The Singer of All Songs (19 page)

‘How do you think we’d catch one?’

‘I’m not sure, what do they eat?’

‘People,’ growled Tonno, coming to take the tiller. ‘Why don’t we tie a bit of rope around you and try some fishing?’

‘Very funny,’ said Trout, but he edged away. Calwyn laughed; it was a long time since she’d laughed, and it was a long time before she laughed again.

Day after day they drifted on, caught in the swift currents around the cape of Kalysons, carpeted with farms and orchards and clear streams, all out of their sight and out of their reach. Sooner or later those same currents would fling them out into the unknown reaches of the Great Sea; they might carry them north toward the Isles of Doryus, as Darrow predicted, or further south, toward Merithuros, as Tonno feared.
Fledgewing
was a little fishing boat, not built for long ocean voyages. The water barrels were full, but their food was running low.

The further south they sailed, the hotter it became, as if they were drifting deeper into summer, even though by the reckoning of the moons they should have been feeling the first chills of autumn. Down in the cabin, the air was stifling. Calwyn took to sleeping on the deck, propped against a coil of rope; but Tonno grumbled that she was getting in the way and drove her below again, where she lay hot and sleepless and resentful, wondering what was to become of them all.

Tonno cast his nets over the side and managed to catch some fish, to eke out their food a little longer. They were not the sweet fat fish that lived in the Bay of Sardi, but tough lean fish that dwelt in the depths and tasted strongly of the ocean. Every day Darrow stood at the prow, trying his powers in the hope that he would be able to bring them closer to some shore. But every day he turned away with a bowed head. Every night Tonno stared up at the sky and tried to judge their position from the wheeling of the stars, and calculate how far they had come since the day before. It was never a great distance. Then each of them would turn away, retreating to their own private corner of the boat, so that the others would not see their despair.

‘There must be a way,’ saidTrout. ‘Can’t we take the dinghy and row to land?’

But Darrow shook his head. ‘We are not near enough to the shore to try it. The risk is too great.’

‘But the risk now is that we’ll go on drifting for ever!’

‘The Goddess will watch over us,’ said Calwyn.

‘You and your goddess! I can see how carefully she watches,’ said Trout. ‘Since I came, there’s been a wrecked ship, broken bones, soldiers chasing us. And your friend is dead.’

At that Tonno stood up and walked away to inspect his nets.

‘Unless you have something helpful to say, will you hold your tongue?’ hissed Calwyn.

‘And unless you can say something sensible, will you hold yours?’

‘Peace, both of you!’ Darrow looked up irritably. ‘We have troubles enough without quarrelling.’

‘And yet you and Tonno spend more time in quarrelling than any of us,’ said Calwyn bitterly.

That very day, Trout began work on a device. He took a spare pair of lenses, slid them out of their wire frame and fixed them one at either end of a narrow tube, which he held to his eye. ‘It’s not as powerful as the one I made in my workshop in Mithates,’ he said, showing it to Darrow. ‘But it’s better than the plain eye. Not
my
plain eye,’ he added. ‘My vision’s no better than a mole’s. But Calwyn’s eyes are sharp. With this she could see land, or a ship approaching, long before the rest of us.’

It became Calwyn’s task to scan the horizon all day long, until she felt her eyes blur and she feared she’d become as short-sighted as Trout. But it was not until the third day after Trout had made the looking-tube that she finally spied something. ‘I think – I think I see a sail.’ She lowered the tube and blinked doubtfully toward the north.

Tonno grabbed the tube. ‘You’re right,’ he said after a moment. ‘A square sail – two square sails.’

‘Two ships?’

‘No, one ship with two masts. A large vessel, indeed. No ship that sails the Bay of Sardi is large enough to carry such weight of canvas. This is an ocean traveller, no fishing boat.’

‘Merithuran?’ said Darrow quietly at his side.

Tonno shook his head. ‘Can’t tell from its markings. But where else would it be coming from?’

‘Most likely a trader, heading for Gellan.’

‘Will they help us?’ asked Calwyn eagerly.

‘If we can offer them something they value, we might bargain for a tow into the nearest port.’

‘They might take me with them,’ said Trout. ‘They might give me passage back to Mithates.’

‘They might take you as far as Keld,’ said Tonno. ‘But the Merithuran traders don’t bother entering the Bay of Sardi.’

‘Keld would be close enough for me,’ said Trout fervently.

