Watson, Ian - Black Current 01 (30 page)

 
          
I
was to transfer to the black ketch immediately. Departure time was set for a
day hence.

 
          
So
out to the moored ketch I was rowed by an apprentice, the oars dabbling like
ducks on a pond. As our rowboat neared the ketch, a face peered over the
gunwale: a face as ruddy as the sun through morning mist, a red orb topped with
straw—and the sun rose a little in my heart.

 
          
"Peli!
Peli, it's you!" I cried.

 
          
A
moment later I was scrambling up the ladder, boarding. Peli from Aladalia! The
water-wife with the warbling voice!

 
          
For
five seconds we simply stared at one another. Then Peli cried.

           
''Why, let me take a look at
you!" and did just the opposite, rushing to embrace me and thump me about
the shoulders to check that I was solid. I laughed and laughed; so did she.

 
          
"Oh,
it's so good to see you!" I gasped, when we untangled. "But what are
you
doing
here? Surely you haven't
been stuck in Tambimatu ever since—"

 
          
"What,
faithfully dragging the river for your body? No fear! Mind, I gave that skinny
bitch what-for.
The one who wanted you overboard.
Don't know if you heard me. . . ."

 
          
"I
was
a bit busy at the time . . . No,
but I did hear you cry out. And I felt your fingers trying to save me."

 
          
"Bless
you, when 1 saw you leap on this gunwale and scuttle along the boom!"

 
          
"Did
you sail to the current again, this Eve past?"

 
          
"No,
I was in Ajelobo. The guild summoned me here. I'd been with you last time,
that's why.
Thoughtful of them, eh?
The
crumb of comfort.
Some of the other 'sisters who'll be with us,
they
sailed to the head this time. And I
can tell you they're definitely a better bunch than that tight-nosed lot
we
had. The only fly in the ointment is
old Nothing-Bothers-Me—she's the skipper."

 
          
"I
know. I've just come from her office. She's been working overtime, welding me
a wedding costume. It sure looks tight. That old worm had better not put me in
the way of a baby."

 
          
Peli
laughed, and caught my hand to admire the diamond ring. "Is this the
wedding band? Won't the worm have a job slipping it on? He's a bit on the fat
side."

 
          
"Oh Peli!
Same old Peli.
I
bought the ring to make me feel good.
Something
has to. Well,
you
do.
Being here."

 
          
"Hmm, not completely the same old Peli.
Bit bothered,
in fact.
About Aladalia.
I was down there in the
summer, and now what's going on?" She sighed—but then her sun shone
brightly again.
"Oh, the hell with that.
You've
got enough worries for six people. And six just happens to be the number of the
crew. Come meet your 'sisters!"

 
          
They
were indeed a much better bunch. Three of them—Delli, Marth and Sal—had just
sailed to the head and the midstream. Laudia and Sparki were veterans from way
back who had been in Tambimatu when events, also, came to a head.

 
          
Laudia
was a boatmistress and Sparki her boatswain. These two had been together a long
time. Laudia was as blonde and elegant as Tamath, though with none of Tamath's
ambitious insecurity. Sparki was dusky, diminutive and peculiarly boy-like.
Peculiar, in the sense that the current hadn't thought so when she
drank her slug of it.
Sparki looked just the sort of person I thought
the current weeded out: like a boy who had run away to the river in girl's
clothes—as in one daft romance I once read, written without any knowledge of
the actual facts.

 
          
Plainly
enough
this bosom couple were
the two individuals on
board most trusted by the guild; on account of their love of the river and love
of each other, which were intertwined. The way of the river was the bond of
their relationship; I could tell that from a dozen touches and tones of voice. Lose
one; loosen the other?
Perhaps.
So Laudia and Sparki
could be relied on to do whatever the guild required. At least I felt sure they
wouldn't behave like martinets.

 
          
Five.
And Peli made six.
Me, seven.

 
          
Only,
I wasn't crew; I was something else. I was the bucket to dip in the current's
jaws.

 
          
After
our supper of pork stew and rice that evening, we drank delicious strong green
tea: Tambi-mate. In its storage jar Tambi- mate looked like a dollop of the
local puree, dried. Generous wads were infused in boiling water in individual
glass tumblers with real silver caps. Then you sucked the liquid through a thin
metal pipe; and quite hard you had to suck, too. Sal, herself from Tambimatu,
did the honours. The drinks set was hers, presented by proud parents when she
was chosen for the New Year's Eve trip.

 
          
We
drank quite a few glasses, getting a queer untea-like buzz from the drink, a
buzz quite different from tipsiness. This was a clear-headed bright elation,
accompanied by a slight anaesthetizing of the body so that after a time I
couldn't tell whether I'd had enough to eat, too much, too little, or nothing; and
I didn't care which. If only I'd had a jar of Tambi-mate with me a year
earlier! It was perfect for someone lost in a jungle, with only grubs and roots
to eat, and keep down. Though I'm not sure quite how I would have heated the
water. . . .

