by Shannon Page
Sian frowned. “No, I was supposed to take a message to ‘those who rule’.”
“What message?” Maleen shook her head.
“I … I do not know.”
“Mother, even if you did manage to convince Haron of this — this unknown danger, whatever it is — he would just insist on staying, to protect our home and smithy. This is everything we own — abandoning it would ruin us.”
“Then you come with me — you and the children. Haron is strong, he can …” Sian faltered; Maleen’s face was set. “What should I do?” She bit back tears.
Maleen leaned over the arm of the chair, hugging her mother. “I don’t know. I can see that … something … very strange has happened to you. Maybe you should just go home to Father, stay off the islands for a few days? Let things settle down?”
Don’t patronize me, Sian wanted to snap, but she could hardly blame Maleen; at least she was being kind. Would Sian have believed such a story, if it had not happened to her? She hardly did believe it, even now.
“May I borrow some clean clothes?” Sian asked instead. “And a pair of sandals?”
After a quick bath, and a promise from Maleen to be careful and to stay in touch, Sian left. She walked through the palm and philodendron-lined streets of Malençon, watching for prayer lines or any other unusual activity. But the island was quiet; just the usual passage of commerce and the raucous calls of jungle birds.
At the Hanchu trade hall where she was to have had dinner the night before, Sian inquired about the meeting she had missed, hoping to send immediate apologies, and perhaps reschedule, but was astonished when the porter informed her that no such delegation had reserved a room there at all. When she insisted that they had invited her to dinner there just last night, he informed her only that there had been no message left for her. Sian could do nothing but shake her head and leave, bewildered. Had this been some kind of subtle reproach for having missed the appointment, or just the porter’s overzealous regard for a client’s confidentiality? Or …
She thought again of the massive prayer lines she had worked so fruitlessly to get past. Always in her path, as if … Could they have gone to that much trouble just to … what? Bring her to their priest? Could such aimless, mumbling wanderers have planned anything remotely that elaborate? Had Pino helped them? The very idea seemed ridiculous … and in other ways, even more terrifying. What was all this about? How long had they been planning this?
Lost in such unnerving thoughts, she headed back to see if the rowboat was still where she’d left it, wondering whether to go to the townhouse or to Little Loom Eyot. Halfway there, however, a sudden commotion in the street ahead made her startle, then cower into a jasmine-shadowed doorway.
But it was no prayer line or angry priest this time. A street urchin had simply made the wrong decision about whom to rob, it seemed. He lay wailing on the cobblestones. Sian glimpsed a well-dressed back disappearing into the gathering crowd as she hurried toward the child almost without having decided to.
He was a small boy, not more than five or six summers. His intended victim must have slashed him with a sharp knife, deep into the right forearm. Blood flowed from the long, gaping wound as the boy screamed. Pushing past a ring of frozen onlookers, Sian grabbed the child, lifting him easily as she clutched her fingers tightly around the wound to hold its edges together.
“Get help!” she yelled, to no one in particular. “He’ll bleed to death!”
The boy shrieked louder, struggling in Sian’s grasp. She felt a sharp pain in her own right forearm — there’s my arthritis after all — then noticed a pungent smell of ginger in the air, disregarded as she held tight to the boy. Some of the bystanders simply left. The remaining few still seemed immobilized by indecision. “Call the Mishrah-Khote, get someone!” Sian cried.
Finally, a sturdy-looking carter bent over the boy. “It be all right, then, boy. We have you right, soon. Let me see.” The carter’s assistant, a gawky youth only a few years older than the boy, stood nearby, nervous and unsure.
Sian released her grip just a bit so the carter could see. He leaned in for a closer look, then glanced up at Sian, confused. “Where be the wound?”
“What are you talking about? He’s badly cut. Right there across his arm.”
“I see the blood,” he answered, shaking his head. “But the cut … That nothing but an old scar. Perhaps he scrape himself somewhere. Scrapes, they seep a lot of blood sometime. There no call for temple healers.” He rose and turned to leave.
