Book 6 : 668

7 July

We are becalmed in the fog a few hours out of Bhoemar. We’re in the wheelhouse, by invitation of Captain Monroe. He says in this fog it’s the only dry place where I’ll have enough light to write, and Aibram had told him I’d want to.¹

Monroe is from Vantun and speaks English, although it’s the most difficult English I’ve encountered, harder than Ballerran or Browth’s. But it’s our only common language. He knows neither Manafai nor Laana. We’ve only got a handful of words of Bhoemari, which Aibram says is the lingua franca for sailors this side of the Maze.

Monroe says it’s good we’re going all the way to Perruhi with him, because we should be able to pick up a Laanohan boat from there, or at least one where the crew know Laana. If we’d got stuck in Hansul or Tonki we’d have had no common language at all.

Like me at Kep and Faguri. No fun at all.

If we ever go anywhere. There’s not a breath of wind.

Our last evening on Vinhaassa was fantastic, but very sad. Less than two weeks we’d known Aibram and Greyr and Kazhiir, but we were already old friends. Aibram sang sad songs in Zhaama and played his fihihi, Aari harmonized on the mizma, and Aariini sat on her mat and danced, grinning from ear to ear the while.

Then yesterday morning we said a sad goodbye to Aibram. He gave Aariini one last cuddle, and she seemed to understand that it was goodbye and put her arms round his neck and buried her head against his cheek.

Then Greyr and Kazhiir carried our trunk and brought us to Monroe’s ship. I still haven’t found out her name. I think it’s written on the bow, but if that’s Vantuni English writing then it’s nothing like English English writing. But maybe it’s Bhoemari, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll find out, or, as Aari is wont to remark, maybe I won’t and it doesn’t really matter.

We’re the only passengers. Monroe doesn’t carry passengers often, his business is mainly cargo.

I haven’t been practising the mizma much, Aari reminds me, and goes down to our cabin to get it out of our trunk. And comes back with the mizma and a fihihi. Not Aibram’s, but a smaller one. Kazhiir’s, she says. He gave it to her, saying he bought it years ago, but never got the hang of it, and he saw how she picked up Aibram’s one and just played, and he thought she ought to have it.

8 July

The wind got up a little during the night and blew the fog away, and by first light this morning we were well under way. Yesterday Aari found Kazhiir’s fihihi more difficult to play than Aibram’s, and wondered whether there was something wrong with it. Monroe took it and had a look at hit, then called one of the crew, and gave it to him. What they said to each other I’ve no idea; I presume they were talking Bhoemari.

So the crew aren’t all Vantuners.

Aari played the mizma for a while, then gave it to me, and she started to sing one of Aibram’s songs – only in Mezha not Zhaama, she says. I tried to accompany her on the mizma, which sort of worked. She says I’m getting better and that all I have to do is practise, practise, practise.

Perhaps she thinks that’s how we’ll earn our living in Laanoha. That’s not such a bad idea, she says, fishing is hard work and you’re not supposed to do anything too strenuous, remember?

After a while the chap came back with the fihihi, and handed it to Aari. Aari took it and beautiful music poured out of it immediately. Aari smiled broadly and thanked him in Laana, which I translated into English, for Monroe to translate into – Bhoemari? I didn’t ask, again.

Aari says we must visit Bhoemar sometime, even if we make our life in Laanoha, and take a new fihihi for Kazhiir – one that works properly. Did he never think to ask Aibram to look at it? Or was he too shy to admit he’d even got it? He gave it to Aari quite privately. He and Greyr were certainly both very shy, in sharp contrast to their captain.

And now, I am informed, I must practise, and Aari will harmonize on the fihihi.

18 July

And Aariini danced.

And Aari has played her fihihi and I have played our mizma – Senghor’s mizma – all day, every day, all the way to Perruhi. And Monroe has tolerated this going on in his wheelhouse the whole way, indeed I think he’s actually enjoyed it. He says my playing has improved out of all recognition in ten days. About fourteen hours a day for ten days.

And we have arrived in Perruhi, and we are in a boarding house belonging to a Laanohan lady, Graashi.

Saying goodbye to Monroe was not as difficult as saying goodbye to Aibram. Although he treated us well, it was a very different relationship. If our paths cross again, he will be happy to see us, and we will be happy to see him, but if not, then what? It’s a matter of no consequence to either him or us.

At dinner there were three Meyrohan sailors. Their ship is here for three days, but then it’s heading south to Tonki, not back to Meyroha. If we’re still here in eight or ten days’ time, they’ll be able to take us to Laanoha, they’re sure. Captain Parruk will be more than happy to have the business, they say, and it’s no trouble putting someone ashore at Laanoha. They might even have cargo for Laanoha, they often do.

