The Princess and the Captain Read online

  Disconcerted, Malva bit her lip. Her anger died down.

  ‘And that will do!’ said Orpheus shortly. ‘There’s no point in this argument. We’re lost in the middle of the sea. Let’s have no more talk of Galnicia, or this Elgolia. We have to stay alive, that’s what matters.’

  He looked at the horizon. The air was shimmering in the heat. The temperature was rising by the minute, and the flat calm of the ocean worried him. He went to the rail to look at the dinghy where the Captain was lying. Taking out his knife, he cut the rope that still moored the little boat to the ship, and without so much as a word of farewell watched it float away. Then he turned back to Babilas and Lei.

  ‘Search the hold again,’ he told them. ‘We’ll need food and fresh water.’

  Malva was looking sullen. She suddenly felt weak, and very tired. The bump on the back of her head was hurting, and the sight of this pitiful crew lowered her morale to rock-bottom. Who did this quartermaster think he was, speaking to her like that? She went and sat on the capstan, crossed her arms and did not move.

  As Babilas and Orpheus made their way to the central hatch, a strange sound broke the silence. It was like a foghorn, a long note sinking deeper and deeper. The passengers listened, transfixed.

  They waited without moving for a long time, expecting to hear the sound again, but it was not repeated.

  ‘It must have been thunder,’ said Orpheus at last.

  ‘Or perhaps other ship?’ suggested Lei.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Orpheus replied. ‘The Mary-Belle’s foghorn has a higher note.’

  He didn’t try to make sense of it, but shrugged his shoulders and led Babilas down into the hold. When they reached the foot of the second stairway, they saw that the water level had gone down a good deal. Whereas not long before they had almost had to swim to get around the ship, now they could wade, paddling through shallow water full of drifting seaweed.

  They went through several of the holds in succession, with-out finding anything but gutted barrels, broken beams, canvas bags soaked with water and rats that fled at their approach. At last they opened the door of the galley, hoping to find a few dry provisions in there, but they saw that the water had spared nothing either. Finopico’s cookery books had fallen off their shelf and lay all jumbled up, mingling with broken spice jars and spoilt herrings.

  They were about to leave the galley when Orpheus saw a mop of red hair showing behind the enormous cast-iron stove, which had toppled over at the back of the cabin.

  ‘Finopico?’ he called, heart thudding.

  There was no reply. Orpheus walked forward. The cook was huddled behind the stove, crouching in the water, his face buried in Zeph’s sodden coat and holding the dog in his arms. The St Bernard gave a low growl on seeing his master. Finopico immediately raised his head. His eyes met Orpheus’s.

  ‘It’s Greenhorn!’ he breathed, amazed. ‘By all the Divinities of the Known World … he survived!’

  Orpheus smiled. He didn’t mind being nicknamed Greenhorn any more – he was so glad to see Zeph still alive! He was even glad that the irascible cook had escaped the devastation.

  ‘I see you’ve been getting to know my dog better,’ he said. ‘He seems to like you.’

  Finopico shrugged, but he did not refuse the hand that Orpheus held out to help him to his feet. He had a bleeding gash on one cheek, and he was limping slightly.

  ‘I thought it best to wait here,’ he muttered. ‘To be sure the storm was really over … by Holy Harmony, my books!’

  The cook picked one of them up, and uttered a groan of dismay when he found that it was soaking wet.

  ‘Well, that makes six of us,’ sighed Orpheus, patting his dog’s head. ‘And perhaps that’s not all.’

  He left the galley to go down lower into the belly of the ship. He was thinking of Peppe and Hob. Resourceful as they were, those two lads might perhaps have found shelter. But where?

  ‘Never mind your books! Try to find something edible, and take it all up to the deck to dry out,’ he told Finopico before leaving him.

  Down below he found a terrible sight. Up to his thighs in water, Orpheus made his way past the bodies of drowned sailors. There were eight or nine of them, floating face downwards in dark and stinking corners. Orpheus put a hand over his mouth, nauseated and sick with grief. A few hours earlier these men had been running around on deck, hauling in the sails. They had been alive, strong and confident. They had followed the Captain’s orders, and this was what had become of them …

  ‘Hob!’ called Orpheus in a voice strangled with emotion. ‘Peppe!’

