Song of the Abyss Page 5

  “I did not expect it,” she muttered, determined not to let him needle her. And, louder: “He’ll keep vigil today?”

  “And through the night.”

  Reyna stopped, forcing Caleb to do the same and to look down at her in annoyance. She said, “He hasn’t slept.”

  “I know.” For a brief moment in time, they shared a common interest, united in their concern for his captain. “It can’t be helped. He has to relieve the queen. There’s no one else.”

  She knew the custom. Tradition dictated that, until his burial, King Lamech must be watched over by a blood member of his immediate family. Queen Vashti or Levi. The queen’s husband could not do it, and her daughter was far too young for vigils. But Vashti had another brother . . .

  She said, “Where is Prince Asher?”

  “In Caffa. At university. A messenger was sent, but he won’t be home in time.”

  Reyna no longer heard him. They were nearing the opposite end of the harbor, where a familiar flag flew high above a galley. A del Marian galley, still too far away for her to tell what ship it was, or which captain sailed it. She looked away quickly, but Caleb did not see. He was frowning, not in the direction of the del Marian ship, but back where they had come from.

  Reyna glanced around to see the ass and cart that had passed them earlier. A man had grabbed hold of the donkey’s reins and was engaged in some sort of tirade against the little old lady who drove it. She was no timid thing. As the man growled at her—he might have objected to having his toes nearly trodden on by the donkey—she shook her fist at him and yelled right back. Onlookers tittered. When her fist came too close to his face, he grabbed it and yanked her high off the cart. Reyna heard a squawk, caught a glimpse of raggedy underskirts, before the woman was lost from view.

  “Oy!” Caleb shouted. He ordered Reyna to “Wait here” and shoved off through the crowd. The titters had turned to outrage. Pickpocketing was a way of life by the harbor, brawling was tolerated, but to abuse a granny?

  Reyna followed Caleb, keeping to the outskirts. A break in the crowd showed him kneeling beside the old lady, who clutched her ankle and grimaced in pain. Her attacker was face-down in the dirt. Another man kept him there by digging a knee in his back. Reyna looked at the del Marian galley. She looked at Caleb, gathering the woman in his arms. He will be a while, she thought, taking a step back, and another, losing herself in the crowd.

  * * *

  Reyna slipped into the church for the second time that day. Sunlight poured in through stained-glass windows. The pews were filled with parishioners deep in prayer. Incense hung in the air, along with the dust motes and smoke wisps trailing upward from a hundred lit tapers. She ventured up a back stairwell, which led her to a balcony overlooking the pews and altar. This was where the choir normally sang. Today she was relieved to find it empty.

  Niches lined the wall, each home to a stone statue about four feet high. Like the del Marians, the Lunesians had a patron saint for everything. The more important ones were displayed on pedestals below—saints for war and peace and trade. The lesser ones had been relegated here. She walked past saints protecting gravediggers, shepherds, and orphans, and another cluster for cobblers and beekeepers, before she found the saint she was looking for. A robed figure holding a book in one hand and an empty money purse in the other.

  Jeremiah, patron saint of poor students.

  A quick look over her shoulder confirmed that no one had followed her. Carefully, she nudged the statue aside and reached for the rolled parchment she had hidden hours before. No harm had come to her maps; they remained neatly secured with twine. She kissed them, tucked them into her carrier, and, after shifting the statue back into place, left the church the same way she had entered.

  * * *

  Reyna raced across the harbor just as the del Marian galley, the Violetta, prepared to sail off. The last of its mooring lines had fallen away.

  “Wait!” she cried, waving her arms above her head. “Stop!”

  Passersby chuckled, and someone commented that time and tide wait for no man. To her immense relief, they were wrong. A shipman halfway up the Violetta’s rigging spotted her first. He whistled down to the deck and pointed at her, and a moment later a row of faces peered over the rails. She recognized every one of them, including the bald, portly man formally dressed in del Marian green and silver. Captain Eustache. The recognition was mutual. Baffled surprise passed over his face before he shouted something across the deck. When the gangplank hit the dock, Reyna was waiting. Captain Eustache met her at the top, exclaiming, “Why, Lady Reyna! Where on earth did you come from?”