You can play the mizma and the fihihi on board ship, as long as the captain doesn’t mind. But you can’t play them in a boarding house, in case the other guests object.

19 July

But of course there can be rowdy drunken sailors outside half the night, and there’s nothing you can do about that. At least Aariini slept the sleep of the just all night, but Aari and I didn’t. But today we must go down to the docks and see if there’s a ship going our way. At least we’re pretty sure we won’t be stuck here for more than eight or ten days.

No luck today. We did meet captain Parruk, and he confirmed that he’ll be happy to take us if we’re still here when he comes back. But it could be more than ten days, if he gets cargo to deliver to Hansul, or to any of the smaller ports between.

20 July

The same three sailors were back too late for dinner last night, and we didn’t see them until this morning. They’re sailing today. Friendly lads, but I think Parruk may have words with them about getting drunk the night before sailing. They’re probably fit enough not to get the sack, though – Parruk won’t want to delay sailing while he finds replacements if he can help it.

Aari felt uncomfortable with the two young women who were hanging around the docks when we went there this afternoon, but they were friendly and wanted to play with Aariini, who is friendly with everyone. Well – almost everyone. She’s a bit wary of Graashi for some reason, which makes Graashi rather sad. Aari thinks it may be the spectacles. Conrad has spectacles too, and they didn’t seem to bother her, but she’s a month older now, or perhaps it’s that his aren’t so big, and don’t magnify his eyes like Graashi’s do.

We’re in Graashi’s lounge again tonight. There’s an oil lamp in our room as well, but oil for it is chargeable here. It’s only an eighth of a coin, but why spend even that when we can sit in here and enjoy better light for nothing?

Shh, says Aari. I don’t think Graashi can hear us from her kitchen, but okay. And don’t think an eighth of a coin is nothing, she says. It’s about fifteen nrega. Maybe more really. And we don’t have all that many coins.

Graashi finishes whatever she was doing in the kitchen and comes and sits with us.

We’re quite unusual guests for her. She tells us that most of her guests are sailors or business people. Sometime in bad weather she lets homeless folks stay, rather than see them out in the cold. She doesn’t let them use the rooms, but they can sleep on the floor in the hallway, and she feeds them leftovers if she’s got any, or stuff that’s getting a bit old.

She draws the line at prostitutes though, she says, and Aari doesn’t say anything. I see her face. She’s remembering. I don’t say anything either, and remember Dempsey, as well as that moonlit night evading night-watchmen.

Struggling in black water amongst stanchions under wharves. A mile of dark choppy sea, holding Aari’s terrified face out of the water as best I could – she couldn’t swim. Attracting the attention of someone, anyone, on Manafariiba.

Mkembi!

Mkembi hauling us out of the water.

Who the hell is this? Mkembi said. But Aari and I were safe.

Which is more than Mkembi was. Damn you, Kaasham, damn you, damn you, damn you.

But but for him, I’d never have met Aari, and there would be no Aariini. Such is life.

Aari waves her hand in front of my eyes and I start. I don’t think quickly enough, and I say I was remembering, instead of saying I was nodding off. But I obviously wasn’t nodding off anyway, I was writing. At least I’m not translating what I’m writing for Aari until later, but still Graashi is clearly a little bemused. I start reminiscing when she talks about drawing the line at prostitutes? She doesn’t say anything about it, but what is she thinking? Or am I imagining that look?

Graashi decides to go and make some tea². There is no charge for this. There probably would be if we’d requested it, but it’s her suggestion.

Aari looks at me with a mildly pained expression. Then she laughs and Aariini wakes up and wants a drink. Aari puts her to her breast. Aari just knows what I’ve written. STOP IT! she says, and grins.

21 July

We think Graashi went to make tea to clear her head of thoughts she’d rather she didn’t have, and it seemed to work, but perhaps took a little longer than making tea normally would. The tea arrived though, and Graashi told us her life story.

Her parents ran a boarding house in Laanoha. One of their regular guests was the young captain of a ship out of Perruhi. He started taking an interest in Graashi, and eventually asked her to marry him, and she did. His parents had this boarding house that we’re in now, and when his father died and his mother’s health was failing, he decided to give up sailing and take over the boarding house. Now he’s dead too and here I am, she said. She has two sons, both sailors, and she sees them all too rarely. Neither of them seems to want to help her in the boarding house, but maybe they will when she’s too frail to cope, or maybe they’ll sell the place and put her in the poorhouse. Or the sea, she says, and starts crying.

