The Silences of Home (44 page)

Just this one boat now. One, and three people he cannot see. He watches it pass him, then the sitting stones. It is not slowing at all; the oars rise and fall. When it reaches the water by his hut he starts to run, starts to shout and wave his arms. He falls twice and scrambles up, still calling. “No no no, Lanara, wait! Lanara!” She cannot be there—this is just a madness, driving him faster, past his hut but still too far behind. “Lanara!”—her name screamed in rage and longing that are change again, this time swift and known.

He stopped running. Before the river and rain could take the ship away from him, he turned away from it. He sat on the riverbank and looked at his hut, and at those beyond it.
I’ve come back
, he thought, the Queensfolk words clear and heavy, accepted.
I’ve come back, but I will never return
. He sat, a shonyn alone in time, as the rain softened and scattered into mist above the Sarhenna River.

Leish kept his head lowered. The rain and wind were at his back, but he would not risk a glance up, a stray drop blown against his lips. Perhaps the Queen’s curse did not extend to water from the sky; he did not know, and he would not find out. So he stood on the deck of the boat, his skin drinking what his lips could not, and felt the lightness of his limbs, and remembered that he had wanted to die.

“Why?” Lanara had asked weeks ago, when she had returned to the Throne Chamber at dawn and found him still breathing, the waterskin still beside him. He had not answered her that day, or on the ones that followed. He had slept and woken in the burned forest outside the palace. This was where he had felt rain for the first time since Nasranesh. He was free, lying on the earth, gazing up into branches stripped by fire. Free and alive, and even he did not understand why until those blackened branches told him.

“My home is still there,” he had told Lanara when she came to him on the seventh day after she had freed him. “Ruined, but still there. I can hear the blood of my people—those who survived. My parents, my brother—maybe they are among those.” The rain had begun two days earlier. The ground was dark and moist. Lanara had brought him a fresh cloth to cover his small living area. He noticed that several of the twigs outside this cloth were bristling with green shoots. “I still hope for them,” he had said. “And for my land. I did not believe this until you gave me the choice to die. I hope—and I will not die until I am in my own place again.”

And so he was here, on yet another ship, sailing the same river he had sailed before, when he had been lashed to a mast and mostly unconscious. “Must it be the river?” he had said to Lanara when she had told him of the plan.

She had smiled at him. Her sympathy continued to unsettle him. “I’m sorry—yes. It’s the quickest way.”
And you’re so weak and ill
, he had imagined her saying. He had nodded his agreement and understanding and tried to thrust his fear away.

It was not so bad, this time. It was a different boat—a smaller one—and he was not seasick. He had lain on the deck at night, before the rains came, and listened to the diseased song of Nasranesh, and had been utterly still and certain. This certainty was the change. His body might look and feel better than it had when he had first been brought this way, but it was his mind that was truly different now. He was steady, on this path that he had chosen.

“How are you?” Water dripped across his nose and cheek as he turned his head. He nodded, and Lanara said, “Good. There’s food ready below, if you want some. Fresh fish cakes and sourfruit.” He shook his head. Not yet, but soon. He would never be as strong as he would have been, with water to drink; he felt the lack of it like a constant tremor in his flesh and muscles. But food—especially fruit—gave him some strength, even if it was a thin, temporary one. The rain gave him this, as well.

Lanara stayed with him for a time. She looked out at the riverbank, frowning and twisting her cloak in her hands. He looked too, swiftly and sidelong, one hand over his mouth. He saw only empty sand, most of it blurry with rain. But she looked and frowned, and her knuckles were white—and then, several minutes later, she pulled her hood down over her face and bent her head beside Leish’s.

He grunted a noise that he hoped would sound like a question, but she did not glance at him. He was about to make the noise again—perhaps she hadn’t understood him?—when he heard the voice. It was high and faint, and he could not identify many of the words it called—but one he could. Her name, over and over, its syllables stretched and fading as the boat sailed on and the rain closed in behind.

She straightened. For a moment she stood facing back the way they had come. He could no longer see her face, but the rest of her was rigid, even her toes, bent against the soles of her sandals. Then she was gone, her wet cloak dragging on the deck. He followed her down a few minutes later, but he did not ask her about the voice. He ate fish cakes and drank sourfruit juice and thought that nothing should concern him now except the sea.

