She walked another foot up and the tree groaned. I held on for all my worth, my heart hammering at the sight of the ground falling away beneath me. Ruthlessly I yanked my gaze up at the tree.
With a great creak and snap, the tree gave. Violet followed it down, waving her trunk in mad glee. Unearthing itself, the tree lowered to the ground, roots rising up in a reverse canopy of dirt. Violet backed up carefully, even delicately, not stepping on any parts of the downed tree. Then she danced her way to the feast of downed leaves, eagerly stripping them from the branches and stuffing great bundles into her mouth.
Bimyr joined us, happily helping herself. Ochieng grinned at me. “You stayed on!”
I’d even kept my hat on, so I preened a little, making him laugh.
“We might as well get down and let them enjoy. We don’t need to take more trees this year. Once the girls have eaten, I’ll show you how we carry the stripped tree to the river to float it down.” He jumped down off of Bimyr without bothering to ask her to kneel, so I did the same. I’d gotten much more agile with scaling Violet—and leaping off of her again—and could even keep my boots on without scuffing her. Handy for landing in bracken like this instead of the dusty arena.
“Hungry?” Ochieng asked. He’d slung a woven pouch over his shoulder and gestured to a shady spot under a tree with a view of the river. He pulled out an array of food—my favorites, no surprise that he’d paid attention—and laid them on a cloth he’d unfolded. There was even bia in a wrapped and corked ceramic vessel, which beaded with moisture within moments after he set it out. I stroked a finger through the condensation, finding the ceramic cool. From the deep caves beneath the hill then, where they kept blocks of ice that came up from caravans from the far south.
“That’s another sign.” Ochieng dipped his chin at the vessel. “As the rains form around us, they show themselves first by clinging to cool things. Once they begin, you’ll see—nothing is completely dry again until the season passes.”
It sounded so extraordinary. Though I wondered if it would to anyone else, to a normal person who hadn’t grown up in an enchanted place where sunshine came from old spells and nothing ever changed, including the people stuck inside. Our plants had flowered, but never grown or died. We’d lived there in a permanent cocoon, kept at one stage of existence. Even the pets I’d loved had simply disappeared.
We sat quietly, eating and drinking, watching the elephants feast on the fresh leaves and the big river sliding by in the distance, the current so slow that the water might have been a long strip of winding silver blue. I tried to imagine the sky clouded and sheets of rain obscuring everything and couldn’t.
A prickle of ominous foreboding crawled over my skin. Perhaps I couldn’t imagine it because I’d never actually see it that way. Though the rains should come within days. What could possibly happen between now and then to change things?
Nothing. I wouldn’t worry about it. I simply couldn’t envision it because I’d never seen such a thing. But I would soon. I’d wake up in my grass-roofed room and watch the rain drip off the eaves and shroud the river, and I’d sit in the big main area, crowded in with all the D’tiembos while the rains sheeted off the terrace, and have Ayela teach me to weave chains of dried grass to make bracelets and baskets while Ochieng told us stories.
Only after the rains passed would I have to think about leaving. For now, the sun shone, and the moment was good.
After we’d all sated ourselves, humans and elephants both, Ochieng packed away the remains of our meal and folded the cloth again. He rose and held out a hand to me. Unthinking, I took it and stood, but paused when he wove his fingers between mine. I’d never held a man’s hand like this, and I found myself regarding our joined fingers. They laced together well, making a pattern of dark and light. More than that, the sensation of his skin against mine filtered through me like the warm sunlight and the drowsy feel of the bia in my blood. A feeling of being cherished and cared for came with it.
Who knew a simple holding of hands could feel like so much more?
Uncertain, I tore my gaze from our hands to look into Ochieng’s face. He watched me intently—and from quite close—enough that it occurred to me to move away, though I didn’t. Something held me rapt. Lifting his other hand, he touched my cheek. He’d done that once or twice before, but not with this feeling behind it. This yearning that made me want to lean into his hand. As if he knew, he cupped my cheek and I let him, savoring the sensation of his warm palm on my skin.
