Exile of the Seas

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “To pay my way,” I explained. Now that I knew how to light the lanterns, I’d spent the day picking apart the threads, glue, and metal brackets that held the decorative jewels in place. It would take many days, but I had a handful loose that I’d stored inside the glove—once I’d knotted the ends to keep the gems from spilling out. I poured those into my palm and offered them to Kaja. “For you. To compensate you for teaching me the ways of Danu. To purchase a priesthood.”

  She held up her hands, not touching mine, warding me off. “First, Danu’s calling is a gift. Not for sale. What She gives to us, we share with others. You insult me with this offer.”

  “Oh.” I felt awful. A mannerless fool. “I apologize for this terrible offense.”

  “What is that phrase?”

  I repeated it for her.

  She brightened. “I have been looking for these words. I apologize for frightening you at first. I knew there must be a way to say this.”

  I had to laugh. “You would not have heard it before because men do not apologize.”

  “Never?” She blinked at me. “What do they do when insult is given?”

  “Well, they don’t apologize to a woman. They might to another man, but the language is slightly different. Otherwise, they duel and kill each other, I suppose.”

  “Ah, Dasnaria.” She shook her head in what looked to me like sadness and disgust. “Her men are such fools. Now, put your jewels away. You do not need them.”

  “You gave the servant a coin,” I replied stubbornly. I would not be irresponsible. “Show me what size is appropriate for such service.”

  “The cabin boy?” She put her face in her hands, scrubbing it. “Do you have absolutely no idea of the value of what you carry?”

  “No.” I tried for dignity, but my face warmed and I knew I blushed for my ignorance. “In Dasnaria women don’t handle currency of any kind. It’s against the law. We’re decorated with jewels—which is why I have these—but we have no way to exchange the value for necessities like food and shelter. So, no, I have absolutely no idea”—I mimicked her, that phrase being a somewhat rude masculine term for gross stupidity, though I doubted she realized it—“of the value I carry. I would be obliged if you would enlighten me.”

  She gave me a wry look. “We’ll have to work on that princess manner you put on when offended. It gives you away as royal.”

  “Oh.” I might’ve apologized, but I couldn’t help how I’d been raised.

  “On the other hand,” she said, translating literally and I understood, though this wasn’t a Dasnarian metaphor, “this is a good thing in you. You are strong, inside.” She made a fist and tapped it on her heart. “See?”

  “I don’t feel strong.” In fact, her saying so made me want to weep. Some hours I only wanted to crawl back into my bunk and pull the covers over my head.

  “How many Dasnarian women have escaped their homeland?” she asked.

  I blinked at her. “No one wants to.”

  She laughed, a big braying sound, slapping the table with her hand. “Nonsense. You claim you were the only unhappy woman in all of Dasnaria.”

  Well, no, but… “Even if a woman is unhappy, she doesn’t want to leave because we are so helpless in the world. Where can we go without money? Without protection, we can be taken by any man who wishes. A woman alone in the world is as good as dead or worse.”

  “Like me?” Kaja asked, her eyes and voice even, a subtle challenge in them nevertheless.

  “You are not Dasnarian.”

  “I am a woman. You are a woman. The only difference between us is how we grew up.” When I hesitated, she continued. “You did all of those things. You are a woman alone in the world and you are alive.”

  “I had help.”

  “And you have help now. Tell me—how did you pay for your passage on the Valeria?”

  I pointed to one of the largest pearls still attached to a glove, one that formed the center of a flower in the elaborate design. A rare pearl from my mother’s family, one of the ones from my wedding. Kaja growled. “That cur of a captain. That pearl is worth the price of this entire ship and then some. I’m going to speak to him.” She didn’t say this all in Dasnarian, but I gathered the sense of it.

  “No, please! It also bought his silence, which is worth far more to me than these jewels.”

  Kaja studied me, then threw up her hands, the way she did when she was done with something. “Fine. At least he gave you the biggest cabin. But we’ll have lessons in money, too.”

  “Thank you. I would be grateful.”

