TEN

The world was changing from deep blues and blacks to greys and muted colors. Vandien knuckled at his sandy eyes with his free hand. With the other he kept a firm grip on the braided leather that ran to the heavy metal circle joining the four skeels’ harnesses. He wove along behind them, insisting that they stay on the road. The beasts made repeated efforts to scuttle off into the rocks and underbrush. They were ready for sleep. Vandien headed them off.

His mouth was dry and full of dust. He felt like his spine was gradually pounding its way up through his brain. Soon it would emerge from the top of his skull. He gritted his teeth against it.

The night winds had smelled of the sea. As Vandien crested the final hill, he saw why. The downward path was steep before him, and gullied by rains; the gentle hillocks and dales of yesterday had vanished in the night. Bony grey boulders pushed out of the earth’s flesh and a few wind-twisted trees dared to poke up their gaunt branches. The trail he followed now had been laboriously cut down and across the face of a cliff. Below him, Vandien could see the flat green and small houses of the village of False Harbor. Beyond it was the sea.

No fishing vessels moored at anchor by this village. The black beaches were empty. Through the water, Vandien could see the wave-rubbled shapes of houses and sheds that had gone down into the sea in the same great quake that had split the cliff and taken down the Windsingers’ temple. Their stone foundations remained, green with seaweed and dotted with barnacles. The temple itself would be farther out, closest to where the bottom suddenly dropped away and the water darkened to blue-black. Only the lowest of low tides would bare the temple, although the old village foundations might be exposed a dozen times a year. Only one tide in several years would leave the temple bared for plucking. Tomorrow would bring him that tide.

How long ago had the mountain settled into the sea? Srolan said the older folk claimed it had happened in a single day. But not one spoke of it from their own life experience. It was a tale they had heard from their grandparents; how the earth had sickened and heaved in the sullen afternoon, and mountain, village and temple had been claimed by the sea. Only the folk out fishing had survived. They returned to rebuild their village on the rise of land that had been the top of the cliff and was now just above high tide line. Gone was the harbor that had sheltered their boats, leaving a shallow bay studded with rocks and snags. They renamed their village False Harbor. They fished in the old village now, in flat-bottomed scows, catching crab and eel, squagis and octopus, where once chickens had scratched and menders had crouched by nets stretched in the sun.

One of the skeel dropped and went limp. Vandien sprang forward and pinched its tail. It roused with a squeal that made the whole team scuttle for a handful of paces. The village itself seemed quiet, though small craft worked in the shallows. As he trotted along behind his team, Vandien smoothed his dark unruly hair. With his free hand he beat the worst of the trail dust from his jerkin and trousers. He hoped he did not look as hungry as he felt.

A painted sign was swinging in the ocean breeze, and Vandien headed toward it. The sign depicted a fish leaping over a mountain. He assumed it marked the inn; it was the only two-story structure in the village. White-washed plaster had dropped away to expose patches of mortared stone. A lone horse was tethered in front of the place. Two mules were hobbled in the side alley. Taking this hint, Vandien herded his charges into the alley. Gratefully they dropped to their bellies and began their wheezing snores. He knew they would remain somnolent during daylight unless he roused them. He knotted the rein about the hitching rail anyway. With a groan, he bent over, stretching his back out. He straightened up to find a tall man assessing him.

The sea had left its marks on him. His eyes were between blue and grey. They looked through Vandien, as if the man had scanned so many horizons that he could no longer look at things close to him. Large weathered hands stuck out of the rolled-back sleeves of his coarse smock. Knotted wrists joined muscular forearms. One smallest finger was missing. He stood like a man who does not trust one of his legs. Thinning hair was raked back from his face. A fisherman spat out by the sea, Vandien guessed, and turned to innkeeping when he could no longer stand his watch.

‘By the scar down your face, you’d be our Temple Ebb teamster.’ The tall man dropped the words as if they were coins he were loath to part with.

Vandien didn’t wince. He was accustomed to being identified by his scar. ‘I am. And you’d be the innkeeper?’

‘Aye. And the festival master, this year the third time. They’ll be hanging the Temple Ebb banners, as soon as they get back with the day’s catch. You’re to room and board at the inn. There’s a nice room above, waiting for you, and a meal when you call for it.’

‘And a bath?’ Vandien asked.

