Our Lady of the Islands (37 page)
Read Our Lady of the Islands Online
Authors: Shannon Page,Jay Lake
“You should have let me know about this sooner, Father.” Maleen turned back to the window. “She told me we were all in danger … I did not believe her.” She looked down at her son. “Maybe you should stay in here now, Biri. Would you like to play with Grandpa for awhile before you go to bed?”
He shook his head. “I want to keep helping Papa.”
She sighed, and smiled anxiously. “All right then. But if he tells you to come in, you do it right away. You hear me?”
Biri nodded, as if this were foolishly obvious, and turned to dash back out the door.
When he was gone again, Maleen turned back to Arouf, looking haunted. “Do you think she knew? That this was coming?”
“Your mother?” The idea seemed ridiculous at first, but, on second thought … “It would not surprise me anymore if she turned out to be responsible for all of this somehow.”
Maleen inhaled sharply, glaring at him with such outrage that he took an involuntary step backward. “Go!” she hissed, launching one arm up to point rigidly at the door. “Go out and help my husband guard this house! Or go clear back to Little Loom Eyot! I don’t care. But I won’t hear another word of your insanity tonight. Is that clear? We all have too much to cope with at the moment!” She turned away as Jila started crying in earnest. “Even
she
is tired of your madness!”
Arouf knew how to pick his fights, and this one was clearly not a winner for him at the moment. He nodded, already sidling carefully around her toward the door. Perhaps Haron would be more reasonable to talk with.
“I’m so sure that
Mother
made the Factor burn the Census Hall!” Maleen yelled as he escaped into the yard. “I’ll bet
Pino
was there too! And this Captain Reikos! I can see now why she left you!”
Arouf winced as he stepped out onto the landing and pulled the door closed, then turned to find both Haron and his grandson staring at him from beside the vine-covered gate. He offered them a sheepish smile as he descended the stairs.
Haron leaned against a hefty pike, brand new, it appeared, and considerably taller than himself. For all Haron’s muscular physique, Arouf had always thought him rather short for a blacksmith.
“Do you find, sometimes, that women can be … difficult to live with?” Arouf asked, grinning at this time-honored little joke between two world-weary men.
“I do indeed. Sometimes.” Haron turned back to look across the water at Three Cats. “Especially when I’m screwing up at something.”
Arouf’s grin faltered as Biri turned away as well, to look up at his father, then across at Three Cats too. No hope of support here either, then. Ah well. Arouf understood what it was like to be henpecked. Likely best to change the subject. “So …” he said, hesitantly, walking out to join them at the fence, “what do you suppose that is, burning over there?”
“Lord Orlon’s estate, I’d guess, from what we heard a while ago about Colara’s house guard. It’s in about the right place for it.”
“But why are they fighting each other like this at all?” Arouf asked with resurging irritation. “Where did this come from? Just a week ago, everything was fine.”
“Was it?” Haron asked, still staring at the distant fire. “Work’s been busier than ever for the last few months.” He looked back at Arouf. “You know what I’ve been forging?”
“I can’t begin to guess.” Arouf knew, of course, that Haron’s specialty was fine ornamental copper, brass, and silverplate, but he didn’t see how months of brisk business could be anything but yet another indication that things had been going fine, just as he’d said.
“I’ve been forging weapons.” Haron nodded at the pike he held. “Like this one.” He turned to thrust his chin across the channel at the fire. “Not my normal stock in trade, but that’s all anybody seemed to want. Lord Orlon’s been among my biggest customers, though I’ve had large orders from three other major houses too. I have it on good authority from friends down at the guild hall that Orlon had a couple cannons made this year as well.” He shrugged. “This hasn’t all blown up since just last week, Arouf. I’m pretty sure of that much.”
“Too much time on their hands,” Arouf grumbled. “Too much money, and no idea what to do with it. That’s what I think. And a damn poor Factor up on Home, of course.”
Haron raised a brow at this. “That’s our family you’re speaking of.”
“
Sian’s
family, not mine.” Arouf frowned at the memory of his last conversation with her.
They are targeting my family
… “Launching cannon at his own cousin. Insanely rash. I don’t know or care what they were quarreling about, but
that’s
what started this. The man has always been erratic. This whole Butchered God nonsense that’s swallowed up my wife; he started that as well. Ordering that …
thing
that washed up, hacked to bits and
fed
to people? How mad was that? If he’d just had the sense to let the creature rot there, as it should have, our whole workforce wouldn’t be out marching pointlessly around now while the nation’s business goes to hell.”
Haron shrugged again. “If so many people hadn’t been so hungry, he’d not likely have come up with the idea.”
