A Company of Heroes Book Three: The Princess (5 page)
Read A Company of Heroes Book Three: The Princess Online
Authors: Ron Miller
“Excellent!” cries the professor, while the princess looks at the captain as though he has just intruded on a private conversation. Basseliniden ignores her.
Night falls swiftly, with little twilight. The sky remains overcast, much to the princess’s disgust and anxiety. The raft moves almost imperceptibly as it rises and falls with the broad swells and only the sound of the water lapping beneath the raft gives Bronwyn any sign that she is at sea. Neither she nor the captain have spoken since their discussion about salvaging supplies from the foundered
Sommer B.
Although the season is well into late spring, the high latitude and recent storm leav the night air damp and chilly; as soon as the sun sets, the temperature drops dramatically. The princess, left with only a light jacket and clothes that are still moist from her plunge, huddles into a shivering ball. She can not remember when she has ever felt so comprehensively cold, and wonders if she has stopped metabolizing entirely. The captain watches her discomfort with considerable sympathy, but is going to be damned if he will offer any immediate comfort.
The professor seems to take no notice of either the damp or the cold, but instead remains fixedly staring at a particular spot in the featureless black sky. So the three remain for the next several hours: one oblivious of his discomfort and surroundings, one miserable and stubborn and one perhaps a little less miserable but peeved.
Shortly before midnight, the princess and the captain are startled out of their respective black reveries by a cry from the professor.
“What is it?” croaks Bronwyn.
“There!” cries Wittenoom. “Stars!”
“Stars?” she echoes, stupidly, “Where?”
But instead of answering, the professor has placed his makeshift astrolabe to his eyes. His feet are braced solidly on the deck, his long, thin legs as stiff and straight as the legs of a surveyor’s transit. In spite of the slow rocking of the raft, the buckle at the end of the thread barely wavers from the vertical.
Bronwyn stares at the sudden appearance of the stars. She immediately finds the Parallelogram and from that her eyes sweep outward in an ever-broadening spiral. She had once been as absorbed by the geography of the heavens, which is all that astronomy is, or at least so far as her Tamlaghtan education had been concerned, as she was by the geography of the earth. When she had commited to memory virtually every square inch of her enormous terrestrial globe, as pale and blue-veined as some vast breast: a spherical, geodesic, topographic mammary upon which her far-ranging imagination have suckled, she turned to the blue-black globes that hovered in the chambers of her brother’s tutors. Speckled with silvery stars and bound by golden lines, the constellations mirror images of their familiar shapes, the globes were universes turned wrong side out. She felt as Musrum must feel, looking at his creation from the Other Side and being amazed and amused at how small and self-contained they seemed to be.
She easily identified other, nearby constellations, the Rabbit, the Eggbeater, St. Wladimir, Musrum’s Nose, the Greater and Lesser Milkcans, and recalled how she had spent many nights on a palace parapet recasting the ancient sky drawings. There is, she feels, nothing official about them, they are merely the result of a few centuries of bored shepherds playing connect-the-dot. She thinks that the Rabbit looks a good deal more like a race horse and, if she combined some of the Oxcart with most of the Eyedropper she can imagine a grand sloop cutting through the stars, leaving a milky wake in its silent passing.
“Fifty-two degrees!” the professor cries, checking the mark he has just made on the edge of his paper protractor, then immediately replaces it to his eyes. “Fifty-three degrees,” he says after repeating the process, then: “Fifty-two! Fifty-two! Flfty-three!” Then: “Gone! The clouds have come back again.”
“Fifty-two or fifty-three degrees,” says the princess, as a dark curtain closes over her clinquant theater. “Does that tell you where we are?”
“Only along a line running east and west,” replies the professor. “That is, I know only approximately how far we are from the equator.”
“Well,” put in Basseliniden, “we know we surely must be somewhere between the peninsula of Piotr and the east coast of Guesclin.”
“Oh, we can narrow it down a little more closely than that. Most of the north shore of Londeac lies at or above fifty-two degrees north latitude. Surely if we are east of, say, fifteen degrees of longitude, or so, we would either be within sight of land or on land itself. The same goes for the west. If we are as far in that direction as ten or eleven degrees, once again we would be in sight of land. I can think of only one place that would allow us to be at sea as far south as fifty-two or three degrees.”
