The Voyage of the Unquiet Ice (5 page)

And yet what of it? How could his fate ever be linked to hers if she was bound in turn to a Ship Kings officer?

Now, staring down from his precarious height, a jealous pride woke in Dow. Failure could be born in Diego's presence, but not in Nell's. In two convulsive movements he hauled himself onto the crossbeam, then threw up his hand to slap it against the metal fitting on the mast's peak.

A violent flush of victory filled him. One arm tight about the mast, he stood upright on the crossbar and looked out. Clear now of every sail and spar, his view was unencumbered on all sides and the ocean seemed vast beyond taking in; Dow hadn't realised just how limited his view from the deck had been, and how close the horizon had pressed. Up here that horizon leapt back by an extra dozen miles or more, and the great swells dissipated away southwards until they were no more than ripples on the edge of sight. For a moment, even the wild rolling of the ship felt good.

But as he clung there in his triumph he became aware of cries from below. At first he thought that some among the crew were shouting insults (or perhaps even congratulations) up to him. But no, the tone of the cries was strange. Surprised. Alarmed.

‘Behold, New Islander!' the lookout suddenly called from the crow's nest. ‘To the north. Look what comes!'

The old sailor was pointing urgently. Dow followed the finger, and saw nothing at first, other than the grey northern sky. But finally he detected a glint of white, wheeling high against the clouds.

It was a bird.

A gull, Dow assumed at the first glimpse. It was some weeks now since any had been seen, but the
Chloe
was drawing close to land again – Great Island lay less than a week's sail to the east – so perhaps this was the first gull to mark that approaching landfall?

But then he saw that it could not be a gull. It was too large. And the colour was wrong. It was not merely white, it seemed almost to be glowing against the backdrop of the sky. And as it wheeled yet closer to the
Chloe
Dow could see that it was not merely large, it was enormous.

Below, the lookout's voice was hushed with wonder. ‘An Ice Albatross. I've seen the like but once in all my days.'

Dow's exultation was fading, and he was uneasily aware once more of the swoop and drop of the mast as the ship rolled. But the great bird held his attention. It was directly over the ship now, as high above Dow as Dow was above the sea. Its streamlined body was long and sleek, and each wing must have been twice the length of a grown man.

‘It's a thing no landsman will ever spy,' the lookout said, awed. ‘Such birds are encountered only out upon the deep ocean, and where they nest no one knows, except that it is upon none of the Four Isles. Some say they stay aloft forever. Others say that they make their homes in the northern ice, hence their name, but it's only a guess, for none has ever witnessed it. They are the greatest of all birds, the rarest of all creatures, and the masters of omen, for good or for ill. Doom will come to any ship that harms one.'

This last came as a warning, for now the great bird was circling lower. It called out, a high shriek like that of a gull, except longer and louder, and lilting at its end in a manner that spoke of loneliness and endless wandering above the waves. The sound pierced Dow's heart, a cry that gave voice to his own longing within. And still the albatross lowered.

‘Beware, New Islander!' hissed the old man fearfully. ‘It means to alight at your very side.'

Dow did not need to be told. The immense creature was hovering only a few yards above him, seeming to circle effortlessly about the masthead, though in fact the bird was riding motionless on the wind, wings stretched wide, and it was the mast rather that dipped and swayed. Eyes like black glass watched Dow from beneath dark feathered brows.

Abruptly the great wings folded, fearsome talons reached down, and in a deft instant the bird was perched upon the opposite arm of the crossbar, with only the mast standing between it and Dow.

There was silence now from those below. Dow could feel their shock and disbelief; he shared it. The albatross was an overpowering presence. Upright, it stood as tall as Dow himself, but while he was merely human, made of fragile skin and bone, the bird was a creature of radiant whiteness and sheer strength; wing, sinew and claw. Each feather, he saw, was lined with a thin strip of vivid purple. And its eyes! They were set forward in the albatross's broad head – hunter's eyes, like those of a hawk or an eagle – but so much deeper and blacker; as fathomless as the ocean itself.

They were locked upon him, and Dow in turn could not look away. He felt no threat, only that he was being studied, that he was being weighed by an intelligence cold and ancient and alien.

The bird straightened and ruffled its mighty wings; its golden beak parted and it cried again, another shriek, searing and sharp and desolate, staring fixedly at Dow all the while. Did the eyes hold a message? A question? Dow could not tell. He felt an overwhelming desire to speak an answer of some kind, but there were no words with which to say it.

Then it was too late. The bird unfolded its wings a little and dove from the perch. A white statue, it dropped directly down among the rigging, and frightened cries rose about the ship. Only at the last moment did it open its wings fully to soar across the deck far below, sending men scattering out of its way; then it was out over the water, climbing again to higher airs, and wheeling away back to where it had come from, into the north.

Dow – and all the ship – watched it go in long silence, a brilliantly white shape receding. From time to time it circled back towards the
Chloe,
and it would cry out again, as if urging the ship to hurry and follow. But the ship held its course, and at last the albatross was no more than a white speck against the northern darkness. Then it was gone.

