A few minutes later the wound clotted and Rodden slept a proper sleep. I felt light-headed and ate some more fish, though it was a poor substitute for the blood I needed.
By afternoon I was tired of our sluggish progress and certain that if there were harmings around, they would have found us by now. I sat in the bow with the sun warming my back and began to summon a wind. Leap sat tall and proud beside me, his eyes slitted in the strong breeze. The little craft surged forward, and I managed to keep it up for an hour before spots danced in front of my eyes. I thrust my head between my knees, trying not to faint. The boat slowed to a crawl.
A moment later I checked our distance with the tor-line. If I was right we would reach Pol in two days’ time, perhaps a little more. We still had one full flask of water and all the fish we could eat thanks to Griffin, but I didn’t know how long we were going to last without blood. If it was just me I could probably manage. I’d been strong and well-nourished when we’d been thrown overboard. But Rodden hadn’t fed properly in nearly a week, on anything. I wasn’t sure how long I could go on giving him my blood. But I would continue, no matter what. I knew he would give the last drop in his veins for me.
There was nothing for me to do but estimate and re-estimate our distance from land, press the usually puffy vein in the bend of my elbow and wonder how much blood I could spare before I too was too weak to move.
At first light I swallowed some raw fish and gulped some water. I waited ten minutes for the liquid to thin my blood, and then cut my wrist again.
This time, Rodden woke for a moment. He fumbled at my wrist with one hand as if expecting to feel a furry body and was surprised by its smoothness. Then he frowned and his eyes opened. He looked up at me, eyes unfocused and confused. I put the cut against his lips again. His body went rigid and he tried to sit up, an angry flash of refusal blooming in his mind. But with my free arm I easily held him down, my embrace a restraint. His eyes closed again, and he drank.
Later I was too weak to call a wind. I chewed at a piece of clammy fish and wished for anything at all to break the monotony of the empty horizon. The sense of space was an illusion. I could see miles in every direction, sense the dark fathoms beneath. But we were trapped on this tiny vessel, an eight-by-four wooden structure that was becoming our open-air coffin.
I remembered how often I’d gazed out at the ships from my room at the palace in Xallentaria, wondering where they were headed with their sails so full of wind and purpose. The sea, which had once seemed like freedom, was now a prison.
I began to dream the old dreams, the ones I’d had until, unwittingly, I’d drunk from a flask of blood in Lharmell. The dreams of the slowly starving.
I was a vengeful angel, black-winged and wielding a sword. I descended on the Jessamine with a never-ending banshee scream and killed all I found there. Orrik was always last, and I lapped at his carcass like a cat.
I woke to find Rodden convulsing next to me, his body racked by the blood-hunger. I held him until his shaking subsided, hoping that in his stupor he couldn’t feel the pain of the violent cramps.
When I tried to sit upright, spots appeared in my vision again. I would trigger an attack of cramps if I persisted, so I lay still. Lying listlessly in the bottom of the boat, I felt for the tors, but couldn’t find them. The cord was there, yanking at me like a restless child, but I couldn’t sense its direction. I’d lost us in this great ocean.
Griffin dropped fish on me and screamed, but I batted her away. Leap stuck his whiskery face in mine and I pushed him away too, his fishy breath making my face crease with disgust.
At last when the sun was high I remembered the water, and the three of us drank the rest of the flask while Rodden lay motionless. I gnawed listlessly on some fish, and then cut my wrist again and held it to his mouth. He swallowed once, twice, and then was unresponsive. I licked at the blood that flowed down my arm until the wound clotted and I could hold myself upright no longer.
From then on, time became a liquid concept, flowing back and forth like the rocking of our boat on the sea. I was young, and then I was old. A baby once more, and then an old, stooped woman. The only certainty was the blazing light from the sun or the moon on my upturned face, and the white-hot cramps that gripped my body.
