The Orphans of Raspay

Epilogue

As much as Pen liked his upstairs study overlooking the shared well-court, he had to admit it grew close on a hot Vilnoc summer morning. So he’d moved the girls’ language lesson down to the back pergola, its plank table and benches shaded by grape leaves, the surrounding pots of kitchen herbs lending a pleasantly rustic effect. The concentration of practicing Cedonian letters with slate and chalk had given way, in the languid warmth, to learning a few children’s Temple hymns instead. Pen thought the rhythm, rhyme, and refrains did more, faster, to fix words in young brains than dry readings or recitations, not that the latter didn’t have their place.

And he was able, without drudgery, to slip in the needed repetition by trying for harmony, his light baritone blending agreeably, he hoped, with the girls’ sopranos. Curiously, Seuka’s voice held to the key better than Lencia’s; he fancied Lencia’s busy mind was trying too hard. Still straining to be both lost mother and father to their truncated family, when being big sister seemed task enough to Pen.

Their rudimentary choir practice was interrupted by Nikys, rapping on a pergola support and smiling, so presumably not because she was being maddened by the noise. “Penric, we have a visitor.”

He looked up and past her shoulder. The man hovering anxiously there was middle-aged, middle-sized, sturdy rather than stout. He wore ordinary dress of tunic, belt, and trousers, if well-made, and sensible sandals in this weather. His hair and beard were dark with a smattering of gray, his skin not Cedonian-brick but a paler warm tan that might have come from anywhere along the continent’s more eastward coasts. Pen pegged it as Ibra by the familiar letter clutched tightly in his hand, and the girls’ reactions.

“Papa!” shrieked Lencia; after an uncertain moment—it had been, what, over a year since they’d last seen the man—Seuka followed her bolt around the table.

He dropped to his knees and opened his arms to receive them, embracing them both at once, hard. “Ah,” he huffed, dampening eyes closing in a grimace caught between joy and pain. In Ibran, he muttered, “Ah, so it’s all true…”

“Master Ubi Getaf, I take it,” said Pen, rising to greet this welcome, if sudden, apparition. The letter being abused in that thick fist was the one he’d written to Learned Iserne in Lodi, three weeks ago when they’d first reached Vilnoc, tightly summarizing his late adventures and begging her help in finding the wandering merchant. She had followed through splendidly, it seemed.

“Learned Penric?” said Getaf, less surely. He clambered to his feet and, both his hands being occupied by his clinging offspring, ducked his head at Penric. He continued in halting Cedonian, “I understand I have much to thank you for in rescuing my children.”

Pen returned in smooth Ibran, “It was no more than any decent adult would have done, under the circumstances.”

Well, perhaps a little more, murmured Des, amused. He would wait a while, Pen decided, to introduce Des.

Getaf’s head went back as he parsed Pen’s regional Ibran accent. “You… are from Brajar…?”

“No, but my language teacher was, long ago.” And I thank you for it, Learned Aulia, he thought to that layer of Des that was the Brajaran Temple woman, who had once received Des from the dying Umelan like the baton in some mortal relay.

Getaf accepted this with another nod, too distracted to be curious. The girls dragged him to a bench, both trying to tell all their tale at once in a mixture of Roknari, which he seemed to speak well, and a little Ibran. He sat heavily, his head swinging back and forth like a man trying to follow some fast-moving ball game, or perhaps a bear befuddled by bees.

Nikys folded her arms and leaned back against the pergola post, listening in understandable bafflement, as she had some Roknari but no Ibran. But Pen thought she followed the emotions perfectly well, and approved. He pulled out his bench and motioned her to his side, where they sat, her soft thigh in its draped linen pressing companionably against his lean one. Don’t you dare disappear on me like that again he received in a language more fundamental than any that tripped from his tongue. He grasped her plump hand and returned an equally silent, Aye, Madame Owl.

He murmured to her, “Does Getaf seem an upright fellow to you?”

Equally intent on the reunion playing out, Nikys murmured back, “Look at the girls. Such unhesitating gladness goes beyond just relief at a familiar face, I think.”

Thanks in great part to Nikys the sisters were clean; shining hair neatly bound in braids and colored ties; fed, if not to sleekness, at least to the point that their natural skinniness no longer looked sunken with stress; and dressed in a superior grade of hand-me-downs that Nikys had begged from the duchess’s household. Penric was pleased that they were able to present the pair to their papa in such good order, as though he were again a student offering some especially well-done work to one of his seminary masters. He hoped he’d get a good mark.

