Aloren (19 page)

“She didn’t deserve it.  I’druther he had yelled and cussed and called me names, and hit me, even.”

I wouldn’t speak to Andrei for two weeks.  After these passed I became more compliant, because Trid gave me with an oak crutch as a new-year’s gift.  The fork was whittled into the shape of a squirrel.  I suspected Max had something to do with it, as he had a talent for that sort of thing.

“Does it hurt?” Max had asked after my first go.

“The ears
dig
.”

“Good.”

“Weasel.” 

He grabbed a broom for a stave and we began fencing, and then Andrei swung himself into my stall and shut the gate.

“Quit your noise,” he said.  “I’m hiding.”

“Andrei,” called a girl.  “Mother said you’d go riding with me.”

Max held his stomach and made retching noises.  “Natalya,” said Trid.  “What’s she doing outdoors?  We’d better hide him under the straw.”  He glanced worriedly at me.  “Let’s hide both of them.” 

He and Max got as far as our knees before Natalya looked over the gate.  She’d an exquisite knot of chestnut curls pinned to her head, and a face that looked about my age.

“Ooh, what’s that?” she said.

“None of your business,” said Andrei.

“A saebel?  Let me in.  I’ve never seen one.”

“Go play with your dolls.”

“I haven’t got any
dolls
, Andrei.”

“Go away.”

“I’ll tell Mother about the roaches.”

“Just wait out there, Natty––the world doesn’t stop when you say so, and nor do I.” 

I gawped at him.  “Why ain’t you that polite to everyone?” 

Andrei got up and threw a handful of straw into my face.  “She’s my sister.” 

Trid looked frustrated, and Max burst into laughter and sang in a Gralde lilt:

“If only the stars hung as low as my trews;

If only my wife grew the nose of a harse,

I’d send her to Tinop, ignore me mam’s views

And give you a star before fecking your––”

Andrei reached and pulled at Max’s hair.  “Did you teach him that?” he asked me, and he stumped out, slamming the gate behind him.

***

The next time he came to the stable his cheeks were flushed with cold and he had a woolen tunic and stockings rolled around his arm.  The horse blanket in my saddlebag was eaten away in pieces, but I didn’t care.  I refused to wear his tunic and stockings. 

“So be it,” he cried.  “You can sleep in the dung when the trees start popping.” 

But he left them there, and I drew the tunic over my chemise after he had gone.

The weather grew bleak and I had great stretches of time with nothing to do but watch for the boys out my window.  I gathered a pile of snowballs on the windowsill to hurl down the hill when I saw one.  Max hurled back boulders of ice, occasionally with enough precision to knock me off my feet and bloody my nose. 

I had other company besides the boys.  The little Lady Natalya was curious and didn’t stay herself paying me more visits than what was comfortable. 

When Trid was tightening my splints one day, she said, “If we were to poke those in the ground like stakes, I wouldn’t wonder when she sprouted roots and became a tree.”

Max lifted his eyes toward the rafters.  “And I
wouldn’t wonder when she strangled you with her branches.”

“She’s not a saebel,” said Andrei, sitting next to my ankle.  “And if she were, she’d still have more brains than you.”

“But look at her eyes.” She crouched so low I caught the scent of honeysuckles.  “So strange and empty.”  

Andrei pulled her back and held her there by her cloak.  “All I’ve ever seen is hatred, and you’re not helping.  And, gods, Aloren, why don’t you defend yourself?  I know you’re capable of it––you defend every other Gireldine in the world.” 

I realized I was capable of it, in a way.

“Do y’know why saebels don’t have souls?” I asked Natty.

“No.”

“It’s cause they’re pure hedonists.  They seek passing pleasures like havin their hair done up all the time, and wearing pretty dresses and fur cloaks.” 

Natty wrenched her cloak free and walked out.

She didn’t come back for a long time.  The sun inched closer to the earth, the snowdrops dangled their bells, and I pulled off the stockings, because though the cold lingered, my toes missed the air.  Trid re-bound my right leg, but the splints were shorter.  I could bend my knee a little.  The knee felt gouty and grated when I moved it, like a hinge without grease, but I was so pleased I freed Leode of his bandages; and he stretched his wings.

