The Prisoner of Limnos

XIV

Close to Akylaxio, Master Bosha found another sheltered spot to conceal the cart, where they lay up to wait out the dawn. The stop afforded more an uncomfortable doze than a sleep; still, better than nothing. His timing was good, Nikys thought, for they entered the city gates at the dewy hour when the guards were busy overseeing the influx of country folk bringing food and goods to the day-markets. Their tense wait to pass within was recompensed by being cloaked in the crowd.

The guards did not yet seem to be scrutinizing middle-aged women. If things had gone as Penric had planned, Idrene might only just now have been discovered missing on Limnos.

It didn’t seem wise to assume all had gone as planned.

Still, there had to be a minimum and a maximum. If the escape was discovered at breakfast, a certain amount of time would first be spent searching the Order’s precincts, and then the island. Any alarm would have the same watery barrier to pass that they had. Minister Methani’s women gaolers might have to send to their master in Thasalon for instructions, though Nikys expected they’d delay that in the hopes that their report could include the prisoner being found. The period for any pursuit reaching Akylaxio could stretch out for days.

The minimum was all Nikys must worry about. If Pen had been seized last night, a military courier could have docked at Guza bare hours behind them. Although such a message couldn’t have overtaken them yet, or their reception at the city gates would have been very different. If Pen had been captured… she really wasn’t sure if she should be worrying for Pen, or for Limnos. But even sorcerers couldn’t fly out a window, or across a strait.

The cries of gulls and the smell of the shore announced the harbor, and Nikys stretched her neck to take it in. Bigger and busier than little Guza, smaller than Patos, much less than the maze of docks and warehouses and forests of masts that crowded great Thasalon’s entrepot. Two piers in deep-enough water allowed direct loading and unloading of vessels, and men and cranes were already noisily doing so for the handful of ships tied up. The port was active enough to rate full-time bureaucratic customs officers, although they inspected mainly for contraband and tax evaders. But they would also keep both provincial and imperial lists of wanted fugitives and criminals.

Bosha, Nikys gathered, was only slightly more familiar with Akylaxio than she was, but he found a clean-looking inn close to the harbor, and, playing servant, escorted both women inside to secure a room in which to rest and hide. He carried up their luggage, not speaking until the door closed behind them.

“I’ll find a place to put up the horse and cart,” he said, “then reconnoiter the harbor. I brought papers that we can finish filling out when I’ve found a ship.” He took a sheaf from his tunic and laid it on the washstand. “Think of what names and personas you want to travel under. Don’t leave the room till I get back. I’ll send up a maid to see about food and drink.”

“Thank you, Master Bosha,” said Idrene formally, by way of accepting this program, and he nodded and departed.

Nikys went over and peeked out the window, which gave onto the other roofs of the town, mostly flat and filled with drying laundry, pots of herbs, and other useful implements. She picked up and examined the papers, which already bore seals and signatures… some of Lady Xarre’s wealth was in shipping, yes, so these probably weren’t even forged, wholly. Although she didn’t doubt such skills were also in Bosha’s repertoire, at need.

Nikys and Idrene took the chance to wash, eat, and, both familiar with the challenges of the army baggage train, reorganize their meager belongings for a quick removal when the order came. A cat-nap would be due after, to make up for the prior night.

Idrene examined Pen’s medical case with interest. “This seems well thought-out. I can believe he really is a physician.”

“In all but final oath. And you’re snooping, Mother.”

“Of course.” She held up Pen’s braids, which she’d unearthed in the depths, contemplating them with less irony than Bosha had. “And really a Temple sorcerer. Not hedge. Hedge would be too risky. Temple is probably all right. So, you say you’re courting?”

“He says he’s courting me. I didn’t say I was courting him.” She removed the braids from her mother’s grip and restored them to their place.

“I thought you wanted to remarry. That was why Adelis invited you to Patos, wasn’t it? To meet eligible men? Or at least that’s the tale you both told me.”

“Yes, but all the men he introduced to me were army officers. I wasn’t going to travel down that road again.”

“Did you tell Adelis that?”

“Not… exactly. I didn’t want to dishearten him. He was trying to help.”

“And also, you won a trip to Patos,” said Idrene, amused. She plunked down on the edge of the bed, patting the place beside her by way of invitation.

Ruefully, Nikys shrugged and sat. “I wasn’t going to say that.”

“True, though?”

“Yes,” Nikys admitted. “Although after Adelis was blinded, I had quite different reasons to be grateful I was there.”

“Yes…” said Idrene, her humor melting into pensiveness. “Hideous as it all was, I’m glad you were at his side. I think things would have gone much worse for him without you. Well, your Penric certainly has nothing of the camp about him. So has he actually asked you to wed him?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t agree to it? Why? Has he some hidden defect of character?”

“Not… not hidden. Just complicated. He’s only loaned to the duke of Adria, but he is truly subordinate to the archdivine. He either has to go to a great deal of trouble to renegotiate his Temple oaths, or I would have to follow him to Adria. I don’t want to go to Adria, for all he claims he’d teach me their tongue.”

“Oh. Yes. Of course he’d have to speak Adriac. But it’s not his native place, you say?”

“No, he’s from the cantons, some obscure mountain town. But he trained in the Weald. He speaks Wealdean, Adriac, Cedonian, Darthacan, Ibran, Roknari, and I’m not sure what all else by now. He’s a notable scholar.”

Idrene took this in, thoughtfully. “It’s true I had my fill of being dragged from pillar to post after my father, and later yours. As a home, the army has its drawbacks. And I should not like to shift myself to Orbas only for you to run off to live in Adria.”

“Penric wants me to live in the air, like a bird, for all I can tell from what he’s offered.”

