As she paced, she prayed to blessed Elysia and Usires for help, but in the offhand way that one spoke to an ancient relative who had long ago gone deaf and numbwitted. She had little doubt that whatever happened to her on this drifting ship was of scant interest to a God who could allow her to reach this sorry state in the first place.
She had been proved wrong twice. After a childhood surrounded by flatterers and lackeys, she had been certain the only way to make a life worth living was to listen only to her own counsel and then push forward against any impediment, letting no one stay her from whatever seemed important—but it was just that course which had brought her to this horrible position. She had fled her uncle’s castle, certain that she alone could help change the course of events, but the faithless tides of time and history had not waited for her, and the very things she hoped to prevent had occurred anyway—Naglimund fallen, Josua defeated—leaving her without purpose. So it had seemed wisest to cease fighting, to put an end to a lifetime’s worth of stubborn resistance and simply let events push her along. But that plan had proven as foolish as the first, for her listlessness had brought her to Aspitis’ bed, and soon would make her his queen. For a while this realization had toppled Miriamele back into heedlessness—she would kill him, and then likely be killed by Aspitis’ men; there would be no mucking about in the middle ground, no complicated responsibilities. But Gan Itai had stopped her, and now she drifted and circled just as the Eadne Cloud idled on the windless waters.
This was an hour of decision, the sort Miriamele had learned about from her tutors—as when Pelippa, the pampered wife of a nobleman, had to decide whether to declare her belief in the condemned Usires. The pictures in her childhood prayer book were still fresh in her memory. As a young princess, she had been chiefly fascinated by the silver paint on Pelippa’s dress. Miriamele had given little thought to Pelippa herself, to the actual people caught up in the legends, written of in stories, painted on walls. Only recently had it occurred to her to wonder how it felt to be one of those folk. Had the warring kings immortalized in the Sancellan’s tapestries walked back and forth in their ancient halls as they agonized over decisions, thinking little of what people would say in centuries unborn, but rather sorting the small facts of the moment, trying to see a pattern that might guide them to a wise choosing?
As the ship gently rocked and the sun rose into the sky, Miriamele paced and thought. Surely there must be some way to be bold without being stupid, to be resilient without becoming malleable and yielding as candle wax. Along some course midway between these two extremes, might there be a way she could survive? And if there was, could she then fashion from it a life worth living?
In the lamplit cabin, hidden from the sun, Miriamele pondered. She had not slept much the night before and she doubted she would sleep in the night that was coming … if she lived to see it.
When the knock came upon her door, it was a quiet one. She thought herself ready to face even Aspitis, but her fingers trembled as they reached for the door handle.
It was Gan Itai, but for a moment Miriamele thought that some other Niskie had come aboard, so changed did the sea-watcher look. Her golden-brown skin seemed almost gray. Her face was loose and haggard and her sunken, red-rimmed eyes seemed to gaze out at Miriamele across a vast distance. The Niskie had wrapped her cloak closely about her, as though even in the swollen, humid air that presaged a storm, she feared catching a chill.
“Mercy of Aedon!” Miriamele hustled her inside and pushed the door closed. “Are you ill, Gan Itai? What has happened?” Aspitis had discovered the theft and was on his way, of course—that could be the only reason for the Niskie to look so dreadful. Miriamele faced this resolution with a kind of cold relief. “Do you need something? Water to drink?”
Gan Itai raised her weathered hand. “I need nothing. I have been … thinking.”
“Thinking? What do you mean?”
The Niskie shook her head. “Do not interrupt, girl. I have things to say to you. I made my own decision.” She sat down on Miriamele’s bed, moving as though two score years had been added to her age. “First, do you know where the landing boat is?”
Miriamele nodded. “Near midship on the starboard side, hanging from the windlass ropes.” There was at least some advantage to having lived among waterfaring folk most of her young life.
“Good. Go to it this afternoon, when you are sure you are unobserved. Hide these there.” The Niskie lifted her cloak and dumped several bundles out onto the bed. Four were water skins, tight-filled; two more were packages wrapped in sacking. “Bread, cheese, and water,” Gan Itai explained. “And some bone fishhooks, so you may perhaps have some flesh to eke out your provisions. There are a few other small things that may also prove useful.”