  Holding his breath, he wandered around in the dark, losing hope as he discovered more dead bodies. When he reached the tiny doorway of the sail locker, he called again.

  ‘Hob!’

  At last there was a reply. ‘We’re here! Inside the locker.’

  Orpheus leaped forward and put his mouth to the door. ‘Hold on! I’m coming!’

  He lifted the latch, expecting to feel resistance, but the door opened easily.

  ‘You weren’t stuck in here!’ he said in surprise, seeing the twins sitting on the spare sails.

  ‘We never said we were,’ replied Hob.

  ‘Then why didn’t you come out?’

  Peppe leaned over his brother’s shoulder, and cast a glance at the hold. ‘It’s all dark out there,’ he whispered.

  ‘And full of dead men,’ added Hob, making a face.

  Orpheus smiled. He was delighted to have found the two lively rascals.

  ‘Afraid of dead men, are you?’ he mocked them.

  Hob and Peppe raised eyes full of alarm to him. ‘It’s unlucky to touch a corpse!’ they cried in unison.

  Orpheus managed to convince them that it was all superstition, and the two boys, trembling, followed him through the hold and up the steps. When they came out into the sunlight they collapsed on deck, pale and nearly fainting.

  ‘That makes eight of us!’ said Orpheus proudly.

  Malva and Lei, who were busy spreading flour on a scrap of sailcloth to dry it out, cast a sardonic glance at the twins.

  ‘Hm,’ sighed Malva, ‘with a crew like this we won’t be reaching Elgolia in a hu—’

  No one heard the end of her comment. It was drowned out by another note on the horn, echoing through the air, long-drawn-out and, this time, rising to a higher register. The survivors were rooted to the spot. When the sound died away they looked at each other, puzzled. The horn had sounded closer than before.

  ‘That wasn’t thunder,’ murmured Malva.

  Hob and Peppe started trembling again. ‘The dead men!’ they whispered. ‘It’s … it’s their souls weeping! We told you not to touch the corpses! They’ve come for us!’

  At that moment Zeph raised his head to the sky and began howling, while the twins put their hands over their ears and huddled close together. They looked terrified.

  ‘Make that dog shut up!’ yelled Finopico, brandishing one of his books above his head. ‘And tell those two idiots to keep their stupid prophecies to themselves! They’ll bring bad luck down on us!’

  But Orpheus wasn’t listening. He was gazing at the horizon, his eyes wide and baffled.

  ‘Too late,’ was all he said, pointing to the thing that had just appeared.

  24

  The Patrols of Catabea

  A dark shape had just emerged from the water, some twenty kilometres away from the Fabula. At this distance there was no way of saying what it was, but whatever it was, it was gigantic. And even stranger, whatever it was, it was increasing and multiplying. A second, identical shape appeared with the faint sound of cascading water, and then a third and a fourth. Before the eyes of the survivors, these colossal things emerged from the water, and then came to a standstill.

  Zeph had stopped howling. Exhausted, he was lying full length on the deck with his tongue hanging out. Total silence reigned on board now. Malva and Lei dropped their sacks of flour and went over to the bulwarks. They cou
ld feel the fragile hulk of the ship quivering beneath their feet. Orpheus joined them, and looked at the waterline. Something was making the sea foam just below the ship’s hull.

  When he raised his head again, Orpheus saw with amazement that more black forms were still rising out of the sea at the same pace.

  ‘They … they look like statues,’ murmured Malva.

  ‘They have human shape,’ added Lei. ‘I see heads, necks, arms …’

  Fascinated, Orpheus watched the birth of these immense stone men. The statues stood up to their waists in the sea. They faced each other in pairs, gradually forming an alarming kind of line which was coming closer to the ship.

  ‘It’s all because of that witch!’ cried Finopico in sudden panic, pointing at Lei. ‘It’s her! It’s because of her magic!’

  ‘Be quiet!’ Orpheus told him firmly.