His eyes burned into mine and I wondered what he saw, what he planned. But I wasn’t afraid. Instead, an intense curiosity filled me. I wanted without knowing what it might be. I’d never experienced anything like this kind of touching, and I felt something of the girl I’d been. The one who’d been so innocently eager for a husband. Before I knew what that would bring.
“La,” Ochieng murmured, and I knew I must’ve flinched, or something had shown in my eyes. The comforting sound was one he used with Efe, to calm and soothe her. It worked on me, too. “I won’t hurt you, lovely Ivariel.” He squeezed our joined hands. “I’ve got you. See?”
I nodded. I wanted to know what came next. How he’d touch me and how I’d feel. He leaned in, his face so near mine I felt his warm breath on my lips and scented the yeasty bia.
And then his lips touched mine. A sweet, enticing brush. Skin to skin and more. A taste, an inhalation of his breath becoming mine. Connection. All so delicious and quiet. As if we two existed apart from everyone in the universe.
I’d never kissed a man, not on the mouth. After all that I’d done with Rodolf, all he’d done to me, he’d never wanted that. I knew how, though, having practiced on the facsimiles we’d had for learning, and on some of the rekjabrel happy to tutor in such pleasures. Kissing the other women had been pleasant, but nothing like kissing Ochieng.
I opened, engaged, showing him my expertise, that I wasn’t some untutored innocent, ignorant of everything. Making a sound, he intensified the kiss, too, sliding his hand behind my neck, my head tipping back and hat falling away, heat rising between us like the sun rising, burning and dispersing the chill mist from the valley.
Our bodies touched—and I panicked. I struck out. Leaping away, I found myself poised to run, my heart hammering. Ochieng held up his hands, speaking to me, his words penetrating the haze that had taken my sense.
“Hold, Ivariel,” he coaxed. “You’re safe. It’s good.”
Something large and warm pushed against my back, and I leaned against Violet, grateful for her bulk. She snaked her trunk around my waist, mouth lipping my ear, the scent of masticated green leaves washing over me. Not entirely pleasant, and I turned my face away, pushing her off me and giggling.
Ochieng relaxed at the sound, smiling with relief. Making me realize how bizarrely I’d acted. That haze that took me over, as at the oasis. I didn’t understand it, so how could he. He wiped a hand over his mouth, smearing the trickle of blood.
Stricken, I extracted myself from Violet’s embrace and went to him. He held still as I drew a cloth from my pocket and dabbed at the blood, his eyes warm. At least I hadn’t drawn a blade.
“Don’t feel bad,” he said quietly. “Kissing you was absolutely worth it.”
~ 23 ~
We returned to the house by late afternoon, stopping at the supply storehouse to drop off the smaller branches we’d bundled up to pack back on the elephants. Violet and Bimyr had tag-teamed the big tree, carrying it together in their trunks to drop in the river, seeming to enjoy that, too.
And I finally understood the purpose behind the relay games. Ochieng explained that a weir across the river would stop the trunk at Nyambura. As soon as the rains began, the ropes would be hauled in, as far too much debris came downriver once it swelled. He’d taken a knife to carve the D’tiembo symbol—a kind of stylized elephant—into the wood, so those who retrieved it would know it to be ours.
“Perhaps you and I can split it together,” Ochieng said, a significance to his words I didn’t quite comprehend. “That trunk will make four fine poles, and we can carve them as you like.”
He seemed to be excited about the idea, so I nodded, pleased when he beamed at me.
The storehouse bustled with activity, people arrayed up and down the levels, busily storing goods from a caravan that had just arrived. Ochieng frowned slightly, then shrugged at my quizzical look. “Unusual for one to come so late in the season, but it’s from one of the other families. Some of the goods I’d arranged to come post-rains were included on carts in this one. I suppose it just worked out well.”
But a line remained between his brows.
We handed off our bundles of branches to the workers and sent the elephants on their way. They turned to the river, happily trotting off to join the others in their sunset bathing. One of the drivers hailed Ochieng, and he went over, falling into deep discussion and seeming to forget my presence entirely. Ah well, that gave me time to see if I could get a bath of my own.
