Jineva set down the empty plate that had contained a thick slice of hot apple pie. She really didn’t want to appear a pig and ask for a second. “Who would have thought all this could happen in a week.” She rubbed a shoulder that was still sore. The crossbow bolt had struck low in her right shoulder, the hard ceramic point burying itself on the inside of her scapula. Meara had told her that it now looked like it would take a couple of weeks for her shoulder to totally heal. After sitting bored for seven days, Jineva couldn’t wait.
Diego chuckled. “Richardo is so happy with you that he is having a second, smaller manor house built just for you. The name will be Casa Barillo, and it will sit overlooking the water. It will be your house to live in whenever you wish, for as long as you wish.”
“Thank you, Uncle.” She gave him a wistful little smile. “Has everything you told me been a lie?”
His brown eyes grew sad. “Not all, Niña chiquita. I loved your mother, and that is the truth, and I love you.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “The rest, as they say, is open to interpretation.”
Jineva laughed. “Oh, Uncle. You are a scoundrel.”
“Aye, missie, that I be.” He returned the laugh.
“How are repairs on the schooner progressing?”
“Very well. Jineva. We should be able to leave right on schedule next week, and one other thing, Richardo is insisting that we take four hands to man the ship. He has this misplaced idea that royalty shouldn’t get their hands dirty. Can you imagine that?”
“I wonder where he ever got that idea.” Diego was studying the ceiling, and didn’t answer her question. “What ever happened to the young guardsman who shot me?”
“Ahhh, him. He will be going to prison for a long long time, for assaulting a royal personage.” He glared at her. “That would be you, if you’ve forgotten.”
Jineva bit her lower lip. “Is there any way that you could get his sentence reduced? A bit? If they threw young people in jail every time they made a mistake, nobody would be around to grow up. He made a mistake. He screwed up, but I didn’t die.” A grin split her face. “Maybe he could be personally trained by some tough sergeant for the next year or two. I’m sure he needs extensive instruction in how to fire a crossbow, don’t you think? In the end this city, oops, I forgot its name, would get a better soldier, and his life wouldn’t have a stigma attached to it.”
“The name of the city is Prosperidad.” Diego rubbed his chin. “You are going to be a formidable queen, young lady. You have a good head on your shoulders. I will see what I can do for the young man.” He gave her a slow wink. “He was quite handsome, wasn’t he?”
“I didn’t notice.” Jineva’s cheeks turned red.
Jineva sat out of the way on the rear deck and watched the men work. It had been a refreshing interlude in Prosperidad, but her shoulder was better and it was time to get back to their journey. Her fingers itched to grip the ship’s wheel, but Diego had been adamant. The crew ran the ship, and he ran the galley. Jineva was there to take care of the sea monsters and anything strange or unusual, and Lorena’s job was to pray. He managed to say the whole thing with a straight face.
Richardo had pointed out to her where the proposed Barillo House would be located, and the position was every bit as beautiful as she had imagined. If she had nothing else, she could return here. It was something.
The schooner Azzktullua held an easterly course for two days before turning on the long run south. It would take three weeks sailing with favorable winds, Diego had commented, and so far, after four whole days, the winds had cooperated. A hazy morning sun glinted off the gently rolling ocean, as the Thalassian rings swept overhead, and a pair of dolphins frolicked in the water just beyond the boat’s bow wave, jumping and cavorting through the air before landing with a terrific splash. It was an auspicious sign. She sighed and leaned back against the foremast, shutting her eyes, feeling the play of the wind on her skin.
“What is it like?” The voice was close, almost in her ear and Jineva’s eyes flew open. She hadn’t even heard the priestess’s approach. Since the incident on the dock they hadn’t spoken a total of ten words.
“What do you mean?” Jineva pushed back a lock of her now shoulder length hair that had blown into her face. The hair, and other reasons, were making it increasingly difficult to maintain the fiction of being a boy.
