Dragonfly

by Sylvia Kelso

  Don’t stop! Two howled, only barely not aloud. Don’t stop!

  Shut up! I bawled back and tried to concentrate as Therkon struggled up on his elbows, and the ship-wife held a cup to his mouth.

  “Slowly, now.” I could smell whatever it was, sharp, pungent, but pleasantly warming, even as a scent. Meekly, Therkon sipped.

  She lifted the cup away. Told me, “Enough.” Gave me the cup, and herself tidied Therkon’s clothes. Said quietly, “Close your eyes, now, and keep still.” She took a blanket from the pile on the table, shook it out over him, folded another to go under his head. Slightly louder, she said, “Colne, do you have the stones?”

  They were big round stones, not hot, but warmed to last. Therkon tried to protest when she pulled off his boots. As she settled the stones under his feet, he did manage to whisper, “What was that?”

  “Good for sea-qualm. And belly-spasms. In the Isles they call it,” the irony said she knew as much about us as the rest of Grithsperry, “imperial spice.”

  The men were at the stern end of the room, beyond the lamp. Handling, I realised, as the ship-wife led me over, Therkon’s cloak. One was saying, “kill to work skins like that.” The big man rumbled, “Done the old way. From Evvamoor, sure enough.” They turned guiltily, Colne asking, “Well, m’dear?” The other one, Skappi, I thought, hurriedly hung up the cloak.

  “Upset belly,” she said, “aye. He should settle now.”

  Two broke in before I could insist on prudence, on keeping options clear. “What will you do with us?”

  The big man spluttered. “You’ve a rare tongue, for a stowaway—!” The ship-wife turned toward me, still little more than a smearily colored shadow under the tallow lamp.

  “Ye will do as ye please,” she said, in that quiet, even voice. “But we’re away to Phaerea, the morn. Ye might be wise to come with us.”

  * * * *

  Phaerea at first sight was green: green as spring grass, as early summer leaves, green-gold under the dawn light when I

  clambered on deck, fragile and lovely as the gold and tangerine splendors of cloud from behind which burst the coming glory of the sun. Low and softly green, rolling with crops and pastures, as gentle a land, at first glance, as Sickle had been harsh.

  They had cast off in Grithsperry at first pallid light. As they towed us out with the ship’s dinghy, Therkon was still asleep. So I stood alone beside the ship-wife at the helm, looking back to the whitewashed walls, the rain-pure hill-crest, the black wisp of smoke still sulking from the tower, hoping fervently that Colne was right. “Skatir wake? Hah! You’re safe till noon!”

  And remembering the great diminishing prospect of Rivers-end. Thinking, like a knife in the side, of Verrith and Azo. With protest, and grief, and bitter reluctance, finally saying goodbye.

  When Grithsperry had quite disappeared I slipped below to find Therkon waking, however drowsily, at last.

  “It stopped,” he murmured, as I sat down where the ship-wife had, by his head. “Just . . . stopped.”

  The pain. The spasm. Ceasing, that voice told me, as it never had before, for any remedy. More than a cure. A miracle.

  I touched the loose hair straggling half across his face and whispered, “I’m glad.”

  The touch brought him round like a cold-water dash. A hand came out of the blanket to restrain mine. He actually tried to sit up. “Chaeris—my lady—I am not fit—” Filthy, unkempt, still vomit-stained. Only a crown prince would worry. I had ado not to laugh aloud.

  “It doesn’t matter.” But to him it did. “I’ll ask Frotha for hot water.” But the new razor he had bought with the tinderbox was back in our inn room, along with the precious clean underclothes and shirts. “Oh, fry it! Well, one of the ‘boys’ will have—”

  “Chaeris.” Still husky to the edge of breath. But forceful enough to stop me in mid-step. “Don’t—ask much.”

  Two, he meant. Don’t turn her loose as she already ached to go, bombarding them all with questions about the Tolla, the

  family, the Yarl, Grithsperry, Phaerea.

  “But, but, we should, we need to know—”

  “If you ask, then they can. Don’t.”

  He slid back against the blankets. He still looked drained as a corpse, but those wits were most definitely awake. The rest came in a dour whisper.

  “Don’t tell them anything.”

