7. Chapter 7
Chapter 7
“ Y ou look a sight,” his wife proclaimed, looking him up and down as though he were a bolt of silk rolled out for her inspection.
“I dearly hope so,” Athelstan Waite replied. “I wouldn’t want all your efforts to go to waste. Not to mention my expenses.”
“Money well-spent,” Julia judged, the skirts of her gown of pearl-grey damask battered by the sea-wind.
She did look... brighter than usual, as though the summer sun, scant though it was that day, had singled her out. The cloth seemed silvery against her pale white skin, and when the wind pressed her skirts against her legs, he could not help but notice how slim and long the latter were.
Athelstan waved the thoughts away. Female beauty was not a subject on which he dwelled often or for long in any case, and today would have been the worst day possible to indulge himself so.
“Are these cormorants?” Julia asked breathlessly, spurring her horse to go faster to match his. “There? The ones the island had been named after?”
“These? No, these are gannets. Ugly birds for sure, but a good omen for fishermen. You can recognize them anywhere by those spike-like angles they dive in, if by nothing else.” It sounded strange to Athelstan, to be explaining all those things, the things that had been obvious to him since his childhood on this coast.
On the other hand, there was something peculiarly pleasant in opening new horizons to someone, being the guide and the leader into the unknown.
Is that what you are sinking to? His inner voice sounded like Orwyn”s - not so much mocking with purposeful viciousness as simply amused as a jolly fellow might be. The only way you can be the guide and the leader is by telling your unwanted wife about seabirds? Not that you are wrong, of course, but, dear Triad, what a new low.
“Are there any cormorants?” Julia asked.
“No,” Athelstan Waite replied curtly, and hoped that the ride along the causeway to the island is not going to last long.
“Why is it called the Cormorant Isle?”
“My lady -” Athelstan began, turning his head to look at her.
She sat in saddle without great assurance, and there was an air of vulnerability to the way her fingers were clutching the reins.
“I thought ladies from landlocked provinces are taught horse-riding since they learn to walk”, he remarked instead the words he initially intended.
“I was. I simply hadn’t been a very good pupil.”
“I’ve always felt braver upon a ship deck myself.”
“Truly?”
“Well, I would have been hardly fit to command the greatest fleet this side of the Glittering Sea otherwise, would I?”
“You are proud of your seaborne levies.”
“I know they might be nothing to look at for some,” he responded, not without defensiveness. “The grandees of the old Aervan Empire would have certainly scorned it, with their giant galleys and pleasure-yachts laden with marble. But I have emerged victorious from many a skirmish thanks to the strength of my ships and the bravery of my men. It’s...” He fell silent. He wanted to say nothing to scoff at , but realized how very much like a callow adolescent’s boast it would have sounded.
His wife continued looking at him with shimmering expectation.
“Do you know why it is called the Cormorant Isle in truth?” Athelstan finally said. It must have been the clumsiest way to change the topic in the history of conversations, but to him it sounded good enough.
“I’m curious to know.”
“It” s really nothing splendid. A trite story of sibling rivalry. There were two sisters living in Greyharbor, once. As it happens in such tales, the elder was golden and sweet, the younger dark and sullen. They fell for the same nobleman upon growing up, and the man, naturally, preferred the elder one. The younger turned to unholy rites or simply foreign deities - the story varies here. The core of it is, she had learned a song that would put anyone to sleep. She invited her older sister to take a walk along the causeway, and then to braid each other’s hair. She twined the sweet lady’s hair so as to resemble seaweed, and sang the melody that put her sleep. Then it was simply the matter of waiting for the tide to come flooding in...”
“Dear Triad.”
“It being a tale, a justice of sorts triumphed in the end. The good sister turned into a seal, to frolic in the sea for eternity, and the younger into a cormorant. She and her bird-children are cursed forever to bitter cries of regret that are supposed to rend the heart of anyone who hears them. In my case, they only rend my ear,” he added, and glanced at his wife. He was half-ready to find a look of polite indifference upon it.
Instead, she looked positively transfixed, her lips parted, as though in preparation for a uxorious kiss:
“I’ve never heard this story before. Of course, I have never been to Greyharbor before, nor to Mearnt in general.”
“I imagine your family did not allow you abroad much, given the dangers of the old usurper’s rule?”
“Of course”. A corner of her mouth quirked up. “The danger.”
Julia looked at him for a second more, as though tempted to say something further, but then clearly chose against it, and shifted her gaze away.
