Windhaven

  “A land-bound healer—telling a flyer when to fly,” Maris muttered with a mock scowl.

  Although she might suffer it, a time of forced inactivity was not something Maris could enjoy. As the days passed and she began to spend more time awake, she grew restless. Evan was beside her much of the time, coaxing her to eat, reminding her to lie still, and talking to her, always talking, to give her restless mind something to exercise itself on, even though her body must stay motionless.

  And Evan proved to be a gifted storyteller. He considered himself more an observer of life than a participant, and he had a rather detached outlook and a sharp eye for detail. He made Maris laugh, often; he made her think; and he even managed to make her forget, for minutes at a time, that she was trapped in bed with a broken body.

  At first Evan told stories of Thayos society, his descriptions so vivid that she could almost see the people. But after a time his talk turned to himself, and he offered her his own life, as if in exchange for the confidences she had made to him during her delirium.

  He had been born in the deep woods of Thayos, an island on the northern fringe of Eastern, sixty years before. His parents were foresters.

  There had been other families in the forest, other children to play with, but from his earliest years Evan had preferred the time he spent alone. He liked to hide in the brush to watch the shy, brown dirt diggers; to hunt out the places where the most beautifully scented flowers and tastiest roots grew; to sit quietly in a small clearing with a chunk of stale bread, and tame the birds to come to his hand.

  When Evan was sixteen, he fell in love with a traveling midwife. Jani, the midwife, was a small, brown woman with a ready wit and a sharp tongue. In order to be near her, Evan appointed himself Jani's assistant. She seemed amused by his interest at first, but soon accepted him, and Evan, his interest sharpened by love, learned a great deal from her.

  On the eve of her departure, he confessed his love for her. She wouldn't stay, and she wouldn't take him with her—not as lover, not as friend, not even as assistant, although she admitted he had learned well and had a skillful touch. She traveled alone always, and that was that.

  Evan continued to practice his new healing skills when Jani had gone. Since the nearest healer lived in Thossi village, a full day's walk from the forest, Evan was soon much in demand. Eventually he apprenticed himself to the healer in Thossi. He might have attended a college of healers, but that would have meant a sea-voyage, and the idea of traveling on the dangerous water frightened him as nothing else ever had.

  When he had learned all she could teach him, Evan returned to the forest to live and work. Although he never married, he did not always live alone. Women sought him out—wives seeking an undemanding lover, traveling women who paused a few days or months in his company, patients who stayed until their passion for him was cured.

  Maris, listening to his soft, mellow voice and gazing at his face for so many hours that she knew it as well as that of any lover in her past, understood the attraction. The bright blue eyes, the skillful, gentle hands, the high cheekbones and imposing beak of a nose. She wondered, though, what he had felt—was he as self-contained as he seemed?

  One day Maris interrupted his story of a family of tree-kits he'd recently found to ask, “Didn't you ever fall in love? After Jani, I mean.”

  He looked surprised. “Yes, of course I did. I told you about . . .”

  “But not enough to want to marry someone.”

  “Sometimes I did. With S'Rai—she lived here with me for almost a year, and we were very happy together. I loved her very much. I wanted her to stay. But she had her own life elsewhere. She wouldn't stay in the forest with me; she left.”

  “Why didn't you go away with her? Didn't she ask you to?”

  Evan looked unhappy. “Yes, she did. She wanted me to go with her; somehow it just didn't seem possible.”

  “You've never been anywhere else?”

  “I've traveled all over Thayos, whenever there has been need,” Evan said, rather defensively. “And I lived in Thossi for nearly two years when I was younger.”

  “All Thayos is much the same,” Maris said, shrugging her good shoulder. There was a twinge in her left, which she ignored. She was allowed to sit up now, and she was afraid Evan would revoke the privilege if she ever admitted to pain. “Some parts have more trees, some parts have more rocks.”

  Evan laughed. “A very superficial view! To you, all parts of the forest would seem identical.”

  This was so obvious as to require no comment. Maris persisted. “You've never been off Thayos?”

