Command the Tides

by Wren Handman

  “Look, Tay, I’m sorry. I know, I shouldn’t ’a done that. I just couldn’t sort out a gentler way to tell ya. And besides, s’a waste of time, ain’t it? ’Cause eventually you woulda heard the same thing, and you woulda been just as shocked as y’are right now. Trust me, I know—I had a bit of a buildup, meself, but I still fell near outta my chair when my old gramps told me what was goin’ on. I’m sure you wanna hear the whole story, and I’ll tell it as good as I can, though you know I’ve never been the best at that.”

  She squeezed his hand gently, giving him a slightly shaky smile. “You do it just fine, Dare. Take your time.”

  “Well—I suppose it started in Velenos, really. You know Velenos, it’s that port city near the border of Sephria and Miranov, in Sephria. We’d just come into port that night, and we had leave for the evening. In the morning we were planning on moving on to Saratov, which I was looking forward to ’cause from there it’s only a day’s ride in to visit Mam and Gramps, and since we’d be picking up supplies in Saratov I’d have a couple ’a days to my own. Anyway, so we had the evening in Velenos, and most everyone was getting rowdy, being a month without seeing a single face but our own and all. So the group of us ran down to the tavern, like usual. We got through our work mighty fast, too, so we could have a big long night ahead of us, right? There were a couple ’a folks down in the tavern who’d clearly come from far, and Mikhail challenged one to an arm wrestling match, which we won—”

  “Surely there’s some middle ground between telling me nothing but ‘I’m a prince’ and telling me every single detail of your shore leave.”

  “Look, I’m tryin’, right? So…I get to talking to these blokes. One of ’em you met, David. The other, he seems to be a bloke in charge, by the name ’a Jeremy. Turns out them and a bunch more have come down all the way from Labaci. That’s the capital of Sephria, right? It’s a damn long way, ’scuze me.”

  “Yes, I know my geography. What does this have to do with anything?”

  “It does, you’ll see! So Jeremy and David and me get to talking, and turns out them and their friends are come all this way. Now, we’ve all had us a few too many by this point, and maybe the fellows end up telling me more’n they meant to, but it turns out they’re lookin’ for the steward of the king. Well, I laugh and say the steward of the king isn’t going to be hanging around a seedy sailor’s bar in Velenos—he’ll be in the capital, what with that being where the king is, and all. But Jeremy, he tells us he’s not looking for that steward. Who he’s looking for, really, is the steward of the murdered king. S’old history, I don’t know if you even know the story, but the king of Sephria was killed by his brother, nasty bastard. ’Scuze my language, maidie. Anyway, pretty standard stuff, you know. Us…uh…u…”

  “Usurper?”

  “That’s the one. Usurper. Y’know, stealing the throne and whatnot. Pretty standard history book stuff. Thing is, though, king’s steward saw it coming. Had a little baby son, the king, rather, not the steward. That’d be me, ’a course, so the steward picks up that child and makes a run for it, before the rebellion even got started. So the false king, he kills the royal family and takes over, right? But see, I’m still the rightful heir.”

  “But you aren’t an orphan, Darren. What about your mother?”

  “I’m getting there, I’m getting there! Listen, would ya? So, see, the rebels are trying to find the steward, right, so’s they can find the heir and set him up as king, what with the uspering king now being all for murdering and beheading and overtaxing. People in those parts, they aren’t doing well and haven’t been for years. We hear about it with the oil, and all, but we don’t hear how bad it really is, not really. Now, naturally Jeremy doesn’t come out and tell me he’s a rebel, seeing as how stupid that would be if I wanted to turn him in, but…he hasn’t seen the bottom of his glass in hours, right? So he does make it pretty damn clear. He tells me they traced a twenty-year-old trail all the way to Velenos, but there it died. A mean feat it was, too, getting even that far. The king’s own men couldn’t do the same with a trail an Oblivion of a lot fresher, ’scuze the language again. So anyway, I get to thinking about it, how maybe I wouldn’t mind helping out, and I get to thinking about my gramps who I’m planning on visiting. Seems to me that old man was alive at the time, and he’s got some strange souvenirs from all over the place. Now, I know you know where this is going, but let me tell it all the same. So I tell this Jeremy, who I’ve started to take a liking to, that my gramps might know gossip of the time—he won’t talk to me about his past, or anybody else that I know of, nor would he ever hear questions about my pap or my grandmam or anything else he didn’t feel like remembering, but I figure it’s been a long while, and maybe if we gave him some whiskey it would do the trick. Now, I know Jeremy wouldn’t’ve gone along with such an idiotic plan, but he was shit out of options and he knew it. Shit, there I go again with the language.”

