Q. The Yard Manager answers directly to the Fleet Superintendant, does he not?
A. Not directly, sir. The Superintendant's office is located on Nickel Street.
Q. You are being evasive. How many reports have you reviewed in that time?
A. Nineteen or twenty.
Q. And in any of those reports was there mention of… irregularities, shall we say, in the lower decks?
A. Does my lord refer to something beyond regular damage and restorationQ. Of course he does. Answer the question.
A. There is a tradition of rumour and yarn-spinning among the crew that no effort by the managers can extinguish.
Q. Did those rumours include mention of compartments that only certain members of the crew could find, or areas of the ship where men were wont to vanish, nevermore to be seen? [Extended Pause] Let the record note the witness' disinclination to cooperate with this inquiryA. I answer, my lords, I answer. Yes, I have heard both rumours, and seen them in draft reports. But the Trading Family has never considered it fitting to place such rubbish before the Ametrine Throne.
Q. Drafts, you say? Do you mean that these rumours were later omitted?
A. They were struck from the final reports.
Q. Superintendant, have you any comment on the high incidence of madness in commanders of the Great Ship?
A. My lords, I think I shall not be accused of evasion if I declare myself unfit to speculate on matters medical.
Q. Agreed, agreed.
8 Teala 941
'Tea is served,' said Thasha. 'Syrarys may have been a backstabbing traitor, but she did squirrel away some fine Virabalm red. Don't worry, it's not poisoned: she brewed her own cups from this tin.'
It was an odd tea party. Pazel was sequestered in the reading room, moaning softly with his head between pillows. Neeps sat on the great, tawny bearskin rug, cross-legged and furious, sewing a patch on one of the ninety- two sailors' shirts he had been ordered to repair as punishment for his interference on the topdeck. Jorl and Suzyt sprawled beside him, watching adoringly as Felthrup hobbled back and forth, shaking his head in ceaseless worry. At the table, Hercol sharpened a knife with a small black stone.
'This isn't my job,' Neeps grumbled. 'Pazel and I aren't tarboys any more.'
'You're not anything, matter of fact,' said Fiffengurt, smiling. 'Legally speaking Rose could cast you ashore without a coin or a crumb. If I were you I'd stitch those rags like my life depended on 'em.'
The quartermaster had a cut lip and a dark-purple bruise on his forehead, but somehow his face was the brightest in the room: Thasha might even have said it was aglow with happiness.
The Third Sea War had not broken out quite yet: after a few minutes of bluster and bent bows, Admiral Kuminzat had abruptly called for silence. At once his crew stopped their riotous behaviour and formed ranks along the gunwale. The Chathrand mob raged on, but the men of the Jistrolloq were oddly serene, and withstood the insults and flung garbage without blinking or uttering a sound.
Three or four minutes had passed. Then, in perfect unison, all five hundred men had raised their left hands and pointed at the Great Ship. Once again the Arqualis were startled into silence. Their enemies' faces were set, and their eyes were cold. From the deck of the Jistrolloq a drum sounded: five sharp, well-spaced beats. On the last the Mzithrinis turned and walked to their stations, and in unnerving silence the Jistrolloq wore away, on a rendezvous course with her departing squadron.
'Eerie,' said Fiffengurt. 'It was like they were marking us, if you know what I mean. I was glad to see the back of 'em.'
Indeed he seemed glad of almost everything, despite his account of the standoff. Felthrup, however, was squirming with unease. 'A bad sign, an omen,' he said. 'And the mad priest slain by devilry! We are not safe, friends. The dangers gather round us like beasts in a forest, and thus far we perceive only their eyes.'
Hercol drew his knife across his palm, testing the sharpness. 'Thasha,' he said. 'You cannot put off a decision much longer.'
Thasha's hands trembled on the samovar. 'This clerk, this Fulbreech,' she said. 'He told you he would deliver the message personally?'
'To no one but your father.'
'When did Fulbreech promise this?'
Hercol sighed. 'As I said before: after he delivered the Imperial mail. Drellarek did not let him stray five feet from the ladder, or stay longer than it took him to sign a receipt. And of course there was no question of Fulbreech taking mail off the ship. But Drellarek made one mistake. The ladder was deployed close to a porthole, looking into a cabin that has stood vacant since Ormael. I saw it and ran below, and caught Fulbreech on the descent. 'If there's good in your soul, boy, find Eberzam Isiq. Tell him his Morning Star was only dimmed, not extinguished. Tell Isiq alone, and by the one we serve, do not fail me.' Fulbreech was stunned, of course. But he dared not speak: Drellarek was watching him from three decks above. The lad gave me a look, and a tiny nod. He could do no more.'
Thasha stared into her tea. Her father had called her 'Morning Star' since her birth on a winter dawn sixteen years ago. He would understand the message, if he ever received it.
'I'm guessing the one we serve means that woman in the garden,' said Neeps. 'The one you slipped away to meet, but won't talk about.'
'When I am free to talk, you will understand,' said Hercol. 'But I swore not to breathe her name within a hundred leagues of Simja, and I will keep that pledge. For now I can only promise you that she is good, and that I trust her as I do all of you: with my life and the cause I live for. Indeed she is that cause, as much as anyone in Alifros.'
'And the errand boy?' asked Thasha. 'Do you trust him too?'
Hercol shook his head. 'I know nothing of Greysan Fulbreech, and that is certainly not to my liking.'
'Then he could be an enemy!' cried Felthrup. 'Perhaps he never even saw Admiral Isiq! How can we know anything for certain, trapped here three miles from shore?'
'Gently, my boy,' said Hercol. 'Not long ago you stood at death's door.'
'You've been crying out in your sleep,' said Thasha. 'You're having nightmares, aren't you?'
The rat looked startled, and abruptly shy. 'I–I don't remember my dreams, Mistress; they shatter as I wake. But you mustn't worry about me. What are we going to do about your father? What can we do?'
'Only one thing,' said Hercol. 'We can swim ashore — or rather, I can. Three miles is no difficulty; I swam twenty in my youth, in the glacier-lakes of Itholoj. But you must understand: whoever goes ashore will remain there. I can dive from these windows, or a gunport, and swim deep enough to escape the arrows that will surely rain down on me. But I cannot reboard this vessel in secret.'
'Even if we wait for nightfall?'
'Perhaps, then. But nightfall may well be too late. The moment Rose finishes his recruiting we shall weigh anchor and depart.'
'Recruiting men, is he?' asked Thasha.
'That's right, lass,' said Fiffengurt. 'The fleshancs killed twenty sailors, along with eight Turachs, the surgeon's mate — and old Swellows, the bosun.'
'Who's on this recruiting job?' Neeps asked.
For the first time that hour Mr Fiffengurt's aspect darkened. 'That would be Darius Plapp and Kruno Burnscove,' he said. 'And their thugs, of course.'
Neeps all but choked on his tea. Felthrup rubbed his face with his paws. 'Oh misery, misery,' he said.
'Should those names mean something to me?' Thasha asked.
Neeps looked at her in amazement. 'Thasha! You've lived all your life in Etherhorde, and don't know about Plapp's Pier and the Burnscove Boys?'
