by Glenda Larke
“Kesleer is languishing in jail at the moment,” the woman said. Pontifect Fritillary, she assumed. “He may already have been executed.”
Saker grunted. “Really? Can’t say I’m distressed by that news.”
“I will speak to the Regala about drawing up trade treaties. You talk to Prince Ryce when you have the opportunity. If I am successful regaining my place as Pontifect, I can do more, by appealing to religious scruples. However, let’s win our war first.”
“Thank you, Your Reverence.”
She raised her hand again to knock, but halted when she heard his next words.
There is something else worrying Sorrel and me—”
“The twins.”
“Yes. I’m not sure we know how to stop them growing up into sorcerers.”
Sorrel could see Saker’s profile through the crack of the open door. He dug into his belt purse and fished out the second of the circlets the Rani had given them. “Prince-regal Karel must wear this. Always. The Rani hoped it will stop the development of his sorcery. Piper already wears hers.”
She took the gold circlet and ran a finger over the softness of the feathers that had been use to weave it. “Regal enough for a prince, isn’t it? I will give it to Regala Mathilda as soon as I can. I do have to go back to Ustgrind. Tedious place. Mathilda fights the starched-collars of the court as best she can, but they are such dour men. Copper-counting, figure-toting merchants, all! She is having more luck with some of the women, fortunately. Offer them freedom they’ve never had before, and there will always be a few who’ll snatch it with joy.”
He smiled and Sorrel wondered if he was thinking of her, climbing the rigging, hiding behind her glamour, dressed as she was now in a sailor’s garb and revelling in the freedom it gave her.
“I need to speak to Sorrel,” Fritillary said.
And that, she thought, is as good an entrance line as any. She stepped into the wardroom. “Your Reverence,” she said. “I am here.”
The woman was impressive: taller than Saker, filling the space around her with the power of her presence. Even her stance as she rose to greet Sorrel commanded attention, though her dress was unadorned and her wiry white hair escaped untidily from under a net snood. Saker had once told her she was about fifty. Well, she looked older. The startling whiteness of her hair was unexpected.
“Mistress Sorrel, a pleasure indeed to meet you. Saker has outlined your adventures since the two of you met. I fear your life has been overturned by this witan of mine, for which I apologise.”
“Oh, I think my life had been turned upside down before we met.”
“Either way, I fear there will be more adventures. I have need of your witchery. Saker is going to Throssel with the prince and Lord Juster. Prince Ryce’s wife and son have been imprisoned in Vavala by Valerian Fox and they must be extricated so he cannot use them to influence Ryce’s behaviour. Someone with a glamour, to help rescue Princess Bealina and her son, would be appreciated.”
She was speechless; Saker was not. “Wait a moment,” he protested. “We do know – or we think we know – that Fox can’t coerce someone with a witchery, but he could probably see through a glamour. Of what possible use would Sorrel be? She’d be captured the moment he laid eyes on her!”
“He’s also seen me before,” Sorrel said. “Although he might not recall my face.”
“There’s another thing too,” Saker added. “We were told by the Rani of Chenderawasi that we are a ternion and it is in that unity of three that our strength lies.”
Fritillary’s gaze didn’t waver from Sorrel’s face. “This is your choice. But hear me out before you decide. Of course, I can’t force you. If you go to Throssel, there is nothing much you can do that others cannot. Ryce will rely on his friends to get inside the castle, after which there will be fighting.”
She was beginning not to like Fritillary. After all she had been through, this woman thought she was useless? She wanted to say that Juster had found her very useful last time he’d needed to see the king, but instead she listened, feeling the muscles of her face hardening into a glower that she didn’t bother to disguise. Saker shot her a glance in warning, but then quickly looked away.
“In Vavala,” the Pontifect continued, “I need somebody who can get inside the palace unseen, warn the princess what is going to happen, tell her what to expect. If she doesn’t know, the plan might fail.’
