Inos had heard all that about a million times in the last week.
Now was the time of spring tides, she thought bitterly. There would have been good clam digging this morning.
“And Duke Angilki!” Aunt Kade was in full gush now. “He was a very striking young man in his… well, I mean, he is a most civilized person. His artistic taste is quite impeccable.”
He is also thirty-six years old and has two daughters. He has buried two wives already. Although Inos had never met her distant cousin, she was quite certain that he was utterly detestable. She was determined to hate him.
“He will be so happy to see us!” Kade peered into the mirror and patted her blue-tinted hair where it emerged under the silver trumpet on her head.
“I always thought that one should not go visiting without an invitation,” Inos said bleakly; but she had tried that argument before and it had not worked. It would hardly work now, not with a ship waiting.
“Don’t be absurd!” Kade said, but without heat. “We shall be very welcome. We have a standing invitation, and there simply has not been time to write and wait for a reply. Winter is coming. You will love the sea voyage in summer, my dear, but it would not be possible later. Ah! The sea! I do so enjoy sailing!”
“Is Master Jalon ready?” Jalon was an infuriatingly vague person, but he would at least make the voyage bearable.
Kade turned to her niece in surprise. “Oh, did he not tell you? He has decided to go overland.”
“Jalon has?”
“Yes, dear.”
“He’s crazy!” Inos tried to imagine Jalon wandering through all those weeks of dangerous forest, and her mind went limp. There were goblins in the forest. Jalon?
“Oh, quite possibly.” Kade shrugged. “But your father seems to think he can manage; he gave him a horse. He left this morning. I know he went looking for you to say good-bye.”
“I expect he was distracted by a seagull, or something.”
“Yes, dear…” Kade peered around at the trunks and baggage. “Which ones shall we be using on the voyage?” she inquired of Ula, her maid. Inos had not been allowed a maid. One would suffice for both of them, Aunt Kade said, because there would not be room for more on the ship; and they could hire girls with better training when they arrived at Kinvale.
Ula was short and dark, dull and almost sulky. She was showing no excitement at all, but then she probably did not understand where she was headed, or what a month or longer on a boat must be like. Nor, probably, did Inos herself, she realized. On the charts it seemed simple—west to the Claw Capes, south into Westerwater, and then east again to Pamdo Gulf—but that also seemed an unnecessarily prolonged and roundabout torture when the land route was so much shorter, and so much more interesting! Aunt Kade had sailed back and forth between Krasnegar and Kinvale several times before, during, and after, her marriage. Her enthusiasm about the prospect of doing it again was ominous. Anything Aunt Kade enjoyed would have to be a ghastly bore.
Why could they not have gone by land? If a nitwit like Jalon could manage it, then anyone could. That argument did not work, either. Aunt Kade did not like horses, nor coaches.
Boxes and bales and trunks… How could they possibly have amassed so much luggage? It smelled of soap and lavender.
Ula indicated two large trunks and Aunt Kade began to cross-examine her closely on their contents. Inos did not bother to listen. She gave herself a last angry inspection in the mirror and stuck out her tongue at her ludicrous reflection, then stalked to the door. She would take a final walk through the castle and say a private good-bye to some of her friends.
The past frantic week had been so dominated by dressmakers and seamstresses that she had hardly spoken to anyone else. Since that shattering day when the God had appeared, she had been lost in a blizzard of silks and satins, of lace and lingerie. She had not ridden Lightning once, not once! Rap had vanished the next morning. The sinister Doctor Sagorn had growled a brief farewell a few days after that and disappeared as mysteriously as he had come. And now Jalon had gone riding off into the hills. By Winterfest he would probably still be going round in circles somewhere, she thought—if he had not been tortured to death by a band of ferocious goblins.
Before Inos reached the door, however, it opened to admit Mother Unonini, stark in her black chaplain’s robe, smiling with responsibilities and clutching a roll of papers. She stopped and regarded Inos with surprise, and then made a curtsy. On her absurdly short legs it was a clumsy move, but she had never done that before. Suddenly Inos did not feel quite so hostile to Mother Unonini. She was another familiar face not to be seen again for a whole interminable year.
Inos returned the curtsy.
“You look very charming, my dear,” the chaplain said. “Turn around!”
Inos decided she must look like a weathervane, the way everyone kept wanting her to turn around. She turned around.
“It does look nice,” Mother Unonini said warmly.
Inos felt temptation and succumbed. “It’s only an old tablecloth.”
Unonini frowned, then suddenly laughed and put her arms around Inos and hugged her… garlic today, not fish. “We shall miss you, my dear!” She turned hurriedly toward Aunt Kade and curtsied again.
“I brought the text of the prayer you will be reading, your Highness. I thought perhaps you would like to look it over beforehand; practice a little.”
“Oh, dear!” At once Kade was flustered. “I do hate having to read prayers! I hope you wrote it big? The light is so poor in the chapel.”
“I think so.” The chaplain fussed with her papers. “Here’s yours. You will be invoking the God of Travelers. Corporal Oopari will address the God of Storms. The ship’s captain will be doing the God of Sailors, of course, and he will have his own text. His Majesty will invoke the God of Peace… his own choice,” she added disapprovingly. “It does seem curious.”
“Diplomacy, Mother,” Aunt Kade said. “He is concerned with relationships between Krasnegar and the Impire and so on.” She held her script at arm’s length and blinked at it.
“Can the corporal read?” Inos asked. Oopari was a pleasant young man. He and his men would doubtless do a good job of protecting her on the voyage, but she could not imagine him reading.
“No,” said Mother Unonini. “But he has been rehearsed. You, Inosolan, will speak to the God of Virginity, and—”
“No!”
Inos had surprised herself as much as the others. There was a shocked silence and the two ladies both colored.
“Inos!” Aunt Kade breathed. “Surely—”
“Oh, of course not!” said Inos, aghast. “That’s not what I meant!” She was certain she had gone pinker than both of them now. She looked to the chaplain. “I want to speak to the God who appeared to us that day. They are obviously looking after me. Well, are interested…”
Mother Unonini compressed her lips. “Yes, I agree that it would be appropriate, but we don’t know who they were. I should have asked, of course…”
There was an awkward pause.
“Well,” Inos said brashly, “then we shall have to think of a name. They told me to try harder, so the God of Good Intentions, perhaps?”
Mother Unonini looked doubtful. “I’m not sure that there is one. I should have to look at the list. I mean, they all believe in good intentions—the good Gods, of course.”
“Religion is so difficult!” Aunt Kade remarked, studying her paper again. “Why can’t Inos just ask for the God I saw here in the chapel? They would know, wouldn’t they? Is this word devote or devout?”