The Mad Ship

1 THE MAD SHIP

THE BREEZE AGAINST his face and chest was brisk and chill, yet something in it hinted of spring soon to come. The air tasted of iodine; the tide must be out, exposing the kelp beds just offshore. Under his hull, the coarse sand was damp from the last heavy rain. The smoke of Amber’s small fire tickled his nose. The figurehead turned his blind visage away from it then reached up to scratch his nose.

‘It’s a fine evening, don’t you think?’ she asked him conversationally. ‘The skies have cleared. There are still some clouds, but I can see the moon and some stars. I’ve gathered mussels and wrapped them in seaweed. When the fire is stronger, I’ll rake away some of the wood and cook them on the coals.’ Her voice paused hopefully.

Paragon did not reply.

‘Would you like to taste some, when they’re cooked? I know you have no need to eat, but you might find it an interesting experience.’

He yawned, stretched, and crossed his arms on his chest. He was much better at this than she was. Thirty years hauled out on a beach had taught him true patience. He would outlast her. He wondered if she would get angry or sad tonight.

‘What good does it do either of us for you to refuse to speak to me?’ she asked reasonably. He could hear her patience starting to unravel. He did not bother to shrug.

‘Paragon, you are a hopeless twit. Why won’t you speak to me? Can’t you see I’m the only one who can save you?’

Save me from what? He might have asked. If he’d been speaking to her.

He heard her get up and walk around his bow to stand in front of him. He casually turned his disfigured face away from her.

‘Fine, then. Pretend to ignore me. I don’t care if you answer me or not, but you have to listen to what I say. You are in danger, very real danger. I know you opposed me buying you from your family, but I made the offer anyway. They refused me.’

Paragon permitted himself a small snort of disdain. Of course they had. He was the Ludluck family’s liveship. No matter how deep his disgrace, they would never sell him. They had kept him chained and anchored to this beach for some thirty years, but they’d never sell him! Not to Amber, not to New Traders. They wouldn’t. He had known that all along.

Amber continued doggedly. ‘I spoke directly to Amis Ludluck. It wasn’t easy to get to see her. When we did speak, she pretended to be shocked that I would make the offer. She insisted you were not for sale, at any price. She said the same things that you did, that no Bingtown Trader family would sell their liveship. That it simply wasn’t done.’

Paragon could not keep down the slow smile that gradually transfigured his face. They still cared. How could he have ever doubted that? In a way, he was almost grateful to Amber for making the ridiculous offer to buy him. Maybe now that Amis Ludluck had admitted to a stranger that he was still a part of her family, she’d be moved to visit him. Once Amis had visited him, it might lead to other things. Perhaps he would yet again sail the seas with a friendly hand on the wheel. His imagination went afar.

Amber’s voice dragged him back ruthlessly. ‘She pretended to be distressed that there were even rumours of selling you. She said it insulted her family honour. Then she said –’ Amber’s voice suddenly went low, with fear or anger. ‘She said that she had hired some men to tow you away from Bingtown. That it might be better all around if you were out of sight and out of mind.’ Amber paused significantly.

Paragon felt something inside his wizardwood chest squeeze tight and hard.

‘So I asked her who she had hired.’

He lifted his hands quickly and stuffed his fingers in his ears. He wouldn’t listen. She was going to play on his fears. So his family was going to move him. That didn’t mean anything. It would be nice to be somewhere else. Maybe this time, when they hauled him out, they would block him up level. He was tired of always being at a list.

‘She said it was none of my business.’ Amber raised her voice. ‘Then I asked her if they were Bingtown Traders. She just glared at me. So then I asked her where Mingsley was going to take you to have you dismantled.’

Paragon began desperately to hum. Loudly. Amber went on talking. He couldn’t hear her. He would not hear her. He plugged his ears more tightly and sang aloud, ‘A penny for a sweet-bun, a penny for a plum, a penny for the races, to see the ponies run…’

‘She threw me out!’ Amber roared. ‘When I stood outside and shouted that I’d take it to the Bingtown Traders’ Council she set her dogs on me. They damn near caught me, too!’

