Agath was one who had abused Goth’s gifts. She had claimed dhota again and again, till he was deliriously blind to her faults, unable to refuse her anything. It had galled Spaeth to have to live with his love for such a demanding, bitter woman.
Now, Agath’s face looked strained and pallid, as if years had been added to her burden in just the time Goth had been gone. Her hands, gripping the axe she had been using, looked bony and mottled. “Yes, Goth takes on too much,” she said. “He should let you share his work.”
It was a reproach, very nearly an accusation, and it shocked Spaeth. She wondered how many people had been thinking this, and not saying it. “It’s not why he made me,” she said defensively.
“Yes, I know what he made you for,” Agath said. “But we’ve all got to grow up. Life isn’t all pleasure.”
There was something hungry in her eye that terrified Spaeth, and she took a step back. She had seen that look before, but never directed at her—only at Goth. It made her feel not like a person, not like Spaeth, but like a source of blood.
“I’ll let you know if he comes back,” she said, and turned away. She could feel Agath’s eyes on her back as she hurried on down the road.
After that, she felt watched as she passed the homes on either side—and it was not the secure and protected feeling she had always had. Now, she felt the whole village’s needs and longings following her, pushing her onto a path she didn’t want to take. By the time she reached the home of Strobe the shipwright, opposite the dock at the very heart of Yorabay, she was quivering with nervous tension.
Strobe’s was a rambling, driftwood-grey board house that seemed to be sinking into the grass around it. It was surrounded by the carcasses of half a dozen derelict boats that the shipwright was scavenging for parts. The mossy door was standing open to the sunlight. Spaeth entered the main room, a large, homey kitchen presided over by Tway, Strobe’s daughter. At the moment, Tway was in the midst of canning some vegetables.
They didn’t greet each other; that would have seemed too formal, as if not-welcome were the normal state of things and Tway were making an exception for Spaeth. In fact, normal was people wandering in, sitting for a talk, then going on. Spaeth sat down at the table and helped herself to some nog that stood in a pitcher on the table for everyone.
Tway was a vigorous, solid young woman who wore her fine brown hair cut short just at her jawline. She had not yet married, but few criticized her for it, since she was like everyone’s sister. It took her only a glance to see that Spaeth was upset. “What is it?” she asked.
Spaeth poured out the story of her encounter with Agath. At the end, she said, “Dhota’s supposed to be a gift, not an obligation. It’s supposed to be given freely. I don’t want to be her dhotamar, milked like a cow for blood. I want to be me.”
“You know Agath,” Tway said. She sat down and poured a mug of nog for herself. “Her life is all about blaming other people for her ills. She’s been like that ever since Jory left.”
“But it’s not just Agath!” Spaeth said. “Do you think I don’t see them eyeing me? Do you think I don’t hear the conversations breaking off when I come near? They’re all thinking it, all wanting it. All but me.”
Tway cradled her mug between her hands. “It’s not everyone. There are people on your side, Spaeth. There are some of us who think this has gone far enough. Too far, in fact. I used to think Yora was a blessed island, because we had so many healthy, rugged old people, so full of opinions. But now I see them all getting querulous and peaked, and Goth’s only been gone a couple of weeks.”
Her voice dropped low, and she leaned forward. “He’s been prolonging their lives beyond what’s natural. You know, for seven years no one has died on Yora for any reason other than their own choice. It’s a problem, but we’ve never talked about it, because Goth was always there, always willing.” She gave a little, humourless laugh. “Who would have thought it was such a curse to have a saint in our midst.”
“I can’t be a saint,” Spaeth said. “I don’t want to.”
“And you shouldn’t,” Tway said, reaching across the table to squeeze her hand. “It’s not good for them, or for the island. The problem is, some people are going to die if he doesn’t come back soon.”
Hearing it put this way, Spaeth only felt her desperation deepen. She could see no way out. Either she would become bound to them by the unbreakable knots of dhota, or she would be blamed for their deaths. One way, a slave; the other way, a pariah. She looked out bleakly to the sea, hemming her in. “Where can I go?”
