Riverkeep (16 page)

“We need supplies, Mr. Bootmunch,” said Wull.

“I've got stacks of fennel,” said the Bootmunch, “on
account of forgettin' to burn it at the straw devil.”

“If he calls me that one more time . . .” said Tillinghast.

Wull put his hand on Tillinghast's shoulder. “We don't need fennel,” said Wull. “We need—”

“Fennel,” said the Bootmunch, “fennel, fennel, fennel. Help yourself to my fennel. Isn't it a funny word?
Fennel.
Fennel.
”

“Stop saying
fennel
!” said Tillinghast.

“I'm awfully sorry, straw devil, sorry—sorry, everyone, sorry! It's just that you've tied me upside down, and all the blood's rather rushed into my fennel.”

“We need oars,” said Wull firmly, “and enough food for a few days.”

“Oh, I have oars.
Plenty
of oars,” replied the Bootmunch. “By which I mean two. Two's enough.”

“We'll take those, please,” said Wull.

“Fine, fine. Let's say six ducats the pair.”

“Six ducats!”
said Tillinghast.

“A reasonable price. As a boatless man, I never use them, but they're made of fine wood. Considered making them into stilts once so I could talk to my tree friends on their own level. But I'd have been too short, anyway; they laughed at me: ‘Hhhhhgggnnnnngghhnn,' they said, ‘you're just a little mite next to our stately—'”

“Shut up now,” said Wull. “Where are they?”

The Bootmunch waggled his eyebrows. “Money, money, money,” he said, then added, “fennel.”

Tillinghast grabbed Wull's arm. “An' where're these ducats comin' from?” he hissed.

“Where else?” said Wull wearily. “I'd have used my own money but the bradai stole it, an' you said you'd give me money as trade for comin' with me. I can pay you back.”

“I'm not payin'
him
!” said Tillinghast. “He tried to kill me! What's he need money for anyway, livin' out here in a bloody cave?”

“Principle of the thing,” said the Bootmunch, swinging jauntily.

“It's only right and proper, Mr. Tillinghast,” said Remedie, “and you're . . . mercifully unharmed, after all.”

“You button your lip, toots,” said Tillinghast.

“Are you goin' to let him speak to you like that?” said Mix as Remedie drew her breath.

The Bootmunch giggled happily.

“I fixed your hand,” said Wull, standing between Tillinghast and Remedie. “You said if you came downriver you'd help me.”

“Wi' food an' so on—basic needs.”

“What's more basic than oars for a boat?” said Mix.

“You stay out o' this, little miss!” said Tillinghast sharply.

“We need these, or we can't go anywhere,” said Wull.

“So take 'em!”

“I need to pay,” said Wull, looking at Pappa. “There's no discussin' it.”

“Then shall we say ten?” said the Bootmunch, swinging his head back and forth and sending the knives in his hair to a melodic ting.

“You'll say six an' be glad to get it,” said Wull. His eyes met Tillinghast's and held his stare.

“Fine, fine,” said Tillinghast, “but we's takin' other provision for that an' all—'in't no way under the gods I's payin' for your breakfast after this.”

“Thank you,” said Wull.

“Wonderful news!” said the Bootmunch. “In the spirit of friendship, would you mind awfully cutting me down? The straw devil has rather fixed me to the roof here and I've been hearing the call of nature for some time now.”

Mix laughed, and was shushed by Remedie.

Wull looked hard at the young explorer. “We'll let you down only if you apologize for callin' Mr. Tillinghast that name. His name's Mr. Tillinghast, an' it doesn't do for you to be callin' him anythin' else, understand?”

“Of course, old boy, of course. Dreadfully sorry, straw Tillinghast, sorry!”

Tillinghast glowered but said nothing as he cut the Bootmunch down.

Wull respectfully lifted six ducat coins from Tillinghast's money-pouch and handed them to the Bootmunch, who held them to the firelight.

“Seems to be in order,” he said, and cackled. “The oars're up the back of the cave, sport, beside all the other rubbish.”

“
Other
rubbish?” said Wull, watching the coins vanish about the Bootmunch's person.

The Bootmunch looked at him from the side of his eye. “Figure of speech, sport!” he said, grinning and moving over to Remedie. “Is that a baby, too? How marvelous! Aren't babies wonderful? I miss my infancy: it's to my immense sadness I lost the knack of passing wind and drinking simultaneously once I mastered walking. A shame, a great shame.”

Mix laughed while Remedie pursed her lips.

“This is Bonn,” she said. “He's sleeping.”

“They love their sleep, don't they, the little ones? I'm so very charmed, madam, but equal to my charmedness is confusion at your choice of coterie. Tell me,” said the Bootmunch, kissing Remedie on the hand, “how has such a lovely flower found such boorish company?”