‘Swing me low, swing me high, swing me up into the sky,’ Paragon sang the childish rhyme desperately. She was wrong. She had to be wrong. His family was going to move him somewhere safe. That was all. It didn’t really matter who they hired to do it. Once they had him in the water, he’d go willingly. He would show them how easy it could be to sail him. Yes. It would be a chance to prove himself to them. He could show them that he was sorry for all the things they had made him do.

She wasn’t speaking any more. He slowed his singing, then let it die away to a hum. Silence, save for his own voice. Cautiously he unstopped his ears. Nothing, save the brush of the waves, the wind nudging sand across the beach and the crackling of Amber’s fire. A question occurred to him and he spoke it aloud before he remembered he was not speaking to her.

‘When I get to my new place, will you still come to see me?’

‘Paragon. You can’t pretend this away. If they take you away from here, they’ll chop you up for wizardwood.’

The figurehead tried a different tack. ‘I don’t care. It would be nice to be dead.’

Amber’s voice was low, defeated. ‘I’m not sure you’d be dead. I’m afraid they’ll separate you from the ship. If that doesn’t kill you, they’ll probably transport you to Jamaillia, and sell you off as an oddity. Or give you as a gift to the Satrap in exchange for grants and favours. I don’t know how you’d be treated there.’

‘Will it hurt?’ Paragon asked.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know enough about what you are. Did it…When they chopped your face, did that hurt?’

He turned his shattered visage away from her. He lifted his hands and walked his fingers over the splintered wood where his eyes had once been. ‘Yes.’ His brow furrowed. Then in the next breath he added, ‘I don’t remember. There is a lot I can’t remember, you know. My logbooks are gone.’

‘Sometimes not remembering is the easiest thing to do.’

‘You think I’m lying, don’t you? You think I can remember, but I just won’t admit it.’ He picked at it, hoping for a quarrel.

‘Paragon. Yesterday we cannot change. We are talking about tomorrow.’

‘They’re coming tomorrow?’

‘I don’t know! I was speaking figuratively.’ She came closer suddenly and reached up to put her hands flat against him. She wore gloves against the night’s chill, but it was still a touch. He could feel the shapes of her hands as two patches of warmth against his planking. ‘I can’t stand the thought of them taking you to cut you up. Even if it doesn’t hurt, even if it doesn’t kill you. I can’t stand the thought of it.’

‘There’s nothing you can do,’ he pointed out. He suddenly felt mature for voicing that thought. ‘There’s nothing either of us can do.’

‘That is fatalistic twaddle,’ Amber declared angrily. ‘There’s a lot we can do. If nothing else, I swear I will stand here and fight them.’

‘You wouldn’t win,’ Paragon insisted. ‘It would be stupid to fight, knowing you couldn’t win.’

‘That’s as may be,’ Amber replied. ‘I hope it doesn’t come to that. I don’t want to wait for it to be that desperate. I want to act before they do. Paragon. We need help. We need someone who will speak to the Bingtown Traders’ Council for us.’

‘Can’t you?’

‘You know I can’t. Only an Old Trader can attend those meetings, let alone speak. We need someone who can go to them and convince them they should forbid the Ludlucks to do this.’

‘Who?’

Amber’s voice was small. ‘I had hoped you knew someone who would speak for you.’

Paragon was silent for a time. Then he laughed harshly. ‘No one will speak for me. This is a stupid effort, Amber. Think about it. Not even my own family cares for me. I know what they say about me. I am a killer. Moreover, it’s true, isn’t it? All hands lost. I rolled and drowned them all, and not just once. The Ludlucks are right, Amber. They should sell me to be chopped up.’ Despair washed over him, colder and deeper than any storm wave. ‘I’d like to be dead,’ he declared. ‘I’d just like to stop.’

‘You don’t mean that,’ Amber said softly. He could hear in her voice that she knew he did.

‘Would you do me a favour?’ he asked suddenly.

‘What?’

‘Kill me before they can.’

