Many Roads Home (2 page)

“Now one thing, Your Grace.” Gerd used his title for the first time since Yveni had met him. “See those things on the wall?” He pointed to two bulky objects that looked a little like horse collars. “Those are life preservers. If the ship’s in trouble, you put one on as soon as you can. It’ll save your life if you end up in the water. Not for long, since the water’s cold this time of year, but long enough maybe to let you be picked up.”

Gerd demonstrated how to put the preserver on correctly, and gave him a few other tips on what to do if the ship sank. Yveni hadn’t even contemplated the possibility before. “As if I don’t have enough on my mind,” he muttered as he undid the straps.

Gerd lifted the preserver over his head, laid it on the bunk, then contemplated him. “To get through this, make it work, you’ll need to be tough. To rule, you need to be tough. Think you’re up to it, Your
Grace
?”

Yveni stuck out his chin. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Not by choice. The chances are, this’ll fail. You know that. Gil knew that. But if you set out with the attitude it will, then it’s bound to. I agreed to help him because I owe him more than I can ever repay, but I’m telling you straight, Yveni, you don’t strike me as someone who’ll make this work.”

“Why? I’ve kept up with you all the way.”

“But you’ve resented every bit of it. Your heart’s still back home. I saw you looking at the pictures of His Highness. You let your sorrows drag you down. You don’t have that luxury.”

“My father’s not a month in his grave.”

“Will he be any more dead for your moping?”

Yveni’s lips thinned and he hissed in anger. “Don’t you speak of him in that way!”

His emotion left Gerd unmoved. “I’m speaking of
you
, Vicont. That sorrow you carry is a burden. Your longing for what’s gone is a burden too. Leave it behind now and look forward. You’ve a long way to go and you can’t afford to drag that along with you.”

“What would you know of grief, you poacher?”

Gerd bared his teeth, and for the first time Yveni felt just a little afraid of the man. “Lost my parents and two brothers to the kirten fever when I was ten, Your
Grace
. Taken in hand by my uncle and beaten every day until I was thirteen and made a run for it. What do
you
know of that, boy? Anyone ever belt you? Were you turned out of your home by a landlord greedy for rent? No. You’re nearly grown. Sure, it’s hard now, but until now you’ve lived the good life. You could afford to weep and carry on for your father. I never had that. Don’t talk to me about grief.”

He turned to pick up the preserver and hang it back on the wall. “I know it’s hard but sorrowing’s a luxury. Saps your strength when you need to be hard and strong. Even with Gil’s cousins helping you in Horches, you can’t sit down and cry like a child. Uemire’s poor, and life’s tough there. Only the strong survive. Be strong or be dead.”

“Why do you owe Gil?”

Gerd sat on the bunk, his eyes distant. “Like I said, I ran from my uncle when I was thirteen. Still scrawny and I knew nothing. The only way I could survive was to hunt—to poach on the ducal lands. Even then, I barely caught enough to survive. Anyway, being so useless, I caught my leg in a metal trap, laid to catch dunels ravaging the deer and kardip herds. Two days and nights I lay caught there, unable to get free. Nearly bled to death. Gil found me. Now, he could have done two things—handed me over to the castle authorities and the doctors, told them to heal me and imprison me as a thief, or he could do what he did, which was to take me to his own home, Sofia with Migel still a babe at her breast, and care for me. Cleaned the wounds, treated the infection, washed me, dressed me, fed me and hid me until I healed. Could have lost his job over it. He didn’t even hesitate. And when I was healed, he found me a job as an apprentice to a toolmaker, and made sure I went to school as well. Kept his eye on me, did Gil. I disliked the toolmaking and when I was of age, I made my own way in life, but thanks to him I didn’t end up in prison, I didn’t lose my foot, I learned a trade and had an education. I could be dead or worse.”

“So when he called you a poacher…”

Gerd smiled. “Just his little joke. Poaching’s no way to make a living.”

Yveni scratched his head. “But you’ve been a smuggler, you said.”

“Aye. I never said I was an upright man. But I never stole from the duchy lands again, or put myself in Gil’s way. He’s done me one or two favours over the years—legal—and I’ve done some for him. I still owe him everything.”

“You never cried for your family.”

“Never said that, boy. I just said I didn’t have the luxury then. Sometimes the tears have to wait.”