“Look at this!” She cried out instead. “They’ve arrived!”
Athelstan traced the direction of her gaze.
In truth, the coming of the northern yarl’s boat to side of the isle was a thing hard to miss. An impressive ship it was, with a sea-serpent from the northmen’s sacred tales carved upon the prow, and its sails were of good linen dyed red.
Athelstan grumbled something about their Triad-damned showmanship, and spurred his horse into a gallop.
***
In hindsight, he could not help but accept, grudgingly, that his wife might have been right in insisting on splendor. The expense of the livery, the number of their attendants, the banners unfurling in the skies like silken fire - all of it seemed ridiculous to Athelstan when he first heard her ideas, but now it seemed that appearing otherwise would have been to cede ground to his enemies, even on the field that he himself thought flimsy and petty in equal measure.
For all that the northmen as a whole were heathens and brutes, he could not help but admit that yarl Ivarr’s household at least had a kind of rude magnificence to it. The yarl himself, a middle-aged man with hard eyes, and his wife, who looked no softer than him and had remarkably sword-calloused hands, were both wearing a profusion of golden arm-rings. Theirs, and their warriors’, shoulders were swathed in pale furs from distant north despite the summertime. Their cloaks, brightly-dyed with madder, were clasped with brooches of white gold.
“Lord Waite.” Ivarr spoke his language with a harsh accent, but he spoke it nonetheless. “I’m glad you decided to be reasonable.”
“It was not me, it was His Majesty my brother you have to thank”, Athelstan replied tersely. He felt the warning grasp of his wife’s hand on his forearm at that.
For a lissome lady, Julia certainly had quite a grip in her fingers.
“Then convey my thanks to His Majesty,” the yarl shrugged. “I don’t want a fight, Lord Waite”.
“Your letter hinted otherwise.”
“I said I would take advantage of your shipping if you prove stubborn, yes. Not that I desire to do it.”
“Not even for the glory eternal in the mother-of-pearl halls beyond?”
“I see you know our faith.”
“A little. You have plenty of gods with incomprehensible names. I know they drive their prophets mad, and sometimes make their favorites into heroes. The former more often than the latter.”
“Close enough. It’s been centuries since the mighty Scha’oton, the lord of battle, actually inspired a man living with his spirit. Nor since She Who Bore The Great Serpent awoke any of her ancient children.”
“Not a bad thing”, Ivarr’s wife added. “Given the carnage that usually ensued.”
“I am not here to debate theology,” Athelstan said.
“Naturally”, the younger, fair-haired man standing to Ivarr’s left hand shrugged his shoulders. By the ease of his composure and the boldness of his words, Athelstan might have judged him Ivarr’s son; however, the pale coloring belied that theory. “You are here to pay us not to sack your shores.”
“Sigurd”, there was a warning in Ivarr”s voice.
“I see no reason to dress the truth up with pretty words. What is that, after all, but lying by another name? We are strong, and our gods are mighty. The Triad-worshippers are weak, one of their three deities is a young girl and another a crone. So they have to pay us the vergeld to preserve their lives, and not the other ways around.”
Athelstan stood very still, rage rising in his chest like a slow, inexorable wave. He knew the truth of Sigurd’s words, gods damn him thrice and for all.
But his brother’s order was his brother’s order, so there was nothing left to Athelstan but to grind his teeth and try to keep his composure.
“Do forgive my advisor,” Ivarr said quickly. He did not sound pleased, either at Sigurd’s words or at the necessity to contradict them. That was understandable. Who, after all, would desire to be seen as man weak enough to be challenged by one’s own underling? “He is young, and hot-headed at times. Let my men take a look at the silver.” He nodded towards the impressive chest standing on the ground, upon the bare sand of the isle.
“Do you doubt my word of honor? Do you think Craerenthi lord and a brother to the king would attempt to cheat you like a petty rogue?”
“Yes,” the yarl”s wife replied bluntly. “Everyone can be a rogue, if the circumstances are right. Lord or no. I’ve seen your lords before. I’d say I prefer the honest bluntness of our warriors any day.”
In another time, Athelstan would have laughed at the notion of being thought lacking in honest bluntness.
Now, he was in no mood for laughter whatsoever.
The yarl’s proposal was carried out. The chest was opened, and three of his men, Sigurd among them, set about counting the silver.
Minutes stretched into hours. The sky darkened into indigo-ink. Torches had been lit, the warmth of their fire turning silver into gold.