  He leaned over the rail again, and saw that the Fabula was being drawn towards the line of statues by a current that had come up out of nowhere. He cast a brief glance at Babilas, but the giant made a sign to show that he was powerless. The Fabula had no anchor and no sails now; even he couldn’t do anything. The members of the crew gathered silently around Orpheus, apprehension written plainly on their faces.

  The ship gained speed. The stone men stood erect in the water like sentries on guard, and when the Fabula began to make her way through the narrow corridor they had just formed, Orpheus could estimate their huge stature. Their faces, carved from copper-covered stone, rose at least twenty metres above the deck of the ship.

  ‘No human peoples able to make such things,’ murmured Lei, marvelling rather than frightened. ‘This work of heavenly powers!’

  Beside her, Malva was feeling a vague terror. Not one of the hundreds of travellers’ tales she had read mentioned anything like this. Had the storm driven the ship beyond the borders of the Known World?

  The current carried the Fabula on for what seemed to all on board like eternity. The twins were beginning to moan and make gloomy predictions again, while Finopico cast a dark glance at Lei.

  Then, suddenly, the line of statues came to an end. The prow of the ship entered waters of an astonishing turquoise blue. Far away, Orpheus could see the outlines of land, but he had no time to say anything, for a flock of birds was making for the Fabula, skimming the waves. The beating of their wings made a harsh whistling sound.

  Zeph immediately got to his feet and trotted to the prow of the ship, growling. When the birds were close enough he barked at them, but they were not in the least alarmed, and settled on the deck of the Fabula.

  And now the survivors of the storm realised that they had indeed entered an unknown universe. For these creatures, perching on the gnarled claws of wading birds, had metal wings, and their graceful necks ended in tiny human heads.

  ‘By all the Divinities of the Known World!’ choked Finopico.

  He was the only one of them able to say anything at all. The others were as mute as Babilas.

  ‘Well, well,’ remarked one of the birds. ‘They speak Galnician too.’

  ‘Catabea will be amused,’ said another bird.

  And all the human-headed wading birds opened their mouths to burst into laughter as lugubrious as the croaking of frogs.

  Malva felt cold sweat trickling down between her shoulder blades. Since her flight from Galnicia she had seen many strange creatures, but the shrunken heads nodding at the ends of those birds’ necks were the scariest of all. When one of the birds approached, spreading its metal wings, she stifled a cry of alarm.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ cooed the bird. ‘We are the Patrols of Catabea. You have just entered the Archipelago, so the Procedure must be followed. What is the name of this ship?’

  The travellers exchanged glances of panic. Archipelago? Catabea? Procedure? They didn’t understand a word of it.

  ‘The name of this ship!’ repeated the bird in a menacing tone.

  ‘The Errabunda,’ replied Orpheus in a strangled voice.

  ‘The Fabula,’ replied Malva at the same moment.

  The human-headed birds craned their necks.

  ‘Does this ship by any chance have two names?’ asked one of them. ‘Beware if you are trying to deceive us!’

  The others creaked their wings.

  ‘Its name is … the Fabula,’ Orpheus quickly corrected himself.

  The Patrols relaxed. ‘Who is in command?’ one of them asked.

  There was silence. Peppe and Hob, leaning against the foot of the broken mainmast, seemed dead on their feet, while Finopico’s teeth were chattering. He didn’t seem to realise it. Babilas had narrowed his dark eyes, and Malva shook her head. Facing these alarming birds, none of them was keen to take on the job of captain.

  ‘Our captain is dead,’ Orpheus explained.

  The Patrols waddled from one large foot to the other, and a disapproving murmur rose among them.

  ‘The Procedure insists on our knowing the captain’s name!’ said one of the birds. ‘If we don’t get it we have to send you to the Immuration.’

  ‘The Immuration!’

  ‘To the Immuration!’ repeated the other birds.

  ‘What is the Immuration?’ Orpheus ventured to ask.

  A Patrol came out of the ranks and shook its dreadful little head back and forth in front the young man’s face.

  ‘The Immuration is the centre of our Archipelago. It’s a prison into which we throw all who fail to respect the Procedure.’

