Then the air came, slowly, and he could breathe again. After a long time of gasping and coughing, he rolled back. Above him, through salt-bleary eyes, he saw Sasha. He was in Mari's boat, he realised. It was moving toward the shore. Away from the serrinim. Away from Saalshen. Toward foreign lands filled with cold and hostile people who did not understand him, and wished all his people dead. Strangely, that thought did not bother him, either, as much as it might.
Sasha was talking to him, but he couldn't hear much-there was a rushing, buzzing sound in his ears. Possibly they were full of water. He lifted his good arm and felt her hand clasp his. Most humans might have wished the serrin dead, but this one didn't. This one would fight to save him. It seemed the least he could do to return the favour.
“Hold on, Errollyn,” she was urging him. “We're almost home.”
Home. Now, he had no home. Home would be wherever she was. And that thought did not bother him very much either.
The wind was chill atop the North Pier Temple. Sasha pulled her coat tight as she sat on the small terrace above her quarters. Below, men hauled baskets and donkeys pulled carts filled with trade-cages of noisy chickens, ducks or geese; huge bundles of green, leafy vegetables; bags of potatoes and cauliflower; bags of flour and grain; and sometimes livestock tied into long trains of rope. Transportable items, for the docks.
Right on the southern edge of North Pier, the temple was always surrounded by a cacophony of activity. The new father, Father Recheldi, was a decent enough man, quieter and less well loved than Father Berin, but perhaps that would change in time. He had returned five days before from the grand mass to elect a new archbishop, and had had little to say about the process, save to shrug and murmur, “Time will tell.”
A man named Tietro was archbishop now. Few had ever heard of him, save that he came from a northern Torovan town in Danor, and Family Tietro were said to be close allies to Duke Tarabai of Danor. The days of fatherly neutrality, it seemed, were over. Few had been surprised.
Sasha had been pleased, though, that Father Recheldi had not returned with instructions from higher up that she and Errollyn could no longer be quartered in the temple. Most of the Torovan priesthood did not know that the North Pier Temple even existed…or not until recently, at least. Dockside temples were unaligned, the families of their priests neutral in broader Petrodor alliances, and their fathers thus unable to trade favours and climb the ranks to the higher slopes. Perhaps those higher ranks now thought to offer Father Recheldi favours to spy on her, or worse…Sasha did not know. She remained alert, and trusted no one but her closest friends. She'd been in Petrodor for long enough now that that was more a reflex than a conscious decision.
From back toward the dockside, she could hear the rush of waves against the dock and the creaking of boats at the pier. From the North Pier, yells and shouts, the trundling creak of heavy wagons, and the squeal of pulley ropes hauling loads. Further south, toward South Pier, the cries of the marketplace …and a more recent sound, the clinking and hammering of tools. Dockside was being rebuilt.
As she gazed up the vast, shambling slope before her, the bells were tolling once more as the upslope temples joined in the celebrations. The North Pier Temple did not have a bell. Father Berin had had better things to spend money on.
The trapdoor behind her creaked and Sasha turned in her chair to see Errollyn pushing up through it. His left arm was in a sling, yet he wore his sword all the same. The bow, of course, he left in their quarters.
“I wonder if they'll ring the same when the demons of the apocalypse come flying through,” he remarked, seating himself in a nearby chair. He pulled some grapes off the small table between and stretched with a wince. He looked tired, his hair in even greater disarray than usual, yet to Sasha's eyes he seemed healthier each day.
“I think maybe this is the demon of the apocalypse flying through,” Sasha said.
Errollyn smiled. The bells were tolling because Torovan had a king. Following the announcement of the new archbishop, the archbishop had then turned around and declared a sole ruler for Torovan-a king, as there had never been a king in eight hundred years.
King Marlen Steiner.
“He had us all right from the beginning, didn't he?” Sasha sighed. “Probably from when he first heard of the coming war.”
