The Lawkeeper of Samara (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 2) (18 page)

Lunch was better than Gilan could have expected. He had heard tales of life at sea and food always featured as one of the drawbacks, a tasteless trial to be suffered through. But the captain’s table was, as he had promised, sumptuous.

In truth he was not sure that he had ever had a better meal. It made him more inclined to forgive the man’s wealth and condescension.

The company was sparse. The captain’s cabin was as spectacular as his food, and they sat at a table that could have seated eight, and even then the table seemed adrift in the midst of such a large room, though Gilan noted that it was firmly bolted to the floor. Around this table sat the captain, the mate, Gilan and Diara. Two sailors played the roles of servants.

The mate was not a great one for talking it seemed, and Diara deferred to Gilan, so it became largely a conversation between Gilan and the captain.

“By your speech you are a Samaran,” the captain commented.

“Born and bred.”

“But you carry a swordsman’s weapon. You did not learn that trade in the city, I take it?”

“Ocean’s Gate guard,” Gilan informed him. “Ten years’ service to the rank of lieutenant.”

“A military man, then.”

“A lawkeeper. No more than that.”

“It is not a small thing, to keep the law,” the captain assured him. “The city looks to you where the king has failed it, or so my friends tell me.”

“And yourself? You are not Samaran.”

“I have adopted the city,” the captain said. “My blood is Saratan, but there is no city in the world like Samara. Its charms have quite won my heart.”

Gilan was as proud of his city as any Samaran, and he warmed a little more to the captain to hear him utter such fulsome praise. “I have never visited Pek before,” he confessed, “Nor any city save my own. Is it not a fine place?”

“It is held to be so,” the captain said. “Indeed it has many pretty houses and a great park by the water where trees and grass are set aside for the use of the citizens, but it lacks the life of Samara. Yet you must make your own judgement when you get there. It will not do for me to say what you should think.” He poured himself another cup of wine and sipped at it. “We have another on board who travels to Pek for the first time,” he said.

“Another passenger?”

“Aye, another passenger. He came aboard last night, but seems greatly afflicted with the sea, as your own man was, and has not yet left his cabin, though I have invited him to join us.”

“A Samaran, then?”

“It seems so. A merchant, I think. He paid a high price to have a private space. I expect you will see him before we reach Pek. The sea often relinquishes its hold after a day or two.”

So there was hope that Ifan might yet enjoy some portion of the trip. Gilan himself was finding it all quite pleasant. The experience of seeing Samara diminish off the stern had unnerved him a little, but he found the easy motion of the ship surprisingly comforting, and the air was quite marvellous. He was still somewhat dreading his time in their black hole of a cabin, but as a guardsman he had prided himself on his ability to sleep anywhere, and he was confident that he could cope.

“I hope that my man improves more quickly than that,” Gilan said. “I’m due to take his bunk in an hour.”

Lunch was a brief affair, and afterwards Gilan walked up on the deck again. He could still see land, but it was a low, dark mass off to the left of the ship, indicating that they were heading east. He was surprised to see a number of gulls following in the ship’s wake, their cries reminding him of home. It seemed very bold of them to fly so far from land, given their size.

The sky had darkened since the morning, and the wind that drove them began to bring rain. It was not proper rain, but a kind of thick mist that dampened everything. Gilan left Diara talking to one of the common sailors – apparently they had some shared experience – and made his way forward, standing in the bow and looking out at the rolling waves. The ocean had adopted the colour of the sky and the once clear horizon was now no more than a faint demarcation between shades of grey.

“You’ll be wanting a coat, sir.”

Gilan turned to see one of the sailors offering him a garment that might have been so described. It was cotton, but appeared to have been rubbed with oil or fat, giving it a greasy feel. He put it on, raised its hood, and found that he was instantly more comfortable. It kept the wind from his back.

“I thank you,” he said. The sailor nodded and left him to his musings.

He leaned over the side and looked down. The sea raced by. If you fell from a ship like this you would be left behind in moments, and he did not think that so cumbersome a vessel could be stopped and turned with any sort of urgency. It would likely be a death sentence.

A bell sounded astern. It was a time bell. The captain had explained it to them over lunch, and he knew that the time had come for him to rest. He went back and climbed down the stairs to seek his bunk.

It was dark below. A single lamp burned in the space outside their cabin and Gilan made his way to the door. He found it more difficult to move in time with the ship now that he could not see the horizon. He stopped by the door and pulled it open to be greeted by the sound of Ifan’s snores.

He stood and looked within. The weariness of the previous night had left him, and Ifan seemed to be comfortable at last. It seemed cruel to wake the man to sickness again, and Gilan had been enjoying his time on deck, despite the wind and the rain. Besides, there was a faint air of vomit in the room, and not withstanding his cast iron stomach Gilan could feel the faintest response from his gut. He decided to forego this shift and return to the open air. He was not likely to be doing anything strenuous for several days, and sleep could wait.

Back up on deck he went forwards again.

One of the sailors, he thought it was the one who had given him the coat, approached him again.

“You’ll want to look under the bow,” he said. “First time at sea, everyone wants to see it.”

Gilan raised an eyebrow, but the man just grinned and pointed. His earlier visions of falling into the sea and being lost returned, but there was no reason for anyone here to harm him. He went as far forwards as he could and leaned over the side of the ship, and was astonished.

The sea that broke before the bows was thronged with great fish that leaped out of the water from time to time. They swerved to and fro beneath the water, even spinning themselves, and then leaped again.

