Justice and Utu (17 page)

B
AY OF
I
SLANDS
, S
ATURDAY NIGHT AND
S
UNDAY MORNING

E
veralda stared out of the porthole while holding a cold compress to the brow of the bedraggled blonde girl on the bunk. Lena, Mat had called her, his face full of concern. She'd been hauled naked from the water, bleeding from a dozen or more holes that were sealing over even now without visible trace. Mat had told her that the girl was also a taniwha. Evie wasn't sure what that meant, but it evidently gave her some kind of recovery powers, for it seemed she'd been shot many times. Every so often a lead ball popped from a wound, like pus from a lanced boil. It was giving Evie the creeps.

According to Damien, this girl had been Mat's girlfriend. Sort of. ‘It only lasted a day or two,' Damien had whispered. ‘Then she tried to kill him.' The thought didn't make being in a cabin with her feel any safer.

Evie fingered her eyepatch. Her blind orb no longer hurt, as if letting go of all that energy had released the pressure, but it was slowly building again. The two kidnappers she'd
burned had died inside a minute. The other one, Byron, had not reappeared. Mat and Damien had recognized his name. He was a rugby league player, apparently. It all seemed unreal. She hadn't wanted to tell them about what she'd done, but how could she not? They'd returned about an hour after the attack, and immediately begun loading their things onto the longboat, which had deposited them onto a sailing ship. HMS
Rattlesnake
, apparently. It seemed an odd name for a British ship.

My life has gone mad—

The cabin door opened, and Donna Kyle stalked in. She peered at the unconscious girl. ‘Is she still under? Good.'

Evie watched the witch carefully. When she'd formed the question she wanted to ask, she spoke it while she still had the nerve. ‘Did you know I could do that?'

‘Burn those scum?' Donna shrugged callously. ‘We've all got the potential, those who are gifted. But did I think you had the guts? No. I had you pinned as a weakling.'

Thanks
. ‘But how …?'

‘In a practical sense? Your blind eye is a kind of nexus — a focus for your powers. In folklore, witches often have some deformity that is crucial to their powers. When I blinded your eye it created such a deformity, a channel that your body rejected, which left it therefore a more efficient path for your powers to use. You've only ever used it passively, taking in data and interpreting it. But fear and anger enabled you to do more.' Donna preened slightly, as if proud of this change. ‘How did it feel?'

Evie thought about the burnt men, their faces horribly melted and seared, the stench like half-cooked meat, and the
awful sound of their screams. But she also thought about what they'd been going to do to her. ‘It was necessary,' she said carefully, not wanting to sound anything like the cold-hearted woman before her. ‘I'd do it again.' Which was true.

Donna smiled chillingly. ‘Excellent. I hate false qualms of conscience. In time you'll learn a whole lot more about what you can do. You'll always be bound to your current mode of operation — symbols and that eye of yours — but you'll come to use them with greater skill and versatility.' She reached out and caught Evie's left cheek in her cold right hand. ‘So, will you still be wanting me to restore your eye?'

Evie jerked away, and dropped her gaze. ‘I don't know,' she admitted.

‘Good girl,' Donna purred. ‘You're coming round. I'm pleased with you.'

‘Why should you care?'

Donna's face froze for a second, then she tossed her head slightly. ‘Because you're of more use to me this way. You and I could do much together. We're more alike than you think.'

Evie stood, stumbling as she adjusted to the rolling motion of the ship. ‘I'm not like you at all.'

‘It's a compliment, my dear,' Donna told her. ‘If you go on deck, stay out of the sailors' way. We're heading towards the open sea, and it will get rough. The wind is lifting, I can feel it.'

 

Mat sat with his back to the gunwale, the high ridge that walled the deck and provided cover for the sailors when under fire. The ship heaved its way through larger and larger waves.
Beside him, Damien gave a groan and clutched his belly. He probably didn't have much left inside to bring up. Mat was fine: although he'd never really been at sea, he'd adjusted effortlessly — to Damien's annoyance. ‘If I'm gonna spew my entire guts all over the ocean, you should have the decency to keep me company,' Damien had moaned between episodes of vomiting.

