The Tale of Oriel

by Cynthia Voigt

  Oriel didn’t know if this was Nikol, searching. He didn’t know if their single boat was visible over the distance. He didn’t know if they should fold up their sail, since it was the most visible thing about them. He didn’t know what—

  Danger made his choice. He pulled the tiller in close, to swing the bow of the boat around until the wind came at the sail from behind. This was the favorable set. This was the set of the sail for speed, and he held it—heading south and west, heading away from what might be boats pursuing. Griff watched behind them while Oriel watched the sail, to keep it filled. They might be pursued, but on this heading they couldn’t be caught, not with such a lead on their pursuers. The tiller and rope pulled against his hands, and the boat pulled eagerly through the water.

  He didn’t dare turn his head, so he watched Griff’s face. He wasn’t surprised to hear, after a long while, Griff’s report. “They’re out of sight. I haven’t seen them for a long time. I think we’re clear of them.”

  “A little longer,” he decided.

  It was afternoon when he turned the boat again. They had gone so far out to sea that only a dim greyness at the horizon that might have been a line of clouds marked what he hoped was land. He turned the boat and sailed a zigzag course back to the north, then west again, across the empty water. He thought, he would like to see just one island. If he could see an island coming towards them out of the distance—green-headed within its encircling boulders—then he would know that sooner or later they could find one of the few beaches that appeared on the islands, and make a landfall.

  The afternoon passed slowly, as they first saw at a distance and then sailed among unfamiliar islands, bringing the boat in close wherever it looked as if they might make a landing. At last they saw a narrow pebbled beach.

  “I hope there’s water,” Griff said. “A creek, or a spring.”

  “Yes,” Oriel agreed, and he hadn’t realized until then how dry his mouth was, how great his thirst. When he had turned the bow of the boat and sailed for speed in whatever direction the wind chose, he might have lost both of their lives, when he let danger make his choices.

  It was twilight by the time they had dragged the boat up the slope of shore and tied it to a boulder, in case the tide rose high. From beyond the beach the island’s rim of great stones—smoothed by weather until they seemed huge flanks of even huger animals—trees were visible against the darkening sky. “If we sleep until light, we can try then to find water,” Oriel said.

  “I feared,” Griff said, “that we might never make landfall again. For a while I truly feared it. You did well, Oriel. You— I don’t know how you do it, we’re away from the island, and safe and— You did it.”

  Oriel heard the wonder in Griff’s voice and he knew why Griff felt that way, but he couldn’t agree. He counted up the errors he had made, and understood how great a part good luck had played in their escape. Without all of the luck, Oriel knew where they would be. Because his first error was not killing Nikol, when he had the dagger in his hand and the Damall’s permission.

  But what kind of a life was it when you had to kill somebody to keep the place that had been awarded to you? What kind of a world was it where in order to be on top you had to push others under—as if you were pushing heads down underwater—and hold them there until they drowned, and then you could be on top.

  Oriel hadn’t done nearly as well as he should have and this could have cost his own life, and Griff’s, too. How that hadn’t happened, he reminded himself, was more important than how well he had done. It was more important, if he wanted to continue living, not to let himself lose sight of the truth of things.

  They wrapped themselves in their cloaks and lay down on the rocks, to sleep. The sky overhead was curtained with long drifting clouds, through which moon or stars sometimes appeared. Sleeping, then waking to hear the water, see the stars, smell the salty air—then sleeping again, Oriel passed the night.

  In the morning, they took off their boots and trousers and waded, barelegged, into the icy sea to pull blue-black skals up from where they clung to rocks under cover of ropy seaweed. Oriel had the tinder-box at his waist. He struck sparks to start a cookfire. When the driftwood logs had heated to coals they lay seaweed in armloads down upon the flames, dumped the skals, and then more seaweed. Steam rose moist and salty, as the skals cooked themselves open.

  Each skal had in its shell a few drops of liquid. Each skal opened to reveal a moist nugget of meat. They had searched for stream or spring while the fire took hold, and had found none, but the juiciness of the skals satisfied thirst as well as hunger.

