Spindle Fire (Spindle Fire #1)(27)
The echo of lifeboats rattling along the ship’s sides greeted them as they boarded. She was surprised by how many deckhands there were, and unsettled by the fishy, oil-lantern stench mixed with manly sweat.
Now, as she turns to make her way below decks, the odor increases. She has spent most of the day trying to stay out of the way of the experienced hands, listening to the thunk of oil barrels in the cargo hold and the thickly accented calls of the sailors in a language she barely recognizes as her own—avast and abaft, dead rise and draft—wishing she could participate, but knowing how dangerous it would be to get in the way of a swinging beam or changing sail. And the last thing she needs is to draw unwanted attention. She must not jeopardize her goal of reaching William of Aubin safely.
At her request, Gil described the various spears and daggers strapped to the wall. The voulges she’d heard of—they resemble a meat cleaver but with a longer handle—and the ranseur too, tridentlike with short sides. At the helm sits one foreign weapon that neither Gil nor Isbe recognize: a giant spear that springs forward like an arrow, but with a long rope attached to the end.
She can tell from the quiet now that the decks are mostly cleared, save a few sailors who will man the ship through the darkest hours. Though she dreads another night in the crowded, low-ceilinged cabin below, the air thick with grunts and snores and the scurrying of rats, she knows that, come sunrise, they’ll be within rowing distance of Aubin’s shores.
Unused to the violence of the waves, she fumbles for ropes and beams to guide her—ten paces to the hatch, seven rungs down the ladder. Belowdecks, no one can stand to his full height, and certainly not Isbe, who is as tall as many of the men and feels a bruise forming on her forehead to prove it. She ducks, using her hands to trace the rough-hewn sides of the narrow bunks until another hand wraps around hers, silently indicating for her to stop.
It’s Gilbert, already lying in his bunk. Even out at sea, he still smells faintly of leather and fresh hay. She climbs onto the hard bunk below his. Though she’d hate to admit it, there’s no way she could make this journey alone . . . she can’t even find her own bed without help.
Her bones hurt. Her head feels heavy, her body tight and cramped. She longs for an open field to ride through, for the earth’s quantity of steadiness. And for peace of mind. Every night Isbe has been turning over her plan and the many ways it might go wrong. Getting into the palace shouldn’t be hard. Traders and messengers are constantly coming and going, and Isbe knows her way around a palace. But what if she’s stopped before gaining conference with the prince himself? Or what if he rejects her plea? What if he agrees to help but it’s already too late? Gil was right—this is a foolish, wild mission.
The vessel creaks and groans. Waves beat against it. Sleep undulates around her, a dark water.
. . . Arms are rocking her. A voice sings. One night so mild, before break of morn. The words are in her blood, thrumming in her ears—except part of her remains awake, aware that the words to the famous lullaby about Belcoeur and Malfleur usually say “reviled,” not “so mild.”
Still the song goes on, swirling around her: Amid the roses wild, all tangled in thorns, the shadow and the child together were born. She is cradled. She is small. She is warm, helpless, held. But then the voice, soft and not quite recognizable, changes key.
The girl and her twin
As sisters did play
’Til darkness did win
The light from the day.
Isbe tosses in her sleep. That isn’t the version of the lullaby she knows—the version everyone knows. The meaning of the new words swims inside her, confusing her. It’s not entirely different, but the phrases have been rearranged and altered in her dream. Play . . . the two girls are playing. That’s not part of the original song. How does it usually end? One her dear twin forever did slay.
Tears fall on her skin. She is rocked, cradled, dreaming but not dreaming. Something in the voice. Who is singing? Mama, Isbe wants to cry out, but she cannot speak, and the desire rips through her chest, a stabbing pain.
Isabelle, the voice sighs. My sweet Isabelle. My sweet . . .
“Leopold. LEOPOLD. ISBE!”
Gil is hovering over her as she wakes; she can feel his breath on her cheek. He is shaking her, addressing her with the fake boy’s name they decided on.
The world around her convulses. Even in the roiling cabin, she can smell that it is still night. She can only have been asleep an hour or two. But the sailors are rustling and shouting and moving about, clambering up the ladder. Is it a storm?
She sits up, banging her head against the upper bunk. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know. Come on,” Gil says, pulling her up.
They stumble toward the ladder. Isbe’s whole body is shaking with excitement. And something else too—the memory of that dream, that voice. She hasn’t had a mother dream in years, but she used to have them a lot. They always leave her feeling light-headed and hot. She never before realized how strange it was that there are two separate versions of the rose lullaby: the one everybody knows, and the one she just heard in her dream. Her mother, whoever she was, must have sung her own version to Isbe as a baby. Maybe she simply didn’t like the gruesome nature of the original.
A sound of clattering rings out above, as though the twenty men have tripled. Her hands grip the rungs. She hears the captain hollering to the rest: “A pod! ’Sa whole host of ’em, an nars too!”