by Tina Daniell
When, a moment later, she looked up, La Cava was gone and Lurie was standing there, his neck bent characteristically, a sympathetic look on his birdlike face. Kitiara could say nothing for a long time, just stood next to him as minutes passed. Her emotions boiled. Despite her furious bravado, she now was more confused than ever as to where she should go, what she should do. Her father, dead. Betrayed.
Finally Lurie broke the silence. "Tell you something," he said matter-of-factly.
"What?"
The captain's mate leaned back against the railing and watched her reaction. "About Patric."
"What about him?" Her tone was almost sullen.
"Others," he said. "Other ladies he was going to marry. He brung them on board too."
"What others?" Lurie had her attention now.
"Oh, two or three others, before you I mean," said Lurie. "About one a year. We sail around. He gets off, goes wandering. Strathcoe goes with. Not me. I wait with the captain. Time goes by. He comes back. Always with a new lady he's going to marry. Only he never don't."
"He doesn't? Why not? What happens to them?"
"Nothing happens to them. We send them back, afterward."
"Afterward?" Kitiara had to clench her teeth to avoid screaming in frustration. What was he trying to say? Lurie meant well, but his speech was maddening.
"Patric starts out," continued Lurie, "plenty happy. New girl. Everything good. But… as we getting closer, he getting nervous. Confused. Tense. Changes his mind. Bride not so especially perfect. Maybe he don't want to get married after all. Not so hasty."
"He loses his nerve," murmured Kitiara, beginning to understand. "He doesn't really want to get married."
"Not exactly," replied Lurie. "He worries about his mother, father. Especially mother. Big important lady. Very fancy. Looks down on everybody. Nobody good enough for Patric. Everybody got too many faults. Patric afraid to go against Lady Maryn."
Kitiara was silent, infuriated, absorbing this latest intelligence. If Lurie had a mind to help Kit forget the fate of her father, he had succeeded. At least for the moment, Gregor Uth Matar had been banished from her thoughts, replaced by Patric. Maybe she never had any real idea of marrying the idiot, but he had a lot of nerve, stringing her along.
"The closer he gets to home," added Lurie consolingly, "the more he makes up different mind. Not get married this time. Wait till next trip. Find new lady. Better lady. Please mother."
Furious, Kitiara thrust her chin out. "He won't get the satisfaction of turning me down," she declared hotly, brushing past the astonished ship's mate and heading for her cabin.
Lurie opened his mouth to say something, but Kit had already vanished below. Suddenly Lurie was alone on deck, overwhelmed by the dark sky and glittering stars and the vast, roiling ocean.
The captain's mate was left with the distinctly uncomfortable feeling that the conversation had ended rather abruptly and that he had said something to offend Kitiara. What could that be? He had only done her the favor of telling her the truth.
Tossing and turning past midnight, Kitiara couldn't sleep. All she could think of was what Lurie had told her. Her mind seethed with scenarios that would permit her to teach Patric a lesson.
The storm that had been threatening for days broke out in the darkest hour of that night. Great booms of thunder and furious lightning ushered in a slashing downpour. The lightning lit up the sky in streaky flashes and threw horrible shadows across her cabin. The wind built to a pitch and waves crashed over the bow.
The ship erupted in shouts as sailors rushed to take down the sails and do what they could to keep the ship on course. In her state of mind she had no impulse to get up and help. Lying in her small bed, Kitiara listened to the ship creak and groan under the punishing wind and waves.
She sat bolt upright. There was a sound at her door, a scratching and muffled knocking that was not part of the symphony of the storm.
Getting up, she bundled her blanket around her and crept to the door, opening it a crack. Strathcoe's face pressed heavily into the opening. He was trying to say something, but Kit could barely see him much less interpret his garbled sounds. When she opened the door wider, he fell into her cabin as if he were drunk. She turned to give him a piece of her mind, this bloated dunce who, all along, had been in on Patric's charade.
Strangely, Strathcoe had slumped over her bed, as if bending to look for something. She grabbed him by the shoulder and savagely twisted him around.