“Dolphins,” the sailor said. “They love to play by the bows. There’s those that say they’ll lead you to safety. It’s considered a happy sign.”

Gilan was captivated. He stayed in the bow, watching them, and after a while he could have sworn that they looked back at him, and that they were smiling. He stayed for a long time, and lost track of minutes, perhaps hours in his fascination. Then, as though at a secret signal, they were gone. He saw a flash of white off to the right side of the ship, and then the sea was empty again. He stood up and stretched. His back felt stiff. What a wonderful thing to see. He wondered if Diara had seen it. He had not thought to call her.

He heard the bell. It meant that he had been on deck for four hours, which he found difficult to believe. It was time for the shift change again, and he saw sailors pouring out of the forward parts of the ship and those that had been relieved trailing below in a more relaxed manner. Diara would be heading below, too, to wake him, Gilan supposed. She would find Ifan still asleep and the better for it he hoped.

He was beginning to become bored now that the dolphins had left them, and his back was still stiff, so he sat down on the deck and leaned his back against the rail, gazing up at the taut sails. They, too, had their own special beauty, but it was odd to see the clouds overtaking them. He supposed it must always be so with a wind ship. Only a portion of the wind could be borrowed to hurry them along. He wondered what he would find in Pek, and if he would like the city. Five days of this could be crushingly dull, dolphins or no. Perhaps they would permit him to do some small task about the ship to take his mind of the interminable sea.

Boots appeared by his hand. He looked up.

Diara was standing over him. She looked as bad as Ifan had looked, white faced, strained. But Diara had not suffered from the sea.

“Diara?”

“Come,” she said.

Gilan sprang to his feet and followed her. She walked quickly, and directly to the hatch that led below. She took down the lantern that hung outside their cabin and held it high as she opened the door.

Ifan was dead. Gilan did not need to see any wounds. It was the way that the body lay, half out of the bunk, one arm hanging down with the fingers bent back. His face was to the bulkhead.

Gilan knelt by the bunk. The light was poor, but he could make out a single wound in the back. It had been a well placed thrust, right through the heart. Ifan would not have survived the attack more than a few moments. He looked up at Diara.

“It should have been me,” he said. “He was fine when I came down before, but I left him to sleep.”

“Maybe it was supposed to be you,” Diara said.

Gilan was forced to agree. The way things had gone it was difficult to see how anyone thought anything else. It had been his shift in the bunk, he had gone down to the cabin at the right time, he had been wearing a sailor’s coat. He had even announced his intention to sleep when they were in the captain’s cabin where the sailor servants could hear him.

Ifan had been a good man. Gilan could not have named him a friend, but he had thought he might become one. Now it was his job to find the killer. His problem was that he had no authority on this ship. The captain was master here and had all the power. He would have to ask to be permitted to investigate.

“We’ll talk to the captain,” he said.

“It could have been anyone,” Diara said. He took her implication. They could not discount the captain being involved in some way. Indeed, he fitted the profile of the killers they hunted – they all seemed well dressed, wealthy, young.

“We’ll see what he says,” Gilan said. He eased Ifan back onto the bunk, straightened his limbs and laid him on his back. He used a sheet to cover his face.

The captain’s cabin was on the same deck. Indeed, the door was no more than twenty paces astern of their own, and you could pass from one to the other without going on deck.

Gilan knocked on the door.

He heard a shout from inside and took it as an invitation to enter. The captain was there, seated at a desk at the back of his vast cabin, head bent over a book. He looked up as Gilan and Diara entered. For a moment he just stared at them.

“Lawkeepers,” he said. “Is there a problem?”

Gilan tried to pick up what he could from the man’s demeanour, but he could see nothing that suggested guilt or innocence. “Our colleague has been murdered in his bunk,” he said.

If he’d hoped for a reaction, he got the opposite. The captain went very still, his eyes fixed on them. He remained that way for three heartbeats, then suddenly stood.

“I have a killer on board?” he demanded.

“So it seems,” Gilan replied. “Will you give me leave to investigate?”

“Of course.” Now the captain did not hesitate. “You may use my cabin as your office. I will help you in any way I can. Do you suspect someone?”

“We suspect everybody at this point,” Gilan said. “Some of the sailors will be able to establish that they were on the deck, but apart from that we have our work cut out.”

“Very well. I will have a space cleared for you here, and in the meantime I will inform the mate that he is to extend you every courtesy as long as it does not imperil the ship.”

The captain left them.

“He seems most accommodating,” Diara said. In her mouth it sounded like an accusation.

“Yes.” Gilan walked over to where the captain had been sitting and looked at the book that had been in his hand. It was a treatise on navigation, and while it was not in the least incriminating it did lend credence to what the mate had told them. The captain wasn’t much of a captain.

“We should talk to the other passenger,” Diara said.

Gilan opened the book. “Perhaps,” he said. The pages were filled with closely written script, diagrams, tables of numbers.

“If it’s one of them, one of the six, then he must have come aboard late. The captain said the other passenger came on board last night.”

He closed the book and looked at her. She was right of course. They would have to ask the mate which of the crewmen and passengers had only just come aboard. Ifan’s death might be unconnected with the purpose of their trip to Pek, but the chance of that seemed vanishingly small.

“How would anyone know that we were going to be on board this ship?” he asked.

Diara shrugged. “Coincidence.”

“I don’t think so. I think our passage on this ship was predicted, which means that someone knew that we would be going to Pek.” He looked down at the deck. “Zumaran,” he said.

“The weapon dealer?”

“Aye, who else, but I wouldn’t have thought it of him.”

“Perhaps he had no choice.”