  “It’s been five years. I think I’m used to it.”

  “Yeah, well…I’m tryin’, anyway. The whole being a king thing, y’know…Wouldn’t do to be swearing, and what not. Anyway, that revolution of his wouldn’t be going anywhere without a king to make it, y’know…moral, and real and all that, so he said my gramps was the best lead he’d had in a long time. Now, to be honest…we were both fair off our asses drunk by then, so I’m sure neither of us would have thought it so grand if we’d been halfway sober. Anyway, we both go over to the captain and get him to sign Jer up, Ashua alone knows how, to hire Jer on board, and David and Ryan and the whole lot. Not an ounce of sea-knowledge on the lot, but we musta made a good argument. Truth be told, I don’t remember it much. So the next morning found us on ship, bound for Saratov, heads near bursting hung over, too proud to admit we’d made stupid plans while too drunk to even remember ’em that good. It’s a short trip to Saratov, especially on The Sea-Serpent, but by the end of it we were already mates, and glad we’d done the fool thing on top of it. It would be a waste of a couple of their days, sure, and a couple of months if they stuck to the contract, but now the revolution’d always have help on The Sea-Serpent if it needed it, that was clear. Hand me a sip of that water, would you, maidie? My throat’s killing me. Thanks. Where was I, again?”

  “A bunch of fools were heading to bother an old man, I believe.”

  “That’s right—although if you ever told my gramps I said it, he’d argue for days he wasn’t old and never had been. Still thinks he’s in his prime, crazy old fool. He is getting old now, though, and I reckon Mam don’t let him near the drink much these days, for it sure didn’t take much whiskey to get him smashed.”

  “You mean to tell me that you actually got an old man drunk?!”

  “You make it sound like we forced it on him, Tay. C’mon—you know my gramps. He woulda had the whole bottle if we’d let him! Which we didn’t, being respectable and honest men.”

  “You drank the rest of it yourself, didn’t you?”

  “Are you gonna let me finish, or no?”

  “I have a sinking feeling that I know the end, but yes. I’ll be quiet.”

  “Thank you. Now, as I was sayin’. He got a bit tipsy, and so we brought up this matter of the king’s steward. And I gotta say, I haven’t never seen a man get so sober so fast, nor so raging mad.”

  “Serves you right.”

  “Tay.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Anyway, he demands to know what we’re all about, and Jer comes right out and tells him everything that’s up. Figures it’s the best way, I guess, and knows the old man is trustworthy. Good thing he did it, too, ’cause Gramps up and tells Jer that if he wants a steward, he’s got one. Lookin’ right at him. Poor Jer…practically goes on one knee to the guy, all preachy and such, telling him all about how the peasants are suffering, how the rebels are fightin’ so hard but they can’t rally the people behind them, ’cause then there’d just be a fight for the throne since nobody can claim it and all. How if the king is still alive, his p
eople need him now more’n they ever have. He sure knows what he’s talkin’ about—he’s got a way ’a speaking that just makes you want to listen some more, y’know? Made me want to up and join the army, and me not thinking I’m even from Sephria. And apparently, he moved my gramps too, ’cause Gramps nods his head and says sure, the time had come, and if Jeremy wants a king to bow to he better get bowing now, ’cause I was it.

  “Like I said, if I hadn’t been standing I woulda fallen right off my chair, and Jeremy near had a heart attack. Once the screaming and hysterics were over from all the three of us—mostly me and Gramps, I gotta say, ’cause Jer is always so damn together—we sort out that the story about the steward running off with the little prince were true. That’s what Gramps had done, though I guess he isn’t really my gramps at all, just a guy who liked my dad…goddess, does it make my head hurt to think about it. And my mam, Tay! She isn’t, never has been. She took care ’a me all these years, never asked a thing in return, never even knew for sure who I was! Gramps just tells her, he does, that I need some lookin’ after, and since she’s a widow and so young, and she’s always wanted a little ’un…Not even my real mam, Tay.”

