Tathea

by Anne Perry

  “Cassiodorus, son of Critos of Parfyrion, we have found you guilty of blasphemy, and we sentence you to depart these shores and never return as long as you shall live. You have betrayed your trust, and your name shall be removed from among us.”

  Cassiodorus raised his manacled hands, his body leaning forward, bull-like, menacing, and stared around the room at the hushed crowd.

  “My name will never be removed! Parfyrion will know me centuries after you are dust in the streets, and your children’s children after you.” He looked at Allomir. “You speak for an age that is locked in the past without ideas and without life. You will perish with it before tomorrow comes. And you!” He swiveled to stare at Tathea. “Woman, you have betrayed me.” Suddenly his voice was soft, intimate, for her alone. “I know who you are. I have written your name on my hands, and I shall remember you in all the days that are to come. You will pray on your knees that I should forget, but I will not. Your God cannot protect you from me.” He jerked his head sideways derisively. “Ask Ishrafeli! He will tell you!”

  She wanted to answer him, but her mouth was dry and her throat almost too tight to breathe. The words pounded in her head but would not reach her tongue. She meant to defy him but she was seized with silence.

  Cassiodorus threw his head back and wrenched his arms up away from the guards and smashed them down, splintering the railing. It was not an attempt to escape, simply a demonstration of his strength and a rallying cry to the young men in the court who had already risen to their feet and were pushing aside the older and weaker and more hesitant as they forced their way out. Other youths stood silent and afraid.

  Cassiodorus was escorted away. People moved to huddle together in anxiety. A shadow had settled over the room.

  Allomir walked across the floor to Tathea. “You have done well,” he said gravely. His black eyes searched her face, trying to gauge how far she had intended her victory. “Parfyrion is in your debt.” His lips tightened. “But walk carefully, lady. Cassiodorus will not forgive you.”

  “I know,” she said hoarsely. She wanted to sound confident, but it was beyond her power.

  The judges thanked her also. She turned to leave, uncertain what she had done or what she had learned. If this was part of the truth she sought, she was far from understanding it.

  She saw Phraxus coming towards her, his brow furrowed. He did not speak until he had reached her.

  “You meant to do that!” His voice lifted with admiration as if he could scarcely believe it.

  She did not know what to say. She was assailed by doubt. Where was Ishrafeli? She wanted to speak to him, to be near him. His opinion mattered intensely.

  “It is not the truth?” she asked, finding her voice at last, but it sounded like defiance, not a question.

  Phraxus’s face was suddenly bleak. “Yes,” he answered quickly. “Perhaps I should have known sooner. I have fought beside him often enough, but I read the signs for what I hoped was true.” He offered his arm. “Come, we should leave. You must be hungry and tired. And I think it would be safer for you not to remain.” He guided her through the milling, jostling crowd outside into the sun and bright air. Allomir was on the steps a few yards away, his robes gleaming white.

  She saw Ishrafeli coming towards them. He had been waiting here for her. His eyes searched her face.

  There was a cry. They all swung round. A young soldier had darted forward, sword drawn, and lunged at Allomir. Allomir looked down, eyes wide as scarlet blood gushed from his chest. The moment seemed frozen as he stood perfectly straight, dazzled by the sun, then gradually buckled at the knees and slid forward onto the stones.

  A woman screamed. A slow rumble of horror went up from the crowd, increasing until it was shrill with rage and a deep, underlying terror.

  Phraxus was white-faced, his eyes hollow. He stood rooted, too stricken to speak.

  Tathea felt a touch at her elbow. She knew without looking that it was Ishrafeli.

  The crowd was beginning to break up. Men were running forward. Several had drawn weapons. Blind anger surged like a trapped wave of the sea, creating a vortex which sooner or later must consume everything. Fear was so sharp Tathea could taste it, acrid like the smell of sweat. There was shouting; women were screaming. Someone was calling out orders. Several people ran around blindly. Others huddled together. Then the fighting began.

  Tathea turned as if compelled, and above the crowd she saw the towering figure of Cassiodorus, the same brilliance in his eyes, the curl of triumph on his thick lips.

