Our Lady of the Islands

by Shannon Page

  Reikos spread his arms out in a gesture of helplessness. “Who am I to question a gift from the gods?”

  “But the gods don’t give gifts! Not here! There have been no gods in Alizar for … ever!”

  “Did one not wash up on your shores a year or two ago? We talked of this, remember? Sian, where else could such a gift have come from? What else can it mean? You have been chosen. You cannot withhold this gift from those who need you! Think of all the folk who suffer in this world. Think of all the children!”

  Sian could not ignore the eager gleam in his eyes. He wasn’t concerned about sick children or suffering folk … he was too excited. Scheming already. A sensational new commodity fallen into his hands literally from heaven …

  “What would you have me do?” Sian asked, her voice quiet.

  “Mansur, of the Valiant, two berths down — a very wealthy man! — he has a crewman with the bloodpox …”

  “No!” Sian surged to her feet. Wealth! She’d known it. “I thought you’d help me — I see I was wrong.” Eyes blurred with tears, she struggled with the door-latch, then wrestled it open.

  “I want nothing more than to help you!” Reikos protested.

  Sian ignored him as she stumbled to the gangway, nearly tripping as she hurried down to the street below. Reikos followed her as far as the rail, beseeching her to come back and just listen — but she had heard enough. He would sell her curse to the highest bidder! If she’d known how, she’d have given him his purple thumb back again, and twice as hard.

  Sian was almost more angry with herself than at Reikos. She had badly misjudged him, blinded by the sweetness of their private relationship. Well, and his previously honest business dealings with her over the years.

  How could he think to profit from her misfortune!

  It was quite clear to her now why he had never married. He obviously had no understanding of women, beyond the gentle game of occasional dalliance. He certainly did not know how to listen.

  No one did, it seemed. Not her daughter. Or her lover …

  Madness. Everything had become madness. She had no choice left but to go home to the Eyot — to face Arouf alone. And why not? Really, why not? He was her husband! Her business partner all these years. Father of her daughters. Why should he, if anyone, not help her? Why should she so fear asking him to? Madness! Everywhere. Even in herself. Half the day remained. She should have gone there to begin with.

  There was a boat yard nearby — Jennian’s. They had done repair work on her skiff not long ago, competently and at a fair price. She put her back to Fair Passage and headed off to rent a sailboat.

  Jennian’s son, a strapping boy of twenty, was in the boat yard, sanding the boards of a small rowboat which sat up on blocks by the main warehouse. Sian thought his name was Andian, or was it Anther?

  He looked up from his work at her approach. “Domina Kattë! What can I do for you?”

  “I need to hire a skiff. What have you?”

  “Is yours not fixed then?”

  “It’s fine — just not here.” She was already glancing down at their dock as she spoke. There, a little red one, with clean enough lines, near the end of the pier. She couldn’t see the condition of its mast from here, but the Jennians were honest traders. They wouldn’t rent her a rotten boat.

  The boy followed her look. “That one’s here for repair — I can’t let it. But I’ve a little sloop that one man could sail, just there.” He pointed to a weathered green boat rocking gently in the breeze.

  “Or one woman?” Sian walked down to inspect the boat. Yes, it was sound enough; needed more than a splash of new paint, but its structure was tight. “How much, for a week?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “I’ll give you twelve, and you’ll change this jib for a new one.” She pointed to the sail: it looked to have been recently scraped clean of mildew, making the tiny cracks and tears along its fold-lines apparent.

  “Fifteen,” the boy mumbled, obviously embarrassed at the condition of the jib.

  “Thirteen, in advance,” Sian said, producing her purse and counting out the coins. “And give my regards to your father.”

  The boy took the coins, still flustered, tucking them into a pocket of his worn trousers, then ducked into the warehouse and emerged with a new jib a minute later.

  After helping Sian aboard, he untied the boat, and watched her sail out into the harbor.

