The Princess and the Captain (16 page)

Our 69th day at sea
, wrote Orpheus in his logbook.
I'm not dead yet. The sea is calm and there's a favourable wind. While I was on watch I saw birds like our seagulls, and larger shoals of fish than usual. Yesterday our cook – who's an excellent fisherman too – took advantage of a moment of calm to dive into the sea with a harpoon. He brought back some big breamacudas with silvery scales, which he says are typical of the Ochre Sea. There's no doubt about it: we're approaching Cispazia
.

He closed the logbook thoughtfully. In the silence of his cabin the candle flame cast moving shadows on the wooden walls. Zeph was asleep, his chops drooping. This was the calmest hour of the night, a little before dawn, when the hull of the ship creaking and the snores of the sleeping sailors could be heard. It was the perfect time to go about his business in secret.

Orpheus blew out his candle, rose from his chair, slowly opened the cabin door and made for the galley on tiptoe. Except for the two men on deck who had just taken over after his watch, no one would find him taking provisions on the sly.

Having made his way secretly into the galley for so many nights running, Orpheus had come to know the ways of the cook, Finopico. There was a shelf full of books and treatises behind the cast-iron stove. They were not cookery books, but scientific works about fish. The cook was obviously passionately interested in the species populating the deep waters of all the known seas. But what interested Orpheus were the stores behind them: fruit pastes, blueberry fritters, marzipan cakes. He could always find a jar of herrings or spiced anchovies on other shelves. Of course Finopico noticed the food disappearing, but he dared not complain to the Captain, for these delicacies ought not to have been on board at all. The only problem was that the little redhead's suspicions fell on Zeph, and he vengefully kicked the poor St Bernard in the ribs whenever the dog put his nose out of the cabin.

Oh well, thought Orpheus, filling his pockets with sweetmeats. Zeph is pretty tough, and being half paralysed I don't suppose he feels much. He reassured himself as best he could, salving his conscience by reflecting that it was all in a good cause.

He came out of the galley and went stealthily down to the hold, where he groped his way past the stacks of barrels, the salt-corroded mooring ropes and the sacks of flour.

‘It's me!' he whispered into the dark.

Soon he heard movement behind the sacks.

‘What have you brought us?' asked a voice.

‘Fruit paste, I hope!' added another.

‘Everything you need,' replied Orpheus, sitting down on a crossbeam. He took a candle end out of his pocket and lit the wick. Two dirty but hungrily beaming little faces emerged from the darkness.

‘Herrings first!' said Hob, seizing the jar.

‘Fruit paste for me!' exclaimed Peppe.

Orpheus watched the twins attack their feast with amusement.

‘One meal a day doesn't go far,' commented Peppe, licking his fingers, ‘but it tastes good all the same.'

‘I can't come down and see you in the daytime,' said Orpheus apologetically. ‘You know it's too risky. If anyone noticed you were on board –'

‘… the Captain would have us hung from the main yard by our feet, we know!' chanted the twins in chorus.

‘And me too!' Orpheus pointed out. ‘A quartermaster who hides stowaways deserves no better. Frankly, I don't know what's kept me from throwing you overboard since the first day of our voyage. To think I was idiot enough to believe you'd gone back on land without asking for your fifty galniks!'

The two brothers nodded, still eating.

‘We knew we could count on you,' smiled Hob. ‘You're the sort who wouldn't hurt a fly!'

‘We didn't hesitate for a moment, not once we knew you were going on board the
Errabunda
,' Peppe continued, between mouthfuls.

‘And we've sort of paid our way,' said Hob. ‘The information we gave you was worth two berths down in the hold here, wasn't it?'

Orpheus looked doubtful. That information hadn't amounted to much: just some fortune-teller's predictions. According to the fortune-teller the Archont had taken ship for Cispazia a few days before the
Errabunda
sailed. The two boys believed firmly in what she said, but Orpheus had too rational a mind to put his faith in a fortune-teller and her cards.
To ease his conscience, however, he had mentioned it to the Captain, but the Captain had laughed in his face. The Archont couldn't have put out to sea ahead of them, for no ship had left Galnicia for months.

