Our Lady of the Islands (4 page)

A few days later, Sian prepared to return to Viel. She packed a small overnight bag, along with a satchel of reports, inventory lists, and instructions for their two bankers. Today she wore yellow silks: the color of commerce. And of romance.

Arouf was already busy in the loom house when Pino appeared at the house shortly after breakfast, his brown hair neatly combed and slicked down with water. “Are you ready, my lady?”

“Yes, thank you.” Sian followed him down to the little boat and settled herself comfortably aboard.

He rowed them out into the open waters that separated Little Loom Eyot from Alizar Main. Sian peered down over the boat’s edge to see what jeweled fish might be dancing about the coral underneath their boat this morning, until the reefs began to fall away and vanish into deeper, bluer water. Then she gazed out at the placid sea under turquoise skies lined with puffs of cloud at the horizon, grateful for this time of enforced inactivity. She so seldom just rested.

It was a breezy day, less humid than usual, and Alizar sparkled in the tropical sunlight. As they drew closer to the central cluster of islands, she gazed through the straits, up to the graceful, monumental bridge connecting The Well and Three Cats, and the half-sunken ruins of the City of Giants that surrounded it. In the opposite direction, the island of Home was dominated by the grand Factorate House, rising atop its hill above clouds of fan palm and flowering Keelash trees. Another immense stub of once-mighty pillar, left from ancient times, rose from Home’s small harbor.

“Who do you think built such things, Pino?” she said, thinking of Reikos’s questions the other day.

“My lady?” The boy looked up, startled from his rhythm; one oar smacked flat against the water, juddering the boat. He recovered quickly and had them moving smoothly again.

“The old ruins.”

He blinked. “The ancients built them, my lady.”

“But who were the ancients?” Pino looked so worried that Sian smiled at him. “I mean, they were giants, clearly. Were they gods, though, or just great big people?”

Pino rowed a few more strokes before venturing, “I’ve only ever heard that they were ancients, and that they left long ago.” He glanced over his shoulder at the pillar stub off Home with an uncomfortable shrug. “Before … you know, two years ago, I never thought about it.”

Nobody did
, she thought.
Until a giant washed up on our shores.
“Was the Butchered God one of these ancients, do you think?”

“I don’t know, my lady,” Pino answered at once. “Some people say … they say the Butchered God came to heal the city. At least, that’s what I hear.”

“Yes, yes …” she mused. “I have heard that too. I do wonder how much healing a dead god can do for us.”

The boy leaned forward, eagerly. “Would you like me to go into town, to ask around?”

“No. It was just idle curiosity — I’m sure Arouf needs you back on the Eyot.” She did not want to think about it, really — as she remembered every time she did. Gods returning. These were thoughts too big. Too strange and frightening. What was one to do with them? She knew the tales of Copper Downs, of course; how the gods there had been released from their long captivity. Who didn’t? The undying Duke’s demise, and the chaos that followed, had helped catalyze Alizar’s successful bid for independence, after all. But that was Copper Downs, and centuries ago. If there had ever been gods in Alizar, they’d been gone since long before the memory of anyone’s historians. Surely, the Cutter’s giant had just been some kind of freak. Dead, doubtless, of its very size. Let it rest, she told herself. Let it go. She had plenty of
real
troubles to contend with, just keeping their small business in good working order.

They approached the landing at Shingle Beach. The name was apropos, for the flat, arid island had little to recommend it save for this wide beach of coral rubble on its western shore, and the first bridge on Sian’s way from Little Loom Eyot into the inner island cluster that made up central Alizar. Such bridges had proliferated under continental rule, engendered by a foreign ruling class less comfortable with traveling by boat than the native population was. The widely varied structures had transformed a scattershot gathering of rocks, low hills, coral atolls and long-dead volcanic peaks into a coherent city-state; Sian took a special, almost patriotic pride in walking them.

