THE NEXT DAY, Pharinet came hunting for Varencienne and found her on the beach. Varencienne was both pleased to see her, and slightly annoyed that her dreams had been interrupted. She had been imagining the lives of the sea people, who came into the caves at night to make strange worship to a god that lived on neither land nor sea, but had a foot in each element. Something about the fantasy wasn’t quite right, and she had been working on it. “Little Ren, you spend so much time alone,” said Pharinet, her hands on her hips, her eyes looking out past Varencienne to the horizon. “I like to be alone,” Varencienne replied. “You are a dreamer!” There was no mockery in Pharinet’s voice; her amusement seemed affectionate. Varencienne felt bold. “I suppose I am. My head likes making up stories. They seem so much better than real life.” “So, what kind of story were you just thinking of? You were lost in it. I don’t believe you saw me coming.” Varencienne smiled at this, and for the first time in her life, related her imaginings aloud. “But I have to work out a detail,” she said. “Something doesn’t feel right.” “Perhaps you should have a goddess, rather than a god,” Pharinet suggested. “Or else, a goddess of the sea, who meets in the shore-cave with her lover, a god of the land.” Varencienne studied Pharinet for a moment, searching for irony. “A goddess, yes,” she said at last, “but no god. I should have thought of that. Whenever I pray, it is to Mivian, Madragore’s grand-daughter.” But Mivian did not feel real, not like Madragore with his heavy presence and dour, fanatical priests. “I can see you praying,” Pharinet said. Perhaps she too had a fecund imagination. They walked together along the shore, the sea rising and collapsing around them, sneaking up in circular, shallow swathes, cutting them off from the land. Varencienne’s skirts were soaked. Her feet were bare. “You are very much at home here,” Pharinet said. “Fey little maid. So lonely, and yet not.” She has been thinking about me, Varencienne realized, and there seemed some threat to her isolation in that. “Are we going to Norgance?” “That is why I came to find you,” Pharinet said. “I know little of you, yet suspect the visit does not inspire a great eagerness within you.” “Not at all. I would like to go.” She paused. “Niska is an odd girl, though. Is all well with her?” “She’s a sea child, perhaps the girl you would have been if you’d been born in Caradore. Don’t be misled by appearances. She’s shy in new company. I think you will like her eventually.” A friend, Varencienne thought, someone like me. “Ligrana is like you,” she said. “Or wants to be.” Pharinet laughed. “I am a bad influence. Spent a lot of time in Norgance when Ligrana was younger. She’s only a couple of years older than you, whereas Niska is almost twenty-four.” “Really! I would have thought it the other way round.” “Niska hasn’t grown up. I don’t think she wants to.” Varencienne was silent. They continued their walk, with no discomfort between them. Then Varencienne said, “What is that on the sand?” They walked towards it, and saw that it was a human arm, bleached by the sea, and rotting. Varencienne stared at it in wonder. It was a man’s arm, and had once flexed upon his body, lifted things, perhaps bore weapons. “How did it get here?” “On the deep currents,” Pharinet said, poking the arm with her booted foot. “There will have been a sea battle further south. I heard a fleet of small, fast ships from Berringey tried to intercept the imperial flotilla. Our admirals had the priests conjure up a red storm, and the invaders all perished in a swell of fire and steam.” “How do you hear of things like that?” Varencienne asked. Pharinet studied her for a moment. “News travels,” she said, “and is all around you if you want to hear it.” “I don’t know about the wars,” Varencienne said. “I know so little about my country, really.” She looked around herself, her arms wrapped over her chest, as if shocks of reality might uncover themselves at any moment. “I’m not surprised,” Pharinet said in a dry voice. Varencienne looked down at the arm. “He might have had a wife, or sisters somewhere.” “And they might even mourn his loss,” added Pharinet. Varencienne glanced up at her. She sensed censure, but could not offer an argument. “He might have survived without his arm.” Pharinet laughed without humor. “That is probably more of a fantasy than your dreams of the merfolk and their husbandless goddess.” She walked on ahead then, and Varencienne did not follow. After some minutes, she went back the way they had come.
