Book 5 : 668

20 June

Aibram arrived late on the 18th.

Yesterday was a busy day, but now Aari, Aariini and I are relaxing on the foredeck of Vinhaassa, listening to Aibram playing his fihihi and singing old songs in his gruff voice.

Aariini is enthralled, sitting quietly on a mat on the deck and staring up at him open-mouthed. She’s quite a picture.

If those songs are in Laana, there’s a lot of Laana that I don’t know. There are odd familiar words here and there, but not enough to make sense of the songs. And even the familiar words sound odd somehow.

I translate what I’ve written for Aari, and she says, that’s not Laana. It’s Maara. Aibram must be from Maaram, or somewhere that way. I can understand it, it’s not a lot different from the local dialect in Mezham. He’ll understand if I talk Mezha, but I can’t talk Maara.

Aibram overheard her, and laughed. Funny we didn’t say anything about that the other night, he says. Conrad told me your name was Mezhab, and I think I know who you are, but I wasn’t going to tell Conrad, oh no. But who your man is, I don’t know, nor how he comes to be called Mezhab. He’s not from that side of the world at all. I don’t know where you’re from, in fact, young man, he says.

That’s a long story, says Aari.

You’ve got ten or eleven days to tell it, he laughs, I’ve nearly nothing to do going this way. Greyr can navigate it with his eyes shut. It’s going the other way you need all your wits about you. And everybody else’s.

You talk Laana like an adult, he says, but I’ll bet you talk Mezha like a six year old, don’t you?

You write damn fast, young man. Are you writing down everything we’re saying?

No, but quite a lot of it.

Aari told me to stop, so I did. Now Aibram has gone to the galley to prepare dinner. Captain’s job? Why not? This is a small ship.

I could call it a large boat but then I’d have to translate it for Aari and Aibram might overhear so I’ll whisper.

Aari laughs. Aariini wakes up and wants a drink. Contented sucking noises. Aari laughs again. This really is a record of our lives, isn’t it, she says.

We have told Aibram a lot of my story, and he didn’t have any difficulty believing it at all. He’s never been to Kep, but he’s heard about it, and understands about The Weather, and the idea that there’s a whole different world beyond it.

He says it’s much the same beyond Milgar, the last port after Ballerra. The weather gets pretty bad and no-one goes past Milgar if they can help it, and they don’t come back if they do.

If that was the only way to get to Vantun, that would be in a different world, too. And so would Laanoha, and everything else that side. But it’s not the only way, you can get through the Maze instead.

He’s pretty sure that no-one has ever disappeared beyond Milgar and reappeared at Vantun though, like Carlos and I made it from Kobo’a to Kep. It may be land all the way to the ice, nobody knows, but even if it’s not, it’s an awful lot further from Milgar to Vantun than it must be from Kobo’a to Kep.

And that’s far enough. I can’t have been in the water for very long, and I only walked about twenty miles before the Kep people found me, and they can’t have carried me all that far to Kep. But we ran before the storm, who knows how fast, for two days before we were wrecked.

Aibram thinks I was damn lucky we were wrecked. We could have run before that storm for weeks, and then crashed into an iceberg somewhere a thousand miles from anywhere, or ended up wrecked somewhere two hundred miles south of Milgar.

He says that as sea level gets lower and lower, it’s going to get more and more difficult to get through the Maze here. It’s already damned difficult going the other way, beating against the prevailing wind in restricted, unmarked channels. There’s a few smaller boats do it, but our Vinhaassa’s the biggest boat doing it regularly, and anyone who doesn’t know the area is taking their life in their hands trying. Eventually it’s going to be impossible.

This direction is much easier, with the wind behind us. It’ll be possible to go this way for a bit longer than the other, but in the end this’ll be impossible too. Then Laanoha and Manafa will be in different worlds, too.

The Maze? It’s not a strait. Oh, some bits of it are straits, but it’s a maze. Some places you’re sailing between two coasts, but most of the way it’s quite wide, and in one place almost open sea, but there are reefs and sandbanks all over the place. One of the biggest hazards is old wrecks, huge hulks the ancients lost here thousands of years ago, all encrusted with shellfish and coral, ready to tear a hole in your hull. And not a few much more recent wrecks, although those are just old wood and more likely to break up if you hit them, rather than do you any great damage.