My brother had been feeling irritable, and Floy diagnosed it as lack of exercise.  So he flitted around the stable, and then outside, and kept absent for longer and longer periods.  I hid my worry, and when the new moon drew near he flew off toward the tower in the north Daynens to reunite with his elder brothers.  He’d promised to bring one back before they lost me again, and I stood at the window, watching as he blended into a star-shot sky.

I didn’t realize I was crying until my chest began to heave and my nose to drip.  Bequen’s voice bloomed in song somewhere within. Her husband had gone west, as he was wanted in the city, and her songs had lately become sad.

When the earth lies still

I can hear a thrill of singing.

Strumming through the boughs,

Piping o’er the rushes, ringing

With ouzel’s cry low on the mountain,

Cutting through the mist and rock.

He hovers mellow on my doorstep,

Knuckles ready, poised to knock.

Before the blow has time to bite,

I answer with my tongue alight

And rip the door free of its hinge––

To nothing but the night.

But I catch his laugh

On the alder path in autumn,

Blown amid the leaves,

Carried soft to river’s bottom,

Where memories lie thick and muddy,

Sodden with forgotten joy:

Startled sorrel, breath of sage

Fermenting in his hateful ploy.

I fly from all the laughing scorn,

Bruising hyssop, crushing thorn

Until the sun wraps round my head

And ushers in the morn.

Come the moon in flight

I can feel him fight the terror,

Sweeping corners

For my dreams to shine the fairer;

Of hills beyond the heaving waters,

Seas above the glancing sun

Where light-moored ships of heaven-bound

Float lashed for when my life is done.

I wake with brine rubbed in my wrists,

Searching for his weary fists

That, pushing shadows from the night,

Prove somewhere he exists.

The week after Leode flew away I found two crocuses blooming beneath a hedge.  I decided I had waited long enough, and cut the splints off my thigh. 

Max stopped in with a question about his old pony’s wheezes, and after prescribing for her a diet of warm gruel I challenged him to a chicken fight.

We hung from the rafters in the middle of the corridor where the beams bowed low enough to reach from a stool.  His longer legs couldn’t wrap around my waist, and I knocked him down twice, kicking him in the shoulders and head––but he didn’t detect anything unusual.

Trid and Andrei caught us in the third round.  I jumped and landed on my feet.  “You and I,” said Trid, “are going to kick off the season with benefits.  Afraid I can’t say the same for the other two.”

“But we helped!”  Max dropped behind me.  “Me and Andrei helped.”

“How can you tell it’s healed the right way?”  There was a red welt on Andrei’s cheek, and he was in a vicious temper.  “We’ve yet to see her run.  And dance.”  He folded his arms and stood there, as though he expected Max and me to leap into a two-handed reel.

“Look at her,” said Trid, turning round.  “She could walk out right now if she wanted––”

“Is she leaving?” Natty took a couple steps in from the door.  “Is the nasty thing leaving?” 

Andrei turned and blocked my view. His left ear was bloody. “Was it you?”

“She’s lucky I didn’t tell all of it,” said Natty.

“Is she?” he said. “I don’t think she is, as I’m going to keep her here just to spite you, you horrible, brainless––”

“Do you think she’ll let you lock her up?” Natty marched up just short of treading on his feet.  “She’d gouge your eyes out first.  She’s savage, flies into fits oftener than Celdior’s insurgents.  You’d do better to lock up a starved leopard.”

“A starved leopard’s less a bitch than you are.” 

Natty burst into tears and switched to a different tactic: “You used to spend time with
me
.  Then Trid came from Dirlan and you got all caught up with this lock-picking
Eldine
for pity’s sake, and now you’re just being mean.”

“What about me?” demanded Max.  “You forgot me.”

“If you all could shut up for just a moment.”  Trid put his hands up.  “Hear me out,” he said to Andrei.  “I’ll call off the bet if you let her go.  No fussing.”

“Good luck with that.”  Natty fought to see over Andrei’s shoulder.  “He’ll
pay
for her, for his watchdog, to bark at me if I get too close.”  Andrei looked as though he’d been slapped on the other cheek as well.  I expect I looked like a starved leopard.