  She swung round to Phraxus. He too was staring at Cassiodorus, his old commander. The sun was on his face, the wind in his eyes. Around them was the heat and dust of the city square, the tumult of milling people unaware of the challenge being cast down.

  Cassiodorus was free of his guards, and he was armed. Carefully, very deliberately, he drew his sword, the light glistening on its blade.

  Ishrafeli pulled Tathea a step backwards, away from Phraxus. Somewhere a woman was sobbing in terror.

  Phraxus lowered his hand until it rested on the hilt of his own sword, the sun on his bare arms, catching the fine gold hairs. He hesitated a moment, knowing that if he drew it there would be no turning back. Then he completed the movement, brought the bright blade out and held it up. It was civil war.

  There was a roar from the crowd. A man shouted his allegiance, then another, then a score.

  Ishrafeli gripped Tathea’s arm; she felt the pain of his fingers on her flesh, and she had no choice but to follow him as he pushed his way out of the square and along the broad street down to the harbor. Behind them the noise was growing uglier. Along the pavement, doors were closing. A child started to cry, standing in the middle of the road, his face twisted with fear.

  Tathea hesitated, longing at least to see if he was safe.

  A group of youths came out of a side street ahead of her. Two had broadswords. They spread out to bar the way, their faces surly, eyes bright.

  Ishrafeli stopped, half pushing Tathea behind him.

  The first youth swaggered forward and stood splay-legged a yard in front of them, sneering. But it was Tathea he was looking at, recognition in his face.

  “It’s her!” he said loudly, jerking his head to his companions. “She’s the one who betrayed Cassiodorus!” He fingered his sword. Then he swung it and lunged forward.

  Ishrafeli dodged without apparent effort, lifted his arm, feinted, and caught the youth with a blow to the back of the neck, sending him sprawling to the ground where he lay still.

  One of the others let out a yell of rage and started forward with his sword slashing. He showed more skill and far more preparedness.

  Tathea was horrified. She hurled herself forward to the fallen man, seized his sword, and threw it to Ishrafeli.

  The fight was swift and violent and left the youth mortally wounded and Ishrafeli ashen-faced, his arms and clothes stained with blood. He snatched Tathea by the arm and started to run, dragging her stumbling down the steep slope past the fading beauty of the buildings to the harbor, where the tide was high and their skiff riding easily. He almost threw her in, loosed the rope, pushed the weight of his body against the hull for a moment, then leaped over the widening spread of green water to land in the stern.

  “The sail!” he ordered her. “Unbind that end!” He pointed, and with fumbling fingers she obeyed. Behind them Parfyrion was ocher, fire and gold in the setting sun. Already the sky was stained with smoke. Together they worked, muscles straining, hands bruised and grazed, to lift the sails and catch the faint breeze.

  They gathered speed over water so bright it looked like a sheet of bronze, their purple sails wide. She looked at Ishrafeli where he stood holding the ropes. His face was copper in the burning light. He seemed older than she had thought before. In the set of his lips there was grief as ancient as heaven.

  Only when Parfyrion was a smoking blur smudged across the horizon and the fire of the sunset burned heavy in the west did he lash th
e ropes and come to her, kneeling in front of her, touching her cheek with his fingers.

  “You wanted the truth,” he whispered. “Did you imagine it would come to you without labor or pain?”

  “I don’t believe that was the truth.” Her voice choked in tears.

  He smiled at her and softly put his hand over hers, warm now, but he said no more.

  Chapter III

  TATHEA WOKE WITH A gasp, giddy with relief to see the black cavern of the sail above her swallowing the stars as the skiff pressed forward on the wind. She had been dreaming of Cassiodorus, his bold eyes tearing the privacy from her mind, intruding, stripping her thoughts, and promising he would know her and hate her forever.

  Now she was cold, even under the silk cloak, and she shivered and pulled it closer to her.

  Her movement caused Ishrafeli to turn; all she could see of him was a dark silhouette against the sky. She wanted to talk to him about Parfyrion, but she did not know what to say. They had been there barely two days, but the loss of it was sharp, like unshed tears. So much nobility of thought, high dreams broken by arrogance, and one man’s will leading others too young to see destruction.

