Navarin, Thunder and Shade

by William Stafford

  She undid the lock and he shoved his way in, seizing her hands in his.

  “Never have I been so captivated by a woman’s beauty,” he breathed rum fumes in her face. The coarseness of his beard itched against her cheek.

  “I’ve heard what you sailors can be like.” Carith tried to extricate herself and get behind some furniture.

  “No!” he pursued her, backing her against a porthole. “I mean us to be married. I have the power to do it right now. You only have to say you do.”

  “You do?”

  “Close enough!” He lunged across the table she had skirted behind. Carith let out a cry and looked for something with which to strike him. There was nothing within reach so she kicked him sharply in the crotch and clambered over the bed, straining to reach the exit. He grabbed her ankle and launched himself on top of her, pinning her to the mattress with the full weight of his body.

  “No!” she cried repeatedly, writhing to get free. He put one hand to her mouth while the other fumbled with the fastening on his breeches. She bit hard, down to the bone. It was his turn to scream. His bloodied hand gave her face a smack. She roared at him in fury with a ferocity that took him aback. She pushed him off her and kicked him in the face. Blood gushed from his nose, staining his bushy beard with rivulets of red. Still he continued to chase her. She flung things at him, anything she could get her hands on: books, plates, items of clothing, but he batted them all away.

  It never occurred to her to call for help. Carith Drombo had never been helped by anyone in her life; it never entered into her consideration.

  But help was at hand.

  The door burst open, startling both the pursuer and the pursued. In the doorway stood an exotic woman whose skin was the colour of apricots and her hair, wild in parts and beaded in others, glowed like the light of the moon. She brandished a curious weapon like a toasting fork with barbs on and signalled the captain to move away from the girl. She kicked the door shut behind her and beckoned to the girl to come to her side. Carith stood her ground. The captain looked from one to the other.

  “You!” the woman snapped. Her voice was deep and rich and heavily accented. “Who is sailing this ship?”

  The captain’s unruly eyebrows dipped. It was not a question he had expected. “The crew,” he shrugged.

  “And they can manage, can they?”

  “Well enough. What is this-” His eyes widened in shock and his beard bristled for the final time as the woman drove the prongs of her fork between his ribs and into his heart. The captain slumped against the wall and slid to the floor, leaving two glistening trails of red where the tips of the prongs had pierced his back.

  The woman spat on his body. “Captain Scumbag.”

  Carith was flustered. “What did you do that for?”

  The woman peered at her with a raised eyebrow; her eyes were as green as olives. “To save your sorry neck.”

  “You killed him!”

  “I certainly did. You weren’t going to - or did I interrupt?”

  “No - I - oh - Thank you, I guess.”

  “Don’t mention it.” She gave the girl a cool appraisal. “This is not your first dead body, I think.”

  “I-”

  “Your husband! No - three husbands, one after the other, crash bang wallop!”

  “Yes - I - How did you know?”

  “Never mind. Come, child; we must strip him and grease him.”

  “What?”

  The woman crouched by the captain’s corpse and proceeded to divest him of his garments.

  “What are you doing?”

  “It’s like this,” the woman’s tone was matter-of-fact, “We can’t burn him up in a fire or we’ll all go down. So we take off his clothes, cover him in butter and out through the porthole he goes! Ker-splosh!”

  Carith glanced from the corpulent corpse to the pitifully small diameter of the porthole.

  “Trust me!” urged the woman. She winked.

  Carith laughed. “You know something? I believe I do.”

  ***

  Her name was Atrisma. She did not say where she came from or where she was going, toward or away from home, but she declared it was a matter of purest good fortune that she happened to be on board that very ship. Providence, she pointed at the sky, had brought us together for a reason.

  “And what reason might that be?” Carith squinted upwards.

  “Why,” Atrisma laughed, “Whatever reason we choose! I think I should like to be your teacher. Teach you how to defend yourself, bish-bosh.”

  Carith demurred. “I don’t know; I’m not a fighter.”

  “What I saw in that cabin tells me otherwise. But I’m not talking of fist-fighting and having a dustup. There are other ways to protect yourself.”

  Carith caught the enigmatic look in those olive-green eyes. “Oh, really?”

  “Really!” Atrisma grinned. “Ways even to protect yourself from the assaults of Time itself. Why, to look at me you would never guess I am four hundred and twelve years old.”

  Carith was astounded. It could not be true.

  “It is true! As true as I am sitting here and squeezing your hand.”

  “Ouch! But how...?”

  The strange woman’s eyes darted in all directions like the world’s least subtle conspirator. “There are many things, arcane and eldritch, I can show you.”

  “Can you make me live forever?”

  “Who knows?”

  “But - you’re - four hundred years old!”

  “I am! And counting! But I do not know if I shall live forever. No one has lived forever so who can say it can be done?”

  “But you can make me like you?”

  “If you like.”

  “Oh, I like!” Carith enthused, her eyes set on some inner vision. “I like it very much. There is so much I want to do.”

  Atrisma looked stricken. “Oh, my dear, you must forget I mentioned it. I had forgotten you are a thrice-married lady, and a widow.” She squeezed her companion’s hand again.

