The Princess and the Captain (33 page)

Lei shuddered, thinking how terrible the epidemic must have been. Some of the graves were no larger than cradles. She felt her heart sink, her throat was dry, and she clenched her fists. Her whole being quivered with the long-ago grief of the mothers who had to lay their children in the earth, the distress of the men who had to dig their wives' graves, and the indescribable sorrow of the last survivor. Alone on his island, he must have lain down in a hole to die like a dog.

Tears ran down Lei's cheeks as the Unseen told her what they wanted. It was mad, senseless, terrifying, but if anyone could help them she, the daughter of Balmun, was the one to do it. She swore an oath in the language of the Unseen, and then turned to her companions.

‘I come back here tonight,' she announced. ‘I repair what was broken. Thanks to knowledge of Balmun, I unite what was separated.'

‘You don't even know what they died of!' Malva pointed out.

She was sitting on a sea chest in a corner between-decks. Lei was moving around near her, sorting out plants and roots, blowing up the fire under the last cauldron they had on board. She had rolled up the sleeves of her tunic, and was in such a state of agitation that her brow was covered with sweat.

‘How do you think you can work such a miracle?' Malva went on. ‘Your medicine can cure bites, set broken bones – even close up sword wounds. But what these … these Unseen are asking you to do is something else!'

Lei didn't reply. She was concentrating on her work with unprecedented intensity. She chopped leaves, removed the seeds from wild berries, made calculations, measured out ingredients, mixed them – nothing else interested her.

‘They're dead!' Malva cried again. ‘They've been dead and buried for years! You'll never bring them back to life, Lei!'

Malva thought her friend was being a little vain: who did she think she was? Who, in the Two Worlds, could boast of being able to restore the dead to life? At heart Malva knew she was jealous of Lei's knowledge. She felt sure that Orpheus would admire Lei enormously when he was better, and …

‘I not have choice,' said Lei quietly. ‘This is test for me. If I refuse test, Catabea know. Then Catabea send us to Immuration.'

Malva clasped her knees in her arms and looked sullen.

The day had tested her nerves severely. She had paced up and down anxiously for hours while Orpheus slept in his berth. She had visited him countless times, hoping he would open his eyes and recognise her. It was a waste of time: Orpheus slept and slept and slept. Giving up, Malva had taken Zeph with her and lay close to him on her bunk to feel less lonely. Acid was still dripping from the alembic on the five Stones of Life in the Nokros. The gloomiest of thoughts had invaded her mind. Later, when she heard her companions coming back, she had heaved a sigh of relief and ran to meet them.

Once on board, they had told her the whole complicated tale of their discoveries. Malva couldn't believe that they had followed invisible beings all over the island, yet it was the truth. Here, as in the rest of the Archipelago, inexplicable things really happened.

Hob said he had counted sixty-eight graves in the graveyard on the other side of the island. How terrible!

Lei had summed up the tale that the Unseen had told her. Every night the island was plunged deep in mist. The Unseen of the town shut themselves up in their houses. This was the Hour of the Dead. Corpses rose from their graves on the other side of the island. They climbed to the lighthouse, they walked in the
streets, the meadows, the fields, the woods. At that moment the temperature fell several degrees. In spite of the thick mist, the dead worked: it was they who kept the roads in good condition, repaired the low walls, fed the herds of nuba-nubas, those strange beasts whose meat Finopico no longer wanted to taste. It was the dead who rang the bell in the morning when the mists lifted. Then they went back to their graves and did not move until the following night. It had been like that since the end of the epidemic.

As she listened to this story Malva felt her hair stand on end. But when the daughter of Balmun told her that she had promised the Unseen to find some way of curing their dead she was left speechless. To repair what was broken and unite what was separated … that was what they expected. According to a prophecy, a saviour was going to appear and work that miracle: reunite the two sides of the island, repair the bodies wrecked by disease so that their souls could inhabit them again, and life could go on as it did in the old days.

‘If I find cure,' Lei had finished, spreading her harvest of herbs and fruits out on deck, ‘curse on island lifted. Then we go.' And now she was here between decks concocting her potions.

