20. Chapter 20
Chapter 20
I t came with unknown messengers. It was not a letter - indeed, Athelstan did not think the people who brought him the news knew their letters. It mattered not.
“There are some fishermen to see you”. His manservant’s expression was that of profound doubt. “I wouldn’t have bothered you, but they insisted it’s vital. I’ve tried to turn them away, but-”
“I’d rather you left it up to me to decide which visitors merit the time. Now show them in.”
The young man nodded after a pause, and obeyed, if rather reluctantly so.
As soon as the trio were shown into the hall, Athelstan saw that the fishermen part was a misnomer - out of the three, two were women with calloused hands with weather-bitten faces. He supposed desperate times called for desperate measures.
He also thought that, it seemed, his wife really had been right all those months ago.
“Your Lordship,” the fisherman spoke up. “Me and my sisters came to you right from the docks. We’d been blown off course, you see - the autumn storms -”
“What is it that you’ve encountered?” Athelstan asked. Deep down, he knew the answer to his question; or, at least, he could guess it.
There was only one nightmare alive now that could have left the trio’s faces so bloodlessly pale. Only one horror, out in the sea.
“The serpent-ships. On the horizon.”
“How long away from here?”
“It took us three days to get back.”
That was not much to start with, but the situation clarified with further questions and quick calculations.
Too little time, however one sliced it. The only hope hinged on the fact that the northmen were, in their own way, pragmatic men and women, and rarely passed an opportunity of small-scale raiding by, even en route to a greater prize. He pitied the inhabitants of petty island kingdoms of the Glittering Sea for a few moments; then came back to thinking about his own people.
He knew that some claimed one is not supposed to know fear. These people were foolish as well as liable to get themselves killed. Not showing fear was one thing. He knew it well enough, however. The fear for his wife, for his sister, for his old retainer, for his home, cold and old and full of shadows though it was.
“Go to the kitchens,” he told the three people from the fishing village. “You will be fed well.” After their ordeal, they would need it. “You have my gratitude.”
Now he had only to relay the news to his allies, and ask Father Telmen to pray to the three goddesses for them all with the fervor Athelstan himself lacked.
***
Julia flung open the lids of her chests.
She was digging into the layers of light wool and fine linen and good cambric, hoping against all reason that some item from her years on the waves had somehow made its way there.
As though she had any left. She was pretty sure her family burned these marks of shame as soon as they got their hands on those, and they would for sure never have permitted their daughter to smuggle in any into her new married life.
Julia stood up, looked at herself in the mirror. She was the way she had always been - thin and boyish, narrow-hipped and small-chested. There was a possibility some light leather armor made by a town craftsman could suit her. In the grim turmoil of the preparation, there was little chance anyone would watch her closely.
There was no possibility, either, for her staying on the shore and simply letting her husband sail into the gruesome maw of battle.
This wasn’t just about the axes of the northmen. Julia knew - or, rather, could sense - that there was something else afoot. Vittorio’s warning from what felt like long ago rang in her ear. Scrolls and strange questions, whispers of eldritch tomes. What if these did not cease with yarl Ivarr’s death?
Indeed, what if they did not originate with the now-dead yarl at all?
This was for Athelstan’s own good, if she were to stow away on The Lady’s Arms . If she were to deceive him, it was only to save him. Besides...
An unwelcome memory surfaced in Julia’s mind. His expression when she confessed having deceived him about Roxane’s diving. The hurt, the betrayal. It took so much time for them to crawl their way back to each other, for him to forgive her.
Of course this was not the same. But now, standing in front of the mirror, seeing her own pale cheeks and narrowed pupils, Julia was not at all sure it was much better. She was even less sure that she had wanted to try and find out.
She turned on her heel and set out in search of her husband.
Athelstan was not hard to find; he was inspecting the castle’s supplies of weapons. Everything was staked on his ships repulsing the raid, yes. But that was no reason not to plan for the worst possible turn of events.
Julia said his name softly, and he turned to face her, the torches set in the walls pouring firelight upon his features. For a second, his face looked like the golden mask of a long-dead king Julia had seen once raised from some underwater ruins in search of treasure.