  When they were full they lay back in sunlight. “We’re too close to Damall’s Island still,” Oriel said. “I’m not easy, this close. So we’ll sail by night until we make the next landfall.”

  “Is it the mainland we’re heading towards?” Griff asked.

  “The Great Damall wrote of the Northern Star, and how the Plough points the eye to that one fixed star. Remember?”

  “I remember.”

  “If I know north, I can find south. Knowing north and south, I can find northwest, and the mainland.”

  “So it is the mainland we are heading towards.”

  “No other boats sail by night. You can look for rocks. If the night is clear, if we keep well out and away from islands, if the breeze is light and the water not too rough, if our luck holds and my skill is skill enough— It’ll be a safer journey by night, while we are still so close to Damall’s Island.”

  “You sleep now, Oriel,” Griff said. “I’ll keep watch.”

  THEY SET OFF AFTER MOONRISE, sailing into a steady breeze. Oriel headed the boat generally northwest. This meant they had to move among islands, some so tiny they held only a single tree, some large enough for a few houses to cluster about a cove, where fishing boats bobbled on the black water. The dark mass of islands showed clearly against the star-pricked sky. The night air was so cold that both Oriel and Griff shivered, and clenched their teeth against the ague of cold.

  After a long time Griff broke into the silence made by the whisper of wind to water and the keel’s answering whisper through waves. “I barely remember the mainland.”

  “Is that where I came from?” Oriel asked.

  “Probably, since that’s where the Damall went, to get boys. But not certainly. In the books, over the years, one or two of the boys have been just left on the island. Found on the beach. And there isn’t anything about you in the books. . . .” Griff’s voice drifted off, riding on the sounds of wind and water.

  “But you don’t know for sure. You can’t know. I can’t.” There was something satisfying to Oriel about this lack of a past. He was as solitary as stone. Because he had no history, he might win for himself any future. He owned all that he was. “I don’t remember anything. I must have been young.”

  “You were. You were a little boy.”

  “Then, I remember you, and him, too, the sixth Damall.”

  Griff said nothing.

  Oriel had a sudden thought: “What do you remember, how old were you when you came to the island, Griff? Do you want to find where you came from, and go back there? What do you remember? Do you remember anything?”

  Griff’s face was washed pale by moonlight when he looked back along the boat to Oriel.

  “Keep watch,” Oriel reminded him.

  “I remember you,” Griff said, turning back to face the black water. “When I think back, I remember you because—I remember, I was so lonely, I don’t even know how long a time it was except I think it maybe wasn’t all that long. I just don’t know. Except lonely, and frightened. I only remember nighttime, as if it was always night. But I think that I wouldn’t have been so lonely, and so frightened, if I hadn’t been accustomed to something else. Don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think, maybe I must have had brothers or sisters, and I almost remember—but I don’t know if I only dreamed this, or if I only pretend it, do you kn
ow what I mean?”

  Oriel shook his head.

  “But the Damall told me, they gave me away to him because they didn’t want me. But the Damall didn’t always tell the truth.”

  “Especially not when he thought he could hurt you,” Oriel said.

  “But he didn’t always lie,” Griff said, speaking out of the darkness at the bow of the boat.

  “I’d not have been like him,” Oriel said. “I’d have been a different kind of Damall. Keep watch,” he reminded Griff again.

  “But he never meant you to be the seventh Damall,” Griff said.

  “Don’t be stupid.” Oriel’s hand clutched the tiller.

  “It was Nikol he wanted.”

  “No, it wasn’t. He told me I’d be the heir, and he showed me where the treasure was hidden, and then he announced it before all after I had won it in the fight. He named me.”

  He could see only the dark shadow that was Griff, sitting, staring out at the water.

  “Griff?”

  “Do you really think so, Oriel? I never thought so.”

  “Then why did he name me?” But Oriel was already convinced.

  “To make Nikol do what he wanted. Oriel, you know what happened to the fifth Damall, but didn’t you ever think who was the sixth?”