  “Captain Eustache.” Reyna paused to catch her breath, then beamed at him. “Sir, I am very happy to see you.”

  “And I you, my dear. But . . .” He looked past her to the harbor. “Who has come with you? Surely you’re not alone?” His men had gathered around him. One offered a waterskin, which she took with thanks.

  “There’s no one with me,” she answered after she’d drunk her fill and returned the skin. “I have news. Are you sailing home?”

  “We are,” Captain Eustache confirmed, his normally amiable expression turned sober at her words.

  “Do you have room for one more?”

  “As if you need ask. Come with me, my dear. We’ll have you settled, and you can tell me what’s happened.”

  The Violetta sailed from the harbor without incident. Reyna need not have feared Master Caleb coming after her; his attention would be on finding care for the old woman. Even so, she was no criminal to be hunted down. She had done nothing wrong, committed no crime. Levi had other concerns. He would forget her name quickly. Perhaps he had already.

  Lunes grew smaller. It was only when Captain Eustache touched her elbow and asked her if she was well did she realize he had been speaking to her. She had not heard a word he’d said. Offering her apologies, she turned away from Selene, and its harbor, leaving behind a kingdom deep in mourning.

  Six

  THE Violetta SAILED into Cortes early in the day, though Del Mar’s capital city had been awake for hours. Reyna stood alone at the railing, where she could hear the clamor of harborside life. Merchants, food sellers, and street thieves earning their living. The harbor was shaped like a half-moon. Ships moored along docks that extended from the waterfront like long wooden fingers. From there, the streets wound their way, ribbon-like, up to the castle high on the hill. A round castle, not square, it had always reminded her of an immense white cake.

  A pleasant breeze blew tendrils free from her braid. If she inhaled deeply, she could smell the aromas coming from the food stalls. Mussels, clams, and scallops. Delicate, flaky pastry bursting with pork and raisins. Sea serpent cooked over an open fire, and juice from the pomegranate, fresh and sweet. The anticipation of it all made her mouth water. There was nothing like the food from del Mar. She had been a year away from it.

  Captain Eustache joined her at the rails. “It’s good to be back?”

  Behind them, the crew busied themselves in preparation for the customs inspector who approached, puttering closer in a smaller boat.

  “I’ve missed the food” was her honest reply. Abruptly she remembered her captured shipmates on the Simona, who might not be eating anything at all. Her dreams of food and drink felt frivolous. Thoughtless.

  The captain did not see her shame. He chuckled. “Yes, the food is what brings us home again and again,” he agreed, then sobered. “How may I help you, Lady? You’ll have to make a report to Admiral Maira, I imagine. I could escort you?”

  Reyna grimaced at the thought of the admiral. “I need to go home first.”

  A moment of confusion on his part. “To Alfonse?”

  “To the tower.” Her gaze was drawn northward, where the Tower of Winds, home to the School of Navigation, loomed high as part of the castle. Some would think it strange. Her family owned a grand estate in the southern city of Alfonse. But she considered the tower her home, and her small chamber within
held everything she most needed in the world.

  The captain said, “I suppose Lord Braga will take care of matters. Well. Our ship is in port for the next two weeks. You’ll tell him I’m at his service?”

  Reyna smiled. “I will. I’m grateful for your help, Captain.”

  “I’ve not done much.”

  “You saved my maps,” she reminded him.

  “You saved your maps, and they were well worth saving,” the captain said with a glance at her carrier. “It stops my heart to think of what you went through to bring them here. Finned lions indeed.”

  The customs boat pulled up beside them. Not long after, the inspector appeared on deck, a humorless-looking man clutching an oversize ledger to his chest. Captain Eustache sighed. He went to attend to his unwelcome visitor, grumbling about death and taxes.

