The Ships of Air (The Fall of Ile-Rein)

by Martha Wells

  —“Ravenna’s voyage to the Unknown Eastlands,”

  Abignon Translation

  Tremaine returned to the council room to find everyone milling around, talking over the situation. Her nerves jumping at the prospect of facing Ilias again, she threaded her way through the crowd back toward her seat, only to find her path blocked by Visolela. The woman gave her a flinty stare.

  With Giliead’s sister and Halian’s daughter both killed by Ixion, and Giliead an unmarriageable Chosen Vessel, the house, land and property of Andrien would pass to Visolela when Karima died. Since Ilias still had the curse mark, Tremaine didn’t think any of that had changed; Ilias was a ward of the house, not a son, so she wasn’t sure if his wife would have been eligible to inherit. Looking at Visolela, standing stiffly and trying to face down the annoying foreigner, Tremaine didn’t think she was keen on the idea anyway.

  Spurred by an uncharitable impulse, Tremaine smiled and said heartily, “So, I suppose we’re going to be related now.”

  Visolela stared, her mouth whitening with tension. Tremaine continued, “I can assure you that the Valiarde family is really something back in Ile-Rien. Yes, really something. It’s a shame about the hereditary insanity of course, but—”

  Visolela’s almond-shaped eyes grew dark with rage. “Why are you doing this?” she asked tightly.

  Tremaine was struck by some reluctant respect for her directness. Maybe they could actually talk; it wasn’t unheard of. “That’s a question I ask myself about almost everything.” She shrugged slightly, trying to look casual rather than frantic. “This was Pella’s idea, but it’s a good one.”

  With deliberate emphasis, Visolela said, “Ilias was the only chance the Andrien had for a profitable alliance. Before he was ruined, there were women who were willing to offer as much as two spring harvests for him. Now, he’s worthless. Association with a Chosen Vessel made him worthless.” Her eyes narrowed. “I ask you again, why are you doing this?”

  Fine, scratch the talking option. Tremaine regarded her thoughtfully. “You’re a very angry person, aren’t you.” She leaned forward, just a little too close, looking deeply into the other woman’s eyes. “So am I.”

  Visolela stared at her, her delicate skin reddening, then turned and walked away.

  Tremaine watched her go, still fuming. That probably hadn’t been the most intelligent response to someone who held so much power in Cineth, but it was too late now. Two spring harvests? she wondered, starting toward their seats again. Was she serious about that? Of course she was; she has no sense of humor. She suddenly wondered if Arisilde’s translation spell substituted the Rienish word “marry” for a Syrnaic word that had no real equivalent, like it had substituted the Syrnaic word “curse” for all the different Rienish terms for magic.

  The crowd opened up in front of her and before she realized it she was standing next to Ilias. Badly startled, she fumbled for something to say. Before she could embarrass herself, he said wryly, “Visolela doesn’t like this.”

  “You heard that?” Tremaine asked, desperately self-conscious and trying to remember exactly what it was she had said. He was acting as if nothing had happened, which made it a little easier for her to talk to him without feeling like a bundle of exposed nerves.

  He nodded matter-of-factly. “She was upset when I got the curse mark because she wanted to make Karima marry me off to the head of a trading house in Pirus. That’s more than thirty days travel inland.”

  Oh, yes, Tremaine thought as she followed him back to their spot on the tiers of seats. By “marry off” he meant “sell off,” or maybe a strange and uniquely Syprian combination of both. This could be awkward. There was an old Bisran joke about how there weren’t any prostitutes in Ile-Rien because too many of the inhabitants were giving it out for free. Tremaine reminded herself of Karima’s comment that men who had been married once were no longer subject to family law. Now that made more pointed sense. If Tremaine left him, Ilias would be free to do whatever he wanted, to stay with Giliead, to start his own household like Gyan the widower or marry again for love like Halian. If he could find a woman willing to ignore the curse mark. “Why is she so against anything that might benefit you?”

  He scratched his head and looked vague. “You’ll be higher in the family than her.”

