Windhaven - Страница 45

One day Maris interrupted his story of a family of tree-kits he’d recently found to ask, “Didn’t you ever fall in love? After Jani, I mean.”

He looked surprised. “Yes, of course I did. I told you about…”

“But not enough to want to marry someone.”

“Sometimes I did. With S’Rai—she lived here with me for almost a year, and we were very happy together. I loved her very much. I wanted her to stay. But she had her own life elsewhere. She wouldn’t stay in the forest with me; she left.”

“Why didn’t you go away with her? Didn’t she ask you to?”

Evan looked unhappy. “Yes, she did. She wanted me to go with her; somehow it just didn’t seem possible.”

“You’ve never been anywhere else?”

“I’ve traveled all over Thayos, whenever there has been need,” Evan said, rather defensively. “And I lived in Thossi for nearly two years when I was younger.”

“All Thayos is much the same,” Maris said, shrugging her good shoulder. There was a twinge in her left, which she ignored. She was allowed to sit up now, and she was afraid Evan would revoke the privilege if she ever admitted to pain. “Some parts have more trees, some parts have more rocks.”

Evan laughed. “A very superficial view! To you, all parts of the forest would seem identical.”

This was so obvious as to require no comment. Maris persisted. “You’ve never been off Thayos?”

Evan grimaced. “Once,” he said. “There’d been an accident, a boat cracked up against the rocks, and the woman in it had been badly injured. I was taken out in a fishing boat to see to her. I got so sick on the journey out that I could scarcely help her.”

Maris smiled sympathetically, but she shook her head. “How can you know that this is the only place you ever want to live if you’ve never been anywhere else?”

“I don’t claim to know that, Maris. I might have left, I might have had a very different life. But this is what I’ve chosen. I know this life—it’s mine, for better or worse. It’s rather late now to mourn all the opportunities I’ve missed. I’m happy with my life.” He rose then, ending the conversation. “Now it’s time for your nap.”

“May I…”

“You may do whatever you like, as long as you do it lying flat on your back without moving.”

Maris laughed, and let him help her back down on the bed. She wouldn’t admit it, but sitting up had tired her, and it was a welcome relief to rest. The slowness of her body to mend frustrated her. And she didn’t understand why, just because a few bones were broken, she should tire so easily. She closed her eyes, listening to the sounds Evan made as he tended the fire and tidied the room.

She thought about Evan. She was attracted to him, and of course the circumstances had made for an easy intimacy between them. She had imagined that, once she mended, she and Evan might become lovers. She thought better of it now, knowing more of his life. Evan had loved, and been left, too many times. She liked him too well to want to hurt him, and she knew that she would leave Thayos, and Evan, just as soon as she could fly again. It was better, she decided sleepily, that she and Evan remain only friends. She would have to ignore how much she liked that bright sparkle in his blue eyes, and forget her fantasies about his slim, wiry body and skilled hands.

She smiled and yawned and fell asleep, to dream that she was teaching Evan how to fly.

The next day S’Rella arrived.

Maris was drowsy and half asleep, and at first she thought she was dreaming. The stuffy room suddenly became fresher, full of the clean, sharp scent of sea winds, and when Maris looked up S’Rella was standing in the doorway, wings slung over one arm. For an instant she looked like the shy, slight girl she had been more than twenty years ago, when Maris had helped teach her to fly. But she smiled then, a self-assured smile that lit her dark, thin face and emphasized the lines that time had left there. And when she came forward, spraying salt water from her wings and wet clothes, the phantom of S’Rella the Woodwinger dissolved entirely, and she was S’Rella of Veleth, a seasoned flyer and the mother of two grown daughters. The two women embraced, awkwardly because of the huge cast protecting Maris’ left arm, but with fierce emotion.

“I came as soon as I heard, Maris,” S’Rella said. “I’m sorry you had to be here alone for so long, but communication among flyers isn’t what it once was, especially for one-wings. I might not be here now, but I had to fly a message to Big Shotan, and afterward I decided to visit the Eyrie. A strange whim, now that I think about it—it must have been four, five years since the last time. Corina was there, fresh from Amberly, and she told me that an Eastern flyer had just brought word of your accident. I left at once. I was so worried…” And she bent down to hug her friend again, the wings almost slipping from her grasp.

