The Bird of the River (2 page)

"And Green Hill," said Alder. "And Sendrion."

"All right, all right." Falena drooped. "You kids never forget anything, do you? Lissi, take the cookpot."

THEY WENT DOWN THE TRAIL, which was so steep they had to lean backward to keep from falling, and at the last descended through a gully cut in the crumbling mud of the bluff, backing down on hands and knees. Finally they stood on the plank platform of the river town. Eliss looked around with interest.

The place was beginning to awaken. A man, still munching his breakfast, walked up to one of the great warehouses and unlocked its doors. There were hammocks strung in the underbranches of a great tree that overhung the riverbank, and now people began to emerge from them, throwing out rope ladders and climbing down. They went to stand in line before a big tent on which was painted LOADING OFFICE. People were waking up on the great barges and lighting cookfires, and so were the stallmen who sold fried fish and hotcakes.

A crippled man wheeled himself out over the planks to a sunny spot, put down a can for donations, and struck up a tune on a hurdy-gurdy.

Eliss was fascinated. She'd never seen such a place, -- all the other cities of the Children of the Sun were cut from stone, solid and permanent, sometimes without so much as a single tree to show the seasons changing. Here, though, everything endured by floating. The docks on which all the stalls and warehouses stood were made to ride and fall with the river's flow, like anchored barges. The stalls and warehouses themselves were lightweight and temporary, so many tents and board-and-batten shacks. And the Children of the Sun sleeping in
trees
? She had thought only the Yendri lived that way, in their brush villages back in the forests.

And here were some Yendri after all, wading out into the shallows off the far bank like so many herons, raising their hands to pray. No one was taking any notice of them except Alder, who stared. And no one had noticed what color Alder was at all. Eliss decided it was a good omen. If Falena failed to get a job, at least it wouldn't be because one of her children was of mixed race.

"Where's your certificate, Mama?" Eliss asked. Falena stopped and dug around in her bundle until she found the scroll, somewhat tattered and crumpled now, the certificate from the Salesh Divers' Motherhouse testifying that Falena was a trained diver able to hold her breath for as long as it took to recite the Prayer to Brimo.

"I guess I'll need it," said Falena.

"Of course you will!" Eliss felt the surge of anger and panic that came when she suspected Falena was going to sabotage herself again. "Are you crazy? You know that's the first thing they're going to want to see!"

"Don't upset me," said Falena, with an edge in her voice. "This is going to be hard enough." Alder tugged at Eliss's hand and shook his head silently. Eliss pursed her lips, but trudged doggedly toward the nearest barge, towing Alder after her, and Falena had to follow.

A deckhand was sweeping, sending puffs of straw chaff through the scuppers. "Excuse me," Eliss called from the foot of the gangplank.

"Sorry, I haven't been paid in a month," the deckhand replied, not looking up.

"We aren't beggars!" Eliss felt her face grow hot. "Does your captain need a diver?"

"What?" The deckhand raised his eyes. "Diver? No, we've got a diver. She's a good one too."

"Well, do you know of anybody around here who needs to hire a new diver?"

"Lissi--maybe we shouldn't--"

"Couldn't say." The deckhand studied them, looking puzzled. "You didn't check with the River Maintenance Office?"

"Should we?"

"Well, yes."

"Where is it?"

The deckhand pointed to a rambling shed on the next dock. "Thank you and may the gods bless you," said Eliss, and turned and made off for the shed, still pulling Alder along.

As they jumped the shifting space over the green water between docks, Falena said: "Lissi, I know we talked about this ... but, you know, the truth is, I'm not so sure my lungs are up to it anymore, and--"

"All you need to do is stop smoking and they'll get better," said Eliss. "And if you have a job you can sleep someplace warm and there'll be enough food, so you won't catch so many colds. You'll be fine. Come on."

The River Maintenance Office hadn't opened for the day. There was a water clock behind the window-grille, with the pointer creeping up toward the hour.

"See, we can't talk to anyone yet," exclaimed Falena.

