Sheri Tepper - Singer From The Sea

by Singer From The Sea(Lit)

  Come along dusk, people began to wonder who'd seen her last, and then come dark and they began to worry that nobody had seen her for hours, and then come deep dark and people began to shout and start running about, even before the Earl knew of it and fell to cursing and threatening. Hadn't he put all his men into boats, hunting her? Hadn't he screamed down the heavens, looking for her? Him, who hadn't looked at her twice in the months before the child was born?

  Well, indeed he had. He sent a boat out to scour Seapasture Island for her, which was not so easy as one might think, for it was dark with no moon and a veil of wispy cloud hiding even the stars, and at the first scrape of a hull on the beach, the shaggy cows that pastured there gathered around and demanded to be given something good, their noses pushing wetly and their long horns clacking, immovable as rocks. Cows and dark together brought the endeavor to naught but effort wasted and more screaming threats from the Earl.

  On the morrow, they tried again and were able to confirm that she was not on Seapasture Island. So they went on to Little Swamp Island, the next island in the chain, though it was impossible to search the island thoroughly, full of trees as it was, trunks growing out of the water and dropping stems down from their branches to make the whole an impenetrable tangle. After sailing around it and shouting until everyone was hoarse, they decided she wasn't there, either. The third island out was much too far out for her to have sailed before she vanished, so it was obvious she couldn't be there. By evening, the search was given up.

  How tragic, cried those who enjoyed conjecture. How tragic there'd been a waterspout, or a wind gust, or the baby had fallen in, or she'd tipped the boat over trying to save the baby, or she'd gone in for a swim (though she'd never been known to do any such thing) and the boat had sailed off without her. How tragic, said the sentimentalists, that it had happened just when the Earl had announced his intention of taking her on a wonderful trip down to that marvelous resort on the Plains of Bliggen.

  No matter what the intentions had been, they'd been blown off the parapet and into the moat, and here was Earl Solven in a temper that couldn't be dealt with, not by anybody sane at any rate. It was to the tune and tempo of such turmoil that the people of Ruckward passed the first day and second night after the Countess's disappearance.

  By which time the cause of all this annoyance, the woman who would call herself Bessany Blodden, was working her little boat out of a tangle of trees on the east side of the fourth island out from county Ruckward, where she had been since the previous evening.

  Lyndafal had been afraid the child might cry in the night when, with sound traveling so far over water, it could lead people in her direction. The baby, however, had been hungry whenever she was not asleep, which kept her busy rooting at the nipple like a little pig, grunting contentedly and otherwise quiet as could be in her mother's arms while Lyndafal waited for first light to take advantage of the wind and get herself beyond finding. She figured she had four more days to make it the rest of the way east to Ramspize Point, where, pray heaven, someone would be waiting for her.

  Just now her greatest worry was not herself or the baby in the basket but her other daughter, Evaline, left at Ruckward Manor with Dora. Two years old, Evaline. Too headstrong and noisy to bring on this trip without risking all their lives, but otherwise sweet and dear and all too vulnerable. Well, Alicia would soon hear of Lyndafal's "disappearance." She would come to Ruckward to beg Evaline's company for a time. The Earl had never paid much attention to Evaline. He wouldn't care where the child went, so, pray heaven, Evaline would be taken back to Merdune where she'd be safe. If she ever could be!

  Lyndafal had thought she herself was safe. She had believed it, utterly. She had convinced her mother.

  "He loves me," she had said of the Earl, who had come courting at the school she attended in Baiverberg, introduced to her there by the Duke of Merdune, Lyndafal's step-father.

  "He may think so," her mother had whispered. "I am sure he wants you."

  "No, Mama, he really loves me. He loved his first wife, too, but she died. He's a good man, really he is."

  Her mother had not answered, had merely stared at her, as though looking into a crystal ball, trying to find a separate dweller within, someone who might respond independently, differently. "Have you had a... vision of your being married to him?" This mentioning of visions was a rare thing. The Duchess did not have the talent, though her mother had had it. Lyndafal never knew whether her mother envied the talent or rued it, so they spoke of it seldom.

  "Mama, the only visions I've had about me are sailing in a little boat with my children." Not children, precisely. Child, but it was the same thing. She wanted half a dozen, at least.

  The Duchess's eyes were teary as she said, "I wish Gardagger had not introduced you to Earl Solven, for I believe you are too young. Still, you want children, and having them is easier when one is young. Oh, Lyndafal. I wish your grandmother were alive to counsel us both. I'll not stand in your way, but be careful."

  "I will be, Mama. And Solven will take good care of me." He had been ardent, and she had loved their lovemaking. He had been attentive, and she had loved that, too. And when the ardor waned with her first pregnancy, she had said to herself, well, it is appropriate at this time. The newness wears off, but he loves me none the less. And Evaline had been born, and there had been that joy, and then she became pregnant with this little one.

