The Bird of the River

by Kage Baker

  But he was all right. He was alive and all right. He hadn’t drowned or been killed by demons or gotten lost. All her bitter anger dropped away and Eliss felt light enough to fly.

  She heard a cry of surprise from behind her on the deck, and running feet. A second later Pentra was beside her at the rail, waving frantically.

  “Denuseth!”

  They were coming down on the landing now. The handsome one looked up and grinned. Yes, he was handsome, wasn’t he? He waved back at her and they kept coming. Alder looked up, saw Eliss, and his face screwed up as though he was going to start crying again.

  Now other people on deck had noticed and come to the rail to stare. Eliss turned and ran down the gangplank. She threw her arms around Alder and hugged him tight, blind with tears. Alder drew a deep breath.

  “I’m sorry I ran away without telling you,” he said. “I apologize.”

  Eliss only clung to him, her throat too tight to get any words out. She heard Pentra saying to—to Denuseth, that must be his name—“It was so kind of you to bring him back.”

  “No, it was selfish. An excuse to see you again.”

  “Are you all right?” Eliss managed to say at last. Alder nodded, but she couldn’t remember ever seeing him look so unhappy.

  “And I bring news from Caiwyr.” That was Denuseth again. “A letter, and a bag of apple tea.”

  “How is he?”

  “Well. He’ll tell you the rest.”

  It had been easier to be angry at Alder than to imagine him dying alone somewhere. Eliss thought of all the ways in which she had been comparing Alder to the uncles who had come and gone, when he was only a little boy after all, and miserable at having to live in the wrong world.

  Eliss swallowed hard. She looked up at Mr. Moss, who was watching them, without any expression she recognized. “Thank you,” she said. “Mr. Moss, would it be all right—would you take my brother as an apprentice?”

  Mr. Moss nodded slowly. Alder pulled away from her and looked up into her face. “Please,” he whispered.

  “Is it truly what you wish?” said Mr. Moss.

  “Yes,” said Eliss. “It is. As long as I know he’s safe, it’s all right.”

  “He will be safe with us.”

  “Eliss, I’ll be so careful, I’ll learn things and—and I can send you medicines if you ever get sick,” Alder babbled.

  “It’s not as though you won’t see each other again,” said Pentra, holding out a handkerchief to Eliss. “Twice a year, the Bird stops at Moonport.”

  Eliss nodded and wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry you had to come so far for nothing,” she told Mr. Moss. He shook his head.

  “Without this, both your lives would be poisoned,” he said. “Now that weed is pulled.”

  “Have you got your blanket?” Eliss looked down at Alder.

  “I have my blanket. And a place to sleep.” His slow smile brightened to radiant happiness. “And summer is coming soon. It is, Eliss. It finally really is.”

  Next day the Bird of the River set sail and continued on her journey, Mr. Pitspike having been carried aboard semiconscious the previous night. With Denuseth and Mr. Moss, Alder stood on the landing and waved good-bye to Eliss, who watched him from the mast platform as long as she dared. He seemed taller already.

  She felt an odd sensation, like a tug on her attention. She looked down at the deck. Captain Glass stood at the tiller, his broad expressionless face turned up to her.

  “You did good, Vigilance,” he called.

  That night as Eliss was getting ready for bed, Pentra came in with a little pot of hot water.

  “I’m going to make some tea,” she said. “Would you like any?”

  “Yes, please. Thank you.” Eliss sat up. She watched curiously as Pentra opened a locker and got out a canister and a small pottery jar with a spigot. She set them on the dresser, shook some of the canister’s contents into the jar, and added the hot water. “Er . . . all I have to drink out of is my bowl, but you don’t have to fill it all the way.”

  “Wait.” Pentra set the pan aside and took something else from the locker. She turned around and opened a wooden box to reveal a set of celadon cups nested in velvet. “These will do. We can use a pair of these, don’t you think?”

  “If you don’t mind—they’re awfully nice.”

  “Well, they’re meant to be used.” Pentra set out two cups on the dresser. She checked the jar, swirling its contents a little. A pungent sweetness filled the cabin, a smell like orchard leaves in autumn. “Mm. Ready soon.”