“What does this mean?” Miriamele stared at the old woman. Gan Itai still looked as though she carried some dreadful burden, but her eyes had lost some of the clouded look. They glinted now.
“It means you are escaping. I cannot sit and watch such wickedness forced on you. I would not be one of the Navigator’s true children if I did.”
“But it cannot happen!” Miriamele fought against the rush of witless hope. “Even if I could get off the ship, Aspitis would hunt me down within a few hours. The wind will come up long before I reach land. Do you think I can vanish in a dozen leagues of empty sea, or outrow the Eadne Cloud?”
“Outrow her? No.” There was a strange pride in Gan Itai’s expression. “Of course not. She is fleet as a dolphin. But as to how … leave that to me, child. That is the rest of my duty. You, however, must do one other thing.”
Miriamele swallowed her arguments. Heedless, stubborn pushing had done her little good in the past. “What?”
“In the hold, in one of the barrels near the starboard wall, tools and other metal goods are packed in oil. There is writing on the cask, so do not fear you will not find it. Go to the hold after sunset, take a chisel and a mallet from the barrel, and strike off Cadrach’s chains. Then he must hide the fact that the chains are broken, in case someone comes.”
“Break his chains? But everyone on the ship will hear me.” Weariness descended on her. Already it seemed clear that the Niskie’s plan could never succeed.
“Unless my nose betrays me, the storm will be here soon. A ship at sea in heavy wind makes many noises.” Gan Itai lifted her hand to still further questions. “Just do those tasks, then leave the hold and go to your cabin or anywhere, but do not let anybody bolt you in.” She waggled her long fingers for emphasis. “Even if you must feign sickness or madness, do not let anyone put a bolt between you and freedom.” The golden eyes stared into her own until Miriamele felt her doubts wither away.
“Yes,” she said. “I will.”
“Then, at midnight, when the moon is just there,” the Niskie pointed at a spot on the ceiling, as if the sky were spread directly over them, “get your learned friend and help him to the landing boat. I will make sure you get a chance to put it overboard.” She looked up, caught by a sudden thought. “By the Uncharted, girl, make sure that the oars are in the boat! Look for them when you hide the food and water.”
Miriamele nodded. So the matter was resolved. She would do her best to live, but if she failed, she would not struggle against the inevitable. Even as her husband, Aspitis Preves could not keep her alive against her will. “And what will you do, Gan Itai?” she asked.
“What I have to.”
“But it was not a dream!” Tiamak was growing angry. What did it take to convince this great brute of a Rimmersman? “It was Geloë, the wise woman of Aldheorte Forest. She talked to me through a child who has been in all my dreams of late. I have read of this. It is a trick of the Art, something adepts can do.”
“Calm yourself, man. I didn’t say you imagined it.” Isgrimnur turned from the old man, who was waiting patiently for the next question the duke might ask him. Although unable to answer, he-who-had-been-Camaris seemed to get a quiet, childlike satisfaction from the attenti
on, and would sit smiling back at Isgrimnur for hours. “I have heard of this Geloë. I believe you, man. And when we can leave, your Stone of Farewell is as good a destination as any—I have heard that Josua’s camp is somewhere near where you say the place is. But I cannot let a dream of any kind, no matter how urgent it seems, take me away just yet.”
“But why?” Tiamak was not even sure himself why it seemed so important that they leave. All he knew was that he was tired of feeling worthless. “What can we do here?”
“I am waiting for Miriamele, Prince Josua’s niece,” said the Rimmersman. “Dinivan sent me to this godforsaken inn. Perhaps he sent her as well. Since it is my sworn duty to find her, and I have lost the trail, I must stay for a time here where the track ends.”
“If he sent her, then why is she not here now?” Tiamak knew he was making trouble, but could not help himself.
“Perhaps she’s been delayed. It is a long journey on foot.” Isgrimnur’s mask of calm slipped a little. “Now be quiet, damn you! I have told you all I can. If you wish to go, then go! I won’t stop you.”