“Royalty is a strangely attractive notion for humans,” Errollyn remarked, shifting to seek a better position. He was always stiff, always getting aches in strange places. Worse, he tried to exercise as though he'd never been hurt, until Sasha had threatened to tie him up like Rhillian had. Kessligh was little better, though somewhat more patient. Between the two of them, Sasha sometimes felt like a nursemaid.
“Probably he was the one who started Archbishop Augine and the others table-thumping about the war in the first place,” said Sasha. “Marry a Lenay princess, start a war, destabilise your enemies and claim all the spoils when they collapse. That's quite a list, even for Patachi Steiner. Even his worst enemies underestimated his ambition.”
Marya had been the key. Lenay royalty. It had long been agreed that marrying into Lenay royalty did not confer royalty upon a Petrodor family. Marya had been a princess, yet that did not make Symon Steiner a prince…nor Patachi Steiner a king. It was a status symbol, nothing more, like the fancy jewels that Family ladies wore-a Lenay princess was an exotic status symbol for powerful Petrodor men. A fashionable accessory, like a necklace, or a jewelled dagger. Or a pet wolf. Only now, the new archbishop decreed that such a marriage was enough to make Patachi Steiner a king, and the entire Family Steiner a royal family. And it became so because there was no one left of sufficient power and resolve to prevent it. Torovan had a king, because those who mattered decided that it should. Sasha had read and heard told of enough old, romantic Torovan tales to know that it wasn't supposed to work this way-always in those tales there resided the notion of entitlement, that one ascended to such things because it was right and proper, and decreed by the heavens. But then, that was why the archbishop existed, to decree on the gods’ behalf. No one ever questioned who put the archbishop in power. The gods did. Of course.
Obviously her own father, King Torvaal, hadn't seen this coming either. He'd interfered by marrying Alythia to Family Halmady, and thus unknowingly creating a rival claim to the throne of Torovan. Steiner's claim would be superior, of course, because Marya was elder, but the Great Families of Petrodor were nothing if not insecure. Claims could be extinguished as easily as lives.
It was all so silly. Sasha had never been a great lover of royalty, but most of that had been for personal reasons. She'd never, until now, been quite so disgusted by the entire concept. She was revolted by it. Was this how kings were made? Through greed, murder, intrigue and villainy? Some kind of king Patachi Steiner would make, she was certain. Now, as Kessligh had predicted, things were worse.
“There's not going to be enough space on the old Maerler Mansion plot to build his new castle,” said Sasha.
“He won't stop at the old mansion plot,” Errollyn said grimly. “He'll build on all of Sharptooth.”
“Three of those families conceded rather than fought,” Sasha reminded him.
Errollyn shrugged. “You think that'll matter?”
Sasha thought about it. Then shook her head. “You're right. He'll demolish the lot.”
“King of Torovan,” Errollyn said, as though the words tasted foul on his tongue. “I'm sure he'll adopt the grandest trappings of royalty he can find. He'll keep all his trading empire, all the ships, all the warehouses. He'll turn all his allies into lords, give them holdings…not high enough to offend the dukes, but high enough.”
“Make the relationship formal,” Sasha agreed, nodding. “Formality has an odd way of changing people's behaviour.”
Errollyn raised an eyebrow. “As a Lenay, you'd know.” Sasha shrugged. “That castle atop Sharptooth will dominate the city. I'd think it'll take him fifteen years to build, at the least.”
“Ten,” said Sasha, popping
a grape. “Petrodor grows so fast, and the stonemasonry here is excellent. There's unlimited labour, probably Riverside will be restocked of desperate souls in a year or two, they'll do anything for a few coppers.”
“Possibly.” Errollyn gazed up at the slope with eyes narrowed by pain. “We made a mess, didn't we? Serrin and human both.
“A king will make Torovan an ambitious power to contend with, well into the future. That means more wars, more trouble, more suffering.”