Aari put her arm round her and gently asked what happened to her parents’ boarding house. My younger sister has it, she said. We used to be close, but that’s a long time ago now. I send her a letter every now and then, but I’ve not had a reply for years. I don’t know whether she’s even still alive. Or maybe the chaps we send the letters with don’t really deliver them.

Aari took the address, and said we will take a letter if she would like us to. We can’t promise to get one back to her, but we can try. Graashi thanked her, and said that we’d be looking for accommodation in Laanoha, wouldn’t we, and it’s a good boarding house – or used to be – and she’ll put in a good word for us for a good price.

So now we have a letter, wax sealed, to deliver to Graashi’s sister Biishi.

There are no ships at all in the docks. There is one larger one offshore, but the harbour-master says it’s headed back to Tonki, not Laanoha way.

22 July

Six sailors from the big ship arrived last night. A good night for Graashi. They’ll be here for three nights, they told us at breakfast. If nobody takes any of us home, one of them joked. Graashi looked stern at him, and he apologized. Look at us, he said, no-one’s going to take us home for love, and we can’t afford it any other way. Not a very tasteful joke in front of my other guests, said Graashi, and apologized to Aari. Really not a problem, said Aari, I know the ways of the world.

She really does.

Laana is not these lads’ first language, but they’re quite fluent in it. They talk a different language amongst themselves. I’ve no idea what it is, but I don’t think it’s Bhoemari. I can’t understand Bhoemari at all, but I think I recognize the sound of it.

25 July

We are on our way to Laanoha, have been for nearly three days. Goodbye Graashi, goodbye Perruhi.

This boat is smaller than Vinhaassa, and she’s out from Barioha. We were lucky to catch her: she was only in port in Perruhi for a few hours, but we arrived at the dockside just as she did.

Her name is Liimihari, written in elegant cursive Laana on her bow:

   

Viiniha, her owner and captain, tells us that it means Lady of Liimiha, and that Liimiha is a town in the far north, far up the river from Barioha, close to the edge of the ice.

She says that there used to be another town further up the same valley, but that it was abandoned to the advancing ice years ago. Liimiha will go next, she says, but we’re hanging on there for the moment.

Like Glasgow. How much longer has Carlisle got?

You’re from Liimiha, not Barioha, then? Aari asks. Yes, says Viiniha. The Ariha is tidal almost to Maaram³, and Liimihari is small enough to take right to the end. We pull her well ashore at high tide, and then we’ve got a barge in Maaram that we can take all the way to Liimiha. There are only eight locks all the way to Liimiha.

After we first met Viiniha and made all our arrangements, we went back to tell Graashi and pick up our trunk. It was quite a struggle for the two of us to carry that trunk, and Aariini in a sling on my chest too. I don’t have the muscles I used to have, and Aari is only small. We would have hired a porter, but Viiniha wanted to get away as soon as she could.

Her own crew were both busy unloading the cargo she was delivering – several dozen beautifully made polished wooden boxes, with thick rope handles and clearly very heavy. They were not much more than half the size of our trunk in each direction, but needed two strong men to carry each one of them.

I wondered what on Earth was in them, but didn’t feel brave enough to ask. The harbour-master was taking charge of them.

No return cargo, Viiniha told us. Just a few parcels. The harbour-master sometimes has something more substantial for us to take back, but it’s not worth hanging around in the hope of something turning up. It’s good you happened to be around, better than going home empty! Two hundred and fifty pounds less ballast cobbles for the lads to load, anyway.

So that’s what we are. Ballast. Paying ballast. Ballast that refuses to sit quietly in the bottom of the boat – but would, at need, move to the windward side.

I wrote that we are on our way, and that’s not strictly true. The reason I’m able to write on this small and lively vessel is that we’re not on our way at the moment. We are sitting on the bottom in Orambui harbour, waiting for the tide to lift us off so we can depart. Liimihari has twin keels, and sits very prettily on the bottom.

As long as the bottom’s level, says Aari, and Viiniha laughs. Yes, if you don’t know the spot, don’t take any chances!

Orambui is a good overnighting harbour, she says, as long as the tides are right for it. Otherwise we anchor offshore. Today’s passage isn’t one you want to do in the dark. You’ll see why, she says.

Someone has just brought two parcels to take to a place called Oushi. Aari remembers that name: it’s just along the coast from the mouth of the Ouha, the river that runs past Mezham, just round the next headland.

Do you want to be dropped at Laanoha, or would Oushi suit you instead? We’ll be calling at both places anyway now, Viiniha says.

Aari wants to think about that.

