by Shannon Hale
“I hear it,” Enna said stiffly, afraid to move, as though the breeze could be frightened away like a flock of pheasants.
Was the fire gone? No, she could still detect the heat swirling away from Finn, twisting through her fingers and hair, then passing on. It did not stick to her, did not claw at her skin.
Fahil left off speaking happily with the other tata-rook to go to Isi. He knelt beside her, asking questions, and Isi responded in light, content tones.
“How do you feel?” said Finn.
Enna thought. She could still draw heat to her, but it did not come unbidden, and for the first time in weeks she breathed air free of heat. She did not feel the heat tease her and gnaw at her, just sensed that it was, but that it could be ignored. She looked inward and felt that the cracked place inside her had not healed, but it no longer leaked rivers of fever heat into her body. It felt now less like the tethered falcon tearing to escape than a sleeping bird, tired and warm.
“Good. Unbelievably good. Isi?”
Isi was leaning against Fahil. “I’m all right.” She paused, then smiled broadly. “Yes, I know I am. Everything’s so quiet.” She sighed. “I’d forgotten what it felt like to be normal. The winds are still there, if I seek them, but they’re hushed now and keep to themselves.”
“You have . . . ,” said Enna.
“Balance,” said Isi. “The heat changes and pushes the wind. . . . ”
“And the wind takes the breath from the fire.”
Isi laughed, happy as a child. “I can scarcely believe we did it, Enna. Both of us. Geric will be so relieved to see me better, he might even think the absence was worth it.”
Finn breathed out. “That wasn’t so bad, then. And I thought someone was going to have to die before it was over.”
“And I’ll bet you were hoping it’d be you,” said Enna.
Finn looked serious. “Well, I wasn’t wanting to die, but if it had to be one of the three of us, I hoped I could jump in a fire first or something.”
Enna held Finn’s cheeks and shook him. “I was kidding! Oh, Finn, you are too good.” And she gave him an ardent kiss, a kiss that meant maybe, after all, the world would not burn and everything would be all right.
Enna laughed, feeling as though something had sat on her shoulders for months and just stepped off. She grabbed Finn’s hands with the wild notion that she might float away.
Isi laughed, too, and Enna noticed how Isi’s belly wobbled with her laugh, so that made her laugh more. And of course Finn could never resist whenever he heard Enna’s laugh. Fahil stared at them as though they were crazy, which was, of course, even funnier.
Chapter 21
Fahil thought they should rest a few more days after the ordeal on the hilltop, but Enna insisted they leave the next morning.
“If I don’t get my best friend home soon, she’ll pop,” said Enna. “Translate that, Isi.”
Isi had some gold coins in her saddlebag that they traded to Fahil for supplies. After Isi talked with Fahil about the possibilities of renewing trading between the two lands and much thanking in two languages, the Bayern set on the road for home.
The change in the two girls was immediate, though it seemed even to improve day by day. Enna felt freed from the prison of heat that had been building around her since the first word of fire, and the voice of the wind did not press in. Both were there, but holding each other back, just out of reach. Relief at last from the fever was almost unbearably wonderful, but even better was seeing Isi look around at the world with a forgotten smile on her lips, her face peaceful, at last at rest from the voice of the wind.
Though it was on Enna’s mind, they did not speak aloud about how what happened on that hilltop might affect a baby. Enna was relieved to detect a healthy amount of heat from Isi’s middle, and Isi said the creature still did flip-flops as much as ever, so they hoped.
There was much time for such thoughts, as the road home was slow. For Isi’s sake, they never dared push their horses past a walk. Avlado was good at walking smoothly and slowly for his pregnant rider.
They followed the same path home, keeping to the stream Isi called the Small Suneast for as long as possible. Enna despised the taste of its water and named it the Horse-spittle. Finn always called it Enna’s Stream. He tended to refer to most anything as belonging to her—Enna’s Meadow, Enna’s Mountain. When he referred to Yasid as Enna’s Kingdom, she said, “Isn’t that your heart?”
Finn smiled and kissed her hand. Isi rolled her eyes.
“Oh, you two are impossible.”
Enna laughed. “This coming from the girl who calls her husband ‘sweet little bunny boy’?”
Isi blushed. “That was just once.”
Isi could not hide her longing for Geric. She observed Finn’s affection for Enna, and it seemed to make her both happy and sad. Enna returned once from washing in the stream to find Isi holding her belly, laughing and crying at once and not sure why she was doing either.
Isi’s belly doubled in size before they crossed the Bayern border, and so, seemingly, did her aches and complaints. Near the end, they rode half days and then let Isi rest and eat. She alternated between nausea and ravenous hunger.
“How’s your back? How’s your belly? Are you well?” Enna asked continually.
“Hush up for five minutes, will you?” Isi got grumpier and grumpier and insisted on taking more than her fair share of turns lighting their cookfires as her ability with fire improved. Finn seemed to find Enna’s overattentiveness and Isi’s mood changes completely delightful.