  At these words Hob and Peppe were panic-stricken. ‘Not prison! Not prison!’ they begged, falling to their knees on the deck.

  ‘We’ve been in too many cells already!’ said Hob tearfully. ‘It’s cold and damp and all dark there! We’d rather die than go to prison!’

  Malva tugged at Orpheus’s sleeve, and looked imploringly at him. ‘You saved Lei and me from Temir-Gai’s harem. I couldn’t bear to be shut up again.’

  The Patrols obviously expected a swift answer. Menacing sounds emerged from their mouths. Orpheus turned to Babilas and then Finopico. Both men lowered their gaze.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ Orpheus said, resigned. ‘I’m the Captain of the Fabula. My name is Orpheus McBott, and we were on our way to Galnicia when an infernal tempest broke over us and –’

  ‘Rubbish!’ announced another bird, narrowing its eyes, which were no bigger than pinheads. ‘What you call an infernal tempest was the wrath of Catabea!’

  ‘All the same,’ Orpheus continued, ‘this tempest –’

  ‘Come, come!’ cried a third bird. ‘Listen to what you’re told, and don’t speak of that tempest as if it were an ordinary natural phenomenon. Catabea is sensitive, you know. You’ve already felt the force of her anger when you passed the Great Barrier. I wouldn’t give her further reason for annoyance if I were you.’

  Finopico had come over. The skin of his forehead had taken on an olive hue beneath his mop of red hair.

  ‘What are you talking about, you ill-omened birds!’ he exploded. ‘Go back to wherever you came from and leave us to follow our own route in peace. We’re going home!’

  The Patrols instantly turned their tiny heads towards the cook, lowering their little eyes to him.

  ‘He wants to go home!’ exclaimed one of the birds.

  ‘Wants to go home!’

  ‘Wants to go home!’

  And all the others fell about laughing, scraping their metallic wings together. It made Malva’s hair stand on end.

  ‘When a vessel wanders off course into the Archipelago,’ said one of the wading birds, suddenly serious again, ‘no one ever knows what becomes of its occupants. What was once known is known no longer. Your home doesn’t exist any more.’

  ‘And now,’ said the bird who had spoken first, ‘we will take you to Catabea. She will tell you all you need to know in future.’

  It unfolded one of its wings and pointed to the bows of the Fabula.

  ‘Tow this vessel!’

  At this signal, and with a great mechanical din,
the flock took off from the deck, flew around the broken mainmast, and came down again, but this time at the stern of the ship. Then, moving perfectly in unison, the Patrols unfurled their wings.

  As they beat their wings for the first time, the Fabula was propelled forward. She gained speed, cutting through the turquoise water surprisingly fast, and finally came ashore on the beach of the island that Orpheus had seen.

  One of the Patrols cried, ‘Welcome to the realm of Catabea, strangers!’

  With that, the flock of birds suddenly flew up, settling on the tops of the skeletal trees that covered the island. Then they disappeared, leaving the passengers of the Fabula behind them, stunned.

  The prow of the ship had run into greyish sand that contrasted with the intense blue of the water. The island was small, dry and rocky. The vegetation appeared unchanging, dead long ago, as if buried under a layer of cinders. There were no leaves on the trees, the bushes looked just like the rocks, and total silence reigned. The place had obviously been deserted by all animals and insects. There was dismay on board the Fabula.

  ‘This is some kind of joke,’ Finopico said at last. ‘A hallucination. A hoax …’

  Before he could finish speaking a sudden gust of wind made the branches of the trees closest to the shore rustle. Then it died down again.

  ‘No one’s ever heard of the Great Barrier, or this stupid Archipelago,’ added the cook, in a voice that was not as firm as before.

  Something cracked in the thickets of the forest higher up on the hills: a sound like dry wood snapping, a sonorous and melancholy noise.

  ‘No one has ever –’

  ‘Oh, do stop talking!’ Malva suddenly interrupted.

  ‘Yes, be quiet, by Holy Tranquillity!’ begged the twins. ‘You’ll arouse the wrath of Ca—’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ snapped Finopico. ‘This is ridiculous! Those cursed birds were obviously making fun of us!’