Watson, Ian - Black Current 01 (4 page)

 
          
I
accepted it laughingly, only partly out of bravado.

 
          
"Why not?"
I winked back, and drank it down.

 
          
A
couple of hours later we were in a busy wine-arbour lit by fairy candles,
bantering with a pair of slim handsome brothers with coppery skin, lambent
eyes and pert tumed-up noses—with the banter gradually becoming more serious,
though of course destined to remain a game; whatever happened, a game. I was a
little tipsy, and my partner, with whom I danced a few turns, said that he was
called Hasso—and maybe he really was called that. I kissed him, and when I next
paid attention, Hali had vanished from the arbour along with her new friend.

 
          
Hasso
murmured sweetly, "I know somewhere."

 
          
"I
know lots of places," I said, rather wickedly. "Pecawar, Gangee. . .
."

 
          
But
he took my repartee in good part; as indeed he would, since he was anxious to
please me.

 
          
And
not so many hours later we were at that somewhere, the two of us—it was an
attic room, window choked with nightscented clemato, reached by a long thin
bridge—and I was discovering that I didn't know everything, though I was quick
to learn.

 
          
Nor
did he know everything; though the gaps in his knowledge were other than mine.

 
          
"Must
be marvellous, river travel," he nuzzled in my ear. Or something to that
effect; I was on the point of swinging round to approach him by another route.

 
          
"Must see all sorts of things on the far bank, while
sailing."
He was leaving out the personal pronouns, perhaps without
realizing he was doing so. As I surmised presently, he thus drew back from
actual spoken breach of faith.

 
          
"Cities
and such—"

 
          
At
this stage I wasn't offended; I simply thought that since the aura of the river
was about me, this was turning him on as much as my young charms.

 
          
"Ah,
beyond the black current—"

 
          
I
thought, capriciously, of telling him what that current
tasted
like, but I had no particular desire to test whether I would
vomit as readily on shore as I had on the boat. Besides, I already had my mouth
full, being otherwise occupied.

 
          
He
relaxed with a groan.

 
          
"Tell
me
something
that's seen over there,
eh?
Something wild and wonderful.
Anything
at all."

 
          
I
broke off abruptly, squirmed aside and found my clothes. I
knew
now. It was no coincidence that Hali and I had fallen in with
these two personable brothers at the wine-arbour. They'd been looking for such
as us. Or rather, for such as me: someone new and naive, freshly filled with
all the wonders of the river and its sights, and probably boastful. No doubt
the other brother was simply keeping the more experienced Hali suitably
occupied, while Hasso set out to pump me on behalf of the observers up there on
the Spire. . . .

 
          
I
didn't cry or make a fuss or accuse him, consoling myself with the thought that
/ had pumped him. Dry.

 
          
"Have
to get back," I lied. "I'm on nightwatch."

 
          
Why
any boatmistress should order nightwatch kept in a harbour, I had no idea; but
it was the first thing I thought of.

 
          
Hasso
propped himself on his elbow, grinning. "Are you
sure
you have to get back to your ship, little Yaleen?"

 
          
"My
boat
,
"
I corrected him hotly.
"
Shorelubber!"

 
          
And
in another moment I fled past the veils of clemato, whose smell seemed cloying
now, and over the high slim wooden bridge, alone.

 
          
I'd
wondered whether or not to tell Hali of my suspicions; however it was the wee
hours before she returned on board and by then it had occurred to me that she
might imagine I was rationalizing some sort of sexual disaster; which I was
not, by any means. So in the end I pretended to be asleep, and said nothing at
all.

 
          
And
early in the morning the padded boxes of spectacle lenses arrived. Almost
immediately afterwards we cast off and set sail downstream, for all points
north to furthest Umdala.

 
          
I
didn't return to up-and-down Verrino for a whole year, by which time I was no
longer just an apprentice but newly held my guild ticket; nor was I on the
Sally Argent
any more.

 
          
In
their first year or two, young riverwomen are encouraged to work a variety of
craft, and I was no exception. Besides, I think that subconsciously I chose to
hop boats in the way I did so as to delay my return to Verrino (and Pecawar)
for quite a while. What I told myself was that I ought to see as much of
downriver as I could, while I was still freshly impressionable.

 
          
So
I had sailed with that first boat of mine all the way down to cool, misty
Umdala, calling
en route
at Sarjoy,
Aladalia,
Port
First- home, Melonby and Firelight. At
Umdala I'd skiffed across the marshes, and I'd wandered the geometrical streets
of blockhouses with their steeply pitched roofs, like rows of wedges set to cut
whatever weight of snow might settle from the sky in deep winter; and I'd seen
the enormous widening of the river where fresh water became salt, a prelude to
the angry ocean—with the black current ribboning out and out. And I had
wondered whether Umdala was built as it was entirely to defeat white winters,
or whether there might not have been another hidden thought in the ancient
builders' minds—for this was an outpost city: outpost, not against human
enemies, but against what the river became as it broadened out, the unnavigable
dire sea.