Night was already falling outside. Wisps of mist were clinging to the portholes, and the cold made its way into the
Fabula
again. Lei had taken off Orpheus's jacket and put it on the chest. Malva's teeth were chattering.

‘Take jacket,' Lei suggested. ‘If you not fear bad luck because of blood …'

Malva shrugged her shoulders and picked up the jacket. Its collar smelled of Orpheus. She breathed it in at length.

‘Babilas say he come with me,' added Lei, still stirring the
potion bubbling in the cauldron. ‘We have to give cure to sixty-eight dead before sun rises.'

‘That's a lot,' Malva agreed.

‘I need help,' Lei added. ‘Twins too frightened … Finopico too, but you?'

Malva's fingers tightened on the lapels of the jacket. She didn't know what to say. At that moment Lei tipped a powder made from roots that she had found in the undergrowth into the cauldron. Disgusting fumes suddenly spread between decks. Finopico emerged from his galley, horrified.

‘What on earth is that?' he cried. ‘It smells horrible!'

‘To cure deadly disease,' said Lei in learned tones, ‘potion must be horrible.'

Nauseated, the cook shook his head. ‘Holy Harmony protect our taste buds from sorcery!'

Malva looked at Lei, and they burst out laughing, while Finopico angrily slammed the door.

‘I'm not afraid,' said Malva, when her laughter had died down. ‘You can count on me to help you on the island.'

Babilas, Lei and Malva left the
Fabula
two hours later, laden with phials and small jars containing Lei's potion. Each of them was also carrying a storm-lantern, which didn't cast much light anyway. The mist turned night white, night turned the mist black; they could hardly see their own feet when they looked down.

It was so cold that no one wanted to go up on deck with them. The twins and Finopico had gathered round the stove in the galley, and Zeph was acting as a blanket for Orpheus: Malva's idea to keep the Captain from catching cold. The old St Bernard had been perfectly willing to lie full length on top of his
master. He was drooling liberally over him too, but Orpheus didn't notice.

Babilas jumped down to the beach and helped the two girls. His large figure walked a little unsteadily before them, ghost-like but reassuring. The three of them went in single file along the pathways and roads. Beyond the little roadside walls, fields and meadows were lost in the mist. Suddenly they heard bleating on their right. It was the nuba-nubas, no doubt wanting to be fed. Lei stopped.

She raised her lantern and scrambled over the wall. The other two followed her in silence, and they set off across the meadow. The grass and flowers were wet with dew. Malva had buried her nose in the collar of Orpheus's jacket to give herself courage. Every time she breathed in, his scent made its way into her nostrils and warmed her heart a little.

The bleating of the nuba-nubas was closer now. They could also hear dry creaking sounds, rustling straw and gurgling water. Somewhere in the mist, the dead were giving the flock fodder and water.

Lei took a phial out of the pocket of her tunic. She cautiously went forward, straining her ears to help her get her bearings. Behind her, Malva was clinging to Babilas. She felt fear in the pit of her stomach.

Suddenly shadows appeared in the light of the lanterns. Malva suppressed a scream.

‘Is only nuba-nubas,' Lei whispered, still going forward.

The long-eared animals were crowding around them, rubbing against their legs. They seemed perfectly harmless. Malva took a deep breath. But at that moment a taller shadow emerged from the darkness, carrying a bale of hay on its back. Lei immediately raised her lantern and said a few words in the language of the
Unseen. The shadow moved. When it was close enough the three terrified companions saw its face: it was a man, and cadaverously thin. Above the man's fleshless neck was a bloated face, earth-coloured and mottled with violet stains. His wide, bloodshot eyes rolled in their sockets.

Meeting that sorrowful gaze, Malva felt her legs about to give way beneath her. Babilas held her up with one hand while Lei talked to the apparition. She held her phial up in the air.

The dead man put down his bale of hay. He looked at Lei with a kind of amazement. She spoke to him again and again, until at last he was prepared to take the phial. He turned it this way and that in his skeletal fingers. Malva closed her eyes: the sight of this man, risen from his grave, nauseated her. When she looked again she saw him taking the stopper from the little bottle and carrying it to his mouth. Lei was close enough to touch him. She kept talking gently.