Tiamak closed his mouth with a snap, then turned and limped unhappily to his bundle of belongings. He began to sort through them in halfhearted preparation for departure.
Should he leave? It was a long journey, and would certainly be better made with companions, however shortsighted and uncaring of his feelings they might be. Or maybe it would be better just to slink back to his house in the banyan tree, deep in the marsh outside Village Grove. But his people would demand to know what had become of his forsaken errand to Nabban on their behalf, and what would he tell them?
He Who Always Steps on Sand, Tiamak prayed, save me from this terrible indecision!
His restless fingers touched heavy parchment. He drew out the page of Nisses’ lost book and cradled it briefly in his hands. This small triumph, anyway, no one could take from him. It was he and no one else who had found it. But, sadness of sadnesses, Morgenes and Dinivan were no longer alive to marvel at it!
“… Bringe from Nuanni’s Rocke Garden,”
he read silently,
“… The Man who tho’ Blinded canne See
Discover the Blayde that delivers The Rose
At the foote of the Rimmer’s greate Tree
Find the Call whose lowde Claime
Speakes the Call-bearer’s name
In a Shippe on the Shallowest Sea—
—When Blayde, Call, and Man
Come to Prince’s right Hande
Then the Prisoned shall once more go Free …”
He remembered the dilapidated shrine to Nuanni he had found in his wanderings a few days earlier. The wheezing, half-blind old priest had been able to tell him little of import, although he was quite happy to talk after Tiamak dropped a pair of cintis-pieces into the offering bowl. Nuanni was, apparently, a sea god of ancient Nabban whose glory days had passed even before the upstart Usires appeared. Old Nuanni’s followers were few indeed these days, the priest had assured him: were it not for the tiny pockets of worship still clinging to life in the superstitious islands, no one living would remember Nuanni’s name, although the god had once bestrode the Great Green, first in the hearts of all seafarers. As it was, the old priest guessed that his was the last shrine still on the mainland.
Tiamak had been pleased to hear the now-familiar name from his parchment at last given substance, but had thought little more of it than that. Now he let his mind run on the first line of the puzzling rhyme and wondered if “Nuanni’s rock garden” might not refer to the scattered islands of Firannos Bay themselves …?
“What do you have there, little man? A map, hey?” From the sound of his voice, Isgrimnur was trying to be friendly, perhaps in an effort to offset his earlier gruffness—but Tiamak was having none of it.
“Nothing. It is not your business.” He quickly rolled the parchment and pushed it back into his clump of belongings.
“No need to bite my head off,” the duke growled. “Come, man, talk to me. Are you truly leaving?”
“I do not know.” Tiamak did not want to turn and look at him. The Rimmersman was so large and imposing that he made the Wrannaman feel terribly small. “I might. But it would be a long way for one to go alone.”
“How would you go, anyway?” Isgrimnur’s interest sounded genuine.
Tiamak considered. “If I did not go with you two, there would be no need to be inconspicuous. So I would go the straightest way possible, overland across Nabban and the Thrithings. It would be a long walk, but I am not afraid of exertion.” He frowned, thinking of his injured leg. It might never heal, and certainly was not now capable of carrying him a long distance. “Or perhaps I would buy a donkey,” he added.
“You certainly speak fine Westerling for a Wran-man,” Isgrimnur smiled. “You use words I don’t know myself.”
“I told you,” Tiamak replied stiffly. “I studied with the Aedonite brothers in Perdruin. And Morgenes himself taught me much.”
“Of course.” Isgrimnur nodded. “But, hmm, if you did have to travel—inconspicuously, I think you said? If you did have to travel without being noticed, what then? Some secret marsh-man tunnels, or something like?”
Tiamak looked up. Isgrimnur was watching him carefully. Tiamak quickly lowered his gaze, trying to hide a smile of his own. The Rimmersman was trying to trick him, as though Tiamak were a child! It was funny, actually. “I imagine I would fly.”
“Fly!?” Tiamak could almost hear the look of incredulity twist the duke’s features. “Are you mad?”
