Rap wondered if soft brains were a necessary qualification for minstreling. He could see no connection between singing and causeway crossing, and very little resemblance to horse calling. This Jalon was a fine bard, but any man who let his horse wander away from him unintentionally in this country had clearly lost a few nails somewhere. Perhaps it went even farther than that. He might be a total lunatic.
“I call the horses’ names, sir. They all know me and they trust me. I admit I wasn’t sure about calming the stallion . . . he does sort of like me, I think. The causeway story must have been exaggerated. The tide was coming in, but there was no danger.”
“So you can call mares away from a stallion?” Jalon nodded ironically. “Of course. You can journey where others can not. Kings are reprimanded for their treatment of you? Princesses want you to hold their hands…” He suddenly seemed depressed. “Is there anything I could ever possibly offer that would persuade you to share with me? I have wider resources than are presently apparent.”
“Sir?” Rap could make no sense of the conversation at all.
The minstrel shrugged. “Of course not! And why would you trust me? Would you be so kind as to call Sunbeam? I have far to go before dark.”
Rap hoped the man would not try to ride his horse until then. He would lame her for certain. But that was not Rap’s affair. He called Sunbeam over and adjusted her girths again and replaced the saddlebag. “I thank you for a fine lunch, minstrel,” he said.
“May the Gods go with you.”
Jalon was still looking at him oddly. “Darad!” he said.
“Sir?”
“Darad,” repeated the minstrel. “There is a man called Darad. Remember the name. He is very dangerous and he will learn of you.”
“Thank you for the warning, sir,” Rap said politely.
Not just nails—the man was missing a few shoes, as well.
5
All things include Both the Evil and the Good.
Inos repeated that sacred text a hundred times, but she still could not find the good in seasickness. It had to be totally evil. She desperately wanted to die.
The cabin was cramped and loathsome. It was smelly and dirty and dark. It went up. It went down. It rolled and it pitched. For two days she lay and suffered abominably. Aunt Kade was infuriatingly immune to seasickness, and that fact helped Inos no more than her aunt’s twittering attempts to cheer her up.
In the beginning was nothing. She sought help in religion, there being no earthly help in sight except hopefully a shipwreck and fast drowning. The Good parted from the Evil and the Evil parted from the Good. Just as she had so promptly parted from the mouthful of soup she had been persuaded to try. The world is created in Their eternal conflict. Certainly there was an eternal conflict going on inside Inos.
On the third day she began to feel a little better.
At times.
But not for long.
The slightest change in the motion of the ship and she was back in total evil again.
But there must be some trace of the Good in seasickness, for the sacred words said so. Perhaps it was humility. Fat, twittery Aunt Kade was a far better sailor than she was. Meditate on that. The God had said there were hard times in store, but she had never dreamed that times could be so hard as these. Only we have free will, only humankind can choose the Good and shun the Evil. What choice had she ever made that had landed her in this? Only we, by finding the greater good, can increase the total good and decrease the total evil in the world.
Start by abolishing seasickness.
Slowly iife began to seem a possible option again. Slowly Inos started contemplating her future in Kinvale. Her father had gone there once, as a young man. He had promised that she would enjoy herself—year-round riding there, he had said, and good parties. Even Jalon had spoken well of life in the Impire, although he did not know Kinvale itself. Perhaps, she thought in her better moments, perhaps it might be bearable. It was only for a year, after all.
On the fourth morning, she awoke feeling ravenous. Aunt Kade was not in her bunk. Throwing on thick wool sweater and slacks, Inos prepared to meet the world again. Now she could accept that there was indeed a small good in seasickness—it felt so marvelous when it stopped. Greatly comforted that her religion had not been discredited, she headed for the deck.
She was horrified. The world was a heaving grayness. There was no sky, no land, only hilly green-gray water dying away into haze in all directions. The ship had shrunk. It seemed so pathetically tiny and cramped, a little wooden box under a cage of ropes and dirty canvas, riding up and down over those gray hills. The wind was icy and cruel and tasted of salt . . . not even a seagull.
Two sailors stood talking at the back of the ship, and there was no one else in sight. She felt a stupid wave of panic rising and suppressed it. The rest of them must be around somewhere, and Aunt Kade, also. She started toward the two sailors, discovering that walking on a rocking ship was not as easy as she had expected. The wind whipped her hair and made her eyes water, and she finally reeled up to them, grabbed the rail they were leaning on, and blinked tears away.
The tall one was holding the wheel and regarding her with interest displayed on those parts of a craggy, weatherbeaten face not totally concealed by silver-streaked whiskers. The other was extremely short, squat, and unbelievable in pants and a huge fur jacket . . . bareheaded, filmy white hair mussed beyond recognition by the wind, cheeks burning like bright red apples and blue eyes shiny with happiness.
“Inos, my dear! I am so glad to see you on your feet again.” Inos, looking around in horror at the featureless desert of water, was beyond speech.
“You will need a jacket, dear,” her aunt said. “The wind is quite chilly.”
Chilly? It was an ax.
Kade beamed encouragingly. “We are making excellent time—North Claw in four days, the master predicts. The air will be warmer when we reach Westerwater. ”
Inos’ teeth began to chatter. “I think I need some breakfast.” She hugged her arms around herself. “Perhaps they would have something down in the kitchen?”
“Galley, dear. Yes. Of course you must be starved. Let us go and see, then.”
“No need for you to come,” Inos said, “if you are enjoying yourself.”
“Of course I must come.”
“Of course?”
Aunt Kade assumed her most prim expression. “This is not Krasnegar any more, Inosolan. I am your chaperone and I must, look after you.”
A terrible suspicion washed over Inos’s mind. “You mean that you don’t let me out of your sight from now on?”
“That is correct, dear. Now let us see if we can find you some breakfast.”
The ship sailed on, but Inos’ heart sank . . . all the way to the bottom of the Winter Ocean.
There were worse things in store than seasickness.
Southward dreams:
The hills look over on the South,
And Southward dreams the sea;
And with the sea-breeze hand in hand,
Came innocence and she.
— Francis Thompson, Daisy
THREE
Clear call
1
“Why doesn’t something happen?” Inos demanded in an urgent whisper.
“Why should anything happen?” Aunt Kade replied.
Inos ground her teeth quietly, glaring hatred at her embroidery. They were sitting in the willow grove at Kinvale with many other ladies of quality, all sewing or crocheting or merely chatting in the heavy sunshine. It was afternoon in late summer and nothing was happening. Nothing, it seemed, ever happened at Kinvale. Nothing was supposed to-that was the whole idea.
“Besides,” her aunt continued placidly, “something did happen last night. You lost a brooch.”
That was a devastating and unwelcome truth, and an unusually pointed reproof from Aunt Kade. Inos was being as difficult as possible, but her pleasure at having punctured her aunt’s maddeningly constant good humor was spoiled in this instance by the reminder of her own stupidity. Losing a dearly loved heirloom did not compare with painting one tooth black and smiling excessively at dinner.
Embroidery was too intricate for Aunt Kade’s eyes. She was knitting some useless garment that would undoubtedly be given away to a servant as soon as it was finished. The process was important, the result was not. Inos was making a horrible mess of stitching a nosegay pattern on the corner of a linen kerchief and suffering acute agonies of frustration and boredom. She had been at Kinvale for a month. She would be there for nine or ten more months yet and nothing ever happened.