Her gut wrenched in protest. “I need to go to Throssel. Piper is there. She is my responsibility.” Her voice wobbled, but even as she spoke, she wondered if Fritillary understood. Do you know what it’s like to leave a child? Do you understand that I think of her every day, all day, and dream of her by night? She bit the words back.
“Once Throssel has fallen to Prince Ryce, Piper can be brought to Vavala under Saker’s care,” the Pontifect said.
She battled her disappointment. No, her grief. “And how do you intend that I get to Vavala?” She wasn’t sure why she even asked. She would not go.
“With me, via the timeless route from shrine to shrine. We must free Prince Garred and his mother before Fox gets any inkling of what is happening in Throssel.”
Her throat tightened. She could hardly breathe; to have the prospect of returning to Throssel snatched away from her was more than she could bear. She shook her head with more violence than was needed. “No. Oh, no. I won’t go.”
Fritillary stared and she stared back. “I’m sorry to have to remind you of unpleasant facts, Mistress Sorrel, but Piper is not your daughter and you have no rights in her life. In fact, I believe Regala Mathilda told you to bring her to me. I am aware that you have risked your life more than once to keep her safe. From what Saker has told me, you’ve cared for her with love, but that still does not mean you have any authority over her disposition. Mathilda intended that I be her guardian.”
Her throat swelled with pain, preventing her from venting her protests.
“We know she is not really a princess of Lowmeer any more than Karel has a right to be the Regal,” Fritillary continued. “It is probably best that Piper’s connection to him is kept secret.”
She swallowed back the lump in her throat. “I – I am aware that ultimately Regala Mathilda will dictate what happens to Piper. But what are you trying to say? Because I’m not sure that I am prepared to keep my mouth shut if it means a sorcerer will sit on the throne of Lowmeer.”
“That is indeed unthinkable. You would do well to remember that. I will leave you two to discuss this.” With that remark she turned on her heel and left them alone in the wardroom.
Trembling, Sorrel sat down. “Sweet Va, what did she mean?”
“That both of them might have to be killed,” he said. The grief she read in his look was not reflected in the flat tone of his words.
“Was she – was she threatening Piper to make me compliant?”
“Va, no!” He was appalled. “She’s not like that! No, it was just a warning so—” He couldn’t go on.
“So that I am prepared to lose her. One way or another. What are we going to do?” She dropped her face into her hands, not weeping, but so tired she felt she couldn’t keep herself upright.
He didn’t reply.
Surprised by his continued silence, she lowered her hands to look at him. “Pox on’t,” she said, “you think I shouldn’t go back to Piper.”
He turned away, refusing to meet her eye. “She’s right. Your glamour won’t be needed in Throssel. Prince Ryce will seize power there by force with his battle-hardened men. In Vavala, though…”
“But… Piper.”
“I know.”
He took her hand and held it. “I will bring her safely to you. I promise.”
She managed to nod, but she wasn’t sure he could do all he pledged.
Lord Juster insisted she remain in his cabin that night because the bed was more comfortable than her own, but she couldn’t sleep. Sometime after midnight, she rose and dressed to go up on deck. As she stepped out
into the open air, she glamoured herself and walked straight past the sailors on watch. To keep out of their way she climbed up the shrouds to the crow’s nest, only to find it occupied.
Ardhi, leaning on the railing, looked down at her, head cocked to one side. “We have a saying, ‘When in child-bed, obey the midwife.’ I think it can be extended to mean, ‘When sick, obey the healer.’ I find it hard to think he suggested you climb the rigging.”
“No, but he did say Cranald had done an excellent job with the stitching, and his witchery was just to speed the healing along. Is there room enough for me in there?”
“Of course.” He helped her in, and she leaned against the railing opposite him, the space so narrow that they were almost touching. “I’ll leave if you want to be alone.”
“Please don’t,” she said. She hadn’t been looking for company, but when she’d seen him there, she’d felt a wave of gratitude. “Isn’t it lovely tonight!”
