The Waters Rising

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “I don’t mean anything. Don’t repeat this. You’ll hear it said because it’s often bein’ said. You can’t help what you hear, but you can help what you say. You don’t repeat it because if you’re heard saying it by the wrong person, you’ll lose your head over it.”

  There was a nervous shuffling overhead, the younger voice saying, “Well, maybe it’d be better if you hadn’t told . . .”

  “If you don’t know what you aren’t supposed to know about, boy, how do you keep from knowing it when somebody says it? Heh? It’s better to know what to say, and that’s easy: you don’t know anything about it. So, anybody says something about who inherits, you just say, ‘I don’t know anything about it.’ ”

  “Oh.”

  “That’s right. Oh.”

  Alicia’s eyes had opened wide. Of course Falyrion was Hulix’s father, and Falyrion was her father. He was handsome and tall and he loved her and she loved him. He even told her that he liked having a daughter instead of another clumsy boy. He gave her wonderful gifts: a music box that played over a hundred tunes. A puppet theater. Of course he was Hulix’s father and her father. What was this guardsman talking about!

  The memory came back to her every now and then. She had overheard other conversations later, more important ones, more enlightening ones, but that was the memory that had given her the strange feeling inside her chest as though her heart had forgotten how to beat. That was the memory that kept coming back, even though she had tried different remedies, oak gall and sage smoke and oil of lavender. She remembered every word, just the way she had heard it: the footsteps echoing through the timbers, the cries of the gulls on the fjord—Falyrion, her father, said the gulls came all the way up from the ocean because it was shallower here and the salmon fish were closer to the surface of the water. She remembered the smell of the oil the guardsmen used on their boots. She remembered that Hulix would inherit if he was Falyrion’s son, and she remembered exactly what she had thought at the time. Who else could be his father? He was her brother, and if he wasn’t Falyrion’s son it would mean she wasn’t Falyrion’s daughter and she knew she was! He was her father! Who else could her father be? Usually, when Alicia didn’t understand something, she asked her mother about it. Mirami knew everything, though some things Alicia overheard made her angry. That time, though Alicia couldn’t explain why, she had thought it might be better not to ask her mother.

  Xulai wakened early, well before the maids appeared with warm water and long before the hour when Precious Wind usually swept in, comb and brush in one hand, pail of warm water in the other. Precious Wind had begun neatening Xulai when Oldwife couldn’t manage the stairs anymore. Xulai missed Oldwife, though Precious Wind got the neatening done much more quickly than Oldwife ever had. For a moment, Xulai wondered if she’d dreamt last night’s happenings, but when she fished the box from its hiding place behind the tapestry, it confirmed what had happened. She had found something. She had swallowed it. Would it be digested? Would it come out whole, as some things did when swallowed? The hostler’s boy had swallowed a ring once, and it had come out whole, though filthy. His mother had been very angry.

  “It simply needed a warm resting place of some kind,” the chipmunk said from beside her ear on the pillow. “If it needs to get out, it will probably slip out of your ear while you’re asleep. And you needn’t wait for hot water and Precious Wind. Though you’ve been trained to be timid—overtrained perhaps—don’t you think you’re old enough to get yourself dressed?”

  Not waiting for Precious Wind was a completely new idea. She wondered why she had never thought of it herself. When she dipped into the icy water from the ewer she decided that was the answer. Though it was only early autumn, the nights were already cold. Shivering, she pulled on her chemise, drawers, undershift, stockings, and shoes. When she thrust her head through the neck of the undershift, bits of briar and leaf scraped out of her hair to litter the floor, something the chipmunk had no doubt noticed since he or she had shared the pillow last night. So chipmunk knew Xulai’s hair would require some explanation! He could have told her! Though, perhaps, he had told her, in a way, by suggesting she not wait for Precious Wind. Thinking led to all kinds of ideas like that.

  She leaned over, letting her hair hang straight down, a black curtain that reached to her toes, as she combed through it again and again until it crackled and sparked.