  “What kind of tea is it?”

  “I don’t know its real name. I’ve always called it apple tea, because of its scent. It isn’t made from apples, though. It’s an herb. My son grows it for me.”

  “You have a son?” Eliss was shocked. She hadn’t thought Pentra was that old. Pentra nodded.

  “Caiwyr. He’s just about your age. Studying at a Yendri, well, we’d call it a temple, but they wouldn’t. He’s a disciple of the Green Witch, which is what we’d call her, but the Yendri certainly wouldn’t. They call her the Unwearied Mother.”

  “She’s supposed to be like a goddess.” Eliss remembered Alder describing what he’d heard. “Except they haven’t got any.”

  “She works miracles all the same, or so I am given to understand.” Pentra checked the tea again and carefully set one of the cups under the spigot. She filled the cup and presented it to Eliss. “And anyone can become a disciple. Even children of double heritage, like my son, or your brother.”

  “Is . . . is your son’s father Denuseth?”

  “Yes.” Pentra filled her own cup and leaned against her bunk, inhaling the tea’s fragrance.

  “You . . . how did you manage? Because Mama—” Eliss stopped, abashed.

  Pentra sipped her tea. “How did I manage . . . the fact is that I was still rather angry about my family, during my first few years as a free adult. I wasn’t nearly as free nor as adult as I thought I was, in fact. I think on some level I wanted to shock them still further, and the best way to do that would be to take a Yendri lover. Possibly the worst reason in the world for beginning a romance with someone.

  “I was part of a mapping expedition at the time. We camped near a Yendri place and some of them came over to find out what we were doing, because we were more or less on their land, though of course they don’t have the same conception of property that we do. One of them was this big devastatingly handsome savage and I thought, well! That’s for me. So I behaved like a little wanton idiot and we got to know each other rather better.

  “And of course I discovered he wasn’t a savage at all, but in fact a much more civilized person than I was. Made me thoroughly ashamed of myself. Worse still, I fell desperately in love with him.”

  “Why was that bad?”

  “Because he wasn’t about to come live in our cities, and I wasn’t about to come live in the forest. We quarreled and I left with the expedition, crying my heart out. I cried a lot harder a month or two later, I can tell you, when I discovered the baby was on the way.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Sublet my nice rooms and took a caravan back to the Greenlands. Got out at a watering stop and took the expedition’s trail back into the forest. The other passengers thought I was insane. But I found Denuseth again, and lived with his family until the baby was born.”

  “You lived with the Yendri?”

  “Had to, dear. You know yourself what our people would have thought about it if I’d stayed in one of our cities.”

  Eliss nodded, remembering the day Alder had been born. Kindly neighbors had suddenly become cold, or hostile outright. “But . . . what was it like?”

  “Awful. At first. I thought so, anyway. Everyone was very kind, and being with Denuseth was wonderful, but . . . one sleeps outdoors. I had never done that except on an expedition, when at least one had a tent, and one knew one was coming back to four walls and a roof and hot bathwater. And the Yendri bathe a great deal,
they’re cleaner than we are in that respect really, but they only bathe in cold water, so that was a shock. They don’t use fire very much, in fact they only really cook food for invalids. So you can imagine I spent the entire time cold and hungry and picking twigs out of my hair.

  “And so bored . . . Yendri tell long stories in their own language, beautiful to listen to as music, but I didn’t understand them unless Den translated. They hold wonderful dances, but as time went on I wasn’t really up to dancing much. Den’s mother taught me how to spin cotton and weave on a loom, and I loved doing that. Wove a great many blankets for the baby. But I knew I could never stay there.”

  “Couldn’t he have come with you and opened a bathhouse or something?” Eliss inquired. “Yendri live in cities. I’ve seen them.”

  “Yes, but Den wasn’t a white-robe. And trust me, dear, he’d have been as wretched in a city as I was in the forest. Love may conquer all, but it has a hard time keeping its temper when it’s always uncomfortable and never gets a full night’s sleep. We talked about our situation a great deal.

