The Voyage of the Unquiet Ice (4 page)

‘Very well then,' said Fidel sternly, but also with a half smile, ‘report to the crow's nest immediately, Mr Amber.'

Dow saluted, then spun and made for the steps leading down to the main deck. Several of the junior officers, Diego in the lead, had already slipped ahead of him. In fact, as Dow descended, he noted a change all about the ship. On the main deck, gangs who had been set scrubbing or painting now left off their chores to sit back and watch; likewise, those at work in the rigging had paused to hang idly from various vantage points.

The tension in Dow tightened a notch further. He approached the mainmast shrouds, the ladder-like ropes that gave access aloft, running up at a steep angle from fixed points by the rail. And lounging at the same rail, their backs to the sea and their feet braced against the slant of the deck, were Diego and his friends. As Dow came up, Diego smirked once more, muttering something inaudible, and the others broke into laughter.

Dow said nothing, only set his hands to the shrouds, and began to climb, his lips pressed thin with anger and concentration. He was not totally inexperienced at this, for he'd been allowed to ascend the shrouds to a certain height in his training. And the ropes were strung firmly, so there was no particular difficulty in mounting them – at least in normal conditions.

But the rolling of the ship changed everything. At one moment the ladder seemed to be almost horizontal, as the
Chloe
tilted away towards the far railing, and then, when it tilted back, the ladder would go to vertical and beyond. And worse, the rolling made the great mainmast itself flex as it whipped back and forth, and so the shrouds, fixed to the mast, were alternately sagging and then snapping tight under Dow's hands.

Even so, before long, he was nearing the top of the lower shrouds, which was as high as he'd ever climbed, a hundred and forty feet up. Already the main deck looked faraway and narrow. But now came his first real test, for to reach the upper mast meant climbing over the musket deck, the small platform which topped the lower mast, and upon which the upper mast stood. It was called the musket deck because at battle stations a party of marines were posted there to snipe at opposing ships.

The problem was that to reach the platform a climber had to swing out under the overhang and then haul himself over the edge. There were ropes fixed for that very purpose, and Dow had seen it done hundreds of times by the crew, effortlessly – but he'd never done it himself. He looked out to sea; a series of green hills and valleys were in motion beneath the ship. But if he timed it so that the
Chloe
was upright upon one of the crests … He swung himself out, knowing that the longer he delayed, the harder it would become. But it was more awkward then he'd expected to get an arm beyond the overhang, and in the meantime the
Chloe
slid from the crest; suddenly there was no deck beneath Dow, there was only a gulf of air and then the water. His feet slipped from the ropes and for instant of terror he dangled there, as laughter came piercing from below.

But it was only a moment, then the ship was in the trough and rolling back again, and without quite knowing how Dow had his feet secure in the ropes and was manhandling himself over the rim of the musket deck to safety. From below, and from other places in the rigging, he heard more laughter, and also a slow, sarcastic clapping of hands.

He raised himself to standing, fingers gripped tightly to the upper shrouds, and gazed about while he regained his breath. Walls of canvas rose all around him; mainsails, topsails, royals and gallants, mizzens and jibs – and many other studs and stays besides – all rippling and snapping as the cold breeze ebbed and surged. But the mainmast rose above them all. Dow took a last breath, set his foot to the upper shrouds, and climbed once more.

The ladder was steeper and narrower now. And as he ascended above the larger sails, more light and air opened about him, so that the nakedness of the fall below was all the more exposed. And now he began to experience the true awfulness of the ship's rolling. It was no longer a matter of queasy undulations; two hundred feet above the deck, it was a matter of being flung bodily back and forth in long stomach-lifting swoops as the sky and the sea pitched and plummeted and traded places.

It was one of the most horribly insecure feelings Dow had ever known, but he climbed on, and at last the barrel of the crow's nest was looming overhead. There was no hole in the bucket's base, however, so Dow would have to again sling himself out from under to climb in. The overhang was not so severe this time, but he was two hundred and fifty feet in the air now, and the deck was no more than a narrow plank far beneath his feet, surrounded by an ocean ready to swallow him whole.

Nevertheless, the barrel above offered the only refuge to be found this high, so fear itself drove Dow to close his eyes, swing himself out and then scramble desperately over the crow's nest lip to fall upon its floor.

He found himself staring at a pair of bare feet, horned and dirty, one of which was missing several of its toes.

‘You look green as fresh kelp, boy,' said a dry voice.

Dow stared up to see a weathered face gazing down: the lookout. To Dow's surprise he was an old man – or at least, older than any other common sailor Dow had encountered upon the ship so far; a shrunken individual with ugly gaps in his teeth, and with long grey hair hanging in a thin fringe from an otherwise balding scalp. Then again, the man was obviously hale enough to climb high aloft, and now, as the sky reeled behind his head, he was propped casually against the rail as if he was lounging against a solid wall.

‘And you ain't done yet, neither. To the very top, that's your course.'

Dow made no response, merely rose to his feet. He felt an enormous safety, now that he was enclosed by the barrel – and a savage reluctance at the thought of having to leave that safety. For the test was not merely to climb to the crow's nest, but to climb to the mast's very tip.

He looked up. The last twenty feet speared above him, slender and smooth, and bearing only a single crossbar two thirds of the way to its tip. There were no more shrouds to cling to – the mast was, essentially, just a flagpole now, and he would have to shinny up without supports.

‘But hark now,' his crow's-nest companion warned. ‘If you'll be heaving your guts out – as seems likely – then get it done now. Rain your puke down on me from up there, and there'll be trouble.'

