The Voyages of Trueblood Cay

by Suanne Laqueur

  Raj wasn’t averse to being cuddled, he simply didn’t hold still long enough. He only went still in his sleep, his body wrapped around Lejo’s as the ship rocked them in arms and the ocean cradled the ship. Far beneath them, the holds of the Cay swelled with goods and riches.

  One hold was closed off and empty. The thick door fit in its jamb without the slightest crack. The walls, floor and ceiling were gorgeous, honey-colored wood. The smell within defied description.

  This was the nyellem. The hold that once transported nothing but casks of Nye. Empty now, save for a single bed and the scent that had buried itself in the grain of the wood.

  A night’s sleep or even an hour alone in the spice hold was a reward for a well-done sailor. The one time Kepten True whipped his son in front of the crew was when the boy went into the hold without permission, then failed to shut the door properly.

  Trueblood did his share of foolish things, but he never made the same mistake twice. Particularly when the lesson made him eat on his feet and sleep on his stomach for a week. After that hiding, he always asked permission. He often asked twice. When allowed inside the hold, he rubbed his hands along the smooth walls, filling his pores with the lingering scent. He carefully closed the door, checked it twice, then raced on deck to find Abrakam or Rafil or his father, and press his redolent hands to their faces.

  “What a gift,” the centaur always said.

  “That’s the scent of everything good in the world,” old Rafil said.

  Kepten True closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. “Thank you, Pé. I needed that.”

  From the Most Private Journal of Pelippé Trueblood

  Calvo is the quartermaster. The giantword is kvartermastisto. He is in charge of all the holds in the ship and all the casks and crates that go in them. He must store food correctly so it doesn’t spoil—both our rations and the foodstuffs we ship. Textiles like cloth and rugs can’t get wet. Boxes and barrels must be precisely stacked so the ship is balanced, and secured tight so things inside don’t get broken.

  Nothing comes onto the ship or goes off the ship without Calvo knowing about it. When we come into port or are leaving port, Calvo is very impatient and short-tempered because he worries about the things in the holds. Once we are at sea, he is a much calmer person. But I must tell the truth and say I am a little afraid of him. His job is difficult and I get more tired working with him than anyone else. He yells at me a lot, but he always apologizes after.

  Calvo and Beniv are gelang. That means they are together and love each other and sleep in the same cabin.

  It wasn’t often Trueblood and his father spent time alone. Leisure was a scarce commodity at sea. Days were long with arduous work and nights were for sleeping the work off.

  One rare evening, Trueblood sat with his father in the aftercastle’s sitting room. Typically this was the social hub of the Cay. The exterior doors were always open and the crew went in and out as they pleased. The smaller study and the kepten’s bedroom were off limits. Even Trueblood had to knock on those doors and wait to be invited inside.

  Tonight it was only father and son. Kepten True sat reading in his large chair, with a glass of the thick, port wine he loved.

  “Look at the shoulders on that,” True always said when he poured out his evening tot.

  Trueblood tasted it once and screwed up his face as it burned from tongue to gut.

  “Vile, right?” Abrakam said, laughing. “Like liquid prunes.”

  His father laughed harder. “Altynian plonk keeps the cargo moving, my friend.”

  Trueblood sat in the other big chair with his notebook. He found being alone with his father a wonderful thing. Their big, socked feet kept company on one hassock. The quiet, intimate evening made his mind reach into the closet of memory, open drawers he kept deliberately shut and draw out a carefully-folded garment.

  I remember Mami sitting in her chair by the great fireplace, his pen wrote. The light from the flames shines on her red hair. She leans to look at something I wrote and says, “You do have especial beautiful handwriting, Pé.”

  “What’s troubling my Trueblood?” the kepten said, pouring a little more wine into his glass.

  “Nothing.”

  “Ah. My mistake.”

  Trueblood stared at the little fire crackling in the hearth, pen slowly twirling in his fingers. “Da?”

  “Aye, lad.”

