“I could always see that bird looking for the mountain heights,” said the Warlord simply, “even when he was hooded and leashed in the mews. In the end, I untied his jesses myself and let him fly. I think this is the only reward I can give you that would mean anything to you.”
I opened my mouth but he silenced me with an upraised hand. “That would not be enough in itself to persuade me but there is the magic to consider.” His eyes were hard, searching my own. “There was something wrong in that fight, something ill omened hanging around you. I cannot say what it was, but were you any other man, had the great serpent not appeared when you stood alone on the sands, I would have you killed under suspicion of sorcery. As it is I am content to let you go, provided you swear on whatever you consider most holy that you will not return.”
I swallowed on a suddenly dry mouth. “I swear; may Dastennin drown me to cast me naked on the shore if I prove false.”
Shek Kul nodded, apparently satisfied. “This token will guarantee you safe passage across the Archipelago.” He handed me a gold and jeweled medallion that would pretty much guarantee me a safe retirement if I ever brought it home.
“My thanks,” I said, quite unable to think of anything else.
“Now dress and we will deal with the traitor,” the Warlord said grimly. “As her accuser, your responsibility only ends with her death.”
I dragged on my clothes and followed obediently at his heels, wondering with a sick sensation exactly what I was about to witness as we left the compound and headed for the foreshore. Kaeska was lying on a wide wooden platform fixed to stakes at the high-tide mark, her hands and feet spread and tied. I tried hard not to react when I saw her eyes and mouth had been sealed with wax, burns scoring her skin. Her nostrils flared as she drew what frantic breaths she could. Shek Kul regarded her impassively for a moment then picked a large stone from the black sand of the beach and placed it firmly on Kaeska’s breast bone. She flinched as if it had been a burning coal but could not dislodge it, pinioned as she was. As Shek Kul nodded to me, I reluctantly found a fist-sized rock and laid it next to his, averting my eyes from Kaeska’s blind grimaces.
“You stay until she is dead.” Shek Kul strode away without a backward glance and I found myself standing there as a succession of Islanders came to add their weight to Kaeska’s punishment, some in tears, some openly gloating, but all adding to the load that was slowly pressing her to death.
Gar came toward the middle of the afternoon as Kaeska was laboring to draw every breath, her color sickly.
“Are you all right?” she asked, coming to stand next to me in the shade of the shoreline after laying her own middling sized stone with a somber face.
I nodded. “Tell me, what is the purpose of all this?” I was struggling with the measured cruelty of the execution. “Why not just let me cut her head off.”
“Her blood would pollute the ground,” Gar shook her head soberly. “Her mouth is closed so that she cannot curse anyone and her eyes are shut so that her gaze cannot contaminate anything it falls upon. Kaeska has committed a high crime against the domain, against the people and the land, and in this execution all share in her death. When she is dead, all her belongings will be piled on the corpse and burned, to destroy everything that has ever linked her to this place. The sea will carry away the ashes and the defilement with them.” She sighed. “I know how you mainlanders speak of us, as bloodthirsty savages, always at war with each other. In truth, we value life, we value it highly, so when we have to take a life like this, we make sure the nature of that death makes its own statement.”
Gar, like Shek, did not look back as she left the beach, making her way back to the residence through the Islanders who continued to come to share in this incomprehensible rite. Laio came some while later as the line was thinning out somewhat. She was carrying a large stone that took her all her strength and both hands and it must have come from somewhere in the residence. Panting as she raised it in front of her chest, she dropped it hard on the heap now covering Kaeska’s torso. A feeble whimper escaped the tormented woman and Laio leaped backward as if she’d been bitten by a snake, looking around wildly. Seeing me, she came to sit on the dry sand beneath the fringed trees.
“I wanted to end it for her,” she murmured softly.
“That will have helped,” I assured her.
“Where will you go?” Laio’s voice shook. I reached for her little hand; giving it a comforting squeeze, not caring if this was inappropriate.
“I’ll be fine, once I’m out of the Islands, I’ll go back to my old master.” I managed a rather bleak smile.
Laio pointed at the harbor where several large galleys were swinging at anchor, more heading in down the channel between the islands. “That crimson pennant, that is the mark of Sazac Joa. If I speak to the captain, he’ll give you passage. I will make sure that all your belongings are loaded aboard.” Laio lifted her chin to quell a trembling lip.
“That’s very good of you.”
“Not really,” admitted Laio with a shadow of her old manner. “Shek Kul told me to make sure you left nothing behind that might taint the domain.”
That made sense. Laio rose to her feet and brushed sand from her dress. “I’ll send Sezarre down with some food,” she promised over her shoulder.
“Thank you,” I called as I steeled myself to check the pulse in Kaeska’s neck again. Her skin was clammy to the touch but the faint beat of her life still pushed against my fingers. I sighed and sat down again to wait out this grim vigil.
Kaeska took three long days and nights to die.
The coast east of the settlement,
Kel Ar’Ayen,
34th of Aft-Spring,
Year Two of the Colony
“How’s the river bed, captain?” Temar looked up from making painstaking notations in his journal as the weather-beaten seaman stood before him, wide stance secure on the deck as the ship rode the gentle swell.
“Sound enough, the anchor will hold. The old Eagle will nest safe enough here for a while.” The thick-set sailor patted the mast with affectionate satisfaction, a smile creasing his leathery face and softening the scowl molded from his bushy brows by a lifetime squinting in the sun and wind. “I’ve set Meig to keep an eye on the tide and the run of the river.”
“Good.” Temar got up from his seat beside the lateen rigged aft-mast and stretched his cramped shoulders, half inclined to shed his stout hide jerkin in the strengthening sunshine. He looked around the broad estuary, thickly forested hills dropping sharply to an open beach of shingle and scrub, winding away inland on the banks of a wide, brownish river that offered tempting access to the mysteries of the hidden interior. The fitful breeze brought an alluring fragrance from the burgeoning woodlands. Temar took a deep breath of the scent of spring. “They would surely have put in here to take on supplies, wouldn’t they, Master Grethist?”
The captain nodded. “They had fair copies of the Sieur’s charts, just the same as us, the ones he made when he was exploring the coastline with the Seafarer and they’re good for another six days’ sailing beyond here. This place is marked clear enough as a good anchorage with game and fresh water to be had.”
Temar moved and leaned over the rail of the stern, sighing. “So where are they? Could they have come to grief? I suppose things will have changed, sandbars and the like, those charts must be what, eighteen or nineteen years old by now.”
“I know Master Halowis.” The mariner folded his arms as he too gazed at the shoreline. “He knows to take care sailing in strange waters. In any case, if they’d come to grief, we’d have seen sign of it. We found the wreck of the Windchime and she was lost on the crossing last year, wasn’t she? That was still plain enough, even after a whole winter of high seas tearing it up—her cargo was scattered all along the strand.”