Goddess Tithe

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  And he trembled to realize what he had heard from this man who seemed to him too great and too terrible to feel real emotion. He had heard heartache.

  “I take it back.”

  Munny startled and turned to find the stowaway making his way toward them, clutching the rail and wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

  “I take it all back. I will never, and I do mean never, write any lyrics in honor of fish and peas. There are some songs not meant to be sung, and that, I am quite convinced, is one of them.”

  The old man held still for a moment more, unwilling to break his gaze with the Dara. Then he turned to Leonard and sighed heavily. “You talk too much,” he said, and stumped away across the deck. The stowaway, with a baffled shake of his head and a bit of a smile, fell into place behind.

  Munny followed as well. But before he went, he glanced up to the quarterdeck.

  The Captain was gone as though he had never been.

  Death on the Water

  ONE NICE THING ABOUT GODDESSES, Munny considered three days later while he and Leonard broke their backs on the quarterdeck, scraping away accumulated grime, was their tendency to stay in the realm of stories and speculation, rarely bothering to make their way into the real world to work their divine havoc.

  Indeed, as time went on and the Kulap Kanya enjoyed fair winds and smooth seas, Munny began to wonder if perhaps Risafeth herself existed solely in the realm of myth and wasn’t precisely real at all.

  Not that he would dare voice such blasphemy in the old man’s hearing. He liked his ears too well.

  Besides, the more time he spent with the stowaway, the more Munny thought he probably wasn’t devil-ridden. Uncle Mokhtar didn’t know everything, after all.

  Leonard had finally adjusted enough to the roll of the sea that he worked more often than he dangled over the railing. He even seemed to enjoy himself sometimes. “Salt, grime, sickness, bruised knees, the whole lot . . . this still beats kennel work for the duke any day!” he declared many times.

  Though Munny didn’t understand him, he saw the smile, and he thought it was friendly.

  I’m glad my knot held, Munny told himself. I don’t care what the others think or say. I’m glad my knot held, glad that I tied it true.

  “You! Scrubber boy.”

  Munny startled at the voice of the quartermaster and looked up into Sur Agung’s face. The quartermaster looked much older than the Captain, his steel grey hair pulled back from his forehead in a long, thin braid, and his skin so lined that his eyes nearly disappeared. But he was still strong and upright, with sinewy limbs that bespoke his years of hard seamanship.

  He had never before bothered to look Munny’s way. But now he stood over him, frowning. Something about his stance suggested he was trying to pretend that Leonard, who worked near Munny, did not exist.

  “The Captain has called for you. He requires your services in his cabin.”

  “Me?” Munny gasped, sitting up and clutching his scrub brush in both blistered hands. “But Tu Niwut is—”

  “Niwut is indisposed and cannot serve the Captain today.” Sur Agung’s lip curled as he looked Munny up and down. “Clean yourself up; put on a fresh shirt. Go on.”

  Sur Agung was not cruel—not like Tu Bahurn, still less like Chuo-tuk. But he was a hard man who demanded obedience, and Munny dared not hesitate, no matter how the blood pounded in his throat and temples. He dropped his brush and left Leonard on the quarterdeck under Tu Pich’s supervision.

  Does the Captain remember? Munny wondered as he climbed down to the sleeping cabin and dug out his one change of clothes. He had been issued a cabin boy’s shirt upon arrival on the Kulap Kanya, but he had held onto the soft woolen garment his mother had made for him the year before he left her. He pulled it out now and grimaced to find it so faded and poor, so Chhayan street-rat. Niwut, the Captain’s servant, always dressed in silken robes and wore a neat velvet hat on his head, come rain or shine. He was the proper sort of person to serve a great man.

  But Sur Agung had given orders, orders that came directly from the Captain himself.

  Does the Captain remember? Munny wondered again as he shrugged himself out of his sailor’s garment and into the woolen wrap-shirt, which was itchy and rather too small. Does he remember my face at the window? Will he speak of it? Will he . . . ? Will he . . . ?