  No, he never had. The tiller pulled him back to attention and he fell silent, sailing the boat, following the dark sail, thinking about the perfidy of the sixth Damall, wondering about the eighth. We can never go back, really never can, he almost said aloud to Griff, but decided not to because he was just as glad to be able to think, We never have to go back.

  “Should I have killed him?” Oriel asked Griff. His voice floated on darkness.

  Griff didn’t pretend not to understand. “I don’t think so, but because you didn’t, things . . . happened. I was glad whenever you didn’t kill him. Every time. You could have killed him all the time, and you didn’t, and I was proud for you even if it was dangerous for everyone.”

  The problem was that Oriel deserved to be Damall, because he was the best of the boys, the best of all of them. Nobody had to say it because it was so obvious. Nikol knew it, and didn’t question it; what Nikol questioned was whether because Oriel was worthy that meant Nikol couldn’t get the prize.

  Because Oriel knew about himself that he was worthy to rule. He didn’t need to kill anyone to prove it. He didn’t need anybody else to be weak so he could be strong. He was what he was: the best choice.

  THEY SAILED ACROSS THE NIGHT, in unknown territory now, on unknown waters. The first light showed him an island with a deep eastward-facing cove, and low hills covered with bare-branched trees. He was exhausted by the night’s anxious sail. Griff folded up the sail and rowed the boat to land. One of the first things they saw was a creek, flowing down a steep hillside onto the beach and into the sea. No houses could be seen. No smoke rose into the sky. Oriel held onto the bow line but didn’t even think of tying the boat, or anchoring it, until he had put his head into the sweet water of the creek and drunk his fill, lying flat on his stomach, sucking up the shallow water where it ran over cold stones.

  He rolled onto his back, suddenly helpless against his exhaustion. “You sit watch,” he said as his eyelids sank to his cheeks.

  He awoke to the warmth of sunlight on his back and the sense that his feet must have swollen in his soft boots. Sharp edges of crushed shells cut into his cheek and forehead and the smell of soil was in his nose—earth, salt, drying grass, rotting grass, roots. He rolled over onto his back and the light almost blinded him. He rubbed his fingers across his eyes to soothe them.

  Griff leaned against the trunk of a tree, his eyes closed even though he was standing. The boat had been tied around that same tree, and its line had then been wound around Griff’s leg.

  Oriel sat up, then stood.

  Griff’s eyes flew open.

  “You sleep now,” Oriel said.

  Griff bent to unwind the line and in the same motion folded his long legs and sank onto the ground. Even the sun shining full on his face couldn’t keep him awake.

  It was midday, the sun high in the sky. Oriel went back to the creek and drank again. Cool, fresh, freshening—

  Oriel raised his head and looked across the sea. No boat crossed along the dark blue depths. No danger was in sight among the islands that floated silently and peacefully in the distances. He heard no human voices. He saw no human habitation. He had a net folded up in the boat.

  Alone in the bright height of the day, with Griff sleeping deeply behind him and the water flowing cold at his hips as he dragged the net behind— Knowing that if he chose they could stay in this place, build a shelter, dig a garden, fish the sea— Knowing that if he chose they could go on south, to the cities and the sun-ripened fields— Knowing his own name—

  Oriel threw his arms up into the air and laughed aloud. The two fish that he had trapped in the net swam free, as it spread loose and slowly sank to the stony bottom. Laughter burst out of him. He was away from the Damall’s island, and he had gold and silver coins, and he had the last of the Great Damall’s beryls against great need, and he had Griff safe with him, and he had a name— His laughter was a shout of joy and victory.

  He reached underwater to pick up the handles of the net and returned to the task. Fish now crowded in, until he was dragging behind him more fish than even the two of them, hungry as they were, could eat. The excess catch he kept alive by gathering the two net handles together and hanging the now baglike net off the tiller. Their meal he killed with a stone and gutted with sharp shells, then strung onto sticks to cook over the fire he built. Griff awakened to their smell. “What—?” he asked. “You—?”

