Chapter Three
INNEL LAY UNMOVING on the floor of the ship's cabin.
His lungs burned from inhaling riverwater, and there were rippling aches across his back and legs from the impact with the water after being snapped out of the rug into the air.
Now his mouth tasted of blood where Taba had hit him. Sharp pains were making themselves known where her boots had landed.
Taba had counted aloud, each hard kick. It was only when she had stopped, at seven, that he worked out what she had been enumerating. The years since Pohut had been alive.
For a time, Innel simply lay on the rocking wood floor of the ship, grateful to be unmolested by fist, foot, or river.
He was alive, and that was no small achievement. The usual outcome for a condemned traitor was execution. Instead he'd been smuggled out of the palace. Told not to come back.
Cern had spared him. He could draw no other conclusion.
Unless Cern had, rather, intended to deliver him into Taba's murderous hands.
But no, that did not hold. Sachare's tone with him in the boat had not been vindictive. Reluctant to help him, yes. Pitying, certainly. But there was no reason to think that Cern had intended her to send him to Taba, to die, rather than into exile.
A poor political move, in any case, though, releasing a traitor. It had no precedent in Anandynar history. It was a political mistake that would do Cern's rule no favors. It would, rather, embolden those moving against her.
Had Innel been able to advise her, he would have told her that a turncoat Royal Consort must die, and extravagantly, and that she could not be seen to be uncertain about it.
Despite the pain, his mind turned to the palace. What was happening to his daughter? To his queen? And would he ever find a way back?
Not if Taba killed him.
Taba.
He remembered that dark night. Just above freezing. He and Pohut fought wordlessly, brutally, in the frigid mud of a crooked lane in a small town.
Taba must have been crafting her vengeance every moment of the years since, but Innel had seen no sign of it, not in all those years.
Well, Taba was Cohort.
Innel gingerly rolled over onto his side and brought his tied wrists to his mouth, working the sodden, swollen knots with his teeth, at last managing to liberate his arms. He rubbed his wrists to restore feeling, then laboriously levered himself up, and climbed onto the bunk. He wrapped the blanket around his aching body and curled tight.
A familiar position, this. He and his brother had been beaten many times in the Cohort, before the mutt brothers had figured out how to make it stop.
Before the palace, the two boys had lived in a rural river valley of gentle people and playful children. Cohort life had been a shock.
He remembered lying as he was now, his brother on the bunk behind him, speaking softly and reassuringly until Innel's sobs subsided. Then they would discuss what had happened, ask questions, and reason together about what to do. Make plans.
Innel began to doze. He could almost hear Pohut's voice from behind him.
Vengeance is sought only by those who feel wronged, brother. What is her wrong?
"Something to do with you," Innel muttered.
As the light of dawn came through a brine-encrusted boarded-over window, Innel lost even that thought, falling into an uneasy slumber.
The door to the cabin opened. On the single chair, a sailor set a bowl of porridge and a jug of water.
Innel did not wait. The porridge was nearly tasteless, but he was hungry. Not having been offered anything else, he ate with his fingers, eyeing the sailor, who petted his scraggly beard, watching Innel in return.
When Innel had finished every morsel that finger and tongue could find, and drunk every drop of water, the sailor took the bowl and jug and went to the door.
"Wait," croaked Innel after him.
"Na," the man said, leaving. From the other side of the closed door, Innel heard a bolt drop.
The next time the sailor came, he brought two pieces of hardtack pressed together with a thin layer of suet. An unappealing meal, even by the standards of tower food to which Innel had recently become familiar.
He ate it all.
"Ya got the captain's attention real good," the sailor said, his tone both amused and curious. He chewed something, using his tongue to move it against his gums. Twunta. Maybe duca gum. "So who are ya?"
Innel blinked, inhaled, considered. It was not a question he was used to. For most of his life, he had been well-known, if not well-liked.
As for his clothes, they were nondescript. He rubbed his chin. He was shaggy with beard, the hair on his head crusted with days of lack of water and soap.
He certainly didn't look like he belonged in the palace. Who was he now?
A convicted traitor. An exile.
A man who had failed the most important task a man could hold: to keep his monarch, mate, and child safe from danger.