"What in blazes," she began, then stopped in midsentence. He collapsed to the floor, and the look on her face turned from one of anger to shock. Quickly she bent down and cradled his neck with her arm.
Poor Strathcoe looked up at her for a moment, and his lips tried to move. Out of his mouth came not words but a bubble of dark red blood. Kit looked and realized his throat had been neatly and mortally slit. As she watched, his eyes fluttered shut.
Horrified, Kit dropped his head onto the floor, stood up, and swiftly donned some clothes. She looked around for a weapon of some sort. The only one available was one of the knives she had practiced with on deck. Strathcoe was unarmed and evidently had been taken by surprise while still in his night shirt.
Again Kit opened her door a crack and cautiously peered out into the corridor. From above deck, she heard loud yelling and the sounds of sailors struggling to save the ship. In the corridor, there was nothing, no noise and no person.
In this part of the ship were only three cabins: first hers, then as she headed farther away from the stairs, the captain's, then Patric's. She edged along the wall and neared La Cava's quarters. The door was shut, but she kicked it open and whirled inside, holding the knife up.
As her eyes swept the room, she realized her arm was shaking, and she had to make a strenuous effort to quell her nerves. Nothing. Nobody. La Cava was obviously up on deck, working to steady the ship through the storm.
An explosive noise made her start, but it was only the loudest thunderclap yet. The storm was not abating.
Back out in the corridor, she made her way slowly to Patric's cabin, afraid of what might lurk there. Crouching, she came around the corner to see that his door was slightly ajar. With one arm extended, Kit pushed his door open, and waited for some reaction. Again, nothing.
Crouching lower, so that she was almost on her hands and knees, Kitiara crept around and through the door, ready to spring or roll. Seeing nobody, she stood up. It was then that she noticed the outline of a body, covered with a bloody blanket, lying on the bed. Before Kitiara pulled the blanket off the head, she knew that it was Patric. He lay in a stain of blood that continued to spread from a wound in his chest. It was clear that he, like Strathcoe, had been taken by surprise and stabbed while he was sleeping.
Her senses buzzing, Kit went to the door and surveyed the corridor again; as before, she saw and heard nothing. Closing the door, she took a good look around Patric's room. There were no signs of a struggle, no evidence that might reveal who had slain Patric and Strathcoe.
She could see that Patric's immense traveling chest was still here, his pouches of belongings, everything that might tempt or lure a thief. For a moment, she sat down on the edge of Patric's bed, dazed and confused. Why would anyone sneak in and kill these two? What possibly could be the motive, if not robbery?
Her eyes drifted to Patric's face, livid with death but otherwise unmarked. He had probably died without waking. She felt only the merest twinge of pity for him.
For a moment, Kitiara thought of another young noble cut down in the prime of his manhood, several years before. She had never met Beck Gwathmey, but could he have been so very different from Patric of Gwynned?
Decisively, she stood and looked around. Patric's death meant that she had to leave the ship as soon as possible.
After her reaction to what Lurie had told her, she would be suspected in his killing. Kit had no desire to test the limits of La Cava's mercy.
Quickly she rifled the pockets of Patric's well-made
clothing, finding identity papers that might be useful. These she stuffed into her blouse. Kitiara grabbed some of Patric's clothes and wadded them into one of his medium-sized traveling bags. She tugged and tinkered with the lock of his massive chest, then tried to break it open with the handle of her knife, but it barely showed a mark from her efforts. Happily, Kit found a small bag of gems in the heel of one of Patric's spare boots. This, too, she stuffed into the bag, which she finally tied over her shoulder.
Dropping to her knees, Kit found Beck's sword under the bed, wedged between a plank and the wall. She took it out, made sure it was padded with covering, and strapped it across her back.
Last, Kit went over to where Patric was lying, removed the necklace she was still wearing, and draped it on his body. Fair's fair, she thought to herself. And she didn't want that reminder of him and his mother.
Stealing out into the deserted corridor, Kitiara listened to the continuing chaos up on deck and realized that the time to act was now, when the storm was at its peak and people were distracted.