“They have their charity allotment,” Sian said scornfully, disgusted at his callousness. “They won’t charge you just for calling them.” This child might be an urchin and a thief, but death was no just penalty for petty theft.
“If I call ’em, it be to come and heal your eyes,” the man scoffed. “Come on, boy.” He beckoned his assistant to follow. “Ain’t paying you to gawk at thieves and imbeciles.”
The urchin whimpered. “It’s all right,” Sian whispered, forcing down her fury at the carter. “Let me bind this up, and I’ll go call the priests myself.” She began daubing away the blood with the hem of Maleen’s nice clean silks. Two dresses ruined in a day. But as the blood came off, she leaned back in surprise.
The carter had been right. The gash was closed completely.
“La-lady,” the boy stammered, staring white-faced at his arm, then up at Sian.
Sian wiped more blood away, as if the wound might be there after all, just misplaced somehow under the mess. But she found nothing but a thin white scar; something long-healed, a wound from infancy. “Oh,” Sian managed, letting go of him.
He scrambled to his feet, gave her a frightened look, then turned and bolted.
Trembling, Sian got up as well. Her hands were covered with blood. The diminished crowd backed slowly away from her, seeming nearly as terrified as the boy had been.
Except for one middle-aged woman dressed in ruddy coarse linen, gazing at her in astonishment. “I saw what you did,” she whispered. “Who are you?”
“I’m nobody,” Sian said. “Just a person, passing by …” She could not stop shaking.
“You healed him,” the woman said, more loudly. “Does the Mishrah-Khote anoint women now?”
Sian shook her head in urgent denial as the implications washed over her. The priests-hospitalars of the Mishrah-Khote looked very harshly upon ‘false’ healers. They barely tolerated old women growing medicinal herbs in their gardens. “No, no. The boy — I must have misunderstood, it must have been just a scratch …”
“I saw you! The blood is still on you!”
“I did nothing!” Sian yelled, as the crowd pressed in once more. “Leave me be!” She pushed past the gathered folk and broke into a run, as desperate to get away as the stricken boy had been.
“My lady!” a man cried, but she kept running, as if the Sea-Serpent of Pennlet itself were after her.
The priest’s boat wasn’t where Sian had left it. She wasn’t surprised.
She was hungrier than ever, despite her small meal at Maleen’s, but she just wanted to get as far away from here as fast as possible. Though no one seemed to be pursuing her, she knew she must keep moving. The crowd’s attention had been … unnerving.
After washing her arms and hands off in the shallow, lapping surf, she hurried on toward the bridge to Three Cats. There, she found the usual cluster of cart runners waiting for those in need of transport off the island. Where were you all last night? she wondered, walking toward them. “Where to, lady?” asked the nearest runner, a far younger and more muscular young man than last night’s fellow, if noticeably less flirtatious; his long black hair was elaborately knotted up with strings of terracotta beads.
Where to? That was the question. She drew breath to give him the address of her townhouse on Viel. But no. They had known who she was last night. They might be waiting there now. A public dock, where she could hire passage to Little Loom Eyot? But … she was still not ready to face Arouf with this. N
ot alone.
Then it came to her. So obvious. “The port on Cutter’s,” she told him.
He nodded. “I have you there in no time, lady.” He nodded at his bright red wicker cart. “I help you up?”
“I can manage,” Sian said, already reaching for the step rail.
The road was empty now. They were across the bridge and onto Three Cats in hardly any time at all. Where had all those marchers vanished back to? What had they been doing here last night? Despite the warm and windless day, a chill ran up the length of her as she looked up to watch a flock of egrets glide through the steamy sky above her, still trying to understand what had just happened with the boy on Malençon.
Why did she keep imagining wounds that weren’t there? But … there had been blood. Again. There was always so much blood. And she had seen the wound. So clearly. She had pressed it shut. The boy was screaming, he’d fallen to the street. Was she crazy? Maleen clearly thought so … Could she be right?
