Red Seas Under Red Skies: The Gentleman Bastard Sequence, Book Two (Gentleman Bastards 2)

‘By the deep six,’ called one of the two sailors Drakasha had placed at the sides, where they cast their lead-lines to gauge the amount of water between the ship’s hull and the sea-bottom. Six fathoms; thirty-six feet. The Orchid could slip through far shallower straits than that.

Ordinarily, soundings were occasional and one leadsman would suffice to take them. Now the men, two of her oldest and most experienced, cast their lines and called the results continually. What’s more, each of them was watched by a small party of . . . minders, was the best word Jean could come up with. Sailors who were armed and armoured.

Strange precautions had been ordered all over the ship. The small, elite crew who waited above to work the sails had safety-lines lashed around their waists; they would dangle like pendulums if they fell but at least they’d probably live. Real fires were extinguished, smoking strictly forbidden. Drakasha’s children slept in her cabin with the stern shutters locked and the companionway door guarded. Drakasha herself had her Elderglass mosaic vest buckled on, and her sabres hung ready in their scabbards.

‘A quarter less six,’ called a leadsman.

‘Fog coming up,’ said Jean. He and Locke stood at the starboard rail of the quarterdeck. Drakasha paced nearby, Mumchance had the wheel and Delmastro stood by the binnacle with a small rack of precision timing glasses.

‘That’s how it starts,’ said Mumchance.

The Orchid was entering a mile-wide channel between cliffs that rose to about half the height of the masts and were surmounted by dark jungle that rose and faded into the blackness. There were faint sounds of things unseen in that jungle: screeches, snapping, rustling. The ship’s arcs of lanterns made the waters around them clear for fifty or sixty feet, and at the edges of that gleaming circle Jean saw threads of grey mist beginning to curl out of the water.

‘And a half five,’ came the cry from the starboard leadsman.

‘Captain Drakasha.’ Utgar stood at the taffrail, log-line pinched between his fingers. ‘Four knots, hey.’

‘Aye,’ said Drakasha. ‘Four knots, and our stern’s even with the mouth of the Passage. Give me ten minutes, Del.’

Delmastro nodded, flipped one of her glasses over and kept watch as sand began to trickle from the upper chamber to the lower. Drakasha moved to the forward quarterdeck rail.

‘Heed this,’ she said to the crewfolk working or waiting on deck. ‘If you start to feel peculiar, stay away from the rails. If you cannot abide the deck, go below. This is a chore we must endure, and we’ve come through it before. You cannot be harmed if you stay on the ship. Hold fast to that thought. Do not leave the ship.’

The mist was rising now, layering upon itself. The shadowy outlines of cliffs and jungles beyond were swiftly vanishing. Before them was nothing but blackness.

‘Ten, Captain,’ said Delmastro at last.

‘By the mark five,’ cried one of the leadsmen.

‘Mum, put your helm down.’ Drakasha used a stick of charcoal to scrawl a quick note on a folded parchment. ‘Two spokes a-lee.’

‘Aye, Captain, helm a-lee by two.’

At the sailing master’s slight adjustment to the wheel, the ship leaned to larboard. Sailors overhead made faint adjustments to sails and rigging acting on instructions Drakasha had drilled into them before they’d entered the Passage.

‘Give me twelve minutes, Del.’

‘Aye, Captain, twelve it is.’

As those twelve minutes passed, the fog grew thicker, like smoke from a well-fed fire. It closed on either side, a swirling grey wall that seemed to lock their own light and sound in a bubble, closing off all hint of the outside world. The creak of the blocks and rigging, the slap of the water on the hull, the babble of voices - all these familiar things echoed flatly, and the jungle noises vanished. Still the fog encroached, until it crossed the ephemeral line of well-lit water created by the lanterns. Visibility in any direction now died at forty feet.

‘Twelve, Captain,’ said Delmastro.

‘Mum, put up your helm,’ said Drakasha, staring at the compass in the binnacle. ‘Helm a-weather. Bring us north-west by west.’ She shouted to the crewfolk at the waist: ‘Make ready to shift yards! North-west by west, wind to the larboard quarter!’

