Homegoing (The Tall Ships of Saradena Book 1)

by Michelle Markey Butler

  “A king?” I shaved another morsel of cheese. “Strange. Why would a king’s vita go uncopied when Old Valenian became unreadable?”

  “Maybe something later in the vita will explain. I began late last night so I haven’t gotten much past his lineage.” His gaze unfocused as he consulted memory. “‘Here begins an account of the life of Grindor, King of Ragonne, the son of Halron, son of Halden, first king of their house.’”

  “Halden?” I reached for a cherry. “There’s a Halden mentioned in Martin’s vita. His brother’s nephew. He was given Kolon after Martin was disowned. I wonder if it’s the same man.”

  He hesitated, clearly choosing his words with care. “If he is...would that...matter?”

  “I doubt it.” I pitted another cherry. “All the same...if he is, I’d be curious to know how he went from lord of Kolon to king.” I sighed. “I expect this will be another of those things I’d like to know but won’t find out.” I’d calmed enough to answer his wry smile, though it felt tight on my lips.

  ***

  Sometime after Hal left, a savage thunderstorm burst upon the palace.

  I could hear the rain only intermittently but could tell from it and from the cracks of lightning, the following thunder sounding like rocks rolling in a barrel, that the downpour was fierce. But whatever mayhem the storm might be hurling outside, I turned my face upward; the mere sounds of summer rain were refreshing in the stifling library.

  Better still was to come. As the rain slowed, every window and door in the palais must have been opened to welcome the cooler air. Fresh breezes gusted even to the lower passages. I propped open the outer door and drank it in, then removed the golden book from my pack, unwrapping it to expose it to cleaner air also.

  Newly cheered, I turned the leaf.

  The page was blank.

  I blinked, fearing my sight had been pushed too hard for one day, then turned the leaf. The back was also blank. The script resumed on the following leaf, but only for another half dozen pages, after which the book was too damaged to read.

  I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. Merely a scribal error, and not an uncommon one. It was not difficult to miss a leaf when you were writing—the parchment stuck together, you turned the leaves too quickly—and not notice until you were too far along to go back. That I’d been thrown off by a simple scribal mistake was worrisome. The refreshment of the rain-washed air was gone. I was tired—too tired—and weary scholars think through wool. It was late, only a few hours before dawn, but this close to finishing the vita, I kept on.

  The final pages went by all too soon. I leaned back, both hands braced on the table. I might fall over otherwise.

  Martin’s vita had nothing to say about Saradena. Not a mention. Not a hint. Not a marginal notation. Nothing.

  Nothing.

  I stood, still gripping the table but now as much in enveloping, erupting rage as for support.

  I had gambled, and I had lost.

  Nothing.

  Weeks spent untangling Old Valenian, then reading Martin’s vita. Wasted.

  Nothing.

  I’d pushed away the closest thing I’d had to a friend in years out of anger and frustration but I’d kept at my task.

  Nothing.

  I’d worked myself—and Hal—past endurance and good sense.

  Nothing.

  I had spent almost two months of our precious year in Ragonne, but had little to show for it. Oliver’s fragmentary memories. A bawdy song. A second name of an unknown country. Three words of Saradenian.

  In other words—nothing.

  I spun, grasping, seeking something to throw, to vent thwarted struggle or the rising steam of it would split my skin like a roasted piglet, hissing as juices splattered into the flames. My knives were meant for throwing. Not enough. Not nearly enough. Fingers raked the table, found something, closed. Hurled.

  Something crashed into the cupboard with a sound like a man’s head splitting beneath an axe stroke. It dropped. Covers splayed, leaves crumpled.

  I stared, all thought frozen. Except one.

  A book. I had thrown a book.

  Not just a book. The golden book.

  Then I was on the floor, cradling the codex in my lap. The wood in the back binding had snapped, dangling loosely within the gold-wrapped leather like a lightning-blasted treetop. The gold plating was dented and scuffed. Two of the jewels were gone. A third was loose. The beautiful purple pages were bent, twisted like an old woman’s hand. I heard something between moaning and keening, an animal noise that it was long moments before I realized was coming from me.