  His head whirling with questions, Munny slipped out of his flopping brown shoes and decided to go barefoot instead. Hazardous on the Kulap Kanya, for sure, but more respectful in the presence of the Captain. He hastened back up the hatch, deftly slipping around and under other sailors coming and going. These ignored him for the most part or, when they saw who he was, drew back. He was tainted by association with the stowaway.

  Munny stood at last before the door of the Captain’s cabin, afraid to knock, afraid to enter. He found it cracked open and decided to peer inside. Perhaps the Captain wasn’t in. Perhaps he wouldn’t be needed after all. Perhaps . . .

  No such luck.

  The Captain stood with his back to the door. Though the ship rocked and swayed, it seemed to do so around the Captain himself, rather than taking him along with its swellings. He stood firm, as though he were planted on rock. His arms were crossed, and his black hair hung loose down his back, not in its accustomed braid.

  “I’ve sailed with him two ten-cycles of years,” the old man had told Munny. “And while I have withered and bent under the ocean’s harsh caress, the Captain never has.”

  A question slipped into Munny’s mind, a question he had never before bothered to consider: How old is the Captain?

  It was then that Munny’s gaze was caught by a pair of compelling eyes.

  They were round like Leonard’s, round to let the devils in or out. Except Munny could never imagine devils lurking behind those eyes, for they were too sad and too strong. They were lighter than Leonard’s as well, as was the face in which they were set. A woman’s face, pale but ruddy-cheeked, with soft, almost childish features. A Westerner, and not a beautiful one save for those strange, strange eyes. She wore her hair in a black net set with jewels, but much of it escaped to curl around her face. Her clothing was unlike anything Munny had ever before seen, even in Capaneus City, which teemed with Westerner women wearing all sorts of odd fashions.

  Most interesting of all was what she wore upon her left hand.

  Munny took a step into the room, unconscious of doing so. He squinted, trying to see better around the tall form of the Captain.

  On her finger, the woman wore an opal ring that looked like the blossoming of a star. She was either pulling it off or just sliding it into place; it was difficult to discern which from the painting.

  For that’s what it was, Munny realized with some uncertain disappointment. A tall portrait set in a gold frame, rendered with little skill. But the subject itself transcended the artist’s talents, her eyes, her face, and that beautiful ring . . . all filled with life and vitality and mysterious sorrow that not even an inept painter could suppress.

  “I would have you clear my table, if you would be so kind. And close the door behind you.”

  Munny gasped, nearly choking on his own breath. For the Captain had not turned, not moved as much as a hair.

  Hastily pulling the door shut, Munny stumbled across the cabin to the table, which was full of dishes from the Captain’s morning meal; a better meal than Munny had enjoyed, and yet scarcely touched. No wonder Cook grew so fat if he enjoyed leftovers like these day after day!

  Trying not to keep glancing back at the Captain and the portrait, Munny hastily stacked dishes onto the bamboo tray left for the purpose. His hands shook, and he feared he might drop something, almost as much as he feared the Captain would speak again. Perhaps he could perform his task and escape before—

  “How is Leonard the Clown faring these days, Munny?”

  Munny bit his tongue in surprise, and his mouth filled with pain. The Captain knew his name? How horrible! How wonderful! Munny felt his heart s
well along with his throbbing tongue.

  Speaking around the pain, he mumbled, “Well enough, Captain.”

  “He learns the ways of the Kulap Kanya swiftly?”

  “I think so. Swift as I ever did,” Munny replied. His hand shook so much that he feared he would lose his hold on the delicate porcelain bowl it held. He quickly added his other hand and used both to place it on the tray.

  “And what do you make of him yourself?”

  Munny dared glance his captain’s way and was relieved when his eyes still met only a stern and rigid back. “I’m not sure, Captain,” he said. “I think he’s afraid. But not of . . .”

  “Not of the goddess?” the Captain finished for him. And with these words he turned upon Munny, his eyes so full of secrets it was nearly overwhelming. Munny froze, his fingers just touching but not daring to take up a small teapot of fragile work.

