The Voyage of the Unquiet Ice (14 page)

But most of all he felt a terrible humiliation, for many on board the
Chloe
must have known what was in store for him, and yet no one had warned him. Instead they had let him play at being a sailor, even though they knew he was doomed to spend the rest of his days imprisoned aboard the
Twelfth Kingdom.
Diego, for instance, had obviously known. No doubt that was why he had laughed so confidently about soon being rid of Dow.

As for Nell …

Yes, she must have known too. Why, only an hour ago, down upon the lawn, hadn't she made sly hints about New Island prisoners of the past – taunting him, for all that he hadn't realised it?

Dow turned to her now, to let her know, if only by a single glare, that he was aware of the cruel games she'd been playing – but Nell was walking with a blank look of shock on her face, and it reflected Dow's own mood so exactly that he quickly looked away again. The encounter with the
Twelfth Kingdom
's scapegoat, it seemed, had unsettled her deeply.
A true scapegoat you will become
. What in all the oceans did
that
refer to?

The party descended a second flight of stairs – and Dow noticed at last that Fidel was walking at his side, watching him shrewdly.

‘You may not think it now,' the first officer said quietly, ‘but you are luckier than you know, Mr Amber. There was every chance that you would be kept here forever, despite Vincente's plea.'

Dow – frowning – gave no reply.

‘You feel betrayed, no doubt. But your feelings are based on a misconception. You thought the captain your friend. But a captain's lot is to make difficult choices for the greater good of all, not one. His personal feelings don't come into it. Vincente is fond of you, no doubt, but your fate is not his prime concern. It can't be.'

Again, in his hurt and resentment, Dow said nothing. But in truth, a doubt came creeping – for when he had said goodbye to New Island, hadn't he suspected deep down that there was a chance he might not return? Hadn't he taken that risk upon himself, and done it gladly, his heart already given to the sea? Did the sting of being forbidden to return only reflect his shame at leaving his homeland so eagerly in the first place?

Fidel – still studying Dow closely – might have guessed some of these thoughts, or not. But he said, ‘One good thing I can tell you. Now that your place on the
Chloe
is for the time being secure, we can assign you to proper duties. You'll work your passage to the Ice and back.'

Dow clung to his anger a moment longer, but then had to give in to curiosity. ‘What duties?'

‘The captain and I will consider. Whatever you might be, Mr Amber, you're no common sailor. But a position can be found, I'm sure. Only be patient a while yet. A voyage to the Ice takes much preparation, and we'll have little time to spare for you these next few days.'

And more Fidel would not say.

Their escort, meanwhile, led them down by a route that differed from their way up, so that instead of returning to the Great Hall, or to the lawn on the main deck – where no doubt the other dignitaries were waiting impatiently for the Lords to be reconvened – they passed unobserved to the gun decks below the palace, and thence to an exterior hatch and gangway.

Here King Benito made his farewells. ‘Good sailing to you, Captain. I can't believe that this is anything other than a fool's errand, and that Nadal and all his companions are long dead – but if they do live, and if you can find them, then you may well be the saviour of the empire.'

‘The empire may well need saving,' responded Vincente, ‘if the Stone Port attack goes un-investigated.'

‘I'll do my best,' promised Benito.

The king strode off, and the rest of them moved down the gangway to the landing, where one of the
Twelfth
Kingdom
's boats was ready for them. They embarked and in moments the rowers were hauling them away from the sheer wall of the capital ship's hull.

Dow looked back, head craned to see up to the great dome under which he had just been sitting. He felt a clammy sense of relief, of having made a narrow – and only temporary – escape. No longer did the
Twelfth Kingdom
appear so magnificent to him, but instead oppressive and oversized. He could imagine the dark dungeons that lay deep within its giant hull, far below the turgid waterline – where the strange occupant of the wheeled chair had foretold he would one day be sent …

He looked away, forward over the rowers' heads, and saw the
Chloe
. Until this very moment, Dow had always thought of the battleship as an enormous, heavy thing, but he was pierced now by its beauty and lightness. It was the opposite of the
Twelfth Kingdom.
The
Chloe
was prisoner of no Golden Millpond. There was agility in its sleek lines, and swiftness in the subtle rake of its masts and in its taut webs of rope and sail; a coiled speed that would spring forth the instant a wind rose.

And Dow realised now that he had never seen that speed truly uncoiled. Throughout the crossing from New Island he had been so engrossed in the sheer novelty of being at sea that he hadn't noticed how untested the ship had been by the voyage. It had made steady progress through fair winds and smooth seas – but it had done no more than that. And yet it was capable, he sensed now, of so much more – as was Dow himself.

The old sea-longing rose up in him as acutely as ever, a lust almost; the thought that there might be only one more voyage in his future, followed by a lifetime's captivity on the
Twelfth Kingdom,
was too agonising to bear. No. He must never come back here – or at least, he must not come back as he was now, so ignorant, so powerless, so at the mercy of others. He must rely no longer on chance to see him through, nor upon the goodwill of Vincente. His life was not the captain's responsibility, it was his own.

The rowers raised oars as they came alongside the battleship. Dow clambered up the boarding ladder behind the others, his resolve expanding within him. He would not stand idly by on this voyage. Whatever task he was assigned, he would prove to himself and to everyone that he was a true seaman, so that Vincente would have no choice – for the good of the ship – but to keep him on board. And if Vincente would not, or could not …

Then Dow would find some other way.

