The last treasure in the bag was the stone that Eolair had given her, the dwarrow’s gift. Maegwin frowned, rolling the strange object between her palms. She had pretended that the reason she packed it was because she had been holding it when she had the god-sent dream, but really she knew better. The count had given it to her, then he had ridden away.
Tired and stupefied from her climb, Maegwin stared at the stone and her name-rune until her head hurt. It was a perfectly useless thing—her name given a sort of false immortality, as much of a cheat as the great stone city beneath the ground. All things of the heavy earth were suspect, she now understood.
At the gods’ own clear urging, she had come to this high place. This time, Maegwin had decided, she would let the gods do what they wished, not struggle to anticipate them. If they wanted to bring her to stand before them, then she would plead for salvation of her folk and the destruction of Skali and the High King, the bestial pair who had brought such humiliation on a blameless people; if the gods did not wish to help her, she would die. But no matter the ultimate result, she would sit here atop the tor until the gods made their wishes known.
“Brynioch Sky-lord!” she shouted into the wind. “Mircha cloaked in rain! Murhagh Armless, and bold Rhynn! I have heard your call! I await your judgment!”
Her words were swallowed up in gray and swirling white.
Waiting, Miriamele fought against sleep, but Aspitis hovered on the edge of wakefulness for a long time, mumbling and shifting on the bed beside her. She found it very hard to keep her own thoughts fixed. When the knock came on her cabin door, she was floating in a sort of a half-slumber, and did not at first realize what the noise was.
The knock came again, a little louder. Startled, Miriamele rolled over. “Who is it?” she hissed. It must be Gan Itai, she decided—but what would the earl think about the Niskie visiting Miriamele in her room? A second thought followed swiftly: she did not want Gan Itai to see Aspitis here in her bed. Miriamele had no illusions about what the Niskie knew, but even in her wretchedness she wished to preserve some tiny fragments of self-respect.
“Is the master there?” The voice, to both her shame and relief, was male—one of the sailors.
Aspitis sat up in bed beside her. His lean body was unpleasantly warm against her skin. “What is it?” he asked, yawning.
“Pardon, my lord. You’re needed by the helmsman. That is, he begs your pardon, and asks for you. He thinks he sees storm signs. Odd ones.”
The earl sagged onto his back once more. “By the Blessed Mother! What is the hour, man?”
“The Lobster’s just gone over the horizon, Lord Aspitis. Mid-watch, four hours till dawn. Very sorry, my lord.”
Aspitis swore again, then reached down to the cabin floor for his boots. Although he must have known that Miriamele was awake, he did not say a word to her. Miriamele saw the sailor’s bearded face etched in lamplight when the door opened, then listened as the two sets of footsteps passed down the corridor to the deck ladder.
She lay in the darkness for dragging minutes, listening to her own heartbeat, which was louder than the still-becalmed ocean. It was plain that all the sailors knew where Aspitis was—they expected to find the earl in his doxy’s bed! Shame choked her. For a moment she thought of poor Cadrach down in the shadowed hold. He was bound by iron chains, but were her own fetters any more comfortable for being invisible?
Miriamele could not imagine how she could ever again walk across the deck under the eyes of those grinning sailors—could not imagine it any more than she could imagine standing naked before them. It was one thing to be suspected, another to be part of the casual knowledge shared by the entire ship: when he was needed in the night watches, Aspitis could be found in her bed. This latest degradation seemed to creep over her like a heavy, numbing chill. How could she ever leave the cabin again? And even if she did, what did she have to look forward to in any case but a forced marriage to the golden-haired monstrosity? She would rather be dead.
In the dark, Miriamele made a small noise. Slowly, as if approaching a dangerous animal, she considered this last idea for a moment—it was stunning in its power, even as an unvoiced thought. She had promised herself that she could outlast anything, that she could float with any tide and lie happily beneath the sun on whatever beach received her—but was it true? Could she even marry Aspitis, who had made her his whore, who had aided in murdering her uncle and was a willing catspaw of Pryrates? How could a girl—no, a woman now, she reflected ruefully—how could a woman with the blood of Prester John in her veins allow such a thing to happen to her?
