Tributary

by Vivien Leanne Saunders

  "It's a simple rite, children, because love should not be complicated. You must both listen carefully, and if you don’t answer from your hearts I will know, so be honest!” he smiled at us again, lessening the severity of his words, and we smiled shakily back as he began.

  "The person in front of you must be cherished and protected, respected and heeded for the rest of your life. They will give their life to you, and you must hold it dearly before mortals and the gods, and never let the faith they have in you falter.

  “You will argue with the person who stands in front of you, and you will dry their tears. You will light their darkest paths, and not be afraid to ask for their guidance when your own way is shaded. The person before you will grow sick. You will care for them. The person before you will create new life. You will raise it in the love you have vowed to each other, no matter how tarnished that vow may feel. The person in front of you will die. Their memory will not be erased, and their wishes not disregarded.

  “The person in front of you deserves your love, and your life, and all that I have spoken of here, before the gods. If you cannot grant it, then hold your tongue. If you can, then before the gods and the demons, you must swear it now."

  I was the first to find my voice, "I swear it. By the gods of this country, and the goodness of mortal love, I swear it."

  "I swear it by the demons of my birth, and the gods whose faces I don’t know." Jonas echoed me, and he gripped my hand a little tighter. "May they strike me down before I could even think of breaking my vow."

  The priest kissed both of our cheeks, "Turn and leave this place, children, and finish your troth in the light the gods bless us with. Take your last twenty paces as two, and walk forever afterwards as one."

  We looked at each other nervously, and then Jonas tugged me away from the altar. "I've never seen a ceremony like this before,” he whispered, "But we'd better do what he says! I don’t think we're properly married until we do."

  "How many steps do we take?" I choked back a laugh. I felt a little dazed. "Twenty? Then what? We get hit by lightning and fused together?"

  “No, I think that’s what our honey month is for.” he winked and took my arm. It only took us a few moments to walk out of the temple, but it felt like an eternity. Every detail was in sharp focus, from the expression on Jonas’s face to the way his hand trembled on my arm. When we got to nineteen we stopped.

  “This is it.” I whispered. “Your last chance to change your mind!” And I was joking, but I really thought he might. It was the same traitor voice which tells you to jump at the top of a high cliff. Jonas pulled a face at me, and then took such a strong step forwards that I was nearly pulled over. I squeaked in surprise and fell into his arms, laughing like a child until he kissed me, over and over again, until his lips were salty with tears and his hands were trembling with joy. We felt hands on our backs, and then our friends surrounded us and closed us in their arms.

  Being so loved was like being set alight, not with fire but with the glorious light of the sun.

  All four of us walked back into the city together and found an inn. For hours we talked and laughed, spoiling ourselves with roasted lamb, winter greens and fruit cake. Jonas and I cuddled up together on a single seat, tolerating our friends’ snide jokes for the chance to be close to each other. Guinn slid a piece of parchment across the table to us.

  “I know you were content with the common ring mark,” he said, “But I thought you might like this better.”

  The design Guinn had drawn used the same circle and spear as every other marriage mark, but he had improved it. The circle had peaks on the outer edge – an endless world of mountains for my husband to conquer. If he was the soft circle, then I was the spear. The staff rose up from the centre of the mountains like an island from a lake. It was as ornate as a king’s scepter, carved with our initials and the Altissi symbols for love, compassion and fidelity. The spearhead, however, was as implacable as iron. It could have withstood an army. It pierced through the mountains and stretched up to the sky, guiding the mountains to the heavens and binding them together for all time.

  We had arranged to meet a tattooist in the afternoon. Cissor decided to stay in the inn, making himself comfortable beside the fire, and Guinn play-acted disgust over having to stay with his friend. He had wanted to see Jonas faint when the needle broke his skin! We laughed, kissed them both, and promised to return the second we were done.

  The artist was as stunned by the design as we were. A normal mark would have taken a few minutes to complete, but the fine details meant that we were in the workshop for hours. A finger is not the nicest place to be tattooed, and I could not watch as the sharp nib was raised above my skin. Since I could not be marked on the proper hand, we told the tattooist to reverse the design to suit our right hands. Showing our hands to the man was the biggest risk we took on that day, but when we saw the finished result we were so delighted that we did not care. We slid our wedding rings over the stinging marks.

  Jonas lowered his voice, “You wear enough jewellery that Clay will not suspect, but she will notice the mark. Be careful, my love.”

  “She doesn’t look at me that closely. She might see yours.”

  “She can’t beat me, Har. I couldn’t bear it if…”

  I reached up and rubbed my nose against his. “Don’t be a mother hen. You promised not to cosset me today.”

  He mimed wounded pride, “It’s my job to worry about my wife!”

  “Job!” I pushed him lightly in the chest. He laughed and pulled me into his arms. The tattooist had to clear his throat before we remembered to pay him. He grinned at our blushing faces and told us he was used to it. The sailors, he said, were far more incorrigible than all the newlyweds put together!

