SAILING TO T'ERESTAI
~*~The boat of the sun rode high, casting its rays on the water. The boats of Tempestas Straits rode a swift wind, sails of silver and sapphire and onyx stretched taut on the limber masts, oars shipped and sailors praising the gods and goddess who saw fit to ease their labors. The Ard Rhighan's ship sailed in the center of its guard of lesser vessels. Here away from the land, a month's leisurely sail and it's splendour was veiled. Its decks were covered over with mattings of reeds, its crew in plain kilts or in nothing at all. Its passengers idled where there was room. Or leaned over rails to watch the foaming of the wake, or else to give tribute to the gods of the sea.~*~
~*~Taliennse, who was ne'er seasick, spared a moment's pity for the exquisite young courtiers who were trying to vomit their vitals into the water. Since they had long since cast up anything they could have eaten for the past handful of days, they had nothing more to offer the sea-gods, and they were as displeased as one might expect.~*~
"There now," said a friend with the callousness of the hale for the wretchedly sick,"that'l pay all of yea for agoing ashore at Caveat Cove. Only way to cure the seasickness is to stay at sea. Stay aboard for a month or two this time, and yea'll actually want to live again,mates!!"
~*~The sufferers might have murdered him, but they lacked the strength. Their tormentor went off laughing. Taliennse stayed to hold one boy's head, a favour that he did nae appreciate. She did nae trouble to tell him that she wast working a small magick on him. Nae much,nae enough to defy the sea-gods, but it got him off the rail and into the cabin he shared with the rest of the eunuchs. It would put him to sleep eventually, and when he woke, if the gods were kind, they would be at anchor in the the capitol's harbor.~*~
"We'll raise the mouth of Cydnus in the morning," said Timoleon, dropping it seemed , from the sky. He was as naked as a newt and brown all o'er, and clean only by virtue of his having fallen recently from the masthead into the sea. There were new calluses on his hands,and blisters half-healed on his feet. He was gloriously happy. "And then tis up Cydnus and anchor near the Tor, and show the bloody Avernian delegation what Folcuth thinks of them!!"
"Yea will nae be showing your nut-brown backside," Taliennse said. "Twill be decently covered and facing away from them, and yea wilt be remembering that yea art a gentleman and nae a sailor's pup!"
~*~He looked mutinous, but he had had the lecture on mutiny;Taliennse had heard it. She had nae known that the Queen's oarsmen could be so eloquent. "Aye,Mother," he said, which was also a consequence of his sojourn with the sailors. They were in awe of her;unlike Apollonius, they knew the goddess, and believed wholeheartedly in magick.~*~
~*~She was only glad that someone had found a way to civilize her son. Maybe, she thought, she should leave him with the sailors to serve in Archos Zyan's navy. He would leap at the chance. But whate'er his father might think, she had some small sense of responsibility to her rank and station. Timoleon might grow later to command ships, but he would ne'er be simply an oarsman in one.~*~
"Is the Rhighan ill?"
"Eden is ne'er seasick.nor tis the Ard Rhighan,"she said."She is in the cabin, keeping the Teirs company."
"Archos Torbrand and Archos Edain art as sick as dogs," said Timoleon. "They art dragon, e'en if only half. Crystal Dragons of such bloodline want to rule the worlds, but they do nae understand the sea much at all. Tis a curse, Gyges says." Gyges was one of his friends, the enormous Amrothvian with the copper rings in his ear. Taliennse had half dreaded to find a slave ring like it in Timoleon's own ears, but so far he had forgone that tribute. "Gyges saith Dragondom hates the sea, and the sea hates them right back. Tis why they want us to give them ships. They know that we aren't sea-cursed."
"And how do yea know tis ships they want?"Taliennse inquired.
"Oh, everybody knows that,"said Timoleon.
