Chapter 15 #2
“Back home in Kirkrell, our needs are growing,” I go on when the stretching silence starts to feel too long. “We must find new hunting grounds if we are to sustain them.”
“I don’t wish to relitigate here the discussions I have had with your father,” Lady Kata says, and I dearly wish I could ask Papa what those discussions entailed.
Her voice isn’t harsh, but serious, and I can tell that each word is carefully chosen.
“But for the good of your people, I urge you to take a hard look at the difference between your people’s needs and their wants.
” Her eyes move from the Heralder to me.
“Or indeed, between the people’s wants and those of the Fairfax Whaling Company, and finally between the company’s wants and your own. ”
Discomfort pricks at me. I shift my gaze from the sea to the city, sloping up above us.
It’s sleepier than the wharf. The roads appear too rough for horses and carriages; people walk and lead donkeys here and there.
Children play in the streets and dart between the small, low-slung buildings.
“How do your people survive winters here without whale magic?” I ask Kata.
“It’s a lean time,” she says, “to be sure. But we gather together; we don’t leave anyone out in the cold or let them go hungry. It’s when people get lost, when they venture farther than they ought in the wilderness, that things become dangerous.” She casts a meaningful glance at the Heralder.
“You think we’re venturing farther than we ought.
” I keep my voice neutral to mimic hers.
I want to know what she thinks, this leader who chose to speak to me over August. Months ago, working with August to plan the journey of the Heralder, I believed in its mission just as much as he did.
But my faith has been fractured again and again.
“Even our finest oarsmen do not venture into the northernmost waters of the Sidhae for the hunt,” Kata says.
“Just as you and I desire a safe home to retreat to at the end of the day, shielded against the dangers of the world, so too do the Livyati and the Folk. Breach that sanctuary and they will lash out.”
“We’ve taken measures against that,” I say, echoing the familiar talking points. “Iron reinforcing our ship, weapons for the crew.”
That’s not the point. Kata knows it and I know it.
But she lets me finish speaking. “Just so,” she replies at length.
“I know that the Fairfaxes of Kirkrell will do as they see fit. I am not trying to dissuade you from your path. But as our peoples are friends, I warn you as a friend that things may not go as you expect.”
My stomach clenches. “Can we continue to count on your friendship?” Commercial relations with Nulusk have not been at the top of my mind with everything else happening. But they’re still something I must attend to in case I survive this voyage.
“The people of Nulusk are not against you,” Kata says, bestowing a smile on me that though faint feels warm and real.
But then it slips away. “But we will not cross the finfolk. We have survived this long only by respecting the Folk and the deities of the sea. If they require it of us, we’ll have no choice but to close our ports to Fairfax Company whalers. ”
A shiver runs beneath my skin as I’m struck by how her words comport with Silas’s warnings. War with the finfolk. “I understand.” If such a war were to come to pass, closed Nunak ports would be the least of our concerns.
“What do you call your sea gods?” Kata asks. “Your warring lord and lady of the waves?”
“Oh—” They’re not really my gods, but I know to whom she refers. The sea gods from Mama’s stories, the ones Kit likes reading about. “Thala and Haelgrim, that’s what we call them in Abbonish.”
“Then,” she says, too seriously for my liking, “may Thala and Haelgrim look kindly upon you.”
This far north, the changing season seems to wage a daily battle with the unending cold. It was only chilly when we arrived this afternoon, the ice and snow still on the ground but melting in the springtime sun.
But the sun finally set, and now it’s eleven bells and hard to forget we’re most of the way to the arctic when every time the tavern door opens, a gust of cold wind whips through. Maybe that’s why everyone seems so eager to get drunk, to keep warm.
I’m nursing a tankard of berry cider as slow as I can, leather gloves shielding my hands from the cold glass, sitting at a table with my siblings and the Whistler crew while keeping one eye on the table across the room.
There, Mance sits surrounded by a coterie of Heralder men.
August went to bed half an hour ago. All I have to do is outlast Mance and the Heralder crew, and then Lydia and the Whistler crew and I can sneak out to the docks and onto the Heralder to free the prisoner.
I’m only half paying attention to the conversation at this table until I realize that the Whistler crew seems to have invited my brother along with them for some unspecified future voyage.
