Sheri Tepper - Singer From The Sea

by Singer From The Sea(Lit)

  "And if we can't," interrupted the Countess, "We can expect the fevers to go right on killing our sweet children..." She sighed dramatically.

  The rest of the conversation at the Marshal's end of the table, though continuous, was unremarkable, while at Genevieve's end the Duchess focused the talk largely upon the royal greenhouses, which she invited Genevieve to visit with her during the coming week. After dinner, Genevieve spoke with Duke Edoard, who took her hand, refused to release it, and invited her to attend the next concert of the Royal Orchestra.

  "I will need to see what plans my father has made, Your Grace. And speaking of fathers, I much enjoyed my dinner table conversation with yours."

  He smiled. "Your expression of pleasure is polite but unlikely to be fully sincere," he said. "Father usually talks either about the batfly problem or about fish."

  "I know little about the batfly problem, but fish can be interesting," she said with a smile.

  "Ocean fish, perhaps," he commented, looking across her shoulder at someone else, and thereby missing the fact that his words had sent her somewhere else.

  She saw a heaving deck, tilted toward a troubled sea, people actually in the sea, all trying desperately to do something with a portal in the deck, to open it or close it, and all around in the sea was a sound... a sound she thought she had heard before...

  Then she was back, bowing herself away into a corner where she could catch her breath. Aufors was beside her at once, whispering, "What's the matter, Jenny? Did that idiot say something to upset you? You're pale. You look frightened."

  "It's nothing." She laughed. "Sometimes I get a little breathless in crowds, that's all." Though of course it wasn't all. Until now, whenever this happened, she had had Mrs. Blessingham to run to, thereby removing-or perhaps only sharing-the curse of foreknowledge. Now she had no one. Certainly not the Marshal, who would be offended and insist upon having her looked over by doctors. Nor Delia who, though loyal, would tell her husband everything, and he, in turn, would tell everyone else he met.

  Aufors? No. She didn't want him to think her... odd. And this "talent" of hers was odd, very, very odd.

  In a moment, she was herself again. In a moment she decided it was not foreknowledge she had had, but a vision of something that had already happened, maybe something she had read about, a memory that had been elicited by something Edoard had said.

  Aufors sat down beside her. She blinked several times and tried to come up with a neutral topic of conversation. "What did you all talk about at your end of the table?" was the best she could do.

  He recounted the conversation concerning P'naki, meantime keeping a close watch on her, seeing the color gradually come back into her cheeks, and with the color, awareness of where she was and what she was supposed to be doing.

  She murmured, "I'd like to hear the rest of it later, Aufors, for father is giving me a very strange look."

  Aufors had the good sense not to look in the direction Genevieve had. He rose, bowed, and took himself away to be replaced almost immediately by the Duchess.

  "What happened to you?" she asked without preamble. "You turned white as milk. Did that brat of Tansy's say something rude?"

  "No." Genevieve shook her head, smiling. "No, he invited me to go to the concert as his guest, and then... I had this moment's breathlessness. All this is too much excitement for one who was a schoolgirl up until a few days ago."

  "My mother had them, those breathless moments." The Duchess took Genevieve's elbow in her hand and turned her toward the corner where they stood, thus hiding her face from the room at large. "She would turn pale, as you are now, and stare off into the distance, saying she had seen a vision of a time or place not present. Her sister, my aunt, claimed it was all pretense, but my grandmother believed her as she, too, was said to have such spells. My daughter Lyndafal, has inherited the trait, though not I. Seemingly it skipped a generation. We are kinfolk, you know, Genevieve. My mother was related to your mother through a common ancestress back a few generations, Lady Stephanie, foster daughter of Duke Fitful of Merdune, who made her Marchioness of Wallachy." The Duchess cocked her head, as though expecting a reply.

  Genevieve faltered, "You mean Queen Stephanie? The Dark Queen? I know nothing about her except that her daughters and their daughters have shared her dark skin and eyes and nose. Their portraits hang in the great hall at Langmarsh House."