He told us that north from Bhoemar, the coast is unbroken all the way to the ice. There are lots of islands, some of them big, but the mainland behind them is continuous. We ourselves know that if you go north between Manafa and Ngtok, you get to impenetrable jungles and swamps. There are enormous rivers coming through the swamps, but they’re rivers, not the sea. We’ve never been there, but we know people who have.

But the big thing we’ve learnt is this. Aibram knew Aari’s father. And Kaasham.

A wickeder pair of rogues would be hard to find, he said, without a moment’s hesitation. But that’s not your fault, young lady. Everyone always felt terribly sorry for you, but what could we do? I’m jolly pleased to see you’ve fallen on your feet, by some miracle.

“I’m sorry to be so blunt,” he said, “but it’s better to be that way than to beat about the bush.”

Aari said that she far preferred directness to evasion, and thanked him. Then she said that she thought her father must have been trying very hard to go straight, and indeed was succeeding after he offloaded Kaasham, and later when she took over the book-keeping.

Aibram seemed surprised, and then said that he thought that must be true, because if Aari was keeping the books, she would have known if they were crooked, and would keep quiet about having been keeping them if she was crooked herself.

It would also explain why he put Kaasham ashore, and why Kaasham killed him when he got the chance. So stop worrying that we’ve put an innocent man in prison, Aari. We haven’t. The proof may still not be as good as a fair court might like, but it’s good enough for me.

Smile.

I can tell that Aari is relieved.

She nods.

21 June

Aibram is making dinner again. He made breakfast this morning, too. Greyr and Kazhiir seem to do everything else.

We anchor from dusk to dawn. Only madmen sail these seas in the dark, Aibram says.

He told us how they were once becalmed halfway across the Central Sea, couldn’t anchor because the water was too deep, and then blew onto a sandbank during the night. Luckily the tide was low, and they floated off later in the day, but then they were off their normal route and had to go very carefully until they were back on it. Damn lucky it wasn’t a wreck we hit in the night, he said.

Nearly every trip, at low tide, you’ll hear some new scrape that you just missed on previous trips, and add it to the chart, and make sure you avoid it in future if you’re near there at low tide. In other places they hang buoys onto all the hazards, but there are too many hazards here and there aren’t enough boats coming this way, you couldn’t do it. You’d do nothing else all your life and you still wouldn’t have finished the job. New ones every year anyway.

Nothing at all you can do about the sandbanks, which are different every trip. Except go slow at high tide and keep a very careful watch. Other states of the tide you take your chances and float off when the tide rises. Could happen this trip, who knows?

I said I’d like to see that chart.

Come with me, he, said, and took us into the wheelhouse and showed us. Not just one chart, but two or three for every day of the trip. Big sheets of vellum, all written in ink.

All my own work, he said proudly, and I’m only showing you because I know you won’t tell a soul. That’s Vinhaassa’s livelihood, there. Until the day this passage becomes impassable, and with a bit of luck that day won’t be until after I’m gone. In fact, it’s more than likely the day this passage becomes impassable will be the death of me. And anyone else who’s on Vinhaassa at the time. We all have to go sometime, he said.

I can only make charts like this because we’re in clear sight of land in at least two directions almost the whole way, and I’m good with instruments.

He showed me the instruments. They looked much better than anything I’ve seen before, even on Buula or in the port office in Manafa, and I said so. His telescope makes my expensive binoculars look like a toy, and the drawing instruments are beautiful.

Meyroha’s best, he told me. You’ll be impressed with Meyroha. They’ve got nothing like Manafa’s big ships, but they do some pretty good engineering there. You’ll see.

I told him he could sell instruments like that in Manafa, for good money, but he said he’d have to go to Meyroha to get them, and that’s a long way from Bhoemar, and then Manafa is a long way from Ramhampong, too. How many could he sell? He’d have to sell a lot to make the trip worthwhile, and then if he didn’t sell them he’d have lost a lot of money.

And then I learnt something I should perhaps have anticipated. After all, I have some eksyus that are worth nothing in Manafa, or anywhere this side of Kobo’a, and nobody’s ever seen or heard of nrega the other side of Kep.

They’ve heard of nrega in Bhoemar, but they don’t have much use for them, and most people in Meyroha have never even heard of them. And they’ve heard of coins in Ramhampong, but they don’t have much use for them, and even as ship’s purser I’d never even heard of them until Aibram told me about them, and showed me some.