The Fair Passage was a two-masted brig of the latest Stone Coast design, with an oversized gaff sail and a lean, elegant prow. Sian breathed a sigh of relief as she approached the ship. Its gangplank was down, indicating it was open for business.
“Hello the ship!” she called up.
A young seaman on the deck leaned over. “Who calls?”
“A visitor for Captain Reikos. Is he aboard?”
“Your name?”
Though she seemed not to have been followed here, Sian did not want to be shouting her name across Cutter’s wharf. “Tell him it’s the lady about the wine.”
The sailor looked dubious, but nodded and went below.
Reikos appeared a short time later. A broad grin, and a look of great relief, crossed his face. “Sian!” he cried, then clearly remembered where they were. “Er, Domina Kattë. Such a pleasure to see you!”
“Permission to come aboard?”
“Of course!” He dashed over to the gangway, appearing ready to rush down and carry her up himself.
Sian forestalled this by hurrying up the gangway herself. “I thank you,” she said, as she stepped on board.
“Come, come, my cabin — we must discussion,” he said, losing all semblance of his usual Alizari fluency in his excitement.
A minute later, they were in his tidy stateroom. Reikos bolted the door, then began unfolding two wooden chairs from their wall niches. A porthole window behind Sian let in a moist but gentle breeze. In an airy cage beside it, his golden-crowned cockatiel tilted its head at Sian.
“I was so worried to not find you last night,” Reikos said. “And I am so glad you are here — and looking so well!”
“I’m sorry, I was detained — something awful has happened.” Sian sank into the cunning little chair. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Of course I am delighted that you came here! You must tell me everything.”
“I …” Once again, she could not think quite how to begin. “Yes. That’s … why I’ve come. But first, I have not yet had much breakfast. Would you happen to have —”
“Oh! Yes, of course.” He leapt up, already starting toward the door. “I’ve had them purchase many fine things in the galley now, since we have docked. What do you wish?”
“Anything,” she said. “Whatever strikes your fancy. Thank you.”
“I will be not a minute, then.” He grinned and hurried out the door.
What was she going to tell him?
Her own daughter had clearly thought her mad. What would Reikos make of such a story? How well did they really know each other? Well enough to trade intimacies in the dark, of course, but … Well enough for this? Had she been a fool to come here?
No. No, he was a sophisticated traveler, who’d surely seen all kinds of things far stranger than she could imagine. Did they have gods in Smagadis, his homeland? He had never told her, but perhaps miracles were nothing unusual for him … She hoped.
“Pretty lady! Pretty lady! Kiss me, pretty lady!”
Sian looked up at the cockatiel, startled. She knew it could talk, of course. This was hardly the first time she’d been in Reikos’s cabin. But she had not heard this before.
“Kiss me, pretty lady!”
A second later, the door opened and Reikos returned, bearing a platter piled with fresh oysters, flaky frosted pastries and sliced green starfruit. He grinned at her. “The oysters are in a very pleasant citrus sauce. I hope you like them.” He set the platter down on his small folding table by her chair. “Such things are necessary after three weeks of hardtack and salted meat, no?”
“Your bird’s been talking to me,” Sian said. “It said, ‘Kiss me, pretty lady.’”
Reikos looked with raised brows at the cockatiel.
“Damn bird! Damn bird!” it squawked.
She had heard that one before. She gave him an arch smile. “It must hear a thing quite a few times to learn it, mustn’t it? That’s what I’ve been told, at least.”
Reikos turned to her, looking even more surprised, then burst out laughing. “You know Matilda is a lady bird, Sian! That is what I always say to her, while we are at sea together.” He walked over to the cage, bent down until his face almost touched the bars, and cooed, “Pretty lady, yes. Pretty lady.” He puckered his lips comically. “Kiss me, pretty lady. Kiss me.” The bird thrust its head toward the bars, opening its beak, as Reikos darted back before it bit his lip off. “Damn bird,” he muttered softly, then turned back to Sian. “You see? My heart belongs to no one but yourself.”
