Chapter Thirty-One Ris
chapter thirty-one
ris
Everyone on the ship’s deck watches as Sinigang falls from the taffrail. Biba is the first to react, and she lunges, shooting her arm through the rails to grab the otter-cat before he falls into the surf. She pulls him bodily back onto the deck, and I run to them, grabbing Biba.
‘Why did you do that?’ I shout, crying and holding her close.
She yells out in pain and clutches her shoulder.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘Worry about Sini,’ she says, and Isagani leaps down from the rigging.
They gently hold the otter-cat and strokes his fur. ‘He’s breathing.’
‘That was powerful stuff – no wonder he’s out cold,’ Finlyr says. ‘He’ll be all right,’ he adds, giving Isagani and Biba a reassuring look. It’s one I recognise: tamping down the churning in your gut to save face.
We follow Isagani and Biba as they carefully, almost ritualistically, take Sinigang down to the living quarters to rest. I try not to see the shape of the dead otter-cat from the farm, and Biba catches my eye, as if she knows what I’m thinking.
I focus instead on the hammocks rocking gently from the ceiling and the dim lanterns flickering overhead.
On the deck I try to breathe a little easier and watch the Paranishian isles slip over the edge of the horizon.
We’re deep in the nighttime hours. For better or for worse, we have thrown our lot together – and home, whatever that means now, is out of reach.
I grip the rail and think of Larkin watching this same view, no anchor in his stomach.
I’m reassured as Finlyr starts to relax, his chest and shoulders expanding. I wasn’t sure he would pull it off, but we’re here: actually on board Saltswept.
‘We want to make it as far away as we can, quickly and quietly,’ Finlyr tells the assembled crew. ‘Usually, a random vessel in the near waters wouldn’t raise suspicion, but we left . . . a bit of a mess behind us. Hopefully we have enough time before the entire fleet is on high alert.’
Finlyr catches my eyes, and I feel heat creep up my neck. He’s trying to placate me, but I can’t forget what I saw, the vicious way Sinigang leapt upon that Seaguardian. At least one Seaguardian dead; Sinigang and Biba hurt. So much blood on our hands.
‘I need everyone to follow my command. We’re short-handed and these hours are critical.’
He is our captain, and I have to hope he’s worth his salt. There are too few of us to work this vessel, and my stomach lurches.
We work ceaselessly, elbow to elbow at the helm.
It’s bloody heavy: a different heft to holding bucking sheep or lugging baskets of wet wool from the riverbank.
My arms burn, and I struggle to find purchase on the planks of the deck.
I try to steady my ragged breathing. My mind knows how to engage with this kind of work.
It quietens, and I push my whole self into my muscles.
Soon Finlyr and I barely need words, our eyes and hands aligning to fit the gaps in each other’s work as we toil to the rhythm of the waves.
The sweat stings my eyes and I wipe my forehead with the back of my arm.
Isagani is up in the rigging, their sinewy silhouette nimbly crawling among the ropes and woven reed sails. They look frazzled, dropping knots as quickly as they can tie them.
‘Hurry up, Isagani, I need that sail catching the wind.’
‘I’m going as fast as I can, Fin! There’s a lot to remember!’
‘We’re losing it; get to the topgallant shroud!’
‘Where?’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, over there!’ Finlyr points, hand coming off the helm.
I try to hold steady as the vessel creaks beneath us. ‘None of us know how to sail, Fin. Not like you do.’
As Isagani scuttles over, their foot catches in the line tail. They jostle, righting themselves with a surprisingly vile string of words.
Something shifts in Finlyr’s face, like a cloud passing across the sun. Then the wind moves, and the ship is going against it. Even I can see we’re being pushed back the way we came.
‘We’re being taken aback, hoy up!’ Finlyr shouts and gives a piercing whistle through his teeth. He begins to sing:
‘Haul away, you salt-swept urchins
Heave away the sand of yore
Ride the waves of navy merchants
Seeking fortune evermore.’
Finlyr’s voice is sure and steady, booming across the deck.
‘Get on the capstan,’ he directs me to push the great rotating circle of spokes and ropes and begins the song again.
Biba pushes alongside me and joins in the song, keeping time. She doesn’t know the words but yells the start of each line, her small body lurching forward against the resistance of the capstan.
‘Stay up there, Isagani,’ Finlyr encourages. ‘And make sure the sails are hoisted aft.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Isagani shouts.
‘We’re trying to go into the wind again, so we’re turning the ship slightly!’ I yell, translating the seafaring lexicon.
