up the coast, maybe? Armed and armoured. Soldiers. But whose? Stygg? Jasston? None had the look. The shortest was distinctly foreign-looking with his dark, almost bluish hue.
If they were raiders they were the sorriest-arsed brigands Orzu had ever seen. Thieves did come through occasionally: outlaws from Jasston, thugs from Stygg. He and his fellow villagers had no particular weapons or armour to oppose them; their main defence was in appearing to have nothing. And so he just eyed the four while they walked up and the foremost, the bluish-hued fellow, rested a hand on the side of his boat drawn up on the strand and addressed him in mangled Katakan: ‘You sell boat?’
Orzu took the pipe from his mouth. ‘No, I no sell boat.’
‘We pay much gold, many coin.’
‘Fish don’t want coin.’
The four talked then, their language foreign, but with a very familiar lilt to it. Orzu thought he could almost catch the odd word or two. Closer now, he also noticed how the tip of one’s nose was black, the edges of another’s ears. The skin of all four was cracked and bloodied, flaking. Frostbite. Damned severe, too. They couldn’t have come down from the Ice Barrens, could they? But that was a desolate emptiness.
‘We pay you to take us. To Korelri. Yes?’
Orzu thought about that. ‘How much coin?’
The spokesman gestured to the tallest of them, a great thick warrior in a mail shirt that hung to his ankles, a wide shield on his back, and a helm tied to his belt. His long black hair was a great mane. This one handed over a fat leather sack. The spokesman gave it to Orzu. It was amazingly hefty. Orzu peered in, took out a coin. Gold. More fortune than he’d ever dreamed to touch. He cinched the bag up tight. ‘I take you. But must bring wife, children.’
The four eyed one another, confused. ‘Take your… family?’ said the spokesman.
‘Yes. My price. Bring wife, children. Go tomorrow morning. Yes?’
‘Why…’
‘My price. Not so high, yes?’
‘Well…’
‘My name Orzu. We have deal, yes?’
‘Blues. We have a deal.’
Blues? What an odd name. Must be for the hue of his skin. Orzu shrugged inwardly. No matter. He set down his mending and stood. ‘First we eat. My wife make you fish stew. Is good, you see.’
That caught their interest. All four perked up at the mention of hot food.
Shipwrecked. Must be. What other possible explanation could there be? This was good. They would eat well, meet the family.
And he had such a very large family.
The stench was the hardest thing for Shell to endure. She sat near the doorway — nothing more than a gaping hole in the piled stones of the walls of the hut — and held the clay bowl down away from her face. All the while the fat woman, this fellow’s wife, grinned toothlessly at her, the only other woman present. At their feet a great gang of children cried, fought among themselves, gaped at her so close she could smell their stale breath, and gobbled down the rotten stew. Whose were they? Not this old couple, surely.
‘Blues,’ she called, edging aside a youth who seemed determined to find something hidden far up his nose. ‘Let’s just take a boat and go. We’re wasting time.’
From where he sat next to the gabbling old fellow, apparently the patriarch of this horde, Blues shook his head. ‘It’s their livelihood, Shell. They’d starve.’
Lazar stuck his head in. ‘There’s more coming outside. Two more boats are pulled up.’
‘Thanks.’ More of them! A damned family reunion.
At least Fingers seemed in his element: fascinating the kids with tricks of sleight of hand. They squealed when he made stones appear from their noses and mouths. She called to Blues: ‘There’s more of them outside.’
He spoke to the old man, listened, cocked his head in concentration. In-laws. His daughters’ and sons’ spouses’ brothers and sisters and their children.
‘Well, who in the Queen’s name are these kids?’
Blues looked surprised. ‘Haven’t you been listening? Grandchildren, of course.’
‘Blues…’
‘How do you like the food?’
‘It’s vile. Why?’
A laugh. ‘Just wondering, because it looks like we’re in for a lot more.’
‘What do you mean?’
Blues waved to encompass the kids, the men and women sitting outside on the bare smoothed stones, watching and waiting. ‘Because it looks like we just hired the entire clan.’
‘Blues!’
The next morning twelve broad fishing boats, longboats Shell imagined you might call them, lay pulled up on the strand. Orzu’s clan of fisherfolk was busy piling them up with their meagre smelly possessions. Now that she’d had time to reflect upon it, she couldn’t blame them. This was their chance to escape this desolate shore. Others had now found the courage to speak; a girl, fat with child and carrying yet another, seemed to have attached herself to Shell.
‘What is your name?’ she asked the girl.
‘Ena.’ The child she carried in her arm was fighting to open her blouse to reach a swollen teat. She brushed the small hands aside. ‘You?’
‘Shell. Where will you go?’
She shrugged. ‘We go to Theft.’
‘What will you do there?’
Again the indifferent shrug. ‘Same as here.’
You are wiser than you know, young woman-child. For you, things are sadly unlikely to change.
Ena was eyeing her soft leathers under her thick travelling cloak, her leather gloves and tall boots. ‘Where you come from?’
‘The south. Far to the south. Before that, far to the north.’
An older woman, exact relationship uncertain, came and took the child from Ena, then the two argued back and forth for a time until the old woman marched off enraged.
‘What is it?’ Shell asked.
A smile. ‘Mother says I am lazy. Work to be done. But I tell her I am no longer a child to be ordered about. The… Blessed Lady… she is known where you are from?’
Shell was surprised by the non-sequitur. It was a moment before she could reply. ‘No. She is not known. She is only known here.’
Ena tucked a hand under the swell of her belly. Her many relations tramped back and forth readying the boats. Blues was arguing with Orzu next to one particularly overloaded skiff; he appeared to be miming sinking.
‘Yes. We thought so, no matter the words of her priests.’
‘Her priests? You have heard them?’
Ena nodded with child-like earnestness. ‘Oh yes. They come here. Half-starved wanderers. They stay and preach to us. Lady this and Lady that. They try to convert us.’
‘Convert you? You do not worship the Lady?’
She nodded, so serious. ‘Oh no. We are the Sea-Folk. We follow the old ways. Oh, the last of the priests seemed harmless enough until he tried to use the boys to satisfy himself. So we bound him and threw him to the Sea-Father.’
‘The Sea-Father? Oh, yes. The old ways.’
‘Yes. The Sea-Father. The Sky-Father. The Dark-Taker. The fertile Mother. And the Enchantress. The priests spoke against her the most. But we do not listen. We know the Lady by her ancient name. Shrikasmil — the Destroyer.’
Shell studied the child-woman while she stared out to sea. She was pretty despite her greasy hair, the