“It's jus' bad luck,” said Mix. “Wait, you mean the boys, right?”

There came a series of clattering noises, the flat bang of heavy wood falling, and after some muttered curses and slow dragging, Wull emerged into the firelight pulling two long, wide oars, their blades marked with the stamp of an ocean-going trade company. His hands were unable to meet around their width, and they were more than twice his height in length.

“What in gods' are these?” he said, throwing them to the ground. “An' where'd you get all that stuff?”

“These are
o-a-r-s
. You put the flat bit in the water and pull,” said the Bootmunch, ignoring the second question. “I thought you knew about boats?”

“I know they're oars, Bootmunch,” said Wull, “but they're bloody massive!”

“Are they?” said the Bootmunch. “I always had other chaps for the rowin', I must say. Looked awfully hard work, too! Well, good luck, mustn't detain you.”

“I can't use these!” said Wull as Remedie lifted one of the handles and dropped it with a loud report onto the cave floor. “You could row a battleship with these. How am I meant to use them on a bäta?”

“As I said, I always had other chaps for the rowin'. Couldn't give you any advice there, what! Indeed, no! Right, lovely having you visit. Ladies, a pleasure. Straw devil—I'll get you next time! Ha-ha! Fennel! Yes! Friends for now though, the boy insists, friends!”

Tillinghast straightened up, a canvas bag filled with food gripped in his fist beside his hessian sack. “Let's go,” he said to Wull.

“I can't even lift these!” said Wull. “This isn't a solution!”

“Best we're gettin' here,” said Tillinghast, without turning round, “an' it was you that wanted 'em.”

“We should go, Wulliam,” said Remedie. “Thank you, Mr. Rushworth.” She bobbed a curtsey.

“Such manners!” said the Bootmunch. He looked expectantly at Mix, who squinted at him.

“You've got the worst breath I've ever smelled,” she said.

“Beg pardon?” said the Bootmunch.

“Fine,” said Wull. “So I've to drag these to the bäta myself, is that it?”

He realized he was talking to no one, and that he was alone in the cave with the Bootmunch, who was giving him an inquisitive,
hungry
look.

“You could stay if you like, squire,” said the Bootmunch. He ran his tongue over his lips.

Wull heaved at the handles and dragged the oars into the freezing air, where the milk of dawn was spreading a watery light through the treetops.

Of all the seafolk I met, it was a Watchkeep named Ambergris who expressed most succinctly why people choose to put themselves in harm's way on voyages that can last for years at a time: “Whale oil's just about the biggest treasure available,” he said (I am, of course, paraphrasing the rough coastal dialect!). “You can make soap and perfumes and clothing and grease for factories and machines, and clothes and corsets and obviously candles and lamps. Folk used to carry it around to keep themselves from plague. It's worth more than gold. If it didn't stink of fish, posh ladies would dangle it from their ears.” In this assessment Ambergris was right in every respect but one: whale oil is not “just about” the greatest treasure; it is, for all the reasons detailed above, without question the world's preeminent treasure!

—Gentling Norbury,
The People's Sea

“What're these, First Mate?” said Samjon. The morning's low sun caught him through the porthole, and he screwed up his face.

Ormidale glanced at the cabin boy and then continued unpacking the crate.

“I shudn't be surprised you dun't know,” he said. “Where's you from again? Coll?”

“Clell,” said Samjon, indignant. “I'd rather drown meself than be a Collander.”

Ormidale gave him a sideways glance. “Clell and Coll are less'n a mile apart. They's almost the same place.”

“Heavens above, that ain't so! We's goat farmers in Clell. In Coll they farm
sheep
,” said Samjon, shuddering.

“I'm sure they's both the same at nighttime,” said Ormidale. “Leastways, it's no kind o' fishin' life. 'S a wonder then you ended up on a whaler an' no wonder you 'in't seen these afore. Mind you, 's only the cap'n uses these. It's a secret o' his—'e had 'em made special.”

“So what is they?”

“Gongs,” said Ormidale, running his hand over the huge brass disk. “You puts them in the water an' pull the rope—see how the beater's hinged there?—an' the gong bangs under the water. There's six of 'em all round the ship.”

“Why?” said Samjon. “So's the whale thinks it's dinner an' comes lookin' for the bait?”

“Not
quite
,” said Ormidale. “They finds the noise confusin', like the cap'n's talkin' to 'em. With this mormorach thing, he reckons it'll cause it all manner o' problems—might even kill it.”

“How's he know that?” said Samjon, eyes wide.

“I dun't know. It's the cap'n, 'in't it? He jus' knows things. He's been listenin' to it shoutin' an' reckons these're the way to go. He's a genius. Mind you,” Ormidale added, looking about the hold, “if you asks me, he's—”

“He's what?” said Murdagh, stepping around the galley.

