On Blue's waters

“Yes.” He looked around cautiously at the other boats as he spoke, his reptilian eyes gleaming in the Greenlight; and I wondered why he should be afraid that the people on them might hear him, when I knew that Seawrack could not. “They still have quite a few empty places, too. About half, a woman told me, even though their town is full of men who have come to make the trip.”

“What sort of a town is it? A real town like New Viron? Or is it more like this?” By a gesture I indicated the huts at the water’s edge.

He grinned. “It’s more like one of ours, Father dear. You won’t like it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Why should I tell you and have you call me a liar to my face?”

“You are a liar, Krait. You know that much better than I do.”

He shrugged and looked angry.

“Did you talk to He-hold-fire?”

“No. Just to whoever was still awake and willing to trade a bit of gossip with me.” He watched me silently, weighing me in scales that I could not even imagine. “Are we going to take Seawrack with us?”

I hedged. “Let’s hear what she has to say. I don’t think she wants to go.”

“She wants to do what you want her to do. Why force her to guess what it is you want?”

“Then I won’t. I won’t take Babbie, either. This whole continent seems to be covered with trees.” I was thinking of Babbie living the natural life of his kind in the forest. I did not know whether there were wild hus on Shadelow, but it certainly seemed like a place where he could live happily.

“Was it like this around Pajarocu?”

“More so. The trees are bigger up the river. Bigger and older, and not so sleepy.”

“Then I’ll let him go. Free him. Why shouldn’t he be happy?”

“I should’ve told you we can’t take him anyway. No animals. You could sell him to somebody there, perhaps.”

I shook my head. Babbie was my friend.

“Seawrack’s going to be the problem. I don’t think you realize it yet, Horn, but she is.”

I wanted to say that she had not been a problem until he came, that she had helped me in all sorts of ways, but it would have been such an obvious opening for him that at the last moment I did not speak.

“An aid and a comfort.” He grinned again, fangs out. “Don’t jump like that. I can’t read your mind. I read your face.”

“You saw the truth there,” I told him. “How do we get to Pajarocu?”

“I know something about human ways, as you’ve seen. But you, being human, not only know them but understand them. Or so I assume.”

“Sometimes,” I said.

“Sometimes. I like that. Have I ever told you how much I like you, Horn?”

I nodded. “More often than I’ve believed it.”

“I do. The thing that I like is that I can never tell when you’re being truthful. Most of you lie constantly, as Seawrack does. A few of you are practically always truthful, this Silk you like to talk about would seem to have been one of those. Both are boring, but you aren’t. You make me guess over and over.”

I asked what his own practice was, although I knew.

“The same as yours. That’s another reason to like you. Seriously now, you need to think about your woman, not as I would but as you would. She’s a human being, exactly as you are. Don’t settle for an easy answer and put it out of your mind.”

“I do that too much.”

“I’m glad you know it.”

I sat on the gunwale. “What is it you’re trying to get me to say? That I need your advice?”

“I doubt that you do. I merely think that you haven’t thought as much as you should about the situation she’ll face, left alone in Pajarocu.”

“She’ll have Babbie to protect her.”

“So much for a life of woodsy freedom. You wanted to know how to get there. Up the river, right at the first fork and left at the second. I know that’s not what your map shows, but I followed the rivers to get back here. That’s it, and a long fly it was.”

“Do you think they’ll let three of us, all supposedly from New Viron, have places on the lander?”

Krait nodded. “It’s barely half full, I told you that, and they’ll want to go before winter, since nobody’s likely to come after the bad weather sets in. The ones who are there already are getting impatient, too. If they wait much longer, they’ll be losing more than they gain.”

Evensong came. This time I watched her slip through my window. When peace returns (if it does) I’m going to have another sentry in the garden. Or bars on these windows. Bars would be more practical, I suppose, but I cannot forget how I hated the bars on the windows of my manse.

I told her that it would be hours yet, and I wanted to get a few hours sleep before we went out. She said she did, too, but her sister-wives would not let her. She asked who would wake us when it was time, and I told her I would wake myself.

As I now have. We will go soon. I will wake Evensong and give her the note I have prepared, a blank piece of paper with a seal. She will leave by the window, bring her note to the sentry at my door, and demand to be admitted. He will refuse. I will open my door (pretending that their voices have awakened me), look at her paper, get dressed, and leave with her. We will meet the head gardener at the lower gate.