Athelstan expected his wife to be supremely uncomfortable at the waiting - gods knew he was. But she found some occupation - namely, talking to Ivarr’s spouse. They were too far away for Athelstan to mark out the words. He did hear Julia’s laughter, however, and a couple of times glimpsed the whiteness of her teeth as she smiled her broad smile.
He never did make her laugh like that.
“Well enough,” Sigurd called out, rising from his knees. “The man seems to be honest.”
Athelstan scowled at that - how dare they speak thus of him, as though he were the over-bold man demanding something here? As though they were the ones with power?
Except they were. In a way, they were.
And no fine liveries could cover the fact.
“I am glad you found out the truth of my statements,” he said coldly.
“I am glad, too,” Ivarr chuckled without much hostility. “Quite a profitable trade it was, wasn’t it? Our forefathers were no fools when they thought it up.”
“They were certainly not,” Athelstan replied, thinking of those forefathers of his who smashed the serpent-ships to smithereens in their day.
The fur-bedecked procession, several men in it weighted down by the chest, proceeded back to the boat. The light of their torches snaked down through the darkness of the isle. The sails of the ship filled with breeze almost immediately. Athelstan could feel the gathering storm-winds in the prickling of his skin, and knew that the breeze in question was only the harbinger of something greater.
In the pettiest corner of his soul, he wished that the waves would drive the serpent-ships upon particularly sharp rocks. If that would mean the realm’s silver would be forever muted beneath the waves, at least it would not enrich those who preyed upon them.
He did not have much time to indulge such thoughts, though. Due to the northmen’s damnable mistrust, the meeting had taken much longer than he had anticipated.
The tide was rising.
Athelstan turned his gaze to where the mainland with its white cliffs glowed with their faint pallor in the dark, where the home was. And froze.
The tide had more than risen - waves were already lapping dangerously close to the edges of the causeway.
“My lord, we cannot reach Greyharbor today,” one of his attendants objected. “Not without placing yourself in great danger.”
“I had braved greater dangers.”
“What about your lady wife? She had not.”
“Oh, I have,” Julia replied with good cheer that sounded downright unnatural now. “I don’t fear some water. Let us saddle the horses. I imagine they have had a good enough rest in the past few hours.”
***
By all rights, Julia should have been regretting her decision now.
The rain, growing heavier with every minute, was lashing her face and cloak, and her hood was no protection against it. If not for the pins securing it in place, the force of the wind would have long since torn it from her head. The black sea was raging around the narrow causeway, and the sky above was leaden and swirling with heavy night-clouds. She should have been terrified.
And yet, while there was a strain of fear running through her heart - she would have had to be utterly stupid not to feel it at all - the greatest mood was that of a mad glee.
She was in the eye of a storm again, woman against nature, the world narrowed down to the more primal things: the elements, the dark, the survival. It clouded the minds of many with blind terror, but only purified hers.
Her heart had been fired up even more by her conversation with yarl Ivarr’s wife, Helga. Like many women of her origin, the latter held the soft-handed ladies of Craerenth in mild contempt, but she answered Julia’s questions nonetheless - the ports she had seen with her husband on summer raids, the monsters they had battled.
“The monsters you have ruled, too?” Julia tried to disguise the eagerness of her own question.
“We didn’t.”
“So, are these merely old stories?” A pinprick of disappointment.
“Why cut someone open to call up some cyclopean serpent from the deep just for the beast to destroy your enemy’s ships without any regard for the goods and bullion?”
“Your enemy’s and half your own, I imagine.”
“Sometimes. It’s been known to happen. It’s not the age of battling giants anymore. Silver is sweeter than blood.”
“You are a most pragmatic woman.”
To this, Helga grinned:
“So are you, or you wouldn’t have been asking me these questions.”
Julia was in the middle of the causeway, the faint lights in the windows of her new home twinkling in the distance, when the world slid sideways.
Her horse was slipping on the wet ground.
The terrified animal whinnied, and Julia felt as heavy and sharp a premonition as she did that time a mast came crushing down a hair’s breadth from her head.
She freed her feet from the stirrups to avoid being stuck, and just in time, for the very next second her mount fell on its side with a horrified cry. Lightning-fast, Julia rolled away to avoid being crushed by the heavy animal. She stopped - fortuitously - on the very edge of the causeway, a step away from where the stone became the roaring sea.
It all happened blindingly fast - one moment she was galloping on horseback, trying to outrun the elements, the next she was gasping on her back, the starless sky vast and threatening above her.
