The Silences of Home (15 page)

“We should go back to the inn,” he said instead. “It is getting colder. And they will be waiting for us.”

Alea nodded and turned. They walked together to the wooden walls, and in.

Aldron drew the bowstring back until it was level with his left ear. He held it there, squinting and smiling at the same time. He had been smiling since Lanara had handed him the bow. He had touched—slowly, with his fingertips—the dark wood, the arrows’ golden fletching, even the leather of the quiver. “May I?” he had asked, and smiled as if he were hungry.

His first arrow landed flat on the damp earth of the inn courtyard. His second lodged in the outer edge of the sackcloth that stretched over the straw and wood of the target. His third thudded into the centre. They watched it shudder into stillness.

“You told me you’d never done this before,” Lanara said.

“I haven’t.” He looked down at the arrow in his hand and angled it so that the sunlight glanced off its metal tip. “But I’ve had experience with other weapons. I used to throw my dagger—probably because I was told not to.”

“Where’s your dagger now?”

Aldron nocked the fourth arrow and loosed it. It buried itself in the centre, and the other arrow trembled with it. “I left it behind. It would have reminded me too much of people I wanted to forget.”

“And did you leave your horse behind for the same reason?”

He turned to frown down at her. “How do you know of Alilan ways?”

Lanara handed him another arrow, which he took without looking away from her. “Queensfolk have travelled far and written about many people. I’ve been reading their tales since I was a girl.”

“So you found out about Alilan horses from writings,” he said, one eyebrow raised. “What else did you learn about them?”

“That’s all I remember clearly: horses, another tribe—in the desert, I think—something about storytelling. These were all second-hand accounts, though.” The sunlight was beginning to slant. She put up a hand and peered at him beneath it. “Why don’t you give me more details?”

“I don’t write,” he said, and she heard him smile. She laughed as he nocked the last arrow and sent it out, shining and singing and straight.

That night, as they all sat again at the round table, Lanara turned to Aldron and said, “Don’t think that your little jest distracted me. I still want to know more about the Alilan.”

He took a long swallow of wine and wiped his mouth with two fingers. “About the Alilan, or about why I left them?”

She felt as if she were dwindling beneath his eyes.
He is afraid of what he hides,
she thought,
and he wants me to be afraid as well
. She said very softly, “Whichever is more interesting. Whichever you’d prefer not to talk about.”

He stared at her, and she held herself still, hardly blinking. Then Pareya, who was sitting near Alea and Nellyn, cried, “Aldron, listen: this one’s from a place where people sleep during the day and wake at night! Isn’t that the silliest thing?”

The noise of the full dining room seemed deafening in the silence that fell at the round table. Nellyn looked at the woman as the others looked at him. She shifted on her chair and frowned.

“The silliest thing, Pareya?” Aldron said. “Hardly.”

“I’d like to hear more about this place,” Alea said quickly to Nellyn. “If you don’t mind telling us.”

Lanara let out a slow breath as Nellyn began to speak. He gazed steadily at Alea, then at Lanara. When he struggled to find words, he gazed at the shutters that were latched against night and chill. Lanara thought,
He never told me all this when I first asked him
, and felt a rush of warmth at the change, and her part in it.

Alea and Aldron nodded or smiled at Nellyn as he spoke, but they did not interrupt him.
Maybe it’s obvious
, he thought,
how difficult it is for me to say these things
. For although he did not explain time and understanding and madness, what he did describe was painful enough: lynanyn in the river, moonlight on silver leaves, the steady fanning of blue curtains. As he spoke, he saw the images, but blurrily, as if the words stood between himself and his memories. When he told them of the Queensfolk ships and the tents on the ridge, his voice faltered and he turned to Lanara. She smiled and laid her fingers lightly on the back of his hand. Then she spoke of the same tents and ships—and also of Luhr and Ladhra and her own sun-moulded house behind the palace.

Lanara’s words were effortless and light; Nellyn watched Alea and Aldron lean forward and change the way they listened. Aldron began to ask questions, which Lanara answered and which led her to new stories. She glanced at Nellyn often as she spoke, sometimes serious, sometimes smiling, and he felt himself bending toward her too.

Pareya rose and left them when Lanara began to talk; the tables around them emptied as she continued. The innkeeper fed logs into the fire for a time and shuffled over to bring them more wine and bread, but soon he disappeared as the others had, silently and unnoticed.

“I think I’m losing my voice,” Lanara said at last. The other three stirred and stretched. “And you haven’t said one thing about yourself,” she added, and Aldron sighed dramatically.

