The Song of Andiene (6 page)

Ilbran frowned. A touch of falseness in the man’s speech. “What brought you down by the seaside, on a day such as this?”

The butcher’s eyes shifted. “Business, just business,” he said. There was silence. He studied the room as though naming the price of everything it contained. Kare knotted her lace, Hammel his net. Ilbran watched the butcher, not knowing what he should do. There was no way to drive a guest away that would not increase his suspicion a thousand-fold, especially such a cunning one as this.

Andiene sighed and muttered something in her sleep. Giter’s eyes sharpened with interest. “I thought there were but the three of you?”

“My brother’s daughter Rile has come to us,” Kare said serenely. “She does not love the city, though. I doubt that she will stay long.” There was silence again. The storm drove against the walls.

Andiene sighed again, and pushed the curtain aside. Her eyes widened as she saw Giter. She dropped her head sharply, after the fashion of country folk, that Kare had tried to teach her, muttered “Greetings,” and pulled the curtain closed again.

Brave girl!
Ilbran thought, filled with relief that she had not shown her usual royal arrogance. The butcher’s eyes showed no recognition, no suspicion, but he began talking casually, not seeming to care if he got short answers, or none at all. Hammel showed no disturbance, and Kare was as serene as ever. Ilbran fretted under the strain, the desire to throw the prying intruder out, the necessity to seem unconcerned.

But he told himself that there was no need to worry, even after Giter turned the talk to the palace doings. It was still almost the only thing spoken of in the marketplace. It was natural that he would speak of it. “Did you hear?” he said, “The reward is greater again today? They still search for the young one. ‘Crimes,’ they say, but we know what that means. Where do you think she is?”

“Dead,” Hammel said. “Dead or fled from the city.”

“That’s true, I suppose. With a reward like that, no wise one,”—and he glanced around the room,—“would shelter her. I thought that some noble might have hidden her, for reasons of power, to wait and put her on the throne, marry her and rule for her.”

“That was my thought too,” said Ilbran, glad to have a chance to speak the truth.

The butcher looked at him scornfully. “That was the only reason I could bring to mind, but I suppose there might be other ones. Some people have strange ideas—like honor. I was never able to know what they meant by honor. It certainly won’t feed you—or patch the roof, either.”

That cut too near the bone; there was no mistaking it. Ilbran rose and walked across the room to stand beside the doorway. Fel bristled up his neck hair and growled at the menace in the air. The blood left Giter’s face, and he laid his hand on the hilt of his dagger. “The storm is weaker now; I think I will return home.” His voice trembled slightly. Ilbran did not move.

Giter looked around him doubtfully. Kare had laid her lace aside; she sat quietly. Hammel leaned forward with his hands gripping the arms of his chair. Ilbran tried to seem at ease, leaning against the wall, but his hand lay near his dagger. Giter looked uneasily around the room.

“I know a little of your kind of honor. To kill a guest would be a crime,” he said.

Ilbran watched the butcher in silence. In truth, he did not know what he would do, or what he would be able to do. Giter had made it clear that he knew their secret; he could not be trusted with it. The answer was obvious; the cliff was steep; the tide was full; the authorities would not bestir themselves over the death of a shopkeeper.

But he had never killed a man, and the thought sickened him. In a fair fight it would be possible, but this fight would be too fair, too evenly matched.
If I lose, then what becomes of my family?

The butcher might be three times his age, fat and prosperous, but there was strength under his fat. Ilbran had seen him take two ruffians, disarm them both, and beat their heads together, when they tried to rob him. Now he was alert and on the defensive, terrified, by the looks of him, but more dangerous because of it.

Giter’s eyes flickered from the blocked doorway to the far too small window. He spoke coaxingly. “Come now, you know that I would not betray you.”

“Not even for money? We know that you are a poor man.” Ilbran’s voice was filled with heavy sarcasm.

“Poor I may be, but there are a few things that are beyond me, and you have been my friends. I am your guest, and helpless. Tell me, what assurance could I give you, that I would not betray you?”

“What vows do you hold sacred? None,” said Ilbran, but he was filled with a hope that this day might not end in killing. He took a step toward Giter and away from the door.

