Foreign Devils (26 page)

‘That belief revolves around munitions, that devils will be loosed,’ the man said, waving his hand vaguely. ‘There’s a natural – or unnatural – combustion as the
daemons
enter our world. Our world and their essence is incompatible, unless within warding. Once they’re free of the warding … then …’

‘A release of force?’ I asked.

He nodded his head. ‘As we so experienced.’

‘You could level mountains with such power,’ Secundus said, his voice unsteady. ‘Should any man have such mastery?’

Tricomalee looked seriously uncomfortable, casting his gaze about for some sort of rescue. He said, ‘We should get away from this spot. If the Medieran ship’s
daemonic
vestment fails, we would be caught in the subsequent explosion.’

Captain Juvenus yelled for the engines to engage, ordered us Cornelians and other Rumans, Min and Huáng below-decks until we cleared the area.

Mister Tricomalee’s words were disconcerting and I resolved, my belov’d Fisk, to learn more of these infernal machines and the
daemons
that drive them.

We lost seven men – which seems so small in comparison to the titanic forces expelled in our exchange with the Medieran frigates – and the next morning of the Nones of Sextilius we held a brief, yet solemn consecration to Ia, the Mater, and the Pater Dis to lead them to Ia’s heavenly triclinium, and then repaired below decks to recoup and reflect.

I have never been so terrified in all of my years, my love, and suddenly the
Malphas
seems less homely. For home means security and even in victory, our jeopardy had been great.

And I am worried. Shaken, truly, that we will ultimately pay a terrible price for these infernal devices and the terrible power within them. Each time I close my eyes I can see the brilliantly outlined
daemon
clawing at the sky. Was it rage that drove it? Or exultation at its freedom? Or glee at, as it combusted, going back to whatever Hell that spawned it? I do not know. I wonder if we have it all wrong. Maybe they aren’t devils at all, just other … entities. Like Bless said, ‘She wears the clothes I gave her and comes to the nuptial bed a thing of my own mind …’

No more ships have been sighted since the two frigates in the Oriens. A tight unease has settled on the ship, despite the sunny climes and the brisk winds. A separation has settled upon the passengers and the lascars – maybe it had always been there and we were just not aware of it – but there’s a coldness now to the seamen of the
Malphas
, as though they blame us, to a soul, for the loss of their companions.

We keep to ourselves now, and Juvenus has suspended dinners in his Captain’s Mess, citing dwindling supplies and rapidly depleted stores of alcohol. Yet I cannot but feel that he must be grappling with that terrible spreading grin, that desperate acknowledgement of his fallen state, and cannot bear the presence of those who witnessed it. That is but my surmise, yet of all here, sometimes I feel I am the only one who knows all the wiles of man.

And how I miss yours, my love. Your wiles.

I think back on the first time we

‘Sorry, Shoe, old friend. Some things gotta be private.’

On 2 Kalends of Geminus, we came within sight of land, the lascars and canoneers on deck calling, ‘Eous, Eous sighted!’ Eous being some long-known, colloquial slang for the borders of Kithai – as some referred to as Cathay and, of course, others as Tchinee, as our grandparents first heard of it. Some of the lascars who have made the journey before – though they are not many – call the land Tandinfu, and some Sinju Matu, though there is some confusion as to whether those are names for the region – or subregions – or names for city-like dwellings. The coast was verdant and carpeted with a lush growth of trees, festooned with vines and ferns flowering undergrowth. The land’s edge was traced with a line of brilliant pink sand. Due to the draw of the
Malphas
we could not get too close to the shore or the ship would founder, but Captain Juvenus was happy to lend Carnelia and me his far-looking glass, allowing us a closer view. Shadows moved in the shade of the trees; creatures unfamiliar to me, or possibly to any Western person, Ruman or Medieran. Looking through the glass, trying to puzzle out something familiar in those miasmic jungles, I had a strange foreboding. I cannot explain it. As you know, my love, I am not prone to flights of fancy. But it lingered with me throughout the morning.

