That fucking poisonous bastard Marith. That sick, vile, diseased, degenerate fucking bastard shit. Gods and demons, he should have knifed him when he had the chance. Gods and demons and piss, he should have stuck with him and held out for the money the boy had offered him.
In an inn near the harbour where the air stank of rotten fish and whale’s blood, Tobias sat at a table in the furthest corner and watched from the window as the Brightwatch set sail.
The inn wasn’t a bad one, as such places went. The bedding wasn’t too filthy, the food was passably edible and the beer was watered down but not actually rancid. He’d stayed in worse, just about. Could have stayed in a lot better, talents and thalers burning a hole in the leather pouch at his waist. It was greasy from where he kept grasping it to check it was still there.
A lot of gold. An awful lot of gold. You could buy a village with that much gold. He felt almost too frightened to spend it.
The serving girl brought him barley flatcakes and some smoked fish. Not bad, actually. When he had finished, he walked out to the quayside, stood for a while watching the ships on the water. The sun was beginning to break through the clouds, burning off the sea mist, making the sea sparkle far out beyond the harbour wall. White caps on the waves. Tobias walked down among the men busy and groaning on the wet stones, hauling great boxes of silver-green fish.
‘I’m looking for a ship going to the Whites,’ he said.
One of the men blinked at him with bulbous eyes, silver-green like the fish. ‘The Whites? You missed one.’ He shrugged in the direction of the open sea. ‘Gone.’ The man’s voice was hoarse, harsh as the sea grating on pebbles. Echoing underneath. His hands were crabbed and too dry-looking. Soaked too long in the water. Thick yellow nails split and softened like wet wood.
‘Another likely?’
‘Always another likely.’
‘Soon?’
‘Soon enough, I should think.’
Bet you’re a barrel of laughs after a few drinks. ‘Where,’ Tobias said carefully, ‘is the next ship that’s going to the Whites?’
‘That one.’ The man pointed slowly to a low, dark-coloured ship lying out in the water, its mast hung with a brilliant green sail. ‘Glasswater, she’s called. Come from Morr Town. Going back to Morr Town. Brought tin and brightstone. Bringing back gods know what.’
Tobias nodded. Odd things, Illyn Altrersyr was said to like. Well, but the last ship to have left here for the White bore as its cargo a dead man. Couldn’t be any stranger. He thanked the man, gave him a copper penny and walked back down the quayside towards his inn.
‘Glasswater,’ he said to the serving girl. ‘Know any of her crew?’
The girl looked thoughtful. ‘No. Can’t say I do.’
Tobias wandered out again onto the quay, watched men hauling boxes and coiling great twists of pitch-stained rope. An utter mystery to him, the ways of sailors and seafarers. The whaling ship was a mass of activity, figures crawling over the vast corpse, comically tiny in comparison, stained and greasy with blood and fat. A lovely image of human frailty and deathlust: it’s fucking huge, so let’s fucking kill it. They used long-hooked poles to drag the body towards a slipway, grunting and gasping, a chorus of curses as the tail slipped sideways in a great spray of bloody water, a howl of pain and panic as a pole jerked and knocked one of the men off balance. He teetered for a moment, then fell heavily, thrashing in the water between the dead whale and the wall of the quay. One of his colleagues hauled him out, swearing. The rest ignored him, straining at their work, inching the corpse painfully up the smooth stone. Tobias stared at it amazed as it emerged. Bigger than a house. Bigger than a bloody dragon. The blank dead eyes glossy, like dark polished bronze. The vast mouth slightly open. Scar tissue whorled on its flanks. Stranger than a bloody dragon too, he thought. The whalers set at it with saws, hacking and cleaving. Like it was nothing unusual. The whole harbour stank of blood and flesh. Men taking a city. Men storming a fortress. The head section came away to cheers. They were crawling inside it, cutting it to pieces from the inside out. The smell of its body, innards and fat. What the fuck do you do with several miles of whale intestine? A drill for the head, to get at the oil inside. Something that might be the liver, dark red, velvety, a sheen on it like a woman’s lips.
Enough watching. Mesmerizing though the spectacle was, he needed to get on.
Tobias moved up the quay, eyeing the men milling around. The whale had attracted quite a crowd of onlookers. He stopped next to a tall man with a ragged black beard.
‘Quite a sight.’ The man nodded. ‘Know any of the crew from the Glasswater?’ The direct approach.
‘The Glasswater?’ Another thoughtful pause. You’re going to say no, aren’t you? Tobias thought gloomily. ‘From her meself, as it happens. Looking for passage to the Whites, are you?’
‘Could be.’
‘The captain’s over yonder, seeing to supplies. Out of the stink. It’ll cost you, mind.’
‘Assumed as much.’ He probably had enough money to buy the bloody boat. Tobias followed the sailor towards a more expensive inn, set back from the seafront, looking away from the sea up towards the town. Houses. Shops. Taverns. Dogs and horses and pigeons and even the odd woman. Last thing a rich sailor wants is a sea view. Probably breathed in the smell of horse shit from the stables and felt jubilation that it wasn’t fish and salt.
Two hours later, Tobias was packing up his gear in preparation to sail. He’d not been on a ship in a long time. Several years. Really didn’t trust boats, there being nowhere to run to if and when things went to shit.
He carefully touched the purse of money secured inside his shirt. Talents and thalers clinked. You don’t need to do this, he thought. The amount of money he had, he could just head off to Alborn, live a quiet life with a couple of rooms and a girl to clean them. Eat fried pig every morning and drink beer in the afternoon with the sun setting warm on his face. Never do anything again, apart from get fat and lazy and pleasantly weak in the arms and legs. Wear soft cloth and sandals. Buy the girl a pretty dress and a necklace to match.
Marith had made that decision, for about five heartbeats, a thousand years ago and more by a riverbank. He’d seen it in the boy’s face, that one moment. Just be alive. Just live, and feel contented in it. Sunshine. Trees. Birdsong. The lovely way a woman’s hips moved as she walked. Not much else one needed in life. A lot more than most people had.
’Cause that had all worked out so bloody well, hadn’t it?