“Holm what?”
“It’ll do for the time being.”
“Whose boat is this?”
“Mine. I built it twenty years ago.”
“So you’re also a master boat builder?”
“I dabble.”
“What do you want me for?”
“Youth of today!” he sighed theatrically. “So suspicious. I don’t want you for anything.”
“Everyone I’ve ever met wanted something from me… except Tobry.” Tears welled and she turned away hastily.
He adjusted the pocket handkerchief sail and returned to the wheel. “The only Tobry I’ve heard of came from the fallen House of Lagger.”
She nodded. She could not trust herself to speak.
“And?” he prompted.
She told the bitter story in as few words as possible.
“And you had feelings for him?” said Holm.
“I didn’t plan to.”
“Does anyone ever plan to have feelings for another person?” he asked mildly.
Tali felt a fool. “I swore to gain justice for my murdered mother. I didn’t have time for anything else…”
“But those treacherous feelings crept up on you anyway?” Holm was smirking now.
“I was too busy. I was on a quest.”
“So you denied your own feelings.”
“All right! Yes, I loved Tobry,” she said, sniffling. “But I didn’t realise it until it was too late.”
“I’m sorry.”
She did not want his sorrow or his pity. She wiped her eyes. “Where are you taking me?”
“Won’t know until we get out through the heads.”
“Why not?”
“Depends what we see. It’s been weeks since I was out on the open sea. Things change rapidly at this time of year.”
“Which way do you want to go?”
“North towards Bleddimire, of course.”
“Why there?” said Tali.
“It’s warmer, safer and further from the enemy.”
“What if you can’t go north?”
“Not west. There’s solid ice for a thousand miles.”
“South?”
“I hope not. Too much pack ice. Get some rest.”
She shivered. “Have you got a spare coat?”
He took a heavy, fur-lined coat from a long, narrow compartment and handed it to her. Tali wrapped it around herself. He closed the cabin door. She hunched in the corner of the two bench seats, behind the table, braced herself against the rolling and closed her eyes, hoping for sleep.
It did not come, and she knew why. She was in a tiny, flimsy piece of wood, on the vast and endless sea, and if anything went wrong she was going to drown. She had nearly drowned once, crossing a lake in the Seethings with Rix and Tobry, and it had left her with a terror of water.
Time drifted; she could not have told whether ten minutes had passed, or an hour. Then suddenly the movement of the vessel changed. Instead of rolling gently it was pitching up and down, as well as rocking back and forth in plank-creaking jerks that kept hurling her off her seat.
She became aware of the wind whistling through the lines and shaking the boat violently. Occasionally a gust would heel it over until the rail almost broke the sea and all she could see were enormous, foaming waves rolling towards them in every direction. They were passing through the heads, out into the open sea.
“Coming up for a bit of weather,” Holm said laconically.
The boat righted itself. They passed out through the heads. The wind howled and hurled rain at them like solid pellets. The waves out here seemed twice as high as before. Holm turned north. They crested a wave bigger than any they had encountered before. The wind flung them over, the boat righted itself like a cork, and ahead, covering the sea from east to west, Tali saw it.
A wall of ice, hundreds of feet high.
“Guess we’re not going north after all,” said Holm.
CHAPTER 21
The night dragged on, one of the most gut-gnawing of Tali’s life. Every minute she expected the little craft to founder and plunge to the bottom, or to strike one of the many floes and icebergs that littered the sea like white confetti. They were larger, more jagged and more numerous the further south they went.
But whatever else Holm was, he was a master seaman. He handled the little craft with the delicacy of a surgeon, picking his way between the bergs and floes without so much as a scrape in the varnish.
As the hours crept by, her need for sleep became a desperate, all-consuming ache, but the more she tried to sleep the more it eluded her. Whenever she closed her eyes her head spun until she thought she was going to throw up. She hunched in the corner with a blanket wrapped around her sea coat and endured the dizziness and nausea as best she could.
“Drink this,” he said, shaking her by the shoulder.
He was holding a steaming metal cup. “What is it?”
“Ginger tea. It’ll settle your stomach.”
“Stomach isn’t the problem. It’s my spinning head.”
“It’ll do your head some good, too.”
She took the cup and warmed her cold fingers around it. “How do you boil water on a wooden boat?”
“There’s a stove. We have all the comforts here. It’s just like home.”
The boat climbed a monster swell, up and up, revealing terrifying, white-capped waves through the round front window. She shuddered.
“When I was a slave in Cython, home was a tiny cell carved out of rock, with a stone bunk, and my only possession was a loincloth.”
“But it felt like home?”
“When I was little. When my mother was alive. It was all I knew.”
“Well, there you are. And this boat is my home.”
Tali sipped her tea. The sickening motion inside her head eased, though it did not disappear.
“Would you like breakfast? Bacon? Eggs?”
She salivated. “I… don’t think I’ll risk it.”
“You’ve got to eat something.”
He checked all around, lashed the wheel so the boat would run straight, then went down the ladder, returning with a steaming saucepan.
“That was quick,” said Tali.
“I put it on when I made the tea.”
He dropped a knob of butter into the saucepan, spooned in a quarter of a cup of honey and handed her the saucepan and a spoon.
“What is it?” she said, eyeing the grey, buttery mess uneasily.
“Just porridge. It’ll put a healthy lining on your stomach — what there is of it.”
She sampled it. “It’s good!” she exclaimed. “It’s — it’s wonderful.”
He smiled with his eyes. “Compliments, eh? I’ll cook for you any day.”
The porridge settled her stomach and the honey sent a surge of energy through her. The weakness in her knees retreated a little.
They sailed on. Holm went in and out many times, adjusting the little sail. The hot tea delivered a tingling heat and the wonderful coat kept it in. It was the first time she had been truly warm since Caulderon. She dozed.
“Where are we going?” she said, as a watery, haloed sun clawed its way over the horizon. She rubbed her sore eyes.
“South to The Cape, then east along the strait between Hightspall and Suden — if we can manage it.”
“Why wouldn’t we?”
“Pack ice. We can’t go far offshore, but close to shore is equally dangerous.”
“Why?” She didn’t know much about the sea. “Are there reefs?”
“Yes, and shoals, and dangerous currents, but they’re not the main dangers. People are.”
“Pirates?” She wasn’t entirely sure that Holm wasn’t one.
“The chancellor controls the land south of Rutherin to The Cape, and he’ll be watching for us. But after we round The Cape, southern Hightspall is now Cythonian territory all the way to Esterlyz.”
“What’s Esterlyz?”
“The south-eastern corner of Hightspall. Why does the enemy want to kill you, anyway?”
“I told you,” Tali muttered, not meeting his eye. These waters were as dangerous to navigate as the ones he was sailing through.