The Stone of Farewell (96 page)

As she picked at her food, Apitis talked. As if in apology for his earlier interrogation, he kept his conversation airy as swansdown, speaking mostly of odd or silly things that happened at the Nabbanai court. To hear him talk, it was quite a glittering place. He told stories well and soon had her laughing—in fact, with the rocking of the ship and the walls of the small, lamplit cabin pressing in upon her, she began to wonder if she was laughing too much. The whole thing felt rather dreamlike. She was having difficulty keeping her eyes squarely on Aspitis' smiling face.

As she suddenly realized that she could no longer see the earl at all, a hand came to rest lightly upon her shoulder: Aspitis was behind her, still talking about the ladies of the court. Through the wine fumes that filled her head, she could feel his touch, weighty and hot.

“... But of course their beauty is that rather ...
arranged
beauty, if you know what I mean, Marya. I do not mean to be cruel, but sometimes when Duchess Nessalanta is caught in a breeze, the powder flies off her like snow from a mountaintop!” Aspitis' hand squeezed gently, then moved to her other shoulder as he altered his stance. On the way, his fingers trailed gently across the nape of her neck. She shuddered. “Do not misunderstand me,” he said, “I would defend to the death the honor and beauty of our courtly Nabbanai women—but in my heart there is nothing so fine as the unimproved loveliness of a country girl.” His hand moved to her neck again, the touch delicate as a thrush's wing.
“You
are such a beauty, Lady Marya. I am so pleased to have met you. I had forgotten what it was to see a face that needed no embellishment ...”

The room spun. Miriamele abruptly straightened and her elbow toppled the wine cup. A few drops like blood pooled on her hand towel. “I must go outside,” she said. “I must have some air.”

“My lady,” Aspitis said, concern plain in his voice, “are you ill? I hope it is not my poor table that has offended your gentle constitution.”

She waved a hand, trying to placate him, wanting only to be out of the glaring lamplight and the stiflingly warm, perfumed air. “No, no. I just want to go outside.”

“But there is a storm, my lady. You would be soaked. I can't allow it.”

She stumbled a few steps toward the door. “Please. I'm ill.”

The earl shrugged helplessly. “Let me at least get you a warm cloak that will keep out most of the damp.” He clapped for his pages, who were trapped with the unpleasant squire in the tiny room that served as both larder and kitchen. One of the pages began to go through a large chest in search of an appropriate garment while Miriamele stood by miserably. She was at last outfitted in a musty-smelling wool cloak with a hood; Aspitis, similarly dressed, took her elbow and guided her up onto the deck.

The wind was blowing in earnest. Torrents of rain sliced down, turning to cascades of sparkling gold as they passed through the guttering lamplight, then vanishing back into blackness. Thunder drummed.

“Let us at least sit beneath the canopy, Lady Marya,” Aspitis cried, “or we will both of us catch some terrible ague!” He led her aft, where a red-striped sailcloth awning stretched between the wales, humming as it vibrated in the strong wind. A steersman in a flapping cloak bowed his head as they ducked beneath the cloth, but kept his hands firmly clasped on the tiller. The pair sat down on a pile of dampened rugs.

“Thank you,” Miriamele said. “You are kind. I feel very foolish to trouble you.”

“I only worry that this is a cure worse than the illness,” Aspitis said, smiling. “If my physician were to hear of this, he would be leeching me for brain fever before I could blink.”

Miriamele laughed and shivered in quick succession. Despite the chill, the tangy sea air had vastly improved her outlook. She no longer felt as though she might faint—in fact, she felt so much better that she did not object when the Earl of Eadne and Drina slipped a solicitous arm around her shoulders.

“You are a strange but fascinating young woman, Lady Marya,” Aspitis whispered, barely audible above the moan of the wind. His breath was warm against the chilled flesh of her ear. “I feel there is some mystery about you. Are all country girls so full of moods?”

Miriamele was very definitely of two minds about the tingling that was running right through her. Fear and excitement seemed dangerously intermixed. “Don't,” she said at last.

“Don't what, Marya?” Even as the storm roared and flailed outside, Aspitis' touch was solemn, silken.

A flurry of confusing images seemed to sweep in on the wind—her father's cold, distant face, young Simon crookedly smiling, the riverbanks of the Aelfwent flashing past, flickering with light and shadow. Her blood was warm and loud in her ears.

“No,” she said, pulling free of the earl's clinging arm. She scrambled forward until she was out from under the canopy and could straighten up. The rain smacked wetly against her face.

“But Marya ...”

“Thank you for the lovely supper, Earl Aspitis. I have been a great deal of trouble and I beg your forgiveness.”

“No forgiveness need be sought, my lady.”

“Then I will bid you goodnight.” She stood, buffeted by the strong wind, and made her way unsteadily down to the deck, then followed the cabin wall to the ladder down into the narrow corridor. She stepped through the door into the cabin she shared with Cadrach. She stood in darkness and listened to the monks's even, sonorous breathing, thankful that he did not wake. A few moments later came the sound of Aspitis' boots on the ladder rungs; his cabin door opened, then closed behind him.

For a long while Miriamele leaned against the door. Her heart beat as swiftly as if she been hiding for her life's preservation.

Was this love? Fear? What kind of spell did the golden-haired earl cast that she should feel so wild, so pursued? She was breathless and confused as a flushed hare.

The thought of lying on her bed, trying to sleep while her thoughts raced and Cadrach snored on the floor, was intolerable. She opened the cabin door a crack and listened, then slipped out into the corridor and onto the deck once more. Despite the rain pelting down, the storm seemed to have lessened. The deck still pitched so that she could not make her way forward without keeping a hand on the shrouds, but the sea had calmed considerably.