~*~Everybody probably did. Twas Taliennse's firm conviction that the people knew what their princes wanted before the princes were even aware that they wanted anything. The people lacked magick in themselves sometimes, but in their aggregate they had more real power than a temple of priests and seers. She drew a long breath of air that smelled of salt and sun and the sea. The rail was warm under her hands, its gilding protected beneath a wraping of mats, the woven reeds both prickly and smooth. They remembered the Fylorn River, the great slow river that was one of the lifeblood vewins of Folcuth and the wellspring of its magick. While she travelled the sea on this ship with the Teirs out of Folcuth, she was a part of it still. Twas nae as it had been in the outer realm near the Citadel of Storms, that cold alien place, e'en with queens and goddess to be her strength. Here, on this ship, was still Folcuth.~*~
~*~Here Taliennse was strong, with the sun in her eyes and the wind in her hair. She drew up magick out of the deck beneath her feet--cedar from Morvain and pines from the Thebaid and Castlefyre, but matted with reeds and moss and full of Folcuth---and gave it wings, and sent it up like a prayer into the sun. When she remembered earth again, Timoleon's eyes were round.~*~
"I ne'er saw yea do THAT before! Will yea do it again?"
"Nay," said Taliennse. She snared him before he could escape, and sent him cabinward. "Now, in with yea! Sailor's pup or no, yea'll have thy hour of Lavintu, and no mutiny." Since that was just what he had been contemplating, it silenced him conclusively. But then he liked the tutor whom he was sharing with the Teirs, who though a eunuch had, the sailors whispered, borne arms in Archos Zyan's warhost. That was enough to keep Timoleon in hand, even if Rhodon would nae confirm nor deny the rumour. In fact,'twas true. But Rhodon was modest, and a scholar. He was nae proud to have found fighting so congenial.
~*~Timoleon went off to his hour of slavery's etiquette of the Master to the prize. Taliennse stayed in the sun while it lasted, and when it went down, went reluctantly to wait on the Queen Regnant, Eden Grey-Eyes.~*~
~*~The Grey-Eyes was nae in one of her better moods. Junior Queen or no,she would fret o'er her Lord Master's sons' dispositions, and no matter that she knew exactly what it was. Her pacing and snarling aggravated their sickness;no one but Taliennse was bold enough to say so. Taliennse was nae one to be flayed by looks nor e'en words. She was the Chatelaine of the Ard Rhighan and the Ard Rhi entrusted her guidance in household problems. She got the younger Queen out of the boys' cabins and into her own, where her maids and ladies-in-waiting could tend her. Eden Grey-Eyes was no more grateful than one might expect.~*~
"All our wealth, all our knowledge, all our Power, and we cannae even comfort a seasick child!"
"That is to keep us humble.M'Lady," Taliennse said. She lent a hand with the Queen Regnant's long hair, taking it out of its knots and plaits and combing it, soothing her cousin as one soothes and strokes a cat. She hissed as a cat will, and showed claws, but Taliennse took no notice. "Thou shalt meet the King tomorrow," she said.
"If the winds and goddess allow," said Eden Grey-Eyes.
"They shall," Taliennse said. "They sail with us. DO yea nae feel them?"
"I feel nothing but that mine sister's sons art half Crystal Dragon, and that half, mixed with odd strains of blood, at sea, tis too much!"
And yet,Taliennse thought, she was calming slowly, waking to what Taliennse had known since they had left the southern realms. They were in the Goddess's hands. The air was full of it. The lamps swayed, casting shadows that seemed possessed of shape,birds and beasts, winged, furred, taloned, and one that, man-bodied, bared white teeth in a smile. Taliennse bent her head in respect to that oldest of all the guardians of her HOuse of s'Ahelas, guardian inded of all who walked the paths of magick and of the dead. While he was with her she had no fear; and he had been close to her, in and out of her shadow, since she set foot upon this ship.
The Queen's breath hissed like the snake of shadow that seemed for a moment to crown her. "Ah, so HE has come. No wonder yea laugh at mine nonsense."
Taliennse did nae deny it. Eden Grey-Eyes nodded to him;less deeply than Taliennse had. "My lord," she said. Maybe he bowed in return. Maybe his eyes, sulfur-coloured and perfectly alien, granted her both indulgence and respect. She wast elvyn,but she wast more. He who was both Shadow and Carnal Silence knew her fully for what she was..and turned his attentions toward the other Fae of his acquaintance with a knowing glint to his eye.
BOOK II
