The unthinkable had happened: both ganglords dead within a fortnight. Rose had played his only card in hanging Darius Plapp. Although they did not realise it yet, the gesture marked the end of his control of either gang. They could run riot, slaughter each other, take revenge for generations of bloodshed on other vessels, on this vessel, on the Etherhorde waterfront. And then there was the plague, from which no one could deliver them, and the fear that their enemies might yet catch up. The one thing that still could generate hope and cooperation was the prospect of a journey home. If the idea ever took hold that Rose was delaying that journey, not only his captaincy but his very life would be in danger.
Rose jumped. Sniraga was rubbing at his ankles. He bellowed at her, and the cat shot a few yards away and began to lick. That sound. How he hated it. Aloud, to no one, certainly not to the cat, he said, ‘Where the devil is Mr Fiffengurt?’
But of course the cat had nothing to do with the quartermaster. Her job was to escort the rodent, Felthrup, who even now was sidling up to Rose.
‘A delightful morning to you, Captain,’ he said, ‘and if I may, the Lady Oggosk entreats you to call on her at your earliest convenience.’
‘Call on her? In her
‘She begs leave to inform you that she is hoping for a family communique.’
The rat was often nervous in his presence. Rose had no idea why, but it upset him like anything unreasonable. ‘Speak plainly or be gone,’ he said.
The rat squirmed. ‘She is pregnant-’
‘You’re deranged.’
‘Pregnant with anticipation, sir. Concerning the aforementioned epistle.’
Rose’s hands became fists. ‘I still have no idea what you are saying, and I forbid you to say it again. We are about to enter the port of Stath Balfyr. Tell Oggosk I am unavailable before this evening, six bells at the earliest.’
‘As you please, Captain. It is curious, however, that Lady Oggosk could be so grossly mistaken.’
‘Mistaken?’
‘She was certain you would take interest in this. . how shall I put it. . this
‘I would like to stomp you flat,’ said Rose.
Felthrup discovered an urgent need to be elsewhere. Rose watched him flee, thinking:
‘Fiffengurt!’ he bellowed. ‘By the black Pits, where can the man be hiding?’
In fact the quartermaster stood just a yard to his left, waiting to be recognised. By his doleful expression Rose knew he brought bad news. ‘What has happened?’ he demanded. ‘Tell me at once!’
Fiffengurt took a slip of paper from his vest pocket, and passed it to the captain. Upon it were written three names. Two were sailors, Burnscove Boys. The third was a tarboy by the name of Durst. From the Kepperies, like Rose himself. He knew of that family, the Dursts. Utter indigents, for generations. Rose’s father had owned the land where they built their shanties.
‘The men were strangled,’ muttered Fiffengurt under his breath. ‘The lad’s still with us. . in a manner of speaking.’
Another plague victim. Rose crushed the paper in his hand. ‘Where were the murders done?’
‘No telling, sir. The bodies were stuffed in the forepeak. Old Gangrune found blood seeping under the door.’
Rose stood very still. Something else was the matter with Fiffengurt, but he had yet to grasp it. The man was normally transparent. During their first crossing of the Nelluroq, this quality had made Fiffengurt’s stab at organising a mutiny as obvious as a sandwich board hung about his neck. But there was a certain duplicity about him now. Something he was both itching to reveal and frightened even to think about.
Rose determined to have it out of him. He stared mercilessly, until Fiffengurt began to fidget and blink. Every one of his officers produced a background hum just by standing and thinking; they were the telltale noises of inferior minds. Rose leaned closer, cocked his ear. Fiffengurt leaned ever so slightly away.
‘Which is it?’ asked Rose.
‘Which is what, Captain!’ Fiffengurt all but screamed.
‘I want your opinion. Do we enter the bay at this time, or not?’
The quartermaster swallowed. ‘We don’t know if there’s seaway, Captain. The reefs-’
‘Blast the reefs. Assume that an approach is possible. Should we enter, should we attempt a landing there?’
Fiffengurt was sweating. He chewed his lips, preparing to mouth some idiocy. Rose lifted a warning finger.
‘I have you, sir. I do not wish to hear lies. You will come to a decision about what you wish to share with your captain, knowing his sacred responsibility to guard the life of this crew. No hiding, Fiffengurt. You will decide, and shortly. Agreed?’
The man was flabbergasted. He had prepared himself to withstand threats or violence, but not this. ‘Agreed, agreed, Captain. Thank you, sir.’
Rose nodded slowly. Then he passed Fiffengurt the telescope. ‘What are your thoughts on the Storm?’ he said.
Far to the north, a band of scarlet ran along the ocean’s rim. It stood about three fingers’ widths high and was paler than an old wine-stain on a linen tablecloth. But it did not vanish with the sunset, and at night it grew starkly visible, and filled the crew with fear. They had faced it once before, except for the dlomic newcomers. It was the Red Storm, Erithusme’s great spell of containment. A magic-dampening, curse-breaking barrier that had protected the North from the ravages of the plague for centuries, if Prince Olik was to be believed. It had not harmed them when they passed through it from the North: indeed it had saved them, by dispersing the Nelluroq Vortex, the whirlpool the size of a city. But now-
‘I’ve told you what I think, Captain,’ said Fiffengurt. ‘It’s still there. And that’s a wee problem for us.’
‘You trust Olik? Even in this preposterous business?’
Fiffengurt took a deep breath. ‘I might not have,’ he said, ‘if what he claimed about the Storm didn’t match so well with Mr Bolutu’s. . experience. They’d never met, Captain. They didn’t get together and conspire. Mad? Well certainly they could be. But neither one of them had a whiff of madness about ’em. And why would their stories match? Pitfire, they ain’t even two stories. They’re one.’
Rose stared at the red ribbon. A single story, but mad all the same.
‘One more thing’s clear to me, sir,’ said Fiffengurt. ‘The Storm’s much weaker than before.’
Rose looked at him sharply. ‘You noticed as well,’ he said.
Fiffengurt nodded. ‘Captain, you were still a prisoner when we came upon it the first time. But I watched it night and day. It burned like Rin’s own brushfire, sir. I tell you it’s a pale, frail thing compared to what it was.’
‘But not gone,’ said the captain.
Fiffengurt stared at the distant light as if wishing he could blow it out, snuff it like a candle, disperse it like smoke with his hands. ‘No sir, not yet,’ he said.
‘I will tell you something, Fiffengurt,’ said Rose, gripping the rail, ‘and may the Pit Fiends roast me for eternity if I speak false. This is my last voyage, my last ship, my last foray into any water deeper than my testicles. Should I somehow live through this I will commission a home in the high desert, on the edge of the Slevran Steppe, of the kind the savages make of mud bricks and straw. I will dwell there with a peasant woman to cook for me until I die.’
Fiffengurt nodded. ‘The desert will still be there, Captain.’
