The Voyages of Trueblood Cay

by Suanne Laqueur

  “So you’re selling me,” Fen said. “Just like a slaver.”

  “Spare me your dramatics. You’re a slave to your own self-pity.”

  “Does what I suffered mean nothing to you?”

  “Does the fate of Nye mean nothing to you? How many times do I have to punch your head toward the future before it stays there?”

  “You made a promise.”

  “I promised a frightened foalboy. Not a kheiron heir capable of facing his fears if he’s going to rule one day.”

  “I’m old enough to know a king keeps his word. While you give and take yours as it suits you.”

  “This quest is bigger than the hate you carry in your heart.”

  “Believe me, Father,” Fen said. “Nothing in this world is bigger than my hate for you.”

  “What an admirable accomplishment. What’s your next feat going to be? Doing what’s right by your race, your homeland and your gods? Or eating your heart out over the past?”

  His empty hand turned up, expectant and entitled.

  Fen stared back at him. Let it be carved in stone that I was unwilling. Let it all fail because my consent was forfeited. Let that tree sink into the ocean and Nye disappear forever. Let them know it was Sevri il-Kheir who brought it all down.

  “All your life you’ve done it the hard way,” the Horselord said, reaching. With a deft twist of his fingers, he tore the moonstone from his son’s brow.

  Fen shifted to humos, standing on two legs for the first time in twenty years.

  “Now,” his father said. “Was that really so hard?”

  “Fuck you,” Fen said through his teeth. Then his shocked limbs gave out. He sprawled on his face, naked and helpless at his father’s silver hooves.

  Turn around and look at me, whore, hissed a voice from the past.

  “Your charm of Finches will be restored when you return,” the Horselord said. “You have my word.”

  “Your word is worthless.”

  One of the silver hooves nudged at Fen, none too gently. An empty palm reached down.

  “Now what?” Fen said, pushing up on his arms and trying to remember the mechanics of bipedal motion.

  “Your ringos. You can give it over or we can do it the hard way.”

  His eyes pounding with anger, Fen balanced on his chest and yanked the ring from the thumb of his fivehand. He pegged it across the room and out the door. “Go find it. For once in your miserable life, go find something you care about.”

  The door closed and he was alone on the cold stones.

  I hate your fucking guts. I’ll take the godsdamned earth apart to make sure you suffer. When I get through with you, you won’t even have a soul left.

  Gritting his teeth, he pushed back onto his knees.

  On your knees, whore.

  Muscle memory flooded him, slimy with anxiety. His hips howled with misuse, his quadriceps cried out in agony and his hamstrings clawed his lower back. He fell onto his chest again, head buried in his arms. All the posterior and dorsal parts of his soul cowering and braced for what was coming.

  Turn over, whore. Roll over and see what I have for you.

  A story asks for little. Really all it wants and needs is a listener.

  Fen’s tale is his to tell, and he has his reasons for not telling. Among them is a lack of sympathetic ears.

  Naria both honored and consoled Fen with her attention. She didn’t flinch or look away.

  As the kheiron lies on the floor in his most vulnerable, most detested form, stripped of stone and silver, let us do the same.

  This is but a fragment of Fen’s story, legantos. If he can live it, we can hear it.

  We can listen to learn it. Learn it to tell it. Tell it to teach it.

  “Turn around and look at me, whore,” the man says.

  Tehvan il-Kheir turns. He has no choice. His moonstone is gone, so he cannot outrun captivity on four legs. His owner wears his rings, so his wings are clipped.

  He can choose where to put his gaze, though, and he looks nowhere but the man’s eyes, envisioning his slow death at the Horselord’s hands.

  My father will take the world apart to find me, he thinks as he’s taken apart.

  As he’s thrown down on floors, across beds and up against walls, he thinks, He’ll never stop searching for me.

  When he’s pushed to his knees, bent over and pulled up and turned this way and that, he separates himself from the moment and thinks, He’ll spend the rest of his days making sure you suffer.