  “What difference does that make? I’m not married at the moment.”

  “No, I am sorry, my dear. You won’t do. You won’t do at all.”

  “But why?”

  “An acolyte of mine must be pure and untouched.”

  “But I am!” Carith protested. “I am unsullied by the touch of man.” She recounted the history of her various doomed, but chaste, marriages and Atrisma listened with rapt attention and increasing delight.

  “As soon as we dock, we’re going on a shopping trip to get you kitted out, licketty split.”

  “Kitted out?”

  “Togged up. Tooled up. Get you a fork like mine.”

  Carith frowned. “I’m not really a toast eater.”

  The olive eyes grew wide and then creased with laughter. “Oh, my dear! That is priceless. You are a funny girl, ha, ha. I don’t use it to brown my bread! Ho, that is rich!”

  Carith waited for the weird woman’s laughter to subside. Apricot fingers wiped olive-green eyes.

  “Meanwhile, my dear, there are things I can teach you while we sail. But you must be a diligent student. You must practice and hone your skills. You must reveal to no one a single thing I teach you and, once you embark on your studies, you may never give up.”

  “Or...?”

  “Or...” Atrisma patted Carith’s delicate white hand. “I shall kill you.”

  There was no more laughter in her eyes.

  ***

  During the days that followed, Atrisma visited Carith in her cabin, testing her ability to decipher and reproduce arcane and mystical chalk symbols. She taught her how to read secrets in people’s faces. “Men are easier to read, the poor fools. Their faces are like books or, in most cases, the wa
lls of a public privy. Women are more difficult.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Perhaps there is something of the witch in all of us, don’t you think?”

  Witch...

  The word surprised her. “Is that what we are? Witches?”

  Atrisma gave a dismissive wave. “That’s a man word for it. As far as I’m concerned we’re just a couple of ladies trying to make their way in the world. Now, let us take a walk on deck. People are still talking about the captain’s absence. It is believed in his habitually drunken state, he slipped overboard. Come; the sea is becalmed and people will be keen to get fresh air.”

  Arm in arm, they strolled. Atrisma bade other passengers and crewmen alike a good day and, when they had passed by, asked Carith what she had read in their faces. At first, Carith was stumped. She felt it was hopeless. Drawing squiggles in chalk was one thing. Reading people’s souls in their faces was another.

  Three days later, something clicked. Atrisma was delighted by the sudden improvement.

  “He is cruel,” Carith whispered, “because his ambitions were thwarted.”

  “Go on...”

  “He wanted to be - a dancer!”

  Atrisma punched her arm.

  “Ouch!”

  “Don’t fill in the gaps with your imaginings. If there are gaps, then there are gaps. Now, this young lady...”

  “She is... with child!” Carith’s mouth rounded into an O. “But she knows not which of her lovers is the father. She is travelling to have the child in secret.”

  “Excellent! You’re a natural!”

  “Am I?” Carith was brimming with pleasure and with pride.

  Even though she suspected there was nothing natural about it in the slightest.

  ***

  “I have a man who does things for me,” said Atrisma, leading Carith through a souk. Since the ship had docked, Carith had barely been able to catch her breath. Her self-appointed mentor was keen to show her mentee everything, but at such high speed, Carith was seeing nothing.

  They were in a harbour town that thrived on international trade. It was in a rather warm realm where broad-leaved palms lined the coastal road, affording welcome shade from the merciless sun. Shops and stalls huddled together, forming dark and crooked alleyways filled with wares: aromatic spices, delicate jewellery, earthenware pots, and intricately patterned carpets. Carith longed to dally and browse but Atrisma kept her moving, pulling her by the wrist when necessary.

  The people were mostly of Atrisma’s apricot skin colour, Carith noticed. Atrisma has come home then, she reckoned.

  She could not help noticing also that they had no trouble making their way through the teeming crowds, which seemed to part to admit them, when all around were jostling elbows and shoulders, the noise and clamour deafening. Conversation was futile so all of Carith’s questions had to wait.

  Eventually, they reached quieter thoroughfares. The din of the souk receded but Atrisma did not slacken the pace. They came to a smithy overshadowed by tenements. Carith got the uneasy feeling that many eyes were watching from those tenements, which were curiously silent, but she could discern no one, not a single face, at any of the windows.

  Atrisma shoved a door and entered as if she owned the place. Perhaps she does, thought Carith, adding another question to the bank. Then, her wrist clamped by her mentor’s fingers, she followed the rest of her mentor inside.

  Darkness, heat, and the smell of hot metal assaulted her, along with the rhythmic pounding of hammer upon steel. A huge man, apparently wearing nothing but an apron was wielding that hammer in steady, almost graceful arcs. The women watched. It was only when he plunged the red-hot ploughshare into a trough of water, filling the dry air with hisses and steam that Atrisma spoke.

  “Urmo!” she greeted the smith. “Hard at work I see, bish bash.”

  The burly man, his shoulders coated with dark swirls of hair and slick with sweat, nodded. “You old hag,” he grimaced and spat. “What blight do you bring down upon me this time?”