“You
approve
of what he did?”
Haron sighed and looked back at Three Cats. The island had turned orange and purple in the evening light. “I’m just saying things were plenty bad for quite a while before that corpse arrived. If
it
hadn’t snapped the twig, likely something else would have.” He reached down absently to tousle his son’s hair. “The question now is what to do about all this.”
“About a
war
?” Arouf asked bitterly. “Too late to do much of anything, it seems to me. For us, at least.
They
have to figure out what’s to be done now. It’s their mess.”
“Papa,” Biri said.
“It’s our mess,” Haron told Arouf. “It may be their fault, or it may not. But the only person I can trust to make my life work is —”
“Papa!” Biri said again, tugging at his arm. “Who is that?”
Arouf and Haron both turned to squint into the sunset at whatever Biri was interrupting them about. Two haggard-looking women — aged vagrants by the look of them — were hobbling up the street.
“Is it looters?” Biri asked. “Should I go get Mommy?”
“No, son. They’re just old ladies. They won’t hurt us.”
“Is it Grandma?”
Haron smiled down at his boy. “No, Biri. Grandma’s somewhere else right now.”
Biri looked back at the women uncertainly. “Why are they coming here then, Papa?”
“They’re not coming here. They’re just walking by to somewhere else.”
Biri looked again, and shook his head. “No. Look! They’re waving at us!”
To Arouf’s surprise, they were — and one of them was calling Biri’s name!
“It’s Grandma!” Biri cheered, smiling broadly and waving back at them. “Hi, Grandma! We thought you were looters!”
Footsore and parched, Arian followed Sian up the dust and gravel lane toward a modest but attractive teak-gabled house, raised on poles above the vegetation, with lovely wrought-iron grillwork over all its windows.
“Oh, there’s Haron now,” said Sian, “and my grandson, Biri!”
In the yard, before a large outbuilding, two men and a wiry, dark-haired little moppet stood beneath a jasmine-covered gate, watching them come, hands held up to shield their eyes against the evening sun. The handsome, coal-haired man beside the little boy was of medium height, but quite well muscled, holding up a tall, gleaming new brass pike, of all things. The larger man behind him was too obscured by flowers and shadows to make out well.
Sian raised her hand to wave at the little boy, who said something to his father, then grinned and started waving back.
The second man leaned out from behind Sian’s son-in-law to peer at them in apparent surprise. “Who is that?” Arian asked Sian.
Sian stopped abruptly. “Arouf! What is
he
doing here?”
How cozy
, Arian thought uncomfortably. “Should we modify our story then?”
“No.” Sian frowned. “Let my husband hear what his stupidity has cost. Let them all hear.”
They had realized while walking here how difficult it would be to explain Sian’s ‘maid’ without touching on their time with Escotte — especially in their current, ragged condition. Arian did not want herself connected with any of the past few days’ events — at Census Hall or temple. So they had built a new cover story around the abandonment complaint filed by Sian’s husband. Which would doubtless be even more interesting to relate now, with him standing there to listen.
“Are you sure?” asked Arian.
“Yes.” A grim smile curved Sian’s lips. “This is even better, in its way.”
The little boy had run back into their house by the time they reached the gate.
“
Sian?
” said Haron, coming out to meet them, astonishment and dismay written plainly on his face. “By all the gods, what has happened to you?”
Arouf came up behind him. “Where have you been?”
“Arouf,” Sian said, her voice cold. “We need to talk.”
“Indeed we do. I’ve been looking for you. For two
weeks
now! Who is this woman?”
“My name is Freda,” Arian said, not liking this man any better for having met him in the flesh. What kind of greeting was this to give a lost wife in such obvious distress?
“What have you done now?” Sian’s obnoxious husband demanded. “You both look like tramps.”
“Arouf!” said Haron, turning to him in amazement.
“Mother?
Oh!
” Sian’s daughter came running from the house with Biri at her heels. “What has happened to you?” the woman cried as she and Sian threw their arms around each other. “Are you hurt?”
“I cannot be hurt very easily anymore,” Sian reminded her as they pulled back from one another. “But I’m much better than I’ve been, now that I am here with you. Where is baby Jila?”
“I’ve already put her down. Mother, where have you been?” Maleen asked, wiping tears from her eyes. “We’ve been so worried, what with everything that’s happening.” She waved an arm at the columns of smoke rising above and beyond Three Cats.
And what
has
been happening, exactly?
Arian wondered yet again, hoping desperately that these people would be able to tell her.