Numbly, Dow slid back down the mast to the crow's nest. The lookout made room for him; indeed, the old man seemed to squeeze himself away from Dow in revulsion. For a few moments they rode there wordlessly as the nest continued its great plunges to and fro above the rolling deck, Dow too overcome by wonder and exhaustion to feel sick anymore.

‘An Ice Albatross,' the lookout marvelled softly at last. ‘Never have I seen, or even heard, of one alighting upon a vessel. And if I – a ship's poet – have not heard of it, then it has never happened.'

Dow thought dimly – a ship's
poet
?

The old man was staring at him, and it was not revulsion in his eyes, but reverence. ‘And you, close enough to touch it. I saw the way it looked at you, the way it
called
to you. What did it say?'

Dow shook his head. It had said nothing to him.

But the lookout shook his own head in return. ‘Oh, it said something, even if you don't yet know what it was.' And then he bowed briefly. ‘You have been marked by a great omen, New Islander, and it is not for me to scorn or dismiss such a one, poet or no. The sea has spoken.'

Confused, Dow said, ‘You write poems?'

‘Ha!' The old man's grin was gapped and ugly. ‘No. I am no composer of pretty verses – for such, I gather, is the meaning of the word to you New Islanders. But on board a ship, poet is the title we give to the oldest hand among the crew, he who has served longest before the mast and upon the seas. He who is the most schooled in lore. Not book-schooled – we leave that for the officers. I mean schooled in the greater things, in the cruel and bitter ways of the sea. Below decks, in the dark of night or dread of storm, it is to the poet, not the officers, that a sailor turns for wisdom. Alfons is my name.'

A premonition chilled Dow. That this particular man had been on look-out duty today, when such a bird had come, at the very moment he'd clung atop the mast … already Dow could imagine the way the tale of it would be forming in the poet's mind, to be repeated later that night to eager listeners below decks.

Dow Amber, the boy who rode the maelstrom, the first New
Islander to go to sea in generations, and on the day of his testing
the ocean sent great waves, and an Ice Albatross came to him as
he bestrode the masthead …
But no – it hadn't been like that. The waves were not so great or unusual, Alfons had said so himself; and Dow had been so terrified he'd almost failed in the climb, and as for the bird – well, the bird had simply rested a moment from its flight, it was sheerest accident that Dow had been there at the same time. The sea had not spoken. The sea was a mindless thing. Unthinking. It had no special interest in a youth called Dow Amber.

But the look in the poet's eyes made mockery of Dow's silent objections. He wondered then what
she
would make of it, scapegoat as she was, mistress of the
Chloe's
fate. But when he stared down to the main deck, Diego and the other lieutenants had vanished, and Nell too was gone.

2. THE THOUSAND-GUN SHIP

T
he great swells faded slowly over the following three days and the
Chloe
ceased its awful rolling, but the sky remained grey and a pool of cold air descended from the north, so that sleet fell, and it was bitterly chill on deck. Dow – Able Seaman Amber, Third Class, as he now was – spent most of that time with Johannes and Nicky, down in the smithy's warmth.

As a sign of his new status he now wore, on a stout cord about his neck, a small bronze coin, pierced with a hole. It had been presented to him by a smiling Fidel when Dow had finally descended the mainmast. All the seamen on board wore such a coin, except that the coins of Seamen Second Class were made of silver, while Seamen First Class wore gold.

And yet there was a hollowness to the achievement, for despite his new rank Dow had been given no duties to perform. All Fidel had said, apologetically, was that it would be some time yet before any such assignment could be made. There were matters to resolve – but what those matters were, the first officer would not say. And so, seaman's coin or not, Dow's position on the ship was much the same as before: a passenger with no responsibilities and nothing to do. He might never have taken the test at all.

Except, not
everything
was the same.

The ‘accidental' bumps and elbows from the crew, and the muttered insults, had all ceased. At first, Dow had thought this was because he was now a fellow seaman, but he soon realised the truth; dislike had been replaced by fear, because of the Ice Albatross. Now he was greeted with a silent watchfulness wherever he went, and with a wary clearing of space about him, as if he might be infectious with some dreadful disease.

The one exception was the poet, Alfons. Despite never having noticed the old man before their meeting in the crow's nest, Dow now seemed to happen upon him in all sorts of out-of-the-way corners below decks, always huddled in conversation with this group of sailors or that. The discussions would pause guardedly as Dow passed by, but the poet would always give a sly wink, as if to say that
he
at least was speaking on Dow's behalf.

‘Pay them no mind,' Johannes advised Dow, tending the fire of his forge, his great tattooed arms glistening with sweat. ‘Ship Kings crews are as superstitious as old women, and worse gossips. They don't know what to make of the albatross, is all. Most of them have never seen one before, and now they're madly trying to figure out if it means you're good luck or bad.' He glanced at his apprentice. ‘But we Red Islanders don't go for that sort of nonsense, do we, Nicky boy? You make your own luck in this world!'

To which Nicky, working the bellows with his usual impassive concentration, only nodded sagely.