“How regrettable that it’s so late and we’re all so tired,” he said as he pushed his chair back.

Nellyn saw Alea look up at him and thought,
She is so sad, because of him
.

“Soon,” Lanara said, half-smiling, and Aldron raised an eyebrow at her before he turned toward the stairs.

“Thank you,” said Alea, looking from Lanara to Nellyn. It seemed to him that she wanted to say more, but after a moment of hesitation she smiled quickly and followed Aldron.

“They’re fascinating, aren’t they?” Lanara said when she and Nellyn were back in their room. She was sitting on a low stool in front of a basin of water she had heated over their fire, squeezing a wet cloth against her forehead, her neck, her breasts. She shone like dark wood in the firelight.

“Yes,” he said. He lay on their bed with his hands behind his head and the blanket drawn up to his chin, and watched her as the wind blew hard against the shutters.

My Queen, the Alilan began to arrive today.

Nellyn and I were walking in a market—though even writing “market” makes me think of the open sky and wide ground of Luhr’s market, and here the space is vastly different. Here you enter what appears to be a private home and climb to the second floor, where the rooms are small and connected by a corridor. When you follow the corridor, it turns into a bridge over the street below—and on the other side is another house with tiny rooms, each one containing wares and a seller, and another corridor that also becomes a bridge. . . . I realize that these enclosed spaces are necessary, since there is so much rain and snow here—but I still found myself looking up at the wooden beams and soot-stained ceilings and longing for the hot wind of home.

We saw a chamber stacked with green baskets, each one holding a wriggling knot of snakes (apparently the rodents here are numerous—though I can’t imagine why the townspeople prefer snakes to mice!). Another room was strung with dried herbs and spongemoss, and the smell was delicious. My favourite chamber was full of painted wooden leaves that hung from the walls and ceiling and even lay on the floor. When we first stepped inside we thought we were in a living forest. I bought two scarlet ones (oak) and two golden ones (elm, the woman told me). I’ll give you and Ladhra one of each when we see you next.

As we were about to cross yet another bridge we heard someone cry, “The horse people are coming!” The crowd around us began to push and jostle, and we were swept along with them to an archway that led out onto the town wall. We peered over the wall with everyone else (though Nellyn was hesitant to at first: he’s discovered he has a fear of high places).

“Accursed filth,” the woman beside me grumbled in the thick accent of this town.

I turned away from the distant wagons (so distant they looked like insects in the grass) and asked her why she spoke of them this way. She eyed me with obvious distaste.

“You’re a stranger yourself if you need to ask,” she said. “Those horse herders are trouble-makers. Every fall they camp outside our forest, and for weeks we get no peace. They drum and hoot all night until the snows come—and then they leave, and our fresh white grass is battered down and stained with black wood and horseshit.” She spat over the wall. “We’ve sent elders out to ask them to go somewhere else, but they’ve always refused. We don’t want violence, of course—we’re good people—so we tolerate them and count the days until winter.” Despite the rancour of her words, this woman watched as avidly as the rest (such petty people—and so insensitive to those not like them!).

The wagons drew closer, and I could see the horses that pulled them, and other horses that rode apart with single riders. Before they halted, though, I told Nellyn that we should go find Alea and Aldron, who would doubtless want to know about their people’s arrival. We returned to the inn, but found it empty—and now, hours later and darkness falling, we still have not seen them.

The fire had burned down to glowing ash when Nellyn stepped into the dining room. He closed the door behind him, shutting out the billowing rain. He stamped his feet and peeled off his cloak and moved toward the stairs.

His vision (as keen in darkness as in daylight) sharpened as he walked. He saw a shadow beside the fireplace, saw it shift and bend, and he stopped and turned to it. “Aldron,” he said quietly, and the Alilan man raised his head from his knees. Nellyn added a log to the fire and poked at it until it caught, then he drew a stool over to Aldron, who was still staring vacantly at him.

“Oh,” Aldron said at last, thickly, “you. The one who wakes at night.” He lifted a bottle from the floor at his feet and tipped it to his mouth. The liquid that trickled between his lips and down his neck looked black. Nellyn saw that Aldron’s skin was already veined with wine, some of it dried, some still glistening. His eyes too were black.

“Lanara send you to torment me with questions, did she? ‘What are the wagons and why are you not with them and what crime did you commit to be alone in the world?’” He drank again. This time the bottle fell when he put it down. Nellyn watched the wine spreading against the floorboards and remembered when he had dropped a goblet on a balcony high above the desert.

