Exile of the Seas

by Jeffe Kennedy

  Just as well that they didn’t know the full truth, that my “sword form” was truly a beautiful dance with a sword and dagger as part of the decoration. All surface and no substance. I could no more kill a man with my sword than I could with a pearl. Kaja thought my skills would develop over time, that the one would feed into the other. I had my doubts.

  Until then, I did my best to concentrate on what she gave me. Practice my grip. Support my blade with my body, not my arm. Build my upper body strength to match the lower. Let the dances I knew so well drive the rest.

  I ate the midday meal in my cabin, then spent a few hours practicing reading and writing Common Tongue on some spare scrolls Kaja had gotten me. Forming the words in my head, I tested them out in silence. I wasn’t at all tempted to speak them aloud, even in my solitude. A funny thing about that vow: as soon as I’d made it, I’d lost all desire to speak. As if Danu had cast an enchantment on me, settling Her hand on me and sealing my thoughts inside. I would supposedly know when the time was right for the vow to lift, but my voice felt so quelled, in a deep slumber of its own, that I rather expected I’d never speak again.

  Which seemed restful. As was my other vow, the one that quieted my body and made it unreachable by another’s lust. Now that I’d settled and had time to notice the effects of my recent promises to the goddess, it seemed the vow of chastity had calmed a different part of me. I hadn’t flinched away from the male passengers. And they hadn’t looked at me in that lustful way I’d learned to recognize, the kind that made my skin itch and made me long to pull a thick cloak around me.

  I felt clear of body, which surely must lead to a clear mind and clear heart.

  After sunset prayers to Glorianna, I visited with the goats and Ochieng again. He told me about the sea dragons beneath the waves. When I gave him a skeptical look, he insisted that if they weren’t there now, they had been in the past, and maybe would be again.

  “Once the world teemed with magic,” he told me, sketching the images with his long-fingered hands. “Dragons flew through the sky and lived under the oceans. Sorcerers and sorceresses practiced their arts like musicians and tailors do today. One could buy a spell in the marketplace along with fresh bread. The wealthy could purchase far more elaborate spells, some so perfectly crafted they lasted forever and can still be found by those wise enough to look.”

  I had to credit him there, as the seraglio in the Imperial Palace had been a place like that, with sunshine that came from nothing, keeping us warm and the flowers blooming in tropical lushness, even as the ice-cold lake outside the walls sequestered us. Just as well that I couldn’t tell him about it, as I suspected it was an imperial secret. Perhaps the vow of silence sat so well on me in part because of how effectively my mother had ground into me the habit of keeping secrets. But I did hold out my hands in question, indicating the lack of magic now.

  “Indeed, that changed,” Ochieng agreed. “Some say the magic died. Other stories say that death ate the magic, but that it will return someday—and we will fight death to keep it. Some say there is a paradise where all the magic is hoarded away and protected. There are tales, you know, that the High Queen of the Twelve Kingdoms is a sorceress herself, and that she used magic to win the Great War for High King Uorsin.”

  I listened with interest, as Kaja had gone to help that very sorceress. As Ochieng had indicated, he seemed perfectly fine with a one-sided conversation—and yet he didn’t take on the habit that the others did, of losing track of my listening. Even after we joined the group for dinner, Ochieng checked with me often for my reactions, satisfied with the slightest of smiles or nods.

  It made for a restorative routine on the journey to Chiyajua. I followed my rituals with an adherence to exact timing that likely would have shocked my nurse Kaia, who’d practically raised me and who’d forever nagged me to hasten my primping, or not to dally over something or another. Of course, the seraglio had felt timeless, the only change the dimming of the ambient light to simulate nightfall. Even that hadn’t been true night, but more of a twilight.

  True night is much blacker and more absolute. And it has stars.

  I hadn’t truly observed the stars before. First I’d been obsessed with seeing the sun—a rare treat on my wedding journey when the winter storms shrouded the sky more often than not—and after that I’d been so often afraid that I’d stayed indoors at night. Or I’d been so tired that I only slept.

