The Bitterwood Bible by Slatter Angela

Author:Slatter, Angela [Slatter, Angela]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Tartarus Press
Published: 2014-08-30T16:00:00+00:00

One tentacle, then another, spears up from the deck, having first pierced the curve of the hull, then anything between it and the sky, heedless of bunks, cargo, barrels, weapon racks, cannons. Those on the island watch in horror as a third, a fourth, a fifth appendage perform precisely the same destructive dance, then, not content with having turned Maude’s ship into a large sieve, the fat oil-glistening limbs strain and pull sideways. Astra’s Light tears as easily as paper, as a lady’s handkerchief. Bodies, planks, casks, sails, masts, the other lifeboats, everything flies across the night firmament as effortlessly as the cow jumping over the moon.

Maude feels her heart rise and fall with those figures; feels it rend with the timbers of her ship.

When all is quiet again and there is only the whisper of the waves, Ambrose begins to push the little boat out but Maude lays a hand on his shoulder and shakes her head, though it is agony to do so. The sea is strewn with wreckage, with things that do not move of their own accord; on the wine-dark surface there is no sign of anyone trying to swim, to survive. Nor is there any sign of the great tentacles that tore the Astra’s Light to shreds—the thing may well be lurking beneath, waiting for Maude to be lunatic enough to mount a rescue.

‘But, Cap’n,’ protests Ambrose. He is the newest member of her crew, not yet as unquestioning as the others. Fralle and Seðryð turn glacial gazes on him; the lack of action hurts them no less than Maude, but they are practical creatures—they believe one cannot aid the dead. Maude wonders how to explain that her mother, captain of the Astra’s Light before her, taught that the care of others was based on priority, and the first priority was those who had the best chance of survival. She watches the waters for as long as she dares, hoping to see at least one form moving, splashing, swimming hard towards her—and she knows in her heart that she wants it to be Sancha, that she would trade every other life in her hands for it to be Sancha, and that shames her. But there is nothing. No one.

In the end, though it makes her ache, she simply says, ‘There can be no survivors, Ambrose. Look to the living.’

As she turns away, Maude thinks about how she came to hear of the Treasure of Isla Caleuche, of how she’d been ready to retire, to leave Astra’s Light, her sails changed to the innocuous colours of a merchantman, her crew dressed in seldom-used uniforms, to distract the authorities from thinking of them as pirates moored in Breakwater’s harbour, to let her gather barnacles. The ship had rested there for weeks and months while her sailors marked time gambling, fishing, patronising the local brothels, doing odd jobs for legitimate merchants who didn’t want their own men sullying their hands with illegal acts, and all the while Maude’s fortune dwindled.

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