by Tanith Lee
They learned a little about the prince.
He was a landowner’s son from the north-east, schooled in Paris, and at the great University in Petragrava. But he had been leading a dissolute life lately, until deciding to change his ways and to become, as he put it with a flippant, rueful smile, “Virtuous” for his father’s sake.
On the other hand no one ever did quite learn where precisely he had been born or raised, where he had carried on his dissolution, nor what made him give it up (assuming he had for he still gambled for money and drank quite an amount before, during and after supper).
The general consensus was that he was likeable and liked. A pleasure to the eye, the ear, and—for he often good-naturedly lost at cards—the pocket of many aboard.
Some five days into the voyage the ship called at the port of Ghuzel. Here a handful more passengers joined her. Only one was notable, for this male figure too was a glamorous creation quite out of the ordinary.
Zephyrin—if Zephyrin owned another name nobody had discovered it during the trip—looked a very young man, who seemed at least some ten years the junior of Prince Vendrei, sixteen perhaps or at most eighteen. Unusual in one so immature, however, was Zephyrin’s knowledge, poise, and ability to charm and to contend with everyone and thing—saving, of course, the prince himself.
For it was evident by the end of Zephyrin’s first day on board, that the young one and the elder one had fallen into an immediate hatred of each other.
Could it be they were jealous? Unlikely as it seemed, some of the passengers suggested this to each other. Two men, they said, of such wonderful looks and such otherwise incompatible aspects, could well find causes for resentment. For example, Vendrei was the elder, might not approve a rival with so much extra youth to spare. Formerly, after all, Vendrei had been the voyage’s sole magician, particularly among the women passengers. But it seemed they liked the newcomer just as much. Or more...
As for Zephyrin: clearly not well-off, and occupying quarters in the ship’s belly, an airless stern area below-decks, private enough but dark, dank and rat-nipped. Zephyrin meanwhile was clad only in an old black cavalry uniform from an unrecognisable battalion of Europe. (Some said too this might even be a mercenary band). The attached sword, for as an army officer, which Zephyrin claimed to be, the young person had one, was plain steel in a drab sheath and showed no crest.
There was another odd thing.
Zephyrin’s thick almost white hair—was a wig. That was not so uncommon among the gentry, but for an impoverished army captain it could have seemed an odd affectation, if Zephyrin had not swiftly made allusion to it in an off-hand way. It turned out: “In infancy I fell deathly ill and almost died. Though a clever physician saved my life, my hair dropped out and never fully regrew, save, as you see, for my brows and lashes.” For this reason Zephyrin wore the realistic wig, a moon-blond mane, on which was clapped a protective hat when anything more than a faint breeze blew. The captain was beardless also for the same past cause; not even the long strong fingers gave any evidence of hair. These facts seemed neither to embarrass or inconvenience Zephyrin. Yet the shade of the wig, chosen presumably to compliment the soldier’s own pale colouring, might hint at vanity? The brows too—were they perhaps a little darkened? The eyes needed no help at all. They were large and of a sombre green, more malachite than jade.
Eyes notwithstanding, did this interloper loathe the luxuriantly-locked Vendrei? Covet his good birth, education and money? Zephyrin had revealed nothing of parentage or natal country, and spoke, albeit in a musical tenor, only the language of the ship - and that with an army accent. Probably such a life as his had been perilous and disgraceful. All of which might be a cause for discontent.
Whatever did touch the spark to the powder, each of the drama’s actors was quickly a foe to the other.
Ymil had seen their quarrel begin.
He himself was nothing, was a writer. He had neither excess cash nor fame, no property, no clout, had been born in a backstreet of Petragrava itself, but to a street-girl who knew less of Ymil’s father than Ymil knew of the kingdom of God. Dragged up as through a thorn-hedge backwards, (as he himself had sometimes said), Ymil travelled about on the business of others who paid him, and wrote when he had a moment on paper, with a series of leaky ink-pencils. But always he was writing in his mind.
