Glacial Handshake

A vast, silent expanse of frozen Hudson Bay becomes the stage for a smuggling operation, where the biting cold and absurd encounters test the patience of a young privateer and his cynical captain.

Bobbie’s breath froze in a cloud, then solidified into a fine rime on his moustache, which, if he were honest, he’d been attempting to grow for months with only limited, patchy success. The brass telescope, colder than any corpse, pressed a numb ache into his eye socket. He scanned the indifferent white, a landscape that mocked all human endeavour with its vast, unblinking emptiness. Not a seal, not a polar bear, not even the phantom shimmer of a distant ice-ghost. Just the Bay, frozen solid, stretching to infinity in every direction, like a poorly stretched canvas.

The 'Arctic Squall' was little more than a smudge against the stark panorama, a collection of splintering wood and frozen ropes. She creaked and moaned with a constant, melancholic rhythm, a lullaby to the end of all things. Her sails, furled and stiff, were mummified in ice. Smuggling furs from the northern reaches, a task usually accompanied by a modicum of dramatic chase or daring evasion, had devolved into a bureaucratic exercise in trudging through endless, featureless snow.

“Anything?”

Bellamy’s voice, raspy as a file on rusted metal, scraped up from the hatch. Bobbie didn't need to look down to see the captain’s face: the perpetually furrowed brow, the nicotine-stained beard, the eyes that had seen too many winters and too few profitable summers. Bellamy was a walking, breathing testament to the futility of hope in the unforgiving north.

“Nothing,” Bobbie replied, the word emerging as a reluctant puff of steam. “Still just… white.”

“Generous,” Bellamy grunted, climbing onto the quarterdeck. “I’d call it an absence of anything interesting. My thoughts precisely. Come down.”

Bobbie carefully descended the icy ladder, each rung a gamble against gravity and frostbite. His heavy woollen coat, stiff as cardboard, rustled like dry leaves. He landed on the deck with a soft thump, his boots crunching on the thin layer of ice that coated every surface.

“The cargo manifest came in,” Bellamy said, pulling a sheet of parchment from inside his coat, its edges already curling from the damp cold. “It’s… unconventional.”

Bobbie shivered, not from the cold, which had long since become a dull companion, but from the slight tremble in Bellamy’s voice. Unconventional from Bellamy usually meant either suicidal or utterly preposterous. Or both.

“What is it?” Bobbie asked, trying to keep his tone neutral, though a prickle of dread had begun to trace patterns up his spine.

“Porcelain,” Bellamy announced, his lips barely moving. “Fine, hand-painted, Ming Dynasty porcelain. And a crate of… taxidermied stoats.”

Bobbie blinked. He waited for the punchline, for Bellamy’s customary dry chuckle, but none came. Bellamy’s expression remained as grim as the winter sky. This was no joke.

“Porcelain,” Bobbie repeated, the word feeling utterly alien in this frozen wasteland. “From China. Here. Now.”

“Apparently, there’s a new market for highly breakable, ancient dinnerware among the Fort managers,” Bellamy drawled, a hint of his usual satire finally entering his voice, though it was thin and sharp. “And for stuffed weasels, it seems. The price offered… it's substantial enough to make one consider the logistics. Or the sanity of our clientele.”

Bobbie imagined the delicate, painted teacups rattling in their wooden crates, being dragged across hundreds of miles of frozen wilderness, handled by men whose primary concern was not shattering the ice underfoot. The absurdity of it made his teeth ache. This was not the swashbuckling privateering of tavern tales.

### The Uninvited Sled

A few hours later, just as the perpetual twilight began its slow, indifferent descent into full, deep gloom, Bobbie spotted it. A smudge on the horizon, not quite white, not quite grey, moving with a deceptive speed across the flat, unyielding expanse of ice. It was a sled, pulled by a team of huskies, and it was heading straight for them.

“Ship on the starboard bow,” Bobbie called out, the formality of the naval command feeling utterly ridiculous in this surreal landscape. “Correction. Sled. On the ice.”