‘If you want it.’ The man scowled as if Vandien were pressing an advantage. ‘Festival teamster gets most of what he asks for before Temple Ebb, and, if he puts on a good show, a nice send-off afterwards. Though,’ he added, looking Vandien up and down, ‘the fellow we had last year may have spoiled us. Dressed all in leather and chains, he did, with a team of six of the tallest mules I’ve ever seen. Smart, too. The mules did counting tricks before the tide time. The teamster could bend iron bars with his bare hands. Village kept him here for three days after Temple Ebb had passed. He even knew a bawdy song or two we hadn’t heard before. We’d never seen anything to match those mules of his. The inn did more business in that week than in an ordinary month.’ He paused, frowning at Vandien. ‘You don’t do sleight of hand, or somesuch, do you?’

Ki had warned him. A dozen snide remarks rose to Vandien’s lips. He swallowed them all. ‘No. I didn’t realize it was a requirement of the job. I thought your village wanted to hire a team and man to remove something from a sunken temple.’

The tall man ignored the edge in Vandien’s voice.

‘You call this a team?’ The man’s voice was frankly skeptical.

‘I do.’ Vandien answered smoothly. He reached down to stroke the scaly shoulder of the skeel nearest him. It responded by surging against its harness. Wet chopping noises came from its toothless muzzle. Vandien gave silent thanks that the creatures were nearly blind in daylight. ‘He’s all affection, that one,’ he observed fondly as he lightly rapped his prod on its snout. The skeel withdrew its head with a sinuous bending of its spotted neck.

‘We’ve always had them use horses, or mules, in the past. Sort of a tradition, you know.’ Doubt was evident in the innmaster’s voice. He scratched at silvery stubble on his chin.

‘Do you want a yearly tradition kept, or do you want a chest yanked out of an undersea hiding place?’ Vandien asked quietly. ‘When I touched hands on this agreement, there was no mention of the species I must use in the team, no questions about whether I could juggle eggs or make a scarf disappear. I thought I was being hired to perform a task, not to reenact past failures. Of course, it’s entirely up to you.’

‘Now wait!’ The tall man held up his large hands in appeal. ‘It’s not that I don’t like skeel. I hear T’cheria use them regularly, plowing and hauling. But I never understood why hauling beasts would have such short legs.’

Vandien looked down on his team. ‘Better leverage,’ he extemporized tersely. His own doubts nibbled at him. The tallest of the four came no higher than Vandien’s hip, but Web Shell had lisped earnestly of their strength and stamina. What Vandien still could not stomach was the horrible flexings of the skeel. They were like sharks, all muscle and bend wrapped in thick hide. The one slash he had received from a tail made him wonder what their internal structure was. Could anything with bones be that flexible? But this was no time to indulge his own squeamishness. He gave a careless shrug. ‘So they are built close to the ground. That’s not a fault. You can sink a wagon to its hubs in mud, and these four can still pop it out. When they get their tails braced and their feet dug in and start humping, it takes a big load to resist their pull. Look at the size of those feet! They won’t get mired down in muck the way horses’ hooves do. No, those big flappers just spread their weight out and give them more purchase for the pull.’

‘Aren’t you afraid to take them out in the water?’ the old man pressed. ‘You know, sometimes the tide doesn’t leave the temple dry. You may be wading a bit.’

‘They’re a well-trained team,’ Vandien responded vaguely. He would cross that bridge when he came to it.

The tall man stared at him, weighing his words. Then he hunkered down beside the team and stared at them wordlessly. Vandien felt conspicuously tall, standing over the crouched man and the flat skeel. He resisted the urge to crouch down beside them all. He leaned on the rail and waited. He hoped he would not have to wait long. His stomach was a shrunken sack tied to the end of his gullet.

‘The woman I dealt with,’ Vandien asked suddenly. ‘Srolan. Is she about?’

‘In the inn,’ the innmaster replied. He rose abruptly, and extended a large hand to Vandien.

‘I am Helti.’

‘Vandien.’ They touched hands. Vandien had to look up into the taller man’s face. He met his gaze solemnly. When the big man’s face cracked in a grin, Vandien responded to it.

‘You’ve a bold tongue and a strong spine, even if you’re not stacked much higher than a youth. Come in and eat and rest. There’ll be folk that want to meet you. I expect Srolan will want another chance for words with you. And you’ll want to meet the Windsinger who will be singing against you.’

Vandien closed his mouth as soon as he realized it was open. The big man laughed. ‘I figured she wouldn’t have mentioned that to you, if she made a big sound over the chest and all. Srolan likes to pretend it’s the old days, us against the Windsingers and all. She’s old, and you mustn’t … but you look empty, man, and as if you could find a use for a bed. Come on.’