“Run,” I said, and pulled my tunic from the boys’ hands. 

I chased her outside on clumsy legs, bludgeoned her to the ground with my saddlebag, and ground her pretty face into a heap of horse-apples.

I got up and ran towards the palace walls, saddlebag thumping at my side. 

“Hey,” Max yelled after me.  “Where’re you going with our leg?”

Nineteen

My arms did a tremendous amount of lifting on the way up the wall, but on the other side they hadn’t the strength they thought they had, and I fell into a juniper bush. 

I picked the needles from my skin and took off down the elm way. 

The afternoon sunlight flickered over my feet, making it seem as though they were dancing rather than walking.  I threw them into a half-skip, half-run, so perfectly in time with Nefer’s river shanty that I belted it out as I went along.

“That’s the wrong way, Reyna,” called Floy.  I hadn’t noticed her back in the stable; she must have just flown up.

“Wrong?” I said, and danced around in a circle.  “See?  There in’t no wrong direction, I’m free as a bird.”

“There’re some birds who aren’t as free as you, and you must take their limitations into account.”

“What?”  Was she saying what I thought she was saying?

“The night’s going to be moonless and they were going to smuggle you out.  But now you’ve done it yourself we’d best get there early.”

Heat rushed into my breast and I stopped.  “Leode went away to change.”

“And so he did, and together they decided they’d better not wait.”  She landed on my shoulder.  “So they came back here to do it, and told me to tell you they were going to––”

“Why?”  I was angry for some reason.  “It was dangerous.”

“So you might as well go the right direction.”

“How long’ve you been conspiring?”

“The right direction’s eastward,” she said.  “The cliffs where the cormorants nest.”

***

It took the rest of the day to reach the cliffs.  My feet had grown soft and I hobbled through the city, stubbornly refusing to believe I was tired. 

The sun sank, and I followed Floy past the last great house and on to limestone crags that plummeted into the ocean.  The cliffs were scattered sparsely with yew and slick with surf and the scat of seabirds, and I had to be careful not to slip. 

I walked down through a water-worn, ferny crack, and the purple ring of sea disappeared.  The chasm led to a pool sheltered in a cove. 

Before the pool a beach of shingle stretched in a silver crescent.  Floy became a girl, limbs flashing with starlight.  I looked beyond her and saw four boys, one crouching at the pool’s edge.  He exclaimed in Gralde, “The water’s fresh.”

“It’s from a freshet,” said a younger voice.  “I saw it from above.  Good thing the tide’s out, Arin.  Can’t have you heaving brine all over the place on a lovely night like this.”

“You see everything from above.”  Arin jumped to his feet.  “Like some bloody, great ghost––”  He had caught sight of me.  “Look, Leode.  Another ghost.  Hey, don’t come any nearer me––”

I shot across the stones and knocked him over, and he wrestled me off, throwing me into the water. 

I accepted the reprisal as it provided an excuse for a wet face.  Tem fished me out.  I clung to him, wondering at how tall he had grown.

“So, tell us––” said Mordan.

“She doesn’t have to,” said Tem.  But I wanted to do just that so I broke free and told them everything from Fillegal and the bandorescroll to Natty and the dung.  But I didn’t mention how Andrei had exploited my skills.  Nor did I mention what Floy had done, in the beginning.

“Nilsa,” said Mordan.  “Fancy it being old Nilsa.  I always thought there was something funny about her.” 

Arin gave a loud snort.  “
It was Hal.  He was given the boot, after all
.”

“Let’s be civil,” said Tem.  “Could have been anyone.” 

I stepped back to better look at them.  Their shoes and sandals were gone and their hair had overtaken mine.  Limbs were white as the shingle, and the tunics still clean, but they clung tightly, hanging higher than they used to, and the seams broke at Tem’s shoulders.

Mordan had climbed a couple of inches past Tem, but his clothes fit over him as well as ever.  Arin had grown taller, too, and he carried himself more gracefully, giving his alternate form a shade of competition.  He had so little freckles he seemed a different person.  “Look at that thing she’s wearing,” he said.  “Did you steal that off a troll?”

Tem touched the wool.  “It has the rosette on it.”

“It would fit a human better than a troll, I think,” said Mordan.  “It has no business being on you.”