  You and your son and your son’s sons.

  When the needs of men are pushed inside him, forced down his throat or spilled across his face, he stands it by thinking of revenge. You will beg my father for mercy.

  When he’s struck or cuffed or beaten for not making enough noise. For making too much noise. For not following commands. For following them too fast. Too slow. For taking too long. For seeming in a rush. Or when he’s beaten for no reason other than man’s sadistic pleasure, Tehvan learns to separate himself from the act and to take what’s given to him as belonging to someone else. All the while believing his time will come. His father will come.

  Between every blow of a fist: He’ll take a week to kill you, man.

  Between every crack of a lash: And I will watch.

  It’s a brutal life and he adjusts quickly by disassociating. The collar at his neck is not his, neither are the chains, the stone cell he sleeps in, the meager food, nor the beatings. Months pass, the moon’s egg cracking open and spilling across the skies five times. Seven. Then it’s been a year and his mantras turn to questions.

  Is my father taking the world apart?

  Has he stopped searching?

  Does he care if I suffer?

  Will I spend the rest of my days here?

  Every time Tehvan il-Kheir turns his head toward the future with the tiniest bit of hope, another man speaks behind him.

  “Turn around, whore.”

  Trueblood lounged on a couch in Naria’s sitting room, reading through a transcript of the Truviad. At the big desk by the windows, Naria was busy with her two scribes. Dislekos had impaired her ability to read and write so she depended on the pair of attendants to be her literary eyes and voice. Over the years, the palace had nicknamed the two women Spectacles, who read reports and correspondence to the queen, and Ink, who wrote responses and replies.

  A half-dozen others were in and out of the room, needing this, delivering that or taking away the other thing. Naria’s fuse got shorter and her tone more brusque, trying to get through it all before Fen arrived for their private drink-and-discuss.

  Belmiro was suspiciously absent from the retinue.

  Guess he has one or two things to do in town, Trueblood thought.

  “There,” Naria said. “Is that the last of it?”

  “Seal this,” Ink said, pouring wax from a tiny spoon.

  “And drink this,” Spectacles said, twisting the cork from a bottle of wine.

  “Excellent,” the queen said, sliding her signet ring from her pinky and pressing it into the wax. “Get a glass, Trueblood.”

  “Got one.”

  Naria dismissed her entourage and when the door was shut, she slumped against it. “It sucks to be the queen.”

  “Horseshit.”

  “All right, it has certain perks.” She sank into a chair and put her booted feet on a hassock. Her many dogs followed, two jumping in her lap and the rest arranging themselves on the floor around her. All of them looked at Trueblood like he owed them money. Why was it animals didn’t seem to like him? If he were Lejo, he’d be wearing those mutts like a blanket.

  “Find any new insights?” Naria said, motioning toward the transcript.

  “This sentence is bothering me: A son of Khe to bind his power to the truest blood of I and my sister/His ston
e to the tree-tenders and his starsilver to the giantsblood.”

  “What’s bothersome?”

  “I’m the giantsblood, I get that. But I’m not a tree-tender.”

  “Your mother was.”

  “But it’s not what I do. I feel this is being extremely specific about who’s supposed to get what by referring to their title. Or their job. And it doesn’t say one tree-tender, but tenders. Plural. While giantsblood is singular.”

  Naria’s eyebrows wrinkled. “What’s the plural of giantsblood?”

  “Giantsbled.”

  She stared a long moment at him. “You just made that up.”

  “I did not.”

  “You’re full of shit. Giantsbled. That’s a past tense, not a plural.”

  “I swear,” he said, laughing. “Look it up. You can jail me if I’m wrong.”

  Naria shook her head, chewing on her wine. “For the moment, I will take your word for it.” At a knock on the door she leaned her head back on the chair. “Come in.”

  Il-Kheir entered. “Salutos. No, don’t get up.”

  “I can’t,” Naria said, motioning to the sleeping terriers in her lap.