Now you can imagine what trying to trade anything between Manafa and Meyroha is like, he said. He generally gets nrega from folks he takes this way, and coins from folks he takes the other way, but he spends coins in Bhoemar, and nrega in Ramhampong. He carries a bit of stuff he can buy in one place and sell in the other, but he has to be careful to get the prices right, and they vary with the wind. Recently he’s been calculating on the basis of a hundred and twenty nrega being equivalent to one coin, but he thinks he’s going to have to increase the ratio or he’ll be undercharging in one port and not selling anything in the other.

You get that effect even with nrega in both places, but it’s obviously a lot worse where the money’s different.

More trouble than it’s worth, he said. If, and that’s a big if, you go back, take a set of instruments with you, and they can copy them in Manafa.

I doubt if they could. I’ve seen nothing in Manafa so finely crafted. I’d have to take a set of the tools they use to make them, and a craftsman who knows how to use them.

Aibram thought about that for a moment. They’d have a similar problem in Laanoha or Meyroha, trying to make one of Manafa’s big ships. And you couldn’t even show them a sample. Couldn’t bring one of those through the Maze!

Suddenly a cloud passes over Aari’s face.

Perhaps it’s not her father and Kaasham who were the wicked rogues, but Conrad and Aibram? Or all of them?

You know what I’m thinking before I say it, she says.

Aari and I have plenty of nrega, and no coins at all. The only person who will swap them for us is Aibram, and he can swap them at any rate he chooses. Surely Conrad knew this.

We discussed it quietly for a while, and then Aibram appeared with the meal. He’d evidently been thinking about what we’d been talking about earlier as well. Aari and I would have kept quiet until we’d had a chance to discuss the problem more thoroughly, but he broached the subject.

I didn’t think about this until just now, he said. I don’t get many passengers going this way, and the few I get are on their way home, and have coins already, or somewhere they can get them in Bhoemar. You’ll need some coins to get you to Laanoha, and to keep you there until you can earn some. I can sell you a few, but you’ll have to start earning pretty quickly in Laanoha if you don’t want to have to come back here almost straight away.

He told us how he gets more passengers going the other way. It’s surprising how many people sail through, scare themselves silly, daren’t sail back, and buy a passage back. After selling their boats at knock-down prices in Bhoemar. Sad, really. But it’s the bulk of our income. Paarhen warns them it’s a one-way passage for anyone who doesn’t know the Maze thoroughly, but they all think they know better.

Some of them don’t even intend to sail all the way through, but get too scared to go back after just that first strait right at the Ramhampong end, and just feel they have to go right through. In fact they do have to, or they’d end up shipwrecked trying to beat out through there.

Aibram says he’s picked up quite a few shipwreck survivors over the years, and seen more on shores where he can’t get close enough in for them to swim out to Vinhaassa. What’s happened to them in the end he doesn’t know. And the wreckage of even more boats where he’s no idea what happened to the people in them at all.

You get used to it, he says. When there’s nothing you can do, there’s nothing you can do.

Aibram promised to work out the fairest price for our coins that he could, looking at prices in the market in Bhoemar. You’ll have to trust me, though, he said, because I didn’t take any notice of prices in Ramhampong this trip, and I’m sure you didn’t either.

Really, you cannot say fairer than that. So what if the exchange ratio isn’t perfect? We’ve got plenty of nrega, he’s not got a huge number of coins, if he makes a bit of profit out of us we can afford it, and we’d rather it was that way round than that we leave the impression that we’re cheats.

Aari nods.

It’s clear that he doesn’t intend to leave us destitute. If he was a real rogue he could just heave us overboard and take everything. No-one would ever know. Conrad might guess – if he wasn’t in on the plot in the first place.

Aari nods again.

22 June

After dinner yesterday we were on the foredeck with Aibram again. As the sun went down, so the sail came down, and the anchors went down – one over the bows, one over the stern. Greyr and Kazhiir collected their dinners and came and sat on the foredeck with us, bringing a lantern from the galley with them.

You don’t trust the weather tonight, then, said Aibram. No, said Greyr, have you seen the shape of the clouds in the west?

I’d noticed them, but didn’t know what they meant. It seems that Aibram had left his crew to worry about such things. A perfectly sensible approach, since his crew seem to be perfectly capable. He went aft to take a look, and came back fairly quickly. Can’t see well enough any longer, he said, but I believe you. Moon’ll be up in a couple of hours, I’ll see then.

