The Gradual (23 page)

‘Let me see your papers – where are you heading?’

I laid my itinerary open on the counter. ‘I have a reservation on the
Serquian
,’ I said, and passed over my stave. ‘You’ll find this is up to date now.’

‘Did you say the
Serquian
? She sailed more than two hours ago.’ She looked down at my itinerary where I had laid it, then turned to consult a printed timetable pinned to the wall behind the counter. ‘If you are trying to get to Quy, the next service will leave here tomorrow morning. Around midday. Not from this part of the harbour, though. You will need a new ticket and your stave must be made ready.’

Again, briefly, I suffered the familiar panicky feeling of broken travel plans. But through the window beyond the woman I could see the pale blue and white hull of the
Serquian
. One of the gangplanks was still in place. The official looked through my documents with agonizing slowness but finally she impressed a rubber stamp on several of the pages and passed everything back to me.

‘My stave?’ I said. It had been lying on the counter next to her hand.

She picked it up without much interest, but turned it in her fingers, briefly sensing the etched lines. She turned to the scanning machine, thrust the stave inside, pressed a button and in a moment it popped back out again. For the first time during this unexplained procedure there was the sound of something being printed, then the scanner ejected a sheet of paper. The official took it without looking at it, and handed it to me with the stave.

‘This is valid until you disembark at Quy,’ she said. Then, inexplicably, she added, ‘The
Serquian
will be sailing in ten minutes. It is at the quay next to this office.’

I quickly removed my luggage from the counter and parked the trolley in the allocated bay at the side. I staggered out clumsily into the hot sunshine. I was aboard the
Serquian
with several minutes to spare, long enough indeed for me to be settled in my own cabin, and standing contentedly in the shower cubicle under a cooling spray.

I heard and felt the engines powering up. The ship began to slide away from the quay.

I was so relieved to be out of the relentless heat of the Muriseayan dock area that I remained inside the luxury of my air-conditioned cabin. I had planned to be there for a few hours until the ship was well under way but in fact I stayed put in the cabin for the rest of the day. I knew the crossing to Quy would take more than three days, so I was in no hurry to explore the ship. The stresses of the day had taken away my appetite. I found chilled bottles of drinking water in the cabin, and a few complimentary pieces of fruit laid out for me to find, and they were all I needed.

After my shower I stayed naked, slowly unpacking and making sure that everything of mine had made it to the ship without loss or damage.

I checked my violin first, because although it was superbly well protected in its reinforced case it was the most valuable thing I owned. More than that it was the only instrument I had brought with me. The idea of having to travel day and night without being able to play was unthinkable. All was well but I should have to tune it, of course. I had opened neither of my suitcases since checking out of the hotel in Muriseay City, and even after the rough treatment of the day everything was undisturbed inside. I removed a change of underclothes, another long robe, my toothbrush and other bathroom things.

I went to the mirror and checked to see how my new beard was coming along. I was pleased with what I saw. Even in spite of wearing my hat all day, my face had suffered sunburn while I was lugging my property around behind that annoying adept, but other than the slight redness I thought the flesh of my face looked better, firmer, more angled than it had for years. Although my arms and back were stiff I felt good – it seemed to me I was developing a little muscle tone.

I tuned my violin and began to practise, but I laid it aside after not very long, feeling disappointed. Maybe it was the acoustic of the small cabin, or the movement of the ship, or simply an after-effect of the tiring day, but nothing I tried sounded right. I was still disoriented by events. So many pieces of my life were in disarray, and as yet I had not really come to terms with any of them: my risky fleeing from the military junta with all that money, my worries about Jacj, my loss of Alynna, the Ante business, and now to make things even more complex, the adepts.

Not to be able to play well, even well enough for myself, was an unexpected blow in an evening, alone and cool and comfortable after a rough day.

It was a reminder of my earlier expectations about the stimulation of being in the islands. Standing on a boat deck and staring at scenery was not what I had had in mind, however tempting it was, however much I loved to look. I craved a little stability, the opportunity to hear myself play, to write some new music.

