Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [235]
We whittled stakes for the nets and fished. The first day that we brought in a haul large enough to feed everyone was a glorious thing. Silvery herring, dozens of them, flopping on dry land. We spitted them on sharpened sticks and roasted them in the campfire, tearing them to pieces with our fingers, stuffing chunks in our mouths and spitting out bones. Elua, it was good!
"Look at you," Urist observed, propped by the fire. "A right savage.”
I glanced around. It didn't take long for the trappings of civilization to fall away. All of us looked like wild men, unkempt and half-clad, huddled around the fire, chewing and smacking our lips. I shrugged. "I'm just trying to survive like everyone else here.”
"You're good at it." Urist pulled his stick out of the fire, inspected his fish, and stuck it back into the flames. "Never would have expected that when I first met you.”
"I'm full of surprises," I said wryly.
"Aye." He nodded. "That you are, my prince.”
I raised my brows. "Your prince, am I?”
"As good as any, Imriel of Clunderry." Urist withdrew his stick and plucked the fish deftly from it, juggling it from hand to hand. "Saved my life, didn't you?”
I skewered another herring and began roasting it. "Not really. But I would have felt a right fool if I'd left you to die only to find you stuck there on the rocks, cursing my name.”
He chuckled. "Aye, you would." He regarded his splinted leg, amusement fading. "Never thought I'd end up a cripple. Suppose it won't matter if we die here on this godforsaken island.”
"It was a clean break," I said. "It may heal clean.”
"So I can face death on my feet like a man?" he asked dourly.
"No." I watched my fish curl in the flames, the scales crisping. "I'm not giving in to despair, Urist. I've lived through too damned much to die here on this island. I can't bear to think about it, any of it. It will drive me mad. Captain Iosef thinks we can get this boat ashore and repair it. I have to believe it's true. So I'm not thinking about a damned thing except making that happen and keeping ourselves alive in the process.”
"Stubborn bugger," Urist said, but there was warmth in his tone.
I pulled my fish out of the fire. "Damned right I am.”
Between the fishing nets and the hunting bows—we managed to salvage the quivers, and Urist set his hand to making an additional stock of crude arrows—our sources of nourishment improved considerably. A good thing, too, because our work got harder. The fore of the ship's hold was packed with bales of wool, waterlogged and swollen. If we had any hope of raising the ship, we had to empty it.
We did, bale by bale. Teams of men, two and sometimes three, plunged into the dark hold, working in blind concert underwater to shift the cursed things. It was exhausting and unspeakably difficult. What I'd told Urist was true. I didn't let myself think about anything but the task before me. Betimes my chest ached, but the new scabs didn't split, so I ignored the pain and kept working. And slowly, bale by bale, we emptied the hold.
On Iosef's orders, we saved a few bales, towing them ashore on a raft of pine branches. The wool was spoiled, but I supposed if the weather turned cold before we succeeded in rescuing ourselves, we'd be glad of it. The rest, we tipped into the sea.
Then it came time to raise the ship.
It was a near-impossible task. We didn't have to raise it clean out of the water, Iosef said; just far enough to clear the damaged hull. By this time, I understood him well enough on my own. With Ravi's help, I'd picked up a bigger smattering of Rus, but much of it simply came from working with the Vralians, day in and day out. I didn't need to speak their tongue to understand them. Much of the time, we worked without words, all of us knowing what had to be done.
A good deal of preparation went into raising the ship. We stripped it of its sail and every bit of line. Ropes were spliced. Trees were felled, hacked into