EIGHT
Perhaps it was the eagle screaming blue murder atop our mast, or the frantic pacing of one of their native cats, but something roused the attention of the Verapinians who approached our little craft after it washed up on shore, eighteen miles south of the capital.
In the bottom of the boat they saw a man and a girl clasped to each other, as if in death, faces reddened by days of exposure, lips cracked and bleeding.
We weren’t dead, only deep in torpor, and under the watchful eyes of a golden eagle and a drain-cat we were taken to a hospice, little more than a room with rough white walls on the edge of town.
For two days I lay, administered by gentle hands, hearing strange words around me. My burns and cracked lips were softened by salve. My sleep was restless, anxious lest I allow myself to slumber too long. After only a little while I knew I wasn’t going to die, but I hadn’t yet the strength to rise and get the blood we desperately needed. These were human nurses, not harmings, and couldn’t understand why my gaunt, black-haired companion remained unresponsive though he swallowed the water and thin gruel they fed him. The cuts on my wrist began to heal and itch, reminding me how desperately Rodden had needed, and still did need, blood. It was this that shocked me out of sleep at the end of the second day.
The nurses were absent for the moment, and, clad only in a scratchy smock, I found our coin, a flask, and the door and struggled outside. I was blasted by the full force of a scorching sun, and understood what Rodden had meant about the desert and its golden light. At an hour before sunset it was still blistering hot and my sunburn started to pain me. I shielded my eyes and looked about at clusters of mud brick buildings and uneven rocky ground webbed with dusty paths. Donkeys heed and hawed and munched on dried grass, tethered to windows by lumpy ropes.
Raising my nose to the wind I inhaled deeply, smelling the heat from the desert, the fermented aroma of dung. Then a whiff of maggoty meat reached my nostrils, and I turned gratefully in its direction. After walking about thirty shaky paces into the town I had collected a clutch of ragged children in my wake. They chattered to each other like birds, the sound perplexing me as I was unable to understand a word of it.
I knew I had found the right place when my feet touched a dark red slick outside a doorway. Flies were thick under the striped awning. I braced my arm against the squat building and peered inside. The children watched me solemnly, their only movement occasional shoves and staggers as they tried to push each other into the bloodied dirt.
‘Hello?’ I called, and my voice was creaky with disuse. I coughed and tried again.
After a minute a hefty man in blood-spattered shirt and trousers came to the door. In his hand was a gory meat cleaver. This was, I hoped, the town butcher, and not some flagrant serial murderer.
‘Hello, please, may I . . .’ I paused to swallow, my tongue too thick and dry in my mouth. ‘May I please have some blood? I have coin.’ I held out the flask with a shaking hand. I wasn’t going to leave without getting any. The dread that I would return to find Rodden dead was growing stronger with each passing second.
The man frowned, and then rapped out a command at the children and they scattered.
I slumped against the building, realising why I couldn’t understand a word anyone was saying: Rodden had neglected to mention that they spoke another language in Verapine.
Trying to make myself understood, I tapped the big vein at my elbow, shook the flask in the man’s face and pointed at him. Then I held out two coins, enough to buy a horse in Pergamia. ‘Please,’ I added, hoping that my tone was universally pleading. I held out the flask again.
He took it, and the coin, and then held out his hand again. I dropped two more coins into it, and when he disappeared inside I slid down the doorframe and rested on the stoop. A minute later I was being hauled up by my underarms. The flask, heavy now, was pressed into my hands. I was given a shove into the red mud and the door slammed behind me.
Not caring where I lay or who could see me, I opened the flask and gulped a third of it, disregarding what the rich pigs’ blood would do to my insides after a week of starvation. I felt the liquid hit my stomach and the shock of it made me gasp. I was suddenly gripped by the most awful indigestion, but instead of crying out in pain I clutched my stomach and laughed like a madwoman.
I struggled back to the sick tent and found a matronly looking woman tending an old man on a pallet in the corner.
