one of his huge hands and locked it round Carnelian's arm. Truly you are your father's son.' He laughed again. Then the golden mirror of his face came down close to Carnelian's. 'However, it would irk me if I were to find that my Lord had forgotten the creature's sin. My Lord will not forget, will he?'
Carnelian saw his own serene reflection looking back.
'Punish the creature, Carnelian. If you do not have the stomach for the blinding and the amputation then give it to the sea. What loss will it be to you? Replace it in whatever function it performs with a younger creature.' Aurum nudged Crail with his foot. 'It is long past its best use. Aaagh! It fouls the deck.' He wiped his foot on Crail's back, released Carnelian's shoulder, then walked away.
Carnelian stood there with Crail at his feet until all his anger shook away and nothing was left but a paralysing chill.
Carnelian took Crail back to the cabin. Tain and he cleaned him up. Then he made the old man lie on the bunk and sat with him stroking his forehead until he fell asleep. He told Tain that in no circumstances should Crail be allowed to leave the cabin. Tain nodded and Carnelian went off to find his father. When he knocked on his father's door a blinded slave opened it. He said that the Master had gone up on deck. Carnelian went to find him there.
Sailors were calling to each other from mast to mast. Up there all the sails were open and taut with wind. The enormous hooded figure of a Master was off near the stem with smaller men beside him. Carnelian saw it was Keal and some others of the tyadra. As he walked up to them the Master turned and he recognized his father's mask inside the hood.
'Carnelian?'
'I have urgent need to speak to you, my Lord.' 'What about?'
'A matter of one of your servants and the Law.'
'Very well.' His father looked around the deck and then up at one of the masts. 'I would speak to you face to face but it would not be advisable to send the crew below.' He looked towards the prow. 'We shall speak there.' He gave some commands with his hands to Keal, then turned back to Carnelian. 'Come.'
Together they walked up the deck. 'I see that you have found your sea legs, Carnelian.'
The sea is calm, Father.'
They both looked out over the undulating flint-green sea. 'It will not remain so for long,' his father said.
'I had hoped we were through the tempest.'
'We merely pass through its eye.' His father pointed ahead. The prow stem formed a cross with the bar of stormy sky that ran behind it.
As they came near, the prow stem curved above them like a tree. Carnelian traced its trunk down and saw the face. A green face surfacing through the wood as if swimming up through water. Below it was set a trough of stone.
'A representation of our divine Emperor,' said his father. His lips curled. 'Primitive superstition.'
'Why are They here, my Lord?'
'Not only the Commonwealth but also the legions worship the God Emperor as the riving Twins and this is a legionary vessel.' He pointed at the number eight carved high on the prow stem.
'An altar, then?'
His father lifted his hand in the affirmative. 'Where is the other Twin?'
'He is on the other side of the prow stem. Even now He and the tempest glare at each other.'
Carnelian realized that the bronze bars curving on either side of the stem were not, as he had thought, cleats for fixing lines, but rather the four horns of the Black God. 'So the Green Face oversees the baran while the Black looks out over the sea.'
'Quite so.'
At that moment Keal appeared with the others, carrying tall screens. They formed these into a wall around Carnelian and his father.
'Now we can take these off.' His father removed his mask. His eyes were red-edged holes in his painted face.
Carnelian unmasked.
'By the Essences, what ails you?' his father cried. His hand came up to touch Carnelian's face.
'My Lord?' Carnelian said, alarmed.
'You are so thin. Your eyes…' His father's eyes narrowed. 'You have been taking the poppy that I gave you?'
Carnelian nodded.
'Have you also been taking regular sustenance?'
Carnelian thought back. He had vague memories of dreams, vaguer ones of waking. He realized that he could hardly remember eating at all.
'And Tain let this happen.' His father's voice was cold with anger.
'Do not blame him, Father. He was as drugged as I.' 'But-'
'You yourself told me that he should have some.'
Some, a little, and not through all these many days. Did I not tell you that you would feel no hunger?'
'I do not think you did, my Lord.'
Then it is I who am at fault. Come. Put on your mask. You must go and eat immediately.'
Carnelian put his hand up to stay him. 'Before I do there is the matter I need to bring before my Lord.'
His father looked hard at him.
'It is Crail.'
One of his father's brows arched.
'Lord Aurum is insisting that he looked upon his face.'
His father frowned.
'I gave him poppy too. I am sure that is why it happened. He followed me up on deck in a delirium. The Ruling Lord was unmasked. He is insisting on the punishment the Law demands. But Crail could not have seen his face. He was blinded by the glare of the sky.'
'What exactly did Aurum demand?'
'Blinding and amputation.'
His father closed his eyes as if he had been struck. He opened them. 'How did you leave this matter?'
'I told him that Crail was ours and that if he insisted on it we would carry out the punishment. But you can speak to him, Father, you can do something…'
His father looked ashen. 'You put me in a difficult position, more difficult than you can know.' 'You will save him?'
'I will do what I can.' His father slid his mask back over his face. 'Go now, eat, and for the sake of your blood, henceforth, be sparing with the poppy.'
Before he ate, Carnelian made the round of all their cabins to see that his guardsmen were bearing up. He asked Keal how their people were coping between the decks. Nothing to worry about, Keal said. Carnelian knew he was lying and made him tell him the truth. One had been washed into the sea. Several were burning with fever. Carnelian had expected worse.
Back in his cabin he made sure that Crail ate something first. The old man was confused. He was recounting a nightmare he had had of a Master and a deck. Carnelian showed him a smile. When he ate with Tain, it surprised him how hungry he was. He gulped the food down though his stomach ached. He made jokes with Tain. They talked about dragons and the Three Lands, but all the time he was listening. Steadily the wind's moan had become a keening. He eyed the silver box with its promise of dreams. There was a crack so loud he thought a mast had snapped. Snatches of voices screeched over the gale. Then the storm front hit them like a hammer. The ship spun round to one side, and then was walloped round the other way. She leaned over. The lantern smashed against the ceiling. Crail was tipped onto the floor. Cries erupted on every side. The ship juddered once, twice; each time it seemed she had struck a rock. Tain's eyes were as round as his mouth. She righted herself, rocking.
For an age they clung to her as she rode the tempest. Each time her hull broke a wave, there was a thud that shook them to their bones. This would be followed by a hiss running over their heads to the stern. In the lulls they could hear the running in the corridor, the cries, the lamentations, the slam of doors. Once Carnelian looked
