Текст книги "The Actors: A Hwarhath Historical Romance"
Автор книги: Eleanor Arnason
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early enough so the storm wouldn't have caught it close to shore; and there was a Taig ship outside the harbor, waiting for high water.
"It will be men," a male sailor added. Obviously he was Sorg or he wouldn't have been sitting with Sorg women, even in an arbor with an open front. "The Taig women don't travel. The ocean is dangerous, they say, and uncomfortable."
The other sailors – all women – grinned, tilting their heads in mocking agreement. The Taig women were right, of course, but there was more to the ocean than danger and discomfort. Let the Taig be timid, if they wished. The women of Sorg would sail, having confidence in their new ships and their family's traditional courage and strength.
No other foreign ships were expected.
Ahl drank her beer and left, riding home thoughtfully.
"Where have you been?" her mother asked.
"At Sorg Harbor."
"You are turning into a restless woman, and you still need to get a haircut."
"You're right that I've become restless," Ahl said. "I think I'll pay another visit to the marshes."
"Better that than the ocean," her mother said. "But I expect you to settle down soon."
The next day Ahl took her questions to the marsh witch and found Leweli visiting. Her cousin's fur – like her own – had not been cut recently, though for a different reason. The marsh was full of bugs, Leweli said. She wanted as much protection as she could get. "And Merhit, in spite of all her skills, is
not a barber."
The fur had grown to its full length and was as gray as fog. The baby nursing at Leweli's upper left breast was the same color, though dappled.
"I've never seen anything like this before," Leweli said, sounding worried.
"It's common among the island folk," said Ahl. "Baby spots they call the condition. The spots usually fade, though now and then a person remains dappled. I have seen old grandmothers with spots and venerable men as well."
Her cousin frowned, looking at the child, who had finished eating and gone to sleep. "I hope they fade. Though I don't suppose it will matter, if she spends her life in a marsh."
"She won't," Merhit said firmly.
At this point Ahl explained her problem. How could she take Leweli and the baby south, if there were no ships in port except those belonging to relatives? "I could make up a story, explaining why we need to go south. But I have never been
a good liar."
"This is true," said Leweli.
"And you know that any Sorg captain would check the story with my mother."
"You will have to go in disguise," said the witch. "How fortunate that both of you have uncut fur. You can pass as foreigners."
"Until we open our mouths and Sorg voices come out," Ahl said. "In any case, it's too late in the season. I don't think any of our family's ships will be going out again."
The witch frowned and was silent for a while. Finally she said, "The Taig ship will be leaving. Go with them."
"Two women and a child, traveling alone? How likely are they to take us?"
"This plan is doomed," said Leweli. "I'll have to stay here with you, Merhit."
"First of all, the marsh is unhealthy," the witch replied. "Secondly, I have visitors. Sooner or later you will be discovered. Imagine the trouble we'll be in then. Finally, I know the child belongs with her father's kin. I have seen
that."
No way to argue with a witch who's had a vision. Ahl was silent. Leweli placed the baby in a basket lined with vegetation. The tiny hands were closed. Ahl couldn't see the bare skin of the palms. But the soles of the feet were visible and dark gray. So were the four nipples, emerging from the fog-gray fur like buds. Even the dappling seemed lovely to Ahl, since it reminded her of the Helwar and Ki.
"Tell me everything that has happened to you since you left my house two days ago," Merhit said finally. "Maybe there's something that will help me find a path out."
Ahl complied. After she finished Leweli said, "Would the actors take us north with them? It sounds as if they're in trouble already; they might not mind a bit more trouble, especially if we paid them."
Ahl realized she hadn't thought about money. "Do we have any?"
"I do," Merhit said. "So does your mother."
"Are you suggesting that I rob my mother?" Ahl asked, horrified.
"One thing at a time," said Merhit. "I want to answer Leweli first. You shouldn't go north. There's a war on, as you ought to remember, and it has gotten so bad that even women aren't entirely safe. I've heard stories of bandits –" She paused, apparently unwilling to continue. "The child belongs in the south."
The child opened her eyes, revealing sea-gray irises. It was a southern color. Leweli had blue eyes, as did Ahl and Merhit and almost all the Sorg.
"Have you named her?" Ahl asked, remembering Ki's gray eyes.
"Not yet. When I need to call her something, it's Darling or Dapple. A real name will come later, if she lives."
