Tathea

by Anne Perry

  Chapter IV

  THEY SAID FAREWELL TO Patro, who was exhausted but standing straight-shouldered and calm, and to Itureus, weary to his soul and unable to say more than to wish them well. They left Bal-Eeya in the dark, crossing water that was black and heavy as molten lead, and with the breath of ice still in the dying wind.

  It was hard work steering the skiff out of the harbor through the wreckage of the storm. The swell carried them more swiftly than Ishrafeli would have liked. In the starlight Tathea could not see his face, only the outline of his body straining against the surge of the tide and the power of the wind in the canvas. Neither of them dared sleep until the land was far behind. She wanted to say something about Itureus and Dulcina, to ask what lay ahead for him. The tragedy in his eyes haunted her, but she knew Ishrafeli could not answer.

  She woke at dawn with the sea and sky like the heart of a great shell, the flaring roof of heaven fine drawn with mackerel clouds, opal and gold in the rising sun. Ishrafeli was asleep, the helm lashed. She stared across the sweep of the water, white-patched with drifting foam even this far from Bal-Eeya. There was nothing else to see on the smooth face of the ocean. She shivered and pulled her cloak tighter. It was still cold.

  Ishrafeli stirred and sat up, smiling at her, but he did not speak. He leaned over the side and splashed seawater on his face, then looked up at the sails and the sky. He tested the ropes and found them satisfactory. Then he unwrapped the bread and apples he had brought with him from Bal-Eeya and offered them to her.

  They ate in silence.

  Then after a long time they spoke of other things, some that mattered because they were beautiful or precious, or because they involved people she had loved. She told him of things that were unimportant also, moments of laughter, fleeting thoughts that seemed foolish so long after. It was sharing them that mattered, not what they were.

  He spoke to her of places he had seen, great forests with ancient trees, wild valleys in the sun, upland wastes beautiful in lean starkness, shining pools, reed-speared, reflecting the sky. He did not tell her where they were, but he described them with a fierce tenderness in his eyes, as if he had loved them long.

  Later, in silence again, she watched him as he sat with his head high, face lifted to the sun. He held the sail ropes in his hands, feeling the wind as if it were a living thing. His hair was swept back from his brow, and in the harsh, clean light reflected off the water, she could see fine lines of his face, the marks of a lifetime of passion and hope and pain. There was strength in it, not the raw drive of youth, but a thing tempered by fires whose heat is in the soul. She had doubted it before, but now in this immense, wind-washed cavern of sea and sky, she was certain he understood the truth she sought, as if he knew its author face to face. Tathea was glad to sleep.

  When she awoke it was bright morning and Ishrafeli was singing softly as he watched the sails. It was a lilting song, full of joy. The sun was high and warm, shining on blue water, and on either side hills soared straight up into the bright air, their slopes patched with vivid green between the great scars of rock and scree.

  “Where are we?” she asked. After the experiences of Parfyrion and Bal-Eeya, she was wary of new places.

  “Malgard,” he answered.

  She searched his eyes to read the humor or sadness in them and know what was ahead, but she saw only that it was immediate and real, and that it could not be changed.

  She turned to face the long inlet as the skiff veered and tacked on the wind and the hills opened into soft valleys, here and there clothed with woodland. It was spring. There was sweetness in the air.

  They had to veer and tack three more times before the skiff came to rest next to a wooden pier. Behind it was a small town of color-washed stone, pinks and peaches and primrose yellows, roofs slanting steeply upwards. Patches of flowers spread lavishly across the grass, and trees hung heavy with blossom.

  People were crowding down the pier to see them. At their head was a young man with windburned skin and wide, liquid-dark eyes. His face was beautiful, fine-featured with a high-bridged nose and broad brow.

  “Welcome to Malgard!” he said with a quick smile. “You must have come for the festival! We have never had visitors before. This is wonderful! We are so happy to see you. My name is Salymbrion. What are yours?”