‘Good, is it?' asked Orpheus, to change the subject.

‘A real banquet!' sighed Hob, devouring his fourth herring. ‘How's your dog, by the way? Is he still seasick?'

‘I don't know!' laughed Orpheus. ‘He spends all his time asleep – and there was I thinking he was such a good sailor!'

‘When do we arrive in Cispazia?' enquired Peppe.

‘Tomorrow, with a favouring wind.'

‘And then what? You're going to save the Princess, aren't you? I just wonder how you're going to go about it!'

‘I don't know,' Orpheus admitted, ‘but I suppose the Captain has his plans.'

Hob abruptly straightened up. ‘I know what I'd do if I was captain of this ship. I'd send the giant to talk to Temir-Gai, and –'

‘The giant?' Orpheus spluttered with laughter. ‘You mean Babilas?'

‘That's him! The one who can lift four barrels with one hand! I saw him do it when he came down to the hold the other day. He's very, very strong!'

‘He is indeed,' agreed Orpheus. ‘I've never seen a man as strong as Babilas. But the Captain can't send
him
to talk to Temir-Gai.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because Babilas is mute,' Orpheus explained. ‘He hasn't spoken a word for years. No one knows why.'

‘Oh,' said Hob, disappointed. He sat down beside his brother and pinched a marzipan cake from him.

‘There'll be fighting anyway!' said Peppe. ‘With all the cannon and the loaded musketoons aboard the
Mary-Belle
, the Cispazians will soon see who they're dealing with!'

‘You bet!' Hob agreed. ‘And they'll give us back our Princess like a shot!'

Orpheus smiled as he saw the eyes of these two little warmongers shine. Every night, when he came down to talk to them, he briefly forgot the cares and responsibilities weighing on him. He was certainly doing very well as quartermaster, and if he had made a few mistakes they hadn't been serious. But the crew could be sullen, and some of the old salts didn't like taking orders from him. Among themselves they called Orpheus ‘Greenhorn'. If they could play a mean trick on him they did: it might be beetles in his soup, a dead rat in his shoes, a squirt of vinegar ‘accidentally' sprayed in his face. Nothing really vicious, just the rough humour of seamen. All the same, Orpheus felt that he was an outsider and they misjudged him. In making him quartermaster, the Coronador had handed him something of a poisoned chalice. So these moments spent with the two boys did him good.

‘Are you finally going to tell me why you were so keen to sail with the
Errabunda
?' he asked them. ‘Whenever I ask you turn all mysterious.'

In the course of their nights on board, the twins had told Orpheus something about their eventful if poverty-stricken life. They had been born thirteen years earlier in a distant province on the border between Galnicia and Armunia. Their parents had fallen ill and died, and the two little boys were left orphans before they were three. An old woman in the village took them in, and they had lived with her for many years, but she gave them more beatings than bread, and at the age of ten they had decided to run away.

Wandering the roads and begging for food, they had eventually reached the city, but once there they were caught and sent to an orphanage. ‘It was worse than a prison!' said Hob. ‘They made us sleep on straw mattresses full of bugs, and we had to go out begging for the monjes who looked after us. By way of thanks they whipped us and shut us up in dark cells for days on end.'

Tough and resourceful, Hob and his brother had run away again. Ever since then, they had been living in the streets, their only family a gang of other urchins. Such hardships no doubt explained their wish to leave Galnicia, but Orpheus guessed there was something else too. A secret that they were keeping between them.

‘We don't have any secrets,' Hob assured him. ‘We just wanted to see something of the Known World.'

‘If we have to live in poverty, we might as well be free!' added Peppe. ‘And anyway, our future is going to be –'

Hob elbowed him in the ribs to make him shut up.

‘Nobody knows the future, you fool! Don McBott has told us we shouldn't believe everything that fortune-tellers say!'

Just then Orpheus heard hurry and bustle between-decks. Day was dawning. It was time for him to go back and join the crew.

‘Keep as quiet as mice,' he told the two boys. ‘As soon as we land I'll come and get you, and then you'll be free to go where you like.'