“What’s it like to have another presence in you?” The priestess’ violet eyes were intent.
“You would know.”
The alabaster cheeks of the priestess reddened. “Being filled with Selene is like a light suddenly going on in a dark room. You are filled completely. You are no longer dark; you are no longer you. Then the light is gone. There is no sharing, no give-and-take.”
Jineva gave the woman a long look. “That’s too bad. Having Meara in me is like having the older sister I always needed right there with you always. She holds my hand when I’m scared or lonely, and advises me when I’m unsure. She’s very very wise.” The girl gave a little laugh. “She tells me when I’m being silly, or when I messed up. I can’t slip anything by Meara. She knows everything I think.”
As the girl talked, half in a daze, the priestess noted a shadowy form slowly appear, standing next to Jineva, an affectionate hand resting on her shoulder. The more the girl mused, the more solid the form of Meara appeared. The apparition looked up at Lorena and its ghostly eyes widened.
Jineva blinked, and the shadow girl disappeared.
Lorena watched the little drama unfold, with distant eyes.
“Hello, Jineva.” Days seemed to blur into each other, and the weeks. Jineva felt like they had been on this same unchanging stretch of ocean forever.
“Good morning, Azzktullua. How are you and how is your family?” It had become something of a ritual; each morning the young Krathaa girl would climb aboard, and she and Jineva would talk. Sometimes they spoke of weighty matters, but often they did not.
The green-skinned girl folded gracefully to the deck, her webbed feet hanging over the stern of the boat. “They are all fine, sister, and send their love.” Jineva still couldn’t get over that fact. After she had saved Azzktullua and her father on the dock, shedding blood in their defense, Gluznaak had formally adopted her into his family as a daughter, to the great delight of his wife and siblings. “Father is busy setting up trade with the drylanders. It is a very good thing you did for us.” She reached over and hugged Jineva, who was sitting next to her. “Did you know that there is another boat following you?” Jineva frowned.
“No, we didn’t. How far back is it?” She shaded her eyes and stared at the distant horizon astern.
“Over the horizon and out of sight right now. It has been following you since you left the Serrana Banks. It has never gotten any closer, so we weren’t worried.”
“Who could it be?” Jineva muttered to herself, still looking astern.
“Do you have any family that might be searching for you?”
Frowning, Jineva turned to the Krathaa girl. “I hadn’t thought of that. There is Carlos and Amanda Salvana and their three children. He’s my mother’s brother. They also live on Isla Rivero, just a short distance from my family home.” A bitter pain went through her heart. “...from what was my home.” She scrubbed at a tear that somehow managed to slip down her cheek. “Then there is Jose and Sofia Vergara. She is my father’s sister. They are childless, but have adopted Jose’s sister’s son Mateo. He would be...” Her eyebrows rose in surprise as she counted the years. “He would be sixteen years old. How about that? They have a sensible estate on Isla del Gato, and it is Uncle Jose’s job to guard the mint.” A seabird soared over on huge wings, and Ji
neva stopped to watch. “They used to live with us in Castillo Barillo, but the story goes that my father and his sister had a terrible argument just before I was born, and he said many things that he later regretted. My sister took her new husband and left the next day. To my knowledge they have never been back. In way of an apology, my father gave them an estate on Isla del Gato, and the job of guarding the mint.”
“Could either of those families wish you ill?”
“I don’t know, Azzktullua. I just don’t know. My parents used to assign governors to rule the different islands. None of them were powerful enough to seek the throne. The Salvana’s and the Vergara’s both had their differences with the Barillo rule, but I don’t recall my father expressing a real concern.” She gave Azzktullua a crooked smile. “I was only a girl, however, and my father didn’t confide in me too much.”
“That was his mistake then. Should we stop them?” The Krathaa girl didn’t elaborate, for which Jineva was grateful.
