[Lanen Kaelar 01] - Song in the Silence (14 page)

I found I had to put off one of the old lads who
fancied himself a ladies’ man; but I made things clear and he backed off without
much protest. A boot knife and a strong arm are good arguments, but man’s
height and a plain face are stronger yet.

The rain finally stopped a week out from Corli
and the weather set fair and cool. I spent most of my time now with Joss,
helping here and there where I could, listening, talking when he welcomed it. I
was at a loss with nothing to do, and I learned there was always enough to keep
two busy on a boat. I enjoyed his quiet company, and be seemed to like mine
better than solitude at any rate. We spoke of our lives, I told him of
Hadronsstead and my journey so far, and I asked him where he was from and where
he had been. I was delighted to discover that he had never been as far north as
Hadronsstead. At last, someone who didn’t know the lands I did! The days passed
more quickly, and I was nearly surprised to wake one morning and realise we
would reach Corli on the morrow.

I found Joss at the tiller as always and brought
him a mug of warm chélan. As had become our custom, I sat with him and drank my
own. It wasn’t very good and I muttered something about being tired of
“poor man’s lansip.” Joss put down his cup and gazed at me.

“What is it that draws you so, Lanen?”
he asked as the banks slid by. “I’ve had passengers before who were
anxious to get to Corli, but seldom one like you.” He smiled at me, a slow
smile I had come to honour for its rarity. “He’s a lucky man, whoever he
is. There’s not many can hold a woman’s heart so.”

I gazed on the passing fields, some golden yet,
some stiff with stubble from the reaping, some already brown and ready to wait
for spring. Joss’s calm manner had entered my soul, and he had been a good
companion. No reason not to answer.

“There’s no man in my heart, goodman Joss.
My dreams alone take me to Corli. I seek passage on one of the great
ships.”

“And where will it bear you?” he asked,
no whit disturbed. Indeed, be seemed almost cheerful. “The great ships
travel all the seas in the world. Are you bound for the Desert Lands? The
frozen north? No, you have not the look of a trapper. Surely not just a trip to
the silkweavers of Elimar, you could get there as fast on one of your precious
horses.” I shook my head and returned his gaze steadily, smiling,
wondering how to tell him of my destination.

To my surprise he turned away suddenly and
cursed. “Another damned idiot!”

“What?” I was shocked.

“You’re hiring on with the Harvest ship,
aren’t you?” he said harshly. I was amazed by the bitterness in his voice.
“I heard rumour of one leaving this year. Bound for adventure, looking to
make your fortune from gathering lansip leaves, maybe steal a little dragon
gold on the side, if the creatures even exist? And you a grown woman! That
makes three of you on this boat, and not one with the sense the Lady gave
lettuce. You’ll never get past the Storms.” He growled his words, gripping
the tiller. “And so pass a parcel of idiots, and the world well rid of the
lot of you. If you don’t mind, milady, I’ve work to do. There is room for you
to wait at the bow rail.”

I waited for him to thaw, sitting no more than a
foot from him, but he steadfastly ignored me. Eventually I gave up. I pondered
his words, his vehemence all that day. It was not until the sun began to go
down that I dared approach him again. At twilight we had become used to taking
a drop of ale together. The other passengers had gone to their bunks with the
sun. I went to him as he stood at the rail that encompassed the forward part of
the deck and held out a tankard.

“Come, goodman Joss—shame to part so,”
I said as gently as I could.

He looked at me, the twilight glow lighting his
dark eyes.

“Aye. So it would be,” he said gruffly.
He took the tankard and made room for me at the Tailing.

We were silent as the light faded from the sky,
watching the twilight follow the sun. He was hanging the running lamps from
their hooks when I asked quietly, “Who did you lose on a Harvest ship,
Joss?”

“Never you mind,” he growled. Silence
fell again. There were no clouds—it would be a clear night, mercifully. The
first stars twinkled as they rejoiced once more at overcoming the day.

“We’ll come into Corli at the second hour
after dawn,” he said as he stood in the gathering darkness. “You’ll
have plenty of time to get to your precious ship.”

“Thank you, Joss,” I said, looking not
at him but at the water. “And I thank you as well for your company these
last weeks. You have lightened my heart with your friendship, and I will not
forget you.”

I was not even certain he was still there when I
heard him say softly, “Nor I you. Go with care, Lanen Maransdatter. The
Storms are deadly and the Dragons are real, whatever anyone may say, and none
who go to that cursed place come back unchanged if they come back at all. My
grandfather told of his grandsire’s wealth gained from harvesting lansip, and I
lost my father and my brother both to those damned ships. Whether Storms or
Dragons took them I know not nor care, but I hate that isle and curse every
ship that sets out for it.”

I heard the door of his tiny cabin in the stern
shut quietly. Joss’s bitterness stung my heart. I knew that note of helpless
anger, I had sung it often enough myself—but there was nothing I could do save
commit his anger to the Lady. Surely, as the laughing Girl of the Waters, she
would know and move to ease the sorrow of the brother she bore on her back .

As for my own heart, it was full of his other
words.
The Dragons are real, whatever anyone may say.
Those words had my
soul singing so I could hardly breathe.
They are real!
I repeated to
myself, over and over as the boat slid rapidly towards Corli.
I am going to
the Dragon Isle at last, and they are real!

I fell asleep with Dragons dancing in my heart.

