of excitement aboard Tide Child grew and grew. Grown deckchilder capered and laughed like children; friendships that had soured were remade, and by the time Meas called them together on the maindeck the ship was fairly alive with anticipation. The only sour note came from Coughlin and the rest of Cahanny’s men, who sat apart from the crew and, though invited, chose to have nothing to do with the exercising of the bows.