  “Do you miss Mami?”

  “Oh.” A big sigh. “Yes. To my bones.”

  “How did you know… I mean, when did you find out she died?”

  True closed his book around a finger. “When il-Kheir flew you out to the Cay. He told me.”

  “Did you cry?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “No,” Trueblood said. No drawer existed for that particular memory. He couldn’t bear to even invent one. He had enough trouble imagining his father being gelang. His father crying was inconceivable.

  “I cried until I thought I would die,” True said. “My heart was broken.”

  Trueblood nodded. He knew this, but sometimes he needed to hear it. “You didn’t get to say goodbye to her.”

  “No. No, she disappeared from my life. It was perhaps the cruelest thing ever done to me. When I wasn’t crying, I passed the time being angry. Do you remember that?”

  “No.”

  “Good,” the kepten said with another sigh. “It wasn’t my finest moment.”

  A polite rattle of knuckles on the half-open door and Calvo leaned in. “Saying goodnight, Kepten.”

  “Goodnight, lad,” True said, raising his glass. “Beniv’s feeling better?”

  “Aye. Abrakam gave him a bit of something or other and he’s asleep.”

  “Good, good. Both of you rest well.”

  “Goodnight, Troubled,” Calvo said.

  “Amatos,” Trueblood said.

  He counted ten before speaking. “Da?”

  “Pé.”

  “Why do some men bed other men?”

  The ceiling didn’t collapse, so he went on in a rush. “And some bed women and some bed both?”

  “Lad, you can bed anyone who wants to be bedded by you,” True said. “But why one prefers men or women, or has no preference…” He smiled as he turned up his large, brown hands. “I always tell you few things in life are to be accepted at face value. Gelang is one of those things. It has no reason. It just is.”

  “But how do you know what kind of gelang you want? How will I know which I prefer?”

  “That, Pé, is something else that just is. In fact, your mind already knows what it is and what it likes and what it wants. It’s a part of your mind that sleeps while you’re young, because gelang doesn’t concern children. It wakes up as you get older.”

  “When?”

  “Right around now,” True said, and his smile grew broader. “All of you hairy monsters are starting to wake up. That’s why you’re at each other’s throats all the time and driving Merevhal up the mast. Every one of your minds is trying to figure out what just happened, who it is and what it wants.”

  “Oh,” Trueblood said.

  Kepten True slid his silver hoop from his ear and rubbed the lobe thoughtfully. “If I remember correctly, it feels a bit like you’re going mad.”

  With an exhale that could’ve filled one of the main sails, Trueblood slumped in his chair. “Lately I feel like a monster about everything.”

  He stared at the flame of the oil lamp, letting his vision split it into two flames and then merge into one again. He glanced over to see his father had been watching him all this time.

  “I wish your Mami could see you right now,” he said, eyes full of love and sadness. “She’d think you were an especial monster.”

  The city of Alondra lay in ruins. Her wells poisoned, her streets abandoned. The miles of stone walls had long b
een scavenged away and the old palace was a pile of rubble. After the sack, Nyland moved her capital northeast to Valtourel, where the kheirons had always buried their dead and giants once had their shipyards. The Cay was built here, and she had no trouble anchoring in the harbor.

  “Like a baby in a cradle,” Kepten True said as he brought her in.

  He had a house in Valtourel. Not as large as the old one in Alondra, but a caretaker kept it cleaned and maintained, and rented some of the rooms while True was at sea.

  With each trip home, Valtourel was a little more built up, a little more thriving. A new palace reached spires into the sky. Trade was brisk in the marketplaces. The military barracks swelled with warriors. The new library was almost finished, as well as the crypt House Tru built to replace the one destroyed in Alondra. It took years to excavate and exhume the remains of so many mariners, their spouses and honored crew, but at last the bones were at rest.

  The kheirons were constructing a new pavilion near the palace. The winged steeds strutted along the cobblestone streets or filled the skies over the harbor. As usual, Trueblood and his father called on the Horselord and as usual, Trueblood shrank into awed silence in the king’s presence.

