by Glenda Larke
Once in his cabin, Juster turned on Ardhi, louring over the lascar like a thundercloud. “You have not been telling us the whole truth. I felt as though I had a hand tied behind my back out there.”
Ardhi shrugged. “We from different sides of world. We can’t trust each other, cap’n. You think I tell whole truth, then you’re a fool. And I don’t think you’re a fool.”
“Who are you exactly, and why did those people not even look at you? You said that Imbak fellow was your cousin!”
“He is. And I know the woman since I been born. My grandmother’s closest friend.” He sighed. “In Ardrone, Lord Juster rich nobleman, and Ardhi of Chenderawasi common tar, swabbie, lascar. Here, Lord Juster is maybe enemy of my land. Here, I grandson of nobleman. My kin, they think Ardhi is traitor, worthy of traitor’s punishment, traitor’s death. But still grandson of the lord–Datu–who rules part of Pulauan Chenderawasi. My loyalty to my Datu, then my Raja. Not to you. Not to Saker. To none of you. My…” He hunted for the right word. “My duty is to Chenderawasi. To these islands, to my Raja. To my people.”
Va-damn, Saker thought. That’s the longest speech I’ve ever heard him make.
Juster’s narrowed eyes fixed Ardhi with an unwavering stare. “What happened to the Lowmian factors who were left here?”
“I cannot know answer to that! They were alive when I left Chenderawasi. They were building nutmeg godowns. Spice Dragon left before anyone in Bandar Ruanakula knew about death of the Raja. I left later, ten days after Raja Wiramulia killed. Factors still alive. That is all I can tell you.”
“All right, I understand that,” Juster said. “You can’t know what happened. What do you think probably happened? Did they die of fever? Or were they murdered?”
Ardhi raised his chin belligerently. “You tell me. If prau filled with Chenderawasi traders sailed into Throssel, killed King Edwayn for his regalia, then sailed away leaving people behind to trade, what you think would happen to them?”
There was a long silence.
“Why,” Juster asked finally, “did Captain Lustgrader sail away? He should have known what would happen to the factors once the Chenderawasi discovered the Raja had been murdered by men from Spice Dragon.”
“He had no idea Raja Wiramulia was killed–until I arrive in Serinaga. I told him. Even then, he not want to believe his men kill anyone. They denied it. They were Lowmians; I just a lascar. Who you think Lustgrader believe?”
Sorrel broke the silence that followed. “I don’t care who you are, any of you. I want to know what that woman said about Piper. I want to know why the Chenderawasi sakti brought Saker and me here. And I want to know now. I want to know if Piper is in danger.”
Everyone looked at her. Then Juster started to laugh. “Aren’t we a fine passel of turnip-head sailors! Mistress Sorrel has put us all in our place. That’s the real question, isn’t it? Why are we here? Was it your sakti manipulating us, Ardhi?”
He sighed. “You–Sorrel, Saker–you not told me all truth about Piper, so don’t be angry I keep secrets. The woman, Sri Sariah, she has healing sakti. Like healer’s witchery. That sakti told her something evil is in Piper. She told you to go home where you belong and take that evil thing with you.”
Sorrel, stricken, stared at him and began to shake.
Ardhi continued, relentless. “I believe in truth of Sri Sariah’s sakti. If she saw something in Piper, then it is there.” He reached out and touched her hand with the tips of his fingers, adding with sudden tenderness, “Courage, Sorrel. Perhaps that is why the sakti brought you here.”
36
The Song of the Chenderawasi
Saker knocked at the cabin door.
For a while he wondered if Sorrel was going to answer, but then he heard her muffled, “Come in.”
When he stepped inside, she was sitting on the edge of the bunk with Piper asleep beside her. She looked up as he entered.
“I will claw and tear anyone to death with my bare hands before I’d let them take her,” she said. “They’ll have to eat my heart out first.”
He closed the door behind him. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? About what? Is that all you can say? You’re sorry?”
For a moment he thought she was going to launch herself at him in attack. He held up his hands, palms outwards.
