The Unfinished Land Page 5

  And Guldreth shared her bed and energy with other human lovers. Mysterious how those relations were maintained!

  And of course there was this red-haired boy, another mystery, who aroused something even more untoward within the youngest Eater in the Ravine. Something that could never be, for in her brief sampling, Valdis saw that this boy had been touched by a being even more mysterious than Guldreth or Calybo, perhaps more mysterious than the Crafters or Hel herself.

  A man with a white shadow.

  Cardoza Rising

  * * *

  MANUEL NUDGED HIM with a sandaled foot. “It is done, for now,” the old man said.

  Reynard rolled to see pale yellow light brushing the far tops of the tallest trees, divided by distant shadows—hills behind the forest. The sky lightened in the east, over the far promontory, and dawn spread a slow golden glow along the bellies of the clouds, which parted and seemed to rise and dissipate, as if swept by a gigantic hand. A great dome of pale blue cast beach and forest in cool, tempered light.

  Manuel toed him again. “Wake whilst there is still food. The soldiers strip the ship and eat their fill.” He reached into his mouth again and wriggled a tooth between two dirty fingers. “Scurvy,” he said. “We arrive none too soon.”

  Reynard examined him closely. Manuel had always seemed ancient-old, but now he looked younger, straighter, with thicker shoulders, and even—could it be?—happier.

  A sailor descended the ramp closest to the galleon’s bow and spoke to the boys. Reynard recognized this burly man from his first hours on the ship. He had been the one who locked the cage. Now he seemed grayer, less burly, and stooped. The cabin boys, only children the night before, were taller but skeletal, as if they had grown overnight without benefit of food.

  “He watched last night from the rail and saw folk with glassy white hair and shiny skin move amongst us,” Manuel said in a low voice. “So he telleth them, ‘We have been visited by glass people.’ He saith they touched thee, boy. But thou hast not changed.”

  “You are th’one who’s changed!” Reynard said in accusation.

  “It is obvious already.” Manuel squinted, wiggled his tooth again, then pulled it out and threw it aside. “The scurvy still taketh its toll. For me, boy, another night comes not soon enough.”

  “Who are you?” Reynard asked, fascinated but frightened.

  “Who are we, boy?” Manuel responded. “Thou’st know what the glass people speak?”

  Reynard glared, then shook his head.

  The cabin boys lay down as a group on the shingle, like beached fish, so still and pale, no longer boys but adolescents, and not looking at all well.

  Cardoza removed his mare from under the tent, then mounted her, taking command despite her skittish protests. el capitán told el maestro and the soldiers that now it was light, he would do reconnaissance, but the horse spun and sprayed sand and gravel. Two soldiers managed to grab her halter, and Cardoza descended stiffly, as if he ached all over. True enough, his beard was streaked with gray and his brown hands were wrinkled and marked with ropy rivers of veins. What was happening here? Had time fled in the deep night for all but Manuel?

  For all but Manuel—and possibly himself?

  Angry, el capitán gathered up five soldiers, those who still seemed strong enough to follow his orders, and took a crossbow from one. He vowed he would hunt for game and find a refuge from this haunted beach, not to stay here another evening. el capitán’s small band followed him into the forest.

  That left el maestro, most of the soldiers, and the sailors to fend for themselves. Many returned to the galleon.

  Manuel got up to fetch the last of the moldy rice. “Hunting is dangerous here. But no matter. We have blacksmithing to do. Eat what the sailors leave us. Eat what thou canst.”

  A few hours later, as the day warmed and the sun overtopped the promontory, Cardoza returned with a half-satisfied look and a limp deer—a kind of buck with a broad nose and mossy antlers.

  Manuel stopped Reynard from hammering out more shoes. “In Iceland, they call that hreindyr,” he said. “Here, ’tis not eaten without permission.”

  “Permission from who?” Reynard asked. “How is it you know so much?”

  Manuel squinted again.

  The cook was already cleaning and skinning the animal, and several boys, ravenous, huddled around the butchering. One ran up to the forge clutching a bloody chunk of heart, to steal embers for another fire. Manuel did not stop him.

