Eye of the Labyrinth (44 page)

Chapter 84

The news about Dirk Provin betraying the Baenlanders was all over the
Orlando,
even before the ship docked in Mil. Eryk learned of it from his shipmates and promptly got into a fistfight with Owen Hantze, the carpenter’s apprentice, when he tried to defend his former master. He had denied the accusation vehemently, certain Dirk would never do such a thing, but the rumors would not go away, no matter how many fights Eryk got into.

What made it even worse was that it appeared to be Tia who was the source of the rumors. Eryk could not believe that she would spread such horrible gossip about Dirk, so he decided to confront her himself and find out if it was true. If she admitted to being the guilty party, he intended to make her take back the dreadful things she was saying about him. That way, the world would be back to the way it should be, and all this frightening stuff about Dirk being a traitor would go away.

When he finally climbed out of the longboat and stepped onto the black sand of Mil, he looked up at the tall stilted house overlooking the bay, wondering if Tia was up there still. He could see a number of figures gathered on the veranda, but could not make out exactly who they were.

“Hey!” Grigor snapped at him, noticing the direction of his gaze. “Don’t even think about it, lad.”

Eryk looked at the mate in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“You know you’re not allowed up near Johan’s house anymore.”

“But I don’t want to see Mellie. I want to speak to Tia!” Actually, that was not quite true. Eryk would have given his right leg to see Mellie again, but he knew how foolish it would be to attempt it. Everyone in Mil was fiercely protective of Johan’s daughter, as Eryk had discovered to his peril when he had tried to kiss her.

“Why didn’t you speak to her while she was on board the
Orlando,
” Grigor asked, “instead of waiting until we landed and you had an excuse to go up to the house?”

“I never got a chance!” he protested. “Please, thir...I mean, sir, it’s really, really important.”

Grigor stared at him for a moment, as if debating how sincere he was, and then he nodded. “I’ll see she gets a message that you want to see her, lad. That’s the best I can do. But if I catch you within a half-mile of Johan’s house, I’ll skin you alive myself. Understand?”

“Yes, sir! Thank you.”

Grigor stalked off toward the village, leaving Eryk staring up at the house, wondering if Tia was up there, even now, spreading her dreadful lies about Dirk.

It was much later that evening before Tia appeared at the entrance to the longhouse. The village women were still sorting through the haul off the
Makuan,
although there had been little from the
Orlando
to add to the pile. Usually, they were away for much longer, and did not head home until the ship was full of contraband, lifted mostly from the holds of the Senetian traders who plied the shipping lanes between Dhevyn and Senet near the treacherous rocks off Daven Isle.

Assuming Tia had come to see him, Eryk ran to the door. “You got my message!”

Tia had been glancing around the longhouse, looking for someone. She seemed a little surprised that Eryk had accosted her.

“What message?”

“The one Grigor gave you. The one that said I had to see you.”

Not finding whoever she was looking for, Tia turned her full attention to Eryk.

“Why did you want to see me?”

“You have to thop...I mean...stop saying those things about Lord Dirk, Tia. Everyone thinks he’s really bad now, and if you would only tell them what really happened...”

His voice trailed off as Tia’s expression darkened. “I’ve not said a word about Dirk that isn’t true, Eryk.”

He shook his head, determined not to believe it. “It can’t be...”

Tia suddenly seemed to take pity on him. “Come outside, Eryk. I think you and I need to talk.”

Eryk followed Tia out onto the veranda, and then took a seat beside her on the top step of the longhouse. She had an odd look on her face, almost as if she was hurt, but he could see no sign of injury on her.

“Eryk, Dirk has gone back to Avacas,” she explained slowly, to make certain he understood. “He wasn’t captured, or tortured, or made to do it by anyone else. He wrote to the High Priestess and asked if he could join the Shadowdancers.”

“But you were going to help him rescue Lady Morna! And when you couldn’t, you saved Master Helgin and then you went to Tolace. You were his friend, Tia! What did you do?”

Tia looked at him in astonishment. “What did
I
do? Not a damn thing except trust him, Eryk, when I should have known better. I know it wouldn’t matter to you if another Age of Shadows came round tomorrow, because you think the sun shines out of Dirk’s arse anyway, but your precious Lord Dirk betrayed everyone in Mil. Including you.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“That’s not my problem, Eryk,” Tia shrugged unsympathetically. “What’s done is done. Trying to pretend it isn’t real won’t make it go away.”

“You did something,” Eryk insisted. “You did something bad to him and made him run away.”

Tia sighed and climbed to her feet. She looked down at him with a shake of her head. “You believe whatever you want, Eryk. I’m done talking about it. To you or anyone else.”