“No,” he said. “I have no questions like that. But I will ask—where is Alea?”

Aldron grunted. “Don’t know. Probably lurking ’round her caravan. I told her they won’t listen to you; they’ll pretend they can’t even see you. And that’s what happened—just like I said. Not sure why I went with her. I
knew
. She’s probably crying and watching them now. Crying and spying. Twins
rot
them,” he shouted, and kicked the wine bottle so that it rang and splintered against the stone of the fireplace.

Nellyn swept up the glass with the ash brush and pan. Aldron watched him with narrowed eyes. When he was finished, Nellyn sat back down on the stool.

“You’re a strange one,” Aldron said.

Nellyn smiled. “Lanara thinks so too. Though not as much as she used to, maybe.” He studied Aldron carefully: shaking limbs, cold-puckered flesh, eyelids drooping and swollen. “Let me help you upstairs.”

“Alea!” Aldron shouted as Nellyn half carried him in the door to the sleeping chamber—but the room was still and empty. A room like the one Nellyn shared with Lanara, except that the bed had a different headboard and was pushed against a wall. When he tried to guide Aldron to the bed, the man wrenched himself upright and stood with his arms outstretched.

“No, no—not on the bed. The bed is fine for waking pleasures—but sleep, no. We Alilan sleep on the ground.” He dropped to his knees on a blanket that lay on the floor. Nellyn knelt beside him, took his weight as he slipped onto his back.

“I’ll make a fire,” Nellyn said. He heard Aldron mumble a response—and then his voice and words changed, and Nellyn sat back on his heels.

Fire, fire, flames on stone, flames born orange and white and blue, born of twins, Alnila fire and Alneth wood, fire and wood, burn with me, burn

Nellyn held up an arm against the blaze. Aldron’s voice rose and rose until Nellyn was deaf with the pain of it. If he cried out, he did not hear himself. He scrabbled toward the door and opened it as Aldron began to wail. The noise followed Nellyn into the corridor, where he stood and leaned against the wall. He panted and waited for the wailing to stop—which it did, very slowly.

Lanara did not stir as he slipped under the blanket beside her.
Wake up
, he thought, draping his right arm over her hip.
I need you to wake up
. She lay still, breathing deeply—and although he soon matched his breath to hers, he did not sleep.

“Let’s see if they’re in their room.” Lanara took two long steps toward Aldron and Alea’s door.

Nellyn ran forward and caught her hand as she raised it. “Perhaps they’re tired. Or not there.”

She wondered why he had moved so quickly, and why his eyes were so wide. “It’s nearly noon,” she said, frowning and smiling at the same time. “And if they’re not there, it won’t matter if we knock.” She knocked. She heard silence—but the kind of silence that falls suddenly between people who do not want to be heard. She knocked again and called their names. Just as she was about to knock one more time, the door swung open.

Alea was wearing a cloak, holding a full sack in one hand. She was very pale. “Are you leaving?” Lanara asked, and Alea glanced back into the room Lanara could not see.

“Yes. Soon—when Aldron is . . . ready.”

“You were going to leave without telling us?” Lanara said. “Why, when we’ve enjoyed each other’s company so much? Are you returning to your people?”

Alea shrank back. She was looking at Nellyn now. “No,” she said, more breath than word—and then a voice that did not quite sound like Aldron’s said, “Let them in, Alea—she won’t leave until she’s seen us both.”

He was lying in bed, propped up on pillows, one blanket tucked around his waist and another wrapped around his shoulders. Lanara saw his chest, bare and heaving with shallow, inaudible breaths. She looked at his face and took a step backward.

“What’s wrong?” she said, the words too loud for the room.

Aldron looked as if he were trying to smile. “Nellyn didn’t tell you about my night of excess?” He glanced at Nellyn. “I seem to recall that he swept up some broken glass and carried me up the stairs. Though I might be mistaken.”

His voice sounds wrong
, Lanara thought.
Squeezed thinner
. “You’re not suffering only from drink,” she said, and Aldron rolled his eyes.

“Twins protect me—I’ve never met such a keen-witted woman. Of course it’s not just the drink. Didn’t Nellyn at least tell you about—”

“Stop!” Alea cried, as Nellyn said, “No.” Lanara stared at each of them in turn.

“You didn’t,” Aldron said in his splintered voice, and Nellyn shook his head. “Well, then, I owe you thanks for your discretion as well as for your company last night.”

“Someone,” Lanara said slowly, each word bitten short, “tell me what’s going on. Now.”

Alea sat down on the bed. Aldron lifted a hand and traced gentle circles on her back. She was still wearing her cloak, still holding the bag.

