The Bird of the River

by Kage Baker

  “But it was all made up. She never loved anybody that much. She was an addict. Why didn’t he sing about the mean way people treated her, wherever we went?”

  “Because she didn’t have a Yendri baby, in the song. I was left out of the story,” said Alder in a quiet voice. “Didn’t you notice? And anyway, who wants to sing about things like that? The song is sad enough. Mama’s dead. Let people think her song is true. It’s a nicer way to remember her.”

  “But I don’t remember her that way—” Eliss was saying, when someone standing at the rail said loudly:

  “What’s that in the water?”

  “That’s a rat, swimming,” said someone else.

  “No, it isn’t! That’s too big to be a rat!”

  They turned to look, but couldn’t see anything because everyone else was going to the rail to stare.

  “Is that a man, swimming?”

  “Who would be swimming across the lake in the middle of the night?”

  “It’s an animal, then.”

  “Well, it’s swimming like a man!”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “You’re blind!”

  “Hello there,” called a voice from out on the lake. “I trust I haven’t missed the party entirely?”

  Eliss scrambled to her feet and ran to the rail, pushing her way between Mr. Riveter and Mr. Nailsmith. “That’s Krelan,” she said.

  “That’s the little aristocrat,” muttered Mr. Nailsmith to the man standing next to him. “Been to a party over at the Agatines’, I’ll bet. Just the sort of thing they do. Get a few bottles of fine wine in them and they’ll start laying wagers about climbing civic buildings or stealing public statues or I don’t know what all.”

  “Probably thought it would be funny to swim home.”

  “Lucky he hasn’t drowned, the fool.”

  Everyone watched as Krelan swam up to the side of the Bird. He was pale in the moonlight, for his tunic was gone. He reached up to the rail and took hold, gasping.

  “I don’t suppose someone would help me aboard?” he inquired casually, but his hands were trembling, and then they saw the gash across his ribs.

  Ten minutes later he was wrapped in blankets and sitting huddled in the galley, as Mr. Pitspike mulled a saucepan of spiced wine. Eliss hurried in with his bag, which she had fetched from the Riveters’ cabin, and Mr. Riveter followed her closely.

  “Were you in a duel?” he blurted as he spotted Krelan. “And is anybody over there likely to know where you went? Would they follow you here?”

  “It wasn’t a duel,” Krelan assured him, through chattering teeth. “I think it was a case of mistaken identity. And no, nobody will follow me here, I’m fairly certain. They think they killed me.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I heard them.”

  “But what happened?” asked Eliss, opening his bag to find him dry clothes. He reached out, took the bag, and rummaged in it himself. It was a moment before he replied.

  “It’s quite strange, really. I went across to see an old family retainer. He used to attend upon my great-aunt, you see. She married one of the Agatines and I used to spend my summers here, when I was a child. He was very fond of me, and so I thought I’d pay him a call.

  “I never managed to see him, as it happens. I stopped in at the tavern over there and had dinner first—it’s so ill-bred to show up for a visit at mealtimes, especially since I didn’t know whether he was living on limited means these days—and it was after dark when I left the place. I was walking up a rather narrow lane on the edge of a cliff when I noticed I was being followed. Two fellows in cloaks rushed me and one caught my arms while the other pulled out this fearfully long knife.

  “ ‘This will teach you the worth of Lady Bellanilla’s honor!’ he shouted, just as though it were a play. Then he stabbed me! I felt it slide off my ribs but I certainly wasn’t going to tell him he’d missed anything vital, so I threw myself backward and managed to wrench myself free from the other fellow’s grasp. Unfortunately I went right over the wall on the edge of the path, which was a rather low one, and down I hurtled into the lake.

  “Well! I’m not the brightest fellow under the sky-god’s realm, but I knew better than to come up spluttering and calling for help.”

  “So you’ve some brains, at least,” said Mr. Pitspike, handing him a mug of hot wine. “Drink that, you little idiot, and stop flapping your jaws so much.”

  “I want to be sure we’re safe,” said Mr. Riveter. “Go on.”

