Still shaking her high cowled head, Rebeke left the room. Medie remained perched on her stool, seeming to listen to some inaudible sound. Then, eyes full of wariness, she slipped from the stool and hurried over to the small enamelled casket on its black table. Her eyes devoured it as she weighed her decision. One more glance at the door. Her long dark fingers flickered over the colored stones in their settings. She was deft and sure in her touches.
But the casket remained closed. Medie stood for an instant, letting one finger tap thoughtfully upon the box. Then a thin smile stretched her scaled lips. More slowly, with deliberate pressure, her fingers probed the casket. She sighed. The lustrous black lid loosened and rose in her hands. She set it carefully aside. Wariness froze her.
She stared at the linen wrapping carelessly bunched over the casket's contents. It was not right. Someone had been here before her. Her eyes narrowed speculatively. Rebeke had not wanted her to open this casket. Was it because she had already opened it herself? How many veils, Medie wondered, must she lift before she beheld the true Rebeke? Beneath the many shells of deception and wariness, was there a Windsinger at all? Her guilt at opening the box vanished in the light of Rebeke's deception of her. Unhesitatingly, she twitched aside the linen wrapping. She stared down upon the wizard's folded hands joined to their block of white stone veined with red and black.
In cool curiosity, Medie touched them. They were cold, the long tapered fingers stiffly unyielding to her gentle pressure, but not with the stiffness of death. She tapped an envious finger on the black stone set in the simple ring. She longed for it, but longed with the knowledge that such things must be taken correctly, if they are to be taken at all.
'So she has you at last, Dresh. But not as she once would have wished it. I wonder if you ever supposed it would come to this. None of us did. I wonder if she will have the spirit to carry this thing through. She thinks she has the will. But there's a deal of space between the dream and the deed.'
FOURTEEN
'I've never seen anyone row that way before,' Vandien ventured.Janie pulled her eyes back from the horizon and gave him a disdainful look. She made no reply. Vandien abandoned his attempt at conversation and contented himself with observing.
He sat on the fishy floorboards in the bottom of a double-ended dory. The brisk wind licked his face, making the scar tighten with the cold. It did not hurt - yet. He appreciated the heavy cloth of the smock and trousers and the extra material that held the warmth against his body. Janie had furnished the knit wool cap that snugged his curls to his head and covered his ears. Janie's blue-grey smock and trousers made her eyes show their true color. A cap of grey wool proved oddly flattering to her. Her high cheekbones were touched red by the wind. Her blond hair escaped from the cap to wave loose against her shoulders. She wore loose soft boots, shorter than his. Vandien remembered what Berni had said about boots last night. 'No one hereabouts wears boots like yours. What if you fell into deep water in those? They'd fill with water and drag you down before you kicked them free. Loose enough to slip out of, and soled to grip the deck without scarring it; that's what you need hereabouts. Helti! Better look to boots for our teamster before tomorrow's tide!'
The dory rode like a seagull. It was clean, with not a string of dried gut or a scale to show its use. Rainlady was burned into her name-plank. Janie stood in the center of her, looking toward her goal. The long oars dipped and rose steadily. She pushed on the oars, lifted them clear of the water, drew them back to her chest, sank the oars into the water and pushed again. Vandien marvelled at it. He did not volunteer to take a turn at it. He was sure he could find other ways to make a fool of himself soon enough. And yet she made it look easy; the motion was all in one piece, without jerks or hesitations. He should have suspected those muscles in her shoulders, he realized, remembering the easy way she had handled the large buckets of water. Her mouth was set in a grave line. She would speak when she was ready.
Janie had awakened him in the dark, shaking him roughly by the shoulder so that there could be no mistaking her intention in coming to his room at such a time. He had stumbled about in the dark, for she had brought no candle and would not let him light one. 'Meet me by the back door!' she had commanded him as soon as she was sure he was fully awake. She had left him to dress and puzzle in the dark.
The inn was silent as he came down the stairs. The only light in the common room came from the dying embers in the fireplace. He found the great door unlatched; it opened to his cautious push.
