The Bird of the River (6 page)

"It was about me, sir. It was a letter of recommendation. My father did him a favor once, and then ..." Krelan shrugged, with a sheepish look. "My older brother got into some trouble and, er, my father thought it would be a good idea if he didn't have all his sons under one roof. You see, we live in Mount Flame and--"

"That's all right." Mr. Riveter held up his hands. "If it's something to do with gangs, then the less I know, the better."

"And, er, he wanted to get me out of the way awhile."

"Perfectly understandable."

"So he asked Captain Crankbrass if he knew any river captains, as opposed to sea captains, because I'm not very strong and he thought a river voyage would be better for my health, you know, and anyway my mother was afraid of my drowning at sea--and Captain Crankbrass said, 'I know just the place for him; I have a friend on a river barge.' They never sink, do they?"

"It's been known to happen," said Mr. Riveter, distracted as one of the bearers staggered and almost dropped his burden into the river. "Orepick! What's the matter with you? Watch where you're going!"

"So anyway Captain Crankbrass wrote you a letter and sent it by express runner. Maybe she went to the wrong landing?"

"It's always possible," said Mr. Riveter, grabbing the sack from Orepick and tossing it into the hold himself.

"On the other hand, if it's hard for even a runner to find out your exact location at any given time, then this must be a pretty safe place to be, wouldn't you think?" said the boy hopefully.

"I suppose so," said Mr. Riveter. "Look, son, what do you want?"

"Well, what the letter said was that Captain Crankbrass sent you greetings and asked after your wife and children, and then it said I was a fine upstanding person of a good old pureblooded family, and then it explained a little of the, er, the problem with the--you know--and then it asked whether you couldn't take me on and give me a job, until people's tempers cool down a bit or ... or whatever happens."

"Like the Chainfires burn down your house and kill your brother and anyone else who happens to be nearby," said Captain Glass, swaying slightly as he loomed up behind Krelan. Mr. Riveter gaped in astonishment to see him on deck. The boy turned around hastily and craned his head back to look up at the captain.

"Well, er, that's putting it a little baldly, I must say, but--er--yes."

"Captain, sir!" Mr. Riveter saluted. "I was just about to explain how I'm only the first mate and all hiring decisions have to be finally approved by the captain. Sir."

"Good idea." The captain exhaled wine fumes. "And were you also going to ask him how likely it was the Chainfires would carry the vendetta all the way to tracking down this kid here and setting fire to the
Bird
?"

"Oh, I'm sure that wouldn't happen, sir," said Krelan. "I'm a nobody."

"Can you live like one?"

"I think so, sir. I'm the youngest of my family and they always pretty much treated me as one."

Captain Glass snorted. "Work out the details, Mr. Riveter," he said, and staggered back to his cabin.

"He doesn't get stupid when he drinks, does he?" said the boy, which surprised Eliss, because she had been thinking exactly the same thing at that moment. She grabbed up Mrs. Nailsmith's baby, who had been about to stagger out into the path of the bearers, and listened more closely.

"No, he doesn't get stupid," said Mr. Riveter. "Now, look, you'll have to work. This isn't like a navy ship with officers and commissions, see? And you'll have to drop your name, in case anyone should come asking after you. No Silverings on board."

"I could call myself Smith," offered the boy.

"No. Everybody calls themselves
Smith
when they're on the run," said Mr. Riveter, thinking hard.

"What about
Stone
?" said Eliss, handling the baby, who wanted to get down. They both turned to stare at her.

"Stone is good," said Krelan. "Nice and undistinguished without sounding suspicious."

"Then you're Stone," said Mr. Riveter. "Do you know how to do anything useful?"

"I can cook, a little," said Krelan.

"Right, then! You can report to the steward." Mr. Riveter made a trumpet of his hands. "Mr. Pitspike! Here's an apprentice for you!"

The steward, a dour and red-eyed man, had been glaring down through a hatchway, supervising the storing of supplies. He looked up now, -- his scarlet gaze tracked until it settled on Krelan. He scowled and approached. Krelan smiled shyly.

"Seven hells, Riveter, what's that?" demanded Mr. Pitspike.

"You said you needed help," said Mr. Riveter.

