“We are becalmed,” said Aspitis, “but I think that there will be winds coming soon, far ahead of the storm. With a little luck, we could be on the island of Spenit tomorrow night. Think of that, Marya! We will be married there, in the church sacred to Saint Lavennin.”
It would be so easy not to resist, but just to float, like Eadne Cloud herself, borne slowly along on the wind’s unambitious breath. Surely there would be some chance to escape when they made landfall at Spenit? Surely?
“My lord,” she heard herself saying, “I … there are … problems.”
“Yes?” The earl cocked his golden head. Miriamele thought he looked like someone’s trained hound, miming civilization while he sniffed for prey. “Problems?”
She gathered the material of her dress in her damp hand, then took a deep breath. “I cannot marry you.”
Unexpectedly, Aspitis laughed. “Oh, how foolish! Of course you can! Do you worry about my family? They will come to love you, even as I have. My brother married a Perdruinese woman, and now she is my mother’s favorite daughter. Do not fear!”
“It’s not that.” She clutched her dress more tightly. “It’s … it’s just that … there is someone else.”
The earl frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I am already promised to someone else. Back home. And I love him.”
“But I asked you! You said to me there was no one. And you gave yourself to me.”
He was angry, but so far he had kept his temper. Miriamele felt her fear ease somewhat. “I had an argument with him and refused to marry him; that is why my father sent me to the convent. But I have realized that I was wrong. I was unfair to him … and I was unfair to you.” She detested herself for saying this. It seemed only a very slight chance that she was truly being unfair to Aspitis; he had certainly not been over-chivalrous with her. Still, this was the time to be generous. “But of the two of you, I loved him first.”
Aspitis took a step toward her, his mouth twisting. There was a strange, trembling tension to his voice. “But you gave yourself to me.”
She lowered her eyes, anxious not to cause offense. “I was wrong. I hope you will forgive me. I hope that he will forgive me, although I do not deserve it.”
The earl abruptly turned his back on her. His words were still tight, barely controlled. “And that is that, you think? You will just say, ‘Farewell, Earl Aspitis!’ That is what you think?”
“I can only rely on your gentleman’s honor, my lord.” The little room seemed even smaller. She thought she could feel the very air tighten, as if the threatening storm was reaching down for her. “I can only pray for your kindness and pity.”
Aspitis’ shoulders began to shake. A low, moaning noise welled up from him. Miriamele shrunk back against the wall in horror, half-certain he would turn into a ravening wolf before her eyes, as in some old nurse’s tale.
The earl of Eadne and Drina whirled. His teeth were indeed bared in a lupine grimace, but he was laughing.
She was stunned. Why is he …?
“Oh, my lady!” He was barely able to control his mirth. “You are a clever one!”
“I don’t understand,” she said frostily. “Do you think this is funny?”
Aspitis clapped his hands together. The sudden thunder crack of noise made Miriamele jump. “You are so clever.” He shook his head. “But you are not quite as clever as you think … Princess.”
“Wh—what?”
He smiled. It was no longer even remotely charming. “You think quickly and you invent pretty little lies very well—but I was at your grandfather’s funeral, and your father’s coronation as well. You are Miriamele. I knew that from the first night you joined me at my table.”
“You … you …” Her mind was full of words, but none of them made sense. “What …?”
“I suspected something when you were brought to me.” He reached out a hand and slid it along Miriamele’s face into her hair, his strong fingers clasping her behind the ear. She sat unmoving, holding her breath. “See,” he said, “your hair is short, but the part closest to your head is quite golden … like mine.” He chuckled. “Now, a young noblewoman on her way to a convent might cut her hair before she got there—but dye it, too, when it was already such a handsome color? You can be sure I looked at your face very closely at supper that night. After that, there was not much difficulty. I had seen you before, if not closely. It was common knowledge that Elias’ daughter was at Naglimund, and missing after the castle fell.” He snapped his fingers, grinning. “So. Now you are mine, and we will be married on Spenit, since you might find some way to escape in Nabban, where you still have family.” He chortled again, pleased. “Now they will be my family, too.”
