Will Shetterly - Witch Blood (6 page)

“I forgot them there.”

“Right, Pipa.”

There is no greater solace in old age than a considerate child. “I’m telling the story you asked me to tell.”

“I asked you to tell your story. What’s there begins in the middle of—”

“That’s the way of the Loh hero-songs.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it and frowned. I smiled. She is quick, but I am still Rifkin.

“The Loh hero-songs.”

“Correct, daughter. Have I never had the feast-singers sing of Difrek dueling the Black Shark, or of Kinti racing Death to win back her love, or of Sentif uniting the island people to rescue his mother from the Witch Lord?”

“Yes, Pipa. And I’ve always fallen asleep.”

I heard enough irritation in her voice that I said, “And I usually fall asleep shortly after you do. Still, all the hero-songs share one trait.”

“Yes. They’re incredibly boring.”

“Daughter!”

“Forgive me, Father. I stated the obvious before seeing the underlying truth.”

I nodded. “Good.”

“They’re all completely incomprehensible to sane beings.”

“Feschiani...” I said slowly.

She laughed. “I’m sorry, Pipa. What trait do your beloved Loh hero-songs share?”

“They begin in the middle of the story, when exciting events occur. The earlier parts are revealed in the telling.”

“Father...” she said, in tones much like mine a moment before.

“Yes?”

“You’re not writing a song.”

“Well, my sense of scansion isn’t very good.”

“And you’re not writing in Loh.”

“Um, I can’t. We don’t have an alphabet, only symbols. And I’ve forgotten most of the few I ever learned.”

“And it’s rather presumptuous to think of yourself as a hero.”

“I don’t,” I said.

“Oh?”

“Not always.”

She laughed and came around the table to kiss me. “I think you’re a hero, Pipa.”

“And I think you want something from me.”

“I do. I want to know what happened before you came to Castle Gromandiel.”

“I’ve told you.”

“It’s not written down.”

“Because it’s not important. The entire story is in the tale I’m writing.”

“Pipa, brace up. It’s not.”

“You can’t know until it’s done.”

“True. But I want to know about you, Pipa. Your childhood and—”

“Learning about love and sex and death? Those things?”

“Yes.”

“It’s boring. Every ambitious young twit who claims the name of poet will—”

“It’s not boring, Pipa. Please. The stories are connected, you know.”

“I’ll tell as much as I damn well—”

I saw the next part coming as she smiled gently and I almost said it with her. “Please, Pipa? For me?”

So I will write two stories, I see. I will tell of the Gromandiels, and I will tell of my past. The story of my past is for Feschiani, but the story of the Gromandiels is for me. And if I am lucky, late at night when the sea has been generous and people sit to be entertained by ancient doings, when children listen at the feast fire with their eyes and their mouths open wide to better hear the song, a singer will begin by saying, “This is the story of Rifkin Outcast and the last master of Castle Gromandiel, as Rifkin wrote it many years later in his daughter’s villa by the sea.”

But perhaps if I am even luckier, a child or two will sit up in bed someday and my daughter will say, “This is a story of your Great-pipa, when he was no older than you, and much sillier.”

5

I DO NOT
know what story Farek sang that night. I remember that something wondrous happened, but whether she made me see a single paddler in a small boat riding a God-wave or a swimmer who plucked pearls from the mistresses of Undersea or something far stranger or far subtler than those things, I cannot remember. Farek stopped in the middle of a sentence. She looked around the feast fire at us all with an expression of surprise, and then she fell forward onto the sands.

One of my sisters glanced at me to see if I understood. My brother only continued to dig in the damp beach sand. I stared, for this had never happened. Stories came to an end; it was one of the few rules that I had grasped then, when I was in my third or fourth summer. I did not understand that Farek was very old. The story she was telling would never be finished, for her own story, the story of Farek, ended then. For a feast-singer, it was a good end.

An old man began to wail, even before someone turned Farek onto her back. Someone else said, “She walks with the White Lady,” and I turned and ran into the night. Others of the village cried now, children as well. I raced down the beach to escape them. Mima had told me of the White Lady and how She waited for careless children who played with the cooking fire or drank from Mima’s jar of happiness milk when no one was about. I had not done either, but neither had Farek.

Something caught me on the beach and swung me into the air. I hit at it, but it held me firmly beneath my arms. I kicked, and I thought I screamed, but later I was told I had been perfectly silent. At least I realized this was not the White Lady come for me, too. This was a person, and this person laughed. That made me angry, and I struggled harder. I cursed like my mother did when she had drunk several jars of the happiness milk. “Fool sailor! Stupid sea-lover! Let me go, you damned tide-given witch thing!”

“Shush, little one,” the other said in a foreign accent.

“Not little! Not shush! Let me go!” My arms and legs flurried even more furiously, and then I stopped, suddenly crying with all my heart. Farek had told stories to me, and sometimes given me bits of coconut.

The other drew me closer, as if to embrace me, and I kicked then. “Aiii!” the other screamed, and almost let me go. I wriggled frantically. Then the stranger said, quietly, very calmly, and without a hint of threat, “Stop.”

I only knew that some large and unknown being held me in the dark, yet the single word uttered so patiently made me forget about Farek and the White Lady. I forgot that I was afraid, for I was not used to patience from those I had hurt, and the stranger’s reaction intrigued me. My sisters would have hit me. My brother would have cried until someone else hit me. My mother would have hit me, then sobbed and hugged me and told me she was sorry I was so bad.

“You’re all right now?” the other said.

I nodded, which the stranger must not have seen in the dark, for I was then shaken vigorously. “Yes!” I shouted.

“At least your lungs are fine, little one,” he said, setting me down on the beach.

“Not lit—”

“I’m sorry. What is your name, child of the Loh?”

“Rif.”

“Don’t be sullen, Rif. Perhaps I did wrong to impede your flight. If so, I am sorry. I am Tchanin Freefarer, originally from Rassoe.”

I giggled at that. The older boys had told a joke that I had not understood, but thought funny: What is the difference between the Sea Queen’s palace and a girl from Rassoe? Not everyone has been in the Sea Queen’s palace.

“Ah, we are friends now? Good. What is that commotion I hear?”

“White Lady came. For Farek.” I sniffled, and wiped my nose on the back of my arm.

“I am sorry, Rif. She was dear to you?”

“Yes. Mima’s mima.” Then I began crying again, not so loudly as before. I remember being embarrassed that I couldn’t stop. Pipa would not have cried. Perhaps I lunged toward Tchanin for an embrace. Tchanin placed a hand against my chest to slow me, then seemed to understand and hugged me. Tchanin’s voice had been pitched such that the stranger might have been male or female. The hug let me know he was a man by the feel of his beard next to my head as he patted my back. In a way, that was worse than if he had not tried to comfort me. I had not been hugged by a man since Pipa sailed. I pushed him back.

He accepted this. “Better now?”

“Yes,” I lied.

“Good.”

We stood there listening to the wind and the sounds of the people by the feast fire. The flame beckoned me. Perhaps Mima had missed me. I was sorry I’d run off, but I was not sure how to return. I felt responsibility for Tchanin, and annoyance at that responsibility. I think I wished he would leave, and then I could sneak into the hut of a large family and sleep.

“Come, Rif.” He took my hand and led me toward the feast fire. The people still keened Farek’s farewell. She lay on her back on a black robe, a robe I later learned was called the White Lady’s robe, which was draped over a yellow boat. The next morning her body would be gone, and we would all pretend she had sailed the boat away. In truth, someone would bury her, and the boat would be repainted and renamed. Loh was too poor to sacrifice a boat whenever a villager died.

The dogs began to bark before we were near the fire. Our Chief, a woman named Sanleel, called, “Who comes?”

Tchanin squeezed my hand, so I yelled “Rif!”

“And a friend,” Tchanin said. His voice was loud enough to carry, yet he did not shout.

The people had ceased the lament before Sanleel addressed us. When we stepped within the light of the feast fire, several of the more timid of the Loh scurried away from us in fear or awe. I was immediately proud of my friendship with Tchanin, and I glanced up to see if he was the Sea Queen’s consort, or perhaps a demon from Undersea. I knew from my people’s reaction that he was more than a man from Rassoe.