  I ran my hands over the end binding. But this, and not just this, could not be healed by remorse or shame. I had known that my temper was becoming ungovernable. I had regretted lashing out at Oliver. I had struck out in frustration-born fury and derided Mistress Baynor when she made a suggestion—a suggestion that had proven key to unlocking Old Valenian at last. I knew I’d reacted too strongly to Philip’s provocations. But I’d done nothing. Indulging my wrath when it flared was too pleasant. Now I had struck in unchecked fury and harmed the oldest, most precious book to ever rest between my hands. I opened the cover, meaning to see how the binding was made, if it might be possible to cut the stitches in the leather and replace the damaged wood.

  A leaf bowed up from the force of the misshapen cover. A leaf I’d not seen before. It had been glued down against the inside of the end binding. To strengthen the binding, perhaps?

  Perhaps. But there was something on it. Despite the shadows lurking beneath the curve of the page like a mountain cave, I could see the golden glint of an illumination. I eased my forefinger around the edges between loosened leaf and back cover, slowly coaxing them apart.

  It was an illumination of Cynan Maccus, seated in the Pedagno’s chair, the same still used in Vere. A harp nestled into the crook of his left arm. His right hand rested upon a book on his knee. Interlacing framed the page and crept into the portrait. One tan ribbon curled against his foot like a friendly dog. Another bent from the upper border to lap onto his hair.

  And—

  Again all thought stumbled. Not now in horror and shock, but disbelief.

  He looked like Hal.

  No. He did not merely resemble Hal. He was Hal. The portrait was stylized, of course, like all illuminated representations of people. But that did not obscure the fact that the figure in the picture bore Hal’s image. The same bark-brown hair. Brown eyes. The same straight nose.

  My thumb skimmed the soft surface of the parchment, as if I needed to touch to believe what I saw. How? Why?

  Then I understood. Of course. No wonder Hal could read, and did not say who had taught him.

  When Cynan Maccus founded the city of scholars, among the rules he set down was that magistre were neither to marry nor have children, that they might devote their mind and life to their work. It was clear enough—clear as Cynan Maccus’ nose on Hal’s face—he had directed his followers upon a course he himself did not follow. I wondered where his secret family had dwelt, and continued to dwell, how many generations had passed, and whether Hal knew he was descended from Cynan Maccus or whether the family continued to teach their children to read from tradition but no longer knew whence that tradition derived.

  Of this I was certain: if Vere had known of this vita, it had forgotten it long ago. It was commonly accepted wisdom in Vere that no images of Cynan Maccus had survived. How strange, to think I alone now knew what he had looked like. Stranger still, to think of how he looked. Not marked by appearance as great, but a slender young man with slightly shaggy hair whom you would more expect to see saddling your horse than sharpening a quill.

  I gathered up the maimed book, wincing as the end binding dangled. I returned it to the table, then took up a candle to search the floor until I found the missing gemstones. Then I set the jewels on the front cover, near their bent settings. The distraction of the Cynan Maccus illumination had drained away, leaving bottomless shame. I had
done this. To this marvelous book.

  I would repair the golden book as best I could, but I could not bear to touch it again tonight. It would be like trying to comfort the dog you struck in anger. The thought made bile rise in my throat.

  Weariness hit, dropping in a heap on my shoulders. I stumbled to my room, asleep nearly before I pulled the blanket up.

  ***

  I slept so long that Hal was in the library before I returned.

  “Bad day yesterday, I gather.” He stepped from the second room. “Come. Let’s eat. You can tell me after.” He moved to Domon’s table, where he’d put our supper basket as usual. But he hadn’t opened it. Waiting for me? So it seemed.

  A small gesture, but I was touched. Grim shadows lightened, if not dispersed. The food helped a bit as well. It was mid-August, still summer with the heat to prove it, but crops were ripening. We had roast beets and onions, none larger than a cat’s paw, sweet as honey and soft as warm cheese. There was a small loaf so delicately scented and fresh-tasting it had to have been new-cut wheat, recently milled. A bunch of small purple grapes, tart but not bitter, rounded out the meal.