NORGANCE WAS FURTHER INLAND. If Caradore was like a prancing horse, frozen on the cliffs, the flags of its mane still fluttering, Norgance was a lazy grey lizard lying close to the land, its limbs relaxed and sprawling. It lay in a valley, surrounded by sharp, golden-lichened cliffs. At one end, a waterfall crashed into a deep pool, and the slow black wheel of a water-mill churned in the sunlight, surrounded by rainbows. From the high road that ribboned over the lip of the cliffs and down to the valley, Norgance and its estates looked like child’s toys that Varencienne could pick up and examine. Inside each building would be tiny people, simulakrins dashing about their business, speaking in high squeaks. Varencienne could not ride as well as Pharinet, and the journey had taken longer than anticipated. Pharinet had been patient and willing to instruct her companion. Varencienne enjoyed the freedom. She wanted to control a horse with expertise and gallop about the wild land. She would ride astride, like Pharinet did, and dare to wear the clothes of a boy. Pharinet had spoken at some length about her brother. She was clearly incapable of understanding that Varencienne did not, and could not, love him like she did herself. “Val was such a beautiful boy,” she said, her eyes distant with memories. “Everyone loved him. We were inseparable as children. It breaks my heart we rarely see him now.” Varencienne sensed a comment was necessary. “I miss my favorite brother in the same way. It?s strange, isn?t it, that we can have such relationships with our brothers. It?s very different to any other kind.? Pharinet delivered a narrow glance. “Yes. It has its special qualities.” She sighed. “Oh, Ren, I wish you knew him as I did, but some part of him is buried so deep now. I have a clear picture of a day we spent together one summer. We were looking for sand crabs down by the shore, and I had just found a really big one with snapping claws. Val was walking towards the sea and I called his name. I shall never forget when he paused and turned, looked back over his shoulder at me. His eyes, his face, were full of secrets and humor. I felt as if an arrow of the sun had pierced my heart. His beauty seemed doomed, somehow.” Varencienne felt uncomfortable with the intimacy of this story. “Are you twins? You look very alike.” She nodded. “Yes. Our mother succumbed not long after we were born. Apparently, the strain of bearing two children was too much for her. Our father was, like Val is now, often away on the emperor’s business. We were brought up by Everna. She might as well be our mother.” “I was a bit afraid of her at first, but she seems very nice.” Everna, though not an effusive woman, often did small things to ensure Varencienne’s comfort, but they rarely met other than at mealtimes. Pharinet laughed a little sadly. “Poor Evvie! Her heart was broken once, but I expect you’ve already dreamed up the possibility of that with your love of inventing stories.” “No!” Varencienne was intrigued. The revelation explained a lot to her. “Who was it? When did it happen?” Pharinet’s laughter was now more joyous. “Oh, you love the idea! I knew it. He was quite a plain boy, actually. Val and I were about fifteen when it happened. Everna fell in love and it was so strange to see, because she’d always seemed so old and irredeemably unmarried. We thought it was funny the way she mooned about the place, holding books of poetry over her heart.” “Did he leave her, or betray her?” “No,” Pharinet said shortly, and all the joy left her voice. “He drowned.” “How terrible!” “That is the way of things in Caradore. We love, they die.” Varencienne remembered certain remarks Pharinet had made when the Leckerys had visited the previous week. She contemplated bringing the subject up, but decided against it. Even though Pharinet was outwardly friendly, Varencienne sensed an invisible boundary of familiarity, which she must not attempt to cross. I wonder if she likes me now. Will a day come when I know all about her? They paused above the valley of Norgance, where Pharinet lea
