The Towers Of the Sunset (39 page)

“YOU’LL TAKE CARE of the details?” asks the Duke as the black-haired woman lifts the cup to his lips. He struggles upright against the pillows.

“Of course, of course.” The woman touches his feverish brow with her free hand. “I know how you worry.”

“… feels good…” he mumbles between sips.

“Drink some more. It’s good for you.”

“Tastes terrible… hand feels good.”

Helisse lifts the cup from his lips, suppressing a frown.

“Can’t keep going like this. Every time it’s worse. Don’t know what I’d do without you.” The words are followed by a ragged series of gasps. “So hot… so dry…”

“They say that’s because of the Black magic on Reduce. They’ve stolen the rain.” Helisse sets the cup on the table next to the high bed.

“Don’t believe it,” gasps the Duke. “Year started hot. More rain when Creslin was here… any time last year. Make sure the pay chest goes on the next shipment.”

“I understand, dear man. I understand.” Helisse lays a hand on his sweating forehead again. “But you need to rest.”

“Rest, rest. It’s all I do.”

After a time, Helisse removes her hand. A shimmer of reddish-white lingers at her fingertips. His eyes closed, the Duke coughs raggedly.

“Sleep softly, dear man. Sleep softly.”

She turns to the girl seated on the stool by the window. “Call for me if he needs anything. They know where to find me.”

“Yes, mistress.”

The Duke coughs again, but Helisse does not turn as she departs his sickroom, only nodding at the pair of guards in the corridor outside.

FROM THE TERRACE southward, the dry plateau stretches into the dusty horizon. Before long, heat devils will appear. Out on the
Eastern
Ocean
, its swells low and flat, the water barely laps at the beaches below the terrace.

Creslin glances at the buckets and the yoke. Today will be another long day of desalting water for the keep and the handful of refugees at
Land’s End. Should he even bother to wash up? Megaera has said that he should not do so much manual labor, and lugging water is certainly a labor.

“Creslin?” Megaera’s voice is soft as she stands in the morning light just outside the doorway from the hallway, barefoot and in her thin shift. He wonders what she wants.

“Is it that obvious?” She twists her face into a grimace… damn you… But the feeling is not edged, only regretful.

“Sorry,” he says. “The
Griffin will land tomorrow.”

“And?”

“Aldonya and Lynnya will be on board.”

“You want them to stay here?”

“I promised.”

“Which guest house?”

“You don’t-thank you.”

The arms around him are more than worth the inconvenience that may follow. He slips an arm inside the .shift and around her naked back.

“Creslin…” No! Not now… With a last squeeze and more than a slight wandering of his hand, he releases her.

“You-”… take too many liberties… always haw… “-always have one thing on your mind.”

“Not always. Just when I’m around you.” She shakes her head and straightens her shift, not meeting his eyes.

“Anyway…” Creslin says to break the silence and to change the unspoken subject on his mind, “… I know that you’ve worried about Aldonya.”

“She’ll be pleased.” Megaera’s smile lifts some of his fear.

“I know she’ll be pleased to see you… she’s very loyal. But will she be pleased to see me?”

“Of course. She once told me that you’re good at heart.”

“But do you believe her?”

“Of course not. You still haven’t changed that much, best-beloved.”

Beneath the banter, the anxieties bounce back and forth.

Why does she still…

… can’t he see?

… never meant that, and she knows it… love her… never hurt…

Creslin wipes his suddenly damp forehead, swallowing, looking down at the terrace stones, concentrating on their shape, pushing away mental images of Megaera.

“Best-beloved?”

He looks up.

Tears streak her cheeks, a hint of the fine red dust that settles everywhere muddying her clear skin. “I didn’t mean… just hold me.”

Creslin wraps his arms around her and does not think. Nor does she. In this, or in much else, they can scarcely deceive each other.

She lets him be the one to break away. “I’m going to get some water, just for us,” he tells her.

“What are you doing today?”

“Looking for another well. Klerris says there’s water somewhere beyond the high fields.” He shrugs. “It’s better than watching the island dry up and blow away. How about you?”

“More blade practice, then some glasswork. Avalari’s done a goblet, and it’s pretty good. I still can’t get the mixtures right all the time. Some of the glass cracks.”

“But-”

“I know. I could bind it with order, but that’s not the point.”

Creslin agrees. Neither of them can do everything, but it’s hard for them to realize it sometimes. He crosses the terrace and hoists the yoke. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

CRESLIN SQUINTS AGAINST the glare of the sun. Behind him, on the eastern side of the pier, is tied the newly named Dawnstar, her masts still bare of canvas. A half-dozen men work on the former Hamorian war schooner. At the shore end of the pier, a wagon and a cart wait. A few steps from him stands a squad-half trooper, half guard-waiting to help off-load the sloop.