  “And then the baby was born and I saw at once I could never take him away with me. He was as much a Yendri as your brother is.

  “I left him with Denuseth and I went back home. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done. I ate in my favorite restaurants. I went to the theater. I bathed in copious amounts of hot water and curled up in my own bed in my cozy room and I was absolutely miserable for months. I missed my baby. I missed Denuseth. I couldn’t be happy in either world, and I’d done it to myself.

  “But it worked out. Eventually.”

  “What did you do?” Eliss remembered her tea and tasted it. It had a sweet haunting flavor.

  “I was working in the city archivists’ office when a friend told me that the Bird of the River needed a cartographer. I presented myself and Captain Glass signed me on. The first time we stopped at Moonport, Denuseth was there with Caiwyr. Somehow, he’d known I was coming. One of those mystic Yendri things, I suppose. I’d been praying we’d meet again, I had this box full of toys I’d bought for my child, and I felt so foolish but he was delighted with them when he finally saw them . . . I’m sure they made a bigger impression on him than I did.” Pentra’s gaze was far away.

  “What happened then?”

  “What?” She looked down at Eliss and smiled. “We had a lovely visit and when the Bird sailed on, I sailed with her. And since then I see Denuseth twice each transit, at Moonport. Caiwyr used to come with him until he went to train for a disciple, but he sends me letters now. He wants to open a bathhouse and herbalist’s establishment at Moonport, when he’s fulfilled his novitiate. We’re very proud of him, Den and I.

  “Now, I wouldn’t in any way counsel you to follow my example in romance. I was selfish, and foolish, and have paid for it with a great deal of heartache. But you can see, can’t you, that your brother will be all right? He’s in the proper world at last. It’s bound to improve his temper.” Pentra drained her cup. “There’s a little tea left. Would you like a bit more?”

  The summer days melted one into another, an endless journey past yellow meadows, past open savannahs scattered with oak trees, under a hot blue sky. Sometimes where they moored for the night there were thickets of blackberries, and people would go ashore and fill pails full of them, and for days the staining juice got everywhere. Mr. Pitspike made blackberry wine, storing it in stone jars belowdecks, and one night a couple of the jars exploded and woke everyone.

  When the weather was too hot, everyone slept on deck; when it became oppressive enough, people gave up on sleeping and the musicians simply stayed up all night, playing quietly as the stars drifted across the vault of the sky. Sometimes stories were told, folktales and hero-epics in the early evening, darker stories after the children had finally nodded off. Drogin had a bloodcurdling series of anecdotes about the Old Wars and the dead who were supposed to haunt the battlefields forever after. Kettrick the fiddler had once lived in a haunted house in Mount Flame, where each full moon at midnight a ghostly fight took place on the front stairs, and one night a city warden had gone to break it up and seen only skeletal figures clutching clubs and knives, and he had gone raving mad.

  Salpin swore he had once been benighted on a mountain road and walked side by side with the Master of the Mountain himself, whom he had seen, quite clearly and distinctly, every time the moon had come out from behind the clouds; until, in a flare of lightning and a clap of thunder, the demon-lord had transported him to a forest clearing on a mountaintop. There a great assemblage of demons in fine clothes awaited, and Salpin had been forced to play his concertina for their amusement until daybreak, when he had been given a drink that knocked him unconscious, and woke hours later by the side of the road with a pocket full of gold.

  After a couple of hours of this sort of story most listeners felt an agreeable chill, enabling them to doze until the sky lightened and the stars winked out, and another day on the river began.

  “Mr. Pitspike says we’ll be at Silver Trout Landing tomorrow.” Krelan put his head through the mast platform entrance. Eliss, who had been trying to decide whether a particular ripple was a submerged rock or an otter, jumped in surprise. “Do you want to come ashore with me?”

  “I’d like that,” said Eliss. “Wasn’t that where your lord is supposed to have stopped?”

  “So I was informed.” Krelan pulled himself up and through.

  “Do you want me to pretend to be your wife again?” Eliss gave him an arch look.

  “I just want you to listen as I talk to people,” said Krelan. “We won’t get a chance to do much more. It isn’t that kind of place.”