A trill of disquieting but curiously seductive melody drew her along. The song curved and recurved, stitching the stormy night like a thread of silver-green. By turns it was soft or hearty or piercingly loud, but the changes unfolded so joinlessly that it was impossible to remember what had been happening a moment before, or to understand how anything different than what was happening at this particular moment could even exist.

Gan Itai sat cross-legged in the forecastle, head thrown back so that her hood fell loosely on her shoulders and her white hair streamed in the breeze. Her eyes were closed. She swayed from side to side, as though her song were a fast-moving river which took every bit of her concentration to ride.

Miriamele drew her own hooded cloak close and settled into the dubious shelter of the ship's wale to listen.

The Niskie's song went on for what seemed an hour, sliding smoothly from pitch to pitch and pace to pace. Sometimes her liquid words seemed arrows that flew outward to spark and sting, other times an array of gems that dazzled with smoldering colors. Through it all ran a deeper melody that never entirely disappeared, a melody which seemed to speak of peaceful green depths, of sleep, and of the coming of a heavy, comforting silence.

Miriamele awakened with a little start. When she lifted her head, it was to see Gan Itai regarding her curiously from the forecastle. Now that the Niskie had stopped singing, the roar of the ocean seemed curiously flat and tuneless.

“What are you doing, child?”

Miriamele was oddly embarrassed. She had never been so near a singing Niskie before. It almost seemed that she had been spying on some very private thing.

“I came out on deck to get some air. I was having supper with Earl Aspitis and felt sick.” She took a breath to still her shaking voice. “You sing wonderfully.”

Gan Itai smiled slyly. “That is true, or the
Eadne Cloud
would not have made so many safe voyages. Come, sit by me and talk. I need not sing for a while, and the late watches are lonely.”

Miriamele climbed up, seating herself beside the Niskie. “Do you get tired, singing?” she asked.

Gan Itai laughed quietly. “Does a mother grow tired raising her children? Of course, but it is what I do.”

Miriamele stole a glance at Gan Itai's wrinkled face. The Niskie's eyes peered out from beneath her white brows, fixed on the spray and swells.

“Why did Cadrach call you Tinook ...” She tried to remember the word.

“Tinukeda'ya.
Because that is what we are: Ocean Children. Your guardian is learned.”

“But what does it mean?”

“It means we always lived on the ocean. Even in the far-away Garden, we dwelt always at land's end. It has only been since we came to this place that some of the Navigator's Children have been changed. Some have left the sea entirely, which is as hard for me to understand as if someone were to stop breathing and claim that was a good way to live.” She shook her head, pursing her thin lips.

“Where are your people from?”

“Far away. Osten Ard is only our most recent home.”

Miriamele sat for a while, thinking. “I always thought that Niskies were just like Wrannamen. You look very much like Wrannamen.”

Gan Itai laughed sibilantly. “I have heard,” she said, “that though they are different, some animals grow to look like each other because they do the same things. Perhaps the Wrannamen, like the Tinukeda'ya, have bowed their heads for too long.” She laughed again, but Miriamele did not think it was a happy laugh. “And you, child,” the Niskie said at last, “it is your turn to answer questions. Why are you here?”

Miriamele stared, caught off balance. “What?”

“Why are you here? I have thought about what you said, and I am not sure I believe you.”

“Earl Aspitis does,” Miriamele said, a little defiantly.

“That may be true, but I am altogether different.” Gan Itai turned her gaze on Miriamele. Even in the dim lamplight, the Niskie's eyes glittered like anthracite. “Speak to me.”

Miriamele shooked her head and tried to pull away, but a thin, strong hand closed on her arm. “I am sorry,” Gan Itai said. “I have frightened you. Let me put your mind at ease. I have decided that there is no harm in you—no harm to the
Eadne Cloud,
at least, which is what I care about. I am considered peculiar among my folk because I judge quickly. When I like something or someone, I like it.” She chuckled dryly. “I have decided that I like you, Marya—if that is your name. It shall be your name for now, if you wish. You need never fear me, not old Gan Itai.”

Bewildered by the night, by wine, and by this latest of many unusual feelings, Miriamele began to weep.

“Now, child, now ...” Gan Itai's gentle, spidery hand patted her back.

“I have no home.”
Miriamele fought her tears. She felt herself on the verge of saying things she should not say, no matter how much she wished to be unburdened. “I am ... a fugitive.”

“Who pursues you?”

Miriamele shook her head. Spray arched high over the bow as the ship nosed down into another trough. “I cannot say, but I am in terrible danger. That's why I had to hide on the boat.”

“And the monk? Your learned guardian? Is he not in danger, too?”

Miriamele was brought up short by Gan Itai's question. There was much she had not had time to think about. “Yes, I suppose he is.”

The Niskie nodded, as if satisfied. “Fear not. Your secret is safe with me.”

“You won't tell Aspitis ... the earl?”

Gan Itai shook her head. “My own allegiances are more complex than you can know. But I cannot promise you he will remain ignorant. He is a clever one,
Eadne Cloud's
master.”

“I know.” Miriamele's reply was heartfelt.

The mounting storm flung down another wash of rain. Gan Itai leaned forward, staring out into the wind-tossed sea. “House of Vé, they do not stay down long! Curse them, but they are strong!” She turned to Miriamele. “I think it is time for me to sing once more. It would probably be good for you to get below deck.”

Miriamele awkwardly thanked the Niskie for her companionship, then stood and made her way down the slippery ladder and off the forecastle. Thunder growled like a beast hunting them through the darkness. She wondered suddenly, desperately, if she had been a fool to open her heart to this strange creature.

At the hatchway she stopped, cocking her head. In the black night behind her, Gan Itai's song had been lifted against the storm once more, a slender ribbon offered to hold back the angry sea.