6. Chapter 6
Chapter 6
J ulia’s sleeves were white and embroidered with silver when she took her knife to the neck of the trembling bird. Her kirtle was blue, so that all those gathered for worship at the Greyharbor town’s temple could see that she honored the Lady’s aspect as the mistress of the sea.
The interior of the temple was peculiar to say the least - instead of murals, even simple ones, the walls were decorated with seashells. White and pink and the pearl-grey, big and small, some collected from the stony beaches, some, she suspected, brought from far afield. They covered the walls of the building as though it was not a holy place, but an underwater grotto, one of those places which the imaginations of the pagans of old had populated with mermen and naiads.
Her movement was expert and quick - the dove’s throat was cut, and no gore splashed onto Julia’s gown. People looking at her now would probably think that it came from many a pious sacrifice throughout her life.
Some of it did. Most of it did not.
The final bird was dispatched, the warmth of its departing life seeping into the stone of the altar.
Julia turned and faced them all - the prosperous merchants of the town, the weavers and the smiths in simple wool, the fishermen with weathered hands, the farmers holding small patches of land around the town, the petty knights holding patches of land that were scarcely greater. They were all looking at her - to see how well she had acquitted herself, to see how she looked, to see what their new lady was like .
Julia smiled, and turned her slick hands palms outwards, so that they could see patches of blood upon it.
In the corner of her eye, she could see the priestess smiling at her with approval. It was not the Elder Sister heading the Convent of the Lady’s Mercy - this one was a young, pretty, town-bred creature, living in the temple precinct. But Julia had very little doubt that the word was going to find its way to the convent sooner or later. That was how the church of the Triad worked.
Lord Waite, sitting in the front pew, was regarding Julia with an inscrutable expression. He did not look displeased - only confused, perhaps, as to why did she have to go to all this trouble.
Julia knelt, and the young priestess gently wiped her fingers and palms with a towel of wet linen.
“May the Lady’s gaze fall upon you with benevolence”, she said, looking down at Julia.
“I shall strive to be worthy of it,” Julia responded with the formula.
When she finally exited the place, her hand upon her husband’s arm, she realized belatedly just how she was trembling.
“Are you cold, my lady?” Lord Waite inquired.
“No - not at all. It is summer already, after all.”
“Summer can be cruel here. The sea-winds are sharp.”
“I am perfectly well, thank you. I hope I performed well.”
“I think you’ve done everything they could have hoped for. Now the Greyharbor knows that I have a wife who is as pious as she is beautiful.”
“By the Virgin’s feet - is that a compliment? Perhaps, my sacrifice really was accepted.”
“It won’t be if you continue taking Their name in vain”. His face was absolutely deadpan, but there was no doubt that he was being wry. “What did you pray for?”
“For the success of your venture, of course.”
“What venture?”
“The parley with the yarl.”
“It won’t be much of a parley. Ivarr and his men are going to come to the Cormorant Isle, I am going to give them the chests of silver they want so badly, the yarl is going to sign his name under a brief treaty, and we are all going to go home, content.”
“Except for you.”
“Except for me.”
“Why the Cormorant Isle?”
“It is far enough from the shore to keep them away from my lands proper. The estuary is perfectly easy to traverse at low tide, too. No need for a boat on our part. No waiting for a fair wind.”
“While they would indeed have to wait for it.”
“I would have lied if I said I did not draw some satisfaction from that fact.”
“Far it be from me to scold you for wanting to discomfit your enemies. What are your attendants going to wear?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The men who are going to accompany you, not to mention the guards in case the things turn ugly. You would want them to show the northmen you are not some petty lord to be trifled with, won’t you?”
“Except trifling with us is exactly what they would be doing. We have agreed to fulfil their demands. No amount of dressing-up is going to cover that fact, my lady.”
“Maybe not,” she acknowledged. “But if we seem formidable and magnificent enough…”
“When had such things ever deterred anyone?”
Julia stared at him.
“Quite often, actually. Perhaps, I could invite you to join one of Roxane’s lessons”.
“The ones on foreign tongues?”
“More or less. But it is hard to teach the language of a land without also teaching its history.”
“What would you have me do, my lady?” He sounded exhausted, despite it being a fresh-washed summer morning.
“Quite a number of things, actually”, Julia replied cheerfully. “I can write you a list once we are back home.
“Perhaps,” he said archly, “you would want to come with me, to make sure my hapless self did it right?”
“Thank you for the offer, my lord, I gladly would.”
“It was a jest .”
“Forgive me, I am not used to these from you. Naively, I simply thought it to be a good idea.”
“I don’t think it would bring anything but unneeded danger.”
“Is that meeting not going to be essentially a parley? Even the northmen usually respect such things.”
“How would you know, my lady?”