It had hit us before the Moon came up.

Last night was a bit exciting. A bit too exciting. I’ve been in worse storms – most especially the one I was shipwrecked in – and Aari’s been in a few, too, but only in much bigger ships than Vinhaassa.

And of course Aariini had never been in a storm at all before. She cried a bit, but I think that was more because she sensed Aari’s – and, to be honest, my – unease. No, not panic, but not far short of it.

I heard the anchors dragging, which bothered me. I also wondered why on earth we were stern on to the wind, if the storm was expected, and we were anchored both ends.

Aibram laughed when I asked him that this morning.

Take a look at this boat, he said. You’re an experienced sailor, and you haven’t noticed? Shame on you. Which end is which?

Shame on me indeed. Vinhaassa has a dragon on one end, and a plain sprit on the other, but otherwise she’s damn near the same at bow and stern. She’s even got a rudder at both ends. Aibram made me take a look at them, leaning right out over the side to see properly. They’re balanced, with the gudgeon line straight down the middle of the blade. Vinhaassa is designed to sail equally well in either direction.

Aibram explained that he designed her himself, specially for the Maze, and had her built by a yard in Bhoemar. She’s symmetrical end to end, but she’s not symmetrical side to side, although the difference is mainly below the waterline. She’s got an upwind side and a downwind side, and tacks by changing ends rather than changing sides.

You’ll probably never see her beating, but she’s magic, Aibram said. She barely heels at all, and she can sail closer to the wind than any other boat ever built. She’s not fast, but speed isn’t what you want in the Maze.

I’d love to sail close hauled in Vinhaassa, just to see it, but I don’t suppose I ever will. We’ve been on the same broad reach the whole way so far, with the dragon in the lead.

Actually, I suspect Vinhaassa can’t really sail as close to the wind as a winghy can, but Aibram’s probably never seen one¹. I don’t think he’s been to Manafa. And the winghies’ big brothers, that he has seen, ships like Manafaraani, don’t sail all that close to the wind. That’s not what they’re designed to do.

This morning we’re on a sandbank, waiting for the tide to float us off. Moonrise last night would have been two hours after sunset, and we’re not far off the equator, so high tide will be at two this afternoon, near enough. With luck we’ll be afloat well before that. I’m fairly sure we were afloat for a while around high tide during the night, but left the anchors down of course. Better to be on a sandbank than adrift.

Aari looks at me, and says I should check that theory with Aibram. Or not, since it doesn’t matter what I think. Tides in a place like this can be wildly different from what you’d expect. And of course she’s right.

But quite by chance, it turns out I was right on this occasion. To the nearest hour or so. We are afloat, and we’re only a short distance off our intended course. And the sky is blue and the wind is light, but enough to keep us moving at a sensible speed.

The wind last night was really fierce, but the fetch here is not long, the waves were not huge, and there’s nearly no swell now. But the thunder was like nothing I’ve ever heard before, crashing and banging like the end of the world. Aibram says it’s often like that here, and all the way up the coast from Bhoemar to Laanoha and beyond.

A different world indeed.

24 June

Since Aibram is himself from near Laanoha, it seemed obvious to ask him about how to get there. I first broached the question by asking him how often he went there. He’s not been there for fifty years. Aari asked him why, and he said it’s a long story, and she laughed, and said he’s still got a week to tell it.

He didn’t laugh. He said it’s a story he’s not told anyone, although Greyr and Kazhiir know most of it, but he’s an old man, and if he doesn’t tell it now he never will.

This is really Aari’s and my diary, but we’ve got room in it for Aibram’s story, and he doesn’t mind if I write it as he tells it – although I won’t be able to keep up so there’ll be a lot missing.

Greyr and Kazhiir are both Laanoha men too, and they do take breaks there from time to time, and there’s another crew member, Peyrham, who’s there at the moment – or on his way there, or maybe by now on his way back, who knows?

Aari asked how far it is, and he told us that from Bhoemar it’s anything from two weeks to four. Sometimes six if the weather’s bad, or you get stuck waiting for a ship going the right way.

Aari wanted to know why they work so far from home.

For the others – the pay’s a lot better than they can get at home, it’s that simple, says Aibram. As for me – I don’t want to go back. I left my heart there, and this ship is all I have to show for it. This ship is my home.

