Captain Ula steered Windtreader clear of the cargo wharves, thick with gantries where cranes unloaded huge crates and pallets from the holds of scores of ships. As they entered the Ylani Strait proper, Andrin saw that the commercial docks swept around the perimeter of the vast bay that led inland, curved like a golden horn that ran through the heart of Tajvana's business district. Further up the slopes were the villas and palaces of the wealthy, both rich merchants and the nobility of Othmaliz, some of whose lineages were almost as long as Andrin's own. She could see carriages and wagons in the streets, and hundreds of sweating stevedores hauling cargo to waiting wagons which would carry it out to dockside warehouses.
But Windtreader was bound for the right bank as Captain Ula reduced speed and conned his ship through clearly marked channels towards the passenger docks under the attentive watchfulness of hovering tugboats. Andrin could see beyond the Ylani Strait now, to the vast Ylani Sea, whose chilly, dark waters met the placid waters of the Ibral Sea in a turbulent, silt-laden chop. There was always a powerful current flowing out of the Strait, and flurries of foam rose as Windtreader's graceful stem cut through it.
Finena, riding the jeweled, white leather gauntlet on Andrin's arm, shifted her wings a bit uneasily, as if the sudden proximity of Tajvana after so many days alone on the empty sea made her nervous. Andrin soothed the falcon, stroking those glossy silver wings, and found herself reflecting that Finena's splendid coloring was far better suited to the Great Palace than hers was. She knew only too well that her own appearance was rescued from hopeless, oversized coltishness only by Lady Merissa's skill with cosmetics, hairdressing, and wardrobe. Indeed, at the moment, she wore a close-fitting bonnet designed to keep the wind from totally destroying the gemmed coiffure Lady Merissa had spent more than an hour coiling around her head after lunch, preparing her for their landing at Tajvana.
Andrin would have been lost without such guidance, and she knew it, which helped her to overlook Lady Merissa's sometimes tedious mannerisms and cloying attention to social etiquette. Especially now. The one thing Andrin wanted desperately to accomplish on this trip was to bring credit to her father and her Empire. She would die of shame if she brought embarrassment to her father's name, instead.
Fortunately, Lady Merissa had taken great pains with her appearance this morning, with a great deal of giggling help from Relatha, who had become Merissa's indispensable right hand and Andrin's indispensable companion. Windtreader's galley had, perforce, lost one of its assistants, but Andrin didn't feel at all guilty for the appropriation of Relatha's talents. Among other considerations, it was a genuine comfort just to have another girl her age aboard.
"Oh, Your Grand Highness," Relatha had sighed when Lady Merissa had finished buttoning her into a gown of ivory and silver brocade, trimmed with ermine and pearls. "You look a picture, so you do, just like your beautiful falcon. You ought to have a portrait done, just like that!"
Lady Merissa had paused and tipped her head to one side, considering.
"You know, Your Highness, she's right. You should have a portrait done with that gown and Finena on your arm. Ternathia's imperial grand princess and her imperial peregrine, symbol of the Empire for five millennia. Yes, I do believe we'll have to arrange that, when we return to Hawkwing Palace."
"If you insist," Andrin had muttered, thinking privately that her bird would outshine her.
A light cloak covered the brocade gown at the moment, protecting it from the brisk wind, although it was scarcely needed for warmth. It might be autumn, but it was warmer here than back home in Estafel, and the temperature had to be in the sixties. Palm trees grew along the hillsides, and the wind was merely brisk and cool, not chill. The cloak was enough to shield her elaborate gown from the capricious breeze, and it hid her nervous movement as her free hand smoothed the brocade unnecessarily under its cover.
She knew there was to be a formal reception and dinner once all the Conclave's delegates had arrived, and she had every intention of making one of Lady Merissa's carefully crafted political statements for the occasion. She simply didn't know yet what that statement would be. That would be determined largely by the mood and tenor of the preliminary?yet scarcely less formal?social occasions which must be endured before all of the official delegations arrived. She shivered under her cloak, not from cold, and leaned against her father, who wrapped an arm around her and gave her a gentle smile.
"We're nearly there, poppet," he said softly.
"Yes," she said simply. He hadn't called her that since her fifth birthday, and she smiled up at him, then lapsed back into silence and watched their final approach to Tajvana's passenger docks.
The captain rang down "Finished with Engines," an the chuffing paddlewheel tugboats moved in, pushing with bluff bows to ease Windtreader alongside an ornate, marble-faced quay aflutter with official flags of every nation on Sharona. A mob of carriages and people dressed in elaborate finery cluttered the long pier, well back from the longshoremen waiting for the ship's lines.
Paddlewheels churned white froth, Windtreader quivered as her thirty thousand-ton bulk nuzzled against the massive fenders, and steam-driven windlasses clattered as mooring cables went over the waiting bollards and drew snug. Crisp orders and acknowledgments went back and forth, and more steam hissed as it vented through the funnels.
And then, for the first time in almost a week, the deck under Andrin's feet was motionless once more.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Music drifted across the pier from a surprisingly large band, as the Ternathian imperial anthem floated to their ears in an appropriate salute to the arriving delegation. The imperial sunburst crackled from every mast as the longshoremen ran out the boarding gangway which would allow them to disembark, and Andrin's father lifted his arm from her shoulder, then offered her the crook of his elbow, instead.
"My dear, shall we greet Tajvana?"
She gave him a brave smile and nodded, placing her gloved hand on his coat sleeve with careful precision. Lady Merissa removed Andrin's bonnet, so that her dark hair, with its strands of gold, shone in the elaborate hairstyle she'd worked so hard to perfect. Jewel-headed pins and clasps flashed in the afternoon sunlight, like a crown of living fire, and Andrin thanked her softly. Then the grand princess lifted her other arm, crooking her arm and raising her glittering white gauntlet so that Finena rode at the level of her breast as she walked at the Emperor's side.
When they reached the gangway, Andrin released her father's arm to manage her skirts, concentrating carefully on the placement of her feet. The last thing she wanted to do was to trip and fall flat on her face in front of Tajvana's waiting dignitaries. She made it safely to the quay, shook out her heavy skirts, and placed her hand back on her father's waiting arm with a serene smile that belied the tremors in her knees.
The band was swirling and skirling its way through the fourth verse of the imperial anthem as she and her father stepped onto a long, purple carpet that ran from the side of their ship to the center of the quay, where an immense crowd waited. A veritable sea of faces peered toward them, leaving Andrin's fingers damp inside her formal gloves. When they'd crossed the carpet, they came to a halt before a semicircle of elegantly attired dignitaries. One of them, a short broad man in the elaborate robes of the Order of Bergahl, was obviously the Seneschal of Othmaliz himself.
Andrin gazed at him thoughtfully as Finena shifted on her gauntleted wrist. The falcon opened her beak but didn't?quite?hiss, which surprised Andrin, given what she could could sense of her companion's emotions. It was obvious Finena didn't much like him, but Andrin hoped the bird's agitation would be put down to the crowd about them, and not to her reaction to the Seneschal. It would never do to begin their visit here by insulting Othmaliz's ruler, yet, Finena's reaction left Andrin wondering just what it was about the man the falcon disliked.