On the Isle of Sound and Wonder (15 page)

“Nothing to cry about, lad,” called Stephen, merrily. “We’re alive, aren’t we? We’re alive, we’ve got an entire island to ourselves, and a slave to bring us food, and the sun is shining, after all. Not too shabby of a day, I’d say.”

Truffo stared at the broad backside of the valet as he made a show of doing toe-touches and swinging his arms about. Stephen was not the slenderest of men; where Truffo himself seemed a bit of a scarecrow, all limbs and unkempt hair, Stephen Montanto could be called portly, and had a graying sort of dignity about the temples.

Truffo frowned deeply but could not muster his strength to bother answering the valet’s jolly comment.
We’re going to die here and he doesn’t even care,
thought Truffo angrily, and lay down on his back, eyes closed, letting the sun beat down on him. A few minutes went by in peace, but then Stephen began to whistle an absurd melody, something that sounded like a sad drinking song set to a tempo far brighter, and a pitch higher, than normal. The scraping inside Truffo’s head increased, and the black pit of his mind gaped wide to swallow the lingering bits of his sanity which clung, apelike, to the last sturdy branches of his brain. There was a great splashing in the water, and Stephen stopped whistling.

“Truffo! Truffo, look, boy!”

Truffo did not want to look. He did not want to listen to Stephen’s ridiculous posturing of positivity, and he did not want to watch the wildlife while they waited for the wandering monster to come back with their would-be supper.

“Truffo, get up! Look what he’s got!”

Fuming, Truffo sat up very slowly and glowered at Stephen before looking past him out to the waves. The monster had surfaced and reached the shallows. As he grew nearer, more of him reached upward out of the water, and it became clear he was dragging something with him. Something box-shaped. Truffo got to his feet awkwardly and squinted, shuffling a few feet toward the water’s edge.

“What is that?”

Stephen stared out at the returning Karaburan, his expression perfectly enchanted. “A crate, boy. A crate! From the ship!”

“What are we going to do with a crate?” Truffo asked shrilly. Stephen swatted playfully at him and did a little jig on the sand, something Truffo sincerely wished he could unsee.

“Could be food! Could be supplies! Could be one of those whatdoyoucallems . . . One of those spectographical transmittance kits! We could be calling for help in an hour and be home in a day, boy!” Stephen grabbed for his arms and swung Truffo about like a rag doll.

“Could be nothing,” squawked Truffo, then he shrieked in sudden pain. “Gah! Put me down. My shoulder! Ah!”

“Oh, tish. Your shoulder’s mending. You really are the most terrific spoilsport, aren’t you?” Stephen laughed and set him down again, clapping him on the good shoulder. “I can see why the king likes you.”

Truffo locked eyes with Stephen and saw his own frowning reflection in the older man’s dark eyes. Stephen’s expression seemed caught between painful remembrance and embarrassed apology, and Truffo stared hard at him, letting his own anger and sorrow at remembering the drowned king boil over in his chest like a bad broth. Then Stephen looked away with a cough, and Truffo balled his hands into bony fists, wanting to hit him, and hit him hard.

If he hadn’t let me steal the key to the wine cabinet, we’d have at least drowned with the others.
Truffo ground his teeth.
It’s all his fault I’m still alive.

“What ho, Karbuncle!” Stephen waved a hand toward the monster as it sloshed through the shallows toward them. “What’s that you’ve got there?”

“My lords! I found this strange thing on the sandy bottom while I dove for your supper-fish!” Karaburan lumbered forth onto the dark wet sand, dragging the box noisily forward as water streamed down his misshapen, scale-patched body. Truffo folded his arms tightly around himself and squinted; the wooden crate did appear to be relatively unbattered, aside from some stalks of seaweed that still caught on its corners, but it was also unlabeled.

“Let us have it then,” exclaimed Stephen, pushing forward to examine the crate. “Let us pry it open, with your strong beastly arms, Karlboren!” Stephen went to clap the monster on the shoulder but recoiled as soon as his palm touched the sea-soaked, unnatural skin. “Go to, go to! Crack it open as you would an oyster, lad, gently, but with good firmness of the arm.”

