The Bird of the River (7 page)

Why are you so nasty to him
? Eliss wondered, glaring at her brother. To Krelan she said: "I guess he might have drifted down from the landing, but the priest asked around and he didn't seem to belong to anybody. Besides, he was a nobleman."

"Really? How did they know?"

"Well ..." Eliss thought about it. "He had on a big gold armband, shaped like a coiling snake. And some tattoos, not just gang tattoos but the kind some of the great houses wear. That was what I heard."

"It should have been easy to identify him, then," said Krelan, folding up his grease-stained tunic.

Eliss shrugged. "Maybe they did. I don't know."

"And he can't have been murdered by thieves, or they'd have taken that gold armband."

"Nobles kill each other all the time over nothing," said Alder. "You ought to know that. That's why you're hiding here, isn't it?"

"Alder! That's rude!"

"But too true," said Krelan, with a sad chuckle. "Er ... I don't suppose I could put my dirty clothes with yours, to be laundered?"

THE MUSICIANS ALL MADE A POINT of bowing elaborately to Eliss the next day when she went aft to climb up to the mast platform, and struck up a tune she hadn't heard before. Salpin was already at the top, applauding her, when she climbed through. She ducked her head in embarrassment.

"Why are they playing that?"

"Why? That's
Sandgrind's Fancy
. They're playing it in your honor. Everybody's saying he must have been your grandfather, because you can read the river too."

"I don't think he was," said Eliss. She wasn't sure how she ought to feel. Nobody had ever done anything in her honor before. "On the other hand ... you never know. At least, I don't."

"What was your family?"

"Poor people," said Eliss, looking down at the river. "They left Mama at the Divers' Motherhouse when she was five. She doesn't ... she didn't remember much about them, except they couldn't feed everybody so they had to give their children away. And she always said my father was a sailor she met in port, but his ship sank and he drowned."

How threadbare and sad it sounded, the history of her family. Eliss had never told it to anyone before. She didn't think she'd tell anyone again.

"Oh. I'm sorry." Salpin's ebullience faded. He leaned on the rail, studying the water. After a while he said, "At least you know your mother is with your father now. She went under the water and met her true love there, maybe. Waiting to carry her away to a good place."

Eliss nodded. It was a nicer thing to imagine than what Falena had actually met under the water.

They sat in silence a long while, except when Salpin would point and say things, such as, "That's not a town, that's somebody's private boat landing," or "See that red color in the mud? That's where the stream comes down from the iron mine at Branka." Twice they spotted marker buoys--Eliss saw them first--and after the second one, while the
Bird
sat unmoving in the stream and the divers went in, Salpin scrambled down through the rigging and came back up with his concertina. When the
Bird
sailed on again, he sat with his back against the mast, a faraway look in his eyes. He played no proper song, but only little fragments of melodies that wandered like raindrops down a window, and now and then joined up to make a longer tune. Eliss watched the river all afternoon, while the music came together in bigger and bigger pieces. By the time the sun sank down behind them, throwing the mast's long shadow across the world, the song was complete. It was a bittersweet melody, sad but beautiful. The other musicians below left off playing and listened.

"WHY'S YOUR BROTHER MAD AT ME?"

Eliss looked up in surprise. She was alone on the mast platform, so intent on the river she hadn't noticed Wolkin's climb through the rigging. He sat down beside her now, looking mournful.

"Are you supposed to be up here?" Eliss asked him, looking to see if he wore any kind of safety line. She couldn't see one.

"It's safe," said Wolkin, putting his legs through the rail. "Anyway. He won't talk to me. Why is he mad?"

"He isn't mad at you," said Eliss, and then thought about what she'd said. "I mean ... he isn't mad at any
body
. He's just mad. Probably because of what happened to Mama. He's only ten."

"I'm almost ten," said Wolkin. "I'd be mad if my mother died. But she won't, of course."

Eliss sighed, but decided to say nothing. Wolkin fidgeted.

"You think he might be mad because I said he was a greenie?"

"Maybe."

"I said I was sorry. I didn't mean it mean."

"I know."

"I mean, I get mad when people say my daddy was a bad captain. Tappy and Boley said it and I beat them up. You think if I beat up the other kids for him he'd stop being mad at me?"