Tway smiled and patted her shoulder. “You can always come here. No matter what happens.”
Looking down, Spaeth said, “That Inning thinks he’s going to tell us to stop giving dhota.”
At this, even Tway frowned. “You should stay away from him, Spaeth. He’s already sticking his nose into too many things. He needs to leave you alone.”
Never had Spaeth felt this way. Always her life had been a carefree dance of sensual delights. Now, responsibility was tangled around her like a fishnet, pulling her down. She closed her eyes and breathed a little prayer. “Goth, please come back.”
*
It was beautiful sailing weather for the last leg of the journey to Yora, across the Pont Sea from Thimish. There was a steady west wind to fill the close-hauled sail, and the prow of the boat slapped rhythmically against the waves. The sun massaged Harg’s stiff muscles, and the breeze ruffled his hair playfully. He wondered if this was what it felt like to be content.
He had barely slept for two weeks, and had been on edge the whole time, keeping an eye on Jory almost round the clock to prevent him detonating and harming someone. They had had to take passage all the way north to Tornabay and then backtrack, catching rides on the little coastal vessels that always cruised between the islands. They had stayed last night in Harbourdown and could have waited four days for a trader to Yora, but Harg had opted instead to spend some of his money and rent a dinghy.
It was odd, but one of the many things Jory had lost in the injury was his boat-sense. As soon as they were in the dinghy together Harg had realized that Jory was like an inert sack of flour—able to follow instructions, but unable to feel the needs of the boat instinctively. Raised on the sea since before he could walk, Harg had never even been conscious of how he adjusted to a boat’s tilts and tensions—leaning into the wind, adjusting the sheets, feeling the tension of the tiller—as if they formed a living system together.
The closer he had gotten to home, the more he had begun to wonder if he were making a terrible mistake by bringing Jory back. With his hair grown in, the young man looked perfectly normal, which only made him more like a hidden mine. But what alternative was there? After two weeks alone with him, Harg longed to be rid of the responsibility, even though that meant someone else’s life was about to change for the worse.
“There it is,” Harg said, pointing. Jory turned to look. There was a low, blue bump on the horizon, seeming to float on a white line of morning mist. Yora. Gentle, unassuming little island, just a teardrop-shaped smudge of sand in the wide Havenwater. There were no treasures here, no new realms. Nothing much even grew in its windswept soil but swordgrass, burdock, and legends. It had survived the centuries by being inconspicuous when the powers got angry. Harg reflected that he had never quite picked up that knack. Survival, yes—inconspicuousness, no.
He felt an odd mix of emotions at the sight of home. He had cherished the memory of Yora; it had been an anchor during the nightmare times when he had thought he must escape the navy or go insane. But he hadn’t escaped, and now, looking back, it seemed as if he had gone insane for a while—the time that had coincided with his most spectacular deeds of glory, when stories had stuck to him like burrs. It came back in flashes now that made him flinch. Even his superior officers had been a little frightened of him, all the while they had egge
d him on.
Jory was not the only walking weapon he was smuggling back to Yora, where such people should not exist.
In an hour they were close enough to see the Whispering Stones, an uneven circlet crowning the hill. Soon they rounded Lone Tree Point and came in sight of Yorabay, in its natural cove at the foot of a wooded gorge. It was all exactly the same. The maple grove was heartache green. The rude log pier was crowded with weather-beaten boats, and a few old fishermen sat smoking on it. As the coast south of the village came in sight, Harg gave an exclamation of astonishment, and Jory turned to stare.
Near the rocky headland called The Jetties, smoke rose from a scar on the island’s green shoulder. The skeletons of two new wooden buildings stood out starkly near the shore, swarming with workmen. A new pier rose half-finished from the water. And in the shallow bay, loftily overseeing all this activity, were anchored two boats: a Tornabay cargo vessel and a five-gun sloop from the Native Navy.
“Horns of Ashte!” Harg swore softly. “What are they doing here?”
