The Windsingers (27 page)

Srolan rose slowly to go, an old woman lifting her tired bones. Her body moved with the rasp of her breathing. Vandien stepped aside from the door. But Ki didn't move. Windmistress. Her lips formed the word, but she could not utter it. Rebeke? Who else? Her antagonizing of the Windsingers had led to Vandien's defeat. She had drawn their attention to herself and her friend.

'How much?' Ki demanded suddenly. Vandien and Srolan were startled back to awareness of her. Ki didn't step out of the door. Her sopping hood hung down her back. Lank brown hair framed her narrow face. 'How much?' she repeated, more insistently. A note of anger crept into her question.

'How much... what?' Srolan stood puzzled, seeking to leave, but blocked by Ki.

'How much to lift his scar... if you can do it.'

'That's not a thing bought with coin.'

'Damn you, that's not an answer! You can't do it, even if he brought you the whole damn temple! Admit it!'

Srolan stared at Ki. Ki knew her measure was being taken by those dark eyes. A chill power flowed behind them, but Ki was too angry to be wary.

'She's right, Vandien. I couldn't lift the scar But if I had the chest, there is one who would be persuaded to lift your scar for a single peek inside the box. I would have carried out my side of the bargain, if you had yours. But you didn't.'

'That wasn't the only possible bargain in the world. Who is this one who can lift the scar from a man's face?' Ki was not screaming. Screaming would have been pleasanter than the cold hoarseness of her voice.

Srolan looked at her with knowing eyes, and the corners of her withered mouth turned up in mockery of a smile. 'Do you really need to ask that of me, Ki?'

Ki could find no words to answer. She felt shamed by Srolan's appraising eyes, but could not imagine what Srolan knew, or thought she knew, about Ki. No deed in Ki's past could be as loathsome as her tone implied. But Ki found herself drawing aside to let Srolan pass. A chill wind seemed to follow her, that set Ki to shivering until her teeth chattered in her head. She clenched her jaws against it. She looked down the hall, but Srolan was already gone. She turned back to Vandien.

He stood in the middle of the room stripping efficiently and dropping his sodden clothes into the bathtub. Ki came into the room, drawing the door shut behind her. She watched him undress. His feet were wrinkled and red with their long immersion. As he drew his wet smock off over his head, his neck bent in a graceful curve, the arch bared to show the small dark shape of a hawk printed on his nape. The woolen smock slapped into the tub on top of the rest of his clothes. He stood rubbing his face. Putting one hand on each side of his face, he pushed firmly. His scar went narrower, no longer dragging at his eye. But when his hands dropped away, his face fell again into its marred configuration. He was surprised to find Ki watching him.

'It hurts all the time, doesn't it?' she asked gently.

'No.' He denied it flatly. 'Only when it's cold. The rest of the time it's just a stiffness, a place of no feeling. It doesn't really trouble me all that much, Ki. It was just a chance to be rid of it, and have a pouch full of coin into the bargain. Anyone would have jumped at it.'

'Certainly. Even I, if anyone had bothered to tell me what the stakes were.'

He looked acutely uncomfortable. Vandien turned away from her and went to the bed, to climb in under the covers.

'Vandien.' Ki groped for words. 'I never stopped to think what a burden that scar must be to you. But now that I know...' Ki floundered. 'Let's go to Srolan in the morning. Let's find out who can lift your scar, and go see...'

'Just like taking a kettle to the tinker. Here, fellow, patch this up, and I'll give you a coin for your time. Ki, dammit, it's my face. I'll not have you paying to have it repaired. Must we dredge all this up and talk about it now? I'm tired and cold.'

'So am I.' Ki sank down onto the stool and began to work her boots off her feet. For a time, the silence held. The boots dropped to the floor and she rose to pull her hood and tunic off. Her voice came muffled and bleak through the fold of damp cloth. 'As I put the scar there, why should I not help to remove it?'

'Must this damn thing come between me and every other person in my life?' Vandien demanded petulantly. 'I'd prefer you continue to ignore it, Ki. You didn't put the scar on my face. A Harpy did that. You had no say in it. You never called to me for help. Up to that moment, you didn't even welcome my company.'