  “Tathea,” she answered. “And Ishrafeli.”

  “Welcome to Malgard,” Salymbrion repeated, holding out his hand to help her ashore as Ishrafeli made the skiff fast. The people crowded round, all eager to see the newcomers and to offer whatever assistance or hospitality they could. It was quickly established that they would stay with Salymbrion, but everyone was eager to show them Malgard and to explain the festival.

  “We hold it every year,” Salymbrion said to Tathea, walking up the wooden quay beside her, matching his step to hers. “We celebrate every art, but music and poetry are the greatest. You will love it. The laurel is the highest prize in the world.” He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “I have competed seven times. Last year I was second, but I think I might win this time. I shall put my whole heart into it.”

  “What is the laurel?” she asked as they stepped off the quay into the quiet streets. There seemed no places of trade, only of work: a blacksmith, a carpenter, a blower of glass, a potter. Gardens spilled over with flowers of all colors. Leaves and vines climbed walls and hung across arches, heavy with perfume. The sound of falling water was broken by birdsong. A small brown dog pattered along the street, tail wagging. The only thing missing was the laughter of children, but she saw none. Perhaps they were at study.

  “The laurel?” Salymbrion’s brows furrowed. “It is the prize for the greatest singer and poet of all.”

  “But what is it made of?” she persisted.

  “Why, leaves!” He did not understand her question. “Laurel leaves. Of course they dry out in time, but they do not wither.”

  “I see.” She did not, but it did not matter.

  He accepted her answer with a smile. It did not occur to him to doubt her. She had the sudden conviction that she could have told him anything, and he might have thought her mistaken but never that she deliberately lied. His innocent trust was like a child’s, unspoiled by the wounds and disappointments of life. A wild hope filled her that this was what happened to the souls of those who died in their infancy, like Habi, before they had had the chance for good or evil.

  Without thinking, she turned to Ishrafeli, expecting to see in his expression whether or not this was so. But he was listening to a young man and woman who were telling him about the mulberry orchards where the silkworms fed, and he was for the moment unaware of Tathea.

  A deep calm lay over everything, so sweet and unbroken it seemed to be within the very nature of the land itself, as if in time it could resolve all ugliness and sorrow and melt grief as the spring melts snow to feed the birth of flowers.

  Salymbrion’s home was set in its own wide garden where apple trees hung low over drifts of crocuses spearing through the grass. Bees droned lazily in the sun, and Tathea glimpsed hives through the branches.

  “This evening there is a party at Ikthari’s house,” Salymbrion told them as he showed first Tathea then Ishrafeli where they might rest, and later sleep, after the celebration was over. Sunlight bathed the walls in soft color, blending the peaches and pinks with yellow.

  “Who is Ikthari?” Tathea asked.

  Salymbrion looked up quickly. Obviously the question surprised him. She must be the first person he had encountered who did not know.

  “He is our leader, only he is far more than that. He is our guide, our protector, our adviser and friend. You will meet him this evening, then you will understand.”

  She was offered fresh clothes to wear for the celebration, and she accepted them gratefully. There was no glass to see her reflection, but the robe’s simplicity needed no ornament, and its golden apricot tones flattered her dark skin and dense, black hair. There was happiness in Salymbrion’s eyes
when he saw her, as if he knew he had chosen well, but he made no comment. Ishrafeli smiled, and he too said nothing.

  Tathea was eager to meet the man who was the leader of such a people. As they walked through the twilit streets she was aware of the blossom in the trees above her, the sweet scent in the evening air, the call of night birds, and the distant laughter of people as they all converged on Ikthari’s house. She wanted to know all about him.

  “How did he come to be your leader?” she asked. “Did he inherit the calling, or did you choose him, elect him?”

  Salymbrion was puzzled. “Inherit?” He repeated the word as if he did not know its meaning.

  “From his father before him,” she explained. “Or his mother.”

  “He has always been our leader,” he replied. “There has never been anyone else.”

