The Birth of People's Republic of Antartica, стр. 120
I did not lose my wits, or perhaps I did and only have the delusion of being dragged down to the beach, helpless, not unlike the sensation I had the night at the King’s castle. I believed that I deserved whatever end imaginable. I believed Golgotha overrun.
I was thrown facedown in a heap before one of the bonfires. They did not bind me, kept me down by holding harpoons against my back, at the nape of my neck. I could taste my blood, was restrained from wiping clear my vision. There were Hielistos very close by, excited muttering either in celebration or anticipation. I vomited soon after, could not breathe well with cracked ribs. The fire baked one arm, the wind threw icy spray up to numb my legs. What I try to convey is that I felt adrift in a sea of endings, in shock certainly, also in pity. I pitied Grim Fiddle, not because he had dishonored himself, but because he was stupid. The harpoon was pushed farther into my nape, and the pain cleared my thoughts. I could not recall a single prayer of forgiveness. I heard men and authority. It felt endless waiting, might have only been moments since I was captured. There was a command in Spanish, and another in German. The circle about me opened. From the end of the earth I heard that voice, like far thunder, much reduced, wavering. He told them to get me up. They could not, only rolled me over. I could not see him clearly. I said, “Is it true, Grandfather?” At least, that is my memory. I might have thought this, and I am not sure now what I meant by it. He made no reply, though there was one, the yelping of a white wolf and a gold wolf spinning in aged play amid attendants and beside an elaborately fashioned sled, upon which, in the splendor of a Norse outlaw, lay Mord Fiddle, white beard, too white face, blue eyes.
My Queen
THE Hielistos called Grandfather Barbablanca—White-beard.
They spoke in fear. Grandfather was not in command of the Hielistos’ attack at Golgotha, was nevertheless a powerful supernumerary. The capitan de los Hielistos was a South American named Iacovella, an able soldier despite his reputation as the Butcher of Deception Island, a man I would later enlist in my leap to warlord at Anvers Island, and would still later abandon to his enemies among the Hielistos. That day at Golgotha, Iacovella spared me and my South Georgians. He had come this time neither for food nor recruits, rather to slaughter the Ice Cross, and once that was accomplished—two white cutters in flames, their crews cut up for skuas, fish, men—Iacovella withdrew his forces under the cover of a big storm from the north. Grandfather remained at Golgotha with his four-dozen bodyguards, and with a surprise—Wild Drumrul (several toes and fingers gone, but sound for his year in captivity), now promoted to second officer on the rebuilt and heavily armed Angel of Death, Grandfather’s stout wave-cutter on the ice.
There was no peace for me in the delivery of Golgotha. Grandfather was dying. We carried him inside the camp, laid him out in one of the barracks. The Little Brothers were no more threat; with the Hielistos’ help I had them disarmed and chained. Grandfather’s Hielistos were eager to obey me. They regarded me with an awe that derived from their veneration of Grandfather; also, they were very afraid for the life of their protector, Barbablanca. Their first officer, a Russian whaler who called himself Kuressaare, begged us to save Grandfather. He explained in exaggerated detail what peril awaited Angel of Death if it were to return without Barbablanca to the Hielistos fortress at Anvers Island, which I knew roughly to be in the Palmer archipelago, several days sail across the Bransfield Strait. His men echoed his woes to my sealers, groaned of Jaguaquara and figures unknown to me such as Fives O’Birne, Hector the Fat.
Grandfather spoke briefly before he collapsed from exhaustion. He assured me there would be time later for that worry. He said Lord God had returned me to him, and he must pray his thanksgiving in solitude. He said it was his time to die: I was not to leave him; I was not to disagree; I was not to let them keep him alive with medicines. He was very reduced, a waste of a man, bones broken and badly healed, lips, ears, nose, and eyelids all scar tissue. He could not walk, and we were never able to feed him more than broth. Annabel Donne studied him as he slept and said he was a miracle. Kuressaare stood guard with Goldberg; he told me Barbablanca s appearance should not fool us: Barbablanca always got up to take his revenge.
That first night, I sat by Grandfather as he slept, held his hand, knew that Kuressaare was wrong: Mord Fiddle would never get up. Germanicus and some of the other senior sealers came in, more to get a close look at Grandfather than to consult with me. The whole camp soon learned that a legend was among us—Lazarus’s doing, probably, though Grandfather’s Hielistos were quick to boast. Later, Longfaeroe approached, asking if he might offer his thanks for our survival. As he sang his psalms, Grandfather appeared to smile in his sleep. With his eyes closed, he was a corpse. By morning, however, almost as Kuressaare had said, Grandfather was awake, and if not sanguine, certainly returned to an extraordinary measure of resolve. He waited for my lead. I took it, asking one question, “Are they all dead?”
At that, he began to talk, of Heaven and Hell, of the war of shadows and the “whore of Babylon,” and most completely of Satan’s Seat and “Satan’s Own.” He was half a month talking and dying. In that time, Grandfather’s metaphors fell upon me,