Getaf’s expression sobered as the girls worked their way back to the tale of their mother’s death, the details all new to him since Pen’s letter had devoted only a clause about died from illness in Raspay to the root calamity.

“I am so sorry,” he told them. “I’d heard nothing of this. When the prince of Jokona’s border clash with Ibra closed his coasts to Zagosur trade, I thought to wait it out with a venture west. The Zagosur factor should have forwarded your letter to me, not returned it. And Taspeig should most certainly have accompanied you all the way to Lodi, not abandoned you at Agenno, although… although that might not have helped.”

“She was very tired and cranky by then,” Lencia offered in excuse. “We all were. And I think she was running out of money.”

“Still. Still.”

Seuka raised her face. “Are you going to take us home now, Papa?”

Getaf hesitated, too palpably. Where was home for these sisters now, really? Raspay seemed as abandoned behind them as any sunken ship, with not even a floating spar left to cling to.

Lencia, as ever the more alert to the difficulties, put in, “Or at least take us along with you?”

That was a, hm, not-bad picture, of living like young apprentices trailing a master trader and learning the world, as many such men made their sons. And sometimes daughters.

Getaf rubbed his forehead, frowning into his lap. “That presents certain problems, which I must take thought for. I can’t take you back to Zagosur. Which, I suppose, was never home for you anyway. But I won’t leave you without succor; that, I promise.” He looked across at Pen and switched to Cedonian. “Learned Penric, may I speak with you in private for a moment?”

Pen and Nikys glanced at each other. Nikys rose, and said kindly, “Lencia, Seuka, can you come help me fetch food and drink for your papa?”

Lencia frowned, and Seuka’s lower lip stuck out, wary of the risk of people arranging their lives without their say-so. Penric sympathized, but construed there might be personal matters Getaf didn’t wish to share with them. As well, Nikys could seize this chance for a candid conference with his daughters. Pen nodded brightly at them, and they let themselves be shuffled off, only dragging their sandaled feet a little.

Getaf watched them disappear into the house, then lowered his voice and said in Ibran, “May I take it they were not worse abused by the pirates?”

“You may. Apparently due to their higher sale value as virgins. Which, er, they have retained.”

Getaf nodded in relief. Then paused, mustering his words. “Your friend Learned Iserne caught up with me just in time in Lodi. I’d finished amassing my trade goods there, and in another week I would have been on my way back to Zagosur.” He chewed his lip. “I don’t think it wise to try to take Lencia and Seuka to my household there. My wife holds all in firm hands, very reliable manager, has nurtured our own children near to maturity, with a useful web of in-laws, but… I don’t think she would make them very welcome. They deserve better than grudging care, and because of my business I would not be much there to provide a balancing weight.”

“I gather Madame Getaf does not know about your mistress?” Or had Jedula Corva been more in the nature of a second wife?

Getaf shook his head. “And I’d prefer to keep it that way. Given there is nothing left in Raspay to argue about.”

“Understandable…”

“Jedula was an anchor to me, but to the extent I’d thought about anything happening to her and not me, I assumed I would pay Taspeig to care for the girls, in their house as before. I can’t see taking them back to Taspeig now, given her unreliable behavior in Agenno. Anyway, I expect she has gone on to find some other life for herself. And the status of half-Quintarian orphans in Raspay, even if they’re not destitute, is not happy.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Getaf stared into his hands, cradled between his knees, then looked up at Pen more keenly. “What can you tell me about the Bastard’s Order here in Vilnoc? Is it well-run?”

Pen’s brows rose. “The orphanage is as decent as it can manage. Chronically short of funds and staff, like most such places, but its people are very dedicated.”

Getaf waved this aside. “No, no. I’d take our chances in Zagosur before I’d leave the girls in an orphanage. Spare those resources for the truly needy. I’m thinking about the chapterhouse itself. Lencia and especially Seuka are a little young to be placed as dowered dedicats to the Order, but… perhaps you have some influence there?”

“Huh.” Pen folded his arms on the plank table. “There’s an interesting notion.”

“A good chapterhouse might assume their care and education at a higher level than an orphanage can provide, and keep them together if their dower-contract so instructed. And… and for the first time in their lives, their birth-status might make them more, not less, welcomed. Um—where have they been staying in Vilnoc till now? Your letter was unclear on that point.” He pressed the wrinkled paper out on the table in a nervous gesture.

