Children of Earth and Sky

  She extended a hand to the dog again and had her fingers licked. She’d grown up with hunting dogs. This wasn’t the largest she’d seen—her father had prided himself on his pack—but it was big. She had little doubt it would rip someone’s throat out defending the Senjani woman. That assumption she felt safe making.

  Her father had prided himself on his daughter in much the same way as his dogs, the thought came to her. Not a grief. Not any more. She was past that sorrow. There were newer ones.

  Someone was shouting up above, then they heard cheering. In the muted light the two women looked at each other.

  “That will be land sighted,” the Senjani said. “We’ve crossed. They will pray on deck now, having survived the sea.”

  “Some survived,” Leonora said, then regretted it. She didn’t like that tone in her voice.

  The other woman only shrugged. “Do you want to go up? Pray with them?”

  She didn’t, but she was tired of being in this close darkness. It would be morning above. She looked at the woman across from her. She said, “I have been unfair to you, I think. What happened to Jacopo wasn’t your fault, and you did act, after.”

  “I acted for all of us.”

  “Yes, yes,” Leonora said, feeling impatient. “So you said. But no one else did, did they?”

  The Senjani woman smiled a little. “I had the bow.”

  Leonora found herself smiling back. “I suppose that’s true. May I know your name?”

  “I am Danica Gradek. I don’t think you’ll know me long.”

  “I have no idea. I’m Leonora Miucci. I am from Mylasia, not Seressa.”

  “I believed you. Why would you have lied?”

  Later, she would try to understand what that simple question had done to her, why she said what she said. There was no easy answer. This was a young woman, as she was, among strangers and far from home, that was part of it. We don’t, Leonora would eventually decide, always do what we do for obvious reasons—or a life might be very different from what it became.

  “I didn’t lie about that,” she said. “But I’ve been lying since we came on board.”

  The other woman just looked at her, waiting. The dog turned from one to the other, tail still wagging, but uncertainly now. Something in the changed feeling.

  “I am not . . . I was sent . . .”

  Danica Gradek said calmly, “You were sent to spy for Seressa.”

  Leonora stared at her. “It is so obvious?”

  “They do that. There was a spy in Senjan. There will be another soon enough. There will be Seressini-paid observers on the dock waiting for us in Dubrava. You are likely meant to report to them.”

  “No. Yes, I mean. But . . .”

  Leonora stood up. She took a breath. She said, “I was never married to him. To Miucci. There are reasons why I agreed. But I will not, I cannot go back to Seressa. I am alone.”

  Danica Gradek was a tall woman. With the dog beside her it made for a crowded chamber. She smiled at Leonora, then she laughed.

  “Alone? That’s two of us, then. Shall we see what we can do?”

  —

  DRAGO OSTAJA WASN’T HAPPY with any of what had happened on his ship from the time they’d left Seressa and headed for home.

  He hated pirates with a fierce intensity. Those raiders had been on his deck, down in his holds, taking goods entrusted to him. And he couldn’t stop it.

  It had happened to ships he’d captained before, and the sense of helplessness had left him feeling unmanned for a long time after. But they simply could not battle raiders, nor avoid them all the time.

  Senjan existed as a kind of additional tax on trading ships, Marin had once said. They liked to call themselves the heroes of the border, Drago knew. He refused to allow them that in his own mind. And then one of them had killed a passenger on Drago’s ship. He’d seen Marin draw his sword, start across the deck, and Drago had known he’d have to unsheath his own, and that they were likely to die on the Blessed Ingacia.

  The woman had averted all of that with an arrow. She wasn’t going to survive that in Senjan, Drago remembered thinking, even in the moment.

  Then the other woman, the one Marin told him was a spy, had moved across the deck to the ship’s rail, and Drago, turning too late, knew she was going into the sea, and he’d cried out and then . . . she didn’t.

  Something had happened there, by the railing.

