Homegoing (The Tall Ships of Saradena Book 1)

by Michelle Markey Butler

  I touched his shoulder as he went past.

  The door closed, sealing in a silence that was not empty. Hal blinked slowly.

  “I have to go,” I said, as if answering an unspoken objection. “It is an order from my king.”

  He stood still as an oak on a windless day. “What of Saradena?”

  “Just a delay. A short delay.” I heard wheedling in my voice and pushed it away. “A week,” I said firmly. “No more than a week.”

  “I doubt that very much, lady.” His head tipped as he considered me appraisingly. “If we get to Vere and find them gone, only a day or even hours ahead, do you believe yourself capable of leaving their trail? Of not pursuing?” He shook his head. “I know better, even if you do not.”

  I did not dispute it. “If so, it would be a short chase. A month at most.”

  “A month!” He spoke harshly, his voice rougher than I’d ever heard it. “This hunt could easily go half a year. If not longer.” His tone softened. “It is a worthy quest. But it is not your quest.”

  “I must go.” I slashed at the air, as if warding off his objections. “The High King commands it.”

  “You want to go,” he shot back. “If you go back now, you might still save the Pedagno. You picture yourself returning at the head of an armed group and triumphantly handing control of Vere back to your maestro.”

  That was so uncomfortably close to what I had imagined that I immediately shouted back, “No. That’s not it. You don’t understand. This is about loyalty. The High King is my liege-lord. My oath to the Roth excepted my duty to Bruster.”

  “What good will it do Bruster to hang Yvein and Ulton from the walls of the Black Keep but fall to Saradena?” His words snapped like a crossbow bolt.

  I took a step towards him. “We do not choose our duty. It merely is.”

  “A pretty saying. And usually true. But not here. Not in this.” He gestured towards the door. “Cedrick can take a troop to Vere. Or Dunstan. Or any number of your father’s men. Only you can look for Saradena.”

  “What about you?” This time I did not shout. Not quite. I held onto that much of my hard-won mastery over my temper. But fury smoked and popped like grease in an over-heated pan. Who was he to speak to me in this way? “You can read. You can read Old Valenian. You go to Ferrant and beg Francis to search his books.”

  “Here we are.” His voice was almost smug. “The center at last. You fear to face him and have seized a chance to avoid it, and pretend otherwise by calling it ‘duty.’” He turned away as if unable to look at me.

  “You—” I could get out no more around my outrage.

  “Yes, I dare, lady.” He gave me a hard look over his shoulder. “To tell you truth when you might profit from it, whether that truth be sweet or bitter. That is a difference between a friend and a servant. I cannot go to Ferrant alone. I could read the books, even if some are Old Valenian. But King Francis would not let me in.”

  “The Roth—” I clasped my twitching hands behind my back. Angry as I was with him, I did not want to momentarily lose patience and throw something—probably a knife—at him. He might not dodge as well as my brothers.

  “Not at the Roth’s request nor anyone else’s. He will allow you. Not from kindness. Its opposite, in fact. He will not be able to refuse a chance to see how you are. Whether he has broken you utterly. You know this.” He turned back to face me. “You know this,” he repeated. “You must know.”

  “No.” I felt my chin lift until I could glare at him down my nose. “I have heard enough. I am leaving for Vere in an hour. Less than an hour, now. You may come. Or not. As you choose.”

  ***

  I stood at my father’s side at the shipyard, watching Dunstan prepare the troop of men and the captain prepare the ship. A crowd had gathered, nearly as large as the one that had said farewell to Princess Maudlin the day she left for Ferrant. I hefted my bag higher on my hip, shifting the weight of the books to a different spot. At my other side, Murrow noticed the move and interpreted it as impatience.

  “All will be ready soon.” He squeezed my hand.

  I glanced back towards the castle. This time, Murrow understood the gesture correctly.

  “He may yet come.”

  I lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “Or he may not. I do not care. The High King wanted him along, but he has no authority to order him. Hal will do as he thinks best.”

  Murrow looked as if he wanted to say something more but I returned the press of his hand. “Peace. I will not quarrel with him further on this matter.”

  On Murrow’s other side, Cedrick snorted. “We do not need Master Carlson to take Yvein and Ulton.”

  “I agree,” I said. “But I would have preferred it.”

  Cedrick shuffled his feet impatiently, a surprising breach of noble impassivity. “I hope they finish soon.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Some of the boat slaves were inspecting the oars, while others lay the sail flat on the black sand well above the waves’ reach. Unless one were in the direst haste, it did not do to head to sea without ensuring that your methods of sailing were sound. The oars would be checked for cracks, the sail for the smallest tears. A brisk wind could turn a sail with a snag the size of a rivet head into a tattered mass of rags within minutes. I understood, but I chafed at the delay. It left too much time for thinking.

  You picture yourself returning at the head of an armed group and triumphantly handing control of Vere back to your maestro…You fear to face him and have seized a chance to avoid it, and pretend otherwise by calling it ‘duty’…Cedrick can take a troop to Vere. Or Dunstan. Or any number of your father’s men. Only you can look for Saradena.