Janie waited by the back door. She shushed his questions, pushing the wool cap into his hands. Then she had led him away into the darkness, although the smell of dawn was on the air. 'I wanted to catch this tide,' was all she would say. 'And I like to be up and about when the rest of the village sleeps still.' He had followed her to where her dory was tied to a sagging little dock. 'Sit flat on the deck!' she had commanded him in a hiss. 'Rainlady rides high and light with such a small load. She'll be lively enough for me to handle without your leaning over the side.' Vandien had sat, and been as silent as his companion.
Morning showed in the face of the water before it touched the sky. The oily darkness of the waves gave way to a silvery greyness, and then the sun was edging up over a watery horizon. 'Holiday. Whole village will be sleeping in after last night. We've the sea to ourselves, for a while.' Janie told him that, and seemed to think it was all he needed to know.
Vandien was content to watch her manage the boat. He glanced back once to see how far they had come. Not as far as he had thought, and yet the distance seemed much greater than if he had been looking back over a road on solid land. The insubstantial terrain of the sea lent its strength to the distance. Vandien suddenly felt that shore was a tremendous distance away. The dancing dory seemed a temperamental thing to trust his life to; it was no more than a few lapped planks, bowed and fastened together. It rode the waves joyfully, rising to show them the world, and then sliding down to diminish their horizons. Vandien would have preferred a more sedate vessel. 'Like riding on a gull,' he told himself, and found the image of webbed feet propelling the boat more likely than the rigid oars rising and falling in unison.
The rhythm was broken. Janie stood still, letting the oars trail in the water. 'This is where it starts to drop off. We're over the old village. It was built on the gentle slope at the foot of the hill. The temple was built out on the spit. Some say that at high tide the sea surrounded the temple, and that at low you could walk to it across the sand spit. But that was all a long time ago. No one can say how it truly was. All that is certain is that when the village sank, the temple sank even deeper. At least one tide a month will bare part of the village, but only the lowest tide of the year reveals the top of the temple. Only one year in three has a tide low enough to make salvage possible.'
Vandien was silent. Janie seemed to be waiting for him to say something. He didn't. If she was going to talk, he would let her. He sensed that she would welcome an excuse not to talk. No matter what he said, that angry face would darken and put all his words in the worst possible light. He would not ask her why she had brought him out here. He just met her grey eyes solemnly and waited.
But not even silence could placate her. Having decided to speak, the words boiled out of her, merciless and scalding. 'You asked a question last night, teamster. It was never answered. Instead, you listened to the village scoff at me. When they were through, you didn't bother to seek for any other answers. What did they tell you after I left? That my mother was a drunk, like her parents before her? That she would say anything, do anything for a drink? Well, teamster, that's true. But two things she left to me: Rainlady, who belonged to my father before the sea took him, and a story. The story she never told for a drink. The only story she saved for me.'
She paused. Her color was high, her cheeks bright with more than wind's kiss. To agree with her would be just as bad as to contradict her. So Vandien waited.
'My grandfather told it to her,' she went on a bit mor
e calmly. 'He was a very old man, and some said he was wandering in his mind when he told it. Others said he would never be sober again. So they didn't bother to listen, except for my mother. That's why they all know of the tale, without knowing the details. I have never told it to anyone. Let them live in ignorance. I won't stand up and let them call me a fool over what I cannot prove. That was what I always said to myself. That is how I'd keep it until I die, except for...' Janie sighed. She suddenly broke the thread of her talk.
'There is one person in the village you can believe. Srolan. She's old and crazy, but not so crazy that she doesn't know the truth. I've never known her to break faith with anyone. She...' Janie suddenly looked at Vandien, really looked at him. In her eyes he saw sympathy and understanding beyond her years, the kind that is only taught by cruelty endured. 'She told me why you came to do this thing. No one else knows, but Srolan and I. The village council knows of the money she offered. It doesn't worry them, for they don't expect to pay it. But Srolan told me why you truly came; to have the scar lifted from your face. She said that, if you are a man that can see she is sincere when she offers to do what most would deem impossible, if you can look at her and are wise enough to see that she would not offer what she cannot deliver, then you are a man that will hear my tale and know the truth of it. She did not ask me to tell it to her. She knew I would have been able to say no to that. All she said was, Try him yourself, and left me to sleep on that.'