Julia bit her tongue. She could not exactly tell him.
“I have heard,” she managed to say.
“Why would you want to come, in any case? They would only expect to speak to me, and not much, either. It is not going to be a subtle negotiation,” he warned. “Only a transfer of silver from one set of hands to another.”
“Because…” Her experience told her to try some fawning compliment, to claim losing sleep over her husband’s difficulties. But Julia had spent the whole morning pretending sweet piety; though such things usually came easily to her, sometimes they really did become too much. “Because I want to help; to do something. To know I am not helpless or useless. To know that great events are not passing me by while I am growing old behind stone walls.”
It would have been an exaggeration to claim that his features softened much upon this little speech. However, he did pause in his step, and looked at her with perturbed concern.
“It is not going to be a great event.”
“Great for Greyharbor, though. For Mearnt as a whole, even.”
“We will take plenty of guards,” he said. “You won’t step aboard their ship even if a cordial invitation would be extended, either.”
Julia gave him a tight little smile. Sometimes it really seemed as though her husband was taking her for a fool.
***
“Are you going to go away for long?” Roxane asked, her grey eyes serious as only the eyes of some children can be.
“Not at all,” Julia assured her. “It will hardly take more than a day.”
“Do you have to come with Athelstan?”
In all honesty, the answer to this question should have been another not at all. Lords, great and petty, usually managed negotiating with their enemies without any help from their wives.
But Julia did not want to be left behind after quietly organizing the ornamentation of the meeting. Something in the much- praised ladylike art of making one’s efforts seem gracefully invisible went against the core of her soul.
She wanted to be there. She wanted to see, if not to take a direct part.
“I think I do. Besides, it was his idea.”
That was stretching truthfulness to the breaking point.
“Can I come, too?”
“I’m afraid you are still too young, Roxane.”
“I have good sea-legs,” the girl insisted. “I am sturdier than I look.”
“I know.” Unspoken words hanging in the air - I remember the story of the siege.
“Can I make you a gift?”
“It would be an honor.”
“I have...” The child hesitated before continuing. “I have some raw sea-silk in my room. Still wet. I hadn’t woven it yet, but I can do that before you go. Maybe you could - embroider it on something? I know you like embroidery.”
“And I know you don’t,” Julia teased - and froze. “What do you mean, you have raw sea-silk in your room, still wet? You mean, it had only been delivered this morning?”
“I...” Roxane chewed on her lower lip. “I’ve only gathered it this morning.”
“ Gathered it? Underwater? From the mollusks?”
The child nodded, a little nervously:
“It’s not that hard. There’s plenty of those clams that make it, around the shore. They are not very deep.”
“It’s...” With a painful clarity, Julia remembered the feel of Roxane’s damp hair under his hand. It was not a hasty bath that the little lady took in order to impress her new tutor with her neatness. It was the diving. “Triad, I - I don’t even know when to begin. When did this madness start?”
“A little after the siege was lifted. And it’s not madness. I’m very good at this. They say so”, Roxane replied defensively.
“Who does?”
“The women from the villages on the coast, the ones who dive for sea-silk when their men are away fishing. They taught me when I asked”.
“Just like that?”
“They said it’s not a trade for a great lady. But - it’s not really a trade, is it? I mean - I am not earning anything from it. Not asking for any money. It cannot be a trade then”.
They were right, it is not. Great ladies engage in no trade at all but the running of their husbands” estates. That would have been the proper thing to say now.
The kind of thing Julia’s mother would have said.
Julia recalled her own escape on a moonless night, a first passage to Cimera with its harbor, hair tied up, breasts nigh-invisible under a man’s doublet.
Next to that, Roxane’s doings looked downright innocent.
“What on earth possessed you?”
“I was curious, at first. Then, I... You know, down under the waves, there is no sound. And I don’t have to drag my foot along. It’s weightless like a feather. All of me is weightless like a feather.”
“Does your brother know?”
Julia knew the answer to the question almost before it left her lips. Of course Athelstan Waite did not know. Athelstan Waite, protective of everything his own, eaten alive by guilt for not being there to save his little sister when she had truly needed saving.
He did not know, and if he did, he would have forbidden it outright.
“No - I always sneak out of the castle quietly. I’ve always liked walking when I was a little child, listening to the sea and to the fish-wives singing songs. You - you won’t tell him, would you? Please? It’s a big secret. I thought you would - I thought you won’t...”
“I won’t tell him,” Julia said quickly. “But you must give me a promise.”
“Yes?”
“You will stop these outings come autumn, when the waters grow cold. And you must tell me before every future one.”
“Why do you need it?”
“To make sure I have hot bath and a cup of herbal tea prepared for your return, little vixen. If you want to continue playing at a silk-diver, you have to at least make sure you won’t catch your death.”