Tale of Birle (14 page)

HOW MANY DAYS LAY BEHIND
them, Birle could not remember; how many might be left she couldn't guess. She lay on her stomach on their flat rock while Orien picked his slow, careful way along the water's edge. The light in the sky was changing, but whether with morning or afternoon Birle couldn't be sure. It had been a long time since any rain had fallen on them, once again a long time. She no longer felt hunger at all, but thirst left her mind dizzy, as weak as her legs.

As she watched, the little figure of Orien began to wave its arms in the air. She saw him as if he were some insect moving around a candle. It was a curious series of movements, first the arms waving in the air, then the cloak being held up and shaken. It was like the dance of a creature that was not human, with no reason you could think of for its gestures. Birds sometimes flew at one another in the air like that, squawking, circling, then following one another in dips and swoops—Birle never knew why they did that, or what they meant by it. Orien waved his cloak up and down, over his head in just such strange dancing motions.

Something black moved in the corner of her eye. Slowly, she turned her head to catch it; her skin scraped across the stone.

It was a boat she saw, huge, its enormous sail filled with wind. Her head snapped up, and her legs and arms coiled up under her. A rush of energy gave her back the strength she'd lost.

She slid down the rock's side. She stumbled, running across the shore to Orien. He was jumping and waving his cloak. “It's a boat,” she said.

“Wave your arms!” he cried.

She was already waving her arms. The wind blew into her face and made Orien's cloak snap.

“They've got to see us,” Orien said.

The boat's sail was broad, and square, a heavy red sail. Its mast ran up through the center of the sail. It was bigger than any boat she'd ever seen, at least four times as big as any of the fishing boats. Like the fishing boats, it had oars fitted through holes in its side.

“There's a little boat, behind it, like a dog following,” Birle said.

“Keep waving!”

She hadn't stopped. Her arms flapped over her head, like his cloak. Her own cloak lay on the rock, useless.

“They see us,” Orien said.

Birle couldn't be sure. The boat didn't hesitate on its way.

While they stood waving, and watching, with their voices blown back into their faces as they called out across the waves, the distant boat passed out of sight around the corner made by the long arm of cliff. They called after it, and waved, even when they could no longer see it.

Weakness overcame Birle. She sank down onto the shore. Her feet were in the water and she couldn't feel them. Orien didn't sit, but he sagged. His cloak dragged in the waves. She couldn't think of anything to say, to comfort him. When he raised his head at last, and turned to look at her, she could not see his thoughts in his bellflower eyes.

There was no use in speech. He reached out a hand to pull her to her feet. She trailed behind him, back from the water. There, they stood side by side, looking at the empty sea.

After a long time he said, “I know they saw us.”

After a long time she asked him, “Do you think they'll send help?”

“I'm not thinking anything, Birle.”

“Aye,” she said.

The waves tumbled onto the shore and splashed against the rocks. Her legs were so weak under her that she sat down heavily, again. Orien sat beside her, his knees drawn up, his head on his knees. His beard was ragged and brown, like weeds growing up already dead.

She felt sorrow for him, sorrow so deep she almost put out her hand to touch his shoulder, in whatever comfort human touch could bring. They were so lost in disappointment that both were surprised when the voice hailed them. “Hoy!” it called, riding the wind in. “Hoy! The island!”

Orien was on his feet while Birle was still finding her legs to put them beneath her.

A man rowed his little boat into the bay. He hesitated there, far out from shore, oars raised. At that distance, he was little more than a shape with a voice. He twisted in his seat in the bobbing boat to stare at them. They stood at the water's edge, staring back.

He put the oars into the water again, and rowed closer.

“Have you your cloak?” Orien asked, his eyes watching the boat's approach. “Better go get it.”

She rushed to obey. The oarsman didn't come straight into shore, but turned the boat around when he was still an arrow's flight from them. He looked at Orien, and then his eyes found Birle where she bent to pick up her cloak. He watched her all the time she took, picking it up, fastening it at her neck, returning to stand beside Orien. She didn't like his looking, and she didn't like his looks—a heavy, whiskery face, with little eyes and a thick mouth.

