“Let’s get her to our cabin.” Avila silenced the startled questions of the sailors with an imperious look and hurried to open the doors to the accommodation in the rear of the ship. Temar laid Guinalle gently down on the narrow cot and clenched his hands in unconscious dismay as Avila deftly untied Guinalle’s girdle, unlacing the high neck of her gown to check the pulse in her neck. The older woman bent her head close to Guinalle’s, a grunt of satisfaction as she felt the girl’s breath on her cheek.
“She’ll do well enough. She’s just exhausted herself.” Avila laid a fond hand on Guinalle’s forehead, herb-stained fingers brown against the white skin.
Temar didn’t know whether to be more relieved or furious with Guinalle for giving him such a fright. “She always thinks she can do everything herself,” he burst out. “Is this the first time she’s over-reached herself like this? Why can’t she pace herself better?”
Avila was pouring water into a shallow bowl and paused, a linen cloth in her hand. “The reason Guinalle has to do so much is the lack of other trained hands to lift the burden from her,” she said crisply. “If enough people would come forward to be trained in Artifice, her life would be a great deal easier. The problem is that so many of those that start give up as soon as the studies become at all demanding.” She didn’t bother concealing the contempt in her voice or in her eyes as she looked across the cramped cabin at Temar, brushing a wisp of graying hair back from her broad brow with the back of her hand.
“I had my reasons and I have my own duties,” Temar snapped. He looked at Guinalle again, a faint flush of pink starting to soften her cheeks again. “Messire Den Fellaemion asks too much of her,” he said reluctantly, hating himself for the disloyalty.
“Messire Den Fellaemion is ill.” Avila sprinkled an aromatic oil from a tiny bottle and laid the dampened cloth across Guinalle’s forehead. “Guinalle’s Artifice is just about the only thing keeping him on his feet some days.”
Temar gaped at her. “You’re not serious?”
“As plague spots, Esquire!” snapped Avila, wiping her hands heedlessly on her plain brown gown. “If it weren’t for Guinalle, he wouldn’t see out the year. So she has to spend her time and strength on him as well as on all the other duties laid on her.”
“What am I supposed to do about it?” Temar demanded, more to defend himself than expecting any answer.
Avila gave him one nevertheless. “Stop finding every excuse to leave the port to take your sulks about Guinalle off with you,” she glared at him. “You’re Den Fellaemion’s obvious successor, boy! Stay and learn from him, take over some of the real work of the colony, stop gallivanting off up river and inland whenever someone offers you the chance. If Den Fellaemion has less to do, he will need to demand less of Guinalle, and she might have a chance to stop spending from the bottom of her purse all the time. Get yourself in hand, D’Alsennin! I’ve been watching how you behave toward Guinalle. Drianon save me, you’re not the only boy who ever got turned down. Guinalle’s not the first woman to see more important paths lying before her than just being a wife and mother!”
Pent-up grievance escaped Temar before he could restrain his tongue. “And I have got you to thank that she’s taken them, haven’t I? Guinalle kept mentioning your name when I was trying to find out what turned her against me. Just because you chose not to wed, I don’t see you have the right to meddle in other people’s happiness.”
Avila regarded him steadily, but her blue eyes were bright with a suspicion of tears. “I would have wed, D’Alsennin, had my betrothed not died of that same Crusted Pox that took so many of your House to the Otherworld. My father died too and my mother was left an invalid; it fell to me to nurse her for the next four years, youngest and unlooked for daughter as I was. By then, with so many dead, any chance I had to marry had passed me by. But you’re right, I did advise Guinalle to think very carefully before hampering herself with a husband, children and all the expectations of society. It’s not as if there is any middle way, not now, not here. Guinalle has had education and opportunities I could only have ever dreamed of, and I would hate to see her cast them aside for a self-centered boy who has so much growing up left to do!”
Guinalle stirred in the bunk, a vague hand reaching for her forehead. Temar looked at her for a long moment, then, not trusting himself to speak, turned on his heel and slammed out of the cabin.
A trading islet in the domain of Sazac Joa,
Aldabreshin Archipelago,
20th of For-Summer
I stepped out of the skiff on to the sand, hauling my baggage out without any hand raised to help me. “My thanks,” I said curtly, but no one responded and I walked away without a backward glance. It was hard to feel angry with the Aldabreshi though, despite their lack of courtesy. However they sent their messages with their flags and beacons, word of Kaeska’s fate had spread through the Archipelago like fire through dry brush and Shek Kul’s token, while securing me passage on whatever vessel I wanted, also clearly identified me as the mainlander who’d started the whole business. It was no real surprise that wherever I went I found myself about as welcome as someone who’s lost their nose and half their fingers to creeping scab. I walked slowly along the beach, looking at the signal pennants flying at each masthead, trying find the yellow and crimson pattern the last galley-master had grudgingly shown me, identifying the next domain I needed to cross on this painfully slow progress up the Archipelago. I sighed. The sun was sinking behind a rocky island to the west and I didn’t fancy another night sleeping fitfully in a hollow of sand, hoping no one would rob or knife me before I woke.
“You’re a long way from home, Tormalin man.” This unexpected greeting was sufficiently friendly that I didn’t reach instantly for my sword. In any case, given my recent experiences, I was starting to feel rather wary of using that blade for anything short of outright assault by a full detachment of Elietimm. I turned to see a short, coppery-skinned man in a shabby tunic grinning at me. He was beardless and bald as an egg, pate gleaming in the afternoon sun, but with the right clothes and some hair he could have stepped off any dock anywhere along the coast of the Gulf of Lescar. There was a distinctly Lescari touch to his mongrel Tormalin as well.
“I could say the same of you, couldn’t I?” I watched his dark eyes to judge the sincerity of his reply.
“Perhaps but I don’t really have a home these days, not beyond my ship, anyway. That’s her, the Amigal!” He waved a proud arm at one of the smaller vessels anchored in the narrow strait. Despite the Aldabreshin rigging and unfamiliar arrangement of mast and sail, it looked about the same size as the boats that ply the rivers and coasts on the Gulf coast of Tormalin, carrying a good weight of cargo but only needing a couple of men to manage it. That was interesting in itself, given the preponderance of massive galleys all around us, but more intriguing still was the array of white-bordered pennants strung down a long line from the top of the mast. This little ship and its unknown master had permission to trade their way through a double handful of domains.
I looked down impassively at the man, whose broad smile did not falter, and folded my arms. “What do you want with me?” I demanded with just enough challenge to deter casual conversation.
“I’d have thought you’d be looking to do some business with me,” he replied with an engaging grin. “I know who you are, Tormalin man. You’re the slave to young Laio Shek, that helped her put that bitch Kaeska out to sea in ashes.” He wiped a hand over his mouth in an unconscious gesture I’d seen all too often lately, as people around me realized who I was. “I’d say you’d pay handsomely for a quick passage home, instead of spending the next season hopping from galley to galley and hoping no one tips you overboard, just in case you’re really tainted with magic.”