  All kheirons were tall and muscular, their bodies built to support four legs and two wings. But one would think a giant had snuck into Sevri il-Kheir’s lineage somewhere, for he was nearly as tall as Kepten True. Unfurled, his wings stretched fourteen feet from tip to tip.

  Da once told me that many scholars hate kheirons, Pelippé wrote in his most private journal. That is, they hate the idea of kheirons because they make no scientific sense. Not only are their wings built all wrong for flight, but their wings are in the wrong place for flight. One scholar wrote a three-hundred-page thesis proving a kheiron’s wingspan would have to originate at the base of his spine and be eighty feet wide to support his equine body in the air. His calculations showed, without a doubt, that kheirons have no business being a foot off the ground, let alone flying hundreds of miles. He published the dissertation and then admitted himself to an insane asylum.

  Kheirons find this hilarious.

  Sevri il-Kheir didn’t give the impression of one who appreciated a good joke. Trueblood rarely saw the Horselord smile. Still, he was a splendid creature. His equine body was one shade darker than white. A pale gray that shimmered faintly blue in certain light. He wore his moonstone on a thin, black braid around his neck. His fivehand crushed Trueblood’s fingers when he offered gelango, and the palm that dropped on Trueblood’s shoulder felt heavier than a rolled-up sail.

  “He’s becoming a man,” the Horselord said.

  “Little by little,” True said. “Is your son at home?”

  “No, he spends most of his time up in Arcodolori,” il-Kheir said. Then added under his breath. “Exacting revenge.”

  His icy blue eyes flicked to the ceiling and his tone dripped contempt. Kepten True cleared his throat and Trueblood studied a crack in the floor, uncomfortable. The relationship between his father and the Horselord confused him. Each had rescued the other’s son. Theirs ought to be a legendary friendship. Certainly Il-Kheir always seemed glad to see the mariner and had never been anything but kind to Trueblood. But Ikharus’s face didn’t mirror the geniality. His smile around the Horselord was tight, his shoulders stiff and his manner tense.

  “Is il-Kheir your friend?” Trueblood asked as they left the pavilion.

  “Yes. But…” True took a long time to continue. “I respect him in all ways but one. I don’t like how he treats his son.”

  “Why not?”

  The mariner sighed. “In my mind, Fen il-Kheir is one of the bravest, most resilient souls to walk this earth. Yet his father treats him like a common pony.” His long braids swept across his shoulders as he shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Because it’s not the True Way.”

  Ikharus laughed and put an arm around his son. “Not at all.”

  Together they loped through the burgeoning city. Trueblood’s stride had a bit of swagger in it. He’d just had his thirteenth birthday, and while he was still considered a minoro and would be for another three years, thirteen heralded a significant change in dress code—new black boots that reached his knees. The heels bumped importantly on the cobblestone streets. He glanced sideways at his reflection in shop windows, admiring how his white breeches tucked smooth and trim within the boot’s tops. He looked good. He looked even better after a visit to a jeweler’s shop, where Ikharus allowed him to get his ear pierced. Just one ear, with just a plain silver hoop, just like Ikharus.

  “Should we go see your mother?” True asked afterward.

  Noë Treeblood was interred in the new mariners’ crypt and Pelippé always took flowers to her. Tulips in season, for they’d been her favorite. Or poppies, though they didn’t last long, dropping their papery petals before he could get them arranged nicely.

  Sometimes, father and son arrived at the crypt to find an apple next to Noë’s tomb.

  “Who left this?” Trueblood always asked.

  “Someone who knew her well,” Ikharus always answered. “She loved apples.”

  Trueblood dreaded the visits. Not so much for the sadness, but because one half of the tomb’s façade was inscribed with Noë’s name and dates, while the other half was blank, patiently waiting for his father’s death. Something about that smooth blank space was smug. It curled a lip and said, You’ll only have a short time. Then I get him forever.

