Our Lady of the Islands (8 page)

Sian woke to the blinding light of morning. She could open her eyes. With that realization came a rush of dread and anger as she remembered the events of last night.

She sat up gingerly in the boat, cringing in anticipation of pain … which did not come. Straightening further, she blinked and looked around. A flight of graceful white pelicans flew by in single file just off shore. The tiny, weather-beaten vessel had clearly drifted during the night, washing up on the flat, muddy beach of an island densely overgrown with mangrove and scrub palm. The tide, it seemed, was out; the boat leaned against a mussel-covered boulder.

Still nothing hurt. She looked down again, examining her arms, then her legs. Though her once-elegant silks were ruined — filthy, bloodied and torn — her body was clear of any injury. Where had the wounds gone? The cuts and abrasions? The massive bruises that should certainly have been there? She reached up with both hands to touch her face, but again found no pain, no scabs or swellings. Yet she remembered with such dreadful clarity …

Shaking her head in confusion, Sian rose carefully and stepped out of the boat, grimacing as her feet sunk ankle-deep into the mud. She stretched her legs, turning her head this way and that. Still no pain; not even any stiffness. She took a few steps, looking around to get her bearings. In the distance, she picked out the telltale Age of Giants stumps and the tall bridge between The Well and Three Cats. She had drifted quite a ways in the night. It would take a while to get back to …

Oh no! She had missed her dinner with the Hanchu traders!

She laughed aloud. She had also been kidnapped, beaten severely and set adrift, escaping, somehow, with her life — and she was worried about a
business
meeting?

Then she recalled the other meeting she had missed. Reikos must be beside himself.

“Damnation,” she muttered, wondering how everything might be rescheduled, her mind turning reflexively to practicalities, despite all that had happened.

Or was
still
happening … wasn’t it? Why did she not ache?

In fact, her neck and lower back felt better than they had in years of sleeping in soft beds. Perhaps something in her head had been damaged, and she could no longer register the pain that must certainly be there? But she wasn’t numb: all her joints and muscles felt … well, good, actually. She could feel the sun’s warmth, and the suck of the mud under her bare feet. And what about the wounds? She looked down at herself again. Could her terror of what was happening have so altered her perceptions that she had just imagined such injuries? Could she have been
that
unhinged?

But no. She had been desperate to see what was happening when they’d dragged her to this boat, yet her eyes had been too swollen to open, no matter how she’d tried. That could not have been imaginary, surely. Yet, such injuries did not just vanish in a night.

How long has it been, then?
she wondered with a chill. Had she been lying unconscious long enough to heal like this? How long would that have taken? Days? Weeks? Would she not have perished of thirst or starvation by now?

She left the mud for higher ground, then walked more urgently down the beach, searching for any signs of habitation. She found none. Countless unpopulated sandbars and coral rubble piles peppered the channels and bays of Alizar; it was just her luck, washing ashore on one of them. She gazed at the nearby islands, calculating how far she would have to go to find someone who could help her — or at least help her understand what had happened. It would be a hard row, even if she
did
have oars; probably an hour or more to the Main, farther still to Little Loom Eyot on the other side. But the islands of Alizar Main might not be safe for her now. What if this so-called priest and his crazed followers were still watching for her there?

A few steps further, nearly to the edge of the mangrove-hemmed beach, and the palm-studded shores of Malençon came into view.
Maleen!
If the islands were unsafe for Sian, her daughter — her
grandchildren
— would be in danger as well. This madman had known who Sian was, after all, and to whom she was related! Thank goodness Rubya was far enough away to be out of danger. But she must get to Malençon immediately, collect Maleen and her family if it wasn’t already too late, and flee with them at least to the Eyot.

Sian turned and strode back to the boat. Now that she could see, she easily found oars tucked away under the small lip of the gunwale, fastened in place with a slender rope.

She leaned over to unship them, still disbelieving of her absent aches and pains. Her wrists and fingers felt none of the incipient arthritis that had been plaguing her of late; she felt no stiffness from her passage in the boat; even the twinge in her uterus, a near-constant companion since the birth of Rubya, was gone. It was as if she had shed two decades of age overnight.

Perhaps she had indeed been beaten senseless; perhaps she was not even awake now. Though the world around her did not seem like a dream.

If it was, she dreaded waking up.

None of it made any sense.

As soon as Maleen was safe, Sian should go straight to the Justiciary, crying kidnap and attempted murder … but what would she say?
They beat me, but I have no bruises or cuts. And nobody holds me captive; I do not even have a name for my attacker.
No. Not much imagination was required to play out that scene.

Brushing at her clothes in a vain attempt to remove the worst of their filth, she found her small purse, still full of coin. They hadn’t even robbed her! This made less sense all the time. Though her sandals had clearly gotten lost in the beating.

She went to wash her hands, arms, and legs in the shallow surf, then rinsed her skirts and blouse. She could hardly go back among people looking as she did. Crusted blood moistened, staining the water and drawing the notice of tiny minnows. At least the silks were dark. Not much she could do about the rips, though. Still, she might pass now, if no one looked too closely. She put the wet clothes back on, thankful at least for the sultry morning.

Sian took a deep breath and got behind the boat, pushing it towards the water, then jumping in when it was afloat. Even this was less difficult than it should have been, even before her ordeal. The oars came easily into her hands, and pulling them through the water felt invigorating. There was no ache or stiffness in her now loose, strong shoulder muscles. Sian smiled briefly, leaning into the work. But bewilderment quickly returned.