‘Would you mind leaving us for a moment?’ I asked her, pointing to the exit. I glanced at Rodden. I had no way of knowing how long a harming could go without blood and any second might be his last.
The woman stared.
‘Go!’ I said, ‘Outside. Now. Please,’ I added.
Still she didn’t leave, and instead tried to shoo me into bed.
Impatient, I began to shout at her, flinging my arms towards the exit. She flinched, but seemed determined to stay, so I resorted to dancing about, screaming the words to a ditty from home, hoping to convince her I was mad and it was safest to leave me alone. She scuttled out. I glared into the old man’s yellowed eyes until he closed them.
Turning to Rodden, I eased him up and shoved several pillows behind his back. His eyes stayed closed, and I couldn’t detect even a flicker of his eyelids.
I opened the flask and dipped my finger in the blood, then wiped it across his lower lip. No response. I waved it under his nose, hoping the aroma would rouse him. Still nothing.
Praying that I wouldn’t choke him, I put the flask to his lips and tipped it up, dribbling the viscous liquid into his mouth. When he had a mouthful I clamped a hand over his lips and tipped his head back, hoping he would swallow by reflex.
Nothing happened for a moment. Then I felt him gag, and his eyes flew open. I thought he was about to spit blood all over me but after a confused second he swallowed. I took my hand away and he gasped.
When he’d caught his breath I held the flask to his mouth again and counted the swallows: three. I screwed the cap back on after that, knowing his stomach was weak and not wanting to risk him throwing up again.
He subsided back into sleep. I watched him for a few moments, finally allowing myself to hope that he would be all right. My hand itched to stroke his hair back from his face, to feel the softness of it as I had when we were lost at sea. But he had regained his customary composure, a slight frown creasing the bridge of his nose, and I sensed that this was a liberty I could no longer take. Instead I pressed his hand briefly, the one on which he wore my silver ring, and got back into bed.
Not trusting our nurse, I curled my body around the flask like a child with a coveted toy, and slept.
When I awoke it was dark and still and I could hear the high chirping of crickets. The moon shone brightly and there was a chill in the air. The town was silent and still. Through the window I saw a lithe, silvery cat pace atop a wall in the distance.
The old man was fast asleep, snoring lightly. I propped Rodden up, shaking his shoulder to rouse him. I put the flask to his lips and he drank, the blood slipping easily down his throat. After having his fill he lay back, breathing hard from the effort. His eyes opened, and in a slice of moonlight I saw him smile at me. He seemed lucid for the first time in days. Raising his hand he fumbled for my cheek and I felt the warmth from his fingers.
I smiled in return, and was about to feel for the thread between us when he spoke. The words came as tender as rose petals.
‘Ilona, my darling.’
His hand fell back to his side and he was asleep.
I recovered quickly after that. Not two days after Rodden had spoken, I moved out of the hospice and into a little room behind a shop that one of the nurses found me.
We had lost nearly everything after being hurled from the Jessamine. I needed a bow for starters. I needed to shoot something. It was the only thing that could possibly make me feel normal this far from home. But the marketplace didn’t have a vendor who sold bows.
I got our other provisions instead: cool robes for the day and heavier items for the desert nights. Soap. Knives. Salve for my sunburn. The woman who sold me the salve also pressed another lotion on me, and pointed to her own eye and then mine. I gathered it was for the black eye Orrick had given me. When I found a mirror hanging at another stall I saw the bruise was now mottled green and purple.
Language was no obstacle to haggling in the marketplace, gestures being all I needed to communicate my needs. I loved the rich colours of the local women’s clothing. They wore loose beaded tops paired with trousers that could have fitted two of me until I crossed the fabric in front and tied them snugly to my hips. They had the fullness of skirts but still allowed for sensible horse riding. To keep off the sun I bought a matching gauzy scarf that doubled as a shawl when the night turned chilly.
I bought more than I needed, because if I was idle too long I heard Rodden’s voice whispering in the moonlight.