  She frowned, sensing that wasn’t the only reason. “By marrying you I’ll outrank her? How does that work?”

  “You’ll be closer to Karima in the family. If I was Karima’s blood son, you’d be her heir, but since I’m her ward, you just get the responsibilities but none of the property.”

  “I see.” That made a little more sense. Visolela didn’t strike Tremaine as someone too concerned with wealth, but she was all about power. Her position in the family gave her a measure of control over the Andrien’s lower echelons, and she didn’t want to give that up.

  Ilias sat down on the bench and admitted reluctantly, “Also, it’s not me she doesn’t like, it’s Gil. He slept with her once, before she married Nicanor.”

  Tremaine lifted her brows, genuinely shocked. “And that causes women to start vindictive vendettas against his entire family?” The comment was a knee-jerk reaction, covering her very real surprise that Giliead had ever actually unbent long enough to do something stupid, such as sleep with a woman who had “heart-eating bitch” written on her forehead.

  “It doesn’t usually go that far,” Ilias admitted.

  Tremaine looked up to see Visolela, still stiff with rage, standing by the opposite side of the tier. “Let me guess—she wanted him to use his position to benefit her in some way, he got huffy and walked out on her, she can’t do anything to him directly because the god might take offense, so she goes after you.”

  “Don’t talk about it in front of Nicanor,” Ilias said seriously. “It’s one of the reasons they don’t get along.”

  Tremaine rubbed her eyes. The Valiarde family might be no prize but at least none of her relatives were on speaking terms with her. “I’ll avoid the subject.”

  There was more talking, with intervals of yelling, as the discussions got back under way, but the heart had gone out of the opposition.

  Tremaine thought herself safe for the next few hours, at least until the council called a formal halt. But the individual members were breaking up into groups to discuss plans for defending Cineth against the Gardier, and there wasn’t much point in remaining in the room until they finished. As if aware of this, Gerard cannily sent Dyani in to ask her to come out and speak to him. Tremaine moaned, got up and dragged herself outside to face the worst. Gerard had had time to come up with some good ones.

  He was waiting for her under the trees in the market plaza. Gyan and Arites were sitting a little distance away. Gyan nodded gravely to her; Arites had his parchment and ink out and was scribbling rapidly.

  Without preamble, Gerard said, “I’ve spoken to Gyan, who’s explained Syprian marriage in detail. In a first marriage the man usually has few rights, unless he comes from a powerful or wealthy family. For example, it’s Nicanor’s mother’s influence combined with Visolela’s trading connections that makes him able to hold the position of lawgiver. A wealthy woman can also contract multiple first marriages with more than one man at a time, though in Cineth that’s considered declasse. A family such as the Andrien, who don’t have much status at the moment, could usually expect to sell its sons into low-status marriages where they are the second or even third or fourth husbands. It’s only after divorce, which occurs when the groom is bought by another woman, or his family buys him back—”

  “But afterward, he can do what he wants,” Tremaine wedged the comment in before he could go any further. She had to admit it was worse than she thought. “Ilias will still be better off, no matter what happens.”

  Gerard paused, regrouping. He counterattacked with, “Do you think he is in love with you?”

  Tremaine snorted. She wasn’t lying to herself. “Of course not. If he loves anybody, it’s Giliea
d. But we’re friends.”

  Thwarted, Gerard pressed his lips together. “Building a relationship based on nothing but shared danger doesn’t always work.”

  He sounded like he was speaking from personal experience. Tremaine turned that information over. She had never thought of Gerard as actually having the kind of relationships they were talking about. He had kept his personal life very close over the years, working first for her father, then for the Institute. She met his eyes. “It’s a good basis for taking a chance.” God, I almost sound like I know what I’m talking about. It was frightening.

  Gerard watched her a long moment, the tightness in his face softening. “I’ve seen you go through relationships with feckless young men. I watched you go through a decline that I couldn’t understand or affect.” He let out his breath. “I don’t want you hurt.”