Enna was anxious to get Isi to Geric and see the baby born healthy, but beyond that, she was hesitant to return to her kingdom and face the consequences of her burning. Perhaps, she thought, Finn and I could see Isi safe home and slip away to the Forest. The thought was disappointing, because now, with the languages of both fire and wind dwelling inside her, Enna was sure she could serve Bayern well. Her hopes of being useful were extinguished by the heavy certainty that she could not be forgiven.
Once they crossed into Bayern, they followed roads that led them past inns. When Enna could, she sent messages to Geric: “Fourteen days south, Oily Parchment Inn, your wife is expecting”; “Eight days south, the Pinched Nose, Isi is huge”; “Five days south, the Silver Hart, I hope you get at least one of these, because you are soon to be a father whether you are here or not.”
Enna suggested they just settle into an inn until the baby came, but Isi insisted they ride on each morning, determined to make it to the palace and Geric before the baby came. Then, passing by a village just outside the Forest and two days’ ride from the capital, she changed her mind.
“Aah, aaah, ahhh!” She dismounted, grabbed Enna’s hand so tightly that she drew blood with her fingernails, walked straight into the nearest cottage, and plopped down on a bed. Enna nodded to the startled cottage dwellers.
“It’s the queen, you see,” said Enna. “She’s going to have a baby in your house. You don’t mind?”
When the pains really started, Isi jabbered madly in the language of the south, bird tongue, and some curse words that made the cottage owner blush and his wife laugh. The pains came and went for hours, and Isi was red faced and sweaty and tired, and sometimes she cried a little. Just before sundown, a noise made her stop midholler. From outside came the rumbling rhythm of hoofbeats, then the whinnying of a horse who stopped suddenly. The door flung open. It was Geric.
“Isi, I’m here, I’m here.”
And it was, as well, half the court.
Geric rushed to Isi’s side, palace physicians gathered around the bed, a birth mistress pushed them all away again, the chief steward took command of the cottage kitchen and fire, a hundred-band was heard to position themselves in a defensive posture all around the building, and voices from outside told them that many more people had gathered. Enna sighed, relieved that at least one of her messages had made it to the capital ahead of them.
When the birth mistress had her way, all
but Geric and one capable nurse-mary were shooed from Isi’s bed and out the door. Finn took Enna’s hand, and they walked into the cutting light of a bright summer evening and the midst of a small crowd. Enna squinted into the setting sun to see what was happening. They were all looking at her.
Several people, some of them Forest dwellers she had long known, pushed some cut logs up by the door and pressed her to step on top of one. She looked up, afraid to see a noose waiting for her. Talone appeared. The crowd quieted their whispering.
“Talone, I’m sorry,” she said.
He nodded. “Perhaps this is not the place for such business, but as it is the first time we’ve seen you for some time, and who knows where you will slip to after this, I have little choice.” He raised his voice for the crowd. “Enna of the Forest, for disobeying a war captain and treacherous acts, you are hereby stripped of your title of queen’s maiden.”
The crowd murmured, and someone shouted angrily. Enna was not sure if it was directed at her. Talone cleared his throat.
“I’m certain this is not the queen’s wish, but acts must be accounted for. However, we won’t stop there. For stubborn bravery and ingenuity in defense of the kingdom, His Highness bids me make you one of Bayern’s Own, a member of the king’s personal hundred-band.”
“Wait, Talone,” she said, “I don’t deserve—”
“Don’t interrupt, please.” He turned back to the crowd. “She fought in secret, she was captured and imprisoned, and she escaped in time to stop Tira’s invading force before they could overwhelm our army and invade the capital.” He took her hand and held it aloft. “Never has Bayern seen such a warrior.”
The crowd did not hesitate when it burst into applause and cheers. More hands pushed Finn up beside her, and she saw someone else step up. Her eyes were bleary now, and she had to blink several times before she could make out his face.
“Razo!”
“You might’ve waited for me to heal before you went off again,” he said. “Though I see Finn found you all right. Hello there, Finn. Well done.”
“Hello, Razo. Enna loves me, did you hear?”
Razo laughed. “Of course she does. See, Enna, I told you someday people’d chant our names.”
Enna listened to the calls and did not detect any chanting, so began to say quietly, “Razo, Razo.” He punched her shoulder.
Enna felt strange atop that stump, the cheers of the people touching her like soft slaps, a combination of aggression and love. The village was not far from the field where she had burned a tenth of the army of Tira. A day from there stood the place where she had dragged Leifer’s body to the funeral pyre. The heat from the crowd wafted around her, the breeze that touched her skin told her of clapping hands. So much had changed in a year, she felt stretched and twisted like poorly used cloth. After all this, who would she be? Finn squeezed her hand.
“Go on, Enna-girl,” said Razo, “why aren’t you smiling? I’d think this would be your scene.”
Enna shrugged. “Maybe I’ve changed.”
Razo rolled his eyes. “What a lot of rot.” He grabbed her hand and held it up. “For Bayern!”