Bellamy joined him on deck, pulling his spyglass to his eye. He squinted, adjusted the focus, and then lowered the instrument with a sigh that fogged the air. “Well, look at that. Our esteemed competitors. Or, more accurately, our utterly unwelcome partners in this absurd venture.”

Serina, a sturdy young woman with a practical braid and eyes that missed nothing, emerged from below deck, wiping grease from her hands with a scrap of cloth. “Trouble?” she asked, her voice calm, devoid of any real curiosity. Trouble was, after all, the natural state of things.

“The usual sort,” Bellamy affirmed, without taking his eyes off the approaching sled. “The kind that requires us to pretend we didn’t just nearly run aground on a phantom iceberg last week.”

The sled approached slowly, its runners whispering over the ice. The dogs, dark smudges against the white, pulled with a steady, relentless rhythm. As they drew closer, Bobbie could make out the figures on the sled: two men, bundled in layers of fur and canvas, their faces obscured by hoods and scarves.

The sled stopped about fifty metres from the 'Arctic Squall', as if respecting an invisible boundary. One of the figures, taller and broader than the other, stood up and raised a mittened hand in a gesture that could have been either a greeting or a command to hold. It was impossible to tell. The silence of the Bay swallowed any sound they might have made.

Bellamy sighed again, a deeper, more theatrical sound this time. “Right then. Serina, Bobbie. You’re with me. Just remember, they’re probably as cold and miserable as we are. Which makes them doubly dangerous.”

---

The walk across the ice was a study in controlled clumsiness. Each step was an act of faith against the invisible slipperiness beneath. The wind, which had seemed merely cutting on deck, now tore at their clothes with predatory glee, whipping loose snow into stinging needles.

The two figures from the sled watched them approach. As Bellamy, Bobbie, and Serina drew closer, the taller man pulled down his hood. His face was a patchwork of weather-beaten skin and a grim, unyielding expression. His name was O’Malley, and he commanded a similar vessel, 'The Ice Shard', known for its questionable ethics and surprisingly intact crockery.

“Bellamy,” O’Malley said, his voice surprisingly deep, almost a rumble against the vast silence. It carried a hint of frost, though, a chill that had nothing to do with the air temperature. “You’re late. And your reputation precedes you, as usual.”

“O’Malley,” Bellamy returned, with a nod that was barely perceptible. “You’re early. And your bad manners precede you, as always. We had… logistical difficulties.”

Bobbie noticed O’Malley’s eyes flick to the 'Arctic Squall', a fleeting assessment in their depths. Serina, standing slightly behind Bobbie, shifted her weight, a subtle movement that conveyed a readiness for anything. The ground, or rather, the ice beneath them, vibrated with unspoken tension.

“Logistical difficulties,” O’Malley repeated, a thin, humourless smile barely touching his lips. “Funny, my information suggested a collision with a particularly stubborn drift near the Barrens. Thought you’d lost half your crew, Bellamy. And your nerve.”

Bobbie felt a surge of cold anger, sharper than the wind. The Barrens incident had been a close call, a miracle they’d escaped. To have it thrown back in their faces, with such casual disdain, was a calculated insult. Bellamy merely raised an eyebrow, a gesture of almost theatrical boredom.

“My crew,” Bellamy said, his voice flat, “are perfectly intact. Unlike some of the cargo you’re supposed to be transporting. Which, I believe, was rather heavily insured. And now, strangely… missing.”

O’Malley’s smile vanished. The second man on the sled, who had remained silent until now, shifted, his hand moving subtly towards something hidden within his heavy furs. He was younger, perhaps Bobbie’s age, and his eyes, though narrowed against the cold, held a feral glint.

“That’s a serious accusation, Bellamy,” O’Malley growled, the rumble deepening. “Unless you have proof. Or a very short memory.”

“Proof is a tricky thing on the Bay, O’Malley,” Bellamy replied, stepping forward slightly, his boots scuffing a barely audible protest on the ice. “Just like honour. However, the last shipment of French brandy, destined for York Factory, somehow ended up in your personal stores at Fort Severn, didn’t it? A remarkable navigational error.”

