Into the Wilderness: Blood of the Lamb (Book Two) (4 page)

“No,” he said, his brow creased to a frown. “I mean, do you
really
like me?”

How could he even ask it when only moments ago she had given herself over to his kiss? “I do,” she confessed, terror and excitement competing inside. She didn't know what else to say. It was the truth, but she felt as if she teetered on the edge of a precipice, and there was only a perilous, uncharted region far below. Instead, she wrapped her arms around Joseph's shoulders and pressed him close.

He littered her hair with tiny kisses, his breath panting out hard and fast, and she closed her eyes, allowing the pressures of the outside world to fall away once more. But a predatory face intruded on the swirling pleasure in her head—Father Joshua as he forced himself on Ruth. She pulled back abruptly, guilt competing with pleasure in a confusing dance.

“I'm sorry,” she babbled, “but I can't stop thinking of poor Ruth.”

“Ruth?” A hint of impatience crept into Joseph's voice.

“She suffers cruelly from the assault by Father Joshua. I don't know how to ease her hurt.” It was totally the wrong time to be telling him this, she knew—their intimacy was retreating like the tide—but she badly needed to share the worry. She wanted Joseph's help.

Joseph stared at her intently before sighing. He released her from his embrace. “I suspect it's something only time will heal,” he said. “I've heard my mother speak of the fallout from such an—” He held his hand aloft as the clouds finally decided to release their load. “Oh-oh…It's here.”

Plump drops splashed around them, bursting like tiny explosions as they hit the deck. Within seconds both Joseph and Maryam were soaked.

“Quickly,” Joseph ordered, “get under the shelter now and try to sleep. I'll man the boat.”

It pained her to break their precious moment, but the rain was falling more steadily now, running off her hair and weeping down her face. She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed the wet tip of his nose. “Shall I wake Ruth for her shift?”

Joseph shook his head. “No, let her sleep. Perhaps with rest her mind will find some kind of peace.”

Maryam sent him one last smile, warmed, despite the rain, by Joseph's kind and thoughtful heart.

The downpour lasted until dawn. Maryam hardly slept, tossing and turning as she replayed the conversation and the unsettling kiss from the night before. Why, oh why had she raised Ruth's problem with Joseph then? After so few opportunities to be alone with him, she'd distracted him from the little time they had.

When, finally, the rain had stopped and the sky was growing light, she could stand her swirling thoughts no longer, and crawled out of the shelter to press a nourishing ball of te kabubu paste into Joseph's hand.

“Please, eat this,” she said. “It'll help to warm you and keep up your strength.” Then she handed him her one spare shirt. “Here. Use this to dry yourself.”

He looked wet and miserable, his skin paled to a stony grey and wrinkled from the long exposure to the rain. Purple pools of tiredness smudged beneath his eyes. As he stripped off his own soaked shirt he sneezed a spray of te kabubu out across the deck and shrugged.

“Well, the good news is it looks as though the rain has passed.” He pointed east, to where the bank of clouds had retreated. To the west, the sky transformed to vivid blue.

Maryam scanned the western horizon and spied a flock of birds reeling in the distance, far ahead. “Look! Doesn't that mean we're nearing land?”

Joseph shielded his eyes against the glare. His face lit up. “You could be right!” Again he sneezed, the force rocking his
whole body. “Keep a good watch on them—it could mean Marawa Island is up ahead.”

Despite her relief, Maryam was swept by a terrible foreboding. “Is it protected by a reef?” she asked. She thought back to their wild flight from Onewēre. Even when they'd known the position of the corridor between the deadly shelves of coral, they'd struggled to manoeuvre the big boat safely through. Just how would they navigate a completely unfamiliar reef?

He guessed her thoughts. “If we approach in daylight we should be right. I'm fairly sure it's just a case of watching for changes in the colour of the sea.”

Fairly sure?
She didn't want to question Joseph's authority, but his words failed to comfort her. They were sailing as blind as old Hushai, in a boat so large it seemed to have a mind of its own. If they should make even the tiniest error of judgement…

Joseph rubbed his hair as dry as possible with Maryam's shirt and stretched his arms towards the heavens with a tired yawn. “Thanks for your help. Can you take the tiller now? I need some rest.” He draped the two damp shirts across the pandanus thatch to dry. “Keep an eye out for the wind, it's stronger than it looks—and wake me if you see anything that remotely looks like land! I'll get the other two to help you.”