The rain stopped a few days later. Leish lay on the deck at night as he had before, thankful to be away from the tiny cabin below deck. During the day he found what shade he could and sat there, watching cacti turn to bushes turn to trees. He heard the green as they approached it: grass and leaves, corn planted up against the banks. Sometimes these banks were lined with people who waved and called, and all the Queensfolk on the boat waved back at them. Leish always went below until the people had dwindled behind them. It was difficult, now that he could see lush, growing things, not to feel rage again. So difficult—and he had not expected this; he had been thinking only of the sea and his home. He kept himself apart even more than usual, to ensure that his anger did not escape.
No use
, he told himself, as the Queensfolk cheered beneath their canopies of trees.
Don’t show them this, now that you’re so close
.

And they were close, suddenly. The seasong was a roar, and the river’s notes rushed and ascended as it widened to meet the widest water. Leish was so consumed by these sounds that he did not notice the other until Lanara came up beside him and put her hand on his arm. He started and turned to her, and she pointed. He saw the river, and forested banks far away to the left and right. He also saw houses—just a few where the ship was, but more ahead, their paint harsh and bright. He heard the other noise as he looked at the houses. It was distant still, like a wave that will not break for a long time, but he swung himself away from it.

“No,” Lanara said.

“I—I must go. Below,” he stammered. “You know I can’t see these crowds. . . .”

“This crowd you must see,” she said. “I know how difficult it will be for you, but you must.” She tightened her fingers on his arm, and he flinched with the need to escape from her or strike her. “Leish, it will be the biggest, but also the last.”

He did not move. He stood, somehow, tall and silent beside Lanara as the Queensship carried them down again among the houses of Fane.

There was rain on Queenswrit Eve. Only a light, gentle rain, but it came very early in the season, and the people of Luhr declared that this must be the blessing of Queen Galha upon them all. How fitting, then, that that Queen’s last wishes were read to her people on Queenswrit Eve. They stood, those from Luhr and others from places far away, and listened to the gifts she had made all of them, writing them even as she died. As our Founding Queen, Sarhenna, implemented the first laws of the realm, so Queen Galha, in her wisdom, expanded them.

Her gifts to her people and realm were these:

That all dwellers in the cities and towns of the Queensrealm be taught to read and write.

That the scribes previously assigned solely to the study and documentation of the realm’s history go out into the cities and towns and undertake the education of the populace.

That the people, having been instructed in the art of reading, have access to the Queensstudy and all its documents.

That the Sarhenna River, named for the illustrious First Queen so often venerated, be renamed in honour of the Princess Ladhra.

That the Sea Raider captive be set free in a manner of his choosing, as proof of Queen Galha’s mercy and forgiveness.

Lanara let out a noisy breath and tossed the writing stick onto the parchment. She looked out the window and saw sea birds in the sky above the green-patched cliffs.

“Would you like my help?”

She turned to Malhan, who was sitting at the long table. “No,” she said, picking the writing stick up and drawing it once, twice over the parchment. Broad marks, not letters: stains at the edge of the page that would always remind her of this room, with its view of spring in Fane. “I have to learn how and when to write all this down. I’m doing terribly, so far. I’m only now writing about Queenswrit Eve, and that was nearly two months ago.”

She listened to Malhan’s silence and knew that he would say more. She had already learned much about his way of speaking and listening, but very little about anything else—and that was as it should be. “Have you mentioned yourself, yet?” he said, and she groaned.

“No. I don’t know how to—” A knock on the door interrupted her. “Yes?” she called, pushing the parchment away with relief. A Queensguard entered and made the sign of the arrowhead, which she returned.

“My Queen,” he said, “this wine has just been delivered by a woman from Brallent. She wished me to bring it to you rather than presenting it herself—she seemed quite overcome by the Queenshouse. . . .”

“Thank you, Crelhal,” Lanara said, rising to take the bottle from him. “Would you drink a glass with us?”

He flushed. “I am on duty now,” he began, and she said, “I know—so come back in the evening. Or perhaps I’ll bring it down to the kitchen. Brallent is famous for its wine, and it should be shared.”

He frowned and fidgeted with the sword in his belt. “If it is so fine, you should drink it yourself, my Queen.”

Lanara tried to keep herself from frowning, though it did not matter—he was not looking at her. “You were kind to me,” she said quietly, “all of you, last autumn when I was lonely, when I came to the kitchen at night because I couldn’t bear to be in my chamber. You shared your wine with me then. Let me do the same now.”

He did look at her finally, and nodded, a bit uncertainly.

“Was there something else?” she asked when he did not turn to go.

