The Coming of the Whirlpool (21 page)

Dow sat up, wiping his eyes dry, for this was indeed strange news. The Ship Kings, the enemies of all New Islanders, wanted to
honour
a New Islander? And after Dow had caused so much trouble by trespassing upon the
Chloe
, he was to be invited back aboard as a guest?

Boiler smiled at Dow's doubtful look. ‘Aye. For all its fair words, this invitation disturbs me. The marines who brought it were fully armed and prepared to wait to accompany you back to Stone Port –
accompany
they said, but I think
escort
is more likely. I told them you were out fishing with the other Stromner men and would not return until late, but that I would give you the message and that you would surely be eager to attend. They were not happy about your absence, but even so they took me at my word. They left but a short while ago.'

‘
Should
I attend?' Dow asked, too amazed still to know what to think.

The innkeeper considered. ‘The invitation might be no more than it seems. You rode the whirlpool, did you not? The Ship Kings witnessed it from the Stone Port walls, and they esteem nothing so much as a brave feat of sailing. Perhaps their regard is authentic. But I doubt it. That a New Islander conquered the maelstrom, and not a Ship Kings mariner, I do not think will sit well with such a proud folk. And I've heard that admiring stories about you are being told upon the streets of Stone Port, which will please the Ship Kings even less.'

Dow nodded. He already knew what the displeasure of the Ship Kings was like. But if the invitation was in any way genuine . . .

He was struck suddenly by a vision of what might be. He saw himself seated in honour and respect among the lords and ladies at the Ship Kings' feast
.
Captain Vincente was there, addressing the assembly, and he was declaring that Dow, having ridden the whirlpool, had proven himself a worthy seafarer; worthy indeed of serving aboard the Ship Kings fleet. Why, of serving aboard the
Chloe
itself. And there at Vincente's side, nodding approval as her eyes shone, was the girl . . .

No, that was going too far. Of course it could never be like that. And yet Dow's sea longing – dormant since the maelstrom – had blazed back into life at the prospect. To set sail upon one of the great ships! And was it so impossible? Moments before he'd been faced with only two choices, neither of which he wanted; to remain in Stromner as a fisherman, or to return to the life of a timber cutter. But now he was being given the chance to stand before the finest mariners in the world, with his own seamanship acknowledged. Who knew where that might lead, or if such a chance would ever come again? If there was a hope,
any
hope, that this might enable him to voyage upon the wide ocean – then he must take it.

‘I'll go,' he said.

Boiler's agreement was grave. ‘You've little enough choice, I think. They would only pursue you, should you refuse. For good or ill, the Ship Kings are not to be denied. Very well. I will come too.'

Dow shook his head. ‘If it
is
for ill, then best it be so only for me.'

‘You can't go alone!'

‘Please, Boiler. Whatever the Ship Kings mean to happen will happen whether I'm alone or not. Even if you were there, you couldn't prevent them, you'd only be placing yourself in the same hazard. I'll go on my own. But be sure of this, they'll not learn from me anything of my true heritage, or of why I was brought here. I won't let any harm come to Stromner for my sake.'

The innkeeper glared unhappily a moment, then gave a reluctant bow of his head. ‘Aye, little though I like it, I feel the truth of what you say. Go then, with my best wishes, and hopes for your safe return. The marines said that you are to report at the
Chloe
's
gangway at sundown. Take the
Maelstrom.
After the riding of the whirlpool, the craft is yours if it is anyone's.'

Dow nodded, and Boiler stood as if to go. But then he hesitated, and gave Dow a wry look. ‘Did you know that Mother Gale rose from her sick bed last night, and returned to her place in the bar?'

‘No,' said Dow.

‘If she has indeed been sick, I saw no sign of it. The old creature was as hale as ever. And she had only the direst warnings for us all. She said that just because the maelstrom has come and gone does not mean that the danger has departed. Nathaniel's death has not relieved us of our burden, she declared. There is still a price to be paid by Stromner, and soon, she thinks. People laughed, and normally so would have I. But I wonder, Dow. I wonder . . .'