“Bachelor habits of mind, I daresay. Well, then, your solution is easy. Insist he stay in Orbas for you, and give you a house as a bride-gift. If he won’t or can’t, then bid him a fond goodbye.”

“Mother! I’m not selling myself to the man!”

Her mother’s voice went a touch drier. “But you shouldn’t be selling yourself short, either. And if you don’t like that bargain, perhaps it’s not such a sticking-point after all, hm?”

“Mm.” This was already shaping up to be one of those conversations with Idrene. Nikys was almost sorry she’d started it. Or not. Considering how close they’d come to never having such a chance again.

Idrene lowered her voice. “But you should know, Florina’s jewelry is in a box walled under the plaster on the west side of her old writing cabinet. Because everyone knows to dig up the root cellar for such things. We’d always meant for you to have it for a second dowry, when you remarried. If ever you can return there before I do, find it and take it. Married or not!”

“Yes, Mother,” said Nikys, thrown aback. Florma had owned some extraordinary pieces, she recalled, some of it preserved from her own noble dowry, some gifts from her husband as he rose in rank and wealth. At the least reckoning, there might be the value of a modest house out of them, with something left over.

“So there’s another resource for you. Not any more chancy than marrying some chancy man. If I were you, I’d send your sorcerer to fetch it for you. Like a hero in a tale given a task to win his princess.”

“He’s not my—and I wouldn’t want him to risk his life on a third trip to Cedonia!” She glared indignantly, which only made her mother smile.

“So, no Adria, but we have established Learned Penric is more valuable to you than jewels. Or a house. That’s a start. What else?”

Nikys sighed, unwillingly driven to recite her next verse. “I wouldn’t just be marrying him. I’d be marrying Desdemona. She’s going to be inside his head always. Closer than a wife, more intimate than anything I can imagine.”

Idrene shrugged. “Any number of women have to learn how to share their husbands with another. I grant most of them are not chaos demons. Sometimes it works very well, sometimes it works very badly, mostly it falls somewhere between. My experience, happily, was on the better end.”

“How did you decide, when you went with Father?”

“Several long, frank talks, to start.”

“And he persuaded you?”

“Oh, five gods forfend, I didn’t talk with the general! What a pointless waste of breath that would have been. I talked with Florina.” Idrene waved a hand. “It helped that Florina was the shrewd and experienced woman she was.” She eyed Nikys. “So… you seem to think this demon is a person, or persons. A woman. Can she talk, then?”

“Yes, we’ve talked before this. But she has to use Penric’s mouth to do so. With his permission. So it’s not as if I could speak with her privately. He’s always with her, and she’s always with him. She’d be there with us in bed, too, I might point out.”

“Oh, hm, yes. That does become very personal, doesn’t it?” Idrene did not expand on this, to Nikys’s relief. Though she added cheerily, “On the positive side, she could never give birth to heirs rival to your own children.”

Nikys set her teeth.

Yet the notion did plant itself in Nikys’s mind. If her dilemma was with the demon, perhaps it was with the demon she should be talking? It would, necessarily, be a council of three. Or fourteen.

But not impossible. And she’d seen Penric demolish impossibilities before.

I’ve spoken with a goddess. A demon cannot be more daunting.

It was the strangest thought she’d had in a week of strangeness. Like a seed putting out slow shoots, down into the earth and up to the sky. She left it in the tender darkness for now.

“So, no Adria, better than jewels, you’d have to sleep with a chaos demon. Although I must say, it sounds as if you’ve rubbed along with her fairly well so far. And she did heal Adelis.” This news, apparently, had gone a long way toward reconciling Idrene to Penric’s uncanny aspects.

“She and Pen together. They seem to work as a yoked pair on that sort of thing.”

“An astonishing one, if so. Anything else?”

Nikys looked away. This far into her heart’s fears, she might as well unburden herself of the whole basket. “You know Kymis and I were never able to get a child. I keep wondering if that was my fault. …I could be condemning Pen to childlessness.”

The puff through Idrene’s nose held a sad familiarity. “I imagine Florma could have given you the best counsel on that. It’s no small worry, I know. But it seems to me you have its solution already. As a physician, couldn’t your Penric determine the true cause? The Temple rations out its mage-physicians like water in the desert, but you hold this one in your hand.”

“Mother!” Nikys flushed. “I can’t ask the man to, to look up my private parts!”

“Why not? I don’t imagine he’d object. As either physician or man. What, you mean you haven’t tried him out in bed yet? I would have, in your place.”

“Yes, Drema, we know,” sighed Nikys. “And I’m sure Ikos thanks you for it.” She nudged her mother in fond exasperation. “I’m not sure I’d have your courage. Or whatever it was that carried you though. Bloody-minded determination.”

Idrene chuckled. “Ikos has grown into such a dear man. So that worked out well in the end. It was rough along the way in parts, but of all my many regrets, Ikos was never one. Look at it this way. Either your fears are justified, in which case you run no risk, or they are not, and so they are settled in your favor. Or do you judge Learned Penric would run away at the news he was to be a father?”

“…No. Absolutely not. He may even have it in his mind.”

“Another thing you haven’t talked about with him? This list is getting long, dear Nikys.”

She hunched. “I’d be betting my whole life on the man. I did that once with Kymis. And then he went and died on me.” The furious helplessness of that loss still reverberated, when she made the mistake of remembering.

“Oh.” Idrene’s smile grew crooked. “I know the answer for that one. It worked quite well for Florina. And your father. And Ikos’s father, too.”

Nikys raised her face. “You do? What?”

She tapped Nikys’s forehead in a gesture not quite a blessing. And said, in a voice as arid as Nikys had ever heard from her, “Die first.”