I thought about all the shine-stones in her room the previous night. Dozens of them. Made to reassure herself she was somebody.
"And Dreamsinger?" I asked. "What do you want with her?"
Gretchen sighed. She kissed the front of my shirt, then straightened up and gave her head a little shake. The last of her braid unwound. "I can't put it into words, Phil. It's just… she's a Sorcery-Lord. If there's anyone who could look at me and say, You've got potential…"
She gave another twittering laugh-a choked sad sound. "Here's where you tell me it's ridiculous to talk about my potential when I've never made an effort to use it. If I had an ounce of real potential, I'd get off my dumdum and do something. Go to school… buy an apprenticeship… or just start incanting on my own. Something. Instead, I'm squandering my existence. On parties and fine food and umty-tiddly, as Zunctweed says. Doing nothing, day by day."
She suddenly turned to Myoko and Annah. "Do you know what it's like to have dropped out of life? To have had a hundred chances to be special, but you avoided them all? Or just botched them up because you were a horrible coward, afraid of letting yourself change. You clutch your comfortable excuses, saying, Someday I'll be brave, it won't take a lot, just give me one more chance and this time I'll grab it. But chances come and go. It would be easy to do something, but you don't. You just don't. Do you know what that's like?"
Myoko and Annah nodded. Their faces were both so sad.
Gretchen nodded too. "So here we are. Here I am. A woman of… a woman who's no longer young… who got her feelings hurt by some stupid young earl and found herself looking in the mirror under bright, bright light…" She turned back and gave me a small rueful smile. "I suddenly thought, maybe it's time. This time it's time. To see if I'm somebody or just a middle-aged slut who lies to herself about being gifted. Next thing I know, my one true friend comes along…" She held out her hand to me; I took it, feeling awkward and guilty but fond. "…and he tells me there's a way to meet a Sorcery-Lord."
She gave my hand a squeeze before letting it go. "So it's really my chance. To talk to this Dreamsinger and find out once and for all. To find my place. That's all I want: to find my place. You three have done that already. Right? You must be happy being teachers. I know Phil is. A font of inspiration, guiding young minds and spurring them on to heights of intellectual achievement. That's what you say, darling, and it's wonderful. You've found your place. All of you."
If she'd looked my way at that instant, I couldn't have met her eye. Myoko and Annah couldn't either. But Gretchen didn't seem to notice. She moved back and plucked the crimson gown from Myoko's hands. "I can dress myself," Gretchen said. There might have been tears in her eyes. "We'll be coming into port soon. Why don't you all go watch the landing?"
Annah looked at me, then asked Gretchen, "Are you sure you don't want anyone to stay?"
"No, no, all of you, go ahead." Gretchen tried to smile. "I can't have you learning the deep dark secrets of how I put on my makeup."
Annah gave Gretchen's shoulder a pat before stepping down from the bed and moving toward the door. Myoko reached out to do the same, stopped herself for a split-second (probably a spasm of shyness, touching a near-naked woman), then continued on to press her fingers lightly against Gretchen's cheek. "We'll see you when you're ready," Myoko said.
Annah, Myoko, and I left quietly, almost on tiptoe. We closed the door behind us and said nothing as we climbed up on deck.
Dainty Dinghy didn't try to put in at the docks: we dropped anchor well out from shore. When Pelinor asked why, Zunctweed said he didn't know the depth of the harbor-he had no detailed charts of Crystal Bay and wouldn't trust them if he did. Our frigate drew a lot more water than fishing boats; if we wanted to avoid running aground, we had to stay out a goodly distance.
At least, so Zunctweed claimed. Quite possibly, the rotten Patata was just being spitefuclass="underline" forcing us to row in by jolly-boat rather than giving us an easier option. But none of us had enough sailing experience to know if Zunctweed was lying. Impervia and Oberon both tried their best piercing stares, but Zunctweed wouldn't back down. Eventually, they had to yield to our captain's nautical "expertise."
As the NikNiks lowered the jolly-boat over the side, I examined Crystal Bay: both the harbor and the town. This close, I could see the fishing boats were aswarm with activity. Crew members toyed with ropes or dangled over the sides to examine the hulls; others banged away with hammers or swabbed hot pitch around holes that needed to be sealed; still more mended rips in fishing nets or dabbed bright red paint on the nipples of lurid figureheads. It was a furor of spring renovation, getting boats shipshape after winter's long languishing.
People lifted their heads to look at the Dinghy, but did so only briefly-this was the first sunny day after thaw, and no one had time to waste. Besides, our ship was the sort used by Feliss customs agents to track down smugglers; and while Dover-on-Sea was Lake Erie's smuggling capital, Crystal Bay surely had its own share of midnight runners. When the locals saw what they thought was a customs ship docking in their harbor, people kept their heads down and looked industrious.
On shore, the same attitude prevailed: folks were ostentatiously busy at various jobs, mostly refurbishing the docks. Like docks everywhere, these were lined with automobile tires serving as rubbery bumpers; and it says something about OldTech times that after four centuries, you could still find plenty such tires. You didn't even have to visit a garbage dump-go to any crumbling subdivision and beside the collapsed townhouses you'd find the rusted hulks of cars. Generations of kids would have pried off the most interesting bits, the mirrors, chrome, and hood ornaments… yet the tires would still be in place, weathered but adequate for nailing to the side of a pier.
Beyond the tire-strung piers were the usual dockside attractions-a ship-chandler's shop, a salting house, and half a dozen shrines to whatever saints or spirits the local sailors appeased before setting out each morning. I didn't see a tavern, but I wasn't surprised; these fisherfolk weren't itinerants who hung around the waterfront, they all had houses in the main part of the village. That's where the taverns would be: in the center of town, where you could go after supper, drink a few liters, and have only a short distance to stumble home.
Thoughts of taverns turned my mind to the previous night-The Buxom Bull and its aftermath. With a start, I remembered that Knife-Hand Liz had headed for this same area shortly before we did. Had she landed in Crystal Bay? I looked around once more, but saw only fishing boats. Perhaps the Ring of Knives chose some other harbor for their landing (Zunctweed had admitted there were several ports that were equally good for traveling to Niagara); perhaps the Ring's boat had been slow enough for Dinghy to pass in the night; or perhaps a fast ship owned by smugglers looked the same as an ordinary fishing jack, especially to a landlubber like me. Tzekich and Xavier might be watching us, hidden among the other ships… and all of a sudden I felt dangerously exposed.
I turned to say something to Annah beside me… but she was already scanning nearby boats with a wary eye. So was Myoko, a few steps away. And Impervia paced back and forth along the rail, like a guard dog who expects trouble. Oberon lifted his head high, sniffing for odd smells on the breeze. Pelinor had quit asking nautical questions and was simply watching the harbor. Even the Caryatid had stopped fussing with her pet flame; she'd gone still, holding a single unlit match.