'You offered me a bargain, once,' Ki recalled. She had freed her hair from the braid and was combing her fingers through it. 'You offered no debts between us, nothing given, unless it was given freely. As I offer this now. What harm can it do to spend a few days upon this, to see exactly what can be done?'

'The same kind of harm that is being done right now!'

'Harm.' Ki gave a choked laugh. 'That's what I am best at. You might have succeeded, if they had not brought in a Windmistress to sing. Did not Srolan say that?'

'I have no idea what she meant.' Vandien shouldered himself deeper into the bed.

'I'm afraid that I do. You have not asked what errand kept me away from False Harbor.'

'You don't need to give me excuses.'

'Not usually,' Ki said gravely. 'But I suspect I brought the Windsingers down on you. Did I tell you in Dyal not to risk their enmity? I should have advised myself. I did more than earn their anger. I owe my life to one Rebeke, Windmistress. She kept me alive; but I doubt if she has any fondness for me. Or for my friend.'

Vandien propped himself up on an elbow. His dark eyes bored into hers. With an effort, he lightened the mood. 'It sounds like a tale worth the telling, but one that deserves a night fire under high stars. Let it wait awhile, Ki. And remember, there is no changing what is done. Even if there had been no Windsinger, I doubt if I could have found that chest. The night was too dark and the water too deep. Besides,' he tried for a smile, 'I can't let you steal the only morsel Srolan threw to my vanity. Let me believe the Windsinger Killian knew herself no match for me, and called in reinforcements.'

Vandien flopped back to stare at the ceiling. Ki bent to blow out the lamp. In the chill darkness she found the bed and crawled into it. She rested beside him, their bodies not quite touching. She could not see in the blackness of the shuttered room. Uncertainly she reached out to put her hand on his chest. She felt the hair bend softly beneath her fingers, felt the chill of the sea on his body still. He made no sound, and she grew bold enough to huddle closer, fitting her body to his. She eased her head onto his shoulder, until she felt the softly bristling stubble on his chin tickle against her forehead. 'Did you believe Janie...' she began cautiously, but could not go on.

Vandien shifted. His hand moved to tousle her hair. It rested on her head, lightly pressing her to his chest. When he spoke, his weary voice hummed by her ear, with a shade of his old humor in it.

'What Janie said out there in the temple? That you would like to see me stay scarred? As soon as she said it, I knew it would gnaw on you. It's just the type of insidious suggestion you can't abide.' He fell silent.

Ki waited. Vandien sighed out a deep breath. He bent his head and she felt the brush of his moustache as he kissed her lightly on the forehead. His body relaxed as sleep took him.

'I asked if you believed her!' she reminded him in an exasperated voice. She punctuated her reminder with a light jab in his ribs.

He jumped and chuckled infuriatingly. Ki knew he had baited her into repeating her question. A little of the day's tension went out of her. If he could still laugh and tease, then their companionship could survive this day's folly.

'It bothers you that much, does it? It is like this. Every person hides inside her some small bit of ugliness. Perhaps it makes Janie feel she is not so wicked and selfish if she can imagine you are no better than she. Did you notice Collie, the mute harper?'

Ki nodded against his chest. Their bodies were beginning to warm the bed. She liked the way his chest thrummed against her ear when he spoke.

'Janie likes him better mute. Had he a voice, other than his harp, he might mock her as the other men in the village do. Then she would have to sneer at him and reject him as she does the others. But while he is voiceless, she can care for him, in the depths of her blighted little soul, and rest assured that other women will not find him too attractive. I doubt if she has put her feeling into words, even to herself. But some part of her knows, and her guilt stings a little less if she imagines you share a little sentiment for me.'

'Oh.' Ki rolled over and arranged herself so that she could lean on her elbows, and look down into Vandien's face. She could see little but her eyes weren't needed. She lightly trailed her fingertips over his face. The lines in his forehead smoothed away under her touch. She fluffed the damp curls away from his face and cautiously ran a finger down the stiffness of his scar. A light touch told her that his eyes were closed. She stroked his face. 'Does it ease the pain when I touch you like this?'