“They’re burning the rhododendron grove!” Jory cried out in an anguished tone. For generations the thicket of rhododendrons had been the special realm of Yoran children. Tunnels under the thick leaves had been castle halls for the games of Pirates or Ice King. In spring, the blooming hillside had been like a beacon for returning fishermen. Now a blackened wound marred the hillside.
Harg had intended to come in at the tumbledown old Yorabay dock, but now he set a course for the navy vessel instead. Soon they were alongside it, peering up at the markings that identified its origins. “It’s one of Tiarch’s,” Harg said, meaning the squadron that had patrolled the north while the rest of the Native Navy fought in the war.
He steered over toward the unfinished pier. A group of workmen was erecting a scaffolding to drive the next log piling into the sandy bottom. The labourers were all Adaina—short, brown-skinned, curly-haired. “It’s our own people at work there,” Harg said. “Look, there’s Bonn and Thole on the pier.”
The people on the dock recognized them at the same moment, and one began to wave wildly. Harg brought the dinghy up beside the new dock and lowered the mainsail. Thole’s shouts had gathered a crowd, and many hands reached out to help tie up.
“Jory! Harg!” Thole cried in a voice that had changed timbre since they had seen him last. The boy had wanted to go with them, Harg remembered, but they had told him he was too young.
As they climbed out onto the dock they were surrounded, barraged with embraces, welcomes, and questions—where had they been, what had they seen, what had they done. Before long the amazing news of Harg’s rank came out, and he had to get out the box with his epaulette and cockade to show them, and try to list the names of the ships and battles they had been in. Jory looked on, a little tense and uneasy in the crowd.
“Jory, will Agath ever be glad to see you safe and sound!” Thole said enthusiastically. “She’d given you up for lost, I think.”
As the others turned their attention to Jory, Harg drew aside Gill, one of the older men in the group, and said in a low tone, “Listen, you’ll have to be careful with Jory. He took a shell in the head and hasn’t been right since. He’s a little dangerous, actually.” He knew he only had to say it once. Soon the news would be all over the island.
“How are you, Harg?” Gill said carefully.
“I’m here,” Harg said. “That’s all that counts.” He scanned the new buildings, the dock, the smoking hillside. “Ashwin above, what’s going on?”
“You’ll never believe this,” said Gill. “They found a lead mine on the island.”
Several people gathered round to fill in the story. Prospectors from the Inner Chain had arrived a month before, following tales of the Yoran lead that had once weighted the steadiest keels in the isles. Discounting all assurances that the lead was long mined out, the surveyors had set explosives in the rocks and bared a new vein that ran far out under the sea. Then, a week ago, the two ships had come, bringing machinery, tools, and Torna overseers to start construction on a smelting factory. The navy sloop was there to escort the mining boat and keep it safe from pirates.
“That’s going to be the new smeltery,” Gill said, pointing at one of the buildings. “The dock is for the boats to bring the coal and take away the lead.”
“Have you ever seen a lead smelter?” Harg asked, a little appalled. He had seen one in Rothur. Not a plant had lived in a three-hundred-yard radius around it, from the poison fumes.
“We need the jobs,” Gill said. “You can’t imagine how bad trade has gotten. I know the pirates think they’re doing the right thing, but when they hit the Torna merchants, the prices just go up for the rest of us, till we can’t afford a lump of coal. We’re caught between the pirates and the profiteers.”
“I heard about that,” Harg said, recalling his conversation with Admiral Talley. “I think it’s about to change.”
“These are good jobs, too,” Thole said. “You won’t believe how much they’re paying us to work in the lead mine.”
“Try me,” said Harg. Thole named a number; it was only a little more than a common seaman made in the navy, but Harg pretended to be impressed.
“What about Yorabay?” he asked. “What’s been going on?”
Everyone fell oddly silent, looking at each other to say something.
“Not much,” Gill said at last. “Nothing’s changed.”
“Oh, come on. Somebody must have died, somebody must have been born.”