  Evan grimaced. “Once,” he said. “There'd been an accident, a boat cracked up against the rocks, and the woman in it had been badly injured. I was taken out in a fishing boat to see to her. I got so sick on the journey out that I could scarcely help her.”

  Maris smiled sympathetically, but she shook her head. “How can you know that this is the only place you ever want to live if you've never been anywhere else?”

  “I don't claim to know that, Maris. I might have left, I might have had a very different life. But this is what I've chosen. I know this life—it's mine, for better or worse. It's rather late now to mourn all the opportunities I've missed. I'm happy with my life.” He rose then, ending the conversation. “Now it's time for your nap.”

  “May I . . .”

  “You may do whatever you like, as long as you do it lying flat on your back without moving.”

  Maris laughed, and let him help her back down on the bed. She wouldn't admit it, but sitting up had tired her, and it was a welcome relief to rest. The slowness of her body to mend frustrated her. And she didn't understand why, just because a few bones were broken, she should tire so easily. She closed her eyes, listening to the sounds Evan made as he tended the fire and tidied the room.

  She thought about Evan. She was attracted to him, and of course the circumstances had made for an easy intimacy between them. She had imagined that, once she mended, she and Evan might become lovers. She thought better of it now, knowing more of his life. Evan had loved, and been left, too many times. She liked him too well to want to hurt him, and she knew that she would leave Thayos, and Evan, just as soon as she could fly again. It was better, she decided sleepily, that she and Evan remain only friends. She would have to ignore how much she liked that bright sparkle in his blue eyes, and forget her fantasies about his slim, wiry body and skilled hands.

  She smiled and yawned and fell asleep, to dream that she was teaching Evan how to fly.

  The next day S'Rella arrived.

  Maris was drowsy and half asleep, and at first she thought she was dreaming. The stuffy room suddenly became fresher, full of the clean, sharp scent of sea winds, and when Maris looked up S'Rella was standing in the doorway, wings slung over one arm. For an instant she looked like the shy, slight girl she had been more than twenty years ago, when Maris had helped teach her to fly. But she smiled then, a self-assured smile that lit her dark, thin face and emphasized the lines that time had left there. And when she came forward, spraying salt water from her wings and wet clothes, the phantom of S'Rella the Woodwinger dissolved entirely, and she was S'Rella of Veleth, a seasoned flyer and the mother of two grown daughters. The two women embraced, awkwardly because of the huge cast protecting Maris' left arm, but with fierce emotion.

  “I came as soon as I heard, Maris,” S'Rella said. “I'm sorry you had to be here alone for so long, but communication among flyers isn't what it once was, especially for one-wings. I might not be here now, but I had to fly a message to Big Shotan, and afterward I decided to visit the Eyrie. A strange whim, now that I think about it—it must have been four, five years since the last time. Corina was there, fresh from Amberly, and she told me that an Eastern flyer had just brought word of your accident. I left at once. I was so worried . . .” And she bent down to hug her friend again, the wings almost slipping from her grasp.

  “Let me hang them for you,” Evan said quietly, stepping for
ward. S'Rella handed them to him with hardly a glance, her attention all for Maris.

  “How . . . how are you?” she asked.

  Maris smiled. With her good arm she threw back the blanket, revealing two cast-bound legs. “Broken, as you can see, but mending. Or so Evan assures me. My ribs hardly pain me at all now. And I'm sure the casts on these legs are ready to be removed—they itch abominably!” She scowled and pulled a long straw from a vase of flowers on the bedside table. Frowning with concentration, she poked the straw down between flesh and cast. “This helps sometimes, but other times it just makes it worse, by tickling.”

  “And your arm?”

  Maris looked to Evan for the answer.

  “Don't put me on the spot, Maris,” he said. “You know as much as I do about it. I think your arm is healing properly, and there hasn't been any more infection. As for your legs—you'll be able to scratch them to your heart's content in a day or two.”

  Maris gave a small bounce of joy, then caught her breath. She turned pale and swallowed hard.

  Frowning, Evan stepped toward the bed. “What happened? What hurt you?”