Which was why she usually preferred to have Pino drop her here, though Viel was two bridges further on. She rarely hired runner-carts and water-taxis unless she had too much to carry or too far to go, savoring any chance to walk across the smaller islands and their bridges, and ever conscious of the need for thrift, of course.

“Thank you, Pino.” Sian gathered her bags. “Tomorrow afternoon, then?”

“Yes, my lady. Four bells after the midday.”

The servant boy stayed and watched as Sian made her way up the rough-planked pathway that served as a floating pier when the tide was in. She had never been able to make him leave until she was out of sight, so she had stopped trying. He was charged to see his mistress safely to Alizar Main, and he would do so, until he could see her no longer.

He would also return as arranged, without fail. So she could hardly complain.

Sian walked into Shingle Beach’s sole tiny village, through narrow streets crowded with hovels and cottages on short stilts against the tide. Like many of the lesser islands, Shingle Beach had its own flavor of taverns, markets, even household gardens. The rocky soil here did not support lush vegetation. Tall wild grasses, and a range of lovely succulents, delicately lavender or red, filled border rows and window boxes. Thorny heart’s blood vine, with its mass of scarlet flowers and sweet, blood-red berries, covered many roofs and porches.

She was through the built-up area in minutes, walking past a waving stretch of orange stargrass, then onto the bridge to Cliff, where she always paused to catch her breath. She leaned against the rail, admiring the lofty Factorate House across the water on Home. It had been built not long after Alizar won its independence from continental rule, to replace the continental Factor’s palace on Cutter’s — which was now the Census Taker’s Hall. This shining hub of Alizari industry and trade was a monument to the nation’s independence, wealth, and power; and, for Sian, a symbol of family connection and prestige. The Factor himself, who lived there with his consort and their son, was her very distant cousin. She had never actually met them, of course, and her errands rarely took her to its busy marble halls, but from time to time she went there to arrange for necessary licenses, or charm one of its many resident officials into granting her some important tariff exemption or regulatory concession.

She soon walked on, passing across Cliff, an island about half the size of Shingle Beach, mostly covered with hutments and shanties, and barely a business district of its own. The only reason it was connected even by a rough bridge to anything was because of its proximity to Viel. Cliff itself was a nothing of a place, dusty and barren nearly to its jutting eastern shoreline, teeming with a seemingly endless crop of poor. The island’s unusual weather was defined by winds that whipped relentlessly through the channel between Home and Viel.

The Cliff-Viel bridge was a far more substantial affair than the Shingle Beach-Cliff span. Its strong iron stanchions held up a roadbed paved with flat white stones salvaged from the broken buildings of the City of Giants. Some said that many of the islands themselves were nothing more than the rubble of those fallen structures, dust-covered and overgrown millennia ago.

Nobody slowed across the bridge today. Merchants, traders, and other folk out on their daily business, dodging runner-carts and the occasional larger oxcart, pushed past Sian without even glancing at the lovely structure. Capuchin monkeys climbed through the bridge’s ornate grillwork overhead, chattering to one another, ever alert for the chance to pilfer some tasty morsel from an open cart.

Sian kept moving too, passing over onto Viel, through increasingly crowded streets towards the townhouse, nodding at faces she knew. She paused for a moment to talk with Mother Whinn at the corner tavern and bakery which stood at the base of Meander Way, a blade-straight street, artifact of the sense of humor of Viel’s ancient designers. Or of their delicate grasp of reality.

At 45 Meander Way, Sian stuck her large brass key into the thick wooden door, jiggled it left and right, then turned it. The lock slid free, and she went in.

“Ooh,” she muttered as stale air greeted her in the commercial front room. It had only been a few days; unfortunate that she had to keep the place sealed tight when she was away. She laid her bag and satchel down and set about opening shades and windows, letting in not only the perfumed tropical air but a good deal of light. The front room immediately became far more cheerful, and a whole lot hotter.

“Small price to pay.” Sian never talked aloud to herself at home on Little Loom Eyot, but here, she often found herself doing so.

