Marie Brennan: Voyage of the Basilisk

Tom and I had both seen the Basilisk more than once before, when making the arrangements for this journey. For both Abby and Jake, however, this was their first sight. Abby studied it in silence; I knew her well enough by then to recognize it as a cover for nerves. Jake, by contrast, would have dived over the side if he thought he could swim there faster. I had to call him back rather sharply, for he was getting in the way of the oarsmen.

Abby was in skirts, as was I, for we had not yet left Scirland. Because of this, they lowered the bosun’s chair for the two of us, while Tom and Jake climbed the ladder. Tom, thank heaven, had the good sense to delay Jake as long as he could, such that by the time my son reached the deck, I was almost there myself.

Almost, but not quite. I could not reach out to restrain him as Jake attained the boards, took one wide-eyed look around, and bolted off to explore.

He did not get more than ten steps before a voice bellowed, “ Halt! ”

It was not a voice one could disobey. Even the sailors checked briefly in their movements, and they had long practice in determining who was the target of any given order. Jake skidded to so quick a stop, I almost laughed.

The voice had come from the raised quarterdeck. The sun stood just behind, so I had to squint against the light as I looked up, and saw only a looming figure at first. I do not put it past him to have been aware of that, and to have used it a-purpose.

It was, of course, the mad Dione Aekinitos. He descended to the main deck with a heavy tread, the ladder creaking beneath his boots. He was not so large of a man as all that, but he had a knack for making himself sound weighty when he chose; I think he knew where every board on his vessel groaned the most heavily. As he went, he said, “There is no running on this ship unless I command it. And I have not commanded you to run. What is your name, boy?”

My son licked his lips, staring up at him. “Jake. Jacob Camherst. Um. Sir.”

By then I was on deck. Maternal instinct—which I do possess, despite rumours to the contrary—urged me to go forward and intervene, for Aekinitos was looming over Jake in a menacing fashion. But I knew enough of shipboard etiquette to know that it would be the height of bad form to get in the captain’s way on a matter of discipline. We were not sailors under his command… but in the absence of a very good reason, it was better to behave as if we were. To do otherwise was to undermine his authority, create ill will, and generally get our voyage off to a very unfortunate start.

“Have you ever been on board a ship before, boy?” Aekinitos asked.

“No, sir.”

“Then here is your first lesson. You do not touch anything. Boys who have never been on ships before create problems. They play with ropes, and do not put them back properly. Then the rope does not uncoil smoothly when it is needed. Perhaps we are in a storm when the tangled rope is found. The items that need to be lashed down are not secured in time, and they go overboard. Perhaps it is a man who goes overboard. Perhaps he dies. Or a sail is not adjusted quickly enough, and the mast breaks, or we run aground. Perhaps we all die. All because a boy did not know to keep his hands off that which he does not understand.” Aekinitos paused in this impressive recitation. “Do you understand, boy?”

“Yes, sir.”

Aekinitos bent ever so slightly over him. “ What do you understand?”

To his credit, Jake stood his ground, instead of backing up. Or he might have simply been rooted to the spot. “That I shouldn’t touch anything, sir.”

“Good.” Aekinitos straightened and, without the slightest pause, turned to me with a broad smile upon his face. “Mrs. Camherst. Welcome aboard.”

“Thank you, captain,” I said. Now I did go to Jake’s side. I did not put my arm around him; the chastisement had been a necessary one, for without it he would have gotten into everything before the day was out. But I did not want him to feel wholly abandoned. “The lady behind you is Jake’s governess, Abigail Carew. Tom, of course, you know already.”

When the introductions were finished, Aekinitos sent his first mate, Mr. Dolin, to show us our living quarters. Tom bunked with the officers—we always used that word, “bunked,” even though he slept in a hammock, as we all did—but Abby, Jake, and I had been given the luxury of our own cabin in the stern, beneath the poop deck.

If I tell you that it was cramped, you will not truly catch my meaning, unless you have lived on board a ship yourself. Throughout most of the room, Abby could not stand fully upright; my own head almost brushed the beams. The exception was beneath the raised skylight, which gave us our only natural illumination. We had to learn to sleep through anything, for the officers carried out their work directly above our heads, and although Aekinitos could step quietly when he wished to, the same could not be said for a few of the others. The room as a whole was less than three meters on a side, and we shared it with the mizzenmast; I often had occasion to curse the fellow who decided to add it to the ship’s design, driving the thick post directly through our cabin.

Into this space we crammed ourselves, our trunks, our books (as well as every other book aboard the ship, not that there were many), and a table on which to work. And so we lived for two years.

To Jake, of course, it seemed at first like a great adventure. Every novelty is enjoyable, when you are nine. Too, he spent much less time in that cabin than I did, for while Abby, Tom, and I did keep up his lessons, he was not directly engaged in the work of the expedition. For my own part, I found my quarters at first shockingly small, then acceptable, then unbearable, and finally as unworthy of comment as the water in which a fish swims.

The reason for the cramped quarters was that I would have needed to be the richest woman in Scirland to hire a ship and crew for two years, solely for the purpose of looking at dragons. No amount of household economy could prepare me for such an expense. The voyage of the Basilisk was a joint venture, its burden shared with the Scirling Geographical Association, the Ornithological Society, and a Nichaean trading company, the Twelve Seas Fleet, which has since gone out of business. The first two meant I had obligations not only to the Winfield Courier and to my own research, but also to those intellectual bodies. The third meant that what space on the Basilisk was not taken up with people and supplies must be devoted to cargo—and those people and supplies must take up as little space as possible.

I had tried, of course, to interest the Philosophers’ Colloquium in our endeavour. Some of their members had spoken in praise of my research, and Tom had made inroads with that body, such that I fully expected him to be offered a fellowship upon our return. Despite pressure from our patron, however—Lord Hilford, now sadly ailing—they had declined to lend us any material assistance, or indeed anything beyond vague and halfhearted good wishes. The woman and the lower-class man from Niddey had yet to earn their respect.

At the time I resented it, but the sting has long since worn off. Besides: had they granted us financial support, we might not have been forced to take certain measures so as to keep the expedition funded. And had we not done that, how different might my life have been?

Many people assume that an expedition which would later become so famous must have departed with great fanfare, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Back then, all eyes were on the diplomatic voyage upon which the king’s niece Princess Miriam was soon to embark. It was a gesture of goodwill to a variety of countries with whom we were not on the best of terms at the time: Haggad, Yelang, Kehliyo, Thiessin, and others I have forgotten. The more political news-sheets were busy speculating as to whether her mission would result in conciliation, and if so, at what cost; the more frivolous ones filled their pages with gossip about whom Her Royal Highness would meet and what she would wear. Either way, they had very little attention to spare for a mere scientific survey.