The Voyage of the Unquiet Ice (7 page)

For the next three days the
Chloe
bore southeast on its new course, its destination now the waters to the south of Great Island, for it was there that the
Twelfth Kingdom
would be waiting.

Indeed – as Johannes explained to Dow – it was always to be found there. The Sea Lord's ship did not, by law, ever sail within sight of land, but nor did it ever sail far
from
land. Instead, it made its home upon a shallow sea known to the Ship Kings as the Golden Millpond. This was a giant lagoon, formed in part by the southern coastline of Great Island – a vast bight many hundreds of miles across – and in part by a chain of reefs and sandbanks that ran away further south, blocking off the open ocean. Within those confines the capital vessel could sail at will beyond sight of land, and yet be as sheltered all the while from wind and wave as if it rode in its own harbour.

By the third evening the
Chloe
had entered the western reaches of this placid sea, having rounded the south-western extremity of Great Island, without, to Dow's disappointment, passing close enough to sight land. Their path now lay directly east, and as dusk deepened the winds faded to a breeze and the water became glassy and smooth. The
Chloe
slid silently on through the Millpond's night. Rumour had it that the
Twelfth Kingdom
would be encountered some time the following day, and so Dow was up on the main deck before sunrise next morning, so eager was he to behold the great vessel.

He stared forward into the gloaming light, searching for any sail. It was yet another overcast dawn, but the sea was dead flat now, oily almost, and the wind – a bare breath of it – had grown warm, scented strangely with aromas of greenery and decay. The light grew. Dow's gaze roamed back and forth across the smooth sea and the grey horizon … and then, there!

‘Sail ho,' came the cry from aloft.

It was a paler grey against the clouds, a ship bearing south out of the northern night, seeming to rise up over the edge of the world. But Dow, crestfallen, counted only three masts, so it could not be the mighty
Twelfth Kingdom
. Another ship rose behind the first. And then another. Soon, five vessels were arrayed across the horizon, two of them (by Dow's reckoning) battleships, and three of them frigates.

A young midshipman paused at Dow's side to gaze out, and then explained, at Dow's enquiry, that the ships – so their banners declared – belonged to the fleet of the kingdom of Anambria.

‘Why are they here?' Dow asked.

The boy gave him a superior glance. ‘There will be fleets from
all
the kingdoms gathering hereabouts today, for each king is escorted by his own warships when he sails to the Lords. Prepare for the sight of a crowded ocean, New Islander.' Then off he hurried.

Dow returned to his watch. All throughout that morning he remained at the rail, staring out fascinated as one by one the different fleets reared over the horizon, sometimes five or six ships together, sometimes eight or nine, but all with sails fully set in the light wind, and resplendent even under the grey sky. By noon there were nearly thirty warships within sight of the
Chloe,
grouped into four fleets, each identified by coloured banners that streamed brightly from the tips of their mainmasts.

The
Chloe
too was now flying a banner, a tapered flag of red and gold bands. And then a fifth fleet appeared – the smallest yet, just one battleship and three frigates – but also flying the red and gold. These four ships came sweeping in to take up station immediately fore and aft of the
Chloe,
and cheers rang out from crew to crew, for here were fellow vessels of the Valignano fleet; the second battleship bearing the king of Valignano himself. Boats were launched to run back and forth between the two, and splendidly uniformed officers came and went from Captain Vincente's cabin.

By mid-afternoon Dow could count close to fifty vessels sailing east together, grouped into seven fleets. It seemed unimaginable to him that there could be so many warships in all the world, and yet he knew too that even this was not the full sum of the Ship Kings' might. There were four kingdoms not yet present – and then there was the Home Fleet, which was meant to be the largest of all. It was a sobering prospect for a New Islander whose famous ancestor had once fought against these same fleets. Eighty years later, how could any Isle ever hope again to challenge such massed strength?

And yet … There was also an unruliness to the scene; a fractious rivalry between the flotillas. It was visible in the way each knot of ships jostled defiantly with the others around it, as if marking out and defending some unseen boundary upon the water. Battleships crossed provocatively in front of other battleships, and all the brave banners and swollen sails began to look to Dow like the puffed-out chests of men arguing. Some ships even had their gun ports open and their cannon rolled out. A readiness for violence was in the air, as if just one careless manoeuvre might initiate genuine battle.

Even the
Chloe's
normally sensible crew were not immune to the tension. Otherwise stoic officers were suddenly yelling quite unnecessary commands to the men aloft, and deckhands dashed to and fro on the slightest pretext. Dow half expected the
Chloe
to run her own guns out as a precaution, but no such order was given. Captain Vincente at least – still hidden away, holding meetings in his cabin – was keeping a leveller head.

Then there came a new cry from the crow's nest, the lookout pointing excitedly to the east. At first, all Dow could see was another collection of sails lifting into view – an eighth fleet coming to join the others. But no, this wasn't just five ships, or ten. More sails appeared, until there was a great line of them spread right across the horizon; twenty, no thirty vessels and more, a second armada rivalling the one already gathered.

And at the centre of the line a strange shape now hove slowly up, a dense mass of sails, too numerous for any normal ship. Higher and higher they rose, set on masts outlandishly tall. And between the sails loomed walls, white as marble, and above those walls, towers … The realisation was a sinking in Dow's stomach, an awed intake of breath. He was looking upon the Home Fleet, and at its heart was the great capital ship of the Sea Lord, the
Twelfth Kingdom.