“Oh, sorry. They’ve been staying here. I suppose you can think of my house as a branch of the Order, irregular senior member as I am.”

Getaf looked up in hesitation. “Do you think you…? Would your wife…?”

Pen felt his way forward, sharing Getaf’s uncertainty. Nikys had been nothing but generous to the lost girls, but was it right to pledge her labor into an indefinite future when a perfectly good parent had turned up after all, willing to do his part? Even more central, what was the optimum opportunity for Lencia and Seuka?

“I… actually think the chapterhouse would make a better regular domicile for them,” Pen said slowly, “given the erratic nature of my own duties, and also those of Nikys and Adelis. And there would be more kinds of people around to teach and train them, not to mention a supply of energetic young fellow-dedicats to befriend. But, really, this need not be either-or. It’s only a short walk from here. Looking in on each other would be an easy task.”

Lord Bastard, is this your intent? Pen would pray to his god for guidance, but he never did get any back when he did that, so he supposed he must use his own judgment. Though capturing two such bright souls for His Order must surely be an acceptable offering.

Getaf said wistfully, “Do they seem to like Vilnoc?”

“So far as I can tell. Though any place must seem better than Lantihera, or whatever slavery would have followed.”

A wry, conceding nod. “I could make sure my travels extend toward Lodi again. And visit, from time to time.” Left unspoken were the hazards of his own trade—Pen was put in mind of Aloro and Arditi, and hoped they’d made it back alive to Adria.

“Well, then, I suggest you put the proposal to your daughters, and discover what they think of it. I see no impediment from this end.”

Getaf’s stiff shoulders eased at this reassurance. “It could be well. It might be very well.”

“It might.” Pen pulled his queue around—Seuka had insisted on her turn to braid, this morning—and fiddled with it, perhaps not concealing his nosiness as much as he’d wish. “Do you think their mother would approve?”

An aching sort of shrug at this reminder of grief. “I can only pray so. But if they flourish, then yes. It was all she ever wanted for her girls, their well-being.”

“How did you two come to meet?” Which wasn’t really the question. But How did you two come to form a bond that could not even be broken by death? seemed too intimate a query for an hour’s acquaintance.

A brief smile. “Through her work, of course. When I was first trying to set up trade in Raspay, what, fifteen years ago now. I moved from being her regular client to her exclusive client whenever I prospered enough for it, which… wasn’t all the time, to my frustration. But we made do. Sometimes, she was my temporary factor, when I could afford no other assistance.”

Which also sounded far more like a merchant’s wife than his mistress. Well, apart from her side-jobs.

“Was she very young and beautiful, back then?”

Getaf waved an indifferent hand. “Only a little younger than me—granted, I was younger then, too. Well-looking enough, as one must be for her trade. But she made the best of herself through tidiness and health, not by the unearned gift that’s the blessing and curse of those born beautiful.” He flicked a shrewd glance at Pen, which Pen pretended not to notice.

Getaf’s expression softened. “But she was the most endlessly kind person I have ever met, of any sex or sort. Her fearless caring terrified me at times. She would take in strays, you know, others of her profession who had run into rotten situations of one sort and another. Especially the young ones, who had grown no slyness or deceit by which to defend themselves. I lost count of the number of secret Quintarians and ill-treated whores and crow-lads I smuggled out of Raspay with me as servants, to release in some port of Ibra in the hopes they might find a safer life. A few escaped Quintarian slaves, too—now, that was a dangerous game all around. I much preferred to just buy out the battered ones at Jedula’s direction, when I could afford it. Better for my poor heart.”

Penric blinked at this new picture. “Did Lencia and Seuka know all this was going on?”

“I don’t think so, or only the tip of it, when Jedula hid someone sick or injured in our house. She would certainly have misdirected or sworn the girls to silence, in those cases. But for the most part she took great care to keep them ignorant of those activities. Because even as shunned as they were in Raspay, they still had a few young friends, if only the children of others in their mother’s trade. And there would have been no controlling their chatter.”

“I see.”

Oh, my, agreed Des.