Vandien sighed and gently pushed her hands away. 'It eases the physical pain of the scar. But every time you touch it, it is a reminder to me that it is here. Ki. We have asked very little of one another. But now I ask. Let this thing go. Between us, let us not speak of it, or touch it, or let it matter. I've made a fine fool of myself these past few days. I've not a coin to show for it, and I've a team sunken in that temple. Help me get the team out and return them to their owner, and then let's find a haul for your wagon that will pay us a few coin and work me hard. As for the rest of my folly here... will you let me forget it? To only you my scar has made no difference. Yet it is you who I wish could look at me and not see it.'

His body had gone tense against her. As close as she was to him, she felt she could not warm him. She moved to cradle his body against hers. She wondered if he even felt her touch. She whispered, 'Between us, there is never a need beyond asking. Go to sleep, Van, for there's a cold wet task before us tomorrow.'

'Vandien. My name is Vandien.'

'Vandien,' she amended softly.

He was silent after that, and Ki lay still against him. She wished for sleep, but it was a long time coming.

Last night she had told him her tale of Dresh and Rebeke. He had listened quietly. The events she related seemed unreal, even to Ki. The sheer physical effort of the past few days had drained her, making all yesterdays vague. Medie's death loomed more monstrous and she regretted her part in it. Hardest of all was to speak of the debt she owed. Rebeke had saved her, maybe with no more thought given to Ki than to her horses, but saved her nonetheless. Ki had finished her tale with, 'I hate a debt that can't be settled.'

'Don't we all,' Vandien had replied, staring into the flames, and she knew he was thinking of how Dresh had sent him to False Harbor. She had come to hate this place. The chill water over the sunken temple with its secrets baffled them both. And Vandien went about strangely abashed, ashamed to admit the hopes that had been dashed. It was a bad place that gnawed at old pains without devouring them.

Another tide had ebbed and risen. They were no closer to recovering Vandien's skeel. Ki was privately wondering if they were still at the end of the line. Perhaps they had tangled it in the sunken crypt of the temple, and then scuttled off. Maybe she and Vandien had spent the last two days trying to pull the bottom of the temple up through its own stairwell. She was discouraged, her team was sulky and tired, and Vandien had found new depths to black humor.

She looked down the beach. Vandien stood staring out at the waves over the temple. The grey waves curled at his feet and slunk back to the sea. He'd have to move soon, or the sea would be creeping up his legs. In his hands he held a coil of rope whose end disappeared into the surf.

On the first low tide following Temple Ebb, they had been able to recover the end of the line Vandien had left looped around the fallen stone. Janie had provided sulky dory service to the temple and Vandien, against Ki's advice, had himself dove down to cut the line free and fasten a fresh length of line to the cut end. There had been a second dive to go down and thread the fresh line through the temple door, for Vandien maintained that Ki's team might be able to break the skeel free of their grip on the bottom, but could scarcely haul them over the jagged temple walls as well. Ki had traded dried fruit and sausages for three more lengths of rope. These sufficed to reach the shore and be fastened to her team.

The team had pulled from shore at high and low tides, and at the turn of the tide. She had taken the team out into the surf, approaching the temple at the low tide, and pulled from there. All to no avail. If the skeel were still at the end of that silvery piece of fine, they were dug in firmly and likely to remain so for as long as their rutting instincts held.

'Vandien!'

He turned at her call and plodded toward her, his shoulders bunched against the chill sea wind. He still wore the bulky wool garments of the fisherfolk. They hung on his narrow frame. His dark eyes were shadowed. He doled out loops of rope as he came, finishing by knotting the end firmly to the wagon tongue. 'I'll build the fire while you take your nags to grass and change your clothes,' he offered as he came to lean against the wagon box.

But Ki did not rise to his use of the word 'nags.' 'Vandien, let's do one of two things. Let's quit dragging at that rope and sit back and relax until the damn things finish copulating and come up for air. Or, and this I prefer, let's cut the rope, hitch up, and leave. We're low on coin, but we could trade hides or blankets or something to the T'cherian against the value of the lost team. We could even trade whatever we can for salt fish here, settle with the T'cherian on the way, and haul the fish inland until it becomes a rarity, and trade it then. I've some good contacts back in Greenwood. That's only five days past Bitters.'

'No,' Vandien replied when she paused for breath. 'I'll haul those skeel out of there, one way or another, and get them back to Web Shell. Having made a tangle of everything else, let me at least splice the ends in smooth. He loaned me the team in good faith; I want to return them to him. Why don't you go change into dry clothes while I take your nags to grass and build the fire?'