Later that night, as he lay on his bunk in the narrow bungalow where most of the single men slept when they were in port, Eryk thought over everything he had heard since Tia had returned. It had all been bad news, but Eryk still refused to believe that Dirk was in any way responsible for any of it.

He felt so alone and friendless in Mil with Dirk gone. Any access to Mellie was denied him now, and the other sailors on the
Orlando
treated him with disdain. They never actually said anything, but they all knew what had happened at the Troitsa Festival. And then Tia started saying all that stuff about Dirk being a traitor, and things got even worse because everyone knew that Dirk was his friend, too, and they now looked at Eryk as if he was tarred with the same brush.

His cheeks wet, Eryk turned his face to the wall, in case somebody came by and saw him sniveling like a baby. He fervently wished that he knew what to do. Dirk was not here to advise him. He wasn’t allowed to see Mellie, and Eleska Arrowsmith had walked past him in the longhouse, deliberately turning away from him as he tried to greet her. He had no friends among the crew of either the
Makuan
or the
Orlando
. As for Tia, she had become Dirk’s enemy and, in Eryk’s simple mind, that made her his enemy as well.

Desperately unhappy, Eryk tried to think what Dirk would do. He was smart. He was brave, too. He always knew the right thing to say, the best thing to do. If he had gone back to Avacas, then he must have had a really good reason, and Tia was just too pig-headed to admit it.

Marqel was in Avacas, too, he remembered. She had been so nice to him in Nova, and had shown him things he had never dreamed of. Not that her instruction would be of any use if he could not even get to talk to Mellie...

As he lay awake thinking about it, Eryk slowly came to a decision. He had only one true friend in the world and that was Dirk Provin. Whatever Dirk was doing now, whatever he had done in the past, it was all because he was smarter than everyone else and nobody understood him. Tia was wrong. They were all wrong. And Eryk intended to prove it.

He sniffed back his tears. The
Orlando
would sail again soon, and when it did, he decided, he would take all his meager possessions with him. At some point they were bound to call in to a Senetian port.

And when they did, Eryk would walk off the ship and not look back.

After that, Eryk drifted off to sleep and dreamed of Mellie. In his dream, Mellie loved him and nobody tried to keep them apart. Then the dream changed suddenly, and they took her away from him again. He searched for her, wandering through barren streets and deserted buildings he did not recognize, calling her name, but try as he might, he could not find her. He caught a movement over his shoulder, a shadow that passed just out of sight. He called out to it, but it flittered away like a wisp of insubstantial mist. He headed back through the deserted buildings again, through the abandoned streets, which began to close in on him, and then he realized he was running through the bunkhouse in Mil and the shadow was just ahead, tantalizingly out of reach...

He woke with a start and glanced around the bunkhouse, but there was nobody there, except the other sailors from the
Orlando
and the
Makuan
who did not have homes to go to. Their soft snores filled the air with a gentle buzz, as if the room was full of midges. He missed the silence of the goat hut; missed the solitude. It was only since he had been surrounded by all these sailors that he had truly begun to feel alone.

Eryk lay back again with a sigh, his heart pounding from his nightmare. He had been having a lot of them lately—ever since Dirk had gone away. But they would be over soon, he promised himself. Soon he would have no more nightmares, and everything would be back the way it was supposed to be, because he was going to find Dirk Provin.

Eryk was going to Avacas to join his only friend.

Chapter 85

Although Dorra seemed intent on keeping her bedridden until the next Age of Shadows, Alenor finally convinced Yuri Daranski that she would regain her strength much faster if she was allowed to get out of bed.

The physician relented unhappily, and Alenor began to take short walks along the wide halls of the Avacas palace, always with a Shadowdancer—either Olena or one of the acolytes—to keep an eye on her. Alenor resented the escort at first; or at least until the first time she ventured out of her room. She was horrified to discover that even after a short distance, she was feeling light-headed and nauseous, and had to be helped back to her bed. But slowly the walks grew longer, and she began to hold out some hope that she might eventually recover from this ordeal.

She tried not to think of the child she had lost. It did no good to wonder if it had been a boy or a girl. Nothing was gained by trying to imagine who the child might have favored. Would it have been dark-haired and brown-eyed, a true Thorn in both looks and nature? Or would it have inherited Alexin’s blond hair and fair coloring?

Alenor forced herself to stop dwelling on it, concentrating instead on placing one foot in front of the other, as she walked back along the hall, her footfalls silent on the thick carpet runner. She was returning from her latest excursion, a walk that had made it all the way to the top of the stairs and back again. She could see the door to her room ahead of her.