  She checked in the little mirror Precious Wind had given her. The long sweep of blue-black hair was free of trash, but her dark eyes had sleep caked around them and there was a definite smutch of something icky on her forehead. The icy washcloth got rid of both, though it set her shivering again. She would not wash her ears. If she tried, they would freeze and fall off! Some people might look better if their ears did fall off, but Xulai’s ears weren’t bad. Not too big and ugly like some people had. It was nice not to be ugly, though some ugly people were very interesting. She rather liked the color of her skin. It wasn’t as dark as Precious Wind’s, but it wasn’t as pale as that of most of the people in the castle. Some of these Norlanders were frog-belly-colored.

  Carrying her warm woolen skirt and her cloak (thinking, meanwhile, that perhaps she should think of the cloak as the chipmunk’s cloak, since chipmunk seemed determined to live in it), she went down the hall to the necessary office that protruded from the side of the curtain wall over the moat. The moat was fed by the river, which carried all the waste away, and in winter the wind came up from the surface of the water to freeze her bottom. Even this early in the fall, the wind was chill. Finally, skirt securely belted and cloak around her shoulders, she went down the two flights to the kitchen, where a fire-warmed seat in the inglenook waited for her. Every morning she sat there to eat oat cakes with jam, or porridge with honey and cream, or new-laid eggs and buttered toast.

  This morning, however, she was stopped at the door by the sight of Cook leaning over the table in the center of the room, tears dripping from her eyes into a puddle on the scrubbed wooden surface. Xulai had never seen Cook weep over anything, and she hovered in the doorway, uncertain whether to go in or go back.

  Cook looked up, wiped her eyes, shook her head slowly, side to side.

  “What is it?” asked Xulai, though she was immediately certain that she knew what it was, what it had to be.

  Cook cleared her throat. “Sadness, child. Sadness. The Woman Upstairs . . .”

  “The princess Xu-i-lok,” said Xulai very carefully, pronouncing each syllable clearly.

  “The princess Xu-i-lok,” parroted Cook obediently. “Oh, the poor precious thing. When the nurses went in this morning, she was gone, child. She died last night.”

  Xulai was silent. For a long moment, her mind was completely empty. Had she known, really? Had she lied to herself when she thought the princess was sleeping? Or had it happened later? Had Abasio known? Almost certainly he had known. That was why he had told her to look at the princess’s face. To see it at peace. To see the pain gone. She had only been waiting for Xulai to complete her task, then she had let the pain go. She had quit fighting it. And that was why Abasio had cried. Why? He didn’t even know her.

  “No,” said a voice in her mind. “But he knows you.”

  Xulai turned and went back upstairs to her room, and there she allowed herself to weep as she could not recall ever having wept before. She was not interrupted. Precious Wind didn’t bother her. Great Bear stayed away. Nobody bothered her. It was as though they had decided she should have this time to herself, so she had it and wept.

  Even in the midst of it she reminded herself to thank Abasio. Whether Ushiloma had sent him or not, he had helped her, he had helped the princess, and those who help should always be thanked, in one way or another.

  Several days later, in the Old Dark House, the Duchess of Altamont learned the duke’s wife had died. She had arrived home only the evening before and was told by a passing traveler, so she knew the woman had died the very night she, Alicia, had been there. During the day tha
t followed, she felt joyous, really joyous, as though she had swallowed a balloon and might float away at any moment. When her maid sloshed tea into the saucer, Alicia only slapped her a few times instead of having her whipped. She actually thanked a footman for holding the stirrup of her horse. She and Jenger rode together south along the road that led, eventually, to the Lake of the Clouds, and she teased him about something or other and laughed with him.

  “Have you let Hulix know?” Jenger asked.

  She sat very still. Hulix. Her face darkened as though a shadow had crossed it.

  Jenger read the expression on her face. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly, abjectly. “I’ve said something wrong.”

  “When Falredi died, Hulix became duke of Kamfels,” she said.

  He did not trust himself to speak as he could not think of anything it would be safe to say. He was silent, head slightly cocked, waiting for her to head them down whatever dark road her thoughts might lead to.

