“Besides,” she turned from Kran to the whole room, “you’ll all be fighting to protect your homeland. The Free States is not my home.” Very softly she repeated, “I want to go home. Eldie is there and my mother.”
“Even though you’d have to sail on a ship again?” asked Tristo. “And this time, without us?” He pointed at Thalen and himself.
“Even so,” she said.
Thalen cleared his throat and stood up. “I understand, Eli-anna. We will grieve to lose both your bow and yourself, but we will rejoice at the thought of your reunion with Eldie. We will think of you often, riding under the Lattice of Stars … with gratitude, pride, and comradeship.”
“Fuck, Commander,” said Fedak, “you put it that way, you’re going to make me cry.” And he walked over to wrap Eli-anna in a hug, a hug that Jothile joined from the other side. Dalogun and Tristo piled on so that Eli-anna was enfolded in Raider arms. When they finally let go, Kran insisted on a hug of his own and he kissed the top of her head with great tenderness. Thalen wondered if the proposal had been serious after all.
“If this is what you want, I’ll get to work immediately on finding you passage,” said Hake.
Dalogun broke in, “We gave Eldie a bunch of our horses—can you claim one and make it your own? I’d like to think of you on one of our gang. And if I get some sugar lumps, could you give them all treats from me?”
* * *
Bidding farewell to Olet caused Thalen no pain, because Olet was so effusively happy that their mission had succeeded and so (deservedly) proud of his role in the expedition. He turned the goodbye supper into a joyous fest. “Islanders don’t like to boast,” Olet remarked, “but we do give the best parties.”
Eli-anna’s ship back to Metos wouldn’t leave for another week. So the next morning Eli-anna, weighed down with a bag of sugar and two bridles decorated with silver and jade jewelry that the Raiders’ treasury had bought as gifts for the Mellie sisters, stood with Olet on the dock to see the Raiders off when they departed Pilagos on Island Voyager. The Raiders waved their hats goodbye as the Voyager’s sailors rowed the ship out of harbor. Soon the slim figure standing next to the heavyset man vanished from view.
“We’ll never see her again,” Tristo said to Thalen, his voice filled with misery.
“That seems likely,” Thalen admitted. “Life is full of sorrowful partings. At least we got to say farewell and we know that she is hale and following her own stars. Take comfort in that.”
It was lucky that Island Voyager turned out to be a more spacious ship than Song; the winds turned against them, and the ship sat becalmed for days at a time. Since all the Raiders had fallen slack, Kambey made use of the time by instituting sparring drills on deck, especially for those who had been injured. Their activity provided great entertainment for the Green Isles sailors, who began betting on the fencing contests.
When Island Voyager finally slipped into the harbor at Sutterdam, Thalen rushed to the prow, eager to survey his own home. The city that stretched before him looked battle-scarred but still basically intact; the Oros had wreaked less damage on buildings and bridges than he had feared. Another positive sign was that lots of countrymen were out and about this midday.
Many of those people thronged at the wharf, shouting and cheering, when their ship docked.
“What’s all this fuss about?” Thalen asked Quinith, lowering his brows.
Quinith looked at him as if he’d lost his reason. “When did you become dense? They are cheering for the Raiders who saved their country. They are cheering for you! You’re a national hero.”
Thalen pulled a face at such a preposterous notion. “But how did they even know the Raiders are on this ship?”
“I sent word on a fishing boat the minute Hake booked Island Voyager. And I gather that harbor lookouts can see ships a good while before they dock, and they spread the word we’d been sighted.”
Thalen turned on his friend, eyes flashing with anger. “Why would you do such a fool thing?”
“But Thalen,” Quinith protested, puzzled and hurt, “isn’t it right, isn’t it proper, to acknowledge what you’ve done? What your men have done? What Hake and I have done?”
“You don’t understand,” said Thalen. “I’m not proud of it. Any of it. You’re celebrating death and murder.”
Voyager tied up and lowered a gangplank. The crowd’s cheering redoubled when the Raiders started to disembark. Fedak and Wareth played to the throng, doffing their hats and bowing. Jothile looked frightened by the uproar, so Kran draped his arm around his neck.