They were joined by Hotu. The Nga Puhi warrior had elected to come with them, for no reason other than a seeming fascination with Damien's antics. He never said much, and the sailors seemed to regard him with extreme suspicion, but he kept out of the way while watching everything with interest.

Mat felt like he was on a movie set, a naval drama or a pirate film perhaps. HMS
Rattlesnake
was a frigate, Hobson had told them all proudly, which apparently meant it was a prestigious ship to serve on. Frigates were the naval workhorses, Hobson had explained: versatile enough to sail in any conditions, fast enough to run down enemies, and manoeuvrable and heavily armed enough to go toe-to-toe with most other vessels. During a war, it was better to be on a ‘ship of the line' (massive floating gun-fortresses, by the sound of them), but any other time, the best captains sought postings on frigates.

It reminded Mat that New Zealand had been found and settled by a seafaring people — the Maori — and discovered for Europe by sailors. The sea was a major part of New Zealand life. There were few places in New Zealand where one was far from the ocean. Salt really was in the blood of the nation.

Mat and Damien had tended Lena on the docks for an hour
until the longboats arrived to pick them all up. Shui and her mother had brought blankets and bandages, and Damien had made all sorts of rash promises to the Chinese girl before they left. Now they were somewhere off Tapeka Point, heading for the open seas. The sun was down, but the twilight left enough sight to discern the shape of the coasts and hills. Hayes's ship was already out of sight. A stiff breeze was rising all the time from the west, a tail wind once they were at sea, he figured, but night was deepening.

‘Father is manipulating the wind,' Donna had commented. She seemed brittle but composed, relishing her role as enigmatic villainess. Yet there was an undercurrent of fear about her, as if she still felt the touch of Governor Grey's noose about her neck.

Crewmen scurried past on arcane missions involving ropes and sails and soundings, and other terms Mat barely comprehended. He watched fascinated as one group under Hobson's gaze ran a line into the water, then counted out the number of knots that passed through the hands in a half-minute, measured by a sand-filled egg-timer. ‘Ten knots, Cap'n,' the man supervising called.

Mat looked over to where Wiri stood beside the captain. Hobson met his eye. ‘That's about eighteen kilometres per hour, young Mat,' the Englishman called down. ‘A decent rate, but we'll pick up speed nicely as we clear these islands.' He glanced eastward, and exclaimed, ‘Oh my! What on Earth—'

Mat followed his gaze. There was some sort of furore on the big hill above the point, north of Kororareka. Torches were waving about and shouting carried across the waves.

Wiri chuckled. ‘Hone Heke is having some fun on Flagstaff Hill.' He tossed Mat a telescope.

Mat caught the telescope and put it to his eye. He fumbled with the focus until he saw tiny figures gathered about a large flagstaff, its huge English flag already alight as it fluttered in the wind. The whole flagstaff suddenly toppled. Throaty cheers rippled across the waters. Hotu laughed, and waved towards the hill cheerily. No doubt he'd seen that particular scene many times before.

‘He just can't stay away from it,' Wiri said in a half-amused voice. ‘He cut it down four times in his lifetime, and again, several dozen times since, here in Aotearoa.'

‘One shouldn't laugh,' Hobson commented disapprovingly. ‘It is our sovereign's flag!' Then he shrugged. ‘Something to address at another time.' He peered down at Mat. ‘How is the girl?'

‘Lena's sleeping, sir. Evie is with her.'

‘And you tell me this girl is some kind of shape-shifter?' Hobson asked Wiri.

‘She's just an ordinary girl,' Wiri replied. ‘But through a complicated matter a year or so ago, she became as one with a taniwha, a water-spirit. Usually such beings are tied to a specific locale, but Lena is free of that, which makes her both more powerful and more vulnerable. That will be why Grieve targeted her. She has great anger. I worry for her.'

Mat was more worried about Evie, in truth. When he'd heard that she'd been attacked while they were away, he'd been beside himself with guilt and anger, wishing he'd been there. He also knew well that killing a man, especially with such a dreadful weapon as fire, was something that could scar
you. ‘I might look in on her,' he said, returning the spyglass.

He caught Wiri giving him a small nod, and Hobson half-bowed. ‘Right you are, lad. Don't let her fret alone.'

