Watson, Ian - Black Current 01 (13 page)

 
          
"Shall
we?"

 
          
"No
thanks," said Jambi. A conjuror was tossing a stream of shiny silver balls
nearby. By some sleight of hand he seemed to be making them travel in
figure-eights. "I'll watch him. You go ahead."

 
          
A fortune teller.
Would the person read my palm? Or slit
open a fish and examine its guts for auspices?
How ancient,
how quaint.

 
          
Inside,
the tent was dim. So until I was already inside and committed, I didn't
realize that the fortune teller was a Port Barbra woman. Her hood was pulled
well over her head, and her scarf covered her nose and mouth so that of her
face there were only two eyes staring out intently—observing the whole of me,
while I saw precious little of her.

 
          
She
spoke softly. "Please sit."
On a stool, before a
little table.

 
          
Which I did.
By now I was wishing to flee from the tent,
instead. But I was determined to be polite. Or was I too cowardly to rush out?
Sometimes rudeness is the better part of courage. . . .

 
          
However,
I placed upon the table a coin of the value stipulated on the notice outside,
50 scales, or half a fin. Not much, though not entirely negligible.

 
          
Cards:
it was cards. She was a cartomancer—though maybe she could also turn a trick
with fish-guts or palm-lines. Cards were probably faster and took fewer powers
of invention.

 
          
She
handed me a pack, face down. "Don't look. Cut and shuffle three times.
Each time you cut, turn half the pack around." I did so, and gave it back.

 
          
She
fanned the pack on the table, still face-down. There must have been a hundred
well-thumbed cards in all.

 
          
"Choose
nine."

 
          
I
did so, quite at random. I had no special instinct for this one rather than
that. She stacked the rest of the pack to one side then began to turn up the
cards I had selected.

 
          
The
first showed waves on water, with a schooner riding in the distance. The
picture was in sepia tones, and pink and dirty white— as were they all to be.

 
          
"This
is the River. This is you." Her voice was a dull monotone. I nodded,
though I shouldn't have done.

 
          
The
second showed a spyglass. "This lies behind you. You are observant. You
watch, though you don't always understand. But since this is behind you, you
will understand more in future."

 
          
The
third was of a babe in arms, but it was facing away from me. "This is your
family. Reversed, it suggests negative feelings. You sail on the river to
escape this." (
"Oh no I don't,"
I said
to myself.) "Or perhaps," she added, "by sailing the river you
create these negative feelings." Obviously I had given her some facial
cue. I decided to keep my features frozen.

 
          
Next
was a signal-mirror, hand-held against a backdrop of rolling clouds with the sun
just breaking
through.
Again the card faced away from
me.

 
          
"These
are your hopes or fears.
The light of illumination.
If
reversed, you fear a message. Or a message has filled you with fear. The
clouds are your anxieties, which cloud insight."

 
          
She
turned up the fifth card; and I saw a handsome, laughing man, smartly attired.
He reminded me of Hasso (of the dandyish flared trousers and striped shirts),
though he was differently attired; but he was just as jaunty. Once again the
card lay turned away.

 
          
"This
is the influence at work: a husband to be sought, a lover. Yet he isn't really
for you. Or else he is far away in time or space."

 
          
Number
six was a cockerel crowing on a dunghill.

 
          
"Pride,"
she interpreted.
"Indiscretion."

 
          
Indeed?
Perhaps it made sense, at that!

 
          
Seven
was a bonfire, with another cockerel rising in flames from it, flapping fiery
wings. An arrow pierced the bird's chest. I had begun to sweat coldly, because
his bonfire stirred hideous memories; but she said:

 
          
"This
is the soul. Also, striving—
which is betrayed or
disappointed.
Or else transfiguration which pierces
the heart.
The meaning is ambiguous." The bonfire certainly
wasn't! "That card shows the
potential
outcome."

 
          
Number
eight: three men with staffs sprouting green leaves were fighting with three
women similarly armed. A fourth man strode away from the fight, his staff over
his shoulder supporting a bundle. A house blazed, behind.

 
          
"Conflict.
A husband walking home.
Warfare.
Alternatively: resolute bravery, success. This
is the
probable
outcome. Again, it's
ambiguous."

 
          
She
turned the last card over, placing it in the centre of the crossshape she had
made with the others. I beheld a river with a black band snaking along it
midway. Several fishes gaped out of the water as though to gulp flies.

 
          
"The Black Current, what else?
This crosses you,
obstructs you. Or maybe
... you
will
cross
it."
Abruptly the
fortune-teller reached out and grasped my wrist. "What do you know of any
of this?" she whispered fiercely. Her grip was tight. Outside, drums were
beating, and I thought that they were beating in my heart.