  She acknowledged that. “Back to lessons on serving Danu. You must learn to fight. I want you to dance for me, not to pleasure me,” she offered the phrase with raised brows, testing its appropriateness. It wasn’t appropriate at all outside of the bedchamber, but I nodded, unwilling to explain as much. “Fighting is like dancing,” she continued.

  I burst out laughing. “Not my dancing.”

  She smiled with me, but pointed at me. “I am the teacher. You do as I say. Dance.”

  “All right.” I stood up, bouncing on my toes. “I’m not dressed properly.”

  “That isn’t important. I will see how you move.”

  “Which dance?”

  “How many do you know?”

  I thought about how to explain it. Then shook my head. “I don’t know how to put a number to so many.”

  “Lessons on counting, too,” she said in a grim tone. Not angry at me for my ignorance, however, I thought. “Do the most difficult. The most…” She flexed her arm muscle.

  “Strenuous?” I asked. “Or the one I practiced longest to learn?”

  “That.” She sat back, lacing her fingers over one knee bent and crossed over the other. “Unless this place is too small.”

  “It is small, but I can dance in any space,” I told her, knowing I sounded proud and likely imperial, but not caring. In this thing I was the expert. No one in the seraglio at the Imperial Palace could match my dancing ability. I might be woefully bad at most of living in the world, but this I could do. Also, though I hadn’t meant to offer the ducerse, that certainly was both the most strenuous and the one it had taken me the longest to learn. It felt like I shimmered with the illicit energy of all the rules I was about to break. I’d broken so many that I didn’t hesitate to do this—not now that I understood Kaja’s reasoning—but it felt gleefully rebellious.

  I would dance the ducerse for Kaja. A tightly controlled version of it, but the ducerse begins in silence, in small movements, and escalates from there. I wore no bells, naturally, but I’d practiced many times without them, perfecting the grace and control required to move without making them chime. Dancing like that reminded me of practices in the seraglio, performing while the other women—the servants, concubines, rekjabrel, my sisters, even the other wives sometimes—looked on, chanting the songs and keeping the rhythm.

  Those had been good days, when I’d been blissful in my ignorance of the future, thinking I’d dazzle my husband with my skill and grace. That I’d love and be loved, that I’d extract myself from under my mother’s gaze and be powerful in my own right.

  Now I would dance for other reasons: to show off my skill, to demonstrate that in this, at least, I wasn’t a clumsy idiot. And as an act of rebellion.

  No one outside the imperial circles had seen the ducerse, certainly not danced by an imperial princess, albeit a disgraced and exiled one. My mother had danced it for my father, and her mother before her. For generations, this dance had been passed down through my maternal line. We danced it in public once and once only—for our betrothed husbands, as chosen by our fathers, and the attending court. After that, we danced it only for our husbands, an act as intimate as marital bedding.

  My former husband hadn’t asked to see it again. That hadn’t been what he wanted from me. Of course, our intimacy h
ad been of an entirely different variety.

  But I wouldn’t think of that.

  I selected two pearls from the handful I’d liberated, holding them in each palm, their smooth roundness a comfort, a reminder of all those times. I concentrated on the dance, wishing only that I had the appropriate costume. Still, the too-short pants worked as I lifted a foot to show glimpses of my naked ankles, my unveiled toes, the unscathed soles of my feet.

  Chanting the ancient poetry to myself as my only accompaniment, I accelerated. My knees lifted, thighs flexing, foot pointed to the ceiling, then crooked as I spun. I lifted my hands, opening them like flowers, offering my palms with the pearls perfectly poised. They wouldn’t roll off. I hadn’t dropped one in years.

  I moved faster, my upraised palms weaving, balancing the pearls in offering. Up on the toes of one foot, raising the other, bending and twisting. Staying always in my circumscribed space. I spun, imagining this as my first offering to Danu, that She might accept me.

  I am damaged, but I can yet dance, warrior Danu. Protect me and I will serve You faithfully all my life.

  My blood sang and I simmered with power, my feet stomping as they landed, propelling me off the ground. Had I the space, I would have added great leaps, spinning in the air. But there is grace and strength in keeping to the circle of the reach of my legs.

  At the culmination, I folded to the floor, palms upraised, the pearls perfectly in place.