When Thalen overheard Dalogun say to Cerf in wonderment, “Are they really cheering for us?” he realized that even if he found the spectacle unwarranted, it might lift the hearts of his fellows.
For himself, he just wanted to slip away as soon as possible. But people in the crowd recognized him.
As he trod down the gangplank, his hat pulled low over his face, shouts rang out.
“There he is!”
“That’s him!”
“I see him.”
“I went to lower school with him.”
A chorus of voices shouted, “Commander Thalen. Tha-len, Tha-len, Tha-len. Hooray for Thalen and the Raiders! Thalen and his Raiders!”
When Thalen reached the wharf, men thumped him on the back, little girls pressed flowers in his hands, and old women clung to him.
“Help!” he shouted over heads to Kambey.
Kambey let the crowd lap its waves of excitement against the commander for a few more minutes, then barked an order. The Raiders pulled themselves away from the pretty women offering kisses and regrouped, forming up around Thalen and Hake in a protective box. Thalen pushed Hake’s chair, and the Raiders marched him through the throngs of shouting folk toward Sutterdam Pottery.
“You’re taller than me,” Hake turned around in his chair and called out to his brother. “Keep your eyes out for Pallia, would you?”
Thalen watched for his brother’s former girlfriend, but he didn’t spot her. When they reached the factory, he ordered the gates closed behind them and sighed relief at being out of the crush.
“Those of you who have family, friends, or favorite taverns in Sutterdam, consider yourselves free to go visiting. We will meet here tomorrow at this time. Those of you who don’t, just cool your heels a few minutes while I check on the old place.”
Kran called out, “I’m buying the first round!”
“Hold a seat for me,” said Cerf. “I’ve a friend I want to look for first.”
Fedak, Kambey, Kran, and Cerf strode off, either genuinely in high spirits or faking excitement to buoy one another.
Thalen and Hake entered the workshop. The building echoed emptily to their calls. A quick search showed signs of occupancy, but none very recent.
Accordingly, now with fewer of the people in tow, Thalen, pushing Hake’s chair, led the way over the familiar bridges—Silversmiths, Tailors, and Millers—that led from the pottery to Lantern Lane.
Norling pulled the door open before he could knock. “At last!” she cried. “Hartling, our boys have come home!” In an undertone she warned her nephews, “He’s a broken man.”
“So are we all, Teta, in body or mind,” muttered Thalen, pulling her slight body into an embrace. “What a marvel to see you. Are you all right?”
“I’m much better now,” said Norling into his chest.
Thalen left the other Raiders to deal with getting Hake’s chair up the half flight of stairs and hurried to find his father.
Hartling lay on a bed in the room on the first floor that they had originally added on for his aunt, curled up in a fetal position. His eyes were open, but he looked completely different because of his broken nose and broken teeth. Thalen missed the calm and kindly face he’d known so well.
“Pater,” Thalen whispered. “Pater, do you know me? It’s Thalen.” Thalen began to pat his father’s left hand; the right one looked twisted unnaturally. “It’s Middle. I’ve been away
, but I’ve come home now. And I’ve brought Eldest with me.”
“Eldest with me,” the man on the bed repeated.
“Yes. Pater, don’t you know me? It’s Thalen.”
“Thalen,” he repeated without comprehension.
“Yes. I am going to pick you up and take you to see Hake.”
Thalen had built up so much muscle, and his father had wasted so grievously, that Thalen lifted Hartling without strain. He set him down as gently as one would treat a china doll near Hake’s wheelchair in the front room.
“Hake!” cried Hartling. “Hake, my Eldest!” He recognized his son, but he didn’t appear to see the wheeled chair.
“Aye, Pater?”
“Give your old man a hug, Son. It’s been a long time, I think.”
Hake leaned over to pat his father’s ruined face.
“You’re going to be fine, Pater. Wait and see.”
“Where’s Youngest?” asked Hartling. “Middle is around here somewhere, but where is that young scamp? That boy is always causing me heart-pain. Throwing away his talents for excitement.”
“I know,” said Hake. “Harthen always causes me heartache too.”