It was difficult to speak. “You really want to marry me?”
“Not because of your beauty, my lady, though you are a pretty one. And not because I shared your bed. If I had to marry all the women I have dallied with, I would need to give my army of wives their own castle, like the Nascadu desert kings.” He sat down on the bedcover, leaning back until he could rest his head against the cabin wall. “No, you will be my wife. Then, when your father’s conquests are over and he grows tired at last of Benigaris, as I did long ago—did you know, after he killed his father he drank wine and cried all night long! Like a child!—when your father grows tired of Benigaris, who better to rule Nabban than the one who found his daughter, fell in love with her, and brought her back home?” His smile was a knife-glint. “Me.”
She stared at him, her skin turning cold; she almost felt she could spit venom like a serpent. “And if I tell him that you kidnapped and dishonored me?”
He shook his head, amused. “You are not so good a schemer as I thought, Miriamele. Many witnessed you board my boat with a false name, and saw me pay court to you, although I had been told you were a minor baron’s daughter. Once it is known that you have been—dishonored, you said?—do you think your father would offend a legitimate and high-born husband? A husband who is already his ally, and who has done your father many,”—he reached over and patted his hand against something Miriamele could not see—“important services?”
His bright eyes burned into hers, mocking and immensely pleased. He was right. There was nothing she could do to prevent him. He owned her. Owned her.
“I am going.” She rose unsteadily.
“Do not cast yourself in the ocean, pretty Miriamele. My men will be watching to make sure you play no such tricks. You are far too valuable alive.”
She pushed at the door, but it would not open. She was hollow, empty and hurting as if all the air had been forced out of her.
“Pull it,” Aspitis suggested.
Miriamele staggered out into the corridor. The shadowed hall seemed to lurch crazily.
“I will come to your cabin later, my beloved,” the earl called. “Prepare for me.”
She was barely off the ladder and onto the deck before she sank to her knees. She wanted to fall into blackness and disappear.
Tiamak was angry.
He had gone through a great deal for the sake of his drylander associates—the League of the Scroll, as they called themselves, although Tiamak sometimes thought that a group of a half-dozen or so was a bit small to be called a league. Still, Doctor Morgenes had been a member and Tiamak revered the doctor, so he had always done his best when someone in the league wanted information that only the little Wrannaman could provide. The drylanders didn’t often need marsh-wisdom, Tiamak had noticed, but when they did—when, for instance, one of them needed a sample of twistgrass or Yellow Tinker, herbs not to be found in any drylander marketplace—they would scratch off a note to Tiamak quickly enough. Occasionally, as when he had arduously prepared a bestiary of marsh animals for Dinivan, complete with his own painstaking illustrations, or had studied and reported to old Jarnauga which rivers reached the Wran, and what happened when their fresh water met the salt of the Bay of Firannos, he would receive a long letter of gratitude from the recipient—i
n fact, Jarnauga’s letter had so burdened its carrier that the pigeon’s journey had taken twice the usual time. In these grateful letters, League members would occasionally hint that someday soon Tiamak might be officially counted in their number.
Little appreciated by his own villagefolk, Tiamak was terribly hungry for such recognition. He remembered his time in Perdruin, the hostility and suspicion he had felt from the other young scholars, who had been astonished to find a marsh lad in their midst. If not for Morgenes’ kindness, he would have fled back to the swamps. Still, beneath Tiamak’s diffident exterior, there was more than a trace of pride. Had he not, after all, been the first Wrannaman ever to leave the swamplands and study with the Aedonite brothers? Even his fellow villagers knew there was no other marsh-dweller like him. Thus, when he received encouraging words from Scrollbearers, he had sensed that his time was coming. Some day he would be a member of the League of the Scroll, the very highest of scholarly circles, and travel every three years to the home of one of the other members for a gathering—a gathering of equals. He would see the world and be a famously learned man … or so he had often imagined.