The cold air was clear. The port and bordering town were in shuttered darkness, so the sky’s meadow of stars blazed bright. As they watched, folds of green and gold played across the northern horizon.
“We don’t have that moving light in the skies of the Summer Seas,” he said, “although I have seen it before, in Pashalin.”
“We call that the Night Queen’s Drapes. Legend says she draws them across the sky when she wants to sleep, but the Sky Queen of daylight hours keeps trying to open them. Eventually, in the morning, she succeeds.”
He gave a low laugh. “They wouldn’t help me sleep! I’d stay up all night, just to watch.”
“I’m going to Vavala with the Pontifect.”
“Yes. Saker told me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I know. I will come with you.”
Surprised, she asked, “Are you sure?”
“I don’t think I’d be of much help in Throssel. Saker’s eagle eye is needed there, but my climbing skill? Not this time. On the other hand, I hear the Pontifect’s palace has high walls and high windows that are not barred…” She saw the flash of his smile. “Sounds like a place for someone whose witchery is the skills of a chichak.”
“What’s that?”
“A house gecko. They climb even better than me.”
“We’ll be splitting the ternion. Didn’t the Rani say those who fly alone, die alone?”
“Saker won’t be alone.” But he was worried, she could tell.
“The Pontifect might not agree to take you with us through the shrine paths.”
“I won’t ask,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’ll tell her I’m coming.” He turned her around to lean back against his chest, facing the sky. “Look up, and watch,” he murmured, lips close to her ear. “We believe that when danger threatens we appreciate everything more. Do you remember the way the ripples glowed blue at night in the Summer Seas?”
She nodded.
“In Chenderawasi, we have a saying:
When the sea is darkest
And the storm cloud frowns,
When the moray hungers
And the reef shark prowls,
Then ripples shine their brightest…”
He stopped.
She waited for him to finish, feeling that there had to be another line. She turned in his arms to face him. “Go on.”
“Maybe now is not the time.”
“Yes. Now. There may never be a tomorrow.”
“Then ripples shine their brightest,
And our hearts meld beneath the stars.”
He ran a finger down the side of her face from her temple to the corner of her lip. “I love you.”
His whisper was so light that the wind whisked it away almost before it was heard – but it had been said and etched into her memory nonetheless, every nuance. He’d said it before, when there had been no time to think about it. Now there was. Now she could revel in the joy, in the way time stopped as if the world had held its breath, as if breathing was unnecessary. She could have sworn that the air between them thickened, saturated with their longing.
Yet it was she who shattered the moment. “If you love me, then you know what I will say.”
He gave a sad smile. “Yes. And I honour you for it. I could not love you half so well if you did not put Piper first.”
“And I, you, if…” She waved a hand instead of enumerating all his obligations.
They laughed together, softly, ruefully. He said, “We both have our – what’s the Ardronese word? Pri – prio-something.”
“Priorities. I will tell the Pontifect that I will only go to Vavala if you are with me.” She turned to climb down the rope ladder to the shrouds, but at the last moment she glanced back over her shoulder. “I do love you, you know.”
She saw the flash of his gun by starlight and heard his intended, “I know,” whisper on the breeze.
28
Connections
The following day, Ardhi, Sorrel and Fritillary Reedling began their journey at the Twite oak shrine. Before they started, Fritillary lectured them on what it would be like, her stare as hard as her voice.
“This will be dangerous,” she said. “Do not leave the path. It’s the root of a shrine-oak, or perhaps the spiritual essence of it, reaching through time. Its connection from this tree to the root of the next will keep us safe. Leave this living path, and you will never find your way back. Tonight we’ll sleep in the Shenat Hills, in another hidden shrine. The next night we’ll be at the shrine on the border, then somewhere in Valance, and by the end of the fourth day we’ll be in Vavala. I suggest you look neither right nor left. If you need to relieve yourself, drop back, but do not leave the path.” She looked from one to the other and they both nodded, infected by her solemnity. “Do not interact with anything. Whatever is here inhabits a different timeline.”
