Ch. 113 The People on the Ship

Chapter 113: The People on the Ship

The little boy’s name was Evin.

His mother repeated it twice before Cael heard her through the noise of the gate hall.

Then the healer bent close enough that she no longer had to raise her voice.

“Evin,” he said. “And yours?”

“Rona.”

“All right, Rona. Come with me.”

She followed him with the child held tightly against her chest.

Behind her, a girl carrying a bundle of clothes stopped at the threshold.

She looked back.

A man on the Orselle side lifted one hand.

“Go with your mother.”

The girl crossed.

Only then did he step through himself.

I moved aside to let them pass.

For the next quarter of an hour, that became my principal duty.

We did not bring all thirty-seven passengers into the infirmary.

Ilyen examined those who needed care.

Their families stayed nearby.

The others remained in Orselle while Tamsin arranged food, dry rooms, and somewhere to put the possessions they had carried across the sea.

Four patients came to Greykeep.

Two children.

An elderly man whose leg had swollen badly during the crossing.

A woman who could walk only with help.

Soren accompanied the last of them down the passage.

His hands were steady.

Evelyn stood beside Helena, asking the families whom they needed kept together.

Mary wrote the answers.

Nobody asked what work they could do.

That could wait.

The ship’s captain arrived after the patients had been settled.

He was a broad man named Dorran, with a red mark across his nose where the sun had found the gap beneath his hat.

Tamsin brought him to the little council room.

He remained standing.

“I should explain the change of destination.”

“Sit down first,” Evelyn said.

He sat.

Mary placed a cup before him.

Dorran stared at it for a moment.

Then drank half without stopping.

“We were bound for Merrow’s Reach,” he said. “South along the mainland after the islands.”

I glanced at Mary.

She wrote the port’s name carefully.

“Why Orselle?” I asked.

“The boy worsened. One of my crew had heard the old gate was open. Said there were healers here.”

He looked toward the window.

“Then we saw the light.”

For a moment, I said nothing.

Evelyn’s hand found mine beneath the table.

Dorran set down the cup.

“I decided we could argue about freight afterward.”

The passengers came from an island called Veylan.

It lay beyond the eastern route marked on our coastal chart.

Dorran had called there for wool, dried fruit, and several crates of household tools intended for sale on the mainland.

He had found people waiting at the quay instead.

“They had paid for passage with another master,” he said. “His vessel never came.”

“Why were they leaving?” Evelyn asked.

Dorran shook his head.

“I heard several answers. You should ask them.”

That was sensible.

I appreciated it.

He rubbed a thumb along the cup’s rim.

“I took what I could carry. Left some cargo in a warehouse.”

“Were there others waiting?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“I didn’t count everyone in the harbor.”

He met my eyes.

“But more than thirty-seven.”

We spoke with the passengers the next afternoon.

By then, Evin’s breathing had eased enough that Rona had slept for several hours in the chair beside him.

The other child had asked for food.

The elderly man had begun disagreeing with Arwen about whether he required help standing.

She considered this encouraging, though she still made him accept the help.

We gathered in a room above Orselle’s harbor office.

The windows were open.

Below, people unloaded the ship.

Rona’s husband introduced himself as Jerrit.

He had worked as a mason on Veylan.

Beside him sat a woman named Sive, who kept accounts for several households, and an older fisherman called Pell.

They had agreed to speak for the group.

The others could add whatever they wished.

Mary laid out her paper.

I asked them why they had left.

The first answer was water.

A winter storm had damaged the lower cisterns.

Salt had entered several wells near the shore.

The island’s upper spring still ran, but the road to it crossed land held by a local lord.

“He began charging for the carts,” Jerrit said.

“For using the road?”

“That was what the notice said.”

Sive opened a cloth packet.

Inside were folded receipts.

“The charge changed twice.”

She placed them on the table.

“Then the grain boats came late. Then the price of bread went up.”

“Was there no repair work?” Evelyn asked.

Jerrit looked at his hands.

“There was work.”

“Paid?”

“For some.”

He drew a breath.

“If you couldn’t pay for grain or water, you could sign for labor against it.”

Mary’s pen stopped briefly.

“Against a stated debt?”

Sive gave a small, humorless smile.

“The debt was stated.”

“And the end of the labor?”

“That was less clear.”

Pell leaned forward.

“Not everyone there is starving.”

He said it firmly.

As though he had been waiting for someone to mistake the whole island for a single miserable place.

“Some houses have sound tanks. Some villages farther inland were hardly touched. People helped us where they could.”

I nodded.

“Then why did these families leave?”

He looked toward Jerrit.

The mason answered.

“They put our names on the next work list.”

“Whose names?”

“Mine. My wife’s.”

His fingers tightened together.

“And our daughter’s.”

I remembered the girl at the gate carrying the clothes.

“How old?”

“Eleven.”

Evelyn became very still beside me.

Sive moved one of the papers forward.

“This is a copy of the notice.”

Mary read it.

Then passed it to us.

The wording concerned households with outstanding obligations.

It did not distinguish adults from children.

I wanted a simple answer.

A name.

A door.

Someone close enough to make explain himself.

Instead, there was an island beyond a stretch of sea I had never crossed, a damaged water system, several villages, and people still waiting beside a quay.

I read the notice again.

“What happened when you refused?”

Jerrit looked at me.

“We left before they came to collect us.”

“Were you forbidden to leave?”

“No,” Sive said. “Not in writing.”

Pell’s mouth tightened.

“Boats carrying workers have been turned back for inspection.”