Vandien trailed Helti, trying to still his whirling mind. He had an uneasy feeling that too soon he would understand all, and that little of it would be pleasing.

The inn boasted a railed porch, and a wooden door after the Human style. Two large rectangular windows admitted daylight through their milky panes. The wooden floor was scarred and old, made from salvaged ship planks. Wooden trestle tables and benches stood about, with guttered candles stumped in pools of their own wax. A great fireplace at one end of the room gaped, black and cold. A young boy stooped before it, shoveling the ash into a bucket. This was a clean place, by Human standards. A wide door led into the clank and steam of a kitchen. An unrailed staircase ascended to a darker upper floor.

‘Sit,’ said the innmaster, with a friendly clap on Vandien’s shoulder that dropped him onto the indicated bench. ‘I’ll be back soon enough with food and talk.’

It was good to rest on Human-sized furniture. Vandien looked around, and was struck that the whole room was scaled exclusively to Human usage. He had heard of isolated communities populated by only one sentient species, but this was the first one he had witnessed. The inn was largely deserted at this hour, except for the boy cleaning the hearth. A sulky little miss glared at Vandien as if it were his fault that she had been sent out with a bucket and a rag to oil the table planks.

And that was all. No sing of Srolan, unless … Vandien craned and leaned to get a glimpse of a small table set in the shadow of the staircase. Someone in robes sat there, but she was taller than he remembered Srolan. He had nearly thought of an excuse to rise and get a better look at her when Helti came back, bearing a tray.

‘Cook’s choice!’ Helti announced as he unburdened himself with a clank.

The meal was predictable. Fish cakes seasoned with seaweed, a thick chowder (no doubt containing whatever had been netted last night) and a tankard of bitter ale. Vandien set it out before himself, as Helti produced small fresh-baked loaves wrapped in a clean cloth. The smell of the food made Vandien giddy. Helti must have read his face, for he gave a ringing laugh.

‘You eat, I’ll talk,’ he offered, and Vandien needed no further invitation. Steam from the hot fish cakes scalded his uncaring fingers. The crusty brown crust broke open to flaky white fish inside. Vandien took a bite to keep his jaws busy while he stirred up the dregs of the chowder to let it cool. Cubes of cara root swirled past keeping company with shucked limpets, mussels, and less identifiable shapes. His spoon clacked against shells in the bottom of the bowl.

‘Srolan.’ Helti shook his head. ‘She’s probably gone upstairs. Won’t stay in the same room with the likes of her,’ and he tossed his head at the robed figure at the shadowed table. ‘I shouldn’t have let Srolan go out this year. It’s a youngster’s job, the walking of roads until a fit teamster’s found. But she insisted, and I was not the man to say “no” to her … She’s a granny to half the village, and aunty to the rest. Who’s to tell her she mayn’t go? So off she went, and though I knew she saw Temple Ebb differently from the rest of us, I didn’t think she’d mislead you. She’s old. Even older than you might guess. I hope you won’t be holding a grief against her?’

Vandien swallowed. He took a breath, feeling the food in his belly beginning to warm him. Slowly he broke one of the warm loaves, smelling the homey smell as it rose from the bread. ‘Tell me why I should be grieved, and then I’ll be able to decide.’

Helti looked uncomfortable. His eyes reminded Vandien of fish darting about in a tide pool, seeking escape. ‘Temple Ebb, you see, has been … since I was a boy, it’s been a time of merriment, a time for sweet cakes and the best of fall’s harvest from Bitters’ farmers. The fisherfolk forget for a time how bitter cold it’s going to be, fishing all winter. It’s a time for forgetting the realities of work, to lose yourself in a spectacle, whether it’s a counting mule or doves from a cup. The big finish is to watch someone else get as wet and work as hard as we expect to do all winter.’ Helti paused and Vandien nodded, chewing. He watched the big man shift awkwardly on the bench. But he left the speaking to Helti as he took a welcome draft of the cold ale.

‘Let me tell you how we see it. Sure, there’s a legend of the Windsingers’ chest, buried in the muck of the temple. But the idea of someone hauling it up is just spiced sugar on the top of the cake. It’s the pageantry of it, the drama of a teamster up to his armpits in icy water and waves, trying for that chest while the Windsinger stands on the hill above, her blue robes blowing in her own gale, and does her best to keep him from it. One old rhymester that came among us called it “the ancient battle of man against the elements of wind and water”: wrote a whole school of verses about it. He’s the one that told us it’s really the pageantry of it that we love. Likely you’ll hear his song in this very room this evening, if Collie’s fixed his harp yet.’