  “Is truth all about power?” she asked.

  He came to her and sat on the boards. She could feel the warmth of him faintly.

  “In part.” His voice came out of the darkness. “You can never reach the full measure of your creation until you know how to use power, and how and when to lay it down.”

  The rush of the water was soft about them, an incessant whispering vastness.

  “Who is Cassiodorus?” she asked.

  “Don’t you know?” His voice was soft.

  She strained to see his face, but the starlight was too dim.

  “No.”

  “What do you think?”

  She shivered, the memory chilling her more than the night and the wind. “I feel as if he is ...” She struggled for something sensible and found nothing. “I feel as if he is some great everlasting enemy!”

  He slid his hand over hers. “He is only a shadow of the Great Enemy, a breath from the ice.”

  She sat silent for several minutes, filled with memories, of sunlight on the stones, a statue with perfect grace, Phraxus’s face in the upper room, and again the moment of decision as he drew his sword against Cassiodorus. She heard Allomir’s voice, vibrant with the passion of belief, and felt the terrible loss of his death.

  “Truth is courage too, isn’t it?” she said. “And cost.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, and there was no hesitation in his voice.

  She shuddered and pulled the cloak tight round her neck.

  “Are you cold?” he asked.

  “Yes. The air has changed. It smells different, stinging, as it did when I was coming towards the Maelstrom. Are we coming to another maelstrom? We are not going back, are we?” Why did that thought hurt so much?

  “No.” There was tenderness and pain and laughter in his voice. “We have a long way to go yet, but not through another maelstrom, at least not in the manner you mean. But I think there may be terrible seas, and perhaps some will drown. There are many kinds of waves, and many ways of drowning beneath them.”

  There was no sound but the whine of wind in the rigging and the rush of water around them, but the pitch had changed, and she knew they were traveling at far greater speed than before.

  For a long time they sat together without speaking. She was comfortable in the knowledge of his presence. There was a peace within him that outer turmoil could not touch, and something of it spread through her when she was close to him. She was not sure if she slept or merely let the darkness and the safety of being with him ease her into half dream.

  When she opened her eyes the sky was paling in the east, water-green under the hood of the night. She turned to Ishrafeli. His eyes were closed. In this glimmering half-light his features were smoothed of emotion, only the strength of the bones showed, and the curve of his mouth. His cloak had fallen down a little, and she pulled it up to keep the cold air from his neck.

  He smiled.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you ...” She was momentarily abashed to be caught in such an intimacy.

  He sat up, glancing at her, then turned to the horizon ahead of them where the dark line of land was just visible.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Bal-Eeya,” he replied. “We must shorten sail.” He looked up at the sky and the fast spreading light. “If this wind goes on rising we’ll capsize. Here, hold this.” He passed her a rope. “Pull hard. It’s strong.”

  She was glad to help, and they worked side by side, reefing the sail and tacking and veering to avoid the troughs. The waves increased steadily until full daylight came, bleached winter-pale across a wind-washed sky, cloud racks massing darkly on the horizon. The air stung her skin with flecks of ice, and the brilliance of the light on the choppy water hurt her eyes. The tide was running hard, driving them before it whether they would or not.

  They were swept round a headland, and it took all their combined strength and Ishrafeli’s skill to come about and ride the current into Bal-Eeya’s harbor. What Tathea saw was nothing like Parfyrion. There was no warmth, no mellow stone and wide streets. They were closed around on three sides. Skirting the harbor itself was a rock-built wall leading to a jagged island so that it formed an almost complete shelter. Only the south, where the clouds now covered half the sky, lay unprotected.

  On the shore the buildings were of painted wood, clean as snow, full of straight lines and scrubbed colors. Wooden boats lay at anchor, their masts jostling as the sharp seas swung their hulls. Seabirds wheeled and mewed overhead, and men working on the wharves were muffled in coats with fur collars and hoods. Occasionally one would raise his head and look out to sea towards the darkening horizon.

  They drew the skiff in close enough for Ishrafeli to call out to a group of men, “Where may we moor?”