“Well, I’m very sorry to say,” Sian began, frowning back up at Arouf, “that until this afternoon, I have been held in the dungeons of the Factorate Justiciary. Thanks to
you
, husband.”
“Me!” Arouf gasped. “How am I possibly —”
“Your ridiculous complaint!” she cut him off. “
Abandonment
, Arouf? After, what, two days? Had I been gone even that long when you sent your vile document after me?”
“Oh,
Father!
” Maleen exclaimed, turning to him angrily. “Look at what you’ve done!”
Arouf gaped from daughter to wife in disbelief. “No one is arrested for a marital complaint!”
“Not in ordinary times, perhaps,” said Sian. They had prepared for this. “But these are clearly not such times, and they weren’t feeling as lenient as usual. I have had much time to think about how angry I am with you, Arouf. Am I a child now, that I can’t even leave home for a few days without permission? If not for all this sudden chaos, I might never have escaped.”
“Why don’t we all go inside,” Haron said with studied calm. “Clearly, you two ladies need a moment to refresh yourselves. When that is done we can —”
“Oh no. No indeed,” Arouf sputtered, shaking his head fiercely. “You are lying to us, woman. Again! I have been tormented all week long by temple priests and Factorate officials who seemed desperate to know where you might be. I told them about my complaint. I asked them why they hadn’t found you yet. Are you telling us it did not occur to them to check in their own prisons?” He turned to Maleen. “Did I not tell you how she is now? This is all more lies!”
Seeing that a patch was needed quickly, Arian spoke up. “Have you ever been inside the Justiciary’s prison, Domni Kattë?”
“Monde!” he snapped. “She is the Kattë here! I am
Monde!
”
Arian raised a brow at this. “Well then,
Domni Monde
, have you, or have you not?”
“Of course I haven’t,” he grated. “
I
am not a criminal.”
“Then you don’t understand what a madhouse it is,” Arian said calmly, though the admission made her cringe inside. “There are dozens to a cell sometimes, and hundreds of cells. Sadly, it would not be very hard, I think, to lose someone there for years. You’re lucky that your wife escaped at all. These officials you speak of might not have rediscovered her themselves until your grandson here was grown with children of his own.”
“Who is this?” Arouf sneered. “One of your fellow
inmates
, Sian?”
“
Father!
” Maleen shouted. “You’re frightening your grandchild.” Everyone looked down to find Biri now hiding in his mother’s skirts. Maleen reached down to stroke her anxious child’s head. She shook her own, and turned to take the boy inside.
“We should go in now,” Haron insisted. “Sian, Freda, please accept whatever refreshment we can offer you. Then perhaps we can discuss things more civilly.” He shot Arouf another warning glance, and waved Sian and Arian toward the house behind Maleen and Biri.
Sian’s repugnant husband lingered behind, shaking his head as if for some other, invisible audience, before following them. Arian could not imagine what had possessed Sian to stay with him long enough to bear children. Then again, she reminded herself, she was likely not seeing them at the best point in their long relationship — or at the least stressful time for anyone. Which reminded her …
“I am sorry,” Arian said to Haron as they climbed the stairs and stepped into the family’s comfortably appointed little dwelling. “Sian and I have only recently met, thrown together on the road as we fled all this … all those fires …” It took no acting ability to look distressed and confused.
“I have been imprisoned, of course,” Sian added. “And Freda here was on her way to do some business on Three Cats when all the fighting there broke out. We’ve been afraid to approach anyone under such dangerous conditions, so we still aren’t sure what’s going on.”
“Godsdamned civil war!” Sian’s husband growled, just then coming in the door himself. “That’s what’s going on, wife. Our mad Factor took his cannons to the Census Taker’s Hall this morning, and now all the greater houses are at each other’s throats, if you’ve been too busy with your lovers to have heard. Your
cousins
have destroyed us all.”
Arian had both hands against her face without thinking, no longer even breathing for fear of bursting into tears
. Oh Viktor.
She had failed him. She had failed the entire country. She had already guessed, of course, deep down, as they had seen fire bloom on Three Cats too. But she had hoped … somehow … to be wrong. Unable to contain her grief, she started sobbing as Sian came swiftly to embrace her.
Anyone might cry at such news, mightn’t they?
Arian told herself as Sian’s arms encircled her. This was a tragedy for all of Alizar now. Not just hers and Viktor’s.
Arouf looked something like ashamed, at last, not that Arian much cared now.
“I’m so sorry,” said Maleen, coming to stand helplessly beside them. “What island are you from, Freda?”
Arian found herself unable to reply, unsure of what to say.
“Home,” Sian answered for her. “Freda’s family lives on Home.”
