Gene Wolfe - On Blue's waters

Mehman made obeisance. “My daughter Zeehra, Rajan. My grandson Lal.”

His daughter looked askance at Evensong and me, plainly dressed and soaked to the skin, before bowing almost to the ground.

“The rani and I were discussing an expansion of the herb beds with your father when we were caught in the rain,” I explained.

Little Lal started to speak, but was hushed at once by his mother.

“We are about to return to the palace,” I continued, “but there is something of importance I must tell you first. Your father will confirm what I say after I leave, I feel certain. The woman whom I dismissed as you came in is not to be trusted. I would not wish you to think, because you saw her with my wife and me, that she is someone I trust, someone to whom you ought to defer.”

Evensong surprised me by saying, “She is a thief and worse than a thief.”

“Exactly.” I stood. “The two-hands spider kills our rats, but it remains a spider.”

“You’re the Decider,” little Lal burst out. “The other people talk and talk, then you decide.”

“I am,” I told him, “but I can’t decide everything. You must decide whether to obey your mother, for example-and accept the consequences if you don’t. What would you do, Lal, if that woman in the red gown came to your door?”

“I wouldn’t let her in,” he declared stoutly.

“Very good,” I said. “In time you may be an important and respected man like your grandfather.”

That was four days ago. Jahlee may have been active. I hope so, but I have heard nothing.

My wound seems worse, Evensong says from the rain but I think it is actually from the strain of lifting that big flagstone in the market. Maybe it is for the best that we have no news about Jahlee.

This rain makes my ankle ache.

If I were to give every detail of the painfully slow voyage that Seawrack, Krait, Babbie, and I made up the river, I would use up as much again of this thin rice paper as I have consumed already.

Which is too much. Paper is dear here, and I have several times come close to proposing that we build our own mill. The Cataracts (upper or lower) would supply far more water power than our little stream on Lizard Island. But it is out of the question as long as the fighting continues, and as soon as it ends I will go.

A lot of paper, and to confess the truth it would have a good deal of interest written on it. On the lower reaches around Wichote, the lack of winds was the chief problem. The river was very wide there; even so, the center of its stream offered few such winds as one hopes for, and often gets, at sea; and when we tried to tack, whatever wind there was generally died away altogether as we appreached the thickly wooded banks. The current was slow, however, and what progress we made was often made with Babbie and me at the sweeps. Earlier I recorded my dismay when Krait said we might be in Pajarocu in ten days. I need not have worried, and after a good long session with the sweeps I would gladly have arrived that very instant if it had been possible. There were many days on which we could see the point at which we had dropped anchor the day before when we stopped for the evening meal.

Somewhere I should say that we were attacked only once. Half a dozen men, perhaps, swam out to our boat while Krait was away and Seawrack and I were sleeping. Babbie and a couple of shots from the slug gun routed them, and one left behind a long knife that became Seawrack’s tool and weapon thereafter. Basically, no harm was done; but it taught me to anchor well away from shore on those rivers, as I invariably did from that time forward. As an added precaution, I made it a set rule to travel some little distance after we had finished our evening meal and put out the fire in the sandbox, and not to drop anchor until full darkness had arrived and the place could not easily be observed.

Having found Pajarocu, Krait visited it almost every night; and I assumed that he was feeding there as well. He asked for and received my permission to leave us if it appeared that the lander was about to fly. In return, he assured me repeatedly that he would continue to guide us, faithful to the promise he had made when he rescued me from the pit, so long as it did not mean that he himself would miss the lander.

Food was a continuing difficulty. Much of the meat Seawrack had smoked had spoiled, either because it had not been dried enough, or because it had gotten wet. We had brought a little food from Wichote as well, most notably the famous pudding I have already mentioned and a sack of cornmeal; but after the first week on the river the cornmeal was gone and the pudding (which had once seemed as permanent as a stone) showed signs of unwelcome shrinkage. Seawrack took fish in the river for Babbie and me, fish which she caught with her hands and at first refused to eat. She also went in search of wild berries-these were very welcome indeed when they could be found-while Babbie and I hunted with the slug gun.

To the very few of you who read this who may venture upon the western sea, I say this. Hunger and cold will be the chief dangers you face, and they will be far worse than the hostility of the people of Shadelow, and a thousand times worse than its most dangerous beasts.

(It was not so on Green; perhaps someday I will write about that after all, even though Green’s monstrous beasts would never be credited. If I do it I will have to represent them as slower, as well as smaller, than they actually are.)

Hunger and cold tormented us, as I have said, and each made the other far worse. In cold weather a starved person is scarcely ever warm, even with a blanket and a fire; and a healthy person exposed to cold soon becomes ravenously hungry. When I sailed from Lizard Island, I took a few changes of clothing, a warm wool blanket, and bales of paper to trade for more supplies at New Viron-paper that was stolen from me almost at once. For my needier Sinew threw me his knife, and Marrow very generously provided me with food, the slug gun and ammunition, and the silver jewelry I have occasionally mentioned. I bought more food (with vinegar, cooking oil, black and red pepper, and dried basil), the sweeps, a new harpoon, and a few other odds and ends, after which I considered myself adequately equipped.

I-we-were not. I am tempted here to write at great length about gloves, stockings, and boots. There were times when I would have traded the sloop for a warm wool cap and a stout pair of warm leather gloves; but to dwell on this item or that would be to obscure the real point.

One cannot stock a boat with sufficient food for such a voyage as I so lightly undertook. If its entire cargo consisted of food, that would not be sufficient. All that one can do is to load up with as much as the boat can reasonably carry, choosing foods (vegetable foods, particularly) that will keep for weeks or months. We fished and hunted, as I have indicated; but an exclusive diet of fish and meat is not healthy and quickly becomes maddeningly monotonous. The best gift that Marrow gave me was not my slug gun, but the barrel of apples. Before we reached Pajarocu, I wished heartily that it had been a half dozen. I must add that each day spent hunting and gathering wild fruits or nuts was a day lost, and that we often got little or nothing.

Possibly I should also say here that when the barrel was empty I broke it up and used its staves for firewood. If I had kept it and stored Seawrack’s smoked breakbull in it, much that was spoiled by wetting would have been saved.

There was little cloth in the market at Wichote, although furs and hides were plentiful. Seawrack and I got fur caps that came down well past our necks and ears, butter-soft leather tunics of greenbuck hide (I wore mine under the stiffer garment that He-pen-sheep had made for me), big fur robes, and clumsy fur mittens, as well as blankets much thicker and warmer than the one I brought from Lizard. These purchases will show the sort of clothing that will be essential on the voyage. Add to them sturdy trousers-several pairs-at least two pairs of seaboots, and a dozen pairs of wool stockings.