"I'm going to meet with the actors," Merhit said. Moving quickly, as witches do when they have made up their minds, she saddled her tsin and rode off. This was
not the animal we know in modern times, descended from chargers used by warriors on the Great Central Plain. Instead this was a swamp tsin: short, stocky, thick-legged and broad-footed. Its coat was greenish-tan with pale, thin, vertical stripes which enabled it to blend with the marsh reeds. No breed of tsina is better over dubious ground. No breed is harder to find if it doesn't want finding.
Ahl knew all of this, of course, and paid no attention to the tsin. Instead she settled down to admire the baby and talk with her cousin.
Admiring a baby takes time, if it's done properly; and talking about one's family takes even longer. The afternoon passed without notice. All at once the light was slanting, and the witch rode back in view.
"Well?" asked Ahl.
Merhit dismounted, groaned and robbed her behind. "It's just as I thought. I know the actor. He's been here often, though his former tours were luckier. What the innkeeper told you is true. His company has split apart, and he is left with one companion. They don't want to go back north. 'War is bad for every kind of
art," Perig said to me, 'except the art of war.' There may be other reasons, unpaid bills or the kinds of trouble actors get into.
"I offered him money to go south across the ocean and take the two of you, disguised as actors. Obviously it's a dubious enterprise, but he's desperate; and he knows I'm a good and reliable witch. I cured him of a throat inflammation that wouldn't go away. That was several years ago, but an actor remembers!
"He'll meet the two of you tomorrow at sunrise on the marsh road. Keep going till you meet him."
"Are we leaving already?" Leweli asked in a worried tone.
"Of course not. He has to train you. I'll mind the baby."
That was that. Ahl rode home on her animal, which was a crossbreed, larger and swifter than a true marsh tsin and less careful about where it put its feet: a good animal for ordinary use and warfare on solid ground.
That evening she sat with her mother and two aunts in a porch with gauze curtains. Hanging lanterns filled the room with light. Ahl's senior relatives sewed, while Ahl sharpened a favorite knife. Long and narrow, it was the best tool she had for cleaning fish.
"We're getting tired of waiting for you to settle down," an aunt said.
"We don't usually produce flighty women in this house," the second aunt added.
Ahl's mother kept at her cross-stitch, saying nothing, though she glanced at her daughter.
"Give me a few more days," Ahl said. "It's disturbing to live in a foreign place."
"We'll remember this in the future," her mother said.
The aunts tilted their heads in agreement.
"If we send any of our family off a second time, it will be men."
"Or women who are not promising."
"Though your kin haven't come back restless, as you have," Ahl's mother added.
Ahl ran her whetstone along the knife's blade. "What can I say?"
"There is nothing to say," her mother replied. "Remember who you are. And do!"
Ahl excused herself soon after that and went to her bed, not through the house's winding corridors, but outside though the garden. The air was cool and full of the scent of herbs. The sky was clear and starry. A meteor blazed in the north. Watching it, she swore two things. By the Goddess, she would find her way back to the Helwar and Ki. By the Goddess, she would not turn out like her mother!
She made the morning rendezvous on time. The men stood on the road, sun rising behind them. They'd brought their one healthy tsin, which grazed nearby. As Ah] dismounted, Leweli arrived on the witch's tsin.
"We went to the harbor yesterday," the older man said. "The Taig ship was planning to leave tomorrow, but will wait one extra day. Everything must be ready by tomorrow night. A challenge, let me tell you! But actors are used to rapid changes of plan and fortune."
"This is true," said the younger man with a glinting smile.
The men pulled clothing out of their animal's bags: male tunics, belts, swords and strips of fabric. "Put these on," the older man said. "Use the strips of fabric to bind your breasts till they're as flat as you can make them. We'll take a walk down the road while you dress. Be rapid! We have one day to teach you how to behave like men."
They worked till noon, the women walking and turning, bending, hefting tools and weapons, speaking. The men watched and made comments or demonstrated the right way to stride and pull a sword. At midday they rested in the shade of an atchul, a sapling with no secondary roots, . which had apparently popped up out of nowhere. The mother tree was nowhere in view.
The older man, whose name was Perig, said, "I think you'd best pretend to be actors who specialize in female parts. They are usually tall; and they often have feminine mannerisms." He paused and gave the women a quick sideways glance.
"I really can't imagine you as the kind of actors who play warriors or romantic leads."
"Well enough," said Ahl. "I've never wanted to be a soldier, even in pretense."
"They have the best roles," said the older man in a comfortable tone.