We’re beginning to float. I am not attending to the sails, and Viiniha is at the tiller. Should I offer to take a watch? Aari guesses – correctly – what I’m writing, and says no, keep quiet.

I’m not sure whether Viiniha gave her a questioning look, but if she did it was very quick. She’s busy. And I can’t write like this.⁴

5 August 668

So here we are, on the bench outside Oushi’s one and only inn. It was impossible to write on Liimihari. There are only two oil lamps in the inn, and it rained all day yesterday so there was nowhere I could write until now.

Aari fretted about whether to disembark at Laanoha or Oushi, and couldn’t make up her mind. She quizzed Viiniha and both of her lads, but they didn’t know anything beyond what the little ports along the coast are like, nothing about land transport, or what travelling up the Ouha might be like. The one useful piece of information she had was that from any of the small ports we’d easily get a fisherman to take us into Laanoha, and it wouldn’t cost us much at all.

So now, while we’ve got a passage to Oushi, let’s take it, and see how the land lies in Mezham, before we visit the big city. Okay.

Boesham, the innkeeper, is bemused. A foreigner, who speaks barely passable Laana, with his Mezhami wife who hasn’t seen Mezham since she was six or seven, and their eight-month-old daughter, and a trunk they can barely carry, wants to go to Mezham?

Trunk locks? It’s heavy! You could leave that here until you come back, he says, it’ll be safe enough under the kitchen table. I can lend you a couple of back packs to take the things you need for the trip, but how will you travel? Do you ride horses?

We never have.

Well, that’s not the road to learn on, then! Fishing boat to Karrem, then hire a gig. There’s a couple of chaps there who have gigs, and the road from Karrem isn’t so bad. No gigs here, the road is really bad. Not really a road at all, just a rough track they drive animals along. Horses and boats, Oushi is.

Boat up the Ouha? Not many of them. I’ve heard they have boats on the Ouha in Mezham, but where they go in them I don’t know. Just fishing and farming and foraging, I guess. Mezham’s the only place on the river, and in places the river’s too shallow for a sea-going boat. Well, I’ve heard there’s a big place further up the river, but it’s beyond the gorges, and you couldn’t take a boat through there.

So now we’re waiting for a fishing boat that’s prepared to take us to Karrem. There’s an inn in Karrem?

Yes, but your trunk will be safer here. The only boats here normally are the local lads fishing, and they won’t steal anything from here, but bigger boats come to Karrem, and there’s the coach road, with coaches that could take a trunk.

No, no coaches to Mezham. Nothing that could take a trunk that way, just gigs. Road’s not good enough for coaches.

Boesham’s wife, I didn’t catch her name, brings a meal out to us to eat sitting here on the bench. Does Aariini eat anything yet, or is she still just breast-feeding? No, they don’t have rice. Oats, but they won’t agree. Goat’s milk curd with a little honey? Maybe, a little, we’ll see.

She loves it – but it doesn’t stay down.

There are fishing boats coming in. Boesham tells us to sort out what we want to take to Mezham, while he gets the back packs out of the attic. He’s completely sure one of the boats will take us to Karrem, as soon as they’ve landed their fish.

So now we’re in the inn in Karrem, in the bar, where there are oil lamps – three of them! – and Aariini is the centre of attention, on a mat in the middle of the floor.

Parruk⁵ and Tyehr brought us here as much for the pleasure of sailing as for the money, I think. They only wanted a single coin. So they sail for hours nearly every day? They just love it, they say. Especially today, on a sunny evening with a nice onshore wind that means they can reach both ways and be here and back in no time. Well, maybe a couple of hours each way, in this wind.

There’s an old gentleman in what must be his favourite chair in the corner, who has a fihihi just like Aibram’s, He’s playing softly but quite fast, and Aariini is dancing the way she does, and everyone is spellbound. Aariini knows she’s the centre of attention, and loves it.

I’ve not brought the mizma. It’s big. I’ve carried it before, but it’s safe in the trunk, and we’ve got plenty of other stuff to carry. Not least, Aariini. But Aari has her fihihi. She’s too shy to get it out though.

She seems shyer here than usual, in fact, and I think I can understand that. These are almost her people, and she was six or seven the last time she was in this area.

Aariini is not shy at all!

6 August

Last night went on late. We enjoyed ourselves no end. Pendreyr, the old man, started up a tune that everyone knew the words to, and Aari knew them too, and people noticed what a beautiful voice she has, and they got her to sing a couple of solos. The she chose a song she’d taught me and we sang a few duets, and everyone complimented me – without much justification – on my pronunciation. Then she told me I should sing some English songs, and she got out her fihihi and accompanied me, and Pendreyr harmonized on his and Aariini danced.

