“I have dishonored none of them,” Kaiholo added, with a moue at their fellows, “and I say again, the boat and its skin are not mine. Though I do on occasion ride it…” He shook his head as if at a difficult memory. “Whenever possible, I swim.”
“Whose boat is it, then?” Dana asked, a pale cast to her face.
“Hers,” Kaiholo said.
Manuel turned away and looked down at the black sand, but Reynard caught a glimpse of both old shame and hunger.
“What presence commands thine attendance?” Dana asked. “An Eater?”
“Not an Eater. One just beneath the sky. Last night, before we went to work, she told me two important individuals had arrived and deserved high attention, though not hers, not yet. She also told me that a young female Eater and the Afrique protected them—and that under the old rules, the Afrique restored to an old man some of his lost years. Be you that man?” He directed his question to Manuel.
“I was given time by the Afrique,” Manuel said.
Kaiholo scowled. “I do not like the air when Calybo is near.”
Manuel asked, “Your mistress sought no protection for the others from the galleon?”
Kaiholo looked away. “None,” he said, “but for you and the boy. Is that how you know Guldreth?”
“I will speak of that in town, when I am there,” Manuel said.
The blunters drew back from Manuel and Reynard.
Kaiholo said, “Like you, I am just above the mud. My mistress told me to keep lookout—but she confideth little.” He turned to Dana and her blunters. “As for ye, she hath already downed one of the wild ones, her limit for this season, whoever doth measure. She let two tame ones pass, and they did damage to the great ship out there. Was it ye did direct them?”
“Not as such,” Dana said. “But they caught the scent of our enemies.”
“Do you object to Guldreth taking a wild one?”
“As she is just below the sky,” Dana said, “it is not for me to object. Her harvest leaveth one fewer wild drake to worry us this season.”
Kaiholo rested a leather-shod foot on the frame of the skin boat and explained, for Reynard’s benefit, as if he had already judged their levels of knowledge and thought he had the most to learn, “Nymphs refuse to attack a boat stretched with drake’s wing. For the high ancients under Hel’s skies, there are elder advantages, elder protections—including defense against drakes. But my mistress is at her limit. So be wary out there.” Again to Reynard he added, or more like confided, “Hel made the drakes to keep watch on the children of men, and protect these shores from invaders.”
“But the invaders are here anyway,” Dana observed.
“We shall see how they fare.”
Did this strange tattooed man—more woodcarving than human—work for someone like the glassy-skinned visitor Reynard had seen during their first night on the beach? He had thought she might be a dream, until, after the second night, he had witnessed Manuel’s rejuvenation.
And what was this talk of Hell?
“Not all of the Spaniards were killed,” Dana said. “Soldiers still move inland.”
“Give them a few days,” Kaiholo said. “Eaters rarely miss a chance to add to their years. All children of men are here on their sufferance.”
“And on the sufferance of Travelers and Crafters,” Manuel said, in a chiding tone.
“Them, too,” Kaiholo said. “When Hel returneth, she may or may not decide to keep us, whether we interest the Crafters or no.” He studied Reynard more closely. “Where from, lad? Eastern Albion?”
Manuel moved between them and held up his hand. “Enough. These have work. When they are done, I would return to speak to thy mistress.”
Kaiholo shrugged this off. “Full of questions, I wis. I cannot guarantee she will be here, but may I make compense for her unpredictable nature, and guide ye to a prime location?”
“We know where to go,” Dana said. “And what to do when we get there.”
Kaiholo seemed much given to shrugging. “By dark, I have to be strong and alert. There is at least one wild drake out there… By tonight, there could be four or five. If I were you, I would get your blunting done before dark.”
More than ever, Reynard wanted to wake up, to get away from the war at sea, the wreck of the hoy, his dead uncle and the other fishermen… the galleon, el maestro, el capitán, and this unknown island.
“Where doth your mistress sleep?” Nem asked nervously.
“I do not know that she sleepeth, as we sleep, or where she is—other than that she is up there.” Kaiholo gestured at the topknots of woods that crested the island’s two headlands, with a lightly timbered causeway between. He looked to Dana. “Under a drake wing tent.”
“How do we keep safe and away from her?” Nem asked, but Dana hushed him.
Kaiholo turned his attention again to Manuel. “Can you, would you, tell me why Calybo treateth you so well?”
Manuel did not meet his eyes.
“Or how many years he hath banked and delivered to you?”
Dana intervened. “Thou and thy mistress—whatever clan or status, she tradeth years for her favor, true? How old art thou, really?”
Kaiholo drew his brows together. To Manuel, he said, “If my mistress asketh—and you have a name known to Calybo—even below the stars—”
“Not thine to know,” Dana said. “Not until he reporteth to Maggie and Maeve.”
Kaiholo was not easily assuaged. “I feel my mistress’s time clean and sweet, like silver. What is in this old sailor’s added years, I wonder? What borrowed or traded memories? Some of mine own, mayhap?”
Manuel stared him down but did not answer. Did the tattooed man pose a danger?
Kaiholo smiled slyly, turned, and walked toward the eastern headland. He threw his arm out to point up into the trees along the ridge. “Dead drake that way. Mistress harvested the wings. Beyond, on the northern headland, hang four sacks. Now sleep I must. Fare ye well.”
“How doth she share?” Nem asked his back. “Doth she kiss… or more?”
Dana reached out and cuffed him. He did not take it amiss. But the tattooed man looked back and grinned in pure jovial menace.
“Maybe thou wilt ask her thyself. She would like thee.”
Nem shook his head, crown of black hair swishing. “No, sir!”
Reynard could not agree more. He was as far from Southwold as he had ever been, physically, emotionally, and spiritually…
And apparently these people showed respect to, if they did not outright worship, a queen who came from Hell.
Blunting, and Things Thereof
AS THEY PUSHED through the brush and trees below the ridge, Dana muttered that she had long suspected there was a high one wandering around the southwestern shore.
“What sort of devil is that?” Reynard asked.
“Not far from angel,” Manuel said. “Vanir, just beneath the sky.”
“How do you know this?” Reynard asked. “Are there books or teachers for such things?”
“No books,” said Dana.
Said Sondheim, who until now had stayed quiet, with a glance at Manuel, “Let us find the nymphs. We blunt them, mark them, and after that, they are of no use to Queen Hel.” He was a thin, rope-muscled fellow with skin roughened by years of wind and waves, and almost certainly a sailor. But then, to get here, how many of these must be sailors? How many had been here a long time, and how many were still due to arrive?
“Hel is dead and gone,” said Gareth.
“Hel can never die,” Sondheim said.
“I keep no company with those who worship Hell and its demons,” Reynard said between clenched teeth.