She patted the rug, inviting him to sit down. “You’re hot and tired, Mikil. Why don’t you rest a moment?”
Ashamed of his words, thoughts, and temper, Mikil collapsed down on the far end of the cloak. He sat cross-legged and took out a rag to wipe the sweat from his neck and forehead. Then he propped his chin in his hand and gazed at her as she steadily (and, in truth, rather clumsily) went back to work on her carving.
“If I keep practicing,” she grinned, “either I’ll get better at this or I’ll cut off my fingertips. We need bowls to store food away from the ants and sand.” Pursuing her own train of thought, she continued, “We have a piece of net; couldn’t you and Gilboy string it up high between some trees? Then our food stores would be safer from critters.”
Mikil grunted his assent. He watched her slender fingers, her wide mouth, and her crooked teeth as she talked. His longing grew so intense he thought it would choke him.
As if the heat in his glance pulsed between them, she laid her handiwork aside. Arlettie stared back at him. “I know that I’m only a servant while you are a prince, and I’m sure you judge me beneath you.”
“Beneath me? Not really. Sometimes I look up to you.” Mikil said this to compliment her, but in saying it, he also knew it to be true.
Arlettie had lowered her chin, but now she raised her eyes and stared at him under her brows.
“Look, I cannot deny the gulf between us,” Mikil continued. His voice sounded husky to his own ears. “But we are here, now. And we may be stuck on this isle for some time. You know I desire you. But I swear I will not touch you. I have some honor left.” He paused, trying to read her thoughts.
“And what if I touch you?” she asked. “Darlin’, are you so blind you cannot see…?” She pushed her work away and closed the distance between them. She put her hands on both sides of his face and kissed his lips. Her breath tasted like fruit.
That night, with Arlettie lying beside him, Mikil realized that Lautan had not only rescued him from the watery depths but had also deliberately provided him with a wife, a child, sustenance, and purpose.
* * *
Though they lost track of time, years rolled by. Gilboy grew taller. The fabric that they had available wore to shreds. Once Mikil had to pull out Arlettie’s tooth when it got infected. Another time, Gilboy sliced his foot on a rock and was laid up for weeks. The boy learned to read, and they used driftwood to write in the sand all around the island, Survivors. Rescue Us. But no ships ever came within sight.
Mikil’s mood alternated between frustration and energetic contentment. He decided that a boat made out of planks was beyond his reach, but a hollowed-out log design might just be possible. He experimented with a small pine tree near the beach, felling it with their swords and sharp volcanic rocks and then getting his companions to help him drag it to the beach. After stripping the bark, he painstakingly split the log in half. Seashells and the judicious use of fire helped him hollow it out; then he cured it by storing it underwater for moons. Meanwhile, he cannibalized the dinghy to fashion crossbeams to expand the trunk and widen the center of the boat, and considered how to rig a lateen sail. Then he experimented, trying to find the best plant oils to cure the wood.
His first attempt was a disaster. He gave the misshapen boat to Gilboy to paddle around in the cove, but it wasn’t ocean-worthy. However, by going through the process Mikil learned from his errors.
While he worked on the boats, Arlettie stitched the sail, braided the lines, and tried different methods of drying and smoking food to make provisions for their journey.
Years had passed by the time Mikil finally finished his second, serious attempt. His sweet craft, the Shrimp, turned out well-balanced. Eagerly, they sailed it in their cove, then took it out for longer trials.
However, whenever they loaded it with stores and tried to leave the island, a calamity would occur. Once they put to sea with high hopes on a beautiful day. A freak wind and a towering wave blew them back to shore before they had even left the cove.
The second time the weather stayed fair, but as soon as they reached deep water a pod of hammerhead sharks pursued them. The monsters boiled out of the water. They jostled the boat with their heads, terrifying all three travelers.
After these experiences Mikil realized that Lautan would allow them to leave only on the Spirit’s timetable. Lautan had some purpose for keeping them on the island, and to attempt to escape without permission was foolhardy.