“I’m…sorry for what I said before.”

Gerd shrugged. “A grudge is a luxury too. Hate—now there’s a powerful motivation.”

“Good, because I hate Konsatin.”

“Then let that be the thing that drives you, if you can’t find something else.”

“What happened to your uncle, Gerd?”

The man showed his teeth in what no one would call a smile. “Oh, it was very sad. Ended up with a knife between his ribs. No one ever found out who did it. Died all alone and unloved. What a fate, eh?”

Yveni repressed a shiver. Even though a threat had been made against his life, it wasn’t the same as knowing someone in the same room had actually killed a man. “Have you killed many people?”

“Only those that needed it, Your Grace. You’re safe. I’d never touch a hair on the head of anyone under Gil’s protection. Now. Enough of that. Get your gear stowed and we can eat lunch on the deck. The mess won’t be working until they set sail.”

“What will I do if I get seasick?”

“Puke, Your Grace.” This time Gerd really grinned.

Chapter Two

The thaw began a month later. Paole loaded the coffin on the small cart and hitched up Peni. The big horse was reluctant to leave her nice warm barn to step out onto muddy cold roads, but Paole needed her help and it was, after all, her job. She snorted a bit as he asked her to move out, but soon they were on their slow way along the track. Mathias’s cabin sat a long way from town, by choice. Paole had no problem with that, but the six kilometres to Dadel would be hard work until the ground dried out.

Sheriff Rolf in Dadel knew Paole well enough, though he didn’t like him. Nothing personal, Paole knew. Karvi didn’t like Uemiriens any better than Uemiriens liked Karvi.

“You have business with me, Paole?” Rolf said as Paole stepped into his offices.

“Yes, sir. Mathias died in the winter. Brought his body for you to check.”

“Free with your master’s name, aren’t you, boy?”

Paole held up the manumission. “I’m a freedman. Have been for six months. Where would you like me to bring the coffin, sir?”

Rolf’s eyes narrowed, but Paole hadn’t left him any room for complaint, and a freedman—even a Uemirien—had many more rights than a slave. “Over behind the magistrate court. I’ll meet you there with the coroner.”

Paole had to remember not to bow his head and act subserviently with these people, but to walk straight and proud. Too many former slaves never lost the habit so people treated them as if they’d never been freed. He didn’t want to end up like that. He didn’t know what being free was really like, but truly free men didn’t duck their heads and mumble in conversation, unless they were ashamed. He had nothing to be ashamed of, even if the tone of Sheriff Rolf’s voice indicated he spoke to some lesser species.

The coroner and magistrate took very little time to examine Mathias’s body, but much more time examining the will and manumission, and questioning Paole about the circumstances of his death. Patiently and politely he went over and over the same ground, explaining how Mathias had taken a chill just as they’d arrive at the cabin for their winter shutdown, and this had developed into a chest infection. The old man had recovered, but had never truly been well after that, and had slowly declined over the next two months, until he’d finally died at the great age of seventy-six.

The coroner sucked in his teeth. “No sign of foul play, an elderly man, no obvious motive for hastening his death—”

“What about the will?” Rolf interjected.

The coroner raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Seems to me that Master Paole could have taken advantage of that years ago, in any way. Easy enough to tip someone like Master Mathias into a river, or feed him bad food. Unless you have some information you want to share, Sheriff?” Rolf shook his head, though his expression remained sour as he glared at Paole. “Then it’s natural causes, and my sympathies to Master Paole on his bereavement.”

Paole thought that was an odd way of putting it, since Mathias had hardly been family. The coroner scribbled a note on his file. “Are you to bury him up at his place?”

“Yes, sir. Just want the priest to say the right words.”

“Only decent. Will you keep up his practice?”

“I…think so, sir. It’s all I know.”

“Fine. Our work is done here, Sheriff. I’ll sign the death certificate, and you can collect it on the way out of town, Master Paole.”

The sheriff helped Paole load Mathias’s body back on the cart, but not out of a wish to assist. He wanted another chance to voice his suspicions over the death. “Are you telling me, boy, you didn’t help him on his way? You wouldn’t be the first slave to do that, not with an elderly master.”

Paole turned and looked him in the eye. “I’m not a slave. The laws on slander apply to freedmen, don’t they? Accusing someone of murder without proof, that’s slander, right?”

