“The beast must have sensed your great strength. You were willing to wrestle him out of the water, no doubt?”
“Of course—anything to protect my crew.”
Asaddan did not like to ride in formation. The big Nunghal urged his mount forward and scouted ahead, then dropped back to
speak with the other travelers, restless, anxious to be back home. Imir seemed a trifle jealous when he chatted so easily
with Sen Sherufa, who had taught him the Uraban language.
After the caravan crossed the hills, Saan looked for the first time upon the endless blond expanse of barren dunes, sculpted
sand like frozen waves. He stared so hard that his eyes stung from dust and sand borne on the brisk breezes.
Sen Sherufa said, “The currents are turbulent right now because the prevailing winds are about to shift. We will have several
weeks to construct our sand coracle before the wind gathers its full strength.”
“Plenty of time,” Imir said. “We’ve brought along the finest laborers and materials, and your plans are no doubt brilliant,
my dear.”
“I did not draw the plans.” Sherufa blushed. “I merely gathered them.”
“That’s the brilliant part—we could never have done this without you.”
In a gully where a tiny seasonal stream petered out before reaching the dunes, the Missinians had already established a work
camp, waiting for the caravan to arrive. Two horses cantered up to meet Imir’s party as they approached, one bearing Soldan
Xivir, the other with a matronly looking woman in her mid-fifties.
The soldan of Missinia raised his hand. “Imir, old friend! I brought my sister with me—I knew you two would like to spend
time together.”
The former soldan-shah looked awkward and uncomfortable, and suddenly Saan realized who the woman was: Lithio, the mother
of Omra. Imir’s first wife.
“My husband and I have much to share after all this time. He has been somewhat remiss in sending me letters.” Lithio arched
her eyebrows. “It’s been at least eleven years, has it not, Imir?”
“I was busy.”
With a glance at Sen Sherufa, Lithio gave a wry smile. “A new wife? I don’t recognize this one, but I could have lost count.
There was Asha after me, then Villiki—ah, but they’re both gone now, aren’t they? There must have been more wives in the intervening
years.” She didn’t seem to have lost count at all.
“As I said, I have been busy.” Imir was terse now.
“I am not his wife,” Sherufa said. “I am a Saedran scholar brought along for this mission.”
Lithio’s lips pulled together in a skeptical pout. “Of course he would take probably the only female Saedran scholar in all
of Uraba, and an attractive one at that.”
Soldan Xivir ignored the interplay between his sister and her husband, turning his attention to Asaddan. “Nunghal, you have
recovered well since I first saw you brought into my court on the verge of death.”
“With all the food in Olabar, I have grown fat.” He chuckled and patted his rock-hard stomach. “I hope I do not weigh down
the balloon.”
Xivir looked out at the expanse of sand. “I hope your tales have merit, because it sounds like you’re chasing sand devils
across the dunes.”
“I am chasing my knowledge—and the winds.”
Lithio seemed to notice Saan for the first time, and the wrinkled lines around her eyes grew tighter as her gaze narrowed.
“Now, he’s a strange boy. He looks as odd as a Nunghal. Does he speak our language, too?”
“It
is
my language,” Saan said, a bit defensive.
Imir flushed and introduced the young man. “This is Saan, the son of Omra’s second wife Istar.”
“I thought his first wife was named Istar. The one that died? This boy doesn’t look at all like Omra.” She seemed to disapprove.
“The first Istar died in childbirth. The second Istar is Tierran, and Saan is hers.” Imir drew himself straighter, standing
up for the boy. “The soldan-shah adopted the boy and raised him as his own, but now Istar has given him a true son.”
Lithio frowned, trying to make sense of what she’d learned. “A true son? Ah, so now this boy is no longer needed. That is
why Omra is sending him on this desert journey.”
Saan quirked a smile rather than taking offense. “No, he sent me because I asked to go… and so that I could meet you.”
“Such a sweet boy, even if you do have a strange appearance.”
Xivir interjected, getting down to business. “We can speak of court gossip and wives and children in the tents tonight. Let
us unload supplies and get your workers settled in the camp.”
