The screaming child wailed and Toma nodded. The screaming was her own

Toma was furious. Rian had not seen him like this. He said nothing, but there was iron where his face had been, and fire in his eyes. He breathed out hard, snorts of mist that hung in the air over where she lay, prostrate on the deck where he had

thrown her.

The back of her head was sore where it had smacked down. He stood over her, one foot on each side of her, legs in the stance of a sea-rider.

The hand that had let go of her was still stretched out in front of him, palm down, fingers open.

She couldn’t read his expression. It was not only anger. It was something worse.

Scorn? No. His eyes were as changeable as the weather. Perhaps it was sorrow.

Would he sing again? Would he ask her to join him? No. Not that either. Nothing like that.

He had pulled her back from going overboard. A crowd of voices were babbling in her head. Danuta was telling her to pull herself together.

A child screamed. A slow insistent voice spoke only of filth and darkness. The screaming child wailed and Toma nodded.

Shrieks

The screaming was her own. It was coming out of her own mouth and now Ussa was standing over her, Pytheas too.

He was tugging at her shoulder but Toma’s outstretched hand prevented any movement from her somehow, as if he could press her to the deck just by gesture.

He was talking. Ussa interjected with shrieks and barking.

Toma finished what he had to say, and now the only sound was her wail.

A hand clamped over her open mouth and she tried to bite it, but it was a strong hand.

It smelled of ink. She gagged and whimpered. She was being lifted. Pytheas had her shoulders off the deck. Toma let go of his hand gesture and lifted her feet.

They swung her like a sack between them, shuffling until they could sling her on her bunk.

There were more words and then she felt rope: her ankles trussed, another across her chest. Toma tugged her fleece out from under her body and laid it over her.

There were incomprehensible clouds in his eyes now and he was shaking his head.

She could feel her face wet but couldn’t lift a hand to wipe it. She could roll though, on to her side, her face to the darkness. She closed her eyes and stared in.

It was a tumult, a barrage, a storm. She let it rage. It was inside at first, but then the world answered with its own tempest.

She lay in the dark listening to the sail howl and a shrieking in the rigging. There was flapping, then a rip.

Shouts. A jangle of ropes and shackles. More shouts.

When the boat tipped, the ropes stopped her rolling from her bunk. Pots clattered. Swearing from Og. A thump.

Faradh groaning. The smell of puke. Water smacking. Splashing. Wind roaring. Everything roaring. Water sloshing everywhere.

The world coming to an end.

It never ends. There is no edge to the world to fall off, not until death. Thule is always just another beginning.

It is cold, dark, wet and miserable but it brings no conclusion.

Beginnings, the universe overflows with them. They are thrust perpetually into life.

Begin again.

Begin again.

Always begin again.

Faradh died in the storm. They found him face down in the bilges and threw him overboard with his clothes on.

Li cried but no one else on the boat had any strength to mourn him.

The water barrel had toppled. They were certain to die if land did not appear soon.

Pytheas did not look at Rian nor speak to her.

Slavery

It was Ussa who eventually untied her and told her the new situation.

“You belong to me again now. Pytheas doesn’t want you.

“You’ve seen what he does: takes a piece of parchment, scratches away a few words, then tosses it away, starts afresh. Get up.”

Rian barely had the strength to roll over. She made eye contact and what she saw shocked her.

Ussa had aged. She was haggard. The flesh on her face had withered, yet as the skin slumped it was as if it had drained all its power into her eyes.

They were moons burning through cloud and their pull was extraordinary.

Rian found herself sitting up. An obedient part of her wanted to follow those eyes, to be tugged in their tide.

Ussa had already gathered Og and Li in the galley. “It is time for me to take over from Toma. Look where he has got us.

“We need food and most of all water or we will die. Is there any water left at all?”

Og shook his head.

“It will rain, and we must be ready to catch it. Can you rig a sail or something?”

Og and Li exchanged glances and nodded.

“Of course,” Li said.

Rian was unsteady on her feet. She sat on Og’s bunk. No one seemed to mind.

Ussa pointed a finger at her. “You clear up this mess. It will make you feel better.”

The galley was a shambles.

Everything that could move had been tossed about in the storm.

“I am going to catch a bird. We must eat.” Ussa stomped off, the bear skin coat swinging, its bulk commensurate with her will.

“You are one of us again.” Og passed her a cloth. They all stared after Ussa. She stopped and turned. “Move it.”

Drenching

As Ussa predicted, it did rain, and Toma helped Li to rig a spare sail to catch water. He did not appear to mind Ussa taking control.

It was cold and drenching and the swell after the storm made the boat lurch about. But they had water to drink, a whole barrel full in no time, cause for much celebration.

They drank it at first as if it was fine wine, and then beaker after beaker.

Og caught a razorbill on his line. They ate it raw. Rian was surprised that the tiny mouthfuls she was allowed could give her such pleasure.

She was alive. After that, Ussa caught a puffin, then two more, and before long they had a dozen – a feast of raw bird flesh.

Rian felt sick afterwards but she knew it was only the effect of food after so long with an empty stomach. She drank more rainwater.

Pytheas had eaten and drunk less than everyone else and sat on his own, not meeting anyone’s gaze, then went to his bunk, looking unwell.

More tomorrow.