"I am no one," he answered softly.
The man grunted indifferently, then pulled from his pocket a length of jute rope.
"Hands."
Innel weighed his options. Healthy, he could take this sailor easily. In his current weakened and beaten state, the contest was much closer to even.
But even if he bested the sailor, this was Taba's ship, and it was on the ocean. Where was escape?
Nowhere.
After a long moment, Innel held out his hands.
Taba sat in front of him as he sat on the bunk. She smiled, her thick arms resting on the back of her reversed chair.
"Remember that one time," she said, fingers rising slightly, "when you and Pohut took out five of the Cohort boys right there in the hallway?" She chuckled. "You broke fingers. They whined for days. That's when I knew you'd both make it. Brother mutts, pretty as stallions, we used to say in the Girls' Quarters. We'd argue about who was prettier." She laughed, then clapped her hands to her thighs.
"I do remember that," Innel said, doing his best to summon an easy, jovial Cohort camaraderie, despite his hands tied tight behind his back. "We hid, waiting for them for hours, those five." He judged it a good moment to give credit. "But really, it was Pohut's idea. He—"
Her expression went blank. She had reach enough to hit him across the face with the back of her broad fist, without leaving the chair. Once, twice, three times.
Blood dripped from his nose into his lap. For a moment the only sound was his breathing.
"Who do you think you are?" she hissed. "I'll tell you who: you're a monster, that a far better man protected, a man you murdered."
Innel could not think of a good—let alone safe—answer to that.
Taba stood, kicked the chair aside, yanked him off the bunk by his hair, then slammed a fist into his gut. Innel doubled, gritting his teeth, stomach spasming.
"Come on, Taba," he choked out. "Hitting a tied man is easy. Untie me. Give me a fair chance."
For a moment, her expression turned ugly and he thought he'd said exactly the wrong thing. She pulled a knife, chuckling softly, then cut through the rope binding his wrists.
The ropes parted in one stroke. Easily.
He'd made a mistake, he realized, as she again hauled him upright. With him untied, she would feel even less restraint. But she still had a very sharp knife.
He had sparred with Taba across the years. She had always been big for a girl, and ready to get physical. So he knew her strengths and weaknesses, and recognized the flicker of her gaze across his body to various targets.
She was going to kill him.
"If I bleed out today, sister," he said urgently, "you'll miss me tomorrow."
Face tight with anger, she returned her knife to her belt, then gave him a familiar, amused look.
He let himself breathe.
She moved.
Years of Cohort training gave him the reflexes to twist as she came, her blow merely bruising. In moments they were both on the floor, struggling for holds. She gained a glancing hit to his sternum, then landed one on his still-spasming stomach.
Innel saw an opening. Her face. Her throat.
He hesitated. A disabling hit would buy him—what? More fury? This was still her ship.
The hesitation cost him; she kneed him dead-on in the groin.
Thought, reason, and the ability to respond fled. She followed the knee with a choke-hold. Innel struggled, but his body had been taxed too far, and he could not dislodge her.
A roaring in his ears, vision went dark.
When he returned to consciousness, Taba was gone.
She could have killed him right then, easily, but she had not. She wanted him alive. Why?
Taba visited him daily, and Innel gave up asking her why she beat him, because it only made the blows harder.
He was no longer kept bound all the time, but he grew weaker from the lack of sun, the paucity of food, and her daily and violent attention.
He sat there and took it. Again he considered fighting back, but it became increasingly difficult to find reasons to. Even if he broke free, there was nowhere to go, and nowhere to go back to.
After countless days, it became clear to him that she was pulling her punches. Aiming with more consideration. She didn't want to break him entirely. Saving him for something.
What?
Each day the sailor came to feed him, bringing warm water, poultices, bandages.
Beatings and healing overlapped. As the days went by, Innel lived covered in bruises, scabs, aches. Something always seeping.
One day, she almost told him why. He could see it in her eyes, feel it in the way she held herself, how she uncharacteristically hesitated before speaking. On her face, a fast flash of pain that changed to fury.
Then she lifted him, hurled him at the wall, the bunk, the floor, stomping on whatever parts of him failed to get out of the way in time.