  Trueblood was relieved when they set sail again. He didn’t like the sojourns in Valtourel. The city was filled with courage and becoming more beautiful every year, but it didn’t feel like home to him.

  The ship has many other crew members and I like everybody, Trueblood wrote in his most private journal. But the ones I have written of here are the crew I especially love. Or especially fear, but out of love.

  He wore his troubled face as his thumb fanned the pages of the leather book. This narrative had a glaring gap in it. He hadn’t written much about the Ĝemelos.

  He loved Raj and Lejo best of all. More than anyone else and just a little less than his father. And yet he couldn’t put that love into words. Still, he should try.

  He chewed the end of his pen, then wrote, My father found the twins on an abandoned ship. This was before I was born. Nobody knew where they came from or who they belonged to, so Da brought them back to Alondra and became their guardian.

  When he was younger, the simple story of how Kepten True found the twins was sufficient for Trueblood’s curiosity. He only wondered who the twins’ mother was, and what could have driven her to abandon the boys.

  As his years piled up, he fixated more on the ship. What ship? Where? Why was it empty save for two babies?

  Trueblood sighed and went on writing. Our house in Alondra was quite large. Two of my mother’s sisters lived with us, with their husbands and children. Raj and Lejo were always considered part of the family, but they were funny about calling my father Da. They called him Kep, and instead of taking the surname True, they wanted to be known as Ĝemelos. It’s a giantword that means “the twins.”

  I think they picked the name because deep down, they only belong to each other.

  He was avoiding his feelings. Fiddling with his new earring, he fished in his heart, to the deep waters where his love for the twins ran like a constant current.

  Sometimes the space between Raj and Lejo sparkles like stars, he wrote carefully, for he’d never attempted to describe this phenomenon. He was five when he realized the Ĝemelos had an aura, and ten when he realized he was the only one who could see it.

  It’s not visible dead-on, he wrote. I can see the aura best when I look sideways at the twins. It’s white-yellow around their silhouettes, hard and glinting like sunlight, while the space between their bodies is soft and it twinkles.

  The only person I ever to
ld this to was Da, and he looked at me so strangely, I never spoke of it again, anywhere, ever.

  He still wasn’t describing how he felt.

  Raj and Lejo are my brothers. We do not share blood, but we are brothers the way Osla, Sayenne and Rona are called the Sisters.

  But that wasn’t what he meant.

  They are my friends.

  He may as well have written the sky was blue. He nearly felt ashamed of the trite words.

  We are gelang.

  This was closer, which confused him. What he felt for Raj and Lejo seemed to fit his definition of gelang. He loved them and they loved him. They were together all the time and they slept in the same cabin. It sounded gelang. But Trueblood slept in his bed and the twins slept in theirs. They kept their hairy, monstrous parts to themselves which meant, Trueblood was sure, they were most certainly not gelang.

  I love Raj and Lejo, he finally wrote, and threw the pen down in frustration. He took up a pencil and began to sketch around the paragraph.

  He drew a compass rose for Raj, with his love of maps, his uncanny sense of direction and a preternatural ability to read the skies. Like any sailor, he knew all the major constellations. But he knew the minor ones too, plus he saw pictures in groups of stars no one had ever grouped together before.

  For Lejo, Trueblood drew a different compass. No directional markings around the circumference. Instead, he shaded half the face black and left the other white, trying to convey right and wrong. To capture Lejo’s guileless decency, the way he could divine the perfect thing to say or do in any situation.

  His shoulders relaxed. Drawing always soothed Trueblood’s soul and let his thoughts spin out a little more clearly.

  Raj has simple tastes and emotions, he wrote. He never worries. He pats problems on the head and tells them to run along. If he’s cold, he puts on a coat. If he breaks something, he sweeps it up. If fear strikes, it’s a sign he’s doing something wrong and he changes direction. I never feel lost knowing Raj is in the world. If we’re ever separated on the streets, I just stand still and he always finds me.