“Athelstan, I need to speak to you. I have a favor to ask.”
“Tell me.”
“I want to come with you. It is not,” she added, seeing him frown, “some conceit of a girl who has read too many stories of knightly adventure. You know as well as I do that I have spent years under the sail. You know that I good with the blade.”
Another time, she would have lowered her eyes, would have said something beguilingly humble, like I know one end of the sword from another. But she knew now was not the time for such tricks. With the man she loved, perhaps, no time was.
“Julia, it’s going to be perilous”.
“I’ve been in sea-battles before.”
“Of this magnitude?”
“Perhaps, not,” she conceded. “But I cannot allow you to go into danger by yourself.”
“Believe me, I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can. But is it so painful to allow another to do it?”
“It is, if it means risking your loss.”
“Kritias and Kressida. Do you recall the tale? They would not have reached the true shores without her.”
“It’s a tale, if a fair one”.
“Athelstan,” Julia placed her hand upon his chest. “I had a thought to sneak upon The Lady’s Arms the way I had once done with the smugglers” vessel. But I’ve decided it would be unfair towards you. You deserve honesty, for you always dole it out yourself.” A smile touched her lips lightly. “Even when others aren’t asking you to. I love you for many things, your frankness included. I thought to return it for once.”
His hand covered hers, squeezing it warm as sure as it did the day of their wedding, eons ago.
“Come with me,” Athelstan Waite said with a look of resignation. “You need to be fitted for your armor. Thank the Triad you already have a good sword.”
***
Julia’s next port of call was Father Telmen’s rooms.
He had heard the news, of course. For all his seeming soft placidity, few things hid from his view.
She wondered for a second what he was like in his Alexian Academy days, an attentive and doubtless brilliant young student.
“Do you have any results?” She had forgotten her graces today. The sheer, white-hot terror had burned it away, leaving only the bones.
“I think so”, the chaplain inclined his head somberly. “But we do not have a lot of it. It is not a simple concoction, and not quick in creation”.
“Is there any chance you might make more before we set out with the ships?”
“We?”
“I am coming with Athelstan. I mean, with- with His Lordship.”
“You are a brave woman, my lady.”
Julia blinked.
“You have my gratitude. I would’ve never expected praise from you. Especially not for such an undertaking. You don’t think it mad?”
“You have a skill with the sword, unusual though it is. Your sparring sessions with His Lordship were hardly covert,” the chaplain responded to her startled gaze. “I have little knowledge of your past. Indeed, that was one of the reasons I misliked the idea of this marriage. But if there is something in there that can aid him…”
“You are very devoted to your spiritual charge.”
“I am devoted to both my charges. It is only that one of them is well beyond my reach now, and well beyond any precepts I had taught him. There was a song in the mountains that ring Cimera, about a ewe that had two little lambs. I can’t recall the line about the first one, but I do remember that, in the second, it rhymed with “never found”“.
***
There were exclamations and mutterings from those who saw Julia ascend the board of The Lady’s Arms alongside Lord Waite, and while dressed in a sturdy leather armor and with a sword at her belt too. There were fewer than Julia had anticipated, though. She was here to aid her husband, after all, much like the legendary Kressida had helped hers steer the ship and outwit monsters. Such assistance can be almost laudable; almost an extension of demure marriage vows. It would have been different had her old crew discovered her true nature before the day her family’s henchmen came to drag her away.
There was likely a reason why Vittorio was the only member of the crew who responded to her quiet call those months ago.
It was hard not to notice the figures on the docks, the wives and mothers and sisters, and the sons too young to join their fathers. Some waving, some crying, some standing still as statues. By all rights, Julia should have been there, with them.
But she could not. Even from the most pragmatic point of view, she knew she could help on deck better than she could anywhere else.
A strange feeling grazed her heart when The Lady’s Arms raised its anchor and unfurled its sail. She was at sea again, years after it had been torn away from her - years that felt like decades.
She knew of the danger ahead, and knew of the gravity of the situation. But she would have lied if she claimed there was no thrill at all singing in her blood when she felt the unsteadiness of waves under her feet again.