“That is what we do,” said Cwell. “We fight the Gaunt Islanders.” She turned to look into the faces of the crew. Joron could not read them. They looked uncomfortable, that was true, but were they uncomfortable with what Meas said or that Cwell challenged her? Cwell walked up to Meas, standing tall before the shipwife. “Fighting Gaunt Islanders is what we do.”
“It need not to be,” said Meas. “The wakewyrm is the last arakeesian. In the far north, where the water is too deep and dangerous to recover the body, we are to kill the beast.” There was more shock at that than at the mention of working with Gaunt Islanders. “We carry the right weapon, an old and fabled weapon. One shot is all we need and then we let the corpse sink. The wakewyrm is the last one, the wars will stop.”
Cwell took a step closer to Meas.
“If it is the last, we should take it for the Hundred Isles. The advantage would let us wipe out the Gaunt Islands.”
“It does not work that way,” said Meas. “Ships are taken and bone can be smuggled. No. The beast dies – it is the only way.”
“I may be a murderer,” said Cwell, and she turned to the crew, “but she is a traitor! A traitor!”
Would they turn on Meas? Joron could not tell. Maybe either the death of the keyshan or working with the Gaunt Islanders would have been accepted. But both? Was that too much? There were whispers. Tools were picked up from the deck as if to use as weapons. Was the fight lost before it had even started?
Barlay stepped forward, and as it was rare she chose to speak all action stopped. All talk stopped.
“Gaunt Islanders took my boy,” she said. “Took him to sacrifice for their ships. He were not even whole – born with half a leg he were. I wanted him to be a shoemaker on Hoppity Street.” She smiled then, a pleasant memory blowing across her face. It quickly passed and the storm followed. “They probably fed his blood to their ships, I reckon, maybe even those ones out there, that we head towards.”
“See, Shipwife?” Cwell turned Meas rank into a sneer. “And you want us to be friends with these people.” She turned her back on Meas. “This woman who calls herself Shipwife, she has lied to us. She has made us into betrayers. All know you get off a ship of the dead by doing some great deed. This could be our great deed, women and men of Tide Child. We can work together.” She pointed at the deck, her hand shivering with anger. “We can remove a traitor from the slate of this ship. We can bring home the body of an arakeesian to the Thirteenbern. We will get rid of our black bands and become rich!”
“You have mistook me, Cwell,” said Barlay. “What the ship-wife says is if there are no more arakeesians, there are no more bones. And if there are no bones there will be no more great ships. Varisk is too brittle, Gion is too soft for the big ships, and all know if it ain’t got keyshan bone in it, then the Hag will take it. That is what the shipwife says – says women and men will not be able to raid or war. Says there will be no more children taken.” She turned back to Meas. “That is right, is it not, Shipwife? I am right?” Her face was screwed up as if she fought, as hard as she may fight any physical opponent, to see past the world she knew into the possibility of another one.
“You are right, Barlay,” said Meas. “That is what I dream of. That is why I stand on this deck with you. And I do not think I have ever heard any put it better than you.”
“You do not stand with us,” said Cwell. “You call yourself Shipwife, and put yourself above us. We are just Berncast to you. We are the twisted and the weak, and good only to serve.”
“I lead, that is right enough,” said Meas, “and I enforce discipline, for a ship will not work without it. But I stand among you, not above you. And is Joron Twiner good only to serve? His mother died bringing him to the world. They call him Berncast, say he is only a fisher’s boy.”
“Fine words,” said Cwell, “yet you wear boots and we go barefoot. What do you say, Barlay?”
Barlay glanced at her, then her head turned to Meas. Her gaze travelled down the shipwife’s body to her shoes. Then to her own bare feet. She stood stock still apart from her head, which moved slightly, nodding to herself. Then she lashed out, her fist catching Cwell on the chin and knocking her unconscious. She stared at the body of Cwell.
“You can’t climb rigging with boots on, fool,” Barlay said to the unconscious body before her. “If the shipwife dreams of a world where children are not taken and raids are not made, then I say” – she looked to her left and her right – “that is a world worth fighting for, no matter who we must fight or who with. But more than that – Farys, Mevans, Old Briaret, Karring, Solemn Muffaz, Anzir, and I can name many more – we have learned to trust the shipwife, ey?”
“Ey.” This from well over half the crew and almost together.
Meas nodded.
“Very well. And I am right proud to have you with me, Barlay.” She turned on the spot. “Proud of the whole crew. But I know I ask a lot, and I will not force any of you to follow me through Keyshanhulme Sound. Any that do not wish to come may take a flukeboat. Do it now.” She waited, but none came forward. “Very well. Then we must get ready to fight. The arakeesian swimming below us will no doubt be the cause of some uncomfortable questions from the Gaunt Islanders on watch, so be ready when we enter Keyshanhulme Sound. I want most of you in the underdeck. We must look like a ship manned by a prize crew, not a ship of war. If, and when, the time comes to fight I will call you. Do not worry – none will miss out.” She smiled. “Apart from Cwell, as she will be locked in the brig. Solemn Muffaz, if you could see to that.”
Laughter at that, and a strange sense, not of joy, but of rightness. That this was the way the crew believed things should be, that Meas would tell them what to do and she would tell them right, that she would call upon them if needed and in return they expected she would take care of them. That she had thought to fly the Gaunt Islands flag, that she would think how to attack and to defend and do her best to keep them safe. At some point this crew of the violent and the lost had decided that Meas could be trusted, and if she kept her side of the bargain then they would keep theirs. It was an odd thing, thought Joron, to find a purpose in such a dark place as a black ship.
He leaned over the rail and stared at the huge body gliding through the water below. This creature from legend was what bound them together, and Meas had used it to create a crew unlike any other in the Hundred Isles.
Had she known when she found him?
That he was born Berncast?
That she could use that when the time came?
Did she plan so far ahead?
And if so, where was his resentment? Where was his promise to take the two-tailed hat from her? Joron took a deep breath of sea air, fresh with the scent of the mountains they flew past. He laughed quietly to himself. His promise had been left a hundred thousand shiplengths behind, along with the bottles of drink and a version of himself he no longer wanted to think about.
He turned from the keyshan, saddened that it must die.
“Sound in view!” The call came from above.
“All below except bowteams one to five,” shouted Meas. “We will work the ship. Mainwings only on the spines.” Women and men climbed the rigging, brought in the unwanted wings, and Tide Child slowed. As if sensing it was part of the convoy, the arakeesian slowed too, letting the ships pull ahead.