  I leaned back, idly picking seeds from a grape. I thought of the Cynan Maccus portrait and tried not to stare.

  “What has happened?” His voice was shrewd.

  “I finished Martin’s vita.”

  “Oh.” He rolled a grape on the table with his forefinger. “Nothing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “That’s odd.” He set the grape aside, the fingers of his other hand tapping with unusual agitation. “The song...Sera Serdent...discovering Martin’s vita...working out Old Valenian...I thought for certain you’d found it. Found something.”

  I pushed down on a grape seed with a fingernail until it jumped away. I had found something. But not in Martin’s vita, and not something about Saradena. Should I tell him?

  “There was nothing? Not at all? Not even marginalia?”

  His family might know, and wish to keep their secret. If the knowledge had been lost to them, would they want it? One fingernail scraped at the knuckles of my other hand. Impossible to know what was best to do, so perhaps not doing anything was best. But the illuminated portrait changed nothing about what I had to do about Saradena. “I need to see Philip, ask again for leave and an escort, and go back to Elbany.”

  He shook his head. “Not yet. Let’s check again. It has to be there.”

  I bit back an immediate denial. I wouldn’t have missed it. Probably. I’d been tired, and scholars were careful, not perfect. A second look was prudent. If I were honest with myself, I knew I’d never have left without combing the vita again. More than once. “Very well.”

  Martin’s vita lay where I’d left it, on the work table in the second room. It was a measure of how soul-sore I’d been, that I’d left it there, out and open.

  Beside it sat the golden book. Whole.

  I stopped short.

  Hal turned, a puzzled look on his face. “What is it?”

  “The book. How?” I rubbed one temple. “It was...I had...wasn’t it?”

  “Work has not jumbled your mind.” He smiled. “At least not in this case.” He ran a hand over the gilded cover, all jewels securely back in their settings. “I mended it.”

  “How...?” I stepped closer, stretching out a hand towards the book but did not touch it. I did not deserve to.

  He picked the book up and set it in my hands.

  He could not have made it as if the damage had never happened. No one could. But he had done at least as well as I could. Perhaps better. Dimples and dings still shadowed the golden surface, but they been smoothed. The jewels were reset so cunningly that if I hadn’t known with gut-churning clarity which I had knocked loose, I likely would not have been able to guess. I turned the book over.

  The back cover did not dangle sickeningly like a broken arm. He had cut the stitches and replaced the snapped board, as I’d meant to last night before I discovered the glued-down page containing Cynan Maccus’ portrait. I lifted the end binding.

  The leaf was as it had been. Pressed flat against the back cover and glued down at the edges. I looked up, meeting Hal’s eyes. “It’s all right. I saw the illumination. But your secret is safe.”

  He went rigid. “Secret?”

  I patted the leaf. Even knowing it was there, it was hard to detect, so cleverly had it been reattached to the end binding. “Cynan Maccus.”

  He swallowed audibly.

  “You’re descended from him. Clearly.” I tapped the hidden portrait. “Whether you knew before you saw the illumination, I don’t know, but you must have worked it out when you saw it. As I did. That’s how you know how to read, isn’t it? Passed down in the family?”

  His mouth, which had creaked open, snapped shut. “Yes. Yes. Of course.”

  “Are you all right? I swear I will not disclose this to anyone, by any oath you choose.”

  “Of course,” he repeated. “I’m merely startled to have my...lineage...known. It’s been a carefully guarded secret. In the family, I mean.”

  “I can imagine.” I closed the cover. “Do not worry. I will keep it as if it were my own.”

  He inclined his head. “I am in your debt.”

  “No.” I stroked the restored front cover. “I am in yours. Discretion is scant repayment that I will amend as I may.”

  “Lady–” he began. Then he shook his head. “Shall we read Martin’s vita?”

