deck, his grey mask impassive in the golden light of the newly rising sun. Despite their furious words of the previous night, the barge-men were less than belligerent as they emerged under the cold gaze of their sinister passenger. None of them dared to ask what had occurred the previous night, nor what kind of cargo now resided in the belly of the barge that was too secret to allow them to lay their eyes on it.
The Weaver took Pori aside and spoke to him, after which Pori addressed the crew, and told them what they had all been expecting. None of them would be allowed to go down to the cargo hold. It was locked, and the Weaver had the key. Anyone attempting to do so would be killed.
After that, the Weaver retreated to his cabin.
The next few days passed without incident. The Weaver stayed inside, seen only when his meals were delivered or his chamber pot was emptied. The sailors listened at the door of the hold and heard scrapes of movement inside, strange grunts and scuffles; but no one dared try to get in and see what was making them. They grumbled, aired their superstitions, and cast suspicious and fearful glances at the cabin where the Weaver had entrenched himself, but Pori hounded them all back to work. Lan was glad of it. Mopping the decks meant he could keep his mind off the baleful presence in his parents’ bed and the secret cargo below decks. He found that by not thinking about them, he could pretend that they were not there. It was remarkably effective.
Nuki’s eye shone benevolently down over the Kerryn with the pleasant heat of late summer. The air was alive with dancing clouds of midges. Pori walked the barge, ensuring everyone was doing his part. His mother Fuira cooked in the galley, occasionally emerging to share a few words with her husband or give Lan an embarrassing kiss on the cheek. Hookbeaks hovered over the water, floating in the sky on their smoothly curved wings, searching the flow for the silver glint of fish. As time drifted past in the slow wake of the Pelaska, it was almost possible to believe that this was a normal voyage again.
Not any more.
The Weaver must have grabbed her as she came to deliver his midday meal. Pori had always been uncomfortable with his wife having any contact with the Weaver at all, but she had told him not to be silly. She handed out the meals to everyone else on the barge; it was her duty to feed their unwanted guest as well. Perhaps he had just finished Weaving, sending his secret messages or completing some other unfathomable task; Lan had heard that some Weavers became very violent and strange after they used their powers. He could imagine her standing there, ringing the brass chime for permission to enter, and the Weaver appearing, all fury and anger, dragging her inside. The Weaver was small and crooked as most of them were, but Fuira would not dare to fight and besides, they had ways to make people do as they wanted.
Then, the screams.
The cabin door was shut, and the bargemen were gathered around it in fear and impotent rage. Lan stood with them, trembling, his eyes fixed on the spilled tray of food on the deck. He wanted to get away from there, to dive off the side of the Pelaska and silence her cries in the dull roar underwater. He wanted to rush in and help her. Instead he was paralysed. Nobody could interfere. It would mean their lives.
So he listened to his mother’s suffering, numb and detached from the reality of the situation, and did not dare to think what was being done to her in there.
‘No!’ came his father’s voice from behind him, and there was a rush of movement as the bargemen hurried to restrain him. ‘Fuira!’
Lan turned and saw Pori in the midst of four men, who were pulling a rifle out of his grip. He was flailing and thrashing with the strength of the possessed, his face contorted in rage. The rifle was torn free and slid across the deck, and then suddenly there was a scrape of steel and the bargemen fell away from him, one of them swearing and clutching a long, bleeding cut on his forearm.
‘That’s my wife!’ Pori screamed, spittle flying from his lips. A short, curved blade was in his hand. He glared at them all,