  I thought of Saradena. The books in Ferrant. The months that had passed. The few that remained. I remembered sitting with Mistress Baynor, frustrated at finding so little about Saradena, ready to abandon the search. What Hal had said was disquietingly similar to what she had. Anyone can go looking for Saradena—and die of thirst and sunbake, lost at sea. She had not touched me, but she might as well have been holding both my arms tight. Her face barely a hand’s breadth from mine, she had glared, fierce and quelling. Only you can do this. Read, search for shavings and parings about Saradena—and put them together.

  You do not choose your duty. It merely is. So our father had said to Birnan. To each of us, long before we were old enough to understand. But what if something lay beyond duty, or beyond the duty that was mere, unquestioning obedience?

  I wanted justice for the Pedagno. It was true. Hal had spoken rightly.

  Utor.

  Six years, Maudlin.

  I wanted also revenge for Utor. Not just revenge. Revenge at my hands. An unassailable target of my wrath, an object against whom I might release all the bonds of my anger, and let it burn and burn. Hal had been close—I did dread facing Francis—but he had not seen the darkest center. I wanted to slip my knife under Ulton’s ribs, as he had arranged for Utor. I wanted to cut Yvein’s throat with my own hand, as she had coaxed her husband to try to my father.

  To find such desires in my soul did not surprise or distress me overmuch. Bruster was a hard, dangerous land, and the rest of the known world was scarce better. Fighting, dispensing death and avoiding it, were part of our lives from birth. Bitted and bridled, the fierce strength born of anger was not an evil but a good. And there were times and places—and people—for which wrath might be allowed to pull the reins loose and gallop free-headed. But to find that I was willing to risk the future of our world in order to ensure my hand was on the blade that took our vengeance…that could not be accepted.

  Oh, my father. My King.

  At last I knew where my duty lay. But I doubted he would agree. I touched his arm. “Lord. I...can’t.”

  “Can’t?” His voice pitched low, for our ears alone, was disbelieving. Dangerous. His eyes narrowed. “I do not ask. I command.”

  “Lord, please consider.” I raised both hands, let them fall. “The letter. The
book. I must go to Ferrant.”

  “That was before.” His hand went to his sword, fingers tightening on the hilt. “Your first loyalty is Bruster.”

  Despite our whispering, Cedrick and Murrow had realized something was amiss, and were trying to watch us, curiosity and worry crossing their faces before being wiped away.

  “I am thinking of Bruster,” I said urgently. “Our new adversary means to strike.” I would not say the name aloud in public, even in a whisper. “All of us, including Bruster, will fall if I don’t find the cause of their grievance and how we might diffuse it.”

  He snorted dismissively. “Months from now. If at all. Verun has struck today.”

  “I can tell Cedrick everything he needs to know about Vere to make this attack successful.” There was urgency, desperation, in my voice, but I could not quell it. “But only I have the chance to thwart our unknown trouble.”

  The crowd’s murmurs changed. They grasped that a discussion, and not an amicable one, was taking place among the King’s company. One by one their faces turned from watching the boat slaves to watching us.

  My father’s gaze flicked to the surrounding faces. He blinked once, slowly. Then his attention returned to me, his expression now blank as he drew upon his noble’s control. But he took a step closer, and I felt the shuddering rage within him, radiating like heat from a blazing hearth. “I charge you, upon your family loyalty, upon Utor’s dead body still unburned and uninterred. Go to Vere and bring me back his killers.”

  “I can’t,” I repeated miserably, wishing I had heeded Hal’s counsel earlier. I could have talked with my father in private, and he might have been more reasonable. Here, before the eyes of Reud, he would never—could never—countenance opposition. Rebellions had been born of less, and he was already vulnerable. Verun’s usurpation attempt would make some suspect that the High King must have warranted such a move.

  My father stood for long moments, so enraged he could not speak, looking at me, then away from me. When he did speak, his eyes were on the crowd and he pitched his voice that they might hear. “I am affronted, but perhaps not surprised, to find that Bruster...Utor...I...your own honor, your duty...mean so little to you.”

  “I am minding my duty,” I hissed. “My duty as I see it.”

  “You do not decide your duty. Your lord does,” he snapped back before his face smoothed as he mastered himself once more.

  “I do as my lord commanded,” I said, keeping my voice low and even. Now was not the time to match his anger with my own. But I found to my surprise I was not angry. Regretful, sorrowful, yes, to the brim and spilling over. I had no room for anger. Strange. “My formal oath of fealty to Bruster was set aside when I married. The Roth, in courtesy, gave me an oath of service that promised he would never order me to do anything detrimental to Bruster. I do as I was bid by my sworn lord.” I was nearly whispering, not wanting the crowd to hear. “You know what he commanded. You know that it is in Bruster’s interest I go on with that task.”

  He pulled a deep breath, his nose quivering with the force of his indrawn air. “I declare Maudlin of Bruster banished. He raised his voice, that he might be heard by every soul on the black sand shore. She is no longer of Bruster.” I felt the heat of his fury, now like a forge, hot enough to make iron pliable, but he did not look at me.