The next morning, after a long and deep sleep, undisturbed by the many sounds I now half expected on board a ship, I showered and dressed and walked the length of the main deck to the saloon. I was hungry at last. I wanted breakfast and coffee, then I planned a few hours alone on the promenade deck, succumbing again to the scenery. I remembered what I had resolved the night before, but I needed to sate my appetite for this beautiful and complex new world I had chosen.

Islands were all about me, irresistibly. Simply to turn towards one of them, any one of them, was to receive a stunning sense of that reality, that island. I crossed from one part of the deck to another, hands on the rail, leaning out over the white water thrown aside by the bow of the ship, seeking a new island, the next one, whichever it was. I soaked up mysterious feelings from each one, a thrilling inspiration. Tides flowed to and fro. Heat rose from the wooden planking of the decks, while a fresh breeze tended to moderate the ferocity of the sun, soothingly penetrating my thin clothing. Seabirds called around the stern of the ship. Passing ferries played their sirens. Light glinted from the waves. Around me, close and distant: cliffs and green hills and high mountains and shipping buoys and pretty shoreline villages. White surf broke over rocks and reefs. All seemed well.

On the third day out from Muriseay I left my cabin early in the morning. This was always the best time of day to be travelling at these latitudes. Within not many more minutes the sun would be blazing down, but for now it was still fairly low above the eastern horizon and a brisk crosswind was making the ship roll. The boat yawed and dipped as it cut through the white-crested waves. I was walking around the upper deck for a few moments before returning to my cabin. I wanted to make this a working trip and my head was spinning with ideas for a new composition. There were still several hours before disembarkation and I was planning to spend them usefully in my cabin.

I was pausing by the rail to think for a moment when a woman appeared beside me. I had not heard her approaching. She touched me lightly on my arm. She had a mane of strikingly grey hair billowing around her face.

‘Msr Sussken?’ she said. ‘My name is Renettia. I assist you when the ship arrives in Quy.’

I recognized her then: she was the young woman who had spoken to me at Ristor. I knew there would have to be another contact to make with an adept, but I had not expected to be approached while we were still en route.

‘Renettia?’

‘I will see you through the next stage of your journey. When we arrive in Quy, and afterwards, for your next departure. May I see your stave?’

‘I don’t have it with me – it’s in my cabin.’

‘You should always hold it.’

‘Not now. It isn’t convenient.’

‘I need it. I also require payment. You are heading east. Please pay now.’

‘Couldn’t we talk about this some other time?’ I said, starting to bridle. ‘I have work I must do.’

‘Forty thaler.’

‘Please let us discuss money later.’

Renettia was standing directly in front of me, blocking my way. We were on the narrow part of the deck, between the high superstructure and the rail. The dazzling sea swept along below us. The ship rolled as another blustering crosswind hit us. I could have walked past her with a little effort, but she was determined to halt me. I heard other passengers approaching from behind, but whoever they were turned aside and went into one of the companionways inside.

‘Forty thaler.’

‘I only have simoleons. You’ll have to be satisfied with those. What is the equivalent?’

‘Thaler. Every ship has a currency bureau.’

I gave way. She followed me down to the purser’s office at the aft of the ship. It had just opened. I waited in a short line behind other passengers, then expensively changed nearly all my simoleons into thalers. Suspecting I was going to need more of them I bought several extra thalers, drawing on the gulden in my mainland bank account. The disadvantageous exchange rate was irritating, although I could well afford it. Many years of past financial nervousness still made me reluctant to spend money.

I returned to my cabin, collected my stave, paid the woman. After she left I sat and tried to work, but I was annoyed with her and inspiration did not come easily.

I took a break near midday and went up to the boat deck. She found me there. She handed back my stave.

‘Nothing to be done,’ she said.

‘Then why did you ask for money?’

‘Nothing done now. We still to reach Quy. Pheelp has prepared you well.’

‘Pheelp? Was that the guy in Muriseay? He wouldn’t tell me his name.’

