The Voyage of the Unquiet Ice (29 page)

Dow considered the rift, startled to hear his own thoughts so closely echoed by her, but even more puzzled as to why she had been considering his future at all. Why would she care?

She took another seemingly reluctant breath, then confessed, ‘The truth is, Dow Amber, I need your help.'

‘
My
help?'

Even in the dark he could detect the blush about her eyes, which were now avoiding his. ‘I know. I've always been … unfriendly to you. But there's no time for that anymore. It isn't even you who is my real enemy, after all. It's tradition that prevents me.' She paused a moment, not explaining. Then she asked, ‘You saw the woman on Camp Island?'

Dow nodded, the frozen figure vivid in his memory.

Nell's gaze too was lost in recollection. ‘I'm a student of history in my spare hours – of which I have all too many – and in ancient times, when we Ship Kings first took to the oceans, a scapegoat whose ship was wrecked was considered to have betrayed her vessel. In those days, it was thought fitting to execute such a one.'

Dow frowned in mystified distaste. He'd always found the concept of scapegoats disturbing anyway – but to
kill
those who'd failed?

Nell went on. ‘The
Bent Wing's
scapegoat was luckier to have lived in a more civilised age. Or so it would seem. I doubt she felt lucky. It's such a helpless role we scapegoats play. We can do nothing, we cannot act on our own behalf, and yet we are meant to somehow bear responsibility. The poor woman must have felt a terrible guilt. The arrow, those stones … how she must have laboured. And what was she trying to say? Who was she saying it to?'

She seemed to realise she was babbling, and stopped herself, taking another deep, hard breath. She stared to the rift again.

‘Behold, Dow Amber. Never before – even in the Golden Age of exploration – has a ship stood where we now stand. No one else has ever found their way so deep within the ice. Oh, there are endless tales of openings in the Wall, but always such openings were sighted only from afar, or were closed over again when ships returned to them a season later. And thus, through the ages, the questions have remained. Where do such passages lead? Why do they open and close? What are the lights that are sometimes glimpsed across the ice peaks? No one has ever been able to answer. But
we
stand within reach of the solution. If we could but push on a little further.

‘But do we? No! We are to turn back, says our gallant captain, and his gallant officers agree without a murmur. Men have
died
trying to get to where we are now – and I don't just mean the Lord Designate and his fleet, I mean all throughout history. Ship after ship has been lost in the battle with the ice. Even that poor woman – she laboured until her last breath, just to point the way to this place. And yet we – having arrived here with scarcely an effort – want to turn back at the first sign of difficulty!

‘It's shameful. What kind of mariners can we call ourselves, if we retreat now? Are
you
not curious, Dow Amber, about what lies at the rift's end? Is it the fabled pole? Is there an ocean of warm water there, with new lands and cities and peoples unmet? Does Nadal still live perhaps, there on the other side? Or is it none of these things, but something else entirely? And whatever the reality, don't you want to
know
? Wasn't it for this very purpose – to explore such a place – that you first longed to set out to sea?'

Dow listened in growing bemusement. He'd never expected to hear Nell talk this way, so openly, so earnestly. The death of her fellow scapegoat must have affected her deeply. But his puzzlement remained. He understood her vehemence about the decision to retreat, and even shared it – but why was she arguing her case to
him
?

‘Yes,' he said at last, ‘I wonder what lies beyond the rift. But Captain Vincente has made his ruling.'

She glanced at him, eyes wide. ‘You agree then with the captain that the chasm cannot be entered, because of the great waves that issue from it, ever and anon?'

‘You don't agree?'

She dug into the pocket of her anorak, and pulled forth a small object. It was an hourglass. She held it up in her gloved hand. ‘I've studied the rift all this day, from my cabin window, with this glass always by my side. Four times now the waves have issued forth since we anchored here. They don't follow any regular pattern that I can detect, save for this – not once has a wave yet come less than two hours after the wave before. It was twice over three hours – but never less than two. What do you think of that?'

Dow bit his lip, staring at the timepiece. It was an interesting fact. But surely she wasn't suggesting—

She put the glass away, looking once more beyond the rail to the mouth of the rift. ‘Imagine if a boat set out just after a wave had come through, it would have two hours at least to explore the chasm. One hour to progress as far inwards as it could, and then, if nothing had been found, nor any safe place to anchor or dock, the crew would still have one hour to come back.'

An hour? Dow couldn't help but calculate. It was unlikely that a sail could be raised in the rift, but how far could a cutter
row
in that time? Four miles? Six miles, if the crew was pushing hard? What might such a journey reveal, six miles between those narrow cliffs …

‘Vincente would never allow it,' he said.

Nell laughed softly. ‘I've already asked him, and indeed he refused. He said that without knowing the cause of the waves, we cannot be sure of their timing, and that he will not risk men's lives on a guess.'

Dow shrugged. That was that then.

Nell wasn't finished. ‘I mentioned it also to Lieutenant Diego.'

Her tone was carefully neutral, but Dow was quick to discern the trace of disappointment. ‘And?'

She looked away. ‘He too scorned the idea.'

Dow smiled coldly.

‘It's not that he lacks the courage for it,' Nell protested. ‘He simply thinks it cannot hope to succeed. Also – as I knew before I asked – he would never disobey a direct order from the captain, for all that he has no fondness for Vincente. Like all Ship Kings officers, he is locked into too rigid a chain of command and protocol to strike out alone.' Here she straightened, to stare archly at Dow. ‘But you are not an officer or a Ship King.'