At that moment of relaxation, Giter sprang for the door. Ilbran leaped to intercept him, and they fell heavily onto the floor. Ilbran landed underneath, his right arm pinned and twisted uselessly behind him. Giter’s foul breath puffed into his face. Stubby fingers pressed into the sides of his throat. His eyes caught a flicker of motion, his mother holding the heavy fire-stirrer ready to strike.

Fel sprang more surely to join the fight, fastening his teeth in Giter’s wrist. The butcher bellowed in pain and let go of Ilbran’s throat to snatch at his dagger. Ilbran tried to knock it away; it gleamed in the firelight; the courser fell away from the butcher’s arm.

Ilbran had no time to think of his own dagger. He had work enough to keep Giter’s hands from his throat again. Though he was taller than the butcher, he had not yet come into a man’s weight and strength, and Giter was far more cunning.

No chance now for Kare to act. Ilbran was tossed back and forth, on top, underneath. In their fight, they rolled nearer and nearer the door. Then Giter heaved and bucked his heavy body, and flung Ilbran free of him for one moment, long enough to bound to his feet and plunge through the door with so much force that the leather tore loose from the lower hinge.

Ilbran sprang after him, brushing the dangling door aside, but the older man was a good dozen pace ahead, shrieking, “Help! Fire! War! Help! Fire!” as people swarmed from their houses.

Andiene ran from her hiding, to stand beside Kare, her face filled with despair. “I could have helped you,” she said.

“Nothing you could have done,” Kare said.

“No, you do not understand! I could have saved you, but I was afraid. Now I must leave, or I will destroy you.”

“Where will you go?” asked Kare.

“No concern of yours,” she answered, with a gleam of her royal manner. “I would not have you die for my sake. Where did you hide my rings? I must have the one.” Kare knelt obediently and began scraping at the floor.

Ilbran pushed the door aside, stumbling back into the room. His right arm hung uselessly. “He’s gone out of my reach—too many around him—but he isn’t telling them what he knows—for fear they’ll share in the reward. He has only to go to the square, and he’ll find soldiers enough, but we can count on a little time.” He wiped the blood out of his eyes, left-handed. He staggered and clutched at the wall for support. “Maya, what are you doing?”

His mother scrabbled up the rings from the ground, for a silent answer. Andiene came forward. “This one I must have,” and she settled a strangely shaped one over her thumb, a ring all of gold, with a knob carved with curving lines in place of a stone. She looked searchingly at Hammel and Kare. “My friends and hosts, will you not leave me as much pride as you allow yourselves?”

Hammel nodded.

“Then take these two rings as gifts. I have no use for them. Strike out the gems, and throw them away, hammer the settings together and they will not betray you.”

Hammel bowed his head in silent agreement.

Andiene took the fire stirrer and struck the two jewels out of their settings. “I will throw these into the sea.”

“You cannot leave alone!” Ilbran said, his resentment suddenly forgotten. “It would be a shame on us. You know nothing of the city. You are a child. I can lead you to a hiding place … ”

“No,” she said. “I know where I am going.”

“With no food?”

“Fare you well, my friends,” she said, looking intently at them, then turning and slipping through the doorway.

“No, do not follow after her,” said Hammel. He turned to his wife. “I should never have taken you from the forest.”

Ilbran turned back from the door. There was time to run; there would be time to run for any who were young and strong and able to walk. Useless. He could not leave them.

Words came in a rush. “Sire, what should I have done?” His question went unanswered. He knelt by the courser’s side—dead with Giter’s dagger through its heart. He took the fire-stirrer, that stick of unburning wood, and brought it down on the two rings, soft gold, unalloyed, easily crushed together. He struck at them as though they were some enemy. When the job was done, and the lump of gold buried again, the dirt packed down hard and smooth, he said, “What now?”

“We wait,” said Kare, “and we choose our story. I think it best that I never had a niece. None of our neighbors have seen her. A brawl, insulting words, and he ran storytelling for spite.”

Her calm imagination did nothing to lighten his dread. He thought of the stake in Traitorsquare, the grizane’s shadow-hidden eyes, the cold look of Andiene when she spoke of Nahil, her enemy, her kin.

“What then?” he asked.