"I said I needed another man.
That
looks as though it'd break in half if you sneezed at it."

"I'm not strong, sir, but I'm a hard worker," volunteered Krelan.

"Early riser, are you? Because you'll be getting up in the dark to light all the stoves, so the ladies can come in to cook. And you'll stir the porridge cauldron. And carry the oil cans. And peel the onions. And turn the spit. And wash the
pots!
" Pitspike spat out the last word so forcefully Krelan's limp hair was blown back from his forehead.

"Yes, sir." Krelan's voice trembled slightly. "Where should I put my bag, sir?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"I suppose in my cabin, then, sir?"

Mr. Riveter turned away hastily, busying himself with getting the gangplank pulled in. Eliss closed her eyes, waiting for the explosion. "Cabin?" cried Mr. Pitspike, mocking Krelan's enunciation. "This whey-faced little prat thinks he's entitled to a stateroom, does he? Lah-di-dah, isn't he just too precious for words? You'll sleep on the galley floor and like it, your lordship, and anyway the grease is good for the skin. Stow your bag somewhere and get yourself into the galley."

"Yes, sir," said Krelan faintly, saluting as Mr. Pitspike turned and stalked away.

"Only the captain and the first mate get cabins," Eliss explained, setting down Mrs. Nailsmith's baby, who toddled away chewing his fist. "And the cartographer. And the musicians. Sort of. Everybody else puts up tents or lean-tos. But you can put your bag in our tent for now."

"That's very kind of you," said Krelan. "Er--"

"Eliss."

"Eliss." He tried to say it with her accent. "A charming name. Short for Elista?"

"No. Just Eliss."

He followed her to the tent, where Alder was sitting in the doorway. "Mr.
Stone
, this is my brother, Alder," said Eliss, bracing herself for the shocked look. But Krelan merely smiled at him as he leaned past to put his bag inside.

"Pleased to meet you, Alder." Alder merely nodded, staring at him. "Well, I suppose I'd better find the galley if I don't want to be showered with more colorful invective. Good afternoon, Eliss."

When he had gone, Alder looked up at her. "Who's that? Is he sharing our tent? Or have you taken yourself a boyfriend already?" he asked sullenly.

"Don't be silly!" Eliss felt her face grow hot. "He hasn't got a place yet and I was just being polite. What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing," said Alder, looking down at the deck.

HE CONTINUED IN A SULLEN MOOD. In retaliation Eliss left him to himself and spent more and more of her time up on the mast platform, watching the river. Sometimes Salpin was on duty there, -- sometimes it was the boxhorn player Drogin, who was lean and taciturn and answered her questions impatiently.

So Eliss stopped asking questions, and watched the river instead. She learned how to tell a sandbar from the outflow of a stream, and the different shades of water where the riverbed was gravel, as opposed to mud. She watched where Captain Glass steered, and began to play a game of betting where he'd guide the barge next, based on what she could read of the river. She discovered that the boats that passed them, coming downriver with cargoes of quarried rock or grain or ore, left long trailing wakes that could be mistaken for snags.

There was the social life of the barge to watch too. Laundry Day, when the gears in the mill were connected to the great washtub, and afterward women quarreled over whose laundry was whose, and drying laundry fluttered from the rigging like bright banners. Corn-grinding day, when the gears were connected to the grindstone, and men went up and down into the hold with sacks of grain, or meal or flour. The mill drove the potter's wheel one day, the carpenter's saw the next, the blacksmith's bellows the day after, round and round the cycle of days.

Eliss watched and learned which groups of families were friends, who tended to eat and wash all together. The divers were the queens in the little society, deferred to by the wives of the artificers like the carpenter or the blacksmith or the potter, who were in turn deferred to by the wives of the bargemen, -- below them in rank were the wives and girlfriends of the musicians, except for those who were musicians themselves, who enjoyed a somewhat higher status. Pentra Smith seemed to occupy a place of her own, perhaps on a level with the divers, but she never seemed to socialize much. She came on deck every morning as soon as the anchor was raised, and kept to herself at her post until the anchor dropped again at night, when she went back to her cabin.