We feel like we’ve come home, even though none of us has ever been here before.

Pendreyr’s grandson Viilam will take us to Mezham in his gig this afternoon for half a coin, which sounds like a fabulous bargain to me but he says he sometimes goes just for the ride and today looks like a good day for a ride and everyone wants us back in Karrem for a sing-song as soon as possible and if we’re not back in a few days he’ll come to see if we want bringing back because he doesn’t know that anyone in Mezham’s got a gig at the moment, they all go on horseback if they go anywhere.

Aari wants to know if I actually wrote that in one breath like that and I check and yes I did. And she laughs, so Aariini laughs too, and we have a big family hug, and I didn’t write this last sentence until we’d finished. And now we’d better go downstairs to the bar for breakfast – Miina, the landlady, is calling us.

7 August

Viilam didn’t leave until he was sure we had somewhere to stay. He gently kissed Aariini goodbye on the top of her head, and she grabbed him by the shirt and then leaned back and looked him right in the eye; and he said, I’ll be back soon! And he wouldn’t take his half coin, he said we’d need it more than he did. Which may be true, who knows? Who ever knows?

There is no inn in Mezham, but Riimaani and her son have a spare room since the rest of the family left home, and they’re happy to accommodate us for the time being. Riimaani remembers Aari’s mother well, and has many tales to tell.

Aari’s uncle died many years ago, and his house is a ruin; Aari’s aunt married a man from Laanoha and lives there. Whether anyone in Mezham knows their address, Riimaani doesn’t know, and she doesn’t even know their family name.

The house Aari was born in, her father’s house, belongs to someone else now. Thereby hangs a tale I will write when I have the story clearer in my head.

The real shock was that Aari’s mother did not die when Aari was a little girl. That was an outright lie told by Aari’s father and Kaasham. It’s another tale I will write when I have the story clearer. And when Aari is ready. She is understandably very upset just now.

Aari says I should write about other things for the moment, but I don’t know what to write about. The railway, she says, that’s new since I left here. And the bridge.

She means the bridge we came over in the gig a few miles before Mezham. It used to be a little ferry there, she says, with ropes to pull yourself across the river, and you got wet because the ropes trailed in the water. And once one of the ropes broke and somebody ended up in the river and they got properly wet, and then muddy too clambering up the bank, and it was just as well the river wasn’t too full or they might have been swept away and drowned. Aari is back in her six-year-old world, somehow.

So the bridge is new, only about ten years old, but it looks as though it’s always been there. It’s a very nice piece of work, rough stone blocks in a fine arch with no mortar – and well covered with lichen, and moss in places. Built by the men of the village, with an overseer up from Karrem, Riimaani says proudly.

We also went under a new bridge, a bit closer to Mezham, but that one is a wooden lattice between masonry abutments. One train each way every day, Riimaani says. She doesn’t know where they stop, just that they don’t stop anywhere near Mezham. An awful mess everywhere when they were building the railway, she says, and the workmen were nothing but trouble for everyone in the village, but what can you do?

Riimaani’s husband earned good money on the job, and stayed with the company after they’d finished the work here. Killed working in a tunnel in the mountains, she told us. Twelve years ago now, you get used to it. I haven’t told her about my close call working on the tunnel in London.

One of the big arguments when they were building the railway was that they tried to block our road. Just built that damn great embankment straight across it. When we complained, they said that our road only went down to the river, we could still get down to the river where the railway goes across. When we told them it went down to the river where the ferry went across, they told us to make a new ferry by the railway bridge.

Well that wasn’t such a good idea! An extra six miles on the road to Karrem? No thanks. And the place the ferry went across – where the bridge is now – is the only place the banks of the river are good and solid. It’s just mud all the way down everywhere else. Our men – well, mostly our lads – just knocked their embankment down as fast as they built it. Just a gap for the road, you understand.

Eventually a young toff came to tell us they were going to round up the ringleaders and cart them off to prison if it carried on like this. Manneyr laughed and grabbed the young toff and held him tight and told him that we – the village – were going to keep him in prison until his company saw sense and put a bridge under the railway for us.

There were about fifty railway workmen there, and about thirty village men and boys and all the village women and girls. You could see the workmen had no love for this toff – they didn’t move a muscle. And Amsaari, she upped and asked the workmen how long will it take you to build a bridge for us? One of the workmen, a big chap, ups with a huge grin on his face and says five days, if we can build it where the ground’s good enough for abutments without going too deep, maybe thirty or fifty yards from where your road goes. Deal?

