Foreign Devils (25 page)

TWENTY-TWO

Ides of Sextilius, First Hour, 2638 Annum Ex Rume Immortalis, Jiang City in Far Tchinee, In the Manse of Sun Huáng

Dearest love,

We have spent the last fifteen days at sea since my last use of the Quotidian, and the steady thrum of our thrice-damned vessel is constant, a susurration at times, never ceasing. The seas grew large, waves tumultuous and higher than all imaginings. It has been so long since the
Malphas
has seen shore, I fear at times that we are lost, lost upon an unimaginably large expanse of ocean, an infinitesimal spark burning in the desolation of salt and wave. Yet Captain Juvenus assures us that we are nearing Kithai and the great port city of Jiang. How he knows this, I have no idea, though when the skies are clear and he can sight the stars, he spends an inordinate amount of time looking at the sky with a collection of strange devices whose functions have not been explained to me.

Life on board is strange – much like on the
Valdrossos –
it seems as if we’re stilled and only the waters flow around us. But Juvenus tells us we travel near four or five hundred miles a day, which I have trouble believing though I have to assume he would not lie to us in jest. We should arrive within the next few days, or so I am told.

We have established our rhythms now. Mornings, when the weather permits, we adjourn to the deck, where Huáng leads us in the Eight Silken Movements – it is a wonderful way for me to remain fit while nursing our son within – and then trains with Tenebrae. And something strange has occurred – something strange, wondrous, and possibly unbelievable to you – our Carnelia has joined in the training. It happened in an odd way.

Sun Huáng who, I should say, is a taciturn man, sat down at our breakfast table and looked closely at Carnelia and me, in a very judgemental fashion.

‘The things you perform while a child grows within you will colour its whole life,’ he said in his halting thick accent. ‘Come, come. Stand and join in the
qigong
,’ he said, taking my hand. ‘For your son’s sake.’

When Carnelia snorted at this, his attention turned to her. ‘You are sharpened. Your mind better suited to blades than this … indolence. Your hand suited to a jian. Come, wicked girl. Come.’

We looked at each other, Carnelia and I, and somewhat bemused, we joined in the exercises. Afterwards, having performed the Eight Silken Movements a few times, I returned to my seat but Huáng bid Carnelia to stay, which was odd.

‘In Rume, women sometimes train as gladiatrix and in games and for physical contests, but rarely for war. Is it so different in Kithai?’ I asked Min.

Min, who has taken to breaking her fast with us, nodded. ‘In great Kithai, girls learn the ways of the flesh. The hard and the soft. The streets of Jiang, the alleys of Palikao, they are full of beggars, rapists, brutes and desperate men and women who would take what society does not provide them. We learn to fight early, and use weapons to protect our bodies and family bloodlines. It is only once we are married do we complete our knowledge of the ways of the flesh.’ She blushed prettily, though I fear her association with Carnelia has increased her knowledge of the arts of the bed. Min frowned. ‘It is strange, though, that my grandfather would single out your sister. An honour, surely, but maybe he sees within her something others do not.’

‘All things are possible,’ I said.

Min shook her head. ‘Rarely. But I am puzzled by this.’

Tenebrae seemed puzzled too that suddenly Carnelia had joined him in training. They moved through stances and postures – very little of the instruction Huáng gave Tenebrae up to this point had involved sword work.

Tenebrae asked why they did not work with swords, and the old man replied, ‘A sword is just a thing, no mind, no hazard.’ He held up his hand. ‘This is my sword.’ He extended his arm. ‘And this.’ He touched his head. ‘And this. I
am
the sword. Even when unarmed.’

The Praetorian looked puzzled but Carnelia nodded, a strange expression on her face.

It was later that morning – the morning of 1 Nones of Sextilius – a clear day with relatively calm seas and visibility – that one of the lascars began bellowing and ringing a bell. Suddenly the deck was full of men racing about, attending to the big cannons. Two of Tenebrae’s Praetorians tried to bustle us below-decks but I flatly refused and moved to join Juvenus on the upper deck’s lookout roost where he stood, gripping his looking glass, conferring with his junior officers and the Engineer Tricomalee.

‘A frigate running the Medieran flag,’ Juvenus said when Secundus and Tenebrae joined us. ‘Twice-damned, possibly, though we’ll test their speed and range of their swivels.’

