“What?”
“Never mind.” Trueblood strode briskly back to his desk. He sat, moved the feather marking the page and started to write. “Anyway, was there something you needed?”
“No, I’m waiting for Raj to…” Fen’s voice trailed off as he focused in on the feather. Small, crisp and white. He guessed a median covert.
He stepped closer to the desk, knowing it was a median covert.
“Gods, what do you want?” Trueblood said.
“Where did you get that?”
“Get what?”
Fen picked up the feather and twirled the thin calamus in his fingers. “This.”
“I found it in my coat pocket. Why?”
Fen looked back at the wall hook where the kepten’s blue coat hung. “This is mine.”
“Pardon?”
“I put this in the… During the vigil for your father, I pulled a feather from my wing and put it in his pocket.” He looked back at Trueblood. “I thought he’d be interred in his coat. I assumed yours was a new one they made.”
“It’s the only one.”
“Huh.”
A beat of silence. “Do you want it back?” Trueblood asked.
“No. No, it’s yours. His. I was just surprised you had it.” He put the feather on the desk and backed away. “I’m just waiting for Raj. I’ll—”
“You know what sucks?” Trueblood said. “I got no closure with my father’s death. I didn’t get to take a watch during the vigil or see him interred. One minute I was holding his broken body in my arms, then I woke up and it was weeks later and he was gone. His body was…put away. I didn’t get any kind of good-bye, I just never saw him again. You know?”
“I know.”
Trueblood picked up the feather. “Thank you for this. When I found it in the pocket, it seemed random. Kind of odd and mystical, but that was probably me being scared and stupid and looking for signs from the gods. I like knowing the real story better.”
“Your father saved my life.”
“Your father saved mine.” Trueblood twirled the feather until it pointed at Fen. “I’m sure in some cultures, it means we’re brothers. But just so we’re crystal clear, I still hate your guts.”
The words smiled at the edges, landing like a friendly punch on Fen’s shoulder.
Which was better than a rock thrown at him.
“Feeling’s mutual, wharf rat,” he said.
“Good. Now get lost, crow bait.”
“Fen, you tell a story,” Dhar said that evening.
All eyes turned to the kheiron.
“I don’t know any stories,” Fen said.
“Everyone knows one story,” Beniv said.
“It doesn’t have to be made up,” Melki said. “Tell a true story.”
The eyes pressed on Fen, growing hopeful. “Well,” he said. “Do you know the legend of the finches?”
A bit of silence and Melki tugged at Fen’s breeches. “We do, but you’re supposed to pretend we don’t.”
Fen glanced toward the large couch where Trueblood was sketching in his notebook, mouth folded in around stifled laughter. Raj and Lejo lounged on either side of him and minoros squeezed in wherever they could, sitting at Trueblood’s feet and perched on the arms of the couch. Or standing behind and leaning over his shoulder to watch him draw.
“Niro, if you’re going to breathe down my neck, close your mouth,” he said.
The boy grinned.
Unbelievable, Fen thought. The other day, Trueblood thrashed his bare ass for giving me wrong directions. Tonight, the lad smiles at Trueblood like he makes the sun rise and set.
He lets them get away with nothing and they fucking adore him for it.
“Heed the rakontistos, lads,” Lejo said, nodding at the kheiron.
“What does that mean?”
“Rakontistos is the storyteller,” Melki said. “All of us are legantos. The readers.”
“Aŭskultantos, lad,” Abrakam said. “The listeners.”
“I know, but I can’t pronounce that.”
“Heed,” Raj called loudly. “Go ahead, Fen.”
“Well, larks bring souls to the newborn,” Fen said. “And finches bring souls of the dead back to the moon. The souls of the righteous live on the moon’s bright side. The side we can see. But the damned live on the side that never shows its face to man.
“Kheirons are creatures of the moon. The moon goes through phases of showing and hiding her face, and kheirons can do the same. We wax and wane between man and horse. Or rest as half of each. And it’s said…” He glanced around but found he couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. He looked back at his hands, twisting one of his eight rings.
“It’s said when a kheiron is in equos, his pure horse form, it’s like he’s the full moon. He’s showing his best side. He shows all of himself, without fear or excuses or apologies. But when he stands as a man, in humos, he’s turned away. Showing his…”
He almost said worst side, before realizing it would insult everyone in the room. But he didn’t know how else to put it.
“His most vulnerable side,” Lejo said quietly.
“Yes,” Fen said. “A kheiron in humos doesn’t have four legs to run or silver hooves to kick. He’s never more afraid than when he stands as a man. And he wants to hide it.”
Melki looked up at him. “I thought you said it was a true story?”
Laughter filled the room. Pleased with himself, Melki leaned crossed arms on Fen’s legs. “We never met anyone who was in one of the stories,” he said. “Most of them are about dead people from a thousand years ago. But we tell The Kepten and The Kheiron all the time.”
“Is that so?” Fen said.
“Who was the boy they found you with?”
Fen’s stomach squeezed and his heart startled into thudding. “What?”