And the crowd cheered.
As the sun set, villagers joined in the celebration, lighting fires and warming cider. At last they heard the sharp crack of a baby’s first wail. Finn and Enna looked at each other with relief. It was a healthy, loud cry. The birth mistress emerged and signaled that Enna could come, with Razo, Talone, and Finn following.
Isi’s face was streaked with sweat, but her eyes sparkled. Geric’s eyes were wet and cheeks pressed with an unvarying smile, and when he held the baby he seemed completely unable to acknowledge that anyone else existed. At last he relinquished his hold and placed the newborn carefully in Enna’s eager arms.
“A boy,” said Geric. “After Isi’s father—Tusken.”
“If it’d been a girl,” said Isi, “we were going to call her Enna-Isilee.”
“Oh, there’ll be others,” said Enna.
Geric’s eyes widened and he smiled with pure, boylike joy at the thought.
“How does he look to you?” asked Isi.
Enna touched his doe-soft skin. “Perfect. Completely perfect.”
She cooed at Tusken, and he looked up at her, almost as if he saw her with his wide, pale eyes. Her heart ached to see such beauty. She touched the healthy folds of skin around the baby’s neck, wrists, and thighs, the dark lines crying for life made in his forehead, and thought how people start with wrinkles and end with wrinkles, grow into their skin and then live to grow out of it again.
Just then, Enna felt at home in her own skin, not stretched or sagged or scorched. Everything felt right. Outside, the voice of merriment. Inside, a good fire crackled in the hearth, Geric knelt beside Isi’s bed kissing her hands, and a healthy baby stared at his new world.
Enna was glad to have Finn’s hand on her own, and that his skin felt right next to hers. She could feel the quiet, good heat in his touch and thought that it was all she would ever need feel. From the Forest, through the window, came a wisp of wind to twine through her hair. She listened to where it touched her neck—a spring, muddy banks, wasps buzzing, mushrooms climb a pine, a pine needle falls.
She was home.
The End
Copyright © 2006 by Shannon Hale
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
First published in the United States of America in September 2006
by Bloomsbury Children’s Books
Original paperback edition published in October 2008
New edition published in August 2017
www.bloomsbury.com
Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 1385 Broadway, New York, New York 10018
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Hale, Shannon.
River secrets / by Shannon Hale.—1st. U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Young Razo travels from Bayern to Tira at war’s end as part of a diplomatic corps, but mysterious events in the Tiran capital fuel simmering suspicions and anger, and Razo must spy out who is responsible before it is too late and he becomes trapped in an enemy land.
ISBN-13: 978-1-58234-901-5 • ISBN-10: 1-58234-901-0 (hardcover)
[1. Fairy tales. 2. Diplomacy—Fiction. 3. Spies—Fiction. 4. Self Esteem—Fiction. 5. Nature—Effect of human beings on—Fiction.] 1. Title.
PZ8.H134Riv 2006 [Fic]—dc22 2005035500
ISBN 978-1-68119-318-2 (new edition) • ISBN 978-1-59990-409-2 (e-book)
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For all the boys in my family
But especially, triumphantly, adoringly
for the one and only
Max Stonebreaker Hale
A river has its secrets
Far under folds of water
Deeper than the buried dark
Where all is slick and softer
A fire has its secrets
Dancing bare before your eyes
Trimmed in heat and lost in gold
Something in its brightness lies
A boy has his secrets
His fist clasped tight as stone
Watching water, spying fire
In a crowded room, alone
Contents
<
br /> Prologue
1. A Journey South
2. A Rumble of Javelins
3. Burning Again
4. Thousand Years
5. What Goes On Out There
6. The Second Corpse
7. Secret Burial
8. The Own’s Worst Swordsman
9. Tree Rat
10. The Captain’s Spy
11. What the Kitchen Girl Found
12. The Best Sling Finn Ever Saw
13. The Season of the Prince
14. Watchers in White
15. Brighter Colors
16. Razo’s Luck
17. Daggers in the Assembly
18. A Ram’s-Head Ring
19. River Fingers
20. One Week
21. An Ambassador’s Assassin
22. The Grape Harvest Festival
23. From the Spying Tree
24. A Parchment Map
25. A Slinger and a Spy
26. River and Fire
27. Rainstorm
28. A New Ship in Port
29. A Few More Secrets
Prologue
Ingridan was an ancient city. Memory ached in its stone arches, crept down its narrow alleys, sluiced through its seven rivers. And its newest memory still burned, raw and sore—a failed war, a nation shamed, and an army dishonored.
On the western edge of Ingridan, just across the Rosewater River, someone watched a man die. The man had been poor and desperate for a bit of coin, but now he was just dead, his body black from burning.
When the smoke cleared, the watcher dragged the corpse out of the nearly empty warehouse, rolled it into the river, and kept watch as it floated into the sea.
“They will pay for making me do this,” spoke the voice that no one else heard. “I’ll see Bayern in flames.”
1
A Journey South