  “What do you need me for, then?”

  “You notice things,” said Krelan. “And I’m beginning to think you’re smarter than I am.”

  By law the Bird of the River was entitled to supplies at every town on the river, as part of the tithing arrangement for clearing out navigation hazards. The inhabitants of Silver Trout Landing found contact with the barge distasteful, however, since they considered themselves more of a destination resort or enclave than a mere town, and so they had built their cargo dock and warehouse a few hundred yards down the waterfront from their main moorings.

  The Bird drew up at the warehouse dock and anchored. Eliss climbed down on deck and found Krelan emptying a bucket of grease as he stared across at the pleasure-boat moorings.

  “How are we ever going to get over there?” he said in an undertone, looking panicked.

  “There’s a road.” Eliss pointed at the stone promenade that led from the cargo dock to the moorings. It was wide, with a graceful balustrade and marble busts at regular intervals along the walkway.

  “I know, but we’re poor!” said Krelan. “If we attempt to wander out on that walkway we’ll be stopped by one of their security men before we’ve gone ten paces. And I lost my Young Nobleman costume in Prayna.”

  “What do you want to do over there, anyway?” Eliss shaded her eyes with her hand, peering through the sunlight at the moorings.

  “Talk to the Harbormaster, and anyone else I can find to interview, if I can just get to him. I can tell him I’m working undercover, which is the truth anyway. Look at the boats to see whether any of them are the Fire-Swift, maybe with a new name. But I certainly can’t get you over there.”

  “Maybe you can.” Eliss was struck by an idea. “Go put on your clean clothes. Captain, sir?” She turned and hurried to intercept Captain Glass, who was just going down the companionway to his cabin. “How long are we staying here?”

  He squinted at her. “Just as long as it takes to load on provisions. They don’t want us here any longer than that. We smell.”

  “A couple of hours?”

  “Three or four.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “Make it quick, Vigilance.”

  “Yes, sir.” Eliss ran across the deck to Pentra, who was rolling out a fresh sheet of map paper over her drafting table.

  “Pentra, may I borrow
something?”

  Fifteen minutes later Mr. Riveter, busily overseeing the loading-on of jars of cooking oil, was distracted by Eliss and Krelan walking down the gangplank. Krelan was neat if undistinguished in his clean tunic, but Eliss wore an actual gown of reed-green silk with a veil and sun hat. Mr. Riveter scratched his beard, trying to find words to express his astonishment, but Krelan clapped him on the shoulder before he could speak.

  “We’re just going ashore. I’m playing a little joke on an elderly uncle of mine. Won’t be but an hour or so.”

  Eliss meanwhile had ventured to the promenade. As she approached, a guard in a white tunic bearing the embroidered words SILVER TROUT LANDING MOORING OWN ERS’ ASSOCIATION stepped out from between a pair of busts of former Mooring Owners’ Association presidents and said, firmly but politely, “May I help you, miss?”

  “Lady Sirilyne has an engagement with one of the parties moored at the Landing,” said Krelan, who had run to catch up with her. The guard raised an eyebrow.

  “Does Lady Sirilyne usually travel by barge?”

  “She does when she has met with an unforeseen mishap whilst traveling and had to accept transport on the first available vessel that could carry her to a more civilized spot,” said Krelan.

  “Sir, if you please,” Eliss said, imitating Pentra’s accent as closely as she could. “This is a private matter.”

  “And she would appreciate, and moreover her father and uncles and brothers would appreciate, no additional complications to her already distressing situation,” said Krelan meaningfully. The guard gulped, looked over his shoulder, and stepped aside.

  “Gods grant you greater felicity, madam,” he said.

  “Thank you,” said Eliss. Krelan took her arm and walked her swiftly past.

  “Just for future reference,” he said quietly, “you wouldn’t say thank you. Not to a guard. You’re a great lady. He hasn’t done you a favor; in fact, he’s overstepped his authority by questioning you. Right now you’re probably thinking of having a couple of your servants come back here and beat him within an inch of his life. And he knows it, and he’s sweating about it.”