It started sprinkling just after dawn—and kept
raining on and off all morning. We came into Corli
in the middle of a
shower. There was just enough wind and rain to make the little riverboat
horribly uncomfortable for the last half hour. All the other passengers were
huddled under the oiled cloth. The young ones were sick, the elders well on the
way.

I am almost ashamed to admit that I recall
feeling wonderful. I was out on the deck, at the bow railing, wrapped in my
cloak and an oiled cloth, breathing in Corli with the rain, riding the surge of
the water like a galloping horse. For the last few days we had passed more and
more villages along the riverbank, and for the last half hour there had been a
solid rank of houses beside the water on either side. Now we were passing a
crowd of small boats, and came shooting down on the current of the Kai into the
true harbor of Corli.

I took one look and gasped, turned away,
overwhelmed.

Before me stretched a vast great plain of water.

I taunted myself into some semblance of courage
and turned my face again to the sea to learn what lay before me.

Water. As far as the eye could see, water. There
were what looked like tiny spurs of land to the left and to the right, but
before me the water seemed to stretch into infinity. I fell back from the rail,
shrinking into myself. I was terrified, I wanted to hide below the deck in the
face of this immensity. It seemed alive, as if some great being dwelt beyond
sight under those dark waters and breathed out its essence in words no one
could understand.

I firmly believe that forcing myself to look
again at the sea, just that small arm of the sea in Corli Harbour, was the
hardest thing I had done in my life up to that time. All the tales true and
false—that have attached to my name since never mention the fact that my first
glimpse of the sea reduced me to a terrified, shivering wretch, huddled against
the rail of Joss’s little riverboat for protection, turning my head away from
the deep, the vast, infinite unknown.

We came to rest with a bump at a small pier, like
twenty’ other small piers around it. It was still raining.

Joss leaned down and shouted to the others below
that we had arrived. My five fellow travellers climbed out of the dark and into
the rain, and were not pleased about it. They grumbled as they assembled their
bags, they grumbled as they left the little boat that had been our home for
three weeks. Joss managed a civil farewell to them all.

I waited until the others had gone, tiling my
time to collect my few belongings and pack them carefully. I dragged my pack up
the few rungs of the ladder, shouldered it with a grunt and went over to Joss,
who stood with his back to me.

I took a deep breath for courage, then went to
him and put my hand on his arm. I spoke quietly, the light rain making a small
silence around us as I spoke.

“Joss, I have wanted to leave my home and
travel all my life and never had the chance before now. I thank you for
bringing me here, even if you are right and I go to my doom. You cannot bear
the burden for every soul that joins the Harvest.

He shook my hand off his arm but did not turn
round.

“I am not your father or your brother, Joss.
I do not seek wealth from the lansip trees. I am going to talk with the
Dragons, if I can, and find out why they do not live with us, and see if I can
change their minds.”

“You go on a fool’s errand, Lanen,”
said Joss to the sea.

“Then my errand and I are well suited,”
I said with a laugh. “At least wish me good fortune.”

“You will make your own fortune, good or
ill, whatever I may say.”

I sighed. “Farewell then, Joss
Riverman,” I said sadly. “The Lady bless thee.’”

“And may she lead thee to safe harbor in the
end, Lanen Maransdatter,” replied Joss. His face was still to the sea, his
rain-soaked back to me. “I will not curse the sailing of this ship, for it
will bear thee and thy dreams. Fare well, Lanen, and may the wind and waves be
kind to thee.”

I stepped onto the pier, surprised at the weight
of my pack, surprised to find that the land seemed to rock as the water had. I
laughed at myself, threw the long wet braid of my hair over my shoulder and set
out for the center of the harbor.

I learned later that it is the custom of
seafaring men never to watch a friend out of sight, as that would mean a long
separation. Years after he told me that he had been on the verge of begging me
to stay, for I was the first soul he had trusted in many years—but he knew I
followed a dream and would not stay for a chance—met friend.

Lighthearted in my ignorance, I all but danced my
way down the quayside as I sought out the Harvest ship.

VI

CORLI AND AWAY

Corli Harbour sits near the mouth of the great
river Kai, where waters collect from every corner of Kalmar to mingle in a
glorious rush and flow in a torrent into the bay. The warm swift southern
current, brushing up the coast, then sweeps away the silt, leaving a natural
harbour and meeting place for trade and shipping. The old saying “If you
want to know anything, go to Corli” comes from the Merchants and traders
who fill the wharves year—round with the sights and smells of Far away. (The
rest of the saying is “If you want to know everything, go to Sorun.”
It refers to the Silent Service, based in Sorun but found everywhere in
Kolmar—when they fail. It is said that enough silver will buy any information
you might want, but that is another story.)

In Corli you will find goods from all the
kingdoms in their wondrous variety, like the fair at Illara in large; but that
is not the only reason Corli is renowned. It is from Corli that the great
Merchant ships set out west and north over the sea to the Dragon Isle. Lansip
grows there wild, it is said there are endless forests of the stuff, but it
will grow nowhere else. The seedlings and young trees brought back in the past
always withered and died, the seeds failed to sprout.

If lansip were not so powerful; none would even
consider the deadly journey. But even weak lansip tea is a sovereign remedy for
many ailments, from headache to heart’s sorrow, and when it is concentrated
into a liquor it has the power to give back lost years. They tell the tale of a
fabulously wealthy Merchant in his seventh decade who bought a full Harvest,
every leaf, and drank all the liquor that was distilled from it. He passed
through middle age and into youth, until the day he drank the last of his
lansip. He was found dead of shock, with the look and the body of a youth in
his early twenties.