  * * *

  After refusing the captain’s offer of a carriage, or even a horse, Reyna set across the harbor on foot. She brought nothing with her except her map carrier. There was nothing to bring. She slowed her steps to watch a fish seller who had attracted a crowd by tossing a large carp to his son a dozen feet away. Back and forth the poor fish went, passed overhead and underhand, each successful catch met with a rousing cheer. Briefly, she wondered what acrobatics had to do with the selling of fish. Both father and son were strapping men with big grins and no shirts, and on closer inspection, Reyna realized the onlookers consisted mostly of women, young and old. She smiled to herself and walked on. Moments later, she passed another seller, whose shellfish and eels were displayed in neat, attractive rows, but who had no customers. The stooped old merchant gazed morosely across the way at his competitor. This merchant still wore his shirt. Reyna continued on, no longer smiling and vaguely indignant on the poor man’s behalf. It was not enough anymore to simply catch your fish and bring it to market. The competition was too great. You must also have an act. And a muscled chest never hurt.

  She stopped when she saw the queue of men and women by the geographers’ booth. An unexpected lump formed in her throat. What she had told Captain Eustache wasn’t the complete truth. Food was not all that she had missed while she’d been away.

  Master Luca manned the booth this morning, a gruff-looking man nearing thirty, spectacles perched on his nose. He was similarly dressed to the people standing in the queue, more like a common shipman than a royal geographer, one of del Mar’s finest. Jaime sat next to him, recording figures in an open ledger. A woman attempted to sell them a globe she claimed had once belonged to the first Bushido king, who had ruled to the east a thousand years ago. Master Luca was having none of it.

  “. . . must think I’m an idiot. A thousand years? More like a week. Look, the paste is still wet. What say you, Jaime? Jaime!”

  Jaime’s head snapped around. He’d been caught blowing a kiss to the fruit seller’s daughter two booths over, a pretty girl whose father’s back was turned as he helped a customer. Reyna could not prevent a lifetime habit; she rolled her eyes. Jaime gave Master Luca a sheepish grin and looked past him . . . and that was when he saw Reyna.

  Jaime’s eyes widened. Brown eyes, heavily lashed. They were the envy of his sisters. He startled those nearest him with a shout and vaulted over the booth. The queue scattered out of his way.

  “Jaime!” She flung her arms around his neck and laughed as he swung her around in dizzying circles. Nothing about him had changed. His arms were strong. His hair needed trimming. A ruby, a speck only, glinted at his ear. He smelled of paint and parchment and home.

  “We weren’t expecting you!” Jaime exclaimed, his grin as wide and as silly as hers. “You didn’t send word!”

  “I wanted to surprise you!”

  Master Luca cleared his throat. He had remained by the booth. Someone had to; a significant amount of coin lay behind it in a locked box. In his arms was the ledger Jaime had thrust at him.

  She walked up to him. “Sir,” she said.

  Master Luca smiled. “Reyna. Welcome home.” He handed the ledger back to Jaime and opened his arms wide. She walked into them. He held her tight for a moment, then asked quietly, “What’s wrong?” He had seen something in her expression that told him all was not well.

  She stepped away and, conscious of those listening all around them, said, “Uncle is well. He sends his greetings. But I have other news. None of it good.”

  * * *

  “How much of this work is your own?” Lord Braga said after studying her maps and reading her reports.

  Offended, Reyna answered, “All of it,” and when the royal navigator glanced across the desk, one eyebrow raised, insisted, “Uncle Ginés didn’t lift a finger to help. I wouldn’t even let him sharpen the quills. This is my work entirely.”

  She was back in the Tower of Winds, her work spread out upon Lord Braga’s massive, cluttered desk. Too restless to take the chair he had offered, she stood opposite him. He was a big man—tall, not fat—with a bald head and a black, broomy mustache. As royal navigator, he oversaw the kingdom’s network of geographers, mapmakers, pilots, instrument makers, and apprentices. Reyna, at seventeen, was no longer an apprentice and not quite a master, but occupied that small space in between, accepting any task given to her. A general Tower of Winds dogsbody. Until this man decided she was deserving of something more.