Before I made it a few steps, Hart called my name. He’d fit into the larger Nyambura community and seemed to be thriving in it, though I saw him rarely. I smiled at him as he ran up. He held a tube in his hands. A chill washed over me as I recognized the seal of the Temple of Danu on it.
“Ivariel,” Hart said, holding the tube out, completely oblivious to my regarding it like a snake that might strike at any moment. “This came for you.”
He wiggled it at me, giving me an odd look, and I took it slowly. It didn’t bite. Not yet. The sense of foreboding, that feeling that I’d be leaving soon, returned with enough force to make me dizzy. Ochieng touched my arm, his unerring instincts having brought him over.
“What is it?” he asked.
“A message for Priestess Ivariel,” Hart supplied. “It came with the caravan.”
Ochieng regarded me gravely, understanding that this could be no good thing. Easing it from my numb fingers, he broke the seal and unrolled it. A cloth-wrapped package fell out. “It’s written in Common Tongue,” he noted, “which neither Ivariel nor I can read. Can you?”
Hart nodded, casually reaching for the thing, though Ochieng held it away from his grasp for the moment. “Do you want him to, Ivariel?” He asked the question in a slow, pointed way, and I scrutinized his face for meaning. How else could I know what it said? “You don’t have to know,” he clarified. “Some news is best left unknown.”
Something else lurked in his eyes, some news he’d just received, perhaps from the driver, because where there had been radiant happiness, wariness made shadows. I took the scroll from him, handed it to Hart, and braced myself. Ignorance had never saved me from unhappiness before. Tragedy found one regardless. Better to meet this eyes open and blade in hand. I could almost hear Kaja speaking the advice to me.
“To Ivariel, Priestess of Danu, late of Ehas, from Kaedrin, Priestess of Danu,” Hart read, and my already sluggish blood slowed and stopped in my veins.
Ivariel,
I hope you are well and this missive finds you safe and happy. Who knows how long it might take to travel to you, but I write this three months after parting ways with you at Ehas. I would not write, except that Kaja asked me to do so, in the eventuality that anything happened to her. It’s with great grief and pride that I inform you that Kaja has died in performing her service to High Queen Salena of the Twelve Kingdoms. She died blade in hand, which is as much as any warrior of Danu can wish for. We spoke of you that very morning. She had an idea that the situation would worsen and she might forfeit her life, so she asked me to send you her everlasting love and regard, along with this dagger. Her favorite blade I’m sending to her daughter, but this one she intended for you, asking you to plant it where it belongs for her. She also asked me to tell you she plans to become Danu’s handmaiden, so she could watch over you, so not to slack off in practicing your skills.
We will all miss her more than our hearts can bear.
With love also, Kaedrin
Hart had lost his insouciance, sagging as he read. “Oh, that’s really sad,” he added, rubbing at his nose, then rolling up the scroll again. Seeming at a loss, he offered it to me. “Sorry for the bad news, Ivariel.”
Oddly, the tears that had plagued me all these months refused to flow now. I nodded, taking the scroll and tucking it under my elbow. Ochieng jerked his head at Hart, who gratefully took the hint and ran off to help in the storehouse. I unwrapped the dagger Kaedrin had sent, the smaller version of the big blade Kaja had favored. Unable to imagine a world without Kaja in it, I turned it over in my hand. Plant it where it belongs.
Ochieng put an arm around me and I leaned into him, his steady calm like Violet’s. “I’m more sorry than I can say, Ivariel. She was your teacher?”
And my savior. My sister. The mother mine could never be. I nodded.
“What will help? We can walk. Swim with the elephants. Perhaps you need time alone.”
I glanced up, studying his face. No, there was more. I gestured to the driver, raising my brows.
Ochieng deliberately misunderstood, I could see it in him. “We can break out more bia. Take time for grief and celebrate life. Sit on the terrace and watch the sunset, toast to your friend. Once the rains come, we won’t be able to, so we should enjoy it while we can.”
