by Angus Wells
There was a rattle of applause. Calandryll glanced at his brother, knowing this was the source or Tobias’s self-satisfaction. Learning there was more to come.
“In proof of my faith I name Tobias, formally, my successor. He shall be Domm of Secca after me.” He paused as fresh applause greeted the proclamation, waiting until it died to say, “At the Feast of Dera he shall be ordained heir.
“Further, my younger son, Calandryll, shall assume the duties of the priesthood. Know that I, Bylath den Karynth, Domm of Secca, declare it so.”
He sat as cheering filled the hall. It dinned against Calandryll’s ears, drumming home the stark realization that his future, so far as his father and brother were concerned, was determined. He had no say in the matter: alliance with Aldarin might be a new thing, but in Secca the world turned as it always had. He thought of the endless round of duties that must inevitably follow, should his father have his way, and the only consolation he could find was in hope of Nadama’s acceptance. He could envisage no way in which Reba’s prophecy knitted with his father’s plans.
“Congratulations.”
Tobias’s mocking voice interrupted his self-absorption and he looked up to find his brother at his side, realising that musicians had struck up a tune, bringing folk onto the floor even as servants hurried to shift the tables, making room for the celebrations.
“And to you,” he offered, automatically.
“It was decided today,” Tobias said. “Had you shown more interest, father might have wished you in attendance. But as you have not … Well, it is the custom. And you will be where I can watch you. Guide you.”
“Yes,” he muttered, grimly.
“Of course,” Tobias grinned, “you’ll have no time for your bookish nonsense. Save the study of religious observance. I’ll see to that.”
He slapped Calandryll’s shoulder with amiable menace and flourished a bow in the direction of the Domm and the ambassador.
“My lords, will you excuse me? A lady awaits.”
Grinning hugely he sprang from the platform holding the High Table to Nadama’s side. Calandryll’s jaw clenched tight as he watched her rise, her smile glorious. For Tobias.
He sat dumbly as they moved to the center of the floor, Tobias’s arm about her waist, hers about his, their feet moving as though guided by a single mind, Nadama’s eyes radiant on Tobias’s face.
Had he been utterly wrong? Had he misinterpreted her affection? That his brother was a rival he had known, but he had not expected to see such adoration in her eyes. Not for Tobias.
“We have a saying in Aldarin,” he heard Varent murmur sympathetically, “‘The vine bears many grapes.’”
“But not for priests,” he answered dolefully, unable to tear his gaze from the couple.
He did not think to offer excuses as he heard the music end and rose to his feet, ignoring courtesy as he left the table to push through the waiting dancers, confronting the woman he loved.
“You will excuse me?”
He took Nadama’s arm without awaiting a response, leaving Tobias standing as the musicians began a second tune. He was, at least, as good a dancer as his brother.
That did not help as he sought the words he was suddenly afraid to utter. Perhaps he had misunderstood her expression. He swallowed, steeling himself.
“Congratulations,” Nadama spoke before he was able to organize his confused thoughts. “Are you not pleased with your appointment?”
“No,” he answered, apprehension making his voice gruff. “I have no wish to be a priest.”
Abruptly he was sorry: this was not the way to approach it.
“Forgive me. I had hoped …” He broke off. “I don’t know what I hoped.”
“It is customary,” she said, smiling in a manner that quickened his heartbeat.
“A priest is celibate,” he muttered, cursing his confusion. “A priest may not marry. Nor study, save religious tracts.”
Nadama nodded, still smiling, swirling in a flurry of skirts, returning to his arms, her perfume heady as she drew close.
“I admit you are an unlikely priest.”
“I should not be able to marry,” he protested.
“Why should that trouble you?” She was smiling still, though not the way she had smiled at Tobias. “Are there not ways in which the priests … satisfy … those desires?”
He felt a coldness knot tight in his belly. He stared at her, feeling that his heart climbed his ribs to lodge in his mouth.
“I want to marry.”
“You? Whom do you favor? And how shall you refuse the Domm’s command?”
