Chapter Forty-Nine Finlyr
chapter forty-nine
finlyr
Ris comes up from the mess, and the smell of spices and yeast follows, sweet and nutty with a subtle kick at the back of the throat. ‘Grub’s up, you miserable lot.’
Paranish, I should let Ris cook all my meals.
I’m a man who could eat boiled rice and veggies all day, but she’s somehow found herbs at the back of cupboards I didn’t even know were on board.
I could rustle up something that would keep body and soul together, a touch better than the undead, but not by much.
I stroke my stomach, looking on fondly as she sets down the pot of rice stew.
While I love to eat, Ris seems to find a delight in preparing meals I don’t understand.
A calm washes over her the way I do when sailing.
A peace in having total control of her surroundings.
We sit around the bolted-down table, elbows tucked close, and pass the serving dish around. Biba takes an overly generous spoonful and slops some of it down the side of her bowl.
Isagani tears a corner of flatbread and dips it into the stew. I follow and, by Aistra, it’s crisp and stuffed with dried herbs.
I take a spoonful, and the stew is sour and warming and spicy by turns. ‘What is this called?
‘Sinigang,’ Biba says.
The otter-cat chirrups, bringing his head up from his bowl on the floor.
‘Is that your namesake?’ I ask. ‘Explains a lot.’
‘Here,’ Ris says, handing me a mug of palm wine.
I sniff the cup, watching sprinklings swirl on the surface of the drink, catching the light. ‘What’s this stuff?’
‘Just drink it, it’s good for you,’ Ris says with a wink.
The liquid touches my tongue. A merry dance of spices: cloves, cinnamon, and something familiar I can’t quite place mingling with the sweetness of the wine. This woman is something else.
‘Like it?’ She sees the star struck look on my face and claps me hard on the shoulder. ‘You’ve everything you need right here; you just don’t know how to use it.’
Sinigang laps contentedly. ‘You should keep her around, Fin.’
I’m almost positive no one saw our deck escapades, but living in close quarters like this, perhaps they have sensed something has changed between us. There’s an ease, a familiarity that is hard to conceal.
‘Can I try?’ Isagani asks, reaching for my mug.
‘No,’ Ris says, firmly. ‘When you’re older,’ she adds, more gently.
She sips her own drink furtively. Sinigang narrows his eyes at me and then at Ris, sniffing the air, whiskers twitching.
‘That wouldn’t be crushed silphium I smell?’
Ris colours, half gagging on her drink.
‘Not something you’d commonly find in a ship’s kitchen.’ Sinigang smiles.
Once he says it, I can place the herb. It’s something I haven’t used since my younger years when I still lived on Paranish.
Most people like the reassurance of the sheath’s visibility, but I suppose Ris is being extra cautious.
Silphium can protect from unwanted pregnancy, but it’s no barrier for disease like a sheath.
Still, two methods of protection are better than one.
I tip the rest of the stew down my throat before it cools too much.
The hot tangy spices slid smoothly down my throat.
My skin prickles momentarily, and I’m awful hot.
But then the feeling passes. It’s like a cool balm is pressed against my skin.
The sweat doesn’t prickle on my skin. In fact, it feels chill.
Ris gets up for seconds of the stew.
When I stand to leave for the lavvy, I pass behind her at the counter and whisper in her ear: ‘Please let me know the next time you put something in my food.’
She starts, beginning to protest. ‘I thought you would be used to it, since – you know . . .’
‘Since I’m always putting it around?’
She blushes hard. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
I sigh and slap open the door. ‘I’m going for a piss.’
I’m hydrated and then some. I barely make it to the lavvy to untie my troos before I’m pissing like a horse. When I return to the mess, the others are having a little sing-song:
‘My love sleeps underwater.
Salt-swept with pearls for her eyes.
Her hair tangled in seaweed.
Dreaming eternal, she lies.’
Ris surprises me most of all. Her voice is low and strong, an unwavering alto that rings out across the room.
Isagani has some stone pipes on a string around their neck and accompanies Ris’s singing.
It’s the first I’ve seen of them, but Isagani’s full of surprises.
The mess takes on the quality of a tavern deep in its cups.
But Paranish, this is not the place for it.
‘Have you all taken leave of your senses?’
They startle to a stop. Sinigang says nothing.
‘No singing. Nothing that could tempt a storm.’
‘But we sang before, to haul away,’ Ris protests.
‘That was different. You don’t sing about drowning out on the sea.’
‘Sailors are superstitious, the lot of them,’ Sinigang says.
‘Yes, well, aren’t you supposed to be good luck in a storm?’ I snap.
The smirk on Isagani’s face dies. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’
‘We are merely visitors to these waters,’ I continue. ‘And we must pass through with as little disturbance as possible.’
A whistling. A groaning of the wood. Ris bounds up the stairs faster than I can. We’re all on deck. I look at her, the shimmer in her eyes.
The skies open and the rain begins to pour headlong on top of us. The rain barrels will be full again. I’m soaked through, not with sweat, but with a heady mix of salt spray and rainwater.
‘I hope you’re happy now!’ I spit pettily as the ship crests another wave.
‘You don’t really think we caused this?’ Ris insists, grabbing at a rope for purchase.
Isagani surfs the deck, trying to grab anything not bolted down and shove it into the chambers below.
‘I don’t believe in coincidences,’ I shout back.
We can barely hear each other over the wind whipping like claws.
My heart is pounding in my ears. I’m used to the weather turning foul out at sea, but not as fast as this.
It’s not natural. Lashings of stormwater hit the deck.
For a moment I don’t recognise our skeleton crew, and it feels like I’m with my old crew, the forms shifting in the rain.
I remember Larkin there, hauling rope. The man whose name tripped so sweetly off my tongue when Isagani and I were shaping our disguises. A name I would never forget. I try to blink away the rain from my eyes.
‘Captain, what do we do?’ Isagani shouts.
I swallow, throat dry and my tongue sticking awkwardly to the roof of my mouth. A swig from my waterskin. Except it’s not water, but palm wine. I choke it down. Better than naught.
I familiarise myself with the situation, taking note of the wind, planning my next instructions.
Ris has the spyglass up to her face, nearly giving herself a black eye as the ship rocks. ‘What is that?’ she shouts.
‘What? What?’ I yell, swiping water from my eyes. I can’t see a blasted thing.
‘Land ho!’ she shouts, snapping the spyglass shut. She’s smiling like she’s possessed.
‘We’re not trying to find land!’
‘But there’s someone out there!’
‘We’re not trying to find anyone!’
‘I think we can get closer. We have to help them!’
By Paranish, she’s probably hallucinating. Who in Holy Aistra would be on a random rock in the middle of the ocean? In a storm, to boot.
‘Gimme that spyglass!’
Ris tosses it, bloody fool. It nearly slips, but I manage to catch it gracelessly.
I slide the spyglass open and wipe away the condensation.
My view bobs and bounces but I can see it.
There is a blighted rock in the middle of the ocean.
It’s a steep and jagged stack, no bigger than a tavern long table.
It’s covered with molluscs and algae but there is someone standing against the elements.
Clad in black, arms outstretched to the skies.
A creature from the depths. Paranish, we’ve summoned something.
‘Fin, what should we do?’
It’s like I’ve woken up. Like startling awake in my bed after a dream, feeling like I’m falling.
The words are out, commands leaving my lips and my hands finding familiar purchase.
My head clears, a fog of drunken stupor and terrible decisions sloughing off my skin.
Paranish, it’s been years since I’ve felt this raw and alive.