Slowly the two armadas drew together, and the very sea seemed hemmed in every direction by sails and masts. There were so many ships it was impossible to count them all before they had shifted into some new arrangement, and one must start all over again. But the closer the
Chloe
came to the
Twelfth Kingdom,
the more Dow's whole sense of scale changed. Once he had thought of the barges of New Island as being large craft, then he had considered a battleship as being truly large. But
now …

The capital ship approached ponderously, far astern of its swifter and nimbler escorts, but dwarfing them anyway. Dow's first impression was of the Stone Port fortress. Indeed, if someone had sliced off the peak of West Head, with its mighty keep intact, and somehow set the mountaintop afloat and ringed it about with sails, then it might have looked a little like the vessel that confronted him now. But no … that was to suggest much too natural and organic an appearance. The
Twelfth Kingdom
was all too palpably a man-made thing, and that was what made its size so staggering.

Orders were yelled to the men aloft on the
Chloe,
in preparation for a change of course. Both armadas, Dow realised, were turning southwards, so that they could run in parallel. As the
Chloe
came smoothly about, Dow moved to the left hand rail, in perfect position to see the
Twelfth Kingdom
coming slowly side on to him, no more than a mile away.

In profile, the ship was revealed to be – in its lower part at least – a colossal floating platform, a barge effectively, but one grown beyond all proportion. To judge by the vessels nearby, it was more than four times the length of even the largest battleship, and it rose six decks high above the waterline. Four of those decks bristled with gunports, a broadside of several hundred cannon, while in the stern were castle-like fortifications with yet more gun decks that faced rearwards. Similar fortifications rose above the blunt bow, with cannon likewise aimed ahead. Also in the bow were not one but four immense bowsprits spearing upwards and out, and as for the ship's masts, it was difficult, amid all the sails, to count their number. Were there twelve? No, there were sixteen, arranged in rows fore and aft.

But it was amidships that the true wonder of the
Twelfth Kingdom
lay – for rising from the platform was a superstructure that Dow could only describe as a palace, its walls fashioned of white stone. In seven tiers it lofted above the main deck, and great towers stood at each of the four corners, rising even higher. The lower tiers bore still more gun decks, but the upper tiers were resplendent with grand balconies painted in gold, and lined with glittering glass windows. And roofing the uppermost level, between the four towers, there rose an immense dome that shone as golden as brass.

How such a dome could be constructed as high above the sea as the
Chloe's
own crow's nest, Dow could not comprehend. But there was so little about the
Twelfth
Kingdom
he
could
comprehend. Did it have a thousand guns? It may well have. And only now did Dow think about what that meant – of the multitude of gunners that would be needed to man them, not to mention all the other seaman it would take to sail such an impossible craft; and then too there would be the court of the Sea Lord himself.

Why, the vessel must be host to five thousand souls at the very least. It was a town riding upon the ocean – a
city.
It took an effort for Dow to remind himself that the great thing was, nevertheless, a ship. So stately was its progress that there was little indication that it moved – there was no wave at its bow, no wake at its stern – and yet move it did.

And all around it sailed the combined armada. Much faster than the capital vessel, the various fleets – rivalries forgotten now in the presence of the Sea Lord – began a series of intricate manoeuvres, so as to keep the
Twelfth
Kingdom
at their centre. The great craft itself pushed resolutely southwards, but the frigates and battleships sailed first south, then east, then north, then west, describing vast circles of which the capital ship was always the hub; eighty fully arrayed warships proceeding expertly and without collision in a display of seamanship that left Dow consumed with admiration.

And the ships kept coming. By dusk, flotillas from the last four kingdoms had taken their place in the grand parade. Even when darkness fell, Dow could not tear himself away from the railing, for now each ship came alight with lamps – the
Chloe
too, its rigging bejewelled with a hundred lanterns and more, red and green and blue, in festive celebration.

The armada became a carnival of colours revolving across the black ocean, a great wheel whirling slowly, miles and miles across, as if to replace and improve upon the stars, hidden by the clouds overhead. And in between the brighter constellations, smaller lights moved, a host of boats going this way and that between the larger ships, as messages and salutations passed back and forth between the kings and captains.

It was only near midnight that exhaustion finally began to pluck at Dow's eyelids. A misty drizzle was falling by then, blurring the fleet, and the last of the boats had returned to their ships. He took a final long look at the
Twelfth Kingdom.
Its many windows were blazing gold from within, and orange fires burned high on its towers, and the whole immensity of the vessel was surrounded by a pearly halo of glowing rain.

It was achingly beautiful, all of it, and he, a boy of the forests with no business at sea, had lived to behold such a wonder. If he had left his home and his family for no other reason than this night alone – Dow decided wearily – it had been worth the sacrifice.

But even as he turned to go, he heard voices approaching. He'd been standing in a deeply shadowed spot near the forecastle, so as to not be dazzled by the
Chloe's
lamps, and now two figures were making their way to the same area of darkness, in soft conversation as they came.

It was Diego. And with him Ignella.

Swiftly – without quite knowing why, only that he did not want to meet them – Dow ducked away behind the forecastle stairs where the blackness was total. He peered out between the steps. Had they seen him? No … the two were absorbed in their discussion. Diego was talking urgently all the while, his head bent confidentially towards Nell's, his voice low. But Dow could hear him clearly enough as they approached his hiding spot.

‘… and with this latest news from the north the Sea Lord has no choice anymore; he'll have to concede. Even the fact that he was forced into this winter session shows how weak his position is. It can't be put off anymore. Tomorrow Valdez and Castille will demand resolution.'