Messing about in boats
A few moments later, Sammi shook herself and looked out of the window.
“Thank goodness,” she said, “it’s getting dark. We ought to be going.”
“Yes,” said Warda, hoping that maybe she would get told more on the walk, “my parents will be wondering where I am.”
Sammi looked at hard at her and blinked very deliberately before she spoke.
“You’re not going home.”
“What?” cried Warda.
“You can’t. I’m sorry. But the thing is, oh sand and water, I don’t know where to start!”
Akharman puffed on his pipe thoughtfully and then sat forward on his crate. “The thing is, tenfi, our Sammi is quite involved in what’s happening with our Lady and Master, and I don’t mean the Shar, either. He’d be happy if she disappeared, and anyone who knows about her, too.”
Warda didn’t know whether to bring up the things she had seen when Sammi had tried to get her vision out of her in her bedroom or not. On one hand she was just about angry enough to blurt it out, on the other hand she didn’t know how much Akharman knew, although he seemed to know plenty, and she really didn’t want to hurt Sammi, it was just this was all a bit sudden.
She was relieved when Sammi broke the silence for her.
“It’s like the other girls said, and even huge Sayshari Rardi. The Goddess Vistara is a lot closer than she’s been for many, many cycles. I only told Vis-Zhara the smallest bit of truth, to keep her happy. My family, as you know,” she said, a little coldly, “have believed in the return probably since Vistara vanished in the first place. There were scrolls in our house that our ancestors claimed were from the Age of Magic, a couple from before even then. There is a portrait of Bahail - but the documents aren’t proof. I have seen it, with my own eyes; signs and suggestions that she is coming back. I was in one of those scrolls. Or at least, my description. They knew the girl with ‘eyes the colour of midnight’ was a chosen Oracle. Why the Temple didn’t know this, or weren’t searching, I don’t know. Perhaps they were. Perhaps they wanted a night to check their books and get their confession wheels ready as much give me ‘time to think’.
“In the Depths of Forever I did see the moon as a gleaming white pearl held in a pink rose. But the rose was shot through with white. This would usually indicate magic. The moon could be Vistara or someone else. The rose is definitely someone. They have magic but might not know it yet. If they do know, they will be hiding and hard to find. If they don’t, they will just be hard to find. It was in the desert, but that shouldn’t be taken too literally either. Desert could be a location, or barren, or sun or moon depending on which desert, or desolate, dry, any of the things a desert is. It isn’t much help. I didn’t see the lions. I stole them from you because I didn’t want to give any more away, and made up the bit about the temple being dead in the hope she would trust me and look elsewhere.”
“You were awake that whole time?” Warda said incredulously.
“Yes. I’m sorry, I suppose. I just wanted to try and get an angle on Zhara. Come to think of it, I wonder if she emptied the room on purpose...”
“But what has this got to do with me? Why can’t I go home and just deny everything?”
“Perhaps you could have, before. But now Warders will have seen you with me for sure. And that man was following. He was either in the employ of the Temple or the Shar, neither of which are good. I don’t know who Zhara is working with, but I don’t trust her. I think if she got Vistara’s power she would just sell it to the highest bidder and get herself made Vizier of Jahayna. She’s bitter, I could tell that much. If you’re caught now they will torture you until you can barely speak to tell them things you don’t know!” she was shouting now, and almost crying. Warda was touched but puzzled as to why Sammi should mind so much about the torture of someone she hardly knew.
“Anyway,” Sammi continued, composing herself, “I need what you know. As I can’t get the location of that temple out of your head I am just going to have to take your head with me!” she was as defiant and absolute as ever, and try as she might Warda could not find an argument not to go. Yes, it seemed ridiculous. Yes, she wondered what her parents, and the Widow Safina, would make of her sudden disappearance, and whether they were in danger, or whether they would accept it as “one of those things” and carry on. But there was something in those big, tearfilled eyes that threated to betray their mistress for the child she was that meant all her arguments escaped her mouth in one heavy, short sigh.
“So, I suppose we’d better get started then,” she said, with as much conviction as she could muster.
