“You had best be right this time, Faron,” he said contemptuously. “For you have sent me off again for nothing, I will toss you into the sea; instead of feeding off eels, you will be feeding them with your own flesh. My child or no, you are of no use to me if you cannot at the very least read that scale.”
He wiped the blood on his hands onto his trousers, then climbed the lade up onto the deck again.
Rhapsody was listening to the sea tell her the story of a pair of lovers who had communicated by seagull and messages in glass bottles when the mangled body was swept into the cave on the tide.
In fright she backed up on the ledge, trying to keep away from the wat logged corpse, its eyes missing in a face that had been battered into shreds against the rocks just outside her tidal cave. The body was mostly nude, clad only in a shirt that looked as if it had belonged to one of Michael’s regiment.
He’s here, she thought, panic flooding through her as the current was flooding the cave. He has found me; Michael has found me.
After a few moments her calm returned.
This might have been one of Michael’s men, but he had been in the water for weeks, probably as long as she had been in the cave. The waves had given up the dead body grudgingly, and not before having their fun with it; the corpse had absorbed at least twice its weight in water, and was swollen and bruised, distended almost beyond recognition as human.
Worst of all, the body caught on a snag near the front of the cave, then slowly swirled throughout the tidal hideaway, scraping the edge of the rock on which Rhapsody now sat.
She put her head down to ward off the stench that was rising from the body; it had baked in the summer sun, absorbed the water from the sea, and now, with its penis and testicles cleanly broken off against a gouging rock formation, it was dissolving by pieces in the tidal cave, sheaves of skin and hair floating loosely, ready to separate.
Horror crept over Rhapsody as she realized the import of this event.
The body was now her companion. It would be bobbing with her when the cave flooded, bumping up against her in the wild current, trapped with her in the endless cycle of floating and resting, floating and resting.
I have to get out of here now, she thought desperately.
She looked to the tiny suspended mat of igneous stones she had bound together, plaiting strands of her long hair to serve as a rope to hold them. Ifs not ready, she thought frantically. It’s still too small.
She glanced at the body again, knowing that in a few hours it would be dancing with her in her endless vigil. The thought made her shudder violently.
“I have to get out of here,” she said again aloud.
Perhaps it was her own mind filling in the space; she heard an internal voice, perhaps her own, but young-sounding.
We have to get out of here.
Right, Rhapsody agreed silently. Give me one more night to plait and bind; in the morning, when the tide flattens, we will try to make our escape.
She didn’t even have the strength to wonder whether Michael was gone yet or not.
44
By the time the two sovereigns had reached the seacoast, neither of them could expect to be warmly welcomed into an inn.
The journey overland had been a brutal one, with little rest and less success. In each place they stopped, they arrived too late; village after village had been burned, scorched by half or more, some reduced to ashes that smoldered in the wind. In Traeg, the northernmost of the tiny villages, the whipping wind that battered the coast had long been seen as both a friend and adversary, but with the elemental sword of air in the hand of one who was spreading dark fire, it had served only to broaden the destruction, carrying the deadly sparks throughout the boatyards, burning the docks to cinders.
It was at those docks Achmed and Ashe came to a halt one afternoon, staring at the devastation in silence.
Neither man had taken the time to shave or bathe, their outward appearances deteriorating from both the grime and soot of the road and the added toll that worry was taking on both of them. Under normal circumstances, an unkempt, hooded traveler would have gone unnoticed in a rough place like Traeg, but because of the rumors carried like sparks on the wind of pairs and trios of men who came through coastal towns, seeking a blond woman, leaving behind buildings in flames, they had dismounted at the waterfront to find themselves the objects of steely-eyed scrutiny.
“It will be harder to convince anyone to trade horses now,” Ashe remarked as they stopped in what was left of the tiny village square.
“If there are any to be had,” Achmed said.
They looked around for signs of life and found them; a tiny salt shop stood open, its walls glazed in black soot but still sound; the smithy was undamaged as well, and a large tavern with an ash-covered sign in front was apparently open for business by the look of things, men wandering in and out, calling to one another.
The two travelers walked up the cobbled path that led to the establishment, lined at one time recently with neatly tended flowers that now sat twisted and burnt. As they passed the inn’s signboard Ashe stopped suddenly. He crossed over a row of black shrubbery to stand before it for a moment, its name and symbol obscured by a layer of soot. He wiped the center of the signboard clear with his sleeve.
In the center of the board was a gaily painted rendering of a fancy headpiece surrounded with gilt words. Ashe wiped his sleeve across it again, then stood back in silence.
The Hat and Feathers, the sign decreed.
He signaled excitedly to Achmed. “This may be a portent,” he said.
“How so?”
“In Yarim we went to Manwyn’s temple, Rhapsody and I. Amid her rantings, the Seer mentioned something about a hat and feathers.”
Achmed looked over his shoulder at the three men who had gathered on the inn’s stoop and were watching them closely. “What else did she say?” he asked quietly.
Ashe glanced at the men, then turned slightly to shield his words from the wind.
“She said that Rhapsody would not die giving birth to my child,” he said haltingly. “That was why we sought her counsel.”
Achmed’s face was impassive. “Anything else?”
“Yes. She told Rhapsody to beware the Past—‘it seeks to have you, it seeks to aid you, it seeks to destroy you.’ She also characterized the Past as ‘a relentless hunter, a stalwart protector, a vengeful adversary.’”
Achmed snorted in annoyance. “And you are only thinking to tell me this now?”
“They were rantings. She also told us the what was good on the menu of the local tavern and made recommendations on mementos to bring home to Stephen’s children.”
Achmed started for the door. “She sounds like a keeper. I may go and see if she wants to leave that godforsaken temple and come live in Ylorc.”
Ashe caught his elbow.
“Wait,” he said quickly. “There is one prophecy more.” He waited until the Bolg king had drawn close enough to hear without being overheard. “ ‘Long ago a promise made, long ago a name conveyed, Long ago a voice was stayed—three debts to be paid.’”
“And did this mean anything to Rhapsody?” Achmed asked.
“No, but I have been pondering the words as we traveled. The only one I can make any possible sense of is the ‘promise made’; Rhapsody told me long ago she had been forced to lie against her will, had given her word to a cruel, evil bastard about something he might misinterpret in return for the safety of a child. I believe that man is the seneschal we seek, the one you called the Waste of Breath.”