“Maybe, but it is too far for eyes alone. I did think I saw movement, D’keeper, and colour.”
“Take up your flags, Farys, and signal to them, ‘Repeat last sent.’’’
“Ey, D’keeper.” She grabbed red and blue flags from where they were tied against the mainspine and then, without even seeming to think of the danger, climbed the final height of the spine until she stood, her feet finding impossible seeming purchase on the rope that ran twice around the bound varisk stalks. There she held out her arms and became the tallest point on the ship, flags extended, red to seaward, blue to landward, then signalled as Joron had requested. Once finished she sent again, and Joron switched his gaze from the girl and centred the nearglass on Snarltooth. Swiftly the signal came back: “Lost a topstay. All good now. Station resumed.”
“Well,” said Joron, “nothing too dramatic, ey? Keep your eyes on the water, Farys. Nothing would please me more than for one of my crew to be first to spot the wakewyrm.” The girl smiled, puckering the burned skin of her face, and he wondered when he had first started to think of her, Karring and Old Briaret as “his” crew.
“It’s real then, D’keeper?”
“So we are told, Farys.”
She nodded and it was enough for her that he said it. His words made the thing real and she did not question them.
Joron made his careful way down the spine and Farys resumed her watch. When Joron returned to the deck it was to find his body had relaxed slightly and his mind was less weighed down. He hoped that those seeing him, as Skearith’s Eye opened above and the day began to blaze, would think he had stood this way all night, sure in his command and his decisions.
Meas appeared from the underdeck, two-tailed hat and clothes as perfect as if she had just bought them. Behind her came Narza and behind her was Anzir, who took up station by Joron.
“I hear we lost a ship in the night,” said Meas.
Joron felt his shoulders tighten once more.
“Ey, Shipwife,” he said, handing over the nearglass.
“It would have been no trouble for you to wake me for such a thing – many would have.” She tucked the nearglass inside her jacket. The wind ruffled her sash of red and blue feathers and Joron waited for a rebuke. “But you did not,” she said, “and your decision was a good one.” He let out the breath he had been holding. “Now get some sleep.”
“Thank you, Shipwife.” He leaned in close to her. “Cahanny smuggles arakeesian bone in the hold.”
She nodded.
“I thought as much.”
“And I am not sure Coughlin and his men can be trusted. They have some bond with Cwell, and she sees an opportunity in the wakewyrm.”
Meas nodded again.
“That does not surprise me. Cwell has the tattoo of the dock families, like Cahanny. I will think on this. It may be as well to give Cwell the impression her opportunity will come. Keep quiet about this for now.”
He nodded and headed belowdeck.
When Joron woke the motion of the ship had changed. Tide Child no longer coasted through slack seas; the ship shuddered and bucked. It was not alarming, not like the Northstorm had bared its teeth, more like when a cart moved over a rutted path. But the motion, a chill in the air and a freshness in the underdeck was enough to tell him the weather had changed in the hours he had spent unconscious, and it had not changed for the better.
On deck it was not as warm nor as clement as it had been. He emerged from the underdeck to see Cwell, followed by Hasrin and Sprackin, dragging a rope between them, heading for the mainspine. A chill ran through him as the wind attempted to rip the one-tailed hat from his head, and he had to make a swift grab for it, pulling it tighter over his wiry hair. The ship tilted as wind filled the mainwings, heeling Tide Child to seaward. Above the sound of the wind as it whistled through the rigging he made out a chorus of human misery, retching and moaning. The seaward rail was crowded with Cahanny’s men once more.
The ocean beyond them, the ever-changing mirror of water, had taken on some of the Hag’s temper. No longer the blue-green, smoothly swelling landscape that had gently chivvied Tide Child along, now it was grey, and its smoothness had been replaced by angular waves that bit and sniped, crossing and recrossing one another. The forespine of Tide Child, which stuck out well over the beak, carved spirals in the air as Joron stared along it. All this was nothing to him, for he was a fisher’s boy and of the sea, and its many moods and movements were like sithers and brothers to him – he knew them intimately. Meas stood on the rump of the ship, looking out over the ashen sea towards where, far over the horizon, Skearith’s Spine rose stark and black from the water.
“Good aftan, Deckkeeper,” she said as he approached. She did not need to look round; she recognised him through his tread.
“Aftan, Shipwife.” He followed her gaze. Though the sky above was blue, the first hint of cloud gathered in the distance.
“Cloud from the east, Twiner, and I like it not. When the Northstorm kisses the Eaststorm, its children always bring rain.”
“A deckchild is often lost on a slippy deck,” he said. “Seakeep!” Fogle, came running, bent at the waist due to some deformation of her spine.
“Ey, D’keeper?”
“Rain is in the offing. Bring up sand for the decks; we’ll have no one slip overboard.”
“Ey, D’keeper,” she said, and under her breath, “As it was my intentions anyways.”
Joron let the woman go, pretending he had not heard her speak. He had come to respect Meas’s choice of seakeep. All aboard said that although Fogle was very odd indeed, she knew the running of a boneship like few others. There had been no sign of the drunkenness that had worried Meas either.
“You let her get away with that?” said Meas under her breath.
“What was it you said of Coxward, Shipwife? That you allow a skilled man some slack?”
“Only a little mind.” He thought he heard the hint of a smile in her voice as she gazed out over the water.
“Ey, only that.”
“I worry about more than losing crew overboard, Joron. A little rain will cut our visibility by a third, heavier rain by half. Any more than that, and we will have to lay up at seastay and wait it out or risk missing the wakewyrm altogether.’
“Turning the glass!” came the call from behind them.
“Tell of the sea, Topboy!” shouted Meas into the rigging.
“Ship rising to seaward, ship rising to landward, Shipwife. All else is clear.”
Meas nodded.
Joron was staring up.
“Was that Farys?”
“Ey, Deckkeeper, it was.”
“Has she been up there all night?”
“Says you expect her to sight the arakeesian first, and will not come down.”
“I did not mean—”
“An officer must be careful about what they say to those who respect them, Joron.”
He did not know how to answer that, for none had ever respected him before.
Sand slid through the glass.
“Her eyes must be tired, Shipwife. You could order her down.”
“She is young. Her eyes will be good for a while yet, do not worry. And I would not order her down, for if the wakewyrm is spotted by another aboard Tide Child she would feel as if she let you down. Give her ten more turns of the glass, Joron, and then go up and order her to deck, gently mind. Then it is your choice and she cannot let you down.”