He snuffed out the candle and hastily went back up. He didn't in the least want to run into one of the sailors, still less the cook. When he was safe in his cabin he took out his china bowl, filled it with water, and splashed his face. He was short of sleep, but he couldn't lie down now. He began shaving.

As he ran the razor-blade over his cheeks, he thought of his little protégés. He was certainly getting fond of those two lads. They had cheek and audacity. They had dared to do what Orpheus himself should have done at their age: they had struck out on their own without asking anyone's permission. It was for all these reasons that he took the risk of hiding them. It wasn't entirely honest, of course, and his conscience had given him trouble, but he'd have felt even worse if he had given the boys away to the Captain. And the presence of the twins didn't put the expedition in any danger; it hurt no one and nothing but the irascible cook's personal stocks of food.

Zeph moved at the end of the bunk and yawned fit to split his jaws. Then he went back to sleep.

As he put down the shaving soap, Orpheus looked at himself in the mirror. The sun and the sea-spray had weathered his skin. He almost looked like a real sailor, but these sixty-nine days of easy sailing weren't enough to make a man of him. Storms, he thought. I want storms and tempests! Shipwrecks! Battles and the sound of cannon fire!

Malva and Lei woke well before the gong sounded for the first time. All around them the other girls were sleeping peacefully on their bamboo mats.

‘Show it,' murmured Lei.

Malva pushed back her sheet to uncover her leg. The night before, Lei had wrapped her wound in a dressing of her own making, and now it was time to see what effect it had taken.

With a delicate touch, the daughter of Balmun lifted the dressing a little way. Malva clenched her teeth and searched feverishly under her mat for one of the paghul cakes she had hidden there. She crunched one to give herself courage. Since she had been torn from Uzmir's protection she had chewed the seeds in the cakes all the time. They had the power to soothe her body and her mind.

Suddenly Lei's face brightened. ‘See!' she whispered.

Malva bent her leg. Incredible: the wound had almost disappeared!
There was nothing left but a long white scar where the nameless monster had dug its teeth in.

‘You touch!' Lei suggested.

With a trembling hand, Malva put her fingers on the scar. She felt nothing but a gentle caress. She rubbed harder. Nothing! No pain at all!

‘Move it,' Lei suggested again.

Malva did, with obvious delight. She kicked her leg in the air several times, and finally ventured to stand up.

‘It doesn't hurt,' she breathed, eyes wide with amazement. ‘It doesn't hurt at all! Look, Lei! I can walk! I can walk as well as ever!'

‘Ssh!' whispered Lei, putting a finger to her lips. ‘You wake other girls.'

‘I can walk! I can walk!' repeated Malva, deliriously happy. ‘This is wonderful, Lei! You're a real magician!'

She was almost dancing now. She jumped up and down on the slatted mesua wood floor so vigorously that one of the girls eventually raised her head.

‘You sleep,' Lei murmured to her. ‘What you see just a dream.'

The girl muttered, turned over and went to sleep again. But that had calmed Malva down. She sat cross-legged, her eyes riveted on her leg, marvelling.

‘Thank you, thank you, Lei! You've saved me! I don't know how to –'

Here the gong suddenly sounded for the first time, cutting her short. All the girls woke with a start. They leaped to their feet, picked up their sarimonos and flung them around themselves before kneeling beside their mats.

‘Quick,' breathed Lei. ‘No one see us!'

She and Malva hurried to put on their clean sarimonos. No sooner had they knelt down than the second stroke of the gong made them tremble. With a single identical movement, all the girls picked up the ivory combs beside their mats and began arranging their hair.

Malva saw the scene with new eyes. On other mornings, concentrating entirely on her own pain, she hadn't noticed the rest of the girls. Today she was fascinated by the perfect choreography of their movements in the dormitory. How did anyone, even if he was Emperor of Cispazia, manage to get so many people to do such things all at once? It was both very beautiful and very disturbing. And yet Malva could not help joining in the movements of the ensemble: she too combed her black hair, which had grown again now and fell to her shoulders like the wings of a crow.

The third stroke of the gong heralded the entry of the preunuchs. They advanced in single file, silent, heads bent, with the yellow headband around their foreheads showing that they were slaves, and put down a bowl of steaming mococo milk in front of each girl.