Tristo and Norling disappeared into the kitchen, jabbering excitedly about ingredients and dishes. Hake and Quinith took charge of organizing the household for so many visitors, asking Dalogun and Jothile to throw open every window to disperse the sickroom closeness, sorting out sleeping arrangements, and setting the men to fetch extra water and firewood.
“Now that I look at you (and myself), we all need serious scrubbing before we’re fit to sit at a civilized table,” Quinith commented; thus, a relay of washtubs became the next order of business.
Thalen left them to such labors. He took the staircase two steps at a time up to the room that had once belonged to his mother and father. He knew his mother wasn’t there, but he had to see for himself. Of course the room sat empty. Thalen walked about; he picked up her pincushion from her sewing basket. He lingered over her hairbrush, recalling all the times she’d nagged him to tie his hair back. He wondered at himself, that as a lad, he’d often balked at such a simple way to please her. Now, he brushed his own hair with her brush and retied his leather tie. When Tristo came to search him out for midmeal, he was sitting on the bed fingering the silk petals of the fake flowers in her prized traveling hat.
They had set Pater at the head of the table and Norling had slipped on his businessman’s wig, which restored a semblance of his former appearance. Norling’s food lifted everyone’s spirits. During the meal she told them all she knew about Gustie and the Poison Banquet, Sailmakers Bridge, and the Siege of Jutterdam.
“That’s your Gustie!” said Thalen to Quinith.
Quinith avoided his gaze. “Well, I’m not sure she’s mine. It’s been a long time. Do the bonds from the Scoláiríum last through … I worry we’re not the same people anymore.”
“I understand,” said Thalen, both because he could imagine Quinith’s feelings and because he wanted to make up for his harsh words on the ship. “But we can still be proud of her, right?”
“Indeed.”
During this exchange Tristo got a look in his eyes that made Thalen harken back to the Mead Test. “Excuse me, Mam Teta Norling,” Tristo said with his glowing, innocent smile, “but I don’t understand. How did Gustie know about the Defiance fighters at the wheelwrights’ shop?”
Then, bit by bit, Norling’s own position in the Defiance began to come clear. Whenever Tristo suspected she was playing down her role or leaving out crucial parts of the story he was on her like a cat shaking the truth out of a wayward kitten.
“Norling!” exclaimed Hake. “Why you old fraud! You fake! You imposter! All those years you pretend to be just a sweet, puttering old lady, and now it comes out that you are the greatest tactician in the Free States! It must be from Teta, Thalen, that you inherited your skills.”
Norling waved away Hake’s compliments, but Thalen could tell she was pleased. He examined her face, noticing all the new lines and the way the skin on her neck and eyelids now sagged. These deep creases reminded him that as arduous as their mission into Oromondo had been, those left behind had also suffered.
“You’re really the one the crowds should have hailed, Teta. Do the people know of your heroism?”
“Everyone did what she could, each in her own way,” said Norling. “It’s the combination that makes the difference.”
“I’m so glad we got to see you before we leave,” Thalen said, entwining his fingers through hers.
“Leave?” she said, her voice rising through the word. “You just got here. Where are you going?”
“Teta, we must ride to help the Defiance in Jutterdam. Our work isn’t done until all of the Free States are liberated.”
Norling didn’t argue, but she blinked fast and looked down.
“I’m staying with you, Teta,” said Hake. She threw him a quick smile.
The gaiety had fled the table. The Raiders felt the change and looked at one another, fidgeting a little in discomfort.
“I’d better get busy,” Quinith announced, rising.
“Where’re you off to?” asked Hake.
“If we’re riding to Jutterdam tomorrow we need horses, lackwit. Dalogun, you want to come with?”
“Half a tick,” said Dalogun, standing, but downing his last swallows of ale.
“Jothile?” Quinith invited.
But Jothile shook his head. This wasn’t surprising; he always felt safer staying physically close to Thalen. Despite their care, Jothile hadn’t fully recovered from the terror of the woro attack in Iron Valley. He twitched nervously, and a loud noise would send him scurrying for cover.
“We need battle-ready cavalry horses,” Thalen said.
“I don’t know how you’ll find good horses left in town,” put in Norling. “The city is picked clean.”