Accordingly, the prince caulked and oiled the Shrimp and walked the shore every morning and evening for the next years, telling his companions he combed the tidal wreckage in search of anything useful, but actually listening to the waves and looking for a sign.
Muttonshells had become one of Arlettie’s favorite meals. On the brightest days, when sunbeams fingered the deep waters, Mikil dived far down, seeking the black abalone attached to the rocks. One such morning Mikil had managed to pry off a large specimen and he was almost out of air when a flicker of sunlight penetrating even deeper below made something sparkle. Straining against the overwhelming urge to surface, he forced his arms to pull him to swim two body lengths deeper. He snatched the object. With his lungs nigh to bursting, Mikil broke the surface with the abalone shell in his left hand and the golden object in his right.
The prize turned out to be a dagger—a costly, ancient dagger—with the face of a catamount carved on each side of the handle. It dazzled in the sunlight; immersion in seawater had not damaged the golden figures.
Mikil raced up to their clearing with his find. “Arlettie, do you recognize this?” he gasped, water streaming from his hair and loincloth, holding out the antique.
“That’s Queen Cressa’s dagger, I’m sure!” Arlettie reached for it and clutched it to her heart. “She always wore it. Where did you find it?”
“It was in the cove off the south coast.” Mikil fought to breathe normally and regarded the object. “I wonder how it got this far from the wrecks.
“Finding it today … Could this be the signal that we should try again to rejoin the rest of the world?”
Arlettie’s eyes lit up, and she gave a shiver of delight. Mikil grabbed her around the waist and twirled her a turn. “My sweet, will you be sorry to leave our private paradise?”
“It depends, my prince,” she said, nestling on his chest.
“Depends on what?”
“Depends on what happens to us out there.”
“Gilboy needs more opportunities than we have on this island.”
“And what about me?” she asked, pulling back to look at his face.
“You? I shall take you to Lortherrod as my bride—that is, if you will have me. Though I warn you, the castle is very cold and draughty.”
“What about your father and your brother the king? What will they say about a Green Isles ladies’ maid?”
“They will treat you with the honor you deserve as my chosen one.”
“Is it really so cold in Lortherrod?” she mused.
“Aye.” He pulled her closer into his arms. “I will order the fireplaces always kept high; I will cloak you in velvets and furs and find other ways too to keep you warm. Will you have me?”
“Let’s see. I have to consider my other suitors, before I give you an answer.”
“Lautan won’t take you,” said Mikil. “The Spirit has already spit you out into my arms.”
All that day they loaded into the Shrimp the provisions they had carefully gathered and preserved. The next morning, Mikil studied the sky and the sea. The one was cloudless and the latter softly undulating. A light but steady breeze blew from the south. Truly, Mikil had seen no better day to attempt to sail away from their small island that for so long had been both refuge and prison.
Arlettie was smiling at him from the bow, Gilboy holding the tiller in the stern.
“What do you think? Ready?” he asked them.
“Aye,” his tiny crew answered. He put his back into pushing the Shrimp the last pace o
ff the sandy beach. She glided neatly into the still water, and when Gilboy loosened her sail it billowed out with a satisfying snap.
PART ONE
Reign of Regent Matwyck, Year 13
LATE AUTUMN
2
In the Sea
Billions of minnows lived and died without knowing anything about the Spirit of the Sea. Lautan didn’t hold dominion over all sea life, just the biggest and oldest creatures in its realm, such as the few black terrapins that still lived in Femturan Estuary.
These enormous terrapins had inhabited this salt marsh for centuries, since the port of Oromondo had silted over and become worthless as a shipping harbor. Barnacles crusted their shells; their black curved claws stretched as long as human fingers. Though the mining pollution irritated their eyes and undermined their diet, they built up immunity to the metallic ores’ worst effects.
The Eldest of them all, with beady eyes and a patterned shell as big and round as a carriage wheel, waited in the murky depths of the moat the morning of the Conflagration in Femturan. Of course, it was impossible that he could have known what was going to transpire: that Magi Two would throw a fireball at Skylark and that she would fall off her horse into the water into this exact spot.