  Utter silence.

  I looked up to find Kaja frozen in astonishment. The only time I ever saw her surprised.

  “You are as the best of athletes,” she finally said. “I will make a warrior of you.”

  ~ 5 ~

  “You grip the blade,” Kaja said, far from the first time, a bit of impatience in her voice as she said it. “Break the habit of having open hands. Balancing pearls while you spin means you have good hands. Sensitive to balance. Holding a blade is the same.”

  “It’s not the same at all,” I insisted, crawling under the bunk to retrieve the wooden practice blade from where it had clattered when it spun out of my grip.

  “You’re right. It’s easier, because you can grip it. Like so.” Kaja folded my fingers around the hilt of the dagger, her strong hands rough against mine. She’d produced a pair of them, silver and slim—and still three times the length of my eating knife—for me to use, but for the time being I practiced with a blunt substitute. “You keep forgetting and relaxing fingers. Grip it. This is not for pretty, but for deadly.”

  “I did grip it,” I complained. “The sweat makes it slick.” We were both drenched in sweat from working in the confines of my cabin, even with the portholes open to the sea. Another surprise, that my cabin had turned out to have windows I hadn’t known to open. A metaphor for my entire existence there. What the cabin boys and girls must’ve thought of me, sitting in the dark, the portholes closed and the lantern unlit. I hadn’t understood their offers to show me, so eager had I been to get them gone and bar the door again.

  Another metaphor there, no doubt.

  “This is no good,” Kaja grumbled. “You need to be able to practice in the open. We must have more space, and more supplies. I have a good idea.”

  “Oh?” I eyed her suspiciously. Kaja’s good ideas tended to mean some sort of difficult exercise for me. I’d discovered muscles I never knew I had, and Danu required an excessive number of prayers, all physical and all quite strenuous. In addition, Kaja had me praying at sunrise and sunset to Glorianna, which involved more calisthenics, and to Moranu, the goddess of night, as well. At least Moranu required nothing more than quiet meditation.

  “It never hurts to honor all of the Three,” Kaja had said, when I asked her why I should bother with Glorianna and Moranu, if I was going to swear myself to Danu. “They are sisters, yes, so They love each other, but sisters are also jealous, yes?” I’d thought of my own sisters, Inga and Helva, who I’d left behind, how we’d fought over the most petty of things, like klúts and hair ornaments, all of which I’d pay in a heartbeat to simply see them again. “Never make a goddess jealous,” Kaja continued, seeing my rueful agreement. “Not when you can have Her love as Her sister’s daughter. See? They can be as generous aunts.”

  “What is this good idea?” I prodded. Kaja liked to make me push her for answers, saying I had to learn to ask the right questions.

  “Tomorrow we dock at the Port of Ehas. No!” She barked, startling me, then more so when she thumped my wrist, sending the dagger flying again. “Don’t loosen your grip. A knife is not for dangling like some dainty posy.”

  “We were talking,” I grumbled, crawling under the bunk yet again to find the thing. A warrior always retrieves her own blade. “And I don’t even know what a dainty posy is.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you might be doing. A blade is in your hand; a blade stays in your hand. You have the grip of a girl.”

  “I am a girl.” I stood to face her, clenching the hilt in my hand in case she tried to knock it away again.

  “No,” she corrected, shaking her head. “You are a warrior of Danu.” She waited, brows raised, and I had to retrace the conversation. Kaja liked to do this, shaking my concentration, startling me out of complacency. I tended to daydream—or fall into those odd trances. She was forever saying that was fine for luxurious seraglios where I’d been no more than a pampered pet, but in the world I needed to be alert and ready.

  “What is significant about the Port of Ehas?” I asked.

  “Oh, it’s a grand port. Capital city of Elcinea and also a lovely place.” She stopped there. Waited for me to ask a better question.

  “What is your idea and what does it have to do with us docking at the Port of Ehas?” I asked with elaborate patience.

  She grunted, though I couldn’t tell if it was in approval or disapproval. “It’s the end of my journey, and I think you should disembark with me.”