  “Thank you.” Krelan sipped the wine cautiously. “Ahhh. Well. I swim rather well, as you must have noticed. I dove like a cormorant and came up some distance from where I’d landed. I swam into a thicket of reeds and hid there, trying to catch my breath. My two murderers, or would-be murderers, came along the shoreline looking for me. I heard them exclaim when they found my tunic. One of them said he thought I must have drowned, but the other said they had to be sure, or his lordship—didn’t mention a name, simply called him his lordship—would have their ears off.

  “I knew I needed a better place to hide, and I was frightfully afraid of leeches, so I dove back underwater and swam as far along the shoreline as I could, until I found an old boathouse. I climbed inside and crawled under a heap of sail, desperately hoping to get warm. I fell asleep. I slept through the night and waited all through today for a chance to swim back under cover of darkness. And that’s all, really.”

  “And you’re sure you don’t know who this Lady Bellanilla was?” said Mr. Riveter. Krelan smiled mournfully.

  “Do I look as though I could persuade any Lady Bellanilla to part with such a precious commodity as her honor?”

  “The murderers thought so,” said Eliss. “Or they wouldn’t have attacked you.”

  “Mistaken identity,” Krelan assured her. “I have a few cousins amongst the Agatines. Must be a family resemblance to some erring youth or other. I count myself lucky to have got away with no more than a sliced skin and a wretched night, but I’m quite sure no further assassination attempts will be made. They must have discovered by now that their real man is still alive, after all.”

  “I suppose.” Mr. Riveter tugged at his beard. “All the same! You were supposed to be hiding out here, not paying social calls. From now on, you’ll stay on board when we put into a town.”

  “I see your point, sir,” said Krelan, drooping. “I suppose it wouldn’t make a difference if I attempted to disguise my social status? What if I grew a mustache?”

  Mr. Pitspike guffawed. “Hark at him! Boy’s got a head looks like a peeled egg, and he thinks he can grow a mustache!”

  Even Mr. Riveter smiled. “Well, you can always try—”

  “Thank you, sir! I give you my word I won’t set foot ashore until I have produced facial hair,” said Krelan. He drank down the rest of his hot wine. “And now, with your permission, sirs, and yours, miss, I think I’ll just crawl into the corner by the stove and sleep as one dead.”

  He revived the next morning, however. So, to everyone’s surprise, did Captain Glass. The captain hauled himself up the companionway, bleary-eyed, and stared around at the light of day.

  “Have we loaded up provisions?” he asked Mr. Riveter, who was packing away the party lanterns, helped by Eliss.

  “Provisions loaded, sir,” said Mr. Riveter.

  “Good.” Captain Glass squinted at the lakeshore. “Time to move on. Warp her out and set sail.”

  They glided away out of the Lake and upriver. Eliss climbed to her high place at the masthead and watched the grand mansions of the Agatines as they passed them by, the fair white walls, the lofty towers. Once, in Mount Flame, she had seen a white wolf at a street exhibition. It had just been fed and lay half-dozing, looking out disdainfully at the children who stared and poked their fingers through the bars of its cage. It couldn’t be bothered to leap up and snap at them, but its teeth were long and sharp, its jaws like a steel trap all the same. With a shiver, Eliss turned her face away.
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  Krelan, true to his word, grew a mustache. It was a tiny line on his upper lip. When he presented himself to Mr. Riveter for inspection Mr. Riveter peered at it suspiciously, and even applied a wet rag to it to see whether it would wash off. When it didn’t, he threw up his hands and said he supposed Krelan would be safe enough going ashore if he wore a hood. Krelan bought an immense old hooded tunic from one of the musicians, which made him look even spindlier and more hapless, but he wore it, and the mustache, proudly.

  Here above the Lake the river kept its bed year in and year out, flowing between stony banks, between cliffs, through forests of immense ancient trees. The first time Eliss spotted a snag up here, she thought at first there was some sort of monster in the water. And yet, a flash of red festooned its looming bulk—

  “Red marker! Red marker at the quarter mile!” cried Eliss, leaning down. She saw Mr. Riveter run forward to peer over the bow, and, to her astonishment, he performed a little dance before bawling out the orders to draw in sail and pole forward. They crawled nearer to the downed thing and Eliss saw that it was one of the giants from the clifftops, fallen with its wide spread of roots reaching out above it. A lot of rock had come down with it too.