“In the story,” Melki said patiently. “The Altyns found you in the Old Forest and a boy was with you. But he was already dead.”
Sweat dripped down the back of Fen’s neck. His insides screamed but he kept his face bland as he swallowed and said, “Well.” Then he could say no more.
If I tell them, he thought, will they want me anymore? Gods, what would Trueblood do if he knew who Alon was and what I did to him?
“Melki, leave him be,” Lejo said. “Not everyone wants his story read aloud.”
Trueblood stood up, scattering the minoros around his feet. “Thank you for the tale, Fen,” he said. “Now hit your bunks, sailors.”
In the days that came, Fen braced himself for questions from the crew. Wanting first-hand details of the story and asking who was with him.
None came.
He didn’t know if they lost interest or if Trueblood or Lejo had a firm talk with them about nosiness. If it was the latter, he was grateful, and he ought to say so. But he’d rather barf over the windward side of the ship than talk about how he escaped.
Or who was with him.
In a little house in southern Minosaros, a broken mother keeps a chair empty at her table and a candle of hope lit in her heart.
She believes her son is alive somewhere.
He’d be thirty-one now, but he’s stayed in his mother’s mind as a boy of eleven. He’s frozen in her memory, dazzling blond and gentle, waving back to her before he goes out into the world and never returns.
This lad was called Jindo when he walked away from home for the last time.
He was sold into slavery.
He escaped on the back of a kheiron.
He fell out the sky as a boy renamed Alon.
The Altyns found his corpse at the foot of a spice tree.
Now he lies buried next to a pegaso in Nyland.
One day, legantos, his story will be told, but not today. For now, know you must breathe gently when you hear it.
Don’t upset the inner flame within this brave mother who still waits for her boy. You have the privilege of knowing what she doesn’t and it comes with awesome responsibility.
Simply listen.
Listen to learn it. Learn it to tell it. Tell it to teach it.
The more comfortable Fen appeared on the ship, the heavier the ringos weighed on Trueblood’s finger. Other than the hoop in his ear, he’d never worn jewelry. His father’s marvelous gold cuffs were his for the taking, but the few times he tried to wear them, he found them a hindrance. They got in his way. So did the ring, but in another of his ways.
This isn’t mine. I have no right to wear this.
What the hell was keeping him from just giving it back to Fen? Saying, “I’m not wearing it anymore. End of story.”
Would the ship sink if he gave it back?
Would the sun fall out of the sky?
This is horseshit, he thought several times a day, keeping his hands in his pockets or behind his back whenever the kheiron was around. He went on thinking it was horseshit, but he kept the godsdamned thing on. In this, his maiden voyage, he needed all the supernatural and superstitious help he could get.
He was brooding over the ring’s grip when he came across Fen at the base of the main mast. The kheiron had a morbid fascination with this monster. He stared up at the sailors in the rigging, his expression somewhere between horror and envy. He wanted to be up there. Badly. It would be the closest thing he had to flying right now. But without the security of his wings, he’d be terrified to be up there.
Inside his pocket, Trueblood picked at the ring with his thumbnail. Thinking. And finally asking, he hoped casually, “You want to climb it?”
He expected a swift refusal, but Fen’s eyes stayed on the crow’s nest as he drew in a long, considering breath.
“Kind of,” he said.
“I’ll teach you how.”
Fen nodded a little. “Can you teach me without there being an audience?”
“Why?”
Still looking up, the kheiron smiled. “My father said I don’t do anything without an audience. True in some aspects. However, if I’m going to plunge to my death, I’d rather it be witnessed by as few people as possible.”
“I won’t let you die,” Trueblood said, laughing. “But I know what you mean about having all eyes staring when you attempt something new. Tell you what. Two more nights and the moon will be full. We do a secret summit during the night watch. I can’t guarantee no one will be watching, but it won’t be everyone.”
After a short lesson about the harness system, Fen started up the main mast. Trueblood coached and directed from below Fen’s feet, the memory of his father’s voice in his ears.
That’s it. No, don’t worry, you’re smart to rest. Rest as long as you need. Ah ah, don’t look up. Don’t look up, don’t look down, just look where you are.
“All right?” he called at the gallant arm.
“Yeah,” Fen said, breathing hard.
“You know,” Trueblood said. “The mast likes when you give it a hug.”
“Say what?”
“Everyone spends so much time being afraid of her or cursing at her. Every now and then she wants to be complimented.” Trueblood put his arms around the mast, embracing it close and turning an angelic face up to Fen. Eyelashes batting. “Nice mast. Thank you for being the spine of the ship. You work so hard and no one appreciates you.”
“You are weird, Kepten Trueblood,” Fen said.
“Telling you. Be nice to the main mast and she’s nice to you.”
“Gods.” Fen put a single arm around the mast and leaned his head on it. “Good mast. Nice needle of death. Thank you for not killing me.”
The two majoros keeping watch in the crow’s nest reached down for Fen’s arms as he approached the hatch. Trueblood heard shouts and laughter as the kheiron was hauled up. The three were in a pile on the floor, slapping shoulders as Trueblood ascended.
“He’s one of us now, Kep.”