For the first time, the hidden bud of Jedula Corva’s relationship with her god seemed to unfold its secrets before Pen’s eye like a blooming flower. Beloved, god-touched, great-souled… a saint, even? The true sort, who moved through the world as silently as fishes, unnoticed by carnal eyes that focused only on outward domination and display. Never on a small woman in a small town, being kind. Soul by soul.

And her faithful lieutenant, it seemed. Pen studied the unprepossessing, middle-aged merchant, sitting oblivious to these reflections, anew.

Getaf sighed. “I suppose Jedula spoiled me for any other woman. Any other person, really. My life is going to be much… duller, now.” His grimace didn’t much resemble the buffering smile he evidently intended.

God-touched at least, then. Pen recognized that particular bereft longing left when a great Presence became a great absence. That heartbroken loss only known to those who, at some perilous apogee, had almost grasped that inchoate, indescribable essence.

The gods make it up to us at the end, I suppose. For some, that was a long and tedious wait.

A bustle at the house door; Nikys and the girls bearing trays of cool lemon-water and tasty pastries. Pen amazed the company and amused himself by generating balls of ice for their drinks. He also took this peaceable opportunity to introduce Des; they were successful at not disturbing his visitor too much. The diversion gave time to settle his own upended mind, anyway.

Getaf, who was, Pen mused, a successful trader and therefore negotiator, pitched his proposal to his daughters over the meal. Pen tried to maintain a neutral mien while this was going on, but he supposed his broad smile betrayed him when the girls leaped on his invitation to give the family a personal tour of the chapterhouse that afternoon, to examine what they were being offered more closely. Getaf definitely approved of that mercantile due diligence. Even when the sisters’ caginess was a transparent effort not to sadden him by appearing too eager to leave his protection.

The agreement between an Order and the parents or guardians of a young dedicat fell somewhere between a dower and an apprenticeship; Getaf, apparently experienced with both sorts of contracts, ironed out the details with the Bastard’s chapterhouse within two days. Waiving the age requirements, upon examination of the matter by the chapter head, was routine enough to scarcely need Pen’s clout. Children so placed would, upon their majority, have the choice of regularizing their oaths to full membership, or leaving for a lay life. Pen had no idea which Lencia and Seuka would finally choose, and finally decided it was not his task to guess so many years ahead.

Good, said Des. You borrow enough trouble already you’d need a counting-house to keep your ledger.

Pen, Nikys, and Getaf together escorted the sisters to their new home. The girls had taken to Nikys—as who would not?—and Nikys to them reciprocally. They all helped haul their few belongings through the chapterhouse’s back courtyard up to their narrow room, which had a glassed casement overlooking the town and the valley that wound up into the hills behind it. Also a wardrobe, a pair of chests, a washstand with its paraphernalia, an inviting bookshelf—Pen approved—and two beds, one on either side; Seuka promptly sat and bounced on hers, consideringly. Lencia stared around in both curiosity and trepidation, but Pen fancied the first was winning.

Then it was time to see Getaf off in turn. The man was plainly torn between concern for Lencia and Seuka, and worrying about what might be happening to his year’s worth of work waiting in a Lodi warehouse. And Jedula Corva’s daughters, Pen was reminded, were not Getaf’s only children that he had left to hope and the care of others while he journeyed, though he tactfully did not speak much of his other family in Zagosur.

It was a short walk from the chapterhouse to Vilnoc’s harbor. The skies had regained the deep blue of summer, and the gulls flashed almost painfully white against it. There were hugs, there were tears, there were probably futile admonishments against the risks of life in Vilnoc and on ships. Then the merchant pressed his coin into the hand of the oarsman and was rowed out to his waiting vessel. Getaf climbed the net and waved one last time before the crew urged him out of their way.

“Will he be safe?” fretted Seuka. All too aware, now, not just of the hazards of the world, but of the fragility of grownups.

“The storm season is over in these waters,” said Penric. “And I don’t think pirates will be attacking ships under Orban flags again so soon. He’s as safe as anyone alive and moving in the world can be.”

Nikys put in, “We can stop at the Vilnoc temple and pray for him, if you like.”

Lencia looked down at her sandals, up at Penric. “Does it help?”

“For a certainty… only at the very end of all journeys,” said Penric, his god-sworn honesty wrestling down more soothing platitudes. “But at least there we don’t travel alone.”

Lencia, after a sober moment, nodded.

They turned into the city’s streets. Bumping companionably between Penric, Des, and Nikys, the Corva sisters climbed undaunted.