I don’t think you would do that to me.’
That brief touch and then he straightened up. He tied his bundle to his waist with a long string. Then he clambered awkwardly over the side and down the anchor chain.
‘Wintrow. You must not. There are serpents in the harbour, they may…’
‘You’ve never lied to me,’ he rebuked her quietly. ‘Don’t do it now to keep me by you.’
Shocked, she opened her mouth, but no words came. He reached the cold, cold water and plunged one bare foot and leg into it. ‘Sa preserve me,’ he gasped, and then resolutely lowered himself into the water. She heard him catch his breath hoarsely in its chill embrace. Then he let go of the chain and paddled awkwardly away. His tied bundle bobbed in his wake. He swam like a dog.
Wintrow, she screamed. Wintrow, Wintrow, Wintrow. Soundless screams, waterless tears. But she kept still, and not just because she feared her cries would rouse the serpents. A terrible loyalty to him and to herself silenced her. He could not mean it. He could not do it. He was a Vestrit, she was his family ship. He could not leave her, not for long. He’d get ashore and go up into the dark town. He’d stay there, an hour, a day, a week, men did such things, they went ashore, but they always came back. Of his own free will, he’d come back to her and acknowledge that she was his destiny. She hugged herself tightly and clenched her teeth shut. She would not cry out. She could wait, until he saw for himself and came back on his own. She’d trust that she truly knew his heart.
‘It’s nearly dawn.’
Kennit’s voice was so soft, Etta was scarcely sure she had heard it. ‘Yes,’ she confirmed very quietly. She lay alongside his back, her body not quite touching his. If he was talking in his sleep, she did not wish to wake him. It was seldom that he fell asleep while she was still in the bed, seldom that she was allowed to share his bedding and pillows and the warmth of his lean body for more than an hour or two.
He spoke again, less than a whisper. ‘Do you know this piece? “When I am parted from you, The dawn light touches my face with your hands.”’
‘I don’t know,’ Etta breathed hesitantly. ‘It sounds like a bit of a poem, perhaps… I never had much time for the learning of poetry.’
‘You have no need to learn what you already are,’ he said quietly. He did not try to disguise the fondness in his voice. Etta’s heart near stood still. She dared not breathe. ‘The poem is called, From Kytris To His Mistress. Older than Jamaillia, from the days of the Old Empire.’ Again there was a pause. ‘Ever since I met you, it has made me think of you. Especially the part that says, “Words are not cupped deeply enough to hold my fondness. I bite my tongue and scowl my love, lest passion make me slave.’” A pause. ‘Another man’s words, from another man’s lips. I wish they were my own.’
Etta let the silence follow his words, savoured them as she committed them to memory. In the absence of his breathless whisper, she heard the deep rhythm of his breathing in harmony with the splash and gurgle of the waves against the ship’s bow. It was a music that moved through her with the beating of her blood. She drew a breath and summoned all her courage.
‘Sweet as your words are, I do not need them. I have never needed them.’
‘Then in silence, let us bide. Lie still beside me, until morning turns us out.’
‘I shall,’ she breathed. As gentle as a drifting feather alighting, she laid her hand on his hip. He did not stir, nor turn to her. She did not mind. She did not need him to. Having lived for so long with so little, the words he had spoken to her now would be enough to last her a life. When she closed her eyes, a single tear slid forth from beneath her lashes.
In the dimness of the captain’s cabin, a tiny smile curved his wooden features.
THERE WAS A SONG he had learned as a child, about the white streets of Jamaillia shining in the sun. Wintrow found himself humming it as he hurried down a debris-strewn alley. To either side of him, tall wooden buildings blocked the sun and channelled the sea wind. Despite his efforts, the saltwater had reached his priest’s robe. The damp bure slapped and chafed against him as he walked. The winter day was unusually mild, even for Jamaillia. He was not, he told himself, very cold at all. As soon as his skin and robe dried completely, he’d be fine. His feet had become so calloused from his days on shipboard that even the broken crockery and splintered bits of wood that littered the alley did not bother him much. These were things he should remember, he counselled himself. Forget the growling of his empty belly, and be grateful that he was not overly cold.
And that he was free.
He had not realized how his confinement on the ship had oppressed him until he waded ashore. Even before he had dashed the water from his skin and donned his robe, his heart had soared. Free. He was many days from his monastery, and he had no idea how he would make his way there, but he was determined he would. His life was his own again. To know he had accepted the challenge made his heart sing. He might fail, he might be recaptured or fall to some other evil along the way, but he had accepted Sa’s strength and acted. No matter what happened to him after this, he had that to hold to. He was not a coward.
He had finally proved that to himself.
Jamaillia was bigger by far than any city he had ever visited. The size of it daunted him. From the ship, he had focused on the gleaming white towers and domes and spires of the Satrap’s Court in the higher reaches of the city. The steaming of the Warm River was an eternal backdrop of billowing silk to these marvels. But he was in the lower part of the city now. The waterfront was as dingy and miserable as Cress had been, and more extensive. It was dirtier and more wretched than anything he had ever seen in Bingtown. Dockside were the warehouses and ship-outfitters, but above them was a section of town that seemed to consist exclusively of brothels, taverns, druggeries and run-down boarding houses. The only permanent residents were the curled beggars who slept on doorsteps and within scavenged hovels propped up between buildings. The streets were near as filthy as the alleys. Perhaps the gutters and drains had once channelled dirty water away; now they overflowed in stagnant pools, green and brown and treacherous underfoot. It was only too obvious that nightsoil from chamberpots was dumped there as well. A warmer day would probably have produced an even stronger smell and swarms of flies. So there, he reminded himself as he skirted a wider puddle, was yet another thing to be grateful for.
It was early dawn, and this part of the city slept on. Perhaps there was little that folk in this quarter of town deemed worth rising for. Wintrow supposed that night would tell a different story on these streets. But for now, they were deserted and dead, windows shuttered and doors barred. He glanced up at the lightening sky and hastened his steps. It would not be too much longer before his absence from the ship would be noticed. He wanted to be well away from the waterfront before then. He wondered how energetic his father would be in the search for him. Probably very little on his own account; he only valued Wintrow as a way to keep the ship content.
Vivacia.
Even to think the name was like a fist to his heart. How could he have left her? He’d had to, he couldn’t go on like that. But how could he have left her? He felt torn, divided against himself. Even as he savoured his liberty, he tasted loneliness, extreme loneliness. He could not say if it were his, or hers. If there had been some way for him to take the ship and run away, he would have. Foolish as that sounded, he would have. He had to be free. She knew that. She must understand that he had to go.
