by Grace Draven
The other woman laughed before swinging out of the saddle. She hauled Zigana into her arms, smothering her in a cloud of cloying perfume and fine silk. “It’s been a long time, Ziga,” she said and jerked away as suddenly as she had embraced her surprised sister. “Ewww. You smell like fish.”
Zigana laughed, untroubled by the insult. “I’m happy to see you too, but what are you doing here?”
Jolen wiggled her eyebrows and flashed a mischievous grin. “Surprised you, didn’t I?”
“Very much so.” Zigana didn’t exaggerate. Jolen had grown up in Castle Banat, and from the age of ten waxed enthusiastically about marrying a powerful lord and moving to the capital where she would become one of the exalted court ladies. She had loved the sea as much as Zigana did, but Ancilar itself was far too small, backwards, and isolated for her lofty aspirations. That she had returned didn’t bode well.
Jolen’s grin melted away, replaced by a brittle smile that thinned her lips and harshened her features. “Thanks to Father’s generosity, we’ve a roof over our heads, even if it’s brought me back to the arse-end of nowhere.”
Her sister’s slip into vulgarity made Zigana’s eyebrows wing upward. She hadn’t seen Jolen in several years, but her language had always been both formal and flawless. “As a court lady’s should be” she once proclaimed to Zigana when they were adolescents.
Jolen linked her arm with Zigana’s. “I have a lot to tell you. Walk the beach with me?”
Zigana shook her head. “I can’t. Not yet. I have another trawl to do before we pack up for the day.”
Jolen’s laugh chimed like bells in the sea wind. “Then I’ll come with you.”
A shudder coursed through Zigana’s frame and her fingers flexed on her sister’s arm. The memory of her nightmare—of Jolen drowned by the giant wave—and the images of Solyom’s death almost froze her in place. The sun beat down hot on her head, but she shivered in its warmth as if they stood on the shore in winter instead of late summer.
Jolen eyed her, puzzled. “What’s wrong?”
Don’t go in the water. You’ll drown. Or be eaten. Zigana couldn’t say any of those things. Her sister, newly arrived from the Pricidian court, would think her mad. She offered a weak protest instead. “You’ll ruin your gown in the sea water. And what about your horse?”
“I’ll hobble him the grasses. He won’t wander far, and I have plenty of gowns.” Jolen stared past her to where Odon and the horses waited. “Good gods, is that Gitta? She’s even more enormous than I remember. Where’s your da?”
Zigana pointed to the figure half hidden by Voreg. “There, with Voreg. Do you remember her? She’s Gitta’s foal.”
“And just as big.” Jolen tugged on her arm. “I’ll ride pillion, and I can help with the nets. I remember how.” At Zigana’s doubtful look, she huffed and crossed her arms. “I’m not a complete arm ornament, you know. And I always spread the nets and set the boards better than you could. I bet I still do.”
The other trawlers were already in the water when Zigana mounted Gitta and helped Jolen climb up behind her. She clicked her tongue and tapped her heels against the mare’s side, the same routine they did every time they entered the surf to shrimp. Only this time, Zigana’s soul sang with a mixture of fear and elation. Fear because of the creature that sullied the shallows and had taken Solyom, elation because she relived a golden memory of childhood—when Jolen managed to sneak away from her nurses and join her on Gitta’s back as they trawled for shrimp and bellowed sea shanties at the top of their lungs to the accompanied chorus of shrieking gulls.
Water rolled over their legs, spooling out threads of images in her mind’s eye, a tapestry of the Gray with all its life both benevolent and malevolent. Jolen grasped her waist and laughed behind her before raising her voice to sing one of those long-forgotten shanties.
“I bid my lass farewell, good day,” she sang out and Zigana answered with the refrain in lower pitch.
“Raise up the mast, main sail, me lad.”
They harmonized together and were quickly joined by the other trawlers as the shanty drifted across the waves.
“And set my feet onto the Gray,
Raise up the mast, main sail, me lad.