"I prefer lovers," said the younger man, whose name was Cholkwa.
"Well that you should," said Perig. "You have the beauty and grace required of such roles."
"But not the passion and darkness required of heroes," added the younger man.
This sounded like an old argument, possibly a teasing one, though Ahl couldn't tell for sure.
"That will come. Youth is not a time for passion."
"It isn't?" asked Ahl, surprised.
"The young experience lust, which is a fine and useful feeling. How else can a young man move away from his mother? How else can he form friendships? And the best friendships are those formed when young. But real passion, the kind that can be acted, comes later. You'll see this, when you see me act."
When noon was past they got up and practiced more. At last, when the sun was low in the west, the actors called a halt.
"I've done what I can," Perig said. "Meet us here tomorrow at midafternoon, and bring the money for our passage. The Taig will want to be paid the moment we're on board."
Leweli tilted her head. The two kinswomen rode off together. When they were safely away from the men, Leweli said, "Merhit has a message for you. Bring what money you can find."
"She wants me to rob my mother," Ahl said.
"Yes." Leweli reined the witch's tsin, though it wasn't easy, since the animal knew it was going home. At last it came to a halt. Ahl stopped her more-obliging animal.
"We both know your mother has a cache under the floor in her counting porch.
Most likely you know the exact stone and how to raise it."
"This is horrible," Ahl said.
"It was horrible for me when I realized they were going to kill my child, not because it was sick or deformed, but to escape an agreement they never intended to keep. Obviously it is shameful to rob one's mother. But haven't we been shamed already? What have our relatives left us in the way of honesty and honor?"
Ahl groaned and tilted her head in agreement.
That night she went to her mother's counting porch and pried up the right stone. Gold shone in the light of the tiny lamp she carried: coins, bracelets, chains, ingots and works of art that were too badly damaged to be shown: a mounted warrior with a missing head, a luat with two missing flippers, a statue of the
Goddess in her guise of creator. The statue was hollow and had gotten crushed. Ahl could still recognize the Great One, her tools in her hands, the hammer that beat out the heavens, the axe that chopped out the earth; but it wasn't easy.
Coins would be the safest. They were least likely to be missed. She gathered two handfuls, then replaced the stone and hurried away, feeling self-disgust.
It was impossible to sleep now. Instead she went to the stable and saddled her animal. In the first light of dawn she rode to the marsh. The day was hot already; Ahl felt queasy; it wasn't a real sickness, she decided, but rather fear and shame. When she reached the witch's cabin, she found Merhit outside, crouched next to a fire, brewing a potion. "It will keep the child sleepy and quiet. I have a wicker chest to put her in. She'll be able to breathe. Did you bring the money?"
Ahl pulled it out. Merhit examined the coins, putting several off to the side.
"These are distinctive. Better to take only coins in common use. The ship will be in harbor tonight. Board after dark. By sunrise you'll be on the open ocean.
I'll hide your animal. When you are missed, your relatives will think you've run away or died in the marsh like Leweli. No one will connect you with a band of actors going south by sea."
"The innkeeper knows there are only two men in the acting company."
"Maybe two of their companions came back. Maybe they found new companions." The witch stirred her potion, looking thoughtful. "Maybe I should talk to the innkeeper. She knows I met with the actors; and your mother knows that you have been visiting me. I'm a closer neighbor than your mother or any of the matriarchs. She won't talk, if I tell her not to. But I have to say this
business of weaving plots isn't easy. I'm going back to ordinary magic as soon as you and Leweli are gone."
When the potion was cooked through and cooled, she fed a spoonful to the baby.
"Why are you doing this now?" asked Leweli.
"To make sure the dose is fight. People vary in how they respond to magic, and it's always hard to judge how much to give a baby."
Soon Dapple was asleep, lying in the green shade of the witch's arbor. She looked, Ahl thought, like a sul cub: newborn, soft and round, still covered with down. All too soon the down is lost, giving way to rough fur and scales. But for
a while such cubs have an unequaled charm.
Merhit poured the rest of the potion into jars and sealed them, pausing now and then to examine the baby. "The dose is right," she said at last. "This is a healthy sleep, neither light nor heavy. She held out a spoon made of horn, yellow and translucent. "Take this. Always use it. Give the child a spoonful when you want her to be quiet, but never more than five times a day."
"Is the potion dangerous?" Leweli asked.
"All magic is dangerous," Merhit said.
