“We don’t,” she said, somewhat shamefaced. “But we learned to read and once one can read, one can learn anything. I know this ocean is a very large ocean, and when the great waves come spouting out of holes at us, or when I look across the reefs at the endlessness of it, it reminds me how tiny this boat is. I believe there are creatures in this sea far larger than this boat and more knowledgeable than we can imagine.”
He listened to only part of this. “It is a small boat,” he agreed. “And these are cramped quarters to grieve the loss of one’s love in.”
She laughed, almost gaily. “How could I lose what I didn’t even know I had? At school, when we talked of such things, it was never mentioned that one’s first kiss could also be the last!”
“Oh, come, come, now. Not the last, certainly.”
He patted her shoulder, while she thought privately that he was a good deal more sure of that than she was.
Two days later, early in the morning, they came into port at Headway, a shoreline town at the foot of the cliffs that made up the Head of Merdune. Garth rented a light carriage and a strong horse, and they set out at once for Weirmills, driving all day on the switchback road that took them to the heights overlooking the everlasting sea. At sunset they came up onto the top and looked down a long grassy slope to the Lake of the Eye. From the Eye a little stream ran away westward, scarcely more than a rivulet, but still the start of the Potcherwater, and on its near edge, sprawled untidily among its meadows, was a rural clutter of shabby barns, listing hayricks, and ill-mended fences.
“We will stay in that village tonight,” said Garth. “Tomorrow, only a few hours west, down the little Potcherwater, we will home to Weirmills.”
“There are people on the road,” said Genevieve. “See, coming toward us?”
There were two riders on the road. Genevieve stiffened. They looked . . . one of them looked . . . no, both of them looked familiar. But, who?
From afar, the figures spied them against the sky. One turned to the other, then whipped up his horse and came at a gallop while the other followed, more slowly.
“Who?” said Garth. “Who can that be?”
“Aufors,” she cried. “It’s Aufors.” She put her heels into the horse’s sides and he, nothing loath with oats and hay awaiting in the town, plunged recklessly down the road.
When Garth arrived, they were leaning from their horses, making a kind of bridge of embraces, which Garth gently disentangled as the other rider came up, a woman.
“You must be Genevieve,” said the newcomer. “My cousin.”
“And you,” said Genevieve, staring into a face that was only a slightly changed version of her own, a face with the same eyes, the same nose precisely. “You are Duchess Alicia’s daughter. Lyndafal.”
18: Nocturne
Night, cool, a small balcony open over the stable yard of a country inn. White curtains streamed into the room, blown by the night wind. The fire in the grate flared up, playing across the rose-brown skin of the woman by the hearth. The figure at the open balcony door closed it once more and resumed his seat by the fire. Aufors, with a worried face.
“So you were held captive by this man for how long?”
“I don’t know. There are no nights and days down there. A few days, I suppose.”
“Did he … hurt you?”
“Of course he hurt me,” she muttered, taking a deep breath. More calmly, she said, “And he humiliated me. I was tied up and not allowed to use a toilet. But he did no lasting damage.”
He nodded heavily, glancing at her lowered face from the corner of his eyes, wanting to ask a more specific question but deciding against it. “And then on the lagoon, there was a being who said you must go with Delganor?”
“If it was actually speaking, that is what I heard, yes.”
“A manlike being.” There was much he wanted to know about this being, but she seemed reluctant to speak of it. He had the feeling that if he pushed the matter, her fragile calm might be totally destroyed.