But if the life that stretched before her was so unbearable that death seemed preferable, then she need be afraid no longer. She could do anything.
Miriamele slipped from the bed. After dressing quickly, she edged out into the narrow passageway.
Miriamele climbed the ladder as quietly as she could, lifting her head above the hatchway just far enough to make sure that Aspitis was still talking to the helmsman. They seemed to be having a very animated discussion, waving their lamps so that the flaming wicks left streaks across the black sky. Miriamele dropped down to the passageway as quickly as she could. A kind of cold cleverness had come over her along with her new resolution, and she moved quietly and surely along the corridor to Aspitis’ doorway. When she had slipped through the door and closed it behind her, she took the hood off her lamp.
A quick examination of Aspitis’ room turned up nothing useful. The earl’s sword lay across his bed like some heathen wedding token, a slim, beautifully wrought blade with a hilt in the shape of a spread-winged seahawk. It was the earl’s favorite possession—except perhaps for her, Miriamele thought grimly—but it was not what she sought. She began to investigate a little more thoroughly, checking the folds of all his clothing, rummaging through the caskets in which he kept his jewelry and gaming-dice. Although she knew that time was growing ever shorter, she forced herself to refold each garment and lay it back where it had been. It would do her cause no good to alert Aspitis.
When she had finished, Miriamele stared around the cabin in frustration, unwilling to believe that she could simply fail. Abruptly, she remembered the chest into which she had seen Aspitis pushing bags of money. Where had that gone? She dropped down onto her knees and pushed aside the bed’s hanging coverlet. The chest was there, draped by Aspitis’ second-best cloak. Certain that any moment the Earl of Eadne and Drina would walk through the door, Miriamele forced herself under the bed and dragged it out into the light, wincing at the loud scraping as its metal corners cut into the plank floor.
The chest was, as she had seen, full of bags of money. The coins were mostly silver, but each sack contained more than a few of gold Imperators as well. It was a small fortune, but Miriamele knew that Aspitis and his family were the possessors of a very large fortune beside which this was a mere handful. She carefully lifted out a few of the sacks, trying to keep them from jingling, noting with some interest that her hands, which should have been shaking, were as steady as stone. Hidden beneath the top row of sacks was a leather-bound ledger. It contained lists in Aspitis’ surprisingly fastidious handwriting of places the Eadne Cloud had stopped—Vinitta and Grenamman, as well as other names that Miriamele decided must have been ports visited on other voyages; beside each entry was a line of cryptic markings. Miriamele could make no sense of it, and after a moment’s impatient study she put it aside. Beneath the ledger, rolled into a bundle, was a hooded robe of coarse white cloth—but this was not what she was looking for either. The trunk contained no further secrets, so she repacked it as well as she could, then pushed it back beneath the bed.
Time was running short. Miriamele sat on the floor, full of a dreadful, cold hatred. Perhaps it would be easiest just to slip up on deck and throw herself into the ocean. It was hours until dawn; no one would know where she had gone until it was too late to stop her. But she thought of the kilpa, patiently waiting, and could not imagine joining them in the black seas
.
As she stood, she saw it at last. It had been hanging on a hook behind the door all along. She took it down and slipped it into her belt beneath her cloak, then stepped into the doorway. When she was certain that no one was coming, she hooded her lamp and made her way back to her own cabin.
Miriamele was crawling under her blanket when she suddenly understood the significance of the white robe. In her oddly detached state, this realization was only one more tally added to the earl’s overloaded account, but it helped to stiffen her resolve. She lay unmoving, breathing quietly, waiting for Aspitis’ return, her mind set on her course so firmly that she would not allow any thoughts to distract her—not memories of her childhood and her friends, not regrets about the places she would never see. Her ears brought her every creak of the ship’s timbers and every slap of the waves on the hull, but as the trudging hours passed, his booted footsteps never sounded in the passageway. Her door did not creak open. Aspitis did not come.
At last, as dawn was glimmering in the sky above-decks, she fell into a heavy, muddy sleep with the earl’s dagger still clutched in her fist.
She felt the hands that shook her, and heard the quiet voice, but her mind did not want to return to the waking world.
“Girl, wake up!”