“Yes,” he said, and cleared his throat. “The kitchen boys who found it told me not to bring it to you, but I thought it was important, and—”

“Crelhal,” she said. He cleared his throat again, though he did not speak. He took a piece of parchment from the pouch at his belt, a very large sheet folded into a tiny, ragged square. Lanara smoothed it flat with her forearm and leaned over the desk to read:

New queen, new lies. We will watch you as we watched the last one. She tried to silence us, but we are stronger now than ever. We will hear your lies and show them to your people!

The letters were sprawling and uneven. The writing stick had been pressed so firmly in places that the parchment was speckled with holes.

“Where was this found?” Lanara said.

“In a basket. It was at the bottom of a basket of eggs that was left outside the kitchen before dawn. No one saw who left it.”

Lanara touched one of the holes, traced the wobbly line that led away from it. “Thank you, Crelhal,” she said, lifting her head to smile at him. “You were right to bring this to me.”

He flushed again and swung quickly round to the door as soon as she dismissed him.

“He doesn’t know how to treat me,” she said to Malhan after the door had closed. She spoke lightly, though she was looking again at the parchment. “None of them do.”

Malhan stood and walked to the window. He undid the latch and swung a pane outward, and Lanara smelled salt and fish and wet, warming earth. “You may find that it is you who does not know how to treat them.”

“Ah,” she said, gritting her teeth against a sharper, longer reply. He was beside her now. He would be reading the words, which were big enough that he would not need to crane or wait for her to move aside.

“There were many traitor scribes,” he said, “in many places. We should not be surprised by this message.”

“I know,” said Lanara, thinking of an underground pool and hooks where bags had hung, full of words. “What if it’s Baldhron?” she went on, touching one of the holes in the parchment.

“No.” Malhan pushed the parchment out from under her fingers, to the opposite side of the desk. “I’d recognize his letters. Even if he tried to make them rough and sloppy like these, I’d know them. He didn’t write this.”

“Maybe not, but he could have ordered someone else to—he could be nearby, and—”

“Then we’ll capture him,” Malhan said, his voice rising. “We’ll set extra guards around the Queenshouse. We’ll certainly have no difficulty catching the person who wrote this message. Once captured, he’ll tell you where the others are—including Baldhron, if he is nearby.”

Lanara shook her head. “No. No one will be captured.” She pulled the parchment back toward her and folded it swiftly. She held it in her palm, where it was just a tiny square again. “No one will believe them, if they do speak out. I’ll give them no reason to be believed.”

“The one who wrote this may be unschooled and unthreatening,” Malhan said, stepping closer to her, “but there will be others who are articulate and clever, like Baldhron—others who may have some sort of evidence—”

“And what,” Lanara interrupted, “would you have me do when these traitors are caught? Kill them all?” Her hand was a fist; its skin stung where the parchment’s unfolded edges had cut. She loosened her fingers one by one and nearly heard these motions, in the quiet.

“So,” Malhan said at last, “you wouldn’t have Baldhron killed? Not even him?”

“Perhaps.” She slid her eyes away from his face. “Perhaps not. It might not be enough.” She sat down at the desk and arranged her own parchment before her. She began to write with quick, slashing strokes that would keep both of them silent.

The greatest of Queen Galha’s wishes she wrote last, on a fresh sheaf of parchment:

“After my death, the long bloodline of the Sarhennan queens will be ended. Let my people not fear this end. The ancient prophecy of the iben foretold the coming of one more queen who would protect and strengthen her land. I was this one queen; there need be no other after me. My final task, therefore, is to choose how the Queensline will continue. I choose a successor who has been a second daughter to me, ever since her birth, and who has served me in her adulthood with sensitivity and strength. I hereby decree that Lanara, daughter of Salanne, daughter of Bralhon, be Queen of the realm when I am gone. My own daughter would be well content to know of her dear friend’s good fortune. Queen Lanara will be able to implement the changes I have laid out for our people and our land. With her will be born an illustrious new line of queens.”

And so, on Queenswrit Eve, former consort-scribe Malhan bequeathed upon me Queen Galha’s bow and quiver, before all those gathered below. As every Queen before me had done, I loosed one arrow upward, over the Queenstower, where the moon was rising, unobscured by the rain clouds that hung to the south. The cheer that rose was thunderous, and I was awed and moved to hear it. I held my hands up in the sign of the arrowhead, and all my people did the same, and I gazed upon their upraised hands and vowed to myself and them that I would be a Queen of steadfastness, honour and truth.

Leish waited for four days. He forced this time upon himself, knowing it was necessary for his strength—but each hour and minute was anguish. He did not remember feeling like this before, even tied to a mast or vomiting, bleeding onto a stone floor. Now, unfettered and almost constantly alone, he looked out at the sea and could not bear the spring sheen of its water or the spring sweetness of its song.

