Brand came forward, moving hand-over-hand along the starboard gunwale. He gripped the block-and-tackle crane like a lover and shouted, ‘Remember this morning, when I teased you about the wind?’
Sharr grinned. ‘Vaguely.’
‘Sorry about that.’
‘Fetch me a beer from that crate below and we’ll call it even.’
‘I would,’ Brand’s teeth were chattering, ‘but I’m afraid to let go.’
‘Here, then-’ Sharr took Brand’s hand and placed it on the helm, ‘keep us on this course and I’ll fetch them myself. Who’s for a drink, then?’
No one answered; Brand looked as though he was about to soil his leggings.
‘All right, beers all around it is then.’ Sharr disappeared into the galley, singing, ‘I know a girl and her name is Mippa. I bet you five Mareks she’ll give you a gripper!’ He returned a moment later and passed ceramic bottles to everyone.
Markus looked askance at his, then gripped the cork with his teeth, pulled it out and spat it over the side. He guzzled as much as he could stomach. Brand saw the moribund pallor fade from his friend’s face and decided to follow Markus’ lead, chugging nearly the entire bottle.
‘Better?’ Sharr asked.
‘Yes,’ Brand nodded enthusiastically, ‘surprisingly so!’
‘How about you, Stai-?’ Sharr froze. ‘Oh, rutters.’
Blanched and trembling, Stalwick stared straight ahead, his eyes unfocused. He gripped the beer bottle with one hand, squeezing until it shattered. Ceramic shards sliced into his palm; Stalwick didn’t notice.
‘Holy mothers!’ Markus cried, ‘what’s wrong with him?’
Stalwick collapsed, kicking and scratching in wild spasms, rolling across the deck until he came to rest in a foetal ball beside the miniature dory they’d lashed down that morning.
‘I bet it’s-’ Brand’s feet went out from under him and he landed hard on his back, sliding across the icy deck.
‘Help me get him into the cabin,’ Sharr ordered. ‘Markus, there’s a cot folded up against the forward bulkhead, inside the storage cubby – go and get it. Brand, drag him in here. Make sure he’s breathing, then unfurl that tarp. It’ll keep him a bit warmer. There are blankets in the third cupboard, the one beside the cooking pots.’
Brand crawled back to Stalwick, then half-dragged and half-pushed the unconscious man inside the little cabin. He found the oiled canvas tarp and unlashed it so it covered the doorway, shutting out some of the wind. The enclosed space quickly felt warmer.
‘He went like this before,’ Sharr said, ‘when Gilmour used him to warn us that the Malakasians knew we were coming.’
‘Listen closely, in case he says anything.’
Stalwick didn’t speak; he just lay on the cot, his mouth hanging open and his eyes askew, staring blindly up at the wooden ceiling.
The three men went back to the helm to confer.
‘We’ve got to go back,’ Markus said. ‘Who knows what this means?’
‘I told you: we can’t go back, not yet,’ Sharr said. ‘Just calm down; we’re out here at least until dawn when the tide turns.’
‘But-’
‘But nothing. Wind and water are against us and it would take more sailing skills than you two have combined to get us about and hauled close for Capehill. So as long as he’s breathing, we’ll give him a few moments and see if he wakes up. Brand, take the helm. Keep us right on this heading.’ He slid the binnacle open and showed him the compass. It was pointing east-northeast. ‘I’ll net us some fish for dinner, and then we’ll have a sailing lesson or two, just in case.’
‘But we’ve got dinner,’ Markus said plaintively. ‘We’ve brought plenty to eat.’
‘But this’ll give us something to do. Come on, Markus, I’ll bet you’ve always secretly wanted to learn how to sail, haven’t you?’
An aven later, as darkness fell, the three companions ate their fill of fresh-caught jemma and drank enough beer to numb their uncertainty. They had no idea what had befallen Stalwick; he was an inept soldier, but he was also the only one amongst them with even a copper Marek’s worth of mystical power. They all felt the same foreboding chill as they watched Stalwick breathe in shallow gasps, his hands frozen in ungainly claws and his eyes fixed half a world away.
Around middlenight, Sharr tossed Markus a blanket and ordered him to get some sleep. ‘Brand and I will take the first watch,’ he said. ‘You and he can trade in an aven.’
‘What about you?’ Brand said.
‘I’ll stay at the helm. The wind is dying a bit. If it drops more before dawn, you can keep us on course for a while and I’ll try to sleep, but I don’t want you two piloting in the dark. Who knows where we might end up?’ He laughed, wryly, trying to lighten the mood a little.
‘Fine with me.’ Markus ducked beneath the tarp curtain and curled up on the floor next to Stalwick’s berth. ‘See you in an aven,’ he called.
Markus traded places with Brand just before the predawn aven. The wind had fallen off and the Missing Daughter made her way through the diminishing swells like a pleasure boat on a summer sea. It was warm inside the cabin, with the tarp curtain still closed. Marcus had removed his oiled poncho and cloak; Brand did the same, wrapped himself in Markus’ makeshift bed and was asleep in moments, snoring lightly.
‘Where are we?’ Markus asked softly.
‘Off the northeast coast, moving along the outer banks.’
‘No sign of our carrack?’
‘Hard to say; the winds are down, the tide’s about to start running against us. That’s bad for sailing, but good for standing the middle watch. If she’s out here and her watchlights are burning, we ought to be able to see her. I haven’t checked aft in a while; I don’t normally keep that tarp unfurled, but with Stalwick and all, I figured I ought to keep it warm in there.’
‘Thanks for that. So what am I looking for?’
‘A ship that large will have a number of watchlights on deck: fore, aft and amidships, maybe even a few aloft. Downwind, you might even smell her galley, what they’re serving for breakfast. So basically, if you see anything that looks like glowing orbs of fire floating just above the water, that’s our whore.’ He yawned, stretching his shoulders and back. He had been standing over the binnacle, keeping them on course with the changing tide, but finally he gave up and sat in his captain’s chair.
‘One luxury, I see,’ Markus teased him.
‘I’m getting older,’ Sharr smiled. ‘Can’t be standing here all day and night.’
‘So where’s our bowsprit?’
‘I reefed it last aven.’
‘Over the water? In the dark? Alone? That was brave of you!’
‘Nonsense,’ Sharr said, ‘there are horses all the way out to the end – that’s the lines you stand on. When I was a whelp, I worked on a cutter with a naked bowsprit, not a footrope to be seen. Rutting Pragans, but that tested your courage, especially in the rain and ice. You learned balance in a hurry, no mistake, with one hand on the standing rigging, not to mention how to tie a half-hitch with one hand and the occasional toe.’
‘Ever lose anyone?’
‘We had a few that got dunked, but after a while we worked out we ought to be wearing safety lines.’ He sighed. ‘Took some of the adventure out of it.’
‘You want some tecan?’
‘No, let’s wait for first light. You’d have to climb over Brand to get in there, anyway.’
Markus sat down gingerly on a coil of rope near the helm started sniffing the wind, hoping for the scent of Malakasian breakfast: boiled greenroot and cabbage or something similarly disagreeable. From time to time he hauled himself to his feet and peered over the gunwale, but he found nothing.
After a quarter-aven, he rested his forehead on his knees, then gradually gave in to sleep.
Markus woke to Sharr shouting, ‘Get up, gods rut you raw, get up!’
He was on his feet in an instant, gripping the rail to keep from falling. ‘What? What’s the matter?’ he asked, still a little disoriented. ‘Is it the carrack?’