  Cardoza mounted the head on a stick, as a kind of trophy.

  Soon a bit of meat was given to each of the sailors and soldiers, and walking between them, chewing on a thick, dripping slice of roast, el capitán seemed more at ease, more in control—more pleased with himself and his prospects. But still with an air of quiet fear.

  Within the hour, the animal had been consumed, even its bones cracked and sucked. None of it was given to Manuel and Reynard. The soldiers did not trust them, and Reynard was half convinced he knew why. Manuel’s appearance was scaring even him.

  “We must return to sea as soon as possible,” el maestro said, studying the sky through eyes wrapped in thick flesh. His lids seemed always ready for sleep, but Reynard saw the large man was no fool, and no lackey for el capitán, whatever his terms of service. He instructed Manuel and Reynard to pause on the horseshoes and start making brackets for a patch to the galleon’s hull.

  el capitán did not disagree. But he ordered another group of soldiers to prepare to move inland. Cardoza and el maestro walked off to discuss these matters, the very large man moving slowly, reluctantly. An argument followed. el capitán refused to delay his departure. Soon he ventured off again with a larger group of soldiers—perhaps sixty, Reynard guessed—leading the skittish horses by their reins. The beach was left to the sailors, el maestro, and around thirty soldiers.

  One of these, equipped with a loaded harquebus and a little tinder ready in an iron box, approached their small forge. Another with a saber approached from the opposite side, as if they wished to outflank Manuel and Reynard. The pair stopped their work on the brackets and closely studied the unhappy men.

  “El maestro quiere hablar contigo con ustedes,” said the soldier with the saber.

  Manuel led Reynard to the beach.

  el maestro sat on a barrel near the bow, in the shadow of the galleon, as sailors came and went on the ramps. The biggest man on the ship, he had lost a notable amount of his bulk in the night, but his hair showed just a shade grayer. He pointed to Manuel. “The English boy told us he knew this place.”

  “It was to make himself useful,” Manuel said. “He did not wish to be thrown overboard.”

  el maestro shrugged. “I know thee, Manuel. Thou art a sailor with much experience, not an easy man to deceive, and my little ears have heard thou speak’st to this boy as if ye wouldst share secrets.”

  Reynard did not want to learn too soon that they were about to be executed, and his mind wandered in a kind of self-defense to other matters—to an observation that there were no mosquitoes here, and no biting flies. And all the fleas and lice had died! Perhaps it was the wrong season. But it was summer, no? So where were the insects? Drake and other travelers had observed that the seasons reversed only as one moved south beyond the equator. Was there another equator as one sailed farther north?

  And what did the ship-crawling lobsters prey upon when they could not climb up on galleons? Were there other predators in the woods, natural predators, and not just spirits? Predators that resented hunters taking down their hreindyr . . .

  “What was it that visited us in the night?” el maestro asked Manuel. “These gente de vidrio.”

  “I do not know their names,” Manuel said.

  “Vampires, of a kind? I have read Lucius, Culo de Oro. I know of spirits who drink blood, but never of a land where they still live—except perhaps the Indies.”

  Reynard listened closely, trying to understand.

  “el capitán tells me this b
oy is Gitano, like thee. Is that true?”

  “I am not clear on his ancestry, or mine own, for that matter—but there are many such in Spain, and who can know?”

  “Hath this place an ancient Gypsy name, old man?”

  “Not that I am aware of.”

  “How about the boy? Would he know?”

  “Nor him,” Manuel said.

  “He nameth it ‘the land where the wind sleeps.’ Doth he still believe?”

  “That was my translation, señor. Clumsy at best.”

  Reynard said nothing.

  “Deceit and ignorance. How like Gitanos!” el maestro said. “I would soonest get back to sea. But el capitán doth wish to stay and find towns and people he can pillage. Since he never reached London and hath no victories to his name, he thinketh this could be his Mexico or Peru . . . But many died in those far lands, and I prefer to support his conquests from beyond . . . away from los vampiros and out from under those eagles—if they are birds at all. My ship hath had enough of large ambitions.”