"Are the other kids calling him a greenie?"

"Sometimes."

Eliss winced to herself. "No wonder he's unhappy. But I don't think he wants you to beat up anyone for him."

"I could. I could beat up anybody on this ship," said Wolkin. "That was my age, I mean. It wouldn't be any trouble." He edged a little closer to her.

"No. Thank you. Really."

"But I owe you a blood debt. Your mama saved my life. I have to kill anybody who hurts you. Or him."

Eliss bit her lip, trying not to smile. "It's very nice of you to offer, but I think you have to wait until you're grown up to pay blood debts. Besides, we aren't important enough for anybody to start a vendetta against us."

"You are so," said Wolkin. "And people will always go after Alder, won't they?"

"Maybe not."

"What's it like, being a Yendri?"

Eliss looked down at Alder far below. He sat, small and forlorn, by the aft rail, staring into the trees on the far shore. She felt a pang of guilt. "I don't know what it's like," she told Wolkin, and thought:
Alder doesn't know either, does he
? "WOLKIN!"

Mrs. Riveter stood below, staring up from the deck with an expression of outrage. Eliss hadn't known the divers were taught the Carrying Voice too.

"Oh." Wolkin looked down. "Well, time to go."

Much to his embarrassment, he was lowered from the platform in a painter's seat, strapped in too tightly to move, and his mother dragged him below the moment his toes touched the deck.

"SO SOME OF THE KIDS here are calling you a greenie?" Eliss shook out her blanket. Alder, shaking out his own blanket, shrugged.

"Sometimes."

"Do you want me to talk to their mothers about it?"

"No!"

"But they shouldn't be calling you names like that."

"But they do. There's always going to be somebody calling me names, wherever I go. Haven't you figured that out by now?" Alder crawled inside the tent and wrapped himself up in the blanket. He punched irritably at Krelan's bag. "Hasn't your boyfriend got a place to put this yet? It takes up too much room!"

"He's not my boyfriend!" Eliss crawled in after him and smacked his arm. "Moron! People from great houses don't marry beggars like us!"

"Boyfriends don't always
marry
girls," said Alder, as though she were a half-wit to whom he was explaining something very basic. "Remember all the uncles? And anyway, we're not beggars! Mama was a diver!"

"We might as well have been, at the end," said Eliss. "And you might as well be a beggar now. I'm working to earn our place here and you just sit and look grumpy all day."

Alder's face crumpled up as though he was going to cry, but he kicked her instead. She kicked him back. They flailed at each other briefly.

"What's that?" Mr. Turnbolt, the night watchman, had just come on deck. Eliss and Alder froze, thinking he had heard their fight.

"That's the last of the sunset," said one of the musicians.

"Sunset? How much pinkweed have you been smoking? That's in the wrong place for sunset!"

"I don't know, then, maybe it's sunrise come early."

"Is something on fire?"

"The forest's on fire!"

"Get someone up the mast!"

Eliss scrambled out of the tent and ran for the rigging, as Mr. Riveter ran up the companionway.

"What's going on?"

"I'm finding out!" Eliss cried, conscious of a feeling of self-importance. Her hands and feet easily found the shrouds in the dark, and a moment later she had pulled herself up on the platform and looked away to the east. She caught her breath. A great column of opaque blue smoke stood in the sky, towering, underlit red by flames that leaped up from the forest below. The rising moon lit the upper reaches of the smoke with gold.

"It is a fire!"

"How far off?" Mr. Riveter shouted up to her. Captain Glass had come up on deck and stood beside him.

Eliss looked hard at the flames, trying to get an idea. "Three leagues," she answered. "It looks as though it comes right down to the riverbank!"

Mr. Riveter looked at Captain Glass. "That must be at Synpelene."

"Has to be."

"Should we put out and moor in midstream?"

Captain Glass shook his head. "Anybody comes downriver in the night, they'd be hard pressed not to hit us."

Eliss, who had been climbing back down, found the deck with her toes. "Are we going to be all right?"

"Of course we will," said Mr. Riveter. "Don't worry. We'll know in plenty of time if the fire comes this way."