I was a young man once, with a loving wife I’d known and loved since we were infants, too young to remember. We were both good swimmers, divers, and made a decent living raiding an ancient wreck we’d found, a mile or so offshore, in quite deep water. I don’t know how deep. We kept the location a secret, of course, although I don’t think anyone else was good enough to get down to it.

A big wreck. Bigger than any of the land wrecks. Much bigger than anything afloat nowadays. Yes, bigger even than the big Manafa ships. Much bigger.

The best stuff we could get was copper. Got a good price for copper, but it’s much easier to get rusty iron and there was far more of it, and we probably made more money on iron really. I didn’t keep careful accounts in those days. The money came in and it went again. We weren’t rich, but we weren’t poor either.

Feyhi got pregnant, of course, and then it was just me diving when she started to get big. She kept swimming, but gave up diving.

Our friend Aalam turned up one day, all excited, with more copper than I’d ever seen in one place before. He wasn’t a diver. He normally made a living, harder than ours, raiding land wrecks in the forest. There are still good land wrecks there, they’ve not all been stripped long ago, because there’s a curse on that area of forest, so mostly nobody goes there. Brave folks fetch firewood from the outskirts, but nobody apart from Aalam ever went deep inside.

Aari wants to know what land wrecks are. I know, so I’ll tell her later. Let Aibram tell his story.

Of course I wanted to know where Aalam got all the copper, and he said it was a secret, and anyway, I could get all the copper I wanted off our wreck, without braving the curse.

Three weeks later, Aalam was dead. He just got sick and died. Everyone said it was because of the curse.

Well I didn’t believe in curses, not for a moment. Feyhi wasn’t so sure, but I’d seen all that copper. Aalam hadn’t told me where exactly he’d found it, but did say that it wasn’t in a wreck at all, it was in an old building on top of a hill. Well, I’d been up on the big hills the other side of the forest many times, and seen that the whole forest area is really flat. Old sea bed, obviously (Aari gives me a look, and I nod – she knows that means I understand and will explain later). With just one hill in the middle, that must have been an island in the days of the ancients if it’s got one of their buildings on it.

With lots of copper? Curse? Pah.

It didn’t take me long to find that hill, and on the top, yup, half pulled down by all the trees growing through it, an old building. Shells everywhere, so that island must have been drowned by the sea for a long while after the time of the ancients, before sea level started going down again.

I start collecting copper. Apart from the half-pulled-down bits, I can’t explore the building because it’s dark inside.

So next day I take an oil lamp with me.

On my fourth trip, in a very deep cellar, I find a chunk of green copper the size of a large barrel, and roughly that shape, too. I can’t shift it, of course. And there’s more of them, a whole vault full of them. And at the far end, some with the lids off. I hadn’t realized they had lids. They’re empty, but I still can’t shift them. Weighed a ton, about three inches thick! I can lift the lids – just. No way can I carry one ten miles through the forest. Only option is to cut it, only way I can do that is with a hammer and cold chisel, something I was well used to doing. I’d even done it underwater, hacking bits off our wreck.

So I collect as much ordinary copper – the usual stringy stuff covered in black goo – as I can carry, and head home.

We have more coins than we know what to do with already, so we hide the copper under the floor to dig up another day. And the next day I set off into the forest with a hammer and cold chisel. Takes me half a day to cut halfway across that lid, and it’s time to go home again, but I think it’s a day well spent. If I can cut that lid into four pieces in four days, and carry them home, we’ll be rich already, and I can keep on doing it every day for years if I start on the other barrels.

So before I leave, I have a go at getting the lid off one of the other barrels. Not too hard with the hammer and chisel once I realize it’s screwed on backwards, but what’s inside? Sand! Not ordinary sand, funny looking stuff. And heavy. Sand shouldn’t be heavy. Not so as you’d notice, anyway. But I can’t help noticing. It really is heavy. I put some in my pocket to take home to show Feyhi.

I collect a load of ordinary copper and take it home and we bury it.

But the next day, I’m not well, so I don’t go to the forest, and the day after that I’m no better, and now Feyhi isn’t well either. She’s sure it’s the curse, and tells me to take the copper back, maybe we’ll be forgiven. I can’t take it all back because I’ve already sold the first two batches. And anyway, I’m too ill to go ten miles into the forest and back.

Cut a long story short – Aibram has tears rolling down his cheeks now – I lived, and Feyhi didn’t. My curse is worse than Aalam’s was.

