In The Wreckage: A Tale of Two Brothers by Simon J. Townley Read Free Book Online Page B

only Faro. Now this woman treated him like a child in front of his crew-mates. But he didn’t dare pull his hand away. Upset the man’s wife and he’d soon get on the captain’s bad side. Besides, he might need this woman’s protection, before the voyage was out. So he put up with the indignity, and stuck close to her, though he touched the knife Jonah had given him, making sure it was still there, around his waist, hidden by his shirt.  
    The mayor and a group of elders met the captain as they came down the gangplank onto the dockside. Most were stodgy men with big bellies, wearing shirts and ties. The people of Bergen didn’t suffer from food shortages, that was clear, judging by the waistlines on show. The mayor herself was an old woman, seventy or more, with a twinkle in her eye and a cheeky smile, and slim to the point of being frail. She took Captain’s Hudson’s arm and led him towards the town hall. Inside a buffet had been laid on. All around people spoke in a strange language unknown to Conall, but whenever they addressed anyone from The Arkady , they could all speak perfect English.  
    Conall stuck beside Erica Hudson as they explored a long table full of food. “They don’t have things so bad. Better than Shetland.”  
    “They have more land for growing food and grazing animals,” Erica said. “And they’ve always had a way with boats and ships. I guess they never lost it, and they can still take to the sea, go fishing. And there’s the climate too. Cooler here, don’t you think? Look at the trees. There are no forests like this now, not in England, not even in Scotland.”
      Conall stuck close to Captain Hudson and the mayor, listening to their conversation, keen to learn all he could about their trades, their talk and the worlds they lived in. It sounded as if Bergen was busier than Shetland had ever been, in his lifetime or even decades before, with passing ships and trade, people from inland bringing food and wood, metals and furs. All the same, no ship the size of The Arkady had been seen for a dozen years or more according to the mayor. “There’s no more fuel for the engines,” she said. “Few sail ships left, and no one to build new ones.”  
    The captain told of the years spent refitting The Arkady , a ship he’d found abandoned in the old port of Liverpool. “We had to protect her from raiders, find men who could do the repairs, who understood the sails and masts and rigging. We needed a crew, men who knew the sea and they are hard to find. And we needed men we could trust, and that’s harder still.”  
    Erica glanced at her husband as he said it, an odd expression on her face. Did she trust Jonah Argent and his men? Probably not. Part of him wanted to warn her, to tell her what he and Faro had heard about the treasure map.  
    The mayor asked the captain about the voyage and where the ship was heading.  
    “We make for Svalbard, to form a settlement,” he said. “All the work, refitting The Arkady , was so we could head north to the cooler climes, where it’s easier to grow food, and to live. There were no ships you see. We needed our own. And we wanted to bring so much. We have animals on board, to start a farm. It isn’t much, but a beginning. And once we’re settled, we can use the ship to make more journeys.”  
    “She should be used for trade,” the mayor said. “A ship like that should be in use. There’s so many people who want to go north.”  
    The captain agreed with her, but insisted his ship would be busy for many years, transporting people and animals, plants and equipment.  
    “Tell me,” the mayor said, “why Svalbard? Why not Greenland? There’s more land. Almost a continent. They say the glaciers have gone.”  
    “But is there any soil?”  
    “Is there on Svalbard?”  
    “Some, I’ve heard. And if there’s little, then we have plans. We’ll bring soil from further south.”  
    “That’s the work of years,” the mayor