A little after noon the women set of. Leweli and Ahl rode double. Merhit, on her marsh tsin, carried Dapple in the wicker chest.
When they reached the rendezvous, the men were there with their one healthy animal, loaded with baggage now.
"Take your costumes and go down the road," Perig said. "We'll load your bags while you change."
"Not the baby," Leweli said. "It's hot already and will get hotter, l don't want her in that box."
"What are you going to do with herr" Cholkwa asked.
"Carry her till the sun goes down."
The two men looked at each other. "Very well," said Perig. "But if anyone comes, you'll have to hide in the marsh."
Leweli agreed. The two women changed clothing, Ahl binding all four of her breasts. Leweli, however, left her upper pair free and used the binding strip to make a sling for Dapple. "If she wakes, I can feed her."
They rejoined the men, and Perig said, "Another thing has occurred to me. By the time we reach Sorg Harbor, you are going to smell of milk and the baby."
"This is true," said Merhit, who was still on her tsin, watching everything.
"I also have a solution to this problem," Perig said. "Or rather, Cholkwa does."
The young man looked puzzled.
The older man smiled. "He likes perfume and always has a jar. We'll pour it over Leweli – "
"What?" cried Cholkwa.
"When we reach the south, dear one, I'll buy you more."
Cholkwa opened his mouth.
"You can argue on the way," said Merhit. "Be careful! And be lucky!" She turned her tsin and rode off, leading Ahl's animal.
The journey to Sorg Harbor was uneventful. They met no one. Only a fool would travel through weather like this, Perig remarked. Late in the afternoon they took shelter against the heat, resting in the shadow of a half-grown atchul tree. Sister trees stood in the distance, but Ahl couldn't find the mother. Had
it fallen? Was this an omen? Would she ever see her mother again? Imagining the matriarch's fury, Ahl decided she might not want to.
At sunset the four continued on their way, trudging through the long summer dusk into a starry night. By the time they reached Sorg Harbor the buildings were dark.
They stopped. Leweli put her baby in the wicker chest and, with Ahl's help,strapped her upper breasts. The two men went off to relieve themselves. When they returned, Perig got out the perfume and dowsed Leweli.
"Too much," said Cholkwa. "You know what she smells like now."
"Like a man who sells the use of his body to other men," said Perig cheerfully.
"Better that than a mother. In the future, please remember to use the male pronoun when speaking of Leweli or Ahl. They are men now."
"With a baby in a box," said Cholkwa.
"As you say," Perig agreed in the same cheerful tone. He looked toward the women. Ahl could see starlight shining on his eyes. "You need new names. How does Lewekh sound? And Ahlin?"
"Good enough," said Ahl.
Perig led them through dark streets. A few dim lanterns shone in the harbor, aboard docked ships. One was the Taig Far Traveler. A sleepy male voice asked,
"Who?"
"The actors," said Perig.
"Come on board."
Tired and half-asleep, Ahl helped unfasten the chest. She and Leweli carried it into a cabin. A lamp hung from the ceiling; the still air stank of burning fish oil. Ahl forced open the cabin window. "It'll be better once we're under way."
"Good," said Leweli.
The men followed with bags, then left again. The tsin had to be delivered to its new owner. Ahl searched the cabin. A row of cabinets went along one wall. Inside were five hammocks, neatly rolled, and five pots of fired clay, good-sized and glazed inside. The lids fit tightly. One was clearly for urination. She could tell by the shape and the emblem drawn on the outside. She didn't know the purpose of the others.
Leweli spread her bedroll on the floor, but Ahl – a sailor – hung up one of the hammocks, fastening it to iron hooks in the cabin walls. Along with the lamp and the cabinets, these were the cabin's only furniture. A spare folk, the Taig.
Lying in her hammock, she regarded the lamp, which was iron and shaped like a fish with bulbous glass eyes. Light shone out the eyes and through a hole in the fish's back. Taig art. The Sorg would never make anything so grotesque. Thinking this, Ahl went to sleep.
Waking, she felt the ship in motion. The fish was dark. Daylight came through the window. She could make out Leweli, sleeping next to the wicker chest, one hand on it. The men were not present. Had they slipped off in the night? Were she and Leweli alone among male strangers? A disturbing idea! She rose and used
the pot-for-urination, then went on deck. Perig and Cholkwa were there, leaning on the ship's aide, watching blue waves go past.
