The Eye of Night

by Pauline J. Alama

  A voice inside my head mocked, This is the life you've chosen?

  “Monk!” shouted Morvath. “Take that trencher to those soldiers by the door. Quick, now, or I'll have a war on my hands.”

  I followed his pointing finger to the kitchen door, where the cook held out a wooden trencher of stew, anxious to get it off her hands and get back to her pots. I took it and ran off toward the knot of soldiers who sat at ease, boots up on the carved oak chairs, cloaks thrown back to reveal the gleaming hilts at their hips. Ahead of me, Hwyn carried a pitcher of beer in the same direction. A sound broke through the clamor: a chord struck on the harp, sweet as daylight, out of place in the tumult.

  Hwyn stopped in midstride and turned to stare at the harpist by the hearth, her face upraised, lips parted, like a child given an unexpected gift. I can still see her like that in my mind's eye; strange, for in the moment, I did not see her soon enough. Before I'd quite grasped the notion that she'd stopped in front of me, one of my longer strides sent me careening into her, the trencher of stew flying over her head to crash on the floor near the soldiers' table while I myself landed hard, catching my knee painfully on the buckler one of the soldiers had left on the floor. I let loose the long catalog of obscenities I'd learned in twenty-three years on ships and shipyards, not just in plain Swevnian but Iskarrian, Kettran, High Magyan, Demotic Magyan, and that trade jargon that the Western Islanders use to keep filthy foreigners from sullying their sacred language. The whole room was laughing—whether at my pratfall or at the spectacle of a priest in the Tarvon cassock letting loose a strain of full-throated profanity, I'm not sure. After a while, I began helplessly laughing with them, hoping all the while that I hadn't lost us our jobs.

  Hwyn had somehow managed to keep most of the beer un-spilled; I wasn't sure whether to credit this to experience or preternatural ability. She deposited it on the soldiers' table before joining me on the floor to clean up the mess. “I'm sorry,” she said, “that was all my fault.”

  “Not all,” I said. “I should have noticed you sooner.” In reality, once the shock of the fall was past, I was too relieved to realize I wasn't the only fallible one to hold it against her.

  “You, Half-Pint,” shouted the cook to Hwyn, “let the priest clean up. Take the gentlemen another trencher.” She scurried off, leaving me to mop up the mess of broth and boiled greens and meat scraps. And so I was on my knees with a wet rag and a brush when one of the inn's guests nearly fell over me.

  “Tarvons!” he spat, catching himself on the counter.

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “What have I done to deserve to be surrounded by Tarvons?” the man growled. “They're in Ectirion, filling my firstborn's head with ruinous notions. They're in Sebrin. They're in every decent trading town, even in the very counting-houses—keeping trade honest, they say! Pah! And even when I get to this town too late and the gate is locked, so I have to put up in a whorehouse, for the gods' love, fit to put ideas in the other boy's head, what do I find but a Tarvon cleaning the public-room floor?”

  “Sorry,” I said, and went on slopping up the mess.

  “Sent my boys to the Tarvon school. Thought it would give them some mathematics, some languages, some knowledge that's worth something. Now the oldest, the heir, says he wants to shut himself up in a monastery,” the man grumbled on.

  “Hmm,” I said, not knowing how else to respond.

  “What in the Bright Goddess's bum-hole are you doing here?” he said.

  “I left the Order,” I said. “I have to do something for a living.”

  “This might be informative for my son to see,” the man mused. He was a stout, solid-looking man in a rich robe of deep green serge and a close-laced black jacket, the kind with reinforced pockets too tough for a pickpocket's knife. The leather purse that hung from his belt had the same sort of trick catch my father's had. All in all, though I had never seen him before, I felt I knew him well enough: the same sort of prosperous merchant my father had dealt with. He was looking me over the way my father might have eyed some dusty wares that he suspected of having real rubies under the grime. “Was that you I heard cursing in Magyan?” he said.

  “Yes,” I said. “Would you mind, sir?” I pointed at his black leather boot—costly Kettran leatherwork—which was on top of a smashed leek.