We can’t rightly help if we don’t know what he’s saying, but I must admit the repetition of the song is taking the edge off my burning muscles.
When we are finally given leave of our posts, the sun is high in the sky.
Isagani and I slump down on the quarterdeck, able at last to survey our surroundings.
We lean against the capstan, legs splayed towards the split-level to the helm, where Finlyr stands.
The ropes hang like vines from the rigging.
We sit in amiable silence awhile, furnishing ourselves with slings of fresh water.
‘I hope Narra is all right,’ Isagani says, scrubbing a hand through their hair.
‘She can hold her own – don’t worry,’ I try to reassure them, despite my misgivings. Our plan made it difficult for Narra, Ligaya, and Morna to be linked to us, but everyone was at the mercy of the Bastion. I had to hope they would go unremarked as they kept to themselves.
‘So this is home now?’ Isagani asks, looking around with a lantern. They open a store cupboard, and the spiders scatter to the shadows, revealing a bed of thick mould.
‘This ship’s certainly seen some things,’ I say, jamming the cupboard door shut.
The wood’s splintered hard in places on the deck.
‘That taffrail was handmade by a Lassairian carpenter,’ Finlyr says when I complain. ‘And those cupboards just need a bit of a clean. At least we now have hearty supplies thanks to the Seaguardians.’
We’ve not much more space than in the rooms at the inn, and there was some heated debate around who would sleep where. Everything rocking and roiling, my body is already restless. Biba seems not to mind; perhaps she finds the movement soothing.
‘Well, I’m the captain and this is my ship, so it’s only natural I should take the captain’s quarters,’ Finlyr insists. Isagani opens their mouth to protest. ‘Sorry, squirt, not sharing.’
‘Without me, you’d be dead,’ Isagani grumbles, face scrunched in frustration, but it’s like wading through mud with Finlyr. The man is as stubborn as a tamaraw.
I silence Finlyr, stepping between him and Isagani. ‘There are three chambers and five of us. You can have the largest – the captain’s quarters, but you must share with Sinigang.’
Finlyr grimaces. ‘You tell the otter-cat when he’s woken up.’
‘Biba and I can bunk together and Isagani can have their own room for once.’
‘A lifetime at sea counts for naught with you, does it?’
‘It counts,’ I say, begrudgingly. ‘Just remember that I’m the one who furnished you with that.’ I point to the map, now in his breast pocket.
He considers and then hands me the map. ‘You’re this voyage’s navigator. What do you see?’
I stare at the sky, trying to map the constellations. ‘I’d have to consult the tools. What direction are we going in?’
‘Exactly.’ He smiles, his eyes glittering. He gets out a gold-rimmed pocket compass.
‘That’s a fine piece of work,’ I say.
‘It was my mother’s,’ he says, his voice raw and reverent.
‘Was she also a sailor?’
Finlyr nods. ‘She was a Seaguardian.’
I baulk. That was not what I was expecting.
‘Like the man we left for dead?’
His mouth sets into a hard line. ‘Yes. We did what we had to.’
Like Ryla, he had a Seaguardian mother – but what had led him to this path? I stare at him anew, and it feels as if I’ve really known nothing about him before now.
‘Back to business. We’re heading north-east.’ He clears his throat, and I look again at the map.
I allow him to keep his secrets, for now. ‘I think we need to bear further east,’ I suggest, looking back south at the distant shapes of the isles. ‘There’s the Winter Isle, so we’re a straight shot too far north.’
Finlyr tilts his head, following my hand and then looking back at the map.
‘We don’t want to run straight into the Maelstrom; we want to approach it side-on and angle into it. Lest we smash ourselves to smithereens.’
‘Wouldn’t we prefer to see it coming at the bow?’ I counter.
‘We won’t be getting too close too quick.’
The two of us stop and stare at each other.
‘I see your point,’ I say slowly. ‘However, we don’t have an infinite supply of food and crew, so we can’t exactly hang around. Either we’re going in, or we’re not.’
‘And I concede that,’ Finlyr replies tightly. ‘But I’d prefer us all to make it to the other side in one piece.’
‘Fine,’ I admit. ‘But we can’t exactly anchor at the Maelstrom. How do you propose we get through safely?’
Finlyr laughs. ‘Let’s worry about that when we get closer, eh?’
I hear the undertone, something unspoken, a shadow to the lightness of his tone. I’ve seen the darker side of him, the smuggler he was – the core of him at his sharpest, most ruthless. What is he not telling us? What happened to him out there? And how in Paranish will we avoid the same fate?