“And that is?” asks the princess.
“Guesclin Bay.”
The princess frowns for a moment, consulting her mental atlas. “Guesclin Bay?” she repeats. “Guesclin Bay? Why, that’s the entrance to the Strait!”
“Oh yes, indeed it is!”
“Holy Musrum!” she mutters, in absolute awe at the perversity of her fortune.
CHAPTER THREE
DESPERATE STRAITS
The Strait of Guesclin is narrow enough for much of its length to be perhaps better called a river, especially since, year round, a powerful current sweeps the cold waters of the Mostaza Sea into the warmer waters of the ocean to the south. It is in form a vast, precipitous canyon, a rift between the continent of Londeac and the island of Guesclin, as though the single landmass have been torn apart, like a ripped map or a shared cookie. In actual fact, this is precisely what had happened, or, more accurately, what is in the process of happening. Vast forces deep within the planet are graduaily and inexorably tearing the single continental mass asunder and, as the geologists of Londeac are just becoming aware, the great canyon of the Strait continued underwater for, perhaps, hundreds of miles to the north and south. By the slightest fraction of an inch every century, Guesclin is receding from the rest of the world. This is an appealing fact whose actuality and symbolism would have not only been appreciated but even applauded by the xenophobic people of Tamlaght, the country occupying the major part of Guesclin, have they been aware of it. Unfortunately, since science in general and foreign science in particular are anathema to the Tamlaghtans, they are not.
The Strait runs almost exactly north and south, its vertical cliffs broken only by two wildly inaccessible embayments halfway along its course. These are the sites of fearsome seasonal whirlpools. At places, especially within the northern fifty miles or so, the Strait narrows to less than ten miles in width; it is quite easy to see the opposite shore from either side of the abyss. At their greatest height the brinks of the chasm are half a mile above the surging flood. More than one ambitious Londeacan engineer has dreamed of bridging that gap and thereby assuring a reputation that would be little less than immortal. However, the idea of a physical link to the continent, a veritable pipeline for foreign ideas, let alone foreigners, is so appalling to Tamlaght that thinly disguised threats of war, in the event that such a scheme should ever even begin to be implemented, effectively squelched the periodically recurring grandiose project.
For most of the year the Strait is merely treacherous, yet nevertheless navigable, if just barely. A few experienced mariners make the trip every season, some even on a more or less regular basis. The waters of the Strait are for the most part deep (a cross section of its profile would reveal a V-shaped cleft whose bottom, at certain points, lay under more than five hundred feet of water) and as long as a captain is careful to avoid the jagged rocks that lined the steeply sloping sides the journey can be made with some assurance of safety. Which of course did not prevent a dozen more foolhardy or inexperienced ships from coming to grief every year, shredded against the rugged walls of the canyon like cheese in a grater.
However, during one particular season even the most courageous and experienced old salt would laugh derisively at the suggestion that the Strait be traversed. At that time of the year, currents shift and the icy waters of the Mostaza Sea come thundering through the Strait with a velocity and power that can only be adequately compared to the impression a child’s copper poenig must have, if any, as it lies on the rail in the path of an oncoming express freight train.
For nearly two months the flood thunders through the narrow channel with a sound that can be heard hours before an overland tourist reaches the cliffs, and feels a full day before that. The low permanent clouds, spanning a quarter of the horizon’s azimuth marking the width of the Strait, can be seen a hundred miles away. The visitor who, with great trepidation, approaches the rusty, slippery iron railing that has been installed for his safety and which suddenly looks pitifully inadequate, feeling the solid granite beneath his feet quivering and bouncing like gelatine and with the sound palpably overflowing the rim of the canyon making speech impossible, are there anything conceivably appropriate and nontrivial to say, finds himself gripping the wet, rusting bars with a white-knuckled grasp as he peers with grim fascination over the yawning, inviting brink. A damp, icy updraft raises his hair upon end, or so he explains physically the physiological phenomenon to his overobservant and mocking companions.