Just a few more steps,
she told herself proudly.

Then she glanced up the hall and spied Marqel, dressed in her nightdress and wrapped in a shawl, slipping into Dirk’s room. She stopped for a moment, wondering why Marqel would be visiting him so late.

For that matter, why was Marqel visiting Dirk at all?

“Are you feeling ill, your majesty?” the acolyte, Ilga, asked with concern. She was a Landfall bastard and a Shadowdancer, like Marqel, but much more likable. Like all Belagren’s people, she was a beautiful girl, with glossy dark hair and a waist that seemed too small to contain the organs in her body that should have been located there. She came from Talenburg, she had told Alenor on one of their walks. Her mother was a candle maker there, with a thriving business in the city, if Ilga was to be believed.

“No, I’m quite well,” Alenor assured her.

“I’ll fetch you some tea once you’re settled,” Ilga promised, opening the door.

Alenor stepped inside, rather startled to find Kirsh waiting for her. Did he know where his lover had just gone?

“Kirsh!”

“I see you’re up and about.”

“Barely,” she agreed. “Is something wrong?”

Kirsh glanced over her shoulder at Ilga. “Leave us!”

The acolyte bowed hastily and removed herself from the queen’s chambers.

“That was a bit harsh,” Alenor accused.

“I’ve neither the time nor the inclination to be polite,” he informed her. “Misha has been kidnapped from Tolace by the Baenlanders.”

Alenor walked unsteadily to the settee and sat down before she responded. “When did you learn of this?”

“Barely an hour ago.”

“Oh, Kirsh! That’s dreadful news!”

“Palinov was suggesting that we just leave him there and let him die, thereby robbing the Baenlanders of their prize.”

“Your father didn’t agree to that, surely?”

“No. But we’re going to Mil. That’s what I came to tell you. I’m leaving for Tolace in the morning, to see if I can pick up their trail. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

She nodded slowly, understanding the necessity for such a thing, and not in the least surprised that Antonov was sending Kirsh to do it. Perhaps he had volunteered. Kirsh would do something like that, especially if Misha was involved.

But what had possessed the Baenlanders to do such a thing? Alexin had never even hinted at such a plan. How could they do something like this without consulting her, or at least warning her of their plans? So much for their alliance.
Why do I
keep doing these stupid, stupid things?

“Then I wish you luck,” she said to Kirsh, praying no hint of her inner turmoil was visible.

“I’m taking your guard with me.”

This time, Alenor was genuinely shocked, and she had no hope of hiding it.
Did he suspect something?

“Why?”

“For one thing, I’m the Regent of Dhevyn, and it will look better if the world believes that Dhevyn supports Senet in their determination to rescue Misha and wipe out the Baenlanders. The other reason is more personal...”

Oh, Goddess! He knows!

“...although I’d never admit it to my father,” he continued, oblivious to her distress. “Your guard is much better trained than his. I want men I can count on. I’d far rather have Alexin watching my back than some Senetian mercenary I don’t know.”

“I’m sure they’ll be a great help to you,” she agreed, almost choking on the words.

“Are you all right, Alenor? You’ve suddenly gone pale.”

“I overextended myself with my walk, I fear,” she explained, trembling with the strain of keeping her secrets hidden.

“Then I won’t keep you any longer,” he said, turning for the door.

“If you could send Dorra to me, I would be grateful,” she said, certain she did not have the strength to get across the room to her bed. Not that Dorra would be any great comfort, but Alenor knew she needed help.

“I will,” he promised. “I hope you’ve not become too attached to her.”

“What do you mean?”

“Father has decided she’s no longer required. I believe he’s going to allow you to send for someone from Dhevyn to attend you. Perhaps the Lady Jacinta will come. That should please you.”

It was almost as shocking as hearing about Misha. Or that Kirsh was planning to rescue him using her guard.

“Why would he suddenly decide to do that?”

“I think Dirk suggested it. Father told me to tell you tonight, in the hope that the prospect of seeing a few familiar faces would alleviate your distress about me going away again. I thought it prudent not to point out that you’d probably welcome it.”

“I don’t welcome the news that Misha might be in danger, Kirsh. Or that you might place yourself in the same danger trying to rescue him.”

“I thought you’d be glad to hear that I’d been killed in battle,” he said, a little bitterly. “Or even just that I’d been killed.”

“I don’t hate you, Kirsh...” she tried to explain.

“But you don’t love me anymore, do you?”

“Do you love me?”

When Kirsh did not reply, she looked away. “Then I suppose that makes us even.”

The door closing behind Kirsh was his only answer.