The air between them seemed to thicken, a palpable, frozen mass. Bobbie could feel the cold radiating from O’Malley, not just the physical chill, but something colder, more dangerous. The young man beside O’Malley had stopped fiddling and now stood perfectly still, his eyes fixed on Bellamy.

“We have a shared interest in this porcelain, O’Malley,” Serina interjected, her voice cutting through the tension with surprising clarity. “And the stoats. Perhaps we could focus on the present inconvenience, rather than past… misunderstandings.”

O’Malley’s gaze snapped to Serina, a brief flicker of surprise in his eyes before he settled back into his unyielding stare. Serina met it unflinchingly, her expression impassive. She was an unexpected variable, one O’Malley hadn't accounted for.

“The porcelain is secure,” O’Malley said, his voice grudging. “It’s at the rendezvous point, further west. Provided your lot can still navigate a straight line. The price, however, for your… *services*… has changed.”

Bellamy let out a soft, almost soundless whistle. “Has it now? And what new miracle of accounting have you conjured, O’Malley?”

“The Company has grown restless,” O’Malley explained, a hint of something resembling smugness returning to his tone. “And another vessel, newer, faster, has been spotted in the southern reaches. They’re looking for someone. Perhaps you.”

Bobbie's heart gave a dull thud against his ribs. The Company. The official arm of the fur trade, the very entity they skirted and defied. Their presence meant serious, undeniable trouble. This was not a mere squabble over brandy; this was an escalation.

“Another vessel?” Bellamy asked, his voice now devoid of its usual wryness, replaced by a genuine edge of concern. “How new? How fast?”

“Fast enough to catch a half-frozen tub like yours,” O’Malley said, a cruel twist to his lips. “And they carry… orders. To seize any unsanctioned trade. And anyone engaged in it. Fully armed. Fully sanctioned.”

The young man beside O’Malley finally spoke, his voice surprisingly soft, almost a hiss. “They were asking specifically about ‘The Arctic Squall.’ And a captain with a particularly distinctive scar above his left eye.” He pointed a gloved finger, directly at Bellamy’s face.

Bellamy’s hand went instinctively to the scar, a ragged line just above his brow, a souvenir from a skirmish with a particularly irate walrus, or so the story went. The satire, the surreal calm, had evaporated from the captain’s demeanour. This was real. The Bay, for all its vast indifference, had finally decided to involve itself.

“We’ll take the porcelain,” Bellamy said, his gaze fixed on O’Malley, ignoring the young man’s menace. “At the agreed price. No further discussion. And you’ll give us a head start. Or there won’t be any porcelain left to sell anywhere, O’Malley. Not for you, not for anyone.”

O’Malley considered this, his eyes narrowing to slits. The cold seemed to deepen, drawing in on them. Bobbie could hear the faint, distant whine of the wind through the 'Squall's rigging, a mournful, solitary sound. He saw the flicker of calculation in O’Malley’s eyes, the weighing of risks.

“Very well,” O’Malley conceded, the words tight and grudging. “One hour’s head start. The rendezvous is at the Great Ice Finger. East side. Don’t be late. And don’t think you’re out of this. The Bay has a long memory for those who defy it.”

As O’Malley and his silent companion turned to their sled, the young man gave Bobbie a quick, unsettling glance – a cold, appraising look that held a promise of future encounters. The dogs strained, and the sled glided away, the sound of its runners fading into the omnipresent whisper of the wind over the ice.

“The Great Ice Finger,” Bellamy murmured, more to himself than to them, his gaze already sweeping the empty horizon. “East side. A charming spot for a quick death. Or a very, very long detention. Serina, get the engine going. Bobbie, get to the foremast. Keep your eyes open for anything that isn’t just… white.”

Bobbie felt the familiar, weary resignation settle over him. The porcelain. The stoats. The Company. It was all a ludicrous dance on a frozen stage, and they were the unwilling, perpetually shivering performers. He looked back at the receding sled, then to the vast, empty expanse to the south, where the 'newer, faster' vessel was supposedly hunting them. The quiet of the Bay felt suddenly less indifferent and more like a predator holding its breath.