‘Have you heard?’ he asked Whitey in a tone of suppressed excitement. ‘You and me, we are going east along with the old Wych man and your mate the translator.’
‘Really?’ Whitey replied without much enthusiasm.
Last night he had not been able to sleep. After tossing and turning for a while he had left the tent to find everyone abed and the whole village wrapped in a cloak of deepest silence. He had wandered up to the side of the lake where their boats were moored. It would be easy, he had thought, to push the boat out and steer it ever so gently until he was out of the lake and head north along the river. Sure, the river fragmented into swamp many times and the potential to get lost or stranded couldn’t be ignored. But if you kept heading north you could surely not go wrong. He had actually sat in the boat and picked up the paddle – just one push and he would be out and away on the water. Just one push. He was no brave soldier; he was Whitey, always one step in front of the law – the thief, the back stabber, the cutpurse, the gang runner. Could they not see he did not belong here? He could no more defeat a dragon than walk to the moon. It was time to leave.
He had been about to lift the rope from the mooring peg when he looked over the lake. There, on the island, he saw Cygan’s house, still standing, even though he had helped build it. In his mind, he saw Vaneshanda smiling at him and heard the voices of the children.
‘Goodnight, Barris, and thank you.’
A fish rose and fell back into the water with a loud plop. With his shoulders sagging, he climbed out of the boat and headed back to his tent, slowly realising that conscience could be a truly terrible thing.
Hence his lack of enthusiasm at Sperrish’s remark.
‘East,’ he said. ‘East or south, we are all likely to die doing this.’
Sperrish looked at him wickedly. ‘Not necessarily.’ He crouched down close to Whitey and started to whisper.
‘Listen, east is a good thing. I have had a couple of chats with the Marsh fellows – well, it’s more gestures than a chat if you get me – but, if we go east, we get to a couple of villages surrounded by lakes and trees and in their lakes they have’ – he dropped his voice even lower – ‘an absolute ton of spirit grass. It is swamping parts of their lakes apparently. They could get rid of it but the superstitious fools are only allowed to take so much of it a year or it angers their Gods or something. Do you see what I am saying?’
Whitey looked up at him. ‘No.’
Sperrish raised his eyes to the heavens. ‘Artorus’s balls, but you are stupid sometimes. We stay at the village, go to the lake at night, harvest all the grass a boat can carry and scarper before any one sees us. They will all be too busy fighting these damned lizards to bother chasing us, and for us, it’s back to Sketta to sell the stuff to the house of Meriel, or whoever will pay the most. We will be made, my friend, made! A boat full of that stuff could fetch us fifty crowns easy!’
Whitey was unconvinced. ‘And do you know what spirit grass looks like in these wilds?’
‘I have asked. Long, thin, pale green with some blue flowers. They clump together in tussocks with their roots under the water. Are you in on this?’
Sperrish held out his hand to Whitey, who looked at him as though in the grip of some great mental discourse. Eventually, though, the proffered hand was clasped and Whitey nodded slowly in agreement, but he did not smile.
‘Marvellous!’ said Sperrish. ‘In a few weeks we will be rich and this savage-filled bog will be a forgotten memory. You will not be able to move for all the women after you when we get back.’
‘After my purse,’ Whitey corrected him. ‘After my purse.’
Two days later the other men returned, their boats laden with barrels of oil. The two flotillas divided it up between them and prepared to depart the following morning. It was a sad day for the Marsh folk – the men were departing on the most perilous journey of their lives and no one knew if they were coming back or whether they would end their days at the bottom of a murky lake or inside a dragon’s belly. The mood around the village, therefore, was sombre. Dumnekavax led the villagers to the sacred lake to ask for the blessings of the Gods in the early afternoon. Cygan explained to Whitey and the other soldiers that it was a holy site for the villagers and so they were not permitted to see it, a remark met with near indifference as most of them were busy praying to the little icons of their own gods that they carried with them everywhere.