  “Nothing,” Maris said quickly. “Nothing. I just felt a . . . a little sick, that's all. I must have jarred my arm.”

  Evan nodded, but he did not look satisfied. “I'll make tea,” he said, and left the two women alone together.

  “Now I want your news,” Maris said. “You know mine. Evan has been wonderful, but healing takes so much time, and I've felt so dreadfully cut off here.”

  “It is a distant place,” S'Rella agreed. “And cold.” Southerners thought the whole of the world was cold, outside their own archipelago. Maris grinned—it was an old joke between them—and clasped S'Rella's hand.

  “Where shall I begin?” S'Rella asked. “Good news or bad? Gossip or politics? You're the one who's bed-bound, Maris. What would you like to know?”

  “Everything,” Maris said, “but you can begin by telling me about your daughters.”

  S'Rella smiled. “S'Rena has decided to marry Arno, the boy who has the meat-pie concession on the docks of Garr. She has the only fruit-pie stand, of course, and they've decided to combine their businesses and corner the waterfront pie market.”

  Maris laughed. “It seems a very sensible arrangement.”

  S'Rella sighed. “Oh, yes, a marriage of convenience, all very businesslike. There's not a speck of romance in her soul—sometimes I can hardly believe S'Rena is my daughter.”

  “Marissa has enough romanticism for two. How is she?”

  “Oh, wandering. In love with a singer. I haven't heard from her in a month.”

  Evan brought in two steaming mugs of tea, his own special brew, fragrant with white blossoms, and then discreetly vanished.

  “Any news from the Eyrie?” Maris asked.

  “A little, but none of it good. Jamis vanished on a flight from Geer to Little Shotan. The flyers fear him lost at sea.”

  “Oh,” Maris said, “I'm sorry. I never knew him well, but he was said to be a good flyer. His father presided over the flyers' Council, back when we adopted the academy system.”

  S'Rella nodded. “Lori of Varon gave birth,” she continued, “but the child was sickly, and died within the week. She's distraught; Garret too, of course. And T'katin's brother was killed in a storm. He captained a trading ship, you know. They say the storm took the whole fleet. These are hard times, Maris. I've heard they are warring again on Lomarron.”

  “They may be warring on Thayos too, before very long,” Maris said gloomily. “Don't you have any cheerful news?”

  S'Rella shook her head. “The Eyrie was not a cheerful place. I got the feeling I was not terribly welcome. One-wings never go there, but there I was, violating the last sanctuary of the flyer-born. It made them all uneasy, though Corina and a few others tried to be polite.”

  Maris nodded. It was an old story. Tensions between the flyers born to wings and the one-wings who had taken theirs in competition had been growing for years. Each year saw more land-bound take to the air, and the old flyer families felt more threatened. “How is Val?” she asked.

  “Val is Val,” S'Rella said. “Richer than ever, but otherwise he doesn't change. The last time I visited Seatooth, he was wearing a belt of linked metal. I can't imagine what it cost. He works with the Woodwingers a lot. They all look up to him. The rest of the time he spends partying in Stormtown with Athen and Damen and Ro and the rest of his one-wing cronies. I hear he's taken up with a land-bound woman on Poweet, but I don't think he's bothered to tell Cara. I tried to scold him about it, but you know how self-righteous Val can get . . .”

  Maris smiled. “Ah, yes,” she said. She sipped at her tea as S'Rella continued, the talk ranging all over Windhaven. They gossiped about other flyers, spoke of friends and family and places where they both had been, continuing a long-running, far-ranging conversation. Maris felt comfortable, happy and relaxed. Her captivity would not last much longer—she would be walking again in a matter of days, and then she could begin to exercise and work out, to get back in flying trim—and S'Rella, her closest friend, was now beside her to remind her of her real life that waited beyond these thick walls, and to help her back into it.

  A few hours later Evan joined them with plates of cheese and fruit, freshly baked herb bread and eggs scrambled with wild onions and peppers. They all sat on the big bed and ate hungrily. Conversation, or new hope, had given Maris a ravenous appetite.

  The conversation turned to politics. “Will there really be war here?” S'Rella asked. “What's the cause?”

