‘Gods receive me…’ Hernan gasped.

  Silvaro pushed the tip of his borrowed sabre against Hernan’s windpipe until a bead of bright red blood appeared. Then he took the sword away.

  ‘That’s why I spared you then, and that’s why I spare you now. With the Butcher Ship abroad, Hernan, you’re too good a fighter to lose.’

  Silvaro tossed his sabre from his right hand to his left and then extended his right down towards Hernan.

  ‘I don’t want you to like me, Captain Hernan. I don’t expect you to. But this season, it seems, we’re on the same side. What do you say? Can we set our quarrel aside for the time being?’

  Hernan took Silvaro’s hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.

  Silvaro turned to the audience around the edges of the flower garden. ‘Show’s over!’ he cried. ‘Let lunch and drinking resume!’

  Loud clapping broke out around the flower beds.

  ‘There’s always next year,’ Hernan hissed at Silvaro.

  ‘I look forward to it, captain,’ Silvaro replied. ‘A reckoning. You can hold me to it. I just hope we’re both still alive to see it.’

  ‘The Butcher Ship?’ Hernan said.

  ‘The Butcher Ship, sir, indeed.’

  XIX

  The next morning was fair and breezy. Sesto woke early, but found the Aguilas dockside already bustling with activity. Gangs of shipwrights, chandlers, carpenters and labourers had arrived, bringing with them carts of tools and wagons laden with seasoned oak, green-cut deal and pine, cauldrons of pitch and bundles of tarred horsehair. Hoists had begun to unload the materials, and the air was full of shouts and the drumming of hammers and mallets. A smell of hot sawdust and stewing pitch lingered on the wind.

  Sesto pulled a light cape around his shoulders and walked along the quay, observing the work. Up in the yards of the Demiurge and the Rumour, teams of men clambered amongst the swifting tackle and the shrouds, little monkey-shapes against the bright sky. Acres of holed and burnt sailcloth were being lowered to the decks, and torn rigging lines re-spliced or wound in. Along the body of the wharf, victuallers had already begun stacking the barrels of salted meat, biscuit and dried fruit that the longshoremen would soon be transferring to the holds. Sesto saw Fahd standing amongst a group of free merchants, sampling the spices they had brought on their handcarts, haggling over the price of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and white pepper. Elsewhere, Benuto and the boy Gello were examining the quality of planked timbers, and Vento was supervising a team of men as they rolled out new rope along the flagstones and paced the measurements.

  At the far end of the quay, Silvaro, Roque, Silke and Casaudor were inspecting the first of the would-be recruits. Captain Duero’s men had scoured the taverns and stews the night before, and drummed up as many potential ratings as could be found. Some of the recruits looked like experienced mariners, if a little old. The rest were just scared-looking youths.

  Dodging past a wagon bringing in fresh blindage screens for the Rumour’s damaged pavis, Sesto spotted Ymgrawl. The old boucaner was sitting on a mound of hemp-rope, eating something out of a muslin bag.

  Sesto wandered over to him. Ymgrawl was breakfasting on little sugar-dusted twists of fresh pastry. The arrival of the three ships had brought traders down to the quay in droves, eager to make money from the newcomer crews. Cobblers, tailors, knife-sharps, musicians, tinkers and a good few bawds had congregated along the landward side of the docks, creating a noisy, ad-hoc market. The best of the trade went to the vendors of food and drink, the bottle-men, the confectioners, the barrow-cooks and the fruit-girls. After a long time on meagre sea-rations, the Reivers flocked to them, hungry for the delights of sugar-sticks and oranges and sweet loaves, the temptations that had lingered in their dreams night after night.

  Ymgrawl was consuming his pastries with an expression of almost beatific content. Sesto smiled when he saw there were actual tears of pleasure in the boucaner’s eyes. To a citizen of the land, the little pastries would be an everyday inconsequence, a snack for the sweet-toothed. But to the raw dogs of the open sea, they were wonders, extraordinary treasures beyond compare, luxuries that a Reiver might sample only a handful of times in his life.

  Ymgrawl saw Sesto approach and, reluctantly, offered him the bag.

  ‘My thanks, no. I’ve already eaten,’ Sesto lied. He hadn’t the heart to deprive the boucaner of even one of the delicacies.