And the toff, pale as porridge, nods, and Manneyr says, fine, just five days in prison for you then. And that’s how it was, too, except that the job took six days, and the bridge ended up exactly where the road always went, which isn’t surprising because the road always did follow the good ground. Of course it did!

Riimaani is holding Aariini, who is nodding off, and then waking up and having a good look round, and then nodding off again. We’re all sitting on a low wall a few feet away from the front of Riimaani’s house, looking out across the valley below us. The back of the house is built straight into a cliff that runs as far as the eye can see in both directions – well, as far as we could see as we approached Mezham, you can’t see much of it at all from here.

Riimaani looks at her son, and tells him it’s time he got a girl. I need another grandchild, she says, then looks at us. I’ve got three, but two of them live in Baragi, and the other one lives in Karrem. I don’t see them very often.

Her son’s about fifteen. He doesn’t say anything.

Aariini is dreaming. You can tell by the way she’s moving, dancing to music only she can hear, not as vigorously as when she’s awake and there’s real music, but in a very similar way.

How old is she? Riimaani asks. Three seasons⁶, I answer. And a week, Aari adds. One forgets what they’re like at different ages, says Riimaani. And when’s the next one due? Two seasons to go, Aari says.

I had no idea. I’m glad I know now, we need to take account of it in our planning. Planning? We’ve not really made any plans. How can we? We don’t know enough about anything.

8 August

Aari says I should write the painful tales while they’re still fresh in our minds, we can always correct them later if it turns out we’ve got the wrong end of the stick anywhere.

Riimaani was the first person we met in Mezham, in fact she and her son were the only ones we met yesterday at all. Viilam stopped the gig when we saw her by the road, and said, I’ve brought an old Mezhamer to visit you, is there an inn here these days?

Riimaani looked at me and said, well you’re no Mezhamer, that’s for sure, and looked at Aari and said, and you could be, I suppose, but I don’t remember you.

Aari looked at her. And I don’t remember you, either, but I was only six or severn when I left. Sixteen or seventeen years ago. My mother died, and my father took me away on his ship, and now my father’s dead too and I’m married to Birgom, and he’s brought me back. Maybe for a visit, maybe to stay.

Mother died and father took you away? The whole village would know about a story like that, but I don’t. What’s your name?

Mezhab Anaari.

Riimaani’s face went pale as death. We thought you and your father were dead, she said. Broke your poor mother’s heart.

Aari’s turn to go pale. My mother isn’t dead?

She is now.

She wouldn’t be so old! What happened to her?

But Aari was crying too much. She was holding tight onto Aariini and wouldn’t be comforted.

Enough, says Aari. Write it later.

11 August

Aari and her father – and Kaasham – had gone down the river in their little river boat, and were supposed to be going fishing in the sea-going fishing boat that they kept down at the mouth of the river. And they never came back, lost at sea, everyone knew. These things happen, although there hadn’t been a storm or anything.

Aari’s mother didn’t know where to turn. Aurkon was a few years younger than Aari’s mother, but he would have had her very happily. But she wasn’t ready and he was a gentle, patient soul.

Aari’s uncle took her in. Treated her like a slave. Riimaani thinks he raped her, again and again. She lost weight, became really skinny. Then he died. Riimaani thinks Aari’s mother killed him, well, everybody knows she did, but nobody said anything because they didn’t blame her at all.

Aari’s mother was pregnant by then, but she was in no fit state to be having a baby. Aurkon took her in. She lost the baby, quite late in the pregnancy, and then just got sicker and sicker herself until she died only a couple of seasons later. Broke Aurkon’s heart. He got work with the railway, and last anyone heard he was living in Barioha.

Riimaani wanted to know where Aari’s father got “his” ship from, and guessed he and Kaasham must have stolen it. I dread to think how they might have done that. They were pirates, in fact. No-one leaves a ship unattended.

Riimaani thought Aari was lucky to have survived. Those two had never sailed anything bigger than a small fishing boat, they must have had a hell of a time handling even a small ship at first, especially before they managed to engage a crew. I said they must have had accomplices from the start, and then managed to get rid of the others.

Riimaani has sent her son around the village with the news. Better it’s properly told by someone who actually knows, she says, than spread as gossip by those who only suppose. Aari agrees. So do I, but that’s less important.

No wonder they braved the Maze and never came back. Aari, your father was a pirate; Kaasham was a pirate; your uncle was a devil too. But your mother was an angel, and you are an angel. And I love you, Aariini loves you, everyone alive thinks the world of you.

