Chapter 8
Chapter
Eight
VALI
R anan is impossible to read. I don’t know what to make of him. He’s promised to talk more, and yet he dives into the waters and retreats over and over again, spending most of his day away from me. He brings more raw fish for me to eat, and when I ask him to show me how to gut it and prepare it properly, he dismisses my request. Later, is all he says.
When the sun sets and it grows cold, he comes into the tent and wraps himself around me, still silent.
Well, he did say he doesn’t talk much.
Lying in Ranan’s arms does make the hard floor—the turtle’s back, I remind myself—a bit more comfortable. There’s fluffy, tufted moss growing on the shell outside of the tent but nothing inside it, which makes the “floor” feel like stone. The sea-ogre puts his arms (all four of them) around me, caging me against him, my back to his front. I tuck one of my hands under my cheek and wait for him to make a move.
If I’m his wife, as he says, he’ll want me to fulfill my wifely duties and serve him in bed. I know from past experience that most men want something when they get into bed with you, and I wait for him to give me a signal—a suggestive touch, a tug on my clothing, something.
Yet there is nothing from Ranan. Again, I don’t know how to read him.
I stare into the dark, wide awake, and decide to press my luck and ask a few questions. “Are we far from shore?”
He takes a moment to respond. “Not too far.”
“I see.”
“Don’t try to escape.” His voice is harsh and annoyed, and my shoulders tense. He notices my reaction and adds, “If you want to go to shore, I will take you, that’s all. You can’t swim.”
Here I thought I was a decent swimmer. “I’m not going to run for it. There’s nowhere for me to go. My parents are gone, and my land destroyed by Aventine soldiers. If they hear Parness in my accent, they’ll enslave me. If someone thinks I’m a runaway slave, they’ll enslave me. Gods, even if they just see a woman alone, they’ll enslave me. I’m safer with you.”
He grunts. “I know nothing of humans other than they like to carry gold on their ships, but it seems unfair to you.”
“Very,” I agree. “But that is the world we live in.”
He grunts.
I take the lull of conversation to ease into a new topic. “What made you want a bride, Ranan?”
It’s silent for so long that I worry I’ve offended him all over again. But he sighs and then says, “It was a sudden decision.”
That’s…not much of an answer. Something tells me it’s all I’m going to get from him tonight, though. Clearly Ranan does not like to share his feelings. There are many reasons why someone would seek out a bride. Another set of hands to do the work, for example…though if that’s the case, I don’t think Ranan would have chosen a human. Perhaps he was lonely, I tell myself. Perhaps he wants to start a family.
Lord Vor’s mercy, I can’t imagine having a child atop a turtle’s back. I’m going to have to ask about that at some point, when Ranan is feeling more amenable. For now, I can dance around the idea. “Will you let me know what you will expect of a wife?”
“I’ll let you know as soon as I figure it out myself.”
“Ah.” An honest answer, but not a particularly helpful one.
He shifts behind me, one of his hands resting on my arm and twitching. Is he touching my skin deliberately as a lead-in to something else? It’s so hard to tell. “My silence is not anger. I am…not good at expressing myself with words.” He pauses. “I am used to being alone.”
I appreciate his words, and reach out to pat the hand resting on my arm. “I’m probably going to have a great deal of questions for you. Is that all right? I’m not familiar with your life or your people and I will probably ask a lot.”
“And here I thought you had pleasured a great many sea-ogres.”
My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. I’m frozen. I don’t know what to say to him. He’s calling me out on my lies, but we both already know that I’m a liar. Is he chastising me? How do I respond to that?
He gives my arm a squeeze. “Joke.”
Oh.
I feel as if I can breathe again. A tense laugh rushes out of me. “You had me worried.”
“I don’t like lies.”
I wait for him to go on, and when he doesn’t, the silence turns awkward again. Do I tell him I won’t lie again? I’ll surely be lying then, because lies have become second nature to me. I don’t know when I’m going to lie. They just sometimes slip out. “I…understand.”
The quiet is so intense in the tent it starts to feel oppressive. Is he waiting for me to say something more? I chew on my lip, fretting.
Just go to sleep, I tell myself. Quit asking him so many questions since you’re not prepared for his answers. But I’m not ready yet, not when I’m just now really and truly talking to Ranan for the first time since we met. “Do you have family?” I ask brightly. “Brothers? Sisters? Parents?”
Pause.
“You’re asking now?”
“Is now a bad time?”
I get the impression that he bites back a sigh before he answers me. “I have parents on the flotilla.”
Well, now I have more questions. “A flotilla? What’s that?”
“Hamarii cluster together into a family unit, laying their flippers atop one another and drift in the open waters while they eat. It allows many of us to live close together. Like your land-bound villages. That is where my family is. Our flotilla.”
How very fascinating. He sounds fond of them. He says the word “flotilla” almost like a caress. “And yet you are not with them?”