“Holy horses,” Fen said, getting to his feet and looking around. “Gods, look at that…”
Trueblood caught his men’s eyes and jerked his head toward the deck. Get lost a little while. I got this.
“Khe l’khe,” Fen said. “This is…”
Pleased, Trueblood put his back to the mast, shut up and let Fen enjoy the panorama.
“This is great,” Fen said. “Thanks for doing this.”
“My pleasure.”
“Being up here, I feel like…” Fen’s hands rose in the air, then fell to his sides.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. I keep thinking I feel young. I don’t even know what that means.”
“As long as you don’t feel nauseous.”
Fen leaned over the rail of the nest and faked an exaggerated barf.
“It’s been done before,” Trueblood said, laughing. “Worst cleanup job on the ship. It fucking goes everywhere.”
“I feel young,” Fen said again. “Kind of…how I felt before I was…taken. Which is odd because I don’t have much memory from then.”
“Mm,” Trueblood said, cautiously regarding this bit of dropped bait. “It’s funny. My memory runs into a wall when I’m seven. Almost everything before my mother died, including the day she died, is gone. I only have a handful of distinct recollections, and the rest is just isolated feelings here and there.”
“My memory does the same,” Fen said, his gaze deliberately forward. He said no more and Trueblood let it drop.
A long interlude of quiet passed and Trueblood started to think about the descent. What would be best—if he climbed above Fen or below him? Probably below. He’d be in the way of Fen’s temptation to look down and—
“I’m sorry about Belmiro.”
Trueblood blinked. “What?”
“I mean, how I blew that whole thing open. It was shitty of me.”
“Huh,” Trueblood said. “Didn’t see that coming.”
“Belmiro or my apology?”
He laughed. “Well, both, now that you mention it.” He slid his back down the mast to sit on the floor.
“I guess while I was losing my stomach for a month, I heaved a lot of my petty vindictiveness over the side. I feel bad about it. And I’m sorry.”
“It ended up being for the best.”
“How so?”
“You were right about easy being my middle name, and learning about Belmiro opened my eyes to a lot of things. Made me do some fast growing up. Newfound appreciation for my own lot in life. So on and so forth. Life lesson learned. But it did kind of suck.”
“Mm.”
“But at least I have a better idea of what I want when it comes to gelang.”
“You ever been in love?”
“No.”
Fen leaned his arms on the rail. “I was. Once.” A deep breath in and a long shiver out. “You know I was abducted outside the kheiron training grounds in Sudenlo. I wasn’t supposed to be there. I had two years to go until I’d be old enough to join the legions. But I was in love with one of the archers, so I sneaked after them.”
“I see,” Trueblood said. “Who was she?”
“He.”
Trueblood’s eyebrows raised. You said you didn’t bed men poised on the tip of his tongue, then he bit it back. Maybe Fen just meant human men. He didn’t say anything about males of his own race. Fuck it, anything Fen lobbed during the fight in the grotto was long heaved over the side of the ship.
Just start over, Trueblood thought.
“We were young,” Fen was saying. “He was fourteen, I was twelve. But it felt real.”
“Was he happy to see you?”
“Yes and no. I think he was thrilled for thirty seconds, then horrified at the trouble he could get in. He didn’t hug or kiss me or anything.
He just told me to go home.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. And being young and stupid, I gave him my moonstone before I left the encampment. Which turned out to be a huge disadvantage when I got ambushed.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. I walked right into the shit. They had my rings off me in no time and I couldn’t gallop away.”
“That’s…” Trueblood’s voice stuck helplessly in his throat. “I can’t even… I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say.”
Fen shrugged. “Point being, and coming back to the subject of memory, pretty much everything before that day is gone.” He tucked a leg under and sat on the floor. “And I hate it. I mean, what the fuck? Why doesn’t my memory erase what happened after that day and leave me the good shit from when I was nine, ten, eleven? Holy horses, I can’t do anything right.”
“Anything right, what are you talking about?” Trueblood said. “You were a foalboy. None of it’s your fault. Not how you were taken and not how your mind handled it.”
“I chose to follow him.”
“Then the people who were supposed to keep an eye on you failed. Whoever let you slip past them out of Alondra holds responsibility here. And what about the watch on the perimeter of the training grounds? There’s a memory lapse that needs refreshing. You know, Fen, when we get through with all this Truviad horseshit, I want names. Clearly I need to hand a few people their ass.”
Fen was laughing under his breath. “My father kicked more than a few asses.”
“I’ll bet.”
Fen paused, biting on his bottom lip. “The kheiron I followed to the camp? My father broke his legs.”
“Say again?”
“Broke his legs. I don’t mean Father threw him aside and he landed badly. I mean Father took a maul and one at a time, he broke each leg.”
Trueblood pulled breath in with a hiss, screwing up his eyes. “Why? I mean, it wasn’t his fault you came after him.”
“No. But he waited a week before he told anyone I’d been at the training grounds in the first place, and that he had my moonstone. A week Father wasted searching in all the wrong places.”
The Voyages of Trueblood Cay Page 27