Akharman took this as his cue to get up. He began packing some extra fried fish, wrapped in weathered papyrus, and more of the boiled grains in wooden pots with good tight lids. He also had some flat breads that were so thin they were crispy and would take a lot of water to get down, but Warda knew they would last for days. The old man quietly picked up bundles of blankets which looked all too ready from the corner of the room, as well as a couple of cloaks woven from something so coarse and sand-coloured Warda could only presume it was camel hair! He motioned for the girls to pick up the smaller provisions and walked out of the hut without a word. Warda removed her sail-cloth turban and carefully wrapped her clean hair back in its red headscarf against the chill of the winter’s night. She found her shoes, cleaned of any trace of bank debris, by the door, which she closed gently behind her before following the bobbing form of Sammi, provisions in a bundle on her head, down to the water’s edge.
Pulled up clear of the lapping river was long, shallow boat. Akharman was using a rope to pull up a mast which had lashed tight against it a sail. As Warda got closer she could see the mast was slotted into a hole in the hull of the boat. It slid fully in to thump against the solid wood at the bottom when it was fully upright. The boat had benches running along either side as well as small covered sections at the front and back. It’s liquor reflected the lamps along the walled side of the river, now lit for evening salesmen and families taking a stroll after the evening meal. There was nothing strange in a Hayaman going out with his family for a spot of night-fishing, so no one would look askance at them as they left.
Akharman told the girls to stay back as he unlashed the sail. Its yard swung down quite suddenly, swinging for a while as the riverman smoothed out the large triangle of clean, dry material. Once he’d found and pulled all the ropes he required to the back of the boat (or stern, as Warda was soon to learn) he told them they could get everything loaded.
The covered areas had little hatches which were secured with wooden pegs at the top. The rear stow box was full of Akharman’s fishing nets and lines, but the front one had been emptied. Here they stowed their provisions and their blankets. Warda made herself comfortable on a bench, but Sammi stretched out her full length on the cover of the bow (the front of the boat) and gazed into the water.
Akharman jumped out, said a short prayer to his Lady, the River, slid the craft out of its soft hollow and onto the water. He leapt with a deftness that surprised Warda to land beside his tethered ropes, at which point he untethered them and used them to move the sail and catch the evening’s wind. Warda had been out on these kinds of boats before; felucca were used for pleasure sailing as well as fishing, but she didn’t take much pleasure in it now, watching the lights on the back go by. She saw the end of the road that she usually came out of to get onto the river bank, and then everything quickly became blocks that she knew vaguely, then blocks she didn’t know at all, then single-floor houses, then a sort of cluster of lean-tos that were less than the Hayaman’s shack.
As the barely-there crescent of the waxing moon rose to its highest point in the sky, the felucca was making steady progress passed the northern Farmlands. These near the river were some of the best; the walkways in between the fields were all lined with date trees which dropped succulent fruits for tables and wine most of the year. Shadufs, ancient contraptions which lifted water easily from the Hayamutah by using a rock as a counterweight to the bucket or alchemically-treated bag which carried the water, hung limp and dozing along the edge of fields which even in the cold weather showed signs of growth. Those on the west bank were flooded in the spring when the river rose with winter’s rains running down from the mountains at the Birth of the River. Or perhaps Hayamutah-teni’s renewed grief, as another year brought yet more fighting and sorrow.
Warda glanced down into the water, then started up with a cry.
“Shh!” said Sammi, “you’ll scare them!”
Below the boat, tiny fish with shimmering blue sides that reflected the tiniest scraps of light were dancing and whirling near the surface of the water. Warda watched for a while, until a shriek from the bank and the sudden flight of a flock of moon crane caused her to look up in fright.
Akharman laughed a deep and merry laugh, “that was just a desert fox, tenfi, that’s all! You’ll hear a few more of them before you’re through! And besides, they couldn’t harm you! Not big enough!”
Warda settled back onto her bench, “Please don’t call me tenfi, Akharman-tab. I’m not a child, and you don’t call Sammi that! My name is Warda. And I’m not scared of desert foxes.” She straightened her skirt in what she thought was a dignified way.
“Alright, Warda-fi,” he replied, “but shall we light some lamps, just the same?”
Sammi snorted and Warda harrumphed, but she went to the aft to the stow box and light a lantern for the bow and stern, just the same.