  “I was older than Hulix! I took care of all the details. I should have been duchess then. He was only a boy, but he became the duke.”

  He thought furiously. “On several occasions I’ve heard your mother, the queen, say that titles don’t matter. She says only power matters.”

  “Yes,” she muttered. “But I wanted the title.” She turned her horse, her face twisted with hatred. He let his horse fall behind and followed her without speaking. When she was in a mood like this, it was better not to speak at all.

  She said something he could not hear. He rode up beside her and said, “Sorry, ma’am, I couldn’t hear.”

  “I said Falyrion, my father, was the duke. When he died, Falredi became the duke. That day, when he became the duke, I asked him if I would be duchess if he died. He said no, Hulix would be the next duke, because he was a boy. He said the only way I could become a duchess was if I married a duke, if any duke would have me. He was wrong. I did become a duchess, of Altamont. I have a title. I proved he was wrong.”

  He said nothing. What was there to say? Yet, he had to say something. She would insist that he say something eventually. Not answering would be taken as agreeing with what young Falyrion had said.

  “I have no idea why he should have said anything like that,” he blurted at last. “It makes no sense at all. Of course you have the title.”

  After a time her face cleared a little. “Of course,” she said. “Falyrion said I could never have a title because bastards can’t have titles. It makes no sense at all. Hulix has the title. If I was a bastard, so was Hulix, and he couldn’t have been the duke, either.”

  The road from Woldsgard Castle came across the bridge and down from the height on which the castle stood, winding between the rough stone walls that divided orchards and pastures, the little river that filled the moat running beside it. When the castle road reached the level land of the valley, it joined the wider Woldsroad, which ran south, parallel to Woldswater Running. If followed two or three days’ journey south, Woldsroad led to Lake Riversmeet, the lake where the Woldswater and river Wells ran together, where the roads crossed and led away in all directions: south past the Old Dark House and on to the Lake of the Clouds, east to the highlands of the king, west to Wellsport and the sea. Today the journey would be much shorter than that.

  First in line was the catafalque, drawn by four black horses with purple plumes nodding above their heads. Then the carriage in which the Duke of Wold rode alone, then the other carriages and wagons, half a dozen, carrying those of the castle folk who had served the princess. Xulai was riding with Precious Wind and Great Bear, and Abasio had joined them as well, seemingly having struck up a friendship with the Tingawans over the last day or so. Certainly his own clattery wagon would have been unsuitable for such an occasion. For over an hour the horses drew them along among pastures tall with sun-glittered grasses and late flowers, scattered here and there with herds of cattle or sheep or goats under the eyes of quiet dogs and their herdsmen, who took off their hats and bowed their heads as the procession went by. In Wold it was said that the dogs owned the herdsmen, not the other way around, and certainly it was the dogs who demanded quiet reverence from the flocks as the procession passed, for the sheep stood facing the road in long rows, their heads bowed.

  To their left, eastward, unfenced meadows stretched from the road to the Woldswater, a ribbon of silver glitter rimming the green. On their right, down from the western heights of the Icefang range, streamlets hurried to join the river, some crossed by shallow, splashy fords, others by sturdy timber bridges that thundered hugely under the hooves of the horses.

  After the seventh such crossing, the catafalque turned west into a road that ran upward across green meadows into a valley extending into the mountains. On each side, the meadows gradually gave way to gray cliffs that grew higher the farther into the mountain they went, sheltering the valley on either side and joining at the western end in a vast, towering arc. Between the arms of this great escarpment a tall, sprawling gray building stood among gigantic, white-bolled trees.

  “Netherfields,” said Abasio. “I am told this is where the duke’s parents lie, and theirs before them back to the time of Lythany, Huold’s daughter. Here Xu-i-lok will lie now, and when the time comes, here the duke will lie beside her.”

  Xulai murmured, “What people keep this place? I have never met anyone at the castle who mentioned working at Netherfields.”