Mat met Evie coming up the narrow stairs from below. ‘Hi. I was just coming to check on you and Lena.'

Her single eye caught the light. ‘Donna is with Lena.' She glanced back. ‘Can she be trusted?'

‘With Lena, I think so. In more general terms, probably not.' They looked at each other awkwardly. ‘Um, would you like to, um …'

‘Yes,' she replied, as if she knew what he'd meant to say. Which put her one up on him.

‘Oh … um.' He knew absolutely nothing about the layout of ships, but he guessed that a warship probably didn't have private promenades and luxury cabins for guests to socialize in.

She grinned and beckoned, and led him back down into the ship, past a couple of closed doors, and into a tiny berth with two bunks about two-thirds his body length. Women's clothing was neatly stacked in one corner. ‘I'm sharing with Donna,' she said, scowling.

He looked at her uncertainly. ‘Are you OK?'

Evie gave a small shrug. ‘I think so. For now.'

He sat tentatively, having to duck his head to fit. She had her good eye facing him.

‘So, what happened?' he blurted.

She told him, at first in a matter-of-fact voice, as if it were a story about someone she'd met. About Lew Ferguson's tale of Balor, and Donna's taunting, which had all pieced together in her mind in those hideous moments with Shanks. In a hesitant voice, she told him about tearing the eyepatch away
and letting rip. ‘It felt good,' she whispered. ‘Like justice and vengeance, all wrapped up in one.'

He realized that sometime during her narrative she'd taken his hand. His was cold from being above-decks, but hers felt wonderfully warm. ‘Is your eye OK?'

‘Yeah. It stopped bleeding almost immediately. But the pressure is building again. Being here in Aotearoa is overloading it. It's bearable for now, though.'

It was something else to worry about. He decided to keep her talking, to distract her. ‘How many runes are there?'

‘There are twenty-four Nordic runes. I need to think about how I could use them.' She lifted her head. ‘You'll not be able to leave me behind again.'

‘We won't,' Mat responded. He studied her face, up close and unflinching. There was something almost familiar about the shape of her face. He wanted to run his hands through her tangled golden curls. He even liked the velvet patch — it lent her face an otherness, a mystery. He really wanted to kiss her. So he did.

She kissed him back, her hands sliding up around his shoulders. She drew him in, reclining half-upright against the wall of the bunk, drinking in the heat and taste, his hands sliding along her arms and about her shoulders. Her breath was warm and her hair smelt herbal and wholesome. He sank against her as the world drifted away.

 

Evie was roused from a floating reverie by a rap on the door. Donna Kyle peered in, an arch look on her face. Mat slept on, pressed against Evie. The kissing hadn't gone
further than that. He was too tired, and shy, to do more. Evie was awake, listening to him breathing. They were fully clothed, but Donna's gaze made her feel naked. ‘What?' Evie challenged.

‘We need your skills,' Donna told her. ‘We must track Father's ship through the night. Come to the captain's quarters immediately.' Her eyes ran over the sleeping Mat, and their dishevelled hair and clothing. ‘Well?'

‘Nothing happened,' Evie told her.

‘Just as well. Hurry!' The blonde witch clipped the door shut, and was gone.

Evie stared down at Mat, and gently extricated herself. He looked so cute asleep, but she wanted to let him know she was leaving.

‘Huh?' he murmured.

‘Shh. I've got to go see the captain.' She brandished her cards. ‘Work to be done.'

He nodded. ‘Uh, I'd better come.'

‘Get some more sleep.' She thought for a second, about Donna Kyle coming back to find him here alone. ‘But in your own cabin.'

She kissed him again at the door to his own cabin, then found her way to the captain's quarters. The corridors were cramped and tiny. She dragged fingers through her hair and yawned. Her watch said 10:34
PM
. She also wanted to sleep, but was too wound-up. Maybe this would help.

The captain's quarters were palatial by comparison with the rest of the ship, but still less roomy than her bedroom at home. A table dominated the cabin, covered with a large chart. Wiri and Hobson stood over it, while Donna reclined
on a small stool, sipping red wine. ‘Ahh, the temptress cometh,' she purred.

Evie blushed, and glared.

‘Leave the girl alone, Miss Kyle,' Hobson told her firmly. ‘She's been through much today.'