  Murrow stared. Cedrick gasped. Our father silenced them both with a fierce glance.

  “She is Elbish, perhaps. If they will have her. She may not return to Bruster. A Brusterian who aids her in any cause or any place should hold himself to share her exile.” Now he did cast his gaze upon me, and it was like the hammer on the anvil. “Go where you will. Do not return. I will instruct Dunstan not to admit you for any cause.”

  ***

  I sat in the bow, watching the waves. A sudden gust blew whipped strands of loosened hair around my face, tugging Utor’s braid away.

  My bag and its precious books was in my lap. Hal, summoned with unseemly speed from the Black Keep, sat beside me, clasping one of my hands in both of his, the only brother I had remaining to me offering what comfort and support he could. It was about as effective as the comfort I had offered my father. Which is to say not at all.

  My father had allowed Cedrick and Murrow to escort me to the longboat he had ordered to take me to Elbany. Immediately, without time for the boat slaves to check the oars or sail. It mattered not at all if we were lost at sea, so long as we were gone. I had hurriedly relayed to Cedrick everything I could think of about the layout of Vere, everything I’d planned about how to conduct the attack. With me, or without, Vere would have a company of Reud’s warriors upon it soon. He nodded brusquely, looking as wrathful as our father. “You should have come with us.” He strode away before I could say anything. Which was, perhaps, just as well. I’d said everything to our father, and it had not mattered.

  Murrow had helped me into the boat. The boat slaves began to push the longship towards the water. Then Murrow ran into the ankle-deep water and grabbed my forearms. “Tell Elsbeth I’m sorry.”

  I had blinked at him in perfect astonishment. It was true that my mind was brimful of incomprehensible things from this wretched unending day, but this made less sense than any. When he’d sprinted out, I’d expected…something familial. Good-bye. An expression of regret. Something other than Tell Elsbeth I’m sorry. What had my brother to do with the Roth’s wife? I had nodded automatically, and he’d stepped back.

  I tried turning it over in my mind, but I was too far gone. I watched the oars slap the water until we cleared the bay and the slaves raised the sail.

  “Well done, lady,” Hal said. “The right choice. Difficult. But right.”

  “It does not feel well done,” I said.

  At length he slipped into an uneasy doze, still clutching my hand. We had not had a night of sleep since leaving Vere. The sea murmured in more kindly tones than the crowd at Reud. The sun warmed cordially but did not burn. Sleep, if sleep could still be found, would be welcome. But if I let my eyes close, I saw my father.

  I kept them open.

  How could I sleep? I had returned—by necessity, if not, as it had emerged, unwillingly—and learned, as I’d come to suspect, that I had imagined my family’s rejection, seeing refutation and denial in all faces after finding it so stridently in Francis’. For a few hours, I had been home.

  Now the estrangement was in truth, and in earnest. My father had disowned me publicly. The sea air stung my eyes. Not tears. I had left them all at Utor’s bier. No one can erase your blood, Mistress Baynor had said, but that was not so. No one but the High King. My father. As he had. I was no longer of Bruster. Nor was I of Elbany. The Roth had accepted my service and a limited oath of loyalty, but I was not his subject. I was of nowhere, more lost than the slaves who rowed the longboat. When their time of service was done, they could return home.

  Smoke rose, a tendril of gray uncurling like a scroll, from the distant smudge that I knew to be the Black Mountain. They had taken Utor to his pyre.

  Then a brisk wind caught the sail and we raced across the water, fast as a hawk dives after a rabbit. I watched as Bruster slid into the sea, and I strained to distinguish the last crest of the Black Mountain from enveloping waves, trying to silence the dangerous murmurings of my heart that looked upon it yet and whispered home.

  Acknowledgements

  Lucky writers have encouraging but cogent beta-readers who keep you working but catch your most egregious missteps before you’ve gone too far. I have been very fortunate to have excellent beta-readers. Jessica read and commented upon all three, deeply varying, drafts. Anne, Eric, and Barbara read early drafts and gave both feedback and encouragement. My new critique partners Grace and Sarah read the last draft and still found a worrisome number of issues to comment upon. I owe a great debt as well to my editor, Bill Racicot, who both made the manuscript better with lucid suggestions and was very patient as we worked through the process.

  About The Author

>   Michelle Markey Butler holds a doctorate in English Literature, which is all Thomas Malory’s fault. She blogs about parenting at www.heirraising.wordpress.com and is pleased to report that despite their best efforts none of the children have escaped. Recently.

  Michelle’s story “Little Hands” won an Honorable Mention in the Second Quarter 2010 Writers of the Future Contest, while her book-in-progress, Lord Garland’s Daughter, was named an Honorable Mention in Textnovel’s 2010 contest. More about Michelle can be found at: michellemarkeybutler.com

  Table of Contents

  Book I

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  Chapter XXVI

  Chapter XXVII

  Chapter XXVIII

  Chapter XXIX

  Chapter XXX

  Chapter XXXI

  Chapter XXXII

  Chapter XXXIII

  Chapter XXXIV

  Book II

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Book III

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI