The Waters Rising (15 page)

“My people?”

“Her people and yours. The Tingawan people of the Thousand Isles.”

T
hat night, Xulai took Abasio up to the bird lofts, introduced him to the duke, and left them there. After an awkward few moments, they decided they liked each other, and Abasio, reading the signs of grief, said some things that surprised the duke, who returned with some knowledge that much surprised Abasio.

“You’ve actually seen the waters?” the duke asked.

“I have. And I’ve heard more than I’ve seen.”

“When my wife’s father was here with us, he told me it was going to be . . . very bad.”

“For those of us who breathe air, that’s what they say.”

“Your acquaintances in the Edges? I’m told that wise men believe it’s happened before and it wasn’t that great a catastrophe.”

“It has happened before, but not like this. Before it was just melting ice from the poles. These are far greater waters rising. But there’s still some time. A lifetime or two.”

“A lifetime. Of a mouse? Or a man?”

Abasio smiled. “I was told there were enough lifetimes for a plan to work itself out, if everything goes as it should.”

The duke stared at him in frank astonishment. “Who under heaven told you . . .”

“A man I met. Not a Norlander, I think. He came to find me, he said. He didn’t say who sent him or how, he just pointed me in this direction. I think he sent me to Xulai—though . . .”

“Though?”

“He did not tell me to expect a child.”

Justinian stared over his head blankly. “Child or not, you’ll go with her?”

“Oh, yes. I’ll go with her.” He would, though the idea was very unsettling and he could not find the reason.

W
hen Xulai left Abasio in the tower and was alone in her room, she surrendered to all the emotion she had so far refused to feel and let herself weep for a loss so enveloping that there was room for nothing else. She would miss the Duke of Wold and the princess, yes, but the one was as he had always been; the other had gone past grieving; so what she grieved for now was the loss of her world, her home, every accustomed corner of it, gardens, animals, trees, the entirety of the place that had been hers.

There were places in the forest and along the river she went into as though they were well-loved rooms, full of pleasure and peace; mornings with Horsemaster, watching the colts in the paddock; countless afternoons in the haylofts above the stable among the mother cats and their kittens; evenings in a certain tree copse near the swamp where the bell-like call of a blue-plumed bird and the shush of wings over her head were daily benedictions. These places had become as much a part of her life as were her hands, her feet, her eyes! Losing them felt as though she was being stripped of her skin, of her heart, of her mind, of her senses.

Since babyhood she had relished the noise and bustle of the castle, very much like a town with its various trades and the coming and going of crops and supplies. Though she had not had friends among the children, there were others she knew well. She knew the shoemaker, his wife, the farrier and his brother, the hostler and his mother, the armorers, the maids and footmen, the stewards of the various large estates within Wold. She knew the farmers, their fields, their woods, their animals. She had spent untold hours with Horsemaster, first learning to ride, then learning everything else he would teach her. Wold’s Horsemaster was known as far away as Wellsport, and though he did not share his secrets with many, he had shared them with Xulai. Her roots ran deep among all the Woldsgard people, and now those roots were to be ripped out and burned, the ashes whipped away by the wind. So she gave herself to grief and wept, her hand in her pocket curled protectively around its tiny inhabitant.

From nowhere came black and white Bothercat to leap upon the bed and curl up by her stomach. Spotted Vexcat crept across her to find his place at the back of her neck. They purred, two cats but only one loud purr, rhythmic as breathing, a constant hum, like the hum of bees in the summer meadow, the hum of the wind in the young copses, the hum, perhaps, of the stars where they spun through the night. She fell into the hum, the purr, while her tears dried and she slept.

In the morning, when she awoke, the cats had departed and the chipmunk was sitting on her pillow, grooming its tail. She thought cats and chipmunk had grown accustomed to one another. Now she greeted chipmunk and offered the pocket of her skirt. She had decided that it did talk. If stones could talk, little rodents could talk. Her cats didn’t, but then, perhaps they had nothing to say that could not be conveyed by a snarl, a hiss, a purr, a pleading meow. She wouldn’t mention it to anyone else, but she would accept it for herself. Chipmunk stayed beside her, a tiny companion, while she washed all signs of tears from her face and later, while she made herself respond sensibly when the duke informed her of the details of her journey.

“Be careful, my lord,” she whispered at the end of his instructions. “Be very careful.”

“You don’t hate me for sending you away?” he whispered in return. “You understand?”

“Oh, yes. I understand.” And, in truth, those two words were all that mattered, for he gave her such a smile of confidence and fondness that she secured the memory of it against her heart as though it were a golden locket.

She took the rest of the day to say good-byes, starting with the people and creatures of the stable. When she arrived in the stable yard there were four vehicles being packed for her journey: a wagon, a dray, a large closed carriage of the type called a company-trot, and a lighter, open one often called a hop-skip. Half a dozen castle servants were fussing over the dray and the ’trot. Her hand was in her pocket; the chipmunk nibbled at it and the feel of the tiny teeth made something blink in Xulai’s mind. She stood frozen for a moment, then went to find Horsemaster (always so addressed), who was speaking with Wainwright (who merited an equivalent title, as Wold had only one of each).

“Well, there you are,” Horsemaster said as she approached him at the back of the stable where he was bent over a great heap of harnesses. “Thought you’d be down.” He stood to his full height, which wasn’t much above his full width, a brown and ruddy rock of a man, red haired and with wonderfully white teeth.

“Horsemaster, Wainwright, this will be my first journey outside Wold. Well, the first one I’m old enough to know about. Are such journeys easy? What kinds of things go wrong?”

Horsemaster laughed his dry laugh, one that sounded like winter weed stems rubbing together. “You mean other than people behavin’ like jackasses?”

She grinned at him. Let him take it as humorous. “Well, you’ve told me much about that already. What about other than that?”

“Well, there’s animals runnin’ off or goin’ lame . . . ,” he began.

Wainwright interrupted. “Then there’s wheels doin’ more or less the same. Then there’s axles breakin’. Those things happen more often than landslides or floods or trees fallin’ on people, all of which I can remember happenin’ one time or another.”

She nodded to Wainwright. “My cousin Justinian knows your men will check the wheels and the axles very carefully early in the morning, before we go. He knows that as Wainwright you have probably even provided a spare wheel and axle for each wagon or carriage in case of accident.”

Wainwright’s eyebrows went up. His lips pursed. He was silent for a moment, staring at her. “Aye,” he said at last. “I would imagine someone’s done that.”

“That makes me feel so much better,” she said. “Everyone says I’m timid as a chipmunk”—she flinched, for she had been bitten through her chemise—“but knowing you take such care makes me less so.” She turned back to Horsemaster. “Tell me, why do horses run off?”

Horses ran off for a good many reasons, each one of which evoked a story that reminded Xulai of other stories and taught her a few things Horsemaster had not mentioned to her before. It was an hour or more before she returned to the castle bearing a sack full of grain and herbs, after which she spent an hour or two in the kitchen with the cook.

“You say we need honey,” said Cook, shaking her head. “As it happens, I have new honey from Hives Town, along the river.”

“And this grain,” said Xulai. “And these herbs . . .”

“Well, I never . . . ,” said Cook. “What a combination!”

With the baking done, she spent the rest of the day helping Precious Wind and Bear. Most things, small and large, that they would need during the journey and afterward had been foreseen and provided for. There were even new clothes for Xulai, made large enough that she could grow somewhat before she would need to cut into the lengths of fabric they were taking along. They also had linens and weapons to pack; Precious Wind had her traveling desk and Xulai the large wicker basket she had adapted for the cats, affixing a latch so the lid could be closed tight enough to keep them inside in an emergency.

“So you’re set on taking those cats?” demanded Precious Wind with a scowl at black and white Bothercat, who had just leapt across her desk, throwing all her papers into confusion.

“My cousin said the abbey allows it. I fixed the basket especially for them. It’s so I won’t be lonely.”

Precious Wind’s face changed. “You will have me, Xulai. You will have Bear, and Oldwife, and Nettie is going along to keep us all decently dressed.”

“Neither you nor Bear curl up next to my ear at night and purr,” Xulai said firmly. “Oldwife says she’s incapable of curling; Nettie would be embarrassed. Bear is far too much the warrior to curl, and it does seem an unlikely posture for you to adopt.” She cast a glance at Precious Wind, whose eyebrows were threatening to hide themselves completely in her hair. “Your eyebrows are telling me you think the curling may not be essential. I grant you that, but the purring is, absolutely.” As it was, for several reasons. Under the thick padding of the cat basket, she had sewn her treasures: several gifts from the princess, now inside the little box from the forest temple, along with another thing.

When she donned her traveling dress early in the morning, the chipmunk was already in the pocket announcing itself with a high-pitched chitter. Below, the travelers were already assembling in the stable yard. Xulai’s fear of loneliness lifted a little as she actually saw her escort assembled. They were all people she knew well: Oldwife Gancer, gray haired and dark skinned, somewhat stout and wrinkled as a winter apple; Bartelmy, the fletcher’s son, a crossbowman, so fair as to be almost silver haired, keen eared, brown from the sun, green eyed, like a sight-hound in stance and movement, lean, alert, and nervy. He would drive the chestnut pair hitched to the hop-skip in which Oldwife and Xulai would begin the trip. Behind them four black horses drew the wagon with the brothers Willum and Clive Farrier driving. They were nephews of Horsemaster, and Xulai knew them well from the stables, bulky, muscular men, heavy across the shoulders as a team of oxen, much of an age and alike except that Willum was yellow haired and balding while Clive wore a long, copper-colored braid down his back.

Next came the heavy dray, pulled by six mules and driven by Pecky Peavine and Black Mike. Pecky was a cousin to Bartelmy, a small man with the family’s pale hair and green eyes, a beaky nose, and a perpetually smiling mouth. Pecky had been raised on the castle farms. He was good with growing things, quick with his hands, weaving and willowy as his name, his arms and legs thin but roped with muscle. Black Mike was from the workshops and the smithy, called black because he was: hair, beard, eyes, and skin. He was a grandnephew of Oldwife Gancer, and he could fix anything, or build it from scratch. All the men but Bartelmy and—probably—Bear were as likely as any other to drink too much and play the fool occasionally (so said Oldwife), but otherwise, they were dependable as daylight.

Behind the dray was the company-trot, the larger, closed carriage carrying only Precious Wind and her friend Nettie Lean on one seat, all the rest of its space filled with traveling supplies. The Great Bear of Zol would drive the four horses. Nettie was a widow: graceful, widemouthed, blue eyed and auburn haired. She had raised her widower husband’s sons by his late wife, had lost them when they set off to seek their fortunes, and then had lost her husband as well. She had no other kin but an aunt off at Wilderbrook Abbey, or so she thought, though it had been years since she’d heard from Aunt Belika. She and Precious Wind had formed a strong friendship in the last several years, as had all the others, except Bear, who tended to hold himself aloof as befit bears in general. The others respected his strength and skill too much to cavil at it. Either that or they were too wary of his temper and his touchy pride. Everyone knew everyone else and his family, everyone was amiable, so there’d be no quarrels to make the trip more difficult. Nettie was not attracted to any of the men, nor they to her, and Xulai felt this was no accident. The duke had thought of this as he had thought of everything else. The trip was to be made quickly, peacefully, and safely. Xulai might go on grieving her loss for some long time, but she was not to be aggravated by dissension among her people or be lonely for familiar faces.

Added to this entourage was Xulai’s horse, Flaxen, on a lead rein behind the hop-skip.

So,
Xulai thought to herself:
six men, four women
—she was slightly surprised to be counting herself as a woman—
ten horses; six mules; one small riding horse; two cats traveling in their large, well-padded basket with the latticework lid carefully fastened down; and one tiny, secret chipmunk that neither Oldwife nor Precious Wind would have countenanced for a moment if they’d known about him. Or her, perhaps. It could as well be a girl chipmunk.