She would reach Sarantium, he judged-see the City, as he himself never had-but he could see no joy in her doing so. There had been only death waiting at home, though, the certainty of it, and she was young enough-she was terribly young enough-to cling to life, and whatever hope it might offer in the face of the waiting dark, or the light of her god that might follow.
His gods were different. He was so much older. The long darkness was not always to be feared, he thought. Living on was not an absolute good. There were balances, harmonies to be sought. Things had their season. The same journey in a different cloak, he thought. It was autumn now, in more ways than the one.
There had been a moment on board, watching Batiara disappear in greyness off the stern, when he had seen her weighing whether or not to try seducing him. It had wrung his heart. For Gisel in that moment, for this young queen of a people not his own, he might even have surmounted all the inward matters of his own, truths apprehended in his soul, and sailed on to Sarantium.
But there were powers greater than royalty in the world, and he was travelling to meet one now in a place he knew. His affairs were in order. Martinian and a notary had the necessary papers. His heart had quailed at times once the decision had come to him-only a fool, vainglorious, would have denied that-but there was no least shadow of doubt in him as to what he had to do.
He had heard an inward cry earlier this autumn, a known voice from the distant east, unimaginably far. And then, some time after, a letter had arrived from Martmian’s friend, the artisan to whom he had given a bird. Linon. And reading the careful words, discerning the meaning beneath their ambiguous, veiled phrasing, he had understood the cry. Linon. First one, little one. It had been a farewell, and more than that.
No sleep had come to him the night that letter came. He had moved from bed to high-backed chair to farmhouse doorway, where he stood wrapped in a blanket looking out upon the mingled autumn moonlight and the stars in a clear night. All things in the shaped world-his rooms, his garden, the orchard beyond, the stone wall, the fields and forests across the ribbon of road, the two moons rising higher and then setting as he stood in his open doorway, the pale sunrise when it came at last-all things had seemed to him to be almost unbearably precious then, numinous and transcendent, awash in the glory of the gods and goddesses that were, that still were.
By dawn he had made his decision, or, more properly, realized it had been made for him. He would have to go, would fill his old travelling pack again-the worn, stained canvas, Esperanan leather strap, bought thirty years since-with gear for the road and with the other things he would have to carry, and begin the long walk to Sauradia for the first time in almost twenty years.
But that very same morning-in the way the unseen powers of the half-world sometimes had of showing a man when he had arrived at the correct place, the proper understanding-a messenger had come from Varena, from the palace, from the young queen, and he had gone to her.
He had listened to what she told him, unsurprised, then briefly surprised. Had taken thought as carefully as he could for Gisel-younger than his never-seen daughters and sons, but also older than any of them might ever have to be, he mused-and pitying her, mastering his own grave meditations and fear, his growing awareness of what it was he had done long ago and was now to do, he gave her, as a kind of gift, the plan for her escape.
Then he asked if he might sail with her, as far as Megarium.
And here, now, he was, the watched ship heeling already away to the south across the line of the wind and the white waves, the driven rain cold in his face. He kept the pack between his feet on the stone jetty, wise to the ways of harbours. He wasn’t a young man; waterfronts were hard places everywhere. He didn’t feel afraid, though; not of the world.