  When had she realized that she was no longer safe? When had she understood that she never had been? Was it the cool way that Solven had spoken to her during this last pregnancy, a kind of terminal detachment in his voice. Was it the way he had stopped looking at her, as though he was trying to forget she was there. Was it his avoidance of those times when they had formerly been alone together, as at breakfast or during late afternoon walks in the garden. Suddenly he had been very busy morning and night with his estate men. Suddenly he had had many trips to take, here or there.

  Had she been convinced of her danger that time she heard him speaking with the heir to Ruckward, his son by his first wife, referring to Lyndafal as, "The woman, Lyndafal."

  She had heard him use that same tone in speaking of a mangled dog that had had to be put down. "The bitch, Runner." In his mouth it was a knell. It had chilled her. She had told herself she was being foolish. She had told herself she was simply imagining things. Pregnant women did imagine things!

  Then, only then, the vision had come, herself lying on dry soil, her cheek pressed into the grit, the sun burning the skin of her back, her head tipped down so she could see the gush of blood soaking into the soil. Near her, a circle of men, passing her little child among them, talking in low voices.

  And from somewhere near, her husband's voice, aware but untroubled, in that same tone of detachment.

  "So. It is done."

  And a strange voice answering. "Congratulations on your ascension, Solven. It has been well done. And here is another who will be candidate for you..."

  Lyndafal had wakened with the dream fully in her mind. She had taken no time to consider its meaning. She had not been dead in the dream, her child had not been dead, but the tone of it had been enough. If death was not present, it was not far off. She knew an absolute truth with a part of her mind that was not accessible to reason. She either accepted the warning her vision had given her or she ignored it at her peril.

  If the dream had not been enough, the following day might have warned her, for on that very morning Solven had begun wooing her anew, hugely pregnant as she was. He had apologized for having been distracted. He had apologized for having neglected her. His hand had patted her cheek, had stroked her arm, his eyes sought hers with pretended love, and she had seen the lie squirming there like a leech, seen it, and known it for what it was.

  He had purred at her. "I've arranged for us to have a trip, dear love. When this baby is born, we're going to the resort in Bliggen. I've heard wonderful things about it!"

  Though she was weary with the weight of the
unborn child, she tried to sound normally interested and unafraid. "But the baby, Solven. The baby will still be nursing, and you know what the covenants have to say about nursing. A mother must nurse her own child for a whole year."

  He could scarcely argue. It was part of the covenants, one of the amendments added by the Tribunal during their years on Haven. A child receiving noble nature and noble nurture was fit to assume the noble title. Breast milk was one of the three female sacraments-resignation, bearing, nurturing-bestowed by the mother upon the female child.

  Solven had merely smiled tenderly. "No problem, sweetheart. We'll take the baby with us."

  That day she had called Dora to her, whispering into her ear, putting the letter into her hand, together with money and a promise of an equal amount when the letter was delivered. Dora would find a messenger, and even if the letter was intercepted, there was nothing in it to condemn her. It was written in a personal code mother and daughter had used and refined for years, one that conveyed meaning through idle phrases of chitchat. Well, Mama, soon I will be out of danger, as I'm due the tenth. Soon after, we're leaving here. It would be fun to go on a sailing boat, across past Ramspize to Poolwich, but we'll probably travel by road, down through Bliggen...

  The message concluded with some jotted figures, 9 royals 1, 5 royals 1, 4 royals 2, 9 royals 2, and 3 royals 1, totalling 29 royals 9. Please, Mama, send me thirty royals to buy special somethings for Evalene for her birthday! Hidden in this brief missive was the message: Danger. Tenth. Leaving here. Sailing boat. Ramspize.

  The day before she left she had received her answer: Thirty royals and the coded message, Meeting you. Watch for a fire.

  While Solven had prepared for their trip to Bliggen, Lyndafal had prepared likewise, awaiting the birth, praying it would be neither late nor hard. It had been harder than the first, but rather earlier than late, and she had forced herself to move, to heal, to go out sailing on Havenpool. Now she used an oar to push free of the mud. The boat slipped out onto the waters, buoyant as a duck. It took only a moment to step the slender mast and see the light linen sail fill with wind, still blowing seasonally from the northwest as she had hoped. She had gambled it would blow strongly enough to let her escape.

  The baby went on sleeping. The island receded behind her. Number four, she reminded herself. There were a dozen, all told, and she needed to keep track of where she was. She hoped to rest on the seventh tonight and tomorrow. She would go by the eighth island at night, for it was populated by fisherfolk, and the last few islands were close together, mere rocky peaks covered with waterbird nests and deep-piled guano that had been mined by the farmers of Ramspize and Southmarsh before the last fever epidemic.

  She glanced at the sleeping child, rocking in her basket. This was what she had dreamed before she married Solven: herself and her child, sailing in a little boat. She had taken it for a vision of happiness. She had never guessed what it really was, had not even recalled its details until now. She threw her head back, staring at the sky, swallowing her tears. The warning had been there, but she hadn't seen it. What good was a talent that was so misleading? And why did she have it at all? Mother didn't. Grandmother had, evidently, and maybe she'd known what it was good for.