  Her work was only a small part of an ambitious project, the first of its kind. The humbly titled Braga’s Geography, when it was completed, would be a massive tome, a compilation of maps of every del Marian possession, near and far. And not only maps, but studies of the people inhabiting those possessions, societies living under del Mar’s rule. Who they were, how they lived, their customs, their traditions. Anything that could be gleaned from a year living among them. Reyna had been assigned the province of Aux-en-villes, a territory famous for the pearls that blanketed its riverbeds and lakebeds.

  Lord Braga had moved on to another map. Without looking up, he said absently, “How is your uncle?”

  “Very well.” Reyna passed him a letter sealed with red wax. It had been tucked in with her maps behind the statue of St. Jeremiah. “He sends his regards.”

  Lord Braga set aside the map. Wax crumbled to the desk as he broke the seal. He read the letter, chuckling once, snorting twice. Reyna waited and tried not to let her discomfort show. She never entered this chamber unless summoned. It made her sad. It picked at the stitches that kept her grief contained.

  She had passed her childhood in this room while her grandfather worked. Learning by listening and watching. Occasionally permitted to help. After Lord Silva’s death, Lord Braga had been named royal navigator. He had transformed the space so that it bore little resemblance to her grandfather’s neat, tidy work chamber. The furniture was different, the chairs and desk grander to accommodate Lord Braga’s frame. The maps on the walls had been exchanged for others. But Lord Braga smoked the same sort of pipe her grandfather had once favored, and the aroma of cloves and cinnamon permeated the air. Invoking memories she’d tried very hard to forget.

  Lord Braga finished reading and said, “He makes no mention of returning home.”

  Her Uncle Ginés never did, though Lord Braga brought it up every time he read one of his letters. “I don’t think he will.”

  A frown. “He has responsibilities here.”

  “He doesn’t neglect them. The estate is looked after,” she reminded him. There was a steward in Alfonse, and an army of servants. “So am I. Del Mar is not his home any longer, Lord Braga.”

  Sighing, Lord Braga tossed the letter aside and propped his boots onto the desk. He was handsomely turned out in a quilted brocade tunic as black as his boots. Sunlight poured through an open window, glinting off the two small gold hoops that pierced one ear. A single gold chain looped around his neck, at the end of which hung a miniature sandglass the length of her thumb. He said, “It was fortuitous, Elias finding Ginés when he did. We hadn’t heard from him in years. I confess I didn’t think he was still among the living.”

 
It was the first time Lord Braga had said these things to her, in this mystified way. Perhaps he sensed he was missing a part of some untold story. Which he was, but her uncle’s tale was not hers to tell. When she did not answer, Lord Braga said, “Has he been good to you?”

  “Yes.” At Lord Braga’s doubtful expression, she gestured toward the maps. “I would not have been able to do this if he had not taught me how. I couldn’t have asked for a better teacher.”

  “Are we speaking of the same man? The Ginés I knew would never have had the patience to take on an apprentice.” Lord Braga folded his hands across his middle. Still a geographer’s hands despite his lofty title. No rings in sight, only ink splotches and stubborn flecks of green paint. “Especially a girl.” He spoke as though he were trying to work through some complicated puzzle.

  Reyna offered a feeble “People change.”

  “That much?” Lord Braga’s boots thumped back to the floor. “I don’t mean to insult the man. Maybe I’m envious. I didn’t expect Ginés, of all people, to turn out one of my best students.”

  Reyna smiled. “Better than Jaime?”

  Lord Braga laughed. Jaime was his son. “Safer if I don’t answer.” He gathered her maps and notes into a crooked stack. “These are well done. A worthy addition for our book.”

  “I’m glad.” Taking a deep breath, Reyna thought it was now or never. “I hoped we could discuss my masterwork.”

  His brows shot up. “You’re seventeen only.”

  A masterwork was required before one could be elevated to master geographer. It could be anything: a map, a globe, a discovery, an invention. A final project for the current masters to examine and consider.

  “Nearly eighteen,” she countered. “Lord Elias and Master Luca were both eighteen when they began their masterworks. I’m not that far off.”