Frankly, he thought, he might have devised and written the first abridgement between Ven and Zeph himself. For, if unacknowledged, Ymil was more arrogant than either of these slender, be-sworded, masculined beauties, and had a brain like a thirsty sponge.
That first day then, starting off from the port of Ghuzel, with the sea skilfully hooking and knotting together its delicate lace of foam...
“And so, sir. I seem to interest you?”
This from golden-mane Vendrei, to the soldier they did not yet know as Zephyrin.
“Your pardon. You? And... I?”
“Just so. Ever since you came aboard this vessel. Not a great while, I admit. But sufficient time, it appears, to learn to stare.”
“You must excuse me,” said the shabby, beautiful, young, flaxen captain. “I failed to see you at all. How remiss, as you seem to require to be looked at. And I, so rudely, did not notice you and looked—directly, er—through you. “
Ymil, at the scene’s perimeter, raised mental ears as high as a hare’s.
“Truly? Through me. How quaint. But I suppose you’re not accustomed to mixing with my sort.”
“Your... sort?” questioned the captain, gently.
“Oh, an aristocrat, an educated man who travels a great amount—”
“I see. In the travelling way of a merchant, do you mean? One who sells things?” asked the captain, raising an eyebrow.
“Not in that way at all, sir. In the way of a man of leisure, who may please himself.”
“Ah,” said the fair captain. Then paused as if admiringly impressed. Before adding, with mildest interest, “And do you find you do, sir? I mean, please yourself? Or ... anyone ?”
For a heartbeat Gold-hair looked as if he might laugh. But then he checked and coldly said, “Your impertinence is evidently due to your lack both of breeding and grasp of any language you are attempting to converse in. I’ll leave you to compose yourself. Good morning. Yet perchance, a word of advice from one a little older than yourself. Don’t stare.”
The captain curtly bowed. And replied, “I shall attempt to benefit from your estimable warning. Perchance I can return the favour by exhorting you, sir, to avoid giving such cause.”
Thus, their first exchange.
Certainly, a very childish way of going on. Fascinated, nevertheless Ymil thought so. But being as he was, and doing what he did, human things intrigued and captivated him, and to a greater extent in their displays of extremis.
He had already been watching all and everyone, constant to his normal formula. Then when the boyish captain came aboard Ymil was instantly prepared to watch especially hard. But anyone might think Zephyrin a curiosity.
Unlike Zephyrin, Ymil’s close but cunning scrutiny had not been noted.
And indeed, as Ymil had seen, Zephyrin had stared on and on at Vendrei. Spoiling for a fight from the start, seemingly.
Their duel stayed verbal, however, for eight further days and nights.
But they would not keep a minute in each other’s vicinity without some quip or carp. Even once Zephyrin, passing Vendrei, who was strolling with the two Athenians, simply whistled a snatch of song. It was the ballad from a popular play, concerning a stupid fop who fancied he was a king among women, while at his back all females scorned him. Leaving the ladies, Vendrei walked over to Zephyrin. “It’s unlucky to whistle at sea.”
“Oh, is it? Why?”
“Because, captain, you may summon something to you that may prove unwelcome.”
At this Zephyrin shrugged, and smilingly asked, “Yourself?”
But it was a fact, they could not even hand each other the salt at table in t
he saloon, not even blow their noses or look at the stars, without one would make unfavourable comment on it in the hearing of the other.
On the eighth day, as the ship bore north-easterly under peerless skies, Zephyrin came up on deck, apparently, one might have thought, searching for Vendrei. Instead the searcher found a seat the older man had occupied, where lay one of Vendrei’s Latin books, which contained some of the writings of Catullus.
To Ymil’s surprise—could Zeph decipher Latin? —the slender captain began to read, or pretend to read, the book.
Back came Vendrei.
“What do you think you’re at, sir, in God’s name? Put that down. It is my property. It was my father’s—I won’t have your unclean paws on it—down, I say!” he almost shouted, as if to some unruly hound.