ned forward in her saddle. “I spent so many dizzy hours here as a girl.” She sighed. “How quickly time passes. It was such a luxury then. I thought I had so much of it.” “You still do!” Varencienne said. She did not want to see shadows about vibrant Pharinet. “Yes, yes, but some things time steals away from us for ever.” She sighed again, more heavily. It was not sadness in her, Varencienne thought, but wistfulness, and joyful memories. “Tell me another memory,” Varencienne said. Pharinet glanced at her sidelong, one eyebrow raised. “Well!” She thought in silence for a moment. “I remember when I was twelve and Niska and Ligrana’s brother Merlan was born. I was staying here, and went up the cliff path with my friend …” She frowned. Who was the friend? Varencienne wondered, but kept quiet, her face a mask of enquiry. “Ellony—Merlan’s older sister … She is dead now. We went to the Ronduel, a circle of megaliths, on the moor above the cliffs over there. We sang prayers and made a cairn of grass and flowers. I can still smell it. We asked for the things that girls will—a handsome lover, the magic within to bloom. We each had our sights set, even then. And because we believed, those things came to pass, but our prayers could not have been right, because now it is all lost.” She would not say more, Varencienne knew. Her words had been carefully selected, like light seen through the chink of shivering curtains. Now, her eyes peered back into the past, and she looked older. I have no such moments to think of, Varencienne thought. The most exciting episodes of her past life had been evenings spent with her friends. It had happened almost every night, but sometimes a special spark had come into the gathering and they had somehow laughed more freely, felt strangely excited, almost expectant. Perhaps Pharinet and her friend had felt that way too, but they had been out here in the wild air of Caradore, where dreams were more likely to become reality. Pharinet gathered up the reins of her horse. “We must not dwell on the past,” she said. “We must always look forward, even if only into clouds.” She urged her mount down the steep path and Varencienne followed, her mind high up on the opposite clifftop, where the ghosts of two girls spun around the glistening, silent stones that laid their shadows over them.
IT WAS NISKA WHO suggested they take Varencienne up to the Ronduel. A dainty feast of sweet cakes and honeyed tea had been consumed, and Varencienne’s throat was sore from speaking so much. She had been relieved to discover that Saska’s sister, Dimara, was not present. If she had, Varencienne was sure she wouldn’t have been able to converse so easily. The Leckerys had interrogated her about her life in Magrast, and Varencienne had been surprised at how much she could remember. “She has an eye for details,” Pharinet said. “She has to store them all up so she can reinvent them.” “Oh?” Saska put her head on one side. Pharinet should not have said that. What more would she say? “Our little Ren creates new worlds all the time,” Pharinet continued. “It is a talent she has.” Was she being mocking, or simply accepted Varencienne’s tendency to fantasize as an endearing trait? Varencienne felt some explanation was needed. “I had so much spare time back home.” “And you didn’t leave the palace much,” Saska said, in apparent sympathy. Varencienne put down her cup. “No.” The tea had left a sticky feeling in the back of her mouth. “But I had a lot of books. Some of them were very old and talked about countries that do not even exist any more.” Saska shifted on her seat. “Well, your father might have had a lot to do with that.” “Now, now,” said Pharinet lightly, then, to Ligrana. “How about we take Ren for a walk to the mill?” “No,” said Niska, who had so far uttered no sound. “To the Ronduel.” Varencienne thought Pharinet might object to the idea, as she seemed to have intimate memories connected with the place, but Pharinet only smiled slowly. “Yes, good idea. Ren should see it.” Varencienne could not walk as quickly as the other women up the cliff path. They were fit and strong, with wide lungs used to inhaling the heady air of Caradore. They were like nimble deer, their legs pumping without effort. No noblewoman of Magrast would have exerted herself so strenuously. It made sweat come?and a lady could not allow such an indignity. Varencienne was conscious of the hot prickle beneath her arms and on her upper lip. Twice, she had to pause and press her hand to her side. Would she faint before she reached the top? “Ren, you have been such a hearth-cat,” Pharinet said, grinning. “You need more than a walk across the shore every day to wake up your body.” Ligrana laughed rather cruelly, but then Pharinet put her arm around Varencienne’s shoulders. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride.” She crouched down, her black hair spilling forward, and then Varencienne was up on Pharinet’s back, like she used to climb onto Bayard when she was younger. She could see so much more now, the valley spread out below, the twisting, glittering water, the slow procession of the herds, the dancing branches of the trees. Pharinet’s body worked surely beneath her, like a beast of burden, as if she could not feel Varencienne’s weight at all. Ligrana had been put in her place. She looked sullen now. At the top of the cliff a wide expanse of short wiry grass yawned before them, while in the hazy distance, there were more mountains. But they were insignificant compared to the Ronduel, that was at once fragile and monstrous; its gargantuan stones balanced delicately upon one another. They had braved the winds and the fierce rains for perhaps thousands of years. Varencienne scrambled down from Pharinet’s back. “It’s incredible!” she exclaimed, another of those obvious remarks that seemed to fall out of her mouth at times when she wished they wouldn’t. This time, Pharinet did not smirk, and Ligrana seemed not to have heard. “Strong magic here,” Niska said, slipping a thin, cold hand through Varencienne’s elbow. Her touch was disturbing, the tickle of a fish’s fin. The women walked slowly beneath the shadows of the dolmens, and Varencienne could not help but feel that once they were enclosed by the stones, the wind could no longer reach them; they had entered a doorway through time. She would not have been surprised to see a twelve-year-old Pharinet squatting on the grass, petals and fragments of grass winnowing through her fingers. But I should be surprised, Varencienne thought. I have never seen a ghost, and surely would be frightened of it. Yet I really expect to see her at any moment, and I would not be afraid at all. It would seem complete, somehow, and natural. “Make a wish,” Niska murmured. “Everyone does the first time they come here.” I can’t think. It’s too sudden. I should have been warned. The wrong thought will come into my head. Varencienne laughed nervously. She must not squander this moment, yet her mind was empty. Pharinet and Ligrana were walking together by the farthest stones. They seemed a hundred miles away. I wish to understand, Varencienne thought. It seemed inadequate, too small. Then she added, don’t let him make me have a child. Please. That was firm and definite, a blood-colored thought in her head. Perhaps she should dare to wish to be a widow. Then, Pharinet was up close to her again. “Remember wishes might come true,” she said, her voice a thin strand on the wind, which had somehow come coursing around their shins once more. Skirts threshed and hair lashed. They were like wild women. Varencienne put her hands against her mouth and laughed. She felt her age, young and full of potential. “The old magi who built this place will have heard your wish,” Pharinet said. She laid a hand against the nearest stone. “If you have pleased them, they will grant it.” “I hope so,” Varencienne said. She too touched the stone, expecting to feel a vibration or strange heat. She felt nothing but the cold grain of the rock beneath her fingers. “Why did they build this place?” “It was a kind of church,” Ligrana said. “Built long before the gods of the empire were born as thoughts in the heads of men.” Varencienne suspected they were Pharinet’s words, second-hand. “Were there no gods before?” Ligrana opened her mouth to speak, and Pharinet gave her a sharp look. “Is it a secret?” Varencienne said into the wind. The women were silent around her, she could feel their complicity. She had stumbled upon something. “Not really,” Pharinet said at last. “There are old gods of the land, and old beliefs, and old customs. Times change.” She has worshipped here, Varencienne thought. She told me so. Who heard her prayers? “Madragore is the only power now,” said Li
grana. “Your family has seen to that.” This was a puzzle. The slightly barbed remarks were becoming ever more frequent. The Palindrakes and the Leckerys gave up their sons, their husbands and fathers to the empire, yet the women seemed to seethe against it. “It is nothing to do with me,” Varencienne said, wishing at once that she hadn’t. Just by saying it, she was making their subtle accusations, partially true. Hadn’t someone said to her she would be her father’s envoy in Caradore? She did not want to be. She was herself, very much herself. Pharinet knew that, didn’t she? As they slithered and jumped back down the cliff path to Norgance, Varencienne pondered what she had learned. She wanted Pharinet and the others to trust her. This feeling was new and raw inside her. Their insinuations made her feel like an unwanted interloper, and urged her to justify herself. This felt wrong, because she knew it did not help. The women of Caradore had secrets and she was flitting around the hidden flame of it, curious and in danger of being