Her breast was heaving; her breath came in gasps. It was hot in there, too hot. He stepped across to the window and opened it. The sounds of a tropical night drifted in: unfamiliar songs and unidentifiable chattering–yips and wails, clicks and trills. Insects, goatsuckers, toads, animals? He had no idea.
“I failed to protect one child,” she said. “I will not fail this one.”
He sat next to her on the bed. “Sorrel, please don’t think me uncaring. Never that. I don’t give a damn if she’s my child, or Fox’s or Vilmar’s. To me, she’s a daughter, and I love her. I won’t let them kill her. I’d die first, too.” He mustered up a faint smile. “But we don’t know what the sakti wants. It may be to help her. I’d really rather all three of us came through this still alive, all right?”
“It might not be true. Maybe the woman was wrong…” With a suddenness that caught him unawares, she buried her face in his chest. “Piper is the devil-kin!” she cried, her words both muffled and agonised.
“Ardhi says we must take her to the Raja tomorrow. We will go with him when he takes the plumes back.”
“Saker, what if—?”
“No,” he said flatly. “I won’t let it happen, and neither will Ardhi. Three of us, together–we won’t give up.”
She looked up at him. “I could walk away if that would save her. But I will never allow her to be slaughtered like–like an injured animal.”
“Look, I talked to Ardhi, and this is the way he interprets what happened to us back in Lowmeer. The dagger and Piper first came together on the docks in Ustgrind. Up until then, the sakti was only influencing my life, because it wanted me to help Ardhi to locate and steal back the plumes. Then, once Piper came in contact with Ardhi, the dagger recognised that there was something wrong with her, and that’s when the sakti started to react to interfere in your life. Not to kill her, or you, but to bring her here.”
“How could you know what it wants to do? Have you told Ardhi about her being a twin and—”
“I’ve not said anything. But both Ardhi and Juster heard the rumours about devil-kin and twins. Juster is no fool. He guessed Piper was Mathilda’s child. I think we have to tell Ardhi the truth. But let’s deal with that later. Right now we have to think about tomorrow. Ardhi believes the new Raja, Raja Suryamuda, is too young to help. However he possesses sakti, by virtue of his regalia. I don’t really understand what that means, but Ardhi says the decision about whether and how to help Piper would be made by Raja Wiramulia’s widow. She is the sole regent for Raja Suryamuda, and I suppose that means she has access to his sakti.”
“He’s just a child?”
“Well, he’s certainly young. Ardhi’s not giving me the details, but their sakti is gifted more directly than our witchery. Something to do with being of royal blood. Those gold flecks in the kris blade were from the regalia, the handle is carved from Raja Wiramulia’s bone and the metal contains the last Raja’s blood as well.”
“Ugh.” She stood and began to pace the cabin. “This is all so… strange. Why would Piper matter to the dagger, or to anyone here?” Her pacing slowed. “If she’s the devil-kin, then Prince-regal Karel is not. If he’d been the devil-kin, it might have mattered to the Va-forsaken Hemisphere, because he’ll be a monarch who commands a fleet.” She looked down at Piper, her expression softening. “But a girl with no apparent legitimacy, no known parents, no status–she’s a powerless nobody! Why would anyone as far away as this care if she was a devil-kin?”
“Not entirely powerless.” He bit his lip, remembering bodies flung on to a death cart. “She might wreak havoc on the people around her when she’s older; she might kill people through the Ho
rned Death.”
“But why would any sakti from Chenderawasi care about that?”
“I haven’t the faintest notion.”
“You don’t think these people can, I don’t know, see the future or something?”
“Ardhi’s never hinted at anything like that. He says that if Sri Sariah is right, and there is something wrong with Piper, then her best chance is that the sakti can do something about it. He says it might be her only chance. I think we have to trust him. So tomorrow morning we go to meet the Raja.”
“And he lives in Banda Ruanakula?”
“Apparently not. Nor, by the way, does Ardhi’s family who come from another town in the south. The Raja moves from place to place at different times of the year. At the moment he will be up in the mountains above Banda Ruanakula. We have to walk there. Ardhi suggests that we leave at dawn. Just you, me and Ardhi. He’s been quite clear to me that he won’t take anyone else.”