  But one evening on the Robin, Ochieng offered to relate the stories shown in the stars. We drew near Chiyajua at that time, only days away, and he said we’d find the patterns different than in the Twelve Kingdoms. Captain Sullivan obligingly doused the lanterns at the rear end of the ship, and we all lay on the deck on our backs, looking up at the night sky, listening to the music of Ochieng’s voice as he told one story after another.

  He made them come alive, and in my mind’s eye, the rampant lion glowed gold, roaring as his mane rippled and he fought the rhinoceros. Sometimes I didn’t know the animal name he used—or it hadn’t been one on the tapestries in the seraglio—and I made up my own mind paintings for them. It seemed a new kind of freedom and power, to make them be whatever I wanted. No one could tell me otherwise, so I gave them wild colors and extra legs, wings and fins.

  One tale, however, riveted my attention. Ochieng’s voice, a deep and resonant sound from such a slender man, flowed over and around a vast plain of tall grasses, burnished to gold by the sun, and how the endiviunt tribe gathered to debate whether or not the sea could be drunk. There he showed us the vast river of stars the tribe followed to the sea, and then plunged their trunks into it, until they drained it dry. Or nearly did, until the fish tribe protested, sending the whales to battle the endiviunts, battering them with their mighty tails until the endiviunts could no longer hold the water in, spitting it all out until the sea once again stretched from shore to shore. A few ornery endiviunts, however, still liked to sneak out and drink down the sea, making the tide recede, until the whales made them give it back, sending the tide rushing back to shore.

  The word wasn’t the same as in Dasnarian—and Ochieng used another entirely, in his native tongue—but he translated it to Common Tongue for the others, so I knew it. I knew it from my conversation with Kaja, about the elephants I’d longed to see, back when I still believed I could have anything for the asking of it.

  For the first time since I’d taken my vow of silence, I burned to ask a question. I wanted to ask Ochieng if Chiyajua had elephants. But Danu’s hand stilled the impulse in me, and I realized that I would find the answer for myself. In only a few days, I would set foot on another new land, one with head-high grasses burnished gold by the sun, and perhaps elephants swishing through.

  I missed Harlan then, though not bitterly. With a sweet pang I recalled how we’d made our plans—or he’d made them and I’d agreed—to sail away and ride the elephants in Halabahna when we reached it. I truly hoped he’d seize his own freedom and do that very thing. Though I supposed that had been my dream and not his.

  So, lying on my back and seeing the parade of elephants following the river of stars to the sea, I sent a prayer to Danu. The stars were also hers, especially when Moranu’s moon hid from sight as it did then. I prayed that Harlan would find his dream, that Danu would guide his steps. And that he’d know it when She showed it to him.

  * * * *

  We arrived in Bandari, Chiyajua’s lone port city, in the late afternoon. I stood near the prow of the ship beside Ochieng, and several of the other passengers, listening to him excitedly point out the sights of his home. Had we been sailing into Sjór again, I wouldn’t have been evincing such enthusiasm about my homeland. Even without all that had happened. If my life had been different and I’d married a kind man, perhaps loved him, and if I’d also traveled to one of Dasnaria’s port cities—unlikely, even if I’d had the most affectionate or indulgent of husbands—then I still couldn’t have spoken
of my homeland with…such depth of feeling.

  I’d been proud to be of the ruling family of the Dasnarian Empire, but it had been an empty feeling. A shell of an idea polished to a high gleam but fragile as an egg with its contents blown out.

  Sjór and Ehas had been similar in size, though conformed differently. Bandari was much smaller and less formal. A few sailing ships sat at anchor in the protected outer harbor, but none bellied up to any pier. Treacherous rocks and shallows made that impossible, Ochieng informed us—even if the endiviunts hadn’t been drinking, he added with a wide smile.