Sasha gazed past Errollyn toward where Sharptooth jutted up from the Petrodor Incline. Yesterday, the last of the fires had finally stopped smouldering. Reports said there wasn't much left. “Fortunate maybe Rochel didn't live to see it,” she murmured. “He'd have hated it. Maybe enough to have done something stupid. He could get away with a few insolent remarks toward patachis. Kings are a different matter.”
“All considered,” Errollyn said, his green eyes upon her, “you don't seem that upset.”
Sasha shrugged, tossed a grape in the air and caught it in her mouth. “Torovan's right next to Lenayin,” she explained. “We'll keep them in line. How much trouble can they be?”
“Ah, the smug arrogance of bloodthirsty power.”
Sasha smiled. “It has a lot going for it, you can't deny.”
Errollyn did not reply. He leaned back and gazed up at the crowded slope. Sasha watched him with mild concern. He had been quiet, the past week. Partly it was just physical exhaustion, constantly dealing with the pain of his injury. But sometimes she would find him on South Pier, gazing out to sea at a harbour now empty of serrin vessels. He was the last serrin in Petrodor. Sometimes Sasha wondered if it saddened him to be so alone, or if he were more saddened that he felt little changed.
She grasped his hand, and felt a pressure in return. They had not made love for a week, and that too was instructive. It demonstrated that there was far more to their relationship than lust. In the week past, they had spoken of many, many things.
“Winter comes,” said Errollyn, watching the dark clouds speeding by. “The lords of Torovan and Lenayin have all winter to prepare their forces. Spring is marching season.”
Sasha nodded, thinking of Sofy. This winter would be her last as an unmarried woman. Come the late spring, or perhaps the early summer, she would be married. And Sasha's world would be transformed once more.
“A whole winter,” she mused, “stuck in this place.” Smells filled her nostrils, familiar but still strange, even after so long. Animals, foodstuffs, cooking, foulness and sweetness in equal measure. Smoke from fires, and the omnipresent whiff of ash that had not yet left the dockside. Yells and loud conversation, hammering, trundling wagons, protesting animals, crying children and the upslope clangour of bells. “I might go mad.”
Errollyn gave her a wry smile. “You're already mad. You'll survive.”
Sasha smiled, pulled her chair alongside his and rested her head upon his good shoulder. Errollyn put his arm around her. To be a highlander in Petrodor, Tongren had said, was to be lonesome. She knew what he meant. But she did not feel alone.
Tashyna paced. The cage was small and it rocked back and forth alarmingly. It set her nerves on edge. There was little air beneath the blanket, and it smelled bad, of human children and their doings. She curled up once more and tried to rest, but the jolting made that impossible. It upset her, this change of fortune. Things had been improving. Now, there was this nightmare.
She whined and growled, but there came no response from beyond the blanket. The plodding of hooves continued and, occasionally, the rattle of a wagon passing the other way. She settled once more and tried chewing the bone the Nice Lady had given her. It was big and had had lots of meat, now devoured. The Nice Lady had hugged her and cried. Tashyna hadn't understood that, and had thought maybe she'd done something wrong. She'd licked and whined, and tried to understand…but the Nice Lady had helped the Big Man put her into this cage, and then the blanket had come over, and that was the last she'd seen of them both.
The bone smelled of the Nice Lady…and of the Other Nice Lady too, the one who'd brought it. She seemed to defer to the Nice Lady, and her hair was shorter. In Tashyna's eyes, everyone deferred to the Nice Lady. And so they should. Tashyna gnawed on the bone, savouring the smell of humans who were good to her, and hoping they would take this blanket off soon and let her out of the cage so she could see them again.
Finally the trundling stopped. The blanket was removed and Tashyna blinked in the rush of light…only there was less light now as the sun was sinking. All the world smelled different. There was water here, and trees, and grass, flowers, and big, strange animals in the nearby field. She could smell them, and everything else, all at once. She stared around, unable to decide what to look at first. It was all too much.
The Big Man patted her cage and she growled reflexively…then remembered he had fed her many times, and stopped. She got confused, sometimes. She didn't know who to defer to, save for the Nice Lady. The Big Man only laughed.
