Heir of Scars I: Parts 1-8 (52 page)

That certainly does not inspire confidence
, Adria thought, and she made it a priority to determine the source of this.

Adria spent little more time with Hafgrim in these days, and even less among the other Knights. She mingled with the sailors more, who nearly always showed her due respect, and yet did not consider her too above them to engage in conversation.

Most of them spoke Aeman passably, despite the obvious variation in their origin. Still, when they spoke with one another, as often as not they spoke an odd tongue that seemed an admixture of several languages and dialects.

Most of it seemed Aeman and Somanan at root, but with more than a few words and phrases borrowed from Kelmantian, and even some from dialects too variant for her to guess, or possibly a language she had no knowledge of whatsoever.

Adria enjoyed puzzling out what she could, and she tried to imagine when and how each word had crept into their speech — the wars and migrations, the developments of new technologies which brought sailors to new shores...

In particular, she enjoyed the songs they sang together. They were shanties, chants as much as songs, and really not so different from the ceremonial songs of the Aesidhe or even the hymns of the Sisterhood.

There were one or two among the sailors who seemed to lead these songs, including the Chief Mate. They’d give a short verse, loud and clear, to which the sailors responded with a simple refrain, sometimes chanting, sometimes shouting and raising their arms — those who had a free one to raise.

And here was where the rhythm of the sea and the life of The Echo showed most boldly, though it dawned on Adria more slowly than the ocean sun.

Such odd phrasings,
Adria thought, closing her eyes to listen.
Not exactly regular. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower… sometimes even adding a beat in repetition.

I’m a haulin all me line aft to go, man

-I’m a whistle and a rhyme and a ho,

And a heave

-and a ho, man

I’m a washin up a wheel now, man

-I’m a whistle and a rhyme and a ho, and a ho, man

I’m a go I’m a go, man

-I’m a whistle and a rhyme and a ho,

And a heave

-and a ho,

And a heave

-and a ho, man

Frowning, Adria opened her eyes near the end, and only then realized the real purpose of these songs... each time the Chief Mate called “And a heave,” the sailors on a line did just that. Once, twice, however many times it took to do the job, before wrapping and knotting it off to the next verse.

Adria shook her head and laughed at herself.
The songs are not simply to pass the time, but to measure it, to give rhythm to the tasks they share. And I closed my eyes…

It became clear that they had many different songs for very different purposes, though the words certainly did not always seem to apply directly to the task at hand. It was more the cadence that matched them, and to which lines were pulled or loosed, sails lowered and raised, booms turned or tacked to find fresh wind.

In fact, most of the lyrics were concerned with ladies left in port — ladies rather more closely associated to docks and taverns than hearth and home.

Even their use of the word ‘lady,’ 
Adria realized with a smile.
...seems a bit of a misnomer.

When opportunities presented themselves, Adria questioned sailors in detail about the workings of the ship, and she aided them in tasks when she believed herself able. The men proved honestly eager to educate her, and in fact she soon learned that they often held a certain disdain for those who took passage on ship but knew nothing of her working.

“Ye step foot on deck, ye should know ‘ow to man a line, sure, aye?” One of them winked when he found her an eager student.

She quickly learned a good deal about the workings and details of The Echo — a carrack, one corrected her, rather than a caravel as she had believed — and about her sailors. There were tales of lands as far west as Ieruscan deserts, of Somana’s great city on the sea, of Kelmantium slavers, and even of an island somewhere secret where many of them believed one might live forever.

“Yer own granddad, M’lady,” one of the elder among them grinned and winked obviously at his nearby mates. “He be livin’ jus’ like a king ‘imself, in a tall tower on a lonely lil’ scrap o’ earth where ravens carry nobody off again, be it home nor death.”

“Ah, well,” Adria smiled. “I say we turn this ship and head there then, right? We can all live forever on a great pile of gold.”

“Nae, Highness,” the sailor rejoined. “Alike as not ‘e’d send us runnin’ off. You know what they called him, now, aye?”

Adria nodded slowly.

“An’ how his Majesty’s Knights got their name,” another sailor nodded to the foredeck where her brother lead their spear drills. “He scared the piss an’ the gold out of ‘em that crossed him, when the waves about em’ burst into black fire...”

“Hush, man,” a third sailor answered. “Such things might run in the blood. One wrong look from ‘er ‘ighness and ye’ll might be pissin’ yerself...”

Adria had the good grace to redden for them, though she was no longer quite so embarrassed by such an utterance after four years among the Aesidhe.

Like the Aesidhe, The Echo’s sailors did not shy away from a joke at the expense of a princess. And like the Aesidhe, this was a sign of familiarity.

Several among them seemed to grow genuinely fond of her over the days at sea, though they always maintained a respectful stance when speaking or working with her when the situation demanded — when Captain Falburn, Wolt, or Hafgrim passed by or joined them.

Still, in the corners of her vision, Adria had seen more than one sailor watching her with an expression she might have described as less than savory, and she wondered if she were the subject of even more crude jokes whenever the sailors took their meal and drink together.

After all, Nature breeds vices and virtues in equal measure, and one cannot often tell the difference surely,
Adria thought, grateful for the blades on her belt and boot.
No doubt this is half the reason the Sisters and their Initiate remain below, leaving me the only woman on a deck full of sea-bound men.

