“Are we clear now?”
‘There is a straight course through these rocks and the wind is bearing us well down the center of it. Heaven favors us. Here, you are getting the spray where you are standing. Lun, take this man below before he perishes.”
The cabin was warm and close, and there was light, well-shielded from outside view. The old seaman guided him to the cot and bade him lie down. The heaving of the ship disoriented him in a way the sea had never done before. He fell into the cot, rousing himself only when Lun propped him up to set a mug of soup to his lips. He could not even manage it without shaking. Lun held it patiently, and the warmth of the soup filled his belly and spread to his limbs, pouring strength into him.
He bade Lun prop his shoulders with blankets and give him a second cup. He was able to sit then partially erect, his hands cradling the steaming mug. He did not particularly want to drink it; it was the warmth he cherished, and the knowledge that it was there. He was careful not to fall asleep and spill it. From time to time he sipped at it. Lun sat nodding in the corner.
The door opened with a gust of cold wind and Kta came in, shook the salt water from his cloak and gave it to Lun.
“Soup here, sir,” said Lun, prepared and gave him a cup of it, and Kta thanked him and sank down on the cot on the opposite side of the little cabin. Lun departed and closed the door quietly.
Kurt stared for a long time at the wall, without the will left to face another round with Kta. At last Kta moved enough to drink, and let go his breath in a soft sigh of weariness.
“Are you all right?” Kta asked him finally. He put gentleness in his question, which had been long absent from his voice.
“I am all right.”
“The night is in our favor. I think we can clear this shore before Edrif realizes it.”
“Do we still go north?”
“Yes. And with t’Tefur no doubt hard behind us.”
“Is there any chance we could take him?”
“We have ten benches empty and no reliefs. Or do you expect me to kill the rest of my men?”
Kurt flinched, a lowering of his eyes. He could not face an accounting now. He did not want the fight. He stared off elsewhere and took a sip of the soup to cover it.
“I did not mean that against you,” Kta said. “Kurt, these men left everything for my sake, left families and hearths with no hope of returning. They came to me in the night and begged me-begged me-to let them take me from Nephane, or I would have ended my life that night in spite of my father’s wishes. Now I have left twelve of them dead on this shore. I am responsible for them, Kurt. My men are dead and I am alive. Of all of them, / survived.”
“I saved each of them,” Kurt protested, “as long as I could. I did what I knew to do, Kta.”
Kta drank the rest of the soup as if he tasted nothing at all and set the cup aside. Then he sat quietly, his jaw knotted with muscle and his lips quivering. It passed.
“My poor friend,” said Kta at last. “I know. I know. There was a time I was not sure. I am sorry. Go to sleep.”.
“Upon that?”
“What would you have me say?”
“I wish I knew,” Kurt said, and set his cup aside and laid his head on the blankets again. The warmth had settled into his bones now, and the aches began, the fever of burned skin, the fatigue of ravaged nerves.
“Yhia eludes me,” Kta said then. “Kurt, there must be reasons. I should have died, but they, who were in no danger of dying, they died. My hearth is dead and I should have died with it, but they-That is my anger, Kurt. I do not know why.”
From a human Kurt would have dismissed it as nonsensical; but from Kta, it was no little thing-not to know. It struck at everything the nemet believed. He looked at Kta, greatly pitying him.