Voyage of the Basilisk : A Memoir by Lady Trent (9781429956369) (22 page)

Much of the work in dealing with the
Basilisk,
first on the reef and then careened on the shore, was carried out under the supervision of Mr. Dolin, for the breaking of Aekinitos’ leg greatly hampered his movements; but the captain was up and about before we were ready to leave. He took
very
badly to the limitations of his injury, and was a tyrant in the beach camp. All of his supernumerary passengers were pressed into service on such tasks as we were fit for—even Jake.

“He is crew,” Aekinitos growled when I protested. (Virtually everything he said in that time came out as a growl, for enforced sedentism had made him a bear.) “If he wishes to sail from here on the
Basilisk,
he will work. As for you, Mrs. Camherst—there is no time to chase after dragons when my ship is wrecked. Much less ancient ruins.”

That last, of course, was directed at Suhail, who had not protested at all. I resented the captain a great deal for his declaration, but he had the right of it: restoring our ability to travel took precedence over anything else. I was not much use in anything ship-related, nor things that required physical strength, but I sighed and joined Abby in making our beach camp a habitable place. If we were to be there for as long as it seemed, I had rather our quarters be something other than makeshift.

I cannot pretend our situation was entirely comfortable. (For one accustomed to the life of a Scirling gentlewoman, anything that does not involve padded armchairs cannot be termed “comfortable.”) But the climate of Keonga is exceedingly agreeable, and after more than a year cooped up in that snuff-box of a cabin, the freedom to stretch out my limbs was a positive delight. I acquired a particular fondness for the ceaseless rush of the waves upon the shore, which I believe to be the most soothing sound in the world. It is because of my time on Keonga that I have made a habit of spending time on Prania in my later years—now that I can afford to do so.

We attracted a great deal of interest from the Keongans, of course. Much of our official cargo had gone in the bargain for supplies and assistance, but all the sailors had possessions of their own, and there was soon a brisk market between them and the islanders, each craving what they saw as exotic from the other. Tobacco pipes, penny whistles, and broken pocket watches were soon to be found in the proud keeping of the locals, while the sailors competed with one another to see who could obtain the most splendid flower wreath or shark-tooth club.

I took little part in this, as most of what I had with me was either scientific equipment I needed or specimens I had collected for my work. I did, however, converse with the islanders as much as I could, cudgeling my brain into accepting the sound changes and subtleties of grammar that differentiated their tongue from the trade pidgin I had previously learned. And, as you may imagine, I asked them about dragons.

My interest was divided between the sea-serpents I knew must be in the region and the fire-lizards I had seen with my own eyes. At first the locals could not understand my words; then, once the words became comprehensible, they did not understand my purpose; then, the more I questioned them, the more they retreated from me, their friendliness draining away.

“Am I giving offense?” I asked Suhail, knowing his command of the language far outstripped my own. “I know they have many customs I am not familiar with, and I may have violated one. Is it wrong for me to ask about dragons?”

He shook his head, brows knitting in thought. “Not that I have heard. There are things that
are
forbidden to talk about, at least for the likes of me—but they make it clear when that is the case. I can try to find out, though.”

“Please do.” I did not like the thought that I might, out of sheer ignorance, close the doors that needed to be open for me. I could not heed
tapu
if I did not know where its boundaries lay.

Out of habit, I glanced up the slope of the nearby mountain. Once again, small figures were circling in the air: a flight of fire-lizards. I wanted to observe them, but until I cleared this matter up, it would be better for me to pretend they were not there … however much of a wrench it might be.

Turning away from the fire-lizards, I saw someone partway up the path that led to the village. It was the woman from the chief’s entourage; I had learned her name was Heali’i. She had been lurking about our camp for some time now, watching us.

Or rather, watching
me
. I was sure of it now. Her eyes remained on me as Suhail went down to the water’s edge. I nodded to her, reflexively polite, and she laughed—I could see the motion, though she was too far for me to hear the sound. Then she turned and began climbing the path, vanishing into the growing dusk.