When she left, he could not move without searing pain. This time, bones were cracked. A toe and forearm swelled rapidly.
Innel slipped into a fevered daze.
His sailor came, gave him duca gum and a paste that tasted like bad twunta, but helped.
"Why?" Innel asked as the pain eased enough to speak.
"Eh, it's the cheap stuff. I can spare it. And seems to me, whatever ya did, you've paid a few times over now."
Innel, in his sick, befuddled state, found himself shaking his head.
"Na," the sailor agreed. "She doesn't look anywhere near done. Get some rest while you can."
Innel muttered grateful thanks. The sailor left.
"Think I've paid enough yet, brother?" he asked the air.
The air didn't answer.
Innel felt the ship's motion change, then slow, then stop, followed by the sounds of loading and unloading.
Heading south, he guessed, from the warming air that found its way into his dank cabin. South to Perripur, along the trade route.
Daily, his sailor brought him food and water. And duca and twunta.
Each time, Innel eagerly pasted the bitter, forest-floor-tasting stuff onto his tongue. It eased the body pains, but the greater relief was the dulling inside, where the memories of his daughter had once lived.
His daughter. To her, he would never have even existed.
Which would matter only if she had survived.
Innel's world narrowed to the woman who daily sat a few feet in front of him.
She would talk, recounting past events, smiling fondly at some memory. Sometimes she would laugh.
Then she would hit him again.
Innel puzzled so many times over the why of this that when he finally figured it out, he felt a fool for having taken so long.
But then, given the foolishness that he had shown lately, why should he be surprised? Only a fool thought he wasn't one.
Innel was certain that he now knew why Taba sought vengeance against him for Pohut's death.
"Not death," he corrected himself aloud, annoyed. "It wasn't some accident or mishap. I killed you." He considered his words, wondering if they were as right as he could make them. "I have to say, though, she doesn't seem your type, brother."
He could imagine Pohut's laugh.
She wasn't quite this upset when I was around.
Innel chuckled, too. Pohut had been well-liked. Charming, when he set his mind to it.
"I imagine not."
Innel rolled over on the bunk, his mind going to his sailor, wondering whether the man might have anything stronger.
Innel's life fell into a routine.
In the mornings, his sailor would watch him eat porridge. If Innel were lucky, the bowl would include bits of gristly meat, or fish. Maybe scraps of cheese. Leftovers for the mutt.
Once the bowl was clean, the jug empty, Innel would wait. Quiet. Pleading.
"Eh, there. I got it for ya," his sailor might say, reaching into his pocket and bringing out the duca and twunta that had become the luxury of Innel's existence.
Innel found his eyes stinging at this gesture. He gave thanks, sometimes effusively, sometimes long after the sailor had left, the door bolted, when the blessed numbness came to him.
Pain waxed and waned, cresting with Taba's visits. There was no point in flinching or trying to avoid her blows, so he didn't. What did it matter? These pains were such small things when set against what Putar would have given, these losses meager compared to what he had already lost.
Gone. All gone.
He stared at the boarded-up window of his cabin. Daylight leaked in through hairline cracks.
"You used to say that the ladder goes up one rung at a time, brother," he said.
I did say that.
"But the fall. That comes all at once."
As Innel wiggled a loose tooth with his tongue, he recalled the tower room. How comfortable it had been. He laughed at how he had worried about the humiliation of execution.
Every time Taba came, Innel looked into her eyes, and saw Pohut there.
Every time she knocked him off the bunk, the gummy wood planking caught him in its dependable—if rough—embrace.
The days flowed together in a washed-out gray.
"I've lost my colors, brother," he said to Pohut, then laughed, amused, then wheezed. A cacophony of pain followed. "I don't even know what my colors are now. What are they?"
Looks to me like you wear the color of bruise and blood.
Taba was his calendar and clock. When she was due to visit, Innel felt it all through his body and wrapped himself tight in the wool blanket, waiting.
If she came late, he felt anxious, disappointed. A dog left alone too long.
Then she would come and do what she did and he would feel right again.
One day it changed. She walked in, turned the chair around, put her arms across the back, and did not speak.
He stared back, slack-jawed.