‘Did she mention me?' Dow asked.

Boiler was at the door. ‘She did. She claims that everything she has said of you has indeed come to pass, but that from this point on your future is beyond her telling, for in her reckoning your time in Stromner draws now to its close, and your fate and ours are sundered.' The innkeeper gave a last shrug and lifted a hand. ‘Make of that what you will, Dow Amber. Farewell.'

And he was gone.

The afternoon was lengthening into evening by the time Dow – scrubbed and shaved, and as presentable as he was ever likely to be – left the shack and made his way to the beach. The
Maelstrom
was still waiting there for him, drawn up neatly on the sand, with nothing about its appearance to tell of the wonders and terrors of its most recent voyage. Dow felt a surprising rush of affection for the craft. Maybe Boiler was right, and it
was
his now. He slid the boat slowly down to the water, climbed in, lowered the centreboard, raised the sail, and set off.

Before him spread the Claw, golden in the evening light, with a warm breeze blowing from the east. For a few moments Dow let the task of trimming the boat occupy him, but then something made him look back to Stromner. The village, sprawled across its dunes, seemed for once to be basking at peace in the mellow sunshine, but he realised even so that it would never be a place he could love. Nor would he be saddened if he was never to see it again.

But did he really believe that was likely? Was he convinced all over again by Mother Gale's foretelling? He couldn't say, and nor somehow could he care. He felt both expectant and strangely calm; let things fall as they may. He'd left nothing of value behind – his timberman's jacket was wrapped in a ball at his feet – and would miss no one except for Boiler. Dow turned his face away at last and rounded the point to enter the channel.

It was the slack between tides, and an easy crossing of the Rip, the
Maelstrom
riding lightly in the breeze. In no time at all Dow came to the Stone Port gate. He passed through, noting the flood marks high on the great wooden posts. Across the harbour he could see too the shambles the flood had made of the docks. Nevertheless, the water was busy with barges and boats, even in the last hour of the day. Dow furled his sail and rowed his way over to the fishing wharf, where he made the boat fast – and where his serenity was abruptly dashed.

For a crowd soon gathered. Fishermen and merchants and passers-by all ceased their business and chatter and came to watch as he tied up, having recognised both the boat and the boy who piloted it. Embarrassed, Dow climbed onto the dock. He should have been prepared for this, but he wasn't, and now in his self-consciousness did not know how to behave. The crowd studied him silently, and in their faces Dow read the same awe and admiration that he'd seen on the faces of the Stromner folk. Only here the faces belonged to strangers, folk quite unknown to him; and here there were not merely dozens of admirers, but hundreds.

He edged forward, and the crowd shifted apart so that he could make his way along the wharf. They remained silent at first, but then the whispering came, a murmured wave that rose and fell and rose again, as Dow passed by. He caught only occasional words out loud, but they were enough – words like
maelstrom
and
survived
and
victory.
And his name
.
They all knew his name.
And Dow noted one other thing. There were no Ship Kings sailors mingling in the crowd, or visible anywhere about the docks. The throng surrounding him consisted of New Islanders, and New Islanders alone.

He came to the main wharf. The Ship Kings fleet rode there at anchor, the fourteen vessels having, by the look, escaped any harm from the flood. The wharf itself, and the buildings behind, had not been so fortunate – wreckage was still littered about, and spoiled goods lay heaped outside warehouse doors, the smell of rot pungent. But where there should have been workmen busy at rebuilding, there was no one. The wharf was deserted; other than the Ship Kings marines standing guard over the frigate
Conquest,
the first ship in the line.

The crowd hung back at the sight of them, and the murmurs around Dow rose in concern; someone at the rear actually shouted his name, though in warning, or in mere encouragement, Dow couldn't tell. Silence returned, and he walked alone past the
Conquest,
under both the hopeful eyes of the crowd behind him and the wary stares of the marines by the gangway.