“She’s heavy,” offers Creslin as he watches the
Griffin wallow toward the pier.

“She is not,” counters Megaera, her eyes on the dark-haired woman standing by the railing, an infant in a cradle-pack on her back.

“I meant the ship.”

“Sometimes you’re just too serious.” Megaera grins at him.

He shakes his head, then grins back at her. They wait as the
Griffin is moored to the stone bollard.

Freigr acknowledges their presence on the pier with a half-salute, but he remains by the helm as the sail is furled and the gangway lowered.

Aldonya is the first off the sloop, nearly running down the plank despite the child on her back. She kneels at Megaera’s feet. “Your grace…”

Taking her hand, Megaera helps her rise.

“… it is so good to be here!” Aldonya breathes.

Creslin and Megaera consider the black-walled keep, the heat-browned hills, and the heat waves that ripple off the hillside, then look at each other before looking back at Aldonya.

Megaera raises an eyebrow. “I appreciate the sentiment, Aldonya, but this is not exactly paradise.”

“Oh, but it is, your grace. Living in Montgren was-but I should not complain, the Duke was so kind, when he was not ill.”

“Go on,” Creslin prompts gently.

“Waaaa…”

Aldonya slips out of the harness and cradles the red-haired infant, rocking her. “Now, now… we’re home. No more traveling, little Lynnya. No more traveling…”

Megaera smiles, and her smile warms Creslin. Then she flushes as she feels his pleasure. “You’re impossible,” she whispers.

Aldonya looks up from the wide-eyed baby. “I told you that he’s good at heart.”

Megaera flushes even redder.

“About Montgren…” Creslin prompts, as much to rescue Megaera as to hear what Aldonya had begun to say.

“Oh… it was like living under a storm. I mean-” her shoulders shrug even as she opens her blouse and lifts the child to her breast “-there is a storm coming, and there will be trouble, and everyone knows this, and no one will say anything. It was so sad, and I am so glad to be here.”

As she talks, Synder leads a chestnut mare off the
Griffin. The squad forms a chain up the gangplank and onto the ship. A heavy cask is passed along the chain and set upon the pier stones, then another cask, and a third.

“It is good to see that you are happy. Lynnya and I will be happy with you.”

“Do you have any baggage?” Creslin asks.

“Oh… I forgot. Many things.” Aldonya grins at them. “Perhaps some… anyway…”

“Your graces?” interrupts Freigr, standing halfway down the gangway.

“Why don’t you talk to Freigr?” Megaera suggests.

“You’ll take care of Aldonya?” asks Creslin.

“I’ll see you at the keep later, after she’s settled.” Megaera pauses. “I arranged for the horses. We do need some stalls or a stable at the holding.”

“With Aldonya… I suppose so.”

“The Hamorian stoneworkers are through with the addition to the inn.”

“Fine. See if Klerris… someone… will rough out plans for the stable.”

“You can still walk to the keep if you want the exercise.”… stiff-necked…

He supposes he is, but he turns, and after easing past the guards and troopers still unloading the
Griffin, he steps aboard the ship.

“Greetings.”

“Same to you, your grace.” Freigr is standing by the helm.

Creslin waves away the honorific.

Freigr looks across the pier at the bare-masted schooner. “You’ve done a good job with her.”

“I can’t say that I’ve had much to do with it. Byrem-he used to be a Nordlan mate, before the Hamorians captured him-has been handling the Dawnstar’s refitting. He tells us what he needs, and I try to figure out how to get it.” Creslin eyes the
Griffin’s captain. “You interested in recruiting?”

“Don’t you have enough here, with the Hamorians and some of the refugees?”

“Close enough, if either you or Gossel want to captain her, assuming that Korweil won’t mind. But that’s not the problem.”

“Korweil doesn’t own either one of us.” Freigr laughs. “You keep thinking about the problems that haven’t reached you. Most of them won’t.”

“If we get another ship, we’ll need a crew.”

“You haven’t finished that one.”

Creslin looks at the Dawnstar. “If we’re going to make it here on Reduce, we’ll need more ships. I’ll have to figure out a way to get them, even if it means stealing them from the White Wizards.”

“That won’t exactly make them happy.”

“Has anything? Do you really think they’ll let us build up Reduce without trying something else?”

Freigr pulls at his chin. “Can’t say as I’d thought about it one way or another. After you did in the Hamorians, do you think they’d want to risk any of their own ships?”

Creslin steps to the railing, looking northward into the nearly flat green sea. “They don’t have to. We can’t grow enough food yet, and it will be a few years before we have enough sheep. Already you can’t supply what we need, and Korweil won’t let the Hypogrif cross the northern waters.”

