The Night of the Swarm

‘You will henceforth confine yourself to proper etiquette,’ said the captain, wiping his hands on a linen napkin and departing.

When he was gone the middle sister burst into the chamber and carried the boy away. She alone had disobeyed Theimat and snuck back into the house. This was not her first rebellion. Indeed for over a year she had been defying him in two respects: by attempting to get pregnant by one of the farm workers, lest he sell them off as defective childbearers¹⁵; and by studying witchcraft with the same man’s mother, crippled and nearly blind but still famous for what went by the name of ‘the Devil’s Calling’ among the island folk. Whenever Theimat was away at sea, this middle sister would make her way through the plantation to that verminous shack among the fever trees, where a nearly hairless monkey crouched in the shadows munching sugar cane, and the wind that sighed through the cracked walls and rotting floorboards spoke now and again in words. Sometimes she would bring Nilus, and ask the blind woman to speak about his future, which she learned by feeling the contours of his skull. To this day Rose could close his eyes and feel those rough hands, smell the woodsmoke and rancid butter on them, wince as they squeezed his temples.

The middle sister learned very quickly, and became very strange. Her name was Gosmeil. Three marriages and as many decades later she would become Lady Gosmel Pothrena Oggosk, Eighteenth Duchess of Tirsoshi.

The day Nilus was tortured at the dinner table, Gosmel resolved to murder Theimat Rose. She confided first in Biyatra (‘the Baby’), the youngest sister of the three. Biyatra too wished him dead, but she was fearful by nature and demurred. And when Gosmel went to Yelinda, the eldest daughter not only refused to participate but swore to denounce them if they ever again hinted at such an act. Yelinda had played the part of ‘wife’ in public a very long time, and as Theimat’s fortunes grew her own stature in the society of the island had increased as well. It grew awkward to beat her or terrorise her into perfect incoherence; he had even to dance with her at the Governor’s Ball. In the end Yelinda had come to believe in the lie herself, and to treat her sisters more like the impoverished cousins they were supposed to be.

Nilus believed as well. He had long since begun to call Yelinda ‘Mother’, and firmly believed that he had sprung from her womb. This certainty lasted well up into his fifties, when Oggosk punctured it with her usual tact:

‘She was supposed to be your mother, wasn’t she? Because you were the first- born, and she was the eldest. Theimat wanted things that way: orderly, shipshape. He took each of us whenever he liked, but he intended to dispose of us in order of age. Therefore Yelinda had a job to do. Therefore she’s your mother.’

‘But he was there, Oggosk,’ Rose had protested. ‘You all were.’

‘Pah. Your father left on a sea voyage before the pregnancy was two months old, and barely made it home by your first birthday. He never saw anyone’s belly grow fat, except his own. As for the rest of us, we let the story stand. If Theimat believed one of us had coughed up a son, out of order — well, poor Yelinda would have been shown up as useless, and sold in a fortnight.’

‘Then who was it, damn you? Which of you is my mother?’

Oggosk had cackled. ‘All of us. None of us. You’ll never find out from me.’

Whether or not Yelinda was truly Nilus’ mother, she had grown obsessed with being his father’s wife, and would never agree to murder. The stand-off lasted for years. In that time Gosmel’s powers as a witch increased. Very early she learned to hoard that power, rarely casting so much as a spell to keep the milk from turning. All the while, however, she was plotting another end for Theimat Rose.

By the time Nilus was ten, Gosmel was almost ready to act on her plan. Then a day came when Theimat raped the bride-to-be of a peasant who worked his land. The captain pronounced himself within his rights, claiming that the (illiterate) man had signed an agreement stating that his debts could be collected in a variety of forms, one of them being carnal. Biyatra had been friendly with the girl, and that evening she herself went to the barn for rat poison. Her courage began to desert her before she reached the house again, but Gosmel was ready for that. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said, taking the jar of lethal powder. ‘Just keep Yelinda out of the way.’

