Singer from the Sea (51 page)

When Melanie left her, Genevieve fell into an exhausted and troubled sleep. At some later time she wakened to a sound that fell through that high window into the tall, narrow room, filling it, making it reverberate: the song of the sea. Surely, she thought, this would bring the whole refuge awake.

Seemingly, it did not. No one rose or scurried about. No one called in response to that song, not even Genevieve herself, who pinched her lips together and purposefully withheld response out of indecision whether it was wise or prudent to let her voice be heard.

Still, this was a stronger singing than she had ever heard, and even if she wouldn’t reply, she felt a need to listen without walls in the way. Though the refuge was dark, with only a pale square of moonlight marking the window far above her head, she rose and went out into the corridor, feeling her way along the rough wall, scarcely aware of the chill of the stone on her bare feet. She made her way to the atrium, lighted from above by a dangling lantern. When she had come this way earlier in the day, she had seen stairs slanting upward along the base of the tower, rising upon themselves without a railing, with only a deep groove worn in the inner wall to show where people had trailed their hands as they went up and down. She climbed slowly, silently, moving from the upper step onto the flat roof of the lower story where a door was cut through to the inside of the tower.

Around a central pillar, thick and crusted as the boll of an ancient tree, stairs spiraled downward into darkness and upward toward the light, each step a thick slab of wood set fanwise upon the one below, one end buried in the central pillar, the other in the outer wall. Their cupped centers were smooth beneath her soles, worn glossy by generations of feet. The arched openings that pierced the tower on its inward side admitted slanting beams from the lantern to disclose venomous night hunters resting in the embrasures, creatures coiled or segmented or multilegged, all with huge many-lensed eyes.

Defiantly, she placed her right hand on the outer wall, the left hand on the pillar, stepping upward, feeling the roughness of mud brick and split wood, letting her hand trail needlessly near the stinging creatures. She was in a self-destructive mood, hating herself for not having known better what Barbara’s fate would be, for not having pursued her own vision to find some means of warning her.

The stairs ended at the floor of the tower room. The trapdoor had been thrust up against the outer wall, which continued upward, enclosing a circular wood-floored, flat-roofed space, its radiating rafters supported at the center by a mud-brick pillar less massive than the one below. Open arches looked out in all directions, and on the courtyard
side, a ladder led up to another trapdoor in the roof, this one closed.

She stepped up onto the floor, lowered the trapdoor to prevent her plunging down accidentally, and went toward the western arch, away from the courtyard, intending to lean there as she had leaned in her window at Mrs. Blessingham’s. She could not. The stone trembled beneath her hands, her arms were shaken and thrust back by the song that she felt coming toward her across the desert like an arrow aimed at her heart. She staggered at the physical thrust of the sound, her lungs and throat conjoining without her consent to bellow defensively into the night, “I hear you, I hear you.”

The words went from her like a shot from a great cannon. All tiny, subliminal sounds of the night stopped at once. The song stopped a moment later. A profound and waiting silence pervaded the desert. She leaned against the wall of the circular room, shivering, lips clamped tight shut to prevent any other sound from escaping her, her eyes fixed on the cleat across the room where the coils of the lantern rope were neatly hung.

The rope was a long one, long enough for the lantern to be lowered to the atrium floor for filling. Which meant it was long enough to bring here, to the outside, and lower over the outer wall. Though the gate was locked, she could climb down the rope and get away! If she didn’t want to deal with that sound, she could run!

She shuddered, blinking angry tears away. Oh, yes, she could run, but she couldn’t escape from today, not from Barbara’s blind eyes, from the wail of the child, from Willum’s sweaty face, his dull, matter-of-fact voice: “Shall I kill it?” His own son!

Or perhaps not. Knowing Barbara, if Willum had scorned her, she would have accepted passion elsewhere. Had Barbara ever, even for an instant, known what was going on? How long had she been drugged into acceptance? The marriage ritual between nobles required the noble bride to drink from the so-called Cup of Acquiescence. Had Barbara been formally married in that way? Was the drug in that cup? Or did she receive her first dose later, at the wedding supper? Or later still, when she and
Willum were alone together? Did all the nobles in Haven use it on their wives, their daughters? Was it routinely served at Mrs. Blessingham’s? Did that explain Genevieve’s own years of patience and resignation, her lack of rebellion?