  Ymgrawl rose and, finishing his breakfast, walked the quay with Sesto.

  ‘They’re pressing new crew,’ Sesto remarked.

  ‘Aye,’ replied the boucaner. The pastries all gone, he was running his grubby fingers up and down the inside seam of the bag to capture the last crystals of sugar. ‘But they’ll need them a captain.’

  ‘I thought Casaudor, or Roque.’

  Ymgrawl shook his head. ‘Thee thinks it wrong. Silvaro’ll not part with his master nor his arms-chief. He’ll look wider abroad.’

  They passed by old Belissi, the master carpenter. He had set up a small bench on the quay and was planing down a rough block of pine, crooning as he worked. Sesto saw that the old man was shaping another crude copy of his false leg, like the one he had cast into the sea as an offering the morning they had departed Sartosa.

  ‘What is that about?’ Sesto whispered to Ymgrawl.

  Licking his thin lips, Ymgrawl had been staring at the traders down the quay, considering whether or not to purchase a second bag of pastries. Turning away, he took out his clay pipe instead, and tamped smelly, black leaf into the bowl.

  ‘Belissi? Him?’ Ymgrawl muttered. ‘Ah, the old curse, that which hath followed him.’

  ‘Curse?’ Sesto echoed. With a start, he realised he had touched the iron of his sword-grip against ill-fortune. So easily the customs of the Reivers filtered into his blood.

  Ymgrawl nodded, lighting his pipe from a tallow stick he’d poked into a nearby brazier. ‘We’re all cursed, thee and me and every man of us. That is how the sea regards our breed. But Belissi, he is accursed more than most. Upon his first voyage, many year ago, his ship it were taken unto ruin by a dragon-fish.’

  ‘A what?’

  Ymgrawl shrugged. ‘A sea-beast, a leviathan. The seas are deep, mark thee, and many a scaly monster lurks down in the court of King Death. The bull-whale, the krakoon, the serpent, the sea-lizard. And, oft times, they wake and rise and make their ravage upon the waters of the surface. Some are so great, men mistake them for islands, and land there upon them, and kindle fires. Some are mighty swallowers of vessels. Vouchsafe thyself, Sesto, that thee never sail against one.’

  ‘Have you seen one?’ Sesto asked.

  ‘In my time, aye. Twice. At a great distance. The horned back of a serpent, breaking the waves. And also, a thing of many, oozing arms, each one longer than a tall ship’s mast. No closer I’d care to get.’

  ‘But Belissi did?’

  Ymgrawl blew a cloud of peaty smoke out around his pipe-stem. ‘That he did. A dragon-fish. But the men of his ship, they fought against it. And Belissi himself, with a harpoon, speared it, and hurt it to its mortal guts. A hero he was, and cheered much by his fellows.’

  ‘And?’ asked Sesto.

  ‘No sooner had the dragon-fish sunk away, staining the water with its rank blood, than the water churned again, bloody and all, and the dragon-fish’s dam rose, vengeful, to the air.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Sesto blinked. ‘The monster’s mother?’

  ‘The monster’s mother, aye!’ Ymgrawl hooked his pipe out of his mouth. ‘Nine times the size of the first, and lusting to avenge its child. Its fury took the ship athwart, its wicked jaws consumed man after man. Belissi was the sole survivor, adrift upon a rag of wood, the mother having taken off his leg. By some miracle, he was picked up and saved. That is why he made his trade as a carpenter, to spend his days working with the one substance that had saved him from drowning. But he knows that one day, the mother will return to exact the rest of her price. That’s his curse. So he makes an offering, every time he casts off from main land. A leg, to soothe the mother in the sea, made of the precious wood that wardeth Belissi’s life.’

  ‘Then this is… mother mine…?’ Sesto asked in all seriousness. ‘I’ve heard others in the company joke and mock at Belissi’s expense, as if no one believes a word of it.’

  ‘Only a fool would,’ Ymgrawl said.

  Sesto started and saw the old boucaner wink at him. ‘Ah, you devil! I honestly believed you!’

  Ymgrawl chuckled.

  They heard some commotion down the dock and hurried forward to discover its nature. Silvaro had been summoned, and the senior officers of his company came with him. Benuto, the boatswain, in his shapeless hat and crimson coat, was coming down the boarding plank from the Safire, followed by two Reivers who were manhandling a third figure between them.

