The Voyage of the Unquiet Ice by Andrew McGahan

confirming witness is vital. Especially as the boy saw the strange vessel for longer than I did on the night.’ And Dow noted that even here, in front of his sovereign, the little captain still bore the greater air of command.
    â€˜Mmm,’ uttered Benito.
    Vincente nodded to Dow. ‘Off you go. But be ready. And remember, just keep your head and tell the truth.’
    Dow retreated up the stairs. Fidel was seated in the fourth row, and indicated an empty seat in front of him – next to Nell as it happened, who was staring fixedly into space, arms folded.
    Dow took his seat, and when it seemed that those nearby had stopped staring at him, he began to look about in his own turn. His eye was first drawn to the other sovereigns in the chamber, identifiable amid all their courtiers by the crowns and diadems upon their brows. Here, literally, were the Ship Kings – the actual eleven monarchs – so feared in name across all the Isles. But in truth, for all the wealth and power they represented, there was nothing inherently interesting about them in appearance. They were mostly, like Benito, older men, and none of them seemed particularly fierce or warlike.
    Increasingly, Dow was distracted by other figures among the crowd, strange faces that stared out here and there. They were of all ages, and many were female, the only women present in the hall – but all were misshapen, some as if from a defect of birth, others as if from injury or disease, others again with features contorted seemingly by madness. And all were richly, indeed gaudily, dressed – more so even than many of the kings – as if to display their deformities all the more boldly.
    They were scapegoats, Dow realised, brought there by their captains, from their respective ships. And in such numbers he found their presence both fascinating and repellent, a macabre testimony to the strange dogmas of the Ship Kings world. He glanced at Nell sidelong. She occupied the same position as those others – and yet she seemed so unlike them, with her dark, sober attire and composed features. What, he wondered, did she make of all her fellow unfortunates? Only her razor-fine scars marked her as one of them. But where and when and how had she acquired those scars?
    At length another warning bell rang out, and gradually the tumult in the hall died away to a restless hum, and then to a last-minute clatter as the latecomers found their seats. Dow sat up nervously. Silence fell, and all faces turned in readiness to the central dais.
    â€˜Majesties, Lords and Captains,’ announced a hollow voice into the quiet, from somewhere unseen, ‘pray stand for Ibanez the Third, Lord of all the Oceans and Undisputed Master of the Four Isles.’
    The crowd stood in unison, Dow too. Craning his head – for he was much shorter than most of the officers about him – he could just observe the great doors behind the dais swing wide, and a man emerge, trailed at a respectful distance by a collection of courtiers.
    So this was the awesome Sea Lord – an old man, very thin, and partly lame, his arm quivering as he leant on a black walking stick. The crowd waited in silence as he laboured up a short ramp to the dais. He came to his throne at last, then straightened to consider his subjects. Dow saw an unhealthily gaunt face and a sad gaze. On his mottled brow was not a crown, but rather of wreath of gold fashioned to look like the twined strands of some plant – was it seaweed?
    Behind the Sea Lord, meanwhile, an attendant was pushing a strange contraption up the ramp. It was, Dow realised, a wheeled chair; he had seen such devices in Stone Port, used to convey invalids or the very old about the streets. But this chair was framed by a canopy from which hung, on all sides, curtains of black gauze. The suggestion of arms and legs beneath the gauze confirmed that the chair indeed bore a passenger, but who it might be, man or woman, could not be