Vandien found himself nodding. He was just as glad that Ki was not here to grin at him across the table and be so damn right. He continued to eat, but the food no longer had flavor. So it was all to be a farce, and he was the hired clown. Yet, ‘Srolan offered me a very large fee, in more than coin,’ he said softly.

‘Oh, yes!’ Helti chimed in anxiously. ‘And it’s sincere! If, that is, you bring up the chest itself. Srolan would never offer more than she was in power to bestow. The village council is always generous with the pot it sets aside for the festival teamster. Probably because it’s never had to pay any of it out.’ Helti hesitated a moment. ‘They usually reimburse me for the teamster’s keep. The rest they use up on the Midwinter Fest. They don’t mind contributing to their own fun,’ he confided.

‘I see.’ Vandien stirred his chowder aimlessly. His belly still hungered, but suddenly eating seemed too much of an effort. There was no real chance of lifting his scar, nor even of turning a profit. A man who put less value on the touch of his hand would leave now, not even make the attempt. But he had touched hands on this. While the opinion of others mattered very little to Vandien, he would not tarnish his own opinion of himself. So he had given his word that he would make a public fool of himself. That was how it was, then. If it must be done, he might as well do it with good grace.

Helti was amazed and a little alarmed as he watched the teamster’s melancholy face light with a sardonic grin. Trust Srolan to find one like him. Vandien raised his mug and drained it, returning it to the table with a thump. Helti in turn lifted it and waved it at the boy, who stopped scraping ashes and clinkers to take it for refilling.

‘Any other little revelations about this task you would care to enlighten me with?’ Vandien inquired genially.

‘No. No. Unless, well, perhaps you would like to meet the Windsinger you’ll be opposing. I mean, no sense in going into this thing with hard feelings. You two are the village’s guests during Temple Ebb. It’s not like she picked you to defeat; you just happened to be the one this year.’

‘Precisely. No hard feelings, good fellowship all round, and here’s to you, my competitor!’ The boy had returned with the mug and Vandien raised it again.

‘Exactly.’ Helti was not totally reassured. Vandien’s words were sporting enough. But the merry lilt had sharp edges. Still and all, it was too late to find another teamster. Helti made a silent resolution that next time he would send someone else to find a teamster. This fellow promised no sport or show at all. Worse, his capacity for food and drink seemed limitless. A poor bargain, but too late to change now. He tried to mellow the teamster’s mood. ‘They’ve sent us a fine Windsinger this year. Not like in early years, when I’ve heard that the Windsingers took the whole festival poorly, and turned gales and storms on the village for weeks afterward. No, they’ve come to see it for what it is, a bit of pageantry, a break from this workaday world. Quite a merry little one they’ve sent us this year! She plans to stay right here in the inn with us, just as if she were folks. Not much past being an apprentice, by the color of her robes, and so fine-scaled that you’d swear she still wore her own skin. She can blow up a fine wind though. A sweeter-tempered Windsinger you’ve never had to do with. Last eve she was making breezes for the children’s kites, so that even the youngest ones could get one flying. Now that’s a new one to us; most have been courteous enough, but acted more like they were tolerating the festival. This one seems bound to enjoy it as much as we. Picture this; here we were, last night, all gathered about the fire of an evening, beginning to do a bit of singing. Festival has a lot of songs, it being an old holiday, and we were tuning up a bit on them. We had got into it pretty fair, more loud than tuneful, you understand, for singing is not a thing we do that often. We had just got to the middle of the chorus, mugs beating out the time, when we hear a voice join in that we know isn’t one of the village folk. High and clear like a bird taken to Human tongue. Everyone stops their singing, and looks about, and there she is, on the stairway. It gets all silent, you can imagine how we are, thinking, how long has she been there, how much has she heard – for some of the old songs aren’t too kindly spoken of the Windsingers. But what does she do? She finishes out the chorus alone, and gives us a smile and comes on down. “Bring me a mug of your best!” she calls out, just like she was folks, “and I’ll sing you one you’ve not heard before, even though it’s about your own village. We call it The Village That Plows The Sea.” And in she starts, singing to an old tune, but set so high that no one in the village could have matched one note of it. And it is about False Harbor, and how we harvest fish from the sea, and it makes a joke of it, saying we plow the waves at Temple Ebb, seeking for what is not there.’