“We wait, to see if they will believe us.”

Chapter 5

Andiene turned from the light and warmth of the fisherman’s cottage to follow the harsh whisper that clawed at her mind. “Come, come,” it called. It was dry like the scurry of rats running over dead leaves. It crackled like the flames that devour the kindling twigs. It was filled with power like the wildfire that runs across the summer-dry plains.

She had fought it so long. She had hidden from it. Now, there seemed no more reason to fight against it.

She picked her way down the narrow sea-cliff path, a rock and dirt trail irregularly stepped with stones. The storm blinded her with wind-driven rain. The rocks were wet and slippery. The air was cold and numbed her fingers. But there was no room in her for fear.

It was so much easier to go where she was led, not to question, not to fight. Though she stumbled in the soft sand, she rose and went on. Waves washed against her and retreated, eating the sand from under her feet. She did not even notice when her hand unclenched itself and let the two ringstones fall into the sea.

A boat bobbed nearby, moored to a rock. The water was deeper there. Andiene caught at the rope to hold herself up, as a wave broke over her head. The salt stung her eyes and blurred her vision like the tears she had never shed. She blinked to try to clear her eyes, as she looked up to the high cliff. Flames leaped up like a beacon fire, and the men moving at cliff top were outlined darkly against the light.

The knot that tethered the boat to the rock had been tied strongly and well; Andiene’s hands were too weak. She tore at the rope with her teeth, a musty taste on her tongue like clothes laid in a damp chest. The torchlights were halfway down the cliff path before the knot gave way.

Then she climbed clumsily over the side of the boat; it dipped and swayed under her weight. She knelt in it, hardly knowing what she did. When she turned and looked back, the fire and torchlights were farther away, slipping still more quickly away.

Though Andiene knew then that she was in the grip of strong magic, she had had no dealings with the sea, so she did not know how fearful it seemed to those on shore who saw a boat with no sail, no oars, slip to sea against the tide.

She huddled in the boat, the dimming firelight behind her, the open sea before her. “No land to the west,” the minstrels had sung. “No land till they came to the edge of the world, the endless waterfall.” Still, the boat steered itself to the west, and she was not afraid. She did not think she had come so far from that blood-stained courtyard to die on the open sea.

The storm cleared. Bright-night was upon the land again, and long threads joined the stars in webs more complex than the lace she had knotted for Kare. Wheels within wheels, intersecting, overlapping—she stared until she could almost understand the pattern. She had not often seen the stars, for her nurse had guarded her carefully. At last, she slept.

The sunrise woke her, dazzling her with more gold than would be found in any king’s hoard or dragon’s cave. She looked north, east, south, west, and saw nothing but light gleaming from the waves.

A great sea-hawk, gliding far above, saw her, closed his wings, and plummeted toward her, claws spread as wide as a man’s long fingers. In the moment before he reached her, he saw that he had found no fish. The great leathery wings beat and spread, and slowly he lifted himself into the air again. He hung above her all the day long, his shadow passing over her as he circled the wide sea winds.

Night came, and the sky patterns were not so perfect. The threads that joined the stars were drawn more randomly, like the crazy webs of poison-fanged spiders that spin in dark corners.

Another day came. Andiene dipped at the sea-water and tasted it, and knew that it would make her thirst crueler. She waited patiently. A sea courser followed behind the boat, a great beast that could tear a fisherman’s net to tatters without knowing it, or could tear a hole in a fisherman’s boat as easily, and for the same reason, as a man would tap open an egg.

He followed her all the day, and by his very presence kept away the more mindless hunters, but made no move to attack.

Night came, and morning, the third day. Andiene was left alone, the caller silent. The little boat drifted in the waves like any other piece of flotsam. She looked to the west and saw white foam against sharp-toothed rocks and tall cliffs. Her boat was caught in the grip of the tide, driving in toward those rocks, shattering against them, throwing her into the water. She fought the waves, the unsteady waves, the drowning waves. Then her mind cleared and calmed. She lay still and let them bear her up, and carry her to land.

They brought her to the safest place on that wide shore. The rocks thinned and were gone. The waves lifted her up onto the broad beach and left her to lie on the stones and cough out salt water.