  * * * *

  “Tolla” actually means Sticky, but with a ship, it stands for Holds-well: keeps the wind. I learnt that from the ship-wife, whose name was Frotha, which means something like, Well-

  informed. I did manage to suppress Two there. And I could avoid questions in return, trotting to and fro after Therkon instead.

  He was hardly fit to move for two whole days: not merely the attack’s aftermath, but the arrears of the storm, when he had

  labored and starved far worse than I. After one determined

  effort that left him wilted on the cabin floor, he bowed to Frotha’s

  decree and kept to a temporary bunk in the forward quarters, where “the boys” slept. Like me, he had to bear dowering with our latest necessities from them, or Colne or Frotha. I even had to ask her help when my courses came. I could tell the charity galled him still worse.

  And far too often, handing clothes or a towel or helping him waver to the head made Two replay those moments in the main cabin: silk and velvet skin over warm solid muscle under my palm . . . But the forward quarters’ other benefit was space, at least in daytime, to work out. And at night, if I was firmly steered to the spare bunk in Colne and Frotha’s cabin, I hardly had to feign exhaustion before I dropped asleep.

  Even for the Tolla, on a fair wind Phaerea was barely four days run. With landfall made, the wind comfortably behind us and the wide bay of Jurrick opening celestially blue under our lee, Therkon finally made an extended foray on deck. Wrapped in Nouip’s cloak over somebody’s shirt and trousers, he clambered aft to Frotha, who had the steering oar.

  As a matter of course I went too. When he settled against the rail Frotha decided, with a glance, that he was fit to stand. After Colne materialized, and Skappi and the other “boy” on watch dawdled aft, I realized it was, by intent, if not consensus, a gathering.

  The ship heeled and hissed louder to a flaw in the breeze, and after four days my body had unlearnt storm reflexes far enough not to tense from head to toe. Giving lightly to the oar’s push, Frotha echoed Nouip, that short age past.

  “What think ye,” she said, “to do now?”

  Therkon glanced forward and starboard, where Jurrick town was beginning to coalesce in the bay’s curve, a cluster of white and steel-blue and perhaps distant red, the squared shapes of wall and house.

  “We must ask after our folk.”

  Frotha did not repeat her brother’s cruel refutation. She merely asked, after a moment, “And then?”

  “And then,” the chin tilted a little. “We must acquire funds. What we owe here . . .”

  Write that off, Frotha’s gesture answered, casual but firm. She tipped her plain, sea-burned face into the breeze. She was a deft and experienced helmswoman, but at times I almost expected to see her tuck the bar, like a farm-wife with an errant fowl, under one arm.

  “And then?”

  “And then, my lady, it depends on what we find.”

  Like the expression, the nuance was pure crown prince.

  Remote, coolly courteous. Cutting insistence, like curiosity, off at the root.

  Then, to Two’s utter outrage, he began asking all the questions he had so straitly forbidden us.

  At the stop-royal Frotha’s mouth had not quite opened, and shut. Now there was a distinct twinkle in her eye, but she answered gravely enough.

  “Town’s called Jurrick, aye. Chief port o’ the north. In Jurrick bay. Though t’is more like some call it, the Sway in Phaerea’s back.
Aye, by here t’is all green and pleasant enough. Wheat fields as well as barley, and pasture. Cattle, sheep. Horses, too. Rare, among the Isles, surely. Jurrick counts as rich, with all o’ that. And the trade, aye. Everything from the South Isles, going North.”

  “No, at the moment, t’is more often coming south. Not just grain. Cloth, and timber. Even rope, sometimes. Aye. But whichever road, Jurrick takes its cut.”

  “Not a king, nay. After Langlieve, Phaerea swore t’would

  never bide a master’s word again. But Jurrick leads the north ’o the isle, and the lords’ council leads Jurrick. Rich folk, some o’ them, aye. They buy in their crafts, like their wine and music. There’s few fine workers here.”

  “The south? They go their own way. Thring’s Deep, and Mirkadin, Ve Pool and the rest. Folk enough, but not the pretty lands up here. Sheep ashore, mostly, and barley where it’ll grow. More often, they work the sea.”

  “Pirates?” With a slight look of amusement. “I’d ware where I said that, in the south.”

