Chapter Fifty-One Finlyr
chapter fifty-one
finlyr
‘Who are they?’ Isagani asks through a mouthful of hard biscuit. They lean against the wall, hair pulled back into a slick bun. ‘We don’t know yet,’ I say. ‘Ris has taken charge.’
‘Well?’ I ask.
‘She’ll be all right, I think. The baby needs food, but she’s too weak right now. Fetch the sampinit berry tea.’
I elbow Isagani, who rolls their eyes and hurries to the galley.
‘Any water in the lungs?’ I ask.
Ris shakes her head and then leans against me, stretching her neck with a crack. After a moment, I have to ask.
‘What’s the deal with us?’
‘Deal?’ She echoes, pulling away so she can look at me. ‘Aren’t you having fun?’
‘Fun,’ I echo, nodding. ‘Is that what this is? Sneaking around and having a secret.’
She stares at me. ‘You’re angry with me, aren’t you?’
I say nothing, letting her sit with my body language, my expression.
‘I’m sorry about the silphium. I should have asked you.’
‘Do you trust me?’
‘Of course I do. It’s not about that, and I know we’re being careful. Everything’s just so—’ She cuts herself off, bringing her hands up and letting them drop.
‘Complicated?’ I offer.
‘Delicate,’ she says, holding my gaze. ‘We’re already holding so much. I just wanted something for us without the burden of consequences.’
I try to let her words wash over me. I am used to being inconsequential.
I accepted I could never bet on tomorrow a long time ago.
I don’t know what I’d hoped for with Ris.
Maybe that we could buy ourselves a bit more time before we got here.
The unspoken ‘if we live, what happens next?’ hangs over us, but this dalliance, whatever it is, feels like the most trivial and also the most important thing in this whole voyage right now.
I clear my throat and stand straighter. ‘You know a Lassairian remedy for resurrecting a drowning person is to blow smoke up their arse.’
She laughs low, the vibrations running through our bodies as they touch. ‘Was that the carpenter’s opening flirtation before they charged you a fortune for those taffrails?’
I tilt her face up to mine and steal a kiss. She sighs and melts against me again. We jump apart when we hear Isagani’s footsteps round the corner. They’re carefully carrying the tea kettle wrapped in a cloth, and Ris knocks on the door before pushing it open.
The woman is bundled in blankets and sheets, a length of seaweed tangled in her hair. The woman stirs, snuffling against the cushions. It’s only then I spot the child in a drawer, wriggling its arms. Ris has dumped out half the contents onto the floor and is using my clothes as a nest for a baby.
Ris’s voice is as gentle as a Summer Isle breeze. ‘You’ll have to sit up, my dear. Can you do that?’
The stranger opens her eyes with a pop and stares at us, her body going stiff and her hands bracing.
‘Stand down,’ Ris commands, holding the woman’s hands. ‘There’s no need for that.’
The woman sits up, and Isagani slowly sets out the tea things, barely taking their eyes off her.
‘Who are they?’ she asks Ris. Her voice is like glass, a clipped lyrical lilt. She looks worse for wear right now, and her frame is lean, too gaunt.
‘Some of the crew,’ Ris says lightly, then addresses me. ‘Do we have any of the jellyfish soup left?’
My hands sting with the memory of chopping up those things. ‘A couple of servings, perhaps.’
Sinigang slinks into the room, soft wet fur dampening the ends of my trousers. Damnation, that otter-cat.
He watches as the woman cautiously takes the cup of tea she’s offered.
It’s strange, as though I can see the warm glow of her reviving on her skin.
For a moment she’s anything but poised, greedy in her imbibing.
I’ve looked at bottles and bodies that way myself after many a long journey.
Then she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and smiles.
Sinigang looks at the baby, and twitches his nose.
The woman looks at Sinigang, cocking her head to the side. Eventually she reaches out a hand to stroke him, and he hisses.
‘I’m not some common hybrid, madame.’
‘Your otter-cat speaks?’ she asks, retracting her hand in shock.
‘Annoyingly, yes,’ I chime in.
She stares at Sinigang, and he narrows his eyes at her. Sinigang’s a snarky bastard, but he seems uneasy around Hanan. He swishes his tail, eyes furtively flicking from her to the baby and back again. Something washed up in that storm, but I’m not sure what manner of thing we’ve found.
Biba has followed the noise to the captain’s quarters and stands in the doorway, staring at our new guest. She looks at each of us in turn and cautiously enters the room.
‘This is my daughter, Biba,’ Ris tells Hanan.
‘A princess,’ Biba whispers, eyes widening.
Ris laughs. ‘She seems to think you’re a princess.’
Biba furrows her eyebrows and stares at the baby.