“Try the neighborhood near Horse Traders Bridge,” Hake suggested.
This flurry of suggestions and commentary annoyed Quinith. “Oh, shut up, all of you. Just loll at ease and prepare to be grateful when we ride back. Come on, Dalogun. Let’s go scour the city and shake out all the hidden horseflesh. I’ve got a bag full of jewels going to waste in my belt.”
When every serving plate was scraped as bare as a flock of crows left a cornfield, Hake suggested, “Let’s put Pater in his chair by the hearth and get him his pipe.”
Thalen thought this was a bad idea: it would only make the contrast between their father of old and the wreck the Oros had left in their wake more glaring. He held his tongue, though, knowing he had no standing to question his brother’s expertise in coping with the effects of life-changing injuries.
Tristo assumed the chores of Youngest, fetching the pipe and helping Hartling pack and light it. Pater was not accustomed to grasping a pipe in his left hand. But he puffed a few times and grunted with satisfaction at the familiar aroma.
When he looked around, his glance fell on Thalen, and this time, to Thalen’s great relief, recognition dawned in his eyes.
“Middle! I’m so glad you’ve come home for the holidays. I’ve lost track. Which fest is this? Are they still treating you well in that school of yours?”
“Yes, Pater,” said Thalen.
“Truly? You look thin and ill dressed.” Hartling looked at him suspiciously. “Or as if you’ve been sick.” His mind wandered. “Your mother’s been pining for you so, Middle,” he chided. “Have you seen her yet?”
“Yes, Pater,” Thalen replied. “First thing.”
“Where is she?” Hartling asked, turning his head this way and that, obviously confused. “I look for her … I call her…”
“Oh, you know Mater; she moves so fast. She’s around here somewhere. Everywhere,” said Hake, with an airy gesture.
Thalen had been so consumed by his own grief over his shattered family that he hadn’t thought about his brother’s; their eyes met for a moment, and Thalen realized that in all of Ennea
Món only Hake shared exactly his own enraged and bitter joy at being home in Lantern Lane again.
26
Cascada
Gunnit bid farewell to his friends amongst the crew of Island Trader and settled his heavy rucksack on his back. The third mate had already given him detailed directions to the Courtyard of the Star and the Nargis Fountain. Although he again experienced the funny sensation of adjusting his balance to solid land, he headed up the hill with a mixture of nervousness at being in another strange land and confidence that the Spirits would guide his path.
The Fountain pulsed into an evening sky fading into pink. Gunnit stared at the arcing sprays and rainbows of mist, marveling at the sight for a long time. The last vendors closed up their carts and started to disperse. Soon he found himself alone except for a herd of begging children and a number of mean-eyed guards.
Since Saulė’s Mirror had shown him at the Fountain, Gunnit thought perchance the Fountain would tell him what to do next, but he heard only the sound of the water and the sniffles of the sickly children. As the last of the sunlight faded and the moons rose, he turned around to seek food and shelter for the night; one of the Green Isles sailors had recommended a particular lodging house as a cheap but safe place for a boy on his own.
But as Gunnit walked in the direction of one of the avenues heading away from the Courtyard, he felt a sudden discomfort in his left arm where the Bracelet rested. He cautiously took one more step, and the Bracelet tightened so much it hurt. When he turned back toward the Fountain the stricture loosened, allowing his blood to flow normally.
Each avenue Gunnit tried, the gold circlet squeezed him, telling him to desist. Finally, he understood he was supposed to stay by the Fountain.
Gunnit took off his rucksack. He had a decent supply of ship’s biscuits inside; he ate one with gulps of Fountain water to wash down its dry crumbles. As he munched, the ragged children cautiously crept close to him. He took out two more biscuits and offered one to a tangle-haired girl and the other to a hollow-cheeked boy. They snatched the offerings from his outstretched hands like feral dogs. But later, the girl returned, offering him a scrap of dirty blanket, which Gunnit accepted gratefully. He put on his extra shirt and threw the blanket around his shoulders against the cold. He leaned against the Fountain balustrade and dozed uncomfortably until morning.
A Broken Queen Page 20