“Oh,” Maleen said quietly, looking back at Haron in clear distress.
Maleen’s expression told Arian that she was far from finished coping with bad news. But Sian’s strong embrace was greatly fortifying. Truly, the woman’s tenderness and compassion seemed almost as miraculous as her healing gift was. Arian felt her composure returning with surprising swiftness. The same inexplicable fearlessness she had discovered on that dreadful night of their initial capture seemed to reassert itself — almost physically — as it had also done after they’d emerged from the cisterns to find themselves so lost. She drew a deep, shuddering breath, then another, and pulled back from her cousin’s arms. “Have you … any news of Home?” she asked without looking at Maleen, or anybody else.
“Where on Home does your family live?” Haron asked.
Arian thought quickly. It mustn’t be anywhere too close to the Factorate. “Near the bridge to Apricot.”
“Well, they should be fine then,” Haron reassured her. “From what we’ve heard — out here at the edge of the world, of course — all the real fighting there has been in or near the Factorate.”
The new wave of panic this news brought her must have shown quite plainly, because Maleen asked, “Do you have friends near there?”
She shook her head. “Not really. I was … just wondering if there’s been any news about the Factor … or his family.” She glanced at Maleen, then at Sian, worried that she was being too transparent, but no one looked as if they found the question strange. Who might not be curious about Alizar’s rulers at such a time?
“Oh, there’s been all kinds of news on that front,” Haron sighed. “The Factor is holed up inside his house, fighting off the Census Taker’s forces. The Factor’s fled the country with a fleet of his family’s ships. The Factor’s been imprisoned in his own dungeons by the Census Taker. I’ve even heard people saying that the Factorate has fallen to some foreign invader, and that both the Census Taker and the Factor have been killed.” He shook his head. “Pick the answer you least want to hear, and someone will confirm it on the best authority.”
“Of course,” said Arian. “As might be expected.” There was one more question that she had to ask. “Any word at all about their son?”
“None that I’ve heard,” Haron sighed. “Or the Factora-Consort either. The boy’s been quite sick, of course. So maybe no one’s bothering with him right now. Alkattha’s consort …” He shrugged. “Her fate will be determined by his, I guess. So probably no one’s wasting time or effort on her either. I imagine both she and her son have been taken somewhere safe for now.”
“Well … That’s very reassuring.” Arian gave him a smile. “Thank you, Haron.” He was clearly a good man. An optimistic one. As Viktor had been once.
“If you’d like,” Maleen asked Arian, “I can show you to the bath out back?”
“Oh, thank you, dear,” said Sian. “That would be lovely. You have no idea.”
Maleen gave their disheveled conditions a pointed looking-over. “I have
some
idea, I think. I’ll find you both some new clothes too, while you’re bathing.”
“How generous of you,” said Arian. “Anything would be fine.”
Maleen smiled at her mother. “I’ll find something it’s okay to ruin this time.” Sian grinned back, ruefully. “Are you ready, Freda?”
“Yes, thank you.”
The family’s bath behind the house was walled for privacy, but roofless. Arian had never bathed beneath the open air before. It was a lovely feeling, staring up into the twilit sky. She wished they’d had such baths built at the Factorate House. An academic pipe dream now, of course. Only minutes after she had lowered herself into the lukewarm water, Maleen was back with a simple shift of auburn silk. Clean, unassuming clothing that would render her far less conspicuous than Freda’s prim attire had done — especially in its current state. She and Sian would both have sandals now, she realized.
It had been right to stop here. She saw that now. Still, she was anxious to be off again as soon as possible. She still had no idea what might be happening right now to her son or husband.
Please let there be some way to find them
, she begged silently, in case any of Alizar’s shy gods might still be listening. She thought Sian’s god might be. The woman was a literal godsend. That had become clearer with every passing hour.
Please let her heal Konrad, even now
, she added, lying back until just her face remained above the water, still trying to absorb all she had learned.
The Census Taker’s palace, burned … It seemed impossible to imagine. She wondered how enraged Escotte must be — and why Viktor had done such a thing. Perhaps when she had failed to reappear … But how could he have been sure that she was not still held within it? Her husband was impractical at times, and even paranoid, but he had never been so rash. Quite the opposite. He was timid to a fault, particularly these days. Had the apparent loss of her left him that badly carried off by anger? Or had Escotte realized that he was exposed somehow, after betraying them, and made some preemptive move on Viktor that had forced his hand? Whatever had occurred, the act had clearly not strengthened Viktor’s image in the popular mind.
Our mad Factor
…
has destroyed us all
… Was that what everybody thought now? That this had all been Viktor’s fault?