  Though she had been here only the day before, it felt as though a thousand years had passed since Sian had seen Little Loom Eyot. Bringing the little sloop in to their dock, she looked for Pino’s boat, but it wasn’t here.

  She tied off the rented sloop, then started walking up the hill, through the tree ferns, toward the house. Arouf met her on the path before she’d gotten halfway there.

  “What has happened?” he asked, concern etching lines on his sun-darkened face. “Pino never returned yesterday — what is that boat?” Several workers stepped out of the dye house to see what was going on.

  “Husband, I have some things to tell you — in private. Come to the house.”

  Arouf frowned again at the sloop, then turned to follow Sian.

  They passed Bela in the kitchen, limping about as she washed pots and prepared adzuki and cherimoya for the evening meal. Closing the door to the sitting room, Sian sat down. Arouf took his customary rattan chair, then peered at her. “Have you done something with your hair?”

  “It goes deeper than that.” She gave him a sad smile. “Something has happened to me — it defies explanation, but I need you to believe me.”

  Arouf, still frowning, nodded. “You have never given me any reason to doubt you,” he said, with a notable emphasis.

  Sian took a deep breath. “Good.” Let that remain true. “Last night, on my way to meet a delegation of Hanchu silk traders, I was attacked by a prayer line. Our Pino was in it, but he vanished before the beating started in earnest.”

  “You were beaten? By Pino?”

  “Quite badly. But not by Pino, no. I just told you …” She checked the impulse to argue. She needed him to listen, for once. To stop just reacting with such instinctive dread to anything out of the ordinary. “He … disappeared when all the trouble started. When they were done, they set me adrift in a small boat, too wounded to move, or even open my eyes. I woke this morning on a deserted islet as you see me now —” she spread her arms, showing her lack of bruises or cuts “ — and feeling no pain.”

  “Are you sure? Let me see.” He got up and came to her, reaching for her arm, taking it gently in his large hands. More intimacy than we’ve had in months, she thought. “Where did they hit you?”

  “Everywhere. But I have no mark.”

  He peered at the exposed skin along her arms, touching her oddly smooth skin. “Yes, you seem quite unharmed.” He gave her a puzzled, skeptical look. “Nothing pains you?”

  “Nothing, no.”

  “But you say they beat you ’til you could not move or see … Then where —?”

  “I did not imagine this, Arouf! My clothing was quite ruined. Still covered in my own blood when I awoke this morning. Maleen loaned me this.”

  “Maleen was involved?”

  “No, I went to her — Malençon was the closest inhabited island. And besides, I feared for her — I fear for us all. Before they set me adrift, a man calling himself the ‘Priest of the Butchered God’ made a point of our family’s connection to the Alkatthas.”

  “This all makes no sense! And now the Alkatthas are involved?” Arouf glanced around in growing agitation. She could almost hear his thoughts: Say it is all a terrible joke. Tell me it was nothing.

  “I have no idea. But then, on my way from Maleen’s to rent a boat, I encountered a wounded boy in the street … and I healed him, just by putting a hand on him.”

  “You … what?”

  “Later, I realized I had likely done the same with baby Jila — she’d been screaming with the colic, yet she quieted at my touch.”

/>   Arouf sank back into his chair, still staring at Sian. “Coincidence. Children love their grandmothers.”

  “That may be — but the boy in the street —”

  “What was his wound? Also colic?”

  Sian leaned forward, trying to manage her frustration. “A knife wound, quite deep and bloody. I touched it. The skin knit back together.”

  “No, such things are impossible! Even the priests-hospitalars do not work such miracles!”

  “I promise you —”

  The door from the kitchen opened, and Bela poked in her head. “Domni, Domina? Do you require anything before I go see to the laundry?”

  Arouf started to answer, but Sian interrupted him. “Yes, please, Bela, would you come in here a moment?” The cook-housekeeper shuffled into the room, hampered, as always, by the twisted leg she had nearly lost in a childhood accident. “You seem to be walking with more difficulty lately. Is that leg giving you more pain?”

