Chapter Twenty-Two Ris
chapter twenty-two
ris
‘Oh, that’s beautiful Ris. I’m sure they’ll love it,’ Narra says, surveying my handiwork with a smile.
It’s about as much as I could do without my loom and with only scant notice: a patchwork quilt hand-sewn from scraps of fabric Narra had lying around.
We’ve enjoyed meals and nights of hospitality over the past few weeks, nominally earning our keep through caring for the inn and the other guests.
No choice but to spend time with this motley crew, and in truth a fondness has grown since our arrival.
There’s been a loosening of sorts, a comfort in letting go, in slackening my grip just a little.
‘For the brides,’ Biba says, handing me scraps of golden thread. Then I see the now-bald Dodi doll in her hand.
‘Are you sure?’ I ask, searching her face.
She nods. ‘It’s a special day.’
‘Oh, isn’t that kind,’ Narra says, patting Biba’s cheek.
‘But you love Dodi,’ I say quietly, looking at the bits of thread in my hand.
‘It’s all right, Mama,’ Biba reassures me.
The tears come then. At first, Biba looks pleased, but quickly I realise I can’t stop sobbing. Biba’s face crumples. Narra holds me, stroking my hair. ‘What’s the matter, Ris? She did well.’
‘Her father carved her that doll,’ I manage through heaving breaths.
Narra gently pats my back, making circles the same way I soothe Biba.
‘It’s mine to give,’ Biba says. ‘Dodi is still all right; she just has no hair.’
‘See, there’s no harm done,’ Narra says. ‘And what a thoughtful gesture.’
Narra opens her embrace and puts the other arm around Biba. ‘You poor girls don’t realise you’re looking in a mirror. Look at each other now, really look.’
She’s the likeness of Larkin, the strong chin and tufts of thick hair. But her eyes are like mine, wide and wet. Oh, my girl, to hold us all in your small hands. If only they were always this gentle.
‘What do you see in her?’ I ask Narra quietly when my daughter moves away, now gently playing with the bald Dodi doll.
‘Something that exists in all of us, Ris: potential. If only we had the power and the opportunity to wield it.’
‘Do you think she’d be better on the Winter Isle?’
Narra sighs. ‘I can’t tell her what she should do. Nor can I tell you. Everything worth its salt has a cost; you just have to decide if it’s worth it for you.’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. There’s not much for us to go back to. I love my town, but I’ve seen the land is dying. How can we make a living?’
Narra swears, and it takes me aback. ‘The royals try to make the land yield under their strength, reshape it to serve them. That’s what’s got us into this mess.’
Biba furrows her brow. ‘Like my otter-cat. I wanted to play with it.’
Narra looks at me. ‘What does she mean?’
I feel my stomach lurch and pull away. ‘It was nothing.’
‘It was dead,’ Biba insists. ‘You said so, Mama. It came back, but it wasn’t all right. Better not to mess with it.’
‘Necromancy?’ Narra asks quietly. Her face is all curiosity, no fear there, more an academic study of my daughter’s words. ‘You know that we are not to make those decisions about Life and Death?’
Biba nods. ‘But they do. They are in charge of everything.’
Narra stares hard at Biba, taking her shoulders gently. ‘No. No one is above nature’s order. Not even the Bastion. We must respect the balance.’
‘It is a curse,’ I say, running my fingers through my hair.
‘Blessings, curses, smuggler, sailor – all a matter of perspective.’
Biba twists her skirts, and Narra smiles at her. ‘You did well, my love. Your mother is very proud of you.’
She looks at me, and I smile hesitantly. ‘Yes, you did well. My reaction – that wasn’t about you.’
‘Is it about Papa?’ she asks.
Narra shoots me a look. ‘Should I leave you?’
‘No,’ I say, beckoning her to stay. ‘She needs to hear this, and so do you.’
Narra nods and moves to light a candle, wafting a sweet-smelling herb above the flame. ‘To soothe everyone,’ she says in a low murmur.
I explain as best I can, but my head is full and my heart is sore. The words are so scant and incomparable.
‘There was so much love,’ I tell Biba, and she smiles. ‘And so much hope.’
When I had first courted my husband, he weaved stories with a fool’s golden glint.
An honest sailor, but he could never shake the notion that one event, one adventure, could change a fortune.
We chased it, but it was ever out of reach, like the sun on the horizon.
So many Bastion quests, small gains slowly mounting.
We would buy our way out of our futures.
I had mistaken it for seasickness, despite never suffering before.