A trollop’s kiss for which I’d pay,
Raise up the mast, main sail, me lad
From ship’s good coin earned on the Gray,
Raise up the mast, main sail, me lad.
I’d rather sail than haul the hay,
Raise up the mast, main sail, me lad
Count the mermaids that swim the Gray,
Raise up the mast, main sail, me lad.
Red sky at morning, white horses play,
Drop down the mast, main sail, me lad
Storm’s a coming, black on the Gray,
Drop down the mast, main sail, me lad.
Ride hard the waves and set to pray,
Drop down the mast, main sail, me lad
To kindly gods who sing the Gray,
Drop down the mast, main sail, me lad.”
When they finished that shanty, a shrimper took up another and they began again, singing until it was time to return ashore and rest the horses. Jolen hugged Zigana from behind, nearly crushing the breath out of her.
“Thank you for that,” she said. “You made me remember happiness.”
Her comment dampened Zigana’s own euphoria, but she squeezed Jolen’s fingers with hers and said nothing.
When they came ashore, Odon was waiting to help Jolen off Gitta.
She offered him a smile. “Hello, Odon. It’s been a long time.”
He bowed, expression neutral, tone revealing nothing. “My lady.” His gaze flickered to Zigana, and in his eyes, she saw concern for her. “Stay longer if you wish. I’ll load everything up. Dorag’s boy can drive your cart home.”
“But…”
He held up a hand to forestall her protest. “It isn’t every day you get a visit from a lady. I’ll tell your mother you’ve company. Be ready to answer a bucket full of questions when you get home.” He turned a long stare toward the sea. “Best not to be here at sundown.”
“I won’t,” she assured him, glad he chose not to mention Solyom in front of Jolen. Her sister would either panic at the idea of some man-eating sea monster swimming where she had just trawled or scoff that it was nothing more than the creation of a backwater village’s overactive imagination. Zigana didn’t didn’t know which was worse and preferred not to face either, especially now while she still enjoyed the rosy glow of reuniting with her sibling.
Odon bowed once more to Jolen. “Welcome back to Ancilar, my lady.” He left then to see to Gitta’s and Voreg’s nets.
“I’ll deliver Ziga back to you safe and sound,” Jolen called out to him before turning her attention to Zigana. “Why’s it best not to be here at sundown?”
The lie fell easily off her lips, and Zigana suffered no guilt from the telling. “The salt flies are especially bad this year. We’ll be swarmed if we stay too long.”
Jolen’s upper lip curled. “I’d forgotten about those nasty things. Don’t worry. I have no intention of staying to be eaten.”
While she spoke of salt flies instead of sea monsters, Zigana still shuddered at her words. She followed Jolen to where her horse stood hobbled among the brush, nibbling contentedly on the bushes intermingled with the salt grass. A tall gelding with a chestnut coat, elegant head and sleek body, it was as different from Gitta as a sloop was to a barge.
“Your horse is beautiful. What’s his name?”
Jolen shrugged. “I have no idea. A stable boy brought him out to me. Father still keeps prime horseflesh at Banat. This one has a canter that makes you feel like you’re flying and a trot to joggle your brains loose.” She removed the hobble and led the gelding out of the dunes toward the flat swathe of beach, Zigana walking beside her. “Riding Gitta again was nice. She still the love of your life?”
Zigana laughed. “I suppose she is.”
Jolen laughed with her before she sobered. “One of the villagers working in the castle told me about your husband. What was his name?”
It no longer hurt so much to say it. Grief beat the breath out of you; time healed the bruises. “Lukas.”
Her sister’s hand on her arm was comforting. “I’m sorry to hear you lost him. Shipwreck?”
“So I’m told. It sank in a bad storm somewhere off the Huldasin coast. They recovered some of the cargo but no bodies.” She changed the subject. “And you? How is married life?” Once Jolen married and moved to the capital, Zigana lost touch with her, and she was mightily curious about the husband who had spirited her sister away from Ancilar.
Jolen’s features tightened, and the look she wore when they discussed salt flies returned. “Well enough if I don’t count the husband or the fact he’s now an exile and me along with him.”