It was an hour’s hard work to reach Malençon, yet, though quite hungry now, she was barely more weary than she would have been after walking the few hundred yards from her house on the Eyot to the dye works. In fact, she felt ready to do it all again. She dragged the little boat up onto shore a few hundred yards south of Anglers Wharf, then paused to wonder whether she should try to secure it somehow. It wasn’t
her
boat; they could take Maleen’s family’s larger craft to the Eyot. Still, one didn’t just walk away from boats … except, yes, she
would
. If this dreadful priest wanted it back, he could damn well come and find it.

Sian strode up the beach to a long wooden staircase that led to street level. She was hardly surprised that the climb merely invigorated her further, as did the short walk across this end of the island to her daughter’s house. If this were just the energy one felt after a near miss, she supposed it would fade soon enough. Then she would feel all that had happened. Surely.

Maleen lived in a small but comfortable house of carved and gabled teak, raised above the yard’s dense foliage on poles behind her husband’s smithy. Haron worked in fine copper and brass, and the occasional silver plating, producing household goods for those who could afford more than tin or iron but less than solid silver (or, the gods forefend, gold). He did delicate, lovely work; Maleen was slowly learning the trade by his side, in the rare moments when her children didn’t need her.

It always made Sian smile to visit them, to see what latest bit of decorative scrollwork Maleen had etched onto a serving platter, or the elegant curve of her spoons. As she approached the house’s bougainvillea-covered wrought-iron gate, she tried to remember when she had last been here. Far too long ago. That much was certain.

Haron, thick gloves up to his elbows, was melting a great ingot of copper, clutched in long iron grips. His son Biri, with his pet mongoose on his shoulder as usual, watched closely by Haron’s side, forbidden to touch the equipment until he was older. Haron glanced over at her as Sian walked in, nodding briefly. Sian waved but did not slow down as she walked through the garden; he and Biri would likely come back to the house when the dangerous work was at a point where Haron could set it down without ruining anything.

She climbed the short flight of steps to their front porch, and knocked twice before Maleen answered with a squalling baby on her hip. Sian almost didn’t recognize little Jila — how she had grown!

“Mother? What are you doing here?”

“Can’t a mother decide to visit her daughter?” Sian laughed. It sounded forced, even to herself.
What are you doing here?
… Far too long indeed.

“Of course,” Maleen rushed to answer. “I just meant …” She frowned as she shifted the howling child to her other hip, looking Sian up and down. “What have you done with your — Oh! Look at your
clothes!
What
happened?
” She reached out to touch the long tear in Sian’s skirt. “You’re all wet! Are you all right? Where are your sandals?”

Sian discovered that she did not know how to begin the story, much less tell it here on her daughter’s stoop. “I just … had a bit of a fall on some stairs down at the docks — quite clumsy of me! I am unharmed, but I’d love to borrow some clothes, if I may.”

“You look …” Maleen stared at her, trying to work something out. “You’re not hurt?”

“I am not, no. May I come in?”

“Yes, yes.” Maleen stepped aside. “I was just brewing some kava — I’ll add more water.”

Sian followed her daughter into the small, bright kitchen at the back of the house, Jila leaving an audible trail of angry wails. “Here, let me take her,” Sian said.

“Oh, thank you.” The baby gasped and sobbed even louder as Maleen handed her over. “It’s the colic, they tell me; nothing to do but wait it out.” Maleen’s smile could not disguise the exhaustion in her young eyes.

“There, there,” Sian cooed to her granddaughter, jiggling the child gently against her hip before sitting down at the table and nuzzling the top of the baby’s head. That marvelous smell of baby … and ginger? Maleen must be feeding her ginger tea for her tummy troubles. Sian’s own stomach gave an uncomfortable turn. From hunger, she supposed, hoping it was only that, and not some internal injury. She was quite hungry, come to think of it.

Jila hiccuped once and abruptly stopped crying, gazing up at Sian with wide dark eyes. Sian kissed her tiny, reddened nose. “There you go! Who’s a sweet girl!”

“Oh, blessed silence!” Maleen said, adding a small jug of water to the pot already bubbling on the stove, then giving it a stir.

“A grandmother’s touch.” Sian smiled as Maleen came to the table with two steaming mugs. “Thank you. If you’ve some bread as well, I’d love a slice or two.”

“Of course.” Maleen went to the cupboard. “Have you not breakfasted?”

“Er, no — nor dinner last night either.”

Her daughter brought out two rounds of jolada rotti, plus butter and some fig preserves that Sian had given her last fall. She sat down and gave Sian a long, wary look. “What
is
going on, Mother? Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Well, there is more to tell … but this is marvelous.” She tore off a thick chunk of rotti and slathered butter on it, then took a big bite.

“Is that your Selistani silk?” Maleen was looking more closely at Sian’s poor garments. “Have you been out all night?”

“I … did sleep,” Sian ventured, looking down at the baby, now babbling happily while reaching for her grandmother’s long hair.
Dark
hair, with far less gray than yesterday, it seemed. Sian covered this further surprise by occupying herself with a second piece of rotti. Eventually, she said, “I do not entirely understand what happened to me.”

Maleen glanced toward the front of the house. From Haron’s shop, both women could hear the steady sound of pounding as he shaped whatever he was forging today. “Tell me.”

“Well …” Where to begin? “You’re aware of this ‘Butchered God’ religion?”

Maleen snorted, but looked even more worried. “
Mo
ther. Even I get out of the house once in a great while. Are you telling me … are you a follower?”

“By no means. Yet … I appear to have come to their attention in an unfortunate way — and I’m afraid that you — that my whole family may … be in danger.”

From there, the story tumbled out, as best as Sian could relate it, over Maleen’s anxious interruptions and many questions.

“I feel certain that I was badly beaten,” Sian said at last, increasingly unsure of her own memories, despite their clarity, “though I can see as well as you can that, despite my clothes, my body shows no signs of it.”