When the hulking Rimmersman Isgrimnur came to Pelippa’s Bowl and gave him the coveted Scrollbearer’s pendant—the golden scroll and feather pen—Tiamak’s heart had soared. All his sacrifices had been worth the reward! But a moment later Duke Isgrimnur had explained that the pendant came from Dinivan’s dying hand, and when stunned Tiamak had asked about Morgenes, Isgrimnur gave him the shattering news that the doctor was dead, too, that he had died almost half a year ago.
A fortnight later, Isgrimnur still did not understand Tiamak’s desperation. He seemed to think that although it was sad that the two men had died, Tiamak’s brooding melancholy was extreme. But the Rimmersman had brought no new strategy, no useful advice; he was not, he admitted, even a member of the League! Isgrimnur did not seem to comprehend that this left Tiamak—who had waited many painful weeks for word of what Morgenes planned—terribly adrift, spinning like a flatboat in an eddy. Tiamak had sacrificed his duty to his people for a drylander errand—or so it sometimes seemed when he was angry enough to forget that it had been the crocodile attack that had forced him to give up his embassy to Nabban. In any case, he had clearly failed the people of Village Grove.
Tiamak did have to admit that at least Isgrimnur was paying for his room and board at a time when the Wrannaman’s own credit had run out. That was something, anyway—but then again, it was only fair: the drylanders had made money from the sweat of the marshfolk for untold years. Tiamak himself had been threatened, chased, and abused in the markets of Ansis Pelippé.
Morgenes had rescued him then, but now Morgenes was dead. Tiamak’s own people would never forgive him for failing them. And Isgrimnur was obsessed with old Ceallio the doorkeeper, who he claimed was the great knight Camaris; Isgrimnur no longer seemed to care whether the little marsh man was alive or dead. Taken all together, it was clear to Tiamak that he was now as useless as a crab with no legs.
He looked up, startled. He had wandered far away from Pelippa’s Bowl into a section of Kwanitupul that he did not recognize. The water here was even grayer and greasier than usual, dotted with the corpses of fish and seabirds. The derelict buildings that overlooked the canals seemed almost to bend beneath the weight of centuries of grime and salt.
A dizzying sense of bleakness and loss swept over him.
He Who Always Steps on Sand, let me come safely back to my home again. Let my birds be alive. Let me …
“Marsh man!” The braying voice interrupted his prayer. “He’s coming!”
Startled, Tiamak looked around. Three young drylanders dressed in white Fire Dancer robes stood on the far side of the narrow canal. One of them pushed back his hood to display a partially shorn head, uncut tufts of hair still sticking up like weeds. His eyes, even from a distance, seemed wrong.
“He’s coming!” this one shouted again, his voice cheerful, as though Tiamak were an old friend.
Tiamak knew who and what these men were; he wanted no part of their madness. He turned and limped back along the uneven walkway. The buildings he passed were boarded up, empty of life.
“Storm King’s coming! He’ll fix that leg!” On the far side of the canal, the three Fire Dancers had turned as well. They paced along directly across from Tiamak, matching him step for hobbling step, shouting as they walked. “Haven’t you heard yet? Sick and the lame will be scourged! Fire burn ’em, ice bury ’em!”
Tiamak saw a gap in the long wall to his right. He turned into it, hoping it was not a dead end. The jeers of the Fire Dancers followed him.
“Where do you go, little brown man? When he comes, the Storm King will find you if you hide in the deepest hole or on the highest mountain! Come back and talk with us or we will come and get you!”
The doorway led into a large open court that might once have been a shipbuilding yard, but now contained only a few castoffs of its vanished owners, a litter of weather-twisted gray spars, splintered tool handles, and pieces of shattered crockery. The planks of the courtyard floor were so warped that when he looked down he could see long stripes of the muddy canal flowing beneath him.
Tiamak made his way carefully across the dubious flooring to a door on the far side of the yard, then out onto another walkway. The cries of the Fire Dancers grew fainter, but seemed nevertheless to become more fiercely angry as he quickly strode away.