  “A rock,” Evan grumbled. “A rock barely a half-mile across and two miles long. It doesn't even have a name. It sits square in the Tharin Strait between Thayos and Thrane, and everyone thought it was worthless. Only now they've found iron on it. It was a party from Thrane that found the ore and began working it, and they aren't about to give up their claim, but the rock is marginally closer to Thayos than it is to Thrane, so our Landsman is trying to grab it. He sent a dozen landsguard to seize the mine, but they were beaten off, and now Thrane is fortifying the rock.”

  “Thayos doesn't seem to have a strong claim,” S'Rella said. “Will your Landsman really go to war over it?”

  Evan sighed. “I wish I thought otherwise. But the Landsman of Thayos is a belligerent man, and a greedy one. He beat Thrane once before, in a fishing dispute, and he's certain he can do it again. He'd rather kill any number of people than compromise.”

  “The message I was to fly to Thrane was full of threats,” Maris offered. “I'm surprised war hasn't broken out already.”

  “Both islands are gathering allies, arms, and promises,” Evan said. “I am told flyers come and go from the keep every day. No doubt the Landsman will press a threat or two on you, S'Rella, when you leave. Our own flyers, Tya and Jem, haven't had a day's rest for the past month. Jem has carried most of the messages back and forth across the Strait, and Tya has carried offers and promises to dozens of potential allies. Luckily, none of them seem interested. Time after time she has come back with refusals. I think it is only that keeping the war at bay.” He sighed again. “But it is only a matter of time,” he said, his voice weary. “And there will be much killing before it is all over. I'll be called in to patch up those who can be patched up. It's a mockery—a healer in wartime treats the symptoms without being allowed to talk about healing the actual cause, the war itself, unless he wants to be locked up as a traitor.”

  “I suppose I should be relieved to be out of it,” Maris said. But her voice was reluctant. She didn't feel as Evan did about war; flyers stayed above such conflicts, just as they skimmed above the treacherous sea. They were neutrals, never to be harmed. Objectively war was a thing to be regretted, but war had never touched Maris or any of those she had loved, and she could not feel the horror of it deeply. “When I was younger, I could learn a message without ever hearing it, really. I seem to have lost the talent. Some of the words I've carried have taken the joy out of fli
ght.”

  “I know,” S'Rella agreed. “I've seen the results of some messages I've flown, and sometimes I feel very guilty.”

  “Don't,” Maris said. “You are a flyer. You aren't responsible.”

  “Val disagrees, you know,” S'Rella said. “I argued it with him once. He thinks we are responsible.”

  “That's understandable,” Maris said.

  S'Rella frowned at her, uncomprehending. “Why?”

  “I'm surprised he never told you,” Maris said. “His father was hanged. A flyer carried the order for the execution from Lomarron to South Arren. Arak, in fact. You remember Arak?”

  “Too well,” S'Rella said. “Val always suspected Arak was behind that beating he got. I remember how angry he was when he couldn't find his assailants to prove anything.” She smiled wryly. “I also remember the party he threw on Seatooth when Arak died, black cake and all.”

  Evan was looking at the two women thoughtfully. “Why do you carry messages if you feel guilty about them?” he asked S'Rella.

  “Why, because I'm a flyer,” S'Rella said. “It's my job. It's what I do. The responsibility comes with the wings.”

  “I suppose,” Evan said. He stood and began collecting the empty plates. “I don't think I could take that attitude, frankly. But I'm a land-bound, not a flyer. I wasn't born to wings.”

  “Nor were we,” Maris started to say, but Evan left the room. She felt a flash of annoyance, but S'Rella began to talk again; Maris was drawn back into the conversation, and it wasn't very long until she had forgotten what she was annoyed about.

  At last it was time for the casts to be cut off. Her legs were to be freed, and Evan promised that it would not be much longer for her arm.

  Maris cried out at the sight of her legs. They were so thin and pale, so odd-looking. Evan began to massage them gently, washing them with a warm, herb-scented solution, and gently, skillfully kneading the long-unused muscles. Maris sighed with pleasure and relaxed.