When Ruth emerged from the shelter, Maryam noticed immediately how much less strained she looked. She had more colour in her face, and even smiled when Maryam pointed out the flock of birds.

“I dreamed we landed in the Lord's own realm, and the Lamb greeted us Himself and made us welcome.”

Lazarus, refreshed too, laughed. “And just what did He look like, oh great oracle of the high seas?”

His sneering slapped Ruth's cheeks with pink but she did not falter in her answer. “Like He looked upon the cross. His hands and feet were marked with blood, yet from Him shone a sacred light.”

There was such awe and longing in her voice it made Maryam want to cry. Despite what Father Joshua had done to her, Ruth's faith was secure. The familiar touchstones of the Holy Book helped keep her sane.

“It's a sign, Ruthie,” Maryam reassured her. “The Lord is telling you all will be well.”

“Either that or He's telling her she's soon to meet her maker because we're doomed,” Lazarus drawled.

Always ready with a put-down.

“Take the tiller, Ruth,” Maryam ordered, seizing Lazarus by the arm and towing him up to the front of the boat. Some things could not be left unsaid. “Don't toy with her,” she whispered to him furiously. “I don't care what you say to me, but leave Ruth be.”

He rubbed the place where her fingers had dug into his elbow, and a caustic smile twisted his mouth. “Let me get this straight. If I leave your friend alone, then I can say whatever I like to you?”

She nodded reluctantly, realising she'd backed herself into a corner. There was nothing she could do but take the hand he now held out to her. Still, she conceded only one half-hearted shake before tugging her hand back quickly from his grasp.

“We have a deal then,” he said.

“I guess we do.” She hated how he looked at her, like a hunter eyeing up his prey.

“Then right now I have this to say—” He rubbed his toe
along a join between the timbers of the deck. “I saw you kissing my cousin in the night.”

She found she could not look at him, and studied instead his restless foot. His toes were long, each joint clearly delineated beneath his pale skin. “What of it?” she challenged him, knowing there was no point in denial. But it infuriated her that he seemed to know what she was doing or thinking at every turn.

“Nothing, little Sister. Nothing.” He leaned in towards her, his voice now serious and hushed. “But be careful where you rest your heart. Your blood may have given him a boost, but, believe me, Te Matee Iai does not give up its own so easily.”

Her gaze flew up to his, but she could not read the content of his eyes. “What is it you're trying to say?”

“Only this: those who use the Blessed Sisters' blood to halt Te Matee Iai's progress are not cured, merely given a reprieve.”

“Reprieve?”

He ran his hand almost tenderly down one of the ropes, and sighed. “Have you not wondered why so many of your Sisters have already died? Or why more and more are picked each Judgement time to fill the ranks? The need for blood—
ongoing
need—is as endless as this sea.”

“You mean—” Her question died as the meaning of his words struck her full force. He was saying Joseph still could die. But even as she processed this, out of the corner of her eye she saw an unfathomable emotion ripple across Lazarus's face. Of course! He was teasing her, knowing full well how much his prediction would cause her grief. “You're lying,” she accused him. “I heard your own mother say she could maintain his strength.”

“Maintain, yes. Keep him alive without more blood? Not a
chance.” He looked pleased with himself, as though he believed he'd dealt her a mortal blow.

“You really
are
detestable. What kind of person would wish his cousin dead merely to score a point with me?” The answer came easily enough:
a liar and heartless beast.

She turned her back on his deceit, hurrying down the deck to join Ruth at the tiller. From now on, she vowed, she would not rise to his bait, no matter how he taunted her. And if he thought he could lie to her—well, he was wrong.

The wind rose to a gusty westerly, hitting the boat head on and making a hard slog of progress as they tacked from side to side to make leeway towards the west. Maryam and Lazarus were forced to work together, adjusting the heavy sails each time they made a turn. It was arduous and concentrated work, and by noon the sun blazed directly overhead, the harsh rays bouncing off the water and striking at Lazarus's pale unprotected skin like open flames.