Disregarding the hurt, Julia stood up. She looked at her horse, and found out with a pang that the animal’s neck was broken. She couldn’t continue this way - she couldn’t -
A noise. The other riders approaching from behind? Julia frantically looked right and left. Where on earth could she duck to avoid being crushed by another man’s mount? There was barely a room for one horseman on the causeway. She couldn’t dive into the water. That would be certain death.
Then, the sound of hooves stopped.
Then Julia felt a strong grip on her forearm.
She turned and looked into the face of her husband.
The horseman did not come from behind her, but from the front. The fall must have played havoc with her sense of direction.
“Get on my horse,” Lord Waite said with an urgency she had never heard in his voice before.
“It won’t be able to bear us both - “
“It will. It’s a strong beast. Are you hurt?” The rain was streaming down his face, and his eyes seemed as dark in the night as the blazing storm.
“Only a bit.”
“A bit is enough.” Without another comment, Lord Waite gathered her in his arms and carried her to where his own courser stood, black against the black.
It was as though she were a newlywed bride again. Except Lord Waite had never carried her this way when she was his newlywed bride.
“Hold on to my waist,” he directed, helping her up. “Hold tight and don’t let go. I will get you out of here.”
Julia did not need to be asked twice. She pressed up against his back, snaking her arms around him and holding as fast as though her life depended on it.
Which, in the circumstances, it probably did.
The journey back to the mainland became a whirl of wordless sensations and flashes of imagery - the black of the waves and of the world, the roar of the incoming tide, the reassuring firmness of her spouse’s back.
Reassuring to an extent. Julia could not help but keep in mind that, should the water rush in and bury the causeway under the waves, there would be little that Lord Waite’s determination would avail either of them, not to mention their men galloping behind.
With her heels, she could feel the slick foam on the horse’s sides.
“The horse won’t last long,” she warned, trying to speak loudly enough to over-shout the wind.
“He will. He always had.”
The assurance in his voice was so matter-of-factly that even Julia’s fears quietened a little. But the splashes of incoming water were not something she could shut out.
“Just the last stretch left,” her husband murmured. “We are almost home, my lady.”
In the moment, she had been too gripped by the visceral danger around them, the oncoming rush of the world, to notice the strangeness in his words.
Recalling them later, though, she realized they sounded almost gentle.
During that last stretch, the noise of water became such that it seemed a dripping maw ready to swallow them.
When the mount’s hooves finally hit the firm ground, Julia almost slipped out of the saddle just from sheer relief.
Moments later, the sounds behind her confirmed that the men of the household had reached the mainland safely, too. Her eyes open, she counted the arrivals in her head. She had spent enough time in Greyharbor to remember the face and the name of those men.
If she ever had a habit of viewing those lacking noble blood as mere props upon the stage of her life, years at sea cured her of that for good.
Her husband turned his horse, looked them over as though they were straggling in the aftermath of a battle. Then he gestured to follow him.
Julia wondered, not for the first time, as to how could a man so clearly assured in a saddle or on a ship deck, sword in hand, also speak so haltingly and so reluctantly in a regular conversation without any peril involved.
Perhaps, the answer lay in the question. It’s easy to move when one knows which enemies to slay; talking to ones barely-known wife are much more uncharted waters.
Julia shivered the rest of the way to the castle, even though the danger was now past. She knew the peculiar effect, though - the insistence of bodily effects of fear to show up only in the aftermath.
She supposed the Triad had been merciful in making it this way.
“Are you hurting?” Lord Waite asked after helping her down from the horse in the courtyard.
“No. Not really.”
“Your dress is torn.”
“That’s unfortunate. I hope we’ll survive the expense”. Julia smiled in the dark.
“Hang the expense -”
“Quite a word to hear from you, my lord”.
“You could have broken your neck”.
“I would have done no such thing”.
“You’ve admitted yourself that you are only a middling horsewoman.”
“I am. But my reactions are quick, and my limbs flexible.”
“Thank the Triad for that. Go upstairs, my lady. My physician will take a look at you”.
Julia knew better than to protest - besides, she did not especially want to protest being taken care of. It was not a frequent enough occurrence in her life to become annoying, after all.
She could not help but feel pity for the poor physician, though - raised from his bed in the dead of night in order to attend to the lady of the castle whose worst complaints, she was sure, were some fright and a torn dress.
He did so, however, and dutifully pronounced her largely unharmed.