“I wouldn’t either,” snorts Freigr. “Not enough freeboard, or a solid enough keel. She’d go over in any sort of blow.”

“I’m paying twice what I should-”

“About the dried-I meant to…”

Creslin groans. “The mutton was from the Duke, right?”

“But the dried fruit came all the way from Kyphros. You insisted that the fruit was important.”

“You couldn’t find any fruit from anyplace closer than Kyphros?”

“Lucky to find that. It’s been a dry year everywhere.”

“How much did it cost?”

Freigr doesn’t look at Creslin; instead, he digs out a slip of parchment. “I did the best I could.”

“I’ll have the payment for you later today.” Creslin swallows. More of the heavy gold links will go. Some of the fruit he can trade for fish or sea ducks. He looks at the Dawnstar, then at Freigr. “We need that canvas.”

“It should be ready by the next trip. But they want the gold in advance.”

“In advance?”

The
Griffin’s master shrugs. “You know how many I had to talk to before anyone would agree to it.”

“You’re saying that you won’t get sails for the Dawnstar unless I show gold in advance.” The graying master looks at the smooth planks underfoot. “I’d never make a free trader, but even Gossel couldn’t get around it. And he was raised to it.”

“Nothing’s ever as easy as you think it will be.”

“No, it’s not. And it always takes longer.” Then Freigr smiles. “At least you have a proper inn now. You going to sing tonight?”

“Somehow I’m not much in the mood for singing.”

“Too bad. You’d have made it with the best of the minstrels, and you’d probably be happier.”

“Could be,” admits the co-regent of Reduce. He straightens. “What else do I have to find a way to pay you for?”

“Well, there are the tools…”

“THERE WASN’T A pay chest.” Hyel looks around the table. “And there was another taxation notice.”

“It came on the
Griffin” Creslin explains. “But the notice doesn’t change anything. What do we have to pay it with? Was there anything else? Any letters for Megaera or ‘me?”

Hyel shakes his head. “The notice was addressed to you as regents.”

“Korweil… even given… I can’t believe it,” murmurs Megaera.

Klerris glances from one regent to the other, purses his lips, then waits.

“What about the cargo?” asks Shierra.

“It’s paid for,” Creslin snaps. Paid for with gold links and his remaining coins-except for the Duke’s mutton and the salted beef, the last of the provisions sent by Llyse.

“Did you have to pay, since the ship is Korweil’s?” Shierra’s question is blunt.

“Freigr’s acting as a consignment agent. Even if the Duke made good the loss, would we get another shipment? Would anyone else trade with us?”

“Oh.”

“Exactly. Until the Dawnstar is finished, and until the
Griffin brings the canvas-that should be on the next trip-our choices are limited.”

“Limited?”

“The traders know we don’t have ships and that most Candarians won’t trade with us. We don’t buy enough to make it worthwhile for the Nordlans or the Bristans to make a special run-”

“So they’re gouging the darkness out of us?” assesses Hyel.

“That’s why we need the Dawnstar, and a few others as well.”

“We can’t pay for one ship, let alone others.”

“We can’t afford not to,” snaps Creslin. “Sorry,” he adds as a faint aching echoes across his skull and as Megaera rubs her forehead. Even his righteous frustration can hurt both of them.

“How do you plan to get more ships?” asks Lydya.

“I don’t know.”

Both Megaera’s sharp look and the tightness in his guts bear witness to the lie, but no one presses him. Still, he stands. “I’m heading out beyond the high fields. I need to see if we can find another spring.”

“What are we going to do about the pay chest we don’t have?”

“I’ll tell everyone the truth-that they won’t get paid, that we’ve been abandoned by Korweil. If they .trust us, I’ll promise to make it up them when we can. Those who don’t-” Creslin shrugs “-they can leave or go try to live off the land.”

“That’s not much of a choice,” presses Hyel.

“I don’t have any better to offer. I’ve spent almost everything I have on food and supplies. And I certainly didn’t eat it all personally.”

“That’s a little harsh.” Megaera’s voice is sharp.

Creslin winces, not at the words, but at the feelings beneath them. He continues to stand, although he does not step toward the doorway.

“Especially since they wouldn’t be in this mess-”

Creslin focuses on Hyel, and the thin officer breaks off his statement. “You are right,” Creslin agrees. They wouldn’t be in this mess now. It would have happened a year from now, and they’d all be dead for certain.“

“You don’t know that for sure,” Hyel retorts.

Creslin turns and leaves the room, his ears ringing. His steps are quick as he takes the steps down to the main floor of the keep two at a time. Trying to ignore the sadness and anger that Megaera feels, he mounts the mare and urges her toward the high fields and the spring he will-must-find.

“Damned fools. As if there were ever easy answers…” But his guts twist as he rides.