  I’m already hurt, this is nothing. Tremaine ran a hand through her hair, muttering inadequately, “I won’t get hurt.” She saw Ander approaching. The last thing she needed was his assessment of her current sanity. She looked for help and saw Karima walking along the portico with Dyani. Council participants were not allowed food during the duration of the discussion to keep things from bogging down, but this would be a good time to ask Karima if there was such a thing as a public restroom. She told Gerard, “I think Ander wants to talk to you. I’ll just get out of the way.”

  Ander called her name sharply, but she didn’t stop.

  Ilias and Giliead had come out for some air and Ilias spotted Gerard under the trees with Tremaine. He watched Tremaine bolt off after Karima, leaving Gerard looking unhappy. Ilias glanced up at Giliead, knowing he was the cause and uneasy about it. “Maybe I should go talk to him.”

  Giliead nodded equably. “And say what?”

  Ilias glared at him. “I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”

  Giliead snorted at the obviousness of this, but followed Ilias over to the trees. Ander reached Gerard first, and Ilias stopped a polite distance away while the young man spoke to the wizard in Rienish. He caught a few words here and there, nothing that really told him what the conversation was about. Some people on the ship spoke the language with such different accents he couldn’t make out the few words he did know, and the verbs were always impossible—he was willing to swear on his life that nobody ever used the same one twice. But it was easy to tell Ander was angry.

  The young man stamped away finally, and Ilias approached Gerard with caution. Not having anything else to say, he asked, “What’s wrong with him now?”

  Gerard lifted a brow, watching Ander’s retreat with an ironic expression. “I’m afraid he doesn’t want you to marry Tremaine.”

  Giliead eyed Ander’s retreating form, not favorably. “Why?”

  “I’m not entirely certain. Ander…has always been a young man to whom good things came easily. Before the war his family was wealthy and politically influential, and he was something of a darling of society.” Gerard shook his head, smiling ruefully. “I may be wrong, but I think he expects Tremaine to be in love with him because most young women are. Since she obviously isn’t, he fancies himself to be jealous.”

  Thinking, I knew there was a reason I didn’t like him, Ilias cocked a brow up at Giliead, who grimaced in silent agreement. Having been left on a hillside to starve by his natural family because they had more children than they could support, Ilias didn’t have much sympathy for Ander’s sore ego. “I don’t understand. If he wants to marry her too, why can’t he just keep trying?” If Tremaine thought her family was willing to accept Ilias, a foreigner with a curse mark, he wasn’t sure why she thought they might balk at Ander. If they were Syprians, he would think that Ander didn’t want to join a family that had someone with a curse mark in it, but that didn’t apply to the Rienish.

  Gerard sighed, contemplated the sky for a moment as if asking it for strength, then said, “We don’t have polygamy. Tremaine can only marry one man.”

  “So by your law, if she has me, she can’t have him?” Ilias considered that, intrigued. “Huh.”

  Giliead folded his arms, his expression suggesting that he had a headache. “This is going to be interesting,” he said under his breath.

  Choosing Syprian representatives to go with the Ravenna had turned out to be a political infight that rivaled the combined machinations of Ile-Rien’s Ministry, the Council of Guilds and the People’s Front of Adera, as far as Tremaine could tell. The dangers inherent in the voyage weren’t a problem, as Syprians were used to the idea of all long voyages being dangerous. Most people were more afraid of the Ravenna herself, though there seemed an equal number who were unwillingly intrigued by her.

  Giliead was going because of Ixion; Ilias, even before the marriage business had come up, had planned to go with him. Apparently Chosen Vessels often acted as envoys, and there was a Chosen Vessel in the nearby community of Tyros who had watched over Cineth in Giliead’s absence before and could be counted on to do it again. Apparently, Tremaine reflected, Cineth’s god and Tyros’s god didn’t mind the temporary substitution.

  Halian wanted Gyan to go as Cineth’s representative, but Pella and his followers seemed to think Gyan was an inappropriate choice. Karima had intervened, standing up to demand sharply what Gyan and through him the Andrien House was suspected of.