Vandien looked at her quietly. The chill wind outlined the scar across his face it was a stiffness he was always aware of in cold weather. The colder the wind, the more insistent the old wound became, beginning merely as a dull ache. In the coldest weather, in times of blowing snow, the scar pressed between his eyes and down the side of his nose with a pain that was nearly as sharp as a burn, but constant. If he spent any time in the cold, it pulled at his whole face. Ki knew of the pain, but did not suspect the extent of it. He no longer complained about it. He had not mentioned it since the evening he had lain in the wagon, giddy with agony, while she prepared a steaming compress for it. She had been careless as she leaned over him to arrange it on his face. He had looked up into green eyes full of guilt, mirroring his pain. He had been shamed, for he was not a man to manipulate others with emotions. The next day he had ridden through the snow all day, and never mentioned that his eyes were separated by a line of fire. Ki never heard or saw his pain again.
Even on fine days, he could not lose the shadow it cast over his face. Vandien was a man behind a scar, ever concealed, always distorted by his own face. Now this fair-faced child was looking at him as if she understood.
'Why do you stay in False Harbor?' he asked her suddenly.
She was startled, caught without words. Vandien wondered why he had given her the question. 'Never mind,' he said hastily. 'Just tell me your story, if you will. I think we can understand one another well enough.'
Apprehension showed on Janie's face as she pondered him. It made her grey eyes stern as her mouth went sullen. He thought she would row him back to shore. But her need to tell someone won out.
'Look over the bow,' she commanded him. 'Keep your body low in the boat; just lean your head over so you can look down. That's right. You may have to shade your eyes from the glare of the sun. Keep watching.'
Vandien saw nothing but water. He shaded his eyes and peered, but the surface of the water baffled his eyes. He saw bits of seaweed floating by. Rising bubbles like seed pearls. Then his eyes caught the trick of it. Tiny black fish wriggled beneath the surface of the water. He leaned over more, both hands cupping the sides of his face, and looked down. He could see bottom. Seaweed-covered foundations stared blankly up at him. Off to one side, a chimney still stood as tall as a man. The rest was tumbled into a rubble, the lines softened by the sea life clinging to it.
'See the houses? Hard to imagine folk living there, eating their supper around the tables, mending their nets by the door. Keep watching.'
Janie took up her oars again. The boat glided up and down on the waves as Janie pushed it forward, and through all that motion his eyes tried to focus on the uneven bottom. He felt a moment of queasiness. He saw patches of sand rippled into ridges by the sea, and fine seaweed that trailed airily from sunken house walls. Flounder stretched flat on seaweed-mossed hearths. Clouds of fingerlings hung suspended. Crabs imitated barnacle-crusted rocks that might have been other crabs. The sea floor began to drop away.
'We'll be over the temple soon. It's harder to see, because it's deeper. But I don't like to go above it on a low tide. Things happen to boats that do that. Fishing's no good there, anyway. The fish don't collect around the temple like they do the old houses. Can you see it yet?'
Vandien glanced back at her quickly. She nodded at the water impatiently. Her hands were busy on the oars, making the small paddling motions that kept them in position. Vandien looked down again. He strained his eyes. Just before the depth of the water made all blackness, he thought he saw the outline of a wall. That was all.
'Now this is what my mother said her father said. The tale is older than you might expect. She was born very late in his life, and he told it to her when he was a very old man. Because of who her father was, my mother did not take a mate until late in her years; I was born to them long after they believed her barren. They say my sister, who came after me, was the death of her. Women that old should not bear, for though they may survive it, their health is never the same. But, old as it is, here is my grandfather's tale.' Janie cleared her throat. Her voice changed; now she recited. She began, 'This happened a long time ago, Carly. I was a fine youth, then, a fine strapping youth, and the best fisher in the fleet. Back then, we cared about our village, and we still remembered how the Windsingers had sunk it. We wanted to right that wrong, and we wanted to do it on our own. None of this hiring foreign teamsters to come in and do our dirty work. None of this looking for a stranger folk to make our revenge on those who'd done us evil. None of this dragging outsiders into our quarrels. We were a proud folk, then. Proud. And I was a fine youth then, a fine strapping youth, and the best fisher in the fleet. Maybe I was the proudest of a proud lot. But back then, we didn't count that a bad thing. When Temple Ebb would come, all the younger folk would drop their fishing for a day. No matter how good the catches had been, no matter if crab were swarming up the beaches, we dropped it all and did our duty. We'd follow the tide out as it went, so as not to lose a minute of it. As soon as the water was less then neck deep in the temple, in we'd wade. And we'd begin to search. We weren't certain just what the Windsingers had lost there. But we were determined to have it.