  The memory of it left him unhappy and afraid, days after. He kept thinking of his mother, and the wisewoman in the village where he’d been raised, and how no one could honestly say he understood all (or even most) of what happened in the world.

  Leonora Miucci had not stopped at that railing entirely by her own choice, Drago believed. She had been going into the sea. He couldn’t say why he was so sure, couldn’t speak of it to Marin or any mariner or cleric he knew. He could have told his mother, but she’d been gone for years. He still missed her.

  And now, to add to the cup of his distress, the women came up on deck, just as the ship approached the coast—and pretty much every mariner alive believed two women on a ship’s deck could bring bad luck.

  It had happened before, hadn’t it? When the doctor and the raider died? Both women had been on deck.

  Drago was prepared to treat this as a baseless superstition, but mariners were always superstitious. There was too much to fear on the water, and he didn’t want his seamen frightened as they approached land, which had its perils.

  He was bringing them in running south and carefully, even on a mild morning. So many ships wrecked right outside their home ports, too anxious to get back, careless of the sea as they left it behind.

  There were rocks around Dubrava, both sides of the isles that sheltered the harbour. And even a sunny morning like this one could find and summon a wind in no time at all. He had seen it happen, had been part of desperate efforts to save cargo and drowning men. Had attended rites after amid the sound of weeping for those they hadn’t taken ashore, or had brought home dead from the sea.

  The women emerged from the forward hatchway just as prayers ended. The first time for Signora Miucci since the raid. She was elegant, composed. The other one was . . . a raider from Senjan, a bow and quiver and a dog at her side.

  Drago liked the look of the dog, that was as far as he’d go in that.

  The women were coming over to him. He cleared his throat, turned to await them, spreading his legs as if to ready himself for something. For whatever this was. He clasped his hands behind his back in what he hoped was a dignified pose.

  “Gosparko,” he said to the doctor’s wife. He bowed. Had to unclasp his hands to do that, then he put them behind him again. He offered a nod to the other one, which was enough for what she was.

  They were both young, both yellow-haired, otherwise nothing linked these two, by appearance or background, he thought. The Senjani was tall, moved lightly on her feet. Knew how to kill. The other one, the widow, was . . . well, Drago didn’t use the word delicate often, but it seemed to fit. She was well-born, Marin had declared the first time they saw her. He was remembering her at the railing, her husband’s blood soaking the lower part of her robe.

  “Captain,” said the Senjani, “I just realized something. I’m truly sorry. I’ll go below. You don’t need two women on deck making your men nervous before landfall.”

  Drago blinked. How did she know to say that? He saw Marin coming over. He glanced up at his sails. There was nothing there, at least, to stir alarm.

  He said, dismissively, “That old tale? Do you pirates believe that in Senjan?”

  She smiled a little. “No, but I know mariners do elsewhere. I wouldn’t want to cause distress.”

  “I think,” said Marin, coming up, “that you prevented more than distress. You are both welcome to watch us approach Dubrava. It is a beautiful harbour, if I am
allowed to say so.”

  The Senjani woman smiled briefly. She was very young, Drago was thinking. And likely to never see her home again. Well, he himself had been younger, fleeing the Osmanlis here, and he would never see his village again, either. The world owed you nothing, Drago Ostaja believed.

  “With the captain’s permission,” Danica Gradek said, “I’ll go aloft then, and not down below. I can watch for weather west of us, if you like.”

  He’d been about to send a man up, of course.

  “You know how to handle yourself above?” he asked.

  She wasn’t a member of his crew. She was a passenger on his ship, soon to appear before the Rector’s Council. He was responsible for her.

  She didn’t answer. She unslung her bow and quiver, placed them out of anyone’s way, behind ropes. She spoke to her dog. The animal lay down by the ropes. The woman walked to the mainmast and began to climb. They lived on boats in Senjan, of course, but none nearly this big, Drago knew, none with a mast and sails this high. It didn’t seem to matter. She went up the mast, not the rigging; she’d have noticed the spikes, then, earlier.