  One of the wolfhounds sniffed around the Horselord’s forelegs before putting paws on the pale gray flank and stretching up to be greeted.

  “Son of a bitch,” Trueblood mumbled into his glass.

  “We were expecting Fen,” Naria said coolly.

  “I’m here on his behalf. Down now, my beauty.” He came to where Trueblood sat and pointed to the paper in his hand. “Is that the transcription? May I?”

  Trueblood gave it up and the kheiron read aloud.

  Borne broken from the treetops.

  Spirit crushed in the darkest root-pits beneath Nydirsil.

  Leaving only a heart willing to give all.

  “Willing,” Naria said, her voice now glacial.

  The Horselord opened his big hand. “He is.”

  The queen and the mariner gazed at the stone and ring in the kheiron’s palm. The former was teardrop-shaped, its bulb end barely bigger than a pea. Milky-white and shot through with opalescent veins. A tiny hole drilled at its narrow end, where it once hung from a hoop in Fen’s eyebrow.

  The ringos was carved into wings with a horse head between. Knowing what he did now about the jewelry’s emotional weight and significance, Trueblood felt a twinge of revulsion. As if it were Fen’s severed ear being offered to him.

  I don’t want it, he thought. I won’t wear it. It’s beyond wrong. It would be like wearing a cloak made of Fen’s skin.

  “When the Kaleuche sets sail,” il-Kheir said, “Fen will be with you. As is written.”

  Naria tapped her teeth together before speaking. “Mysire, I’d feel a little more confident if Fen himself were here to show his willingness.”

  “Understandable. But this has all been a shock to him and right now he’s…”

  “He’s what?” Trueblood said.

  The Horselord’s pale blue gaze turned on him. Soft. Youthful. The way it had been when Sevri spoke about Trueblood’s father. “He hasn’t walked on two legs in twenty years,” he said. “Certain leg muscles atrophy if not used and he’s in quite a bit of discomfort now.”

  “He’s in pain?” Naria said. “Who’s with him? Should I send a healer?”

  “The White Mares are with him,” il-Kheir said. “As usual in his times of trouble, Fen does best in their company alone.” He smiled at Trueblood. “Lad, I’ve never wished your mother were still alive more than I do right now. She’d be good company for Fen as well.”

  “My mother?”

  The Horselord nodded. “She was dear to him.” The mighty chest expanded and contracted in a sigh. “I’ve asked a priestess to come to the pavilion. While my son masters some crucial physical skills, I’m sure he’ll need spiritual guidance as well. What he wants right now is privacy. Hence…”

  He leaned and placed the stone and ring on the little table between Naria and Trueblood.

  “It’s settled then.”

  “So it appears,” Naria said. “Thank you, mysire.”

  The kheiron departed, leaving Trueblood and Naria. And Fen, in spirit.

  “I don’t feel good about this,” Trueblood said. “At all.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Am I supposed to wear the ring?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do we do?”

  Naria had unconsciously pulled one of the dogs against her chest, holding it like a barrier between herself and the kheiron’s talismans. “Pé, I don’t know,” she said.

  Trueblood stood up. “I think we should go see Fen. See for ourselves what his situation is.”

  The queen gulped the rest of her wine and shooed the dogs from her lap. They hurried to the pavilion but the doors to Fen’s room were closed tight. One of the White Mares emerged to graciously but firmly deny entry.

  “He’ll see no one,” she said. “Please, Your Majesty. Kepten. Not tonight. Not when he’s like this. Leave him in peace.”

  “Mydam,” Naria said, “you and your sister know him best. Was this his choice?”

  “He says he’ll go,” the centauride said.

  “Willingly?” Trueblood said. “That’s the word in stone.”

  A beat. “He says he’ll go,” the mare said again. “Please excuse me now.”