“Let me hang them for you,” Evan said quietly, stepping forward. S’Rella handed them to him with hardly a glance, her attention all for Maris.

“How… how are you?” she asked.

Maris smiled. With her good arm she threw back the blanket, revealing two cast-bound legs. “Broken, as you can see, but mending. Or so Evan assures me. My ribs hardly pain me at all now. And I’m sure the casts on these legs are ready to be removed—they itch abominably!” She scowled and pulled a long straw from a vase of flowers on the bedside table. Frowning with concentration, she poked the straw down between flesh and cast. “This helps sometimes, but other times it just makes it worse, by tickling.”

“And your arm?”

Maris looked to Evan for the answer.

“Don’t put me on the spot, Maris,” he said. “You know as much as I do about it. I think your arm is healing properly, and there hasn’t been any more infection. As for your legs—you’ll be able to scratch them to your heart’s content in a day or two.”

Maris gave a small bounce of joy, then caught her breath. She turned pale and swallowed hard.

Frowning, Evan stepped toward the bed. “What happened? What hurt you?”

“Nothing,” Maris said quickly. “Nothing. I just felt a… a little sick, that’s all. I must have jarred my arm.”

Evan nodded, but he did not look satisfied. “I’ll make tea,” he said, and left the two women alone together.

“Now I want your news,” Maris said. “You know mine. Evan has been wonderful, but healing takes so much time, and I’ve felt so dreadfully cut off here.”

“It is a distant place,” S’Rella agreed. “And cold.” Southerners thought the whole of the world was cold, outside their own archipelago. Maris grinned—it was an old joke between them—and clasped S’Rella’s hand.

“Where shall I begin?” S’Rella asked. “Good news or bad? Gossip or politics? You’re the one who’s bed-bound, Maris. What would you like to know?”

“Everything,” Maris said, “but you can begin by telling me about your daughters.”

S’Rella smiled. “S’Rena has decided to marry Arno, the boy who has the meat-pie concession on the docks of Garr. She has the only fruit-pie stand, of course, and they’ve decided to combine their businesses and corner the waterfront pie market.”

Maris laughed. “It seems a very sensible arrangement.”

S’Rella sighed. “Oh, yes, a marriage of convenience, all very businesslike. There’s not a speck of romance in her soul—sometimes I can hardly believe S’Rena is my daughter.”

“Marissa has enough romanticism for two. How is she?”

“Oh, wandering. In love with a singer. I haven’t heard from her in a month.”

Evan brought in two steaming mugs of tea, his own special brew, fragrant with white blossoms, and then discreetly vanished.

“Any news from the Eyrie?” Maris asked.

“A little, but none of it good. Jamis vanished on a flight from Geer to Little Shotan. The flyers fear him lost at sea.”

“Oh,” Maris said, “I’m sorry. I never knew him well, but he was said to be a good flyer. His father presided over the flyers’ Council, back when we adopted the academy system.”

S’Rella nodded. “Lori of Varon gave birth,” she continued, “but the child was sickly, and died within the week. She’s distraught; Garret too, of course. And T’katin’s brother was killed in a storm. He captained a trading ship, you know. They say the storm took the whole fleet. These are hard times, Maris. I’ve heard they are warring again on Lomarron.”

“They may be warring on Thayos too, before very long,” Maris said gloomily. “Don’t you have any cheerful news ?”

S’Rella shook her head. “The Eyrie was not a cheerful place. I got the feeling I was not terribly welcome. One-wings never go there, but there I was, violating the last sanctuary of the flyer-born. It made them all uneasy, though Corina and a few others tried to be polite.”

Maris nodded. It was an old story. Tensions between the flyers born to wings and the one-wings who had taken theirs in competition had been growing for years. Each year saw more land-bound take to the air, and the old flyer families felt more threatened. “How is Val?” she asked.

“Val is Val,” S’Rella said. “Richer than ever, but otherwise he doesn’t change. The last time I visited Seatooth, he was wearing a belt of linked metal. I can’t imagine what it cost. He works with the Woodwingers a lot. They all look up to him. The rest of the time he spends partying in Stormtown with Athen and Damen and Ro and the rest of his one-wing cronies. I hear he’s taken up with a land-bound woman on Poweet, but I don’t think he’s bothered to tell Cara. I tried to scold him about it, but you know how self-righteous Val can get…”