“Oh, I have been so tender,” she told herself with scathing self-loathing. “I have been so delicate, so pure. I’ve been well schooled not to look at ugliness, well trained not to experience life. I’ve cowered in corners and watched, refusing to take part. All my life I’ve had these visions and I’ve let them drift in and out of my mind like cloud pictures, spouting them out on command, all unquestioning. I’ve gathered information as a child collects shells on a beach, a mere pastime, knowing nothing about them, learning nothing! I loved Barbara, I might have saved her, but I did nothing to keep her from destruction!

“I’ve questioned nothing! For all I know, Aufors could have left me in that house in Mahahm just to give the men their chance at me. I could be lying out there on the sand, drugged and dead, blind to it all, deaf to it all! Dovidi could be a drying bundle against my belly for all the good sense I’ve shown! Now I see what should have been plain all along, and all I can think of doing is to run away!”

She bit her lip until it bled, tasted the blood, wiped it with her hand and stared stupidly at the dark stain of it as she turned back to the western arch. Here were no white curtains to suggest blown spray, no thrashing foliage to simulate waves. The ocean was present, nonetheless, in great billows of sand half lit by a sailing moon, half concealed by clouds whose scudding shadows lent the illusion of a heaving sea during storm. There was no storm. The clouds were only ragtag edges of a southern squall being swept out to sea. They were not heralds of the great tempest she craved, the cataclysmic event she longed for. She wanted something climactic to happen! Some form of resolution to take place, even a violent one! An end to this! A finality! Something to mark Barbara’s passing.

Now that Willum had provided a candidate for his father, how soon would he remarry? And how much of the truth would he tell Glorieta? Glorieta, who might someday
find herself paying someone to hide her daughter or granddaughter, just as the Duchess Alicia had hidden Lyndafal, pretending all the while that she did not know why, that she did not know from whom! But then, women were good at pretending. Women could survive a lifetime on lies, hope, and promises …

Genevieve had kept her promise. She had done as her mother required, she had gone with Delganor. She had seen what she was supposed to see. She had kept the faith, so now was surely the time to be done with subterfuge and mystery. Now there must be something more, something based on solidity and truth, though at the moment she could not define truth or foresee the results of it.

Neither the night wind nor the stars offered help. The wind had subsided to a whisper. Even the stars had seemed to still, as though the air that made them twinkle had turned to glass. Far to the west, a constellation swam along the horizon. No. Too low for stars. Very low in the east, on the sands, toward the coast, on that arrow-straight line song-cloven through the dark. On the airship’s chart of Mahahm there had been a deep wedge cut into the western side of the land. Given that, and the fact that the western coastline ran diagonally toward the southeast, that cleft might not be far from this refuge. A few hours’ steady walk from the sea, a walk made easier, quicker in the chill of night.

A decided thump on the roof made her flatten herself against the stone. Another thump, then one more, as though something heavy had been shifted. Out on the desert one light in the moving constellation blinked bright, like a nova, once, twice, three times. Another thump from above, then the upper trap door screeched open, and she pressed even more tightly against the wall as long, bare male legs came through the roof, as long arms closed the door above, and a single clad figure climbed down. When he saw the other trap door closed, he turned swiftly, like a man who fears a trap, seeing Genevieve’s face clear in the moonlight.

“Ah,” he murmured with a hint of laughter, miming fear as he wiped his forehead on his hand. “My Lady
Marchioness. For whom I made such lovely clothing. Who thanked me by wearing very little of it!”

“Veswees?” she said, wonderingly. “Is that you, Veswees?”

He laughed, putting his arms about her and thumping her back kindly, as he might thump a friendly dog. “So, you have come to Mahahm and survived. I was worried about you.”

“My friend, Barbara,” she cried, “You knew about her. She …”

“I know,” he murmured sadly. “They told me. As my own mother ended, so did she.”