Still, when she took the measure of each man, she felt confident that none among them would dare to actually accost her, especially when she saw the respect they bore their captain, and how Falburn watched over all with an air of near-omniscience. There was little doubt that the ship was his to command, no matter what prince may board, and that every man on deck accepted this as law.

Adria also found the pages and squires of the Knights to be somewhat less aloof of her presence than their masters. She spent some time in the hold, helping one or another of them in grooming the horses, hoisted from the beams above in slings to keep them from losing their footing. Adria always brought an apple or two. She took particular care over the gray she had briefly ridden, and who she hoped would remain hers when they gained port in Kelmantium.

“Starbrow,” the lad introduced as he did his best to rake away the worst of the fouled straw beneath the steed with the four-rayed mark above his eyes. Though slung, he just managed to stamp with his hoof as she approached, a little impatient for his snack.

The boy laughed as he took a brush to the almost solid gray coat. “I think he likes you, Ma’am. If you want to take him on deck for a ride, I won’t tell any one. Just try not to be noticed.”

Adria favored the boy with a grin, and shook her head. “It would be impolite to awaken the sleeping sailors. Besides, he looks as if he’d be satisfied to swim the rest of the way. I’ll just jump him over the railing, and meet you in Kelmantium... would you please let my brother know?”

There were, in fact, always sailors sleeping, Adria had been a little surprised to learn. There were only five quarters in the fore and aft decks, so most of the crew had been put out.

She and Hafgrim had been allowed their own rooms, and the Sisters shared one. Otherwise, only Captain Falburn and Josson, the Chief Mate, were afforded chambers, and Josson shared his with a few crew members — whoever happened to arrive there after their work shift to find an empty bunk.

Even Wolt and his Knights could not be said to be properly quartered — straw mats and hammocks lined one wall of the hold, no better than those of the sailors astern.

“Let princes ‘n diplomats have their bunks,” one sailor shrugged when Adria apologized for taking up quarters. “I’d as soon sleep nearest I’m needed whene’er need comes.”

The three Sisters and their green-robed Novice were surely the strangest of all aboard, which did not really surprise Adria. The young women had a peculiar affinity for one another, even given the circumstances and the nature of their order.

Adria had hoped to find an opportunity to speak with one of them alone, despite their reluctance to appear above deck, but when they did make a rare appearance, they were invariably together and decidedly dismissive of her presence.

To say they were careful with their speech was an understatement. More often than not, they spoke in tandem, and whenever one of the three paused to consider her words, another was prepared to finish them.

“The wind is contrary today,” one might say, and the second would add, “though, in truth, this is no surprise,” and a slight pause before the last of the three concluded, “Given the turn of the stars.”

The effect was an air of determined vagueness, something between ambivalence and absurdity. After her first experience with them, Adria mostly gave up on learning anything from them at all. She certainly never idly inquired about the weather again in their presence.

Adria at least gathered their names — Criseda, Tiffan, and Osenne.

Exotic and mysterious, 
she smiled. 
Old Kelmantian
. This was not strange in itself, for Taber herself was from Kelmantium, and their religion had its roots there, in some equally shadowy past within and before the War of Scars.

Most of the Novices, upon becoming full Sisters, named themselves similarly. But when, as a child, Adria had remarked upon this phenomenon to Taber herself, Taber had merely allowed for a pause, and then asked Adria where her own name might have originated.

Adria had been a little annoyed to realize that her name was Kelmantian as well. Until then, it had never occurred to her that personal names might be anything more than just a way to distinguish one person from another.

And it would not be until the Aesidhe that she saw the greater point, that the name might be what a person did — that it might more than simply identify them... it could arise from their identity. It might link someone to their past, and even suggest their future.

Adria
is my name now, and only one among several,
 she liked to think. How I wear it will determine how future generations accept the name.

After so many moons of midnight raids, of snowdrift footpaths and cold winking stars, Adria often felt most awake in the after hours. The sailors, Knights, and Sisters who kept these hours tended to hushed groups and even solitude.

Josson, Chief Mate, kept these hours often. If there was a shanty, he called it lower, quieter, more a hymn or dirge, and the tasks were paced, slow changes whenever possible.

“Even the Echo needs her rest, Ma’am,” he answered when asked. “We keep her taught through the day, but let ‘er run slack a bit in the dark. Let the canvas, the wood and rope breathe a bit.”

Adria nodded silently from one of her perches on a heavy coil of spare rope, covered in tarp to protect it from weather, but also accommodating as a makeshift seat, at least for someone of a less-than-sailorly build.

From here, as Josson sang his low tunes, Adria could look out over the sleepy mid deck, up at the sails and stars, or turn her eyes back to where home had long since disappeared.

But she most longed to see what lay ahead, and kept most hours standing astern.

One among the Knights who kept this watch, easily the eldest among them, stood always alone until relieved near dawn, and always offered Adria a nod and salute when she rose onto the fore deck.

He was old to hold no rank, and Adria might have assumed him a newer recruit, a pardoned prisoner who had served his time, perhaps, or a man bereft of family and purpose late in life, turning to the cloth and the sword.

But this one’s strong build, and the way he carried himself told Adria he was both well-seasoned in combat and well-accustomed to duty. She had never seen him practice with the other knights, and it was easy to see why — he was well above it.

Where the others wear the arms given to them,
Adria noted when she had a moment to look him over.
This one has filed edges, trimmed straps, even hammered buckles into a slightly different shape. Few would notice on the Knights, but… he has tailored the armor to conform exactly to his fighting motions.