"Do you want me to stay up there and keep an eye out?"

"No. That's what Turnbolt's for," said the captain. "You go on to bed."

"Yes, sir."

Eliss went back to the tent. Alder was sitting up inside, but as soon as he saw Eliss he lay back down and rolled up in his blanket. Eliss felt a pang of guilt, wondering if he'd been scared.

"Mr. Riveter says everything's all right," she said, and she pulled up her own blanket. Alder didn't reply. "It isn't very close. And anyway, how could it burn us up? We're on the river."

After a long silence from Alder, Eliss sighed and said: "We have a place to sleep."

Another long silence, until at last: "We have a place to sleep
and a warm blanket," recited Alder
.

"We have a place to sleep, and a warm blanket
each
, and
we had dinner tonight
."

"We have a place to sleep, and a warm blanket each, and we had dinner tonight,
and we'll have breakfast tomorrow
."

"And who knows what, when summer comes?"

"And who knows what, when summer comes?
And summer is coming soon
."

Nothing more was said for a while. Eliss assumed Alder had gone to sleep.

" 'Summer' just means something nice, right?" said Alder suddenly. "Because it's already summer, and it's just hot."

"That's right. 'Summer' means ... it means better times are coming."

"I hope so," said Alder.

When she thought he was asleep at last, Eliss put her arm around him.

SHE WAS AWAKENED TWICE during the night by shouting as boats came down the river. One boat belonged to a Mr. Ingot, an itinerant barber. Eliss knew this because Mr. Turnbolt demanded he identify himself. She was about to go back to sleep when Mr. Ingot shouted that he was fleeing from Synpelene because it was under attack from bandits. Then there was a lot of muttered conversation, and Eliss's heart raced. She relaxed a little when she heard Captain Glass give the order to bring up weapons and arm all the men on the night watch, -- he sounded so calm she thought there must be no immediate danger. All the same, she could not fall asleep until she had worked out an escape plan.
If bandits attack, I'll wake up Alder and we'll grab a life preserver, and we'll slip overboard without making a sound, and float downriver until we come to a town... .

The second time she woke it was just starting to get light. The wind had shifted and the smell of smoke was everywhere. Someone was yelling across the water. Eliss heard Mr. Turnbolt yelling back, "Did they beat them off?"

"Yes!" shouted the stranger from the passing boat. "Caught eight of them in the sewer tunnels under the forest gate! They'd just put the heads up on the gate when I left there. It's all mopped up now."

"Is the fire out?"

"No. Getting there, though. The greenies seem to be doing it." "Good."

ELISS NEVER REALLY WENT BACK to sleep after that. She dozed fitfully and dreamed that bandits were running along the riverbank, and she was trying to explain to Alder about the life preserver, but he was afraid to go into the water because the headless bandits were in there... .

SYNPELENE WAS A WALLED CITY, closed up even on the side that fronted on the river, though there were docks outside the wall. This morning, under sunlight stained red by smoke, its river gate was wide open, but there were no boats moored on the copper-colored water. The
Bird of the River
came slowly up and anchored at the first dock.

Eliss, watching from the masthead, was very nearly on eye level with the armed women on the city wall. None of them went so far as to fit arrows to their bows, but they were red-eyed and grim as they contemplated her. From her high perch she could look into the city. There she saw stone towers smoking like chimneys, their roofs burned away, and far beyond the black expanse that had been forest scarring the green. It still smoldered along its distant margin, dark plumes rising up here and there. Like the smoke, the screaming of mourners rose from within Synpelene.

Eliss was climbing down when she heard other shrill voices raised. She looked down and saw Wolkin and Alder, confronted by a crowd of the other children. Just as Wolkin took a swing at someone, Mr. Riveter noticed and started across the deck for them. Eliss reached out, grabbed a rope, and slid the rest of the way down to reach them first. She hit the deck with a crash but managed to keep her feet. The children, startled, backed away in silence.

"That was
neat
," said Wolkin, round-eyed.

"Are they calling you names again?" Eliss spoke to Alder, rubbing her palms against her tunic.

"No."

"What's going on here?" demanded Mr. Riveter. The other children backed away.