  There was so much other debris caught in the snag that they anchored there, and spent most of two days clearing out the hazards. The snag, when finally hauled on board, was even bigger than it had looked in the water, with a trunk so huge four men couldn’t reach around it. Mr. Riveter rubbed his hands gleefully.

  “Look at that,” he told Eliss, who had come down to stare. “How much lumber do you imagine is in that thing? Saw it into planks and you could make a second Bird of the River!”

  “And the Yendri don’t mind?” Eliss glanced over at Mr. Moss, who was pointing up to the forests above the cliffs and saying something to Alder.

  “Not so long as we didn’t kill it ourselves,” said Mr. Riveter. He gave a nervous glance at Mr. Moss. “We’ll be at one of their settlements in a day or so . . . I hope he’ll let everyone know the tree was dead when we got here.”

  Eliss was the first one to see the Yendri settlement, two days later. At eye level with the clifftops, she began to catch sight of dark masses in the branches of the trees, that she thought at first were the nests of great birds. Before long she saw that the masses were too squared off and uniform in shape to be nests. She was just registering that they were panels made of willow-twigs woven together when the Bird came abreast of one, just above the cliff.

  Eliss found herself gazing into a room in the branches, where a Yendri girl sat on a platform, nursing a tiny baby. The walls were partly woven screens and partly silks. Here and there, dangling on cords from branches, were various household items: dippers and water gourds, a spinning distaff, a hand loom, baskets. For a moment the girl and Eliss were looking into each other’s eyes. Then the Bird bore them past each other.

  They live in trees, thought Eliss. No wonder they don’t like it when we cut down forests. She fell to thinking about what her life would have been like if she’d been born among the Yendri, as Alder had been born among the Children of the Sun. She might be that bare-breasted girl, already a young mother, hiding up there in her airy nest. And Alder would be happy and outgoing, and Eliss would be the outsider, the one always living on sufferance. Would she resent her life? Would she feel a yearning for walls of solid stone, and a place in her own world?

  Not that I ever had one really, she thought bitterly, or any stone walls to call my own.

  But you have a place now, said another voice in her mind, like a more grown-up Eliss. She looked down at the river and had to admit to herself that it, at least, had accepted her.

  She saw now a rickety-looking dock as the Bird came slowly around the next bend, and now beyond it the place where the forest floor opened up. There were fewer trees here, and taller, with bare trunks and high umbrella-canopies overhead. Sunlight slanted down through the green leaves and lit the . . . warehouses? They looked like warehouses, but made of palings driven into the earth, and roofed over with thatch rather than slate. Here in the open were more of the booths made of sprouting willow. Away through the tree trunks Eliss saw patchwork fields in different shades of green. The sound of singing came from the fields, droning unearthly voices floating across the space under the trees.

  Captain Glass steered for the dock, and Mr. Riveter shouted commands for taking in sail and hoisting fenders over the rails. The Bird of the River drew up at the Yendri settlement, and only then did Eliss see men emerging from the warehouse or climbing down from the platforms in the trees. They were all watching Mr. Moss, who had folded up his tent and was standing at the rail. As she watched, Alder came up and began to speak earnestly to him.

  Eliss scrambled down to the deck. As she neared them, Alder turned to her.

  “She wouldn’t mind. Really. Would you, Eliss?”

  “Mind what?” Eliss stopped, staring at him. He was clutching a bundle in his arms.

  “If I just went to live with the Yendri for a while,” said Alder.

  “What?” Eliss felt a rush of panic. “Live with them? With people you don’t even know?”

  “No, these are my people,” said Alder.

  “You’re only ten!” cried Eliss. “What are you thinking?”

  “Alder, it wouldn’t be right,” said Mr. Moss. “She is your family and you are hers. Who should she have, if you left her? A man protects the women in his family.”

  “But she’s with her people and she’s fine,” said Alder, growing desperate. “And I could be your apprentice and—and I want to go be a disciple and meet the Lady!”