"Good morning, Ahlin," Perig said. "Cholkwa is a little queasy. I thought he'd be better up here."
"And you?" asked Ahl.
"No kind of travel bothers me."
She stayed a while with the men. For better or worse the journey had begun.
There was a kind of relief in simply beginning. As to the end, who could say?
With luck, she'd find Ki.
The first two days of the voyage were bright, with a strong wind blowing out of the north. Nothing could be better! They sped toward Helwar over foaming water.
Leweli stayed in their cabin, afraid that the Taig sailors would see through her disguise, afraid as well to leave the baby alone.
"A good actor and a bad traveler," Perig said in explanation. "Poor Lewekh is often queasy, but if you could see him play a matron mourning the death of her male relations! A stone would groan and grieve!"
"I would like to see this," said the Taig captain politely.
Ahl preferred to be on deck, listening to Perig tell stories about his acting career, though he never mentioned the trouble that had left him with one companion.
At night they had to share the same cabin. The two men slept on the floor, keeping as far from the women as was possible. They were not perverts, Perig said in a reassuring tone. "Neither one of us has ever touched a woman, except for close relatives when we were children. Nor will we. Men like us are never used to fulfill breeding contracts. What lineage would want the kind of traits we have?"
This was true, as Ahl realized. The most important male virtue is directness.
How could an actor have this quality? Surely– to do his work – he had to be devious. Nor did it seem likely that an actor's life would encourage loyalty, the second male virtue. Always traveling, living a series of lies, how could men like Perig and Cholkwa be loyal, except possibly to one another?
In thinking this, Ahl showed the prejudice of her time. Now we understand that honesty can manifest itself in more than one way, and that people can travel long distances from home without becoming disloyal.
But it wasn't simply prejudice that made her think of actors as men of doubtful virtue. In those days acting was a trade halfway in shadow. Many actors were runaways; and not a few were criminals: thieves and prostitutes, usually, though there had been one famous acting troop which supplemented its income with
banditry.
"Understandable, given the quality of their acting," Perig said when he told Ahl about this group. "Eh Manhata caught them finally and told them to put on a play. Maybe they thought he'd leave them alive, if they could please him. They did their best, and he had them all beheaded. It wasn't a judgment on their
acting, but it could have been."
Were her two companions thieves? Ahl wondered uneasily, then remembered that she was a thief and beyond question disloyal to her family. In addition she was pretending to be a man. Hah! She was most of the way into darkness! Maybe she ought to finish the job and become an actor, though women never did.
On the third day the wind shifted, blowing out of the west. Black clouds loomed there, lightning flashing around them: the first autumn storm. The Taig men reefed their sails. In spite of this the ship's speed increased. The waves grew taller and changed color, becoming dark green with thick white streaks of foam.
The air filled with flying spray. "Get below," the Taig captain said to them.
They obeyed. Leweli was in the cabin already, throwing up in a pot which had not been used till now.
"This is turning into a difficult situation," Perig said.
"Yes," said Cholkwa in a strange voice and found a pot of his own.
The cabin window was already shut. Ahl checked to make sure it was secure, then sat down. The ship was well-made, though not of Helwar quality; and the crew were good sailors, the captain especially. Nonetheless they might go down. Such things happened. It was terrible to sit here quietly! She mentioned to Perig that she was trained as a sailor.
"The captain sent us below for a reason," he replied. "Respect his knowledge; and remember how wet it is on deck. If you go up, your clothing will be soaked at once. It will cling to your body. The Taig men will know you're a woman."
This was true. Ahl tilted her head in agreement. Above her the fish lamp swung back and forth, casting shadows that danced over the walls. Leweli and Cholkwa were still throwing up. Perig sat on the floor, arms clasped around his knees, in a pose of patient endurance. Seeking distraction, Ahl opened the wicker
chest. The child Dapple slept quietly, as if in the witch's arbor. She laid a thick cloth over her legs for protection, then lifted the child out. How delicate the body between her hands! How soft the fur! How light the weight when she laid Dapple in her lap! Ahl watched the baby sleep, the tiny chest rising
and falling gently. The eyes were not perfectly shut. Now and then, when the lantern's light shifted, a gleam shone between the gray lids. Hah! It made Ahl feel tender! As did the loosely curled hands, their nails uncut and curving over the fingertips like claws.
It occurred to her that the potion's magic might work on full-grown people. At the moment Leweli and Cholkwa were both lying down. If they were making any noise, Ahl was not able to hear it over the sound of water rushing, the creak and groan of wood. But neither looked comfortable.