  Manuel listened with a humble frown.

  el maestro spat in disgust. “Finish the hardware for the patch. Soon we will have felled enough of these damned trees to free my ship at high tide, or when the land doth breathe again. Thy choice will be stay with el capitán or go with my ship. But for now, thine only choice is to work.”

  Blunters

  * * *

  A SHOUTING ROSE at the tree line.

  Reynard and Manuel covered the fire and moved through a tightening crowd of unhappy sailors and cabin boys. In the middle of the gathering, ten or twelve paces off, they saw two middle-aged men with dark brown hair flanking a lone woman with a broad face, wide green eyes, and black hair, slightly younger—and all wearing leather jackets and pants. The three appeared healthy and strong and carried thick leather satchels.

  Soldiers surrounded this trio with half-pikes presented, but despite the ominous greeting, the newcomers surveyed the galleon’s complement with an alert equanimity, as if expecting anything, but assured they would prevail. The sailors and soldiers were exhausted and near panic, but el maestro urged all to maintain their wits. Here were people who might have answers.

  Manuel kept his eyes on the leather satchels.

  el maestro approached the newcomers with hands open and empty, though his sword and three knives were slung on his waist. They exchanged words Reynard could not hear at that distance, soldiers relieved them of their satchels, and el maestro then called for Manuel to come forward.

  The woman eyed the spiked head of the deer with apparent disgust, then spoke first—to Manuel. The old man glared a sharp warning at Reynard to stay silent, and shook his own head in response. The woman took a breath and tried again. This came out, Reynard thought, as Dutch or German, which Manuel knew well enough.

  “She says we should not be here,” Manuel translated. “And we should not have killed the deer. It belongs to important people and is forbidden.”

  “How sad,” the cook said, sure of el capitán’s favor.

  The woman spoke some more. Reynard heard and half understood only “Als wij nog een nacht willen leven.”

  “If we want to live another night,” Manuel translated for all, “we should return to our ship and go home.”

  el maestro said in passable Dutch that the ship had a great hole in one side, but they would soon have it patched.

  The woman now focused on Reynard, her brows knit, and called out, in English, with an Irish lilt, “Thou art not of them?”

  Reynard shook his head.

  “Thou hast come on a ship filled with weapons. Thy weapons?” She looked with a frown at the few soldiers in their armor and helmets, the sailors in homespun and canvas—all thin and wan. Desperate and afraid.

  “Not mine,” Reynard said.

  “What we learn is that there hath been a battle—a war,” the woman said. “Other ships packed with soldiers arrived in recent months. Maybe thy leader will find them out there, maybe not. Because of the Eaters, I think few remain. Fix thy ship. Get ye home whilst ye can.”

  “Chronophagos,” Manuel whispered to Reynard. “Eaters of time. For me, useful.”

  “Why art ye here?” el maestro asked them. “Why come to this beach? To spy?”

  “We blunt dragons,” the woman said, lifting her satchel. At a flick of el maestro’s finger, two soldiers took charge of the bag and emptied it, showing a mallet and a kind of chisel.

  el maestro raised a bushy brow.

  “This is the season their nymphs rise from the waves and hang in trees. We must find them and blunt them, spike the exitus, the ostium of their sacks, or when they split and emerge, they will fly free and kill and eat whom they will.”

  The soldiers returned the bag and the implements.

  “We saw them!” el maestro said. “Under the sea, following our ship—was it one also, hanging from a tree on the little island?”

  The woman nodded. “We have no time to waste.”

  el maestro took Manuel aside, and they spoke more.

  Manuel said, “el maestro tells me that one of these creatures visited us last night and grabbed up a dog.”

  The two men, keeping close to the woman, maintained a watchful silence.

  “He would also know about the Eaters of whom you speak. What is their food?” Manuel did not seem to be asking a question to which he, personally, required an answer.

  “They eat lives,” she said.