For a Wrannaman, Tiamak was quite familiar with cities, but even the residents found it easy to get lost in Kwanitupul. Few of the buildings remained in use for long, or even remained standing; the small, select group of establishments that had existed as long as a century or two had also changed location a dozen times—the sea air and the murky water chewed away at paint and pilings alike. Nothing was permanent in Kwanitupul.
After walking for a while Tiamak began to recognize a few familiar landmarks—the rickety spire of crumbling Saint Rhiappa’s, the bright but decaying paint of the Market Hall dome. As his nervousness about being lost and threatened receded, he began to ponder his dilemma once more. He was trapped in an unfriendly city. If he wished to make a living, he must sell his services as a scribe and translator. This would mean living near the marketplace, since evening business, especially the small transactions on which Tiamak made his livelihood, would never wait until daylight. If he did not work, he was dependent on the continuing charity of Duke Isgrimnur. Tiamak had no urge to suffer the hospitality of the dreadful Charystra a moment longer, and in an attempt to solve this very problem he had suggested to Isgrimnur that they all move closer to the market so Tiamak could earn money while the duke nursed the idiot doorkeeper. The Rimmersman, however, had been adamant. He was certain there was a good reason Dinivan had wanted them to wait at Pelippa’s Bowl—although what that reason might be, he could not say. So, although Isgrimnur did not like the innkeeper any more than Tiamak did, he was not ready to leave.
Tiamak was also worried about whether he was actually a member of the League of the Scroll. He had apparently been chosen to join, but the members he knew personally were dead and he had heard nothing from any of the others for months. What was he supposed to do?
Last, but certainly not the least of his problems, he was having bad dreams. Or rather, he corrected himself, not bad dreams so much as odd ones. For the last several weeks, his sleep had been haunted by an apparition: no matter what he dreamed, whether it was of being chased by a crocodile with an eye in every one of its thousand teeth, or of eating a splendid meal of crab and bottomfish with his resurrected family in Village Grove, a ghostly child was present—a little dark-haired drylander girl who watched everything in utter silence. The child never interfered, whether the dream was frightening or enjoyable, and in fact seemed somehow even less real than the dreams themselves. Were it not for the constancy of her presence from dream to dream, he would have forgotten her entirely. Lately she seemed to be getting fainter each time she appeared, as though her image was r
eceding into the murk of the dreamworld, her message still unvoiced …
Tiamak looked up and saw the barge-loading dock. He remembered beyond doubt that he had passed it on his way out. Good. He was back on familiar territory.
So here was another mystery—who or what was this silent child? He tried to remember what Morgenes had told him of dreams and the Dream Road and what such an apparition might signify, but he could remember nothing useful. Perhaps she was a messenger from the land of the dead, a spirit sent by his late mother, wordlessly chastising him for his failure. …
“The little marsh man!”
Tiamak whirled to see the three Fire Dancers standing on the walkway a few paces behind him. This time, no canal separated them from him.
The leader stepped forward. His white robe was less than pristine, smeared with dirty handprints and splotches of tar, but his eyes were even more frightening than they had been at a distance, bright and burning as if with some inner light. His stare seemed almost to jump out of his face.
“You don’t walk very fast, brown man.” He grinned, showing crooked teeth. “Somebody bend your leg, yes? Bend it bad?”
Tiamak backed up a few steps. The three young men waited until he stopped, then slouched forward, casually regaining their proximity. It was clear that they were not going to let him walk away. Tiamak lowered his hand onto the hilt of his knife. The bright eyes widened, as though the slender marsh man proposed a newer and more interesting game.
“I have done nothing to you,” Tiamak said.
The leader laughed soundlessly, skinning his lips back and showing his red tongue like a dog. “He is coming, you know. You cannot run from Him.”
“Does your Storm King send you to devil innocent strollers?” Tiamak tried to put strength in his voice. “I cannot believe that such a being would stoop so low.” He gently eased the knife loose in its sheath.
The leader made a humorous face as he looked to his fellows. “Ah, he talks good for a little brown man, doesn’t he?” He turned his gleaming eyes back on Tiamak. “The master wants to see who is fit, who is strong. It will go hard on the weak when He comes.”