Rolf sneered. “Don’t pull those fancy airs with me, boy. You’re still a slave boy to me, papers or not. Keep out of my town. Your kind cause trouble.”

“Good day, Sheriff.”

Mathias had been his protection against the worst of this. What point in abusing a slave under a master’s control, after all? A freedman, a Uemirien who was his own master, didn’t fit in Rolf’s narrow view of the world. He wouldn’t be the last person who’d refuse to accept Paole’s new status. Paole found himself wishing that Mathias
had
told him about the manumission when he’d signed the papers. Given him a chance to grow used to the idea while Mathias was still there to help.

Paole drove the cart to the edge of the town, near the cemetery and shrine. The priest there climbed up on the cart and murmured pious words over Mathias’s body, smeared oil and ash over his forehead, and accepted a coin from Paole to pray for his spirit. “And for you, my son? A blessing as you start your new life?” he asked after Paole helped him step down.

Paole didn’t believe in the Karvin gods—or any god—but this priest offered kindness, and Paole knew well enough how little there was in the world. So he knelt, accepted the blessing and suffered the painting of a holy symbol on his brow.

“Fortune smile on you.” The priest bowed, leaving Paole with the body of his dead master.

Paole wiped the oily mess off his face and climbed into the driving seat of the cart. He didn’t believe in fortune either.

Mathias had given him everything he could to make a life on his own—a house, the drug stores, the wagon, the training. A tidy sum of gold too, more money than Paole had ever seen in his life. But he couldn’t give Paole the respect of strangers. That, he’d have to earn for himself.

Chapter Three

Yveni, fortunately, wasn’t prone to seasickness, and neither was Gerd, but the first few days on board were accompanied by the sounds of vomiting, and the smell of illness tainted the clean salt air. Yveni spent as much time on deck as he could, away from the puking passengers. He enjoyed it up there, never having seen the sea before. If he hadn’t been a vicont or—the gods forbid—couldn’t return to Sardelsa, he could imagine working on one of these great ships. He was strong enough. Being a sailor wouldn’t be so bad.

He found it much less dull than the hostel. Here he could talk relatively freely to Gerd, and though the man’s tales made his hair stand on end sometimes, they always entertained.

“Aren’t you worried that when I become duc, I might have you arrested?” he asked one night after Gerd related a particularly daring scheme which involved escaping the duchy under the noses of the ducal soldiers.

“No. Gil wouldn’t trust you if you were that kind of person.”

Probably true. He couldn’t do that to Gil, if nothing else.

The belt, it turned out, was waterproof, and though apparently much the same as what Yveni already wore, this had secret linings where money and papers could be hidden safely. The silver and moonstone pendant Gil had given Yveni to prove his identity to Gil’s cousins and the letter of introduction were stowed, along with enough coin to help Yveni should he lose all his other possessions.

“Wear it to bed, and sleep in your clothes,” Gerd told him that first night. “And leave your pack behind, it’ll drag you down. The ship runs a battery—that’s what their windmill is for—and if there’s trouble at night, you’ll see small lights guiding your way out. Now you need this too.” From his pack, he produced a small metal whistle on a chain, which he put around Yveni’s neck. “If you end up in the water, blow this until you’ve no breath left at all. It’s the only way you’ll be found in the dark.”

“I wish you’d stop talking about all this.”

“Better now than trying to shout it to you in a sinking ship, my lad.”

“Been shipwrecked before?”

“Four times. I figure the water spirits don’t want me, but you’d make a tasty morsel.”

Yveni wrinkled his nose in disgust and Gerd had laughed. But it was far from funny, and Yveni had some nasty nightmares those first few nights, for which he glared at Gerd in the morning.

Many of the sailors were Uemirien, and when they found Yveni spoke their tongue, were glad to chat as they worked. It gave Yveni a chance to polish his accent and learn more about his new home. He still worried that Gil’s cousins would turn him away. Gil had left Uemire thirty years ago, after all. But Gil had assured him familial ties were powerful among his people, and his cousins would do as he asked for the sake of them. Yveni hoped he was right.