Truffo watched, standing a few yards off as the eager brute knelt and set about prying the crate apart with his bare hands. “What if it’s explosive, huh?” he called sourly. “What if it’s from the munitions locker? Or the engine room?”

Stephen made a scornful noise and waved his hands like a fishwife. “Bah, boy, you’ll speak so ill, our luck will change! Close your mouth and be still awhile.”

Truffo glowered back at him, shoulders hunched.
What a hypocrite! He cares for me and encourages me when we are employed and safely stowed, but now that we are alone in the wilderness with this fish-man, I am lower than a dog? Can’t believe I liked him so well before.

Karaburan eagerly peeled apart the creaking, damp wooden crate like an ape destroys fruit, then pulled the straw stuffing out in fistfuls, still miraculously dry for having been underwater. Then there was the clink of glass, and both Stephen and Truffo held their breath.

“What is it?” marveled the anxious Karaburan, pulling the bottle out of the pile of straw.

Truffo saw the widening of Stephen’s eyes as they met his own.

“‘Tis wine, boy,” breathed Stephen huskily, and Truffo was unsure whether he spoke to him or the monster. “Wine!”

“What is wine, my lords?” Karaburan’s head tilted to one side.

“Give me the bottle, and I’ll show you well.”

Karaburan passed the bottle to Stephen, as delicately as if it had been a living thing, and Stephen roughly took the half-submerged cork and pulled for all his might. When it burst away with a pop, Karaburan scrambled backward on the sand, terrified, and Stephen laughed. He held the bottle up as though in toast.

“By the gods, a blessing if I ever knew one,” he pronounced thirstily, and put it to his lips to drink deeply.

Truffo felt his insides squirm and pucker at the sight of it.
If I’d been drunker still, I’d sure have drowned, but now I’ll have it to dull the pains of survival.
In spite of himself, he stumbled forward as Stephen lowered the bottle, plucking it from his hands. “And now for me!” he cried defiantly and threw back his head to swig from the dark wine.

Stephen yanked it away again as soon as he’d swallowed, and Truffo coughed in the wake of the sudden stop. “Greedy, now, are we?” Stephen chided, but his expression was strangely merry. “Now, Karuburin, come here and kneel to your lords and swear you will be as our dearest servant.” He waggled the bottle enticingly.

Truffo wiped at his mouth, happily feeling the sour burn of the dark red wine in his throat, mingling with its soreness from the hot day and rough treatment.
What on earth will it become if we make it drink?
he wondered nervously. The monster shuffled forward hesitantly to kneel and duck his head a little in deference.

“My lords, I do swear myself to you . . . as much as I may,” he added humbly. Stephen’s brow furrowed.

“What exactly does that mean?” he asked.

“My lords, I am your loyal, loving servant,” the creature soothed, his overlarge hands spread wide in supplication. “But there is a tyrant here who keeps me for himself.”

Truffo sucked in a short breath of disbelief.
I knew this was too good to be true!
His shoulder twinged, remembering the stabbing shrapnel, and he grunted in sudden pain.

“You aren’t alone?” Stephen looked both anxious and hopeful. “A tyrant, you say?”

            “A vengeful, twisted man who was left here by the fates to wither away, but it is he who keeps me as his slave. I gather wood for his fires, fish for his food, and protect his home from the beasts that roam this place. I do as he commands, as I am bounden to.”

“Well, why?” Stephen sounded irritated. “He sounds terrible. You’re much stronger than he, I’m sure.”

Truffo stole up alongside Stephen as he spoke and pulled the bottle from his grasp so that he might drink again.

“He is not strong in body, but strong in mind,” Karaburan went on. “He is much stronger than me, and holds much power over my simple life. I tell you, he is a tyrant. I would give myself a thousand times over in service to anyone who might rid this place of his breath and foul heart.”

“You see how simple and how fond he is?” Stephen mused to Truffo, who slugged back another draught of wine from the bottle. “He wants a kindly master, not this rude and wrinkled devil. What’s his name, then, monster? Who’s this man?”