  “Hmm?” He moved the foot absently, then said in High Magyan, with the stilted cadence of one who has learned at school and not from a native, “Do you know the tongue thoroughly, or only to curse in?”

  I replied in the same language, “I had a Magyan tutor for three years.”

  “And Kettran?” he asked in that language.

  “Kettran is easy,” I said. It is an insolent tongue as well, at least as spoken in the trading circles I remembered; the term I used for easy was scatological. It did not deter the merchant.

  “You had a family that went to some expense to educate you,” he said, switching back to his school-taught Magyan. “But perhaps they're not too eager to take you back?”

  “They are dead,” I told him in the same language.

  “You might become a tutor yourself,” said the merchant, “instead of a drudge in a whorehouse. I might be willing to offer a good living to an able tutor who's not in the Order anymore.”

  “What makes you think I'm looking for a position?” I said, looking up at him with a smile of bemused innocence that might have done Hwyn proud.

  The merchant laughed heartily. “If you think of the reason, look for me in the Street of the Weavers, and I'll see what you can teach. Turl of Ectirion, son of Tarrow, dealer in cloth and clothing.” He stared at me a while longer. “What's your name, ex-Tarvon?”

  “Jereth,” I said unwillingly.

  “Jereth of where? Son of whom?” he pried.

  “Of the White Cat, son of another cat,” I said, switching back to Kettran; it is easy to be insolent in Kettran.

  Then the innkeeper bawled “Monk!” again, and I ran to fetch and carry for another eternity, till the last of the drunken soldiers, insensible on the table, was dragged to the common room to sleep it off. I would have loved to lie down next to them, but our pay did not include shelter, and besides, there was work still to be done. By the time we'd helped the scullery maid clean the last of the crockery, I was too numb with fatigue to hear Hwyn's haggling with the innkeeper over the price of our next day's labor. I would have missed my share of the table-leavings but that Hwyn insisted I eat.

  “You have to live on this,” she said in an undertone. “If we spend the money for food for now, we'll have none for the journey.” She stuffed her pockets with broken ends of bread and cheese, and picked at the burnt crust of stew at the bottom of a pot.

  Wearied into submission, I ate a little of the cold and clammy leavings before resigning the stew-pot to the scullion's eager grasp. Clearly the poverty of the monastery had not prepared me for the real thing, for my gorge rose at the thought of eating any more. If I were hungry the next day, I thought dejectedly, it would be instructive for me. I scrubbed my last pot and let myself be led like a sleepwalker, like helpless Trenara, out of the inn.

  “We ought to have picked ourselves a sleeping spot by day,” Hwyn said. “I might have thought of it before we took work.”

  “Maybe we could have found a place to hide the packs, too,” I said, weary of carrying anything and chafing under the small burden. “We could find one tomorrow.”

  “So close to the city, it's hard to find a place no one else would come upon,” Hwyn said.

  “Well, don't you know some sort of—I mean—” I groped about for a word, wondering if it were impolite to say magic or sorcery to a mage's face. “What you did in Kelgarran Hall surely took some knowledge of hidden things.”

  “I'm not really a mage,” Hwyn said softly. “What little I know of such things is too dangerous for everyday use. I'm afraid we're stuck carrying everything we have. There were some shrubs by the lakeshore; maybe there we can find a bit of cover to sl
eep under, some shred of privacy.”

  “I hope you can find it in the dark; I have no idea where we are,” I said. “I can't believe you're still so awake. I could fall asleep standing up.”

  “Well, it's better if you drop off as soon as we make camp,” Hwyn said. “We'll need to be up early tomorrow, if we're to have any chance to try singing before we go back to work. After all, we don't want to be doing this for the whole festival.”

  “Certainly not,” I said.

  “But one thing I wanted to ask you before we sleep—what was that inn-guest on about, talking to you in some other language?”

  “Amused to see a Tarvon priest cleaning a brothel,” I said. “His son wants to join the Order; I think he was half ready to take me on as tutor, as a sort of living proof of the Order's hol-lowness.”

  “Well,” Hwyn said, “it would be better work than this.”

  “But not day-labor,” I pointed out.