At last, groaning, Miriamele rolled over and opened her eyes. Gan Itai peered down at her, a look of concern furrowing her already wrinkled brow. Morning light from the hatchway in the passageway outside spilled in through the open door. The achingly painful memories of the day before, absent for the first few moments, rolled back over her.
“Go away,” she told the Niskie. She tried to push her head back under the blanket, but Gan Itai’s strong hands clutched her and pulled her upright.
“What is this I hear on deck? The sailors are saying that Earl Aspitis is to be married on Spenit—married to you! Is that true?”
Miriamele covered her eyes with her hands, trying to keep out the light. “Has the wind come up?”
Gan Itai’s voice was puzzled. “No, we are still becalmed. Why do you ask such a strange question?”
“Because if we can’t get there, he can’t marry me,” Miriamele whispered.
The Niskie shook her head. “By the Uncharted, then it is true! Oh, girl, this is not what you want, is it?”
Miriamele opened her eyes. “I would rather be dead.”
Gan Itai made a little humming noise of dismay. She helped Miriamele to get her feet out of bed and onto the floor, then brought over the small mirror that Aspitis had given to Miriamele when he had still been pretending kindness.
“Do you not wish to brush your hair straight?” the Niskie asked. “It looks rumpled and windblown, and that is not how you like it, I think.”
“I don’t care,” she said, but the look on Gan Itai’s face touched her: the sea-watcher could think of no other way to help. She reached out her hand for the mirror. The hilt of Aspitis’ dagger, which had been covered in the folds of blanket, caught in her sleeve and clattered onto the floor. Both Miriamele and the old Niskie stared at it for a moment. Suddenly, chillingly, Miriamele saw her one door of escape closing. She leaped from the bed to grab it, but Gan Itai had bent first. The Niskie held it up to the light, a look of surprise in her gold-flecked eyes.
“Give it to me,” said Miriamele.
Gan Itai gazed at the silver osprey carved so that it seemed to be alighting on the dagger’s pommel. “This is the earl’s knife.”
“He left it here,” she lied. “Give it to me.”
The Niskie turned to her, solemn-faced. “He did not leave it here. He only wears this with his best clothes, and I saw how he was dressed when he came on deck in the night. In any case, he was wearing his other dagger on his belt.”
“He gave it to me as a present, a gift. …” Abruptly, she burst into tears, great convulsive sobs that shook her whole body. Gan Itai jumped up in alarm and pushed the cabin door shut.
“I hate him!” Miriamele moaned, rocking from side to side. Gan Itai curled a thin dry arm around her shoulders. “I hate him!”
“What are you doing with his knife?” When she received no answer, she asked again. “Tell me, girl.”
“I’m going to kill him.” Miriamele found strength in saying it; for a moment, her tears subsided. “I’m going to stab that whoremongering beast, and then I won’t care what happens.”
“No, no, this is madness,” the Niskie said, frowning.
“He knows who I am, Gan Itai.” Miriamele gulped air. It was hard to speak. “He knows I am the princess, and he says he will marry me … so he can be master of Nabban when my father has conquered all the world.” The idea seemed unreal, yet what could prevent it from happening? “Aspitis helped kill my uncle Leobardis, too. And he is giving money to the Fire Dancers.”
“What do you mean?” Gan Itai’s eyes were intent. “The Fire Dancers, they are madmen.”
“Maybe, but he has a chest filled with sacks of silver and gold, and there is a book that lists payments made. He also has a Fire Dancer’s robe rolled up and hidden away. Aspitis would never wear such a coarse weave.” It had been so clear, suddenly, so laughably obvious: Aspitis would die before wearing something so common … unless there was a reason. And to think she had once been impressed by his beautiful clothes! “I am certain he goes among them. Cadrach said that he does Pryrates’ bidding.”
Gan Itai lifted her arm from Miriamele’s shoulder and sat back against the wall. In the silence, the sound of men moving about on deck drifted down through the cabin ceiling. “The Fire Dancers burned down part of Niskietown in Nabban,” the old woman said slowly. “They wedged doors shut, with children and old ones inside. They have burned and slaughtered in other places where my people live, too. And the Duke of Nabban and other men do nothing. Nothing.” She ran her hand through her hair. “The Fire Dancers always claim some reason, but in truth there never is a reason, just love of other folks’ suffering. Now you say that my ship’s master is bringing them gold.”