  "I know little about her myself. There was something most mysterious about her, she was a complete unknown, no family at all, but as a child she came to the attention of the Duke, he adopted her, and she became the wife of the Lord Paramount. Among the many children she bore him-almost all girls-were twin daughters, one of whom was Bricia, my great-grandmother, and the other was Mercia, your many times great-great-grandmother. Stephanie wrote a strange little book, a collection of tales that she called a history. I have a copy at home. I tried to read it once, but it was terribly dull. There's probably a copy in the library here, for the owner of the house was also Wallachian and quite a collector, so I've heard..."

  A voice at their side interrupted her: the Marshal. "Your Grace, I'm afraid Genevieve is monopolizing your attention."

  "Rather the other way round, Marshal," fluted the Duchess. "I've been monopolizing hers. And do call me Alicia." She took his arm, patted Genevieve on the shoulder saying she would call, soon, then drew him away, leaving Genevieve behind to catch her breath.

  Genevieve felt for the moment overfed on information, everything from a P'naki scarcity to the fact that she and the Duchess were related through the legendary Dark Queen. Most fascinating was the news that there were others like herself. Another, at least. Lady Alicia's daughter.

  The rest of the evening went, if not swimmingly, at least not badly. The hired musicians played well, and a popular young songstress sang several delightfully mischievous songs in a polished and coquettish manner that much delighted the gentlemen. Yugh Delganor bowed himself away as early as politeness allowed-thoughtfully, as it happened, for none could depart until he had done so-and was shortly followed by the second and third in line for the throne, Prince Thumsort, and his son Edoard, at which point the party broke up in mutual pleasantries. Aside from Yugh Delganor's chilly manner, the palpable frost between the Ladies Farmoor and Bellser-Bar, and the sullenly dyspeptic attitude of the Invigilator, everyone had seemed pleased, not least the Marshal.

  "Well," he said to Genevieve, when they had departed. "You did very well."

  "Colonel Leys was of great help, Father. I could not have managed without his help."

  "Good fellow, Leys. Pity he's of such common stock. He could go far, otherwise."

  Which burst her bubble completely and set her sniveling to bed, or so said Delia.

  "I am not sniveling!" Genevieve retorted from her dampened pillow. "I am merely very upset! Aufors was wonderful, he helped us immensely, and all Father said was pity he was common. Besides, getting through this dinner has been enough to cry over, if I like."

  "Why, Jenny?" Delia took the girl's chin in her hand and looked into her eyes. "Are you falling in love with him?"

  "Nonsense," she said, jerking her head away. "I just think it's a pity he can't... be respected for what he does. He's a very good, solid person."

  "I wouldn't advise your falling in love with him. I think your father has set his eyes higher."

  Now Genevieve wept indeed. "If he's thinking about my marrying the heir, I'll die."

  Delia paled, then nodded slowly. "He watched you tonight. Delganor. I was up in the minstrels gallery, peeking. Whenever you weren't looking, he was watching you."

  "I'd rather die."

  "The look on his face wasn't a lover's look. Forgive my saying so, Jenny, but it was more the look a dog gives to his dinner. He's nothing to set your heart thumping. Like a mourner at a feast."

  "It's worse than that. There's something... something creepy about him. Something aged and malignant and... I don't know. Like the air down in the cellars at Langmarsh H
ouse, when we've been away for a while, that kind of musty deadness that takes you by the throat."

  "How old is he?"

  "At first I thought middle-aged, then I thought really old, but if he's thinking of getting an heir on a new wife, he can't be... that old, can he?"

  Delia stroked her charge's hair, thinking of her own strong, virile John and wondering what it would be like to be so fairy-rose pretty and have all that youth and dewiness given to some nasty old fart who couldn't even smile.