‘I don’t get it,’ Vandien put in slowly, his low voice a marked contrast to the innkeeper’s amazed and jocular one.

‘Why, you know! We send out a man with a team, and he slashes and turns through the waves, like a farmer turning up furrows to plant a crop, and we harvest a crop of fish from the sea … but I’m just telling you in words, you have to hear it all done in rhyme, with the words turned to mean two things at once and …’

‘No.’ Vandien’s voice was as soft as ever, but cut right through Helti’s flow of words. ‘That much is obvious, even to me. What means the part about plowing for what is not there?’

‘Srolan!’ Helti hissed the name out in frustrated rebuke. ‘You make me feel bad, young man. Has she not told you that the Windsingers have always denied there is anything to be found in the temple? They send the storms, they tell us, only because such as we should not be desecrating their fallen temples with our curiosity.’

‘Is there, or is there not, a chest I am to bring up?’ Vandien demanded in a flinty voice.

‘There is not.’

The voice from behind his shoulder was silky soft, pure and strong with years of training. Vandien turned to it slowly, refusing to be startled. Few could approach him without his hearing, but she had.

‘Windsinger Killian,’ Helti breathed deferentially. ‘I hope our frank speech has not irritated you. The man was hired knowing little of our customs and what we truly expected of him. I was only …’

‘Peace, innmaster. Why should I take offense at the truth? Your name, teamster?’

Vandien looked up at her and held his name in his mouth. Her height was not impressive. She had more than half a head over Vandien, but most of it was cowl. What had been her forehead when she was Human would have been on a height with his own. She was slender in pale blue robes that fell to cover even the tips of her toes. But they bared her face and hands and wrists to Vandien’s quick eyes. Finely scaled she was, the scales only beginning to be edged with a bluish tinge. It could have been a flawlessly applied cosmetic, but it was not. Her fingernails were already turning to a heavier layer of horny scale, the eyelashes and eyebrows long fled from her face, even her lips were masked in scales of a slightly rosier hue. She was a Windsinger, and Vandien had been warned all of his life not to gift one of such power with his own name. He was mute.

‘He is Vandien,’ Helti broke in as the silence became awkward. ‘Pray, seat yourself, Windsinger Killian. Shall I send for something from the kitchen for you?’

Vandien had lowered his dark eyes. Now he picked up his mug and looked boldly at the Windsinger over its rim. He took down half of it. Helti was becoming more and more agitated every moment, but Vandien cared little; Helti had made free with his name, now let him swallow discomfort and choke on it.

But Killian appeared not to notice any awkwardness as she seated herself beside Helti. Her tall cowl bobbed gracefully to her movements, like the soft crest of a wading bird. But for that cowl she could have been a prudishly swathed young woman. Her grey eyes, so Human, looked into Vandien’s with the charming frankness of an innocent girl. And yet, he reminded himself, she was neither innocent nor Human. Not anymore.

‘And does your teamster speak?’ Killian teased.

‘When he has words to say,’ Vandien countered.

‘And have you nothing to say to me, who will oppose you tomorrow?’ Her eyes smiled at Helti’s, past Vandien, as if he were a difficult child and Helti the doting parent.

‘I think not,’ Vandien rasped.

‘A pity. I had so looked forward to meeting my competitor, and seeing if he was worthy of opposing my skills. So silent you are, I think you cowed already. Will you slip away in the night, Vandien, before we have a chance to try one another?’

‘Will you?’

‘Um. You think that would make your task easier? That if there were no wind whistling about you, you could splash about to your heart’s content and find something in the old temple? Were it not that our temples, old or new, are consecrated only for us, I would be tempted to let you try.’

‘Now, now!’ Helti intervened anxiously. He rose and pressed a heavy hand on Vandien’s shoulder. ‘You’ve no call to be so bitter of tongue, young man. It’s true, you were misled about your task. I’m sorry that was so. But take it with a good spirit, as befits a man of honor. Buck up, and make the best of it! Is it so hard a thing, to face two days of free food and drink, a clean warm room with soft blankets, and whatever else you can think to ask for? It’s true you don’t stand to gain much in coin, but surely Srolan told you how we treat our teamster guest. Would you have a new cloak? A pair of boots? Ask for it, and it’s yours. You’ll see we’re not a niggardly folk when it comes to our guests. Perhaps you’ve been tricked into this part, but it need not be a bad thing for you. Think what you’re to ask of us, and warm your heart a little. And, Windsinger Killian, begging your pardon, but I hope you won’t be taking our teamster’s sour words too hard. A long and weary way he has come, dry of throat and hungry, thinking of gold for his purse, only to have his dreams turned to fish chowder and boots. It’s enough to sour any man. Likely he’s just a bit tired. A hot bath and a bed is what you need, man. Now isn’t that so?’ The big hand on Vandien’s shoulder tightened suggestively. It did not leave his shoulder as he rose, but subtly helped him to his feet and steered him to the stairs. ‘You’ll see. It will set all to rights with you. You’ll face tomorrow with a grin on your face and a new spirit.’

