whom she knows, to her joy, will have the wholeness of her womanhood from her?
The watch was called, and I would go below.
I wondered why Seremides was on board. It might have been simply his intention to flee. Who, after all, would think to seek him beyond the farther islands? Or perhaps he wished to seek a fortune in a new, untried venue, a fortune, like many, obtainable by sword skill? Perhaps, on the other hand, he sought the former Lady Flavia of Ar. The reward for her return to Ar was far from negligible. Might it not purchase a galley, and several slaves, of high quality? But she had thought he was after greater game, of some sort. But what might that be? Also, as she could recognize him, her death might be worth far more to him than the gold her delivery to Ar might bring. To be sure, I, too, might recognize him. I had taken care to avoid being alone with him. Clearly I constituted a danger to him, and, as a free man, one far more dangerous than that posed by a slave. I had little doubt he would eventually seek his opportunity, perhaps a thrust in the darkness, a feigned misstep at the ice, the provoking of a quarrel, or such.
I saw two or three men emerge onto the darkening deck. I thought little of it at the time.
Chapter Nine
I awakened to the screaming of tarns and the beating of the ship’s great alarm bar, over and over, incessantly, deafeningly.
“Deck, deck, deck!” I heard.
Outside our crew area, one of several, I could hear feet running in the corridor, others climbing the stairs in the nearest companionway.
“Beware,” called Philoctetes. “There is swordplay.”
We could hear the ringing of steel.
It was past the twentieth Ahn.
“Lamps have been shattered!” I heard. “Put out the fires.”
We tumbled from our quarters, casting our furs about us. Most of us had been disarmed, a concomitance of the weeks of short days and cold, the length of our seizure by the ice, the reduction in rations, the deterioration of morale, the growing fear, the gradually increasing sense of desperation and hopelessness, the surliness of many, but there are always hidden weapons.
“We are under attack!” I heard.
“No, no!” I heard.
“What is going on?” called a fellow.
“Lamps have been shattered!” I heard.
In our quarters we looked wildly to one another. Muchly did we fear fire.
“No!” I heard. “No! To the weapon room!”
The Pani were still armed, and officers, and various guardsmen.
Philoctetes opened the door to the corridor, cautiously, and peered out. It was apparently then empty. We followed him into the corridor. Some tharlarion oil from a lamp, like spread grease, was burning on the flooring. The lamp itself was still on its chains. It was not difficult to smother the flames, with furs, or stamp them out. The most serious fires on a ship are likely to originate in the kitchens. It did not seem likely anyone was trying to fire the ship. Most likely the lamp, in the low-ceilinged passageway, had been jostled in the passage of armed, rushing men. We encountered no shattered lamps, nor any indications of arson.
We could hear, above us, however, the sound of steel, the cries of men.
There must be fighting in corridors, or elsewhere.
We also heard the grating of the large tarn hatch, amidships, being rolled back. This is done with a double windlass. It takes several men to move the hatch.
When the ship had debouched from the Alexandra, and entered Thassa, I had been told there were something like two hundred tarns aboard. They were housed in three large areas, each occupying a substantial portion of its own deck. The highest area was on the first deck below the open deck. The other two areas, by ramps, led to the highest area, it alone having the sky accessible, once the great hatch was rolled back. As the tarn is a large, dangerous, aggressive bird, and territorial in the wild, many of the ship tarns had separate stalls, or cages; others were chained apart, by the left foot; some others, crowded together, literally had their wings bound, their beaks strapped shut, save for feeding.
Restless, and many long unflighted, it was unusually dangerous to be amongst them. Few but tarnsmen or tarnkeepers would approach them, and then with great caution.
“Let us to the weapon room,” said a fellow.
There, one supposed, arms might be issued to us, were they deemed in order. As it turned out, however, the weapon room had been stormed earlier by a number of disaffected crew members, in effect, mutineers, who were intent on freeing tarns, and risking a flight which might lead to land, a flight presumably to the east, where lay Torvaldsland.
I knew little of tarns, the control of such monsters, their dispositions and habits, their ranges of flight, and such, but it seemed improbable, given our conjectured position, so far west of even the farther islands, that one might reach land, say, Torvaldsland, before the tarn might, even with the might of its legendary stamina, fall to the ice, in the dimness or darkness, unable to continue on, to die of cold and exhaustion, or, starving, turn on its rider. If landfall were practical from our current position surely our outriders and scouts would have discovered this, returned, reported it, brought back much needed supplies, and such. But it was true some deserters had, in the past weeks, now and then, flighted a tarn away, over the ice, into the gray sky, and had not returned. Who knew that some of them might not have reached land. Twice, riderless tarns had returned to the ship, their harnessing torn apart or missing, their beaks red with frozen blood. They flew at those who would have led them below. They were killed.
In our small quarters there were some forty fellows, mostly of Cos, Tyros, or the smaller islands. We did not mix well with the fellows from the continent.
I would conjecture there were some five hundred of the unusual men, the Pani, on board, divided amongst the commands of Lords Nishida and Okimoto, some two hundred and fifty each. And of others, mariners, soldiers, artisans, and such, perhaps two thousand, these recruited variously, many, particularly the mercenaries, in Brundisium, often fugitives from the restoration in Ar. I was not clear on the purpose of the voyage, but it doubtless had to do with war, for our ship, despite what might be the views of its shipwright, Tersites, was serving essentially as a transport, one undertaking an unprecedented voyage, whose intended destination seemed likely to be known only to the Pani. The male Pani, for example, were uniformly warriors. This I found significant. There were a handful of Pani females aboard, but I saw little of them. They were spoken of as contract women. I did not understand their status. It did not seem they were slaves. The other men aboard, other than the Pani, or at least the overwhelming majority of us, as were the Pani, were men accustomed to weaponry and the arbitrations of force. The ship, then, as noted, was essentially a transport, conveying a small army to foreign fields. The slaves on board, perhaps some two hundred in number, would have their various purposes, serving in various ways. Too, of course, such women are a form of wealth, as they may be sold, traded, bartered, given as gifts, and such. I did not doubt but what such goods would figure in the plans of the Pani. Of tarns, I had been told, as mentioned, that there had been something in the neighborhood of two hundred on board when the ship of Tersites had entered Thassa from the Alexandra. A tarn cavalry was clearly intended, which was, I suspected, intended to be a decisive arm in some projected campaign. I gathered that tarns might be unknown at the World’s End; else why would they be aboard? The Pani seemed to have no shortage of resources, given their financing of the ship of Tersites, the hiring of hundreds of mercenaries, the purchasing of slaves, and such. Thus, if tarns were common at the World’s End it would be more expeditious to obtain them there. If they were not known at the World’s End, then their judicious application in battle, reconnaissance, raids, and such, might indeed prove formidable. Even their appearance might inspire awe, even terror. To be sure, there were no longer some two hundred tarns on board. Some had been flighted, and had not returned; some had died; two had been killed. There was secrecy with respect to the figures involved, as would