Two weeks into the journey, most of the puking passengers had gained their sea legs, as Gerd put it. Yveni felt quite at home on the ship, and almost wished the journey to never end. Gerd, however, was impatient. Once Yveni had been safely handed over, he planned to travel to Karvis where he had “business”. Yveni didn’t ask what. The less he knew, the less he’d have to take notice of in the future.

But one morning as Yveni walked the deck after breakfast, he noticed the mood among the sailors had changed—and so had the direction of the ship. “Why aren’t we going north any more?” he asked one of the men.

“Storm coming. We need to go to port.”

“Storm?” He stared up at the cloudless, bright skies. “How do you know?”

“First mate. He’s a seer. He’s Seen it coming. Cap’n knows better than to ignore him.”

“Does he know if we’ll sink?”

“We will if we don’t move.”

“When?”

“Tonight, maybe tomorrow morning. Busy here, boy. Shoo.”

Yveni hurried to find Gerd and tell him, but Gerd had already heard.

“What do we do?” Panic, an unfamiliar and unpleasant emotion, rose in Yveni’s chest. “The ship will sink!”

“Not if the captain judges it right. We’re about two hundred kilometres from the coast, and there’s a natural safe harbour. He can make that if he hurries. Be calm.”

“Where’s the storm coming from? The sky’s clear.”

“It’s the sea, lad. She’s full of surprises.”

They stayed in their cabin, helpless to influence their fate, praying that the captain’s skill would be up to the challenge. Grimly the crew worked to turn the boat towards land as cloud began to build in the south and the wind rose. The purser came around to warn passengers about rough weather, tell them how to put on their life preservers and ask them to stay in their cabins. He didn’t actually mention the possibility of a shipwreck, but it was in Yveni’s mind and it had to be in everyone else’s.

As night fell, the waves grew mountainous, crashing over the bows. The ship shuddered with every massive blow. Yveni, terrified and desperately in need of reassurance, clung to Gerd, uncaring if the man thought him childish. Gerd did his best to distract him, but even the most incredible stories of skulduggery couldn’t keep Yveni’s mind completely off the ship and the storm.

A teeth-jarring crash sent them flying across the cabin, which tilted crazily away from the door. Yveni picked himself up and leaned against the floor, now at such an angle it had become a wall, for support. “What happened?”

“Feels like we hit rocks. Damn it. We need to get out of here. Ready?”

Yveni swallowed. “As I can be.”

Before they could struggle to the door, the klaxon sounded “Abandon ship.” They found the far end of the passageway already filling with water and panicking passengers. Gerd grabbed two women and told them to put their life preservers on and leave their bags behind. Yveni yelled the same instructions to a man with two sons. Desperate for anyone to guide them, the passengers turned to Gerd and Yveni to lead them up onto the storm-ravaged deck.

Sailors grabbed the passengers as they emerged from the hatch and helped them cling to the ropes strung along the deck for support, but it was almost impossible to keep a footing on the tilting surface, with the wind doing its best to rip them away from handfasts, and the waves crashing mercilessly over the sides.

Wildly swinging battery lamps shone a dim light on the lifeboats launching into the water, although the wave spray and wind-whipped rain reduced visibility down to just a few feet. A sailor who could make fire did his best to add to the feeble illumination, but the gales tossed his fireballs away. The passengers and crew would have to climb down into the boats, though they smashed against the ship with every wave. Women and children were loaded first, three crewmen in the boat below to help, Yveni and Gerd behind, doing their best to help the mothers with their youngsters. Yveni gripped the ladder with one hand, and held tight to the belt of the woman below him. His arm and neck muscles complained bitterly at the weight, but desperation gave him strength.

But then the woman he held suddenly screamed, and Yveni, straining to see beyond her and through the rain and the spray, realised why—her child had fallen into the heaving ocean, his head bobbing into view briefly before being swallowed up by the waves. Still screaming piteously, she reached out, clearly intended to follow the boy.

“No! You’ll fall!” Yveni tightened his grasp, but she let go of the ladder, and he suddenly had her full weight. He struggled to keep his one-handed grip on the ladder, his arm nearly torn out of the socket. For long seconds they dangled there, before the ocean intervened, throwing a huge wall of water over the lifeboat and against the ship, knocking Yveni clean off the ladder. He and the woman fell into the churning seas together.

Though the impact and the numbing cold thumped the breath out of him, still he tried to keep hold of her belt. He gasped as his head cleared the water, then yelled as he felt her break away from him. “Wait!”