  Instead, small boats and skiffs scurried across the water, some with little sails the height of a person, others rowed swiftly with paddles. Larger ones that belched smoke from metal stoves on the decks circled about, the people aboard calling out words in musical voices like Ochieng’s. As I watched, one scooted over to a big galleon, a sailor on the larger ship lowering something in a basket, then drawing up a packet in exchange.

  “Clay smoked fish,” Ochieng told me, noting my interest. “We shall have to get some as soon as we disembark. We can all go,” he said in a raised voice to the group. “We’ll visit my favorite place and I’ll treat you all to a fine meal.”

  Everyone agreed with delight, and I began to feel as if I’d joined those who’d traveled to Chiyajua simply to see the sights.

  * * * *

  A set of the little boats ferried us ashore, pulling up onto the shallow beach, which turned out to be formed of small gray pebbles, polished smooth by water. I picked one up while I waited for the others to disembark, turning the thin oval over in my fingers. It would be lovely to take off my boots and walk barefoot on the pebbles, to feel their slick slide under my bare feet. But no one else did that, so better not to.

  Once everyone gathered—those with larger bags or trunks having arranged to send them to their overnight lodgings—we walked as a group to Ochieng’s promised eating establishment. The roads of the town were packed dirt, with dust rising from the passage of people and animals. Most of the establishments along the way seemed to be no more than poles with dried grass on the roofs and colorful curtains to make walls. The latter were mostly pulled back, so the streets beyond and the harbor could be seen through the layers of different shops.

  Ochieng paused at one where a man and woman sat braiding grass into wide-brimmed hats. They greeted him with happy cries, embracing him and thumping him on the back. He gestured to our group, told the couple something, then said, “I’ve asked them to furnish you all with a hat. My gift to you, as they are family. The sun of Chiyajua is quite strong and you’ll find yourselves growing dizzy and overheated without it.”

  Indeed, I’d been wondering about the burn of the intense sun on my black hair. I’d freshened the dye two nights before, making sure to cover the pale roots, which had looked stark white in contrast. The others in the group happily browsed, trying on various styles. I watched them covertly, preparing to imitate their methods for shopping, as this would be my first time to try it.

  But Ochieng came up to me with a hat in his hands. Made of a blue so dark it looked black until the sun shone on it just right, and woven so tightly that it gleamed, the hat sported a round, wide brim. “I think this one is for you, Ivariel.”

  I took it from him, turning it round in my hands, then raising my brows at him. It seemed very large.

  “Your skin is very pale,” he said, “even being in the sun every day, you have not tanned much. You must guard against being burned by Chiyajua’s sun.”

  Burned by the sun? That must be one of his exaggerated tales. Others had said similar to me about the sun, that if I stared at it so much my eyes would be burnt, and that hadn’t happened. Still, I gave him a smile and settled the hat on my head. The woman proprietor came over with a hand mirror, holding it for me so I could see. The hat entirely hid my short hair, framing my face and making my eyes stand out bluer than ever. She smiled broadly, much like Ochieng’s grins, and spoke approvingly to him.

  “We agree it is perfect for you,” he informed me.

  It was big, and bold, but Kaja wanted me to be bold. And I liked that I could use my old skills of watching from my peripheral vision, made easier by the wide brim and my appearing not to.

  I tried to pay for it myself. I had acceptable coin and was wary of the ramifications of a gift. His people seemed to be openly generous, but I’d rather avoid any implicit obligations. But Ochieng and his friends ignored me, refusing my coin. I finally gave in, thanking him with a smile. He seemed as happy as if I’d given him a gift, rather than the reverse.

  All wearing our new hats—and blending in more, as everyone seemed to wear one—we strolled down a few more structures to a place at the end of the row. This one was larger than the others by a substantial amount, and consisted of a series of woven platforms connected at various levels, descending from the level of the road down to the gently sloping beach. At the far end, a tumult of Ochieng’s jungle crowded down to the water, looking like something out of one of his stories.