A hint of a smile touches his hard mouth. Just a hint. “Akara is at an age where she is territorial. She does not like other females near her. Some hamarii are more aggressive than others, and Akara is one. I raised her from a hatchling and we have a bond. I could choose to release her from our bond or leave with her.” He shrugs. “So I left with her. I still visit my family, but never for long.”
There’s no resentment in his tone. Whatever his bond is with his turtle, it’s enough for him. Of course, a territorial turtle raises new kinds of issues. “Is she…going to be upset that you have a wife?”
“No.” He pauses and then adds, almost reluctantly, “She already thinks of you as mine. Do you have more questions?”
“Far too many. Should I stop asking?”
His mouth flattens again. “You should sleep.”
I probably should, but now my mind is whirling with all kinds of thoughts. Things like what I’ll do to get on Akara’s good side. What I’ll do to get on Ranan’s good side. Surely he has a good side. There seems an obvious way to get him to like me and yet… “Can I ask one more question?”
Another heavy sigh. “Go ahead.”
“Since I’m your wife, are we going to have sex soon?” I blurt out, and continue on before he can interrupt. “I’m just asking because we should think about prevention of some kind unless you want to have children. Back in my village, there was a wise-woman that sold honeycombs packed with dung, and we could use those as a preventative. But I have nothing like that right now and I’m not sure where I’d even find a honeycomb.”
Ranan pauses. “You would eat that?” Disgust is clear in his voice.
“Um, no. You put it inside you to catch the seed and make it go sour.”
His big body jerks in response. “That’s disgusting. You won’t do anything like that.”
Oh, very well then. I suppose he feels quite strongly about things like that. Some people don’t like a wise-woman’s methods, but I’ve never heard anyone complain. I’m just as happy not stuffing dirty honeycombs anywhere myself. “Then you’ll have to pull out. Which is fine, truly—you can come on my tits or my belly, and that’s always a nice thing. I’m just bringing it up so there’s no surprises.”
“It’s not a concern for us right now.” His voice is tight.
It’s not? He’s so very confusing, my new husband. Perhaps he doesn’t want a wife for bodily pleasures. Or companionship. Perhaps he just wants me to work alongside him. I suppose it could be worse. “If you say so.”
“Go to sleep.”
“Can I ask you more questions tomorrow?”
“Go to sleep, Vali.”
Oh, he used my name. That means I’ve pushed beyond his patience. “Good night, then, Ranan.”
I wake up before dawn the next morning with the irritating urge to pee. Using the necessity is one of the things I like least about living upon the turtle’s back. I have to get into the water and relieve myself, or I have to hang my arse over the edge of the turtle’s shell and do my business that way. I can’t help but worry that the turtle’s going to take offense in some way to my doings and fling me off her back.
So because I know it’ll be a whole thing, I lie quietly in Ranan’s arms and listen to him breathing.
It’s…oddly nice. Our sleeping arrangements aren’t the most comfortable, but I’m not sure what can be done on a turtle’s back. I can’t imagine a bed full of down pillows and soft blankets. They’d get ruined quickly. Ranan’s body is warm, though, and his arms don’t feel as strange as they did when I met him. He’s got four arms and a sail-like fin atop his head, yet he is normal in every other way.
Well, almost every other way.
Truly, I’ve slept in worse. After my last owner died and I was enslaved again, I slept in a stable when things were pleasant and on the hearth in the kitchen when the stable grew too crowded. There’s no one here to flick my skirts, there’s no lice, no one’s stepping on me or slapping me to wake me up because the chamberpots need to be emptied. There’s just Ranan to keep happy, and he’s a bit moody, but I can handle moody.
He’s just one person.
Well, I need to keep him and his turtle happy. But this feels doable. For the first time in a very long time, I’m not worried about what my future will be.
Vor of the Seas is looking out for me.
…I’ve really got to get that fish for him. To show him my thanks.
Turning in Ranan’s embrace, I tap him gently on the chest to try and wake him and then get distracted. He’s got hard pectorals, but that’s expected. His entire body is hard and lean. It’s the fact that he’s got a second set of pectoral muscles below the first set, like his upper chest has been stacked twice by whatever god made him. It’s fascinating to get a chance to truly study our differences, and I trace my fingertips over that lower set of muscles.
His hand closes over mine, stopping me.
“Sorry,” I say, breathless. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Yes, you did.” He doesn’t open his eyes, his body relaxed except for the one hand pinning mine.
“Very well, so I did. It’s just habit for me to say things like that. But I do need you awake. I want to get a fish for Vor today. I don’t want him to think I’ve forgotten about him.” I tap my captured hand against his skin. “So if you could please show me where the big fish are, I shall stay out of your way.”
That makes him crack an eye open. He stares at me. “How would you get it?”
“The fish?” I consider for a moment. I haven’t really thought how I would hunt one. “Could I borrow your trident? I think that would work.”
“Because you’ve used a trident before?”
“Well, no.”
“Have you ever fished before? Lured a fish to the surface?”
“I actually don’t know how to do those things, now that you mention it.” I smile brightly at him, determined. “But I’m willing to learn, and I promise you won’t have to tell me twice.”