TWELVE

Heali’i—The hostility grows—Keongan etiquette—Ke’anaka’i—Matters of marriage—Bowing to necessity

Heali’i was a point of great gossip among the sailors. As I noted before, her appearance was not quite like that of other Keongan women, with her tattoos and her exaggerated clothing. She was said to live with her husband partway up the slopes of Homa’apia—the volcano at whose base we crouched—but somewhere in the course of things, a rumour started that her marriage was in some fashion peculiar. The men took this in predictable directions, and so whenever they encountered Heali’i (which they did often, on account of her tendency to lurk about camp and watch me), they greeted her with increasingly unsubtle propositions, all of which she laughed off with a flirtatious but unyielding refusal.

She did not seem to engage in the routine life of Keongan women. They spend some time in garden cultivation, and a great deal more making textiles: rope, twine, and above all barkcloth, which among them is a high art. (Larger-scale agriculture, hunting and fishing, canoe-making, and most aspects of warfare are the province of men—along with cooking, which I initially found to be a charming reversal, as I have never learned to love the task.) She did not quite seem to be a priestess either, though. As in many societies, the clergy of Keonga are drawn from particular bloodlines closely allied with those of the chieftains and the king, and they spend their time in activities such as the interpretation of omens and the conduct of rituals. They also dwell close by their leaders, in houses whose support posts and ridge beams were grandly carved with images of great significance. None of this described Heali’i, either.

Indeed, had I been forced to choose a single word to describe her status, it might have been “outcast.” Her husband—a fellow named Mokoane—was a bit solitary, but seemed to be accepted well enough by Keongan society. Heali’i, by contrast, fit in nowhere. And yet she was not shunned, either. When islanders encountered her, they always greeted her with careful respect—unlike our own sailors. I could not make sense of it, and I could find no graceful way to ask why she was watching me.

Being who I am, when the graceful way failed, I decided to be more direct.

If this seems unwise, you must understand the circumstances I found myself in. Even though I had curtailed my questions about dragons, turning my eyes from the high peak where the fire-lizards flew, I found myself hedged about with growing hostility. Suhail had attempted to discover whether I had somehow violated
tapu,
but with no real success. “They all say no,” he reported to me. “But it is the sort of no that means, ‘you are asking the wrong question.’ And yet no one will tell me what I
should
ask.”

On the theory that perhaps it was not the question but the questioner that was wrong, I tried asking them myself. I say “tried” because no one even allowed me to finish, let alone answered. They all backed away, making signs I presumed were wards against evil. My frustration began to take on the cast of fear. I had once earned the hostility of Vystrani peasants by trespassing in ignorance, and it had almost resulted in us being chased out of town. Here we had no means of fleeing. If the current shunning turned to violence, I could destroy much more than simply my hopes of conducting research.

In all of this, Heali’i stood out as an exception. She did not approach me or speak to me, but where others turned their eyes away and abandoned my presence at the first opportunity, she was constantly there, watching. “I know it is not on your list of tasks to be performed,” I told Aekinitos, “but I should like to try and talk to her.”

He knew as well as I how the local mood was turning. “Go,” he said. “Try not to get yourself killed.” (I told you his mood was foul.)

I did take some precautions before approaching her.
Tapu,
you see, extends not only to certain subjects, but also to people and how one interacts with them. And while the common people observe a few forms of
tapu
—men and women, for example, may not eat together, which fortunately we discovered before we appalled the locals with our degenerate ways—individuals of importance observe many more. Thus far I had not been able to determine Heali’i’s exact position in society, but I did inquire as to whether I would commit any unforgivable offense by trying to speak with her. (In a place where standing on the king’s shadow is a crime punishable by death, this is no trivial consideration.)

I expected grudging permission at best, stony refusal at worst. For once I was shown to be a pessimist: the reaction from the woman I questioned appeared to be nothing less than sheer relief. From this I could only surmise that I had confirmed some hidden suspicion, but in a fashion that said the problem would soon be mended.