“All right, I believe you now. About the bird,” she conceded, reaching out to pluck an oyster shell from the platter and tip it into her mouth. “Mmmmm,” she said, reaching for another.
She very quickly polished off the plate as Reikos watched in guarded amazement, then wiped delicately at her lips with a corner of her sleeve, not quite meeting his eyes.
“You are very hungry, to have had such a late dinner last night, perhaps?” Reikos asked, his voice hesitant.
“I had no dinner.”
“What has happened?”
“I … don’t really understand it.” There was no easy way into any of this. “I fear I may be going mad. Or perhaps I have been given some horrible power. But why?” Sian shook her head, still trying to make sense of what had happened with the street urchin.
“My lady, surely I would know by now if you were capable of madness.”
“Konstantin, I touched a badly wounded boy … and healed him. I think.”
Reikos shook his head, bemused, still smiling. “What do you mean? You helped a boy?”
“I mean I healed a gaping wound. Just by touching it.” Sian shivered. “I’m terrified.”
“Healing is a good thing, is it not?” He was not understanding her; that much was obvious.
“Of course it is. But this isn’t — natural! I don’t know what’s going on, why it’s happening.”
“Tell me everything,” he said again, clearly confused. “From the start. Something happened last night?”
“Well, it started then. I was on my way to the business dinner I wrote you about. But I never got there.” She told him the whole story, just as she had explained to Maleen, adding the new element of the healing, and the crowd’s frightening attention immediately afterwards.
“I don’t know what any of this means,” she said, when she had finished. “It’s obviously connected. But there was no message! This madman just beat me, set me adrift, and … here I am, unwounded, but with this terrible curse.”
“I would like to see this … curse.”
“What do you mean?”
“Can you heal this?” Reikos held up his left thumb, blackened halfway up the nail. Sian remembered him complaining of the injury; he’d hit it with a hammer, repairing some rigging. He would likely lose the nail.
“I don’t really know how this works,” Sian protested, suddenly reluctant.
“Then what is the harm?” He held his hand toward her. Behind him, the cockatiel quarked
at her, then shuffled about its cage, tossing seeds. “Damn bird.”
More afraid than she was willing to admit to herself, Sian gently grasped his thumb, thinking about the old injury, how much it must still hurt him. An answering pain appeared in her own left thumb, accompanied once more by the smell of ginger — more subtle than it had been in the street, but still unmistakable, as if ginger tea were brewing nearby. Startled, she let go of his thumb.
He gazed at it, mouth slightly open, eyes wide with wonder. There was no purplish stain, no unevenness on the nail bed. In a moment, her own thumb stopped hurting as well.
“Oh, my,” he murmured. Then he looked at Sian, eyes still wide, now bright and excited. “Sian, this is amazing! Think of what good you can do!”
“No, Konstantin, you don’t understand! I cannot be doing this! No one can know.”
“Why ever not?”
“The priests-hospitalars would have my hide. The penalty for fraudulent healers is severe — I could be jailed until my grandchildren are married. Or worse.”
“But you are clearly not fraudulent!” He waved his thumb at her, pink and healthy. “You have been given a power, an amazing gift!”
“If you are not an anointed Mishrah-Khote priest, you are by definition a fraud — and they do not anoint women.”
Reikos shook his head. “They would never deny a true miracle!”
“They care nothing for truth, nor for miracles. They only want to protect their own position, their wealth. I’ve known that since my mother died horribly, under their care.” Angry tears crowded her eyes; she turned away, staring unseeing out the porthole. “I know you are not from here, but you must know how things are.”
“Sian, Sian.” Reikos put his arm around her shoulder, his voice gentle. “Don’t be sad. It will be all right. It is a large and confusing thing, I can see that. But it is still a good thing.”
She shrugged him off. “It is certainly not. That man is targeting my family — he knew me by name. And I can’t even get Maleen to leave the islands. Everyone has gone mad.” Reikos continued to look at her, excited but stymied. “You as well — are you listening to me at all? How can you not see how threatening this is?”
