Chapter 10
Ten
The land teased me, only to reveal itself to be trickery. It wasn’t land I’d seen from afar, not truly. It was driftwood docks—a tangled nest of bleached wood tied together by faded rope, smelling like salt and smoke.
There was real land farther in the distance: grey rocks covered in white squawking sea birds, but in my fevered state, I wasn’t sure I believed in the rocks. The first bit of land had been false. Surely there was a chance the second part was, too?
Hours or maybe mere moments passed in a shivery daze.
Things were taken off the boat. Things were put on it.
I tried standing when it seemed the sea dogs wanted me to, but my legs had gone weak and tingly.
Having spent an unknown number of days in delirium, wearing a drenched, metal-imbued gown, eating little or nothing, I was in a pathetic state.
And beyond my physical capabilities, the maze of docks looked no less sturdy than the boat, so I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to get off.
I had a vague sense it was important to keep myself awake, but I couldn’t.
Am I dying? I thought. I felt cold like the black emptiness beneath the soil was spreading through my bones. Have I gone too far from the vault? No one had ever told me goldkeepers died when separated from their work, but my mind was caught on a spinning wheel, and this was what it came up with.
I pushed with all my strength, and I managed to open my eyes for a few moments here and there, allowing me to witness fragments of the dock-city:
Baskets of raw fish with big eyes and gasping mouths.
Leather boots lined in wool.
Children with braided hair and loose blue wool tunics rushing dangerously close to the water’s edge.
Pinkbeard’s chest.
His hands.
I came to consciousness swiftly when I felt fingers at the base of my spine, reaching into the lacing of my gown. I shrieked and shot upward, grasping a woman’s face.
“Shh! Shh!” she said, pushing my hands away. “Soten. Shh!” She lifted a wad of linen. She made a gesture I understood as coldness—rubbing her arms against her body and pretending to shiver. She lifted the wad of linen again.
Her hair was shaved on one side, and this twisted my mind.
Had she been shaving her head—for some atrocious reason—and then realized I was transporting gold and stopped to steal my dress?
In the middle of shaving her scalp the way men back home shaved their faces?
So much of my surrounding was new to me—I was indoors.
It was dark. I was lying on my side upon something soft near a blazing fire that doused everything in orange.
The woman reached for the lacing of my gown again. I shrieked once more, pushing her hands away.
Pinkbeard came. From where? I don’t know.
“Soten, nidr. Nidr.” How could a whisper be so strong?
“She was trying to take my dress!” I exclaimed, pointing at the woman. “She’s a thief!”
He spoke softly. I could tell he was trying to reassure me, and it did work a little, but when the woman took a step forward, I yelled again. “She’s a thief!”
The woman unfolded the linen in her hands to reveal a simple dress with a drawstring belt. She made the gesture for cold again. She reached forward, and I kicked at her hands.
They looked at each other, whispering quick, frustrated words. I didn’t like it. Her eyes were the palest green, and the inner corners were sharp like a cat’s. She became Catseye to me.
Farwatcher came in, speaking in a hurried voice. Were they all angry with one another? Then why could I hear Loudlaugher’s giggle outside?
Catseye sighed and thrust the linen dress into Pinkbeard’s hands.
He laughed. She pushed him. My mind was again stirred.
I’d never seen anything like it: a woman taking up so much space.
A woman telling a man off. A man unbothered by a woman’s strong feelings.
Nothing led naturally in my mind to what came after it.
My illness swelled, and my eyes fluttered. I’ll never be warm again, I thought.
Wolfshead pushed in from behind Farwatcher, grumbling.
And then the host of them—all the sea dogs from the boat excluding Catseye, who stayed behind with an unimpressed look on her thieving face—were hurrying me along the tilting floor, down a dim corridor and into a large room.
It was then, from the windows, I knew it was evening.
Even so, it was bright inside. Torches and braziers were scattered throughout; white furs covered the floor, brightening everything up.
Large, pale wood pillars carved with sea serpents lined the hall.
There was a small sea dog audience awaiting us—nine people in varying states of drunkenness and one sharply sober man with silver-streaked hair and glowing blue eyes. I knew nothing about him at all, but at the same time, I knew everything I needed to. This was not a man to be crossed.
I was urged forward by the sea dog rowers and—I’ve been told this part of the tale many times, so I know word-for-word what was said, even though I didn’t understand it at the time—Pinkbeard said, with a theatrical bow, “As requested, the heaviest woman in the world.”