  “The Unwearied Mother herself would bid you stay here,” said Mr. Moss.

  “But that’s where I belong!” Alder’s voice rose to a wail as he pointed to the settlement under the trees. Mr. Riveter, who had come up to see what was going on, cleared his throat.

  “Maybe—”

  “No, no, no, no!” Eliss tried to grab the bundle from Alder’s arms. He held on, stubborn, and after a brief tug-of-war the bag tore open. Alder’s blanket fell to the ground with something else that rattled as it struck the deck: a doll made of wooden beads that had once been bright-painted. Alder snatched it up.

  “I was keeping that because it’s all I have from Mama,” he said defensively.

  “Mama didn’t give you that,” said Eliss, feeling a wrenching betrayal. “I did.” She remembered the market fair when she was five years old, and the booth all hung with toys, so pretty in the morning sunlight, and how she’d offered the toymaker her copper piece she’d earned for minding Alder while Mama and Uncle Paver lurked in the alley across the street all day, selling pinkweed. The toymaker had told her it wasn’t enough to buy a toy, but promised she could have one of the small dolls if she hawked for his booth.

  So Eliss had stood in front of the booth all day, calling to people to come buy toys. She had danced and sung with tiny bundled-up Alder in her arms, and no one had noticed he was the wrong color, and many people had smiled and bought toys. Her legs were aching by the end of the day but the toymaker had kept his word and given her the doll. Alder had slept with it pressed against his cheek every night for years.

  Now, to her dismay, Eliss felt her eyes filling with tears. Mr. Moss looked at her. He shook his head at Alder.

  “You are too young to leave.”

  “Everybody else always left when they wanted to,” said Alder. “Why can’t I?”

  “No Yendri would desert his family,” said Mr. Moss sharply. “That is not our way. When you are a man, when your sister is no longer alone, then you may think about coming to serve the Lady. Not until then.”

  Alder looked down, abashed. “I’m sorry.”

  “I too.” Mr. Moss softened his tone somewhat. He picked up his bag and his cloak. “The day will come sooner than you believe. Have patience until then.”

  Eliss took the torn bag from Alder. He let his hands drop to his sides. “I’ll mend this for you,” she
told him. He said nothing in reply. Two of the cablemen wrestled the gangplank into place as Mr. Moss turned to Mr. Riveter and bowed.

  “Thank you for your kindness. May the Lady bless you.”

  “You’re welcome,” said Mr. Riveter, watching in some concern as a Yendri man approached the gangplank. “Er. You might explain to your friend there about the big tree and how we absolutely did not cut it down.”

  Mr. Moss turned to look. The Yendri stood on the bank and called out something. Mr. Moss looked startled. He strode down the gangplank and the two men spoke together in low voices for a moment. Mr. Moss set down his bag and cloak and walked back aboard.

  “He sends a warning to your people,” he said to Mr. Riveter. “Brigands came through the mountains two nights ago. They were going upriver. Their leader was one of your men. The one who calls himself Shellback.”

  Mr. Riveter went pale. “They didn’t plunder here, looks like.”

  “We hide ourselves too well.” Mr. Moss smiled grimly. “Something we learned long ago. Why do you think we live in trees?”

  He went ashore. The Bird of the River raised anchor and put out again. Eliss returned to her place in the masthead and Alder sat by the rail, staring at the Yendri settlement as it fell behind them.

  We have a place to sleep, Eliss thought, looking down at him, but she knew he wouldn’t respond if he could hear her.

  They came to Bluestone two days later and anchored at its dock.

  “It doesn’t look blue to me,” said Alder, looking around.

  “Looks gray,” agreed Wolkin.

  “It’s just a figure of speech,” said Eliss, studying the shopping list Mrs. Riveter had given her.

  “I saw some one time down at Rivermouth,” said Tulu, jumping from one paving stone to the next, carefully avoiding the cracks between. “It had really blue swirled through it. Like blue glass. It was beautiful.”

  “That’s because it was the expensive stuff they export,” said a new voice behind them. They all turned and saw Krelan.