  The Captain looked at him, studying his small frame up and down. “No,” he said, “I believe you are right. Leonard the Clown does not fear Risafeth. I believe he is unaware of his near peril at her will, suffering as he does under a peril nearer still.”

  Munny made neither answer nor any move.

  “We will bring him safely to Lunthea Maly, won’t we, Munny?” the Captain said. But he did not speak as though he expected an answer, so again Munny offered none. “We will bring him safely to Lunthea Maly and there let him choose his own dark future.”

  “I hope—” Munny began.

  But he was interrupted by a sudden commotion on deck. First a rising murmur of voices, then many shouts, inarticulate in cacophony. But a pounding at the cabin door accompanied Sur Agung’s voice bellowing, “Captain, you’d best come see this!”

  The Captain’s eyes widened a moment and still did not break gaze with Munny’s. “We’ll keep him safe,” he repeated. Then he turned and was gone, leaving the door open.

  Munny put down the pot he held and scurried after. The deck was alive with hands, even those who were off watch, crawling up from the hatches and crowding the rails on the port side. They parted way for the Captain to pass through, but when Munny tried to follow, they closed in again, blocking him as solidly as a brick wall.

  “Look! Look!” Munny heard voices crying.

  “It’s a sign!”

  “She’s warning us!”

  “It’s a sign, I tell you!”

  Fearing he knew not what, Munny ran for the center mast and climbed partway up, using the handholds and footholds with unconscious confidence. Soon he was high enough to see over the heads of the gathered crew, out into the blue waters of the ocean. And he saw them.

  They were water birds. Big white albatrosses, smaller seagulls, heavy cormorants, even deep-throated pelicans and sleek, black-faced terns. These and many more, hundreds of them, none of which should be seen this far out to sea.

  They were all dead. Floating in a great mass.

  Munny clung to the mast, pressing his cheek against its wood. The shouts of the frightened sailors below faded away, drowned out by the desolation of that sight. Death, reeking death, a sad flotilla upon the waves.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

  Munny looked down to where Leonard clung to the mast just beneath him, staring wide-eyed out at the waves. “How could this have happened? Were they sick? Caught in a sudden gale? Are

  they tangled in fishing nets?”

  There was no fear in his voice. Not like in the voices of the sailors. He did not understand. He did not realize. It wasn’t his fault, Munny told himself.

  But it was.

  Sharks and shredding scavengers of the deep gathered. The Kulap Kanya, caught in a brisk wind, sailed on, leaving the death upon the water far behind.

  Risafeth watched all from below and smiled her mirthless grin.

  Red Veils

  IN HIS DREAM THAT NIGHT Munny found his path barred by red veil upon red veil. He pushed these aside, and they tore as they fell, lying at his feet in scattered ruin, like the leaves of a dying tree. But he did not care about that. He knew only that he must somehow push on; he must find what waited on the other side.

  Through the veils, he heard a voice he recognized all too clearly.

  “I warned you to have nothing to do with him. The Chhayan sea-dog! What business had you, Kitar-born, pure and proud, dancing with one such as he?”

  Munny grabbed at the next veil with more vehemence. He had heard this tirade and others like it from Uncle Mokhtar more times than he liked to count.

  “And what good did it bring you? A natural-born brat, a tainted bloodline!”

  “He is the son of my husband.”

  This second voice was enough to bring Munny to a gasping halt. Mother! He grasped the next veil and tore at it, but it would not give. Mother! Mother! He must get through to her.

  “Husband? That sailor? Our father would not acknowledge him, and I, as new head of our House, will not recognize your so-called marriage either. He got you with child, and he abandoned you.”

  “His ship went down. He would have come home else. He would have wanted to see his son.”

  “You tell yourself that pretty story, sister. And tell it to the whelp if it brings you comfort. But in the meanwhile, it is you who are dying here in this slum, this stink-hole.”

  “We ask nothing of you. You need not come again.”

  “Believe me, I won’t. I’ll leave you to die before I accept a Chhayan sailor’s boy into our father’s house.”

  “Then this is goodbye, Mokhtar. For I will not send my son away.”