Aari smiles through tears again, and Aariini nearly strangles her with her arms right round her mother’s neck. She can’t possibly understand what’s being said, but she surely understands the emotions.

I’m no angel, Aari says, and we don’t know whether my mother was, either. No evidence against either of you, I say, and in the absence of evidence to the contrary, you are and she was.

Riimaani’s son’s name is Paarem. He says that Baraashi came with him round the village after he’d told her the news, and that she says she’s going to organize a party for Anaari – Aari – and she’s sure that the village will restore Aari’s uncle’s house for us if we want them to, in double quick time. Would you like that house, asks Riimaani, or would that be too painful? I’m sure the village can build a completely new house for you instead if you prefer, and either way you can stay here until it’s ready.

Uncle’s house is in the best spot in the village, Aari says, and I’m not superstitious. I’ll get used to it. But we’re really not sure whether we want to stay here, or go to live in Laanoha, or even go back to Manafa, where Birgom has a good job waiting. How would we earn a living here?

How does anyone earn their living here? Paarem asks. There’s enough land, we grow stuff. There are fish in the river. If you’re crazy enough, there are better fish in the sea. Beyram has credit in Karrem, he’ll get you a boat, and you can pay him back in fish in two or three years, if that’s what you want to do.

I really don’t know. You’re not going sea fishing, says Aari. You’re not to do anything strenuous, remember? Like carrying that trunk, I say, I managed that okay, didn’t I? Yes, and I managed the other end, says Aari. In the old days you’d have picked that up on your own with me sitting on top of it. Which isn’t quite true, but I know what she’s getting at.

I’m not at all sure about farming, either, to be honest, she says. Much as I’d love to be here now I’ve seen the welcome we’re getting, realistically we need to see if you can get a clerical job in the port office in Laanoha. If we’re not going to go back to Manafa.

Viilam has just arrived, and wants to know if we’d like a ride back to Karrem. Paarem tells him about the party, and he asks, when will that be? If there’s somewhere I can stay the night, I’ll stay for a party! Aari says, please, no party. I’m not ready for a party. And Viilam says, at least a bit of a sing-song like we had in Karrem, and tells everyone what a beautiful voice Aari has, and Aari starts crying again.

I have to explain things to Viilam a bit, I think. Yes, says Aari.

12 August

I did explain things to Viilam a bit. He stayed the night, and we did have a bit of a sing-song in the end. It took a while before Aari was ready to sing, but of course she joined in when once people got singing old songs that she knew, and then they insisted that she should sing solo for them, and then she got me singing too.

And people said we could earn good money just singing in Laanoha, but I don’t think they really know whether there’s any money in it there, and anyway we’re not all that good.

It’s Aariini’s sitting down dancing that really tickles people, but she won’t be nine months old for long.

Seriously, I have to visit the port office in Laanoha and see if I can get a job there that pays enough to rent a little place and feed us all. Then we’ll visit Mezham from time to time, because it really does feel like home.

Riimaani feeds us breakfast one last time. She won’t take any money, she says once I’ve got a good income in Laanoha it’ll be different, she’ll want a coin or two, but for now, we’re welcome guests and we need our coins more than she does.

And Viilam won’t take any coins either, says he had a lovely evening yesterday.

Goodbye, Mezham! Aari is crying again. Come back soon, Paarem says. We will!

13 August

Another sing-song in Karrem last night. The inn was packed, and Miina wouldn’t let us pay for our meal, our drinks, or even our bed for the night. Have you noticed how busy we are today? You don’t owe us anything!

Daamehl will take us along the coast to Oushi later this morning – on his way to his fishing grounds, he says, but we know that’s just an excuse not to ask for any coins. We’re getting used to the local culture. We’re guests, not customers. The local economy doesn’t work like that, it seems.

Aari whispers, shh. Don’t forget everyone can understand all our talk here. I say we could talk in Manafai, then they wouldn’t. No, but they’d think we had secrets, which would spoil everything. Which is true, of course.

One thing has been puzzling me. Why, oh why, did Aari’s father take his little girl with him when he left his wife and went pirating? Oh, I talked with Riimaani about that, says Aari. He was afraid of what my uncle would do to me, she was sure.

So. Not a simple case of Bad Man, more complicated than that. Yes, says Aari. He and Kaasham looked after me well, really.

Did Aari’s father take to pirating simply as they only way he could see to keep his little girl safe from his powerful big brother? We’ll never know. He couldn’t have anticipated what would happen to his wife – or could he? Had he fallen out of love with her? Did she actually know what he was doing, and disapprove? Or was she too scared to go? Or what? We’ll never know.