We had spoken of our mutual desire to start a family, but not yet.
Once we were back on land, we festered in the revelation, arguing until we went back to Alev, and I saw the joy in my fathers’ eyes when we told them.
We were buoyed by the idea of stability, of home, of someone to anchor our little family and give us a line to venture further out.
‘You were the best surprise, Biba. We all loved you so much and I’ve never seen my fathers so happy.
’ I smile, and she beams back at me. ‘But then the farm began to fail, and my fathers got sick. Time ran away from us, like so much sand between the fingers. They were buried before they could barely know you, my girl.’
‘I wish grandpapas were here.’
‘As do I. You would have been their sun and stars.’ I squeeze Biba’s cheeks, and she squeals away.
Then it was only the three of us, and Larkin was my anchor.
The steward blamed us for the decrease in our tithes, and we got desperate.
I would catch Larkin looking at the golden wool I sheared and spun, eking out what we could.
He would take on any commissions that came our way, sailing out to Umasa more and more as the work dried up.
It was a gleam in his eye, his heart longing for the Bastion in the distance.
I began to feel like coming home was a moment of reckoning for us both, each looking at the meagre offerings in our hands and our hearts.
We wanted to believe things would get better.
I never believed he would sacrifice everything to climb higher, no matter the cost.
‘I never thought he would leave us,’ I tell her. ‘I have to believe he thought he was doing the right thing – that he thought he would be able to come back with something to help the farm.’
He went to pursue the quest we’d had to abandon.
The same map and quest that haunt me now.
When I look at my marriage talisman, I can only think of how he left in the night with no explanation.
He owed us that much. But to disappear, a shadow under cover of darkness, leaving us with rotting land and mountains of debt . . .
‘There’s no other choice for us,’ I tell her, holding her face in my hands. ‘We have to find what the queen wants.’
Biba puts her hand on my chest, her fingers cool on my skin. I feel a gentle warmth spread across my heart and lungs and see the talisman glow.
‘You rub it when you worry,’ she says.
I instinctively rub the charm and feel that soothing feeling spread across my skin, like the warmth of a hearth.
‘Words spoken freely like this are a gift,’ Narra says gently, and I feel the tension leaving my body.
‘We have all shared this space and let out our fears and our anger.
Grudges are the heaviest of burdens to carry.
She turns to look at me. ‘With the snuffing of this candle, let the past rest.’ She blows on the flame, and a plume of smoke dances around the room.
I find Morna waiting for me in the parlour a few mornings later, with an air of readiness and an eager expression on her face.
‘You’ve done it?’
She nods and leads me out of the inn.
We walk in silent trepidation through the narrow lanes and across the town square.
Even in daylight, I’m not sure I would find my way through these passages without Morna.
The streets are swarming, visitors sitting by the harbour, turning their faces to the sun like flowers.
The aroma of spiced teas and roasting meat distracts me as we pass the traders, enjoying the influx of new visitors to these shores.
‘Not long now,’ Morna says, steering me past the seafront and towards her shop.
I step through the door, the tinkling of the bell an airy announcement as we make our way to the stacks of books. Morna has laid out several volumes on a table I hadn’t seen before, tucked into a nook behind the shelves. In the centre lies the map, surrounded by strange metal tools.
Morna invites me to sit and picks up the tools, examining them like a farmer her wares.
‘This is a quadrant.’ She handles something that looks to me like an instrument of torture.
All curves and appendages, glinting in the sunlight that streams through the windows.
‘You can measure between the horizon and a celestial body.’ She pauses. ‘Like the sun or the moon.’
I have had this lesson before. Years ago, from my husband, the only other time I’d been to Umasa. His tools had been bartered for, worn from years of use. My memory of that lesson is as rusted as his old tools, so I watch carefully as she indicates each part of the quadrant.
She hovers her finger above the map, tracing the shape of Umasa and its isles, and then out to the blank nothingness of the sea. At the edge is the blot, the Lahon Maelstrom.
‘It’s not necessarily to scale,’ she says. ‘More an artist’s rendition, which is thoroughly unhelpful. But it’s the best we can do. One thing I did find fascinating—’
She breaks off, bringing a candle over to the table and holding the map over the flame.
‘Be careful!’ I surge forward, sure the paper will catch alight.
‘Trust me,’ she says, stilling my hands. ‘I found it accidentally. Quite miraculous, really.’
It takes a breathless moment for the light to glow through the paper and show the hidden symbol.
‘The royal sun,’ I whisper.