  “What? No, I—Danu take it!” I exclaimed as she knocked the blade out of my hand, sending it under the bunk again. At least crawling under there gave me a moment to master my sudden grief and fear. I hadn’t thought about Kaja leaving the Valeria. Of course, I’d known we all would. But I’d liked pretending this time would last forever.

  “When surprised by something, tighten your grip if you must, to learn this habit. Someone jumps you from behind, you don’t curl up and whimper. You draw your blade. You use it. Which means you must hold on to it.” She glared at me, her dark eyes glittering, mouth pressed into firm lines. “How many times must I tell you this?”

  I stood again, holding the blade tight. “I understand, but hearing isn’t learning.”

  Unexpectedly, she smiled. “This is one of the smartest things you’ve said. Now, my plan is this. You will tell the captain you will go ashore in Elcinea. You will take all your things. And the frightened girl masquerading as a boy who paid him with a very obvious pearl will disembark in the large and busy Port of Ehas, never to be seen again. I have a bit of time before I must report to my next assignment. I can introduce a new acolyte to the Temple of Danu.” Her grin broadened. “You.”

  “Me? But—ha!” I kept my grip on the dagger, anticipating her move, then cursed when she easily made me lose the practice dagger in my left hand. “Danu’s tits!” At least this one went under the table.

  “Good with the cursing, but still too much Dasnarian,” she coached. “As an acolyte, you can take a vow of silence. This is in keeping with a vow of chastity, too. I will speak for you, and your accent and poor words won’t give you away.”

  “Your words in Dasnarian aren’t exactly perfect,” I informed her.

  “And no more imperial princess!” She snapped her fingers in front of my face. “You are not royalty. You come from Isles of Remus, where you were a goat girl.”

  “A goat girl?”

  “You like goats. Is natural connection. We stick with who you
are as much as we can. You had many brothers and sisters, but you grew up on a tiny island, ignorant. No teachers. You learn some from traveling priestess of Danu, then travel to Ehas as acolyte. You wish to take vows of silence and chastity, then we put you on another ship, this time as someone else.”

  “I don’t see how—” This time I evaded her strike, using a dance step to duck out of her reach. I couldn’t imagine being without Kaja, even after such a short span of knowing her. I was like a child who couldn’t swim, latching on to first one edge, then another.

  “Better, though a trick that won’t always work,” she allowed. She took one stride and had me backed into a corner. “Now what, little mouse?”

  I did my best to fight my way out. Not that I quite succeeded, but every day I came a little closer to it.

  * * * *

  The next day, I left the Valeria. I wrapped up in my cloak, wore the clunky boots, and carried my few things in the knotted bag I’d made of my old klút. Even Kaja had been a little shocked at what little my “things” consisted of. I’d at last exceeded her estimations, if only in the degree of pitifulness I’d succumbed to.

  The captain hadn’t been at all surprised when I declared my intentions—and had been generous in his relief that I didn’t attempt to reclaim the pearl I’d paid with. The only thing I took with me that I hadn’t boarded with was the pair of sharp daggers Kaja had loaned me and wouldn’t see me without, even for a short space of time, and even if I couldn’t use them as well as she liked.

  As I walked alone into the city, I realized that I did have something else I hadn’t had before: a measure of confidence. Though I went cloaked, I didn’t duck my face away from the passersby. I looked about boldly, the time aboard the ship giving me a rolling feel to my gait that became nearly a swagger like Kaja’s.

  I deserve to be here, I chanted to myself, as Kaja had made me drill. I am free. I belong anywhere I go. And none shall harm me because Danu travels in my heart, in my mind, and in my blade.

  And Ehas was beautiful. It reminded me of the seraglio, but on an infinite scale, as if the images on the walls of my home had been drawn from this place. The ocean here had a changed nature and name, called now the Sea of Elcinea. And, like the change from fierce Dasnaria to charming Ehas, the water lapped clear and calm, white sand rising from it to encircle the harbor. The city itself rolled over the hillsides, rambling with buildings of many tiers and windows, all made of white stone, and all facing the lovely blue sea. The buildings crowded densely around the harbor, like cats circling a pond, instead of the long, flat row at Sjór.