Not before had Ymil witnessed Vendrei quite so out of his coolth.
Zephyrin though looked up calmly, and recited from the book, in excellent Latin: “Miser Vendre, desinas ineptire et quot vides perisse perditum ducas.”
Ymil’s not unlessoned brain bounded after the words. They came, he thought, from the lyric poems, but Zephyrin had replaced Catullus’ own name with a version of Vendrei. The meaning? Approximately— “Piteable Vendrei, leave off your clowning, and relinquish as lost what you can see is lost.”
The prince had gone white.
“And what do you suppose, you dog, I have lost? What can you know of loss, dog, that never possessed a single thing of worth, nor would know one now if ever it should lie before you? “
“Ah,” said Zephyrin, getting up and replacing the book neatly on the seat. “But I do know a thing of worth when it is before, me. Even if it lies there dead on its back.”
And so saying the younger antagonist walked off, leaving the elder one in a definite state of ire and discomfort.
Dead on its back?
What could that mean?
The Athenian ladies, (with both of whom, Ymil believed, Vendrei had a romantic nocturnal understanding), were whispering nervously. Prince Vendrei went to them, gracefully flirting and soothing, apologising for his annoyance, saying the other fellow was scum, and not to be thought of anymore.
Gradually Vendrei’s colour returned to normal. The ‘other fellow’, Ymil had thought, had flushed in equal amounts to Vendrei’s pallor. As if they were a balance of heat and cold.
There must then be more to all this than mere jealous antipathy, must there not? Of course, Ymil was already quite informed that madness motivated Zephyrin. But in this matter the cause stayed unsure.
Zephyrin in any case did not ornament the saloon with personal presence that evening. And the following afternoon, which was on the ninth day of the voyage, they were far out on the crossing, not even the hint of an island yet on the horizon, and a card game was started up.
The gaming table had been set out on deck, under the sail aft, for at that point the light was mellow and the weather slow and honey-sweet. Vendrei was playing, losing as so often he did and with his usual good manners, to the old merchant from Chabbit and the wily widow from Tint, plus two or three more that Ymil later could not quite remember, a thing for which, in the wake of the shipwreck and their vanishment, he chid himself.
About three o’clock by the sun, Zephyrin appeared like an early moon. What a beautiful creature, all that ivory blondness, and such a face—nearly, Ymil judged, fine-carved as a woman’s—and those black-green eyes, level as two silver spoons full-drawn from the deeps of the sea.
Never before had this rogue officer deigned to join in with the gambling. Now a chair was selected and the figure sat itself, directly facing Vendrei across the painted oblongs of the cards.
“The stakes are high,” said Vendrei flatly.
Zephyrin did something that chilled Ymil through; drawing the dull notched blade of cavalry sword, that pale hand laid it along the table’s edge. “The sword’s all I possess of any value. Will it do?”
The table was silent as the inside of a lead box.
Much later, Ymil believed that this, in actuality, was the initial moment when the temper of sea and sky might be felt to change.
“Young sir,” said the Tintian widow, in hesitant Greek, “are thee so desperate thee does risk the weapon of thy trade?”
Zephyrin bowed. “I’ve risked it in battle, madam. Now I do so again. For here’s another battle.”
“Come, lad,” said the Chabbit merchant. “You’re hardly older than my boy, my last born by my dear wife, now in Heaven’s garden. Put up the sword. I’ll lend you coins –”
“No, sir, with my thanks. My fight, not yours.”
“What fight is this, then?” asked another man.
But obviously they knew, having assumed it was the eternal feud between the captain and the prince.
Zephyrin stretched out long legs. Despite that slender frame, they had all seen, Zephyrin was strong, and only three or four inches less in height than tall Vendrei himself.
“He cheats,” now said Zephyrin casually, and nodding at Vendrei almost companionably. “I wish to prove it.”