  “She loves you. That’s what matters, Dare. She may as well be.”

  “Yeah…still…y’know, maybe if I hadn’t heard Jeremy’s speech I woulda up and walked right out of there—who wants to think he’s a king, gonna have to fight for everything, just to live, even! Thing is, though, I did hear ’im, and it made me wanna do something, Taya. And when I found out who I was, those words came back to me—and it made me wanna be worth the title I was gonna win back. I know it sounds crazy—there’s a lot more ’a them than there ever will be ’a us, don’t matter how many we turn to our side. But I gotta do this—for all the people my uncle is hurtin’, and for my parents who he killed—and…I guess a part of it for me, too. For all the things I shoulda had that I never got the chance to, ’cause of him. For everything he took. I know it’s gonna be a long road. I’ve already seen how hard it can be—me an’ Jer been everywhere along the coast, it feels like, finding some ’a the people loyal to my dad, who ran into Miranov to escape all the stuff that was goin’ down. The usurper’s forces know I’m here—that’s pretty obvious, just look at me now. And it’s only going to get harder from here. ’Cause from here…well, I got a couple more people to rally in town—Jer’s probably at it right now—and then it’s time to go home. Time to bring the battle to his doorstep, s’what Jeremy says. But—even knowin’ it all—knowin’ what’s gonna be waitin’ for me, Tay. I still gotta do it. S’who I am, now. The king.”

  Darren coughed and put a hand to his chest, wincing, and Taya reached across to lay a damp cloth on his head, giving herself time to frame a response. None of it felt real—the whirlwind story, the crazy past. But Darren wasn’t one to make up tales, and he said it all with such a straight face. Oh, she’d feel the fool if this was some joke, but she couldn’t believe it was. There was too much truth on his face. How was it possible, though? Her sailor, her wild man…a king? So impossible.

  She should not have kept him talking this long—the wound was still fresh, and he was pale from it, from the fitful night he had passed. She adjusted the blankets around him, not meeting his eyes. Not daring.

  “A king,” she echoed softly, catching a fold of the cloth between her fingers and rubbing it absently between her thumb and forefinger. “Should I bow, then, Your Highness?” she asked him softly, trying to keep the grief she felt at bay, knowing she should be happy for him and trying to summon it forth. She did not see him as he frowned, but he recaptured the hand that he had released at some point during his long narrative, freeing it gently from its worrying and holding it tight in his own callused grip.

  “No, Taya. Never you.” He waited for her to look up, knowing that she would, staring firmly into her eyes as they met his. “We’ve been through it all, you and me. You saved my hide, even if it was just from me mam’s nagging ’bout me never findin’ a nice wife. I ain’t gonna ever leave that behind, no matter what. I swear it, Tay, on Ashua herself.”

  She couldn’t help catching her breath at that, surprised. It was a most solemn oath, doubly so for a sailor like Darren. Ashua, the shining goddess of the sea, who in her eternal grief was said to have wept the very oceans into being, and whose misty hair still shrouded the continent and sank boats who wandered too far from shore. Her son Yariel had been lost to her, lifted up from Midvalen to hang forever in the sky, ever present and ever unreachable. Yariel, whom the Sephrians claimed as their own. She wondered, now, if Darren would give up the goddess he had always been pledged to. Would he have to, as king of a realm who worshipped the son over the mother? A stupid thing to be thinking of at such a time, but she could not get the idea out of her mind. He had always been so devoted to Ashua, so unswerving in his loyalty and dedication. It was he who had encouraged her own devotion to the goddess.

  She remembered a time when she and Darren had gone laughing to make a pledge in Ashua’s temple. According to the precepts they were committing a terrible sin—pretending to be engaged when they had no intention of following through. Ashua held marriage sacred above all else, and they had been spitting in the face of that. She had paused on the doorstep, suddenly fearful to enter.