Kit took a deep breath and climbed the stairs as inconspicuously as possible. Men were dashing back and forth, tying ropes and shouting directions at each other. The ship was lurching violently, and Kit was thrown to the deck once or twice before she gained her balance.
Thunder crashed and lightning split the sky. The bolts illuminated, for a brief instant, La Cava at the helm. The captain screamed orders to a phalanx of his drenched crew.
Kit was correct in guessing that nobody would notice her in the midst of such turmoil.
Often stumbling, Kitiara made her way to the bow of the boat. The shoreline was, at most, ten miles away, and Kit thought she had a good chance of making it, even in the storm.
A glance at the sky told her that the thunderheads were breaking up. The worst was over.
Stripping off her boots, Kit stuck them in her pouch, then made sure that everything was tied tightly to her body. She climbed up on the railing and, without glancing backward, jumped.
The cold, turbulent waves hit her with the force of solid stone, nearly knocking her out. But before Kit's brain could go numb, she was already swimming, a speck in the water moving slowly but inexorably away from the ship.
"Man overboard!" was the last thing she heard.
Chapter 12
Washed Ashore
The storm sucked all the light and color from the sea. The waves looked black as they crashed down on Kitiara, again and again. She struggled to keep her head above water. Her arms flailed until they were numb.
Hours passed.
Weighted down by the sword strapped to her back, Kit could barely summon the strength to kick her legs. Her whole being felt waterlogged. Kit had swallowed so much seawater that she retched violently as the waves rolled over her, not for the first time that night.
Luckily, Kitiara had managed to grab hold of a small wooden barrel that whirled past her in the water. Its buoyancy was the only thing keeping her afloat now-that and her determination not to let go of it.
The storm raged much longer than Kit had guessed it would when she jumped overboard. She had long ago lost sight of the ship, but had no idea whether she was still pointed toward shore or how far away the shore was. Although the storm had subsided, the cloud-darkened sky did not offer any hint of dawn.
Kit's cheek rested against the barrel's rough timber. Her tongue had swollen so that it felt twice its normal size inside a mouth that was parched of all moisture. Her lips were rimmed with salt residue. A bone-tiredness overtook her. Kit's eyes closed. She didn't care anymore.
Instantly, images of Crystalmir Lake flooded her mind, its surface glittering with sunlight, waves lapping at the shore, a day peaceful and perfect…
A hundred stinging needles jolted her awake. Her leg screamed in pain. Something was attacking her. Kit could see little beneath the waves, but she gritted her teeth and kicked hard at whatever it was.
Kit came in contact with something cold and slimy. Twisting around, she could barely make out a silvery-white gelatinous mass that had broken the surface.
As she stared, the thing-two arm's widths across and one high-drew closer. While her attention was diverted, more needles raked across her back. She kicked hard again and saw two elongated shapes, red-brown with chocolate splotches, slither away from her under the water.
Then she realized it was a giant jellyfish accompanied by sentinel eels. Kit was on the menu for breakfast!
She gazed in horror at the quivering jellyfish, hovering some feet away. Two milky eyeballs protruded on stalks in front of the beast. The stalks probed forward, while the bulbous body swayed in the water.
Kit watched as the two eels cut through the water on either side of the shimmering hulk, heading straight toward her. Lurie had told Kit about these sentinel eels who often traveled with jellyfish. Their job was to herd prey into the mass of tentacles by relentlessly attacking them with their hundreds of tiny, razor-sharp teeth.
This time the shock of their attack almost made her lose her grip on the barrel. The eels had wrapped themselves around one of her legs, pulling her down. With all her might Kit resisted, but her brain reeled from the biting pain. By the time her senses cleared, the jellyfish was upon her. It loomed over her, smothering her, sucking her toward its soft, purplish mouth.
Kit let go of the barrel and dove under the tentacled mass, as deep as she dared. She came up, her lungs bursting, behind it.