  “Nay, Jurrick’ll not o’ermaster them. Phaerea, it’s sweet enough along the Sway, but inland there’s hills like the crests of a porcupine, clear from east to west. The lords o’ Jurrick can run a claim into the foothills. The hills, nobody owns.”

  I stared away over the smiling roll of pastures, of grain fields not yet in ear, up the slight ridges to a smiling blue sky. No rough heights announced their presence yet.

  “Aye, if ye’ve goods to chaffer, fine goods, Jurrick’s the place.” Distinct speculation in her eye now. I was on tenterhooks lest Therkon ask after some particular craft—Two judged that to barter even Nouip’s brooch would need a king’s goldsmith—but Deoren had taught him that much. He thanked her courteously, and moved, slowly but decisively, to leave the rail.

  “So,” Colne said from his place opposite, “ye’re welcome to go ashore when we berth. No toll,” his lip twitched, “for ship-guests who never paid passage.” Therkon began, slightly but visibly, turning red. Colne caught Frotha’s look and waved a hasty hand. “Just japing, man, that’s all! At the least, you’ll not need to chop divots from my deck-beams again.”

  The workouts. Shut doors had muffled the sound of Verrith’s knives thunking home, but they had left their mark in the big hammock-beams. For a moment Therkon looked honestly flabbergasted. Then his mouth opened and shut and mortal embarrassment changed its target. He ducked his head and dug at a board with a toe, muttering about, “apologies.”

  “No matter.” Colne grinned, magnanimous now his barb was home. “I’d’ve offered a whetstone, had ye said.”

  “Colne,” Frotha said, in a tone I knew now too, “the lad’s been long enough on deck.”

  Colne buckled immediately, even, contritely, offering an arm for the companion ladder. I forestalled that, at least, though my heart still hurried with relief. They thought Therkon owned the knives, his bluff had worked, Frotha had stopped Colne’s teasing, she would not ask anything more.

  Then Skappi broke out, “But ma? Pa? We still dunno: what about his sister, not-sister? Where’s she from? And where’re they going? An’ Sthassamaer . . .?”

  Frotha turned on him fast as I ever saw her move. “A word with the passengers. Ship courtesy. They’ve spoken as they choose. That’s all!”

  Skappi shut himself off in mid-breath. At mention of that word I had tried to turn, Two growing quite unmanageable, and Therkon’s hand shut on my own shoulder, both message and propulsion, pulling me, Two or no Two, down the companionway.

  * * * *

  In Archipelago terms, Jurrick was indeed well off. The tiled or shingled roofs, the white-washed walls and narrow, climbing, paven streets replicated Grithsperry, but the sea-frontages carried far more decoration, and if they did not gild the mooring posts like the imperial wharf in Riversend, money and manpower spoke from new-painted dock-frames and all but polished bollards, the smartly fettled ships and tidy piles of nets.

  Tolla came in without pilot, using the dinghy at the last to carry a warp ashore. The berth was hers, reserved. Or so Frotha told me the letters carved along the quay-edge said. What more it said I read in Therkon’s expression, and hoped we would get quietly ashore.

  But we had only to endure a few more barbs from Colne,

  arrange with Frotha to hold Nouip’s cloak, as much for a pledge in answer to Colne’s jibes, I guessed, as precaution against another stir like Grithsperry, and then rediscover our land-legs on the quay.

  It was a bright, breezy but not inclement day. The long waterfront bustled with stevedores and sailors and merchants and passing loads of produce that almost distracted Two from our chief task, but Therkon at least glanced to and fro for himself. Rubbed both hands up his sleeves, as if unconsciously cold, and eyed the narrow mouths of half a dozen unfamiliar streets.

  “Deoren,” he said, on a sharp little sigh. Then he drew a palm between his brows and headed inshore.

  I tracked a pace behind his shoulder on the street side, which left my throwing hand clear. I knew the stiletto memory had used on him: Deoren would have scouted already, found the fine wares quarter, picked out a shop fit for a crown prince to chaffer in. Deoren, like Verrith or Azo, would be a bulwark now at our backs. But Deoren was gone. A gall this time, as well as a grief.

  Since we used eyes rather than mouths it took a frustrating time to reach the craft shops, tucked along a single street parallel to the quay, opposite a worrying number of tall chimneys and blind outer walls with heavily built gates. A couple even had a guard-house in the entry-bay. Therkon eyed that vista a long, frowning moment, then shrugged visibly before he turned away.