“She has little else to wear.  Turn it inside-out,” Tem told me in not so much a command as a suggestion.

“Speaking of tunics,” said Floy, tying back her hair with a string, “I’ve got to show you something.  See, Reyna”––she held her skirts up and stepped into the water––“after all that whining you did last autumn––something about a million keys and wishing for wings––those birds took you seriously.  But serious as they were, they needed a person’s brain, so I helped.”

I splashed after her.  “You are a conspirator.”  I turned to the boys.  “What’s she talking about?”

“No idea.” Tem stepped in and Arin and Mordan followed.  “But she told us very specifically this should be our meeting-place.  Where are we going?”

“Around a corner and through a door,” Floy said.

“This place reminds me of a palace,” said Leode.  “Like the ones in Omben after the oceans rose.”

“Stay in the starlight.”  Tem hauled his little brother up to his side.

“Shh,” whispered Mordan behind me.  “I hear saebeline.”  Water lapped at our waists, casting shades across the walls, and I heard a humming through an arch at our left. 

Floy sighed.  “It’s not saebeline.  Only wings.”  She told me to go through first.  “But you’re probably not going to like it.  Just more work.” 

I stumbled over to the door.  The boys piled behind me and the current pushed us through, and I saw a spread of green before Mordan knocked me into the water.  The rest tumbled after, and a wave swelled over my head.

“Oh,” said Leode, the only one on his feet.  “Our Marione.”  I lifted my head above the water.  Mordan, lost for words, pulled me up. 

A carpet of green and white stretched over a second pool enclosed again by cliff, except for a little niche where water cascaded over stone into the sea. 

Bits of stuff fell from the air, where birds circled.  “No wonder I was ill last month,” said Leode.  “These are mine, mostly.”

Tem wiped his hair back from his eyes.  “Floy, you never said a thing?”

“I wasn’t sure it would work.”  Her cheeks darkened.  I moved to her side, feeling for her hand beneath the water.  “Anyway, it isn’t enough,” she said simply, holding onto my fingers.

“Not yet,” said Mordan.  

Leaning over the flowers, Arin commenced, as usual, with pointing out the problems.  “Saxifrage shouldn’t have thorns.”  He grabbed a handful and screwed up his mouth at them. 

Mordan lifted one from the water.  His face blanched.  Below the tiny white flowers the stems were thick with spines.  “What happened?” he said.

“Maybe it’s part of growing up,” said Arin.

“Is it hate?”  Mordan glanced at me.

“I don’t feel so good.”  Leode doubled over and held his mouth.

“Put them down,” said Tem. 

“Is it protection, maybe?”  Mordan dipped his palm in the water and gently shed them.  “Something they go through so beasts won’t dig them up and eat them?”

“Weaving these is going to be horrible.”  Arin didn’t look at me.

“They’ll become softer by soaking,” said Tem.  “But she’ll have to––I don’t know––break them some, to weave into tunics.”

I felt the old pain, the fist that crumpled my gut and squeezed the air from my lungs.  I thought of Leode, ill with only a touch.  “Break them?”  I squeezed Floy’s hand, making her wince.  “Over and over again?”

Arin backed away from the green and white.

“We’ll have to agree on a time.  When we’re all on the ground, just in case,” said Tem.

The hour after sunrise, we decided.  An hour a day, and with two years left I brooded on my time constraints. 

The sun came up, pouring through holes in the cliffs, and the boys flew away.  Tem insisted that Leode and Mordan be far out of my hearing during the weaving of their flowers.  So with Floy for company I sat in the water and plotted out a design.  Leode’s tunic was first on my list as most of the flowers were his, but the saxifrage could only provide a sort of framework, because the other Marione had to be added in their seasons. 

The plants were small and I felt queasy as I knotted a first chain, and a second, and a third.  I twisted them together.  After I’d made enough of these I laid them over a rock to weave with.  The tips of my fingers glowed and I collected tallies of scratches up my arms as I worked, but I scarcely noticed.

When I lifted my head, the sun had climbed a thumb’s height above the sea and Floy reminded me to stop.

The pool seemed safe enough, stowed away at the bottom of the eastern cliffs, and I left the work there.