“Oh, no,” said Tiamak earnestly, “it is a trick known to all Wran-dwellers. Why do you think that we are only observed in places like Kwanitupul, where we choose to be seen? Surely you know that great blundering drylanders come into the Wran and never see a living soul. It is because when we have to, we can fly. Just like birds.” He darted a sideways glance. Isgrimnur’s baffled face was everything he could hope. “Besides, if we could not fly … how would we reach the treetop nests where we lay our eggs?”
“S’Red Blood! Aedon on the Tree!” Isgrimnur swore explosively. “Damn you, marsh man! Mock me, will you?!”
Tiamak cringed in expectation of having some heavy object thrown at him, but a moment later looked up to see the duke grinning and shaking his head. “I suppose I asked for that. You Wrannamen have a sense of humor, it seems.”
“Perhaps some drylanders do also.”
“Still, the problem remains.” Isgrimnur glowered. “Life seems nothing but difficult choices these days. By the Ransomer’s Name, I have made mine and must live with it: if Miriamele does not appear by the twenty-first day of Octander—Soul’s Day, that is—then I, too, will say ‘enough’ and head north. There is my choice. Now you must make yours: stay or go.” He turned back to the old man, who had observed their entire conversation with benign incomprehension. “I hope you stay, little man,” the duke added quietly.
Tiamak stared for a moment, then stood and walked to the window. Below, the murky canal gleamed like green metal in the afternoon sun. He pulled himself up onto the sill and dangled his wounded leg out the window.
“Inihe Red-Flower had dark hair,”
he crooned, watching a flatboat bob past,
“Dark hair, dark eyes. Slender as a vine she was,
And she sang to the gray doves.
Ah-ye, ah-ye, she sang to them all the night long.
“Shoaneg Swift-Rowing heard her,
Heard her, loved her. Strong as a banyan he was,
But he had no children.
Ah-ye, ah-ye, he had no one to carry his name.
“Shoaneg called out to Red-Flower,
Wooed her, won her. Swift as dragonflies their love was,
And she came back to his home.
Ah-ye, ah-ye, her feather hung over his door.
“Inihe, she bore a boy-child,
Nursed him, loved him. Sweet as cool wind he was,
And he bore Swift-Rowing’s name.
Ah-ye, ah-ye, water was safe to him as sand.
“The child grew up to wander,
Rowing, running. Footloose as a rabbit he was,
Traveled far from his home.
Ah-ye, ah-ye, he was stranger to the hearth.
“One day his boat came empty,
Spinning, drifting. Empty as a nutshell it was,
Red-Flower’s child was gone.
Ah-ye, ah-ye, he had blown away like thistledown.
“Shoaneg said forget him,
Heartless, thoughtless. Like a foolish nestling he was,
Who flies from his home.
Ah-ye, ah-ye, his father cursed his name.
“Inihe could not believe it,
Missed him, mourned him. Sad as drifting leaves she was,
Her tears soaked the floor-reeds.
Ah-ye, ah-ye, she cried for her missing son.
“Red-Flower burned to find him,
Hoping, praying. Like a hunting owl she was,
Who would search for her son.
Ah-ye, ah-ye, she would find her lost child.
“Shoaneg said he forbade her,
Shouted, ordered. Angry as a beehive he was,
If she went, he had no wife.
Ah-ye, ah-ye, he would blow her feather from his door …”
Tiamak broke off. A barge, crewed by shouting Wrannaman, was being poled awkwardly into a narrow side-canal. It scraped hard against the wharf pilings which jutted at the front of the inn like rotten teeth. The surface of the water boiled with waves. Tiamak turned to look at Isgrimnur, but the duke had left the room. Only the old man remained, his eyes fixed on nothing, his face vacant but for a small, secretive smile.
It was long since Tiamak’s mother had sung that song to him. The tale of Inihe Red-Flower’s terrible choice had been her favorite. Thinking of her brought a tightness to Tiamak’s throat. He had betrayed the trust she would have wanted him to keep—the debt he owed to his own people. Now what should he do? Wait here with these drylanders? Go to Geloë and the other Scrollbearers who had asked him to come? Or return in shame to his own Village Grove? Wherever he went, he knew that his mother’s spirit would watch him, mourning because her son had turned his back on his people.