  We chose a jeweler, eventually: a small shop whose stout bars spoke louder than the glitter catching candlelight inside. In his borrowed clothes Therkon looked the merest sailor, but the shop-watcher was at his elbow halfway across the floor.

  “If we might assist m’lord?”

  Therkon considered him: white shirt-sleeves, an indoor vest of fine-spun wool, a solid gold but quietly elegant seal ring. Attentive, not cringing. A merchant of substance, Two concluded. Perhaps a Crafter, sib to his wares. Surely a judge of customers as well.

  Therkon inclined his head an imperial degree. “Sir. You are the owner? Then I think you might assist us, yes. I am an Outsea merchant, ship-wrecked in the Isles. Hence in need of funds, as you may imagine, and in Jurrick our house has no credit. But there may be funds, perhaps.”

  The crown prince, not condescending but drawing the other to his own status, confiding, though with dignity. Not suing charity, but certainly not expecting to be refused.

  The jeweler kept dignity too, but there was no hesitation as he indicated an open side-door. “If m’lord will come this way?”

  “In other circumstances . . . I would pledge this against an

  advance, if circumstances required such a, a measure. But I may not return to Jurrick.” Something bleak had slid under the words. I saw the jeweler’s head lift with a quickly mastered twitch. “Therefore, I must seek a complete sale.”

  He drew his hand from Skappi’s coat and slipped the Empire’s spousal ring onto the velvet pad over the jeweler’s table top.

  The thillians caught the lamp with a flare of diamond blue and white. The jeweler caught his breath.

  “Summer’s Lady!” He looked for permission before, carefully as it had been laid down, he gathered the ring up. “But these are . . .”

  “Thillians. A matched trio. From the—Empire. An heirloom of, of our house.”

  Almost superfluous, all of it. Especially the last. The jeweler’s eyes came back to his, concern and understanding and more in his square, dark but smooth Archipelagan face.

  “M’lord, an heirloom?”

  Are you certain? the inflection finished. This was more than a treasure, this was a heritage. Selling this was as near blasphemy as the son of a great house might approach.
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  And heart-break, it went without saying, as well.

  Therkon moved a hand slightly. His voice was almost steady. “The sagas say, Outsea. He is in chains, who cannot cast a treasure away at need.”

  The jeweler escorted us out, even breaching discretion to mention “your lady” amid his wishes for a safe voyage. At first Therkon had proposed to sell the ring entire. Then, at the jeweler’s protests of lacking even capital to match its true value, to extract a single stone, which made the jeweler squeeze his eyes shut as at literal blasphemy. Finally they agreed on as much cash as the jeweler could raise, with the rest in smaller gems: blood-red hazians, a half-dozen finghends greener than the southern seas. “Far easier to trade, m’lord, and still good worth.” I did not need the avowals to know he was in truth trying to return full value for his gain.

  Therkon was very quiet when we reached the street. I crept behind him, my sympathy mixed with shame and guilt. He would provide for us both, at such a price, and what had I contributed? Under that, another voice was ignominiously exulting: He’s not married to the Empire now. Forget whatever pattern of a Riversrun daughter might get him someday. He’s not married to the Empire any more.

  When I tried to silence that by telling, however stumblingly, my other shame, he stopped dead and stared.

  “Chaer—my lady. You are not . . .” He stopped. Pulled a very rueful face. “Very well, it is doubtless different in Iskarda.” He shook his head a little. Another stress, I interpreted, yet another difference to keep in mind: Iskardan women rebuff charity. “But. You have contributed.” A sudden, heart-stoppingly real smile. “You are the one with the, ah, arms. And the one,” it became an open grin, “who sheep-dogs me.”

  Whether to ease my embarrassment at that, or because his momentary lightened spirits had woken the philosopher, a few minutes later he nodded me up beside him. “Tell me,” he began. “When you ‘work out.’ Or—at Grithsperry. Does Two join in? Or how does Two . . .”

  “Two keeps out.” There had been some alarming early episodes, especially when Azo, I remembered with yet another pang, began to teach me hand-work. “There’s no time for her.” Not for talk, or advice, or any memory, except the body’s own. “And it’s safer. For us both.”