“Now, now,” he said, “I don't blame you for being mad after we locked you in this damn cage for so long. But here, see, there's no one around now. We'll take a side road, you can run alongside for a while.”
Tashyna stared at him, uncomprehending, and watched as he gathered a long rope lead, and poured a wooden bowl full of water from a skin. He placed the bowl on the ground beside the wagon's wheel, then opened the cage. Tashyna jumped out…and smelled the two big animals pulling the wagon. Fascinated, she ran forward. They had big shoulders and horns, and they snorted and tossed their big heads as they looked at her, eyes rolling. But there was a Smaller Man with a similar smell to the Big Man, she recalled he'd been very nice to her too, and he was now holding the big animals’ heads still. She ran around them for a bit, smelling and looking, and decided that they were probably too big for her to kill on her own. But such an interesting smell! Her mouth watered, and she realised she was thirsty.
She ran back to the bowl the Big Man had put on the ground and eyed him warily…but he was walking away, heading back to the Smaller Man. She drank, and it was good. Then she heard the Big Man coming back, but it didn't matter, he was nice. He hooked the rope lead to her collar while she drank, but that didn't matter either-the Nice Lady did that too.
“Good girl,” said the Big Man, ruffling her coat. It was growing thicker now, and it was good to have some breeze to cool her down. There was a second wagon behind, she realised, and she smelled the Big Man's Woman, and the Children. They'd been in the underground place where she'd sometimes been fed, and they'd always been nice to her…although she thought the Big Man's Woman was afraid of her. Which was good. All the wagons were piled high with all sorts of things, a whole new profusion of smells.
In the distance, something looked vaguely familiar. Tashyna raised her head. They were on a small rise, and the lower farmlands lay aglow with orange and green in the late, angling sun. And there, beyond the farmlands, a long, high ridge formed the horizon against the sky. The ridge bristled with stone. Smoke smudged the sky and she sniffed the air…but the wind was from the wrong direction.
Home, something said in her mind. The Nice Lady was there, and the others. But…the wind came brisk from behind, and she turned once more and sniffed. Trees, she smelled. Water, and grass, and dirt and mud, animals and manure. Fresh smells.
Home, something else said in her mind.
She turned back toward the distant ridge and whined.
“I know,” said the Big Man at her side. “It's a shit hole, but it's a hard place to leave. I've got roots there, perhaps too many damn roots.” He spared a glance at the piled wagons. “But it was never meant to be. I don't belong there. I've got the mountains in my blood, like you. I want to see the earth thrusting skyward once more. I want to smell the clean air and wade in the wild rivers, and hear the spirits talking to me in my sleep. Lenay or Cherrovan, we're all highlanders. We're going home, girl. You can smell it, can't you?”
Tashyna stared at the d
istant horizon until the building urge grew too great, then she threw back her head and howled. Someone over there had to hear her. She'd never howled before in her life, but now, it was irresistible.
Tashyna howled until the urge had fled, knowing that something had changed forever. She felt loss. She felt a deep, yearning sensation. And yet, on the breeze, there blew from the west the smell of freedom.
The Smaller Man whacked the big animals on the flanks, and the wagon began trundling once more. Tashyna trotted alongside, liking that much better than the cage. More big animals in neighbouring fields stared at her. Some ran away. She tried chasing them, but the rope brought her up short.
Soon some other travellers came past headed the other way. Tashyna crossed over to look at them, and their big animals nearly went crazy.
“Crazy damn fool!” one shouted as they passed. “That's a real bloody wolf!”
“Of course it's a real bloody wolf!” the Big Man bellowed back cheerfully. “And I'm a real bloody Cherrovan! And if you've got a problem with that, you'll be a real bloody corpse!” The other travellers made off in all haste, and there was much laughter from the wagons.
The landscape changed as the road continued and the stone-covered, smoky ridge behind faded from view. Soon enough, Tashyna began to forget all about that place of stone and noise and crowds of unfriendly people. She was of the highlands, and she was going home.
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