The bluehess was leaving her skin by the time he got her to drink all her soup, but she lay limply under the fur, drained by even the slight effort required to swallow. Under them the little ship rocked gently, pulling at the anchor chain, then following the sea as it was pulled back again. He got in the bunk beside her, covering them both with the other fur, and at last allowed himself the luxury of sleep.
An urgent need to relieve himself was what brought Robinton back to consciousness. He couldn’t move easily, partly because of the weight of Kasia across him and partly because of the resistance of tired muscles. It took him a few moments to remember why he had slept so deeply. Startled, he looked out of the little round porthole and saw a shadowed shore through the mist that swirled on the surface. Little waves splashed against the side of the ship, and she rode easily on the anchor.
Trying not to groan as he forced abused muscles to work, he slid out from under Kasia and all but fell off the bunk. Kasia didn’t move, but her face wasn’t quite so white and her lips were no longer blue-tinged. He tucked the fur about her firmly and staggered up the steps, throwing open the hatch. The air was chill and dank with fog, and the deck was littered with sea wrack. He went hand-over-hand from the cabin housing to the rail to get to the side and relieve himself-and it was indeed a relief.
Curious, he peered through the fog to see where they had fetched up, but he could see little detail on the shore – if there was a shore.
Some of the inlets were nothing but shallow pockets eroded from the cliff by the sea. Whatever! This one had saved their lives.
He went below again.
The brazier had gone out; the charcoal was all ashes. He got more and started another fire, warming his hands as the charcoal began to burn. Kasia moaned, stirred, and then coughed. Fearful of fever, he felt her forehead but it was cold. So were her cheeks. Too cold.
He filled the kettle from the cistern and put it to heat on one side of the grill over the charcoal, then set the soup kettle on the other half. Panting from even that little bit of exercise, he sat on the edge of the bunk and took deep, slow breaths. A shiver ran down his back, and he realized that he was almost as cold as Kasia.
When the klah was made and the soup warm enough to be helpful, he roused her, stuffing pillows and the cadsaks behind her for support. She turned her head restlessly, batting at him, and coughed again – a little, almost apologetic bark.
“Kasia, wake up. You need to eat, love.”
She shook her head, her expression petulant even with her eyes firmly shut.
He talked her eyes open and made her drink, and she gave him a weak little smile and then went back to sleep again.
That seemed a very sensible idea, so he finished his soup and climbed back under the furs. Her arms were cold under his hands and he rubbed them, breaking off only when even that effort proved exhausting.
They slept again.
Robinton began to feel real concern when the second long sleep revived him but seemed to have little effect on Kasia’s terrible lethargy. And the cold was increasing. The wooden hull offered no protection against the cold’s insidious draining of their body warmth. He had dressed her in the warmest clothes and heated the kettle time and time again, wrapping it well and settling it securely near her feet which, in spite of the heavy socks, were like ice to the touch. He forced her to drink and, when she complained that her stomach was bursting with all he had made her drink, he found a way to hold her over a bucket to relieve herself.
The fog had lifted sufficiently for him to see that sheer cliffs surrounded the little cove, with no discernible track up them to find help. But he did not feel confident in himself to sail the ship out