A gnarled, old, ugly turtle, he could not foresee the future.
Nevertheless, he waited in the dirty murk.
The instant Skylark plummeted into the brackish water, he pushed off with his strong back flippers, catching her steaming, doused body on his hard shell. He swiftly bore her away underwater, hidden from sight, so that in less than a minute they swam out of the moat proper and into the salt bay.
Once he reached the edge of the open water he rose in the high grasses of the swamp to give the human a chance to breathe air. A hand weakly grabbed the ridge of his shell near his protruding, wrinkled neck. He kept his shell above the surface, making the reeds part with his four flippers. The brackish water and mud steamed with humidity, and wafting smoke made the air smell.
The human murmured one sound: “Thirsty.” This meant nothing to the terrapin, and he ignored it.
After two hours the Eldest entered the ocean proper, where the sand bottom fell away and gradually cleared of plant life. This was not his territory: the cold currents and waves moved with a force that made him uncomfortable. The weight on his shell had long become burdensome. He yearned for his warm habitat. But he was old. He knew patience.
A small group of sea lions approached with their typical, noisy commotion, sending ripples through the water.
“Urt! Urt! Urt! Urt! Urt! Urt!” they hailed the Eldest. These vocalizations meant nothing to the terrapin, but he was relieved they had finally arrived.
When the terrapin submerged, the human let go. She floated loosely on the surface while a fat sea lion dove underneath and took over as the human’s flotation support. His own part played, the Eldest headed back to his mud.
Sea lions prefer to swim in arches, diving and rising. To them, skimming the sea’s surface—keeping their backs in the air, the Thin—feels unnatural and awkward. And their black, slippery bodies provided no purchase for the human, nothing whatsoever for her to hold on to.
She be slipping right off, blubber-puss, one juvenile female said to another. Look out! There she goes!
Thou gripest, thou taketh her!
Okay! One wilt take her next. See, blubber-butt? Thou gotta keep thy back flat and thou gotta kink thy head a bit, make a wrinkle round thy neck, a handhold for her strange flipper. See? She grabbed on.
Bet she wilt nay stay long.
What wilt thou wager?
Bet thee a whiting.
Agreed.
Although sea lions prefer to hover near their feeding grounds along coastlines, this group, following orders, swam deeper into the ocean, heading away from the lowering sun. The human lost strength in her fingers and slid off to the side again. This time she didn’t float, but rather plunged into the colder depths. She didn’t struggle, and only a tiny trickle of bubbles surfaced. The eldest female barked an alarm.
Swim beneath the creature, she ordered one of the adult females. Lift her up to the Thin.
The human made strange choking noises when the sea lion got her back up into the Thin.
Don’t drown me, the human sent.
Not our fault, human. ’Tis bad enough to have to stay on the surface of the Thick for such a queer, misshapen thing as thee. Hey! Do nay grab at one’s whiskers!
Something had scorched the human’s skin, the sun had burned it further, and instead of providing relief, the night seawater scalded her again with its harsh salt and icy cold.
Burning. She sent to the sea lion.
Tell no one thy troubles. One saw two yummy octopi but one could nay dive to catch them because thou needst the Thin. One’s hungry. One has already raised a pup for the year. No one asked for thee.
The stars had come out by the time the group of sea lions, with a chorus of loud exclamations of, “Urt! Urt! Urt! Urt! Urt! Urt!” rendezvoused with the school of dolphins.
“Ee! Ee! Ee!” the dolphins chattered in response.
Where hast thou been, thou stuck-up bigmouths? Did thou get lost? Didst thou stop to chow down? Take this burden off one’s backs, ordered the leading sea lion.
Your Majesty! We be here!
Never mind all the chatter. Got the burden? Good riddance to human rubbish.
The sea lions swam off, barking with relief, and then dived deep, luxuriating in their freedom.