The sober man with piercing eyes looked at me with the kind of intensity that promised rage followed by suffering. He was dressed plainly like the rest of those gathered, but he didn’t carry himself plainly. He spoke short phrases laced with threat.
Pinkbeard laughed. All the sea dogs did.
But even then, the sober man—Shrewdmind he was slowly becoming in my thoughts—didn’t look away from me. He started shouting, and what little strength I had in my legs threatened to abandon me. I trembled from the cold and the fear, and I felt myself growing smaller.
“Come here,” he said, waving me forward as he took a lazy seat on the arm of a great chair—the sort that would be found on a dais back home.
I was so used to not understanding everything around me, that I had a moment of confusion because I could understand what he’d said.
“You speak Islish, yes?” he said, interlacing his fingers and placing them atop his knee. “You are from the Isle?”
I wanted nothing more than to put as much space between me and the discerning man as I could, but I knew he wasn’t someone to be denied—his expression alone made that clear, and my nature at this time was obedient.
I had been well-trained by my order. It was hard for me to ignore direct commands, but I think he was someone that any person would have difficulty denying. “I-I am,” I answered.
“There has been an error,” he said. “Obviously.”
My breath fluttered. “I don’t know…” I began shaking my head. Was he accusing me of wrongdoing? I wanted no punishment for it. Tears forced their way out. “I don’t understand any of what has happened.”
“I do,” he said. “You were brought here by mistake. I wanted someone else. You’re ill from the journey; your lips are blue.
Your kind are not meant for the air here.
You will probably die, which is a shame.
Make peace with your gods now, just in case.
I will have dry clothes for you and a warm meal and a comfortable place to rest. Spiced ale to help heat you again from the inside.
It probably will not work, but there is no harm in trying. ”
My knees begged me to crouch or sit. My shoulders felt like they were being ground flat by the metal in my gown. “What?”
“I apologize for their stupidity. I do not consider wasting life to be a trivial matter.” His eyes flicked to the sea dogs behind me when he said stupidity. I knew Pinkbeard’s laugh by the sound of it; I knew his voice, too, as he spoke.
Shrewdmind furrowed his brow. “You have refused healing?”
“What?” I said again.
“He says they offered you medicinal ale several times. They tried a healing chant, and you refused it. You do not wish to attempt recovery, slim as your chances are?”
“What?” I sank to my knees, my voice shaking as snot dripped out of my nose. “I didn’t know. I haven’t understood anything for days. But I want no sorcery, please.”
Everyone began talking, and I was so tired and sore and shaken that I wasn’t even the slightest bit embarrassed that I was crying on the floor in front of all these strange sea dogs.
“Wait…” Shrewdmind held up a hand, and everyone grew silent. “He said you were heavy.” The man’s eyes lit up. I could see the gleam even from a distance. His head tilted to the side as a slow smirk spread onto his face. “Is there, by chance, a gentlewoman in my court?”
I said nothing, but my heart slammed against my ribs with so much force that I figured he could sense the change in me, the fear that came with being discovered.
His smile grew. “From which clan do you hail? No! Do not tell me.” He stood, pacing.
“You look a little… mid-west… Danton perhaps? No… further west than that, I expect. Uwer-Traegis? No, they have no daughters. You, my dear—” He pointed at me with each word.
“—hail from the Arched Cliffs. Sinjin is the head of your clan.” He raised his brows, awaiting my response.
Sinjin was my father’s name.
“What are you? Twenty? Sinjin has a daughter that age, does he not?”
Every bone in my body sensed danger. How could a sea dog know so much about my homeland? About my family?
“You are old enough to have been paired, though? To whom?”
He waited, his gaze digging into me with so much force my forehead tingled.
It was unsafe not to answer him, I knew.
But I also knew it was unsafe to speak of anything related to my order with anyone outside of it.
Would he know if I lied? He knew so much else…
“Loric.” I swallowed. “Of the Hard-Won Kepen. Only we haven’t been fully married. I was on my way when they came—”
Shrewdmind laughed. He laughed so hard he had to lean over.
“You were stolen on the way to your pairing? Ha! What a fine beginning to a saga! I have changed my mind about everything. You will live. I will ensure it, whether you cooperate or not.” And then he was issuing orders to those around him in the sea dog language.