“No.” A devilish light came to her green eyes. “But there is something that you can do.” She reached a hand out and touched Azzktullua’s long bone belt knife. Cunningly fashioned, and almost as hard as crystal blades, it was a symbol of Krathaa domination of the oceans. “Take a bone knife like yours—but not yours. I know that you treasure your knife. Take one like it and have somebody sneak aboard in the dead of night and drive it into the mainmast, as hard as he can. Then he is to leave without being seen.”
The green skinned girl frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Human sailors are a superstitious lot, and they fear many things. Can you imagine the shock they will get when they come up on deck in the morning to find a Krathaa knife in their mainmast? What will it tell them?”
Azzktullua’s eyes were very wide. “It will tell them that no matter where they are, they are not safe from the Krathaa wrath. The legend or our prowess will grow, all without violating the new treaty.” She stood up and hugged Jineva impulsively. “This is most excellent. I’ve got to tell Father.” Without further ado, she jumped off the back of the racing boat and vanished.
Two days later the young Krathaa girl reported that the unknown boat was no longer following them, but had instead turned to port, bending every sail toward Isla del Gato. Three days later Isla de la Luna appeared as a thin dark streak on the horizon.
The Island of the Moon was a large island in the perfect shape of a crescent moon, so perfect in fact that it seemed made and not natural, but that was silly Jineva mused. A huge circular bay, more like a small sea, sat in its interior, and in the very center of the bay rested a smaller island, barely forty miles across that contained the city of Noche Estrellada, and the motherhouse of the Temple of the Moon. It was said that the Goddess Selene herself resided there, although none had claimed to have seen her.
Dressed all in white, Lorena appeared on deck, back stiff, chin held high. She pointed with a slim white clad arm. “We will go there.”
“But, the public docks are...” The helmsman began.
“Follow her directions.” Diego sighed. “We’d just as soon get this over with.”
“Whatever ye say, M’Lord.”
A small black two horse carriage, with a uniformed footman was waiting when the boat arrived, and Lorena stepped ashore with her small traveling bag even before the boat had stopped moving.
“Humph!” Diego snorted to the retreating back. “Didn’t even say goodbye.”
Jineva watched the priestess enter the coach, and the footman slam the door. “I think that she was scared to death. She’s always been exquisitely courteous.” The horseman popped the reins and the carriage rolled off while the crowds of milling people shrank back from the dark coach without being told.
“Don’t feel too bad for the priestess, Niña Chiquita.” Diego’s voice held a sardonic note. “Worry about yourself.” He nodded to the dock where a larger black berlin coach was pulling up. The four black horses pulling it were restive and spirited, and the crowd backed up even more. Diego jumped lightly over the rail and walking over to the coach, spoke a few quiet words with the impeccably uniformed driver. He looked back at the boat. “They’re waiting for you, Dama.”
Jineva looked down at her deck clothes and shuddered. “Let me change first.”
The driver glared back, frowning. “Urry.” He called in a strangely accented guttural voice. As she pulled on clean pants and shirt, she remembered the priestess’s benediction or warning. “You poor child.” A chill ran down her back.
Squatting on the top of a large hill like a white vulture, the pristine harbor of Noche Estrellada was overshadowed by the massive, blindingly white Motherhouse of the Temple of the Moon; the residence of the Goddess Selene. It could have withstood a siege, but at the same time it was beautiful in an alien unworldly way, with flying buttresses and soaring fairylike towers, their white sides turning to shimmering silver in the sun. She thought it all a trifle overdone. The view of the sea on all sides, however, was magnificent.
Two white robed priestesses were waiting as she stepped down. Jineva blinked in surprise. They could have been triplets, or at least sisters with Lorena. The first gave her male clothes a desultory glance, and the corner of her mouth twitched up, ever so slightly. “Come with us.” The command was abrupt, bordering on insulting.
Jineva crossed her arms, and stood unmoving. “Shall we try that again?” Her voice was glacial.
“Come with us—now!” The first priestess barked.