  It was Precious Wind who answered. “No. The people who keep this place are brothers and sisters from Wilderbrook Abbey. It lies some distance east of us, across the river Wells and upward, upon the heights beyond the great falls. They come here a year at a time, some to maintain this holy place, some to say their prayers and perform the rites that have been performed here for a thousand years or more, some armed men to protect the others, and when their term of service is over, they return to the abbey and another group comes to replace them. The place is never untenanted, never unguarded.”

  The gray building looked large even at a distance, and it proved to be both larger and farther away than it had appeared. It was some time before the catafalque went through the heavy gate in the surrounding wall and drew up in the forecourt. The abbey doors, tall doors made of heavy planks strapped with iron, stood open at the foot of the square tower. Outside them, eight gray-robed and hooded brothers stood, moving immediately toward the catafalque to take up the coffin. Others, white-garbed men and women, moved behind them, singing words Xulai did not know in a strange melody that she had never heard. They went up the steps, through two sets of doors, and into a long room, arched high, with colored windows at the very tops of the arches, so angled that sunlight fell upon the floor and upon their bodies as they moved along it, jeweling them with multicolored light. On the walls were carved figures of those who had ruled in Wold, silently guarding the crypts below the floor. One of these had already been opened, its great slab of stone lying at one side, the leathern lifting straps folded neatly atop it.

  The bottom of the crypt had been strewn with fragrant herbs and the walls of the crypt had been newly whitewashed. These pale surfaces too were stroked with rainbow colors from the high windows, jeweled shards of light falling upon stone, upon robes and faces, upon the white coffin being carried down the aisle. Xulai, as was proper for a soul carrier and as she had been instructed by Precious Wind, laid her hands upon the coffin for a long moment while trying to think of nothing at all. When she stepped away, the coffin was lowered, and the duke knelt beside the opening to drop an offering of flowers together with the glittering golden crown made in the shape of a branch of fluttering leaves. This crown of golden leaves was reserved for the Duchess of Wold. His people knelt around him, murmuring prayers to this deity or that helpful spirit as they were moved to do. From somewhere above them a high voice began to sing, soon joined by others, a hymn in that same unknown language. Though her head was bowed and her eyes closed, Xulai felt her spirit floating upward, lifted and made buoyant by the song. She had thought she would c
ry, but she could not cry while the music went on. It was too soon over.

  Those who had borne the coffin were joined by as many more to draw the heavy stone into place, its surface already carved:

  Here lies Princess Xu-i-lok of Tingawa,

  Wife of Justinian, Duke of Wold.

  Young in years but old in wisdom;

  Her soul is in the keeping of her people.

  “I will remain here tonight,” the duke said to no one in particular, his voice choked and indistinct. “Xulai, you will return with your protectors and the Wold folk.”

  And so it ended. Great Bear gathered her up as though she were an armload of laundry; behind her she heard the ponderous shrieks as the straps were removed and the stone was levered into place. Precious Wind followed them out to the small carriage where a small group waited for her: young Bartelmy Fletcher, with a flower in his hand for her. Oldwife Gancer. Her friend Nettie Lean, the seamstress. Cook. Abasio. While Abasio looked on, Xulai allowed herself tears on Oldwife’s shoulder, a tentative hug from Nettie, another from Bartelmy. Then everyone was packed up again, Bear clucked to the horses, and they led the other wagons back the way they had come, a little more quickly on the return, for the horses were eager to get back to Woldsgard and Horsemaster.

  “What was that language the people were singing?” Xulai asked.

  “An Old Tongue,” replied Precious Wind. “One of the many that were spoken during the Before Time. They make a study of such things at the abbey. The music, too, was from the Before Time. I am told even the abbey does not know what the words mean, but since they were written in letters still used in Norland, they can be pronounced. The words and the music are so fitted together that the meaning seems plain.”

  “To lift up the soul,” murmured Xulai.

  “Certainly,” Precious Wind agreed. “To lift up the soul.”

  To lift it from the princess and to place it onto me, thought Xulai, thinking that she should feel a great deal heavier and surprised that she did not.