“What are you good at?” Silas asks my brother seriously, like he’s interviewing a new sailor at the countinghouse.
Kit, with a mug of hot chocolate leaving a brown mustache on his upper lip, beams at the question. “Lots of things. Reading, and arithmetic, and jacks, and singing, and recitation…” He trails off and ducks his head, apparently out of ideas.
“Those are all important skills,” Silas says gravely. “Especially singing. It gets morose on the Whistler sometimes. We could use someone to lead us in shanties and keep our spirits high. What songs do you know?”
I meet Lydia’s eyes and fight down a cough as she smirks, both of us knowing that Kit’s favorite songs, inexplicably, are the slow, solemn, and stern hymns from church, the ones meant to remind us of our sinful nature and the brevity of this life.
Sure enough—“‘Pity the Afflicted, for Thou Too Are Mortal,’” my brother ventures.
Silas blinks. “A good song, but whalers don’t have to be reminded that we’re mortal. Do you know anything more … optimistic?”
Kit thinks about it for a moment. “‘Our Joy Lies Beyond the Grave’?”
Silas blinks. “Great.” He looks at Teuila to my right. “Your job is to teach him more songs. Nothing bawdy.”
“What does bawdy mean?” Kit asks keenly, eager for Silas’s approval.
Silas coughs, a sound suspiciously like a suppressed snort, and turns to Lydia. “What about you? Do you dream of sailing?”
Lydia looks up. When she first learned Silas was finfolk, she was angry. When Papa said we’d have to do hard things, I don’t think he meant allying with our oldest enemy.
But she was still angrier when I told her about the prisoner in the hold. It seems I’m not the only one whose sympathies are shifting.
She looks at the others, and then her gaze lands on me. “Maybe,” she says contemplatively. “The sea life is growing on me. Though the food leaves something to be desired.”
“You’d like the Whistler better then,” Teuila assures her. “Our cook, Hector, can make even stew and hardtack taste good—”
The conversation dies out as across the room, a bench scrapes back, and Mance excuses himself from his table to a chorus of drunken cheers. “Bright and early tomorrow, boys,” he drawls to them with a wink. “Don’t get in too much trouble.”
My heart beats fast and I meet Lydia’s eye. Time to go.
She nods slightly and feigns a yawn. “Well, we three better be off to bed.” She reaches behind her for her bag.
I lean down to whisper in Kit’s ear. “Remember your job?”
His eyes go serious and he nods. “Stay awake and if anyone knocks on our door asking for you, say you’re asleep.”
“Good man.” I give him a brief side hug, then look to Silas for a moment, a silent understanding passing between us before I excuse myself and leave the barroom with my siblings.
We walk together toward the back stairs, but only Kit goes up to the room; Lydia and I steal instead out the back door to the street.
The wind tugs at my clothes as Lydia and I walk from the inn, wrapped in hoods and scarves both to keep warm and to hide our faces.
The streets here are narrower than in Kirkrell, windier, but cleaner.
Not a city built for horses and carts and carriages; people walk—sailors of all stripes and shades, merchants selling fish or warm clothes—even at this time of night.
The crowd lets us blend in, and Lydia and I walk without speaking.
I’m guessing her mind, like mine, is on the ship and the prisoner.
Silas, Ezra, and Josephine will be following a few minutes behind us.
The docks, unlike the streets, are dark and quiet and mostly empty.
The harbor is maybe half the size of Kirkrell’s; small ice floes drift through the water, white ghosts in the dark ocean.
Silas, Ezra, and Josephine catch up with us there and we stand silently in the shelter of some fisherman’s shed, taking in the vista.
Even in the dark it’s not hard to distinguish the Heralder; it’s the biggest ship in the harbor by far.
Nor is it deserted. Of course we knew it wouldn’t be—Mance would never leave the jewel of his fleet unattended. Two of the Heralder men have stayed behind and are on watch on deck; I can see their small figures on the platform, lit by the lantern they’ve hung on the mainmast.
But we planned for this. Ezra and Josephine split off and walk south, while Silas, Lydia, and I locate the small rowboat that Zimri arranged for us earlier, tucked unassumingly behind a pile of old broken boats and boat parts, its rust and dirt hiding its seaworthiness.