Not far from the camp lay bitumen fields, the source of tar and black oil used for construction and fuel. Several pools of
sulfurous-smelling water bubbled up nearby, ringed by carefully placed rocks. The warm pools were considered a luxury, and
Lithio insisted on going there to bathe after dark. She wanted Imir to come along with her, and he insisted on bringing Sen
Sherufa. The Saedran woman appeared so uncomfortable at the prospect—yet unable to turn down Imir’s request—that she suggested
Saan join them as well.
As they settled into the pool, Saan felt the warm waters caress his muscles. Imir sighed as he let himself sink deeper. They
both wore waistcloths, and Sherufa, in a thin but concealing gown, immersed herself up to her shoulders in the murky pool.
Much to the young man’s surprise, Lithio stripped naked and simply climbed in. Imir’s eyes widened, and he seemed embarrassed;
Sherufa didn’t know what to do. Saan courteously looked away from the nude woman who might have been his grandmother.
“You’ve gained some weight, but you are quite attractive with your head and beard shaved,” Lithio said to Imir. “I remember
your hair was quite curly. I loved oiling it.”
“Yes, you did,” Imir snapped. “That’s why I shaved it off.”
“And you, Sen Sherufa—you have designs on my husband? His other wives must have exhausted him, though I seem to be the only
one left, and he almost never comes to see me. Someone of your… age, might be a refreshing contrast.”
Imir gave a weary sigh. “You and I never had much of a spark in our marriage, Lithio. Politics is politics. You got what you
wanted.”
“I still get what I want.” Lithio chuckled, lounging back in the warm pool. “Oh, don’t be so scandalized, Imir. I am merely
teasing you. I wish you the best. I always have.” She looked at Sherufa. “You should marry him—he is a good husband.”
The Saedran woman climbed out of the water with a mumbled apology. As she stood dripping, drying in the warm night air, Imir
stared at how the once-chaste gown now clung tightly to her chest, outlining her breasts and nipples in clear detail.
“I believe I’ve had enough of a soaking for now.” Sherufa looked innocently at Lithio. “I wouldn’t want to prune up like that.
Or are those wrinkles?”
Lithio’s mouth hung open as the Saedran woman walked off into the darkness. Then she began to laugh uproariously, and Imir
joined in. “You see, Lithio? She keeps me humble.”
“Not enough.” Lithio caught Saan’s gaze as he regarded her. “And what are you looking at, young man? Ogling me? Or scheming
against me?”
“Just assessing whether or not you are a threat,” Saan said. “It seems to me that even far from Olabar, the politics among
the wives of a soldan-shah are similar.”
Imir burst out laughing. “You see how perceptive the boy is?”
“Perhaps too perceptive,” Lithio said in a thoughtful tone. “But it’s good that he stands up for himself.”
In the castle’s Naval Room, numerous shelves held sympathetic models of every single ship in the Tierran navy, each replica
built by a master model-maker from materials twinned to the larger vessel. Though the military strategists in Calay could
do nothing to affect a ship out on patrol, the twinned models did keep Anjine and her court advisers aware of which ships
remained intact and which had been damaged or sunk.
She easily located the model of the
Raven,
the fast patrol ship to which Mateo had been assigned for the past several years; she had its spot in the Naval Room memorized
by now. Commanded by Captain Trawna now, the
Raven
had seen its share of sea battles. Recently, Anjine had received a long list of promotions from Comdar Delnas, who regularly
moved men up in rank to replace those lost in the war. Mateo had finally been named a first officer, and his future was bright.
Anjine had no doubt he’d soon become a captain in his own right. His skill counted more than his years, and his experiences
at sea had already hardened him. Because she knew
him
so well, she could tell that Mateo was leaving a great many details out of his letters.
The model of the
Raven
was intact, and so the actual ship must be intact. As always, Anjine breathed easier, knowing Mateo was safe.
Alone in the Naval Room, she walked slowly along the shelves, smelling the wood, the paint, the shellac of the models. Advisers
inspected the replicas every day. In the past two years, she had greatly increased the size of the display shelves and even
required that models be built (after the fact) of existing Tierran merchant ships, in addition to the war vessels. Thus, Calay
could more accurately monitor the casualties of the war.