Did she pretend confusion? Did she play some game? Did she not understand? The cold spread, presentiment ugly as a tumor. He thought he heard the desperate thudding of his heartbeat; felt she must surely hear it, too; must surely know what it was he asked.
“You,” he said, “I want to marry you. Did your father but speak to mine this business of the priesthood …”
“Calandryll …”
A warning rang in her voice; he ignored it, committed now, speaking before the cold numbed his tongue and he lost the power of speech.
“I love you. I want to marry you. Please?”
“Calandryll!” She moved as far away as his grip on her arms would allow: the distance was a chasm. “You are fond of me, I know that … But this is madness. I am promised.”
“I love you. Will you marry me?”
The music stopped. Tobias stood beside them, a hand extended. Nadama took it, granting Calandryll one sorry glance before her smile returned, like the sun rising. Bathing Tobias in its radiance.
He watched them walk toward the High Table. Saw Tobias speak with Bylath. The Domm rise.
Silence descended again.
Bylath said, “It appears there is further good news: tonight my son has chosen a bride. I give my blessing to their union. Nadama, daughter of Tyras and Roshanne den Ecvin, shall wed Tobias.”
Calandryll stared, dumbstruck. It seemed his heart beat a dull threnody against his ribs, threatening to empty his stomach over the floor. Tobias raised Nadama’s hand to his lips; Bylath beamed, embracing her. Varent offered his felicitations; Tyras and Roshanne stepped beaming onto the dais. Calandryll felt himself carried toward them as the crowd surged forward. He stared at them. Heard a voice he barely recognized as his say, “May Dera bless you.”
It was automatic, a reflex empty of feeling: he felt only pain. He could stand no more. Nadama’s smile hurt too much, a knife of happiness that turned in his gut; Tobias, smiling hugely, said something he could not hear through the pounding in his ears. He turned away, ignoring his father’s angry cry and the curious glances of the others as he stumbled from the hall with the taste of ashes in his mouth.
HE had no idea how he came to be in the Seers Gate, no memory of quitting the palace or of the streets he had traversed. The moon hung gibbous above, streamered with rack, the wind that drove the cloud cold, chilling the sweat that plastered fresh-barbered hair to his forehead, shirt to back. The guano-whitened sign creaked on its moorings, the sound like malign laughter, the frontage of Reba’s house dark and forbidding. He was aware that he pounded on her door only when the lilting voice bade him stop, and then he stood panting, hands knotted in desolate fists, seeing the door open, the spaewife a dark mass against the lightless shadow of the corridor.
“Who is it? Who calls so angry at this hour?”
In his despair, his anger, he had forgotten she was blind. He said bitterly, “You do not know?”
“Calandryll?” She stepped a pace toward him, into the moonlight, her eyes twin mirrors of the milky disk. “Why do you come here so late?”
He closed the distance between them, fists raised as though to strike her, lowering them to thud against his hips. Reba stood her ground, head cocked.
“You call yourself spaewife and you do not know why I come?”
“I am a spaewife; no, I do not.”
Her voice was calm. It seeme
d her blindness armored her and that very tranquility leeched the anger from him, leaving only despair in its place. He groaned, close to tears that he fought to dam. Reba stood back.
“You had best come in.”
He went past her into the darkness, pausing as she drew the door closed, sliding bolts into place, brushing by him to lead the way to the room where they had sat that morning. She found the tinderbox and struck flame to a lantern; pushed it toward him.
“Light the lamps if you wish.”
He took the bowl and applied its wick to the lanterns set about the chamber. Their light was mellow, revealing the plague-scarred seeress dressed in a sleeping gown, overlaid with a green robe. Her hair was unbound, long and straight, her face calm as her voice.
“There is wine in the kitchen, if wine you need.”
He carried the lamp through; returned with the same flagon and the two cups. This time it was he who drank the faster, aware that much more, after what he had consumed at dinner, would tip him over into drunkenness. It seemed a sound enough idea, but first there were questions.