There were several minutes of activity as the ship came slowly around to its new course and the crew rebraced the yards. All the while, Jean became more convinced that he wasn’t imagining the sound-dampening nature of the fog. The noise of their activity simply died when it hit that intangible shroud. In fact, the only evidence of a world beyond the mist was the wet, earthy smell of jungle blowing in with the warm breeze across the quarterdeck.

‘By the mark seven,’ called a leadsman.

‘Twenty-two minutes, Del.’

‘Aye,’ said Delmastro, turning her glasses like an automaton.

The next twenty-two minutes passed in claustrophobic silence, punctuated only by the occasional flutter of sail canvas and the shouts of the leadsmen. Tension built as the minutes crawled by, until—

‘Time, Captain.’

‘Thanks, Del. Mum, put your helm down. Bring us south-west by west.’ She raised her voice: ‘Lively, now! Tacks and sheets! To the larboard tack, south-west by west!’

Sails shuddered and crewfolk ran about swearing and working ropes as the ship heeled back onto the larboard tack. They spun at the heart of the fog; the jungle-scented breeze seemed to rotate around them like a boxer dancing around an opponent, until Jean could feel it against his left cheek.

‘Hold steady, Mum,’ said Drakasha. ‘Ezri, fifteen minutes.’

‘Fifteen, aye.’

‘Here it fucking comes,’ muttered Mumchance.

‘Belay that crap,’ said Drakasha. ‘Only thing truly dangerous out here is us, got it?’

Jean felt a prickling sensation on the skin of his forehead. He reached up and wiped away the sweat that was beading there.

‘A quarter less five,’ called a leadsman.

Jean, whispered a faint voice.

‘What, Orrin?’

‘Huh?’ Locke was gripping the rail with both hands and barely spared a glance for Jean.

‘What did you want?’

‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘Are you—’

Jean Tannen.

‘Oh, gods,’ said Locke.

‘You, too?’ Jean stared at him. ‘A voice—’

‘Not from the air,’ whispered Locke. ‘More like . . . you know who. Back in Camorr.’

‘Why is it saying my—’

‘It’s not,’ said Drakasha in a low, urgent voice. ‘We all hear it talking to us. We all hear our own names. Hold fast.’

‘Crooked Warden, I will fear no darkness, for the night is yours,’ muttered Locke, pointing the first two fingers of his left hand into the darkness. The Dagger of the Thirteenth, a thief’s gesture against evil. ‘Your night is my cloak, my shield, my escape from those who hunt to feed the noose. I will fear no evil, for you have made the night my friend.’

‘Bless the Benefactor,’ said Jean, squeezing Locke’s left forearm. ‘Peace and profit to his children.’

He felt the voice, realizing somehow that the impression of sound was just a trick he played upon himself, an echo in his ears. He felt its intrusion into his awareness like the brush of insect legs against his skin. He wiped his forehead again and realized that he was sweating profusely, even for the warm night.

Forward, someone started sobbing loudly.

‘Twelve,’ Jean heard Ezri whispering. ‘Twelve more minutes.’

Drakasha squared her shoulders and strolled down the quarterdeck steps to the waist. She found the sobbing crewman, hauled him gently to his feet and gave him a pat on the back. ‘Chins up, Orchids. This isn’t flesh and blood. This isn’t a fight. Stand fast.’

She sounded bold enough. Jean wondered how many of her crew knew or guessed that she drugged her children rather than put them through this.

Was it merely Jean’s imagination, or was the fog lightening to starboard? The haze was no thinner, but the darkness behind it seemed to abate . . . to acquire a sickly luminescence. A whispering hiss of water grew into a steady, rhythmic pulse. Waves breaking over shoals. The black water rippled at the edge of their little circle of light.

‘The reef,’ muttered Mumchance.

‘By the deep four,’ called a leadsman.

Something stirred in the fog, the faintest impression of movement. Jean peered at the swirling gloom, straining to catch it again. He rubbed at his chest, where his sweat-soaked tunic irritated the skin beneath.