  To Carith’s surprise, Atrisma threw back her head and laughed. “You sweaty rogue. No blight just employment. Allow me to introduce my young associate, Carith Drombo.”

  Carith stepped forward and Urmo’s face reacted to her beauty. He dipped his head in a bow.

  “You shall make her a fork,” said Atrisma, flat and business-like.

  “Oh, I’d fork her all right,” giggled Urmo with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows.

  Atrisma cleared her throat. “There will be none of that. You shall be paid in Glaurian corons. Half now, half later.”

  She produced a purse and placed it in his palm. He tested the weight and made an impressed smirk. “This is but half?”

  “Naturally. Three days.”

  “Three days! Impossible!”

  “Let us dispense with the bartering blah-blah,” Atrisma almost yawned. “Three days, one fork, chop chop.”

  She took Carith by the elbow and steered her from the shop. A child playing with a bladder saw the women, snatched up his toy and ran away. Screaming.

  “What was that?”

  “It is bad luck to see a witch,” Atrisma shrugged.

  “Now you tell me.”

  “Do you regret the things I’ve taught you?”

  “No!”

  “Because I can go back in there and cancel the order. I can tell him the fork’s off.”

  “No! No! Please!”

  Atrisma scowled up at the tenements. She shook her fist at no one in particular and cackled.

  “Come on,” she walked away. “I have a place nearby.”

  ***

  Atrisma’s place was a tumbledown shack on top of a hillock some way from the town. At least the air is cleaner here, thought Carith as she followed the older - much older! - woman over the threshold. First impressions suggested that fresh air was all the shack had to recommend it. The interior was an explosion of clutter, a riot of books and bric-a-brac. Every surface was covered with untidy heaps of all sorts and Carith had to tread carefully to pick her way across the floor and mind her head to avoid collision with the various objects suspended from the ceiling. A stuffed seagull almost took her eye out.

  For all that, the little house was not an unpleasant place to be. It was made all the more favourable by the welcoming smell of something simmering on the stove in a corner.

  “Something smells good,” Carith observed and her stomach performed backflips like a puppy doing tricks for treats. Atrisma approached the saucepan and inhaled deeply. She pouted, considering the aroma and then nodded in approval. Carith was confused. Atrisma read the young woman’s expression and laughed.

  “What? Did you think I left this bubbling on the stove while I went on my travels? I’ve been away for months, my girl. More than that, tick tock.”

  “What?”

  “And it’s not for eating. It’s navarin and it’s for scrying. I’ll get us something to eat later, yum yum.”

  She went to the back door and clapped twice. The door opened and a young woman, barely more than a girl came in. Her skin was the colour of rosehips and her hair as dark as night. She kept her head bowed. Carith admired the clothes she wore, of translucent fabric and decorated with scarves in a rainbow of colours.

  “I like your clothes,” she ventured. “Just the job in this hot climate, I should imagine.”

  The girl did not answer, did not look up.

  “Boranda, this is Mistress Drombo. You are to obey her as you do me. Carith, this is Boranda. She does things for me. Boranda will now make us mint tea.”

  Boranda dipped in acknowledgment and set to boiling water.

  “She’s a quiet one,” said Carith as Atrisma cleared books and charts from a chair so her guest could be seated. “Is she a mute?�
��

  “You would be too,” shrugged Atrisma, perching on a stack of boxes. “If you’d had your tongue cut out.”

  Carith gasped in horror and looked with sympathy at the servant. “That’s awful. The poor girl! What happened? Who would do such a thing?”

  “It was necessary,” Atrisma sniffed. “Can’t have her going around blabbing my secrets.”

  Carith’s mouth hung open. She stared at the woman she’d been looking up to and admiring for weeks. There was cruelty in her eyes Carith hadn’t seen before. A hardness as though Atrisma’s many years of life had worn away her humanity, her compassion.

  “Listen, Miss,” Atrisma leaned closer. “There is still a lot that you don’t know, my girl. And I can’t afford to have you going soft at this stage in the game. You’re not going soft on me, are you, plip-plop?”

  “No!” cried Carith.

  “Good. We’ve come too far to stop now. And what I know about your past is you’re tough and you’re mean and you’ll stop at nothing to get what you want.”

  “Yes!”

  “Then don’t go getting squeamish about the likes of Boranda. You’re going to need girls like her - lots of girls like her - if you’re going to last as long as I have.”

  ***

  The new fork was an unprepossessing thing. Carith was singularly unimpressed. Urmo watched her handle it for the first time; the disdain was clearly marked on her face as if he had branded it there.

  It was two strands of steel, two gleaming, demonically sharp tines wrapped around each other before separating nine inches from their tips to form a U. The shaft showed the two strands coiling around each other like over-amorous snakes until at the handle, they became one, in a solid mass weighted and shaped to fit her grip. The whole thing was the same length as her forearm from elbow to fingertip.

  “Is something wrong, Mistress?” the blacksmith ventured to ask.

  Carith ignored him. When she spoke it was to Atrisma. “It’s not a bit like yours,” she complained. The older woman took it from her and examined it.

  “It is new, is all. You forget I’ve had mine for centuries. Yours will darken with use. In time.”