  “How's this for a campsite?” Hwyn said, stooping to touch the earth.

  “Good,” I said, without bothering to look or feel around me. I sank to the ground, managing by sheer luck not to be tangled in the branches that sheltered us from the wind off the lake. “Gods! If I hadn't given away my father's property, we could scorn to stay in the White Cat, much less work there.”

  “Jereth,” laughed Hwyn, “if you had kept your father's property, you wouldn't have met me at all. Now get some sleep.”

  It was strange to wake in the broken light of the copse at dawn and see them beside me: Trenara still sleeping, her long dark curls fallen across her face like a veil; Hwyn sitting cross-legged at a little distance, half turned away, worrying at something with her hands, her face furrowed in concentration. “Sky-Raven's Bones!” she cursed softly. I wondered whether her cursing had awakened me.

  I rose, but she did not notice me till I moved silently around in front of her to see what absorbed her concentration. “Good morning,” I said.

  She startled at my voice, then looked up at me, a smile stretching across her crooked face, as though my company were an unexpected pleasure. “Ah, Jereth, you're awake.” She'd removed the left sleeve from her shift and held it in her lap, knotting and unknotting it.

  “What's that you're working on?” I said.

  “I'm trying to make a sort of pocket I can carry about my neck, out of sight,” she said.

  “For the Eye of Night?” I said softly.

  She nodded. “Why keep it in a side-pocket where any pickpocket could make off with it, taking it for a hen's egg? And besides,” she said, dropping her eyes a little, “I think it belongs over my heart. It seems to want that.”

  “Like an infant,” I mused, dredging up memories from far back in childhood: the nursemaid holding one of the twins and teaching me to hold the other.

  “Is it?” Hwyn said. “I've never held one.”

  “Never?” I said. “Didn't you have any brothers or sisters, then?”

  “Not really,” she said, staring at her hands. She picked up the sleeve. “I'm trying to find a way of turning this into a pocket. I could cut here, and make the rest into strips to bind it around my neck. But I don't want to make a mistake, and have to rip the other sleeve to redo it.”

  As things stood, she had one arm bare; the shift, a knife-belt, and a worn pair of soft boots seemed to be all her clothing. Luckily the weather had taken a decided turn toward summer since St. Bridwen's Day, or the breeze from the lakeshore would have struck her cruelly. Even so, she could ill afford to lose any more clothing. “Do you mind if I look at it?” I said, putting out my hand.

  Reluctantly, she handed me the sleeve. I turned it inside-out and noted with satisfaction that it was two pieces of cloth stitched together, not one closed on itself. The elbow was darned very untidily, making an unsightly weal of wool, but the whole looked sturdy enough to serve. “All right,” I said, “the most basic job will be easy. We can take the stitches out from shoulder to elbow. Then you have two straps at the top, from the two sides of the sleeve. You have a needle and thread?”

  “I have a needle in my knife-belt,” she said. “There's the thread I took out at the shoulder.”

  “We'll need more than that,” I said. “Let's see. Your hair's longer than mine; could you spare a few?” It was thin, ragged hair, falling unevenly over her shoulders, but mine, newly grown out of tonsure, could not have yielded a piece long enough to thread a needle with. She took out her knife, cut a few hairs near her scalp, and handed them to me.

  “Anyway,” I said, “once we have the thread it's an easy job. Close the two ends at the top, close the wrist for the bottom of the pocket, reinforce the sides so the rest of the thread doesn't unravel. As soon as we can get a patch about this big,” I gestured a double hand span, “sew it into the bottom, across the wrist-opening, to guard against a split seam. It'll be a good enough pouch for the time being, and we won't cut any cloth, so we can still make the sleeve back into a sleeve if you want.”

  “You keep saying we,” Hwyn said.

  “I'll do it myself, if you like,” I said.

  “What, you can sew?”

  “Of course. Every sailor can sew,” I said. “Months at sea, and my mother the only woman in a crew of forty when she came at all, we'd be in a fix if we waited for her to mend every split sail.”

  “Why didn't you tell me that when we were looking for work?” Hwyn said.

  “I didn't think it was unusual. I thought everyone could do it.”