‘Careful, love. She’s very small and not yet well again,’ Ris says, gently guiding Biba away from the child.
Biba pulls away and touches the child, hands placed gently on either side of the baby’s face. She wriggles and begins to burble, an unmistakably contented sound. Even at this distance I can see she is a more normal colour.
‘What did you do?’ Hanan asks, her voice full of wonder rather than reprimand.
Something strange happens. The lamp flickers bright and then snuffs out in an instant.
The room fills with light smoke from the wick.
Then in the gloom, there appears to be an afterglow.
A soft halo of light that flares even when I close my eyes.
The silhouettes of Hanan, Biba, the child, and Sinigang are outlined for just a moment.
I startle, edging forward to relight the lamp. ‘What was that?’
Hanan and Biba share an incomprehensible look, and I search for Ris. Her face is inscrutable as she also tries to understand what has passed between them.
We go on with the ritual of niceties, letting Hanan eat and rest while we gather on the quarterdeck.
The undead crew have everything under control, and the storm has settled as quickly as it came on, almost as if it was conjured and died with Hanan’s arrival.
A shudder runs down my spine. The touch of magic?
After a few hours, Hanan is strong enough to make her way onto deck and reluctantly leaves her daughter in the crib. She is fed and dressed and looks far better.
‘Are you the captain of this vessel?’ she asks, addressing me. I nod. ‘This is no Seaguardian ship.’
I examine her body language. She’s quite pretty, lean as a spear and all angles; not dainty or delicate, despite her fine speech. She looks us all in the eye, not like the stewards who look somewhere over our shoulders.
I lean back, arms crossed, and she’s staring at my chest. I’ve accidentally pulled down the opening of my shirt, and she can see the brand.
Hanan’s hand jerks towards her thigh. ‘You’re outlaws.’
‘Not all of us,’ Isagani protests.
‘And what about your captain?’ she asks, turning away from me.
‘He’s a good man,’ Ris insists. ‘Despite his body count.’
I start at that. I won’t have my name besmirched in front of this stranger. ‘Well, I’ve got a roving eye and a lot of energy—’
Ris gives me a dirty look. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
I lean casually on the helm and address Hanan. ‘Yeah, well, I’m sure you’ve got some skeletons in your closet.’
Ris sighs loudly, and Hanan watches the exchange with intrigue. ‘Where is the rest of the crew?’
Sinigang jumps out of Biba’s lap. ‘You’re looking at them. At least the living ones.’
‘The living ones?’ she asks, stepping backwards until her spine is braced against the mizzenmast. It’s as if she’s noticed them for the first time and I watch her stare at the corpses.
‘I know it’s strange,’ Ris is beginning, her voice a desperate justification.
‘It is strange,’ Hanan echoes. There’s a horror there but also a morbid fascination. She approaches the undead, examining their bones and gristle. Her eyes rove over the yellow and brown spots of worn, exposed tibia; the eyeballs rotten in their skulls; the sinew poking through exposed flesh.
‘Staring is ignoble – didn’t they teach you that at the Bastion?’ Sinigang whips his tail, fur bristling.
Isagani tugs on my sleeves. ‘I don’t like this,’ they whisper. ‘She’s hiding something.’
You don’t have to be a trickster to realise that.
‘I know, but we can’t exactly throw her overboard,’ I murmur back.
I examine Hanan as she observes the skeletons. She isn’t lying about having a connection to the Bastion – that much is evident from her manner and speech. I could believe the queen banishing a fallen noble. But that strange phenomenon with Biba. Sinigang’s unrest.
I approach Hanan, turning her to face me. ‘What are you hiding?’ She doesn’t say anything for a time, eyes flitting between us all. ‘Show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.’
She smiles coldly. ‘A ragtag crew of mainly undead, children, and a talking otter-cat. You’re a disreputable lot.’
‘We have our reasons,’ Ris says, suddenly defensive.
‘Are you working for the Bastion,’ Hanan asks, expression hardening.
‘Not fucking likely,’ I retort.
‘Then why are you sailing under the royal sigil?’
That infernal crest on Saltswept is like a beacon on the side of the ship. Of course she spotted it; she would have been eye level with it as we pulled her up.
‘We’re running a contract, but we’ve no love for the crown,’ I tell her. ‘Get that clear in your head right now.’
She says nothing, surveying me. Her silence makes me uneasy, as though she’s measuring the situation and examining us all. I continue my line of interrogation, hoping to rile her: ‘What’s going on with you then? You just wash up here alone with a child.’
‘She’s touched by magic,’ Sinigang cuts through.
Hanan pushes her silver strands behind her ear, jutting her chin out defiantly.
‘She had great power,’ Sinigang continues, ‘But it’s tainted now. Tainted and diminished.’