  “Sian, I don’t see —” Arouf started, but Sian silenced him with a gesture.

  Puzzled, the housekeeper said, “Yes, my lady. Some. But not enough to bother with. Are you … I hope you do not feel it’s interfering with my work here?”

  “No, no. Of course not. May I touch it?”

  Even more mystified, Bela nodded, then drew her skirts up to just above the knee.

  I hope this works on very old injuries, Sian thought, reaching for Bela’s thigh. She had her answer as soon as her own thigh throbbed, and ginger filled the air. Ginger. Why ginger? she wondered.

  “Oh!” Bela shrieked, drawing back in fear, then astonishment. “Oh! The pain, it is gone!”

  Arouf got up and rushed to Bela, taking her arm. “Sit down! Are you all right?”

  “I am quite well!” She gazed at Sian, wonder in her eyes. “My lady, it is mended!” She straightened her leg, then took a few tentative steps. “It is a miracle!”

  Arouf turned on Sian as she rubbed her own thigh, the pain still ebbing away. His face was filled with naked terror. “What have you done, woman?!”

  “I have shown you that I am telling the truth!”

  “You are a saint!” Bela cried, now hopping from leg to leg.

  “No! What have you done to gain this terrible power?” Arouf shouted. “You will ruin us!” He turned to Bela. “You may not tell anyone of this! Go, now!”

  Crestfallen, Bela slunk from the room.

  “Don’t you yell at her!” Sian shouted, getting to her feet. “She’s done nothing to deserve that.”

  Arouf took a deep breath, visibly gathering himself, though he still shuddered. “Fine,” he said more quietly. “She has not. I still want to know what you have done.”

  “I have done nothing!” Sian said. “Were you not listening to me? This was done to me, I did not ask for it!”

  “If the Mishrah-Khote hears of this, they will have our charter revoked — we will never sell another bolt!”

  “Do you think I don’t know this? Why do you think I’m asking for your help?! We are being targeted, and I don’t know why.”

  “You are being targeted. I am no relation to those Alkatthas.”

  Stunned, Sian stared at Arouf, his stony face, the grim line of his mouth under his thick beard. He would so coldly cut her loose — and their daughters too? — in his worry for the health of their business?

  She had misjudged her lover. Did she know her own husband even less? No. She had known she could not bring this to him from the start. Had she not said so to Maleen?

  And it wasn’t even rational: it was a response born of fear. Denouncing Sian now wouldn’t save him or their business, if it came to that. He simply had no courage; he hadn’t for many years. Had he ever?

  Sian shook her head, then turned and left the room, not stopping until she’d reached the little sloop. There, she looked back at the house. Arouf had made no effort to follow her.

  “So I am alone,” she whispered, and got back into the boat. She had always known.

  A storm was clearly blowing in from the Sunward Sea. Late afternoon sunlight still shone like silver on the choppy water, but the coming front’s capricious winds fought Sian from every side as she returned to Alizar Main. No matter how the sails were trimmed, they soon luffed again, only to snap taut seconds later with a crack, causing the small craft to jibe or heel alarmingly as she struggled with the rudder. It all reminded her, quite forcefully, why she had always let Pino row her here — back when Pino had been here to do so. Not that she gave any thought to turning back.

  It had been naïve of her to think she could hide on Little Loom Eyot — from the Mishrah-Khote or anybody else — even if Arouf had been willing to help. The first time one of their weavers or dye pit workers suffered an injury, Sian would have felt compelled to heal them, even if she had decided to hide this talent. If she could not avoid rushing to the assistance of an urchin in the street, could she stand by while someone she knew suffered? So she would do it, and of course word would have spread. The only way to avoid using this power would be to stay locked in her room, seeing no one, touching no one, hearing nothing from outside its four walls — for the rest of her days? Even if she were mad enough to try such a thing, it was too late for that now, given what she’d just done for Bela.