scorched. The land pulsed with ancient mysteries that she wanted to penetrate. She belonged here; the others just did not know it. She and Pharinet rode home long before the sun set. They travelled for a while in silence, Varencienne still smarting from the way she’d been excluded. Pharinet and the Leckerys had a history between them; she was new and she must be patient and not resentful. As a royal princess, she should be above petty feeling, but she felt she must prove herself in some way. Perhaps it could begin with a question. “Pharinet, are you suspicious of me?” Pharinet turned round in the saddle, a quizzical expression on her face. “In what way, little Ren?” “Because I am the daughter of the emperor. I’m not blind to the feelings in Caradore. There is a problem, I can sense it. I was not sent here as a spy, I was just married off. I am no one really. I have barely met my father.” Pharinet pulled her horse to a halt and Varencienne’s mount came up alongside. “What’s prompted this?” Varencienne shrugged awkwardly. “Just a feeling. The Leckerys are suspicious of me. I feel I’ve done something wrong, but know I haven’t. There’s nothing I can do about who my parents are. It’s not my fault.” Pharinet nodded, her face thoughtful. “Perhaps I should explain about how people feel. This is an old country and was once independent. People don’t forget. They burn inside for freedom.” “I can’t see how you’re not free.” Pharinet laughed. “Oh Ren, you are so innocent! We are not free because Saska has lost a son and a husband in the campaigns and one of her remaining sons is away in Mewt. We are not free because Valraven has no choice but to be what your father wants him to be. The sacrifice of men guarantees we women still have these splendid old domains to wander around in, but we wander around them alone. That is the price, and it does not give freedom.? “The empire expands to give people liberty, from oppression and cruelty.” Varencienne was aware of a hateful primness in her voice. Even to her, the comment sounded ridiculous and uninformed. “You will have been fed that along with your mother’s milk,” Pharinet said dryly. “Empire isn’t about liberty, it’s about power and the expansion of power. It’s about fear, not just of those who cower before the inexorable dark clouds, but the men who hide within them, who are afraid of losing what they have. Maybe the empire believes it fights oppression and cruelty, but it has become the very thing it sought to alleviate. Perhaps it was not always so. Perhaps one time in generations past, an exhausted lord asked some ancestor of yours for aid in securing his lands. Perhaps that was where the hunger started, within a noble cause. Nobody really knows, because history is rewritten by emperors.” None of this equated with the languorous life Varencienne had known in Magrast. Women sewing and women talking, candlelight and the scent of flowers and incense. Everything had been so slow and simple. “What you are saying is not my life. I know nothing of it. You should not judge me for what I do not know.” “I do not judge you, Ren. We are wary, and perhaps you are right in saying we believe you might report back to your family. Can you blame us?” “I have not even written to my mother. My real family were my friends—” she paused “—except for my brother, Bayard.” “Ah yes,” said Pharinet, after a pause. “Bayard.” Her voice made his name sound dark. Varencienne shuddered inside. “You know him.” It did not have to be a question. That shocked her. She had accidentally turned over a stone, and found another secret. “Yes, I have met Bayard,” Pharinet said. “He came to Caradore once.” “He never told me. When?” Pharinet shrugged. “Oh, some years ago now. Val got to know him when he went to Magrast to begin his training.” Varencienne sensed Pharinet had not liked Bayard. Was this because he had reported back to their father? But what could he have said? It could be the reason, however, why nobody trusted her. “He never told me,” she said again, as hurt as if he’d told a stranger he despised her. “Well, no doubt he had his reasons.” Pharinet’s face assumed a smile which seemed forced. “It’s all in the past.” “Did he do something to upset you?” Pharinet’s lips became pursed. “Not in any way you might think. I’d rather not discuss it.” Varencienne could not respond to this. She sensed a story, another of Pharinet’s memories that she would not share. The subject must be abandoned. “I want to be here,” she said. “This is my home now. Let me live in it.” Pharinet smiled more freely. “You will have a long life, little Ren. Take each day at a time.”