  “What is it?” Darren had asked her, almost tugging her inside. Still she’d stalled, glancing up at the pure white dome that rose into the sky above them. Ashua’s Bosom was a majestic sight, a temple that had taken almost twenty years to build, the pure dome fastened out of giant blocks of glaring white marble. It seemed to speak of Ashua’s power, and somehow, also of her grief.

  “It’s only…what if she doesn’t want us, Darren? We aren’t…well, you know. The children of Ashua would say…”

  Darren had frowned, tugging her again and pulling her into his arms so that she laughed despite her worry, pushing him lightly. He had wrapped his arms around her and leaned in close, whispering in all solemnity.

  “I’m no child of Ashua, Tay. I’m a sailor, an’ better for it, Ashua knows. T’was her that made us all, weren’t it? She knows. Love, that’s all she needs. The rest, s’just words. S’man’s law that says you ain’t to own land without bein’ married, not Ashua’s.” He grinned, spinning her around in circles until she was dizzy with it. “Love her true, Tay! Worship her right. If ya do, she’ll always see you home.”

  He had released her then, still holding her arm, and she’d laughed helplessly. He could always make her smile, no matter what. She had grinned at him, accepting, and together they’d stumbled into the temple, dizzy and giddy and bursting with life.

  She had accepted him, then. Believed everything he had told her—she could do no less now, when the stakes were so much higher. She kissed his forehead gently.

  “I’ve kept you up far longer than I should have. You need rest if you’re not to catch a fever, and you must drink a bit of this tisane before you sleep. And maybe some soup, if you feel up to eating.”

  “I’m ravenous,” he admitted with a rueful smile, fighting back a yawn.

  She helped him drink the tisane, tipping it to his parched lips.

  “That’s a good sign. I’ll send it on up with David and Ryan. I’m sure they’ll want to talk to you, and I really ought to open the store.”

  He nodded tiredly, trying to look like he was still paying attention but clearly starting to drowse. She reached over and adjusted his sheets again, knowing that she was fussing, reluctant to leave his side after so long. He’s fine, now, she assured herself stubbornly, forcing herself to rise. A wave of dizziness hit her as she stood, and she made pretense of adjusting the chair to hide it, not sure if Darren was paying attention but not wanting to seem out of sorts. It had been a long night, and a long day before—the effects of the stress were starting to wear on her.

  Quietly, not wanting to draw more attention to herself, she slipped out of the room and shut the door behind herself. She stopped on the landing, frozen in the a
ct of descending. One hand on the railing was all that kept her upright. It was too much, suddenly.

  After a full night’s sleep, with a stable mind-frame, the news she had just received would have shocked her. As it was…the man lying in her bedroom with a wound in his shoulder, the man she had slept with and laughed with, had insulted and praised—the next king. It was not her own country, true, but a world power nonetheless! Sephria provided oils and spices all along the continent. It was a rival to Miranov, in trade as well as civility and power of arms. And all of it would be ruled by a man she had once thrown into a mud puddle, just because she could.

  Yet somehow, despite all the thoughts swirling through her mind, the chief among them continued to be, Sure as Ashua weeps, he’ll never marry me now.

  She rubbed the heels of her hands against her eyes and gave her head a fierce shake, determined not to dwell. So their futures were diverging in a way she had never foreseen. She had always known he was not for her—now it was just a little more concrete. There was a shop to open, and soup to heat up, and a thousand household chores to take care of. Easier said than done, of course, to banish something from your mind, but she squared her shoulders and marched down the stairs. Even if she didn’t believe herself, she would do her damnedest to pretend she did.

  David and Ryan had refolded the blankets they had used for their own beds, stacking them neatly beside the kitchen door. Another sign, then, that they knew what they were about. Revolutionaries, to be sure, and knowing how to get out unseen, careful to leave no signs of their presence behind them. If someone came in and saw the folded blankets, it would be a simple matter to say they had just come in from the clothesline. Faint sounds from the kitchen said they were making themselves at home.

  Taya poked her head in the doorway, and they looked over at her, both of them tensing instinctively. David smiled at her, inclining his head, while Ryan calmly returned to soaking his shirt in a basin of water. It was, of course, David who spoke up.