  Frustrated, they took the Truviad back to Naria’s chambers and invited in Abrakam and the Ĝemelos to hash it out. Nobody, not even Lejo and his moral compass that only pointed one way, had a satisfying revelation. Although they were in agreement about the distinction between tree-tender and giantsblood.

  “If it were me deciding,” Lejo said, “which it isn’t…”

  “Pretend it is,” Naria said dully.

  “I would place the moonstone in the joint guardianship of the vicreĝos of Nyland, who are technically the tree-tenders.”

  “I agree with the spirit of that,” Naria said. “But four women in four cities can’t hold one stone. Someone has to take literal guardianship.”

  “Then no question, give it to Torenn Treeblood. She’s Pé’s cousin as well as Noë’s successor. The last Nye trees are in Arbaro, so Fen’s moonstone should be placed in the care of Arbaro’s vicreĝo. While his ringos is placed under the singular protection of Kepten Trueblood.”

  “Emphasis yours,” Raj said.

  “Do I wear the ring?” Trueblood asked. “Because that doesn’t feel right to me. At all.”

  “Put it in the ship’s safe,” Lejo said.

  “Place it in the safe,” Raj said.

  “Give Fen a key.”

  “Godsdammit,” Trueblood said. “He of all people should be here making these decisions.”

  “Nothing’s in stone yet,” Naria said.

  “I swear I’m going to drop a rock on the next person who says nothing’s in stone.”

  A collective sigh.

  “Why don’t we sleep on it,” Abrakam said. “Let’s call it a night and go to bed.”

  “Did someone say bed?” a voice called.

  They all turned to see Belmiro lounging on the doorframe.

  “Is this a lovers’ quarrel?” he said. “Or may I interrupt?”

  “It’s what I pay you for,” Naria said.

  “Official interrupter, is that your title?” Trueblood said.

  “More or less,” Belmiro said, his eyes up to no good as they raked down Trueblood’s body.

  “Oh,” Naria said, sitting up a little. “Abrakam, what’s the plural of giantsblood?”

  “Giantsbled.”

  Trueblood smiled.

  “Shut up,” Naria said. “One word and I’ll jail your smug ass.”

  “One giantsblood, two giantsbled,” Lejo said.

  Raj nodd
ed, puzzled. “Everyone knows that.”

  “Even I know that,” Belmiro said.

  “Get out of here,” Naria said. “All of you.”

  “Now I know why they call you Troubled,” Belmiro said later.

  “Do you?”

  “You’ve sighed eight times in ten minutes. And not the good kind of sigh.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right, you’ve got a lot on your mind. It’s just I’m really good at easing troubled minds.”

  “You are.”

  “See? You sighed again. I’m not doing a good job here.”

  “Is loving me a job?”

  He pulled one of Trueblood’s braids. “Joke? Ha ha?”

  “Do you love me?”

  “Héjo, here we go,” Belmiro mumbled, closing his eyes.

  “Joke?” Trueblood said. “Ha ha?”

  Belmiro tightened the arm slung over Trueblood’s chest and bit his ear. “I like you passionately.”

  “Mm.”

  “Up for another round?”

  “No, I’m tired out.” He wasn’t. He just wanted to lie quiet in bed, sigh over his troubles and pretend Fen’s ears were open and eager to hear them. Pretend the weight of Fen’s arm lay on him. And pretend he wasn’t pretending.

  “Goodnight then,” Belmiro said, yawning as he punched a pillow into place. “Wake me up if the need arises.”

  “You’re staying?”

  “If you’ll have me.”

  “You going to be a bitch in the morning?”

  “Probably.”

  He both envied and resented Bel’s ability to turn his mind off. The kheiron lay down, took four deep breaths and the fifth was a snore. Naria was the same. Except for the snoring.

  He imagined Fen’s voice in the dark. I’m so damn tired, but I miss you when I close my eyes.

  “You’re ridiculous,” Trueblood mouthed soundlessly.

  I know. Fen moved up closer to Trueblood, bit his ear and whispered, Who knew gelang turns you into an idiot?