“I suppose that’s to be expected. After all, look what happened to their last Raja. There’s a road?”
“Just a walking track. There’s not even a city up there, or so I understand. Just the Raja, his family, his attendants and his warriors.”
She looked mystified. “Some sort of stronghold… like a castle? Accessible only by walking? Pickles ’n’ hay, Saker. This is becoming odder and odder.”
“Remember that old saying: ‘Yours is not the only way to cook a stew. It may not even be the best way’? We are in a different world here, and its ways are not ours. Ardhi said tomorrow we will see things we must never tell to others. He also said at the end of the day we can give wings to our thoughts, or they can stay tethered, so to wither and die.”
She rolled her eyes. “I hate riddles!”
He laughed, but it had a hollow sound. “I don’t think he meant it to be a riddle. More of a warning.”
“And if you don’t come back?” Juster asked. “How long do I wait?”
Saker, who had been watching Ardhi and other sailors readying the pinnace for launching, grimaced. “Ultimately, that has to be your decision.”
“I don’t relish being caught in a lagoon when the Lowmians arrive. Are you sure they were only going to send one ship here, while the others sail to the Spicerie?”
“That was the plan, last I heard. Spice Winds was coming straight here for the nutmeg. The fleet would reassemble in the Spicerie when Lustgrader was finished here.”
“They are going to know just who sank Sentinel, aren’t they?”
“It’s possible. I fought Captain Russmon on deck, by the light of a fire–he doesn’t know me, but he might have seen enough to know I wasn’t dark-skinned enough to be an islander. And I think he saw Sorrel too, when she crossed the deck with the plumes. She wasn’t glamoured then.” He sighed. “I pray he won’t mention it to the Raja of Serinaga, or if he does, the Raja will dismiss it as a lie. Otherwise King Edwayn will be upset with you. Very upset. Of course, Russmon might be dead.”
Juster studied the lagoon, frowning. There were four or five gaps in the reef, but only one entrance that could be negotiated by a ship as big as Golden Petrel. “Anchored here we’re like insects trapped in a bottle. Once we have off-loaded the bricks and have the nutmeg on board I want to get out of here.”
“We hope to return this evening. Ardhi says it will take only two hours coming back downhill.”
“Oh, we won’t finish loading today. There’s also water and supplies to obtain. Look, Saker, if I sight the Lowmians, I’ll take the ship out of the lagoon, but I’ll hang about offshore for five days. Light a fire on the beach as a signal if you want to be picked up.”
“I appreciate this, Juster. All of it.”
“And I’m sorry I’ve not been my usual jaunty, wittily entertaining self.” He sighed. “Things I don’t understand make me edgy.”
“I suppose I should be telling you to pray to Va for guidance, or something similar.”
“You should indeed. How remiss my ship’s cleric has been!” Juster looked at him curiously. “Why don’t you?”
“I’m no longer sure I believe in Va.”
Amusement danced in his eyes. “And you a Shenat witan? The oaks will wither! I never thought you’d become an unbeliever.”
“Of course I’m not an unbeliever! How could I be? I’m one of the few people who’s seen an unseen guardian! Spoken to her. Or a representation thereof. The Way of the Oak is true and real, I know that. And I’m steadfast in my belief of Shenat ways. Nothing could change that either. Our truth is to hold our lands and its people sacred, to maintain a balance between all aspects of life. Whether there is a deity or whether it’s just a truth expressed as a Way matters little to me any more.”
Juster raised a questioning eyebrow. “You think Va is irrelevant?”
“I’ve come to think the concept of Va was just a way to bring us all together, all peoples across the Hemisphere. A good thing, I suppose, although it made us arrogant of outsiders. But if we want guidance and grounding, it is better to go to shrine keepers and shrines, not to seek Va in our prayers. Va is notoriously bad at answering and I’ve never seen any evidence that such an entity exists.”
“You have an infinite capacity for astonishing me, Saker. However, it is far too early in the morn for philosophical soul-searching. Such is much more appropriate after several goblets of brandy. Tonight perhaps.” He turned to give orders to one of the tars on deck. “Go below, Tedli, and tell Mistress Redwing that we await her.”