I firmed my lips. Gave him a long and stubborn look. He looked away. “There might be some new treats that arrived in this caravan. Let’s see what there might be.”
“Ochieng,” I said, my voice rusty with disuse. His name sounded strange, twisted by my Dasnarian accent. I’d have to practice saying it better. I cleared my throat as he stared at me, wide-eyed in astonishment and looking almost afraid, as he never did. It seemed as if Danu’s hand lifted away, as if Kaja’s passing had released me from the vow. I dug the silver chain out from beneath my vest. As he watched, stricken, I removed the silver disk of the vow of silence and handed it to him. If I could have, I would have laid it on Kaja’s grave.
“Tell me what the driver told you.” I said it with surprising composure, my own accent odd in my ears.
“You’ve had a blow, Ivariel.” Ochieng sounded cautious. “It’s maybe not the time—”
“Tell me,” I commanded, seeing my imperial princess self reflected in his expression. Time for him to learn who I truly was.
“There’s news of men,” he said shortly. “Foreigners in metal armor, in Bandari, looking for a woman with pale blond hair, deep blue eyes, and scars on her wrists.”
I nodded, closing my eyes to assimilate it. Oddly I felt no particular fear, only acceptance of the inevitability of fate. Maybe I’d never truly imagined I could escape forever. I felt as if I’d been waiting for this moment, and the resolution of the suspense came almost as a relief.
“They have no reason to track you here,” Ochieng reassured me, though it sounded more as if he wanted to calm his own fears. “The rains will come and they won’t be able to reach you. They’ll be stuck in Bandari, which is miserable during the rains. Everyone leaves. They’ll get back on their ship and go back to wherever they came from. Wherever…you came from.” He trailed off, uncertain.
“Dasnaria,” I told him. It didn’t matter now, what he knew. My brother Kral or Rodolf had followed me somehow. Perhaps both of them. And they would have followed this caravan, no more than a day behind. I knew them well. Whatever trail they’d followed to Bandari—perhaps Kaedrin’s scroll, perhaps something else—would bring them to Nyambura.
The hatred that had been sleeping uncoiled in me, raising its head, baring its fangs. This was where my tears had gone. Burned or frozen away. Dead along with Kaja. Or eaten by this consuming hatred. I could never escape Rodolf. I’d known that all along.
“My husband has come after me,” I told Ochieng, watching the horror and disbelief replace his inheren
t joyousness.
“You…are married?” He actually staggered slightly. Ah yes, he’d kissed another man’s wife. I shouldn’t have let him compromise himself.
But it didn’t matter. I knew what I had to do.
~ 24 ~
Ochieng and I didn’t talk. Oh, he tried to get more out of me, but I refused, lapsing back into my silence, which felt habitual and comfortable now, rather than Goddess-given.
Had Danu ever shielded me? I doubted it. Very likely the goddesses weren’t real, just superstitious fabrications to explain why the sun rose and set, to justify coincidence and our own longings. If the goddesses did exist, then They had failed Kaja, the best of women. And the Three had caved to Sól, female yielding to male as had been written before time.
I went to my room, my usual habit in late afternoons before dinner, so no one questioned it. And when Ochieng called my name from the other side of the closed curtains, I ignored him. At last he went away, unwilling to violate that flimsy privacy even under such circumstances.
None of the rest of them had heard me speak, so they didn’t expect me to any more than usual. I enjoyed the evening’s dinner, listening to the conversations, though Ochieng declined requests to tell a tale. Zalaika and some of his sisters exchanged significant looks, glancing also at me. They no doubt blamed some argument between us for his black mood.
Rightly so.
And perhaps Ochieng believed on some level that I’d actually made those promises he asked for, because when I retired to my room, he stopped me as I left the terrace. Not by laying hands on me—in fact, he seemed to be scrupulously restraining himself from touching me—but via the simple maneuver of stepping between me and the stairs.
“Are you all right?” he asked, searching my face. “I’m here if you want to talk. Why keep to the vow you’ve already broken?”
Exile of the Seas Page 17