  We returned to the inn to find that our friends had gone. The barmaid handed us a packet from them. Inside, there were two tickets for the next mail coach to Sairbru, and directions for how to get to the cottage. There was also money and a crude drawing which Guinn must have giggled over between mouthfuls of wine. After agreeing to murder the man, or else make him a thank you gift, we walked to the coach house and waited for the carriage.

  It was late. It started to rain. I had never been happier in my life.

  CHAPTER 19

  There has not been enough beauty in my story. I find it harder to describe the way the world feels when everything in it is made of light. I have no better words than I had before, and far more wondrous moments to spoil with my trite idiocy.

  My honey month was not made of words, but of minutes and hours where I felt as if I was dying and living, each for the first and last time and each with the man I loved. I had not thought it was possible to learn a man completely, as I would a lesson or a herb, but in those weeks I found more to cherish about my husband than I had in the first days when I surrendered myself to his hands.

  What did he give me in return? I had no sense of losing anything. Whatever I did, he echoed – not because I had done it, but because his fascination was as ripe as my own. To the Siren, love and passion were only words. In the bed which we shared, they were the whispers of fingertips and the rush of panting air, the langour of afterwards and the desperation of before.

  After the weeks were over my husband and I walked back to Crozier. We could have hired a horse or bought tickets on a trader wagon, but neither of us wanted to hurry away from the time we had shared. It took us hours, and as we grew closer we started to drag our feet. I knew as the shadow of the city fell over me that I could not go back to the palace.

  “I know what you mean,” Jonas said haltingly, when I told him why I had stopped, “But we can’t just leave. She’d think…” Then he stumbled to a halt, and I finished the thought.

  “Clay? You want to say goodbye to her?” I mulled over the idea and then swallowed the lump in my throat. I don’t know how the woman would have felt if I had simply disappeared, but I couldn’t bear the thought of making her wretched. Jonas loved her more than I did.
He would never forgive himself.

  I gasped when we reached the marketplace. The small corners of graffit were gone, while their prince was away, huge murals had appeared on every bare wall. Foul words were scrawled there in many hands. In some places so many people had painted the walls that the paint peeled away in chunks.

  They had painted beautiful women. They crushed tiny men in their tapering white hands. In other paintings they were scaled and deformed, with burning green eyes. They stormed through the countryside carrying death and fore. Mindless husbands and sons ripped food out of starving children’s hands, and worse – babies from the arms of their sobbing mothers. The rest of the drawings were ridiculous: An old man drowning with a smile on his face; a woman eating oysters and weeping; a prince thrusting his engorged member into a fish pie. That one made me laugh.

  We stopped at the theatre and bought some food. While I ate, Jonas mingled with the other patrons and bought them beer. He came back frowning, and told me what he had heard.

  The triumph had not been a success. Well, colour me surprised.

  Coluber had demanded cripplingly expensive tributes for the goddesses. A man had thrown rotten apples at Clay in one of the first towns they rode through. After that, the soldiers forced the peasants to prostrate themselves in the mud. So much for the common people seeing Clay; she only saw the tops of their heads. Anyone who lifted their eyes was beaten. The Siren changed from goddesses into demons. Nobody was allowed to look upon them, and so they became monstrous and cruel.

  Coluber drank command like wine. He acted the tyrant and used the Siren as an excuse. Clay could have stopped him, were she not so besotted. Dahra could have stopped him, but she was just as addled and selfish as she had been in the palace. Miette had the strongest will. I could just imagine the old bitch laughing at the children falling onto their faces in the icy mud.

  The people in Crozier waited for their prince to return. The air was thick with tension. Every voice rumbled with anger. The theatre performances told me more. There had been comedies, but now there were scathing satires. Whores dressed themselves in scraps of lace and river weed and swayed through the crowd while tin-plated soldiers searched for them. The audience cheered when they were captured and ‘punished’ with dainty ribbon whips. I sank into my chair and fought not to pull my hood over my face. I felt sure that any moment they would turn on me. The whips they would use on a real Siren would not be so gentle.

  The palace guards recognised me, even in my travelling clothes, and waved me in. For the first time I was grateful that Coluber was getting ready to blackmail me. He had instructed his servants to let me break any rules I wanted. The more things I did wrong, the more ammunition he had against me. I met the guards’ eyes and brazenly ordered them to let Jonas in, too.

  The luggage train had already arrived. Since we did not have anything else to do, Jonas and I helped to haul the heavy trunks back into the Siren’ quarters. We marvelled over the idiotic amount of gifts Clay and Dahra had been given. Perhaps they really had stolen them, as the murals said.

  Perhaps it really was tribute. Some people must still be in awe of the goddesses that walked on mortal ground. They were too superstitious to think the women would bless them for just a few prayerful words. Sure enough, when I started to unpack the cases I found barley dolls and crochet swatches amongst the silk scarves and silver bangles. Clay would probably burn them. I tucked a tiny doll into my pocket.