At first little is seen other than swirling white mists that rise toward the visitor in cumuloid columns. But these break, leaving ragged holes through which the Torrent is revealed . . . some three thousand vertiginous feet below. Violence incarnate, if incarnate is a word that can properly be used in describing water, looking like nothing else so much as some sort of vast, albino snake, a bleached anaconda, writhing and twisting in unpredictable and tortuous knots and coils, as though it are not just angry or anxious to escape the confines of the rocky walls, but twisting with disturbing, sudden spasms that made it seem as though it are afflicted with some kind of terrible neurological disease. As its endless lengths unfurl between the granite walls, it shatters the grey stone and slabs the size of apartment buildings crash into its liquid spine.
The Strait of Guesclin during full spring flood is rightly considered not only one of the seven wonders of the world, but at the very least among the top three, or so the visitor and his friends would agree as they share lukewarm drinks in the shabby little concessionaire’s stand that vibrates like a trackside tenement not far from the Brink of Hell.
Such are Bronwyn’s recollections when she sees, at dawn the following morning, grey ramparts approaching altogether too rapidly. The gaping entrance to the Strait is marked by a rising banner of mist that bisects the ragged-cliffed shoreline. The enormous pinnacles of wave-eroded rock that barricade the Strait make it look for all the world like a crooked-fanged mouth, the thick, misty froth boiling at its lower lip like the foaming slaver of a mad dog.
“Magnificent!” says a voice beside her; Wittenoom, as though she cann’t have guessed.
“Only you would think so.”
“Oh, no,” he replies, her sarcasm missing him completely and evaporating, unappreciated, among the chilly breezes. “You’re wrong, your Highness; a great many people think that the Strait at full flood is one of the great wonders of our world, that is, among the natural wonders, of course. The only debate I’ve ever encountered has pertained to its actual place in the hierarchy of astonishments. It depends a little upon what sort of criteria one bases one’s judgment, I suppose. Are we talking about a kind of spiritual rapture feels when gazing upon a sight so overwhelming from a human standpoint? or the simple, yet for that reason profound, excitement one feels when confronted with such primal energy and power? or should we be swayed by the convincing arguments put forth by the aestheticists, who make a case on purely Romantic grounds? or, on the other hand, what about those who would rank the various wonders solely according to their scientific interest or importance? or, perhaps even more prosaically, on their physical size? I, for one, think that the Strait at full flood ranks among the top two or three, at the very least; in fact, I, personally, would not limit it in such a way and would consider the Strait to be a natural wonder of the first order at any time of the year. My reasoning for this is based upon just these same various arguments I’ve just been mentioning. There are so many valid reasons for considering the Strait to be a great and grand thing that there’s always sufficient cause available.”
“Are you finished?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“I’m very happy that the Strait impresses you so much; I never realized what a thrill this is going to be for us.”
“Yes, indeed. This is a wholly unexpected pleasure. I’m seeing the Strait from an entirely novel perspective. Of course, like many others, I’ve visited the Strait purely as a tourist and found myself immensely moved, naturally, as who can not be? And as a scientist, though geology is a little out of my field, I have the additional pleasure of being able to appreciate what is undoubtedly invisible to the awestruck sightseers around me: the appreciation of the vast and irresistible forces at work within our planet. You’re aware, I’m sure, that the Strait is ever-widening? That fifteen or twenty million years from now, what is now a narrow channel will be a vast gulf . . . virtually a new ocean? Of course, the visual and emotional splendor of the Strait as it is now will no longer exist. There’ll be only a gentle current in a broad, flat sea.”
“About fifteen million years too late for us, I’m afraid.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hasn’t it occurred to you yet that we’re going
through
the Strait?”
“Of course it has.”
“Basseliniden, you’ve just been sitting there smirking. Say something.”
“Like what?”
“Explain to the professor what’s going to happen!”
“What
is
going to happen?”
“Are both of you trying to make me angry or just drive me mad? Both of you know perfectly well that no one’s ever survived passage of the Strait, certainly not at this time of the year! And certainly not ever in a raft!”
“Well,” says the captain, “exactly what do
you
propose to do about it?”
“I don’t propose to just sit here like you and wait to die!”
“I’m glad to hear that. I’ll watch you, and whatever it is that
you’re
going to do, I’ll do it too.”
“There’s no point in being sarcastic!”