  As had been her habit since setting out, she turned in her seat every few moments, looking at the water around her, at the horizon to see if any boats were there. She was so accustomed to seeing nothing that she looked all around, turning without really using her eyes, for a moment quite sure that she was indeed seeing nothing.

  Then her eyes widened, for she had glanced across what stood upon the glistening horizon: a striped sail that identified a fishing boat from Sealand. As it came closer, she saw that the stripes were yellow and blue, which meant the boat was from Ruckward itself. It was setting directly toward her, and she thought she could make out the tiny figures of men on the foredeck, waving and pointing in her direction.

  "Oh, heaven, whatever help there is for women, help me," she cried, the words coming from someplace deep inside her she had never plumbed until this instant. "Oh, help me for the love of all that is dear," as she stared helplessly at her pursuer.

  The pursuit continued, though the following ship was obviously confused by something happening off to one side, a foaming, swirling disturbance in the water. At first Lyndafal thought it was a maelstrom, but the activity seemed to be all on the surface, a circle of creamy foam sequined with flashing light. The men on the other boat stopped pointing in her direction and scurried from the foredeck to busy themselves with nets. Even across all the distance between she could hear their eager shouts as the swirling water moved away from their line of travel, to the west.

  On that ship, the Captain shouted orders, the sails were tightened to sail nearer the wind, while ahead of them a sparkling curtain of golden fish leapt upward from the waves as though to escape something beneath them.

  On that ship a young sailor turned to his older mate and asked, "So, we're letting the little boat go? What'll Lord Solven say when he hears that?"

  "It won't get away, boy! We can sail rings around it. There's no land near enough for her to get to! Those are golden-eyes out there boy, worth their weight in royals. Now's time to put money in our pockets, more money than that bastard Solven will ever pay us! Besides, we don't even know it's her!"

  And Lyndafal, on the tiny boat, fell into the bottom of it as it lurched and dipped and began to flee across the water like a bird, the sail actually bellying backward as something carried her faster than the wind away from that other ship. She did not bother to think. She crawled to the rope and dropped the sail, allowing the boat to go even faster. It dashed, throwing a high spume of water on either side.

  Island number five spun by. The boat kept on, never diminishing its speed. Another island loomed. And another still, the seventh, where she had planned to rest tonight. The boat swerved around behind it, beaching itself on a sandy beach near a wooded inlet. When a few quiet moments passed with no further happening, she pulled the boat from the sand and waded with it to the inlet where she found cover from the sea. Once the boat was hidden, she took the baby into her arms and stepped onto a mossy bank amid a wooded glade.

  As she turned back toward the water, she saw a circle of gold turning in the shallows, a shiny cog wheel like those that turn endlessly in the backs of watches or the workings of music boxes, and beyond the wheel, deeper in the water, a larger wheel, and another deeper yet.

  Breathless, she watched as the wheels spun. She thought of all the wheels at work in the universe, those of planets, of stars, of galaxies, round and round and round. When she had observed it long enough to know she was not imagining it, the wheels broke into hundreds of scaled creatures no longer than her fingers that darted away into the depths while she gaped at the place they had been.

  14: Gentlemen of the Court

  Unlike many in Havenor whose highest ambition was to see and be seen, certain agents of the Prince made it their business not to be seen at all. Those who ran afoul of them more than once presumed, quite correctly, that they were immune to the Lord Paramount's law. They were laconic, lean, and lurkish to a man, and chief among them was a man called Wiezal, a name he preferred because it was not his own. Wiezal made it a rule to maintain his private business quite private, though in addition to his own affairs, he was willing to go hither and yon at the Prince's bidding, finding out this, stealing that, and occasionally finding himself in proximity (coincidentally, of course) to someone about to die unexpectedly.

  When Genevieve was found to have disappeared, Yugh Delganor summoned Wiezal and set him upon the trail. Wiezal soon found that Aufors Leys had booked passage on the Reusel packet, informed the Prince of this fact, and then went off down the River Reusel with a couple of his pack members, slavering upon the spoor. All of them were tireless and clever hunters who either returned with their prey or, if it was in no condition to be returned, with enough of it to prove its demise.

  When Wiezal ret
urned a few days later, however, he was not his usual self. Instead of his customary sidling, head bobbing approach to the Prince, he remained standing by the door, shifting from foot to foot, his appearance more than ordinarily stoatish.

  "Well," the Prince inquired in a soft voice, "is she at Langmarsh?"

  "No, sir. She is not." Wiezal's voice was petulant, indisputably annoyed.

  Delganor raised his head to peer down his nose, keeping his voice soft and unthreatening. "Well then, where did she go?"

  "The thing is, Your Highness... well, the woman Colonel Leys bought passage for wasn't her."

  Delganor frowned. "Then who was it?"

  Wiezal breathed deeply and leaked words like a faucet dripping. "The passage was for the daughter of one of... well, the Colonel's officers, man he fought with in Potcher." Deep breath. "She was engaged to another officer. This woman went to Reusal-on-mere. She met her man there. His name's Enkors. They got married. Colonel Leys was there. He stood up for the groom. The journey was a wedding present."