'Maybe if I argue a bit longer, you'll change my clothes for me, as well as give grass to my nags and build my fire.'

'Maybe I will. To hell with the grass and the fire!' Vandien suggested.

'Braggart. You're as tired as I am.'

'More so. Is that Janie coming down the sands?'

Ki turned to follow Vandien's nod. She saw a cloaked figure with a smaller one in tow. The little girl's hair blew free of her cap, and she skipped merrily to match her sister's longer stride. The wind blew snatches of her birdlike chatter to them.

'Couldn't be anyone else,' Ki remarked. 'The rest of the village has been too busy fishing since Ebb to bother with us.' They watched silently as the two approached, Janie striding determinedly over the shifting pebbles and sand, her eyes steadily fixed on the wagon, while her little sister hopped along beside her, taking an interest in every shell and pebble they passed. Janie's hair was trapped under her woolen cap. Her loose smock was belted tightly at her hips and her trousers were tucked securely into her boots. The child's smock was longer and unbelted as was village custom. The hem of it was edged with a narrow band of blue. Her trousers had come out of her boot tops and flapped jauntily with each step. Just before they reached earshot, they stopped, and Janie stooped to say something to the child, who listened gravely.

'Have good manners, don't speak unless you're spoken to, and don't be a pest,' Vandien guessed solemnly.

'And wipe your nose!' Ki added with a low laugh.

Janie trudged up to them. As soon as she let go of the child's hand, the girl ran to the side of Ki's wagon. She began tracing the brightly colored pictures on the high panelled cuddy. Janie sent her an exasperated look, and turned back to Ki and Vandien.

'There's an easy way to raise your team,' she began without preamble. 'I was in a foul temper when I took you out to the temple to get a line on them. I felt I owed you nothing, and that the sooner you gave up and left, the sooner the village would go back to normal. But I was wrong. I've heard how you told your tale of Temple Ebb. I don't say thank you for that, but I appreciate what you tried to do. It's also become obvious that you won't give up and go away. I may as well help you raise the team.'

Janie ran out of words. Just as the silence became awkward, the child spoke. 'I had some Romni tea once,' she announced loudly, but to no one in particular. When she drew no response, she added, 'I liked it very, very much.'

'Sasha!' Janie exclaimed in rebuke, but Vandien laughed aloud. Then he drew his brows down in a frown and turned to the child.

'Have you never heard how the Romni give sleeping tea to little girls, and then steal them away in the night?'

'Idiot!' hissed Ki. 'She'll believe you.' Turning to the child she explained, 'The only little child I ever stole grew up to be that nasty-tongued man. So I gave up the practice. But if you'll help me to gather sticks and twigs, and a bit or two of driftwood, I'll show you how the Romni brew their tea on an open fire beside their wagons.'

As Ki stood up, the girl dashed down the beach to ferret out bits of twisted white driftwood. Ki threw Vandien a shrug and followed her. Vandien raised an inquiring eyebrow at Janie. He quickly lowered it when he realized she was staring in horrified fascination at what this made his scar do to his face.

'Well. You know how to raise my team.'

'The whole village knows. There's even been a round of bets at the inn as to when you'd figure it out for yourselves.'

'And for giving me the solution, no doubt the village will be pleased with you?'

'Who cares? It matters little what I do, the village is always ill pleased with me.'

'I see.'

'I doubt if you do, nor does that matter. The point is this. To lift anything off the bottom, one does not battle the tides. One makes the tides do the work. 'Janie paused to give a small smile to Vandien's incredulous look. 'Can your team match muscles with the Moon herself? Make yourself a bundle of sturdy logs bound together with rope. You have plenty of rope. At the next low tide, take the raft out to the temple. At the lowest point of the tide, reef the line up straight, so there is no slack between your team and the logs.'

'And then?' Vandien prodded, for Janie thought she had finished explaining. She gave him an exasperated look.

'Then wait for the high tide, of course. The waves lift the log raft, and either your team will rise, or the rope will break. But I know the line Srolan gave you. I think the team will rise. And once you've lifted them off the bottom, any child could tow the raft back to shore. They may hang up a bit on the temple walls, but you should be able to handle that.'