"It's only half an hour," said Eliss. "We'll wait." She dropped her bundle and sat, immovable, and Alder and Falena had to drop their bundles and sit too. The sun, which had been such a blessing after the bleak cold of the night, was soon unwelcome. It poured down sticky heat in the motionless air. The green trees all along the tops of the river gorge seemed to droop and melt as the day heated up, -- Eliss wouldn't have been surprised to see smears of green like candle wax running down the clay bluffs. The insects started in with a buzzing drone. The smell of the river, rank and weedy, became oppressive.

Just as Alder and Falena were getting mutinous, however, the pointer reached its grooved mark. There was a faint
plonk
and a little silver figure with a trumpet swung up from the rear of the clock. A shrill whistle sounded. At the same moment, a woman opened the door from within, kicking the sill where the door stuck.

"Good morning!" Eliss stood up, practically under her nose. "Are you the person we would ask about jobs for divers?"

The Rivermistress took a step backward. She wore a long necklace of green agate beads, her badge of office. "Are you looking for work?"

"She is." Eliss pointed at her mother. The Rivermistress looked doubtfully at Falena, who gave a feeble giggle. Her hair had gone limp in the heat and she looked tired and dispirited. The Rivermistress averted her eyes.

"Dear, you don't seem up to the weight," she said.

"She's been sick," said Eliss. "And she really needs a job."

"Where's her certification?"

"Right here." Eliss thrust the scroll at the Rivermistress, who took it and peered at it. "Of course she doesn't have the weight right now to dive in the sea, but the rivers are warmer than the sea, aren't they? And we thought, well, a river job would be perfect for her until she's stronger, just shallow warm dives. Please. I need my mother to get better."

The Rivermistress twisted up her face and retreated another step backward. "Of course you do. Come in. Have a seat. Let me see what I can do for you."

They filed in and sat on a long bench, with Falena fanning herself and making soft complaining noises. Alder sat with his fists clenched, staring out the doorway. Eliss kept her gaze riveted on the River-mistress, who went to a great bound book on a lectern and turned through its pages. She looked older than Eliss's mother but strong, with no trace of gray in her hair. Eliss thought she looked kind. Eliss hoped she was.

"I could help her too," Eliss told the Rivermistress.

"Are you certified?" The Rivermistress looked up at Eliss.

"No-o, but I've been watching her dive my whole life."

The Rivermistress shook her head. "It's harder than you think, dear."

"That's what I always tell her," said Falena, shaking her head too. She rubbed her left arm. "Never listens. Everything's harder than you think, Lissi."

"You could try the
Bird of the River
," said the Rivermistress. "That's the big river maintenance barge. She's here now. They always need divers."

"What kind of work is it?" Falena asked.

"Clearing snags, mostly," the Rivermistress replied. "Salvaging wrecks, when they happen."

"That's not as hard as making hull repairs." Eliss looked at her mother. "You said so. How much does it pay?" she asked the River-mistress.

"Food and lodging, provision for divers' children, and a copper crown piece for every snag cleared. With a doctor's care, if you get hurt. Bonuses for any wreck refloated and/or salvaged."

"That's not much," protested Falena.

"It's better than what we have now," said Eliss.

"It's the standard rate for shallow-water work." The Rivermistress closed the big book. "Take it or leave it. Your choice."

"She'll take it. Where do we go?"

The Rivermistress pointed. "Three warehouses down. The one on the end has a big kingfisher painted on it, right? And just beyond that are some pilings painted green, and that's where she's moored. You can't miss her. She's bigger than anything else. The
Bird of the River
. Her captain's Mr. Glass." She hesitated before adding, "Though maybe you'll want to talk to Rattleman. Mr. Riveter, that is. That's the first mate."

THE
BIRD OF THE RIVER
was, yes, bigger than anything else, and that included the floating settlement itself. Eliss thought it was bigger than a few villages she'd been through, a whole separate town of huts and tents built on one barge. There was even a windmill, its vanes rotating lazily on a tower on the aft deck platform. The>
Bird's
deck was broad and scarred, streaked with yellow mud. Women crouched around a central deckhouse where the galley fire had been lit, -- they waited to cook breakfasts or heat water, handling babies as they gossiped. Men went back and forth in a line, loading on sacks and crates of supplies. Children dove from the rail into the river, or chased each other across the deck. At each corner was an immense capstan for hauling up chain and in the center a great mast was mounted, with a furled square sail and an observation platform above her crosstrees. Her figurehead was tiny by comparison, a sawn figure in her keel where it rose above the rails, the cutout shape of a little singing bird. Its flat wings were thrown out, its head arched back as though in joy.

