He cleared his throat. He could have offered all kinds of platitudes to console. Instead, he said, 'It's noticeable. And not pretty. It's red and puckered. The colour will fade with time. It won't matter to him any more than it matters to me. Don't worry about it.'
'I don't.'
He heard the catch in my voice. 'What is it? The baby?'
'He's fine. It wasn't the baby I was thinking of- it was you.'
'What about me?'
'I'm not blind, Brand. What's wrong with your arm?'
'I had to haul you out somehow.' He swallowed. 'It's not so very terrible.'
I reached up to run my fingers down his left arm from shoulder to wrist. The arm was withered, without muscle or strength, a pitiful parody of what it had been.
I asked, 'Why didn't he heal you too?'
'All his efforts had to go to you. You were so close to death. And it took all the strength he had. I don't begrudge the way he used his power, Ligea, and neither should you.'
I said sadly, T can't heal it now, Brand. It is too late. And I'm too weak anyway.'
He gave another shrug. 'I guessed as much. It doesn't matter. It gives me no pain, and I still have
some use of my fingers. It's just there's not much strength there any more. Neither of us has come through this unscathed – but we are still here.'
I took his hand in mine. 'Dear friend. How much I owe you.'
He gave a smile. 'Maybe I'll claim the debt one day- from the next Exaltarch of Tyrans.'
He would, too, the Altani bastard. I grinned at him.
The small fishing boat was tied up to the jetty in Ordensa and the owner was sitting in the open area at the back of his vessel, strengthening the stitching in a sail. He was an old man, dressed in shabby work clothes spangled with fish scales. A cloth cap pulled over his head protected a bald patch from a hot sun. His toughened hands and scarred fingers manipulated the curved bone of the sailmaker's needle and the stiff hide of the sail with a confidence born of long experience.
He was so intent on his job he didn't notice someone had stopped beside the boat and was looking down on him – but I did. I was seated in the cabin, and from where I sat I could see the newcomer's feet and sandals. I didn't need to see more; my sensing powers told me exactly who it was.
The fisherman finally looked up, and surprise stilled his fingers.
The expected voice: gentle yet authoritative – and so well loved. 'Bitran of the PlatterfishV
The fisherman nodded. 'That's me. And this here is the Platterfish. Best boat on the coast, even though we are bound for Tyr next trip.'
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The man squatted down at the edge of the wharf so that he came into my view. He was thinner than he had been, but his brown eyes – so like mine – tilted at the corners and his hair, as usual, was in disarray. He said, 'I believe there is someone here I want to see, Bitran.'
Bitran gave me an uncertain glance, and I nodded. He gestured at the companionway. 'The Magoria is in there.'
Temellin took a coin from his purse. 'Go and buy yourself a drink, Bitran. In fact, buy several.' He swung himself down into the boat and walked across to the top of the companionway.
'That was very high-handed of you, Tem,' I said. 'It is his boat.'
He was looking down at me, but with the sunlight behind him, I couldn't see his face. He said, T wish I dared to be just as high-handed with you. Derya, why7. Why do you feel you have to leave?' He came down the steps, ducking his head to avoid the low beams. The cabin was tiny and with both of us standing, we were only half a pace apart, yet he didn't touch me. 'Where's Brand?'
'Delivering our shleths to the man who's agreed to buy them. He won't be back for several hours. I have to go, Tem. You know why. I don't think sisters should marry brothers.'
His face took on a look of stubborn resistance and genuine bafflement. 'You could still stay. And we're having a child. I love you, Derya. I want you around. I want my son. Derya, for pity's sake – I have lost two of my children, don't let me lose the third. Please.'
'You won't lose him! I will send him to you. Or better still, you send someone to pick him up.'
His surprise, and his paradoxical hurt, filled the cabin. 'You'd give him up, just like that?'
I feigned indifference, hiding the truth in the way I phrased the next sentence. 'I don't think I'm cut out to be much of a mother.' Perhaps I wasn't, but when I thought of this growing life, tenderness seeped into my heart. Treachery from within.
Is this how Wendia once felt about me? And Aemid? Wendia died knowing she had failed to protect her daughter, and that must have been a terrible way to end one's conscious moments. And Aemid lived, knowing she had failed me. Perhaps I was only just now beginning to understand her anguish. And I was about to fail my son as a mother too…
Melete give me strength.
I knew I couldn't keep him, this boy of ours. He was Kardiastan's heir. I had a flash of memory: my hands soaked in Pinar's blood, her son cupped in my palms. Why was my life studded with separations of children from their mothers? My son would never know me. That gnawing at my insides, it was painful.
'But why must you go at all?' Temellin asked. The emotion he allowed me to feel was more puzzlement than anger. 'Is it because you haven't forgiven me for my disbelief?'
'No. Goddess knows, I gave you grounds enough to disbelieve! But I do have reasons for leaving Kardiastan. Half a dozen of them.'
'I don't need half a dozen. I need just one that makes sense to me. And – and the one you did have is not valid. This brother-sister thing. Derya -' He stood straighter, made an effort to be more in command of himself. 'I'll give you a reason to stay, the best I can think of. You aren't Shirin. You aren't my sister. We were wrong. You are Sarana, my cousin, Miragerin of Kardiastan.'
I went cold all over. He knew! And then: He loves me enough to tell me? Goddess, I didn't deserve that. I swallowed. 'How did you find out?'
His smile quirked with irony. 'You told me in your letter. When you hinted that the Mirage Makers mentioned to you their need of an unborn child. I couldn't believe they would give that information to Shirin. They hadn't given it to Korden when he walked the Shiver Barrens, and at that time he was my heir, so why would they give it to you? I tried to tell myself it was because you were bearing my child, but somehow it just didn't seem right. Especially when, in the end, it was Pinar's son who became a Mirage Maker. So I started to think about things. I remembered what you said about your memories of your childhood in Kardiastan, and suddenly it seemed more of a description of a fight involving a howdah. And then I went to Zerise again. I pestered her, and finally she admitted she was uneasy about you being Shirin. It seems you have Sarana's eyes.'
I waited for him to go on, to tell me how Solad had made a traitor of himself, but he said nothing, to spare me the pain, perhaps. He must have worked it out, of course. Maybe he'd always suspected it; Solad was the one who had sent the ten Magoroth children away, after all.
I stared at him, emotions suppressed, stomach churning. Was he truly willing to sacrifice all he was, all he had – for me? Sweet Elysium, he was prepared to trust me with his landl With his people.
This was what it was to love.
Something fundamental inside me shifted position, ¦ grinding into me with deep-felt, intense pain. I knew myself inadequate, less than he was. I loved, but my love was a damaged thing, torn by so many betrayals,
folded and put away and ignored until now, when I wanted to take it out again and shake it free – only to find it flawed and tattered, creased with memories of where it had been, of what had been done to it, of the pain it had caused. '..¦¦›!
He touched my shattered cheek with the back of his hand. 'You are beautiful,' he said, and perhaps I was to him.
My eyes filled with tears. He took me in his arms, holding me gently, shielding his feelings, as if afraid the strength of his passion would frighten me away. 'Stay,' he said. 'Be our Miragerin.'