Prisoner of Haven

18

Usha peered out the carriage window at devastated Haven. There was water everywhere—running in the gutters, pooling in low spots, and turning gardens into swamps.

The horses snorted and shook their heads. Rowan called softly to them, encouraging with a firm and gentle hand on the reins. Usha saw the horses’ ears flatten. The offside mare flung up her head, eyes rolling so the whites glared. She wasn’t going to move, and so her harness mate went back on her haunches, making her own position clear.

Rowan tied the reins to the side of his box and slipped down into the street. He made no splash to frighten his team, and he kept talking as he walked, always using a soft, encouraging voice.

What should have been a short drive to the Ivy had become a tense and frightening journey. Rowan had been using every bit of his considerable skill to guide the carriage through deep water and muddy streams with active currents running through them. Some ran as high as a quarter way up the wheels. The horses had refused anything deeper, and Rowan searched long and circuitous ways to find even that. Two days after the storm, they still encountered roads as far as five blocks in from the river where they couldn’t see the cobbles and bricks. Trees torn out by the roots lay across many roads. Countless houses and shops had lost roofs to the wind, and those were the lucky ones. Others had been crushed by falling trees.

People stood in water up to their knees, shaking their heads in dismay. Others wandered stunned and looking witless as they sloshed through the water, hoping to find the things the storm had stolen. Many had awakened to find their kitchens flooded to the ceilings, the stores in their larders ruined, their vegetable gardens at the bottom of rank pools of water. The wells on the low side of the hill were polluted, and drinking water was suddenly, frighteningly scarce.

Loren’s gardener said bodies were washing up from the river, corpses of citizens and soldiers alike littering the banks. Usha and Loren had been wakened by Tamara on the night of the storm to watch three talons of dragons move out to the moors, for there was no high ground left for them near Haven. At dawn, Usha had asked Loren if he would allow Rowan to take her to the Ivy. He had agreed and said he would go with her, but Usha had declined. While it was true Usha wanted to check on her belongings, she wanted most to see whether Dezra was at the inn or had left word that she was well and safe. She didn’t want to encounter Dez or receive a message in Loren’s company.

“Just let me do this,” she’d said. “You have much to do here, and I’ll be guided by Rowan’s advice. If he thinks the way is too dangerous, I’ll abide by his word.”

Reluctantly, Loren agreed, for what she said was true. He had much to look after at Steadfast and could not really be spared.

Usha looked out the window again and saw Rowan take the cheek strap of the offside mare. He looked back over his shoulder and said, “Hold on, Mistress.”

She grabbed leather hand straps as the carriage lurched sharply forward. Rowan led the mare and so the team, who would advance only in fits and starts. They went this way slowly, and Rowan did not resume his seat on the driver’s box. The route was not direct, and it was not quick, but in time Usha saw the stone chimneys of the inn rising darkly into the gray sky. No smoke curled up from them. Only the small yellow lights of candles and lanterns showed from the windows of the common room, and not many of those. Like wraiths, the dim figures of people drifted back and forth within, guests looking for the comfort of their fellows’ company.

“It’s like a war,” Rowan muttered.

Usha nodded. It was—a battle against the city by nature. She thought Sir Radulf and his talon of dragons hadn’t been worse.

Rowan led the horses into the mud that had been the inn’s dusty dooryard. He tied the reins to the hitching post and came around to help Usha down. Sweat ran in his face, and his hair was slicked to his neck, exposing the cant of his ears. He brushed absently at it, the old habit of covering this sign of mixed blood that was seldom welcome among elves or humans.

Usha took the hand he offered and stepped into water that soaked her skirt to the knees. The mud sucked at the bottom of her shoes. He said he’d wait with the carriage and the skittish team.

“All right,” Usha said, trying to sound optimistic and failing. She hiked up her sodden hems. “I’ll go see what’s left.”

The inn’s common room had taken on water. The rushes always so carefully laid and refreshed were sodden piles swept up against the walls and smelling faintly of rotting herbage and the river. Mud streaked a floor that hadn’t dried and wouldn’t soon. Guests sat or stood around in small groups, still stunned two days after the storm. A woman sat alone at a table near an unshuttered window, hands clasped at her breast as though in prayer as she looked out with the eyes of one beginning to lose hope.

“Her man and her two children,” Rusty whispered to Usha. “They were at the market when the rains came. Never came home.” He dropped his voice. “There’s talk of bodies washing out of the river, and I think—” He glanced toward the woman. “I think maybe ...”

Usha nodded, her eyes on the woman at the window. “It’s more than talk. What do you hear, Rusty?”

He shrugged. “Nothing much. People are just coming out now. They stop in sometimes, looking for help or news. I can’t offer much news, but I help where I can, even if it’s only a place to sit and talk for a while. It’s bad, Mistress Usha. Wells are polluted. Larders and storerooms full of ruined food. Not just here, though it’s bad enough in my own storerooms, but everywhere in the lower districts. The whole market square is under water.” He shook his head. “Bad.”

“Have you heard from Dez?”

“Not a word. But she’s a survivor, that one. She’ll turn up.”

He meant to cheer, but after what they’d both learned of the city’s fate, Usha was little heartened. “You know where to find me.”

Rusty nodded and assured her he’d find her with good news as soon as it arrived. After a discreet pause and a clearing of his throat, he said, “Will you be removing there permanently?”

“No. Things will clear up here. I’ll keep our rooms.” She avoided the urge to look at the watcher at the window again, the woman holding on to thinning hope. “I know Dez will be back and wanting hers.”

“You’re not going to find much.” He jerked his chin at the stairway. “Storm blew the shutters right off the windows. It’s as wet up there as it is down there. I’m sorry.”

Usha stood haplessly in the middle of the space that had only days before been her studio. Her easel was shattered, her palette vanished, swept away in water that had poured in through the open windows. Charcoals and sketches were gone. The painting she’d been working on—a commission lately taken and only days old—was ruined. On the floor, things were worse. Her paint had been storm-flung along with the ingredients of her favorite pa’ressa recipe. They had changed the color of the oak floor.

With no place to sit, Usha stood, head low, heart aching for the loss.

“Well,” Rusty said, outside the door and peering in. “It’s certainly a mess, but it’s a colorful mess.”

“It’s not a mess, it’s a horror, but it’s my little horror. I’m not sure what I can do here. But if nothing more, I can pay you this month’s rent and next so you can hire workmen.”

But where to go? There wasn’t a room at the Ivy that wasn’t in use or made useless by the storm. She could not imagine there was anyplace else in Haven for her, though she did ask. Rusty confirmed her fear.

She could only return to Steadfast, to Loren and the game they played with rules no one clearly understood. Since the storm she’d spent each night in his bed—how to say no, to beg for a guest chamber from the man she loved?

Usha turned to Rusty. “Until it gets better here, I think I can work at Steadfast.” She looked around, weary now. “I suppose I should see if I have a salvageable wardrobe.”

Things were not much better, but some things could be salvaged. She had only sodden clothing to bring back to Steadfast, but with Rusty’s help she bundled it all up the best she could and dumped it onto the floor of the carriage.

Usha’s last word to Rusty, private and urgent, was to remind him to let her know the moment he heard anything about how Dezra was faring. Despite his attempt at reassuring her that all was well, Usha was not eased. There should have been something—a message from Dez, Aline, or even Madoc. The silence boded no good.