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

right. He’s a good dog.”  
    “The best.” He wanted to say something more but his mind had gone blank. She looked at him, expecting him to speak. Nothing came. She smiled, kissed Rufus’s head and turned to go.  
    “Jonah says stay below. Out of sight.” The words came out gruffer than he’d intended.  
    She turned back, their eyes meeting for a fraction of a moment, nodded, her head low, and she slipped through the doorway into the cabins.  
    Conall stayed on deck, taking orders from Bagatt and helping ready the ship to sail. “I reckon we’ll pull out, soon as everyone’s on board and supplies are loaded,” Bagatt told him. “Hour or two at most, provided everyone gets back, safe.”  
    It took more than four hours before they were ready. More hay and straw arrived for the animals, vegetables and meat, and a cart full of roughly hewn wood for the carpenter, needed for repairs and running maintenance on board ship. Faro was among the last to return. Conall saw him coming, swaying behind Jonah Argent and his men, their faces red and flushed, voices loud. Drunk.  
    As the last of them staggered aboard, the captain gave orders to cast off. The crowd that had greeted their arrival had thinned to a handful of bystanders watching the workings of the ship.  
    Conall busied himself on deck. He felt Faro’s hand on his shoulder. “Come on,” his brother said, “got to talk. You won’t believe what I learnt from Jonah Argent.”  

Chapter Six
T ROMSØ

    When the ship sailed from Bergen in the late afternoon Jonah and half a dozen of the men were still drunk, Faro included. Captain Hudson ordered them to sleep it off, and that left the ship short-handed. Conall was hard pressed on deck for the rest of the day and it was dark by the time he got off duty. He ate with the other sailors and by the time he headed his hammock, Faro was alone in the room, more sober but still excited.  
    “They talked of Svalbard,” Faro whispered. “The locals in Bergen, they’ve heard stories. There are wildmen there, they say, covering half the island. A tribe of them, they drive out strangers and live like savages. And they’re at war with the settlers. And there are slavers too, deep mines where the slaves work, digging coal and gold and diamonds. Some say there’s oil, but they all talk of the treasure of Spitsbergen. You should have seen Jonah’s face. He pretended he wasn’t interested but kept coming back to it in round-about ways.”  
    Conall frowned. “So what is this treasure?”  
    “Must be money, precious stones. Or technology from the old days. Someone said it was powerful weapons, so you could win any war. It’s a legend. The treasure of Spitsbergen. Something so valuable you couldn’t put a price on it.”  
    “It’s just stories, meaningless.”  
    “I’m going to find that map,” Faro said. “We can beat Jonah to it. They’ll take us right there. And we slip in first.”  
    “I don’t care about treasure. I’m here to find them.”  
    “Little child needs his mum and dad?”  
    “It’s why we’re going.”  
    Faro stood at the porthole staring into the darkness. “I can look after myself. I wouldn’t speak to them, even if they are alive.”  
    Conall slid into his hammock, rolled onto his side. “You’re drunk. You don’t mean it.”  
    “They deserted us,” Faro said, still staring through the porthole. “Deliberately. Must have. They didn’t want us, couldn’t afford passage on a ship, so they left us behind. You know it’s true.”  
    “They wouldn’t.”  
    “You were too young. You didn’t know them.”
    “You were only ten.”  
    “Older than you, though.”
    That was true. Faro was older. He always had that card to play, to put himself in charge.  
    “I’ll find the map,” Faro said. “I need you to stand watch outside the captain’s stateroom.”  
    “It isn’t there, the engineer didn’t find it.”  
    “Then I’ll search his