On the fourth day he was ready. He had been sitting and sleeping in a room on the second floor of the Queenshouse, above the water and the crowd that had been gathered since the Queensship’s arrival. “They want to watch you go,” Lanara had said on the second day.

“They can’t,” he had replied. “I showed myself to them on the ship, but I won’t let them watch me leave.”
It would sicken me
, he had thought in his own language,
to hear them cheer for me, even if they were really cheering for you. They threw rocks at me. They killed my people. It would sicken me. . . .

By the evening of the fourth day, most of the crowd had disappeared. Leish looked out his window and saw wood where before there had been Queensfolk. He saw boats and harbour water and open water, smooth beneath a violet sky. He listened to shoals of fish and anemone-blooming rocks and knew he could wait no longer.

“Are you sure?” Lanara asked when the Queensguard brought him to her. She was alone in her writing chamber. It still surprised him to find her this way, without Malhan lurking by the door.

“Yes,” Leish said.

She bent to throw another log onto the fire. The nights were cool; the water would be cold. “At least reconsider my offer,” she said, straightening to face him. “Let me send you in a boat.”

He felt the webs bunch between his fingers. “Why? So that your people will be able to see the final mercy of the great Queen Galha? One more exciting display for the crowd?”

“No,” she said, high and angrily, “so that you won’t die of exhaustion before you reach your land.” She sat down and ran her hands back and forth over her short hair. “Leish,” she said, looking at him with her hands still on her head, “you’ve been a prisoner for years. You haven’t had water in nearly one of those years. You haven’t swum anywhere, except in a fountain, since your army arrived here. This journey may be too much for you.”

“Yes,” he said, when he had thought of the words he needed. “But I would rather die swimming beneath the sea than travelling upon it in a Queensship.”

“Ah. Well, then . . . When, exactly, will you leave?”

“Later tonight, or maybe tomorrow morning. I will try to sleep a bit before.”

“Good. Have me woken when you’re ready.”

He licked his lips. They were always cracked, even when he soaked them in fruit juice or rubbed them with cooking oil. He felt a tiny crack open now, and spoke before he could taste the blood. “I will leave alone. Please.” He cringed at the catch in his voice.
And so I beg her?
he thought; then,
I am free because of her
. He yearned for one simple feeling.

Lanara walked to the window, sat down on the bench beneath it. She could not look at Leish.
He’s leaving, Ladhra
, she thought.
He loved you, and he’s leaving
. “Very well,” she went on, angling her head so that she could almost see his face. “Go alone.”

“Thank you.” He lingered. His fingers were clenched, the webs folded motionless between them. He did not move, but she saw his longing. He would run from this room. “For this,” he said at last, “and for the other things.” His left foot shifted, as if he were feeling the purple band of scar around its ankle.

She nodded and bit her lip. “Go,” she said. “Go now, Leish.” He did, with a slow turn and slower steps that nonetheless seemed to blur with haste.

Lanara sat alone until the harbour lanterns were lit. As she watched the little fires bloom, the door opened.

“Lanara.” She did not move except to shift her gaze to the right, toward the smudge of cliff and the wavering glow of the signal tower there.

“Lanara. Crelhal tells me that the selkesh man was with you.”

She smiled, blinking against the glare of hearth- and candle-flames. “Yes. He’ll leave tonight or tomorrow morning.”

Malhan frowned, and she felt her muscles tighten. “Why did you not inform me right away? We’ll have to keep him here until at least midday tomorrow. By then the escort ships will be in place—three of them, I think—and the word will have had time to spread. You should wear a bright robe and walk to the end of the dock with him—”

“As drums beat and horns blare?” Lanara rose. “No. He’s asked to do this alone, and I’ve agreed. He’s been made a spectacle too many times before.”

“In chains, yes—a prisoner, an object of hatred and ridicule. Now he’ll be a symbol of Galha’s forgiveness, bestowed through the people’s new queen. You know this is why we came to Fane so soon after you assumed the throne! We are here to provide your people with proof of the wisdom of their queens—”

Lanara laughed. She bent over, braced herself against the desk until she had finished laughing. “He said that,” she gasped when her breath had returned. “Almost exactly that. He knew what kind of spectacle we’d try to make of him this time. I’m sorry, Malhan. It’s too late. My word is given, and I won’t take it back. So please,” she continued as he began to speak, “let’s talk of something else. Our own departure, say. I’d like to leave as soon as possible—maybe in a week, after I’ve met more of my subjects. And I’d like to make one additional stop upriver.”