It was a long trek from there to the
Chloe
, past ship after ship, each with its own guard of watchful marines, and despite himself Dow wished he had Boiler for company. But finally the battleship reared up at the end of the line. Four marines stood at attention there. At first Dow saw no signs of any feast, and his anxiety hitched higher, but just as he drew near a party of finely dressed Ship Kings folk emerged from the street that led away to the Stone Port fortress. They trooped past the guards and up the gangway, laughing among themselves, and Dow relaxed a little. The feast, it seemed, was at least real.

He presented himself to the marines. Their eyes lit coldly when he gave his name, and they looked him up and down, dubious, as if measuring him unfavourably against reports they'd received – or so Dow felt; he may have been imagining it, for their words were polite enough. Yes, they said, he was expected. Indeed, two of them would escort him aboard right now.

These two ushered him up onto the main deck. Dow went uneasily, for he had not forgotten the events that had transpired here only ten days before, or the sight of Nathaniel's blood on the timbers. But in fact the main deck looked quite different from then. A red carpet had been laid, leading from the gangway to the stairs of the stern castle. Coloured lanterns were strung in the rigging, just beginning to shine out in the early evening; every inch of wood was polished to a gleam; and here and there marines stood at attention, muskets at the ready. The
Chloe
had been made resplendent for its guests. And from the high deck came the sound of convivial conversation and laughter; a party, just beginning.

But Dow was not taken along the red carpet or up to the high deck. His escorts led him to one side and through a door below the stairs, then down a passage to a small room – a storeroom it seemed, for there were kegs and casks of many sizes stacked there, and racks that held hundreds of dusty bottles.

‘You will wait here until summoned,' one of the marines said, and made off. The other remained on watch at the door.

Dow sat cautiously on a keg. Was he now a prisoner then? This was not the brig – as he knew all too well from previous experience – but nor was this the treatment of an honoured guest.

He waited, and his guard waited too. A slow time passed. Crewmen came and went from the room, collecting glasses and bottles. Some gave Dow curious stares, but most ignored him. In the passage outside, others passed by carrying great silver platters laden with food, and from the decks above came the sounds of a gathering that only grew in size and in merriment.

Many of those same platters and bottles had returned empty, and two hours at least had elapsed, before the other marine reappeared and announced that Dow's presence was finally required. Flanked once again by his two guards, he was led up a flight of stairs. Then a great set of doors was flung open, and Dow was pushed forward into a rush of warmth and light and noise.

He had to squint to see, dazzled by the glare of more lamps and candles than he'd ever beheld in one place. He'd been brought to a grand banqueting room, it seemed, high in the
Chloe's
stern; dark windows lined the rear wall. It felt an impossibly vast and ornate space for a cabin upon a ship, but at the same time it was altogether too hot and airless, for it was packed with people, a crowd of men and women, some seated at tables, and others standing about: the Ship Kings lords and ladies at their feast. The smell of roasted meats assailed Dow; and even more overpowering came the sweet scents of perfumes.

He was pushed forward again, and now he found himself standing alone in a cleared space at the centre of the room. All about him the Ship Kings pressed in their pomp and finery, but immediately before him spread a long table at which were seated the most important of the guests and dignitaries; the men magnificent in uniforms of black and gold and the women arrayed in dresses of red and silver, adorned with jewels. Dow felt clad in rags by comparison. Every way he turned he saw only proud faces staring at him disdainfully, and reproving mutters ran through the crowd in an almost angry hum.

Then there came a loud rapping, for all the world like the rapping of Mother Gale's cane, and the hum fell away. A man who stood at one end of the long table was banging a tall staff on the floorboards. ‘Dow Amber,' announced this figure, as silence settled. ‘You stand in the presence of the appointed Governor of all New Island – His Grace, Balba of the Iron Wheel.'

All eyes turned to a personage seated at the centre of the long table. He was – even to Dow's humble gaze – perhaps not quite as imposing as his own title, being but a middle-aged man of no great size, and with a bland, fleshy face; but there was a menacing air to him nonetheless, if only because of his glittering uniform and the obedient attention of all those around him.