Singer from the Sea (17 page)

“What you are?” he whispered, amazed. “You’re as real as the earth itself. What do you think you are?”

She was shaking, horrified at herself for what she had already said. Well, she had said it. No point in going back. “I told you! I’m a mouse, a watcher from corners. I don’t have anything to do with the plot. I’m happier if I can just stay to myself, watching. Which I must do, until I come to obeying my mother’s dying words. No, don’t ask. Please … please, Colonel …”

He frowned in concentration, telling himself not to argue with her, not to accuse her of silliness or stupidity, to take her words seriously though everything in him denied what she was saying. He promised that he would move into the house by morning, after which she sent him away before going upstairs to lie on her bed and cry for all the things she was feeling with no way at all to be rid of them or do anything about them.

When she had cried herself out, she got up, washed her face, returned to her bed, and took up the book that lay open upon the table, determined to lose herself in thinking about something else. After Alicia had mentioned the book, the strange account of their mutual ancestress, the
Lord Paramount’s wife, Queen Stephanie, Genevieve had found it in the library.

She read:

This is a story our people tell:

Long, long ago on another world, our grandmother te kui nui, mother of us all, heard the voice of all worlds singing.

“E, kui, ‘’ the spirit called. “have a task for you.”

“Oh, lo, ‘’ cried our grandmother. “Am I not burdened down with tasks? Here are children at my knees, here are sons running wild, here are daughters begging knowledge, here are gardens to be cared for, am I not well laden with burdens?”

And the voice said, “This is a greater task than all of those, and on this task the lives of your children and gardens will depend, for I set upon you the task of sailing among the stars in the long time to come.”

And our grandmother did not know what to say for a time, but then she replied, “Oh, great filler of worlds, surely only those who have passed beyond the world may sail between the stars. Are my children not to have the gift of life?”

And Tangaroa said, “The time will come when te wairua hohonu needs a service of you, and against that time, I would prepare you.

“You must go to your sons and grandsons and tell them to build great canoes, and you must take all your children and all your belongings, and you must set sail as I shall guide you, to a new land.”

So our grandmother came to her sons and grandsons, who were many, and told them of the command she had received. And after a time of talk, not all of which was sensible or respectful, so that our grandmother was forced to shout loudly, our people set about building the great canoes. And when the first canoe was built, the people came to grandmother and asked what name it should have.

And grandmother said, “It shall be named nga Tumau Hohonu, the servants of the deep, and when it comes to
land, the people of that canoe shall take that name forever.”

So it sailed away. And when the second canoe was finished, grandmother said, “It shall be named nga Kai-kaukau Whetu, the star swimmers, and when it comes to land, the people of that canoe shall take that name forever.”

This is the story my people tell. Others say this did not happen, that it was not until the great ship left the world that our people were visited by the spirit. And others say that the spirit never spoke, it was all accidental, that we just happened to be there, for we and the spirit left the world together. I, Stephanie, sometimes believe one and sometimes another, but I like to think of the ancestral canoes setting out upon the great and trackless sea, nga matawaka hollowed from the trees of the forest, sailing on and on, into the emptiness at the edge of the sky.

However it happened, I came to be he Kaikaukau Whetu, a star swimmer, and I am still he tumau hohonu, a servant of the deep …

Genevieve came to herself with a start at the sound of the first dinner bell, reverberating in the great hall below. She laid the book on the bed beside her and sat up, the thoughts and images of the book evoking and blending with stories her mother had told. Stephanie’s story was not unfamiliar, though her mother had used different words to tell it no less enigmatically than Stephanie herself.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Della, coming with an armful of newly laundered petticoats. “Come, Jenny,” she said in an admonitory tone. “No time for daydreams. It’s time you were dressed for dinner.”

And when Genevieve went down to dinner, Della neatened the bed, putting the book away on the shelf, where it stayed for some time, forgotten.

Genevieve made appointments with the first and second dressmakers on the list, saving the third for later. From the first, a colorless little woman with a pinched mouth that spat pins and wiry fingers that extruded tape measures, she ordered two gowns, simple ones of classic cut and
exemplary fabric. The whole transaction took less than an hour, once the measurements were taken.

