Page 9

Skedi sat back on his hind legs, spreading his wings with surprise. Sacrifices were illegal in Middren. But as the scent of the sea washed over him, clean and sharp as the edge of a knife, he realised they were no longer in Middren: they had passed Sakre’s harbour into open water.

‘Inara, Skediceth!’ called Lessa as she descended the swooping stairs to the alcove shrines. ‘Come!’

It was a command, not a question. Inara glanced up at Kissen, then at Skedi. His girl’s colours were dark and muddy, like forest shadows, edged with orange anger. But, at the idea of an offering, a small thrill of violet fluttered over her shades. A colour that Skedi associated with Lessa.

‘Go on then,’ said Kissen, releasing Inara with only a hint of reluctance. ‘I won’t be stopping you. Or them.’

Skedi jumped down from the bowsprit and onto Inara’s shoulder as, this time, she obeyed her mother’s call and hurried down the steep steps to the midships.

He kept himself small, his wings out to balance him as he thrilled with excitement.

He had seen the prayers of pilgrims over stones, had seen blood given to a god, but never a formal offering, never a ritual.

The ship’s bell rang, and the thirty-strong crew gathered around the shrines, whooping, clapping and dancing already as Lertes picked up the cockerel cage. The bird was a fine offering; its comb deep red, and brilliant green in its feathers.

‘My lady,’ the captain said, turning to Lessa, and the crew briefly quietened as he held out the cage to her. ‘It has been my pride to captain this vessel since your business drew you to land, but the sea has missed you.’ He smiled. ‘We have missed you.’

Several of the crew cheered, and the rest joined in from where they had gathered. A faint flush rose to Lessa’s cheeks, despite herself.

‘The Silverswift was always yours,’ said Lertes, ‘and always will be.’ He didn’t lack sincerity, Skedi could see that, but there was a tug of reluctance in his colours, an undertow of foggy grey.

After thirteen years, how could he not see the ship as his own?

But this ritual was itself an offering, a truce.

Captain to lady, equal to equal. ‘Please, do us the honour of making our offerings.’

Lessa put her hand on the cage with a touch of shyness, strange for someone who could stare down a king. Skedi tipped his head; by human reckoning, she was quite young. Perhaps only a few years Kissen’s senior. She must have been very young when she had borne Inara.

‘The honour is mine, captain,’ she said, then perhaps recognised the roughness of her voice, the sadness in her bearing, and stood straighter.

She reached to the door of the cage, and in a swift movement, unhooked it and grabbed the rooster by the neck.

It flapped and shrieked, but she held it at arm’s length, unflustered. ‘My blood still runs with salt.’

She lifted the bird to the crew of the Silverswift , then added loudly, ‘And so does my daughter’s!’

Inara tensed beneath Skedi’s paws, her heartbeat quickening. The crew began to clap and hum again, then Aleda started singing:

‘ Good wind, good trade,

Safe haven do we crave

Strong sails, full hearth

Our home ’ cross the waves. ’

The tune was surprisingly sweet, and the colours of the crew intensified with the music.

Skedi watched their shades drift out of their bodies, prayers on gossamer threads.

But, instead of floating towards whatever god they loved, the colours instead bound themselves to the cockerel: the offering itself.

A breath, a flash, and Lessa drew her knife and struck the blade across the bird’s neck.

Blood gushed out, warm and wet on the fresh-scrubbed decks, tainting the salt-air with copper scent.

The bird’s legs jerked and danced, and Inara reached a hand up to Skedi, digging her fingers into his fur.

She would be trying not to see Tarin in the flash of knives, the rush of red that had stained Lessa’s hands as the bird’s did now.

But the rest of them had moved on. How much blood had they seen on this ship for one more death to mean nothing to them? Looking satisfied, the captain took an offering cup from the first shrine with the bird totem of stone, then held it beneath the stream of blood.

And the colours of the crew poured with it into the vessel: hopes, wishes, faith. Skedi licked his lips, but it was not for him. Never for him. He had to control this longing, or it would consume him. Aleda’s singing changed as the cup filled, and the others joined her.

‘ Give us blood in the cup

Put feathers in our hair

Fill the sails with fairest winds

As we make your prayer. ’

They repeated the ritual at the second shrine, Lertes with the cup, Lessa with bird, and the blood with the shining colours that only gods could see. Energy. Life. It was borne through the blood into the shrine, filling it with power.

‘ Good trade, open hands

Friendly shores, wealth unplanned

Give us barter, give us measure

Bless our raft and give us treasure. ’

Lessa paused as the final cup was held out. Yusef’s cup. Safe Haven. Inara’s mother looked over at her, her hands still wet with blood, the bird held just so, so the last of it wouldn’t tip out.

‘Daughter,’ she said. ‘Come.’

The crew all turned, their humming continuing, the song in pause, to look at Inara and Skedi.

Go on, said Skedi and she stepped forward, going to her mother, to the bleeding bird, to the shrine of her father.

‘Left pocket,’ said Lessa, nodding down at her jacket.

Skedi felt the lady’s eyes on him, bright and dark, much darker than the soft amber-brown of her daughter’s. Inara reached her hand into her mother’s pocket, stilled, and pulled out a small object.

‘What is it?’ said Skedi out loud, his wings aching with curiosity.

Inara opened her hands, and within them lay a small soapstone statue, carved and polished in the shape of a hare. A hare with a deer’s antlers, and an owl’s wings.

Engraved on its base was his name: Skediceth.

It was him. A totem … for him. Skedi’s fur stood on end.

‘It belongs with Yusef,’ said Lessa. ‘Tarin … had it made for you.’

Inara looked up at her, perhaps seeking to identify some emotion, but Lessa had already looked away towards the shrine.

Still, despite the uncertainties, despite everything she had lost, a brightness broke through Inara’s colours, vivid green and peach, then perfect citrine.

Joy. Joy for him. She looked up at Skedi and smiled, then went to the central shrine, and carefully placed his totem at the feet of the great god.

Skedi couldn’t speak … he opened his wings, lifted his ears and stood, looking to Lessa as she once again tipped the bird, and filled the last vessel with its blood offering for their voyage.

‘For wind, for fortune, for haven,’ she said. ‘And for the promises and the precious white lies we will tell to get us there.’

‘ To safest haven

Through heartfelt lies,

To brighten hopes,

And bless our skies. ’

Lertes placed the cup in the shrine, and the colours of the crew filled it, filled Skedi, brightening him with new life, new energy.

He grew to his true size, the size of a hare, leaping up to put his paws on Inara’s head and look to the people who prayed to him, their hands beating, their colours shining.

‘To a god in our midst!’ cried Aleda, and the crew cheered from mid decks to crow’s nest. Skedi lifted his head, trying not to look towards Kissen, who was not cheering, not speaking, only watching.

The ritual was not over. The cook whipped the cockerel out of Lessa’s hands and Lertes slammed his own knife into a beribboned barrel, cracking it open.

Out washed a bitter, herby scent. Crew pulled cups and bowls from pockets, binders, belts and bustiers, driving them into the barrel and bringing them back brimfull.

Each poured a tot onto the deck to mingle with the blood as a second offering, then took a half of greenling distributed by Rhiyande.

Inara wrinkled her nose as she was offered the sour fruit, but followed in squeezing the greenling into the hipgin and taking a raw sip as the songs turned more celebratory. Between sky and sails, crew and cloud, the colours astounded even Skedi’s eyes.

‘ Libations libations, for the gods and me

Greenlings, greenlings, to keep us hale and free

Hipgin for our bellies and some warming just for me

Blessings for our voyage on the sea, the sea, the sea. ’