“I know him as my master. Once I wished to call him father, but he is no sire of mine; mine was drowned, you see, and this man made it seem that he would adopt me as his own. Until the day came that he saw my hideousness, and, disregarding my true and honest soul, he cast me out and treats me ever more as his lowest beast of burden.”

“What are you even getting at?” demanded Truffo, before he could stop himself. The tediousness of the monster’s toadying was beginning to wear on him, and Stephen was soaking it up like a sickly sponge. “What do you expect us to do, off him? Since you’ve got some kind of magic spell on you to keep you from hurting him?” He took another swig from the bottle, and Stephen and Karaburan stared at him. “What,” he said, glancing between the two of them and hugging the bottle to his chest.

Karaburan lowered his pale gaze to the crate of wine bottles, as humbly as any dog hoping for a reward. “If my master dies, the spell will break, and I will be free to serve you as my trusted, my beloved, my dear lords. I would do anything to be free of him. I want a simple life, but I want to serve willingly, not because I must. And I would serve someone who does not have the darkness of spirit that he has.” The beast shuddered a little, and Stephen’s jaw settled sternly.

“That’s what we’ll do, then.” His eyes gleamed, his expression serious as he turned to Truffo. “We’ll set him free, and then the island will be all ours. The three of us together, eh? Karburn will help us live off the land, and we’ll all be kings in our own right!”

Truffo’s eyebrows flew upward, but it was not joy that seeped into his expression. He frowned a little less, but his gut twisted within him, slow and painful. “Kings . . . but only after we’ve murdered a man?”

“Kings are begot in blood, Truffo Arlecin,” announced Stephen. “It is a good deed to help this poor and wayward thing claim his freedom. And besides that, we’re the only two left alive from the wreck of our former life. We may never go home again—and if we don’t, let’s make the most of it, eh?” He squeezed Truffo’s good shoulder gently, a glimmer of paternal coaxing passing through his dark eyes, and Truffo realized that he could no longer tell if this plan was driven by justice or greed.

The sun was still hot and high in the sky, and Ferran stood under the thin shadow of a spindly tree, breathing in the sea air. He watched as Mira reappeared through the tall grass, dragging another leather-bound trunk with her. “Here’s the big one,” she said. “It’s lighter than the others.”

He nodded eagerly. “Are any of them particularly heavy?” Ferran was hopeful that they might have more than just clothing in them, although the clothing would be nice, if it were dry and in wearable condition. His thoughts ran through the other possibilities: food, tools, a spectrograph, maybe?

“Depends on what you mean by ‘particularly heavy,’ ” she replied, and her bright, serious eyes fell on his skinny arms. He blushed and crossed them over his chest.

“I mean, do they feel like there might be a machine in any of them?”

“Are they yours?” Mira tipped the trunk over onto its side and brushed the dried seaweed from its brass corners.

“They’re from the ship, so yes, technically.”

“Was it your ship that sank?” Mira sounded almost impressed, and Ferran straightened his back a little.

“Technically,” he affirmed.

“What’s technical about it? The ship is either yours or it isn’t.” Mira’s eyes were traveling, possibly retracing her steps to the trunks.

“It’s—was—my father’s ship.”

“Then it’s your father’s ship. Not yours.” She began to move off, counting her steps under her breath.

“It is, too, mine,” Ferran insisted. “Everything that’s his is mine, as is rightfully so for the son of a king.”

Mira was halfway down the ridge of sand dunes in search of another trunk and stopped, turning to look up at him with something like surprise. “You’re a prince?”

Ferran set his jaw firmly and stared back at her. Her green eyes traveled the height and shape of him, and he felt again like a butterfly under glass. He hadn’t intended to reveal this information in the form of a brag, or a declaration of . . . what? Importance? He exhaled through his teeth and looked down at the trunk.

“You were a prince,” said Mira at last, making him look up. Her expression was even and judicious. “Now, you’re whatever you want to make of yourself.”

“What do you mean?”