‘No doubt.’ Vandien’s words were for Helti, but his eyes locked with the Windsinger’s. What parents had given their daughter such eyes? How had they felt when they lost her to the Windsingers? Or had she, like so many other little girls, gone out to play one day and simply never returned? Did she even remember them? And then the large grey eyes dropped him a wink, so girlishly flirtatious that his blood ran cold.

He climbed the stairs slowly. Down below, he heard Helti bellowing for someone named Janie to fetch him a bath. The stairs led up to a hallway, dimly lit by windows at either end. The stairwell was not railed. Vandien resolved not to drink too much this night. Of the six doors facing onto the hall, two were closed. He made a hasty inspection of the other four and chose the largest and airiest bedroom. The window shutters had been latched open and a fresh breeze off the sea flavored the chilled room.

It was a well-furnished room by an inn’s standards. The stout wooden tub, long and deep, had been designed for someone larger than Vandien. A wooden stand, plain but graceful, supported a basin and ewer. The wooden bedstead boasted a straw-stuffed mattress with two thick coverlets and a folded woolen blanket at the foot of it. There was even a trunk, if he had needed a place for his possessions. Two worn hides graced the floor, one by the bed and another by the tub. A wooden stool completed the room’s furnishings.

Vandien sank gratefully onto the bed. For a moment he let his shoulders slump in defeat, then he straightened, knuckled his eyes, and pushed his hair back from his face. There was a knock at his door. Before he could answer, it was shouldered open. Janie was obviously the older sister of the child cleaning tables; the resemblance was unmistakable. She carried two heavy buckets of steaming water. The serving boy behind her was similarly laden, and two rough towels were slung over his shoulder.

‘Your bath, teamster,’ the boy announced, dumping his water into the tub.

‘I doubt he thought it was soup,’ giggled Janie. She rolled her eyes at Vandien, and shrugged at the boy’s stupidity. Her young breasts heaved alarmingly. Vandien couldn’t decide if she were flirting with him or the serving boy.

The boy ignored her, setting the towels on the stool and clumping out of the room. Janie glanced about casually, pulled a handful of herbs from her apron pocket, and tossed them into the water. As she bent over the tub to stir them in, she watched Vandien from the corner of her eye. He sat silent, waiting. Then she straightened, slowly drying her hand and arm on her apron.

‘Is there anything else, teamster?’

‘Nothing. This is much finer than I expected. Thank you.’

‘You know, you’ve but to ask for whatever comes into your head. Nothing is refused to the Temple Ebb teamster. So don’t be shy.’

‘I won’t,’ Vandien responded gravely.

‘Well then.’ Janie gave a short sigh as she inspected the room again. ‘I’ll go then. Enjoy your bath.’

‘I will. Thank you.’

She sauntered to the door and gave Vandien a bright smile before she shut it behind her.

Vandien sighed and bent down to pull off his boots. Maybe he should ask for a new pair; these had certainly seen better days. He stripped his tunic off over his head and let it fall to the floor. His romp in the creek and days of dusty travel were recorded on it. He kicked his road-weary trousers onto the same heap.

The water was too hot, but as he eased into it he felt the weariness lifting away from him with the dirt. He raised a dipperful of water and let it stream over his head. Leaning back, he sank into the tub until the water lapped against his unshaven chin. He lolled his head back on the tub’s rim and closed his eyes.

‘I’ve forgotten my buckets!’

Vandien wondered why he wasn’t surprised. When he opened his eyes, Janie stood in the door.

‘I only came to get my buckets,’ she repeated, and defiance mingled with a taunt in her voice.

‘I’m glad you came back, actually,’ Vandien conceded. ‘There is something you could do for me.’

‘Is there?’ Janie’s eyes were wide.

‘When you take your buckets, would you take my tunic and trousers as well? They need washing. In fact …’ Vandien hesitated. ‘If you could also find some new things of the same size, I’d be very grateful.’