At last she drew from her vest a leather flask, uncorked it, took a long swallow. With an appreciative sound, she held the flask out to Innel.
Innel felt a sudden, intense craving for whatever the flask held. He restrained himself.
"Go on," she urged.
He took it hesitantly, tipped it into his mouth, and—oh! by the Fates—it was a black wine, heavy and potent and rich.
For a moment, fragments of his past life flashed through him: fine clothes, a shaved face. Good meals, taken for granted.
He held the liquid in his mouth until he could bear it no longer, then swallowed.
It was, without question, the best wine he'd ever drunk.
He lifted it to his lips again and froze.
It was Taba's. He guiltily offered the flask back to her.
"You finish it."
He watched her over a short, furtive sip, fearful that she would change her mind. Then he took a longer one. Then another. Each mouthful was a joy.
More flashes of his past washed over him, and he urged them to pass by quickly. Memory was the song of what was lost; he did not want to hear it.
Sip by sip, he emptied the flask, at last inverting it overhead, suspending it for whatever drops might yet be induced to fall. Then, with a sigh, he handed it back to her.
She returned it to her vest and brought out another thing, unwrapping a fine cloth to show slices of translucent, dirty-white resin.
"Go on," she said.
White qualan. He blinked in surprise and took it, breaking the slice in two with his fingers, stuffing half inside each cheek.
A bitter, exotic taste filled his mouth.
The room brightened. He stared at Taba, his beloved Cohort sister. Yes, his foot still throbbed, along with many other parts, but she had her reasons—good ones. Innel respected her.
They were Cohort, the two of them. Siblings. Always.
He loved her, he realized. Beyond reason. The room, dank and dark, was a blessing. Given his past, the dark better than the light. It comforted, like the blanket around his shoulders.
He stared at her. She was lovely. How had he never noticed before?
"Why?" she asked him.
"Why?" he repeated dumbly.
His mind was a mess and a muck, thoughts fleeing as soon as he caught a glimpse of them. He didn't want to disappoint her, so he cast about to find the question so that he could answer.
Ah, of course: Pohut. She wanted to know why he had killed his brother.
The reasons seemed a world away, but she was due an explanation. A true one, if he could manage it. He struggled, rooting around inside himself.
"He betrayed me," he said at last. "Well, I thought he had. But he hadn't, not really."
"No."
"He should have told me," Innel said.
There wasn't exactly time, brother. That night, you moved fast. Faster than I expected.
Was that pride in Pohut's voice at his younger brother's ability? Innel gave a surprised laugh, but a moment later forgot why.
Taba was watching him closely, assessingly.
His thoughts flitted around like gnats. Hard to catch. Hard to hold. He blinked, trying to focus. What had they been talking about?
"We're days from port, Innel," she said. "My plan was to kill you now. Dump your body in the ocean for the fish. Put you to some good use at last."
He looked back, vaguely curious. More than anything, he wanted her happy. She had been good to him.
Even though she seemed to be wrestling with something, she was beautiful, his Cohort sister. He could see what Pohut had seen in her.
"I've imagined this day for years," Taba whispered. "How I would cut you. How you would beg. Scream. Bleed. Die."
It occurred to Innel as he parsed the meaning of her words that how he was feeling—this adoration that threatened to break with bliss—might be the result of the qualan. The thought passed, and he found himself simply watching her marvelous face.
"Your eyes are like the ocean," he said of the light green that blinked back at him. "Or not," he amended quickly, as those same eyes widened with shock.
"He said that to me."
Innel nodded. "He was like that."
Now her face was sad.
It came to Innel that something was ending, though he wasn't sure what. For a moment he, too, felt deeply, achingly sad.
"I'm sorry, Sacha," he said.
No, that wasn't quite right. He tried to focus on the woman before him. Who was she, again?
"Cern," he tried. "Taba."
Taba heaved a deep breath, let it out slow.
"You'll die, Innel. But not today. Not on my ship." Her gaze was distant. "Not because he wouldn't have wanted it. Because..." She focused on him again. "Because I don't want the stain of your blood in the fibers of the wood of my home." She shook her head slowly. "I'd never be rid of you, you see. And I do want to be rid of you."
Innel nodded soberly. It made perfect sense.