Prayers done, people retired to their homes for one last evening with their families. For Cygan, this felt a little like the replaying of the same emotions he went through prior to his solitary venture to the north and, considering how close he came to death there, he was not exactly brimming with optimism at the moment.
‘Be strong,’ he said to his wife as they held each other in their hammock. They were enjoying a rare moment of serenity as night closed in outside and the piping of the owls drifted eerily over the limpid waters. The children were with Uxevallak in his own house; he would be one of the few men who would be remaining here. Cygan would say goodbye to them in the morning.
‘So you are to go again,’ she said sadly, looking at him with her large sad eyes. ‘It does seem that those who watch over us enjoy seeing us apart.’
‘This will be the last time,’ Cygan replied. ‘If I am destined to return, the only time I will leave you from then on will be to fish or to hunt.’
‘I will hold you to that. The children should see more of you. Uxevallak is great with them and they love him to the death, but he is not their father.’
‘Then why did you send them away tonight?’
Vaneshanda giggled and tickled the lobe of his ear. ‘I thought you would guess. Don’t you think they deserve another brother or sister?’
‘Oh I see.’ The penny dropped. ‘But after tonight I may never see you again.’
Her giggle continued. ‘Then it will have to be tonight then, won’t it?’
‘Then we are wasting time talking.’ He pulled a blanket over their heads and the hammock started to rock. Violently. And almost until dawn.
A cold mist hung over the lake. That same morning the village children had played a game just after dawn, running along the banks of the water cracking the icy earth with their feet until their parents had stopped them. Now, on the water were some forty boats, some constructed out of planks, others from hollowed-out trees. Some three to four men were sitting in every boat, their faces drawn and pensive. On the bank stood the women, the older or physically lame men and the children. Uxevallak and Vaneshanda, with her children standing at her feet, watched Cygan climb into the lead boat on which was fixed the skull of Tegavanek. There had been a late change of plan. Dirthen was travelling east and Terath south; since Terath could almost speak both languages, he was to act as a translator for the southern expedition, with Cygan doing the duties for the eastern.
The women threw flowers for their men. One plant, the frost rose, grew all year around the sacred lake and its petals now scattered on the waters as well as landing in the boats themselves. Cygan caught Vaneshanda’s and held it up for her to see before placing it gently in his pack.
Whitey, as usual, was in the same boat and waved nervously at the two children who, after bidding their father goodbye, saw him and started calling his name. Then he heard his name again – another voice, clear and female. He looked around and saw Emterevuanu raising her arms for him to see. He waved back at her even more nervously and then saw she was throwing a rose at him. Dumbstruck, he did not react as it hit him in the face and bounced back into the water, but then, seeing her disappointed face, he put his hand into the icy lake and plucked it out, holding it up for her to see, mirroring what Cygan had done earlier.
‘Goodbye, brave Barris!’ she called out to him. He heard Cygan laugh and felt his toes curl. Then the call went up. Dumnekavax sounded the horn for departure. Swiftly, skilfully, the boatmen steered their craft into the lake where the mist soon swallowed them up and all the onlookers on the bank could he
ar was the sound of paddles breaking the water’s surface and the excited squawks of a group of ducks who were diving for the weed accumulated on the wooden piles of the great house.
The men were gone. Maybe for ever, and on the shore many women wept at their leaving. Not Vaneshanda, though. As her daughter started to sniffle at her father’s disappearance, she touched her gently on the shoulder.
‘No crying. Do not listen to the others. Your father will return; he is beloved of Cygannan. He will return. Believe me.’
They made their way to their own boat and within minutes were drifting across the lake to their home. Vaneshanda sang to the children as they travelled, soothing them, quieting them. Helping them to believe that what she just said was immutable fact rather than wild hope. Cygan would be back, she thought. He most definitely would.
27
‘What! You haven’t tried any of them?’
‘They are not really for me. They are much too grand.’
‘Nonsense, you are a pretty girl; you would look lovely in them.’
‘But I have never worn such things before. I would feel self-conscious, as though everyone would be looking at me.’