“In trouble?” he asked.

“Yes,” Orien said.

The man nodded, but made no move. “Need help?”

“Yes,” Orien said.

“Food? Water?” the man asked. The questions were stupid, but those eyes were not. “Rescue?” he asked.

They stood waiting, in their thirst, hunger, and fear. He sat, studying them. Then he put the oars into the water again. Birle wondered if he would leave them, and she didn't know whether she wished him to. But he nosed the boat in toward shore.

“That's my ship, she's anchored behind the cliff,” he said. “There might be room for two passengers.”

Birle's blood rang a warning in her ears. “Orien,” she said, pulling on his arm. “I don't like this.”

Orien took her warning seriously, it wasn't that. It was the helplessness of their position that he argued. “I think we must, Birle.”

“Course,” the man said, still safely distant, “there's a price. For the risk—since there's plenty of dangerous men out and around. There'd have to be a fee. We can't carry you for nothing. Feed you.” The eyes studied them and he added, “Give you drink.”

“We've nothing,” Birle answered him, glad to be able to say no.

“Nothing at all?” He sounded disappointed. “It's not many days. We'd ask little. It wouldn't take much to pay your way.”

“I've dagger and sword; she's a knife,” Orien called. “We have no choice,” he said to Birle.

The man's mouth flickered open in a smile. “There's always something. You just drop them there, at your feet, and step back.”

They did as they were told.

He climbed out of the boat and pulled it behind him by a rope. Holding the rope, he studied the knives, carefully. His fingers went over the hilt of Orien's dagger, and he spat on it, then rubbed it clean with his thumb. “Welcome aboard,” he said then, with a wide gesture of his arm toward the boat, and that smile that made Birle think she'd be safer starving where she was. “Name's Ker,” he said.

“Orien,” Birle protested again.

“You can stay, if you must.” Orien's cheeks were hollow with hunger and he had little strength for anger. “But I wish you'd come. I don't know how long it would be before I could come back for you.”

So she followed him, since he would return for her.

The man helped them into his boat, and sat them side by side on the stern seat. This boat was heavier than the river coracles. Its sides were double-ribbed, its wood thick-cut. Ker grunted with the work of rowing, but said nothing to them. Her own weakness assailed Birle, until she could do no more than sit upright as the boat pushed its way through the waves, and keep her head from falling forward onto her chest.

The ship, when they came to it, rode high over her head. Arms reached down to catch her wrists and she was pulled up over its side. She slid down onto the deck, until hands and Orien's voice urged her to move under shade. When she sat leaning back against wood, out of the harsh sun, Birle opened her eyes.

Two men stood in front of her, thick, strong men in loose trousers and heavy shirts, two bearded faces, two pairs of small eyes. She blinked, but the two didn't become one. Orien was beside her.

“This is Torson,” Ker said. “My little brother,” he laughed. “He's our captain.”

Birle couldn't see past them. She could see nothing beyond them but the tall, thick mast, rising. The ship rolled under her.

“You'll see, Brother,” Ker said. “A little food, and a little drink, and you'll see what I've brought in.”

“Maybe,” Torson answered. “Yes, I think this time you may be right.” His smile flickered, like a snake's tongue, like his brother's smile. “Little sparrows, you are in luck. We're about to serve the midday meal. Will you join us for it?” He nodded his head, as if their silence pleased him. “Good, yes, that's good. Well then, my clever brother, fetch some food for your two little lost birds.”

“And drink,” Orien said.

“Ho, boy,” said Torson. “There'll always be drink on my ship.”

When the brothers moved away, Birle saw that she was at the bow of the ship, under a canopy. Two ill-matched oarsmen faced her, on the rowing seats beside the mast. She saw no more, for dizziness brought her head down to her knees. Ker brought them two wooden bowls filled with ale, and two thick chunks of bread. For a minute, holding food in one hand and drink in the other, Birle could not think of what to do. Then she downed the drink, as Orien—sprawled beside her—also did. It wasn't cool, but it felt cool, flowing down her throat, filling her mouth. She bit at the bread, watching Ker dip her bowl into a bucket, and bring it up full again.