Sorrel remembered how close they had come to losing themselves searching for the shrine at Hornbeam. She remembered her glimpse of Heather. Or maybe not Heather, but an image taken from her own hopes and fears.
She shivered. Ardhi reached out and touched her hand. “I’m all right,” she said and tried to smile. They were still standing under the outer canopy of the Twite oak, on the far side from the entrance, looking out through a break in the foliage. If she let her gaze wander, she saw those who had been living in hiding around the oak. If she looked straight ahead and focused on the path, the beginning of which was a knotted root underfoot, she saw a straight pale line stretching into a colourless nothingness.
They moved off in single file, carrying only water. Fritillary was in front of her and Ardhi behind.
She tried not to look to either side. They were walking through a blank whiteness. Not a mist, she decided, because it lacked clamminess and had no hint of water. A fog of forgetting, perhaps. That thought skittered a shiver up her spine again. Occasionally, she saw figures off to the side, or heard people calling, or laughing, or weeping, but if she did glance sideways, she could never bring anything into focus. Fritillary walked with a steadfast pace, her gaze fixed straight ahead.
If she can do that, Sorrel thought, so can I. She squared her shoulders and disciplined herself not to look, even when she thought she heard Heather’s voice calling to her.
Nothing changed, not the light, not the mist, not the path. The passage of time remained strangely unfelt. It wasn’t until they reached the next shrine that she realised they had neither spoken to one another nor stopped to rest throughout the whole journey. She had no idea of how long it had taken them. Fritillary collapsed on to a bench in the shrine, her face drawn and tired.
The shrine keeper was blind, a man old beyond normal reckoning if his archaic speech was any indication. He felt his way around as he fetched them water and food and bedding. He evidently recognised Fritillary by her voice, because he greeted her, saying, “Your Reverence? Ye’ve done come agin so soon? Daft as a rabbit, are ye? Ye walk these paths and the years run away from ye like tears down your cheeks! How much longer will ye last, be ye skipp
ing through time?”
She did not reply.
“An’ tell me, lady, how much longer are we to be hid here, liken us were rabbits in the warren too scared to wave a whisker in the air, else the fox snap at it? What’s old Mother Alder going to do iffen her heifer gets sick again, when Hyacinth Knapweed is the animal-mender around about and she be sittin’ yonder, twiddling her thumbs, instead of caring for the village kine? When can we open up the shrine again?”
“Before winter arrives,” she said and patted his crinkled hand with its bulbous knuckles and crooked thumb. “I promise.”
His blind eyes held on to their opaque blankness, but his face lit up. “Earth and oak,” he said, “thanks be! To serve folk, one must be among folk, no?”
“Contain your joy, old man,” she said gently. “War is coming. All those with a witchery, the ones who can walk, must travel to Vavala by the timeless paths before then – or else fight here in Ardrone. Walking the paths once or twice is not going to hurt anyone.”
“And how many miles have you walked through the timeless lands?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Who knows?”
After they’d eaten, picking at the food for none of them was hungry, Sorrel wanted to sleep. Fritillary had other ideas. She wished to know all about Ardhi and about the Summer Seas and the Chenderawasi Islands, their politics, people, trade, climate, belief systems and everything that had happened to them there. Sorrel, her eyelids drooping, struggled to stay awake, and left most of the answering to Ardhi. When the questions were too awkward, he pretended he hadn’t understood and went off at a tangent, enumerating the advantages of a regulated trade between equal partners. Sorrel doubted Fritillary Reedling was deceived by Ardhi’s veneer of an innocent and gullible islander with nothing to hide.
The next day, and the next, were much like the first. On the final day, when they sighted the Great Oak through the mist and knew they were arriving in Vavala, Sorrel found herself weeping with gratitude. That misted world with its long periods of silence punctuated by occasional ghostly cries or whispers of truncated conversation, the long tedious hours of walking, followed by penetrating questioning from Fritillary – she felt worn thin, like the sole on an old shoe.