The two eels were still attacking her leg, but she had a moment to reach down and pry one of them off. It squirmed in her grasp, trying to fasten its rows of tiny teeth on her arm. She lifted the eel out of the water and, with all of her strength, twisted it up into a knot and tore it in two sections. The two parts writhed in the water, spewing blood.
No sooner had Kitiara done this than the other eel detached itself from her leg and swam over to feed on its mate.
She had no time to congratulate herself. The huge jellyfish was upon her again, this time wrapping its tentacles around her legs and back, shooting venom into her. Her sword was of no use; Kit couldn't get at it in the water. And the weight of the jellyfish was pulling her under, even as it dazed her with its poison.
One of its stalks glided before her eyes, probing her. Desperately she reached out and was able to touch one of the sea creature's milky eyeballs. The stalk thrashed frantically. Kitiara was rocked with pain, yet she managed to close her fist around the eyeball and squeeze.
The soft, pulpy thing exploded in her hand, sending a spray of blood and ooze through the water. In that instant, the beast wilted, its will or strength sapped. Before Kit knew what had happened, the slimy creature had withdrawn, swiftly gliding backward and vanishing underwater.
Bits of quivering slime covered her. The pain was already receding. But Kit was quickly losing consciousness from exhaustion.
"Curse Patric for getting his throat slashed and curse the heavens for the wretched storm!" Kitiara weakly shouted, somehow comforted by the sound of her own voice.
Kit's heart leaped at the thin dark line she glimpsed to the west. Land!
The barrel floated by. Her legs pumping, Kit reached out and caught hold of the bobbing wood. She held on with what little strength she had left as the current carried her toward shore.
Kitiara woke to a relentless thirst and the blazing midmorning sun. She was dazed and sore, but alive.
Picking her head up off the sand, she saw that she had washed up on an isolated stretch of beach. Just as well, considering that the waves had torn at her blouse until it was now little more than scraps held together by threads. Her pants had survived the storm only somewhat better.
Sitting up groggily, Kit took stock of her resources. Beck's sword was still lashed to her back, luckily. But the small pouch of gems and identity papers grabbed from Patric's cabin had been lost in the struggle at sea, as had the bag containing her boots and extra clothes. A quick inventory of her pockets turned up a few coins, nothing more.
Ki
tiara poked through the debris tossed up on the beach by the storm: assorted timber, a battered ship's lantern, pieces of frayed rope, a dead cat, a single boot, and something that looked like the chewed-up head of one of the eels that had attacked her. Nothing was of interest to Kit except for a worn leather vest. It must have belonged to a sailor not much bigger than she, and fit her fairly well. When Kit donned it and rearranged the shreds of her blouse, she looked almost presentable.
A rumble from atop a boulder-strewn cliff made her think there was a road above the shoreline. Barefoot, she climbed the rocks.
She was right: a road. Kit saw an open wagon approaching from one direction and flagged it down. The driver, obviously a farmer, pulled over in neighborly fashion, but he eyed her warily. She was a sight in her piecemeal garb, with the sword-shaped bundle that she carried on her back.
Kit gave him her best crooked smile. "Shipwrecked," she said. "I'm going wherever you're going."
He hesitated before smiling. "Hop in," he said, motioning her up on the bench seat alongside him. "You look shipwrecked all right, although I reckon it's a more interesting tale than that."
She climbed in eagerly, saying nothing else to satisfy his curiosity. He seemed to take no offense, and the wagon started moving again.
Kit noticed a water canteen on the seat next to the driver. Thirsty as she was, she could not keep her eyes off it. Without a word, the driver handed it to her.
As she was drinking, Kit appraised her savior. A black hood pulled up over his head to protect him from the sun contributed to a sinister first impression. On closer inspection, however, Kitiara saw kindly eyes in a weather-beaten face.
He caught her looking at him and smiled again. "Name's Rand," he said. "I just came from the market at Vocalion. If that's where you're headed, I won't be going back for a couple days, but you're welcome to come home with me for the time being. I'll feed you, maybe even find some decent clothes for you. Won't be the first almost-drowned sailor I ever rescued."