  “I'm not very good at it,” Hwyn grimaced.

  “Give me the needle,” I said. She handed it over, a little sliver of bone. “That's a pitifully small one.”

  “If you're used to working in sailcloth, it is,” Hwyn said. “For old worn homespun, believe me, this will do.”

  I threaded it with hair, made a knot, and began.

  “How quickly your fingers go,” Hwyn said. “Maybe I could have gotten us better jobs than the inn. What else can you do that you didn't think worth mentioning? What else do sailors do? Fishing?”

  “Yes,” I said, “but we've got no boat to fish in, since Conor took back his loan, and the area within wading distance of shore will be overfished, so close to a city.”

  “Fixing things, maybe?”

  “I can fix a boat,” I said. “I suppose I could learn to fix other things.” I came to the end of the hair, and threaded on another. “I'll have to redo this with real thread when we can get some. Hair may get brittle.”

  “Will the Eye of Night be safe?”

  I shrugged. “It'll be inside your shift. Tie your belt tightly, so if the pouch breaks, the stone will stay inside. Let's see how long this needs to be.” I went behind her to hold the makeshift pouch around her neck, under her straw-colored hair. I could feel the delicate down on the back of her neck, and it felt strange to touch a woman like that, after all those cloistered years. Hwyn seemed to feel the same awkwardness; I could feel the sinews in her neck tighten with apprehension.

  “Perhaps you'd better show me,” I said, and let her take the sleeve. “Fold the ends to the right length, and I'll sew them to fit.”

  She held it, adjusting the ends till the pouch fell between her small breasts, then handed it back to me with the ends pinched to the length she wanted. “It looks like you're almost done. This would have taken me all day, you know. Thank you.”

  “I'm glad I can do something competently,” I said, “besides making the drunks laugh with my pratfalls, and cursing in Magyan.”

  “Well, I was the one that tripped you,” Hwyn said. “I probably lost us an extra farthing from today's pay; it's nearer the festival, so I should have been able to haggle the price up. I have half a mind not to go back. We might find something better by noontime.”

  “I thought we were going to try singing together,” I said. “If it's not going to work out, we may as well find out now: no sense paying festival prices for food if we're not profiting. And if it will work out, we'll need practice before the festival.�
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  “Yes,” said Hwyn, “and I'll need to teach you some songs not fit for celibates.”

  “Ha! I grew up at sea, remember?” I said. “Maybe I can teach you some. Do you know ‘The Captain and the Mermaid’?”

  “No,” Hwyn said. “You start, and I'll join in when I start to pick it up.”

  So I launched into the old sailors' drinking-song, beginning with the refrain:

  “She may be only half a wench

  Half a fish and half a wench

  But half a wench is better than none.”

  Then came the tale of the captain's long frustration, months at sea without a woman in sight, with the surprising and inventive catalog of things he tries to use as substitutes before seeing the mermaid. She lures him into the water, of course, and then leaves him plugging a leak in the bottom of his ship, where he must stay till he reaches port.

  I made my way through most of the verses blushing furiously. Hwyn had been right about me: even in my seafaring days there had been a little of the monk about me, and in my eagerness to prove myself not wholly naive I had chosen a song that I'd always found a little embarrassing. Furthermore, it was a song I'd never heard sung in the company of a woman. I had to shut my eyes to keep myself unperturbed by Hwyn's laughter—and then, when another voice joined mine on the last chorus but one, I had to open them to see who in the World-Wheel was singing with me, because I could scarcely believe it was Hwyn.

  It was, and I fell silent in wonder to hear that voice coming from that body. To the eye, she was a fragile thing, like the tiny bone needle she'd given me to work with, pinched and meager in every particular: limp, lusterless pale hair; bony fingers; misshapen bones standing out sharply under the windburned skin of her face. All the strength, all the richness, all the luxuriance, all the life her form seemed deprived of was abundant in her voice. Had I heard that voice in the fabled Palace of Earthly Delights, I would have cared for nothing else there. Had I heard it from the sea, like the mermaid's voice in the song, I would have leapt in without hesitation.