Reaching the deck, he noted surprised looks on the faces of many at his presence. Of course – they had not expected him to return. They had all assumed he would be left behind, as law stated, on the capital ship. And when Dow went below to his quarters in the smithy, he was met with the greatest disbelief of all.

‘Dow,' cried Johannes, throwing aside his hammer and grabbing Dow in his huge arms, his fists thumping on Dow's back, as Nicky grinned up owlishly from beside the bellows. ‘We thought we'd never see you again. We were certain they'd keep you on that awful ship forever.'

And even while laughing, Dow had to ask. ‘So you knew about their law too? Why didn't you warn me?'

At which the blacksmith dropped his arms and stepped back. ‘You are my friend, Dow Amber, but I am nevertheless a crewman upon this ship, and under the rule of its captain. Vincente ordered me to be silent, and silent I stayed.' And at the dark, perplexed look on Dow's face, he added. ‘It was also Vincente, you should know, who suggested I invite you to live down here with us. He knew you would never be happy in the officers' quarters. And it was Vincente, too, who suggested I encourage you to train as an able seaman.' He watched Dow absorb this, then said. ‘Can you forgive me?'

And Dow found that he could – Johannes, at least. He still wasn't sure if he could forgive the captain.

Later that afternoon he went topside once more and found the
Chloe
making ready to depart. Vincente – so word said – had spent the afternoon closeted with the captains of the
Thorn
and the
Dolphin
, and now the order was to make sail as soon as darkness fell. The hope, it seemed, was to slip away unnoticed in the night before their enemies learned of their mission.

But that hope was to be thwarted, for just on dusk, a boat came rowing swiftly from the
Twelfth Kingdom –
bearing none other than Lieutenant Diego of the Diamond, nephew to the King of Valdez.

Dow watched from the rail as the boat pulled alongside and a ladder was lowered. He was sure that the captain had been quite prepared to sail without Diego – and the lieutenant, by the look, had not willingly come back. He climbed up the ladder with an expression as glowering as Dow had ever seen him wear. But no doubt his uncle, having somehow got wind of the
Chloe's
expedition, had changed his plans and remembered that, conveniently, Diego was still officially a member of its crew.

Dow glanced to the high deck, hoping that Vincente would appear and deny Diego permission to board – but there was no such development. Perhaps the captain believed that a spy who was known to be a spy could do no great harm. But watching Diego stride ill-temperedly across the deck to the stern castle, Dow was not so confident. And also, although his feelings about Nell were no clearer than they had been all afternoon, he hated the idea that Diego would now be near to her again.

Night lowered, and around the
Chloe
the sea came alight with the many lamps of the fleet and the
Twelfth
Kingdom
. But no lamps were lit on the battleship. At a soft word from the high deck, the sails were raised in a faint night breeze, and slowly the ship made off northwards.

Dow stood at the rail and watched the armada fall away behind, thinking over all the strange events of the day, and of the circumstances that had seen him launched on this, the second voyage of his life. It'd been the creature Axay who'd settled the matter, by pronouncing that the search for the Lord Designate could not be
fateful
if Dow was not on board – but how could it be that his presence was linked to the survival of someone so high and august as Nadal, a prince that Dow had never even laid eyes upon?

But just as the last lights were slipping over the horizon, a realisation came.
I've been sending merchantmen
in pairs
, the Sea Lord had said, speaking of the search for his son,
most recently in the autumn of last year, and then
again this spring
. The autumn of last year! But it had been exactly then – over a year ago now, back home in the high forests of New Island – that Dow had looked out from the headland and spied two ships far below, battling the seas in the storm's wake; the very pair that had so ignited his desire to leave Yellow Bank and seek for the sea.

Surely they must be the same vessels. They had been driving north towards the Ice, had they not, where otherwise even the Ship Kings had little reason to go? Yes. He had wondered then where they were bound and why they would roam there – now he knew. They had been sailing in search of Nadal. And because of them Dow had left his home, and now stood upon a ship that was heading north upon the very same mission.

He turned his face to the blackness of the north, feeling a coldness settle over him, a net of fate in which he was trapped inescapably. Or perhaps it was just an extra bite of winter, already in the air.

5. OF ICE AND NICRE

F
or that night and all the next day the
Chloe
crept northeast across the sluggish waters of the Millpond, and then in the evening sighted land at last, a lonely cape rising out of the sea, rocky and bare in the sunset. This, Dow was told, was the southern extremity of the peninsula that formed the Kingdom of Argive. They sailed on, and by the next morning had rounded the cape to leave the Millpond behind and were heading north along Great Island's western shores.

Here they were exposed once more to the weather of the wider world, and had to fight their way into stiff winds and choppy seas. For two further days they pressed northwards, and all the while Dow stood at the landward rail, staring at the distant coastline. There was little enough to observe other than stony hills and headlands, interspersed by a few small harbours and villages, for the larger ports and towns of Argive – one of the poorer kingdoms, by all accounts – were situated on its sheltered east coast. Nevertheless, this was Dow's first foreign shore, and the
otherness
of the landscape, so different from green New Island, was strangely compelling.