  7: Aufors Leys

  Aufors Leys was indeed of common stock, and he claimed that heritage proudly, even in a place like Havenor, where those barely tinged by aristocratic blood spent their lives trading on the stain. Aufors aspired to no such notice. He was a Langmarshian through and through, a younger son who had learned to outwit and eventually outfight a bullying older brother who resented everything about Aufors: his looks, his mind, his sturdy independence. This latter led Aufors to a soldier's life, both as a way to escape a hateful sibling and as an honorable career for a man of small fortune. He acquitted himself well during small scuffles with the bandit tribes of Dania-in suppressions of intertribal frays in Uplands and in rounding up fanatical Frangians-rising to the rank of captain in the process.

  Then had come the P'PoP rebellion, an uprising by the followers of a self-styled "People's Prince of Potcher," a charismatic agitator who claimed the present Lord Paramount and the lesser lords were far too old to relate to the present day, that they had outlived their usefulness to their people. The claim resonated well in the ears of the young, who were given to inflammatory rhetoric, which so infuriated the Duke he was impelled into military retaliation. Thereafter matters degenerated into random and sporadic acts of violence followed by increasingly cruel reprisals which spread beyond Potcher to involve the eastern counties of Barfezi.

  The uprising might well have spread across the borders into neighboring provinces had not Captain Aufors Leys moved swiftly among towns and villages to negotiate firmly but gently any grievances, fancied or real, against Lome, Earl Vestik-Vanserdel, the legitimate Duke of Barfezi. Each hamlet had been promised a bit of this or a bite of that in return for renewing its oaths of loyalty to the Duke and Duchess, and this diplomatic coup had not escaped the notice of the Marshal, who promoted Aufors Leys to the rank of major.

  Once the loyalty of the villages had been established, the last stages of the conflict had been absurdly one sided. With no audiences for his bravado, the self-styled Prince of Potcher was soon left with only a few score giddy boys and girls with longbows and a dozen suicidal bomb-throwers whose numbers were reduced each time they acted. The pretender could only flee to a point of no return, where Aufors promptly bottled him. It was this salutary end to the matter which gained Aufors Leys both a colonelcy and appointment to an unspecified term as the Marshal's equerry.

  The rank was high for one of his age. It was much too high for one serving as an equerry or, conversely, an equerry's duties were demeaning for one so distinguished in battle. Despite Aufors's gratitude to the Marshal, the disparity did not escape his notice. The Marshal, though harsh, was reputed to be a fair man, however, and Aufors believed his benefactor would be little agitated by Aufors's voluntary departure-which the unspecified term allowed him-so long as it occasioned no inconvenience to the Marshal himself.

  With that in mind, Aufors recruited a junior officer of noble blood, impeccable manners, and limited ambition whom he began training for the job. While this went forward, Aufors wooed persons of influence in order to finagle a post where he might gain rank high enough to guarantee an honorable, even luxurious retirement.

  Before Aufors's finagle fruited, however, the Marshal invited him to a school soiree. The Lord Paramount's suggestion-the reason for the invitation-was quoted to Aufors by the Marshal himself: "See what a youngster like Aufors thinks, he'll know if she's an acceptable, attractive, quiet, biddable girl who'll fit in."

  His military exploits had made Aufors better known to the court than the court was known to him. He was unaware-as was the Marshal himself-of the danger carried in innocent-seeming and transparent words that floated along the corridors of power like jellyfish in the tide, death hidden in every tentacle. Aufors took the assignment at face value. If he assumed anything, it was what any outsider might assume: that the Lord Paramount and the Marshal were thinking of betrothing the Most Honorable Marchioness of Wantresse to some noble scion who was perhaps refusing to get involved until he knew whether Genevieve was "acceptable," or was a lady-too-long-in-waiting being foisted upon the credulous.