The dead man drank all the potion in the phial and gave it back to Lei. Then, without a word, he lifted his bale of hay again, turned his back on them and vanished into the mist. Lei, Malva and Babilas looked at each other, heaving sighs of relief.

Now they had only sixty-seven more of the dead to find.

It took all night. Groping her way through the fields, the woods and the streets of the town, Lei led Babilas and Malva on in her insane quest. All the dead looked like nightmares when they emerged from the fog. Empty-eyed, mouths contorted by their past sufferings, their faces bloated, their bodies disjointed, some even had traces of dried blood on their cheeks. Malva couldn't get accustomed to their sickly, putrefied faces, particularly when they were children. Several times she was on the point of running away or fainting. Babilas helped her to overcome her
disgust every time, while Lei went tirelessly up to the dead and spoke to them until they had drunk the potion. The worst of it was that none of them knew exactly what the effects of her brew might be.

In her heart, Malva felt that her friend's efforts would be in vain, but Lei never showed any sign of discouragement. She wanted to save these people and allow the Unseen to return to their bodies. Above all, she wanted to pit her powers of healing against the infinitely greater powers of Death.

Babilas kept count of the phials, the jars and the corpses they met. When he told Lei that the sixty-eighth dead body had just drunk her medicine, the daughter of Balmun turned her weary eyes to him. She was swaying where she stood, her lips dry and her voice hoarse. She just looked at the sky. The mist was already dispersing, revealing a few pale stars. Malva, exhausted, sat down on the ground. She buried her face in her hands and began weeping with fatigue.

Suddenly the bell rang very close. Lei jumped. It was the signal that the dead were returning to their graves.

A moment later the mist lifted as suddenly as it had done the day before. Sunlight flooded the island, and the three travellers hid their burning eyes in their hands. Without knowing it, they had reached the foot of the lighthouse. Before them lay the town, with its well-maintained roads and its squares and fountains. Below them in the little bay they could see the
Fabula
, with Finopico and the twins on deck trying in vain to catch sight of them.

Babilas and the two girls waited. The sun rose in the azure sky, the seabirds circled above the cliffs. For some time not a word passed their lips. Lei was looking impatiently at the facades of the houses. When the shutters opened, and if her potion had
worked, it would not be the Unseen who looked out to greet the new day, but flesh-and-blood people.

Long minutes went by. Malva felt her limbs going numb in the warmth of the sun. She must have slept briefly while her two companions, still on the alert for any sign of life, walked round and round the lighthouse.

In the end, when nothing happened, they too sat down, heavy at heart, their expressions gloomy.

This morning the shutters of the red-brick houses remained closed. The streets were still silent. None of the Unseen came out to draw water from the fountains. No pitchfork turned the hay, no laundry basket floated through the air to the wash-house, no little wooden horse was wheeled along the streets …

Something had certainly happened during that terrifying night, but it was not at all what Lei had wanted.

‘Is no good. I failed,' she murmured at last.

With a lump in her throat, Malva turned her amber eyes on her friend. Lei, so graceful in her light tunic, was standing looking at the graveyard on the other side of the island. The wind played in her fair hair, and she was crying. It was the first time Malva had seen her look so frail. The daughter of Balmun, her arms dangling in the heart-breaking silence of the island, was simply giving up. The effect of her potion had been the opposite of what she intended: the Unseen had indeed been reunited with their injured bodies, and now they were lying in the ground for all eternity.

‘
Neuynas ghun!
' Babilas suddenly shouted, pointing at the graves.

Malva leaped to her feet and joined him. Open-mouthed, the three companions watched a strange and terrifying phenomenon: the brambles and wild grass were growing at incredible
speed, sending thorny tentacles and thickets of green all the way up the slope. Before their eyes, the vegetation was reclaiming its rights and soon the graves disappeared under the foliage.

‘Watch out!' cried Malva, flinching.

The undergrowth was climbing rapidly towards the lighthouse, digging its roots into the paving stones of the streets, clambering up houses, trying to throw its thorny arms round the legs of the Living.