“It doesn’t matter. He’ll be dead before landfall.”
Gan Itai shook her head in what looked like astonishment. “Our old masters put Ruyan the Navigator into chains. Our new masters burn our children, and ravage and kill their own young as well.” She put a cool hand on Miriamele’s arm and left it there for a long time. Her upturned eyes narrowed in thought. “Hide the knife,” she said at last. “Do not use it until I speak to you again.”
“But …” Miriamele began. Gan Itai squeezed hard.
“No,” the Niskie said harshly. “Wait! You must wait!” She stood and walked out of the room. When the door shut behind her, Miriamele was left alone, tears drying on her cheeks.
5
Wasteland of Dreams
The sky was filled with swirling streamers of gray. A thicker knot of clouds loomed like an upraised fist on the distant northern horizon, angry purple and black.
The weather had gone bitterly cold again. Simon was very grateful for his thick new wool shirt. It had been a present from a thin New Gadrinsett girl, one of the two young women who had attached themselves to him at his knighthood feast. When the girl and her mother had come to bestow the gift, Simon had been properly polite and thankful as he imagined a knight should be. He just hoped they didn’t think he was going to marry the girl or something. He had met her half a dozen times now, but she had still said scarcely anything to him, although she giggled a lot. It was nice to be admired, Simon had decided, but he couldn’t help wishing that someone was doing the admiring besides this silly girl and her equally silly friend. Still, the shirt was well-made and warm.
“Come, Sir Knight,” Sludig said, “are you going to use that stick, or are we going to give up for the day? I’m as tired and frozen as you are.”
Simon looked up. “Sorry. Just thinking. It is cold, isn’t it?”
“It is seeming our short taste of summer has come to its ending,” Binabik called from his seat on a fallen pillar. They were in the middle of the
Fire Garden, with no shelter from the brisk, icy wind.
“Summer!?” Sludig snorted. “Because it stopped snowing for a fortnight? There is still ice in my beard every morning.”
“It has been, in any case, an improvement of weather over what we were suffering before,” said Binabik serenely. He tossed another pebble at Qantaqa, who was curled in a furry loop on the ground a few steps away. She peered at him sideways, but then, apparently deciding that an occasional pebble was not worth the trouble of getting up and biting her master, closed her yellow eyes once more. Jeremias, who sat beside the troll, watched the wolf apprehensively.
Simon picked up his wooden practice sword once more and moved forward across the tiles. Although Sludig was still unwilling to use real blades, he had helped Simon lash bits of stone to the wooden ones so that they were more truly weighted. Simon hefted his carefully, trying to find the balance. “Come on, then,” he said.
The Rimmersman waded forward against the surging wind, heavy tunic flapping, and brought his sword around in a surprisingly quick two-handed swipe. Simon stepped to one side, deflecting Sludig’s blow upward, then returned his own counterstroke. Sludig blocked him; the echo of wood smacking wood floated across the tiles.
They practiced on for most of an hour as the shrouded sun passed overhead. Simon was finally beginning to feel comfortable with a sword in his hand: his weapon often felt as though it were part of his arm, as Sludig was always saying it should. It was mostly a question of balance, he now realized—not just swinging a heavy object, but moving with it, letting his legs and back supply the force and letting his own momentum carry him through into the next defensive position, rather than flailing at his opponent and then leaping away again.
As they sparred, he thought of shent, the intricate game of the Sithi, with its feints and puzzling strikes, and wondered if the same things might work in swordplay. He allowed his next few strokes to carry him farther and farther off-balance, until Sludig could not help but notice; then, when the Rimmersman swept in on the heels of one of Simon’s flailing misses with the aim of catching him leaning too far and smacking him along the ribs, Simon let his swing carry him all the way forward into a tumbling roll. The Rimmersman’s wooden sword hissed over him. Simon then righted himself and whacked Sludig neatly on the side of his knee. The northerner dropped his blade and hopped up and down, cursing.