  He saw the artist emerge from below. That one, at least, was no trouble. Villani nodded politely, bowed from a distance to the doctor’s widow, and made his way to the stern, to piss over the rail back there.

  He’d done it into the wind and spray the first afternoon, trying to be modest, his back to the crew, occasioning mirth as he returned along the deck after, red-faced, clothing stained with his own piss. (It was common enough, they really should warn passengers but they never did.) Drago had no experience with artists, but he did understand the need for them, had admired some work in sanctuaries, and this one had no airs or pretensions to him. He would be carrying on east, apparently, all the way to Asharias, to paint the grand khalif. Better a man put a knife in Gurçu, Drago thought. In memory of Sarantium.

  He looked at Marin. He was watching the girl climb, against the pale-blue morning sky. Drago looked around. The crew were gazing up at her as well. It could have been amusing, but it wasn’t.

  “Eyes on tasks, damn you!” he roared, captain of the Blessed Ingacia, bringing her safe home.

  “I don’t have a task,” the other woman said softly at his side. She glanced at Drago, and then at Marin. “You will have to give me one, I’m afraid.”

  Marin smiled, Drago didn’t. Two women on a ship’s deck, he was thinking. And also about how many different forms trouble could take.

  —

  SHE HAD NEVER CLIMBED anything like this, the mast swaying as the ship did, and more, of course, as you went higher, gripping and stepping on spikes in the pine wood. But it wasn’t difficult if heights didn’t bother you, and they didn’t.

  It was wonderful up here, Danica thought, standing on the small platform near the top. You were still in the world, could see it spread below you, but from enough distance that no one could do anything to you for a little while.

  Those on the deck looked small as a child’s toys. She saw Tico lying patiently beside her bow and quiver. Voices drifted up. The Seressini artist (a slight, good-looking, gentle-seeming man) proceeded to the stern to piss at the rail, but she was too high to see anything interesting.

  The captain and the owner (an even more handsome man, in truth) were still with Leonora Miucci. But she wasn’t Leonora Miucci, she had just told Danica. Her name was Valeri, and her marriage had been a contrivance, leaving her no real choice but to take the next ship to Seressa, or have that unmasked.

  “I won’t go back,” she’d said, before they’d gone up on deck. “I’ll go into the sea first.”

  “Why didn’t you, before?”

  She hadn’t known she was going to ask that until she did.

  “I don’t know,” Leonora Valeri had said. “I intended to.”

  Danica had expected her grandfather to speak to her then, but he’d kept silent. She hadn’t heard him since he’d woken her with the news about Neven.

  Her brother was alive, and in the Osmanli army, among the djannis. And he had killed someone last night.

  It was interesting: that she didn’t doubt this for a moment. How could you doubt these things, when a man dead almost a year now was telling them to you?

  Are you there? she asked, far above the deck.

  I am. What do you need?

  Just for you to be here, she said.

  Look, Dani, he said. Dubrava.

  She was facing the east but she’d been thinking hard, not seeing, until he spoke. Now she did look, and so saw that harbour and city for the first time, distant yet, but visible from where she was, as they came around a big, fortified island that sheltered it, the way Hrak sheltered Senjan.

  But the city of Dubrava wasn’t the town of Senjan.

  Red roofs, sunlit, climbing steeply to north and south from the harbour, where a commanding structure stood beyond the moored boats. There was a large sanctuary north of it, twin domes. A wide street went east from the harbour. The city walls were massive, running all the way around. There was a guard walk along the top, curved towers at intervals, with cannons, and turrets for guns or arrows.

  She knew Seressa was far bigger than this city, and Obravic, where the emperor reigned, and Rhodias. So many cities were bigger than this. She knew Asharias, which had been Sarantium, was even larger than these, had been called the City of Cities, glory of the world.