  My husband and I had enjoyed the last night of our honey month. Jonas started yawning so much that I told him to go to sleep. He saluted wryly before finding his usual lounger. In a few minutes he was snoring. I covered him with a blanket before returning to the chests. I recognised so few of Clay’s new gowns that I could have been waiting on a stranger.

  I heard footsteps outside and smoothed down my hair. For some reason I was nervous about seeing my Mistress again, even though she no longer had any claim on me. As it turned out, my nervousness was justified. Clay smiled and greeted me, but the second the doors were shut she flew forward and sank her nails into my shoulder. I gasped and stumbled backwards, but she clung on. Her voice was a low hiss, as poisonous as acid.

  “You little bitch! I said you could have fun, not make us all look like sluts! Do you know what they’re saying about me? About the whores that I train? About the brothel we’ve made here in the palace? They were asking how much you cost! Before you did this they wouldn’t have dared to meet my eyes!”

  I was struck numb by her sudden, blind fury. She growled and jabbed her manicured nails into my stomach. I shrieked and pulled away, pressing my hand protectively over my child.

  “It’s true, then.” Clay spat. Satisfaction and disgust made her voice rancid, “You’re pregnant.”

  Jonas woke up when I cried out. He had sprung forward to defend me, but at her declaration he froze. My eyes met his, and he saw the truth in them. He caught his breath and fell completely silent. I fought the urge to run to him. He shook his head constantly, a slow meaningless movement.

  ‘Sorry,’ I thought, blinking back tears, ‘I’m so sorry that you found out like this.’

  “When did you find out?” Clay growled, making an obvious effort to control her temper. I wasn’t fooled. My voice was cold and clinical. It was two months, twenty days and fourteen hours since I had pressed gold into the midwife’s sticky hand.

  “It has nothing to do with you.” I said in a low, strong voice, “You have no right to shout at me.”

  “Of course I do! You should have come to me when you found out! There are so many things we could have done.” Even though she was furious, her voice still rang with tenderness. I took a step away from her. The witch was talking about aborting my child.

  Why was Clay angry? She had smiled when I came home late and teased me for the red marks on my throat. She had saved this outrage for weeks and it still burned so strongly that she could not breathe. Then I realized the truth, in a rush of bitterness. The selfish bitch wasn’t thinking of me at all. She was angry because everyone knew she had helped me. She would be blamed the second my stomach began to swell.

  I had shone a light on her silly, selfish life. How dare I open my legs?

  The hypocritical bitch made my blood boil.

  “How could you have been so stupid?” Clay demanded, “They’re Altissi, for god’s sake, Harriet!”

  I asked sulkily: “Doesn’t Coluber count?”

  “That’s different!”

  “Why? Does he look at you and go limp?” I taunted her. Her face turned dark with anger, and she drew her hand back to strike me. I stumbled away, and breathed out in a rush when Jonas caught me.

  “Back off, Clay!”

  “Oh, don’t play the white knight. She…”

  “It’s my child.”

  Mistress Clay’s whole body went quite still, and she looked between us as if we were perfect strangers. Then her cheeks flushed, and her hands closed into fists. She couldn’t bear to look at Jonas, but her eyes burned with sudden tears when she looked at me.

  “Did you wait until he was angry at me, or just get him drunk? What, did I slap you once too often? Well, congratulations. Did you feel like a Siren when you fluttered your eyelashes at him, or just a whore?”

  “Clay…” Jonas said in a warning voice. I stopped him with a look and raised my chin.

  “I’m not a Siren, Clay. This is real. And it has nothing to do with you.” I raised my hand to Jonas’s, and closed his fingers into mine, “I slept with my husband. We’re going to have a baby. That’s all.”

  The woman choked, and then shook her head. A wild laugh burst out of her carmine lips, “This is a joke.”

  “No,” Jonas let go of me. His face was stricken, and he caught Clay’s arm as if he hadn’t been the one who had hurt her. She looked at his hand, and disgust flashed across her eyes. His wedding ring and tattoo were stark against his pale scars. As soon as she saw it, my Mistress knew that everything was true.

  She made a l
ow moaning sound and threw herself at me. I shrieked and fell backwards, unable to protect myself from her furious assault with only one hand. Jonas hauled Clay away, almost throwing her against the wall in his haste but catching her before she stumbled. He held her still, his hands locked around her waist, and when she burst into tears he held her closely and stroked her hair.

  The peace only lasted for a few moments, and then the woman tore herself away. As she stormed out of the courtyard Jonas returned to me and ran his fingers along my cheek. Clay’s nails had drawn blood. He had only thought about me after Clay had gone, I thought bitterly.

  “She’ll come back.” I said. “She’ll bring Dahra, or tell the palace guards to arrest us.”

  “She’s not so…”