But the wind tore his voice away and the waves buffeted him, disorienting him and blocking his view of the woman. He panicked as he realised he could no longer see the ship, or the lifeboat, or hear any of the sailors.

What had Gerd said? The whistle! His frozen hands fumbled under the preserver and inside his jacket and shirt to find the little chain, but even with the life preserver, it was a struggle to keep his face out of the water long enough to blow. But blow he did, though he shook so hard from the cold that his breath was scanty, and to his ears, the shrill sound barely rose above the howling wind and the crunching of timber on rocks.
Gods, someone help me. Father, help your son, I beg you.

The icy water sapped his strength, though it could have only been a minute or so since he fell. His body was going numb, and refused to obey his attempts to swim. The waves drove him back and forth without his being able to resist. Every breath he took was shallower than the last.

A hand grabbed his collar. “Got you!”

“Gerd…”

Yveni tried to help, but could do little but let Gerd’s strong arms and legs pull them back to safety. It felt like hours before he saw the weedy light of the boat lamps. Then other arms and hands seized him, dragging him painfully over the edge of the lifeboat. It rocked and tipped, and he fell across two people as the boat whacked hard against the side of the ship.

“Gerd!”

He turned and to his relief, saw sailors pulling Gerd over the side. His friend fell into the boat in a limp heap, but he opened his eyes and gave Yveni a crooked grin. “Not getting away…from me…that easy, boy.” He was out of breath, but then they both were.

Yveni hugged him with strengthless arms and they fell together down among the other passengers. The sailors shouted that they were going, and began to row hard against the wild surf. The passengers clung together and prayed they’d survive this night.

The sailors only rowed clear of the sinking ship. Efforts turned to keeping the boat bailed clear of water while the storm swept over them. After an hour of misery, of gales and rain and waves throwing them about like corks in a child’s bathtub, the winds dropped, and the motion eased. The rain too, became showers, then nothing. Amazingly, the moons and the stars appeared above them, the clouds gone as if they’d never been.

“Where are we?” Yveni asked one of the sailors slumped shivering in his seat. Hiljn, that was his name. He had the Vision, just as Gil had. Not much use in the dark, though.

“Safe. As soon as we can see the shore, we’ll head for it.”

“Did you hear that, Ge…father?”

Gerd replied in a kind of bubbling gurgle, and Yveni realised with a sickening lurch in his gut that the man had been injured at some point. “Gerd! Father! What’s wrong with him?”

Hiljn clambered forward across the passengers, holding the lamp aloft as he examined Gerd’s sickly white face, heard his breath coming in painful shallow gasps. “He took a hit between the boat and the ship. Crushed him. Probably stove in his ribs.”

“Please, help him!”

“Naught to be done. Support his head, and pray.”

“But—”

The exhausted sailor fixed him with a hard glance. “No time for this, boy. There’s more here than your father. Don’t cause a fuss. Comfort him—that’s all you can do. I’m sorry.”

Gerd
. Stricken, Yveni nodded, and Hiljn moved back to his position. The other passengers huddled close, staring at Yveni and the injured man, saying nothing. What could they say, when death sat among them?

Gerd’s rattling breathing went on and on, until Yveni fell asleep, exhausted by the cold and the exertion. He woke because the boat had begun to jerk. He gripped Gerd’s hand automatically, then opened his eyes. In the predawn glow, the outline of a land mass lay only a kilometre or so ahead of them. The sailors rowed while the other passengers slept, slumped against each other where they sat.

He turned to Gerd—and found his eyes open, fixed and unseeing. The rattling breathing had stopped, his skin cold not only from the damp or the night air. Gently, Yveni drew his hand down Gerd’s face, and closed his eyes.
Gerd, be at peace.
He bit his lip, but didn’t dare cry. This wasn’t the time for it.

He looked up and found one of the sailors staring at him, even as he strained at the oars. Yveni shook his head, and the sailor bowed his slightly in acknowledgment.

Yveni kept hold of Gerd’s hand all the way to shore. He had some notion of not wanting his friend to be alone on this last journey, though it was as much comfort for himself as anything. He couldn’t see the woman he’d tried to save, or her son. Had she been picked up by another of the boats, or lost? How many had died that night?