Palo Barba came forward. "Well spoken, a true cavalier of Cath! Enough of blades and metal; let us take a goblet of morning wine."
Dordolio bowed. "Presently." He went off to his cabin. The Flower of Cath sat as if carved from stone.
Heizari brought Reith a goblet of wine. "I have a wonderful idea."
"Which is?"
"You must leave the ship at Wyness, come to Orchard Hill and assist my father's fencing academy. An easy life, without worries or fear."
"The prospect is pleasant," said Reith. "I wish I could ... but I have other responsibilities."
"Put them aside! Are responsibilities so important when one has a single life to live? But don't answer." She put her hand on Reith's mouth. "I know what you will say. You are a strange man, Adam Reith, so grim and so easy all at once."
"I don't seem strange to myself. Tschai is strange; I'm quite ordinary."
"Of course not!" laughed Heizari. "Tschai is-" She made a vague gesture.
"Sometimes it is terrible ... but strange? I know no other place." She rose to her feet. "Well then, I will pour you more wine and perhaps I will drink as well. On so quiet a day what else is there to do?"
The captain passing near, halted. "Enjoy the calm while you can; winds are coming. Look to the north."
On the horizon a bank of black clouds; the sea below glimmered like copper. Even as they watched a breath of air came across the sea, a curiously cool waft. The sails of the Vargaz flapped; the rigging creaked.
From the cabin came Dordolio. He had changed his garments; now he wore a suit of somber maroon, black velvet shoes, a billed hat of black velvet. He looked for Ylin-Ylan; where was she? Far forward on the forepeak, she leaned on the rail, looking off to sea. Dordolio hesitated, then slowly turned away. Palo Barba handed him a goblet of wine; Dordolio silently took a seat under the great brass lantern.
The bank of clouds rolled south, giving off flashes of purple light, and presently the low grumble of thunder reached the Vargaz.
The lateen sails were furled; the cog moved sluggishly on a small square storm sail.
Sunset was an eerie scene, the dark brown sun shining under the black clouds.
The Flower of Cath came from the stern-castle: stark naked she stood, looking up and down the decks, into the amazed faces of the passengers.
She held a dart pistol in one hand, a dagger in the other. Her face was set in a peculiar fixed smile; Reith, who had known the face under a host of circumstances, would never have recognized it. Dordolio, giving an inarticulate bellow, ran forward.
The Flower of Cath aimed the pistol at him; Dordolio dodged; the dart sang past his head. She searched the deck; she spied Heizari, and stepped forward, pistol at the ready; Heizari cried out in fear, ran behind the mainmast. Lightning sprang from cloud to cloud; in the purple glare Dordolio sprang upon the Flower; she slashed him with the dagger; Dordolio staggered back with blood squirting from his neck. The Flower aimed the dart-gun, Dordolio rolled over behind the hatch. Heizari ran forward to the forecastle; the Flower pursued. A crewman emerged from the forecastle-to stand petrified. The Flower stabbed up into his astounded face; the man tumbled backward, down the companionway.
Heizari stood behind the foremast. Lightning spattered across the sky; thunder came almost at once.
The Flower stabbed deftly around the mast; the orange-haired girl clutched her side, tottered forth with a wondering face. The Flower aimed the dart gun but Palo Barba was there to knock it clattering to the deck. The Flower cut at him, cut at Reith who was trying to seize her, ran up the ladder to the forepeak, climbed out on the sprit.
The cog rose to the waves; the sprit reared and plunged. The sun sank into the ocean; the Flower turned to watch it, hanging to the forestay with one arm.
Reith called to her, "Come back, come back!"
She turned, looked at him, her face remote. "Derl!" called Reith. "Ylin-Ylan!"
The girl gave no signal she had heard. Reith called her other names: "Blue Jade Flower!" Then her court name: "Shar Zarin!"
She only gave him a regretful smile.
Reith sought to coax her. He used her child name: "Zozi ... Zozi ... come back here."
The girl's face changed. She pulled herself closer to the stay, hugging it.
"Zozi! Won't you talk to me? Come here, there's a good girl."
But her mind was far away, off where the sun was setting.
Reith called her secret name: "L'lae! Come, come here! Ktan calls you, L'lae!"
Again she shook her head, never taking her eyes from the sea.
Reith called the final name though it felt strange to his lips: her love name.
He called, but thunder drowned the sound of his voice, and the girl did not hear. The sun was a small segment, swimming with antique colors. The Flower stepped from the sprit, and dropped into a hissing surge of spume. For an instant Reith thought he saw the spiral of her dark hair, and then she was gone.
Later, in the evening, with the Vargaz pitching up the great slopes and wallowing in a rush down into the troughs, Reith put a question to Ankhe at afram Anacho, the Dirdirman. "Had she simply lost her reason? Or was that awaile?"
"It was awaile. The refuge from shame."
"But-" Reith started to speak, but could only make an inarticulate gesture.
"You gave attendance to the Cloud Isle girl. Her champion made a fool of himself. Humiliation lay across the future. She would have killed us all had she been able."
"I find it incomprehensible," muttered Reith.
"Naturally. You are not Yao. For the Blue Jade Princess, the pressure was too great. She is lucky. In Settra she would have been punished at a dramatic public torturing."
Reith groped his way out on deck. The brass lantern creaked as it swung. Reith looked out over the blowing sea. Somewhere far away and deep, a white body floated in the dark.
CHAPTER FIVE
FREAKISH WINDS BLEW throughout the night: gusts, breaths, blasts, whispers. Dawn brought an abrupt calm, and the sun found the Vargaz wallowing in a confused sea.
At noon a terrible squall sent the ship scudding south like a toy, the bluff bow battering the sea to froth. The passengers kept to the saloon, or to the trunk deck. Heizari, bandaged and pale, kept to the cabin she shared with Edwe. Reith sat with her for an hour. She could speak of nothing but her terrible experience. "But why should she do so dreadful a deed?"
"Apparently the Yao are prone to such acts."
"I have heard as much; but even insanity has a reason."
"The Dirdirman says she was overwhelmed by shame."
"What folly! A person as beautiful as she? What could she have done to affect her so?"
"I wouldn't care to speculate," muttered Reith.
The squalls became gigantic hills lofting the Vargaz high, heaving the round hull bubbling and singing down the long slopes. Finally one morning the sun shone down from a dove-brown sky clean of clouds. The seas persisted a day longer, then gradually lessened, and the cog set all sail before a fair breeze from the west.
Three days later a dim black island loomed in the south, which the captain declared to be the haunt of corsairs; he kept a sharp lookout from the masthead until the island had merged into the murk of evening.
The days passed without distinguishing characteristic: curiously antiseptic days overshadowed by the uncertainty of the future. Reith became edgy and nervous.
How long ago had been the events at Pera: a time so innocent and uncomplicated!
At that time, Cath had seemed a haven of civilized security, with Reith certain that the Blue Jade Lord through gratitude would facilitate his plans. What a callow hope!