“Too handsome for his own good,” finished Ormidale. “C'mon now, cabin boy. Help me up on deck with these.”

“Too handsome?” said Samjon, confused. “You know, by the tone o' your voice, I thought you was goin' to say something more negati—”

“There we go, lad!” shouted Ormidale, heaving the first gong onto the pulley's platform. “You jus' pull on that rope there, an' I'll be off upstairs to load it overboard. Aye, Cap'n, aye,” he added, saluting Murdagh as he passed, pressing against the wall and sliding onto the main deck.

“We's goin' to talk to the mormorach, Cap'n?” said Samjon.

“In a manner o' speakin',” said Murdagh, flashing a brown smile and running his stump-fingered hands over the gong's surface. “We'll be givin' it some noise to deal wi'
anyway. When these gets in the water and sets to ringin' you'll feel it in your sheep farmer's bones.”

“Goat farmer's,” said Samjon.

“Same thing,” said Murdagh, stamping off into his quarters and slamming the door.

“'In't the same thing at all,” muttered Samjon, “lest a pickerel's the same as a gutback, an' I don't think
that's
true. . . .” He rapped the gong with his knuckle. Its
bong
resounded in the hold, deep and long and inside everything—wood, men, and metal—so that it rang through his bones and quivered the eyes in his head.

It's the sound a god would make,
thought Samjon, and flicked its surface again.

The gong lifted in steady bursts, chiming as the swell moved its hammer, ringing like approaching thunder as the hatches opened and the rain dappled its polished surface.

“Send the next one, lad!” shouted Ormidale once it had been unloaded, his face a black dot against the brilliant, pouring square of sky.

“I can't. . . .” started Samjon, looking at the other gongs. Each weighed several times more than he did. “I—”

“Hurry up, cabin boy!” shouted Trehv, the bo'sun.

“But I can't. . . .” Samjon glanced at the captain's quarters. “Hang on!”

He took a few steps and opened Murdagh's door.

“Cap'n, I can't load up the—”

“What business has ye bargin' into my quarters?” roared Murdagh, naked but for his johns.

“I'm sorry!” said Samjon. “Oh, Cap'n, I'm sorry!”

“Take yer hands from yer face, boy,” said Murdagh.

Samjon did so. Murdagh stood very still, his weathered skin bathed in the thin light of the cabin, his damaged, ruined eyes burning into Samjon's.

The captain's body was decimated, cut and withered like a steak left to sun, its internal threading pressed to the surface in purple tangles of thick veins. His back, crooked and pained-looking, was caged by pale baleen struts, sagged through by loose skin like trussed putty. Below the waist, emerging with a frightening round tightness, was Murdagh's half leg, a thin finger of grubby, ribbed skin.

“Take a look at the sea's price, lad, if that's what ye've come to gawp at,” said Murdagh quietly, holding his arms to his sides.

“Cap'n, I'm sorry,” said Samjon, feeling tears in his eyes. “I's jus' lookin' for help with the gongs. It was the gongs was all.”

Murdagh snorted and sat on his bed. The small, gloomy cabin smelled of peppermint and lakoris, and, more overwhelming still, of stasis—the ingrained grime of decades lived in a narrow rhythm.

“Gilt's not to be gettin' his nap time, it seems,” he muttered. He lifted his terrifying, pale bone leg, its tip ground by wood and stone, and began to strap it to his stump.

“
You's not a whaler at heart, boy. It's there in the swing o' yer legs an' the pallor o' yer face. Most men who find themsel's aboard a ship like this is runnin' from somethin' on land: coin, crime, disgrace—maybe you's touched up the wrong sheep? Ye'll find no judgment here on . . .”

“They're
goats
,” said Samjon before he could stop himself.

“It's the same thing, lad, an' ye'll be served well by no' interruptin' yer captain. The point is”—Murdagh stood, tested the false leg, began to wrap the joint in thick linen—“there's another group who's been called to the sea from the moment they wriggled out their mammies' trenches, an' the longer the first group sails, the more they realize they's always been part o' the second. All of us are called to sea; jus' some of us has better hearin'. You miss the land, but you's not yet realized what it means to live on the water.

“Think on the respectful, dignified,
hidden
violence o' the sea, all its monsters floating, graceful as angels, all those masses o' death-bringin' teeth and tusk as smooth in that world as heavenly bodies in the sky. Think about the messy predation o' the land, all its beasts chargin' an soilin' an' matin' in noisome lumps.”

Murdagh hefted a flat strip of bone and pointed it at Samjon before splinting his right forearm.