  “Are they vampires?” el maestro asked.

  “They care nothing for blood. It is thy time on Earth for which they hunger. From those protected by pact, they take only seconds or hours, from the sick conclusion or the strong middle of our days, as exchange for their protection, or as part of ritual. From such as thee”—and she looked sharp points at el maestro—“without protection, thou wilt lose young months and even years, night after night. They come again and again until thou fad’st to dust or leave.”

  The sailor who had watched from the boat told el maestro that the white forms had approached Manuel and the boy, the Gitanos, and touched them both, but they were either younger or no different. The sailors and soldiers regarded them with renewed fear and suspicion.

  “I, too, see no aging,” el maestro said. “Is it because they are Gitanos?”

  “No,” the woman said, and regarded Reynard with a strange sharpness, as if she feared him as well. She then looked off to the water. “We need to finish our work, and soon.”

  “Keep these three here,” el maestro said. “Do not let them leave. el capitán may need guides for his ventures inland.”

  Manuel suggested that was not wise. el maestro ignored him, and soldiers bound the trio and made them kneel on the beach. el maestro ordered them to bring two cages off the galleon, and the woman and men were roughly thrust into one. The burly sailor grinned as he locked them in. His gums were bleeding, and he had lost considerable hair and many teeth.

  “And these two, hold them in th’other,” el maestro said.

  Manuel and Reynard were locked in the second cage, some yards away. The burly sailor handled them roughly, his breath a stinking fume, and the other sailors and skinny boys murmured approval, while the soldiers studied the trees and the sky with apprehension.

  “It is not going well,” Manuel observed. “I doubt anyone here understands what is about to happen . . . Dost thou?”

  Reynard shook his head. He could feel odd and frightening tugs in his thoughts, even vague memories, but without shape, like forgotten dreams—and yet not his dreams, and not in the least connected to his short life. Perhaps he was still hearing, at a distance, the words his father and uncle, his mother and grandmother, had spoken, their stories, their legends. But he did not think so. The glassy-skinned woman had stared at him so strangely.

  Something new was being awakened, something he had never expected and most surely did not want, any more than he wanted to be lost at sea and stranded with Spaniards on a strange shore.

  An Adva
ncing Front

  * * *

  EL MAESTRO hath made plans to push the galleon from shore and return through the gyre,” Manuel said, his lips close to Reynard’s ear.

  The boy had again been dozing, if only to pass the time, and this woke him quickly. The light said it was late afternoon. He sat up blinking, and saw Manuel squatting beside him. They watched four sailors fasten the patch to the galleon’s side with bolts and nails and then caulk it with tar. Ten more sailors, accompanied by a ponderous, grumbling el maestro, surveyed the upper beach, poking sticks between the shingle and into the sand, perhaps to measure the tide from the night before.

  “Will the ship stay afloat?” Reynard asked.

  Manuel shook his head dubiously. “The wood here is unfaithful,” he said. “They will as like sink out beyond the breakers and become food for the big lobsters.”

  “Methinks they are not lobsters,” Reynard said.

  “Agreed,” Manuel said with a wink. “Dark doth sweep us soon. el capitán maketh preparation to move inland, away from the beach and the dog-eating dragons—and find places to hide from the glassy skins. The soldiers might kill me and thee before they go. Or they might think death awaiteth us here anyway, and why bother?”

  “They want to conquer? But they know nothing about the island . . . do they?”

  Manuel said, “Philip commandeth dominance—that, and the spread of the Inquisition. It is what they are trained to do. el capitán believeth he will never reach England, or even return to Spain, yet still feareth what Philip might think of him . . . as if the Spanish king learneth his exploits from a crystal ball.”

  “Doth he so study?”

  Manuel smiled. “Philip never so observed the islands named after him. I was there with Salcedo, in Manila, where the nao de la China load and take their name—Manila galleons. Philip did not learn the foolishness of his generals, and the valiant efforts of many priests, until he heard it from human lips—his own spies and officers. And so . . . no crystal ball.”