I think you understand now why I don’t want to go back. I sold all the copper from under the floor, but I never went back to the old building with all the copper. That’s still there, I’m sure.

I know you don’t believe in curses and think it’s all just coincidence or maybe even a fairy story, but it’s true and I know you’ll need money in Laanoha and you’ll be tempted to try to find that place. But if curses aren’t real there’s some more logical explanation, and don’t you go trying to find that place.

Aari gives me her look, and I promise.

I think Aariini is in love with Aibram. She’s been quietly gazing at him the whole time.

Aari thinks she’s studying Laana, and that’s probably the truth.

25 June

Aibram is pensive this morning. Aari thinks he’s regretting telling his story, and worried that I’ll try to find the accursed copper. She tells him not to worry, I’ve promised, and she’ll hold me to it, and I’ve never broken a promise I’ve made to her yet. I think I’d only ever made two before, and say so, and she laughs and says yes, she thinks that’s right, but they were good ones. And Aibram laughs too, and wants to know what they were, and Aari tells him.

Aibram wants me to promise not to tell anyone else, and Aari agrees, and I promise. But I’ve written it in my diary. Should I tear out those pages and burn them? No, he says. You’re writing in English, aren’t you? No-one will be able to read it except you².

That brings us onto another subject. He tells us that there are a few English speakers in Bhoemar, maybe one or two from Ballerra, but mostly from Vantun. But he very much doubts whether any of them are literate. He says we shouldn’t seek them out, they live in the sort of area Aari was telling me to avoid when I made my last promise, and they’re that sort of people.

I wonder whether we were happier in our scruffy days when we could go anywhere and not worry. Aari says she’s sure we were, but thinks we probably weren’t very safe, we just never thought about it. We were surely safer than we would be if we tried to go to those sorts of places now, but not very safe. Nobody is.

Nobody is completely safe anywhere. We all die in the end, says Aibram. Some younger, some older.

I suddenly remember Browth, and how his English was different from Ballerran English, and how Riba had a few sailors who spoke like Browth. Could they have been from Vantun? Aibram doesn’t think so. He thinks there must be a third place where they speak English, maybe more, but he has no idea where they might be.

We have spent the entire day crossing a wide expanse of open water, with land visible in the distance in all directions at one time or another. We’ve not been beating, but the wind has shifted, and our course across this sea is different. We’ve sometimes been on a beam reach, and sometimes close hauled. Aibram spoke truth: Vinhaassa may not be fast – not that she’s a slouch – but she surely can sail close to the wind.

With her dragon pointing aft. Just now. Are we going astern? I don’t know any longer.

We were close to shore by this evening. Aibram got his fihihi out again after the anchor – just one today – went down, and has been singing and playing again. Sadder songs this time. Aari translated a few of the lyrics to me, and the words were as sad as the music.

Aari told me to go and get the mizma out of the trunk, she’d like to try harmonizing with Aibram. And of course she can, just like that.

Aariini sits on her mat, but she’s dancing. Sitting there, dancing. In time to the music, mostly, too. I am entranced, and in awe of my wife and my daughter. Aibram smiles at the tiny girl, and she smiles back.

And Aibram starts a cheerful tune, and Aariini starts dancing again, and Aari joins in again.

26 June

And I dropped my pencil and anyway it was getting dark. Kazhiir fetched a lamp and we carried on singing and chatting well into the night, but the lamp wasn’t bright enough to find my dropped pencil never mind do any writing.

I didn’t wake until late this morning. I could smell fish frying. Greyr had caught it during the night, and Aari had decided to take charge in the galley and leave Aariini with Aibram on the foredeck. Aariini was tangling her fingers in Aibram’s beard when I found them.

I was right. They are in love, you can see it in their eyes. But Aari is right too. Aibram is teaching her Laana – and singing and dancing. Now he has her astride his foot, holding her hands and bouncing her up and down in time to the song, and she is laughing.

Aariini doesn’t have a real grandfather – both presumed dead – and whether she’s still got one grandmother we will never know. But she’s surely got an honorary grandfather.

And I can’t help thinking about my mother, and my sisters – Aariini’s aunts, that she’ll never know. Especially Dempsey, who would so love Aariini. And my own aunt Agni.

Aari arrived with the fish and we ate. She’d fed Greyr and Kazhiir before dawn. They are already at work and we’ve been under way since before I woke.