Karom Veswees, a sinewy and pliant male with beautiful bones and hands, was a different breed of lizard. “I’d like to do you all in beads,” he said, observing her from several angles, including crouching on the floor to look up at her. “Or maybe feathers! What a marvelous face. You’re quite divine, Lady Genevieve.”

She was more amused than annoyed. “Sit down,” she said, pointing to a chair. “Do not flitter about. This is serious business.”

Simpering only slightly, he sat in the chair, hands folded, being the good child. Despite herself, she smiled.

“You see,” he crowed, “what a face!”

Genevieve summoned her most businesslike voice, “I am told you dress the Lady Charmante. She was wearing something filmy the other evening, red, with lines of amber and gold in it?”

The simpering look vanished and was replaced with a grimness about the lips.

“Silk batik, from the aboriginal commune on Strayne V, off-planet needless to say, obtained by the Prince for his ‘consort.’ I’m sorry, Your Ladyship, but if you want something like that, you’re out of luck. Unless your father is far wealthier and more dishonest than he is reputed to be.”

She frowned at him, then rang for a footman and ordered tea before coming to sit beside him. “You’ll stay to tea, won’t you, Mr. Veswees? I think you have knowledge I need, and I will buy many dresses from you if you will tell it to me.”

He cocked his head. “You’re just in from the country, aren’t you? You’re not up on things.”

“Completely at sea.” She smiled, deciding suddenly to allow this most improper person into her confidence. “I don’t understand this off-planet business. I know our ancestors, in their wisdom, decided that a nonindustrialized life which made small demands on power and raw materials would be more sustainable over the ages. I know the Lord Paramount and his counselors, in their wisdom, have decided that we must make what we need, except for
things like medical personnel and a few other essentials. Until a moment ago, I did not know that the list of such things included luxuries like imported silk.”

“Well, that particular import wouldn’t be publicized, would it?” he said, giving her a searching look.

“There’s something that’s been bothering me for a number of years, Mr. Veswees …”

“Karom. Call me Karom. Everyone does.”

“All the more reason I should call you Mr. Veswees.” She smiled sweetly. “We learned in school that Haven is what might be called a poor planet, partly in fact, partly by choice. We learned in school that interstellar transport is hideously expensive. We learned in school that the Lord Paramount has a list of things we must obtain from elsewhere—” She interrupted this catalogue when the footman entered. He bore a tea service that must have been poised nearby, ready if she should ask.

Veswees nodded, looking up with a smile at the footman who placed the tea service on the table between them. “Everything you say you have been taught about Haven is quite true,” he said.

She went on, “What no one has ever told me, however, is what coin, what medium of exchange we here on Haven use to purchase these off-planet things.”

The footman knocked over an empty cup, making a clatter. “Your pardon, lady,” he said, righting it with a slightly trembling hand.

The noise had drawn Genevieve’s attention away from Veswees’s face, and she missed the glance he shared with the footman, rapt attention mixed at once with apprehension and elation. When she looked up, he was as he had been, pleasantly interested, nothing more.

He said in an innocent tone,
“I
have wondered about it, too. Perhaps we have artists or singers or people with other talents whose services can be sold,” he murmured.

“Wouldn’t we have heard of this? If someone were that talented, wouldn’t that person have a local reputation? Wouldn’t we have known of him, or her?”

The footman bowed himself away. Veswees waited until the door had closed behind him. “Perhaps the talents are … private ones, Your Ladyship.”

She considered him over the rim of her cup. The sexual innuendo had been explicit. She could neither have missed it nor misinterpreted it. “Do you think so?” she asked, as casually as she could.

He sipped, turned the cup on the saucer, played with the spoon. “Don’t you think our medium of trade must be something like that? This world of ours is poor, as you say. There were no prehistoric forests to store oil and coal for our use, but we have large rivers to provide hydroelectric power. We have a few mines to supply metal, a few forests that give us wood for burning in our stoves. Our population is kept at a level that can be sustained by these rivers, these mines, and these forests. Nonetheless, we must import certain needed minerals for food additives and for our agriculture. We have no gems of note. We have no rare foods or seasonings or wines. We have no rare ores or biologicals that are in demand—or at least none that are mentioned in the marketplace.” He sipped again. “And then, too, you must have noticed how few … pretty young women we have at court.”