It seemed to take a very long time for the ship to come into view. ‘What if they can’t see us?’ said Calwyn, almost in agony. ‘I’m sure
they
have no looking-tube.’ And for a while it did seem that the other ship would sail past, oblivious to their plight. But at last the white squares of canvas became clearly visible on the horizon.

‘They see us,’ said Darrow at last. ‘They’ve shifted their heading.’

‘Merithuran.’ Tonno slapped his hand on the railing. ‘No doubt of it. Look at the shape of her.’

Now Calwyn could see the high tiered decks of the other ship, and make out the tiny figures of its crew swarming up and down in the rigging.

‘A trader, carrying cargo in the hold, gold and silver and iron from the mines of Geel and Phain,’ said Darrow. ‘They’ll fill with grain in Gellan and sail back again.’

Trout was waving his arm in wide sweeps. ‘They can see me! They’re waving back!’

‘How can we be sure that they’ll help us?’ Now, when it was too late, Calwyn was struck with sudden doubt. ‘How do we know we can trust them?’

‘Things are different at sea, lass.’Tonno gave her a slightly scornful look. ‘Sailors help each other.’

‘For a price,’ said Darrow. ‘For a price.’

Before long the huge ship hove to nearby, towering above them. The crew were dressed in short ragged trousers, with bare feet, and wore close-fitting striped caps in different bright colours. Their skin was tanned brown, and their hair, where it stuck out from under the caps, was stiff and straw-coloured, bleached by the sun. ‘Not Merithuran,’ said Darrow quietly at Calwyn’s side. ‘Doryan. A Merithuran ship with a Doryan crew.’

‘They’re lowering a boat!’Trout hopped from foot to foot with excitement.

Half a dozen sailors rowed rapidly toward them. One man in the dinghy did no rowing. His hair hung in a long oiled plait down the back of his green coat, and there was a flash of gold at his throat and his wrists. ‘That’ll be the captain,’ saidTonno.

At a word, the rowers shipped their oars, and the captain stood and hailed them. ‘Where are you bound?’

‘North,’ called Tonno. ‘But swept off course by the cape-stream.’

‘Lost your mast?’

‘In a bad storm at the Mouth, some nights back.’

The captain’s eyes flickered across them all as they stood in a row at the railing.
Like skittles
, thought Calwyn, with a sudden stab of unease.
Waiting to be knocked down
.

‘What’s your cargo?’

Tonno’s eyes narrowed. ‘What’s that to you?’

Trout gave a little anxious moan.

The captain raised a hand in appeasement. ‘I mean no offence to you or your crew. I’m only wondering what business a Sardi fishing boat might have out on the Great Sea.’

Darrow stepped forward, and Calwyn saw him place a restraining hand on Tonno’s sleeve. ‘We carry no cargo worth your notice. My friend takes me north on a voyage to visit my uncle, who lies dying in Gellan. I am anxious to be on my way with all haste. If you would be kind enough to tow us to the nearest land or port where we might replace our mast, then we will trouble you no further.’

The captain was silent, stroking his beard. Calwyn could see threads of gold woven through the wispy hairs. He smiled, a wide, slow smile, and said abruptly, ‘Aye, we will take you under tow. Cast us a line and I will lend you one or two of my crew to help secure your craft to mine.’

‘I think not,’ saidTonno politely, though his big hands were clenched hard on the railing. ‘My crew is small, but we can manage whatever is needed.’

‘Ah,’ said the captain, with equal politeness. ‘I fear I must disagree with you, my friend.’ And he swung around with a sudden roar, ‘
Seize them!
’

‘Pirates!’ shouted Tonno. ‘Ward off, for your life!’ He whipped out the knife that hung always from his belt and brandished it with a fierce flourish. Already the crew of the other boat had drawn up close to the side of
Fledgewing
and were trying to clamber aboard. Darrow caught up a belaying pin and brought it down hard on the knuckles of any men who got a hand to the side of the boat. Calwyn made a desperate lunge over the edge, grasped hold of a wildly flailing oar, and swung it down, like Darrow, on the hands and heads of the boarding party. She sawTrout rush below, then stumble up on deck again, brandishing a saucepan in each hand. One of the pirates had managed to evade them all, and had both hands and one foot over the gunwale. Calwyn gave him a sharp shove with the butt of the oar and sent him splashing into the waves below. But even as she turned to swing at the next invader, she was knocked off her feet, and the oar was wrested from her hands.