‘Which is exactly what they would be doing...’
‘But I really don’t want men looking, not after ... what happened.’
Mathilde nodded gravely. ‘Of course. I can understand that, but surely by keeping your hair short, hiding in your room and looking as pale and drawn as possible, you are giving in, not fighting back.’
Mathilde was in Cheris’s room, holding up one of the dresses she had given to her. It was only a loan really – no such garments would be allowed back on the island – but even so she was not used to such generosity. She could not get over how friendly and helpful Mathilde had been to her. She had noticed most people avoided her; she inspired a nervousness, even fear among most folk, especially now they realised she was the selfsame Storm Queen of Grest about whom bards were already singing. Mathilde had no such reservations about her and she was beginning to be of the opinion that it was because Morgan, like most soldiers, treated her as a human being and not the fierce harpy of the songs. Maybe she thought that, by being friendly to her, her standing with Morgan would be enhanced in some way.
And it was a beautiful dress – of patterned silk in a pale crystalline blue grey offset by smaller panels and sleeves of understated vermillion. It was a thin, figure-hugging creation of a kind that had apparently been fashionable in Tanaren some three or four years ago. Only the most diaphanous shift could be worn under it without ruining its shape.
‘Did you wear this?’ she asked, realising too late she had left out the ‘my Lady’. Mathilde did not notice.
‘A couple of times. Despite the war, I managed to go to Tanaren City for the winter Feast ball four years ago and wore it then. Go on, try it; I am a little taller than you but you are slenderer than I. I think it will suit you.’
With not a little misgiving, Cheris took the dress off her. She recalled her excitement of trying on the maid’s dress that Sir Dylan had procured for her, but that was before ... well, that was just before.
Less than five minutes later a nervous and fidgeting Cheris stood before the full-length mirror, the one she had covered with a sheet and which Mathilde had contemptuously removed upon her entrance to the room.
‘As I told you,’ Mathilde said, ‘you look beautiful.’
It was like looking at a different person. Gone was the confident girl in her pathetically tailored robes, altered to give at least a semblance of femininity. In her place was an insecure-looking woman, all curves and sensuality, wearing a dazzling, sheer, elegantly tapered dress which, though maybe an inch too long, seemed designed to fit her personally, so exact was its match to her own body. Although she avoided looking directly at her own face, Cheris had to admit that Mathilde had something of a point.
‘It is very nice, certainly...’ She struggled for the right words.
‘I will never wear it again,’ said Mathilde. ‘It is yours; you do it far more justice than I ever could. I will just get the maid to alter the length a little.’
‘Thank you, my Lady, but such beautiful things are not allowed on the island. I could not take it with me.’
‘Then I will keep it here, for when you return. It is the finest silk, traded from the elves by the Menthur Company in Tanaren City no less.’
She started in shock. ‘D...did you say?’
‘See. Even you have heard of them.’
‘No, my Lady, you do not understand. That is my name. My family name.’
Mathilde gasped and raised her eyebrows. ‘We do business with them a lot here, as do many noble Tanaren families. They are probably wealthier than the Felmeres.’
‘I knew they were traders, but had no idea they were doing so well. It is Danald, Danald Menthur you are talking about, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you ever met him?’
‘Of course, I saw him last time I was in Tanaren City three years back. Is he...?’
‘My father, yes. I have not seen him for fifteen years.’
‘I had no idea he had a mage daughter.’
Cheris replied, a bitter tone in her voice. ‘It is not something one would own up to in polite conversation.’
Mathilde nodded slowly. ‘I suppose not. If it is any consolation, both he and his wife were in good health when I last saw them.’
‘That is good.’ Cheris straightened out a minor kink in the dress, over her hip. ‘I write occasionally, as do they, but the Knights of the Thorn read the letters so we can never say too much. And here I am wearing one of their dresses. I wonder if I can get permission to take it back with me, not to wear, just to keep.’
‘If you need my family’s backing for that, I will give it gladly.’