Aari got me to translate what I’d written this morning. She put her arms around me from behind and kissed me on the top of my head. You’re going bald, she says, and laughs.

Aariini suddenly sees her mother and wants a drink. Aari knows exactly what I’m writing without me even having to translate it for her. You don’t have to write that every time, she says, and I don’t know what to do for a moment.

What I did was go and get the mizma, and tried playing it. Aari said it was good, much better than when I tried to be Captain Senghor. Aibram said he liked it too. I hoped they meant it, and of course Aari knew I was thinking that, and reminded me that we tell each other the truth, or what we believe to be the truth, always, absolutely, it’s how our relationship works.

And Aibram nodded silently, then went and fetched his fihihi, and solemnly handed it to Aari. I’m sure you can play this, he says. Play it with your man.

And within minutes, Aari is playing tunes, even with Aariini still at her breast. I try to harmonize, but cannot. Aari tells me to play my own tunes, and she’ll harmonize, and that works better, but I keep losing track. Aibram laughs, and tells me to listen to my own instrument, and leave Aari to follow me, don’t try and follow her. Which is all very well, but it’s easier advice to give than to follow.

30 June

But over the last few days, I think I’ve mastered it. And even me doing the harmonizing, with Aari or Aibram. Aari says so, and I have to believe her, and I feel a warm glow. And Aariini, sitting on my chest, pats my face and practises sticking her tongue out at me, and I laugh.

Don’t write, Aari says, not until there’s something important to write. Practise!

1 July 668

And today there is something important to write: we have arrived in Bhoemar.

Aibram says he won’t be setting off back to Ramhampong immediately: he has an agent here in Bhoemar who collects passengers and occasionally cargo for him to take to Ramhampong, and he doesn’t have enough of a load to justify the trip just yet. Maybe in a few days’ time, when word gets around that Vinhaassa has actually arrived. People tend to lie low and watch, rather than talking to agents, if they know the score.

Sometimes there are passengers or cargo for Triampi, the only town actually in the Maze. But nothing going that way just now. No, we didn’t go anywhere near it coming from Ramhampong. Sometimes he goes there just to pass the time, and see if anyone or anything wants to come the other way. It’s a lovely place, he says, with lovely gentle people and a laid-back lifestyle. But Ramhampong voyages have to pay their way: that last strait is too risky to pass through without good reason. You’re taking your chances anywhere in the Maze, but then you’re taking your chances anywhere at sea. Or anywhere else for that matter. Some risks are bigger, some are smaller, but who knows which are which?

Meanwhile, he says it’s best for us to stay on Vinhaassa until we find a boat – he uses a word that translates better as boat than as ship – heading in the right direction. No, there’s very little chance of a direct passage to Laanoha. Perruhi if we’re lucky, otherwise Hansul or Tonki are better than waiting in Bhoemar.

No, no charge at all to stay on Vinhaassa. Greyr and Kazhiir will catch fish and collect shellfish and seaweed and there’ll be fruit and vegetables in the market. Aibram or Aari will prepare it and we’ll eat well until either we sail or Vinhaassa does. And yes, Aibram will show us round and maybe take us to collect shellfish and seaweed, he can show us how to find the best places. Away from all the muck and mess of Bhoemar, but not very far at all, just the other side of the headland.

2 July

Aibram had to do all the negotiating in the market, because he says it’s bad enough we don’t look local, but if we talk Manafai everyone will understand, but they’ll up the prices. And it’s bad enough that he and Aari look Laanohan, but he’s well known here and an exception is made for him. Some of the traders understand Laana well enough, but they won’t admit it. If you’re Laanohan – or a Vantuner – you’ll get the normal price, but you’ll only get the rottenest fruit and vegetables. Unless you’re accepted, like Aibram.

So Bhoemar isn’t really a very nice place.

You get used to it, says Aibram, and it gets used to you too. It’s not surprising the Vantuners and Laanohans who live here stick to their ghettoes mostly. There’s no rule that forces them to, apart from mob rule. Well, there’s no rules at all here apart from mob rules, and it’s hard to know what those are from one week to the next. But life goes on. For most people, most of the time.

I think about Faguri or Yambai, and I wonder which is worse: mob rule or authoritarian rule. And then I realize I’m not even thinking about London any more. Authoritarian rule is better if you’re a member of the elite. Otherwise, not.