“There’s very little to explain,” Alea said as Lanara pulled a stool out of a corner and sat down. “Aldron was drunk last night, and Nellyn saw one of his Tellings. A very strong one.”

“It was real.” They all looked at Nellyn, who was still standing by the door. “The fire did not just
seem
real: it was. Not like the leaves, before. I felt the heat, and I heard the flames.”

“Yes,” Alea said quickly, “it might have seemed real to you, but it was just a Telling. Just words. Aldron’s power is very great. Much greater than mine.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Aldron said, “there was that sandstorm you Told when you were fourteen. . . .” She turned and glared at him. He glared back until she smiled. She leaned back a bit against his hand.

“But look at you,” Lanara said to Aldron. “Why are you so frail? You seemed fine after you Told those leaves.”

“Because he hasn’t Told anything complex in a long time,” Alea said, as Aldron opened his mouth to answer. “Not since we left our caravans. The leaves were image only; the flames were image and sound and sensation. Complicated Tellings exact a price. It was a shock to his body last night, feeling this power again.”

Lanara frowned. “So why haven’t you Told in so long? And please,” she added, not looking at Alea, “answer me yourself, this time.”

Aldron shrugged. “As she said, I was drunk. And I was drunk because I had just been reminded of the people I left and why I left them.”

“And why was that?” Lanara said.

Aldron laughed, then coughed. “I’m weakened indeed, to offer you such an opening. The Alilan didn’t agree with the things I Told. Or how I Told them. You’ll have to be content with that.”

“Ah,” Lanara said. She looked at Nellyn. “So you saw him Tell this alarmingly realistic fire and you didn’t tell me about it.” She heard the anger in her voice, felt it like a sandfly’s sting and the heat that comes after.

“No,” he said. “I did not know how to explain it with my own words. I did not want to speak until I knew how to.”

He was so calm, standing as he had the first time she had spoken to him, his feet as solid on these floorboards as they had been on the sand. She said, “You didn’t want to . . . how could you not tell me? You tried to stop me from knocking. They would have
gone,
and you wouldn’t have—”

The fountain sings. Water darkens the stone—water falling from the mouths of carved fish and whorls of shell. A lacemoth hovers, and the sunlight draws rainbows from its four wings. Wind scatters the water; wind hot and dry and rough with sand.

Lanara closed her eyes. When she opened them the fountain was gone—but she still felt water on her cheeks and the backs of her hands. She breathed away the scent of the desert, though she longed to hold it.
Father
, she thought, and nearly saw him.

“Well, then,” Aldron whispered. He was lying flat now, with his head turned on the pillow.

Lanara cleared her throat. “You’ve never seen my city. How did you do that?”

“You told us about the fountains,” he said. Alea moved, settled his head on her lap. “So I Told one.”

“Why?” Lanara was very cold. She drew her hands up beneath the green-edged cuffs of her tunic sleeves. “Why, when you were already so weak?”

“Because you were angry.”

Nellyn watched Alea’s eyes after Aldron Told the fountain. When Lanara spoke afterward, Alea tucked her head down against her left shoulder. Aldron reached up a hand to her, and she held it to her cheek.

“Where were you going?” Nellyn asked. His own questions still surprised him. They all looked at him. He thought,
They forgot I was here. Again
. “Today,” he added when no one spoke. “You were leaving. Where were you planning to go?”

Alea said, “We weren’t sure. Just . . . away.”

“Well,” Lanara said in her brisk, decision-making voice, “he’s obviously too ill to walk anywhere. And we have a wagon.” Aldron raised an eyebrow very slightly, and Alea sat even more motionlessly. Lanara turned to Nellyn and tilted her head in a question that wasn’t really a question. He nodded as he so often did, answering yes because she was so strong and certain—but also, this time, because Alea was beginning to smile.

Lanara turned back to the two Alilan, said, “So, have you ever seen the ocean?”

It’s been so long since we wrote to each other. I’ve half expected a letter from you in every town we’ve stopped in, but there’s never been one. At first this made me angry—though I should probably write “angrier,” since I’d been angry ever since you wouldn’t say goodbye to me. Since before then, actually, when Nellyn was sick and you and I had that awful conversation. But now that so much time’s gone by, I’m just lonely; that’s what’s left of my anger. I miss you. I miss your letters. So even if you don’t respond, I’m writing to you now. This letter will feel like a ribbon between us—a long ribbon made of words that stretches from my writing stick to your hands. This will make me happy, for now (but do write—please).