 
          
"Will
you sign your glass?" asked Sal, after the fourth or fifth infusion.

 
          
"Eh?"

 
          
"Your glass.
Sign it with that diamond.
Delighted to see you supporting local crafts, by the way!"

 
          
''You
want me to scratch my moniker on this glass because I bought a jewel in
town?"

 
          
"No, of course not!
I want you to do it because
there'll be songs sung about you in future years, and tales told."

 
          
"If
there are, let's hope I get the chance to write them, or else they'll be a pack
of lies."

 
          
"You
will. I know you will! In fact, start scribing now: your name, I mean."
Sal giggled. "Please!
For luck."

 
          
"Go
on," urged Delli.

 
          
"Well,
okay then." Feeling rather peculiar about this—and realizing that I hadn't
escaped ceremonies after all—I tucked the glass into my lap and inscribed
"Yaleen" as legibly as I could.

 
          
Sal
held the glass up to the lantern to admire, tilting it about; she had to, to
make any sense of the spidery scratches against the sodden leaves within.

 
          
"I've
spoilt it, haven't I?"

 
          
"Oh no!
Absolutely not! I'll treasure this."

 
          
I
felt light and euphoric. "It's my glass gravestone," I joked.
"Will you put flowers in it if I die?"

 
          
She
grinned. "No, but I'll drink Tambi-mate from it.
All my
days."

 
          
A
while later, Peli blinked repeatedly as if to bring a bright idea into focus.
"Yaleen, I've been meaning to ask: why
did
the current call you, a year ago? It wasn't objecting to you, otherwise you'd
be dead. So what was special about
you?
I don't mean that as a put- down—"

 
          
"No,
no, you're right!" She was, too. It seems astonishing in retrospect, but
I had never actually asked myself this. I took it for granted, because it had
happened to
me.
Like everyone else I
was the heroine of my own life, the centre of the universe
et cetera.
Why shouldn't something extraordinary steer itself my
way?

 
          
"Maranda
wondered about that," volunteered Laudia.

 
          
"What, old Nothing-Bothers-Me?"

 
          
"That
would bother her. She's been
presiding over the annual trip for years. So when she heard you'd come back
from the West, and hadn't been driven mad and drowned, she started puzzling.
And she came up with an answer. You were very young to be honoured, Yaleen. I
don't know why! Not quite two years on boats, and there you were sailing to the
current—"

 
          
"I
could tell you why, but it's a long story, full of junglejack festivals and. .
. ." (And fungus drugs. Better not tell it after all. . . .)

 
          
"Let's
just ascribe it to your sterling qualities, eh?"

 
          
"Um.
Right.
Qualities now in
demand again . . . But what's the answer?"

 
          
"That
you'd drunk the current more recently than anyone else who ever made the New
Year's Eve trip. So maybe that's why it called you.
Because
you were more in tune with it."

 
          
"More in time?
That doesn't figure. The current can
call a girl who fails her initiation, from a whole league away! It can call a
man who tries to travel twice—"

 
          
"It
can't
talk
to them, only craze them
and destroy them. That's why Maranda is bringing a fresh slug of the current on
board tomorrow: some of the new vintage for you to drink. Plus some left over
from last year, in case this year's has something wrong with it."

 
          
"Oh,
shit! Look, I got through the current again just a bit ago. I probably
swallowed dribbles and dribbles of it."

 
          
"But
did it talk to you? Maybe it couldn't quite reach you."

 
          
"Maybe
it couldn't be bothered."

 
          
"So
another slug or so should time you up nicely."

 
          
"Time
me up, indeed!" I swung round. "Peli, dear Peli," I begged,
"give us all a real tune."

 
          
"Okay."
And Peli gave voice.

 
          
Now,
this might have been unkind if we had just sat and listened, grinning within.
But we didn't. We all joined in; and not simply to drown Peli out. For the song
was that irresistible one:

 
          
Under
the bright blue sun
 
River-run, river-run!

 
          
Under
the stars on high
 
Sails fly, sails fly!

 
          
Under the masts so tall . . .

 
          
Presently
Sal held up the signed glass again, canting it to catch the light. "Our
boat ought to have a naming, too!"

 
          
"Why
not?" agreed Marth. "Fat lot of use Old Nameless'll be if the current
never comes back."

 
          
"What
name does the current need to heed?" Delli thumped the bulkhead.
"Boat, I name thee
Yaleen!"

           
"I'll go one better/' promised
Sal, "I'll paint
Yaleen
on the
prow tomorrow."