She bustled about the room, opening the smaller windows at the back and on the half-floor upstairs, propping the shutters open as wide as they would go, checking the levels of oil in the lamp wells, bringing in the flyers, notes and letters from the postal lockbox out front, sweeping the small front porch. Then she rested a bit, with a glass of tepid water from the townhouse’s supply; a cool drink would have to come later, when she was out.

Her first errand today would be visiting the large Hiring Hall in the center of Viel’s business district, though not for another hour or two. Business associates from the continent often had a hard time adjusting to Alizar’s more languid tropic pace. In the meantime, she would work on her correspondence here — or perhaps find a comfortable café along the way. Yes, that was a much better idea. A small cup of kava was just what she wanted.

She stood by her open back door, letting the somewhat cooler air of the jacaranda-shaded alleyway filter in, then pulled the door closed again, and bolted it. The windows and shutters could stay open while she was out; they were fitted with narrow bars and net screens against invasion — human or insect.

Before she left, she took a moment to sort through the notes and messages that had been left. Most of them were routine, though she did find a notice about the upcoming Census. It included a little ‘personal’ note from another of her cousins: the Census Taker himself, though obviously dictated to a secretary. “Escotte, ever the politician,” Sian muttered, setting it aside on her ‘keep’ pile. Then she came across a more important note: the Hanchu silk merchants she’d been trying so hard to pin down were inviting her to dinner this very evening, at their trading house on Malençon. Sian felt a mixture of annoyance and relief at this: what if she’d been on the Eyot today and missed this invitation! Well, thank goodness she wasn’t, and double thanks that she kept a closet stocked with appropriate clothing here.

At the bottom of the stack, she found the item she’d been looking for: a small, tri-folded piece of manila-colored paper.

Unfolded, it revealed a short yet flowery note, labeled with today’s date and written in a man’s blocky hand; the slightly uncertain scrawl of someone who’d learned both the Alizari language and its flowing script as an adult:

Domina Sian Kattë:

Greetings and most felicitous welcome upon your return to civilization. (A joke, lady, if you please.)

I am most graciously anticipating the resumption of our negotiations on the subject of the northern silks I have in my stores, the afore-mentioned case of wine, and any other matters which may interest you. I trust our previously arranged appointment for this evening remains convenient. Please respond as to your pleasure in this matter as to the particulars of the time; I am assuming the place is to be the usual?

Looking forward to our continued negotiations, I am, as ever, your faithful servant:

Konstantin Reikos of Lost Port, Commanding,
Fair Passage

Sian smiled as she read the note, then frowned, realizing that their rendezvous was now in conflict with her invitation from the Hanchu syndicate. She refolded it and tucked it into the purse hidden within the folds of her yellow silk.

Locking the door behind her, Sian headed out, intending to stop by her favorite kava house, the Green Island. But the day had now grown steaming-hot, and the streets unusually crowded with a strangely cranky assortment of people. After being run up against a wall by some scowling fellow on a runner-cart, then jabbed in the ribs — for a second time — by someone’s wayward elbow, she decided the Green Island was rather out of her way, and stepped into the fenced-off area of the next sidewalk café she came to. She sank into a chair under the shade of a crape myrtle, and shooed a pair of small blue skinks off of the table.

“Lady?” A thin girl in rough cotton, with the pale skin of a northerner, stood above her.

“Hot kava, and a glass of cold water, please,” Sian said. The girl nodded and ambled back to the tiny kitchen.

Sian sat, watching the flood of humanity passing by. People of every color and shape and age. Many of them were the proper dark-skinned folk of Alizar and the southern extents of the Sunward Sea, but strange pale folk from Copper Downs and the City Imperishable passed as well. Across the busy lane, she noticed a rather grimy local man in ragged clothing, leaning idly against a wall. He seemed to be staring, none too happily, at
her,
for what reason she could not imagine. Recalling Jamino’s ambushed runner-cart, she turned away from the street to glance casually through her stack of papers until the girl returned with her kava and water.