“You’d fall over the side trying to spear the fish,” he says, closing his eyes again. “And the bigger the fish, the deeper the waters. It’s dangerous for someone like you.”
“Someone like me? A human? A woman?”
“Someone that doesn’t know how to swim.”
Oooh. I smack his chest. “I do so know how to swim.”
He snorts. Ranan opens his eyes and releases me, sitting up. “You’d drown before I even had my back turned to you. That’s the first thing we’re going to do—we’re going to teach you how to swim.”
“But Vor—the god?—”
“The god will understand. You’re doing everything you can to get him what you promised. He can be patient for the right offering. And you want to give him the right offering.”
I chew on my lip, because I really do. The god has saved me. I need to give him the best offering I possibly can. “You’re right. You’ll show me how to swim, then?”
Ranan grunts. He scrubs a hand over his face, looking surprisingly boyish with that small move. “Aye. I’ll show you how to swim.”
“Thank you. You won’t regret it! I’m a fast learner.” I beam at him, pleased. Swimming seems important to him, so I’ll let him teach me. “After the morning meal, then?”
“We’ll get the morning meal in the waters,” he says. “Put your dress in one of the bags.”
I’m not swimming with it on? The realization catches me by surprise, and then I feel foolish. Why would I? He wears as little as possible, so it makes sense that I’d do the same. My dress will just get in the way of swimming anyhow. I try not to feel vulnerable as I pull it off and fold it into a tidy square. He leans over one of the bags and unties the strange knots, then gestures that I should put my rags inside.
“Can I ask you something?” I glance up at him.
“Can I stop you?”
“You can by being grouchy, but then I’ll remain woefully ignorant,” I say, changing my tone of voice to a grave one. “Better to get the questions out of the way rather than deal with the consequences of a foolish and useless wife.”
His mouth twitches. “Ask, then.”
“Why are your bags tied like this? With two knots and the leather in the middle? And a dry fish on the end? I cannot figure it out.” I gesture at the heaps of bags surrounding us in the tent. “And it’s been driving me mad.”
Ranan’s eyes light up with realization and he lets out a rusty-sounding chuckle. “I suppose it would be confusing to a human.”
“Or anyone with eyes.”
“Or anyone with eyes,” he agrees, sounding far more agreeable this morning. “The seakind always bag their goods. A turtle’s back is broad, but if Akara is threatened, she will submerge herself. It’s rare because her kind love the sunshine, but it has happened. If she does go under, anything upon her will spill into the waters.”
“I see.” I study the bags with greater understanding now. “So you’re making sure that your valuables are easy to find should Akara dump them into the water?”
Ranan nods. “The bags are heavy and will still sink, but finding one large bag instead of twenty necklaces is much easier.”
It makes sense. I touch the strange knots. “Why the double-tie, then? Does it have a purpose? And the dead fish?”
“The double tie is to prevent as much water as possible from going into the bag itself. Not everything does well when exposed to seawater.” He crouches next to one of the bags and shows it to me. “The top is knotted and then knotted again and then twisted below and tied with a cord directly under the leather oilcloth. One set of knots will not keep the seawater out, but twisting the bag and adding a second set helps.”
Interesting.
“As for the fish…” He picks one up and taps on it. The surface is hard like a child’s leather ball, and nearly as spherical. “This kind puffs itself to look fearsome to predators. We dry them when they are bloated and they float. With a bag tied to it, even if the weight of the goods keeps the bag on the sea floor, the fish will drift above it and make it easier to spot.”
“So it’s like a marker. How very clever. I understand now. I thought you were just, well, I actually didn’t know what to think.”
His expression is hard. “Just because we do not live in cities does not mean we are fools.”
“Cities certainly have their share of fools as well, no worries about that.” I touch the bag, trying to follow the complex knots. “I wasn’t saying your way was wrong. It’s just very different from mine. I’m going to have a lot of questions as I get used to your lifestyle. Please don’t take it the wrong way. I’m not defending my people. They enslaved me twice and caved the moment the Aventine army showed up on our doorstep. They can all rot as far as I’m concerned. But it’s also the only way I know.”
He grunts acknowledgment.
“Yours is the first turtle I’ve ever seen, much less lived upon.” I give him a rueful smile. “Are they all as big as this one?”
Ranan’s expression softens at the mention of his turtle. “Hamarii are big, yes, but Akara is large for her age. She’s fierce, too. I’ll introduce you to her but don’t approach her head unless I’m with you.”
Well that’s not terrifying at all. “No worries about that. Anything else I should do so she doesn’t eat me?”
“She won’t eat you. She doesn’t eat people.”
“You never know, I could be a particularly tasty woman, all nice and juicy.” I let a little flirtiness into my voice.
“I don’t eat people either.” Ranan’s tone grows hard. “My people are not monsters.”
“That-that wasn’t what I meant?—”
He glares at me and gets to his feet, then flicks a hand indicating I should follow after him. “Come. You need to learn to swim.”
How is it that I manage to offend him constantly?