She thought back to the recent dinner party. There had been no young woman but herself. The others had all been well past middle age, though they would not have thanked her for so judging them. “I do not consider Havenor to be the most healthful environment, Mr. Veswees. It is chilly here, I am told, even in summer. Young women are of an age to have babies, and perhaps they prefer to stay in the provinces with their children.”

“Perhaps. Certainly motherhood proves difficult for many of our noblewomen.”

She frowned. “Why so?”

He shrugged. “It seems to be a pattern among some of my favorite clients, young women who came here for a time, who returned home to have their children and who never returned. All too often I have heard that they succumbed, usually to batfly fever …”

“But the court has off-planet doctors,” she said.

“Who can do nothing for batfly fever, or so I’ve heard.”

“Well then,” she said. “Tell me about batfly fever, for it is one of the subjects I must learn about.”

“Where did you live, before you came here?”

“At school in Wantresse. Or at Langmarsh House, also in Wantresse.”

“Wantresse is hill country, and you were fortunate to live high up,” he said. “I am told the batfly flourishes at lower altitudes, especially in the moist herbage along the rivers and the lakeshores. The flies are said to carry the fever virus in their blood, which would do us no harm if it stayed there. The flies, however, are said to be infested with mites that suck up the virus, and when the batflies are flying, they are also shedding mites onto everything below, trees, people, animals. The mites are tiny, transparent, almost invisible, and when they burrow into a person seeking blood, the person gets the virus.”

“But not in the hills?”

“Evidently not, nor along the shore of salt seas. The batflies, I am told, prefer rainy woods along freshwater rivers and ponds and lakes and during wet years there are millions of batflies dropping zillions of mites onto people, though in drier years, one hardly hears of a case.”

“Dreadful! Really dreadful!”

“It would be, we are told, without P’naki.”

“And what does P’naki do for us? It’s horrid tasting!”

“If you know how it tastes, you must have known what it was for!”

“Well, I knew it was medicine, without at all comprehending the reality. Della gave it to me when I was a tiny child and we were visiting Lord Fenrider, Earl of Evermire. What does it do?”

“A dose every ten or twelve days is supposed to make people poisonous to the mites. Before it even nibbles, the mite simply shrivels up and dies.”

She made a face. “I can understand why Prince Thumsort would be worried,” she said. “According to his son, Edoard, his father talks only about batflies and fish.”

He smiled at her. “Life has many pitfalls, my lady, and few of them make pleasant conversation. I would rather discuss something much more amusing than either flies or fish, such as how we are going to dress you to advantage!”

So derailed, she did not return to the subject until late that evening when, prepared for bed, she sat before her
mirror while Della brushed her hair. “What do we have on Haven,” she murmured aloud, “to trade for off-planet goods?”

“Pearls,” said Della, without missing a stroke.

“Pearls? On Haven? Pearls are an Old Earth thing. You know the ones that Mother gave me. They came from some ancestress, but I assume they were brought from Earth. I’ve never heard of Haven pearls.”

Della smiled at her in the mirror, rather grimly. “They don’t talk of it in the marketplace, my lady.”

“Well then, why do you say it’s pearls?”

“It stands to reason it has to be something! And we’ve explored all the land on Haven, so it’s nothing on land or we’d know about it. So, it has to be something from the sea, and whatever it is, it goes off Haven in ships.”

“If no one knows what it is, how do they know what goes off Haven?”

“Nobody knows, but everybody guesses. And we do know some things. We know sometimes a starship comes to Haven. It sends down a little boat, like a sailing ship sends a dory, and it lands down at a place at the edge of the Plains of Bliggen in Barfezi, where it’s flat and rocky and out of the way. There’s always someone waiting for that ship, someone dressed in the royal livery, all sparkles and gold, and that person marches out to the boat and he hands over a box, not a big box, a small one, the size of a glove box, maybe, and the little boat goes up and away. Then, some later, a bigger ship comes down with people or things for the Lord Paramount, like doctors, or machines. And there’s always men on the hills nearby, watching their sheep, and others in the copses up the valleys, burning charcoal, and they watch the ships and they say it’s pearls in the little box, because they can’t think of anything else it might be. And one of them’s my cousin, and I’ve heard him tell all about it.”