This gave her pause. “You were one of the rescued babies,” she asked wonderingly,

He nodded. “There are a good many of us, reared in Galul, but working either in Haven or among the malghaste in Mahahm-qum. Some of us were looking after you.”

“Looking after me?”

“Um. A footman or two. A coachman. A dressmaker …”

She shook her head in wonder. “Enid has Barbara’s child,” she said. “And an old woman named Awhero has my child. And Aufors is gone, with the airship.”

“I know, I know.” He thumped her again, between the shoulder blades, making a drumlike sound. “Hear that? You are all hollow in there. You have been crying, and your heart is elsewhere, no? You are worried that Aufors is lost, or even worse? That he may be part of this evil? Yes, I know that feeling of doubt. Well, Aufors has no part of it. I know some of those who are involved. I wish I knew them all, for if I did, we would think of some way to destroy them. Aufors I do know, he is commoner through and through, and he has no wicked aspirations.”

“My father?”

Veswees frowned, shaking his head. “I wish I could tell you he is not, Genevieve. It is true that in Havenor he was so naive that some men joked about it, but since he left Havenor … I don’t know. There was a member of the Tribunal in your group, was there not?”

“Yes. He spent a good deal of time with Father.”

He patted her again. “Then I’m afraid your father was enlightened—if one may call it that. Now. How are you getting along?”

“I don’t know! I’m unsure of everything! While I had Dovidi, I felt quite complete, as though that was all I needed. That must be why some women have babies, over and over. One needn’t worry about being anything else. Being a mother is a marvelous excuse for being nothing else. But with Dovidi gone, I feel like an arrow, shot a long time ago, flying all this time in thin air, carried by my own velocity until now I’ve come down with this great thump, throwing up the dirt, and I have no idea why! I’ve been up here yelling at myself for being so stupid.”

“You yelled very quietly,” he said, pulling her to the opening and pointing away across the desert where the light came closer, larger, breaking into disparate stars. “There is part of the answer. Here come the chieftains of the people of the islands. They come with their warriors and their singers and dancers. Their predecessors were the ones who talked with the depths generations ago. From among them Zenobia, Tenopia, was shot into the air as you were. Perhaps she, too, wondered where her duty lay and what was required of her. Now you may yell at them instead of at yourself. They are coming to hear what you will tell them.”

“About what?” she cried.

“What we are to do,” he replied. “When Zenobia was sent, when Stephanie was sent, the depths told our people that in the fullness of time, Zenobia’s daughters would return and tell us what to do. You are the first of those daughters.”

She simply stared at him. “Veswees, since I was tiny, I have been taken to church and taught to be godly. My earliest lessons told me of my soul and of all I had to do for its sake, the meekness, the submission. I have believed … sometimes … that I could feel my soul. There were times in my tower when I heard the nightwind, saw the sky, felt the motion of the trees and felt a kind of joy that was … huge and marvelous. I told myself I was feeling my soul. Now, now they say that what I felt was no personal me-like thing, but something … what?”

“You already know,” he said softly. “You felt something huge and marvelous of which you are part, and in the moments you describe, you forgot yourself for you were one with your world and with the sky above it, and even the stars looking down. There is nothing larger or more wonderful than that. Still, there are those who would prefer self. They will accept any belief, no matter how foolish, if it guarantees them personal immortality. I know people like that. But there are others who know themselves well enough to realize how limiting that is.”

She drew a deep breath. “If I am to help, I would have to believe …”

He shook her gently, saying, “No, no, dear lady. No one ever has to believe! The universe
is
, it does not require belief. Do you think it will stop existing if you do not believe? Do you think far galaxies will harbor resentment against you if you do not believe? Do you resent the ant who does not look up and admire you? Never! Your disbelief can kill a world, but not the spirit of life within that world, and to that spirit, the sincere questioner is of more good than a thousand meticulous believers.” He laughed.

She scowled at him, only for a moment. “Veswees, how quickly could you return to Haven?”

“Very quickly,” he said in a dry voice. “More quickly than the Lord Paramount or the Prince might imagine!”