It’s his new mission to remind the brothers and Choristers of our sacred, solemn duty.
To toil and to pray.
We Choristers have always been spared some of the harsher penance, but that cannot be guaranteed any longer.
I cannot step a toe out of line.
If they lash me, then they will see my bindings.
I must keep my bleeding hidden, when it returns. Surely it will. My curse.
A dry lump grows in my throat, thinking about Caplain Amita.
What a lonely feeling it is.
A hollowness in my tummy. Like a gutted rockfish.
I could tell Lazlo—I have thought of it before. I trust him more than anyone. He would keep my secret.
There might be a time when it’s necessary for someone else to know. When I’ll need help.
But not now.
Not yet, anyway.
I retighten the strip of linen about my chest, pulling the wrappings tight as I can. So tight I have trouble breathing. Round and round. That’s how tight it needs to be in order to conceal my shape.
If I am to last long enough to fulfill the task Caplain Amita set upon me, the task God has chosen me for, then I cannot be found out.
Today is a fishing day, a task that requires most brothers to be on hand.
“Must mean we’re in a good, clean stretch of water,” Brother Aegis says, pulling off his robes and tunic. The long scar that runs from his jaw to his temple gives him sort of a maniacal countenance when he smiles. A pink ripple. “No Topsiders.”
It is no simple operation, fishing beneath the waves.
Brothers Aegis and Callum climb into the access port of the empty number eight missile tube, massive length of net folded and stored beneath them. And then the tube is flooded and the missile tube hatch opened on the top deck. Then they swim out, spreading the net. After, they must swim to the forward trunk, a task that requires holding their breath for up to five minutes.
The Leviathan drags the net along at low speed through shallow waters for a time, and then the nets are drawn back into the missile tube by winch, guided along by two other brothers. Sometimes Jacob, sometimes Martino.
All of it, dangerous business.
You can easily get snared in the nets, become trapped in the tube, or not make it back to the trunk before breath runs out.
Three have drowned since I’ve been aboard.
None for some time, though.
When the haul has been reeled in by winch and the missile hatch sealed, then the tube is pressurized again, the catch unloaded onto the deck of the chapel.
It normally takes no less than ten of us to pull out the haul; however, today, like the last several months, our catch is meager.
Skinny skipjack, smelt, a small reef shark, one baby bluefin, a handful of mackerel.
Brother Aegis, dripping, shivering, lips blue, crosses his arms around his skinny waist, frowning at the fruits of his labor. Sucks air through his few teeth. A whistle.
Ex-Oh Goines, who has been overseeing the operation, shakes his dour head. “The poison has finally reached our last fishing grounds. The day is drawing near, I fear.”
No one dare respond to him, lest they wish to feel the bite of his leather lash.
He lumbers off, not helping us to collect the catch, or to roll and repack the nets.
“These aren’t poisoned, nah,” Brother Silas mutters under his breath as soon as we have carried the haul to the balneary, what was once known as the torpedo room, for cleaning, and it is just the three of us. Rare for him to speak outside of the mess, and especially a word of derision.
Lazlo shares a knowing look with me, eyeing the large, round-faced Brother Silas with great interest. A man whose eyes always seemed to be smiling, even on a day like today.
“How do you mean?” I whisper, untangling the flopping, rough-skinned skipjack.
The broad-shouldered brother takes the wriggling fish from my hand and holds its head to show me its eyes. Unmoving but alive, clear.
“See, not milky,” he says, then he turns the fish and opens its gills so that Lazlo and I might see. The layered rows of the shark-teeth organ pulse and flex. “Its color is good, see? In’t sick.”
“Then why have the fish been so scarce?” Lazlo asks.
“Because,” Brother Silas says, pausing for a long moment. So long a moment, I wonder if he will continue speaking at all. When he does, he leans in, serious: “Topsiders are pushing us out of the best fishing grounds.”
“Seems like there are more of them than there used to be,” I say.
Again, a moment of quiet reflection. Words unsaid. Something eats at him.
This is confirmed later, after supper. When the rumors begin to spread among the tables in the mess. Tonight, there will be a raid.
Of course, any real information must be paid for.
We trade and buy in teeth.
Things that have been lost but are still our own. Pieces of us.
Not all teeth are of equal value. Molars are worth more than incisors, but the quality of the tooth matters as well. Blackened ones are worth less than browned. Browned worth less than yellowed. Rare white ones—normally baby teeth—are worth the most.
I have managed to have kept most of mine which have fallen out—seven white baby teeth and five that have loosened since—and five others from trade. Takes more teeth to make a deal these days. That’s because, since the worst of the scurvy has set in, there are more teeth to be traded. But also, it takes more teeth to make a trade, because goods worth trading for have become scarce.
Lazlo and Ephraim and I each sacrifice one of the best of our individual collection—two ochre incisors and a molar marred by only one blackened pip—and pass them along to Brother Leighton—one of the youngest brothers. Upon examining his payment and finding it suitable, he leans in and speaks conspiratorially.
“Brother Augustine an’ me been asked to sharpen the blades, right? Readyin’ flame jars and the like.”
Brother Silas, seated at the adjoining table, listening in all the while, confirms the rumor with his silence.
“Praise God,” St. John says, who had been sullenly scooping at the remainder of his watery broth with the back of his spoon. “We have not had any fruits or meat in…”
He cannot properly remember.
Neither can I.
“Will it be an island?” I ask. “Coconuts, perhaps.”
“Mangosteen.”
“Bananas.”
A litany of words that conjure sharp memories.
I remember a time when, from the gleaming hatch of the conning tower—the halo of light—they brought down from their gathering a bushel of limes. They were still warm from the sun. They tasted like the light. Sweet and sour. My mouth wanted to collapse on itself.
Remembering those limes, my tongue tingles.
Normally, this would be a topic of some excitement, particularly for us Choristers, who never get to step foot Topside, but Brother Silas, brow already shelved and heavy, appears positively downtrodden.
“What troubles you, Silas?” Ephraim asks.
“No—no island,” he says.
The jubilant mood is doused.
So, a ship raid, then. A raid on Topsiders.
No getting around it.
We have enough fish to last us a week, if we stretch, but we are low on all the other goods. Medical supplies, pantry items for the kitchen, fresh cloth and soap—whale blubber and ash is harsh, burns the skin—twine to repair the nets, oil for the engines, and other rarer but essential parts like gaskets and seals, and, if at all possible to locate, batteries. All of which have become more dangerous to acquire, since they can only be collected from Topsider ships, which are fiercely protected.