Maryam had just ducked into the shelter for a drink of water when she heard Ruth give a strangled cry from her station at the tiller.

“Sweet Lord in Heaven! Come and see this.”

Maryam rushed to her, following the line of Ruth's arm as she pointed out in front of them to the south-west. There, at the very edge of the horizon, something broke the regularity of the hazy border between sea and sky.

“Can you see it too?” Ruth demanded.

Maryam blinked and looked again, clambering to the very
prow of the boat to see if she could gain a better view. There
was
something there, she was sure of it.

“I can!” she called back, her heart banging out its excitement despite the wilting effects of the sun. But the shadowy apparition was further to the south than any land they'd plotted on the map.
Time to wake Joseph
, she thought.
He will know.

She charged back down the deck and ducked into the shelter, where Joseph lay sprawled across the bedding, his face flushed and his breathing thick and laboured in the stifling heat. She shook him by the shoulder.

“Joseph! Wake up! We think we might have sight of land!”

His eyes shot open but took a moment to focus on her face. “What?”

“Land!” she repeated. “Come take a look.”

He stirred himself, reaching for the map as he followed her outside.

She pointed to the mysterious lump on the horizon. “See? Right there!”

He cupped his hand over his eyes, peering intently into the distance before turning his attention to the map. “It
has
to be Marawa Island,” he agreed. “There's nothing else even remotely near us.”

“Praise the Lord!” Ruth cried, her anxiety extinguished by the joy that swept the group.

“We'll need to sail harder on to the wind if we're to reach it before nightfall,” Lazarus said.

Maryam knew he was right, but even now could not bring herself to acknowledge him. Instead she turned to Joseph. “How long, do you reckon, until we're there?”

Joseph shrugged. “Hard to tell. But we'll need to leave at least an hour of light to find a safe way through the reef.”

“And if we don't?”

“Then we'll have to circle it all night, well out at sea, and wait till morning.”

“You're joking,” Ruth wailed. “You mean we'd have to wait all night?”

“If you want to reach land safely, we really have no other choice.”

“In that case, let's get moving,” Maryam said, looking up to check the position of the sun. “I figure we have about seven hours of good light.” She studied Joseph, who still looked flushed. “I'll make some lunch, then let's see if we can move this boat more quickly.”

He grinned at her. “All right. You're on!”

Never was a meal prepared and eaten in such haste. It was as if they'd been infested by a swarm of ngongo bugs, the itch to reach land so great that sitting still was all but impossible. The race was on as soon as they had swallowed their last mouthfuls of the stale bread.

Joseph, Lazarus and Ruth took charge of the ropes, while Maryam swung the tiller in an endless cycle of hard tacks. Their concentration was palpable; no one spoke bar the odd curt call for help. After an hour the heat and sustained effort began to sap their enthusiasm, and still the island remained a teasing shadow at the far edge of their world. But they slogged on, breaking only for much-needed water, and by the passing of the second hour the island was clearly outlined against the sky.

“Have you thought about our tactics once we land the boat?” Maryam asked Joseph during a brief break for water rations. Now that the island lay before them, thoughts of their likely reception weighed heavily upon her. What if the people
of Marawa were hostile to strangers? What on earth would they do then?

“I'm sure when they've heard our plight they'll take us in.”

“You're assuming they'll understand what we're saying,” Lazarus chipped in. “You said that they turned away the missionaries—what if they can't understand a word we say?”

“That's where I'm counting on Maryam and Ruth to help. My father was convinced that all the islands once shared the same far-distant ancestors, so hopefully they'll recognise some of Onewēre's words.”

“But I can hardly remember how to speak it,” Ruth said. “Blessed Sisters are forced to speak English once we're taken at the Judgement.”

“I can understand our language when it's spoken, but I'm not sure I can string whole sentences together and make sense,” Maryam added. “What if we say something wrong?”

Joseph gestured helplessly. “I have no idea,” he said, frustration clipping off his words. “I never said it would be easy.”

Maryam glanced up at him sharply—it was so unlike him to snap. She saw now how drained he looked. The rings under his eyes had darkened almost to black. “Let's focus on one problem at a time,” she said, hoping to relieve him of some stress.