In the years since the death of Queen Ilrida, King Korastine retained his crown and continued his kingly duties, but the fire
in him had been quenched. He no longer burned to prosecute the war and launch massive assaults against the Urabans. The enemy
had continued their harassment that caused such pain and suffering, but not to the extent of a full-fledged crusade. Anjine’s
father suggested that the Uraban soldan-shah might have suffered a tragedy equal to his own, and thereby also lost his heart
for the war.
But she refused to gamble on that. She considered it just as likely that the Urecari were up to something. More and more,
she had taken an interest—and then an active role—in watching the new warships, while her father devoted his energy and enthusiasm
to his ambitious expedition to find Terravitae.
While Korastine—limping from the gout that had grown increasingly serious in his knee—spent his days with shipwright Kjelnar
and Sen Leo na-Hadra planning the epic voyage, Anjine handled more of the kingdom’s daily affairs. Listening to the repeated
requests in Mateo’s letters, she quietly ordered the construction of several more warships in different yards.
She kept all of Mateo’s letters safe in a chest in her bedchamber. When she felt lonely or sad at the way the war was proceeding,
she would read the old letters at random. She could imagine his voice, always telling her stories, always trying to bring
a smile to her face. “Dear Tolli,” each letter began. Mateo never grew tired of the old joke, and she never grew tired of
hearing it.
Just two days previously, a small cargo ship coming up the coast had delivered letters to Calay, including one from Mateo.
Receiving it, Anjine excused herself from a tedious tariff-negotiation meeting and withdrew to a window seat out in the corridor,
where she sat with her cat. Accepting the attention as his due, Tycho curled up in her lap as she read.
“It rained last night,” Mateo wrote, “a drenching downpour that went on for hours in a constant stream. Every man aboard was
soaked and cold, but the seas weren’t rough, and we sailed right through it. Our water barrels were filled up, and the crew
came out on deck just to get a good wash. Now the decks are cleaner than they’ve been since we left port!
“Then—ah, you should have seen it!—after the rain passed, the clouds parted and the full moon came out. With the high mist
in the air, a halo surrounded the moon. It was beautiful, Tolli. I wish you could have been here with me. After the rain,
the smell was so wonderful I just wanted to laugh out loud.
“Remember the time when the two of us had to hide outside under an awning during a downpour? We just watched the water run
down the roofs, through the streets and gutters. Remember how afterward everything seemed entirely washed clean?”
Anjine smiled. Of course she remembered.
“That was the time we decided to go to the Butchers’ District to see the tannery vats and leather workings. It always stinks
so much that we had never bothered to visit it in all the times we explored Calay. Nobody could walk the streets in that end
of the city without holding a bundle of aromatic herbs to his nose. But after that big rain, we thought we could handle the
stench. Of course, even the downpour couldn’t wash all that away.”
Mateo’s letter abruptly changed subjects, and he talked about his fellow crewmen, of the fishing villages they had seen, how
long it had been since they’d spotted a Urecari sail. Anjine frowned, scanning the lines again. He hadn’t finished the story
about the Butchers’ District, but she remembered what else had happened that day…
She and Mateo had been lighthearted after the rainstorm, their clothes damp and mud-stained. They ran to the Butchers’ District,
wanting to see what went on there. In the tannery section, hides were scraped, stretched, and then soaked in large stone vats
of foul-smelling tanning chemicals. Leatherworkers cut sections for their uses; cobblers came to buy materials for boots and
shoes.
Farther on, cattle and sheep made an unsettling din, lowing and crying. When Anjine and Mateo bounded around the corner to
the open area of corrals, the two stumbled to a halt to see large-muscled men
wrestling
with the frantic penned animals. A man grabbed a bleating sheep by its neck and dragged it forward into a chute, where another
man smashed the center of the sheep’s skull with a heavy mallet. Two more men hefted the carcass and, with a flash of their
knives, stripped it of its fleece, sawed the bones at the joints, and cut the meat into large bloody pieces.
Men wielded even larger mallets for the cattle, while some thrust long sharpened iron rods into the doomed animals’ throats,
spilling the blood into buckets and then catching the heavy beasts as they collapsed, butchering them even before they had
stopped bleeding out.