'I'd been out to the temple at every Temple Ebb, since I was tall enough not to drown there. Others turned back, for the Windsingers did their best to stir up a drowning storm, even in that level of water. But not I. I was out in the temple, wading in that tumbled mess, searching for whatever that little Windsinger child had lost there. Others were content to wade about a bit, poke where they'd poked every year, and go back to shore. But not me. I lifted stones, I shifted waterlogged timbers. Waves and tides move things about with a strength beyond men, and the quake that dropped the roof in and most of the walls could have buried anything. Only a fool would expect to find the Windsingers' chest sitting on the top of the rubble. And I was no fool.
'Most of the others had given it up that year, and gone back to shore. But I stayed, and I wasn't alone, for Paul stayed with me. The village no longer speaks of Paul, does it? Paul, who was their darling, as I am their dastard. He was my friend, when all the others used my name as a curse. No matter how often I was drunk, Paul was there, sober, to see me safely home. If my catch was poor, he shared his with me. Let any man speak ill of me, and Paul would speak out on my behalf. He was all a man should ever be, and my one true friend. None could help but love him, man and maid alike. No one doubted that he would do great things. No one was surprised that he stayed in the temple on the black night of that Temple Ebb.
'Water was up
around our hips, but we didn't care. We went to work on some of the bigger blocks, ones a single man couldn't lift. Together we'd toppled them over and looked underneath. We were in the southwest corner of the temple. We had moved a number of stones, not being too careful where we put them. Just getting them out of our way, to see what was under them, and not finding much more than crabs and sand. In the very corner was one big brute of a stone. Even together, we couldn't budge it. But we were stubborn. Paul waded back to shore, through that howling tempest the Windsinger was brewing. He went to the tavern and asked for help. But no one would come. It's cold, they whined. It's wet and the tide will soon turn. Stay with us, Paul, and drink. Duce will come in soon enough. But Paul had honor. He wouldn't stay to drink or warm himself. Back he came to me, with an old broken oar. We stuck it under the stone, and he lifted, and we heaved, and up she rose. Neither of us could take our hands away from the oar, for the stone would've dropped again. So I just sneaked a foot under there, and scooped out whatever I could reach. Mostly sand, and then my foot caught on a thing that dragged. Slowly it came out, and all the time we pressed down on that oar. Little by little, I scraped it alone. Out it came. We both stared. We knew that we had it.
'We'd found the Windsingers' chest. Ever so careful, we eased that rock down. Paul just stood holding the oar, staring down at it through the water. But I knew the tide was turning, and we had no time to waste. I took my breath and stooped down and got my hands on it. Cold! So cold it burned my hands, but I was a fine youth, a fine strapping youth, and I didn't let it go. Paul crouched beside me, and took his end. Together we strained. I felt my knuckles cracking, and heard the creaking of his shoulders. We brought it up, our lungs nearly bursting with the effort. How little Windsinger children had ever lifted it, I'll never know. It took all the strength in both our bodies to raise it. Maybe its time under the sea had soaked it full and swelled it heavy. But we had it. We had it! I looked to Paul, and he was grinning like a skull. Let's get it to shore, he said, and I nodded. Then it happened. We heard the bell toll. Know where that bell is, Carly? Know why no one's ever seen it, but the whole village has heard tell of it? Because it's down there in the Windsingers' cellar, that's why! That cellar never caved in, it just filled up with water. That's where the bell hangs, and the right tide can ring it. We heard it bong, to shake the very earth under our feet. We knew the tide was turning. Time to go, and fast. Paul took a step, and I started to follow. Then he gave a yell and stopped still. He jerks about, looking scared, and right away I can tell it's his foot. We ease the chest down beside him. His foot was jammed deep between some of the stones we had shifted. He couldn't get out. Well, I can't hold that chest and pry him loose. I can't carry the chest alone. And even if I could, it's too late. The tide had turned. Before I could be back for him, he'd be under. I was a proud man, Carly, and not one to let a friend down. I put the chest from my mind.
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