So.
Ahl laid Dapple in the chest, then filled the horn spoon with potion, bringing it to her cousin. Leweli glanced up, her expression despairing.
"Try this," said Ahl, kneeling.
Leweli hesitated. The ship made a sudden loud noise and shuddered around them.
That was enough. Leweli took the potion.
If that was the right dose for a child, then the mother needed more. Ahl went back to the jar.
When she finished with Leweli, she took the jar to Perig and explained her idea, speaking loudly through the ship's noise. The actor smiled and carried the jar to his companion.
Leweli and Cholkwa dozed, looking more comfortable than before. Perig sat as before. After a while Ahl began to feel queasy. The jar of potion was still mostly full. She ate a spoonful. The flavor was medicinal, sharp and herby. Soon she noticed her body was relaxing. Instead of fear and nausea, she felt a pleasant drowsiness. She lay down, one hand on the chest where Dapple slept, dreamt of Ki and woke to a banging noise.
Was the ship breaking apart? No, it was the Taig captain, beating on their door.
The storm was as bad as ever, he told them. All the sails were gone, pulled down or blown away. Still the ship drove east, far off course already. "Pray for us, if you think the Goddess will listen; and if you have charms or know any spells, use them now!"
Then he was gone. The fish lamp swung back and forth. Looking across the cabin, Ahl saw Perig's mouth moving. "Are you reciting magic spells?"
"Speeches out of the plays. Everything I can remember in praise of the Goddess, courage and luck."
This didn't seem useful, but could hardly do harm. Ahl gave more potion to the invalids, the child and herself. Time passed. Now and then, among her dreams, she thought she heard Perig's voice, speaking of honor and fate.
Finally – was it on the third day or the fourth? – the motion and noise decreased. Perig left the cabin, coming back to say, "The captain thinks we'll survive, though we're far east of the route he planned for us; and I have never seen an ocean like this one.'
Ahl couldn't stay put. Pulling a vest over her tunic, she went on deck. The smooth planks shone with water. The air tasted of moisture and salt. Looking up, she saw the main mast still intact, though loose ropes flapped around it,holding pieces of broken spar like fish in a net.
On every side waves rose like mountains capped with snow. What a sight it was!
But the ship was moving like a ship, climbing the dark blue slopes, sliding down into deep blue valleys. Before this, when the storm was at its worst, the ship's motion had reminded her of an animal fighting as the butcher's helpers dragged it into the butcher's killing yard.
They were going to live.
The next day was cloudless. Ahl and Perig opened the cabin window and emptied the various pots. Nonetheless the cabin's air remained less than pleasant. The two of them spent most of the day on deck. The waves had decreased in size; and the Taig sailors put up a sail.
"We can steer now," the Taig captain said. "Though not well. We have to put in for repairs. I'm at the eastern edge of my knowledge, beyond all certain ports; and we can't turn back and sail across this wind until the repairs are made."
"Is that so?" said Perig in his usual tone of friendly interest.
"What then?" asked Ahl.
"There are islands out here," the captain answered. "I've heard other captains describe them, and they're marked on my maps, though this far out the maps are unreliable. Some are uninhabited, which would be fine. Others are inhabited by
honest fishing people, which would be even better. What I'm worried about is pirates. Also monsters, though I'm not sure the monsters are real. There's no question about the pirates."
The day after, they spotted land. A sailor climbed the main mast. Coming down, he reported no signs of habitation. But there were plenty of trees and a broken coastline that might provide a harbor.
"We'll try it," said the captain.
At sunset they anchored in a little bay edged by sand. Beyond the sand were ledges of rough-looking, dark-brown rock. Trees grew atop the ledges, their
foliage the color of weathered bronze. The place made Ahl uneasy, though the harbor water was still and clear, the sky bright and almost cloudless.
They would spend the night on board, the Taig captain said. Was he simply being cautious, or did he feel – as Ahl did – that the island brooded and held secrets? Being the captain, he did not have to explain himself.
In the morning men went ashore. They returned midway through the afternoon, having gone around the island. It was empty of people, though there were plenty of birds. The sailors brought back firewood and fresh water from a spring. Hah!
It was sweet to drink!
"I don't imagine you'll be any help in repairing the ship," the Taig captain said to Perig and Ahl. "But you can work on shore. We'll need more wood, more water, and if any of you know how to hunt or fish – "