It was a bright, cool day, and after I had joined Huáng, Secundus, Tenebrae, and Carnelia for the morning exercises underneath the fore-swivelgun, moving through the Eight Silken Movements three times, I repaired to a table to break my fast (for the second time that morning!) with young Min and Lupina on a repast of salted fish, rice, and candied peppers. Our son makes strange demands of my palate and I have sometimes inconvenient food lusts – milk, meat, sugar – they have all taken their turns waking me before the sun to go down to the mess where Vezia, the
Malphas
’ mess-matron, greets me without smiling and presents some pastry or a cup of coffee while she then prepares a small meal for me, packed neatly in a polished wooden box. Often Lupina follows, silently, like a guardian spirit or numinous household god. In the ways that servants have, there’s some unspoken connexion between Lupina and Vezia – I often notice them glancing at each other and exchanging curious and communicative looks. But like the phantasms and ghosts we all have heard of as children, when one turns to look at the two slave women, the looks vanish. Yet Lupina is the most solicitous slave I’ve ever encountered, and fiercely protective of me.

There was an incident, a mere nothing it seemed, when we were moving through one of the passages of the
Malphas
– they are tight and somewhat claustrophobic. A few of the younger lascars, coming off duty, were engaged in a bit of horseplay and they barrelled into the passage we travelled down, not knowing we were there. One of them, possibly having been shoved by his companion, fell into me heavily, knocking me against the wall.

Before I could recover my wits, Lupina was there, a small knife in her hand, the point of it pressed into the trousers of the lascar, right near his genitals. Lupina said nothing, she simply waited until the lascar’s unfortunate companions apologized profusely and backed down the hall, expressing over and over their sorrow at interrupting our passage. The man receiving Lupina’s pointed chastisement held up his hands until the
dvergar
woman withdrew the knife. He gave a quick bow and scuttled off.

I grow quite fond of Lupina and intend to give her her freedom, once we’ve returned to Occidentalia. I hope she’ll remain in our employ. I can think of no better nursemaid and protector than the fierce little woman.

But I dash about in my story.

The morning the lascars were calling ‘Eous! Eous!’ and Tenebrae, Secundus, and Carnelia clacked about the deck with bamboo sticks in place of swords, Huáng admonishing them tersely in the language of Kithai (which appears to need no translation and to be understood by tone alone, at least in regards to the learning of swordplay) I asked Min about the various names of Kithai or Cathay and its size, since no cartographer has yet been able to get a full grasp of the country’s expanse.

In response, Min said only, ‘You could ride for a thousand days and sail a thousand more, and not cross the realm of the Autumn Lords,’ which did not suit me so I pressed the issue with the young girl.

‘What does that mean?’ I said. We were on the deck, watching the verdant shore slipping by us on our port. Masses of birds took flight from those far-off trees, maybe sighting the black smoke columns of the
Malphas
. They wheeled in the heavens and came toward our ship. As they neared, it became obvious that each one was nearly as large as a horse. Their flight, low over the waters and the ship, revealed vicious serrated beaks, tremendous wingspans, and greasy feathers like longknives. The sound of their passing was deafening; a fierce whistling came from their throats, and they made near-human-like cries; each wingbeat sounded as loud as a mallet striking a drum, and the rush of the wind that their wings pushed down upon us, as they flew overhead, was considerable. As too was the stench, an odour of rotten fish and a yeasty excrement.

‘What are those terrible things?’ Tenebrae exclaimed, pausing in his practice, bamboo stick in-hand.

A nearby lascar sneered but reluctantly ventured, ‘Aepyornis. Some call them garuda or symyrrh. They will not harm us.’ So he said, but he did not let his gaze waver until they had passed overhead, wheeled again, and moved downwind. Some of Tenebrae’s praetorians readied their carbines, sighting the flock of gigantic birds.

Min’s gaze followed the flying creatures and for a long while she stared after them as they flew, making the outlandish ruckus winging their way.

‘You’re too vague,’ I said to Min, bringing her back to the subject at hand. ‘Surely there are units of measurement in your land, and maps. Show me how large the country of Kithai is. We have steamed for nigh on a month and travelled thousands of miles, if what Juvenus and his engineer tell us is the truth, so it is hard to believe we could not cross it with relative quickness.’