Ah … so that was the way of it. Dow's curiosity cooled a fraction. No wonder she had apologised for her behaviour, and even praised him. Her own loyal lieutenant – her purported future husband, no less – had declined to indulge her fantastic proposal, and so she'd turned to Dow – the ignorant New Island boy – first to charm him, and then to use him.

He let his disdain show. ‘You think
I
should disobey the captain and take a boat into the chasm?'

‘Of course not!' was her affronted reply. ‘
I
want to go. But I need you and your crew to take me.'

Dow was surprised into silence.
She
wanted to go? But that was ridiculous. She wasn't a sailor, she was only ...

She might have heard his thought, so angrily did she bridle within her anorak. ‘You think you're the only one capable of bravery? You think only you dare maelstroms and the like? You've no
idea
what others are capable of – what
I'm
capable of; what I've already been through just to stand here on this ship. Far worse than your little whirlpool, believe me!'

Her fury was so impressive (and so outrageous –
little
whirlpool indeed!) that Dow's scepticism evaporated. He saw that she really did intend to do this thing. But it made no difference.

He said, ‘Even if I could convince the crew to do it, what hope is there of obtaining a craft? The captain has forbidden any expedition. There's no way we could launch a boat in secret. Everyone would see.'

Her anger vanished as quickly as it had come, replaced by an eager excitement. ‘That's just it. We don't have to launch one, not from up here on the main deck. Have you forgotten? One is already launched; it's waiting in the water, attached only by single line.'

Once more, Dow was taken aback. She was right. The boat from the
Bent Wing
had been trailing behind the
Chloe
all along, and it floated there still. It had no rigging, true, but it still possessed rowlocks for oars.

So it could be done. Conceivably. Possibly.

But even so …

‘The men will never agree,' he said

Her eyes were still fervent. ‘They followed you through the reefs to Trap Island, did they not? They consider you touched by fate, I know; the old poet in particular. They'll follow you into the rift as well.'

‘Against the captain's orders?'

‘They
will –
if you tell them that their own scapegoat gives her blessing. Indeed, that she will go with them. Think of it, Dow Amber, think of the fame that will be ours, if we can pass through. Think of the lives that will be ours – the freedom that we will win for ourselves – if we succeed. Otherwise what awaits you? Obscurity and confinement. And as for me …'

As for her …

Again, as it had long ago on the
Twelfth Kingdom
, a surge seemed to run between them, a connection – only far stronger this time – and Dow glimpsed in her the same horror of inactivity and helplessness that lay in himself. It was a horror that had driven her to swallow her pride and to ask for help from someone who until now she had regarded as beneath her. He didn't understand her reasons fully, but he recognised the desperate need in her to
act,
whatever the cost – to do something other than exist as a mere useless symbol.

Dow, of all people, knew what that was like.

He gave a single, slow nod.

Her eyes flashed joyfully and she gripped him about the shoulders. ‘Then you must fetch your men now, while the ship sleeps. We must be ready to set out as soon as the next wave comes. If we delay it will be too late. Vincente means to depart the instant the fog lifts.'

‘I'll try. That's all I can do.'

‘Meet me in the sail room with your men in half an hour.'

‘But the boat—'

‘I'll take care of the boat. Go!'

Dow went.

And yet … he was not sure, even now, that he
really
meant to go through with it. It was preposterous, after all, to think they'd get away undiscovered. And to actually enter the chasm might be suicidally dangerous, no matter Nell's theories. No, Dow promised himself, if by some chance they made it that far, only then would he decide it was truly safe to proceed.

He stole away below and found Alfons on the Third Gun deck. The old sailor was sitting with several of his drowsy fellows around one of the fires. Catching his eye, Dow drew him away to a corner and in a low voice quickly explained the situation, as Alfons's gaze went wide. The poet gave a soft whistle when Dow was done, and chewed a fingernail.

‘We'll all be flogged,' he opined finally.

‘I don't think so,' said Dow, ‘not even if we're caught. Not when it's the ship's scapegoat's own idea.'

‘Aye. Whatever else could be said, a scapegoat is a scapegoat, and not to be lightly ignored. And I saw this coming in her, did I not? ' Alfons studied Dow all the more wonderingly. ‘You though – you're the key, Mr Amber. Are you meant to do this, do you think?'

Dow considered uneasily. Was he
meant
to do this? No – he no longer allowed himself to believe things like that. But he
wanted
to do it, of that there was no doubt.

He did not wish to lie to the old man though … He said, ‘I think we
should
do it, that's all I know.'

Alfons nodded. ‘Good enough for me.' He glanced to his mates around the fire. ‘But you'd be wanting all six of us to crew the cutter, and Luca and Danton are in sick bay with frost-bit fingers – those nights leading-out in the boats got to 'em, gloves or no. I can vouch for the other three, but I don't know that I could convince anyone else to come, not against orders. They don't know you as well as we do, you see.'

Dow pondered. ‘Never mind. I think I know of two more.'

‘We'll need strong backs, mind!'

‘Don't worry – they're strong.'

Dow hurried down another two decks to the smithy.

He had absolutely no right, he knew, to ask it of Johannes and Nicky. They owed him nothing, indeed, the reverse was true, so generous had they been to him since he'd come on board.

Yet somehow he knew they'd
want
to go – and when the bleary Johannes was roused from sleep and told the story, his reaction was to slap himself across the face to come fully awake, and to grin at Dow as if really seeing him for the first time. ‘Well now,' he declared at last, ‘if a scapegoat and a poet and the boy who rode the maelstrom are all for it, who am I to say no?'

A sudden doubt struck Dow. ‘You can row, can't you?'

Johannes only laughed hugely in reply, then reached over to the next hammock to give the still snoring Nicky a shove.

So Dow had his crew.