“Gill and Wilne have two kids now,” Bonn volunteered, since Gill didn’t seem about to. “But nobody much has died.”
So Yora really was the protected, idyllic place he had imagined. Trying to sound casual, Harg said, “Is Goth still here?”
“Oh yes,” Gill said. “Though he’s been gone for a couple weeks now. Who knows, maybe he’s sick of us.”
They were looking down, away, everywhere but at each other.
“He’s got a girl now,” Bonn finally said.
“A what?”
“A sexmate, for his pleasure. He made her just after you left.”
Harg could hardly believe what he was hearing. “He made her?”
“Made her from his own flesh, they say,” Gill said noncommittally. “He snared a soul from one of the other circles, one that suited him. He can do things like that, you know.”
“I know he can,” Harg said. “But I didn’t think he would.” They were all taking it so calmly; but then, they had had years to get used to it. To bring a soul to life for no reason other than his sexual pleasure—it seemed beyond the bounds of common decency. It would have been a scandal, if it had been anyone but Goth. Goth could get away with anything, Harg thought with a trace of the old bitterness.
He couldn’t think about it now; it would dredge up too many unwelcome feelings. So he tried to make a joke of it. “And you say nothing ever happens in Yorabay.”
They laughed, relieved he was so cool about it. After all, it could be argued that Goth had done much the same with him. The dhotamar was the man most responsible for Harg’s existence, more so even than the father Harg had never known. But at least Goth had done that for better reasons.
“I want to go see the village,” Harg said. “Anyone want to come?”
They all did, of course. “Yes! We’ll have a cracking celebration tonight!” Thole said.
But someone near the edge of the crowd gave a whispered warning. “Not now. Emperor Crustup is coming. He won’t want us to leave.”
Down the beach from the smeltery was coming a powerfully built Torna overseer, followed by two marine soldiers. Crustup looked like a man at the end of his patience. “All right, fellows, what is it this time?” he said in a tone of strained geniality.
No one answered. “Well then, how about getting back to work?”
As the others moved reluctantly to return to their stations, the overseer spied Harg and Jory. “Who the fuck are you?” he asked.
Coolly, because of his tone, Harg said, “Captain Harg Ismol, Native Navy. And you?”
Clearly thinking the “Captain” part was an attempt to pull his leg, Crustup said, “I’m Admiral of the Ocean Sea. Are you from here?”
“Yes,” Harg said.
“Want a job?”
“Depends,” Harg said. “Who’s making money from this mine?”
“You are, if you want to,” Crustup said.
“No. I mean, who’s paying you?”
The overseer recognized trouble then, and crossed his arms suspiciously. “You’d have to talk to management about that.”
Having expected some such answer, Harg shrugged and started to leave.
“What about you?” Crustup turned to Jory. “You want a job?”
“Leave him alone,” Harg said.
“What are you, his wife? Let him talk for himself.”
“He’s wounded. He can’t work.”
To Jory, Crustup said, “You look all right to me. What do you say? Want to earn some money?”
Suspicious, Jory looked from Harg to Crustup and back again. “Come on, Jory,” Harg said. “I’ll take you to your family.”
Putting an arm around Jory’s shoulders, Crustup started to lead him off toward the smeltery. “If you can lift a beam, we can use you.”
“Stop it!” Harg yelled.
The sound of tension in Harg’s voice was all it took. With an explosive force, Jory hurtled himself at the overseer, knocking him to the ground, and went for his throat with a cold, homicidal mania. Harg was on them in an instant, meaning to drag Jory off, but one of the marines was closer, and raised his truncheon to strike.
“No!” Harg cried out, but the marine brought the club down on Jory’s shattered head.
The young man’s body went stiff, and he fell to the ground. Then, as Harg knelt over him, Jory began to shake in the grip of a seizure. Looking up, Harg saw the marine raise his truncheon to strike again, and with a yell of rage, Harg launched himself at the man. His fist landed in the marine’s face with a crunch, and the man flailed the air with his club, clutching a bloody nose with his other hand.
Isles of the Forsaken Page 5