The bread was tough, hard to rip free. Birle filled her mouth with it, and remembered how to chew. Her throat, it seemed, had forgotten how to swallow. She forced the mouthful down her throat, and then emptied the bowl of ale, again.

She lifted the bread to her teeth and ripped off another bite. As she chewed on it, Birle realized she had her eyes closed, but she didn't make the effort to open them. Her stomach did not welcome the food, but she took a third bite and made her eyes open, just as she made herself chew.

Orien sat up now, hunched over his bread. She wondered how he had the strength to eat so eagerly. She wondered at his strength. Orien didn't look at all the man he was, he looked—with torn shirt and trousers, his scraggly beard—as if he were not at all the man he was. Birle couldn't keep her eyes from closing again, for the spinning in her head, and the buzzing, as if swarms of insects were circling her ears. She couldn't find her hands to bring the bread to her mouth for another bite. She slept.

I
N HER HEAVY SLEEP, BIRLE
had slipped over onto her side. She pulled herself upright. She knew better than to attempt to stand. The sail had been raised, and now bellied out toward her. The ship moved her backward, with a gentle rearing and falling motion. She had a thirst in her mouth and a thickness in her head, and hunger—the bread was still in her hands. She pulled her knees up.

Her feet weighed like lead. She ripped off bread with her fingers and put it into her mouth, chewed and swallowed. Feeding her hunger seemed to increase it. She fed it more. The bread was gone before she was satisfied, but hunger unsatisfied is different from hunger. If she could only have a drink—but no ale, nor more of that ale. Water, she could wish for a bowl of cold water. And why should her feet be so heavy?

She looked at them: They were manacled, and a thick chain ran between the two bands of metal that ringed her bare ankles.

They'd taken her boots. Orien too had been chained as he slept. Birle moved her own feet—it wasn't two handspans of chain.

It wasn't that she was surprised. She hadn't expected any good of these men. She didn't dare to think just what this particular ill might mean, but she wasn't surprised. The brothers were at the broad stern of the ship, now. Ker talked while Torson listened, the long tiller under his hand. She couldn't hear their words.

Overhead, the big sail snapped in the wind. Birle couldn't see much of the sky, between the canopy over her head and the sail before her. Seated as she was, she couldn't see over the sides of the ship, although—as she then understood—she and Orien were on some kind of covered shelf, above the deck level of the ship. The two rowers slept, their hands holding the oars, as if sleep had struck them down in midstroke. Her impression had been correct, they were an ill-matched pair. One, with his narrow shoulders and bony legs, seemed a boy, not yet ten years old, she thought. The other—a large oval head with long, wispy strands of dust-colored hair lying along it, shoulders twice the size of Da's and legs thick as tree trunks—he was monstrous large, where he slept.

The rowers too were manacled.

Birle let her head fall forward onto her chest, as if she slept on. Beneath her, the ship rose and fell, so that she was rocked gently backward and forward. When Birle opened her eyes again, the brothers were still talking.

Orien stirred. She felt rather than saw his awakening. His whole body stiffened, and then he moved his feet delicately, secretively. When he looked over to her, she had her face ready.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I didn't think we had any choice, but maybe we did. Maybe if we'd waited—another boat—but there had only been the one in eight days. I'm sorry,” he said again.

Apology didn't suit him. “Was it eight days? How do you know?”

“I counted.”

The brothers were watching them.

Birle could think of nothing to say to Orien, and he had nothing to say to her. He pulled his legs up, with the dismal sound of chains, and then pulled himself up to stand against the side of the ship. He looked like a starved man, a poor wretch. He stood like one too, his hands grasping the wooden rail as if he dared not let go, his whole body leaning against the sturdy side of the ship as if he couldn't stand unsupported. She wasn't surprised when his legs buckled under him.

“Land's in sight. Close enough to swim, except we'd sink with these.” He moved his feet.