And there were things to be learned from the bits of conversation that drifted upward. Drogin was cross because he didn't have a girlfriend at the moment, which was because he insisted on keeping his boxhorn in his blankets with him at night, which he did because the horn's wood was sensitive to cold. Mr. Pitspike was cross because he suffered from a stomach ailment that prevented him from eating onions, which he loved, and he had to watch other people cooking them all day. Mr. Crucible had been too poor to buy Mrs. Crucible a wedding bangle, so he had tattooed one on her wrist instead, with great artistry, and she boasted that it couldn't be stolen, couldn't be lost, and never got in the way when she was washing clothes or cooking.

The
Bird of the River
drifted along bearing its little world through the breathless heat, as the musicians played and cicadas on the bank droned in counterpoint, and there were days when the country beyond the riverbanks seemed as distant and unreal as a landscape painted on a screen.

"I SUPPOSE YOU KNOW ENOUGH to keep watch for a couple of minutes," said Drogin, shifting where he sat. Eliss nodded. He swung himself around and climbed down along the shrouds. Eliss focused her attention on the river.

A small craft was coming downstream toward them, someone's private boat. There was a pleasure pavilion on deck, with what looked like a couple of noblemen and three or four ladies in it, laughing and waving at the
Bird of the River
as they passed. The
Bird's
musicians began to play the same tune the noblemen's musicians were playing, and the melodies echoed back and forth across the water. The boat's tillerman, shaking his head, gave them an ironic salute as the boat fell astern.

Eliss watched its wake, rippling away and fanning out ... and there, just where it vanished ahead, was a spike of water running up. She drew in breath and used the Calling Voice.

"Unmarked snag to starboard!"

At once the shouting began below, and topmen came racing up toward her to take in sail. The
Bird of the River
slowed, reversed, stopped, -- but before the polemen could take her ahead, Mr. Riveter walked forward and peered out at the water off the starboard bow.

"Are you sure?" he called over his shoulder, and turned to look up at her. "I think that's just the wake of the boat."

"I'm sure," Eliss called down.

Mrs. Riveter, who had undressed and put on her goggles, came to stand beside him, looking out at the water. So did a few others of the crew. One or two shook their heads and looked up at Eliss doubtfully. Eliss clenched her fists on the rail.

"Captain, sir, it's just the wake of the boat," Mr. Riveter cried.

"Send in a diver," said Captain Glass, where he stood at the tiller. He didn't shout, but his voice carried.

"Send in a diver anyway?"

"That was what I said."

Mrs. Riveter said something to her husband and climbed down into the water. She swam out to the jetting water, examined it closely a moment, and then dove under. After a moment the jet disappeared. A moment later Mrs. Riveter surfaced, holding up a black branch.

"That was all it was," called Mr. Riveter. But Mrs. Riveter shook her head, swimming to the barge.

"This is just what was breaking the surface," she said, laying the branch on deck. "The rest of it goes down a fathom to a bigger snag. An ugly one. The next flood will shift it if we don't get it now."

"Seven hells." Mr. Riveter scratched his beard. "She was right, captain, sir."

Captain Glass only nodded.

"SO," SAID KRELAN AS HE RUMMAGED in his bag for clean clothes. "I understand you were quite the heroine today." Eliss, who was eating her dinner, lifted her head to stare at him.

"What?"

"He's talking about you seeing the snag nobody else thought was there," said Alder. It was so rare for Alder to say anything when Krelan was around that Eliss turned and stared at him too.

"What? Who said I was a heroine?"

"It's the talk of the galley," said Krelan. "I hear everything when I'm in there turning the spits. Mrs. Riveter says you're a natural spotter. Jeela Smith says you're another Sandgrind, though I haven't the faintest idea what that means. Mrs. Crucible says the gods send a good with every evil, and you're obviously the good that came with, er, something nasty I gather happened at Slate's Landing." He turned his back, pulled his tunic off over his head, and pulled on a clean one.

"Oh." Eliss felt the wave of sorrow for Falena coming. She braced herself, as she would with a real wave, and it broke and passed away. When she knew she could reply calmly, she said: "That was when our mother died. And we found the body of somebody who'd been murdered."

"Oh! I didn't know. I'm sorry." Krelan turned around, pulling his tunic down. "Was it somebody from Slate's Landing?"

"No, it wasn't," said Alder coldly. "It was some rich boy from a city."