‘Yes, teamster.’ Janie’s voice was suddenly subdued. She scooped up her buckets and slung his dirty clothes over one arm. Vandien winced at the slamming of his door. Well, it couldn’t be helped. He wondered if he had ever been as young as Janie. Slowly he let his body slide deeper into the hot water. He had not realized how cold he was until the heat of the water began to chase away the deepest chills. He lolled his head back and relaxed.

The door was eased open. Vandien did not turn. This was beginning to be wearing.

‘Wouldn’t the teamster like his back washed, perhaps?’

‘Janie, my back has been in the same place for as long as I can remember. I think I can find it to wash it. Do this for me instead: go walk on the beach, pick up all the pretty shells you can find and put them in a box. Someday, when you are as old as I am now, and feel twice that age, look in the box and remember when you were a little girl who couldn’t wait to grow up. Now scoot!’ Vandien turned with a slosh of water to point at the door.

But it was Srolan who stood with her back pressed against it, a grin of mischief on her face. Her black eyes sparkled. ‘You’ve more about you than shows, teamster Vandien. Even at this moment.’

Vandien sank back into the tub, embarrassed and feeling more flustered by Srolan’s presence than by young Janie’s.

‘I must sound a pompous fool to you. I won’t try to explain.’

‘You needn’t. I saw her face as she left … There is a certain kind of woman – she may be any age – who isn’t certain of herself, who won’t risk being rejected by a handsome man. But when she sees a man with a disfigured face or a withered arm, she says to herself, “Surely no one besides myself can see past the scar to the worth behind it. Surely he will be flattered by my attention, and I will be giving him a gift he seldom receives.” So, she offers, and expects you to be amazed and grateful that any would find you attractive. Am I wrong?’

She wasn’t, and that hurt. But Vandien only said, ‘Srolan, I am in no mood to speak of scars just now. If I had realized the teamster’s ablutions were a public ceremony, I would have had the tub brought down to the common room. Would you mind?’ He jerked his head toward the door.

‘Yes, I would. And so should you. This will be the only private chance I’ll have to talk to you; the common room is ever full of ears. My own home is never free of neighbors seeking a cure for a toothache, a plaster for a sore belly, an oil for a pulled shoulder. So we must set aside privacy and meet here.’

‘Why? How will you explain when Janie finds another excuse to pop in here? She’ll be back soon, with clean clothes for me.’

‘Knowing Janie, she could find an excuse faster than that. She’s a resourceful little snip. This inn will be a more restful place when she finally finds someone to oblige her. But, to answer your question, she won’t pop in because she saw me come in as she was going down the stairs. She’ll be afraid to open the door now for fear of what Granny might be doing with the stranger. But enough of this. Stop worrying about your flesh, and listen to what I have to say.’

Vandien waited for her to continue. He watched as she roamed the room smoothing the coverlet on the bed, shaking and refolding the towels, and finally perching on the foot of the bed. She pushed back her black hair and gave her head a shake to set it free down her back. Her gesture was as young as Janie’s, and not so contrived. When she turned to face Vandien, her years had hidden themselves. The lines in her face and her bony knuckles lied, her eyes asserted. Vandien’s attention was riveted to her.

‘You think me a foul old woman, perhaps, to deceive you so about your task?’

He had, but no longer did. ‘Well …’

‘But I did not deceive you. Every word I told you is true. There is a Windsinger secret in that temple, and if you bring it up, you shall have six tallies, and the scar lifted from your face.’

‘One’s as likely as the other,’ Vandien muttered. Helti had made him feel ashamed for being so gullible. Now, with a word and a smile, Srolan made his doubts seem a weakness.

‘Damn Helti!’ Srolan blazed. ‘Damn the fool, and that pet Windsinger they have sent us. His words take the heart out of our teamster. What man can win when he expects defeat? It is the same every year. After Helti has been at the teamsters, they do not even look for the chest. They splash about with their beasts for a few hours in a storm, and then back to the inn they come, for a drink and a hot meal and a willing bed partner. They’ve changed a worthy quest into a fool’s show. Cannot you see the slyness of the Windsingers in this? Vandien, do you think it was always this way? It was not.

‘When I was a babe, Temple Ebb united our village. There was no need to hire a teamster. Every able-bodied adult in the village was out in the shallow waters of low tide, trying to bring up that chest. Back then, the storms of the Windsingers lashed us all, but could not dissuade us. Now they call the chest a myth, because for a fool’s life no one has seen it. They disbelieve the stories of their fathers. Yet there are folk in this town descended from those who have touched the chest. The same ones that told us it’s too heavy for a man’s hands. Only a team could haul it up, they said, for there’re stones that must be moved, as well as a heavy chest to haul.