“Did that happen to you?”

“No. Dorran sailed with the evening tide.”

I placed the notice on the table.

Outside, someone called for a rope.

The ordinary sounds of the harbor continued beneath us.

We did not promise to settle the island’s troubles in that room.

We promised the families would not be sent back against their will.

We promised care for the sick.

We asked what they wanted next.

That question took longer than the others.

Several had relatives on the mainland.

One family still hoped to reach their original destination.

Others had spent so long thinking about leaving that arrival had become difficult to imagine.

Jerrit looked toward the door.

“Could we wait until Evin is well?”

“Yes,” Evelyn said.

“Before deciding?”

“Yes.”

His shoulders lowered.

Sive gathered the papers, then paused.

“Would you keep copies?”

Mary nodded.

“With your permission.”

“You have it.”

On the way home, I said very little.

Evelyn walked beside me through the gate hall.

When we reached the quieter passage beyond it, she stopped.

“You’re thinking about going.”

“Yes.”

“To Veylan?”

“Yes.”

She looked at me for a while.

“To do what?”

I opened my mouth.

Closed it.

That was the difficulty.

She took my hand.

“I’m not saying we should leave them there.”

“I know.”

“But we need to know what would help before we arrive with you angry and everyone else frightened.”

I looked down at our joined hands.

“I am angry.”

“So am I.”

She said it quietly.

That made me listen.

We went to the nursery before supper.

Garrick lay on the blanket, gripping his fish.

Carol had rolled onto her stomach and appeared to be considering what to do about it.

I sat beside them.

Evelyn lowered herself onto the rug.

For a while, we did nothing except help our daughter free one arm and retrieve the fish our son had flung beyond his reach.

Then I told my wife what I could not stop thinking about.

“The girl carried all their clothes.”

Evelyn nodded.

“I saw.”

“She waited for her father to tell her to go.”

“Yes.”

I rested my hand beside Garrick.

He caught one finger.

“I don’t know how people look at a child and see work owed.”

My wife leaned against me.

Neither of us found anything else to say for a while.

The following morning, we called a smaller council.

Eliza.

Mary.

Beatrice.

Garrick.

Tamsin joined us from Orselle.

We put the passengers’ accounts beside Dorran’s.

Not every detail matched.

Some were things people had seen.

Others were things they had heard.

Mary marked the difference.

Tamsin knew two other captains who had called at Veylan recently.

She would ask them.

Sabine might know which mainland merchants supplied the island.

We could ask her too.

Beatrice studied the food estimates.

“We can feed the people already here.”

“And more?” I asked.

“Some. I need numbers before that becomes everyone.”

I nodded.

Eliza looked at the chart.

“If a vessel goes back, it should have a clear purpose and people who know the harbor.”

Dorran knew it.

So did his crew.

We sent for him.

The captain listened without interrupting.

We asked whether he would carry a healer and supplies to Veylan.

Whether he would take messages from the families.

Whether he would bring back people who wished to leave, within what his ship could safely carry.

He leaned back.

“I can do that.”

“What would you need?”

“Payment for the voyage. Space kept clear for passengers on the return. And agreement that I turn away if the harbor becomes unsafe.”

“You’ll have it,” I said.

He studied me.

“You won’t be aboard?”

“Not on this voyage.”

The answer cost more than I expected.

Evelyn’s hand rested briefly against my knee beneath the table.

Dorran nodded.

“Then I’ll speak with my crew.”

Arwen volunteered before we asked.

Cael objected to the word volunteered only because she had announced it while he was still reading the request.

“You’ve seen the patients,” she said. “You can tell me what to watch for.”

“It may be a difficult crossing.”

“I’ve had difficult Tuesdays.”

Nessa folded her arms.

“You’ll need an assistant.”

“One who can keep records.”

“And listen.”

Arwen looked offended.

“I listen.”

“When convenient.”

We arranged for one of the older apprentices to accompany her, subject to the apprentice’s own agreement.

Soren prepared what supplies they could spare.

Cael wrote a letter to any healer willing to speak with them on the island.

Arwen packed the next day.

The duck stayed.

Beatrice was informed before it could become a question.

I went to see Evin before the ship sailed.

He was awake.

Rona sat beside him while his sister drew on a slate borrowed from the school.

The boy watched me enter.

“Are you the king?”

“Yes.”

He considered this.

“Mother said you have babies.”

“Two.”

“Do they cry?”

“Sometimes together.”

His expression softened into sympathy.

“That’s bad.”

“It can be.”

Rona laughed for the first time since I had met her.

Her daughter looked up from the slate.

Then she held it toward me.

She had drawn their house.

A low roof.

Three windows.

A tree beside the door.

“Can the captain take this to my aunt?”

I looked at her mother.

Rona nodded.

“Yes,” I said. “We’ll put it with your message.”

The girl studied the drawing once more.

Then added two small figures beside the house.

Dorran’s ship left on a clear morning.

I stood on the quay with Evelyn, Tamsin, and the families who had messages aboard.

Arwen leaned over the rail.

“If anyone lets that bird into the medicine cupboard, I’ll hear about it.”

Nessa, beside us, raised one hand.

A promise.

Or a threat.

The distinction seemed unnecessary.

The ropes came aboard.

The ship moved slowly away from the quay.

I watched until the space between hull and stone had become too wide to cross without thought.

Evelyn took my hand.

Out beyond the harbor, the lighthouse waited on its headland.

By nightfall, it would be burning again.

This time, I would know some of the people hoping to see it on their way home.