‘Adventure arrives in all manner of guises, Captain. Had your ootooloo a brain, I am sure it would most avidly concur.’
‘But that’s the whole point about, er, desire. It’s mostly brainless. Most of the world’s tragedy is found in this one misunderstanding. We tie too much to it, you see. Things like loyalty and precious intimacy, love and possession, and sooner or later it all goes wrong. Why, I knew men – and I do mean “knew” – who’d come to me twice a week hungry for the brainless stuff, and afterwards they’d babble on about their wives.’
‘What would they tell you? Please, I must know.’
‘Starved for gossip, are you?’
‘The palace seems terribly far away at the moment.’
‘Just so, Highness. Well. Some would tell me about all the sorcery of love being gone between them, the embers of desire cold as stone now. Others would complain about how complicated it had all become, or how rote, or how fraught. And still more would talk of their wives as if they were possessions, to be used when it suited the men and otherwise left alone, but the very notion of those wives perhaps doing what the husband happened to be doing – there with me – well, that could light a murderous rage in their eyes.’
‘So, while being with you, most of them still missed the point?’
‘Very astute, Highness. Yes, they missed the point entirely.’
‘Because what you offered was sex without complications.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Brainless.’
‘Yes. And that freed them, and freedom made them happy – or anyway forgetful – at least for a short time. But once the flush was past, well, that old world and all its chains just came rattling back down. They’d leave as if they were condemned to swim the canal.’
‘You have led a varied and extraordinary life, Captain.’
‘Life? Wrong word, Highness.’
‘Oh, one doesn’t have to be breathing to be alive – and before you comment on how ridiculously obvious that statement seems, I do implore you to give it a second consideration, as I was not referring to your condition.’
‘Then I am indeed curious as to what you might mean, Highness.’
‘In my years of education, I have—’
A roar drowned out her next words, and they swung round to see a torrent of muddy, foaming water pounding into the bay just beyond the shallows. Rushing from a gaping wound almost swallowed in gouts of steam, the flood thundered aside the slabs of floating ice, clearing a broad swathe. A moment later what seemed half a forest exploded out from the wound, snapped branches and sundered trees, and then the prow of a ship lunged into view, outward like a thrust fist, and then plunging down to the bay’s churning waters.
The raucous flow drove the ship straight for the reef.
‘ Errant’s bitch! ’ swore Shurq Elalle.
Abruptly, in wallows of spume and steam, the ship heeled, came about, and they saw a figure at the stern rudder, pushing hard against the current.
The wound thundered shut, cutting off the wild flow. Branches and logs skirled in the spinning water.
Felash watched the captain run into the shallows.
The strange ship had crunched briefly against the coral shelf before pulling clear. It was fortunate, the princess decided, that the seas were calm, but it was obvious that one woman alone could not manage the craft, and that disaster still loomed. Glancing to the right, she saw the crew pelting along the strand, clearly intent on joining the captain.
Felash looked back to the ship. ‘Dearie, couldn’t you have found a prettier one?’
Spitting out silty water, Shurq Elalle pulled herself on to the deck. Something slimy beneath her boots sent her down on to her backside with a thump. She held up one palm. Blood. Lots and lots of blood. Swearing, she regained her feet and made for the bow. ‘Is there an anchor?’ she shouted. ‘Where’s the damned anchor?’
From the stern, the handmaid yelled back, ‘How should I know?’
Shurq saw her crew now plunging into the shallows. Good .
‘We’re drifting back to that reef,’ the handmaiden cried. ‘How do I stop it doing that?’
‘ With a damned anchor, you stupid cow! ’
Failing to find anything, and feeling somewhat bad about her outburst, Shurq turned about and began making her way back to the stern. One clear look at the handmaiden stopped her in her tracks. ‘Gods, woman, what happened to you?’
‘It’s the damned voles,’ she snarled. ‘This – that thing – is that what you call a sea-anchor?’