She looked down at her silk-slippered feet – just for a moment – and then she raised her head. ‘It is an old phrase, ma’am, and a reflexive one. I know not how large Kithai is, but it is massive.’

‘How massive? Let me understand.’

‘I cannot, ma’am.’

‘Because you won’t, or you refuse to?’

‘I cannot. I do not think anyone knows how large it is.’

I looked at the girl, closely. ‘We are companions, and we have taken you into our counsels and conversations, yet there is something you are not telling me, maybe out of some sort of obstinacy, maybe from some threat of censure or consequence of censure.’ At these words, Min bowed her head, a worried look on her face. Min is a curious young woman; there is a hard and superior part of her that looks at us Rumans with distaste, if not active dislike. We are as foreign to her sensibilities as she, and her grandfather, are to us. There are moments when I feel she withholds more than she gives. ‘I will not force the issue, but should it be revealed that you have hidden something to our detriment and hazard …’ I thought for a long while on my next words. ‘I will not be kind. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, I do,’ Min said simply and looked at me steadily, her worried expression gone. ‘We near Jiang, the largest city of Kithai, and should be there soon. Within the next two days.’

‘At least you know that! It is good to hear. I grow tired of salted fish,’ I said.

‘You will know we near Jiang when the water changes colour.’ Currently, the waters were the blue-green we’d experienced for the last month.

‘To what?’

‘The colour of mud. The Jiang river brings down silt from the farming and mountainous regions and washes it into the sea.’

Later that afternoon, we encountered the demarcation Min had spoken of, an abrupt change from wine-dark to muddy water. The point where the waters met rippled and coursed with eddies and unknown currents. On the shore, the verdant jungles of the Eous shore were gone now – we were steaming at steady clip – to be replaced by a series of small fishing villages.

‘The silt is rich with minerals and other inland life. Look there.’ A strange creature broached the surface of the muddy water. It seemed to have fur and long, humanoid arms, ending in wickedly clawed, webbed hands, one of which held a wriggling fish. Its eyes were bulbous and it paused in the water to look at the
Malphas
steaming by, blinking with thick membranes covering the eyes like lanterns being shuttered. It dove, making barely a ripple.

The air became richer, thicker, and I began noticing a million motes hanging there – some sort of almost invisible insect spawning from, or coming to feed from, this mineral-rich water.

Later, the villages became larger, the buildings taller and made more of stone than thatched huts and wattle-and-daub mud bricks. The brown waters we travelled became filled with sailboats Min called
chuán
but the lascars called junks. They moved through the sluggish waves prettily, each sail like an outstretched bird’s wing pointing to the heavens. Other ships – xebec and hoggies, skiffs and diminutive lorcha, what looked like trawlers and sailing barges – plied the surging brown waters, letting out nets and lines. Some we passed close to and the crews on these wind-powered boats would look up at the
Malphas
with neither fear nor wonder on their angular and wind-chapped faces.

After nightfall, Captain Juvenus invited us for brandy and tabac on deck – a nice respite from reading by
daemonlight
in our cabins – to look upon the shore, gleaming in the moonlight, and to witness the luminescent glow of the insects hovering in a dreamlike fog around us.

‘They call the light these creatures give off the “golden fog” or “jinse ying”, isn’t that right, Huáng?’ Captain Juvenus said, looking toward the older man. He said it with a jovial, almost dismissive tone.

‘They are the thoughts of the Autumn Lords given form,’ Huáng replied, inclining his head in what could be acquiescence or could be irritation.

‘Sifu,’ Carnelia said, which was some sort of term of respect given to elder citizens of Kithai.

She said it in such a way that my interest was immediately piqued. I’d never heard Carnelia address anyone – neither Father nor Mother, neither priest nor praefect – with the simple, calm respect she offered this man from Kithai. It was totally out of character for her, but seemed honest and natural. The journey sometimes takes us through our own internal landscapes, and my sister wasn’t immune to that momentum. Carnelia had learned much regarding the Tchinee. In some ways, she had been, in her adoption of the more martial of the exercises that Huáng taught Tenebrae and Secundus on the deck, more of a student of this country that we travel to than I had. I had allowed that typical Ruman complacency to quell any of my more natural inquisitiveness.