Hell Hath No Fury
Irian Guinne looked at the advancing sea. The waves lapped at the bars of the cage. The night before they had come in over her knees.
Her main problem was thirst. Koo was able to fly out of the cage and sip at the rainwater in rock pools but he couldn’t bring it back for her, though he did most earnestly try.
‘Thank you, Koo,’ said Irian, as he opened his mouth to spill three drops of beaky liquid into her palm. ‘Delicious.’
‘Drink,’ croaked Koo. ‘Mine, drink.’ He was about to fly out again, but there was a bird cry overhead, and Koo darted to hide in Irian’s jacket, burrowing his face into her armpit in fear.
Carla Venasque swept down the length of the beach on the back of the stymphalian bird, its bronze wings gleaming.
‘How’s the prisoner?’ she said.
‘I need water,’ said Irian.
Carla reached into the saddlebag on the stymphalian and took from it a slim flask. She thrust it between the bars of the cage.
‘And food?’ said Irian.
‘Not today. Perhaps, as the tide comes in, you can catch a little fish.’
Irian had told herself she would not ask the question, but the words burst from her before she could stop herself. ‘You said you knew Nighthand. How?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Carla leaned closer to Irian.
‘I knew Nighthand better than anyone in the world. For more than a year, we travelled the oceans together. He had a crew – a man called Warren, the ratatoska and me. He ignored me at first. But eventually, he came to pay me attention. I was young, and new to the waters, and I wanted to make a fortune. He taught me to bargain, how to trade. I was an asset to the ship – men agreed terms with me they would not agree with Nighthand. And I, in turn, came to love him. I loved his reckless courage and his strength. I loved his skill with a knife and the beauty of his face. He knew: there is no way he did not know.’
‘Are you sure? I think it’s unlikely,’ said Irian.
But Carla was not looking for conversation – she slammed a hand against the cage. ‘You do not know! You weren’t there.’
‘I apologise,’ said Irian. She kept her hand on Koo, out of sight.
‘I waited for a year to tell him that I loved him. And do you know what he did? He laughed. I was so humiliated that I couldn’t speak. He saw, at last, that I was serious, and still he did not cease to laugh. He told me that Berserkers do not love. He dismissed me, as if I were nothing.’
Irian looked, long and hard, at the woman. ‘He should not have laughed. But what did you want him to do? Lie?’
Carla’s voice was like a dam bursting. ‘I wanted him to love me!’ She leaned forwards so that her face was against the bars, and she spat the words. ‘I loved that man, worthless as he is! You don’t know, do you, what it is to love and be rejected?’
Irian stood, her lips together, silent.
‘It is like being in a cage. The bars are humiliation; the floor is desire; the roof is rage. Hence …’ And she gestured at the cage in which she held Irian prisoner. ‘Poetic justice, I thought.’ She looked down at the snake on her wrist. ‘It is in this cage, with you, that Nighthand will die.’