  “I caught some fish.”

  “I forgot—” Griff’s eyes were still confused with sleep.

  “The fish is ready to eat. There’s more, in the net. I hung it off the boat to keep them alive.”

  They ate their fill, and then more, to finish the cooked fish. After eating, they sat at the water’s edge, watching the little waves lick at the shore, and the little boat bounce gently up and down, and the streaky clouds flow slowly across the sky.

  “There is always food to be had from the sea,” Oriel said. “Fish, gostas, skals. Blue skals or grey or white, they’re there for the taking all the seasons of a year.”

  “An island? Or the mainland?” Griff asked.

  “There are wives to be gotten on the mainland.”

  “The market town?” Griff asked. “You’ve been there, many times, you know the land and the people.”

  “It would be dangerous to settle close to Damall’s Island.”

  “Wherever you say,” Griff said. “That seems best to me.”

  “Southwest to the cities beyond Celindon,” Oriel said. “We can trade our fish on the mainland.”

  “Bread,” Griff suggested, and smiled. Griff had the guarded face of a man who had much to lose by the wrong choice, although he had never had anything to lose. Griff’s smile visited his face like a stranger who was only asking directions on his way through to another town.

  “We should sail to the mainland today, and find a farm where we can trade fish for bread and maybe also a bed for the night, and also perhaps hear of a town or a city where two lads might find work as . . .” Oriel had run out of ideas but Griff was already on his feet, ready to go on.

  THEY SAILED WEST ALONG THE coastline, the wind at their shoulders, dodging islands and peninsulas and rocky outcroppings. By afternoon they had given wide berth to two coastal towns. The first was the market town the Damall used, the second lay too close to the first. Not much later Oriel pointed out to Griff the double-walled city itself, Celindon, spreading back up over steep hills. Late in the day they came to a broad inlet, where a meadow sloped down to the water and a thick line of trees enclosed it. Just in front of the trees was a little house. They tied the boat to an outcropping of rock and also around a sapling, for double safety. Griff bore the netful of fish.

&nb
sp; The solitary house had a lean-to shed at its rear, and a small garden behind it where three fruit trees were in early blossom. A round stone well had been dug outside the doorway to the house. This wasn’t a farm but Oriel judged they might as well take their chance. The bucket waiting beside the well made him certain the house was inhabited.

  He knocked on the door.

  It opened so quickly he thought they must have been watched as they crossed the meadow. The person in the open doorway was short, and wrapped in a brown blanket, a woman, old by her white hair. She barely looked at them. Instead, she looked all around behind them.

  “Quick,” she said, in a voice as hoarse as if she had screamed her throat raw. One hand held the blanket at her throat, the other held the door.

  “Quick,” she urged them.

  Oriel hesitated on the stone stoop. Griff took the netted fish from his shoulder. Fear welled up and out of the open doorway, like water from a spring.

  “You’re just lads, just boys,” she said. “You don’t know. Inside it’s safe—inside it’s—quick!”

  They obeyed her. She shoved the wooden door closed behind them and barred it shut.

  Chapter 7

  SHE GAVE THEM NO TIME to think. Before Oriel could begin to consider the advantages and disadvantages of doing as she urged, he and Griff were inside, and the door was barred behind them.

  The old woman moved around them. She lit a candle that stood on a table and dropped the blanket onto the floor. Under it she wore what seemed to be a man’s shirt, large enough to reach almost to her pale knees. She wore no skirt. Her boots flapped as she moved, for the sole was separated from the foot.

  Oriel didn’t wish to stare at her but he couldn’t look away. Her hair hung down stringy white, and her face hung down from its bones, and she breathed heavily through an open mouth in which he could see only a few teeth, scattered over the top and bottom, all as brown as seaweed. He didn’t know how to address her.

  She gave him no time. “Why they send boys, and spring begun. And you know better than to come by day. And then to linger on my stoop.” She shook her head, and peered up into Oriel’s face, and then up into Griff’s. Her eyes were yellowed, watery.