"The battle has begun," said Ahl.
They were too far away to see anything clearly. Ahl longed for a
looking-into-the-distance tube. Such things existed at this point in history, and she had seen them in the south. But the Taig ship didn't have one. The battle was small dark figures, meeting in dim light. There was more shouting,then a high shrill scream that did not end.
One of the Taig sailors said, "Don't you think you ought to go below deck? It can't be good for a mother to see this kind of violence. Or any woman, for that matter."
"Is that what's worrying your" asked Ahl.
"Of course not," said another man. "We're worried about our kinsmen on shore.
But there's nothing we can do about their situation. So my cousin here is taking the only action he is able to take. I have to say he's right. It's the reason our women don't travel. No mother -- or future mother -- should watch while men kill each other. It's bound to do something to the milk."
"If not to the milk, to the mind," said a third man. "What kind of mothers are you two going to be after a trip like this one?
Enough, thought Ahl. She and Leweli went down to the cabin. The porthole was open. She found she could see the beach. The fire had been scattered and was mostly out. She thought she could see motion, and there was still noise.
Apparently the battle continued.
"How could I be a worse mother by traveling than by staying home?" asked Leweli.
"If I had stayed in Sorg, Dapple would have died."
"Nothing men say about child-rearing is worth attention," Ahl said. "I wish I could see more clearly."
Finally -- it must have been an ikun later--she heard noises on deck. The Taig sailors returning? Or a pirate boarding party? Leweli lay asleep. Ahl stood and pulled her knife.
The noises continued, none of them loud. Surely this meant it was the Taig sailors. Ahl relaxed, then grew tense again as the cabin door opened. She'd forgotten to bar it. Too late!
The actors entered, both unsteady. Perig's tunic was tom, and Cholkwa had a bandage wrapped around one arm.
"That," said Perig as he settled on the floor, "was the worst evening of my life."
"You, at least, didn't have Long Jehan in your hands," said Cholkwa. "Goddess!'
He leaned against the open doorway. "Don't get comfortable. We're sleeping on deck."
"Are you all right?" Perig asked the women.
"Yes," said Leweli. "It was a fine performance."
"Which part?" asked Cholkwa. "The lies Perig told about our history or the play itself or the way the two of us behaved with Jehan and Jehan?"
"We didn't see the last," said Ahl.
"Good," said Perig.
"The play," said Leweli.
"Wasted on louts," said Cholkwa. "Get up, old man."
Perig groaned, stood and searched in his baggage until he found a tunic, faded but clean and untorn.
"That will do," said Cholkwa. "You needn't look pretty. There's no one left to charm."
"It's over?" asked Ahl.
"There's still the pirate ship," said Cholkwa. "But the pirates on shore are prisoners or dead. Perig needs sleep. So do I."
Then they were gone. She'd heard about the kind of mania that overcomes some men after battle. That must be what she'd just seen, unless it was the effect of halin and the tsin ears. Cholkwa, who had always seemed a bit sullen, had shone with happiness, so beautiful -- in spite of his rumpled fur -- that even a woman could see his beauty. Perig had seemed tired, nothing more. Maybe it was too soon for him to feel happiness. Maybe he'd done too much.
That night she dozed rather than slept. Often she was awake, or in a strange state between sleep and waking. At dawn she went on deck. The Taig sailors were up, watching the pirate ship.
"Leaving, I think," said the Taig captain.
Sails billowed out, filling with wind. The anchor went up, water dripping from it and flashing in the first rays of the rising sun.
"They've decided to abandon their kin," said one of the Taig sailors.
"What do you expect of pirates?" said another sailor. The ship headed north and west, vanishing at last among the waves. When it was gone, the Taig captain said, "We need to spend another day here. I want the two of you -- the women -- to stay on board."
"Why?" asked Ahl.
"What we have to do on shore is not pleasant."
Cremate their dead, Ahl thought, and kill the remaining pirates. Cremation did not bother her, though it took a primitive form in her era; but the cremation of Taig men belonged to Taig men. The other activity was male as well.
"We'll stay on board," said Ahl.
Perig and Cholkwa went with the Trig men. Ahl and Leweli went to the cabin. The day had a mild wind, enough to carry the pirate ship away, but not enough to bring fresh air through the porthole. The room seemed stifling to Ahl. The baby fretted. "She misses her potion," Leweli said. "But I'm not giving her any more, unless she becomes impossible."
The baby became impossible and got more potion. "Just a little, to make her quiet."
Ahl went through her baggage and repacked everything, made sure her knives were sharp, then went on deck.
"Something has occurred to me," she said to a sailor. "If you build a fire for cremation, it may attract more pirates."
"We thought of that," the sailor said. "We won't cremate our men until we're ready to leave. What the captain is doing now is questioning the pirates. When he's done, they'll be killed and buried. No reason to burn them. We don't intend to take their ashes home."
"I haven't heard anything," Ahl said.
"Our men went inland with the pirates. The captain didn't want to bother you.
Sound carries well over water, especially on a day like this."
There were dark shapes on the beach, laid in a line. The Taig dead, almost certainly. One man stood by them, leaning on a spear. No one else was visible. A bright hot day. The air barely moved. Bugs would be gathering around the Taig bodies. Not a pleasant job the watcher had.
Would it be pleasanter to be inland, torturing the captive pirates?
Ahl shook her head, thinking life was full of difficult choices.
IN LATE AFTERNOON the sailors came back, Perig and Cholkwa with them. Ahl waited on the deck. Cholkwa looked sullen again, while Perig looked grim.
"That's done," the older man said. "The Taig know how to reach the pirates'
homes, though the pirates certainly did not want to give out the information."
"Goddess," said Cholkwa.
"They said they weren't going to harm you," Perig told Ahl. "They let you go, they said, though my impression at the time was they hadn't noticed your disappearance. Jehan and Jehan certainly seemed busy with other things. I don't remember anyone coming to tell them that you were gone, though I was occupied at
the time."
"You shouldn't talk about such things to women," said Cholkwa.
"You did last night."
"I was drunk."
The sailors set to work on their repairs. Most looked grim, though a few seemed satisfied. The next day the ship was ready to go. They took it out of the harbor, anchoring where the pirate ship had been, then rowed back to burn their kinsmen.
This was done at night. Looking through the porthole, Ahl saw the great red glare of the funeral fire. The air smelled of wood smoke and burning flesh. By morning the fire was out. No smoke rose into the cloudless sky. The Taig let out their sails, going west and south over an ocean dotted with foam.
Once the island was gone from sight, the Taig captain called them all on deck.