Savagely, he flung himself up the ladder away from her.
But when he gained the open air and brittle cold of the afterdeck, he had to knot his arms across his chest to hold in the hurt.
While he ate his breakfast in the galley, trying to absorb some of the stoves' warmth, he could hear the sounds of work outside. At first. Sevinhand's voice and Galewrath's commanded alternately. He supervised the preparation of the foredeck; she led the breaking of the ice and the ritual songs for the burial of the three fallen crewmembers. But after a while Pitchwife made himself heard over the scuffle of feet and clatter of gear, the stiff hiss and thud of half-frozen cable. When Covenant had collected what little courage he had left, he went out to watch.
During the night, the crew had cleared and organized the wreckage. Now they were busy readying the truncated foremast. Pitchwife was hunched over a large stone vat of his special pitch; but his eyes and voice followed the sailors as they rigged lines between the intact yard and the splintered end of the mast. Except for the necessary questions and instructions, the Giants were unusually quiet, dispirited. The Dolewind had held them for a long time; and since their encounter with the Soulbiter they had had no rest at all. Now their future had become as fragile and arduous as ice. Even Giants could not carry so much strain indefinitely.
But Covenant had never seen Pitchwife at work before. Grateful for any distraction, he studied Pitchwife with fascination as the First's husband completed his preparations. Consigning his vat to another Giant, he hoisted a slab of setrock in a sling over his shoulder, then went to the ropes and began pulling himself slowly up the foremast.
Below him, the crew set his vat of pitch into a net that they had rigged from a pulley fixed as high as possible on the mast. When he reached that height himself, supported now by a line lashed under his arms and around the mast, two Giants hauled the vat up to him. His breath plumed crisply in the cold.
At once, he began his work. Scooping up gouts of pitch, he larded them into the jagged crown of the mast. The pitch seemed viscid, but he handled it deftly, fingering it down into the cracks and smoothing it on all sides until he had fashioned a flat butt for the broken stone. Then he reached back to his setrock, snapped a chip from one edge, and tapped the piece into the pitch.
Almost without transition, the pitch became stone, indistinguishable from the mast's granite.
Muttering his satisfaction, he followed his vat back down to the deck.
Sevinhand sent several Giants swarming up to the yard to undo everything which had been rigged to the mast. At the same time, other crewmembers began binding ropes around the ends of the intact spar and preparing new gear up on the yard.
Pitchwife ignored them, turned his attention to the fallen portion of the mast. It had broken into several pieces; but one section was as long as all the rest combined. With pitch and setrock, he formed both ends of this section into flat butts like the new cap of the foremast.
Covenant could not see what all this would accomplish. And his need for haste made him restless. After a time, he realized that he had not seen Galewrath since he had come out on deck. When the dead had been given to the sea, she had gone to some other task. In an effort to keep himself occupied-and to generate some warmth-he tugged his robe tighter and went looking for the Storesmaster.
He found her in her particular demesne, a warren of holds, watercests, and storage-lockers belowdecks amidships. The dromond carried a surprising amount of wood for use both as fuel for the stoves and as raw material for repairs or replacements which could not be readily achieved with stone at sea. Galewrath and three other Giants were at work in a square hold which served as the ship's carpentry.
They were making two large sleds.
These were rough constructs with high rails and rude planking. But they looked sturdy. And each was big enough to carry a Giant.
Two crewmembers glued and pegged the shells together while Galewrath and the other Giant laboured at the more difficult chore of carving runners. With files, knives, and hand-adzes, they stripped the bark from beams as thick as Covenant's thigh, then slowly shaped the wood to carry weight over ice and snow as easily as possible. The floor was already thick with bark and curlings, and the air smelted of clean resin; but the task was far from finished.
In response to Covenant's question. Galewrath replied that to reach Revelstone Covenant and his company would need more supplies than they could bear on their backs. And the sleds would also transport Covenant and Linden when the terrain permitted the Giants to set a pace the humans could not match.
Once again, Covenant was wanly abashed by the providence of the people who sought to serve him. He had not been able to think farther ahead than the moment when he would leave Starfare's Gem; but the Giants were concerned about more than the stark question of their ship's survival. He would have died long ago if other people had not taken such care of him.
His route back toward the upper decks passed the Master's cabin. The door was shut; but from within he heard the First's voice, raised in vexation. She was urging Honninscrave to stay with the dromond.
The Master's answering silence was eloquent. As ashamed as an eavesdropper Covenant hastened away to see what progress Pitchwife and Sevinhand had made.
When he gained the foredeck, the sun stood above the gap where the midmast should have been, and the deformed Giant's plans were taking shape Covenant was almost able to guess his intent. Pitchwife had finished the long stone shaft on the deck; and he and Sevinhand were watching as the crew wrestled the one unbroken spar up onto the yard. There they stood the spar against the truncated mast and secured it with loop after loop of cable. For two thirds of its length, the spar reached above the end of the mast To the upraised tip had been affixed the pulley of a massive block-and-tackle.
Covenant eyed the lashings and the spar distrustfully. “Is that going to hold.”
Pitchwife shrugged as if his arms had become too heavy for him. His voice was husky with fatigue. “If it does not, the task cannot be accomplished in one day. The spar I can mend. But the mast we hope to raise must then be broken to smaller fragments which I may bear aloft and wive whole again.” He sighed without looking at Covenant. “Pray this will hold. The prospect of that labour I do not relish.”
Wearily, he fell silent.
When the tackle had been attached to one flat end of the mast-shaft Pitchwife had prepared, eight or ten Giants lifted the shaft and positioned it below the yard so that the lines hung as straight as possible in order to minimize the sideward stress on the spar. Creaking in its pulleys, the tackle tightened.
Covenant held his breath unconsciously. That spar looked too slender to sustain the granite shaft. But as the ropes strained tighter and the end of the mast-piece lifted, nothing broke.
Then the shaft hung straight from the spar, brushing against the bole of the mast. As the Giants pulled slowly on the towline of the tackle, the shaft continued to rise.
When its butt reached the level of Covenant's head. Pitchwife coughed, “Hold!”
The Giants on the towline froze. The tackle groaned; the shaft settled slightly as the ropes stretched. But still nothing broke.
His hands full of pitch, the deformed Giant moved to the shaft and gently covered the butt with an even and heavy layer. Then he retreated to the other side of the mast A rope dangled near him. When he had carefully cleaned his hands, he gripped it and let the Giants on the yard haul him upward.
Bracing himself once again within a loop of rope passed around the mast and his back, he laboured foot by foot up toward the maimed stump. Alone above the yard, he looked strangely vulnerable; yet he forced himself upward by main strength. Finally he hung at the rim of the mast.