But the Baby failed even in this. She did send for her eldest sister at the appropriate time, but when confronted by Yelinda she froze in terror at her own complicity, and could not make conversation or explain why she had called. Yelinda presently laughed and went her way — which happened to be to the liquor cabinet in the den. She poured Theimat’s evening cup of rum and took it to him in the library. Then, exercising the privilege of a wife, she returned to the den and poured a second glass for herself. Moments later Gosmel heard the violent choking sounds she had wanted to hear — but from two chambers, and two throats. She ran screaming for the den, and arrived just in time to watch Yelinda die with foamy spittle on her lips.

It was at this point that Nilus himself heard the noises and raced down the stairs in his pyjamas. His first sight was his father, in the hall outside the library, lying in an odd position with a hand on his throat. Frightened by this apparition, he turned away from the corpse and ran towards the other voices in the den. There lay his dead Aunt Yelinda, better known to him simply as Mother. Over her stood Aunt Gosmel, howling with tears. Then Biyatra appeared in the doorway behind Nilus, and Gosmel pointed at her and screamed that she had killed their sister.

‘I?’ shot back the Baby. ‘You bloody-minded witch! The only murderer in this house is you!’

Aunt Gosmel’s face had twisted in a spasm of hate. She raised her hand as though gathering some force, and then flung it at Biyatra, and with it the curse she had saved six years for their tormentor.

Rose laid the portrait flat. He heard Oggosk’s screaming long before she reached his outer door. There was little hope that the steward would turn her aside, and he did not. The greater surprise was that Fiffengurt and the girl Marila entered with her. No surprise at all of course was the red animal that snuck in with them: Sniraga, whose name meant ‘Cowardly’. Sniraga, who had once been Biyatra, the Baby. Who had become a cat three feet away from him, the worst fright so far in the life of a child who had already suffered fears aplenty. Who was first a sister, then a pet to this unbearable banshee of a woman standing before his desk and screaming ixchel, ixchel, of all absurdities. This repugnant crone who was as likely to be his mother as the one she had cursed, or the one they poisoned alongside his father.

‘I am not listening to you, Oggosk,’ he said wearily.

‘You mucking well should! You think their claim is so fantastic, so impossible?’

‘I think nothing one way or the other.’

‘It fits, Nilus, can’t you see? They came aboard for a reason. They’re not ignorant and they don’t ride any ship without a purpose. I told them — Glaya, I ordered this ugly swamp-rat of a girl to bring me the book! Stath Balfyr! It’s certain to be in the thirteenth Polylex! We needn’t ever have gotten ourselves into this unforgivable fix! And your afflicted quartermaster has kept the secret for months!’

‘I am the one who is afflicted.’

‘Hang them, Nilus! Give them to Ott!’

‘Snakes and devils, woman, can’t you be quiet!’

Oggosk struck the desk with her walking stick. The captain shot to his feet and leaned towards her, and the bellowing began to look dangerous. Fiffengurt and Marila backed away.

Then the adversaries stopped together, gaping.

‘What did you say, hag?’

‘I said that anyone who sets foot on shore will be killed. By crawlies, or some crawly trap. What did you say?’

‘That I have the plague,’ said Rose. ‘Chadfallow has confirmed the symptoms. In a matter of weeks my mind will be gone.’

Oggosk’s screams began again, but they were short-lived. She collapsed, and the two men carried her to Rose’s bed, while Marila ran for Chadfallow.

The creature in the cell was still looking at Felthrup, still waiting. Its head was as round and podgy as a newborn baby’s, and from the fat cheeks two small, deep-set eyes twinkled in sudden flashes of gold. Large ears like withered yams stuck out from its head. The creature wore nothing but a winding-cloth belted at the waist and tossed over one shoulder: that and many rings with enormous, multicoloured stones on its podgy fingers. The body too was fat, but powerful, like some wrestler who has endlessly indulged. But below its knees the creature’s legs became those of a monstrous bird, and ended in talons that rasped against the floorboards. Upon its back a pair of great black wings lay folded.