‘Is it wise to engage when we’re on a diplomatic mission?’ Secundus asked.

A lascar yelled ‘She’s turning, Captain!’

‘War is declared, and we are a vessel of war, Mister Cornelius,’ Juvenus said.

In the grey-blue distance, the Medieran man-o-war belched black smoke into the blue sky, and began to narrow its profile, turning toward the
Malphas
. And then, as it turned, behind it another column of smoke was revealed.

‘A brace of frigates on some bellicose errand. Do not worry, Livia,’ the Captain said, placing his hand on my arm and not giving me a chance to say I was not. ‘Our girl is the fleetest of ships on the seas and her claws very long.’ He gave a rapacious grin, showing teeth. He was in high spirits, spoiling for a battle. He bellowed, ‘Tea for the cannoneers! Swivels on marks!’

His junior lieutenants made hasty charcoal scribbles on the flat top of the railings, figuring some sort of numbers and calling them out to the cannoneers who would respond by yelping ‘
Mark!’
A grinding sound filled the air as men, some above and some below decks, guided the cannons in their trucks. The Captain’s seconds called out numbers and continuously shouted commands, training the massive bores of the cannons on the oncoming Medieran frigates, adjusting their angles and gauging wind.

‘You may fire when you are ready, Mister Gridlæ, while we have the advantage of range.’

Mister Gridlæ, a portly man with great bristling whiskers and a belly like a cask of ale barked an order. And then the Hellfire cannons erupted.

We all have experienced the dismay of Hellfire, the unease during the release of the infernal. But the
Malphas’
cannons? Hell on earth. The air shivered with the thunderous noise. The sound passed through my flesh like a tremor sundering the earth. I put my hands on my stomach – Fiscelion twisted and kicked within me. And there was the despair that came with whatever
daemon
’s release pushed the cannon shells through the air. The stench of Hell filled my nostrils and all of my muscles contracted, involuntarily, as if awaiting some blow that would never fall.

Far off across the expanse of salt and waves, geysers of water erupted, a short distance in front of the oncoming Medieran boats. Plumes of smoke billowed out from the opposing ships and then the booming report of their cannons reached us. Nearly a half-mile away, their shells fell in the indifferent foam of the Oriens.

‘They are uncertain and tentative!’ Juvenus howled. ‘Mister Gridlæ! Respond! Rume’s arm is long!’

‘Reload!’ Gridlæ yelled, his face engorged with blood and thick runners of sanguiducts standing out in relief on his neck, disappearing like snakes into the collar of his uniform. In a rush, cannoneers unlatched the rear of the swivels, freeing the smoking casings of the cannon shells, two teams working in tandem, one removing the spent cartridge, the other swiftly placing the ward- and glyph-encrusted next cannon-shot inside the gun itself, pulling them from a cotton swaddled crate. Inside each nestled a
daemon
ready to be loosed upon the world. ‘Fire!’ Gridlæ screamed.

The battery of guns exploded into smoke and sulphurous Hellfire.

Looking around, I noted the grimaces on the cannoneer’s faces, the surprise and consternation of the lascars. But Captain Juvenus remained gleeful.

‘More! Pour it to them, men! Pour it to them!’ He turned.

Gridlæ yelled for the cannons to fire again and they answered his call.

When the monstrous sounds and infernal despair died away, the distress of the nearest Medieran ship became visible. Black smoke poured from locations on its hull other than the stacks.

Gleefully, Juvenus yelled, ‘We have scored on them, boys! Again!’

After a moment, the
Malphas’
cannons boomed once more. The sound of that outrage ripped at the sky. The far off Medieran ship became consumed in smoke.

The engineer, Tricomalee, said in a low urgent voice, ‘It is time to turn away, Captain. Their engine room is breached and the
daemon
—’ But he could not finish.

A new sun rose on the horizon, a fire so great that even miles distant, it burned my eyes and I was forced to turn away. For a moment, in that bright fury, was the triumphant shape of some massive, fiery thing clawing with glee at the heavens, freed from its cage. And then an explosion filled the world – a release of energy so great this language of mine is beggared to describe it. The sound became deafening, what was left of the Medieran ships wreathed in steam. Far off, the seas rose.