  Attending an evening party was a small favor to ask of a man who considered himself a good judge of women, and Aufors agreed. He would go with the Marshal to have a look at the girl, have some good food and wine, and write out his impressions for the Lord Paramount. Seeing that the girl in question was the Marshal's daughter, it might make the wording a bit ticklish, but Aufors felt his diplomatic skills were equal to the task

  By the time he left the soiree, however, the towers of his ambitions had been toppled flat as the Plains of Bliggen. All his careful career maneuvers had been driven from his mind, and he found himself unable to concentrate on anything except a young woman whom he had no reason to think he would even meet again. Her eyes seemed permanently fixed before his own. Her lips curved around his every waking moment. The feel of her bosom, swelling so softly against him in the dance... Ah, who would have thought he was so vulnerable?

  On the morning after the soiree, Aufors regarded himself soberly in his mirror and told himself he was an idiot. Which idiocy was compounded when the Marshal announced the move to Havenor. At that point Aufors did not resign as equerry and go marching off toward glory, as he had intended. Instead, he not only retained his lowly position as the Marshal's aide but also became a panting dogsbody much involved in the family's relocation. Burning with desire to be helpful to Genevieve, he did it all eagerly and without a second thought.

  All this could possibly be explained as one of those infatuations to which even the most sensible men fall prey, or, equally, by the fact that Aufors had a particular mental picture of his mother. She had died when he was very small, abducted and presumably killed by Danian brigands, a presumption that his brother amplified in order to terrorize Aufors. Aufors himself remembered a certain delicacy and grace and how flowery she smelled and how he had loved her laughing manner and diligent care and, above all, how clever she had been at figuring things out and solving problems. Aufors had built upon these impressions a description that differed greatly from the stick-stiff, flat-as-paint person some itinerant artist had supplied for the family hall. Though he carried a copy of that portrait with him, he never looked at it, for it confused his memories.

  Setting likeness aside, Aufors felt Genevieve shared all the other qualities of womanhood he had assigned to that lost and sainted mother, plus those attractions that youth often stirs in youth, particularly when one is pretty and the other is virile. Aufors did not stop to think that he could never be considered a suitable match. He wasn't thinking about matches at all, but about Genevieve, her comfort, her health, her pleasure, and - when he learned of the Marshal's association with Yugh Delganor - her safety. During his soldierly life, Aufors had heard disquieting things about Delganor.

  The first of these had been at the end of the Potcher War where he and his officers passed the last evening around the campfire, telling stories, tongues well oiled by a providential cask of wine that someone had "found" along the way. Late in the evening, one grizzled captain made a sotto voce remark at which another officer took umbrage, and voices rose.

  "Hold it," said Aufors, his steely tone cutting through the disputation. "What's this about?"

  "He... suited th'Lord P... p... prmount," said one disputant.

  "I did not," countered the graying captain, who had been more abstemious than his colleague. "I said he was fortunate to have lived so long. That's no insult."

  "... like maybe he sho
ulda died, huh?"

  "Not at all."

  "Enough," said Aufors. "We have a victory to claim on the morrow. It is unfitting for us to indulge in trifling quarrels at such a time. Off to your bedding, gentlemen. Except for you, Enkors." This was the captain, who stayed behind at Aufors's gestured command.

  They seated themselves by the fire again, and Aufors-who liked Enkors-remarked, "It's odd you should mention the Lord Paramount's long life after our battle against that renegade up the cliff. That rebel rallied followers around the matter of the Lord Paramount's age, as though living long were a sin! Why should you or anyone remark at the Lord Paramount being old? Men grow old, and so what?"

  "There was no disrespect meant, sir, and you know how it is. Things get broadened in the telling."

  "No, I don't know, Enkors. What gets broadened? This whole business puzzles me. When this war started, I asked the Duke of Barfezi and a couple of the Earls what all the fuss was about-I mean, if they'd let the man alone, his popularity wouldn't have lasted beyond the next harvest season-and they turned bland as milk and soft as curd, murmuring nonsensically without ever answering me. Such treatment makes a man curious. You needn't fear I'll take offense or repeat anything you tell me. I merely want to know."