People are complicated. Life is complicated. I wonder what went wrong between him and Kaasham, that he left Kaasham in Vamura, where he didn’t even speak the language? We’ll never know that, either.

Aari asks what will Aariini – and our other children – make of this when they grow up? You’ll either have to translate it, or teach them English, it’s an important historical document for the family. How old will they have to be before we show it to them?

I don’t know the answers to those questions.

Here we are again, on the bench outside Boesham’s inn. So you’re back, he says. How was Mezham? A long story, Aari says, and Boesham says, after lunch then, and goes back inside.

Daamehl and his brother Mashaar are real jokers, and they know their little boat really well. When they realized that Aari is a seasoned seafarer and I’m an experienced sailor, they got me on the tiller. Then they made sure Aari and Aariini were secure on the windward bench. Mashaar hung right out behind them. Daamehl put up all the sail they’ve got despite a brisk wind, then joined his brother. We’re going to get to Oushi in record time! he said, and we did, a broad reach all the way. With an offshore wind it wasn’t even a rough sea.

You could see they were enjoying themselves. Aari was, too. The first proper smile I’ve seen on her face for days. Aariini obviously noticed that too, I could tell by the way she laughed.

They’ve offered to pick us up tomorrow and take us to Laanoha. We’d pick you up this evening but if we get much fish today we won’t have the capacity to take you all and that trunk, Daamehl says. That trunk weighs a ton!

Boesham says, no, Parruk and Tyehr have already promised to do it. Okay, we didn’t know, but okay.

17 August

Aari told Boesham and Shaamiri – that’s her name! – a rather simplified version of our trip to Mezham. Well, a full account of the trip, but a simplified version of what we learnt there. Shaamiri realized there was more, I’m sure, just watching Aari’s face, but she was sensitive enough not to probe at all.

We spent one night in Oushi again, then Parruk and Tyehr brought us to Laanoha, and here we are.

We spent one night in a place called Griishi on the way. Parruk and Tyehr insisted on staying in the boat, saying that they were away from home and didn’t want to take any chances. I think they were probably more concerned about our trunk than their boat: the harbour was full of similar and larger boats, all of them apparently unattended.

There was an old fellow sitting on a low wall watching us as we arrived. He showed Parruk where not to tie up, saying the tide was going out, and we didn’t want to be at that end of the harbour unless we wanted to stay until the tide came up again and floated us off. Lucky I was here, he said.

Parruk thanked him, and asked about inns – we’ve got a lady and a baby with us, anywhere good for them to stay? The old man told us there were two inns in Griishi, but with a lady and a baby we ought to go to the one at the top of the hill, not the one on the quayside.

It was quite a climb, but it was certainly a good inn. More a coaching inn than a sailor’s haunt, with a price to match. Cost us three coins for the night and breakfast – we’d got used to paying less or nothing. It seemed like a good enough deal, but we’ll have to be careful in Laanoha if I don’t land a good job quickly.

Parruk wanted us to ask for an early breakfast, so they could get us into Laanoha and be well on the way back by nightfall the next day. He said, we might make it all the way if we’re lucky, and it’s a reach both ways. I wonder if they did.

Laanoha straddles an isthmus between a hilly headland and the mainland. We had tied up for free at one of several jetties on the east side, in a wide estuary. The harbour is on the west facing the open sea, and can handle bigger vessels. But has port charges.

Parruk wouldn’t take any money, even though they carried our trunk a mile and a half to the harbour-master’s shed for us. It’s safe there until we have somewhere better to take it – for half a coin a week or part thereof, small item charge. Reminds me of my work in Manafa, but I didn’t say anything yet. We want to get the feel of the place a bit first.

We tried to find Graashi’s sister’s guest house, but half of her street, including where her place was, has been demolished, and is now a building site. We’ll try and find where she’s gone to another day, but we needed to find somewhere to stay ourselves first.

For now, we’re in a boarding house not far from the harbour. It’s cheap – half a coin a night for a room – and the landlady says it’s perfectly safe for a lady and a baby. But no oil lamps in the rooms. The whole place is wooden above the ground floor. We are on the fifth floor.

There’s a little cafe just round the corner that reminds us a lot of Pili’s place in Manafa.

Altogether, Aari and I feel rather the way we felt after we first left Bihi and Hunhu’s place, and found Pili. Except that then Aari had been put ashore and we had never had any security, and now we’ve had years of security. And we have Aariini. And we’re older, says Aari. Yes, but not really old. Aari smiles.

Perhaps I should get work in a cafe, she says. No, I’ll go into the port office and see if they could use a clerk.

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On to Book 7