‘And so we began the hiring of teamsters every year. But love for wealth is not spur enough for a man when the Windsinger’s storm is upon him. No hired teamster will bring up that chest for coin alone. The teamster would need a reason more compelling than that. For years, I tried to tell them that, but they wouldn’t listen. They don’t know how a sung storm chills the heart and leaches away resolve. They’ve never battled the Windsinger’s storm. So this year I did it myself. I found a teamster and gave him a reason to keep his heart hot. I found you.’

Srolan’s eyes were piercing. Vandien, who had so often unleashed the compelling charm of his own dark eyes, fell victim. Srolan’s cause became his; her resolved fired him.

‘Why have they lost the spirit that moves you?’ Vandien wondered.

‘They do not remember; some do not even know!’ Srolan cried. ‘What do you suppose made the earth shake and fall? It was the blasphemy of the Windsingers that sent our village beneath the waves! So I heard from my own grandmother!’ She fell silent, too outraged to go on. The heaving of her breast testified to her emotion. Vandien stared at her.

So old she was, and so young. Her words had added sparks to her eyes, brought the color to her cheeks until the withered skin flushed with youth. Damn, he liked her! It was as instinctive as breathing. He knew her. She was sound, a friend to be trusted as if he had known her for years.

But.

His common sense nagged him in Ki’s voice. The woman was either senile or crazy. Her story was full of holes. Revenge for her long-drowned ancestors? He should listen to Helti, and get through this with as little scraping as possible. Did Srolan think him a gullible simpleton? Or did she believe he was as crazy as herself?

‘Your bath water must be getting cold.’

Vandien started, suddenly realizing how long the silence had lasted. He shifted in the water. If Ki were here, she would call him a fool. She would tell him not to get involved in other folk’s quarrels. She would tell him not to be impulsive. But Ki wasn’t here.

‘Is there a chest?’ he suddenly demanded.

‘Yes.’ Her answer was simple, ringing with truth.

‘And can it be retrieved from there?’

‘Where Human hands place a thing, other Human hands can remove it.’

Only one question was left. It nearly choked him. ‘And can you pay me six tallies, and truly lift the scar from my face?’

Srolan rose. She gave him a smile that she had saved since she was born, just for him. It held the promise of all promises. ‘If you do your part, man, do you think I will do less than mine?’

‘But how?’

She knew he wasn’t asking about the money. She smiled at him silently. Rising, she took a towel from the stool and tossed it to him. He watched the door close softly behind her.

Vandien rose from the lukewarm water, stretched, and swathed himself in the towel. His fingers were wrinkled into ridges. All his lax body could dream of was sleep.

The door opened.

‘These were outside your door.’ Srolan stepped in. On the foot of his bed she placed a clean brown fisherman’s smock and trousers. She stepped out again. Vandien was not given time to speak.

He fell into the bed, not even bothering to dry himself or call thanks after her. The coverlet was stuffed with down, warm airy stuff, light as sunshine on his body. The door opened.

‘And, Vandien?’

‘Does no one knock?’ he muttered wearily.

‘No one. It would do her no harm if you let Janie know you thought her pretty and sweet. A kind word or two from you might make her feel her own self-worth, and keep her from throwing herself at the next stray traveler that happens along. And there are things she could tell you, if she had a mind to.’

Srolan began to withdraw. Vandien sat up.

‘Wait!’ When she paused, her head thrust into the room, he asked, ‘Is there anything else? Is there any other reason why anyone else is going to barge in here?’

Srolan smiled at him. ‘There’s only one last thing I’ll say. Close the window shutter before you take a cough. No, stay where you are, I’ll do it for you.’

With quick steps she crossed the room to lower the shutter with a thud and latch it against the gusting wind. Vandien was plunged into restful darkness.

‘Thanks,’ he murmured, shouldering himself deeper into the bed.

‘My hopes are riding on you, teamster,’ she spoke into the darkness.

He had not heard her come near, but he felt the sudden press of lips upon his forehead, warm as a lover’s and as impersonal as a goddess’s. It was a strange caress, outside all forms of courtesy Vandien knew. Yet it did not startle him. All the things tight inside him, all worries, all doubts, all the tiny muscles of his face and scalp, loosened. Sleep was softer and warmer than the down coverlet, and bottomless. He never heard Srolan leave.