  One of the men dropped what he was doing and came to the edge of the wharf. His straight hair was swept back from a broad brow. It was the face of a man used to command, yet he spoke gently.

  “You will need the inner harbor, friend. Your vessel is light, and there is a storm coming. The tone of the wind and the smell of it make me fear it will be one of the worst we have yet seen.” He pointed with outstretched arm. “Go to the end of the staging and hard right. In the inner harbor there you will find a row of berths. The fourth one along is mine and is presently unused. You are welcome to it.”

  “Thank you ...” Ishrafeli hesitated.

  “Itureus,” the man answered, then looked beyond them at the sky to the east, shading his eyes not from the sun but from the wind. “You had better make haste. The weather is worsening fast. Have you friends in Bal-Eeya?”

  “No.”

  “Then may I offer you the hospitality of my house? You will need shelter and food, and you are welcome. I will take you when I have spoken to Patro. There is still much to be done.”

  “Thank you.” Ishrafeli stepped back to the ropes and guided the skiff carefully along the wharf, standing well out as the water grew choppier and the current threatened to carry them against the pier stakes and crush them.

  It was a difficult task negotiating a course to the inner harbor, but once there the right berth was easy to find, and Ishrafeli made the skiff fast. Soon Itureus joined them, followed closely by another, far younger man, whom he introduced as Patro, the leader of Bal-Eeya. Patro bade them welcome, exchanged a few more words with Itureus, then took his leave.

  Tathea and Ishrafeli hurried with Itureus along the quay and up the gray stone streets, shivering with cold. The buildings on either side were shingle-roofed, the boards scoured by salt and wind, painted in the pale, cold colors of the sky, blues and greens and the grays of twilight. There were no groups of people talking as there had been in Parfyrion. Here and there a lone man hurried about some business, head forward. Long, woolen, fur-trimmed cloaks gave gravity and a sense of heigh
t, even to the most ordinary.

  Tathea saw no statues, no carving or embellishment of any sort, and there were no theaters. But as they strode up the hill, she did begin to see that the buildings had a kind of spare beauty. White bell towers marked out churches, airy and shimmering in the thin sunlight and rising wind, the steep-pitched roofs at a multitude of angles.

  Itureus led them to a fine house with a walled garden a little distance from the center of the town. In its lea grew laurel bushes with thick, shining leaves and under them a profusion of smaller plants with gray-white feathery leaves and white flowers.

  They were welcomed as soon as the door opened. The woman who greeted them was beautiful with a fair, smooth face and golden-brown hair. Her dark blue eyes swept over them in only momentary surprise. Then as Itureus explained their situation and introduced them, she smiled and stepped back to open the door wide for them. Her name was Dulcina, and she was Itureus’s wife, although seemingly at least twenty years younger than he was.

  “You must be cold and tired.” She looked at Tathea’s silk cloak. “May I lend you a wool dress? And warmer shoes? I am afraid the coming storm is going to be very bad.”

  “Thank you,” Tathea said gratefully. She was shaking with cold, and her feet were numb.

  “Patro is afraid it is going to be far worse than last year.” Itureus fastened the door, leaning against it to secure it from the wind.

  Dulcina smiled, but there was a kind of impatience in her eyes. “Patro is only trying to persuade you to help him,” she said, then turned to Tathea. “Itureus was the leader of Bal-Eeya for twenty years, and everyone trusts him,” she explained. “He has managed to save the city from the sea every year. Every year for twenty years he has labored to help build up the sea walls and ensure that all the beasts are gathered from the shores and penned inland, that every ship is lashed and battened down, that everyone has food, and that the watch is kept. If you have not been in Bal-Eeya during a storm, you have no idea what work that is.” She was speaking to Tathea as one woman to another, excluding the men. “I have sat alone here so many nights when the weather was closing in. I worked with the other women, of course, in the hall preparing emergency rations, blankets, bandages, and splints. But at night I have come home and slept alone, hearing the wind rise, holding my child, knowing my husband would always be the last to leave his post, and then only when the danger was over. He has earned the right to step back now and allow someone else to lead. It is Patro’s turn. He is perfectly able to do it.”