‘Turn her, Ia damn it!’ Juvenus screamed. ‘Full ahead and turn hard to port! Put her nose in it!’

I didn’t quite know what was happening until the shockwave from the blast hit, a wind tearing at my clothing and hair like a hard punch. I fell to the floor of the roost, blood filling my mouth, and cradled my stomach – our child. For a long while I was insensible, as the air around us turned wet and hot all at once, and the
Malphas
shuddered and moved.

Our ship began to nose downward – slowly at first but then picking up speed – and I found enough strength to push myself from the roost’s floor and rise. We were in a trench of water and a mountain approached us, rising a hundred, two hundred feet into the air.

‘Full ahead, or we’re thrice damned!’ Juvenus yelled. His teeth were bloody and his eyes bugging but there was a mirth, a desperate glee, matching the
daemon
’s that clawed at the sky. A man who met danger with wildness and abandon, almost assuredly. In that one instant, it gave me a fleeting impression of the totality of the man – a suicidal motion, a scrabble for meaning. Encapsulated in that one look was an implicit acknowledgement of some fallen state from a purer one: instead of Ruman nobility, he had traded fierceness for it. That spreading terrible smile was his little attempt at banking some sort of flaw in his character. Men. They are fragile and weak, as are we all, yet they strive so hard to deny it.

A lascar rang a bell over and over. The cannoneers called each other’s names.

I heard Secundus say very clearly amidst the clamour and riotous noise, ‘Mater save me.’

The
Malphas
traced her course to the bottom of the watery trench, the moving mountain of water met us and, in a lurching, stomach-dropping motion, we climbed the cliff-like face of the wave. No swells, no high seas had ever prepared me for this, my love. Not crossing the Occidens, not sailing Mare Nostrum. Water began pouring over the gunwales and prow, as if the
Malphas
was a needle piercing the outraged flesh of the water. The screams of of cannoneers and lascars sounded and men were torn from whatever hand-holds they clung to and swept overboard.

We rose, high, so high that when we reached the peak of the wave, the prow of our ship passed through and beyond the face of water; salty spray drenched me and for an instant we hung in the air – a hundred tons or more of steel and iron and silver and wood. In a more personal and intimate recognition, my frantically beating heart was contrasted by our son’s softly throbbing one – and then the nose of our
Malphas
fell and we plummeted down the back of the wave, wind and smoke and spray ripping at us.

It was almost more than I could bear.

A cloying steam hung in the air and my skin was tacky with the salt of this foreign sea. Strange, bloody and mangled sea creatures rose, twitching to the surface and the fins of sharks appeared shortly after and the ridged back of the more fearsome sea serpents some of the lascars called
makara
and others called
devil whales
.

When the seas calmed enough, we made survey of the destruction of the Medieran vessels. There was charred debris and bodies, but no survivors. A plume of steam poured from the ever-shifting surface of the water in a massive column that rose, towering over the
Malphas
, until it reached an altitude high enough to disperse it on a crosswind.

‘What could be causing it?’ Min asked, standing nearby. She was dripping wet, and looking awestruck at the watery devastation around us. Sun Huáng stood behind her, one hand on her shoulder, face impenetrable.

‘We cracked the Medieran frigates with our swivels, both of them,’ Juvenus said, still fierce. Still desperate.

‘Yes,’ said Tricomalee, the engineer. ‘But only one
daemonic
vestment was ruptured.’

‘Are you saying,’ I said, looking at the steam and boiling water erupting from the surface, ‘That you sank the ship yet the
daemon
was not loosed?’

‘Precisely,’ Tricomalee said. He had the bloodless, stoic reserve of an academic. His skin pale, his frame, slight – back slightly stooped. His hands, delicately articulate. He spent most of his time indoors. ‘The ship has sunk to the bottom of the sea, but the devil still burns.’

‘And how long will it burn?’ I asked.

‘Until something mars its warding. The sea will eat away at the metal and wood surrounding it and eventually …’ He brought his hands together as if gripping an invisible ball, fingers splayed, and then he jerked them apart dramatically, making a small, hissing sound with his mouth.

‘Why does the
daemon
not run rampant after it is freed?’

A wariness crept into his expression: here was a man determined to keep his trade secrets close to his withered, under-developed chest.