Steph Swainston - No Present Like Time

A group of people proceeded along the rough stone jetty. From high above I mostly saw their heads. The woman with a walking stick had long red hair over a green shawl held tightly closed; it was Governor Swallow, surrounded by her attendants. They stopped at the foot of the lighthouse and looked out to sea. Swallow began to sing. She keened, she swelled the dirge with all the force of her opera voice. The wind gusted the melody up to me; clear and high, it slid over eerie minor notes that prickled my skin. Her melancholy lament rose past the crowded quay, past the rowing boats to the caravels. The rowers heard it. Lightning heard it and looked back. The breeze blew it to Tris. I didn’t know why she sang a dirge, but it seemed apt.

Outside the harbor, the boats began to churn from side to side. At least I don’t have to sit in one of those little tubs. Colorful caravels lay at anchor, scattered some distance apart. As I gained height and my viewpoint widened I saw around thirty-like brightly painted models, some with windmills on deck to wind winches, some drab and barnacled, some with men sitting in the complicated cat’s cradles of their rigging, all lashed to buoys with flags atop, and streamed out in the same direction by the flowing tide.

The fleet was a sober reminder of Mist Ata’s talent. Her patience and willpower could conquer the world. In the fifteenth century, caravels were developed from ungainly merchants’ carracks, although since that time they have undergone many improvements. San recognized their use for bringing supplies and troops to the Insect Front, so he made a place in the Circle for a Sailor and held a competition that Ata’s predecessor won. The first Sailor immediately tried to deter Challenges by forbidding any Zascai company to build caravels. It was a plan that the Emperor certainly didn’t condone. Ata knew it, and ignored the ban. For her first Challenge in fourteen-fifteen she made caravels in sections, in Hacilith where the Sailor couldn’t observe them. She had them dragged overland on a road she commissioned to be built, to a secret assembly yard made for the purpose at the coast. She sailed her new ships cockily around Grass Isle-their sudden appearance frightened her predecessor. That’s the kind of determination Ata has, and joining the Circle had not affected her admirable ambition. She planted vast forests to grow elm and oak for future ships.

The Stormy Petrel was by far the largest caravel, sixty meters in length. No surface was left undecorated. At her rear was a high aft castle, painted red and spiraled with gold curlicues. The forecastle at her bow was slightly smaller, and between them was a low deck with the largest of her four masts. The black hull was very rounded, its sides slanted in steeply, giving her a teardrop shape when seen end-on. Stormy Petrel ’s figurehead was a muscular young man with a folded breechclout. Above him projected a square prow heavily decorated with scarlet zigzags and the Castle’s sun. A varnished spar jutted from it like a tusk, and at the waterline five meters below the prow a taut anchor cable ran from its port. The foremost part of the deck was a sort of promontory with cross-planking through which I saw the waves.

The Sailor must seriously want to impress the islanders with the Empire’s ingenuity and riches. Stormy Petrel inspired confidence in me, too: Mist was pragmatic, so if she had spent money on decoration, the rest of the ship must be sound and formidable. She would be as trustworthy as the best Sailor in the world could make her.

A narrow balcony ran the Petrel ’s length on both sides, three meters above the waterline. Baroque wood carving clustered around the stern, picked out in the Castle’s colors, red and yellow. The vertical dimensions of the fixed lanterns were tilted to the rear, and the entire top of the aft castle slanted backward, so the Petrel looked like she was racing along even when she was sitting still. The diamond-leaded stern windows were adorned with ruby-stained glass sunbursts. The sun-in-splendor formed a sumptuous centerpiece below them, covered in dazzling gold foil. It scintillated with sunlight reflected from the waves.

Banners twined from the masthead, spinning on their cords like kites. Mist’s plain white pennant was the longest. I also recognized the argent swan of Queen Tanager, and Cyan Peregrine’s sleeping falcon. There was the black plow insignia of Eske manor, Shivel’s silver star, and Fescue manor’s crest of three sausages on a spike. Carniss manor must have sent funding too, because its flag was there, a black crescent pierced by an arrow. One hundred years ago I told a Rhydanne girl called Shira Dellin that she had just as much chance of driving the Awian settlers from the lower slopes of Darkling as she had of hitting the moon with an arrow. The settlers founded the manor of Carniss and they immediately took that image for their badge, which made it even more painful when they proved me right.

I made a controlled descent between the first mast and mainmast, and dropped with a hollow thud onto the deck. I settled my wings and folded them. Cinna’s scolopendium was so good I couldn’t feel them ache at all.

Lightning and Wrenn climbed aboard and joined Mist by the wheel. Wrenn grinned uncontrollably. He was brimming with excitement. Sailors began to stow the flags. Mist called, “Make sail! Half-deck hands below for the capstan. Brace full the foresails! Send order, if you please, to Master Fulmer on the Melowne; we shall be under way…Welcome to the ocean, Serein,” she added.

With the Melowne behind us, we slipped past the ships in Carrack’s Reach, black barrel buoys on our left side. An Awian racing yacht called the Swift Shag ran close to escort us; her bell rang in salute. “They’re wishing us luck!” I waved. I was completely high on the fact I wasn’t afraid.

Ata leaned on the wheel. “How are you, Jant?”

“Yeah. Uh-huh.” I was staring at the carved mascle emblem on the bow of our sister ship. The Melowne was painted in the colors of Micawater, dark blue and white lozenges; she carried so much ornament she looked as if she had been decorated with the fittings from a bankrupt brothel.

“Tell me, what day is it today?” Ata asked.

“Mmm.”

“Let me see your eyes.”

I took off my sunglasses and looked at her. “Well, okay,” she said eventually, but with some doubt.

The Melowne flew all the canvas she could, to match our pace and kept behind us on the right. Lightning didn’t greet me, being deep in conversation with the Swordsman. He pointed to the great blue wedding cake of a caravel. “She’s named after my sister. Little Melowne…”

“Yeah,” I said. I leaned over the railing and noticed that no two wave peaks were ever the same shape.

“She was the youngest of my family,” Lightning began. “The youngest of nine. She died when she was only six years old.”

“That’s a great shame,” Wrenn said.

“Oh, I’m all right. I got over it around the turn of the first millennium,” Lightning said staunchly. I heard that in the year one thousand, through the use of many economic pressures, he eventually managed to run the Avernwater dynasty into the ground and turn their manor back into parkland.

“It was a long time ago, you understand,” he said quietly. “Melowne was the youngest of my family; she was full of life, happy all the time. My second-eldest brother, Gyr, was exceptionally fond of her. He tended to be morose and she brought out the life in him.

They were playing, one morning in midsummer, while we prepared to celebrate godsloss day. A flowery parade headed by the July Queen came toward us down the avenue and the young maiden playing queen was about to pass in front of the palace. People lined the streets to cheer her. Inside the palace we wanted a good view, so all us children ran up to the top floor. I found a roof window. Melowne and Gyr were just below me, out on the parapet. Melowne had daisy chains around her head and in the buckles of her shoes. She leaned right out over the balustrade as the procession passed below and he held the back of her dress. She was laughing with delight, pointing at the chariots and kicking her feet. She kicked Gyr under the chin accidentally and, in shock, he dropped her. I just saw her vanish.” Lightning pointed down over the railing.