He heard the soft intake of her breath. ‘I…No. I couldn’t –’

‘If you knew they were coming to chop me up, you could. I will tell you the only sure way. You have to set fire to me. Not just in one place, but many, to make sure they cannot put it out and save me. If you gathered dry wood, a little each day, and put it in piles in my hold…’

‘Don’t even speak of such things,’ Amber said faintly. Distractedly, she added, ‘I should put the mussels on to cook now.’ He heard her scratching at her fire, then the sizzle of wet seaweed steaming on hot coals. She was cooking the mussels alive. He considered pointing that out to her. He decided it would only upset her, not sway her to his cause. He waited until she had come back to him. She sat on the sand, leaning against his canted hull. Her hair was very fine. When it brushed against his planking, it snagged and clung to the wood.

‘You don’t make sense,’ he pointed out genially. ‘You vow you would stand and fight for me, knowing you would lose. But this simple, sure mercy you refuse me.’

‘Death by flames is scarcely mercy.’

‘No. Being chopped to pieces is much more pleasant, I’m sure,’ Paragon retorted sarcastically.

‘You go so quickly from childish tantrums to cold logic,’ Amber said wonderingly. ‘Are you child or man? What are you?’

‘Both, perhaps. But you change the subject. Come. Promise me.’

‘No,’ she pleaded.

He let out his breath in a sigh. She would do it. He could hear it in her voice. If there were no other way to save him, then she would do it. A strange trembling ran through him. It was a strange victory to have won. ‘And jars of oil,’ he added. ‘When they come, you may not have much time. Oil would make the wood burn fast and hot.’

There followed a long silence. When she spoke again, her voice was altered. ‘They will try to move you in secret. Tell me how they would do it.’

‘Probably the same way I was put up here. They will wait for a high tide. Most likely, they would choose the highest tide of the month, at night. They will come with rollers, donkeys, men, and small boats. It will not be a small undertaking, but knowledgeable men could get it done quickly.’

Amber considered. ‘I shall have to move my things into you. I shall have to sleep aboard in order to guard you. Oh, Paragon,’ she cried out suddenly, ‘don’t you have anyone who could speak up for you to the Bingtown Council?’

‘Only you.’

‘I’ll try. But I doubt they will give me a chance. I’m an outsider in Bingtown. They only listen to their own.’

‘You once told me you were respected in Bingtown.’

‘As an artisan and a merchant, they respect me. I am not an Old Trader. They would not have much patience with me if I began meddling in their affairs. Likely, I would suddenly find I had no customers. Or perhaps worse. The whole town is becoming more divided along Old Trader and newcomer lines. There is a rumour that the Bingtown Council has sent a delegation to the Satrap, with their original charter. They will demand he honour the word of Satrap Esclepius. The rumour is that they will demand he recall all the New Traders, and cancel all the land grants he has made them. They also demand that Satrap Cosgo live up to the old charter, and forbear from issuing any more land grants without the consent of the Bingtown Traders.’

‘A detailed rumour,’ Paragon observed.

‘I have a keen ear for rumour and gossip. More than once, it has kept me alive.’

A silence fell.

‘I wish I knew when Althea was coming back.’ Amber’s voice was wistful. ‘I could ask her to speak for us.’

Paragon debated mentioning Brashen Trell. Brashen was his friend, Brashen would want to speak for him. Brashen was Old Trader. But even as he thought of that, he recalled that Brashen had been disinherited. Brashen was as much a disgrace to the Trell family as Paragon was to the Ludlucks. It would do no good to have Brashen speak out for him, even if he could get the Bingtown Traders’ Council to hear him. It would be one black sheep speaking on behalf of another. No one would listen. He set his hand over the scar on his chest, concealing for an instant the crude, seven-pointed star branded into him. His fingers travelled over it thoughtfully. He sighed, then drew a deep breath.

‘The mussels are done. I can smell them.’

‘Do you want to taste one?’

‘Why not?’ He should try new things while he still could. It might not be much longer before his chances to experience new things were gone forever.