Few jaws that did not drop. A buzz of astonishment next. Then the Chabbitese, not illogically exclaimed, “Cheats, boy! You’re cracked. His honour loses nine times out of ten”“
“Yes, such is his cleverness, gentlemen and lady. For he lulls you all. Then, during the last days, when we near the wine-red shore of Taurus, he’ll win the hoard back by his tricks, and fleece you of the rest down to the very skin, like shorn goats. I’ve met his sort before. A prince? You only have his word for that. I’d not put it past the devil to search your luggage and filch your wallets too.”
All this while, a steady background syncopation, there had been the slap-slap of Vendrei’s glove on his boot; Vendrei merely keeping time.
But now that ceased, for Vendrei got to his feet. And it was exactly then that Ymil swung about and glared away to starboard, dazzled, his mind leaping and crying to him, Of course, you idiot Ymil! It’s THAT! What else can it be? All bloody lies—
After which he heard the duellist’s challenge, the blow of the glove to each of Zephyrin’s cheeks. And the sky filled as if from one of Ymil’s leaky ink-pencils, and the storm rose from the belly of the deep.
3
Above the sands of the rock-strewn beach, the land lifted into wild green woods of feathery poplar and giant freckled laurel, shadowed by pine and fir and other conifers.
Beyond, nothing was visible that any of them could make out. Although the Chabbitese merchant’s son had said at dawn he had seen something vague and far away that might be either a mountain—or a cloud. An hour after, this had disappeared.
Conversely, to either side of the landfall, the shore tapered gradually into high, grainy cliffs, perhaps impassable.
Their party was small. It comprised a pair of sailors named Dakos and Crazt, the merchant and his son, (said son having helped his father ashore, since the merchant could not swim), the old Tintian widow, who claimed God and her skirts had borne her up, and Ymil. There were just two others. Vendrei. Zephyrin.
It transpired they both could swim very well. And even Zephyrin’s precious wig had been spared by the sea, for it had somehow been kept clamped on under the hat.
Everything else of moment, or use, however, was lost, drunk down by the greedy water.
Not a single gun had been saved. The flintlocks from Ymil’s, Vendrei’s and the widow’s baggage lay in the ocean’s basement. Not even the ancient explosive matchlock Dakos had prided himself on remained. The sailors and the widow—she had been commendably well-armed—had retained a variety of small knives. But they would be effective for no more, as the merchant remarked, than picking one’s nails or teeth. The merchant’s son had his pocket catapult, but the string had snapped.
As for Vendrei and Zephyrin’s blades—they were gone.
The latter’s sword, as everyone well recalled, had been taken off minutes before the storm, and laid on the card table as surety. While Vendrei’s sword-belt, bl
ade included, had been ripped from around his waist by the violence of the waves. Gone too were his coat and waistcoat. Most of the survivors were tattered and bereft also of certain items of clothing. The widow had suffered the least, had lost only hairpins, allowing her magnificent silver and ebony tresses to tumble free around her. Ymil, even in this extremity, noticed the merchant abruptly taking her in. Though not young, a little older than he, she was comely, and had shown herself a woman of character.
Despite losses, the new day was warm when once the sun rose. The previous night they had lit a fire, which was made easily possible by driftwood and shed branches in the wood. They had no problem with fresh water either. A small freshet ran from the wood into a pool adjacent to the beach. They must only therefore get their bearings, organise a look-out for shipping, and for helpful or harmful visitors—persons, animals. A search must be made too for eatable food.
These duties were now undeniably prime targets.
Not one among them could disagree.
Vendrei stood in the morning light and scowled in fury at them all.
“Be damned to that. The lying filth there owes me his life. We are sworn to a duel. For me, nothing else shall count till I have settled it in his blood.”
And Zephyrin, who had been sitting on a rock, inspecting the salt damage to his boots, glanced up and said, “For once, he and I are in some agreement. I can give my mind to nothing until the matter’s seen to, in blood certainly, but his, of course, not mine.”
Vendrei swore inventively and at some length. The widow and the merchant’s son looked on in envy. The others, Ymil included, were slightly shocked by the terms and the words in several languages.