Jineva sat down on the coach steps. “Pretty view.” She said conversationally. “I can sit here all day.”
“Please, Dama Barillo, would you come with us?” The second priestess murmured, smiling lightly.
Jineva stood, returning the smile. “Why certainly. See what courtesy can get you?” As she passed the first priestess she stopped, looked into the perfect face and frowned. “You just wanted to see how far you could push me before I pushed back, didn’t you? Tricky.” The priestess grinned openly at Jineva’s retreating back as she followed the other woman inside.
The priestess opened a door and held it so that Jineva could enter, then shut it behind her. Jineva swallowed.
“You took your sweet time getting here.” There was a tall woman sitting in one of the two softly padded chairs. In the distance a white, six foot tall obelisk shaped pedestal winked with a myriad of colored lights. She looked just like the other Priestesses except... she was the mold from which the models were copied. Her skin was perfection itself and it glowed. Jineva blinked, assuring herself that it was so. There was a definite radiance coming from the woman before her.
“Are you Selene?” She asked abruptly, mentally holding Meara’s hand.
“Please, have a seat.” The woman waved a flawlessly sculpted hand. The fingernails were long, and lacquered in silver. Jineva was in the process of sitting when the assault began.
“When did you get your K’ Dreex? How?”
Jineva could feel the waves of compulsion beating at her, but this time she fought back. “Are you Selene?”
“Answer my question, girl!” The tall woman was on her feet now, almost shouting.
A bead of sweat rolled down Jineva’s face, and she clutched Meara more tightly still, feeling the power of their joined spirits course through her. “Take a long walk off a short pier.” She growled through clenched teeth. “I asked the first question.” She threw the compulsion back at the woman, demanding an answer of her. The violet eyes went wide.
“Well now. This is the first time I’ve ever had my own compulsion thrown back at me.” She laughed with a clear bell-like sound. The compulsion on Jineva was gone. “To answer your question, I am Selene, and I am not Selene. You seem to be the unstoppable Jineva Barillo. I can see why now.”
Jineva sagged into her chair. “You are and you aren’t Selene. Why all the theatrics?” She could feel Meara wrapped warmly around her, and it felt good.
“To force you and Meara to merge, young lady. If the two of you ar
e to survive you had to do it.”
“But it’s forbidden!” It was the first time that Meara had ever spoken to someone using Jineva’s mouth. It was a very strange sensation.
“Nonsense. Your ancestors were scared of the unknown, Meara. That’s all there was to it. You don’t lose your soul, you just gain perspective, and a partner for the rest of your very long lives. You’ll learn the real meaning of love.”
Meara and Jineva were quiet for some time, digesting what the goddess had said. “You’ve done this before.” Jineva murmured with a flash of insight.
“Yes, my dear, I have.”
“So, you knew all about us long before you brought us here.”
Selene smiled beatifically. “Yes, I did.”
“Can we go now?” Jineva asked hopefully.
“Wouldn’t you like to look around first?”
“I’m sorry, Goddess. I’ve seen temples before. One is much the same as another.”
“True.” Selene’s violet eyes were sparkling now. “But you’re not in a temple any longer. As a matter of fact, you’re not even on Thalassia. Welcome to Elysium children, the blue moon.” The woman’s voice that came out of the air was a mellow deeper contralto, probably close to the tone she would mature into, Jineva thought a little wistfully. It wasn’t, however, the voice of Selene.
“Who is that?”
“I am Thallia, caretaker and guardian of this moon.”
Jineva looked around wildly. “Where did Selene go?” She stood on a low hill surrounded by a sea of clover and grass. A massive oak spread thick limbs behind and over her, while below she could see a small blue lake, no more than a mile or two in diameter. Even from three miles away she could see people swimming and walking about. The sunlight was warm but diffused, like daylight on a slightly cloudy day while sparrows and chickadees frolicked noisily in the branches above her.
Vale of Tears: A Thalassia novel Page 8