We have thee now, cried the dolphins. Thou art safe. Dost thou hear us? We will never let thee breathe water. We like air too. We suck it in and blow bubbles with it. Sweet sea air.
The human made no reply, but she still had life.
Thou art injured, Your Majesty. We will take thee to help. No more fear, no more worries. We be the best. Lautan loves us the most, because we are the swiftest and the smartest.
A few times she woke enough to retch out a gob of seawater.
Well done, Majesty, said the dolphin who was carrying her.
Help me, dolphins, she sent. I shall surely die without help.
We know how to help thee, Little Majesty, and we are happy to do it. We apologize for the rudeness of the whiskered flat-faced ones. They have no brains. We call them “shark fodder”—though not when they are about.
What a great adventure we are having! Shall we go a bit faster? Wouldst thou like to try some leaps? Flying be the most fun.
She grabbed on to a dorsal fin for a few minutes, but then her grip went slack.
Never mind, Little Majesty. Thou canst rest. The water lies still as glass tonight. We will ferry thee over rocks and chasms, coral and seaweed, crabs and jellyfish. Some flying fish bounce beside us. We cut through the water cleanly; one’s ripples barely foam. The moons hang low in the sky, watching us, making their friendly shimmer-glimmer. Perchance they smile through that little veil of clouds.
Hark! A pod of whales has joined us! They are always pleasant company. They do not compete with us for fish because they eat only krill and shrimp. Be it not rich and strange, to grow so big eating only the tiniest food? Truly, Lautan has the most magnificent creatures. We do nay often see whales. One wonders why they have come. We be better at ferrying thee—thou couldst fall off their backs and the whales wouldn’t even know it. (Tell them not, but they be a wee bit stupid.)
Oh! The whales have come to sing thee a lullaby. How nice of them. They love to sing, though not all creatures can hear them. Listen carefully, now.
A dozen massive shapes surrounded the school of dolphins, swimming underwater but nigh to the surface. The females sang their baby-calf comfort songs in tandem, with long repeats.
The moonlit water reverberated with their kind intention as it washed over the human barely clinging to life.
Mother is here,
Sweet little calf.
Stay close to me,
Swim near to me.
In the gray-green deeps.
My tail is strong,
My milk is warm;
Your aunts will watch
So no harm befalls thee,
Beloved of Lautan,
Spirit of the Sea.
Beloved of Lautan.
Both thee and me.
3
Femturan
Thalen, dripping from three previous dives, leaned over the bank, peering into the filthy moat around Femturan for the slightest hint of movement or shadow in the opaque water. He had seen Skylark fall in; she could not just have disappeared.
For most of the morning, Oromondo soldiers had been too occupied with saving civilians from the fire, smoke, and collapsing buildings to pay any heed to three horses and strange riders perched near the city’s moat. All at once, however, a squad of eight Protectors noticed their presence, pointed and shouted, and started jogging in their direction.
“They’ve seen us! They’re coming!” Tristo warned. Eli-anna mounted Sukie, but Thalen still knelt by the water’s edge, refusing to give up his hunt for Skylark.
“Commander!” Tristo pulled his shoulder. “We’ve got to go, now! Get up!”
Thalen heard his words without recognizing their import. But when Tristo gave his hair a tremendous yank, he lifted his head, saw the squad of enemies bearing down on them, and looked around for Dishwater. Though Dish’s eyes rolled white with stress, he had remained only a few paces distant from his rider.
When Thalen tried to mount, his wet boot slipped out of the stirrup and he ended up sprawled in the dirt on his back. He lay on the ground wondering if he cared enough to rise.
Tristo yelled with more urgency, “Commander!”
Thalen almost shouted back, “Just go without me!” But he knew his duty to the comrades who had accompanied him on this failed rescue mission. With more determination, if no more strength, he succeeded in gaining his saddle.
Eli-anna had turned her horse, Sukie, around in circles searching for their best escape route. The plain around the pyre that had once been the capital city of Oromondo currently overflowed with Oro Protectors and panicked civilians.
A Broken Queen Page 2