  ‘We found him hiding in the chain locker, so tell,’ Benuto told Silvaro. ‘Smelled him, more like. He’s been there a while.’

  The two crewmen shoved their captive to his knees. The filthy man fell hard, as if he couldn’t quite break his fall with his hands.

  ‘Manann’s oath,’ Silvaro said. The man looked up at him, his face dirty, thin and pale.

  It was Guido Lightfinger.

  XX

  ‘I had hoped never to clap eyes on you again,’ Silvaro said.

  Guido swallowed and made no reply.

  Silvaro turned to look at Silke, who glanced aside uncomfortably. ‘You knew he was stowed in your vessel, didn’t you?’

  The master of the Safire pursed his lips and then nodded reluctantly. Sesto knew from the talk of the crew that Silke had been a particular crony of Guido’s, although at heart he was an equivocator who was content to side with whoever had the upper hand. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘You made no order that he couldn’t be brought along…’

  Silvaro snorted. ‘Yet you anticipated my displeasure enough to keep him hidden!’

  Silke shrugged and toyed with the end of one of his fussy, plaited pigtails. ‘I find it’s always wise to anticipate you, Silvaro,’ he replied. ‘Look, I didn’t expect Guido to even want to come with the company after… after your falling out. But he begged me. Begged me on his knees. And, my duty to you not withstanding, I have a bond of friendship with him. I did not see the harm…’

  ‘Did you not?’ Roque said mockingly.

  Silvaro looked at Guido again. ‘Is what Silke says true? Beg, did you?’

  ‘Yes, Luka,’ Guido croaked.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Better to hide in the bilges and be of the company still than rot as a cripple-vagabond in the backstreets of Sartosa. I thought perhaps, after due time, once the voyage had progressed and your mood mayhap had softened, I might emerge and–’

  ‘And what?’ Silvaro glowered at his half-brother.

  ‘Rejoin the company proper,’ Guido said quietly.

  Silvaro burst out laughing, and some of the other Reivers around joined him in it. ‘As what, Guido? You can’t haul rope or even stand to the wheel with the few fingers I’ve left you!’

  ‘I can hold a sword,’ Guido said.

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ Silvaro replied, no longer laughing.

  A large crowd had gathered around the altercation: Reivers and dock workers, some civilians, and even a few of the marine guards, drawn by the confrontation and the raised voices.

  ‘Clap him in irons while I decide what to d–’

  Roque cut Silvaro off. ‘There’s one thing he can do,’ he said.

  Silvaro looked at the lean Estalian. ‘What?’

  ‘Well, I like him not at all, and trust him less, but credit where it’s due,’ Roque said. ‘Guido is a fair and able shipmaster and–’

  ‘Manann’s oath!’ Silvaro exploded. ‘Are you suggesting I make him the captain?’

  ‘He is skilled, and he has much to prove,’ said Roque. ‘Better him than that idiot bloater of a nephew you say the marquis is trying to press upon you.’

  ‘Enough!’ Silvaro exclaimed. ‘I’ll not consider that dung-worm for anything, not anything, unless he’s first been prepared to take the test.’

  The test – and the very mention of it sent Guido’s face paler yet – was evidently of such great import, the Reivers began muttering and oathing.

  ‘Tomorrow!’ Silvaro declared. ‘From the Safire!’ There was a chorus of approval.

  ‘What is this test you speak of?’ Sesto asked him.

  ‘A measure of trust, courage and fortitude,’ Silvaro answered glibly, ‘that assays the mettle of a man as a whitesmith assays the metal of an ingot…’

  ‘That’s all very well, but what–’

  ‘Any wretch, like Guido, who has fallen out of favour with his company or crew, can repair his fortunes by submitting to the test. He lets the sea itself become his judge. If he fails, he is consigned to his fate. If he succeeds, then he is worthy of trust. It is a test that cannot be cheated. The sea’s verdict is always true.’

  ‘Yes, but–’

  ‘Come with us tomorrow,’ Silvaro said, ‘and see for yourself.’

  Late the following afternoon, with repairs still proceeding on the Demiurge and the Rumour, the Safire put to sea. Aboard it, along with Silke as his crew, were Silvaro, Sesto and a gang of men from the Rumour.