  The red veil gave at last. It fell in sticking pieces, like a ruined spider’s web, and clung to Munny’s hands. But still there were more, too many of them, between him and that face he longed so much to see.

  He heard her singing now, and her voice was tremulous, like brittle frost upon a leaf, and equally as lovely.

  “Where did the songbird go?

  Beyond the mountains of the sun,

  Beyond the gardens of the moon.

  Where did my good boy go?

  Far beyond the western sea

  Beyond the sea, beyond the sea . . . .”

  No, Mother! Munny wanted to shout, to somehow make himself heard through those suffocating veils. No, Mother! I’m coming to you! I’m coming soon!

  Shaking the sticky remnants from his fingers, he reached out and grabbed the biggest and heaviest of the veils yet. It broke and pulled away like living flesh. With a scream, he forced himself one step more, two steps.

  He heard his mother cough. He heard the dry heaving and then rasping wet. He tore down the last veil.

  All he saw was blood.

  “Wake up, boy. Wake up!”

  Munny sat up with a gasp and would have toppled right out of his swinging hammock had not Leonard stood beside him, steadying it. Munny could just discern the stowaway’s strange face in the lantern light pouring faintly through the doorway. It was mostly cast in shadows, but his eyes were large, bright, and concerned.

  “Are you all right?” Leonard asked. “You were moaning in your sleep.”

  Munny realized that if he could see the stowaway’s face, it was likely the stowaway could see the tears staining his own cheeks. With an angry curse he pushed himself out of the hammock, landing barefoot on the side away from Leonard. Other sailors, trying to sleep before their next watch, growled at him in turn as he passed by. The old man was nowhere in sight.

  Munny hastened out of the sleeping cabin and up a ladder, emerging at last into the nighttime coolness on deck. All was quiet and lonely at this hour with only the sailors at their watch, and even the ocean was docile.

  But an air of apprehension pervaded all. No one had forgotten—or ever would forget—the sight of the dead birds. The poor broken bodies, which should have been winging their way through the sky.

  Munny made his way to the casks of Milden’s Vineyard and sat there, alone. He wept hot, pulsing tears, and each one made him angry. He had vowed not to weep, not aft
er the Big Storm! Not until he reached Lunthea Maly and found out for sure. So he dashed his hand across his face and snuffled loudly.

  “I have pretty bad nightmares myself.”

  Munny startled as Leonard took a seat cross-legged beside him, pretending not to see his tears.

  “Go away!” Munny growled.

  But of course Leonard didn’t know what he said. He merely nodded and leaned back against a cask. “I dream of home often. But it’s not the home I like to remember. It’s always smoke-covered. Ash-covered.” He shuddered.

  “I’m not crying!” Munny said. “And I don’t want you here!”

  “I dream of my family now and then,” Leonard continued. “It’s more than a year now since I saw any of them. I don’t even know if they’re alive. Those are bad dreams, because I cannot always see their faces. Maybe I don’t even want to anymore.”

  “I’m not a baby! I don’t need anybody!”

  Leonard continued to talk on in his foreign jabber, gazing out at the sky and the waves and not looking at Munny. At last he seemed to come to an end and sat in silence.

  Munny stared at his hands, which lay limp in his lap.

  Then he said softly, “I think she’ll be dead when I get home. I hope she went to my uncle’s house when she found me gone. But she was so sick when I ran away.”

  Leonard looked at him then, and while there was no understanding in his eyes, there was deep compassion illuminated by the thin sliver of moon above.

  “My father sailed away before I was born,” Munny said. “She always wondered why he never returned. Now she’ll wonder about me.”

  Leonard’s brow wrinkled, as though he was trying very hard to make sense of the strange words. He placed a friendly hand on Munny’s shoulder, but Munny shrugged it off brusquely. “Sorry,” Leonard said, and put both hands on his knees. “Well, little Moo-ney, my friend,” he said, struggling with the boy’s name, which he found difficult to say, “We’ve only one choice. We must either cry at our troubles . . . or laugh.”