  Since the only possible answer to that was of making a private alliance with foreign wizards in order to oust Nicanor and Visolela and take over the city, a scenario that would involve a personal betrayal of the god on Giliead’s part, the god’s willful ignorance of that betrayal, and a betrayal of his son and daughter-in-law by Halian, as well as attributing absurdly labyrinthine motives to a family who had apparently shown little or no interest in city politics for years, Gyan was duly chosen as representative. Visolela then added five others, led by her older sister Pasima, a tall dark-haired woman with an athletic build, who had entered the council chamber during the discussion. She didn’t have Visolela’s perfection of feature, but the family resemblance was easy to see in her high cheekbones and stubborn chin. From the disgruntled look Giliead and Ilias had exchanged, Tremaine suspected the suite was going to seem awfully crowded.

  Now all that was settled, and they were outside on the steps of the lawgiver’s house waiting for a woman with the alarming title of marriage broker. The process sounded like it was less complicated than registering at the local Magistrate’s office, but Tremaine found herself pacing and sweating. A sailor from the Ravenna had brought her leather case, and she had been gratified to see that Florian had taken the extra precaution of tucking it inside one of the ship’s Royal Mail dispatch bags.

  The sun was going down and a warm purple twilight had descended over the city. Tremaine forced herself to stop pacing and sat next to Giliead on the steps. Gerard and Ilias were standing over by the trees, with Gerard cross-questioning him on God knew what. Tremaine rubbed sweaty palms on her pants, thinking that it was a good thing she secretly liked causing trouble, or every nerve would have shattered like glass. Surprising herself, she asked Giliead suddenly, “Is this a good idea?”

  He didn’t ask what “this” she meant. “Yes.” He cocked an eyebrow at her to see if she thought he was going to stop with that unsatisfactory answer, then added, “Because Ilias thinks it’s a good idea.”

  She turned that over. “Why does Ilias think it’s a good idea?”

  Giliead shrugged slightly. “He’s always wanted somewhere to belong, since his family abandoned him. He belongs with Andrien, but…” He took a deep breath, sounding resigned. “It’s hard to convince him of that, sometimes.”

  Tremaine found that prospect daunting. “I’m not going to tell him what to do.”

  “He’s never listened when I’ve told him what to do.” Giliead smiled dryly, then added, “He needs someone to tell him he’s all right. He doesn’t believe me. Maybe he’ll believe you.”

  “Me.” Tremaine rubbed her forehead. “Why me?”

  He eyed her thoughtfull
y. “You wouldn’t lie to anyone to make him feel better.”

  Tremaine lifted a brow at him. “Because I wouldn’t care enough?”

  “I just don’t think it would occur to you,” he admitted. “Why do you think this is a good idea?”

  Still reeling from this accurate assessment of her character, she said slowly, “I don’t know. I think, maybe, I’m going to need the help.”

  Giliead looked up, and Tremaine realized that they were being approached by Ilias, Halian, Gerard and an older Syprian woman she didn’t recognize.

  She got to her feet as Halian said, “This is Nelia of Pergammon House, the marriage broker.”

  Tremaine eyed the woman reluctantly, trying not to make a snap judgment. Nelia wasn’t that much older than Karima, but the lines on her face had the look of dissipation rather than age or weather, and her flesh sagged. All Syprians seemed to favor bright colors but her orange wrap clashed with her red skirt, and the green-and-brown-stamped figures along the hem didn’t go with any of it. “Marriage broker and the midwife,” the woman added sharply. “I still have the office, even if your Visolela took away my right to do the job.”

  “How nice for you,” Tremaine said, not trying to make it sound polite. She had the feeling her snap judgment was going to prove accurate.

  Nelia fixed a critical eye on Tremaine. “You look a little old to be making a first marriage. I see why you’re willing to ally yourself with the Andrien, especially the marked one.”

  “Look, old woman—” Tremaine began, but Halian interrupted, telling Nelia repressively, “If you had any objections, you should have taken it up with Karima this afternoon.”

  Nelia nodded, as if he hadn’t just all but told her to shut the hell up. “Having brought these two into the world, and most of the other boys in this town their age, I have to take an interest.”