'Where your great grandsire and his elder sons were dashed to death on the reefs.' Janne nodded, visibly determined to get a grip on her unruly emotions.
'No one will be going there until the pearl harvest.' Kheda nodded. 'That's where I'll head for. You can meet me there and tell me how things stand in my absence. Then we can decide how best to go forward.'
'I'll send a trusted slave to keep vigil there,' Janne said slowly. 'Because the sea has yet to give up your body.'
'I will be back as soon as I can,' Kheda promised.
Janne looked straight at him. 'While you're looking for lore to drive out magic, search out as many rites of purification as you can. We have to rid ourselves of every stain these wizards leave.' She shook herself, her white shawl fluttering like the wings of a bird. 'I don't think we have anything else to discuss. I'll return to Derasulla.'
'So soon?' Kheda was surprised. 'Ulla Safar will be expecting you to look for some guidance in a dream here.'
'I've changed my mind,' Janne said with steely precision. 'That is ever a wife's prerogative. If he presses me, I shall simply become distraught with grief.' Her face was cold and calm.
Kheda drew a deep breath. 'So this is farewell, my wife, until the thousand-oyster isle, that is.'
'Farewell, my husband.' Janne turned abruptly towards the gate, lifting the latch and sliding through it. Birut's voice approached, concern lost in the solid clunk of ebony on stone and the rattle of the handle.
Kheda slid down to sit at the base of the lofty tower, struggling not to yield to the doubts suddenly clustering round him.
How long to leave it before escaping the confines of the enclosure? Long enough to avoid being seen by Janne's departing escort but not so late that some labourer in the sailer fields or some child sent to gather firewood raises a hue and cry after this unknown man profaning the sanctity of the tower of silence. Then it's into the forest and head for the heights, for the passes that will take you over to the northern side of the island, to the trading beaches and passage north. How am I to secure that?
'How am I to do this?' The knife in his hand had been as long as his forearm but had still looked entirely inadequate to Kheda, faced with the thick brindled belly hide of the dead water ox.
'Think it through,' Daish Reik had said firmly. 'Decide what you must do first. Do that and then you'll see the next step.'
Hunting for dappled deer, they had surprised the water ox drowsing where a stream formed a pool around a stubborn rock in its path. Daish Reik would never have chosen such a quarry with the children in the party but now it was roused, the beast was far too dangerous to leave. He had shouted at Kheda to get all the boys into the trees, Agas already throwing hunting spears to the other swordsmen. The warriors had fanned out into a half circle, the broad leaf-shaped spearheads held low, as the ox lumbered out of the water brandishing its vicious, down-curved horns, incongruously draped with a tendril of the waterpepper weed it had been browsing on.
Two men and Agas had challenged the beast with shouts and taunts. It had charged them, the force somewhat dissipated by its inability to chose a target, but it had still sent one of the men flying with a great buffet of its brutal head. His valour had served its purpose when Daish Reik had driven his spear into its back, in between the animal's angular shoulder blades, deep into its vitals. Its knees had buckled, bowels voiding, collapsing even as it still sought to gore the fallen swordsman.
'Kheda, deal with it.' Daish Reik had abandoned the ox as soon as he was sure it was dead, turning to salve the horrifying bruises on the man's chest, tearing up his own tunic to wrap his broken ribs. 'That's too much meat to leave for the jungle cats.'
Which was why Kheda had stood before the massive, stinking, steaming carcass.
'How am I to do this?'
How was he to get the leathery hide off without ruining it? How was he to gut it without puncturing the endless loops and pouches of its entrails? How was he to read any signs in the heavy, slippery liver before the sheen that reflected the unseen future dried in the heat? How was he supposed to direct the other boys in butchering something that weighed as much as all of them put together? Where were they going to find the perfume leaves to smoke this much meat?
'Decide what you must do first. Do that and then you'll see the next step.'
Tense, waiting until the sounds of Janne's departure had subsided, Kheda lifted the latch of the gate and slipped out of the silent tower's precinct.
First things first. Which means you want a tunic and a belt to hang Telouet's sword on, since the one Daish Reik made for you from the water ox's hide is back in Derasulla.
Chapter Ten
Was he going to find what he was looking for here? Or was he going to end up chasing his tail again like some serpent maddened by the heat? After so many frustrations, it was almost enough to make Dev spare a prayer to the gods of his childhood. Not quite enough. After all, they'd never answered him.
Dev hauled on the rope to spill wind from the Amigal's triangular sail, pushing the tiller away as he did so. The lithe little ship turned through a narrow channel cut between two gaunt islets of bare, crumbling stone. Rocky hummocks of veined and fluted coral rose to within a finger's width of the sea's surface, the frothing gullies between them thick with vicious prongs of jagged sea thorn.
'Can you lend us a hand?' A light galley slightly bigger than the Amigal was wedged firmly on a reef. Her embarrassed master shouted over the noise of the breaking waves, his exasperated rowers slumped idle over their oars.
'I told you it was too late in the day to make the passage with this much cargo weighing us down,' the helmsman said with unnecessary recrimination.
'High tide will float you off before morning.' Dev held to his course. If they'd lost the best of the market for whatever they were carrying, that wasn't his problem.
He grinned as the deft Amigal sped through the narrow passage to waters suddenly crystal clear over white sand spangled with bright blue seastars and giant clams gaping up at him, sinister green lips crinkled in the deep. Scanning the broad bay girt by fawn-flanked peaks, he looked for any ships he recognised among those who'd thought it worth their while to negotiate the tortuous maze of stony spikes and fans of corals to claim Taer Badul's protection. Besides, Taer Badul's swift triremes would be about their usual business of forcibly discouraging any traders seeking alternatives to the few anchorages the warlord permitted.
There were certainly more ships than expected, when anyone with any sense should be heading for home or a friendly landing and shelter from the imminent rains. Dev studied the beach, a slim curve of white above the aquamarine waters with the Taer settlement no more than a line of sturdy huts built high on stilts against storm surges. Beyond, a narrow tangle of nut palms and perfume bushes soon yielded to the naked screes of the mountains, which the setting sun was gilding with a spurious beauty. Taer Badul's designated trading beach offered precious little welcome to anyone thinking of jumping ship to find a foothold in a new domain. Which made it all the more surprising that the sand was crowded with men, women and children, gathered around cook fires or huddled beneath rough shelters of ragged cloth and green wood in some vain attempt to escape the heavy heat.