Windhaven - Страница 56

Maris laughed. “Now you sound like Barrion. He always said you singers were the ones who really ruled.”

That finally drew a smile from Coll, but Evan remained grim. “No song will heal the wounded, or bring the dead back to life,” he said. “If war is at hand, we must leave the forest for Port Thayos. That is where they will bring the wounded, those that survive the crossing. I’ll be needed there.”

“The streets are mad just now,” said Coll. “Rumors and wild stories of all sorts. The town has an ugly feel to it. The Landsman has hanged his healer, and people are afraid to go to the keep. There will be trouble soon, and not just with Thrane.” His eyes found Maris. “Something is going on with the flyers as well. I must have counted a dozen pair of wings coming and going over the Strait. War messages, I assumed, but I drank with a tanner in the Scylla’s Head who said more. She has a sister in the landsguard, she told me, and she said her sister bragged of arresting a flyer not long ago. The Landsman has taken it upon himself to try a flyer for treason! Can you believe that?”

“Yes,” Maris said. “It’s true.”

“Ah,” said Coll. He looked surprised, and distracted from his speech. “Well. Could I have some tea?”

“I’ll get it,” said Evan.

“Go on,” said Maris. “What other rumors?”

“You may know more than I. What of this arrest? I hardly believed it. How much do you know?”

Maris hesitated. “We were warned not to speak of it.”

Coll made an impatient thrumming noise with his guitar. “I’m your brother, damn it. Singer or no, I can keep silent. Out with it!”

So Maris told him about their summons to the keep, and what they had learned there. “That would explain a lot,” he said when she had finished. “Oh, I’d heard of it anyway—people talk, even landsguard, and the Landsman’s secrets aren’t as well kept as he imagines. But I never dreamed it was true. No wonder so many flyers have been about. Let the Landsman try to keep flyers in or out!” He grinned.

“The other rumors,” Maris prompted.

“Yes,” Coll said. “Well, did you know that Val One-Wing has been on Thayos?”

“Val? Here?”

“He has left again now. They told me he arrived only a few days ago, looking very worn, as from a long flight. He wasn’t alone, either. Five or six others were with him. Flyers, all of them.”

“Did you hear any names?”

“Only Val’s. He’s notorious. But some of the others were described to me. A stocky Southern woman with white hair. A huge man with a black beard and a scylla-tooth necklace. Several Westerners, including two enough alike to be brothers.”

“Damen and Athen,” Maris said. “I’m not sure of the others.”

Evan returned with cups of steaming tea and a platter of thick sliced bread. “I am,” he said. “Of one, at least. The man with the necklace is Katinn of Lomarron. He comes to Thayos frequently.”

“Of course,” Maris said. “Katinn. A leader among Eastern one-wings.”

“Was there more?” Evan asked.

Coll set aside his guitar and blew on his tea to cool it. “I was told that Val came representing the flyers, to try to talk the Landsman into releasing this woman he’s imprisoned, this Tya.”

“A bluff,” Maris said. “Val doesn’t represent the flyers. All those you named are one-wings. The old families, the traditionalists, still hate Val. They’d never let him speak for them.”

“Yes, I heard that too,” Coll said. “Anyway, it was claimed that Val offered to summon a flyer’s court to judge Tya. He was willing enough to let the Landsman keep Tya imprisoned until—”

Maris nodded impatiently. “Yes, yes. But what did the Landsman say?”

Coll shrugged. “Some say he was very cool, some say he and Val One-Wing quarreled loudly. In any case, he insisted that the flyer would be tried in the Landsman’s own court, and that he would do the judging and sentencing himself. The word on the streets is that the verdict has already been reached.”

“So poor Reni wasn’t enough for him,” Evan murmured. “The Landsman must have another death to avenge his pride.”

“What did Val say to that?” Maris asked.

Coll sipped his tea. “I gather Val left after his meeting with the Landsman. Some say the one-wings are going to raid the keep and rescue Tya. There’s talk of a flyer’s Council too, summoned by Val. To invoke a sanction against Thayos, and shun it.”

“No wonder the people are frightened,” Evan said.