But Manafa isn’t too bad for most people, most of the time. Vaguely authoritarian, but letting most people get on with life in their own ways in general.

Vamura’s not too bad either, and I don’t know how things work there at all.

What’s Laanoha like? Aibram doesn’t know, he’s not been there for fifty years, he says. I have to ask Greyr and Kazhiir, but they’re away fishing.

3 July

Aibram has taken Aari and Aariini to the market. He’s sure they’ll get better prices without me. People will think they’re his daughter and granddaughter that they didn’t know he had, he says. On a visit.

Well, they sort of are. Honorary ones.

Kazhiir has been telling me about Laanoha – and Barioha and Meyroha, and the smaller towns and villages in the area. Laanoha is the oldest and biggest of the three big towns, but Meyroha is growing fast. Maybe it’s bigger by now, but he doesn’t think so. Not yet. All three big towns are fairly authoritarian, but mostly not too heavy-handed. A bit chaotic and unpredictable, especially Laanoha, but if you don’t stick your head above the parapet you’re most likely to be left in peace.

Won’t my looks attract attention? No, not in the big towns. There are lots of foreigners from all over the place there. You speak Laana pretty well, you’ll fit right in. Especially with Aari and Aariini.

In the villages, yes, you’d stick out a mile. But I think people will be more curious than hostile. And the authorities don’t take any notice of the villages at all. They’re completely anarchic, but mostly perfectly peaceful. Some banditry, but that really only affects obviously wealthy folk. And I think you were fairly wealthy in Manafa, but you won’t be around Laanoha.

Some of the small towns might be dodgy for you. Maaram especially, don’t go there! But it’s a long way from the sea anyway, and I’m guessing you’ll need to be close to the sea to earn a living. I think Aibram’s thinking to make sure you have enough coins to buy a small fishing boat, and you can build your own house for free. I just hope we can find you a passage to Laanoha in time to get a bit of shelter up before the winter sets in.

Maaram’s on a different river from Mezham, where Aari comes from, so you probably wouldn’t think of going there anyway.

Aibram was singing Maara songs the other night. Is he from Maara? No, he’s from Zhaam, on the coast between the mouths of the two rivers. That’s really Zhaama he was singing, but only a Maaramer or a Zhaamer would notice the difference.

They’re assuming we’ll stay there, then. Or we could just visit for now, spend our coins just living through the winter, and come back here to change some more nrega. I wonder what Aari will say? And how we’ll feel when we actually get to Laanoha.

4 July

Greyr took Aari and me collecting shellfish and seaweed this morning. I’ve done a bit of that before, but Aari hadn’t, and I was just a rank amateur. Greyr is an expert. He showed us how to know the state of the tide, and where the best things are to be found at each state of the tide. Then at high tide he took us up on the cliffs on the headland, and showed us how to take eggs, and sometimes even birds off the nest – but you can’t do that at this time of year, he says, only in spring.

Laanoha is good for that, he says. A good headland, much better than this one. There are good headlands all along the coast there.

He tells me that Aibram would probably have sailed by now, either to Triampi or to Ramhampong, but that he wants to get us onto a boat going north first. No, it’s not costing him money, as far as Greyr knows he’s got no cargo and few passengers ready to go, but he normally just likes to keep moving.

He’s probably trying to gather a few more coins for us, too, Greyr says.

Aariini has spent a happy morning in town with her honorary grandfather, being fed boiled goat’s milk and mushy rice and sicking it all up again all over him. And both laughing all the while. But now she’s firmly attached to Aari’s breast and seems to be going to sleep.

5 July

This will be our last evening on Vinhaassa. Yesterday Aibram found a ship going to Perruhi, and it’s leaving tomorrow on the evening tide. He knows the captain, and he says he’s a good man and trustworthy.

He’s got twelve hundred coins for us. He says it will last us until next Spring if we stay in a boarding house in Laanoha, give us a little spending money, and get us back here, if that’s what we decide to do. Or it’ll get us there, get us a small boat, and keep us going until we’re earning something fishing.

He refuses to take more than a hundred and forty thousand nrega for them, although we certainly couldn’t last until Spring on that much anywhere the other side of the Maze.

If you’re back here in Spring, he says, you’ll need your nrega again. Don’t throw them away!

He says he’ll miss us, especially Aariini, and I think he means it. Aariini will miss him too. We all will.

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