 
          
"Nothing!
Let go of me!" With my free hand I
quickly forced her fingers open. After months of working boats this wasn't
difficult. And this time I did flee, out through the flap of the tent.

 
          
"Hey!"
cried Jambi, who was hovering impatiently. "You're missing the show! It's
started. Come on."

 
          
Those
drums beat louder now, unmuffled by the canvas; and pipes were skirling. Jambi
had no time to ask me how I had got on in the tent; neither then—nor later.

 
          
If
you want to commit a crime, the best place to do so is in public: in a place so
public that dozens of other distractions are on hand.

 
          
How
Marcialla actually got into the predicament she did get into, I never saw.
Nor did Jambi.
If anyone else noticed they must have taken
it entirely for granted, as nothing unusual on festival day. When Jambi did
spot what was going on, even she didn't at first register anything amiss. But
she wasn't privy to the conversation I'd overheard in the Jingle-Jangle—nor had
she heard Marcialla's veiled warning as we two chatted at the head of the
gangplank.

 
          
It
was a good three hours later. The main display was already over: the
acrobatics, the climbing and abseiling, the ropewalking and trapezing by
professional junglejacks male and female who had been practising for a week and
more. That evening would see a fireworks display upon the great masts—the
fireworks imported, naturally, from smelly Guineamoy. But the period from now
until dusk provided full opportunity for those who weren't part of the official
performance to show off their own antics. So when the last professional team
had swung down sweating to the ground, a whistle blew. Teenagers, and men and
women too, swarmed across the field to the tall masts and began to scramble
aloft. Some went high up, some not so high.

 
          
"Accidents?
Of course there are accidents," Jambi
was saying to me as we watched these novices displaying their skill, or lack of
it. "Lalo says that someone broke his neck a couple of years back. There
are always sprains and fractures."

 
          
"It
seems silly."

 
          
"Isn't
it better if it happens here than out in the deep jungle?"

 
          
"I
don't follow you."

 
          
She
gestured. "There's a first aid tent.
Bandages,
bonesetters."

 
          
"Why
should amateurs do it at all?"

 
          
"Oh, Yaleen!
If somebody takes a tumble here, obviously
they aren't ever going to make it as a real junglejack. The guild won't accept
them."

 
          
"Oh,
I
see. We
don't need competitions in
mastclimbing, to become riverwomen. We just do it."

 
          
"The
river's softer than the ground."

 
          
"Decks
aren't. And don't forget the stingers!"

 
          
"Well,
that's how they do things here. See: the jungle-guild marshals are watching
what goes on, but they won't interfere."

 
          
"It
seems a bit barbaric." Was it any more of a peculiar ordeal than having to
drink a slug of the black current? A slug which might drive you mad?
Less, perhaps.
Less.

 
          
We
were debating the pros and cons over cups of cool blue perry which we'd bought
from a nearby stall, when Jambi broke off. She squinted and shaded her eyes.

 
          
"Isn't
that Marcialla up the tree?"

 
          
I
stared across the clearing.
Marcialla, indeed.
High high up, swinging freely to and fro on a trapeze.
No
safety nets of webvine were hung beneath.

 
          
"Why
does she want to show off? Surely she isn't thinking of quitting the water for
the woods at her age?"

 
          
Marcialla's
posture was . . . peculiar. The tiny distant figure sat immobile, with her
fists clenched round the ropes. Her legs and her head weren't moving in proper
time with the motion of the trapeze.

 
          
And
when the trapeze finally swung to a standstill, Marcialla would be marooned
high over a gulf of nothing.

 
          
At
that moment I noticed three figures hastening through the crowd over to our
left. They were heading away in the direction of the old town. One was blonde
and big and very familiar. The other two were hooded. I couldn't distinguish
their Port Barbra features, but something about the way one of them moved and
clutched briefly at Credence to say something convinced me that she was the
fortune-teller. For all I knew she might have been in the Jingle- Jangle too, a
few nights earlier! Then the crowd hid the trio.

 
          
In
a flash I knew exactly what was going on. (Yes indeed, the signal-mirror had
just flashed an urgent message in my mind!)

 
          
"Jambi,
don't ask questions—it's too urgent. You must do this for me: run back to the
docks as fast as you can. Round up any crew you see—and secure Marcialla's
cabin! Whatever you do, don't let Credence into it.
Particularly
if she has any strangers with her.
Women in
hoods."

 
          
"Eh?
But I can't forbid—"

 
          
"Trust
me. Do it!" And I set off at a sprint across the clearing.

 
          
I
climbed that dead tree by rope ladder, as far as a notch where the main trunk
forked. Here was the
platform
from which Marcialla
must have been launched, but this was no use to me at all; Marcialla was way
out of reach by now. The trapeze came less close to its starting point on each
return swing. At least Marcialla hadn't fallen yet: she still sat propped on
her seat like a life-sized doll.