  She was about to argue but checked herself. She was in a strange land and not everything had to be explicable in her terms. Perhaps these people lived longer lives than in Shinabar and kept no recorded history—although Salymbrion himself looked to be no more than thirty years old at the most. In fact nobody she had seen looked any older or younger. Maybe they did not age here.

  “Do you have cold winters?” she asked instead.

  “A little,” he replied easily. “Sometimes there is a frost, but it does no harm. In fact, it is good for the earth. It breaks it, ready for seed time.”

  “And droughts in the summer?”

  He looked surprised. “No. It rains every few days, mostly after dark, but not always. Does it not rain where you come from?”

  “No, it never rains.”

  “Then how do you live?” He was fascinated.

  “There are underground rivers,” she replied, “running from the mountains hundreds of miles away. They feed cisterns under the city, and we channel water to where we need it.” She remembered Shinabar with a distant kind of ache, as if it were no longer entirely real, although she could recall the scorch of heat and the fine, scratching irritation of sand in everything quite clearly, and the moon over the desert and the smell of bitter herbs on the wind. She did not want Salymbrion to ask her about it. She changed the subject. “Is Ikthari your ruler, your judge?”

  “You mean for the festival? No.” He seemed to find the idea amusing. “We judge by common consent.”

  “I mean in civil matters,” she corrected. “In disputes, or if there is a crime.”

  “A crime?” It seemed another word he did not know.

  “If someone does something wrong,” she explained.

  “We make mistakes sometimes, of course. Yes, Ikthari would correct us. He has been our guide always.”

  They were at the entrance to a house slightly larger than the others around it, and people were streaming in, each one welcomed at the arched doorway and yet passing through quickly.

  Tathea looked around for Ishrafeli, but she could not see him in the crowd. Then she and Salymbrion had passed through the archway into a great room strung with bright lanterns. To one side a table was laden with dishes of fruit, nuts, flowers, and bread baked in a dozen shapes. Jars of clear honey looked like jewels of amber and gold. Beeswax candles burned with aromatic perfume, flames steady in the windless air, light falling on the fire-colored skins of fruit: purple-black grapes, velvet peaches, wine-dark plums, and berries like drops of blood.

  Ikthari sat in a huge, carved ebony chair wrought with figures of fishes and birds. At first his face was in shadow, and all Tathea could discern in the candlelight was that he was a broad man with thick, heavy hair.

  Salymbrion introduced her.

  “Welcome to Malgard,” Ikthari said softly. His voice flowed over her with a languorous warmth which made her at once feel at ease. “What brings you here?” he asked.

  She was uncertain how to answer. The truth was far more than he had requested, and too intricate to share. And yet she found herself afraid to lie to him, as if he would know it and be angry.

  “I am seeking knowledge,” she replied tentatively. “And experience.”

  He smiled. She could see little more of him than thick, wide lips and a flash of teeth. “You seek wisdom.” It was a statement, and his tone seemed to hold both amusement and anger.

  “Yes.”

  “Yet you are frightened to look,” he said softly.

  His smile grew wider. He rose from his carved seat, moving his head into the light. He was huge, and magnificently ugly. His features were broad and sensuous, his black eyes brilliant with intelligence. “You must allow me to show you all that we have in Malgard, and share it with you.” He was looking at her intently. “All that we possess is for sharing.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Where shall we begin?” The question was rhetorical. He was staring across the room, not looking at her. His face was still wreathed in the same wide smile. What he saw pleased him intensely. He gleamed with satisfaction.

  She followed his eyes and saw fifty or sixty people talking and laughing together. Even in the flickering and shadowed light, the contentment in their faces was unmistakable. Nowhere did she see the angular tensions that would have been evident in such a gathering in Shinabar. In her mind’s eye she could see the great hall of the palace in Thoth-Moara filled with the generals, ambassadors, and merchant princes, their postures of arrogance and domination, the lowered eyes of the nervous and dependent, the exchange of favor, flattery, and half-truths.