“Think on the beautiful tints of the sea, the loveliest tints of azure an' emerald, as rich a spectrum as sky could muster an' such as could never be glimpsed in a precious stone dug out the ground. Think on the sea's livin', glitterin' body, then think o' the mud o' the docile soil, an' tell me ye don't feel like spittin'. Why did the old tribes o' the north or the Sadani or the ancient Poogs hold the sea to be holy? Why are there gods in their hundreds for its care an' worship but only a han'ful for the land? Think o' your reflection in the surface o' water: only the sea can show ye to yersel' an' tell ye who ye really are. The land shows naught but its own muck.”

A tear escaped and ran down Samjon's cheek. Murdagh shifted the baleen on his ribs with a grunt, then started to wind the linen over his waist and onto his torso.

“An' think on the whale,” he said. “The thing about a whale is, he knows when ye moves alongside him, he
knows
ye're goin' to try an' spear him, an' he challenges ye to kill him. He looks at ye, an' if a shark's got lifeless, black eyes, a whale's got warm eyes, warmer'n cragolodon or mairlan or anythin' else. He looks at ye with eyes as deep as yer own soul, an' he
chooses
to fight ye. There's dignity in that fight, that desire to fight, an' you's not goin' to find that on the land. I'm not sayin' your sheep don't struggle—”

“They're
goats
, Cap'n, an' we don't . . .” said Samjon, his words out between his tears before he knew it.

“Sheep, goats, rhats, cats—whatever they are, they're land animals, an' they'll never have the
dignity
o' the whale,” said Murdagh, dressing in his trousers and boots and coat, growing bigger and more fierce in his wardrobe, the vulnerability of the thin man Samjon had found vanished by the fabric.

“Yes, Cap'n,” said Samjon.

“An' sure,” said Murdagh, dropping his hat onto his head, “it's whales've done this to me. They's taken bits o' me as they could, an' they's broken me down, but I've taken 'em in their thousands onto this ship, an' I'll take this damn mormorach if it's the last o' me that's needed for it. When I have that beast's skin, I'll make myself such a cloak. . . . I'll feast on his meat and throw bits o' him to the birds. I don't need his bounty—I want his
title
. I want to face the sea's champion an' crush him till he bursts. If it ends not here I'll follow him thrice an' more round the world to hold his dead heart in my hands, an' you's signed up to go too, young Samjon, until either me or him is dead by the other.”

Samjon nodded. He hadn't moved since entering the cabin and now stood in the open doorway, a fully dressed Murdagh before him, his dreadful crutch tucked into his arm, the familiar leer on his face.

“You get on deck an' send the bo'sun an' his mate to get the gongs,” said Murdagh. “An', cabin boy,” he added as Samjon fled to the stairs, his voice softer, quiet, “tell them I gave you three lashes for the delay.”

Samjon smiled gratefully. “Thank you, Cap'n,” he said, then scrambled up into the light.

Behind him, Murdagh glowered, ran his hands over his back, then closed the cabin door.

Wull woke, drifting, dusted by a puff of fresh snow—little towers of it on his sleeves and head. He brushed himself off, compacting the powder into a smear. The seized claws of his hands held the Bootmunch's gigantic oars tight to his chest, but without guidance the bäta was twirling through the floes across the river's breadth, accompanied by the quietly slipping blues and grays of seulas. The banks were lined heavily by white trees, invisible against the white cloud, the land almost disappearing around them.

He looked at Tillinghast sleeping under his hat, the gray strip of Pappa beside him—head heavy on his stringy
neck, hung forward, drooling. Wull reached out, took the spit string on his glove, then looked over his shoulder, saw Mix and Remedie sleeping too, Mix tucked into Remedie's chest, Bonn, his unmoving face puckered upward, clutched in Remedie's arms.

Wull took in the growing brightness of the sky, felt in its light the new day's imperceptible warmth, and stretched the pain from his spine. High against the clouds spun the unmoving silhouettes of birds gliding on unseen thermals.

His wrist was locked to stone. He tried to move it gently, pushing against the steel of his tendons as much as he dared, feeling it close to snapping. His face, too, burned painfully—less so now that Remedie's smear of mud had worked into it, but still enough to pull the rest of his face in a permanent rictus of discomfort. Added to the ache of his shoulders and arms, he felt the fraying of the thin fabrics that held him together, every tiny strand of tissue that kept him from bursting apart screaming under the strain: a tension that started in his acid-boiled guts and moved out through his bones and his muscles into the innermost coils of his mind.

He sometimes reflected that it was not, perhaps, a good thing to be so intimate with the tightly packed wonder of slippery mass that was the human body: it didn't help his headache that he could picture exactly the brain's jellied lump pulsing inside his skull, or know, when they screeched fire at
him in the night, the miracle of compression that pressed the slick guts inside a human torso.