“Flyers should be frightened, too,” Coll said. “Feeling among the locals is running against them. In a tavern near the northside cliffs I overheard a conversation about how the flyers have always secretly ruled Windhaven, deciding the fate of islands and of individuals by the messages they bear and the lies they tell.”

“That’s absurd!” Maris said, shocked. “How can they believe that?”

“The point is that they do,” Coll replied. “I am a flyer’s son. Never a flyer, although I was raised to be. I understand the traditions of the flyers, the bonds that link them, the feeling they have of being a society apart from all others. But I also know the people the flyers call ‘land-bound,’ as if they were all the same, joined together in one large family like the flyers are.”

He set down his mug of tea and again picked up his guitar, as if holding it gave him some special eloquence.

“You know how scornful the flyers can be of land-bound, Maris,” he said. “I don’t think you realize how resentful the land-bound can be of the flyers.”

“I have land-bound friends,” Maris said. “And the one-wings all began as land-bound.”

Coll sighed. “Yes, there are those who worship the flyers. Lodge men who devote their lives to caring for them, children who want to touch a flyer’s wings, hangers-on who get a special thrill and a special status from coaxing a flyer into bed. But there are others as well. The land-bound who resent flyers seldom seek them out as friends, Maris.”

“I know there are problems. I haven’t forgotten the hostility we faced when Val got his wings, the threats, the beating, the coolness. But surely things are changing, now that the society of flyers is no longer limited by birth.”

Coll shook his head. “It’s grown worse,” he said. “In the old days, when it was a matter of birth, a lot of people felt flyers were special. In many of the Southern islands the flyers are priests, a special caste blessed by their Sky God. In Artellia they are princes. Just as the Landsmen of Eastern inherited their offices from their parents, so did the flyers inherit their wings.

“But no one now could make the mistake of thinking flyers divinely chosen. Suddenly there are new questions. How did this grubby farm-child I grew up with suddenly become so high and mighty? What sets this former neighbor apart, and gives him the freedom, power, and wealth of a flyer? These one-wings aren’t as aloof as the traditional flyers—they lord over their old companions sometimes, or meddle in local affairs. They don’t withdraw entirely from island politics—they still have local interests. It makes for bad feelings.”

“Twenty years ago no Landsman would have dared seize a flyer,” said Evan thoughtfully. “But twenty years ago, would any flyer have dared to misrepresent a message?”

“Of course not,” said Maris.

“I wonder, though, how many will believe that?” Coll added. “Now that it’s happened, it’s clear that it might have happened before. Those farmers I overheard were convinced that the flyers have been manipulating messages all along. From what I heard, the Landsman of Thayos is becoming rather a hero for being the one to flush out the truth.”

“A hero?” Evan was disgusted.

“It can’t all change because of one well-meaning lie,” Maris said stubbornly.

“No,” said Coll. “It’s been changing all along. And it’s all your fault.”

“Me? I’ve nothing to do with this.”

“No?” Coll grinned at her. “Think again. Barrion used to tell me a story, big sister. About how he and you floated in a boat together, waiting to steal back your wings from Corm, so that you could call your Council. Do you remember?”

“Of course I remember!”

“Well, he said you floated there quite a while, waiting for Corm to leave his house, and all that waiting gave Barrion a chance to think over what you and he were doing. At one point, he said, he sat cleaning his nails with his dagger, and it occurred to him that maybe the best thing he could do was to use that dagger on you. It would have saved Windhaven a lot of chaos, he said. Because if you won, there were going to be more changes than you imagined, and several generations worth of pain. Barrion thought the world of you, Maris, but he also thought you were naive. You can’t change one note in the middle of a song, he told me. Once you make the first change, others have to follow, until you’ve redone the whole song. Everything relates, you see.”

“So why did he help me?”

“Barrion was always a troublemaker,” Coll said. “I guess he wanted to redo the whole song, make something better out of it.” Her stepbrother grinned wickedly. “Besides,” he added, “he never liked Corm.”

After a week without news, Coll decided to return to Port Thayos, to hear what he could. The docks and taverns where he plied his trade were always a rich source of news. “Maybe I’ll even visit the Landsman’s keep,” he said jauntily. “I’ve been making up a song about our Landsman here, and I’d love to see his face when he hears it!”

“Don’t you dare, Coll,” Maris said.