Chapter 292
The kitchen glowing, the chalk tables lantern-lit, pilgrims asleep close to the stoves. Roffe at the cauldron. Aska on her stump, a little less grey than yesterday.
walking up the line in the dark with something wrapped in an old red pennant under his arm. His long grey beard. His battered hat. Not looking at anyone.
unwrapped on Aska's knees: a plank. Short, charred black, a fishing boat's plank, and on one end, burned but readable, carved letters: KETTLE.
laying her cracked palm on it. And going very still. Listening to it with Ash-Speak.
his jaw tight.
a long, long beat. Then turning to Roffe, at the cauldron.
Jeppson, shaking, chalking one last, wider table on the flat black crown of the branch above the kitchen. Roffe laying it: two bowls. Two spoons. Barley bread. Salt-cod stew, thick, with too much pepper. A jug of something dark.
standing at the head of the table with the charred plank in both hands. Both crews come up the branch behind her in the dark, quiet, keeping back.
On the black crown of the Burn, around Roffe's table: a patched little fishing boat, standing on the charcoal as if on water, whole, her red pennant flying, her sail patched in six colours, a brass bell at her bow that is, right now, also hanging on the Marka's bow far below. The table inside her, on her deck, between the thwarts.
At the tiller, nobody: Drekk is at the table.
And opposite him on the bench, elbows on the planks, a spoon already in her mouth: a huge woman, broad as a door, braids with salt in them, a chipped front tooth, the biggest grin in the world, an anchor on a chain propped against the gunwale behind her. Marka.
(Aska's count in the corner: 1.)
chewing, looking round her boat, at the stew, at the old man across the table, frowning at his beard.
He opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. He closes it. He picks up his spoon.
(No balloon.)
Drekk and Marka eating. Nothing else. She tears the bread in half and gives him the bigger half without looking. He pushes the pepper toward her. She laughs at something he hasn't said. He laughs too, a short bark, surprised at himself. She elbows him across the table. He elbows her back.
standing back in the dark with the crews, his hand pressed flat on his chest. Inside him, faint, a big laugh humming along.
standing beside the table with the jug, filling their cups, counting under his breath with Aska, 29… 30…, his face very calm and very wet.
at 34, looking down at her own bowl, then up at Drekk with the grin going soft at the edges. She knows. She doesn't say it.
on the table, and Marka's big rope-burned hand coming down over it, the way she'd put a hand on a tiller. Holding.
(Count: 41.)
not talking, not eating now, just sitting in a patched boat on a burning branch with their hands together on a table, the red pennant snapping over them.
(No balloon.)
at 52, glancing down the boat to where her anchor leans. Then past it, into the dark beyond the lanterns, where two crews stand in a crowd. Finding Vigolas in it. Giving him a nod: a captain's nod, a keep him nod.
at 56, turning back to Drekk, the grin all the way back, enormous.
at 58, picking up the bread. Eating it. Looking at her the whole time.
60. The Kettle burning: her pennant first, then her patched sail, then her hull, gold, gentle, all of her at once, and the big woman on the bench burning with it, still grinning, a hand still over his. And then just a charred plank lying across Roffe's table, and an old man alone on a bench with a bowl.
sitting very still, the half-eaten bread in his hand. Then finishing it. Every crumb.
(No balloon.)
setting the jug down at last and crying, finally, huge silent shaking sobs into his beard, his horn tasting-spoon wobbling.
grey again, new cracks at her temples, sitting down heavily on the edge of the table. Looking at the old man.
standing, picking up the charred plank, wrapping it back in the red pennant. Holding it out to Aska.
Drekk walking back down the branch through the crews, who part for him. Nobody says anything. Kompis falls into step on one side, Vigolas on the other. Mingus walks in front.
a hand still on his chest, smiling with his eyes shut.
The fires low. Roffe back at the cauldron, wiping his face on his apron, stirring. Pots ready for tomorrow: the great feeding. Everyone else drifting to sleep in heaps by the stoves.
where the lanterns stop. A tired man sitting on a black ridge in a patched coat and a scarf of a hundred armies. A bowl Roffe brought him beside him on the charcoal, untouched, cold. His jar under his arm.
looking across at him from the cauldron. At the cold bowl. Frowning.
a hand flat on the wax seal of the jar under his arm, looking at it the way you look at a door you've been afraid to open for a very long time.