  There was a line of islands, spring green vineyards, stone towers, stone fences, and nearest to the city a very small islet, almost in the harbour’s mouth, a religious retreat visible from here. Then she was looking at the city again, and out of youthful pride (and she knew it was that) Danica tried not to be daunted, and failed.

  Dubrava, approached from the sea on a springtime morning, the sun rising behind it, was a glory. She shivered, felt a sudden strangeness. She might never go home, Danica thought, it was true, but there was a world out here to be found.

  She realized something else. Belatedly, she cried, “There it is! City walls!” She was the one up top, the alert was hers to cry.

  Responding cries below, the joyous sound of mariners after crossing open sea and coming home. Danica turned to look back west. That was why someone was always posted up here, to watch for changing weather from seaward as a ship approached land.

  Blue sky, mild breeze. You could forgive yourself for feeling happy for a moment.

  Did you ever see it, zadek?

  Dubrava? No.

  Look at the roofs in the sun.

  I see them. Dani. The people living under those roofs will want you dead.

  Not all. Surely not all of them?

  Perhaps, he said.

  —

  HE IS BESIDE THE MAST as she descends. She is easy doing so. Mannish trousers and tunic, salt-stained boots to the knee, bright hair under a wide hat. They are past the nearest islands—Gjadina, Sinan—are in the harbour’s mouth, their glorious harbour under the towers with their cannons. He can see a crowd on the quayside. There is always a crowd when a ship comes home, even if only from across the narrow sea. People are waving.

  The sea is an interlude, Marin Djivo thinks, a space between life and life. The Senjani girl steps down to the deck beside him. She is flushed for some reason, he notes.

  He says, “We should have a word.”

  She looks at him warily. Her dog comes over. A big dog. Nuzzles his head against her thigh. She rubs its ears absently.

  “I’m better listening,” she says with another of those brief smiles. “I would prefer to not be killed. Will I be?”

  They can hear voices calling across the water now and their mariners are shouting back. Dubrava will begin to know that the Blessed Ingacia has been boarded by pirates, goods were taken, and the doctor they were bringing is dead. And they’ll learn that one of the raiders is on the ship, delivered to them.

/>   “I have a thought about that,” Marin says.

  —

  DON’T TRUST HIM just because he’s a pretty man, her grandfather said, as she made her way down to where Marin Djivo was waiting.

  Danica felt herself blushing. She refused to reply. She thought of closing off her grandfather, as a punishment, but she needed him just now. Tico came over, wagging his tail as if he were some courtesan’s pet dog, not a fierce and fearless hunter.

  The shipowner nodded as she stepped down, his expression grave, which made her uneasy.

  “We should have a word,” he said.

  Danica felt herself grimace. She said, “I’m better listening. I’d prefer not to be killed. Will I be?”

  He looked at her as she patted Tico. A very tall man, quick on his feet. Her grandfather had said, before she’d put an arrow in Kukar Miho, that this one might kill a Senjani in a fair fight. Kukar didn’t do fair fights, mind you. Or he hadn’t done.

  Djivo said, “I have a proposal about that.”

  She stared, trying to read his face. It was difficult. She didn’t know these people, their world.

  Careful! her zadek said.

  I have to trust someone.

  So she said, “Yes, I will accept employment as a guard to the Djivo family. Can you really protect me that way?”

  She smiled, seeing his eyes widen. Enjoyed it a moment, then added, “It seemed obvious, gospodar. There is no other role I could readily take in any proposal you might make. I am . . . trusting your goodwill.”

  She was pleased to see him laugh. “Well,” he said, “given that much quickness, we could use you as a business adviser.”

  “I doubt it,” Danica said.

  “Don’t doubt till you meet my brother,” he said. Then, “But the goodwill is real, Danica Gradek. You saved lives.”

  “Well, one life I ended. Which is why—”

  “Why you aren’t going home. You will be sheltered to a degree as one of our retainers. Drago will tell the same story I will.”