  As Shingle Beach approached, Sian tacked the boat, avoiding her usual landing. She’d rent a day-berth at the public dock on Viel, then begin her search. Her fear of this Butchered God’s mad-eyed priest had, little by little, given way to a full, fuming anger. Who was this man, to dance in and destroy Sian’s life, mumbling his meaningless apologies as he beat her bloody? In the space of a night and a day, he had upended her life. He had broken her ties to daughter, husband, and lover. And Arouf, cowardly though he may be, was right about one thing: how was she to run a business with this curse? Even if the Mishrah-Khote let her be, the mob of sick and injured at her door never would. She would heal everyone — and perish her own self.

  The mad priest’s powers were certainly real. Her curse proved that. But surely, one with power to give would have power to take as well. She needed to find this man and make him fix what he had broken.

  She struggled to shore at last as evening fell. Loose-tailed bats had started fluttering about the Sinyan coral trees, gobbling up the evening insects as she secured her rented sloop to the dock, then headed for her townhouse. She hoped now that he would be waiting for her there. But all she found was the usual pile of mail, including a note from Reikos:

  Lady Domina Kattë:

  I deeply regret the interruption of our recent negotiation. The fault was entirely mine. An unfortunate presumption, based on erroneous market information, which I have since rectified. If you are still willing to do business with this humble soul, I have just come into possession of some rare and high quality Sircussian cloth that I can only imagine, nay, hope, you might not find utterly odious.

  If you can countenance the possibility of reopening trade with such a careless, worthless bumbler, send word to me on the Fair Passage. I would be more than pleased to arrange a time that I may show you these fine examples of cunning workmanship.

  I remain, forever your servant,

  Konstantin Reikos

  Sian set the note on her desk and frowned. Sircussian cloth, indeed! Well, the apology was nice, she supposed; but his use of one of their saucier code words only demonstrated that he still did not understand the least bit of the problem. This was no mere lover’s spat.

  Taking out a clean sheet of paper, she composed a terse, business-like reply, informing him — in both plain language and underlying code — that, due to unexpected circumstances, of which he was well aware, she would be unavailable to negotiate for the foreseeable future.

  That done, she rose to wash her face at the townhouse’s small sink, then ate every scrap of food left in the house. After that, she shed Maleen’s gauzy silks in favor of a plain, dark outfit of coarser fabric, suitable for weathering the imminent rain. It was time to go out looking for
prayer lines.

  It amused her grimly that just last night she had been unable to travel five steps without tripping over a prayer line, while today it seemed the islands were devoid of them. Perhaps it was the coming storm. Or … had they truly been put there just to trap her? She still could not believe it. Whatever the case, Sian had walked, then resorted to faster travel by runner-cart across Viel, Cutter’s, and Three Cats over the span of four hours, and seen not a single line.

  And she was starving again. I’ve eaten more yesterday and today than I have in the last three weeks put together, she thought, passing up a kava house in favor of a tavern. It was coming on evening; she needed some more substantial meal.

  She had no sooner been served her fisherman’s pie, however, than she heard the telltale chanting and drumming of a prayer line. “Damnation!” she whispered, taking several hurried bites before leaving coin on the table and rushing out.

  It was a short, disorganized line, which she caught up with easily, scanning it but seeing no priest, no Pino. She followed it a few blocks, hanging back as she had done the other night, as it meandered in the usual way, losing members to each tavern and wine-bar it passed. She was considering whether to approach one of the stragglers when the line reached an open plaza and fell apart altogether. A large bonfire whipped and danced in the strong winds, sending smoke into the overhanging banyan trees. Most of the line joined the folk around the blaze.

  Sian walked up too, warming her hands beside a young erstwhile line-member with the scraggly start of a beard. Though the storm had clearly not yet fully broken, a few drops were starting to fall. “Rough night ahead,” she said.

  The young man looked over at her. “Yep. They say this one’ll last a day, maybe two.”

  “Smells like it.”