 
          
I
returned on the
Sally Argent,
still
with Hali, as far upstream as the soft green grazing hills of Port Firsthome,
where I wondered at the time-worn Obelisk of the Ship—a "ship", as
all but shorelubbers know, being something quite distinct from a boat, which
plies water and not the star-void.

 
          
At
Port Firsthome I hopped off, with a good endorsement on my papers from
boatmistress Karil, and signed on the three-mast schooner
Speedy Snail,
a lumbering heavy-duty boat which only cruised from
Aladalia to Firelight and back; and through the summer and autumn I stayed
with her till I'd won my ticket. Then, as the winds blowing from the north
became quite chilly, it was goodbye to the
Speedy
Snail
and hullo to the caravel
Abracadabra
and local hauls in the Aladalia region, which distanced me from the worst
excesses of deep winter. Not that I was scared of catching cold! Still, I did
hail from Pecawar where the desert keeps us dry and where the winter only
brings a few ground frosts before dawn. Somehow I didn't yet feel like sailing
further south, up Verrino way.

 
          
So
for a while artistic Aladalia was my home, with its weavers and jewellers and
potters and its orchestra, almost as much as the
Abracadabra
herself; and I even got involved in something of a
relationship (casual but warm: I needed to keep warm) with one Tam; and
because this was a sweet experience I think I'll say less about it than about
my first time, with Hasso. Just in case I find any little flaws in this affair,
too? No. It remained quite innocent of any reference to what went on or didn't
go on over the water.

 
          
But
came spring, and a letter from my mother, and a concerned note from my father;
so from the caravel I hopped to the brig
Blue
Sunlight
bound for Sarjoy and Verrino; and who should be waiting on the
quayside as the
Blue Sunlight
tied up
at its destination, but Capsi.

 
          
I
waved and waved, and as soon as I was free of my duties I rushed ashore and
hugged him.

 
          
"How
did you
know?"

 
          
He
laughed delightedly. "Well, I knew you'd have to pass this way sometime.
After all, there aren't two rivers! I simply paid the quaymistress a little
retainer to keep an eye on the Guild Register for me."

 
          
"You're
lucky, then. I only just joined
Blue
Sunlight
in Aladalia."

 
          
"Lucky, indeed!
Fine thing to say
about your own guild, Sis.
Oops, apologies, Yaleen. But surely you mean
'efficient'? One boat got here ahead of you, with the latest crewlists
ex
Aladalia. And before
Blue Sunlight
it was
Abracadabra;
and before that—"

 
          
"You
seem quite efficient too. Obviously you know everything about me." (But he
didn't know
all,
I added inwardly. I
was a girl when last we met; but now I was a
woman,
and a riverwoman too.)

 
          
Arm
in arm we strolled up the steep cobbled street to the nearest wine-arbour, to
toast our re-encounter.

 
          
"So
how's it with you?" I asked him, as we sat on a bench beneath familiar
garlands of clemato.

 
          
"Oh,
I
sits
up the Spire, and I stares," said he
jocularly.

 
          
"Seen
anything amusing?"

 
          
His
voice quietened. "There's a little town about two leagues inland over
there. Just a little one, but we have Big Eye trained on it. That's our newest
telescope, with lenses right at the limits of the grinders' art. You must come
up and visit me at work."

 
          
"Must
I?"

 
          
"You'd
be interested—who wouldn't be?"

 
          
"Maybe
I wouldn't. I've seen Aladalia and Port Firsthome and Umdala. Why should I want
to squint at a nameless
little
town?
I bet what you see's all wavery and blurred—and so far away."

 
          
"It
isn't as blurred as you'd think. We're high up."

 
          
"So
what do you see?"

 
          
"People."

 
          
"Surprise, surprise.
I expected dragons."

 
          
"Very tiny people, of course."

           
"What, dwarfs?"

 
          
"Cut
the sarcasm, Sis. This is important."

 
          
"More important than our first meeting in a year?"

 
          
With
a perceptible effort he untensed, and chuckled.
"
'Course
not. Let's drown that year, eh?" And he drained his glass.
"I know a marvellous little spot to eat.
Afterwards.
When we need something to soak it all up.
Fancy some
spiced sweet-rice and kebabs?"

 
          
And
he punched me softly on the shoulder. Somehow though, that particular patch of
my flesh seemed sore, from way way back.

 
          
After
his first over-anxious little outburst, which had been like a premature
ejaculation of something long pent up, Capsi played me carefully; I'll give him
all credit for that. He kept off the subject and showed me the town, which I
already knew, but hardly as well as he knew it. I'd signed off the
Blue Sunlight
and taken a small rooftop
room for a while, after writing ahead to Mother and Father to announce that
I'd be arriving soonish, a letter which I left with the quaymistress to forward
by the next upriver boat.