The reason for her return. Even this far away from the center of the Gauri kingdom, they’d heard of the rebellion started by Jolen’s father-in-law and crushed by Sangur the Lame.
Jolen continued, her voice turning more and more scathing until she almost spat out the words.
“We’re lucky to still be alive, though I’m not sure if that’s due to Andras’s wisdom or his cowardice. The only reason King Sangur didn’t take his head like he took his father’s was because Andras refused to join the rebellion. Said it was a fool’s endeavor.”
“That seems more wise than cowardly.”
Her sister shrugged, her contempt for her husband’s decision palpable. “Depends on who you talk to. Either way, it did me no good whatsoever. Even though Andras didn’t fight with his father in the rebellion, he didn’t fight against him either. Sangur punished him by stripping him of his inheritance.” Zigana gasped, and Jolen growled low in her throat. “Land, keep, everything. He’s banished from court and Pricid altogether. So am I. Were it not for my father’s willingness to let us live at Banat, we’d be homeless too.”
They paused in their stroll and Zigana captured Jolen’s free hand. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’d hoped to see you again soon, but not due to such circumstances. How long will you stay at Banat?”
Jolen sighed. “Who knows? Until Andras regains favor with the king? That may be never for all I know. Sangur isn’t the forgiving type.”
“Where is Lord Frantisek now?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care.” Her mouth twisted into a humorless smile at Zigana’s start. “He said he planned to visit the demesne’s villages and introduce himself. You might even get to meet him.”
There had never been any question about her attending her sister’s wedding seven years earlier. Zigana’s presence might have been tolerated when she and Jolen were both children, but as an adult and the by-blow sibling of the overlord’s only legitimate child, she was an embarrassment to both Lord Boda and to Jolen. She had not gone as either guest or servant.
Those from the village who worked in the castle as extra help for the event returned with tales of the lavish decorations and food, the sumptuous clothes worn by the guests and the fine horses they rode. The bride had been more beautiful than the dawn, equaled only by her new husband with his fine looks and noble bearing.
Zigana had done her best to hide her envy. Jolen must have been in her element then, a queen among lesser folk who snared a wealthy, handsome lord as her husband who likely adored every hair on her head. Her sister had the blessings and luck of the gods.
Looking at Jolen now, she wondered why those same gods had chosen to abandon this golden woman to harsher circumstances. Still stunning, with her blonde hair unfurling in the sea breeze like a banner spun of silk and the glare of the sun softened where it touched her skin, she stared down the length of beach past Zigana’s shoulder, green eyes frosty and hard as sea glass.
“He’s here,” she said, and her voice was both flat and filled with loathing.
Were they not just discussing him, Zigana might have thought her sister spoke of her worst enemy instead of her husband. It seemed they were one and the same. She followed Jolen’’s gaze to a man leading a bay horse toward them. Her stomach did a short tumble as he drew close enough for her to make out his features.
Had she been at their wedding, Zigana had no doubt she would have dreamed of this man for months, maybe years, afterward. Brown-haired and gray-eyed, he was unremarkable at first glance, but only at first glance.
His was a face one carved into stone to commemorate heroic deeds and honor the fallen dead. Intense, inscrutable, with a gaze Zigana was sure could bore holes through rock, he paused in front of the two women. He nodded briefly at Jolen with the barest civility before settling that weighty stare on Zigana.
Jolen greeted him in the same dead tones she used when she first spotted him. “Andras.”
Still stunned by her first sight of him and uneasy at the hostility pulsing between husband and wife, Zigana bowed low. “Lord Frantisek,” she said softly. “Welcome.”
He didn’t answer for several uncomfortable moments, and Zigana’s shoulders strained beneath the heavy gaze. “The resemblance is undeniable,” he finally said. “You both have the look of your father.”