  She saw no cynicism here in Malgard, and she smelled no breath of fear.

  “Have you always had the festival?” she asked Ikthari.

  “Yes. It is good that people should strive to excel. It is even better to praise what is lovely and give song to our gratitude for it, and to the god from whom it came.” His heavy robe stirred a little as he moved, swinging wide. “To take for granted one’s blessings is a damage to the soul, and in time one will lose them, simply from lack of care. One should never tire of nourishing and treasuring all that is lovely.”

  She turned quickly to look up at him, catching the sweetness of truth in his words.

  “Come, let me show you more of Malgard.” He took her by the arm, his eyes shining. His touch was light but immensely strong, and for an instant it frightened her. She had to exert an effort of will not to pull away. To do so would have been unforgivably rude and quite ridiculous. Why should she be afraid? Everything she had seen here was filled with beauty. Were those she loved destined for a heaven like this? Perhaps that was the darkness at the edge of her mind, that she did not belong, that Habi was not here, or her mother, or her father with his fierce desert beliefs.

  “Come,” Ikthari repeated, his hand still on her arm. “We love to share what we have. Malgard is for all who choose it.” He said it very deliberately, giving weight to each word.

  She walked with him in silence, questions hammering in her brain. How did they choose? When? Had Habi been given the choice?

  Ikthari led her out of the main room through a passageway that opened into an arcade whose slender arches looked out onto a garden bathed in moonlight. It washed the air with silver. White magnolia petals gleamed in the soft radiance and were reflected like fallen stars in a motionless pool. There was barely a breeze, only a faint stirring, as if the earth breathed night-scented jasmine and something sharper and cooler, like narcissus. Suddenly a bird sang with the piercing sweetness of the nightingale. It came again, like falling crystal, and then the silence closed in, soft as balm.

  “Will it last forever?” she asked impulsively, turning to Ikthari.

  He stood still, looking at her for several minutes before he answered, and she was overwhelmingly aware of the power in him.

  “Oh yes,” he said at last. “No one has ever wanted to leave.” His voice was rich with unfathomable satisfaction. “Everyone here knows how precious this is. They may appear young to you, even naive, but they are possessed of great wisdom. They know God’s plan for mankind, and they have chosen to be here, to have this and never to trouble or spoil i
t.”

  She could believe it easily. The thought of leaving this place was unbearable. There was a peace here deep and calm as the summer day, and an innocence that made lies or betrayal impossible.

  “Do you cast people out if they commit an act of ugliness?” she asked him earnestly. “What if someone is dishonest or cruel or covetous?”

  He took her by the arm again and led her down the steps into the moonlight.

  “No one is dishonest,” he answered her, his voice a soft rumble in his throat. “Why should they be? People tell lies only when the truth is disagreeable to them or frightens them or to cover sin. There is nothing here to be afraid of.” He gave a tiny shrug. “So there can be no need to lie, no desire to.”

  They were entering an arbor at the end of which was a lawn bordered by great trees. The scent of cedar and new grass mingled with the perfume of flowers. He waved a large, broad-fingered hand to encompass all they saw. “What is there to envy? Everything is here for all.”

  “But what about the old or the sick?” she persisted, thinking of beggars she knew of in Shinabar, how the aged were revered by good sons and daughters, but all too often ignored if they were ill or troublesome or stood in the way of ambition. And there were always those who had no one.

  He smiled, his teeth glinting in the moonlight. “You ask from your own fears. Do you see any illness, any infirmity among the people of Malgard?”

  “No.” A fierce hope seized her that she hardly dared acknowledge, that this was indeed some heaven that she had been permitted to see, a perfect place where the righteous might live forever without pain in body or soul.

  “Exactly ...” He breathed the word like a sigh on the breeze. “I think, child, that you are beginning to understand. Come up to the crown of this little hill. I will show you the city of peace.”