“She refused me. She is to marry my brother.”
Reba nodded slowly. “I read loss.”
“You did not tell me I should lose Nadama.”
He choked on her name and wiped a hand across his eyes; filled his cup afresh.
“I told you all I saw,” the spaewife said evenly. “I told you your future is clouded—that you have choices.”
“They narrow apace,” he retorted, voice hoarse with bitterness. “Nadama is to marry Tobias and I am ordered to become a priest.”
“Those were options you outlined yourself,” Reba murmured.
“I did not believe them!”
Reba sighed. “Calandryll, you are young and you are a stranger to disappointment. I saw loss—I told you that!—were you not ready?”
“No.” He stared at her, head moving slowly from side to side. “No, I was not. I thought …”
He broke off, stifling a sob. Reba said, “You thought you would have what you most desired and so you saw my prophecy from that viewpoint alone.”
He grunted a reluctant affirmative. “Now I have nothing.”
“Now you have choices to make.” Her voice was still musical, but harder now, carrying; the ring of battle horns. “What I read of your future still stands; it is for you to choose whether you take that path or not. Nadama has chosen her own path—does that not free you in a way?”
“I wanted her,” he muttered. “I love her.”
“And you have always had what you wanted.” There was a distinct edge now, a clarion like a challenge. “You have lived behind the palace walls; with servants, luxury. Whatever you have wanted has been there for the taking. Did you think to have your Nadama so easily?”
Welling tears dried on his cheeks and his mouth hung open: there was truth in what she said.
“I thought …” He faltered, shaking his head helplessly.
“You thought because you love her, she must return your affection. It is common enough; so is loss. Nadama has chosen Tobias. That is a fact you must live with.”
“You did not foresee it,” he said, resentfully.
“I saw both loss and gain. You chose the interpretation.”
“Yes.” Reluctantly. “Yes, I did.”
“And now it is for you to choose the path your life takes. What I saw suggests you need not accept this duty you find so odious.”
He laughed sadly. “Your prophecies are vague, Reba.”
“The pattern, as I told you, is complex.”
“It is beyond me.” He sighed, then asked, “This comrade I shall meet, the one with whom I shall—might-travel? Tonight I encountered the ambassador of Aldarin and he spoke of showing me maps—could he be the one?”
“Perhaps.” Reba shrugged. “Perhaps not. I think that Aldarin is not very far.”
Calandryll drank more wine, though slower now, calming. There was iron in the spaewife’s tranquility, an immovable quality that imposed a degree of calm on his disordered thoughts. “I should have known had he been the one,” he murmured. “Should I not?”
Again Reba shrugged. “Perhaps. I think that tonight your judgment has been clouded.”
He remembered Varent’s words: “He said ‘the vine bears many grapes.’”
“And so it does,” she answered, “and the beach has more than one pebble. I am older than you and I tell you you will get over Nadama. I speak not as a seer, but as a woman. You will find this hard to believe, but it is so.”
She was right: he did not believe it. He said, “I think I shall not. And if I cannot, then I would go away from her. I cannot bear the thought of seeing her with Tobias.”
Reba smiled and said, “Perhaps you begin to choose already.”
Calandryll grunted and said, “This journey you foresaw? This quest to far lands?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps your feet already tread that path. Perhaps you cannot see it yet.”
“Perhaps,” he allowed.
“What will you do now?” she asked.
He thought for a moment before replying, “I think I shall get drunk.”
“That is no answer. Not to me or yourself.”
“But it is an attractive alternative.”
He was calmer now, but the pain was still there, a knife turning in his heart, hot as a furnace, cold as the grave. Reba sighed. “For a little while, perhaps; but sooner or later you must sober up.”
“Will you read my future again?”
She shook her head. “No, Calandryll, I will not. One prophecy in a day is sufficient. There will be nothing new, and you know what you need to make your choice.”
“Then may I drink your wine?”