Jolen snorted, and Zigana stopped short of echoing her. With Jolen less than a year older than her, they had sometimes been mistaken as twins by strangers unfamiliar with Lord Boda’s family. Both daughters shared their father’s light hair, arched eyebrows and strong jaw, but their personalities were very different. That difference manifested in their demeanors as they grew older until no one thought them twins any longer and only as siblings when they stood together. And Zigana had no more interest in claiming familial connection with Boda than he did with her.
“We share the same sire, my lord,” she said. “But Odon Imre is my father.”
Surprise flitted across his features, and his gray eyes warmed. While his face was set in stern lines, Zigana thought, for no reason she could adequately explain, that he smiled easily and often—when not in the presence of his wife.
He inclined his head in acknowledgement of her correction. “I see. Thank you for your welcome, Mistress Imre.” He waved a hand toward the Gray. “I’ve always wanted to spend more time by the sea.”
“Don’t you have villages to visit?” Jolen asked, her question abrupt and hostile.
His indifference to it was more striking than her contempt. “I already have. I was on my way back to Banat by this path and saw you two walking.” He turned his attention back to Zigana who had to squelch the urge to slink away from them. “Your councilman, Tury, said the horse fishermen trawl a little before low tide and a little after. I’d like my daughter to see them.”
“She has lessons then,” Jolen snapped.
“They can wait,” he replied, steel threading his previously mild tone.
“Then you can bring her,” she fired back. “I’m having tea with Lady Kinga then.”
“It’s what I intended all along.”
Jolen clenched her jaw and addressed Zigana. “My daughter, Tunde, loves horses. She can see Gitta if you plan to trawl with her tomorrow.”
Zigana’s jaw dropped. Her sister had a child?
“The women trawl as well?” His lordship’s gaze warmed a fraction when it returned to Zigana. He asked the question with curiosity instead of disapproval.
She gathered together her frayed thoughts. “We do. Sometimes the men go to sea for long periods or prefer to work the fields, so the women bring in the shrimp when their men can’t or won’t. I help my father.”
Jolen interrupted. “Can you come to the castle afterwards? My staff can use the help with setting it to rights. I believe your mother is already helping.”
Andras stiffened. “For gods’ sake, wife, have you no awareness of your arrogance?” he muttered.
Zigana didn’t need sharp hearing to catch the sound of Jolen’s spine straightening with a snap. She glared at her husband. “What are you talking about?” Her voice had gone shrill.
&n
bsp; Zigana knew exactly what his lordship spoke of. Were she not used to her sister’s occasional blind haughtiness, she’d want to cuff her for the insult of inviting her to the house as a maid instead of a guest. Andras Frantisek was obviously far more egalitarian than others of his class, including his wife, if he was offended for her.
She intervened before an argument escalated between them. “Mama will be delighted to be there, but I can’t. This is high season for shrimping and moss harvesting when the storms roll in. Odon needs me more, but you’re welcome in our house any time.”
Jolen’s smile was pained. “We’ll see.”
Andras’s glare at his wife lessened only a fraction when Zigana addressed him. “I’ll wait on the shore. If you can be here with your daughter about an hour and half before low tide, I’ll wait for you. She can meet Gitta and see how I set up the nets.”
Instead of inclining his head when they first met, he bowed and smiled. And knocked the breath out of her chest. “Tomorrow then. A pleasure, Mistress Imre.”
That smile. Dear gods, this man must have laid waste to the Pricidian court with that smile. How many women and no few men had fallen before its power? Many people had nice smiles. Good teeth and charming humor could pretty up even the homeliest face. But when Andras Frantisek smiled, he did so with his entire being, his soul shining out of those gray eyes like sunrise. It wouldn’t surprise Zigana if she learned that Sangur the Lame had chosen not to execute him for that reason alone.
Zigana inhaled slowly through her nose and returned his bow with a graceless one of her own. “Lord Frantisek,” she said, nearly faint with relief at the controlled timbre of her voice.
“Do you wish to accompany me back?” he asked Jolen, smile gone, voice indifferent once more.
She stood next to Zigana, utterly impervious to his warmth or current coldness. “I’ve promised Ziga a ride home.”