And so one day, with Jake in tow—leaving Abby to enjoy a well-earned rest—I hiked up the path to Heali’i’s hut.

The track that led there was well maintained, relatively clear of vegetation and graveled with chips of stone where a dip made it muddy. Paths like this were to be found all around the islands; larger ones circled the perimeters, while smaller ones marked the boundaries between the districts and penetrated the interior to various locations of note. All around us was forest, as the ground here was too steep for much cultivation, but outcroppings of basalt occasionally served to remind me that we stood on the slope of a volcano—one that was most certainly not dormant. The wisps of steam continually drifting up from its caldera made that
quite
clear.

Heali’i was there, braiding cord into some kind of small shape. She paused in this work as we approached, studying us with unabashed curiosity. I wondered how we appeared to her: a pale woman covered in close-fitting fabric, and a nut-brown boy whose arms and legs were shooting out of his clothing. (Jake had grown nearly ten centimeters since our voyage began.) We certainly did not look Puian, but neither did we look much like the crew of the
Basilisk
.

I gave her a Keongan greeting, then said, “Please pardon my ignorance. I should like to be polite, but I do not know how I ought to address you.”

Her eyebrows did a brief dance, from which I interpreted surprise, confusion, and amusement. (Heali’i often seemed to be laughing at me when we spoke, but I never did determine how much of that was her natural demeanor and how much was a reaction to my follies.)

She considered my words for a moment, but not with the wary hostility I had received from so many others. “Who are you?”

“I am Isabella Camherst,” I said, and nudged my son forward with one hand. “This is Jake.”

Heali’i shook her head. “No. Who are you?”

“We came on the
Basilisk,
” I said. “The ship out in the bay.” My words came slowly, because it was inconceivable that she could have forgotten that—and yet I could not think what else she might mean.

Body language is not the same in every culture, but I thought the tilt of her head was the equivalent of rolling her eyes heavenward, asking her gods for patience in dealing with so ignorant a visitor. “I cannot say how we should speak unless I know who you are. Your place, your ancestors, your
mana
.”

That final term was one I had encountered a few times already—enough to have a tenuous grasp of what it meant—but I lacked the first notion of how to evaluate it in terms she might find useful. Her first two questions I could answer, though, at least in part. “You might call my father a retainer to a chief. My late husband was the younger son of a very minor chief.” (These were the best comparisons I could find for “knight” and “second son of a baronet,” respectively.) “For my own part, I am not a sailor on the
Basilisk
—I am not a servant of the captain, though of course we respect his authority when on board his ship. My companions and I voyage with him to carry out our work, which is to study and understand many things in the world.”

“Your companions,” Heali’i said, after a moment’s thought. “Who leads you? The red man, or the other?”

In Mouleen Tom’s nickname had been Epou, which means “red.” The lesser heat of the Broken Sea had not flushed him as badly, but it was still enough for the epithet to return. “The other,” then, would be Suhail, whose warm brown skin was much less worthy of remark among the Keongans. “It is not that simple,” I said. “I work together with Tom—the red one. He and I are…” I used my hands to indicate equal status. (As usual, I am representing our conversations as rather more fluent than they were in reality, eliding most circumlocutions and gaps in my vocabulary—not to mention abject failures of grammar.) “Suhail has recently joined us, but he is pursuing his own goals.”

My statement regarding Tom caused her tattooed mouth to purse. I had clearly posed her something of a conundrum, without intending to. Nor were we any closer to answering the question with which we had begun: to wit, how I should address her. We had conversed quite a bit for two individuals between whom such a basic question of etiquette had not yet been settled.

Jake had been listening. I am both embarrassed and proud to admit that his grasp of the language was likely better than mine; children’s minds often absorb such things with more ease, and his father had always been better than I with Vystrani. But there were other things of which he had less comprehension, and so he said, “What’s
mana
?”