  And Guido Lightfinger. His arms bound, he stood alone on the foredeck, shivering as he gazed out to sea, or perhaps into his deepest thoughts.

  The sloop made fine going. The late afternoon was hot, the sky a transparent blue, but there was a good wind. The Safire’s golden hull slipped through the water like a splicing fid, and they came out of Aguilas Bay, into the sound, and then turned north-east up the coast for a few leagues.

  At last, with the sun just beginning to sink, Silvaro ordered them to drop anchor in a calm stretch of water a mile or so from the coast. Sesto could see the coastline, the copper crags of the Estalian interior, the dark fringes of forest and scrub. Seabirds swirled around the sloop, and there was a gentle chop. The waters looked almost violet.

  Activity began, and Sesto watched with increasing fascination. Fahd had accompanied them, bringing several wooden casks that stank of offal. With the help of Curcozo, Silke’s brawny first mate, the old cook hauled one of the casks upon a line over a yard arm, holed its bottom with an awl, and then let it swing free over the port side of the Safire. Blood began to leak out. Silke’s men worked the rope up and down around a fiddle block, sometimes swinging it down to drag the cask into the waves. An oily slick of blood began to stain the sea beside them.

  Fahd went to the rail with the other casks, opened them, and began to fish out chunks of spoiled meat with a marlinespike, and toss them into the sea.

  Sesto crossed to the port rail to watch, wrinkling his nose at the stink of the bad meat and sour blood.

  ‘There,’ muttered Ymgrawl at his side, and pointed.

  The first of the eater-fish had appeared, summoned by the blood. In increasing numbers, dark shapes converged on the slick, sliding beneath the water, some the size of longboats. Occasionally, there would be a splash or a flurry of water as some of the great fish disputed a chunk of meat. Once in while, a great fin, grey like a blade, broke the watertop.

  Fahd threw out more meat, and the feeding began to turn to a frenzy. The water, stained red, boiled and frothed. Tails and fins appeared more frequently, writhing and thrashing.

  ‘That’ll do it,’ Silvaro ordered. Two men came forward and, using rope mallets, fixed a timber plank to the ship’s rail with iron nails, so that the better part of the plank – some four spans – reached out over the seething water.

  ‘Name of a god…’ Sesto murmured, beginning to realise what the test was to be.

  One of Silke’s men, a little crook-back Estalian by the name of Vinegar Bruno, produced a small tambour drum and a bone stick, and began to beat out a lively rowdy-dow-dow. Some of the men laughed. Others, like Silke, remained silent and grave.

  Roque brought Guido forward. Lightfinger was shaking now. Silvaro nodded, and Roque fetched a snifter of jerez so that Guido might fortify his nerve. Roque had to hold up the glass so that Guido could swig, for his arms were still bound.

  Once the glass was empty, Roque bowed to Guido and stepped back. Largo, the sailmaker, then came forward, and slipped a cowl of dirty sailcloth over Guido’s head, masking his face entirely. Sesto heard Guido moan. With quick, sure fingers, Largo sewed up the back of the cowl until Guido’s whole head was sealed in a canvas bag so tight that the material stretched around his nose and chin.

  ‘Ready?’ Silvaro called.

  Guido nodded. Silvaro waved his hand, and two well-muscled ratings shuffled forward, picked up Guido between them, and set him on his feet on the ship end of the board. It shivered under his weight. Sesto swallowed. The plank was little wider than two feet placed side by side. Guido teetered for a moment, trying to find his balance, his shoulders turning and shifting because he could not use his arms as counterbalance.

  Vinegar Bruno beat the tambour harder and faster. Over the side, the great, sleek eater-fish, half-seen and menacing, continued to thrash and churn the surface. Guido and his precarious board were eight spans above them.

  ‘He’ll walk to his death!’ Sesto gasped.

  ‘Aye, if he’s guilty,’ Ymgrawl replied. ‘He must walk to the end of the board, turn, and make his way back. If he does this, the sea hath judged him innocent and true. If he falls, then the sea has found him wanting. But he must go right to the end of the board, thee hear. If turneth he back too early, guessing it awry, then he is forfeit too, and Silvaro will put a pistol ball in his chest afore he can step back onto the deck.’