On Blue's waters

Last night Alubukhara (who is as round and sweet as the fruit of that name, and almost as dark) said, “If you wish to do a thing again, you must do it slowly.” I do not believe that is a proverb here; if it were, I would have heard it before this. No doubt it was a saying of her mother’s. But it ought to be a proverb for courts and for governments of every stripe, for sailors such as I once was, and for writers. Hard decisions, I have found, become easy ones when the judge understands the entire case. When a new burden must be laid upon the people, we should remove two, and look very carefully, first, at those we have chosen to remove. Those who sail fast do not sail for long, while what is written with great rapidity is rarely read-or worth reading.

I would like this read, and not by one woman or man alone (although I am very glad that you are reading it) but by so many that it reaches the eyes of the men and the woman for whom it is especially meant. My sons, I loved you so much! Am I really speaking to you now? Nettle, my heart’s delight, do you recall our first night together in the Caldé’s Palace? There has never been another night like that, and there can never be. I hope, and in my whole life I have never been more serious and sincere, that you have been unfaithful to me. That you have found a good and honest man to cast his lot with yours and help you bring up our sons. Nettle, can you hear my voice in this?

I wanted to write that the rest of the night on which Seawrack and I first encountered Krait passed uneventfully, and that I sat up for most of it stroking poor Babbie’s head. There. It is written.

But I should have said first that Seawrack was quite right in thinking that I wanted to question her about the sea goddess she called the Mother. Having found Seawrack exceedingly reluctant to say much of anything about her, I had been trying to get at the truth indirectly. At some fraction of the truth, I ought to have written, and would have if I had not been hurrying ahead. (If Sinew’s impatience was the result of youth, what is mine?)

A fraction of the truth, since even Seawrack, who had been cared for by the goddess since before she could swim, cannot have known everything.

Who, for that matter, could know the whole truth about Sea- wrack? Not Seawrack herself, and that is completely certain even if nothing else is. At the time about which I have been writing, the time before Krait, I had not yet grasped the real riddle; but I will give it here so that you who read may weigh things for yourself. I am not, after all, writing merely to entertain you.

The real riddle concerning Seawrack is this: If the Mother took care of Seawrack in order that Seawrack might lure others, as fowlers use a captive bird, did the Mother send her back among her own kind-among us-so that she might lure more or lure them better? To put it simply, did the Mother suffer a change of heart, or is she pursuing some deep plan that will culminate in our destruction? It is very important that we know this.

The wind picked up before noon, and we cracked along in a way that had me plotting to spread more sail. I was ever a careful, cautious sailor, as I have implied. But the cautious sailor must avoid the sunken rock of overcaution, and it was apparent that additional sail would speed us on our way without endangering us.

After a great deal of squinting at the western horizon, spitting, and pulling my beard (all of which amused Seawrack in a way that gladdened my heart, although I did not say so), I contrived an extension to our mainsail from a stick that I lashed to the boom and a long, triangular strip of canvas whose top I tied to the gaff. It worked so well that I contrived another triangular sail, like a jib, that we set on the forestay in imitation of Gyrfalcon’s boat, reassuring myself by assuring Seawrack that we would take both in the moment the breeze strengthened.

As a result of all this, we sighted the island before sundown. Or at any rate we sighted an island we assumed was the one at which Strik and his crew had watered. I have never been entirely confident that it was in fact the same, although it may have been. Certainly it fit their description, and we found it by following their directions, that is, by sailing close-hauled almost due west. Later I saw that there were many other islands of the same type all along that coast, mountains covered with lush greenery rising out of the sea. By favor of the southwest wind, we quickly discovered a small, sheltered bay on the north side of the island, and a swift, rocky stream at the end of it.