“Sure there is: there’s hardly anything at all to do that’s interesting except make you angry.”
She produces her most high-voltage glare. When copper is heated to incandescence and its light allowed to pass through a razor-thin slit before being shattered into its component colors by a prism, the resulting spectrum is distinguished by the metal’s telltale sliver of phthalocyanine green light. Bronwyn’s eyes look like a pair of these slivers.
“Tell me, princess,” asks the captain equably, “have you ever have a thought pass through your mind that did not have ‘me’ in it?”
“That’s a stupid question, although I met you a year or two ago I’ve only been actually
with
you altogether a month or so . . .”
“No, no . . . not ‘me’
I,
‘me’
you
.”
She stares at the man as though he have gone insane. Why is he making these nonsensical sound effects? Just to aggravate her? Well, she’d let him see what aggravation really is.
“If the princess will forgive me for disagreeing with her,” interjects Wittenoom, several paragraphs behind in the conversation, “I believe that she’s somewhat mistaken about the chances of surviving a transit of the Strait. It
has
been done.”
“What?” says the Princess. “When?”
“Twelve nineteen, twenty-one twenty-one, and I don’t seem to recall the precise date for the third instance.”
“Three times? That’s all?”
“I didn’t say that it’d been done
often
.”
“You have me all aquiver with hope. Why, I’m practically looking forward to it now.”
“That’s wonderful. I’m so pleased that you’ve changed your mind and have decided to take a greater interest in the geological sciences.”
Bronwyn shoots Wittenoom a look that would have killed a small bird at thirty paces, but the scientist is as impervious to it as a jellyfish to a knitting needle, and the murderous rays don’t even warm him.
“Since we have little choice in the matter,” puts in the captain, “perhaps we ought to assess our chances realistically. I for one think that we stand a better than average chance of getting through. The raft is solid, but nevertheless far more flexible than any boat. Short of overturning or smashing to bits against a rock, there’s little else that can cause us any grief.”
“What more would we need?” asks the princess.
By this time the shattered cliffs are looming like a monstrous pile of broken crockery. The current is already as swift as any torrent, and in its hurry to squeeze through the relatively narrow entrance to the Strait is creating a wild and confused surf for miles to either side. Waves dozens of feet high are boiling and churning against the jagged coastline and as the princess watches she can see them tear huge chunks of granite loose, which fall into the wild sea, disappearing almost instantly even though some are as large as small houses. The entrance itself seems almost serene by comparison: a glassy, black, slightly domed expanse of water that belies the fact that it is rushing into the gap between the cliffs with the velocity of an express locomotive. The Strait itself is lost within a heavy mist that rises far into the sky above, finally merging with the grey overcast.
Bronwyn finds herself accepting her oncoming fate with a surprising equanimity. In the past, she has been in more than one terrifying situation, yet however great her terror had been, it had never been disabling. She remembers when she had faced the great bear in the Toth Molnar mountains; she had been almost congealed by fear, yet had nevertheless fought back, however ineffective the effort might have been Yet here there is almost no fear, no real apprehension or regret. The scale does not allow for it. She has never before confronted a Force of Nature and against that there can be nothing but resignation.
Guesclin Bay is funnel-shaped, with its apex at the entrance to the Strait. As the southward-draining water is compressed into an ever-narrowing space, its speed increases as its volume remains the same, until at that four-mile gap it is moving with the inexorable speed of a kind of horizontal waterfall. The simile with her life as of late is not lost upon the retrospective princess, nor the irony that all of the threads of her life have conspired to come together in this single, cosmic ropewalk.
Bronwyn sees that although the cliffs to either side are each two miles away, they are nevertheless so high that the upper half of their ramparts is visible to her. She wonders if any curious tourists might be braving the crumbling brink and, if so, if any one of them might be at that moment catching a glimpse of an odd, rectangular fleck of flotsam and are asking themselves what it might be. Are she and her companions even visible at that distance? Is there, perhaps, some curious sightseer turning a two-poenig telescope toward the sleek, flying current? She thinks not; it is far more entertaining to try to pick out one’s opposite number on the Londeacan shore (or vice versa).
What the hell,
Bronwyn thinks.
What the hell.