Come to the water, Jean Tannen. Water so cool. Come. Lose tunic, lose sweat, lose itch. Bring . . . the woman. Bring her with you to the water. Come.

‘Gods,’ whispered Locke, ‘whatever’s out there knows my real name.’

‘Mine as well,’ said Jean.

‘I mean, it’s not calling me Locke. It knows my real name.’

‘Oh. Shit.’

Jean stared down at the black water and heard the sound of it breaking over the unseen reef. It couldn’t be cool . . . it had to be as warm as everything else in this damn place. But the sound . . . the sound of those waves was not so unpleasant. He listened, entranced for several seconds, then raised his head lethargically and stared into the fog.

Something was there, for the briefest instant - a dark shape visible through the curtains of mist. Man-sized. Tall, thin and motionless. Waiting there, atop the reef.

Jean shuddered violently and the shape disappeared. He blinked as though waking from a daydream. The fog was now as dark and solid as ever, the imagined light gone, the hissing rush of water over shoals no longer so pleasing to his ears. Sweat ran in itching streams down his neck and arms and he welcomed the distraction, scratching himself furiously.

‘By the . . . by the, ah, deep four . . . and a quarter four . . .’ murmured a leadsman.

‘Time,’ said Ezri, seeming to come out of a daze of her own. ‘Time, time!’

‘Surely not,’ muttered Locke. ‘That wasn’t . . . but a few minutes.’

‘I looked down and the sands were run out. I don’t know when it happened.’ She raised her voice urgently. ‘Captain! Time!’

‘Rouse up, rouse up!’ Drakasha bellowed as though the ship were under attack. ‘Tacks and sheets! Come west by north! Wind to the larboard quarter, brace the yards!’

‘West by north, aye,’ said Mumchance.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Ezri, staring at her timing glasses. Jean saw that her blue tunic was soaked with sweat, her hair matted, her face slick. ‘I was watching the glasses. It was as if . . . I just blinked, and . . . all the time was gone.’

The deck was alive with vigorous commotion. Once more the breeze shifted, the fog swirled around them and Mumchance settled them onto their new course with precise, almost delicate shifts of his wheel.

‘Gods,’ said Ezri. ‘That one was as bad as I can remember.’

‘Never been like that before,’ added Mumchance.

‘How much longer?’ asked Jean, not ashamed to sound anxious.

‘That’s our last turn,’ said Ezri. ‘Assuming we didn’t slip south far enough that we run aground on something in these next few minutes, it’s straight on west by north all the way to Port Prodigal.’

They slipped on through the dark waters, and gradually the strange sensations on Jean’s skin ebbed. The fog withdrew, first opening into cleaner darkness before the ship and then unravelling behind them. The light from the lanterns began to pour back out into the night, unrestrained, and the reassuring noise of the jungle on either side of the channel returned.

‘By the deep eight,’ came a leadsman’s shout.

‘That’s the main channel,’ said Drakasha, ascending the steps to the quarterdeck once again. ‘Well done, everyone.’ She turned to look out over the waist. ‘Take in most of the lanterns. Leave a few out for navigation, so we don’t surprise anyone coming into the harbour. Keep the leads going.’ She reached out and put her arms around Mumchance and Ezri, squeezing their shoulders. ‘I know I said no drinking, but I think we could all do with a brace.’

Her gaze fell on Locke and Jean. ‘You two look as though you could use a job. Fetch up an ale cask and serve it out at the mainmast.’ She raised her voice to a shout: ‘Half a cup for anyone who wants it.’

As Jean hurried forward with Locke close behind, he was pleased to feel the tension of a few moments earlier evaporating. Crewfolk were smiling again, chattering away at one another, even laughing here and there. A few kept to themselves, arms folded and eyes downcast, but even they looked relieved. The only odd thing about the scene, Jean realized, was how assiduously most of them were trying to keep their attention focused on the ship and the people around them.

More than an hour would pass before many of them would allow themselves to glance out at the water again.