‘Pheelp never says name to clients. He has removed your detriment. It was complicated.’ She pointed to the filigree of etched lines that ran along the blade of my stave. ‘Few of us could have achieved that so brilliantly.’

‘I paid him well.’

‘You travel east,’ she said. She smiled briefly, put her hand above her eyes to shade them, took in the view, then walked away from me. For a moment I wondered if I was supposed to follow her, but she went along beside the rail without looking back, and entered the main part of the ship.

I do not know what happened to her after that. She would have been somewhere in the ship, because there were no other ports of call before Quy. When did she eat? There was only one small saloon for the passengers, most of whom I could already recognize by sight. She must have a cabin somewhere. I did not see her again until the end of the day, when the
Serquian
finally docked in Quy.

Quy turned out to be a steeply mountainous island with only one navigable harbour a short distance inland from the mouth of a narrow river. We arrived at the end of the afternoon, the shadows deepening. The ship crept slowly between high, wooded banks, unseen insects stridulating noisily in the sweltering air.

The adept woman, Renettia, appeared at my side but did not speak. The ship was being navigated carefully as we approached the narrow harbour. Renettia stood with her face raised towards the sky, closing her eyes against the brilliance of the lowering sun, her arms spread wide to support herself against the ship’s rail. I said nothing, still wary of the weird behaviour of these adepts and feeling again a mild resentment about the way they intruded on me. I waited while the ship manoeuvred so that its stern was towards the quay. As the engines reversed with a violent white agitation of spume spreading back alongside the hull, the ship moved gradually astern to the berth. Finally the vessel came to a grinding halt and dockworkers on the shore secured it with hawsers slung across to the quay by the crew. Throughout this the woman barely moved and did not speak to me at all.

But then, suddenly, she did.

‘You have been here before,’ she said. ‘To Quy.’

‘I have not,’ I said, certain of that at least.

‘You forget. On your earlier voyage.’

‘You know about that?’

‘It is recorded.’

‘We were nowhere near this island,’ I said. I remembered nothing about Quy. Even seeing the spectacular scenery around the little port struck no reminders.

She frowned disagreeably and it crossed my mind to wonder if her adeptness for this work, the gaining of time, the removing of the detriment, whichever it might be, was as competent as that of Pheelp. She herself had praised Pheelp’s skilled work. What made her think I had been to this island before?

‘I need to examine your stave.’

‘It’s packed again, in my cabin,’ I said. ‘You have seen it already.’

‘I’ll wait here while you collect it.’

I was not planning to stay long on Quy, but I had an expensive overnight hotel room booked in the town. I was looking forward to exploring the place on my own, perhaps finding a local restaurant or bar. I liked the shipboard life but I did sleep better on land.

‘Tomorrow,’ I said. ‘At the Shelterate building, before I set sail again.’

‘No.’

Renettia insisted that she must urgently see the stave again, so with some bad grace I went below to collect it. When I was back on deck she looked closely at it, fingering the tiny lines carved into its smooth surface.

‘Some islands have similar coordinates,’ she said. ‘This is perhaps why I thought you had been to Quy before. Manlayl is in gradual terms congruent with Quy. Manlayl is an island I know you have visited. Maybe I am wrong about Quy. Pheelp also made the same mistake. A problem for us.’

I had been to Manlayl – it was an early port of call during the first tour. But while I was below decks collecting the stave I had remembered that Quy was one of the islands I had given as a post restante address to Alynna. Whether or not I had any actual recollections of the place, I realized I must in fact have been here before, if only briefly.

‘What do you mean by congruent?’

‘The same size, the same shape.’

‘That seems unlikely.’

‘You have been everywhere in the Archipelago? Many islands are congruent. Is a big problem for us.’

‘That could be solved if there were a few maps.’

‘Not the same physically. Unlikely, yes!’ She laughed, but I felt it was directed at my misunderstanding. ‘Congruent is the size and shape of the gradual tide. Every island has gradual profile. Quy and Manlayl are congruent with more than two hundred other islands.’