Singer From The Sea by Sheri S. Tepper part two

“So you’ve been below with your destiny, have you?” she asked, with a sidelong glance at Genevieve “You look like drowned cat. I’ve beni waiting for you to come back from following your road.”

“It was a deep, dark sea-road, Awhero, and I don’t know how long it took.”

“Last we saw of you was four days ago.”

She gasped. It hadn’t seemed . . . “Is Aufors all right?”

“He’s over there in camp, and no, I wouldn’t say all right, exactly. His body’s most recovered. I told him you’d be back, but he’s turned odd. All of sudden he’s got strangeness in him about you and Dovidi.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I knew what it meant, it wouldn’t be strangeness, girl.” She puckered her lips, thinking better of what she had been going to say. “He was rambling on and on about fish!”

Genevieve wrinkled her forehead in thought. “Are you and the other malghaste free to move about, Awhero?”

“Only three of us still here: all of us but Melanie, Joncaster, and me slipped away to Galul soon after we got here. The three of us left can move around, yes, and those Aresians are letting us alone. We all said Marshal misunderstood what he heard, that all you knew about was where P’naki was to cure fever, that’s all.”

“What about the Marshal? Has he been volunteering any more information?”

“Delganor got at him, and they’re keeping their mouths shut now, still trying to wriggle out of trap they’re in.”

“Still trying to bluff the Aresians? I thought by now the Chieftain would’ve started torturing people.”

“They have done that. Ogberd, he started with old Ybon, Shah’s minister. I’m told they set hot iron to him, and minute it touched him, he died, just like that. These real old ones, they’re kind of like dried flowers. Touch them and they fall apart.”

Genevieve made a face. “Well, then, there’s no time to waste. Those of you who were at the standing stone, take Aufors and go out to that Frangian ship . . .”

“We can’t get at Aufors now. Ogberd, he has Aufors under guard, just in case you come back.”

Genevieve sighed. “Never mind, then. The rest of you go. And you tell the Captain to sail around to the east side of that first, rocky island and make the ship fast close inshore.”

“Then what?”

“Just wait. You’ll know.”

The old woman nodded. “I’ll take baby . . .”

“No,” Genevieve said in a very quiet voice. “Dovidi will be quite all right with me.”

The guard outside the Chieftain’s tent was the first to see Genevieve walking across the sands toward the encampment. Within moments, the Chieftain and all three sons were outside under the shade of the tent flap, watching her approach.

“Shall I send some men out?” muttered Ogberd.

“She’s already headed in this direction,” said Terceth in a voice that sounded worried, even to him. “Just let her come. Get a chair for her. Let’s start with courtesy, at least.”

The Chieftain sneered at this but let it pass.

When she came near enough, Terceth went out to walk with her. “Marchioness.”

“You may call me Genevieve,” she said. “I’ve come with a message for you.”

“You are in great danger,” he whispered.

“We all are,” she murmured as they came to the tent where the others waited. Terceth offered her a chair in the shade of the tent flap, which she accepted gratefully. The sand was hot, and her sandals were full of sharp grains. The men watched, bemused, while she took off the sandals and emptied them out. She took notice of the arrangements, betimes. The Marshal and the Prince were at the rear of the tent, guarded but unfettered, both of them glaring at her with hot eyes. Though she saw that the Marshal held the Prince’s clenched fist with both his hands, and though she guessed what was in that fist, she ignored them for the present.

“I’ve come with a message,” she repeated.

“What message?” asked the Chieftain.

“Before I can deliver it,” she said, “I must be sure we speak the same language.”