Ilona, my darling.
And my body burned as if from the blood-hunger. I burned through sleepless nights, listening to the yowls of cats on heat and the incessant crickets. Lost on the Osseran Sea, my days had been filled with nothing but worry for Rodden. I had kept him alive with my own blood. And he did not know the name of the one who had saved his life.
Who was she? I cursed Rodden yet again for his secretiveness, that he had never told me the names of his sisters and mother and childhood friends. The name meant nothing to me, and so became everything.
I bought us horses, two pale, stocky creatures with black hooves. They were impervious to the heat, composed even at midday when I retreated, slick with sweat, to the shelter of my rented room.
Soon, a week after I’d left the hospice and well before I was ready for it, he recovered. One of the nurses found me in the market place and, with smiles and pointing, communicated the good news.
No longer able to avoid him, I stowed the belts I had just purchased in my room, and made the short walk to the hospice. I entered to find him sitting upright. His eyes widened at my attire. I wore the loose pants and cropped top of a local woman in rich orange fabric.
‘What?’ I asked, hearing the defensiveness in my voice.
He said nothing for a moment, and then smiled ruefully. ‘You reminded me of someone.’
Someone? Someone? I was Zeraphina Hermione, Second Daughter of the House of Amentia, sister to the future Queen of Pergamia.
I wasn’t like anyone else.
We sat in silence, listening to Leap purr as he lay heavily across Rodden’s legs.
‘We’ll need to prepare for the next part of our journey,’ he said at last.
‘It’s done,’ I replied. ‘Horses, clothing. A few knives, but they don’t have proper weapons here. All packed and ready to go.’
He nodded, regarding me. The nurse had shaved him, and apart from the thinness of his cheeks and a ruddy, burned complexion, he looked as he always had. I should have been ecstatic but instead my mouth was filled with the taste of sour milk. I found I couldn’t hold his gaze for long.
‘We should leave for Pol tomorrow, then. The journey will only take two hours or so.’
‘All right,’ I said, slapping my thighs with a heartiness I didn’t feel and rising to my feet. ‘I’ll see you at dawn.’
‘Zeraphina,’ he called as I turned to go, and I started. I had forgotten the sound of my name in his mouth. I wanted to take the word back from him. He had lost the right to speak it.
I stopped and waited, still
with my back to him.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
I should have been happy he was better. Felt less alone. But it was worse somehow, seeing him awake and knowing he’d lived a life before we’d met that he’d never tell me about. In an unfamiliar land with a dubious future, it made me feel as if I were nothing. Like I could walk into the desert and disappear and no one would ever think of me again.
I drew the scarf around my body, nodded, and left.
We departed the town in silence, riding single file on our desert horses. I held Griffin on my wrist and we competed over who could look the most thunderous. Leap had cleaved himself to Rodden for the moment, always the comforter. I could feel Rodden’s confusion at my attitude, but it was my turn to clamp down on our connection. My turn to cut him out.
Eventually Rodden drew up next to me.
‘What’s got into you? Did something happen while I was recovering?’
I had steeled myself to be silent, but words rushed out of me in a bitter flood. ‘What, you think you’re the only one who’s allowed to brood?’ I clutched at the first thing that was weighing on me that wasn’t Rodden’s late-night name confusion. ‘I have a lot on my mind, you know. Pretty soon I’m going to be seventeen.’ Just speaking the words made my stomach tighten with fear. I had discovered the date while in the markets and my seventeenth birthday was barely a fortnight away. We were far away from my mother right now, but very soon we would be in Amentia. I was going to be seventeen and in Amentia. Oh, by the stars, I was afraid of what might happen when we arrived. I wished I hadn’t provoked my mother in the last letter I had sent. And Lilith was bound to have written and told her how I’d snuck away with Rodden in the dead of night.
Blood Storm: The Second Book of Lharmell Page 9