  The sides stood open to the sea breeze, with the curtains tied back and fluttering colorfully. The grass sheaves shaded everything beneath, and several of our group commented on the relief of being cool. Ochieng, after discussion with the proprietor, led us to a large table on a lower platform near the water. We sat on long benches, and Ochieng showed us how to store our hats on the shelf beneath our seats.

  Serving boys and girls brought us metal pitchers, beaded with moisture, and when they poured for us, the golden liquid bubbled and made our metal mugs cold to the touch. Bia, he called it, a specialty of Chiyajua. Not sweet like wine, it had a pleasant, even slightly bitter flavor, and a crispness with the bubbles that made it seem especially refreshing.

  Along with the rest of the group, I left the ordering of food to Ochieng, and it seemed as if we enjoyed dinner aboard the Robin still. Except Captain Sullivan had bid us farewell. After this, I realized with a pang, the rest of us would also part ways.

  And I had no idea where I would go.

  ~ 10 ~

  I alone seemed to feel subdued—though in my habitual silence I doubted anyone would notice—as the others spoke with excitement of their next plans. No one would stay more than the night in this village, as it existed mainly to serve the harbor and the people coming and going. The bigger cities lay elsewhere.

  We’d had several rounds of the bia, which gave me a pleasingly relaxed feeling, despite the lingering anxiety that I would have to determine a direction for myself once this luncheon ended. And I began to feel less morose. For the time being it felt good to enjoy the gregarious company, the sun glinting on the blue water, and the delicious bia. I was to learn how to be in the moment, so I imagined that included pleasure as well as being alert to fight.

  Then the serving boys and girls brought out trays of what looked like unglazed pottery, but so hot it steamed and Ochieng warned us not to touch them as they came fresh from the fire. My girl, wearing big gloves that engulfed her hands, set one in front of me. She gave me a shy smile, then brought out a small silver mallet, rapping the pot—delightfully crafted to look like a leaping fish—sharply with it. I gasped to see the pot fall away in shards, destroyed, but then hot steam rose up from the inside. When it cleared, I peered in to see a pale pink variety of fish, swimming in a broth with unfamiliar fruits and vegetables.

  “Eat! Eat!” Ochieng proclaimed, laughing at our consternation. “It’s best steaming hot. Like so.” He brandished the pair of sticks laid by the plate. I’d thought them to be decorative, as they looked like no eating utensil I’d seen. Carved perhaps of bone, mine showed a scene under the sea near the pointed tips, with waves and swirling fish, rising to land and finishing with a flared canopy of trees at the top. Ochieng used the pair as pinchers, to spear the vegetables, or held together to scoop up the flakey bites of fish.

  It was better than anything I’d ever t
asted. Bright and fresh, also richly melting on my tongue, as the snowflakes had, back on my bridal journey. Only hot and salty, and I was free. Ivariel enjoyed her lunch with greed and gusto, nodding with enthusiastic agreement to the exclamations of praise from the rest of the group.

  Ochieng beamed at us, beyond delighted to have shared his great pleasure. The dish was a common one in Chiyajua, but with many regional variations, he explained. Different families maintained their recipes in secret, handing them down as a legacy to the next generation. The style of the encasing derived from the family crest, and the meticulous design was also a great source of pride.

  “But such artistry to be carelessly destroyed!” Hart protested, picking up a shard of his own casing, examining the detailed scales of the ceramic fish.

  Ochieng held up his hands, almost as if in offering. A lighter tint than the rest of his skin, his palms seemed to catch the light bouncing off the water, as if he indeed held something there. “It’s no less beautiful, the artistry no less accomplished for being transient,” he explained. “In fact, more so, because now it lives only in our minds, where it may grow more beautiful with the affection of memory.” He tapped his temple in demonstration, a gesture that reminded me of Kaja, then laid his hands over his flat belly as if it were round with food, a broad, contented smile on his face. “And the meal all the more delicious, too.”

  Following his example, we picked up our now cool clay pots and drank the last of the broth. I picked out a shard of the fish design and tucked it in a pocket of my leathers, noting that others took a similar souvenir.