'I should.' Vandien squinted down the beach. Ki and Sasha were returning, each with a small load of wood. They were laughing, and Ki's brown hair blew about her face.

'Why don't you both come with us, Janie?'

'Just like that? You don't even ask Ki, but just ask us along? And do you expect me to say, certainly, I'll leave my dory and my cottage and come? How would we live?'

'As the Romni do. Believing that the road will take care of you, as long as you don't worry about it. The luck of the wheels. Ki is something of a heretic, you know, with her freighting and trading. The other Romni I've met trust to the luck of the wheels. It's not a bad way to live, Janie. I think Sasha would like it...'

'She probably would.' Janie spoke quickly. 'But that doesn't mean it would be good for her. She'd lose all sense of who she is and where she comes from. She'd forget

'I know she would. Maybe you could, too. Be Janie, instead of Duce's granddaughter.'

Janie stiffened perceptibly. 'I came out here to tell you how to lift your team and to offer my help. But if you're...'

'I'm not. How do we get logs?'

'There's always some snagged on Rocky Point. We'll have to use my dory.'

'Then let's go get it. After I move these nags to better grasses.'

The moon had claimed the sky when they returned. Janie brought her dory up on the beach. As the keel of the double-ender scraped, Vandien sprang out into knee-deep water to pull it up on the beach. Janie followed to help him.

The silhouetted wagon had yellow edges. Ki had built her fire on the far side so the bulk of it blocked the breeze off the water. As Vandien and Janie rounded the end of the wagon, Vandien saw that Ki had gone to all efforts for Sasha. A traditional Romni camp had sprung up by the wagon. Sasha was enthroned on a fat pillow and snuggled in a quilt. A red headscarf with gaudy purple tassels confined her hair. Cushions had been placed about the fire as if Sasha hosted a dozen guests. In both her small hands she cupped a steaming mug. Vandien peeked into it as he passed and saw an extravagantly large piece of dried spiced fruit floating on top of the fragrant tea. Ki had changed clothes. She wore a traditional skirt and loose blouse, topped with an embroidered vest, and a belt interwoven with silver wire and tiny bells. Only Vandien could appreciate how deeply she had dug in the cuddy to come up with those clothes. She had let her hair go wild and long, and was even wearing the gaudy enamelled earrings he had bought for her on a long ago market day. Sasha would remember this night, not as the night they lifted the team, but as a night when she drank tea and broke bread in a real Romni camp. Ki was fully into the spirit of it. Many bracelets clattered on her wrist and interfered with her cooking.

'Romni stew, I see.' Vandien leaned over the cooking pot.

'And Romni bread with Romni cheese,' Ki rejoined, letting her green eyes glow with a mysticism that made Sasha's eyes go wide.

'And a not-Romni raft, tied with not-Romni knots, to four skeel at low tide,' Janie added in a voice that broke the fragile spell. Ki looked at them askance.

'After we built the raft, it seemed foolish to let another low tide go by. Before the night is out, the rising tide should lift the skeel clear of the temple floor, and then we drag them in.'

'Up the staircase, and through the jumble of stones in the temple and then

'Over the temple walls. It was hell's own errand to rethread that rope in the dark. They will be dragged over the walls, not through the portal, raft and all.'

'Well, that should make it simple,' Ki rejoined skeptically.

'I didn't say it would be easy,' Janie broke in. 'Only that it would be possible. Your methods weren't.'

'I didn't mean to belittle your help. Sasha and I saved food for you two, even if we did not wait for you before eating. The bowls are in that chest.'

'No. Thank you. Feeding Sasha and entertaining her are more than I expected. I thank you for that, also. But we must be back home now, for morning comes early for fisherfolk, and for small girls who must help out at the inn.'

Sasha's bright face fell, but she did not protest as she stood up and shed her bright scarf. 'No, keep that,' Ki told her quickly. Janie bid them thanks and good evening in a formal voice and made to lead Sasha off, but the child broke free of her grip, to tackle Ki with a hug, and then dart off after her older sister before Ki had even recovered her balance. They were gone in the surrounding darkness. Ki slowly began to fold up the quilt as Vandien served himself stew and a hard round of bread.