‘Thank you. One other thing, my Lady, if I may ask.’
‘Of course.’
‘When you see them next, tell them of me. Tell them I love them and still miss them after all this time. Give them your opinion of me, however unflattering; I just want them to know what I am like, what I have grown into. I will probably never see them again, after all, so you can speak the truth to them.’
Mathilde took her by the hand. ‘I swear, if I survive this war, I will go to Tanaren as soon as I can. I will tell them about you and I will be nowhere near unflattering, just honest.’
Cheris smiled at her and replied in a tiny voice. ‘Thank you.’
Suddenly they both turned, for the door had opened unannounced. Standing there, holding a wriggling Rosamund, was Syalin.
Instantly the atmosphere in the room dropped several degrees. If Cheris’s feelings towards the tall blonde girl, now clad once more in her xhikon armour, were of antipathy then Mathilde’s were little more than unalloyed hatred.
‘Your cat was running around in the throne room,’ Syalin said coldly. ‘I thought you might want her back.’
Without saying a word, Cheris walked up to her and snatched the cat from her grasp.
‘I am glad you like the dress, my dear.’ Mathilde made it obvious that she was ignoring the new arrival. ‘Please wear it whenever and wherever you wish. I need to see Morgan on some matters now he is free. I will speak again with you soon.’ With that, she brushed passed Syalin and left the room.
Cheris expected Morgan’s new bodyguard to follow suit but she remained standing in the doorway.
‘Do you wish to say something?’ Cheris asked curtly. ‘If so, come on in and close the door behind you.’
‘As you wish. I do have a matter to discuss.’ She closed the door as requested. ‘That is a very nice dress by the way.’
‘And is completely wasted on me. I know, I know.’
Syalin smiled slightly. ‘I did not say that, nor do I believe it.’
As she came into the room, the light from the window fell squarely on her face. With some shock Cheris saw a livid-red scar, obviously fresh, on her right cheek; small fragments of congealed bloo
d still clung to it.
‘Your face?’ she asked dumbly.
‘Oh that,’ Syalin said dismissively. ‘Just a tattoo I needed to remove.’
‘But you will always have a scar.’
‘A slight one, yes. My current employer is unconcerned by slight blemishes; my former one less so but I can never return to him anyway.’
‘But didn’t it hurt?’
‘A little, nothing that could not be ignored; you may not know but pain control is part of our training. I have experienced far worse, believe me.’
There was a brief, awkward silence before Cheris spoke again.
‘How are you finding it here? Is it what you expected?’
‘I expected to die, so I am finding it a lot better than that. People here hate, fear and dislike me, so, in that respect, it is just like being in the Lilac Palace. In every other way, though, it is different.’
‘Different?’
‘Colder, bleaker, more austere. It is a world away from the Lilac Palace.’
Despite herself, Cheris was curious. ‘How much more different could it be?’
‘Oh very.’ Syalin said with a smile. ‘The weather in winter is balmy with a constant breeze coming in from the sea bringing with it the smell of salt and the trees that cluster around the coast near by. Indoors, braziers burn sandalwood, rosewood and incense; the smoke hangs so heavily in the air your armour smells of it. Wherever the Emperor walks he is accompanied by handmaidens casting petals before his feet and minstrels playing and singing of his great deeds. Every table is laden with fruit and dates; every doorway is covered by thin muslin drizzled with perfume; even the clothing of the courtiers is studded with gems... Yes, it is very different to here.’
‘And you? You wear that armour all the time? Do you ever get time off from your duties?’
She seemed surprised at being questioned, as though it was strange anyone being interested in her. ‘We get some time off, yes. There are over a hundred of us so we are not all needed at once. Adjoining one of the palace buildings on the island furthest out to sea is a beach reserved just for us. When we get the chance many of us go there to swim or lie on the sand. Most of the girls have darker skin than I, so they can tolerate the sun a little better. Generally, I go there to swim; it is good for the muscles. You are from an island – do you swim, too?’
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