The crew of
Fledgewing
were outnumbered, and the invaders were strong and determined. One by one they were overpowered, their arms seized and bound behind them. Darrow was knocked into the edge of the cabin roof, staggered and fell, and lay unmoving on the deck. Too late, Calwyn opened her mouth to summon up her powers, but as if the pirates knew what she could do, a striped cap was thrust into her mouth and tied firmly in place to gag her. ‘None of your tricks, missy,’ hissed the sailor in her ear. Choking, her eyes smarting, she rolled over on the deck and sawTrout being wound around with ropes like a spindle wound with thread. Tonno held out the longest, sweeping his knife in broad arcs in front of him, but four of the Doryans, advancing slowly, backed him so far along the deck that his only choice was to dive overboard or submit. Even in this most desperate moment, he would never leave his ship; all four sprang at once and toppled him over. But Calwyn was savagely pleased to see through her tears that when they had finished trussing him up, each of them bore at least one bleeding cut from Tonno’s knife.

The captain stood on the deck surveying the scene with evident satisfaction. ‘Easy as picking slava off the bush. And you say I make you work too hard!’

‘The boat’s worthless,’ complained the pirate whose cap was wedged in Calwyn’s mouth. ‘A mastless, battered Sardi fishing boat. Not worth the trouble of towing her back to Doryus. Take whatever cargo they have, and the crew for slaves, and scuttle her where she sits.’

The bound-up bundle that was Tonno gave a violent wriggle and a muffled roar of protest. The captain paid no more attention than if a wave had slapped against the side of the boat. ‘She’s a neat enough little craft for shallow waters. With a new mast she’ll do for an island fishing boat. I’ll get a fair price for her.’ He nodded to the bareheaded sailor. ‘Throw the men below. You and two others stay aboard. I’ll take the windworker back to our ship.’

Calwyn watched the other three being half-kicked down the companionway. Then she was hoisted up over the shoulder of one of the pirates and unceremoniously dumped into the bottom of their dinghy. It was a long drop, and she bruised her knees and elbows in the fall. She managed to twist so that she could peer over the edge of the boat, and as it rose and fell with each stroke of the oars, she caught glimpses of
Fledgewing
, at first rising high above them, then moving further and further away. With a sinking heart she turned her head and saw the pirate ship on the other side, looming closer and closer.

At least they had not all been spitted on a pirate’s sword. Not yet. But perhaps that might be preferable to being sold as slaves.
Windworker
. She pushed that thought aside, and wondered how the others were faring. Tonno had seemed still lively enough, but Darrow was hurt. She didn’t know what had become of Trout. Only that morning she had wished the others at the bottom of the ocean; now she longed to be back in the cabin of
Fledgewing
with them, tied up or not. All their futile squabbling seemed foolish beyond words. She felt she could have borne anything as long as they were all together – but here she was, alone. She might never see them again.

There was a soft bump at the side of the dinghy; the towering bulk of the pirates’ ship blocked out the sun. One of the sailors looped a rope around her and she was hauled aboard as carelessly as a sack of apples, smacking into the side of the ship with each heave of the rope. Dumped onto the deck, she fought to catch her breath. Someone said, ‘Another windworker. As much trouble as the other, no doubt,’ and spat on the deck beside her head. Then someone else hoisted her up and dragged her below decks, through a warren of close, stinking cabins, until she was finally shoved into one that seemed even smaller than the rest. She stumbled and fell, skidding across the floor until she fetched up with a bump against the far wall.

‘Hey!’ An indignant voice, a girl’s voice, rang out above her head.

‘A little friend for you. One of your kind,’ sneered the sailor who had dragged Calwyn there.

‘This cabin ain’t big enough for one, let alone two!You tell the captain –’

‘Tell him yourself!’ And already the door was slammed and locked fast.

‘Son of a dog!’ the girl shouted after him, but there was no reply.

Painfully Calwyn sat up, a difficult feat with her hands tied fast behind her. She was in a cabin not larger than a decent-sized storage locker, even smaller than her den in the bows of
Fledgewing
. There was just room for two bunks, one above the other. The top one was crammed with old sails and ropes and pieces of gear, and on the bottom one sat a girl, one or two years younger than herself, with the tawny skin and pale hair of a Doryan, who stared at her with unabashed hostility in her golden eyes. Her skinny limbs stuck out from a faded jacket and trousers which seemed far too small for her.