“Not that, either.” Her voice throbbed, a dull bass note. “I would not have the Domm’s son drunk in my house. I cannot afford your father’s anger.”
Resentment came back like a fresh-opened wound and he pushed to his feet.
“Then I shall leave you, spaewife, and find a more hospitable place.”
Reba’s head lifted as though her sightless eyes followed him. The bass became a clarion again.
“Calandryll! Go back to the palace and get drunk there if you must. The streets of Secca are not safe that you may wander them without danger. Better, find watchmen and have them escort you home.”
“Back to that palace that shelters me from your world?” he demanded. “From the real world?”
“For now,” she agreed.
“You say I have choices to make. Very well, I shall make this one.”
He turned, ignoring her cry of warning, and stumbled into the corridor. He found the door and fumbled with the bolts, dragging the portal open. Cold air struck his face and he halted, head swimming, the shuttered windows across the narrow street wavering, resolving into distinct outlines only when he concentrated, blinking.
“This is foolishness,” he heard Reba say to his back. He shook his head and walked away.
THE odors that had excited him that morning were dulled now by the dampness of the wind, overlaid with the salt tang of the ocean, the street itself changed by night and moonlight. Doorways and signs that had been glamorous in the sun were dimmed, like closed eyes: the mouths of alleyways were maws of darkness, vaguely threatening, oblivious of his heartache. He staggered past them, moving instinctively toward the wider avenue that marked one boundary of the Seers Gate.
Where were the taverns? Where could he find wine to dull the pain? Not in the palace: that was more prison than ever now, and he rejected the possibility. Likely the feasting continued. Nadama would be in Tobias’s arms, dancing, that smile he had thought was his directed at his brother. Tyras and his father would be drinking in celebration of the union; and Bylath would be furious with him for leaving as he had. Tobias would crow and he could not bear that. No, he would find some place to drown his sorrow and face the Domm, face the pain, tomorrow. He snorted bitter laughter as inspiration struck. Down from the Seers Gate, beyon
d the Merchants Quarter, lay the Sailors Gate, and sailors drank. The port garrison lay there, too, and soldiers, off duty, drank. Yes: the harbor was the place to go; there would be taverns aplenty there.
His feet unsteady, he turned back, finding the alley he had traversed earlier, following it through to the Merchants Quarter, taking that broad thoroughfare eastward.
The wind grew stronger and he shivered, sobering a little in the cold. He did not want to be sober, for then he knew he would think of Nadama and Tobias and the knife would turn afresh in his heart, carving new agonies. He saw a cat studying him warily across the carcass of a rat and halted, returning the animal’s hostile stare. The cat’s tail furred and it spat a challenge, as though it feared he might contest its prize. Yellow eyes glared, then the feline sank long fangs in the bloodied hide and carried the body swiftly off into the darkness. Calandryll shrugged and continued on past the shuttered warehouses.
It seemed he walked for hours before he saw light ahead and quickened his pace, breaking into a ragged run that brought him unsteadily into a plaza where lanterns defied the night and tavern signs boasted all a thirsty mariner might desire. He turned in a circle, staggering, regaining his balance with flailing arms, as he surveyed the inns. He chose the closest and smoothed his tunic, ran careless hands through his hair, before pushing through the door.
Cold and damp were instantly replaced by heat and the heady reek of liquor. Calandryll blinked, an owl caught in the flare of the hunter’s torch, and peered, no less owlishly, about. Rough wooden tables were scattered across a floor spread with sawdust, that stained with spillage. Men sat there, tankards and cups before them, answering his examination with varying degrees of interest, a few women among them, their interest more obvious, more predatory. The ceiling was low, hung with lanterns that he stooped to avoid, their light augmented by the lowering flames of the logs burning in a wide stone hearth. The remnants of a calf roasted on a spit, listlessly turned by a child in threadbare shirt and torn breeks, his feet bare and dirty. To the right was a long table, behind it a fat, bald man in a greasy apron, behind him tapped barrels and shelved flagons, tankards and mugs hung like trophies from wooden pegs.