"This must be where the gods will smile on us at last," said Eliss.

"Don't count on it," said Falena in a dull voice. But she followed her daughter to the edge of the dock.

"Excuse me." Eliss waved to get the attention of a small boy who sat on the nearest capstan, fishing. "Could we come on board and see Mr. Captain Glass?"

"Captain's drunk again," the boy informed them.

"See?" Falena said to her daughter.

"But you can talk to my daddy if you want."

"Well, is your daddy the--"

"Daddy! There's some ladies want to talk to somebody. Some ladies and a ..." The child stared at Alder. "And they got a greenie with them!"

Alder ground his teeth. "Well, there it goes," said Falena, turning away. "I told you."

"Wolkin, what did I tell you about climbing up there?" A man strode toward them, a sack of meal on his shoulder, but he was glaring at the boy.

"Not to do it when we're hauling cable. But nobody is, Daddy. And anyway--" The boy pointed at Eliss and her family. "She needs to see you about something, and there's a greenie."

"Are you the first mate?" Eliss asked the man, grabbing at Falena's arm to keep her from skulking away. "Mr., er, Rattleman?"

"Rattleman Riveter."

"Right! That's who we were supposed to ask for. You need to hire a diver, right?"

Mr. Riveter looked them over uncertainly, shifting the sack to his other shoulder. He was a man of average height, lean and bearded and fearsomely tattooed, but his face was open and rather innocent.

"I suppose we do," he said. "Do you know one who's looking for a job?"

"She is," said Eliss, pulling Falena closer and waving her certificate at Mr. Riveter. "She's certified and trained and everything."

"Daddy, look at the greenie!"

"Wolkin, that's not a nice word!" Mr. Riveter peered at the scroll, slightly cross-eyed. "So, er, you're Miss ... Mrs. Hammertin?"

"Don't call me that again," said Alder to the boy, quietly.

"You want to mess with me?" Wolkin threw down his fishing pole and jumped to his feet on the capstan. "You don't want to mess with me. I know Mount Flame assassin moves!" He balanced on one foot and struck an aggressive pose.

"And, er, it says here you're certified to deep dive. We don't pay deep divers' wages, though," said Mr. Riveter.

"That's all right. She doesn't mind taking a shallow-diver's pay," said Eliss.

"I'm a Yendri," said Alder to Wolkin. "You don't want to mess with me either."

"And, er, Mrs. Hammertin, do you have any, er, health problems of which I should be informed?" said Mr. Riveter.

"My chest hurts sometimes," said Falena.

"She's been a little sick," said Eliss. "But she's getting better fast."

"Oh. Well, that's nice to hear." Mr. Riveter eyed Falena, scratching his beard. "You're sure?"

"Yes!"

"Mount Flame assassins kill! You never even see them coming! Yaii!" screamed Wolkin, launching himself from the capstan at Alder. He judged his leap badly and missed the edge of the dock, vanishing in a fountain of green water.

"Wolkin!" A woman in a diver's harness ran to the edge of the barge and looked accusingly at Mr. Riveter. "He wasn't supposed to go in the water until his ear is better."

"I don't think he meant to fall in," said Mr. Riveter.

"He came in crying last night for the drops in his ear--" began the woman. She paused, waiting for Wolkin to surface, but the little trail of bubbles coming from below stopped. "Wolkin!"

Mr. Riveter dropped his sack, and Wolkin's mother began to scramble over the rail, but Falena had already slid out of her tunic and dived into the green water. Mrs. Riveter was poised on the edge of the dock, ready to leap in after her, when Falena resurfaced with Wolkin in her arms. The little boy's face was pale, he was coughing and gagging, and began to cry when his mother took him from Falena.

"He got caught under a cross-piling," said Falena.

"Please don't make me wash the dishes," Wolkin begged.

"We'll talk about it later," said Mrs. Riveter. She looked at Falena. "Thank you. Were you trying to get a diving job?"

"Yes, she was," said Eliss.

"You should hire her," Mrs. Riveter told Mr. Riveter, and carried Wolkin away up the gangplank. And that was how they joined the crew of the
Bird of the River
.