  ***

  We sat and read, together. I thought again of sitting with my brother Murrow, closest in age to me, sharing a book as we studied our lessons. Hal and I had both improved our Old Valenian, it seemed. We moved briskly through the leaves. I was impressed. It was one thing for me to hie through the manuscript. I’d read it the day before, slowly and carefully. It was another matter for Hal, coming to it unknown. But he kept pace with me.

  When we got to the empty page, he paused. “Why is this blank?”

  “Scribal error.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I spread my hands. “There’s no way to be certain. But it’s not unusual.”

  “What if it’s not?” He drew the candle closer, so close I yelped.

  “Don’t let it drip on the book!”

  “Of course not. But I want to see...there!”

  I leaned closer, keeping a wary eye on the candle. “What?”

  “It’s ruled.”

  I forgot the candle. “What?”

  “I can feel it more easily than see it. You try.” He moved his fingers and I touched the same place with mine, and then I could feel it as well. The dots along the margins, the lines scored in the parchment. “You’re right. The page is ruled. This was meant to be written on. The scribe intended to add something later. Something he didn’t yet know but was working to discover.”

  “Like why Martin was disinherited. Why he left. The vita doesn’t explain what happened.”

  “Maybe...” I tamped down my excitement. “But it doesn’t matter. If the scribe had found what he sought, he’d have copied it in.”

  His eyebrows rose. “The scholars at Vere finish every project they begin? None die with notes for things they meant to do but never got to?”

  I felt my lips twist in a smile. “I grant the point. So?”

  “His notes may be here.”

  “You cannot be serious.” I felt my eyes crossing, trying to imagine it. A scribe’s unattached jottings, scrawled on a bit of scrap parchment, surviving—here — for who knew how many years? “Impossible. If it ever existed it went to the kitchen or the jakes long ago.”

  “Probably. But maybe not. There’s the loose parchment sheets.”

  “I should go. To Philip. Back to Elbany. There’s nothing here.” I blew out my cheeks, heeding him despite my better judgment. “But—”

  He pushed back his chair. “What’s the harm in looking? You can’t go to the king now.”

  As it was the middle of the night he was undeniably correct. But a s
cribe’s untranscribed notes, surviving? It was possible. Just profoundly unlikely. I would have to have the luck of all scholars since Cynan Maccus.

  But as he said, what was the harm? I could spend an hour or two looking, then go to Philip in the morning. And—I suppressed a smile—perhaps the luck of all scholars since Cynan Maccus would favor us, with his far-son helping. “Very well.”

  He was at the cupboard before I’d gotten to my feet.

  Chapter XXXII

  We each took a stack and returned to the table.

  Searching the piles for pages in Old Valenian was not as fast as I might have hoped. Unsurprisingly, many of the leaves were damaged. Several, but fewer than I would have supposed, had become utterly illegible. Their varying scripts slowed the process. Even so, it took us little more than two hours to sort out those in Old Valenian.

  “How did you do?” I asked as Hal set aside the last leaf.

  “Eight. You?”

  “Half a dozen.”

  We returned the others to the cupboard and settled down for the more difficult task of reading. Hopeless. Foolhardy. But at least it kept my mind from fretting about going to Philip in the morning.

  The first page was only a small step above unreadable. The parchment was warped, the writing faded where unrecognizable drips had not obscured it. The margins had been clipped to the words, most likely to provide binding material for other books. Damaged manuscripts were more difficult to read than complete ones, in which context could aid the understanding of an unknown or badly written word. The creeping work of piecing together what could be read revealed that this leaf had nothing to do with Martin de Kolon.

  I stood to stretch before going on. A few moments later, Hal finished his first page and followed suit.

  The second sheet was in marginally better condition and written in a similar hand, although not the work of the same scribe. I progressed more quickly, but not at the usual pace I’d developed in Old Valenian. It, too, revealed nothing relevant to Martin.

  The third one, I suspected, had not originally been part of a codex. It was larger than any book in the Ragoni library. Even more tellingly, the page was unruled.