Dow's stomach
was
in turmoil – he might have eaten rotten meat for breakfast, instead of almost nothing at all. If only the
Chloe
would stop rolling a moment. It didn't seem possible that the mast could describe such arcs and not rip itself out of the bowels of the ship. But a glance northwards showed him that there was no end in sight to the procession of swells.

‘Get on with you,' the old lookout scorned. ‘You reckon this heavy weather? Nah – when there's a gale up and the seas are eighty foot high on the beam, then you'll know what rolling is. This bucket up here gets tossed two hundred feet in a heartbeat, fast enough to suck the breath out of you. You lash yourself to the mast then, or be sent flying.'

Dow couldn't listen to any more. He grabbed hold of the mast and began to shinny up, hanging on as tight as his cramped arms and legs would allow. He reminded himself that he'd climbed hundreds of trees, almost this tall, back in his home forests. He reminded himself that he'd braved the very maelstrom, and that this was nothing so dreadful in comparison.

It didn't help. He'd thought he was immune to sea sickness, now he knew he wasn't. He'd thought that heights held no fear for him, but these heights did. He was mortally afraid. It was an act of overpowering will just to force each arm and leg, each finger, to move. And all the while the wind plucked at him, and the gulf below sang its siren song to just let go and fall and fall …

His hands found the crossbar. He needed now only to stand on that bar, reach up, and touch the metal cap of the mast, and he would be done. But he couldn't do it. His limbs would obey him no more. He had reached his limit, his eyes squeezed shut, his hands ice, his stomach churning, and nothing in the world would convince him to rise any higher.

Harsh laughter sounded from the deck far below, lofted up on the wind, and then from much closer, at his feet. ‘I told 'em all it'd come to this,' was the lookout's comment. ‘Small boats and whirlpools is all well enough for a green hand, but tall ships are another thing. You're frozen there, boy, and that's the end of you. You'll be lucky to get down alive.'

Anger flared faintly in Dow, enough for him to un-squeeze his eyes and look down – straight to the spot by the shrouds where Diego and his friends still loitered, all their faces upturned. Dow was sure he could read, despite the distance, the eager expectation of disaster in their smiles. But even their mockery was not enough to unfreeze his limbs.

Then his heart skipped in a manner that had nothing to do with fear or anger, for now he saw that another figure had joined the group, to stand close by Diego; a slighter shape muffled in an officer's coat, but bareheaded and with face uplifted. From so far away the razor-fine markings on that face were invisible, but Dow would have recognised Ignella of the Cave from even a mile off – by the tilt of her chin, by the fierce set of her shoulders, and by the way her hands were jammed protectively into her pockets.

A hot bolt of shame ran through him. He had not thought things could get any worse, but now they had. Not only had Nell come out to witness his humiliation, but she was sharing the moment, shoulder to shoulder, with the one man Dow loathed more than any other on board.

Of course, Dow had hated Diego of the Diamond right from their first unfortunate meeting back in Stone Port, when he'd given the lieutenant a black eye, and Diego in turn had tried to have Dow flogged. And seven weeks of sailing together had only strengthened Dow's opinion that Diego was pompous, conceited and cruel, and not one inch a natural commander.

So he'd been sorely mystified at first by the exalted position that Diego in fact seemed to occupy aboard the
Chloe.
He was not the most senior in rank of the lieutenants, and he was clearly disliked by Captain Vincente and by Commander Fidel – not to mention by the crew, with whom he was always offhand and superior. Nevertheless, Diego was undoubtedly the accepted leader among the junior officers and the midshipmen.

It was Johannes who had explained the situation. Diego, simply, was rich. He hailed from one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in all the eleven kingdoms. For now he was a mere lieutenant, yes, but his ancestry guaranteed that before too long he would be given higher rank, and then one day his own ship to command. The other junior officers, poorer and less important, had no such guarantee; the best that many of them could hope for was that some rich captain would select them as first officers. For the sake of their careers, thus, it was only wise to attach themselves to Diego's rising star.

Dow could forgive them that. He didn't care about the junior officers anyway. But Nell was a different matter. For Johannes had also reported a rumour that had been running about the ship ever since the departure from New Island. A terrible rumour that made Dow's skin crawl. A rumour that said Diego and Nell were secretly engaged to be wed.

Wed!

Johannes himself didn't believe the tale, as there were many arguments that spoke against it. For one, as a female scapegoat, Ignella's position on board was sacrosanct – it was considered taboo for her to become involved with any of the crew. More tellingly, to Johannes's mind, a scapegoat like Nell was hardly a worthy match for someone of Diego's status. She had no wealth or property of her own; indeed, she was effectively a piece of property herself, belonging to the
Chloe
. Diego would be expected to find a far more suitable wife among the noble ladies of the high courts of Great Island.

Even so, Dow had watched carefully for any sign that the rumour might be true. And he had indeed, throughout the voyage, glimpsed Nell and Diego walking together at times upon the high deck. They did nothing so obvious as hold hands or kiss, but they did appear very at ease in each other's company, talking and laughing with their heads bent close – and any closeness at all was already too intimate for Dow's liking.

But why did he care so much?

He had no answer to that, other than Mother Gale's long-ago pronouncement.
If you're drawn to her, then it's
meant to be
. And he was indeed drawn, with an acuteness that confused him. After all, Nell hated
him,
that he already knew. She had thrown a crystal goblet at him.

Yes, but afterwards – as Dow could not forget – she'd touched the wound on his forehead, and called him a
lucky fool
, and there'd been something wistful in her voice, something that set him alight.