When he turned back to Saker, there was a faraway look in his eye: part amused, part sad. “Now there’s a woman, Saker. If I were a marrying man, I’d be considering matrimony as a step worth taking.”
Saker, astonished, stared at him.
Juster smiled. “You doubt it? She’s desirable; beautiful even, at least to men who appreciate the etchings of strength and courage and tragedy in a face, rather than just neatly packaged features. But Sorrel is more than her face and her figure, as well you know. You oughtn’t pass your opportunities up, Saker, when you meet them.”
“She wouldn’t have me. Believe me.”
“Have you asked?”
“I don’t have to.”
He turned his attention to the distant tree-dense slopes they were going to climb. Above the topmost ridge, he glimpsed a movement in the dawn-tinged sky. Something large, high enough to catch the first rays of the sun.
“They don’t have dragons here, do they?” he asked.
Juster laughed. “Not that I’ve heard. Talk to a Pashali, now… their folktales are full of talking sky serpents. Here’s Sorrel. You want to get this expedition of yours under way?”
The trees towered, festooned with growth and propped up at the base by buttress roots as impressive as the stone ones of Throssel chapels. In the shade, the forest floor was damp and verdant and earthy. Vines looped from branch to branch and creepers on tree trunks insinuated their way upwards, striving for a glimpse of the sun. The world here was green, but Sorrel glimpsed other hues too: plum-coloured fungi, sulphur-bright mushrooms, lichens as lushly tinted as ripe apricots.
Everything appeared too large to her–ants as big as caterpillars, millipedes as long as her forearm, armoured beetles the size of mice. A butterfly the size of a starling flew past, its wings flicking iridescent blue with every beat. When Ardhi stopped at the edge of a river to cut a length of bambu, she was surprised to find the plant grew as tall as a house. He threaded the plumes inside to protect them and grinned at her. “I feel much better with them safe from damage,” he said.
Further on, as she plucked thorns from her leg, she decided this forest was far from benign. Beauty had sharp teeth. The rainforest was a place of extraordinary grandeur and delicate perfection, but there were snakes and prickles and blood-sucking leeches, and oh, it was so humid.
She ran with sweat. Her clothing was wet, her hair sodden. Dear Va, even her feet perspired! The tree canopy met overhead, but the shade made no difference. Occasionally they crossed
a stream, and she plunged into the water, blessing its cold purity. Then, all too soon, the perspiration would be soaking her again.
An hour after they’d started, Piper began to howl and wouldn’t stop, no matter what any of them did. They took it in turns to distract her every way they could imagine, to no avail. Sorrel, dismayed, thought her temper was prompted more by rage and indignation than discomfort, for there was no sign of a tear.
“She wants to crawl and play, not be carried all the time,” she said as her own patience frayed around the edges.
Ardhi’s expression told her he disagreed.
“If you’ve something to say, say it instead of pulling faces at me,” she snapped, too angry to even try to use his language. Immediately she felt guilty. He’d done his best to entertain Piper.
“All right,” he said, speaking Pashali. “I will. Piper senses trouble ahead, trouble for her. She’s struggling against it, trying to make you turn around.”
She stopped dead. Saker, walking behind her along the narrow track, almost trod on her heels. In her arms, Piper still screamed and fought. “Fiddle it. She’s a baby; she can’t even know where we are taking her, let alone why!” Feeling utterly helpless to succour the child, she wanted desperately to cry herself.
“Perhaps not, but the… the contagion within her knows.”
She looked over her shoulder at Saker, indicating she had not understood the word Ardhi used. When he translated, she growled, “Piper’s not a disease!”
Walking upwards again, her vision blurred by tears, she stumbled over tree roots.
“Let me take her,” Saker said.
She relinquished Piper, who still fought to escape her carrying sling.
Inside, terror roiled her stomach. Piper, forgive me, it’s for your own good. Even as she had the thought, she wondered if it was true.
They swapped her from one person to another, but there was no relief from her relentless screaming until some three hours later when she finally fell asleep in Sorrel’s arms, hiccupping. The silence was so welcome, she felt guilty all over again.